Weekend @ Coachella

Every inch of my body aches. I am so exhausted I can’t even sleep! I feel like I just finished running the LA Marathon. But I guess three days of partying in 95+ degree weather is just as, if not more exhausting, than running a marathon. I am still in Palm Springs because neither Bradley nor I had the energy to drive all the way home. But for some reason I can’t fall asleep!

The weekend completely smashed last year’s fun BIG TIME! The music was AMAZING, the parties were INSANE, and Bradley was there to enjoy all of it with me. As always Jack left me drooling all over the place fantasizing about the day when I can put his head in my lap as I feed him grapes. VHS or Beta were pretty awesome. The Breeders totally kicked ass! And MIA kind of sucked, but not as bad as Vampire Weekend (they have absolutely no stage presence). At the parties I got to meet a lot of the other reps for this company I work for. They were from all over the world, but we did let language or culture get in our way as we instantly bonded over our affinity for crazy parties!

Today was chill because I was only interested in catching one band (Gogol Bordello and they totally ROCKED!), and all the parties happened on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. But back to Saturday, Portishead performing was probably one of the greatest things I have ever seen in my entire life! Oh my god! I know I was a fan before, but now, I FUCKING LOVE THEM! You guys all understand how much I love Jack right? So you have to know how much further a band must go to dethrone him as my highlight of the weekend. Portishead was the best thing at Coachella 2008 hands down!

My 3 favorite performances of the weekend would have to be #1 Portishead, #2 Jack Johnson, and #3 The Verve. Sorry guys, I just don’t understand what the deal is with Prince… He just seems like such a freak to me. Does that make me a bad gay? Because the gays like prince or something right? If so, sorry that I am such a traitor to my people and what not.

Bradley’s Coachella experience, well at least the musical aspect of it, was very different from mine. Most of the bands he wanted to see conflicted with the bands that I wanted to see. So he was off watching Vampire Weekend, Flogging Molly, and The Cold War Kids, I think… But once it was time to start the parties, he was right there with me living it up. I guess it should come as no surprise to anybody that my 6’3 boyfriend can drink me under the table, but let it be known that I can totally smoke him out (get your minds out of the gutter! This has nothing to do with sex!).

Take 2

I know that I have been going to Coachella way more than two times, but this is going to be my second year going in an official capacity. Once again, I am heading out to Palm Springs today for all of my pre-festival briefings with the suits. Then I am going to start my weekend of drunken partying!

This year is going to be especially exciting for me because Jack Johnson is FINALLY returning to Coachella after a 2 year hiatus! ANd don't even get me started on Portishead! I thought they were dead or had broken up or something. I am so excited about seeing them that there's a chance I might wet my pants if I think about it too much.

My employers got me some passes into this morning radio show that an LA radio station called KROQ does, "Kevin and Bean's Breakfast with..." They are doing a special one out in Indio around Jack Johnson, which I am super psyched about! These shows are always amazing because they are so small and extremely intimate. I have been to quite a few of them, my favorite being Incubus for their, Morning View, album. It was definitely in my top 5 most amazing musical experiences ever! And well worth the 5am trip to fucking Calabasas. Trust me when I say there are very few things that will make me go all the way the fuck to the Valley, and Incubus is definitely one of them.

Well it's time to start packing up the car. I think Bradley is even more excited than I am. It's so cute when he starts spazzing out and gets really excited about things. He is usually so calm and collected, so it's really fun to see that he is actually capable of acting like the teenager that he really is! I am such the cradle robber and God is seriously going to punish me...

Some clarification

Apparently most of you guys couldn't figure out what special holiday I was celebrating over the weekend. I was trying to be all coy about it, but I also thought I was being pretty obvious with the pic. Going from left to right Tyler is holding up 4 fingers, Farmer Ted 2, and I am showing you guys 0. Now put them together and that will give you 420.

420 is a term used as a discreet way to refer to the consumption of cannabis and, by extension, a way to identify oneself with the drug subculture around cannabis. Marijuana users observe 4:20 as a time to smoke communally. By extension April 20 (4/20) has evolved into a counterculture holiday, where people gather to celebrate and consume weed.

