The quest to find a more perfect jerky never sleeps. However, often times your quest can lead you down dangerous and frankly disgusting roads. The following is a cautionary tale (which is only really relevant to you if you, like the author, are a complete idiot).

I attended the Carrot Mob yesterday at K&D Market near my old apartment in the mission (a smashing success, by the way). While waiting in the comically long line I spotted a package of jerky that I did not recognize: "Stonewall's Jerquee: Hot Pastrami Style." Despite being without my usual jerky sampling compatriots, I knew I had to make the purchase and sample it for the good of the overall cause.

Now, as you can see from the picture, there are several items on the packaging that would clue you in to the fact that this is not your ordinary jerky. The most obvious being that it's called "jerquee" (the reasoning in my head at the time: "Sweet, this must be some sort of French style of jerky"). Also, the packaging also identifies the product as "A Vegetable Protein Product" and an "all natural jerky substitute." Obviously, they're not trying to hide anything.

That said, how could you not be duped by "hot pastrami" and the picture of the old winking 49er holding what appears to be a paintbrush? What is more convincing to you: all the "words" on the packaging or an old winking 49er and the word "pastrami?" That's what I thought. And don't try to tell me that this grizzled mustachioed prospector is chowing down on some "vegetable protein product" after a long day of panning for gold.

Ok, now that I've completed my pathetic defense of why I purchased this crap, here's the actual review: This is some nasty shit. I apologize for the harsh language, but it needs to be said. When I finally got home last night and sampled the goods I dry heaved for a good two minutes. It's not so much the actual taste; much like any soy based product, it just tasted like what you put on it. But the consistency is that of old styrofoam. It was actually popping and crackling in my mouth, and not in a good "pop rocks" kind of way. I'm sorry to report that I couldn't even complete the sampling process as I deposited the remainder of my sample in the garbage.

So this is the long version of me registering a "not recommended" for Stonewall's Jerquee. If you'd still like have a sample (since you like to play along at home will all of our jerky samplings), just take a styrofoam peanut, hold it over a flame for a couple of seconds, soak it in soy sauce, cayenne, and garlic powder, let it sit out in the sun for about three months, and then gnaw away. Just don't swallow it. PLEASE don't swallow it!

Technically we also need to get a ruling from Sysop and Lauren Lauren in order for this to be an official P3 jerky review, but frankly I think they should be let off the hook. It's not even official jerky! That said, I still have the package of jerquee, so if either of them are brave enough to try it, you'll find their take here.

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.

We had our best paid gig so far on this tour in Seattle. Being compensated in the form of shoes and break dancing lessons from Seattle's Finest shoe store, the Sneakery was far superior to being compensated with $5 from Andy. Owner Drea and Uni have been friends for a long time. They used to work together at Amoeba Music in Hollywood. 9 months ago she had Uni play her grand opening of the Sneakery. It was great to see how the Sneakery had blossomed into a vibrant community staple, much like us. "Represent. " Drea presented us with the sweetest payday ever, the only challenge being choosing which sweet ass "trainer" we each wanted. This was a good problem to have. "Like that". This was P3's first ever in-store, and they found out that they are much more successful at persuading people to buy shoes than something like say CD's or Pants Pants Pants T-shirts. Stay tuned for a full line of P3 threads and kicks in time for the upcoming school year. We're hoping that the Uni doll will make it into Toys R Us's by Christmas time. Pre order on her myspace. The new one. Not the old one. That's some jackass now.

"Say Please" - our tour mom, Lisa

There is no better hostess to be found on this planet than a rock and roll Mommy. We were recently spoiled rotten by Lisa, who fed us delicious eggs, toast, coffee and fruit, because she "couldn't send us on the road without protein." She also hooked us up with a queen-sized bed each and two awesome pint-sized fans, and offered to drive us to the library and to do our laundry. She also took us out for dinner to a Thai restaurant, where we ate an appetizer containing every flavor in the world. The perfect food. The kids were awesome. Jake was eager to show Steve his room, where he had recently murdered Black Beard the Pirate. Black Beard's blood was everywhere, and his severed hand was nailed to the door. It appeared that Jake had done the deed with one of his super amazing light sabers. Later that evening, Steve may have threatened to remove Jake's appendages and scatter them throughout the house. This threat became necessary when Jake broke both the "you must only pick things up with chopsticks" rule AND the "six inch airborn food" rule. Needless to say, Jake is a lucky almost nine year old in that he still has all his arms and legs. Steve was forced to sleep with a battle axe last night, but fortunately did not have to use it. Lily is a keytar star who follows the rules. "Bring the crew."

