This past weekend we three Pants made a short jaunt to Chico, CA. We left the city around 7 in order to make it in time to take part in John Staedler's new music video at the Chico farmers' market. This video involves John and his guitarist pantomiming the song "#1 Hit Single," dressed as filthy filthy buskers. We in the crowd approach the irresistible music cautiously, but ultimately cannot help but break into rapturous dance. When the song is finished, we all toss handfuls of money at the magical duo but the wind blows the bills teasingly out of reach.

During the filming of this video we learned that a plastic penny is worth a paper $100 bill and that the slide didgeridoo is a popular instrument in Chico. Also extremely popular in Chico are gorgeous beach cruiser bicycles. We saw dozens of these during our stay in town--more than we saw all other species of bikes combined.

After the video it was time to explore Chico, which we did mostly by eating and drinking unhealthy things. We visited the soda shop twice, the candy store twice, the local barbecue joint, an awesome college bar, a pizza place and the In-N-Out. We also tried the local jerky and we're sorry to say, it was terrible. It was extremely hard, dry and salty.

During our travels we discovered that Keak Da Sneak was playing that very night in town. We would have loved to attend the show, but as we were obviously going to be competing for an audience, we were determined to give him a run for his money. Oliver searched desperately for an open rummage sale but they all closed at noon. He felt a little better after we passed an upside-down car for sale "as is."

At two, we were scheduled to attend a Buddhist mandala dismantling ceremony at Chico State. We had some time to kill beforehand so we walked around the campus a little. We found this henge near the performing arts building and set the timer on the camera to get our only group photo of the trip. The henge-piece behind us is shaped like a naked lady.

The mandala ceremony was packed. We couldn't really see anything but the monk kept making jokes about "mumbo jumbo" and sang a sanskrit chant to the tune of "Amazing Grace" so it was all good.

The show that night was great. Phiona Carousel opened with an acoustic set and packed The Crux with co-workers from Chico Natural Foods. They were not the ideal audience for our joke about eating too much pork but they danced like crazy to the last few songs of our set. It was, however, our host and headliner who really brought the house down. John started off with some solo vocals, a clarinet and a whole mess of effects pedals, then added a guitarist and eventually, an entire band (that's Phiona singing back-up). By the time Staedler finished up his set with an unbelievable extended version of his hit, "There's Nothing to Be Afraid of," the crowd was so ecstatic they were tossing arm-loads of paper into the air.

We ended Saturday night at the poshest place we have ever stayed. We followed Staedler's Subaru through a huge iron gate, complete with cursive gold letters, and up a winding hill. At the top there stood a beautiful ranch house, complete with it's own vineyard and big-screen TV. Staedler and friends only made it through a fraction of the hundreds of available stations before heading off to bed. Though it was sadly not the house that rock built, but rather the house that door-making-machines built, it was still indicative of Chico's warm hospitality.