With a head full of mexican beer, OG Kush and doing 100mph down the Pacific Highway in a beaten up Honda to Hollywood it was starting to look like we'd made it into a Jack Kerouac novel.
When we arrived in Long Beach we had nowhere to go, nothing to do and nowhere to sleep. Some guy told us about a skate shop called East 4th and a noodle bar about 10 blocks from Long Beach transit mall. The walk was long and tedious and it turns out we still didn't fully understand the grid system. We met Rudy De Anda, who waited our table in Number Nine, a small Vietnamese resturant on East 4th. After important pleasentries, Rudy invited us to a local house party, which sounded a lot better than re-runs of family guy in our hotel room. So without hesitation we purchashed a few 40oz beers and began drinking in a nearby skate park waiting for the optimum time to join the festivities, but were soon rustled by the cops and asked to move on.
This cat was going through the painful process of brewing his own ale. He let us try some of his home brew at which we referred to as 'sludge' due to the fact it tasted like swamp mud. He'd forgotten to carbonate his batch.
The only thing the party lacked was a circle of stoners saying weird shit like in That 70's show
After adding twenty minutes of carbonation we tried some more sludge.
Colt 45 and a lot of pot.
Christian Death
We woke up at Rudy's house with the faint smell of pot and damp in the air, littered with the remnents of the night before. The moment we woke up, Rudy left for work, leaving us full reign of his house.
Purely recreational drug use.
We stopped in for another nutritional Vietnamese lunch, on the house.
Immediately after a brief introduction, a girl called Brenna offered us a place to stay for a couple weeks.
Home is were the futon's are
It was a beautiful family home, minus a conventional family. It did however have a proud American flag drapped in the porch, two cats and a tiny jack russel dressed in an ACDC T-shirt.
Toi on Sunset Blvd.
Half way through our sketchy ride to Hollywood 93.5 fm treated us to some raw west coast hip hop and everything quickly became an all caucasian bay area music video. Trill shit.
Our second night in Long Beach was spent doing a manageble amount of Yoga and then heading down to the bluff for an event with some local artists.
The procession started with a guy who looked like Buddy Holly reading out the rules and regulations of the event, which consisted mainly of; don't interrupt any of the performers, don't laugh at any of the performers and keep the noise to a minimum. Joey Ramone was first to take the stage, he performed a few cover songs from The Who. A guy then recited some spoken word, followed by a few people playing some acoustic music. After everyone had expressed themselves the rest of the misfits got gnarly with some blue ribbon and drugs.
It was a free Yoga class that felt like those manditory excercise sessions you see in the parks of mainland China. It was enjoyable until i saw a man show his ass to a dog. I figured it was some sort of meditation, but still a bit too rich for me, so i followed a woman who was being artistically swept away by the wind and bailed.
Even the homeless in Long Beach seemed pretty cosmopolitan. This guy probably just nipped out to get an espresso.
Skateboarding eyes.
This guy too.
After a delightful vegan lunch Brenna drove us to Hunntington Beach to meet Shon Lindaur.
When we arrived at HB Tattoo everyone from the Palour was getting baked in the back seat of Shon's car.
Then fish taco's
Rosie got a massive arm tattooed on here normal sized arm.
Taxidermy
Romeo and Juliet
Senior managment
An artist from HB Tattoo drove us to Huntington Beach Transit Mall. Hospitality is important here
Although we patiently waited outside somewhere that claimed to have the best burgers in California, the weather got really cold.
I'd mentioned to Rudy that i liked a band called Low Places from Long Beach and before the day was through Rudy had arranged for us to get a lift with the band to their show in Downtown LA. The show was run by CVLT nation and was held in a basement were the use of heroin was highly encouraged. The promoter spent most of the time doing a cocktail of drugs in the bathroom and fending off cops as the show was illegal. The oxy cotton ran heavy and i remember waking up in a beautiful suburban home.
Home made screen printing office.
Skateboarding, sunbathing, walking and rarely washing our clothes.
We watched A$AP Rocky play Coachella live, through a 42" TV Screen. Smoking too much for my tolerancy.
We stopped in at a local skateshop were the owner decided to show me the skatepark in their warehouse. It had been shut dowm for various health and safety reasons.
Looked comfortable though.
Vince worked in a despensiry near Disneyland. Although real risky Vince let us in to purchase some of California's finest organics.
The prices are very reasonable.
Vince
On tour with one of my favourite bands.
America's most wanted.
The van was held together tightly by silly string and saran wrap.
We lost the cat the night everyone smoked DMT and searched the streets for hours afterwards.
We rented a car to drive from San Francisco, via Las Vegas and back to Long Beach. Because i was the only one of our group old enough to rent a car i drove over 800 miles both awake and asleep on my own.
First Baptist Church of Redlands.
We had become part of a small family who made us feel like a local.
Everyone liked Glassjaw but VInce won the game of Bowling.