My kid is the left handed Buckethead: Chickenhead

We rolled into Georgetown for our show at Jules Mae and knew that the neighborhood was going to be awesome when we came upon on a 50 strong all black motorcycle gang called "Magic Wheels," who were out directing traffic. These were our people. Upon arrival we were greeted by our future tour sound guru/catstrophic disaster survival expert/campfire storyteller who promptly yelled at us. We will call him "Papa Chickenhead" so that you can't track him down and steal him for your Superfuntastitour. He's ours bitches. "Don't bring me no moron." Papa Chickenhead not only hooked us up with the best sound we've had on tour so far, but gave Steve and Oliver a detailed lesson on all things sound. After the near sound disaster from 15th St Pub, this was both enlightening and reassuring. Papa Chickenhead was very proud of his son, Chickenhead. Chickenhead is the left handed Buckethead, and he will also hopefully join us on tour soon. Papa Chickenhead told Pants Pants Pants that he thought they were the most origanal band he's seen in 10 years. We are hoping this means when he saw Journey in 1997, but it could be the Vomiting Unicorns, he doesn't remember.

With the lush sounds and the now standard small but enthusiastic crowd goading them on, P3 had what they deemed to be their best show of the tour. Oliver almost made a full lap during the final Stay in School chorus (the course here was much longer) and most certainly terrified his in laws in the process. Uni continues to take the stage banter up a notch, with her between song stories and zingers rising up almost to the quality of her actual songs. Erin Jorgensen's set was nowhere in sight. We missed her and all her fans. This may have been our only chance to share a stage with a marimba player, and she totally blew it. Represent. We have still yet to play with a local. Luckily we bring the noise.

(Hip hop references are courtesy of John Staedler's "La la la la….." fuck it, it's track 5. Our jerkey tasting tour has pretty much come to a halt. Apparently there's a limit to the amount of jerkey you can eat. Who knew.

Picture five overgrown metal heads moshing, stomping and yelling along with a tiny girl and her ukelele playing Bruce Springsteen for the second time that night, cuz once was not enough. You are picturing what was quite possibly the apex of the SuperfuntastiTour. . . Although we did skinny dip in a creek, witness some unfortunate fool getting thrown through a plate glass window, survive our time with No Name, and discover Emerald County Smoked Meats.

We rolled into Vancouver early on 7-7-7 and set out to destroy the town by means of rock. After flyering and drinking the spiciest ginger ale ever invented (Blenheimís) at Moxie's pop shop, and bumping our kickass jams at Mermaid Music (Rose I took a picture for you) we decided to go slumber with the dead. Uni took a run around the headstones while P3 tried to find a non-sacrilegious place to pee. Eat at Blind Onion Pizza. You can't miss it, it's right next to the cemetery.

The 15th Street Pub is a way sweet joint, however their PA is unequipped for the P3 rock and roll stadium rock power sound. Ding! Uni played first, wetting their appetite for destruction and promising a brilliant encore after donning her roller skates. Ginger Hustlers played their instruments on stage and Hannahís Field played songs of weed and meditation, gypsies and mermaids and Jah!

Steve's Tiny Drum
We really liked that Hannah of Hannah's Field handed out instruments for the audience, although Steve's tiny drum left something to be desired. However, Steve was amazed at what he was able to accomplish with his tiny drum.

The Pants set was perhaps the most stadium rockenest it's been yet. The drunk lady was dancing (more to follow, as Uni won't let it go) and Scott and Gillian arrived in the nick of time to much rejoicing! Oliver set a new course record, circling the entire bar twice ("one and a half") times during the final chorus of "Stay In School." It most indeedily was a School Night. Uni came up for two more songs and an encore, dedicating "I'm on My Way" thusly "This song is dedicated to the lady who said I look like a wannabe Dorothy of fucking Wizard of Oz on RollerSkates. . .Donít be jealous bitch." Which cemented uniís victory and made her a rock and roll McDonald superstar. Her grand finale ìDancing in the Darkî resulted in the aforementioned possible apex of the tour. This night sealed all of our places in CouvWa lore.

Scott and Gillianís Studio Apartment

Since we didn't let drunken buffoonery or filthiness stop us before, tonight there was no way we were going to let the "modest" size of this lovely couple's apartment stand in the way of our Sleep Train (Eat it Mancini). Since P3 was able to cover every square inch of their bedroom / entire apartment, Uni's choices were the bath tub or the back porch. She chose the back porch to practice the art of being homeless. Now weíre on our way to Seattle and we havent bought jerky in 24 hours. We're thinking of moving on to donuts. . .You know, for health reasons.

U know! Human shit! TUMWATER!

