Album
Cold Pizza and Other Disasters
Album · 11 tracks · August 2025 · by Mike Baker
Eleven indie songs hold a son's move across the world beside cheap food, bad decisions, old ghosts, cracked asphalt, and the North Idaho home that keeps pulling the story back.
The story
Cold Pizza and Other Disasters starts with the evidence of a life moving faster than anybody has cleaned up after it. Cold pizza on the counter. Beer cans tipped over. An open box that makes the room look like something happened in it. It's funny and familiar and a little sad before the first song even starts.
Underneath the mess is a family story. This album is dedicated to my son Cameron, who moved across the world and gave distance a new meaning. I was proud of his courage, and it sat right beside the ache of losing ordinary access to him. A different time zone changes the smallest parts of a relationship. Calls have to be planned. News arrives after the moment. The love stays close while the daily part of it gets far away.
Ceilings opens with pressure and confinement. On The Other Side Of The World names the distance directly, and that's the emotional foundation of the record. Parking Lot Flowers notices life growing in a place nobody looks at. That image fits an album interested in the evidence that people adapt even when things are hard and unglamorous.
Bar Lights Smile Lines moves through the warmth and the wear of familiar social spaces. Static Between Us is the interference that gets into a relationship when distance, technology, timing, and unspoken emotion complicate contact. It doesn't stay solemn for long. Two Burritos Deep turns a minor decision into physical catastrophe, and Cousin Brad Got a Tramp Stamp in Reno gives family folklore the full song treatment.
Everyone's Lying, Everyone Knows is where the anger comes in. The title is that exhausting agreement people make when a false story is still useful to everyone in the room. Fucked Up Ghosts gives old pain a loud and unruly presence. Cold Pizza for Breakfast Again comes back to the mess from the opening with more tenderness. The repetition starts to look like a way of surviving unsettled days.
Coeur d'Alene closes it at home. The lake, Hayden nearby, campfires, and North Idaho nights carry the sense of a place that stays available in memory even while the family spreads across the world. Home gives people somewhere to belong as their lives expand past one location.
I think it works because distance never becomes the only mood. Love sits alongside irritation, bad food, crude jokes, political fatigue, and stories that get funnier every time the family tells them. That mixture feels closer to real life than a record made entirely out of longing.
Cameron is fine with his move being here, or none of this would be. The deeper subject belongs to a lot of families anyway: loving an adult child enough to support the life he chooses while grieving the version of family life that choice changes.
If you only have a few minutes
Start here
01On The Other Side Of The World
The album's family story becomes explicit as physical distance changes how a father experiences time, contact, worry, and pride.
02Parking Lot Flowers
Unexpected growth in a neglected place gives the record a small image of resilience without forcing the moment into a grand lesson.
03Cold Pizza for Breakfast Again
The title scene returns as disorder becomes familiar, funny, and connected to the ways people keep moving through unsettled days.
04Coeur d'Alene
The closer gives distance a homeward pull through the North Idaho places and memories that keep belonging intact.
Tracks
- 01Ceilings
- 02On The Other Side Of The World
- 03Parking Lot Flowers
- 04Bar Lights Smile Lines
- 05Static Between Us
- 06Two Burritos Deep
- 07Everyone's Lying, Everyone Knows
- 08Cousin Brad Got a Tramp Stamp in Reno
- 09Fucked Up Ghosts
- 10Cold Pizza for Breakfast Again
- 11Coeur d'Alene
Track by track
01Ceilings
A room's upper boundary gathers emotional pressure, turning a familiar surface into the measure of feeling trapped inside one's own thoughts.
02On The Other Side Of The World
A father holds pride and distance together after his son builds a life far beyond the reach of an ordinary visit.
03Parking Lot Flowers
Life pushes through cracked pavement in a place built for traffic, offering a quiet image of persistence amid neglect.
04Bar Lights Smile Lines
Familiar faces and accumulated years meet under artificial light, where laughter reveals both pleasure and wear.
05Static Between Us
Distance and unspoken feeling interrupt connection, leaving two people to search through interference for the relationship they still share.
06Two Burritos Deep
A questionable food decision becomes a full domestic emergency, giving the album permission to laugh at bodily consequence and bad judgment.
07Everyone's Lying, Everyone Knows
A shared falsehood survives through convenience and exhaustion until the effort of pretending becomes harder to ignore than the truth.
08Cousin Brad Got a Tramp Stamp in Reno
One reckless trip becomes family folklore, preserving a questionable choice through the affectionate exaggeration of repeated storytelling.
09Fucked Up Ghosts
Old pain refuses to behave politely, returning through memory, anger, and habits that outlive the events that formed them.
10Cold Pizza for Breakfast Again
Yesterday's remains become today's meal as repetition, disorder, and humor create a recognizable rhythm for an unsettled life.
11Coeur d'Alene
The album returns to lake light, nearby family memories, and the North Idaho home that remains part of the narrator wherever his children go.
Where it leads
Cold Pizza and Other Disasters held family distance inside a record full of mess and humor. The two-track Human First release on October 7 served as an early preview and is intentionally omitted from the website catalog. The complete Human First album followed on October 11 and expanded the focus from family connection toward neighbors, leadership, faith, and public life.