WEST COAST VERSION 2.0 TOUR with LINDSAY WEIDMANN - Tour comes to a close/I can celebrate this independence.

Lindsay and I drove through the night to Portland so we could be the musical guests at the Portland Center for Spiritual Living Sunday morning. We enjoyed playing for this friendly congregation as our last costal show on this Pacific Northwest tour. We’ll be playing a show in Carbondale, CO at Steve’s Guitars on Friday, which will be the last official show after we meander back to Colorado over these next couple days. But in the meantime, the 4th of July marked the end of our west coast shows. We crashed at a friend’s vacant apartment for the rest of the holiday weekend, reveling in greatly earned naps, couching, and movie watching. We toasted ourselves and the tour with a bottle of Roxyann Winery Pinot, then watched distant fireworks from the balcony.

This tour is my third this year and each one has been significantly different from the others – different highs, different lows and different challenges. All of these things continue to lead to new epiphanies. For example, I’m having a garage sale in a few weeks. I’m selling all of my stuff. I want to fit everything I own into my Honda Fit. Also, I realized I don’t have to tour the rest of my life if I don’t wish to tour the rest of my life. Also, I want to open myself to the possibility of living in a different city. I am very open right now. I feel my mind is rather clear and getting clearer the more time I spend out on these interstates. I think that is I like best about this lifestyle. You’re trapped with yourself, you’re forced to look at yourself everyday. It’s sometimes sobering, often terrifying but I believe it’s a great way for Jeremy to grow quickly, and I’m loving this growing thing.

I can’t say enough about my tour partner, Lindsay Weidmann. So I won’t even begin… I’ll just say “thank you, Lindsay” into my guitar and loop pedal and let it repeat four or five thousand times.

WEST COAST VERSION 2.0 TOUR with LINDSAY WEIDMANN - 7/1 through 7/3 - WASHINGTON STATE SHOWS!

Thank you Lindsay’s Aunt Mary. I have not yet met you, but I’ve slept in your guest bed and thoroughly enjoyed the breakfast you so kindly prepared for us before leaving your house to run errands. After eggs benedict, fresh fruit and strong coffee, we headed down to Seattle’s southern neighbor, Tacoma, to see Lindsay’s cousin Will, a student at the University of Puget Sound. In the cafe where we were to folk that evening, we took full advantage of it’s internet, couches, excellent food, and pleasantly quiet and creative environment. We set up shop at The Mandolin Café for the afternoon to enjoy some interneting and much needed out-of-car-time. I scored a hair cut, as I could no longer see. We played our show and slept on Will’s dorm futon and I was able to relive the college days I never lived in the first place. I went to trade school, and commuted from home. I guess the closest I ever came to dorm dwelling was my time with “The Ottomans”. Aside from the rehearsing, shows and a laughable sense of entitlement, I recall hours spent with those boys laughing at movies that were heralded as much more hilarious than they actually were, thanks to the assistance of, shall we say, assets.

The next 48 hours were full of seeing WONDERFUL old friends of Lindsay’s. C & P Coffee in Seattle hosted the Jeremy Facknitz & Lindsay Weidmann show Friday night for their quiet coffee crowd. Lindsay’s good friend Victoria was visiting the area from Minnesota and brought a bunch of friends. Very fun to meet her! Then we slept at Dr. Julie’s apartment, a friend of Lindsay’s from catholic high school days. The next evening her fellow artistically inclined college friend, Josie, hosted a house concert for us. Old fellow camp counselor friend, Patrick, was in the audience as well as Julie and Lisa, another high school friend. I’m so thankful Lindsay has so many friends!

WEST COAST VERSION 2.0 TOUR with LINDSAY WEIDMANN - WASHINGTON STATE, BELLINGHAM - GREEN FROG ACOUSTIC TAVERN

FROM THE BLOG OF LINDSAY WEIDMANN:

Jeremy and I have been on tour for 3 weeks now and we still like each other. Although this is my first tour ever and have nothing to compare it to, I find that fact impressive. I would like to attribute our serenity to our agreeable dispositions. We’ve had some moments of annoyance with each other but on this morning, last day of June, we walked around Portland like two friends on vacation together. We decided to have a morning off from working or planning tour logistics and explored downtown Portland as tourists. We found a great diner for a 11 am brunch then walked down to the largest independently owned bookstore in the world, Powell’s Bookstore. Unfortunately, we had a lot of miles to cover so we could only skim through a couple rooms of this 4 story bookstore spanning a whole city block. It was quite a site. Having worked in a bookstore myself, I found the overpowering smell of hardbacks intoxicating.

Bellingham, WA was our tour destination. We had a late show at the excellent Green Frog Acoustic Tavern. A peanut shell laced, darkened bar full of smiling, jovial Bellinghamers, the Acoustic Tavern was full through the evening. We played our usual songwriter tag-team show for everyone, which is now like a well-oiled machine, and enjoyed making a few new northern friends. It was another late night of driving as we headed back down to Seattle to sleep at a relative’s house. Thank goodness for friends and family willing to take in last-minute ramblers."

WEST COAST VERSION 2.0 TOUR with LINDSAY WEIDMANN - Monday, 6/28 and Tuesday, 6/29 - Day off and casual Tuesday...

