There’s No Place Like Home?!

I’m fresh off the plane and back from my little vacation to CA. I had a blast and it was just what the doctor ordered. It was SO nice to get out of here, away from the reminders and the drama for a few days, I only wish I was gone longer as there was much I wanted to do but simply had no time. I took some pictures which I will pull off the camera, resize and get up here probably tomorrow but here’s the rundown of what happened.

Wednesday: Assklown 1 and 2 picked me up, we ate at Potbellys and then they dropped me off at the airport. It was way cool of them to come thru for me and take me as my original ride wasn’t going to take me (we all know that story already). My flight was smooth and landed a half hour early. Tim Gore picked me up at the airport and we went and dropped off my shit at his place then went to eat dinner at Hollywood Billards and had some serums. I took a cab over to Amoeba Records and stayed there until they closed and didn’t come close to finishing looking thru all their stuff. When they closed, I cabbed it back to the billard place to meet up with Tim again, have another serum, and called it a night.

Thursday: Tim came back on his lunch break to pick me up and I drove him back to work and borrowed his truck so I would have a vehicle to use for my time there. Mad props to him for letting me use his vehicle and saving me a bunch of money by not having to rent one. His pickup was large and I was not used to driving such a big vehicle but I did just fine. I went and picked up Bob, who I hadn’t seen in awhile, and we hit some record shops and IN AND OUT BURGER! I used my gift certificates I had for In and Out that my dad got me a few years ago and I have been saving for my return to CA. It was every bit as good as I remembered it. In fact, we went there for both lunch and dinner! We went out to Dr. Strange Records after that and I finally met Bill (the doc) in person after years of talking to him on the phone/email. He is a super nice guy, and I also got to see Hot Dog Boy again too. I loaded up on records and we drove back to pick up Tim from work. That nite Bob, Stacy (his girlfriend) and I were going to go to Perversion, which is a goth type club. On the way to get Stacy, Bob and I were walking across the street when I heard someone call my name, it turned out to be Tom M, who was in town also for Black Flag. We hopeed in their car and they came with us to the club. The place was pretty cool, there were hot girls everywhere and they had 3 rooms of different music. Drinks were way to expensive though. I got pretty sauced as I was downing serums the entire time I was there, and I ended up talking to these two girls for a little while. I’m not sure how that happened as we all know I’m pretty shy, but it happened nonetheless. After that we walked back to Bob’s apartment and he called me a cab. On the way, I stopped some tourists from out of the country and was talking to them for awhile. I shoudl be drunk all the time, as it appears I am far more social when I am.

Friday: I got Tim’s vehicle again, picked up Bob, and went to Pink’s for lunch for some fine hot dogs, then to some more record shops. We got Tim at his work when he got off and head over to a bar to meet up with Thor and a bunch more people I knew who were going to the Black Flag show. We had some food and drinks there and then head to the Palladium for the show. I also ran into Minnie, a fellow blogger from San Francisco who came down for the show. This was the first time I ever met an out of state blogger in person, and only the second blogger I have ever met thru blogging! Minnie was super fun to hang out with, really easy to talk to, and not to mention a good looking woman! I would have loved to hang out with her even more. Her and her friend joined us after the show for some drinks at least. Black Flag was fun but was a little bit of a letdown in the fact that it was not the first four years lineup really. It was Dez on vocals, Greg Ginn on guitar, Robo on drums, and someone I did not know on drums. They played well though, and it was fun to see a band that I never got to see back in the day, and had such a huge impact on me. Half the brigade of people I knew flaked out on the after-show drinking however and that was kind of a let down, but overall the entire evening was a ton of fun.

Saturday: after sleeping in way late, Tim and I headed to San Diego after eating at Dukes on Sunset Blvd (next to the Whiskey) which ruled. I hit two record stores, and In and Out Burger down there and then met up with my old friend Darren, who I used to work with back at Midway Games. It was great to see him again, he was one of my two best friends there and I miss hanging out with him and hadn’t seen him in 2 years. I went to dinner with him and his wife, however I only ate bread as I had an upset stomach. Darren dropped me off after some pinball at his house and Tim and I stayed with his mom who lives in San Diego.

Today: we drove back up and made some stops for food and shopping on the way back and I was dropped off at the airport. My flight landed about 15 mins early which was cool. Now I’m back at Combustion Manor wishing my vacation wasn’t over, but I had to come back to life sometime I guess. I just wish it was a couple days later. I really had a great time, and it lifted my spirits to have spent such good times with good friends, both old and new. Oh yeah, I bought a big pile of recods when I was there too and have a ton of stuff to listen to over the next couple weeks. It was hard to carry everything back on the plane!

My thanks goes out to Tim Gore who went beyond the call of friendship and put me up and drove me around and let me use his vehicle, Minnie for making the trip down there and being a fun person, Bob and Thor for being long time friends, and to In and Out burger for being so damn tasty despite the religous messages on the packaging (stay tuned for the story on that one with photos)!