We've got no food, we've got no jobs...

Our pets' heads were not falling off. In an earlier entry I told a story about how I left my previous band. I think I mentioned that while I was in California I had thought about moving there since I had no more ties to staying in Massachusetts. I figured I'd go home and get my shit together and save some $ to move to Redondo Beach. After being in Cali for about a week I flew back home to my dad's and tried to form a plan. I didn't have much luck finding a job on the Cape and I had a little money saved up so I could live for a little while. My dad only had a 1-bedroom apartment so me living on his couch wasn't cutting it and he told me I had to get moving. I got some boxes and packed up my stuff and brought it to a friends house where it would stay in his basement for at least a year. I took the rest of my essentials and packed it in my car. I called some friends who were living in Boston in the Mission Hill area and asked if I could stay with them for a little while. They were in the middle of moving but didn't have a problem with it. I was in Boston for a few days before I called my old friend Josh who lived near the Cape and lived in a trailer with 2 other people. I was desperate and had nowhere else to go and he said I could stay there.

The next afternoon I left Boston and headed back to the Cape and to the trailer park where my friend lived. It wasn't the greatest but it was a roof over my head so I wasn't complaining. I slept on a big leather sectional couch. I immediately tried to find a job so I could start saving up for my California move. I got a job delivering pizzas for a place called Pizza Boy. They made these roast beef sandwiches that were phenomenal. The $ was good and I was pretty much in my car all day/night and could listen to music so it was great.

I managed to save a good amount of $ and I had maybe 3 more weeks to go before I could actually get the hell out of there. This was around the time of the annual Skatefest at the Palladium in Worcester. I really wanted to go but was unable to. I found pictures from the show online the day after the show and was looking at pictures from the second stage. I started looking through pics of Death Before Dishonor and noticed that there was no bass player. The bass player was playing guitar and I looked through the rest of the pictures and there's just no bass player. I immediately thought to myself "What the hell happened to their guitar player?". I think I hit up the band right away on Myspace and asked what the deal was and told them I was able to tour and had my own equipment and everything. I got no reply. A few days later, on the B9 board there was an announcement that Death Before Dishonor was looking for a 2nd guitarist. I figured I might as well try. If I didn't HAVE to move, then I wouldn't and just join a band that tours as much as I wanted. I still get no reply from these guys. I emailed the email and explained again. Finally someone got back to me and told me to practice 2 songs and go to Brockton to practice with the band. I got right to it.

Long story short, I ended up practicing with DBD a lot and after a 2 week trial tour became a permanent part of the band. I was able to keep working the pizza job and go on tour whenever I needed. At this point, winter is getting near and the trailer has no heat. This was going to be a problem. I had a tiny heater pointed at me while I slept with 4 blankets on the couch. Sometimes the heater would blow a fuse and all the power in the house would have to be reset. You couldn't turn on the microwave while the heater was on.

A couple months go by and it's cold as shit in this place. No heat. My toes froze every night. The hot water tank was super small since it was a trailer so you had to take quick showers. The floor in the bathroom was deteriorating every day. There was a hole in the floor in the hallway. I'm still working the pizza job. The cable was shut off so we had no TV or internet. I would drive down to the Best Western and sit in the parking lot to use the internet to keep in touch with people. The good thing was we still somewhat had hot water and electricity. January finally comes and we go back on tour for about 6 weeks. When I finally got home from that tour, everything back at the trailer was normal. We had electricity, we had cable, hot water, everything was doing good. Then about 2 days after being home, everything went back to shit. This time everything was off. Luckily this would only last for 2 weeks and I would leave for tour from March - July. These tours would include Canada, Puerto Rico, Europe, Mexico and the United States.

So now it's July in the trailer and we have no electricity, no cable, no internet, no hot water, no nothing. At this point we're getting eviction notices from the park. We haven't paid the park fees in forever and they were getting ready to condemn this trailer. A month and a half into August goes by and we decide to pack up everything and move across town to our friend's trailer. He lives with his father who has heart problems. It's me, my 2 roommates, this dude and his dad living in one trailer. Not the most comfortable thing. We did have a lot of luxuries while we were there since the bills were being paid. I was constantly trying to find a place to live and still working the pizza job. In between all of this I was juggling the job, the band and driving to Long Island every weekend to see Allyson. I just love the long distance thing for some reason, haha.

Finally after a few weeks, our friend's dad had had enough and told us we had to find somewhere else to live. It was the first week of September. I immediately got in my car and started driving. I called an old friend of mine who recently moved back to Cape Cod and he had lived with me a long time ago so I called in a favor. He was able to hook me up with a room in the basement for pretty cheap AND I would only have to pay while I was home. Good deal. Going from a shithole with no electricity or anything at all to a real house on the beach with my own room was a pretty big leap.

After a couple months, I eventually managed to make my way back to Mission Hill. I was staying with friends up there because I had crashed my car on the Cape and didn't want to buy another one. It was easier to get to practice/start tour if I was in the city rather than be on the Cape trying to find a ride somewhere. I had gone back home to the Cape here and there but for the most part stayed in Boston since it was more convenient and it was a lot cheaper. This was in November of '06 and I've been living with these guys ever since.

All in all, it was quite an experience. Getting kicked out of my dad's place, to living in a trailer with literally no utilities, to living in ANOTHER trailer with 5 people to living back on Cape in a real house with my own room to living in Boston on my friend's couch for a couple years makes me wonder how the hell I kept my sanity at all. At the time, it was a struggle but I got through it. The worst part was the summer months in the trailer with no power. I don't know how we did it. You do what you have to do.