SO basically I spent my weekend getting really high and eating a lot of fast food. I wasn't trying to be cryptic about it because I don't understand the stigma surrounding marijuana. They say it makes you stupid and fat, but I have a degree in engineering and no pot belly to speak of. Not to mention all of my aunts and uncles that also enjoy a good toke and hold advanced degrees in a plethora of subjects (and not a fattie among them). Besides, I would be more ashamed to admit that I smoke tobacco than cannabis.

The holiday weekend

This is a picture of my best buddy Tyler (on the left), me (on the right), and our homeboy Farmer Ted (in the middle). Farmer Ted invited us over to his secret headquarters to celebrate his latest harvest on this very special weekend. It was good times, I especially loved getting some extra bonding time in with Tyler. Lately we have both been so busy, him with his "suit" job and me with my ummm "un-suit" job (haha I wear board shorts and occasionally a T-shirt to work)!

I am finally back in SD recovering. Bradley is going to this party and getting totally trashed tonight (in honor of the holiday weekend of course), so I am basically stuck here on the couch all alone. You would think he'd want to stay home because he missed me so much after not seeing me for a week, BUT NO!!! I guess I can't really fault him, I have basically spent the last week partying a lot harder than he is going to tonight. I just miss him and all of his muscles. Besides I need my 5 minutes of spooning so I can roll over and go to sleep!

The Butler's Pantry

Mrs Tyler: I was just calling to see how things are going.
Me: Good. Just watching a lot of TV with Bailey (the 200lb dog).
Mrs. Tyler: That's good mijo I am glade you are taking this time to relax! You work too hard.
Me: Well the only thing I have on the agenda today is to head over to the grocery store to go buy more dog food because we are just about out.
Mrs Tyler: I just bought a lot of dog food right before we left and I stored it in the butler's pantry.


Before I continue I would just like to point out that I have been living in this house for years! Before I moved in I spent just as much time here as I did after I moved in. This place has always been a second home to me and in 15 years of me being aware of this house I had never heard of or been into the fucking butler's pantry!


Me: Ummm... What the hell is a butler's pantry? Do we have a butler? Is he a ninja because I have never seen him!?
Mrs Tyler: It's that closet where we temporarily store things before moving them to somewhere else.
Me: Oh!!! I know where that is!


Promptly after hanging up with Mrs Tyler, I called Tyler.


Me: DUDE! Do you know where the butler's pantry is?
Tyler: What the fuck's a butler's pantry!?

And that was all I needed to hear. At first I thought that Mrs. Tyler actually made up the term, but then I looked it up on Wikipedia. There it was right in front of me! The FUCKING butler's pantry! Apparently it's where the butler goes when he's not butlering. He goes into this pantry and he spends his time counting and polishing the silver, and then sleeping on it.

After all these years, I am still learning something new everyday!

Home AGAIN!

I am in LA at the Tyler's house sitting for a few days until the person who is really supposed to be here taking care of the dog and watering the plants gets back from a trip to Mexico. People have NO idea how boring it is being back home 2 weeks in a row! There is absolutely nothing to do in this stupid equestrian community out in the middle of nowhere. It's the little things I miss, like walking down the street to get a smoothie, or actually being able to see the next door neighbor's house! It's about a 15 minute drive up the narrow switchbacks to the nearest store and about a 5 minute walk to the neighbor's house.

This morning I woke up early to go meet a friend at the beach. He goes to this art school in Pasadena and wanted to get some shots of me in the ocean. The waves weren't very impressive this morning, but I did get a very relaxing session. Afterwards we headed over to my house to check out the pics. I was actually pretty impressed with some of the shots. So yeah, that's me cruising in mellowtown.

I am soooo BORED! This is the last time I agree to come up here to housesit. I would have much rather preferred bringing the dog down to SD until the Tyler's got back from their trip and that is exactly what I am going to do the next time they suggest this. You know your day is pretty lame when the most exciting thing on your agenda is taking the dog for a walk.

Public Urination...

