The highlight of my week has to be this little gem of a letter I found in the backseat of my car. For the life of me I have absolutely no idea how it found its way into my vehicle. Scrawled over four pages, the handwriting is nearly indecipherable, the sentences incoherent, and the use of capitalization and punctuation indiscriminate and without purpose. However, if you can get past the jumbled syntax, you’ll find Ruth’s letter to contain an emotional narrative touching on familial relationships, mortality and a love of good old-fashioned canning. Below is the letter from Kathy to Ruth transcribed in its entirety:

August 2, 2010 Dear Ruth, Talked to Andrea guess she fell down at work, hurt her knee she said she still going to work she said she’s feeding her residents a sit down job at work. She said she’s not a lot of people who would not show up work. I said well good for you. I tell you she pats her self on her back, Anyway I told her I wrote her mother. And she said she now transferred to Oasowadamie, She’s out of the other place. So probably get my letter back. Ruth I didn’t know she has Alzheimer’s? Andrea told me that, I told her about Mary she didn’t know she also has the disease. Guess our families have that disease and cancer run in the family scary isn’t it. And also sad.

Guess she Andrea still has couple of things bugging her. Again her sister Virginia & her brothers how they both hate each other. And she’s glad Virginia lives in Kansas City and that she was different from each of them. Why! All the crazy talk I had a time to tell her that today is what [indecipherable], But she over turned my response. She did ask about – Frank, which took my by surprise and she reminded me her Birthday is around the corner. I can see she is very sensitive of her age. She’d be 64 yrs old. She said, And the people at work tell her all the time she doesn’t look her age. And how beautiful she is. I told her how lucky she still has her looks. Ruth she hasn’t change in her conversation about her work or herself. But that’s ok I just let her talk. I asked her if she knew how to can? She said that’s easy” I thought she can do almost every thing. Wished I knew how to can I’d like some home made Jelly. I be you can ?? She asked if I had sent her anything that took nerve J, I laughed to myself.

Well Ruther after I found out about Cholestral was a little high my Doctor gave me some pills. To take and to see him again in two months. So nothing else new around the home front except we both are having our heat wave possibly some rain tomorrow. Guess we all can’t be pleased in all this heat. And I still get the oven going But I do the same as you do, do it Early! Well you’ll have your hands free helping Rachel, for her daughters wedding Plans, But that’s what some mothers do. You have a lot of future granddaughters to help them later on. Good Luck”

How’s Cathy doing? You said James & his family Came down [indecipherable], didn’t Reginia & her family come? that’s nice of Debbie sharing her place with everyone. She has a heart of Gold, just like Mama. Always doing for others. I see the month of August you and Angie birthday. Anything going on, on your day going out to eat? Well guess its that time I’ll write soon. God bless you

Lots of love

Kathy

If you’ve noticed a lack of substantive updates it’s because we’ve been adjusting to life in Chicago and trying to find part-time jobs. We’ve been scouring the interwebs for interesting work, and this might be the best Craigslist “gig” we’ve come across. Naturally it’s a low-paying “position,” but we’ll be damned if it doesn’t sound absolutely awesome.

Honey I Shrunk The Kids role-playing partner needed

PostingID: 1926851198

We’ve been attempting to write 140-character short stories on Twitter this past week (http://twitter.com/thenoisefm). These short stories are a challenge for us to write, and they’re probably even more of a challenge for you to read. Guys, do you know how tough it is to write a short story in such a small space? We’re talking exposition, character development and a satisfying denouement all in the span of 140 characters!? It ain’t easy!

We quickly detoured from our stand-alone entries to an epic tale set in the “Boy Meets World” universe. Call it “fan-fiction,” call it “erotica,” call it what you will — there’s no denying the inspiration. Below is the tale in its entirety along with additional endings from Twitter friends that are even more profound than anything we could have thought up:

Topanga’s body glistened with sweat, their bodies intertwined. Corey wondered to himself, “If only Mr. Feeny could see the man I’ve become.” 11:12 AM Aug 18th via UberTwitter

Topanga left the room in shame and on the cusp of tears. “The things I have done.” There was a void and she knew she would forever be empty. Thursday, August 19, 2010 6:44:19 PM via UberTwitter

RT @DJKeating: Corey sat on the futon replaying last night. Through the tears and frustration he knew a chili dog would never look the same. Thursday, August 19, 2010 11:39:16 PM via UberTwitter

RT @Bobby_Topaz: “Mr. Feeny slowly stood up. With tears streaming down his face, he knew he had done the right thing. Killing Rider Strong.”

We’ve made it to Chicago. After more than a year of planning, The Noise FM has relocated to a new city. We arrived on Saturday and have been gathering our bearings ever since. It’s a change for sure. There are cars and people everywhere! And the buildings are so tall! There’s a “Metro” train that transports people around the city! It moves through real subway tunnels! Underground!!!

