July 19

It’s Zane’s birthday! Zane is the cofounder of The New Hippies, and one of the most talented musicians I’ve ever met in my life. He also cares very deeply and listens when you talk to him and was one of the first people to welcome me to California and treat me like family. I’ll always be grateful and extremely proud of the music we’ve made together. There are few things more fun than playing music with Zane, and one day I hope to be able to keep up in a jam. Love you bud.

Today was also a very successful day in Manhattan. Understanding and I finished some mixes for new songs coming out in the upcoming months and we met up with a friend of Bryana’s and an old friend of mine for dinner. Good day. It’s humid out here on the east coast.

—J.P.

I Should Have Known That!

I have a bad habit where every time something goes wrong I immediately feel like I should have been able to foresee it, and I should have been able to prevent that mistake. This journey should be perfect - the assent should be steady, no dips, just constantly climbing until I achieve my ultimate goals. That’s not the way it goes.

Don’t worry about whether you should have known that. Just be happy that you know that now, and that you’re still learning, and you still have an opportunity to make progress, and use what you just learned.

-J.P.

Laps and Treadmills

Things start to feel the same after a while. I could run every day but if I run on a treadmill I’m literally going nowhere. BORING. Hard to stay invested. So today I’m gonna swim some laps. Just do something different every now and then. Keep yourself fresh and keep going.

-J.P.

Whoops

So here’s what happened. I woke up late yesterday and had to work out and by the time I was done everybody was getting ready for the party and I had to go get a propane tank filled and when I got back we had to set up around the pool and then everybody showed up and then I got drunk and I forgot to put anything here so, I missed another day. Two out of a little over a hundred isn’t bad though. It’s still an A+.

Get ready for The Corner Store.

-J.P.

Outside

Another release day is upon us! Today, Roe’s Garden offers up their newest single “Outside”. It’s a song I wrote probably about a year ago now, that I thought was just a funny concept. Bubblegum pop about the desire to beat the crap out of someone who hurt you. It’s the most straight forward pop song we’ve done all year, and I can’t lie, I kinda love it. Erica channeled her inner T.Swift and we threw some big stacked synths on the hooks. The cover is another collaboration from Bryana and I, which I’m also really loving. These last couple releases have really helped to start to define a visual identity for Roe’s Garden, something that is very important to me seeing as we have four “artists” on the roster often comprised of mostly the same people. I also really love the moment of tenderness towards the end of the track. It adds a little bit of depth and Erica really flourishes in those moments of sadness when she gets to lean into the dark tones of her voice.

So yeah, Outside is out, and I hope you love it and play it whenever you feel hurt but you wanna feel tough. Some family is coming over and hopefully the rain holds off so we can enjoy ourselves and maybe get in the pool… ya know, be outside. That’s 18 songs on the year now. There’s another one coming next week too.

-J.P.

Pittsburgh to Hopewell Junction

This will be short. We made it to Hopewell Junction in time for dinner and leg one of our trip is complete. Overall, it was lots of fun and I think we’ll go back to just about every place we stopped in. Can’t wait to see the photos when I get back to LA and get my film developed, but for now we’re gonna take a week or so to decompress in Hopewell. I’ll be by the pool. In the meantime, a new song from Roe’s Garden comes out tomorrow. It’s called Outside! Get some sun!

-J.P.

Chicago to Pittsburgh

Well, we’ve made it to Pittsburgh, the last city of the first leg of our trip. Tomorrow we’re headed to my childhood home in Hopewell Junction, where we’ll be for a week or so before we hit the road again. We’re adding a traveler (Understanding) and likely taking a long and winding road back to LA, so I’ll continue this travel log when we get back in the car, but I am looking forward to being stagnant for a bit so we can rest and hopefully recover a little.

This first leg went very well, save a few rains these last few days. We’re in Lawrenceville tonight at the suggestion of a friend of Bryana’s, and I like it here! Lots of food on Butler St., which seems to be the main drag in the neighborhood and good vibes overall. I had a pretzel that was bigger than my head at dinner, and I don’t think I’ll eat again for days. Pittsburgh is another city I’ve never been to and like all the other ones, it’s too big to get an understanding of in the six or seven hours we have, but I’m looking forward to sitting outside and doing some people watching while we sip our morning coffees, and I’m really looking forward to getting home. 6 more hours and 391 more miles to go.

-J.P.

St. Louis to Chicago

Made it to The Windy City! Found a spot a little south of downtown St. Louis called Sump Coffee for our morning coffee and puzzle routine and then turned north for the first time on our voyage across the U.S. There were a couple of firsts actually. It’s my first time here in Chicago (it’s actually my first time in all of the towns and cities we’ve visited except Denver). It was the first time going north instead of east. It was Bryana’s first time eating Wendy’s (we got some nuggets when we stopped for gas today). It was also the first rain we’ve experienced on our trip. Hopefully it doesn’t rain tomorrow because we have plans to check out a neighborhood Shireen suggested or maybe spend some time in the morning in a park by the lake. By the way, this lake is Great! Don’t know if you’ve heard or not, but seeing as this is my first time being on the shore of a Great Lake, I am pretty stunned at the size of this lake. Looks just like the ocean when you’re close to it. Wouldn’t know the difference except for that I know it is, in fact, a lake. We had a nice dinner and walked around the neighborhood we’re spending the night in. It’s been a very nice trip so far. This is also the first day I woke up feeling a little bit of fatigue, though. We have one more stop left before our final day of travel, so I’m kind of glad that we planned it out this way. Looking forward to getting home and staying put for a week or so before we turn around and see some more cities, but I’ll definitely be back to Chicago soon. There’s only so much you can do when you’re only in the city for six-twelve hours AND you have a dog with you (we love you Morpheus, but you limit the places we can enter and the types of activities we can enjoy). Lots of parentheses in this post. Interesting. I don’t usually parenthesize so much. Is parenthesize a word? Hope so. One more city tomorrow!

-J.P.

Kansas City to St. Louis

Took the coffee to go today because they didn’t let dogs inside and they didn’t have an outdoor patio, but Messenger Coffee Co. is a beautiful spot if you’re ever in Kansas City. Three floors, a rooftop deck (which I feel like Morpheus could’ve been allowed on) and they make all their pastries in the middle of the first floor for everyone to see. The coffee was good and Bryana’s avocado toast was delicious and ONLY $9 dollars. LA is stupid for being so expensive.

Today was also the shortest drive of the trip, at just about three and a half hours to St. Louis, so we finally got to a destination before dinner time. Got some BBQ here which was delicious, and then we headed over to the hotel. We’re staying downtown and walked over to the Archway. What a crazy monument! A beautiful park too. We walked around for a while and I had some fun taking photos. We’ll see how they turn out when I get back to LA and get my film developed. A masterclass in suspense building, taking photos on film. You just take the photo and wait a month to see if it came out right. I’m getting better though, so I have faith.

One more funny coincidence. When I was searching for a good vantage point to take a photo of the old courthouse in front of the Arch, we found a little park with a fountain and a statue in it. When I got close to the fountain I noticed the statue is called “The Runner”. I’ll leak some information here for context. The title of the project our fourth act is releasing this year is Running! What are the odds, that on my fairly random cross country trip we find the Runner, as I’m preparing to make Running! I’ll take it as a sign. And I think I’ll come back to St. Louis sometime. Off to Chicago tomorrow. Three more days ‘til New York.

-J.P.