Though The Maine’s is definitely cornier than both sides of Interstate 80 through Iowa, the band is basically blowing the fuck up: currently on tour with Boys Like Girls and Good Charlotte, the band’s debut full length, Can’t Stop Won’t Stop scanned over 12,000 records in its first week to land the band a spot in the top 40 on the Billboard charts and thats just the start: its a proven fact that once Video Matt interviews a band their weekly scans increase by 2349%, so expect next week’s numbers to be on Diamond status. Add to that, the fact that the band is now employing the Cadillac of Minivans of Tour Managers, Peter Digby Sellers, shit is coming together like fucking Voltron for these AZ kids. Check out the interview above then put your stunna shades on and get hyphy only without the whole hip-hop part.

The Littlest Biggest Big Little City in the World: As that annoyingly familiar “whomp whomp whomp” of tires speeding along the chain-worn asphalt of Interstate 80 hit my ears, I realized that it’d been exactly one year since I had last escaped eastward from California over this same mountain pass. 365 days of nothing but sitting and thinking and drinking and eating and basically being a piece of shit; 365 days of inching closer to the final fuck off. But now I was once again doing what people do to forget about how meaningless and stupid there lives really are, journeying from point A to point B and back in search of the proverbial greener grass. Only problem was, I was heading to Reno, and anyone who’s had the pleasure of spending time in Reno, as I have, knows that the grass there ain’t very green. In fact, they don’t really even fuck with grass over there. It’s just rocks and dirt and a bunch of bright lights telling you where to go to forget about yourself as fast as possible.

$3.99 Ham and Eggs: If Las Vegas is the embodiment of Sin, then Reno is the tenth circle of Dante’s hell. The city is like Disneyland for the desperate alcoholic middle class of Northern California and Western Nevada; it’s Las Vegas for people too well off to be considered “poor” but too broke in spirit to make the trek “all the way” to Las Vegas, or bother with the natural beauty and facade of class available in South Lake Tahoe. Reno is where you walk out of a 100 million dollar casino and into someone’s weedy front yard. We pulled into town Virginia St., past myriad hour-rate hotel marquees proudly boasting of “elevators and color TVs,” past Circus Circus and Harrah’s and their 24-hour “$3.99 Ham and Eggs,” taking a left before passing beneath the infamous “Reno: The Biggest Little City in the World” sign. It didn’t take long to find that out for ourselves, as the bright lights quickly gave way to the dim blight of crummy pawn shops, shuttered warehouses and bars where not-smoking seemed to be illegal and the Video Poker machines were set to pay out once a year at best. Looking west, an optimist could easily feel like they were in Vegas, with the towering hotels and flash bulbs arcing into the evening sky. In all other cardinal directions, however, even an optimist feels compelled to put his wallet into his front pocket and keep his eyes on his feet.

Mel’s: Needless to say, I ended up drunk and hungry, and hey there’s Mel’s Original Diner, conveniently located inside the Sand’s hotel!  It was midnight but breakfast sounded pretty damn good. If Las Vegas is the city that never sleeps, Reno is the city that never really wakes up, so why not eat a chicken fajita omelet and a chocolate shake on a stomach full of beer and forest fire smoke and 27 years worth of angst? In my defense, I tried tried to order the gardenburger, but the waitress said they “hadn’t had any of those in months.” So fuck it, I said, give me the omelet and a chocolate shake and get your sweet ass out of here. Some guy was puking in the bathroom sink and we laughed while trying to figure out if Mel’s was the diner in American Graffiti or Alice’s Restaurant, but old Mel had the last laugh, that’s for sure. We pulled over in Grass Valley around 2:00 AM and I puked my damn guts out in the bushes outside of a Jack in the Box. It actually felt good, in a miserable kind of way.

The Box Score: Total time elapsed: 12 hours (six in the car). Total money lost gambling ($20). Total Beers Drunk: Too Many. Total Food Left in My Stomach After Epic Projectile Vomiting: none. Total Waste of Time: Yes, definitely.

The Moral of the Story: The problem with going anywhere, is that no matter where you go, there you are. I’d rather just stay home with my cats. Cats don’t need to go anywhere to be happy. My cat’s been outside of my house probably 4 times in his entire life, and he seems pretty damn happy. I wish I was like a cat. Maybe someday I will be.