Coinciding with our departure from Lawrence is this piece from the University Daily Kansan covering the ups and downs of the Lawrence music scene over the years. Lawrence, you will be missed (we’ll be back on Saturday for a show at The Replay…).

Peaks and valleys

The ups and downs of the Lawrence music scene

photo from www.pitch.com

We attended the 2010 Pitch Music Award Ceremony last night at Uptown Theater in Kansas City, Missouri. Much to our surprise, The Noise FM won in the category of “Indie-Rock.” The Pitch award means a great deal to us and we’re thankful for everyone who took a few minutes to vote for us. Our good friends in Cowboy Indian Bear won in the category of “Indie Pop.” All in all it was an awesome night with lots of awesome friends. Pitch.com had this to say:

“The Noise FM toppled established Kansas City acts The Life and Times and the Appleseed Cast to win the Indie Rock category. They called it a perfect capstone to their Kansas City career: the band is moving to Chicago soon.”

Share in the good times below:

Here’s a little video recap from our recent Tour Story 4 through the Midwest with Abandon Kansas and PM Today.

The final show of Tour Story 4 might have been the best of the whole trip. Wichita is homebase for the Abandon Kansas fellas and they brought out a great crowd. Together all the bands on tour (plus Wichita locals The Gallery) packed out Rock Island Live! and tore through steamy sets. It’s been a real treat to go on tour with bands whose music we genuinely enjoy. PM Today play a drastically different style of music than we do, but all of us in The Noise FM are huge fans. They’re great guys and we enjoyed standing on the side of the stage every night of the tour rocking out to their set.
Abandon Kansas has long been one of our favorite bands (we first played with them back in 2006 in Kansas City) and we’ve been very happy to see their success. It was an honor to join them on tour and inspiring to see their dedication to their music and cause. Abandon Kansas works with a humanitarian group called Compassion International, and every night of the tour the band would briefly use their time onstage to raise awareness of the extreme poverty affecting Ecuadorian Children. Meanwhile, we’d use the stage to talk about our cat Mr. Budget! (Follow him at http://www.twitter.com/mrbudgetisacat).
Here are some photos courtesy http://twitter.com/smashadamsphoto from the last night of the tour (view more at http://smashadamsconcerts.blog.com/):

Our first trip to Fort Smith. Maybe Fort Smith has a lot to offer, but if so, we couldn’t find it so we killed time walking around Wal-Mart. We also finished up “Hot Tub Time Machine” on our laptop in the van. We’ve been rocking the Redbox this whole trip and have managed to knock out an impressive number of movies while on the road. Last night we watched “Death Becomes Her” with Bruce Willis, Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn. The years have not been kind to that film. I think it’s supposed to be a dark comedy, but instead it just sucks. We’ve watched “Step Brothers” (a criminally underrated comedy) which is a van-ride staple for us, as well as the entire first season of “Eastbound And Down” which is absolutely fantastic. We also fit in some “Dumb & Dumber” and season 2 disc 2 of “Chapelle’s Show.” Looking over that list it’s obvious we don’t go for ‘high-brow’ while we’re in the van.

The show at Regeneration in Fort Smith turned out to be a success. Looking back over the names and e-mails of people who signed our mailing list, I’m surprised to see how many AOL e-mail addresses there are. It’s funny we just watched “Hot Tub Time Machine” because In Fort Smith, Arkansas, it’s forever 1997.

All the bands caravanned overnight from The Foundry in Joplin, Missouri, to Arlington, Texas, where we had a load in time of 10:00am at Six Flags. We dread overnight driving, and sure enough, it threw off our sleep schedules enough that all three of the bands were zombies for the day. That’s unfortunate, because part of our payment for playing Six Flags was that we each received a “Flash Pass” which allowed us to cut to the front of the line for any ride in the park. None of us are really into rides, but we do enjoy seeing the look on people’s faces when we cut in front of them after they’ve waited hours to ride Mr. Freeze. Sadly, the extreme heat and lack of sleep put a damper on our plans and we ended up spending most of our afternoon soaking our heads in a Looney Toons fountain near our stage.
We ended the night with another concert in Mansfield, Texas. Where, you ask? Exactly. We played The Warehouse in Mansfield. Apparently during nights this abandoned warehouse acts as a make-shift music venue. During the day I imagine it operates as the largest methamphetamine factory in North-Central Texas.

We made a pit stop at Precious Moments on our way to The Foundry in Joplin, Missouri. If you’ve never been to the Precious Moments Chapel in Carthage, Missouri, you’re missing out on one of the most bizarre and terrifying experiences of your life. Imagine spending an afternoon in a robotized Village of the Damned. Precious Moments is inhabited by a disturbing number of motorized mannequin/humanoid/things roughly the size of lawn gnomes performing various acts of labor. Invariably they’re all blond-headed and white (almost albino), which seems to be a thinly veiled commentary on what constitutes Christian purity. We are in the Bible Belt after all.

