good food, good winter, and phox.

i’m gonna start this blog off with a mini-celebration of good food. cause i wanna. cause i’m fat and i can. and cause we’ve had a chance to drive all over, and guess what – there’s a lot of it in the midwest. in gas stations. no, really.

this is gas station food. no, REALLY. welcome to oklahoma joe’s in kansas city, home to the best barbecue in the world. literally. as in, there is literature on it.

this is a gas station, and according to anthony bourdain, one of the 13 places you have to eat at before you die. we got the ribs, and devoured them quickly. i should note – daniel goes into beast mode whenever he’s eating meat. it’s incredibly scary and bizarre. he eats twice as fast and has the look of murder in his eyes. sadly, he doesn’t clean the bones like a fat kid.

my bones are on the left, his ravage on the right. scary, yes?

anyway, that wasn’t the only gas station food we hit up in missouri. some lady named dawn or ruthie or polly or something made homemade fudge at a gas station on the way to kansas city.

this was the best fudge that any of the four of us had ever eaten. dawthie should be proud of herself. and with flavors like peanut butter chocolate, butterfinger, cookies and cream, caramel praline and mint chocolate…well, let’s just say we had fudge for a few days (it lasted one day).

ok, before i end this food porn, let me tell you – these are the best wings we’d ever had. i know, i know, i’m the most superlative writer EVER, but it’s true. legend larry’s, in our own sheboygan, wisconsin, was home to a slew of the naughtiest and rounchiest sauces you could imagine. and we feasted in the dim like hungry, sith orcas.

alright, done with food. let’s talk a little about tour! we stopped by st. louis, but it seemed to be having some problems of its own.

needless to say, it was good after six days in new cities to come home for our much anticipated (by us) second annual “good winter” bon iver tribute show. it’s called “good winter” because vernon named his band bon iver after an episode of northern exposure where everyone celebrates the first snowfall of the year by going out and greeting each other in the street with “bon iver!” and of course, because i am a wizard capable of changing the weather, i made it snow for the first time on the day of the show.

that happened. then this happened. BOOMSHAKALAKA:

these baraboo cats are 5/6 of madison music collective PHOX, and were one of the 37 opening bands we had play the good winter show. and my, were they beautiful. the show was perfect, and i think, really lived up to the buzz. makes me proud to have such talented friends. here’s PHOX covering one of my favorite songs, waste, by foster the people. <3