I attempted to jack In-N-Out's Optimus Prime

8/21 - Pomona you guys definitely rocked with us! We met a lot of really cool-ass people in Cali so far, and have heard a lot of good things from folks. The “Saving Seamus Ryan” flyers and stickers are flying around everywhere here. One thing that makes me a little uncomfortable is when I hit the merch booth and I see kids buy shit, going thru our catalog of cds telling their boys “nah nah nah THIS is the dope shit, stay away from this one” and it is always different shit. I’d like to point out that some of the most sincere compliments I’ve been getting come from people talking about “A New Dope.”  That might baffle/anger some of the old school fans of ours, but I gotta tell you it feels good to hear that from heads. FYI - We have made the out-of-print Esoteric vs. Gary Numan cd available here on the tour, so hit the merch booth if you want a copy. Pomona definitely, definitely respresented tonight! And yeah, to those wondering, I passed on contributing to the AOTP Battle Cry performance because I couldn’t remember a word of my measley 8 bars…I didn’t know we were rocking it! I guess I’ll youtube it now and try and recall what I said other than “Manny Ramirez” for the next show. I don’t have any pics from this show, so I’ll leave you with this: I think 7L has publicized our love affair with In-N-Out Burger in the past (we don’t have them on the East Coast), and honestly this particular branch was a godsend at 1:30am somewhere between LA and Pomona. I really wanted to hijack this vehicle outside. Now for some reason the pic is above this little blog entry and I have no time how to figure out how to bring is down here. Oh well! Scroll up.

8/22 - San Francisco - Yo so we have all been stuck at this hotel by the airport so getting into the city of SF was a big adventure.  We had the day off today (8/23) and Crypt is goin’ nuts here…punching coke machines and basically looking to punch people to entertain himself. This makes me uneasy. Here is the exterior of our hotel:

the hotel...it is by the airport....and i guess the train

This may be the most suspect hotel on the tour as of yet, but hey, free innernet so fuck it. We did a little shopping on Fillmore, Haight, and some other spots today. Shit was freezing out, it felt like I was at the Topsfield Fair. Ok, about the show last night….so yeah, we’ve played at “The Independent” before, and have had a blast. This time definitely took the cake though, because before and after our set, DJ Beyonder of the Bladerunners (of course) had the whole house throwing their W’s up and he turned it out with some West Coast classics. We definitely had some fun…plus rocking the AOTP joints “Dump the Clip” and “Murda Murda” at the end of JMT’s set with a few drinks in me was highly enjoyable. Got to catch up with Sabac of Non-Phixion fame for a few, DJ Stef came thru, and Paz helped me acquire some GOLD for Pterovision.

Vinnie telling me not to wear dog shirts on stage...me not taking him seriously

Another highlight happened after the show, where some really cool cats had asked me about my son Xavier and my dog Logan, and then quizzed Beyonder and myself about the history of “Be Alert” (one of our first records from 1997). Hmm were yall the ones yelling “Rebel Alliance” and “Protocol” during the set? I never asked. That’s all on tape, but we’ll have to preview that before we put it out there. Good fun all around SF!

Me and Beyonder performing Daisycutta in SF

Tomorrow night we are live in Fresno, CA! A Monday night! Should be the best Monday I’ve had since last Monday. Saving Seamus Ryan is in-stores 9/22!

-ES

8/19 - San Diego - The night before we were at some Beverly Hills party at some rooftop spot with a pool and met some relatively famous people who were all taller and thinner than us. I think I was hands down the fattest person there. That was cool. Had some vodka with no food and after the long flight and jet-lag I surrendered so we fell into Kitchen 24 and I woofed down this buttermilk fried chicken meal that should come with a defibrillator. The next night we rocked at Cane’s, this oceanfront venue somewhere along the beautiful coast of San Diego. Upon arrival, I was more focused on how much fun it would be to let Logan loose in that area then performing later that night. Met a kid with AOTP tatted on his arm so you know he ruled. My man Main Flow came out to rock some shit with us, and everybody tore it down. We had a chance to meet some real cool folks from New England that live in SD now, mentioning our earliest records and shit, tracks that even we forgot about. After the show I made the mistake of opening my video-cam to get a few words from my boys and that turned into cats lining up to spit rhymes at my camera as though I was filming Hood Love DVD. How come when the camera’s on nobody spits 16s, they have to spit 82’s? How do you shut down a camera mid-verse? I couldn’t do it so I just let dudes rhyme. Then Apathy came out of nowhere spitting this verse about dogs and I was really impressed until I realized he was performing my MSPCA Walk For Animals rap. Ok, I’m realizing at this point that I’m pretty sucky at blogging and feel a little conflicted about the whole thing.

8/20 - Los Angeles - El Rey Theatre - Started the morning off with some footage Andrea sent me of Xavier crawling along our new porch, and naturally this put my mood sky-high. Hit up G4 for “Attack of the Show” and Olivia Munn is everything you’d expect her to be. Beyonder is still talking about her. Her coverage of the Star Wars 30th anniversary is what originally caught my attention, but her mastery of my blackberry yesterday was something I won’t soon forget. Kevin Pereira was mad cool too.

On to the show…it was crazy, sold out, and the venue was beautiful…maybe a little too beautiful for my tastes though- the security thought they were working for Obama. I had my shitty little ptero-cam out and security was all over me to put it away. I tried the whole “I’m a performer” thing and he didn’t give a fuck. He gave a quick glance at the silly fucking hat I was rocking and said “I can see you’re a performer sir, but put the camera away.” So the night went on, we were lounging backstage and Bill Paxton from HBO’s Big Love came in! He’s the dude that was in Twister, Wierd Science, Terminator, all that shit. Pretty crazy. Really really cool dude, he brought his son to check out the show. Anyway, we rocked our set…added the “No Features” joint from Saving Seamus Ryan, did a few tracks from Dangerous Connection which even surprised me, then did some AOTP records with Jedi Mind Tricks to close the evening out. Beyonder wanted more Kitchen 24. So we rolled over there and I had another late night heart-attack chicken meal. Good shit. Lots of people asking about 7l’s whereabouts. He’s working on the new 7l & Eso record yall! See you in Pomona tonight!

The Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals had asked me to produce a quick little track for the Walk For Animals event September 13th! This was a no-brainer for me, so I made the track, put some lyrics down, and posted a video featuring a few of the dogs I know from the MSPCA shelter and a few other animals from around the way. You can check out the song and get the free ringtone at www.WalkForAnimals.com . More importantly, you should get involved with the walk! Check the site for details!

YEAH!

ps-the  boston phoenix gives the walk & track some shine:   http://thephoenix.com/BLOGS/onthedownload/archive/2009/08/14/esoteric-represents-for-mspca-records-track-to-promote-9-13-walk-for-animals.aspx