From what I understand, these creatures are supposed to represent God’s children, but with their dead eyes and featureless faces, the term “children” is a stretch – I can’t say they resemble anything even remotely human. One of those little bastards was holding a saw, and I swear another perched up high in the chapel was holding a sniper rifle.

Creepy Little Bastards

We splurged and treated ourselves to a hotel room on the way to Springfield. It cost us $35 and was worth far less. Super 8 Motel in St. Clair, Missouri – you need to step up your game. We hadn’t showered in days and all you gave us was a nozzle in a tub that emitted nothing but a fine mist and a high-pitched squeal. And Febreeze that carpet – our room smelled like death.

Our show was at the Lemon Drop which is located in the “sketchy” part of Springfield according to friends. It had been several years since we last played Springfield so we weren’t expecting much of a turnout. Surprisingly, a good-sized crowd appeared right before our set. We later found out that the show had mistakenly been double-booked and most of the crowd was there to see Skamikaze. We’re no fans of Ska, but I’ll be damned if that’s not a clever name. Our attempts to get the audience clapping along were far more successful than during previous shows. The last couple gigs have been pretty half-assed on my part in the crowd-participation department. I’ve been averaging about 3 to 4 off tempo claps before I just look awkwardly down at the stage and give up. Usually the crowd will clap along for another 10 seconds out of pity before they give up as well. Tonight we got them clapping along for at least a full verse of “Circles.” Yes sir, we’re stepping up the awkward-crowd-participation part of our stage show and bringing it to a town near you!

We slept in the van outside of a Holiday Inn Express. Holiday Inn Express’s breakfast buffet isn’t quite as impressive as Hampton Inn’s. Quite frankly, we were disappointed with our free meal. Milk selection is of only two varieties: skim or 2%. There is no waffle maker and the cereal selection is limited, but the nice lady tending to the buffet asked if we’d like to take some bagels back to our room. “Uh… Yes,” we said. Later we would learn that the fellas in PM Today pulled a similar move at a different Holiday Inn that morning. However, they one-upped us by actually taking shampoo and soap with them into the hot tub to bathe. Well played, PM Today.

In St. Louis, Panera Bread Co. is called The St. Louis Bread Co. The St. Louis Bread Co. existed first and when they expanded outward from Missouri the name for the rest of the restaurants in the chain was changed to Panera. St. Louis Bread Co./Panera has been experimenting with a  new business model at one location just outside of St. Louis. Basically it’s a pay-what-you-want model in which the restaurant doesn’t charge you a price for any of their food but instead asks for “donations” and provides a recommended funding price for each item on the menu. It’s called St. Louis Bread Co. “Cares.” The thinking is that people who can afford to do so will pay the suggested funding price or even more in some cases which should make up for the people who eat but can’t afford the recommended price. It’s also suggested that if you can’t pay for your food, you volunteer to work an hour in the kitchen. If it sounds like some sort of utopian ideal or strange social experiment, you’d be right on both counts. We were obviously intrigued. This “pay-what-you-want” business model appealed to The Noise FM as we didn’t actually “want” to pay anything. There’s always a catch though, and the folks at St. Louis Bread Co. Cares have mastered the art of the guilt trip. As soon as you walk through the door you’re given a speech on the importance of sharing, giving and donating for the good of the community. Donation boxes are placed strategically throughout the restaurant and employees were constantly directing us toward them. It was almost as if they sensed we didn’t want to pay a damn thing for our food. Did we buckle under the weight of pressure? Did we give into our inherent sense of community good and self-sacrifice? Did we donate, share and “care?” Hell no. We took that restaurant for all it was worth. Austin ordered the “You Pick Two” Greek Salad and Roasted Red Pepper Panini with a cinnamon bagel for dessert. Oliver dined on the chicken noodle soup and classic salad. I went with the “You Pick Two” Tuna Sandwich and Caesar Salad and an orange scone for dessert*. On our way out the door we each took a bag of bagels.

*Note that none of us ordered the more-expensive “Signature Items” from the menu. That would have been downright greedy.

The St. Louis Zoo is a wonderful zoo. It’s also free, so as you might expect that was the next stop on our trip. A rainstorm hit the park as soon as we arrived which worked to our advantage. Nearly every family in the park left (as did many of the animals apparently, judging from how few we were able to see), so we were the kings of the jungle. We spent far too much time in the penguin shelter, mostly because it was cold and smelled like fresh seafood.

We didn’t used to be big fans of St. Louis, but it’s really grown on us. It’s worth a day trip, folks – which is also my proposal for a new St. Louis slogan.