Apparently I went to sleep last night and this morning when I woke up I was in a world where it’s okay to take pictures of drunken guys as they urinate in public! These pictures have made their way to a bunch of my friend’s stupid online profiles and emails all over the world. My friends are sooo mean to me it’s not even funny! So I guess I figured that since everybody I know have now seen me pee in somebody’s front yard, all you people I don’t know should get to see it also! Well just as long as I cut the picture so you can’t see my face first…

Last night I went to a going away party for a friend that is moving back to Colorado. Apparently So Cal people were a bit too much for his mild mannered Colorado Springs ways. He says that he got sick of all the vapid people and the fast pace way do things here, but I think he just got tired of all the competition! This dude is seriously attractive and in most situations he could easily be one of the sexiest guys in the room. And that’s the problem! I think he got used to being THE sexiest guy in the region and now that he lives in Southern California, he’s just another pretty face with a six pack. The prettier they are, the more they need their ego's stroked and the reassurance that they are special on a regular basis. It's like taking care of a 4 year old for the rest of your life!

I blame Colorado guy for my salacious pictures because if it weren't for is insistence that I drink with him I would have never gotten so wasted that I urinate in some random person's flower bed at 2 in the morning! Well at least I get to show off how I can multi-task. How many people do you know that can smoke a cigarette and pee while completely drunk off their ass!? HAHAHA! Please don't send me emails, I do realize that this isn't a very unique skill. Just being facetious.

Sunshine!

It was sooo beautiful today that Bradley and I canceled all our plans and spent the day frolicking with our shirts off! I didn't really get anything done, or come to any life altering decisions, but today is definitely going to be one of those days I am going to remember when I am stuck in a retirement home with a broken hip.

Words fail me when trying to articulate what made this day so wonderful for me, because it really wasn't any thing in particular. It was just one of those freak days where the amazing weather, an amazing boyfriend, and the ability to appreciate it, all came together at the exact same moment! I usually hate it when people tell me how lucky I am and how they would kill to have my life, because most days when I wake up it takes everything I have to not sit in bed all day crying. But right now I can totally see where they are coming from because today I was reminded just how lucky I really am.

Should I stay or should I go!?

At this time every year I always have plans that are pretty much set in stone. Then the camp offers start coming in! People from camps I worked at in previous years, and then people who I have worked with that have decided to start their own camps, to people who have just heard about me from somebody that works for them that wants me to come and give their camp a try. Inevitably I change my plans that were set in stone, thus making me feel like a complete douche for bailing on something that had very little chance of me following through with in the first place.

A perfect example would be last summer. I was supposed to come back from Asia, then go to work form my aunt in NYC for the ENTIRE summer. I ended up working for her for less than 2 weeks before taking off for surf camp in California! Every summer I always think I know EXACTLY what I am going to do, then BAM all of a sudden I am doing something completely unexpected.

This year seems to be shaping up to be no different than any other summer. I was planning on spending a nice relaxing summer in LA hanging out with my friends and going to a couple of different gallery openings one of which would be featuring a few pieces from yours truly. Then on Monday I received a call from the director of the surf camp I worked for last summer. Basically he started this new program and was completely booked 3 days later, so he added a second session which proceeded to be booked just as fast! He needed somebody to lead the camps onsite and he couldn’t think of anybody better than me to do it.

Once he told me what I would be doing I think I squealed like a school girl! I was just sooo fucking excited that there was no way I could contain myself. If I am being 100% honest here, I would have paid him just to let me work for him so I could go on these trips this summer! What am I going to be doing that has gotten me so amped up you ask!? Well for the first month I am going to be on a luxury yacht that is going to be taking myself and 20 campers to some of the best surf spots in Polynesia. Then for the second month I am going to be going to 3 separate surf resorts in 3 of the most amazingly beautiful places in South America! OMG! I am still screeching like a little girl just thinking about it!

Okay I need to slow down a little. I am talking about these trips like I have already said yes to the offer and I have taken the job (Which I haven’t)! I still have a lot of things to consider before making such a rash decision. None of those things really come to mind at the moment, but I am sure there is something important I am forgetting here… Whatever, I told the surf director I would give him my answer by Monday. I am most likely going to say yes, because frankly, I haven’t been able to stop talking about it since he told me.

Weekend with the Fam

At Christmas when all the Tyler’s and myself were together, I asked Mrs. Tyler what she wanted for her birthday. She told me that all she wanted was for me and Tyler to come home for the weekend so she could take care of us like she used to. I told her, and Tyler agreed, that this was no way to spend her birthday because her birthday was all about her! But she insisted, so obviously we eventually gave in.

