Published at 3:28 PM on November 5, 2007

By Austin L. Ray

Josh Ritter - 11/2/07 - Little Blog of Horrors

Dear Diary

Welcome to Dear Diary, where we ask some of our favorite artists to let us peer into their respective worlds while they travel and record.

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Mustachio Nut (aka Salvador Rollie)

I’ve known Zack for 10 years and have been acquainted with his ring-leader side for almost as long.  If there is a scheme to be announced, carried out and dressed in costume for, Zack is in the vanguard with a bull horn.  I know for a fact that he was this way before the mustache but I can say that since the mustache has fully taken hold it has become more and more difficult to determine quite where Zack’s personality ends and the mustache’s begins. 

So, for your reading and (depending on your proclivities) viewing pleasure, I’ve asked Zack to address a few frequently asked questions.  Below are his responses to questions any normal person would have:

Zack, tell me about your mustache.

1.) Yes, the mustache is real.  Really.
2.) No, you can’t touch it.  (Not without special permission).
3.) No, it doesn’t look like this all the time.  No, it didn’t grow that way.
4.) It takes about six minutes.
5.) No, I’m not in disguise.
6.) No, I don’t care about baseball.  I have learned that Rollie Fingers played for Milwakuee and had a mustache.  But that’s all I know.
7.) The same goes for Salvador Dali.  (Except that he didn’t play baseball.)
8.) This is my third mustache.  We’ve been together now for about 16 months.
9.) No, my mustache doesn’t have a name.  Yet.
10.) Sure, I’m free to baby sit!

My father in Virginia is a part-time beekeeper, and has a small apiary.  When I grew my first mustache, he took it upon himself to whip me up a crock of mustache wax, brewed with the beeswax from his hives.  These days, I use Oregon Wild Hair Mustache Wax – considered by many to be the finest.  Having a mustache is a constant battle against gravity, but one I intend to win – by any means necessary. 

Here are a few pics from throughout the day as the mustache goes from unformed clay to a near-Michelangelene tribute to the potentials of follicle and keratin.










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Liam’s Tat Rap

I’d known Liam for awhile via friends of friends, but last December when we were called to play Letterman with 48 hours notice, I gave him a call and asked him to learn “Girl in the War.” He did, and we had an amazing show.  Since then, he’s recorded with me for Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter and come on tour with me and we’re having a blast out here.  Mostly that “blast” includes herbal, grilled cheese sandwiches and Richard Attenborough documentaries, but Liam was not content with that and decided to go all the way. Here is his entry:

Five years after getting my first tattoo I decided to get a new one.  The first time was so much fun, and now that my life has flipped upside down after joining the inimitable Mr. Ritter on the road, I decided it was time for another.  I had been settled on the idea of an interpretation of the constellation Orion because it is one of the few constellations one can see through the exorbitance of light pollution that is New York City (my home), and I needed to regain my bearings after making it all the way to the left coast. 

After soliciting countless recommendations, I settled on Black & Blue Tattoo in San Francisco.  After sitting on the design (done by my good friend Sara Reiss for so long, it was exhilarating to finally get inked and see it become a reality.  I chose to put it on my right thigh, in order to balance out my other tattoo on my left arm.  Not the most conspicuous of places, but I got the tattoo for me.  Tattoo aftercare has been a little tricky on the mobile fortress that is our home, and it precludes me from swimming in Austin, Texas’ lovely Barton Springs (where we are now), but now when I touch my thigh, I am reminded of how far we’ve traveled, how much fun we’ve had, and how much further we have to go!








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Sam’s Key Party

Sam and I have been playing together for six years now. Besides being a genius keyboard player and producer, he is also a many of many interests; one of which is a penchant for collecting.  Here’s a look inside his hobby:

I think it was about three years ago somewhere during a Canada tour when I started collecting hotel key cards. At the time, I had intentions of tiling a bathroom wall with them. That notion is long gone, but collecting these useless plastic pieces has since morphed into some sort of bad habit or tic. I can leave no card behind and all the guys in the band know it. Some of them even developed a game out of knowing that I’ll never deny a key donation trying to find the most inconvenient times in the day to give them to me...right be before we get on stage, just as I’m sitting down in an airplane seat or crawling into bed.

Although I far prefer quantity over quality, I have certainly developed a taste for certain attributes in each key. Overall color, corporate sponsorship, and local addresses are some of the categories that go into deciding whether a key card rises above the fray or descends into the depths of average white rectangles and Domino’s Pizza advertisements.

Below is the booty from our current US tour in all their glory. We are now in Texas with 61 cards and I’m hoping to reach 100 by the time we get to New York City. There are also the current top four and bottom four in overall style. Notice the color, simplicity and charm of the rising stars and the overall lethargy and desolateness of the bottom four. At home I probably have about 4,000 of these little guys and I have no idea what I’ll do with them. Suggestions are encouraged.







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