I’m a huge fan of Context Clothing’s mailing list and thought it would be a fun drive drive up to Madison, WI to check out the store in person.  I talked my brother (who used to cover men’s fashion) and my friend Doug McCombs (who also knows a thing or two about men’s fashion) and off we went.

Well, not so fast.  We had to stop at Lula first.

We grab our iced coffee and hit the road.  Led Zeppelin 2, Obits, and Wipers get us most of the way there.  We were making amazing time (almost under two hours?) until we came up on an accident on the road.  A 8 squad cards and an ambulance surrounding a flipped minivan.  Yikes.

Brady effortlessly navigates us around Madison (he used to go to school here) and we find the place.  Looks pretty nice from the outside, let’s go in!  Oh, hello to you also.  Did I know that you are having a sale?  Really?  APC half off you say?  ts (s) as well?  This could be a problem.  I went a little crazy, while the other guys tried stuff on and talked leather belts with the guys in the shop.  The vest I found fit me like a glove, and they had some great Gitman Brothers ties too.  Score!

Time for some lunch.  We walked around the capital building and found one of our recommended joints over looking the square.  Graze looked like my kind of a place, and was I right.  My standard opening question to bartenders is “what beer do you have on tap that’s made closest to where we are standing?”  They all were.  Fried pickles?  It would be wrong not to.  Doug had a crazy looking bahn mi sandwich (in a good way) and Brady had a sick (in a good way) hamburger.  All local meat and produce.  Huge window with sunlight streaming in.  I could stay here all day, but we need to get back in Chicago!!

Trying to beat rush hour traffic we zoomed by Bradbuy’s Coffee for an espresso, or “shooter” if your Doug.  They had a Kickapoo blend and a single origin espresso.  Yum.  Got caught in a hailstorm on the way out of town, and bogus rush hour traffic back near Chicago too, but was worth it.

Iron & Wine just played two killer shows at the Wiltern Theater in LA (and KCRW Morning Becomes Eclectic, Conan, an AOL session and an impossible [turns out, actually possible] Amoeba in store with the 11 piece band, all in three days.  Tiring?  Yes.  Feeling good about who I work for this year?  Quite.

Woke up early on day four to fly to NYC and conquer the east coast.  Soho Apple store tomorrow and then Radio City Music Hall on Saturday night!  The only problem is that New York City is covered in snow.  Again.  Stuck in LAX waiting at Baja Fresh (is this the only place to eat in LAX?) until our flight can leave.  After a few hours and more than one beer at the Karl Strauss Brewery we get our announcement that we actually will make it to New York today.  The tour manager is running around trying to see if the gear will make it in time for the Soho Apple Store gig.  (It probably won’t.)  Then I hear my name over the PA.  Why are they calling me?  I walk up to the counter and the attendant hands me a ticket.  Seat 5B?  That’s great!  LA to NYC is a long flight and now I can stretch out and have a nice dinner! (and maybe write this blog post?)

But then, I start to think…  There are 14 of us flying to NYC…  Should I be the only one to get upgraded?  What about, ahem, the singer?  The manager is on the flight with us too?  All Coach.  The poor horn players are carrying on saxophones!  Can you even transfer a ticket like that?  Should I just keep my mouth shut?  Out of the 14 of us, I have certainly flown the most in the past year.  Most band members only get to be in one band, but I can travel with three different ones in a year.  Should I just put my head down and accept the little comfort allotted to me and my frequent flyer status?  If the manager or the singer really wanted to be in business class shouldn’t they have just paid for it?  I board the plane with a carry on mandolin, I figured it was the least I could do.  I’m seat 5B, so I’m the seat right in front of the door where everyone boards the plane.  This means that EVERY band member and roadie can give me shit as they pass by.  Is it worth it?

I took a flight home with Stephen Malkmus once and I got upgraded and he didn’t.  We walked on the plane together and as I peeled off and sat in the front, he gave me a little jab an I thought “the guy headlining a stage at Coachella is in the back of the plane and I get in the front?”  I felt so dumb, I told myself I would never do that again.

But I did.  And the vegetarian chili in a bread bowl was really good.  And the hot fudge sunday bar was pretty killer too…

Oh man, when they read this I’ll never hear the end of it.