This past weekend was Mrs. Tyler’s birthday weekend. Tyler and I went over and let her cook us lots and lots of food, and let her take us places like we did when we were little, but we weren’t about to let our presence (though in some circles that alone would be worth our weight in gold!) be the only present she received. So in conjunction with my aunt, who is a jeweler, I designed Mrs. Tyler the most beautiful platinum locket ever to be created, and Tyler paid for it!

I also gave him first dibs on what he thought the inscription on the back should say. But Tyler really sucks at expressing his feelings in words, so his words were relegated to the card instead of the locket. The card read, “We know we made it easy, but thanks for loving us anyway!” When she opened it she immediately looked at Tyler, because she knew that he had written it, and we all laughed.

I struggled with the words on the back of the locket for awhile. I couldn’t figure out if I wanted something simple, or something really personal, or something so sentimental it almost came off as cheesy. In the end I decided to go with simple, especially since I went through the trouble of designing the locket, and I put so much of myself into it that you could tell just by looking at it that it was mine. It said, “We love you”, and she loved it. She got all watery eyed and then she gave both of us kisses and hugs and told us that she loved us too.

Then I let her know that it was a locket and she could slide it open and there was a picture of me and Tyler inside. Selecting a picture to go in the locket was even harder than selecting the phrase to go on the back! Tyler and I couldn’t decide if we wanted to take a new picture or use an old one. Then we decided to just use and old one because neither of us really wanted to go and get our pictures taken. Then the big challenge became trying to figure out which picture to use! We have over 16 years of pictures and all of them are fucking awesome as hell because WE are in them, so as you can see, this was quite the challenge.

Finally we narrowed it down to 2 pictures. One of the pics were of us at summer camp. It was the first summer we’d spent together after meeting the previous school year. We both looked so sweet and innocent in the picture that nobody would have guessed we would eventually grow into the men we currently are! And the other pic was us on prom night at the height of our craziness. We looked like pure evil and you could tell we were about to cause some serious trouble wherever we were about to go, but we looked sooo happy in the pic that you couldn’t help but smile looking at it.

The second she slid it open and saw what was inside, the waterworks started! And that’s when I knew I had chosen the right picture. This picture has a lot of sentimental value to all of us. For Tyler and I this was the summer when we became brothers, and to Mrs. Tyler, she says this was the moment she gained another son. This was an especially hard year on me because when this picture was taken my father wasn’t speaking to me because of the child abuse charges filed against my stepmother and my real mother was too busy dealing with my drug addict stepfather who beat her on a regular basis. Mrs. Tyler took this picture of us, and the thing I remember most about this day, was how she made me feel like I mattered. And there hasn’t been a day since where she has ever made me feel differently.

The rest of the weekend was awesome! We rented movies, went swimming, ate tons of delicious food Mrs. Tyler made herself, Mr. Tyler barbecued, and we just sat around talking for hours. I am still basking in the afterglow of my much needed weekend of R&R. I feel like it was more a present to me than it was for Mrs. Tyler.

The Party Bus

Last night I went to a different kind of party...

If you live in LA then you have definitely seen the vehicle that the party took place on. It was one of those shiny completely blacked out buses that look like those shuttles that take you around the airport. It wasn't my first party in one of these god awful debauchery chambers on wheels, but it was definitely the craziest! I guess it was my fault for being in LA and letting my friends know I was in town in the first place.


It started as most good parties do. With my reluctance to take part in the evening's festivities. But I am weak and usually give into peer pressure easily. All it took this time was 3 people practically kidnapping me and throwing me onto the bus against my will. When they opened the door of the bus, this HUGE cloud of smoke basically engulfed me. I was completely gone with just a 3 second contact high! At that point I decided that resistance was futile, so I began to party like a rockstar.

There's really not much to say after that... I drank and laughed and ummm smoked some wacky tabacky. LOL! It was actually a lot of fun and something that I probably really needed. Sometimes a boy really just needs to cut loose a little.


When I finally got back to Tyler's place it was almost 3 in the morning. I totally drunk dialed Bradley and embarrassed myself before finally passing out on Tyler's bed. HAHA! I know! I am such the considerate houseguest for stealing his bed, but that's how I roll. I am sooo thirsty right now I think I am going to die. My plans for the day include drinking all the bottled water in the house and then heading out for a Jamba Juice.