Somewhere in the middle of West Texas. It's hot. It's really hot. It's the kind of hot that keeps you from frying eggs on the sidewalk because they'll just burn. This wouldn't really be a problem if the air-conditioning on our bus was working, But, alas, it's broken. We all woke up in our bunks this morning with our vents blowing hot air, which has roughly the effect of someone waking you up by aiming a hair dryer at your face on the hottest setting. Not pleasant. At least we only have another four hundred miles left to drive today. This is what's commonly known as a "dead" day off. We travel all night and all day and then some smart person says, "hey, you should be relaxed, you had a day off yesterday". Ugh.

So, aside from all that stuff, we're fine. We've had an amazingly great run of shows down the West Coast of these here United States. I think the high point of our tour (for me anyway) was a show in San Juan Capistrano. It had all the makings of a disaster as some guy wrapped his car around a telephone pole up the street and knocked power out at the venue from three in the afternoon until half past nine that night. We sat around the venue watching as people waited on line and then went into the venue and ate by candle-light. The show was delayed until the power came back on and then the Wallflowers played a short-ish set. I was worried that because so many people had been there since six or seven o'clock they'd be bored and angry, so I gave the audience the chance to make up the set list.

We opened with a version of Van Morrison's "sweet thing" and the response was terrific. It turned into a two hour show with all sorts of fun surprises, and the crowd was with us the whole way. Some of the places we've played aren't really conducive to listening (bars tend to be more about the mating ritual than about the songs we happen to be playing), but the "coachhouse" in San Juan Capistrano was a great great place.

Our show in Los Angeles was fun as well. We played a great little ampitheatre-outdoors on a lovely night. The acoustics were great, and I had lots of fun running around the theatre singing without microphones and that kind of silly stuff. Los Angeles was also the last night of my zany haircut.

We played a festival in Osh Kosh, Wisconsin a couple of weeks ago, and my hair was getting long (for me), so I asked our friend Brad Peterson to cut it. I gave him a pair of clippers and said "draw whatever you want". I'll attach a photo of the result with this for viewing. The result was a swirly, sunlike pattern. Of course, I chose to dye it red and then wore it around for a while. See all the fun you can have on the road??

We're doing our last week and half of dates at the moment before we take two weeks off. Yes, that's right, we're actually taking a couple of weeks off. Though before we take the time off, we're going to film a video for "small wonders". The single should be getting onto the radio at the beginning of August, so be sure to request it wherever you listen to the radio.

In the time off, I'm going to do something I haven't done in a full three years--I'm moving into a house. I've found a little house to live in--drum roll please--in Seattle. Yup, that's right, I'm trekking all my stuff across the country and moving it to Seattle.

We'll be heading back out on the road in Mid-August. We're not sure exactly where we're touring at that point, but we'll be sure to let y'all know.

NOW PLAYING ON THE BUS: Michael Kroll "Ether County". We miss having Michael on tour with us. We love the Wallflowers, we just miss Michael, so we're listening non-stop to his record at the moment.

Radiohead "Iron Lung E.P." And all things radiohead, we've been watching a live videotape of Radiohead lately. They rule.

Neil Young: "After the Gold Rush", "comes a time". Basically, I've been on a big ol' Neil Young Bender.

Jimmy Dale Gilmore--"Brave New World". Jimmy Dale Gilmore is a great country crooner. For some reason his singing always reminds me of my dad.

NOW READING:

I've just finished a terrific book about alcoholism called "drinking, a love story". Really eye-opening.

Today, I'll finish another volume of Raymond Carver poems and head into another volume of Bukowski stuff.

MOVIES. This week I saw "Independence Day", and "Welcome to the Dollhouse". "Independence Day" was a fun little alien romp, but would have died without Will Smith in it, and "dollhouse" was fun, but didn't live up to all of the expectations I had for it.

Oh well, that's it from our hot bus for now. We'll hope to see you soon.

Peter