We awoke on the Yachats coast. Lindsay went for a walk and did some yoga. Jeremy organized his possessions and went over trip logistics. Then we did some more songwriting in the car as we headed back to Portland Monday morning. This was the beginning of a big driving week for Tour of Faith and this “day off” is no exception. We have experienced nights of sleeping on the ground or in the car and we’ve also experienced generously plush sleeping arrangements on this tour and lucky for us, the next two nights were of the plush category. We settled in to a friend’s vacant apartment in downtown Portland and actually enjoyed a home cooked meal of Lindsay’s famous spaghetti surprise and Jeremy’s badass blueberry muffins. Spontaneous singing and improvisation went on after enjoying one of our Roxyann Winery bottles of vino.

Lindsay went hiking with her friend Jonathan and enjoyed his native knowledge of different Portland hotspots on Tuesday morning. Jeremy worked diligently on the computer booking gigs for the fall and then we headed out for our Alberta St Pub gig. We met and jammed with our new musical Portland friend, Will West and his cello, mandolin playing comrade Skip. We danced around during Will’s intoxicatingly musical set while enjoying Irish Pub fare and brew. Great night all around!

Portland is a very clean city, one full of very progressive minds and green landscapes. It’s a city we’re gonna spend as much time in as we can while were here.

WEST COAST TOUR VERSION 2.0 WITH LINDSAY WEIDMANN - Sunday, 6/27 - DRIFT INN - YACHATS, OREGON

June 27th, Day 18: Yachats, our new costal home
“Let’s build a little house by the sea
build a little house by the sea
My worries from the land
Will sleep in the sand
Let’s build a little house by the sea”

These lyrics were inspired by our time in Yachats, Oregon. We arrived there Sunday afternoon and walked off our car-cramped legs on their famous inland beach where the surf is sandy and shallow. Yachats is the sea version of a one horse town. There’s about a dozen businesses along the main road and many scattered picturesque houses spotting the pine hillsides. But we forgot to take pictures of the town itself. We also forgot to take pictures of the Drift Inn where we played that night for many a sea-faring folk. This dining establishment boasts live music every night of the week for the Yachats locals and vacationers. We had an attentive Sunday night crowd of live people and mermaid murals. We fell asleep at a local hotel after stuffing ourselves with a complimentary seafood dinner by the Drift Inn. Oh, this is vacation!

Earlier that morning, while enjoying fresh picked raspberries from friend Jonathan’s garden, we employed a new tradition on our tour: Appreciation Workshops. Lindsay has decided she’s starting a new career of professional appreciator. So she led a workshop with Jeremy. Let’s try one now:
“Take a medium sized breath
Now take a long deep breath
Close your eyes and take one more slow, deep breath
Now, open your eyes and look around
Do you see anything you appreciate? Feel any appreciation?”
I appreciate the blue house over there on the corner. I appreciate laughing a lot this morning. I appreciate my healthy body. I appreciate being well fed. I appreciate Jonathan’s garden peas. I appreciate that I’m alive one more day and I can choose how much love I feel at any given moment. I appreciate feeling really happy right now.
Now, you try…

WEST COAST TOUR VERSION 2.0 WITH LINDSAY WEIDMANN - Saturday, 6/25 - HONORING DAY, FLOYD'S COFFEE IN PORTLAND, OREGON

Today would have been my wedding day.

I was engaged to be married and it fell through. It's no big deal. It happens.

I'm glad it fell through sooner than later. Nobody had to take back tuxedo's or cancel flights and, what would have been worse yet, nobody left anyone at the altar on front of 150 friends and family members.

But a date was planned, and it was June 26th, 2010. Matchbooks were made up as party favors. Gifts were purchased for the wedding party. The chapel and reception location were booked. Somewhere online, I believe there is still a weddingchannel page for us, but I don't posses the password required to dispose of it.

We broke up 7 months ago, and while we had many a good time together, it was past due and my life since then has gone through a Renaissance of sorts. Without divulging what's too personal for this blog, I will say that I'm apparently more "over it" than my family. I will say that I'm so thankful and honestly happy to be here in Oregon on June 26th, 2010. I will also say that the biggest issue I've had with the relationship and its demise has been my roll in it, because when it comes right down to it, all we can change is ourselves and our own behaviors and even this is a tremendous task.

Lindsay's proving to be a stellar tour partner. My sweet, dear friend blessed me with gifts this morning - a toy dog that sings "Singing in The Rain", inspired by the movie we rented recently in Crescent City, CA (we've named him Gene); an angel for the dash board of our tour "bus"; and a ring with a big fat J on it which led to a small ceremony in which I married... myself. Lindsay dubbed it "Honoring Day". It was a good Honoring Day today. The best ever.

I feel an extreme amount of gratitude and contentment to be in Oregon with my friend Weidmann, playing shows and living my life for one person and one person only, my new wife... ME. At times, part of me feels as though I have gotten away with something. I feel special, in that so few people get to look at their wedding day that's not happening from 7 months and 1,000 miles removed and actually celebrate it.

Thanks Lindsay, thank you to me.

Thanks also my ex. I toast you today as well.

We played a show at Floyd's Coffee in Portland with Jonathan Brinkley and Hans Barklis, a songwriters in the round show which was a great deal of fun. So was the walk in the rose garden afterwards with Jonathan and his roommates. I look forward to Honoring Day, 2011 already.