Guil & Summer's Wedding

Looooooooooooong time, no update. Gotta start somewhere.

Just a few from Guil and Summer's wedding a few weeks ago.
All photos here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/spitfirehussy/sets/72157622326294975

What Did You Do This Summer?

I was just being overwhelmed by the crippling terror following the realization that school starts in FIVE DAYS when I imagined back to being a little kid, going back to school. They ask you, "What did you do over your summer vacation?"

You know, I am forever accumulating wild stories of reckless times and close calls and assorted adventures and calamities, but this summer has got to be one for the record books.

I try and duly document as much as possible because
1) Due to the fact that I am deep down an emotional packrat and sentimental junkie, it's satisfying to be able to recall details of my own life later, especially when I'm locked into an impressive bender and have a tendency to get lost in the sauce and forget all kinds of rad things as they're happening around me.
and
2) Nearly 100,000 hits on my blog(s) have led me to believe that some people find this shitshow amusing and actually ENCOURAGE me to continue making an ass of myself by publicizing my exploits.

So here it is. What I Did This Summer, The Abridged Version

I drove a rock band on tour for 3 weeks, in the desert, in the mountains, in the rain, in a tornado, to warm beach houses and hot warehouses, from sea-level to 7,000 feet, in a van with no windows full of boys who don't shower, smoking cartons of cigarettes, drinking gallons of beer and vitamin water, couch-surfing, getting attacked by bees at a river, taking baths and shaving my legs in the ladies room at Jack In The Box, designated driving while GPSing directions on my phone while yelling at the boys and changing the song on the iPod while lighting my cigarette, while getting back on the highway after filling up the millionth tank of gas, still 23 hours straight-drive from home.

I shot a rock-and-roll wedding in Colorado, and then another in Oregon, where I spent most of the time doing morally reprehensible things.

I spent my days sitting on the porch with vodka snowcones and cigarettes, playing guitars with Luke and the other 25 boys who are always here at one point or another. I wrote a shitload of music. I smoked and ate and drank and abused myself till dawn. After dawn. Bike adventures, beer runs, be right back.

I shotgunned Sophia Coppola champagne in a can on the corner of 10th and Hoyt downtown, in a wedding dress and silver pumps.

I drove a bachelor party around town and had Smiley and Guil moon the entire population of upper Hawthorne.

I went to Soapbox Derby and was trashed by noon. Left with a bloody leg and a new respect for gin and pineapple.

I rafted down the river with the best crew in the world about a dozen times. Calamities, duct-tape holding boats together, totally disorganized, everyone's smokes always wet and nobody giving a flying fuck about anything other than sunbeams and good people and cold beers.

I spent a week in San Diego mostly drinking at the Del Mar Fair, climbed on strangers' cars, drank champagne on a party bus rented for my cousin's birthday, hopped in a car with a bunch of strangers to go swimming in the ocean at 4 AM, discovered Tapatio hot sauce in travel-sized packets and probably almost got my aunt arrested just for being in public with me on more than one occasion.

I spent 10 days in Los Angeles in the sketchiest part of downtown, where I stayed in (never left) an air-conditioned room with Brittney, beer and popsicles. Went to a party that Alexis Arquette invited Brittney to, where several trannies were picked up and brought back to the house and promptly stole my wedding ring and Brittney's Xanax and a shitload of her makeup. I blew $75 on my first night there at a random dive bar Brittney's probably unable to go back to now. Went to the LA Gun Club and blew shit away. Went to the beach, blacked out and woke up later with a little umbrella in my trucker hat.

I Craigslisted a ride to San Francisco and spent the next 7 days moving my shit every 24 hours due to a cataclysmic alignment of lodging circumstances. Drank greyhounds on a roof in the Mission and watched the city, listened to oldies and smoked cigarettes. Ate hella Mexican food. Buses and taxis and borrowed cars and walking from Ingleside to the Mission to Haight to Inner Richmond and back again, with a purse, then a mouth, then a body fulla booze. Spent about $80 more than necessary in Chinatown.

Drove home for 18 hours in another van full of boys. Shenanigans. Cases and cases of beer I didn't get any of. Motherfuckers still owe me $40, actually. Scotty's naked in the van. Sammy's naked on the couch. Puking in the parking lot, molested by a swamp donkey, Adderall to make it home.

I watched 5 seasons of House, 2 seasons of Dexter, 2 seasons of True Blood and 2 seasons of 30 Rock. I have no idea how many hours of television that is, but since I was watching it while I was working I was technically getting paid to do it so it's a dual accomplishment. And yeah, watching TV is an accomplishment. Shut it.

Through all of this tomfoolery I managed to work my scheduled hours, pay my bills and otherwise be a responsible human being. Thank you, thankyouverymuch.

I'm moving on Friday and Saturday.
Monday I start school.

Then the boys (and girls) come up from San Fran the next weekend and I will pretty much wreck the rest of my entire following week just recovering from their stay. I can't wait. If this summer is really going down, it's going down in flames.


