I’m sitting at the merch table in the Hi-Fi Concert Club in Lakewood OH, just across the Cuyahoga River from Cleveland.

Being here makes me want to listen to the Pretenders.

Run At The Dog began our 10-day Northeastern U.S. Pre-Album-Completion Spring Road Trip/Tour/Carnivale of Sundry Thrilling Feats at about midnight last night, in Jenny’s driveway in St. Louis Park.

We drove through the night, since both Marshall and Maureen are basically nocturnal and insane and like to drive. As for me, I slept most of the way, but not until I’d caused myself permanent eye damage by watching the season finale of Lost on my iPhone. At one point I thought, “It’s two a.m. and I’m watching Lost on my iPhone in the back of a van somewhere in Wisconsin, while most people my age are asleep because they have to get up in the morning for their boring full-time jobs. So what if I’m broke?”

So I’m settling back into the touring lifestyle of an unheard-of band with no budget, something with which I have considerable experience. This means gas-station coffee, several days without a shower, and the dicey parking-lot prospect of piloting a large passenger van through a three-point turn. Unlike last time, I have an iPhone, wi-fi, Naked Juice, MySpace, and Obama. Otherwise, it’s reassuringly familiar, and I’m beginning to feel that curious freedom of being on a road trip, with the added benefit of playing a rock show almost every night.

And Cleveland, based on my extremely limited experience, seems like a pretty cool town. I understand that it is trying really hard to revitalize, in a way that’s fair to everyone, a troubled infrastructure predicated largely on a troubled manufacturing industry. To the extent that that’s even possible, which it probably isn’t, things look promising. And, unlike Minneapolis, Ohio seems to already be in the throes of summer. I should probably change my shirt soon.

Right now there’s an awesome hard rock band playing called Hostile Omish Hot Ham & Cheese. Our original show in Cleveland was cancelled, even though we’re still on the marquee at that venue. (I hope no R@tD fanz show up there hoping to see us cuz theyll be totally bummed LOL!!)

But so then we got on this other bill at the last minute, just up the street, and I think we got a better deal. The whole thing bears echoes of my previous experience with booking snafus in Ohio, except we’re in Cleveland, not Columbus, and I think this one will have a better outcome.