Here’s that cute cat again. I think it’s Bo that took the floor in this shot to play with it in the morning. That morning So Adult and Deep Pockets were to be playing in Goleta, California, which is in the Santa Barbara area.

After some breakfast tacos at that local “franchise” spot we drove the scenic route along the water to Santa Barbara. I think I had a middle seat so no pictures of the water from the window. Water’s water though, so fuck it. I got some later.

I actually found a camera store that had 120 film and I was able to replenish my stores and reserves.

Our first stop, after peeing at Starbucks of course, was some over priced record store.

I spotted a really tight Suicidal shirt at that place but wasn’t able to pay the asking price. I’d rather just make another one (where the fuck did that last one go!?)

Here’s Joe in front of his cafe. What a torn up young man.

After the record store we hung out on the strip next to some fake crust punk beggar types. They smelled like shit but had iphones and new sneakers. Fuck that type of person. If you pay a phone bill then you can fucking shower.

I think maybe Bo found some good shit in that place?

Conor got something that seemed to look like an oversized floppy disk. And I meant floppy disk, not the plastic ones that people continued to call floppy.

Here’s some palm trees. Reminds me of the Beach Bummed single.

The So Adult guys are like dieting teens and are obsessed with 16 Handles. I saw them make at least 4 stops before I finally caved on the fifth.

Now they got me going to the local one with all the weird fake Miami Astorians.

After we had our fill of the strip area we headed over to the beach. Check out this weird fucking seagull-pigeon. I don’t think that’s a technical term but seriously… that’s what that is. Am I right? Maybe you have to see the high res…

I took a little walk over to the cliffs while the other dudes were either napping or swimming. Check out this weird death trap thing. I’m sure it’s fine actually.

I was watching this dude fish off the edge and not get a single tug. Sucks. Teach a man to fish and he’s still hungry sometimes.

Oh and look at this, behind us… fuckin mountains again!

This lady was walking her kid pretty close to the edge and I was getting a little nervous because I wonder how parents can be so dumb. Not fully captured here though.

This shit reminded me of Montauk kind of. And the Capital song.

That’s me.

This is the river or stream or bay or something. Pretty awesome nature jazz.

Back to base camp to catch up with the other weiners.

Jwow’s a big fan of no shoein it. Not shown in this particular frame was a team of competitive cheerleaders doing all sorts of fancy lift and throw moves. Reminds me of the high school wrestler Mike Brendli.Wonder if he’s still a champ.

Here’s one of Justin’s of Matt putting hisself into the Pacific for the first time. Good moment for sure.

After the beach we made our way to the show space, which was really awesome. Check out this weird brain thing. Art.

I think Joe’s humping it in this one? I dunno, Justin’s pics again. We got some over priced college food a few blocks away before the show which was pretty banging even though the price sucked shit. When we got back we met back with with Funds and met his German wife, who was awesome. I chatted quite a bit with the dudes from Become, who were really awesome. Reminded me a bit of a west coast Everything Sucks maybe. They definitely had a Citizen’s Arrest meets Rites of Spring vibe. I spoke to one of the guys for a while because he used to live in NYC and had a few stories about it. Really nice guy.

Here’s some more vids of these guys playing their shitty songs, or other people’s songs that they made shitty.

Nah sike. Joe riffs a bit in this one about downloadable t-shirts which was funny. Someone bootleg recorded the show apparently. I can’t find a link for it but it definitely exists.

After the show we went to some grocery market chain they got out there and I copped some Nutella and pretzels. Perfect combo. We stayed at the Become house. I was searchin for space and found some under a table. It seemed like a nice quiet and out of the way nook so I took it. Everyone else assumed it was because I was earthquake nervous. It wasn’t, but they can think that if they want.

This guy has a new BR tattoo right above that PMA now. We left Santa Barbara to head to some of our last stops at this point. More shit to come though.

As fore-mentioned we were leaving and heading on our way to Fresno from San Jose. If I’m not mistaken this was the first time I was driving the van. I am almost positive of this fact because I have no documentation of this portion of the trip at all. I remember driving through crazy mountains and the front drivers side seat being really fucking hot in traffic. I remember Bo havin to pee like a racehorse at some point. I remember a huge lake thing that was super blue. I don’t remember much else other than the fact that we were warned Fresno could be a little on the sketchy side. We got there and it seemed pretty tame but maybe it was just the area we were in. The show was pretty wack. Best parts of the night: Justin correcting Matt on his title of the record – “I thought it was gonna be called Psychedelic Tits!” – Justin Williams inside a Youth Center. And during So Adult’s set Joe ran up the quarter pipe that was planted on the side of the venue and did a sort of 180 during the crazy noise part of the song. Derek had some amp issues maybe? We played real fast and split right quick making a total of like 12 dollars. Big money, beb. We were on our way to L.A. to stay with the Dulterer’s pal Funds.

