070409 The Empty Bottle

Freedom isn't Free


"Sometimes it takes waking up at a seemingly ridiculous hour (by way of your banjo player) with an OTR-induced headache only to drive 5 hours in the rain to Chicago to put freedom into perspective." —Margaret

On our way out of Cincinnati, this particular Birthday of Freedom was christened by the visceral image a guy sleeping on the front lawn of a house nearby Seedy Central. We were driving through a relatively nice, old-timey part of Cincinnati, and it struck us that it is more likely that this guy was somebody's dad visiting on holiday that got drunk and locked himself out accidentally, and just happened to be sleeping on the front lawn, not necessarily a full-on bum. We picked up a SleepyTroy and set out on the way to Freedomland on this day of freedom.

Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaad, you're emberassing me!

SleepyTroy! I Choose You!!

Further up the road in the great state of Indiana ("The Crossroads of America"), we did what any law-abiding, freedom-loving free citizen of the free country of These United States would do; we earnestly endeavored to destroy a piece of it with explosives.

FreedomMobile!! I Choose You!

SRSLY.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN TWO FOR ONE?

Back into Bavannarama we piled, all holding our enormous caches of perfectly legal munitions. Shortly before the show Bribot ate so many peanut butter pretzels that he began to turn into one.

POSSIBLY THE CREEPIEST PICTURE EVER TAKEN

we rolled into the great City of Chicago, loaded our gear into the club, and headed down to the Chicago Diner for extremely awesome vegan reubens, raw nachos, and vegan milkshakes.

Best Friends Forever!

The show was opened by the exuberant, guitar-wailing hotness of The Victory Gins. We followed them with a freedom-laden set of Seedy hits, including a spontaneous rendition of "Proud to Be An American." Loyal Divide closed things out with a majestic set of awesomeness.

After the show, we retired to the alley out back an undisclosed location and began to celebrate American Freedom, Chinese style, with fireworks. Margaret fired her first-ever Roman Candle. A mortar misfired and exploded 6ft off of the ground directly in the center of a busy intersection. Blessedly, no fingers were harmed in the making of this revelry.

I had to remark, during it all, that being in downtown Chicago on the evening of the 4th, it was incredible, it was like a (very festive) warzone. Everywhere, all night long, and constantly, you heard explosions, machine-gun blasts, bigger explosions, and the night sky was constantly aglow with reds, whites and blues, each one brighter than the previous. It was pretty spectactular.

Margaret loves pinball, especially inappropriate pinball.

Hey you!

The Victory Gins.

The Loyal Divide.

MARGARET CASTS MAGIC MISSLE! SUCCESS!

—Mike