I probably forgot all sorts of shit, but that's the long and short of it.

Goodbye, Summer 2K9. It's been real. Hazardous.

What Happens At The Bachelor Party Stays At The Bachelor Party

I had the option of going to Summer's bachelorette party or Guil's bachelor party, so naturally I decided to go with the boys.

What happens at the bachelor party stays at the bachelor party, except for this:

We packed the van full of 10 boys at my house, and I hopped in the driver's seat at around 9. As I was sitting there waiting for everybody to get settled, I got a phone call. It was insanely loud in the van as they clamored around, half of them already drunk.

So I'm on the phone and I say "I gotta go, I'm in a van full of boys heading to a strip club right now."

To which Smiley yells, "DAJAH HASN'T HAD THIS MANY DICKS BEHIND HER SINCE HIGH SCHOOL PROM!!!!"

To which I reply, "Dude, I'm on the phone with my MOM."

I Left My Dignity In El Segundo

Today was good times at the beach in El Segundo with Britt and Courtney.

I remember sitting at a stoplight with the windows down and belting out "Anything, Anything" with Britt and Court at the top of my lungs and making the surrounding drivers nice and uncomfortable. Then I think it was "Hopelessly Devoted To You". Classic. I recall being really intoxicated, leaving the bar alone to try and find Mexican food, and getting lost in a 3-block radius. Finding the place, handing the carry-out menu back to the guy and just saying "I'm too drunk for this, it's too much. I just want taquitos. Please, please help me."

Woke up with sand in my hair and a little umbrella stuck in my trucker hat I was wearing, thrown into a pile next to the bed with my swimsuit and all personal belongings I had today. Somehow I managed to put on a clean shirt before I collapsed into bed. Seriously, a little umbrella stuck in my hat and a bikini next to my bed, passing out drunk. Like it's was fucking spring break in Miami or something. I'm probably on some Girls Gone Wild, Los Angeles edition somewhere. Yikes. My head hurts. Oh I just looked to the right in bed and found a little plastic monkey- some decorative shit they hang from the edges of fish-bowl size booze concoctions found exclusively at tiki bars. Surprise.

I should definitely wash my hair tomorrow. It's been 8 days and I have a 4-day-rule when engaged in any activities involving swimming or spilling whiskey on myself. That was 7 and 5 days ago, respectively. Mmmmmmm. BTW this is one of a billion reasons I do not have a boyfriend.

Valet Please

Today, I was in front of my friend Brant's house attempting to park my scooter while wearing platform sandals.

I couldn't get the kickstand locked in place because I wasn't pulling the scooter up by the handles hard enough. This rarely happens because I've got it down to a science (even in my Coach heels), but today it was not working for some unknown reason.

So I yanked harder. Too hard. Bike yanked BACK but not UP and just slammed into pretty much exactly where my vagina used to be but is now possibly just a giant bruise with no discernible features.


Stay classy, Daj!

My Closest Friend, Linoleum.

I finally got this video onto YouTube so people can see it. This might have been the raddest moment of my life. Sounds a little dramatic for just one song on a porch with a half-dozen people and a bunch of beer- but it captured the best day I've had in a long time with some seriously amazing friends, as well as brings me back like 12 years when I first walked around singing this song. I'm really glad somebody (Brittney?) picked up the camera and caught it on tape.

That would be Sunday afternoon jam-session at Jen and Dean's Huntington Beach house, after waking up in a hammock tied to a palm tree.

God, I miss California.

Tour Update- Pueblo, CO

Arizona is a hell-hole and I hate it and I will never go back to that state ever again. Unless it's to visit my friends Ben and Katie. Other than that, the state of Arizona can piss up a rope. It was a hundred thousand degrees outside every day, the shows were a fiasco, and for every super rad person we met, we had to deal with 100 complete douchebag idiots. Thanks, no thanks Arizona. Peace out.

Just so you know, Tempe Arizona to Pueblo Colorado is 11 hours and 19 minutes according to Google Maps.

We left Tempe last night at 8:15 PM. I drove for eight hours and Guil took over for another three. Then I drove another four. We finally fucking got here at 1:15 PM. That's fifteen hours.