We had a nice drive out to LA packed with sleepover discussion from the boys. Once we actually got to Funds’ neighborhood a few of of us headed over to 7-11 for snacks. This Pizza Man “He Delivers” sign was the first thing I saw. Immediately I understood the DFL song for the first time. We saw some interesting things on the walk there and back, once we got back we basically crashed. The next day was to be a big one.

SOAK CITY USAAAAA. We went to a water park, one of the most highly anticipated things on this trip. And totally justified…

Here is one picture of the highlight. This four way tube thing that you got into and blast through a pitch black tunnel and dropped straight down. Once heading down it was like a huge half pipe. Totally awesome all day except most of us got totally roasted by that big yellow thing in the sky. Bobby and Derek were worse off.

Here’s a weird panoramic glitch where Joe just faded into oblivion.

I may have my days off but I think we got Thai food afterwards? Or maybe that was the day before… I don’t know. The food was pretty good out there.

One of Justin’s pics cause I was burnt out. We went and saw The Dark Knight Rises in IMAX in Hollywood later that night making this the mega crazy day of fun activity. Joe and I really enjoy soda beverages, which is why we’re Bubble Dragon (you’ll learn more of that later), and he also has to pee a lot. He pees so much he became a master of peeing stealthily in plain sight. He challenged me to catch him in the act during the movie. He sat next to me and peed into a bottle and I totally did not notice. What a champ!

The next day after getting home at like 3 am. Con-Air doing some post cards. I did not do any this trip cause it fully slipped my mind.

Here’s a painting that was hanging in Zach’s place, I don’t understand it but I love it.

We headed out to enjoy some sandwich / breakfast spot Funds / Zach recommended.

We had to park the van up on a hill so there was a lot of standing around waiting for it to be retrieved.

Bed head Joe. Good look…

Bobby brought out the Waynes World hat! Fuck yes. We had one of those in my house hold too. I remember we ordered it from the rip off tab in the cassette soundtrack or something 90s like that.

Check out the palm trees. Lots of those around.

On our way to this sandwichy spot. I had a super banging meal that morning and an awesome s’mores dessert.

We came back and dropped Funds off because we were on our way to Amoeba and he would not be joining us. Conor stuck his tongue out at Justin.

We thanked Funds for his hospitality and bid him farewell. This would not be the last we saw of him though.

So when I walked into this place I expected it to be Mecca because I’ve heard so many stories. I didn’t find as much as I thought I would straight away. I did end up spending quite a bit and found some really sweet presents for Ms. Chuck D but it wasn’t that immediate like “wow, look at this and this and this!” like I thought.

Here’s some Hollywood ass shit.

Here is some more. A drifter fellow in the Jack In The Box. Big Matt told Matt he had to eat in like 4 fast food places before he left the west coast or he would be disowned. He didn’t make it to one of the four but they’re still cool.

After Amoeba we walked over to a Goodwill in Hollywood.

Joe made the best find obviously… Back To The Future on VHS! Oh and that hat is pretty great too…

Justin and window palm trees outside

Hey there’s that Hollywood sign people talk so much about.

The four-eyed members of the tour went into a photobooth at the shopping area and picked themselves up this little ditty. Afterwards we were on our way to Long Beach to stay with a friend of theirs from the band Merry Christmas (I think). Our show didn’t work out in Long Beach which sucked but they still offered to put us up. Good thing because I got to eat some of the most banging Mexican on the tour twice! Once that night during which an apparent earthquake happened but we didn’t feel it.

One of the best parts about this stop is right here. This fuckin kitty! AHH. It was so cute. This night was fun we did tons of watching viral videos like Let’s Paint, Exercise, and Blend Drinks TV! (which I turned So Adult onto a bit earlier on the trip). We found out later that the people from Let’s Paint.. did a live version of the show at Rasputin in Berkeley like two days after we left. Such a bummer.

I basically spent the entire night playing with this one.

I mean look at that thing.

How could you not bite that

Totally a crazy cat lady. Anyway, it was a good night and I slept in the fart room again which sucked, but at least it was quiet.

The next morning I woke up to a totally new sensation. Was a semi driving by? Nope. An aftershock from the earthquake reported the night before. To Californians it was just like a baby burp but that was a feeling not felt by yours truly before.

I think me and Derek were the only ones who felt it. He was already awake on his laptop and researched it. Apparently our 9:15ish aftershock was a 4.5 or something. I remember waking up and looking at the sliding glass door of the room I was sleeping in and thinking “should I get in that door frame? Is this serious enough? Should I wake these guys up and ask their opinion?”

Before we left for more tacos and to be on our way to the next spot I took a stroll through the neighborhood to find a cool drink. I had to alert my fellow Bubble Dragon to the existence of a slurpee like beverage. On the walk back I saw fuckin hummingbirds. That’s like nature channel shit. So weird. To be continued soon.