The last update was on Halloween, this one is on Thanksgiving. I promise I won’t wait till Hannukah for the next one.

Right after the last update we did our 2 shows in New York at the Madison Square Garden Theatre. My man Tim Barber took pictures of me those 2 days, and you can check them out at: www.tinyvices.com/ATRAK. While you’re at it you should check out his website, he’s an amazing photographer. I also got to catch up with big brother Dave while I was in town, and he came to see both shows.

I went home for 2 quick days for the first time since September, so obviously that went by in the blink of an eye. Then we played in Toronto and I did this afterparty with Karriem and Omar (the percussionist and keyboard player that are on tour with us, and usually tour with Common). Instead of doing a typical DJ gig we set up Karriem’s MPC and cymbals and Omar’s keyboard — the club also happened to have an organ — and we improvised a little jam session. I was telling the crowd “this is what we usually do at sound checks when Kanye’s not there.” And it came out really good! I hope we get to do shows like that again. Karriem just left actually; he also tours as Diana Krall’s drummer and had to jump on her tour. So we’ve got Frankie Knuckles, the Roots’ percussionist, taking his place.

The day after the Toronto show was supposed to be an off day, but we flew to New York. LA Reid’s son was doing one of those MTV Sweet 16 specials, and they got Kanye to do a surprise performance at the party. It was funny, they had it at 40/40, but obviously the party was just a bunch of 16 year-olds. Melissa Ford is hosting, and I’m with Kanye and his manager hiding in this tiny space behind a curtain, eating buffalo wings and drinking Hypno, until we get our cue to jump out and do “Golddigger”. Right.

After that we did our run of Chicago-and-the-area shows, and we made our way to the South. The show in Birmingham, AL was pretty weird… on some “why are we here?” vibe. But then we hit Memphis and the man Juicy J came to show love at the afterparty, and suddenly Alabama was just a distant memory.

Now you might be wondering what I did for Thanksgiving. I’ll tell you what I did. I spent 20 hours on the tour bus. Beat that! We had to get from North Carolina to Houston, and it’s a hell of a ride. It was me, GLC, Really Doe, Ibn and the wardrobe girl. We stopped to have Thanksgiving dinner at our bus driver’s daughter’s house. We were smack dab in the middle of Louisiana. I don’t remember the name of the town but it sounded strangely like Macklovitch. Her husband was telling me he’d been to Saskatchewan before, on a hunting trip. I may be Canadian, but I don’t think I know anybody who’s been to Saskatchewan before.