December 31st, 2002.
99 Days on the road.
Last night we rolled into Pasadena. It must have been around 7:00pm when we hit the heart of the city, and despite the fact that I hardly ever take the wheel of this beast, I was tired as hell.
I was thinking back on the conversation I'd had with my Dad over the phone before we left the three million dollar flop house that Flanny's Aunt n' Uncle had bestowed us with for Christmas in the Pacific Palisades. I asked him if he had any suggestions on where we should go for New Years and he recommended Pasadena, for the annual Rose Bowl Parade was happening the next day. We didn't have any other ideas so off we went.
What we saw upon entering the city was too much of a sight to describe justifiably. The streets were overflowing with people... all kinds of people, from families to thugs, white color to blue. All walks of life were present and accounted for. We found a lucky spot to park n' stay the night and then took to the streets to walk amongst the Americans. It didn't take us too long to grab our supplies for the evening's event; A 40 of rum, a mickey of the infamous Black Velvet, a pack of cigars, and a 99 cent big-ass polish sausage, which I ate raw with Mr. Noodles for dinner.
We didn't mingle with the street crowd for very long. We had devised our own agenda. We hopped back into the motor-home and I set up the video camera while Matty and Flan started writing down the names of all our boys back home. There was about 30 in total, so the math worked out like this; we each did a shot for 3 friends at a time, every 13 minutes until the clock struck midnight. No chasers either.
I really don't remember when we started, but I do remember finishing. And by the end of the night were three proud and extremely drunk individuals. With only a small hand-full of minutes until the ball dropped, we jumped out of the motor-home and got immediately separated amongst the mob mentality crowd. I ran up n' down the streets with the video camera, going ape-shit with everyone else. I actually started the countdown on the one side of the street. Everyone was in banner spirits, and it didn't shake me at all that I had no idea where Matt n' Flanny were.
Not long after that, the lights went out in my head and only the playback on the video camera would give us some vague answers the next day.
January 1st, 2003.
100 days on the road.
I woke up in my own piss today. No biggy, except that there are three beds in the motor-home, and we alternate almost every night because they differ in size and comfort. Damned if I wasn't sleeping in the best one. My mind was bombarded with so much happiness when I woke to find that we had all made it back alive, that I really couldn't care less about my mishap. Plus I'm quite certain that Flan already beat me to the punch on this one.
We all seemed to spring to life at the same time, and there was so much going on outside it took a while to sink in. Brand new day, brand new year. Three tight friends at the Rose Bowl Parade with once-in-a-lifetime hangovers. The door to the motor-home swung open and we slowly exited, letting our fragile eyes adjust to omnipresent sun. Three stealth bombers zoomed by overhead of us in a deafening noise that stirred our headaches like can of rotten fruit. I was happy to see them for the first time but I have no idea how those things can be called 'stealth.'
Out on the street things were booming with even more life than the night before and in our careless mentality, we walked into the middle of the road and lied down in a circle to make our presence known. It wasn't a conscious decision on anyone's part either. I think we all just wanted to be in the heart of all the excitement. We didn't talk much and we didn't need to. I've noticed that the communication patterns of my buddies and I are always on point when we're forced to share the burden/blessing of a hangover. There was definitely a shared feeling of re-birth circulating amongst this massive crowd, and for a good 10 minutes there, nobody had a problem with anybody. Too bad every day can't share the magic of January 1st.
A couple people came by and took pictures of us lying out there on the street, and then we were finally told to get up because the parade was on it's way. It turned out to be awesome, much like any other parade, except bigger, longer and better. Bill Cosby and Mr. Rogers were the grand marshals. I doubt I'll ever see a parade like that again.
Later on, in the midst of it all, I had an embarrassing "only you" kind of moment. Well, it was more than a moment, and I'm funk dubious to write about it so I've decided not to. I can tell it better in person.
The parade was winding down. It was time to leave Pasadena and move on up the P.C.H to find 'Sharkey's', the tattoo studio of Opie Ortiz- the man who was responsible for all of Sublime's album artwork and tattoos, of course. We had a clearly drawn out mission for the remainder of the day. But it wasn't going to be easy. Our hangovers had kicked into a new gear, and getting out of town was a lot more challenging than we had ever imagined. We forgot to consider the rest of the parade traffic. I don't know how long it took us to get on the highway, but it got to the point where we were all babbling incoherently, with a healthy mix of laughter and Buju Banton tunes. Truly a beautiful day.
Finally, we arrived in Sunset Beach to find it was basically just a main drag on the side of the highway.
With oblivious luck we pulled off and parked in front of a small shop that turned out to be Sharky's. Good news- we found it with no problem. Bad news- it was closed. But we were already stoked and motivated to get our first tattoos. We saw that right across the street was another parlor called 'American Beauty' so we stumbled over to get some ideas and decide how long we were going to stay in town until we found Opie. We walked in to the sound of wild, underground hip-hop. The shop was small but impressive looking. There was burnt out looking dude, prepping another guy for a tattoo and an intimidating mexican working vigorously on a sketch pad in front of us. He stood up and smiled as he walked to the back of the room. He had no front teeth. It was the man himself, Opie Ortiz.
A few hours later we were hot-boxing his washroom.
