Raspberry Nostalgia• by Chris Morrissey • St. Paul, MN

About the Writer
My name is Chris Morrissey. I'm 27 years old. I live in Saint Paul, Minnesota. I play bass, sing and tour with a number of musical outfits. On my travels, sometimes I get the itch to test my writing chops on friends and family, mostly trying to convince them that dropping out of college for employment where it’s considered disappointing if you don’t drink on the job was a good idea. I hope you approve.

Editor’s note: I’ve been receiving Chris’s email missives from the road for two years and each one of them, replete with myriad photographs, were as funny as they were insightful. Given all the lame movies and books available on the topic second hand, this take is first hand – and truer than true.

February 2005
After a Month on the Road

I'm ready to come home. However, we have two more weeks with a teaser two days in Minneapolis. We've all hit the proverbial "wall" today, or we are having the male equivalent to a period. We half-jokingly considered driving home today, but then we all patted each other on the back and said "C'mon fellas! Just two more weeks." The shows with MM have been very interesting, to say the least. The crowds have liked us for the most part (although I had to blow a kiss to two young gentlemen who were flicking me off in Dallas. They put their hands down after I acknowledged their presence in front of 5000 people.) The backstage accommodations have been pretty incredible with catered meals that would be damned expensive in a restaurant, and our own private dressing room with bathrooms and our WHOLE rider!

The other bands' dressing rooms are more like foggy pharmacies. These guys make some of my friends (who will remain nameless because my mom is getting this email) look like D.A.R.E officers. The opening band is comprised of guys who will not live past thirty. A comparison: We eat vegetables, talk about how much we miss our friends and love our families, value sleep, enjoy when we can remember our show the next day, and have a couple glasses of wine after a show. They smoke anything that is dry enough to catch fire, all carry plastic bags with uppers and downers and god knows what else, drive through the night after shows (ephedrine and coffee), sleep until load in (4:00 or so), drink heavily during load in, smoke enough weed and pop enough pills before the show to maybe forget that lives are messes and that their band sucks that their lives are messes and their band sucks, and do it all again—a great disrespect to Mother Music.

I know I know, lots of the masters were addicts, but somehow the great art that these people gave us combined with actual talent somehow excuses it. Trust me, the only thing these guys are masters of is how to pack a gravity bong. We have nicknamed them as follows: Foghorn (a jovial chap who uses phrases like "psychedelic warrior”), The Wind (who wears a coonskin cap and makes you feel as though you are dreaming when you look at him), Spicoli (alright, that one's obvious) and Casper (they all have rather ghostly complexions). I will try to get a picture of these guys for my next email and I won't tell you who is who and it will be a fun little game for you to try and figure it out. I lost my camera charger (one reason that it has been a while since I have written) so I'll do my best to make haste. I love you all, and I hope you all still love me.


The venue in Dallas.  We called it The Death Star. Tickets were 80+ dollars and it cost the kids 12 dollars to park. Someone is getting rich off this shit. Clear Channel is pure evil.

Boiled Nuts
February 2006

I'm writing to you from the Ole’ Miss Motel in Oxford, Mississippi, one of the nicest, cheap rooms I've ever been in. It's a step up from the Scottish Inn in Atlanta, where we heard someone yell out a desperate "RANDY!" at 3 am. You would think that I'd be used to the south by now, but it's always quite the culture shock. Whenever we order something at a restaurant we get a quick, "Y'all from up north?" When we say Minnesota they usually just laugh and ask what we want. And when we ask them which restaurants in the area are vegetarian/vegan-friendly, we usually get a look that says, "Y'all think gays should marry, donchu." I think it's safe to say that a lot of people who don't eat meat also support gay marriage, so I guess the look is justified.  When we asked our food question in Atlanta, a nice young woman directed us to a barbecue joint nearby. Maybe vegetarian in the south means "a place where you can order corn." Now to be fair, Athens, Georgia had some very nice vegan diners and ethnic food places, but that's only because Michael Stipe owns that town.

I can't get over how huge Jesus is down here either. He takes up more advertising space than Wal-Mart. I know I already told you about the Trucking for Jesus guy and the 1-800-JESUS-CHRIST billboard, but the list goes on and on. I can't help but wonder if other religions have billboards with sassy quotes that God might say, if God chose to take up some ad space. Like the billboard we saw yesterday: "What part of “Thou Shalt Not” didn't you understand?" – God. That sounds strangely similar to the pink XXXL t-shirts with Garfield saying something rude like "Oh no you didn't!" or "This is an A-B conversation, so C yourself out." I'm starting to think that the same people are speaking for both God and Garfield. They rally sports lovers sometimes too, like this one: "Let's meet at my house before the game on Sunday" – God , adding a little logo for the football team at the bottom.

If this hasn't caught on in Asia yet, I'm going to take it there. I had this idea for an ad campaign called "Buddha don't think so!" and I'm going to aim it at those over -indulgent Asian businessmen. It'll have a picture of a man in a suit drinking with a prostitute at a karaoke bar and the Buddha shaking his finger at him saying "Buddha don't think so!" It's going to be expensive, but maybe if Buddha is wearing Nike's or something I can get a sponsor.


When we took this picture, I was alone. He's been in my dreams never since.

Bonecloudy
April 2006

My exciting new title of "Senior Rhythm Section Member" has afforded me some lavish perks. Let's just say that there are always some cashews left in the mixed nuts container no matter how much the other guys want them. And now we stop the van every time I have to pee. So far we've been to Colorado, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, NYC and Philadelphia, and they've all been super fun shows. One highlight was playing Red Rocks, a million year old natural amphitheater, which was converted into a performance venue in the 1930's. It was super rad except for opening for two jam bands that played for a total of five hours. We left after the first of two because I threw up on Chad's patchwork pants after eating a laced quesadilla from a parking lot vender. That totally harshed his mellow. He was really looking forward to the rest of the set. It all worked out in the end because our friend Pippin got a seriously kind board mix of the show, so we've been blasting it in the van ever since.


A view from the bleachers at Red Rocks. I was smiling because there was a dragon telling me a story on top of one of the rocks. He was so funny. He was also very beautiful and wise.

Gunfights and Gasoline
July 2006

Now that I have your attention let me clarify that by "gunfights" I actually mean many guns drawn and pointed, and a suggestion by a Portland police officer to go inside the restaurant we were in front of. We never heard a gun go off. This was after some young hooligans ran past us talking about "smoking some dude." It was ironic, because we had just exited the restaurant to do some smoking of our own, not with a gun, but with some fine organic tobacco. We don't smoke cigarettes that are bad for you. The ones we smoke have a native American on the front and native Americans don't use additives in their tobacco (unless you count peyote), and someone told me that smoking them is actually the nutritional equivalent of eating a spinach salad.