In the last 36 hours, I have experienced the following:

- 1 hot and miserable (thankfully last) day in Arizona
- 1 trip with Luke and Guil out to the river in the desert (photos pending)
- 1 bird-bath in a Jack-In-The-Box bathroom, a move which was originally executed exclusively to rid my body of all the river sand stuck to the sunscreen on every inch of my skin BUT turned into me basically taking a full shower, including shaving my legs in the sink. Yeah, you heard me. What?
- 1 lengthy argument about directions
- 1 camera bag saturated with a half gallon of water (fml)
- 1 near-fight at a gas station
- 1 subway sandwich for lunch
- 1 packet of lunch meat and string cheese for dinner
- 2 packs of cigarettes
- 3 gas stops
- 5 Diet Dr. Peppers
- 5 hours of sleep
- 7 full cycles of Flexx Bronco's, My Life in Black and White's, Get Dead's and All Bets on Death's albums
- 25 repeats of Dramarama's "Anything Anything" (sorry, guys).
- 35 miles per hour up an insane elevation change between Tempe and Flagstaff. Sea-level to 7000 feet in less than 150 miles. That was totally fucking crazy and we spent an eternity in second gear trying to get the van up the mountain.
- 800 total miles
- Like 17 gallons of Vitamin Water


I will admit that I DID almost kill all of us at the beginning of our drive by nearly merging into a semi. But SERIOUSLY I did not see him in the rear-view or the blind-spot mirror, he had no running lights, and I'm blaming half that shit on him.

I was initially driving the first long shift because I wanted to watch Large Marge McSwervesalot (which I've named the van until she gets properly christened) hit the epic 400,000 mile mark on the odometer. Who the hell else is driving down the highway with nearly a half MILLION miles on their car???

Anyway, I sat there anxiously watching the dash. This is what I saw happen:

399,999.7

399,999.8

399,999.9

300,000.0


. . . "Guil, where the fuck did you get this van? I think we just went 100,000 miles back in time."

I'm totally serious. This van probably DOES have a million miles on it, but every time it's about to accurately switch digits it just jumps back to 300,000. Awesome!

We're in Pueblo now and I took a shower and a short nap and I feel like a brand new person.

My New Vice has a show tonight and is playing a wedding tomorrow at which we will all get very, very wasted. Then guess what? We get to drive home! From Pueblo! All in one stretch because everybody apparently has to work Monday.

Guess how far it is from Pueblo to Portland?
24 hours.
Yep.
(Google maps says 19, everyone in Pueblo says 24 at the absolute fastest.)

Here we go.

Tour Update - San Diego

Got to San Diego the night before last, delirious from lack of medication, food and sleep and excess of alcohol. Was literally unable to complete sentences or basic tasks and actually cried because I couldn't do anything. Luke got me food and I was fine in like 3 minutes. I'm an idiot.

Left San Diego this afternoon after seeing my family for a hot minute while the boys got drunk and sunburned in Ocean Beach.

Went down some seriously scary mountain roads. Had a belligerent semi driver try and pass us and his rear tire blew out right as he did it. Fuckin rocked our van damn near off the road and probably over a ten thousand foot cliff.

Got stopped by Arizona border patrol who opted to tear the van apart, complete with dogs, while we were individually searched. Smiley pulled about 35 cigarette butts out of his pocket, at which point I completely lost my shit and almost cried laughing. They didn't find anything, to their great dismay, because apparently My New Vice is the only rock band they've seen without drugs in their whip or on their person. Haha. Suckers.

Got like 10 blocks from our Phoenix destination and drove past a seriously gnarly accident, complete with a dead body.

Luke was a stress case, obviously, because he drove the whole way.
Luke, pissed: "Dude, if we idle here we're gonna fuckin overheat."
Damien, smartass: "Luke needs coolant ."

My road rash wounds and body-wide bruises are painful and ugly and gross and definitely gonna leave some marks. Luke just walked by and said I look like I got attacked by a fucking shark.

Smiley is sitting next to me, wasted and blogging on my laptop. He's reading it outloud and I'm cracking up. Go read the My New Vice blog. Its worth it. Before he sobers up tomorrow and makes some courteous adjustments to his current shit-talk.

We're at Ben's house in Phoenix. I think we'll be here for a few days. Hopefully we don't die of heat stroke.




Thanks for the injuries, LA.

And They're Off

The boys left today on tour. I stood in the driveway and marveled at their Tetris-caliber aptitude for stacking and packing too much shit into the van, then hooked them up with some important commodities like speakers and a radar detector for the ride, then threw some of my own stuff in there I don't need for the next week and/or can't/don't want to take on the airplane. Then I watched them drive off into the sunset. Or sunbeams. It was still daytime, so sunbeams.

I'm flyin' into Las Vegasland on the 10th to meet them, then I'm driving the rest of the tour. Vegas, Anaheim, LA, Torrence, San Diego, Scottsdale, Phoenix, Flagstaff, Pueblo, then home on the 21st. In a windowless mid-90's Ford Econoline rapist van with no air conditioning.






This is gonna be awesome.

Goddamn DMV

I had every intention of being productive today, but then I went to the DMV.

I have no idea why anybody bothers bombing federal buildings and abortion clinics when there are at LEAST four fucking DMV offices in each major city.

$185 and I've got a title, registration and a license for this scooter.
$160 and I've got keys for this fucking scooter.
$75 and I've got insurance for this motherfucking scooter.

Oh yay, now I can drive(ish). For the record though, I've gotten really good at takin' that bitch around corners. Zoooooooooomzoomzoom.

Famous last words.

Watch out, world. My scooter's gonna blow you away.