Post Tour

For 6 weeks this was my home

This was my messy bedroom

This was my family

Photos by Yacob

Photo by Johnny Zero

I got to hang out with a lot of awesome people day after day (many of whom I sadly didn't get pictures with)

Nosaj, all around awesome guy

Tristan, Otep's tour manager and the guy that makes everything happen

Erik, bassist for Otep

Adriana, Picture Me Broken's merch girl

Erik, Shaun, Justin & Jimmy

Met tons of amazing fans

I went to so many amazing places and had so many adventures.  It was such an amazing time, and it was really hard to go back to the "real" world after all of that.  But, that's where I've been stuck for the past month.  So, what have I been up to?

Well, the first week wasn't too bad because I took work off, plus Mike, Kim and Junior were still in the LA area.  So I caught up on sleep, hung out with them, and did one of my favorite things that I wasn't able to do on tour - BAKE!

A few days after tour ended, we all met up where we started - back in Little Tokyo having $2 sushi boats.  This time Rob Ross joined us.  We discovered that there's a cool little vintage thrift shop across the street from the sushi place.  We also learned I may have dislocated a rib on tour...  I can't remember how much I wrote about it, but I had that really bad cough for a while, and soon my side was super sore.  Once tour finally ended and I had time to deal with it, I noticed that one of the ribs was sticking out of line from the others.  Plus it was still extremely painful to sneeze.  It wasn't as painful in general anymore since I wasn't carrying around tubs of merch on a nightly basis, but it was still sore.  I was telling them about this, and Rob Ross looked it up on his phone.  Apparently it's possible to dislocate a rib from coughing.  I've looked into it though, and it seems like if it was actually dislocated it would be a lot worse and a lot more painful.  *shurgs*  It's a month later now, it's better, but I think it's still out of line a bit and every so often lifting something or sneezing makes it hurt.

After sushi we all went to see "Oz: The Great and Powerful."  It was super cool because part of it was filmed in Michigan and a lot of local actors I know are extras in it.  My friend/Corey's acting coach Ralph even has a featured part.  If you've seen it, or are going to, he's the girl at the beginning's dad.

After Oz we hung out at Rob Ross' until some ridiculous hour in the morning before I finally told them I needed to get home before I fell asleep.  We spent forever looking up directions and trying to decide what the best way for me to get home, but it didn't matter because in the end Mike ended up coming back with me so he could hang out, and sleep on a couch rather than the floor.  He got to try my awesome nutella cupcakes.

I sent some back with him and Rob Ross, who'd heard of them, got to try one.  Right after he sent me a Facebook message letting me know they were "amazingly delicious!"  I also discovered that the Wine Bar down the road my friends preform at has a open mic night on Sunday nights.  So that's were we took Mike Sunday night.  He only got to play 2 songs, but for a change he got to play for someone other than just me.   He also met a guy that works at the wine bar, who also played at open mic night, that's originally from Austin.  How crazy is that?  They exchanged contact info, and now Mike has another connection both in LA and Austin. Since tour he's been doing a lot of open mic nights in Austin and setting up shows with his band mate.  If you live in the Austin area, you should go bug him on his music page and get him to post when and where he's playing.

Besides Nutella cupcakes, Corey and I made homemade pretzels

I baked more of the cranberry walnut bread I brought on tour for Mike, Kim and Junior

 
Corey made some awesome homemade Risotto

Eventually, Mike had to go back to Austin :(  We had a going away party at Rob Ross'  Kim made some awesome dip, we had a bunch of snacks, and watched "Les Misérables."  Kim thought Rob Ross' sandal looked like a bikini bottom, so she turned his foot into a girl.

I don't think I mentioned it, but when we were in Austin, Kim let me raid her costume closet.  I found an awesome black dress that fit me, and it came on tour.

I was hoping to buy some purple ribbon to switch out the black, then wear it with my black and purple stripped stockings, but we never made it to a craft store :(  It got to be the last few shows of tour and I hadn't worn it yet, so in Phoenix I ended up wearing it :)  After tour when we were getting my stuff out of the limo Kim gave it to me :D  *fan girl squee*   :D  So I now own a Kimberly Freeman costume piece :D

Eventually my time off ended and I had to go back to work :(  After being gone for 2 months, I still remembered how to do everything and was able to jump right back in.  It was still super weird being back though.  It's sad because I really like my coworkers, the job itself isn't that bad, but dealing with the busyness, being understaffed,  ridiculous customers, the corporation I work for being clueless, etc, etc, etc. I really hate going to work.  The hardest part about being back the first day was not making sarcastic comments every time a customer asked something stupid.  Junior and Kim are trying to figure out a way I could work for them full time, which is awesome, but I also want time to do my own costume stuff.  So at the moment, my life is crazy up in the air and I have no idea where I'm going to land.  But that's ok because everything always seems to work itself out in the end :)

End of Tour

Well, I've been back in the "real" world for a couple of weeks now, so I figured I should probably write what I remember of the last few days of tour.

Hand puppets from Spring Lake Park, MN taken by Yacob the Swedish Ref

After the Dallas show we picked up Paulo who was our much needed driver for the last few shows.  It was nice to have someone to drive the 5-10 hours between shows for us so we could just sleep, yet still get there at a decent time.  From Dallas we went to Albuquerque, NM.  Because Picture Me Broken was driving themselves, they were super exhausted when they got to the venue.  Shaun (PMB's drummer) came back from a nap to find that Justin (Otep's drummer) set up his set for him.  Justin's a pretty awesome guy!