Uni blog:
July 6th was the half way point of our tour. I personally feel that we as two bands get along really well. I mean, I can't stop laughing, but that's also the reason I have kept my friends all these years (cause I laugh at all their stupid jokes). (Pants edit: Our jokes are quite hilarious and not at all stupid)
When The Red Baron Tourmoble rolled up in Olympia, I was really liking the layout of what looked to be a bohemian town.
We had some time to kill, so we walked around, handing out tour flyers, making new friends, and observations.
We also got to check out e-mails, when I got some horrible news about a friend of mine who's in an awesome San Francisco band who got injured. I felt sick and frozen. It was hard for me to snap out of it and get into show mode.
I thought I was clever when setting up my gear in the window of Le Voyeur. I thought, these people look arty and hip, they will love that I'm playing in a window.
Needless to say, they didn't. They talked over me, gave me weird looks like I was ugly. Basically they sucked. The only people that listened were Pants Pants Pants, a heroin chic punk rocker who gave me the devil horns nod, and a table of young kids in front of me. One of them bought my cd and asked if she could share it with her friends. I said, "Yes! Please!" and in the back of my head I was thinking Olympia needs these sparkles.
When I get in a funk like this, it's hard for me to control what comes out of my mouth, so it was suggested to me by Lauren that I finish my set in the back after Pants Pants Pants play.
So I did only what a true Unicorn does in moments like this, I put my roller-skates on!!!
My mood brightened up when Pantsx3 played. If no one else liked us, we liked each other. A few people trickled in and out during the set.
When it was my turn to play, I felt something come over me. I was on fire, and I was out to prove something. I never really feel comfortable with talking on stage, but this night I was preaching to the choir, and making people sing along to songs they didn't know, and I was out to represent San Francisco and all it's Awesomeness.

Our extensive handbill campaign netted us three very nice and enthusiastic audience members. Luckily, one of these members was our new friend Emily who soon became our Olympian guardian angel. After a mostly chilly reception from most of the locals, Emily was nice enough to offer us a place to stay. Not only that, but she took us and our other two handbill success stories, Howard Curtis, to where she worked for ice cream (Traditions, which we highly recommend people). Eating ice cream in a closed gift shop managed to wash away the remaining sour feelings from a less than spectacular show.

Most importantly, we made two more jerky acquisitions this morning. The Olympia farmers market happened to have two rival dried cured meat purveyors directly across from one another. We purchased the obligatory samples from each, and preliminary reviews are quite positve. The jerky quality has taken a serious step up in the past few days, and our newly sophisticated palettes will probably never return to the world of the likes of Oberto.

Happy 7/7/7, we'll be celebrating by eating 7 types of jerky.

Ding Love,

Uni Pants

Uni says "Eugene! Rock and Roll is here tonight!"
I also said and I quote myself, "Last night we played Chico, I'd like to dedicate this next song "As Gold" to our friends in Chico where we went skinny dipping! Beat that Eugene!"
Eugene that night kinda did! Some unfortunate fool got thrown throw the window at Luckey's.

Once again, an intimate and appreciative audience. Our write-up in the Eugene Weekly alerted some local eletro-pop fans to show up. After attempting to convince another packed bar to come to the show, Steve and Lauren and their neon pants resorted to bribing locals with drink tickets. Peter from Fast Computers represented the Eugene electro-pop scene. The old man who hated "Squeeze it" passed up the combo deal, and bought Uni's album "My Favorite Letter is U" because he "loves lyrics" and there's more words on a full length.
Uni sez! I felt pretty good about my set. The sound system is top notch. People seems to like my songs, and I made them sing-a-long Bitches! To covers "Dancin' In the Dark" and Steve's favorite Elton John song "Good-bye Yellow Brick Road". I only saw one guy yawn while singing my last song "I'm On My Way". Luckey's also is a great place to rollerskate. Ding!

Andy! AKA no name
We had three options on where to stay last night. We had an offer from a very nice well-kempt man named Randy who had a nice big clean house. We had an offer from a very nice intelligent, sound guy / bartender. But we decided to pass up "Heaven on Earth" for "Feedlot" when we went home with the very nice slightly confused stumbling drunk No Name who had a DUI court date in four hours and who emphasized repeatedly the shabby state of his apartment. Long story short, thanks to Lauren carting him all over Eugene all night, and waking him up at 7 in the morning, he managed to make it to court on time in women's shoes and be released from most of his charges. John Tesh would be amazed. And we are still alive and "Kelsey's" cat is too. "Thanks" "Kelsey".

P3 sez! As you may or may not know, probably not, we are on the quest for the perfect beef jerky. Eugene hospitality. . .they'll find you meat. Thanks to Jeremy , who spoke in, spoke in class about Emerald City Smoked Meats, we've entered another plane of jerky consciousness. Also aided in no small part by John Steadler, who has provided the soundtrack to the last few days of our lives. We are not afraid. Ding! However, we have high hopes for Jeff Foxworthy's Maple Brown Sugar Ham Jerky.

Eugene fans, you can get our albums "Ok, fine" and "I'm On My Way" at CD World, just blocks from Emerald City Smoked Meats and Deli. Les Claypool ain't got nothing on us!