99 Days on the road.
Last night we rolled into Pasadena. It must have been around 7:00pm when we hit the heart of the city, and despite the fact that I hardly ever take the wheel of this beast, I was tired as hell.
I was thinking back on the conversation I'd had with my Dad over the phone before we left the three million dollar flop house that Flanny's Aunt n' Uncle had bestowed us with for Christmas in the Pacific Palisades. I asked him if he had any suggestions on where we should go for New Years and he recommended Pasadena, for the annual Rose Bowl Parade was happening the next day. We didn't have any other ideas so off we went.
What we saw upon entering the city was too much of a sight to describe justifiably. The streets were overflowing with people... all kinds of people, from families to thugs, white color to blue. All walks of life were present and accounted for. We found a lucky spot to park n' stay the night and then took to the streets to walk amongst the Americans. It didn't take us too long to grab our supplies for the evening's event; A 40 of rum, a mickey of the infamous Black Velvet, a pack of cigars, and a 99 cent big-ass polish sausage, which I ate raw with Mr. Noodles for dinner.
We didn't mingle with the street crowd for very long. We had devised our own agenda. We hopped back into the motor-home and I set up the video camera while Matty and Flan started writing down the names of all our boys back home. There was about 30 in total, so the math worked out like this; we each did a shot for 3 friends at a time, every 13 minutes until the clock struck midnight. No chasers either.
I really don't remember when we started, but I do remember finishing. And by the end of the night were three proud and extremely drunk individuals. With only a small hand-full of minutes until the ball dropped, we jumped out of the motor-home and got immediately separated amongst the mob mentality crowd. I ran up n' down the streets with the video camera, going ape-shit with everyone else. I actually started the countdown on the one side of the street. Everyone was in banner spirits, and it didn't shake me at all that I had no idea where Matt n' Flanny were.
Not long after that, the lights went out in my head and only the playback on the video camera would give us some vague answers the next day.
January 1st, 2003.
100 days on the road.
I woke up in my own piss today. No biggy, except that there are three beds in the motor-home, and we alternate almost every night because they differ in size and comfort. Damned if I wasn't sleeping in the best one. My mind was bombarded with so much happiness when I woke to find that we had all made it back alive, that I really couldn't care less about my mishap. Plus I'm quite certain that Flan already beat me to the punch on this one.
We all seemed to spring to life at the same time, and there was so much going on outside it took a while to sink in. Brand new day, brand new year. Three tight friends at the Rose Bowl Parade with once-in-a-lifetime hangovers. The door to the motor-home swung open and we slowly exited, letting our fragile eyes adjust to omnipresent sun. Three stealth bombers zoomed by overhead of us in a deafening noise that stirred our headaches like can of rotten fruit. I was happy to see them for the first time but I have no idea how those things can be called 'stealth.'
Out on the street things were booming with even more life than the night before and in our careless mentality, we walked into the middle of the road and lied down in a circle to make our presence known. It wasn't a conscious decision on anyone's part either. I think we all just wanted to be in the heart of all the excitement. We didn't talk much and we didn't need to. I've noticed that the communication patterns of my buddies and I are always on point when we're forced to share the burden/blessing of a hangover. There was definitely a shared feeling of re-birth circulating amongst this massive crowd, and for a good 10 minutes there, nobody had a problem with anybody. Too bad every day can't share the magic of January 1st.
A couple people came by and took pictures of us lying out there on the street, and then we were finally told to get up because the parade was on it's way. It turned out to be awesome, much like any other parade, except bigger, longer and better. Bill Cosby and Mr. Rogers were the grand marshals. I doubt I'll ever see a parade like that again.
Later on, in the midst of it all, I had an embarrassing "only you" kind of moment. Well, it was more than a moment, and I'm funk dubious to write about it so I've decided not to. I can tell it better in person.
The parade was winding down. It was time to leave Pasadena and move on up the P.C.H to find 'Sharkey's', the tattoo studio of Opie Ortiz- the man who was responsible for all of Sublime's album artwork and tattoos, of course. We had a clearly drawn out mission for the remainder of the day. But it wasn't going to be easy. Our hangovers had kicked into a new gear, and getting out of town was a lot more challenging than we had ever imagined. We forgot to consider the rest of the parade traffic. I don't know how long it took us to get on the highway, but it got to the point where we were all babbling incoherently, with a healthy mix of laughter and Buju Banton tunes. Truly a beautiful day.
Finally, we arrived in Sunset Beach to find it was basically just a main drag on the side of the highway.
With oblivious luck we pulled off and parked in front of a small shop that turned out to be Sharky's. Good news- we found it with no problem. Bad news- it was closed. But we were already stoked and motivated to get our first tattoos. We saw that right across the street was another parlor called 'American Beauty' so we stumbled over to get some ideas and decide how long we were going to stay in town until we found Opie. We walked in to the sound of wild, underground hip-hop. The shop was small but impressive looking. There was burnt out looking dude, prepping another guy for a tattoo and an intimidating mexican working vigorously on a sketch pad in front of us. He stood up and smiled as he walked to the back of the room. He had no front teeth. It was the man himself, Opie Ortiz.
A few hours later we were hot-boxing his washroom.