Despite being close to the stage, my pictures turned out terrible.  It's really frustrating.  I did get video of Kim's fingers moving ridiculously fast on guitar.

The next day was Phoenix, AZ.  Because we had a driver, we got there early!!!!  YAY!  Paulo has a friend that lives just down the road from the venue, and he offered his house to us while he was at work.  Paulo was able to sleep in a bed, Kim and Jason got to take a nap, we all got showers, and I finally got to go swimming!!!!!!  For some reason I'd been wanting to all tour, and I finally had time to.  It was really cold, and Mike didn't last long, but I was so excited there was a pool that I swam for quite a while.  Mike and I also used the hot tub.  After I got done swimming and took a shower, everyone was still asleep to Mike and I walked down the road to a coffee shop.

I climbed a tree on our way to get coffee.  But I scraped my arm in the process.

We had coffee at this awesome little cafe/bar/restaurant called 32 Shea.  We ended up taking Kim and Junior back there later after lunch.  By we got back from our walk, they were awake so we went to get food.  Just a bit down the street from 32 Shea was a fun Thai restaurant Sala Thai.  I had some AMAZING vegetable curry.  The sauce was so good I could have eaten just a bowl of it on it's own.  I wish they sold jars of it.  They also had this fun fish tank with fake fish in it.

We also had to stop at a store because Junior lost a shoe.  We think it fell out of the limo at a stop in the middle of the night.

The venue in AZ was weird.  They had a special area for 21 and up.  You weren't allowed to leave the area if you had a drink, so several people chugged their drinks just so they could use the restroom.  Really responsible, venue...  Also, Otep's merch was in an area where everyone could get to it, but we were right on the edge of the 21 and up area.  Only 1 minor at a time was allowed in the area, and they were only allowed 5 minutes at our table.  At one point a mom and her 2 daughters were looking at OED stuff, when the security guard told them only 1 minor at a time, which scared them off.  He was really apologetic though, and was just going what he was told.  Picture Me Broken's merch table was completely inside the 21 and up area, so pretty much NO minors could get to their table.  After their set, during signings, Brooklyn had to leave the table and go outside of the area just so a boy under 21 could have his picture taken with her.  It was ridiculous.  It seems like the venue would have merch set up along the other wall, which isn't in the 21 and up area, so there wouldn't be these issues.

Once again, where merch was set up I was close to the stage, but my camera is so old pictures sucked.  But, here's video of part of Scorpion Death:

Despite the 1 minor at a time thing, Kim stood inside the 21 and up area so fans would have to come past the table to see her.  They formed an orderly line, security stood by, and it wasn't an issue :)  There was a HUGE issue at the end of the night though.  I'm not going to get into it, but there's all of this crazy, behind the scenes politics that goes on with touring and merch sales.  It really sucks.  At several venues security for Otep during her post show signings was blocking our table, or directing people away from our table after they got their picture/autograph.  This venue was the worst.  There was literally a wall of 3 security guards blocking off the 21 and up area, which meant that after they were done with Otep, they couldn't get to our table.  They were directing people around the the other side.  Junior found out that there was a security guard at the other side telling people they weren't allowed in that way either.  So unless they were already in the area, or they snuck under the divider, there was NO way to get into the area where our table was.  Junior discovered this because there was a girl who's birthday it was, near tears because she just wanted to meet Kimberly, and security wouldn't let her in.  Junior tried to get Tristan to work it out since security was just doing what they were told, but that caused HUGE issues.  Because of it, we almost got screwed over at the last show, but since it didn't happen, I'm not going to write about it publicly.

The last show was back in LA at the Whisky a Go Go!  This is another venue special to me because I saw OED and Otep play here last year, 2 days after I moved to LA.  This was the first tour Otep was doing signings after the show, so I got my picture taken with her, and met Rob Ross, Jeremy, Heather, and a lot of other awesome OED fans.

Back before Otep wore gloves and a mask at signings

Jeremy, Heather, Rob Ross, Me, Corey

I woke up as we were driving into LA.  I wasn't exactly sure where we were, but I knew by the way things looked and the highway we were on that we were close to the LA area.  It was weird, and for the first time since moving out here, I was not excited to be in LA.  We dropped Kim off at Rob Ross' to get more sleep, then Paulo, Junior, Mike and I went to find some breakfast.  Mike found a place called The Little Next Door.  It was kind of part way between Beverly Hills and West Hollywood.  The waiters were dressed in button up shirts and ties, meanwhile I was wearing my rockstar sunglasses, chrome Happy Stabby shirt, pink leopard print PJ pants, and flip flops.  Super classy :)  Food was ok, I had some sort of Benedict Florentine (Junior's French toast looked AMAZING), but I got a couple of pastries before leaving and they were awesome!!!

We got to the Whisky early hoping to work out some of the issues from the day before, but no one else was there.  We got set up early though, which was nice for a change.


Mike playing drums for sound check at the Whisky A Go-Go:

The show went really well, I saw a lot of people I met at last year's show, and my roommates and friends came out to see me!  :D  After the show we did the VIP thing, but I think it was mostly just super fans and a few VIPs.  Corey got to tag along.  We ran into Nosaj and Justin at the diner we went to.  I think my brain realized it was the end of the tour, because I was SUPER tired that night.

Kim drew us all unicorn pictures on our place mats

A cop searching a unicorn for drugs

It was getting to be about 4am, and we were all exhausted, so we unloaded my stuff from the limo into my car and Corey drove me home.  Not before I started crying though.  We had a big group hug and said our goodbyes.  Even though they were going to be in the area for a while (which I'll write about later), it was still sad that the tour part of our adventure was over.