So I loaded up the Pickle Sickle and kept my promise! I had told Diane that when I returned home from Sturgis, we would hop on the bike and I would take her to California. She has been working so very hard for so very long and has not had a break in what seems like forever! With the pressure of constantly working and worrying about how to bring in the next buck. When you are in Real Estate these days, it doesn't matter how great at it you are, it is a crazy fickle market and buyers are not beating down your door, you have to hunt them down and she is the great Italian Hunter! When you are use to traveling like we always have, not taking a vacation for a while really makes you miss getting away. So the plan was on and I have to give her credit for sticking to it. In order to beat the heat, you must leave the Valley of the Sun by 5am at the very latest to cross the desert or you will wish you were dead! I knew after only a few hours of sleep, waking her was going to be the most difficult part of the entire trip. I got up nearly an hour early and at 3 am I was double checking the pack and the bike. I told her that she had to be up and at it by 4 am, not a minute later. I feared having to wake her! I came back to the bedroom at 4:01 to hear the shower running and see her bouncing around, man, she really did need to get away!
We pulled out late of course but at least we were on the road just after 5 am. We jammed across the desert for all the Pickle Sickle was worth and even as the temps rose, not a single complaint from my girl. We were off to Southern California to see our friends Chopper Doll, Qian, Betsy and maybe even throw a Bart in there as well, do some riding and spend at least one day being totally lazy on the beach. Within the first 50 miles of the ride, my sciatic nerve got tweaked and no matter what I did, I could not squeeze my legs together to keep them on the floorboards. I did all that I could do to hang on the bike! We were about a 125 miles outside of Seal Beach and we gave a shout to C.D. and told her what was up. "I'll fire up the spa and it will be ready when you get here"! Now that's what I'm talking about! We arrived after stopping at Starbucks to get Diane a monster size drink and load her up with caffeine to keep her going. We were welcomed at her house like we had been friends for 20 years. Within 20 minutes, I was floating like a tea bag in her spa and it literally saved my ass! We chilled for a bit, caught up on some gossip... okay, the girls caught up on some gossip, I just listened from the jacuzzi! Then our friend took us to this kick ass joint right on the beach for lunch! Day one of our mini vacation was off to a great start! By this time though, Diane was about full on running out of gas! I had just enough time to race back to the house, grab my Pickle Sickle and head off to the I RIDE movie premier. I arrived there with nearly 3 minutes to spare, this weekend was going perfectly!
The movie is about the Fryed Brothers Band and their lives and most importantly, about their lives behind bars. Handlebars that is! It was a great movie and it had a pretty damn good turnout for the Long Beach premier. I ran in to old friends, met some new ones and we are going to work on putting on a Phoenix Premier of the movie, so I'll keep you posted on that as it moves forward. I think my favorite part of the movie was seeing brother Miles Squire up there on the screen, healthy, happy and full of life! Squire truly loved the Fryed Brothers Band and when you see the movie, you will see how very much. I got to see guys like Beatnik and Kim Peterson from Biker and In the Wind magazines and friends like Will and Richard who showed up with a hard backed poster of Squire and everyone signed it. It was a nice moment. It was the same one that we hung up on the wall at the Broken Spoke Saloon after Squire's memorial there!
When the movie ended I walked outside to grab a smoke from my saddle bag and get some fresh air as I kept falling asleep during the movie. Don't get me wrong, the movie was great, it's just that I was so fuckin exhausted from getting up at 3 am and riding 400 miles, then eating a big, late lunch and the theater was so cold and nice. I get to the street and the bikes next to me are parked so damn close to mine I had to lean over from the left side of the bike to reach the right side bag. I'm thinkin, what kind of an ass would park his bike this close? I know that a lot of bikes were parked out front and no one wants to park across the street or around the block but what was so damned important about getting in to this spot in front of the theater? Then common sense took over and my eyes began to work and I thought, okay, I'll give them a break this one time. First off, the two bikes that were jammed in next to me were both FXR's and you know my new love for them but it was the paint job on the tank mostly that caused me to give them a bit of leeway!
I guess that they were running a bit late for their own movie premier and had to slip on in to any space that was available, so they put two FXR's in one spot and with the Pickle Sickle there, that made three. How often do you get to see FXR's lined up like that? Well, if you are me, often but not for most people. Wait, I'll show you from another angle, this shit was tight!
It looks like I am carrying his luggage! His bag was literally laying over the top of my saddle bag lid! No there was not that much space available when they pulled in, it was lined with bikes! We walked around the side street, hung out after the movie was over and I watched as everyone had a "safety meeting". We shot some video interviews for the Squire tribute movie and then we all headed over to the Gas Lamp on Pacific Coast Hwy for the after party. I hung out for about 45 minutes, but since Diane was not with me and this trip was all about her, I had to get back to Chopper Doll's house! I raced there as fast as I could and got there only to realize that I wasn't missed much at all, go figure! So being the loyal, loving man that I am, I plopped down on the couch and sat quietly while the girls watched Millionaire Matchmaker and I didn't complain not even once. I do believe I did shout WHORE at the screen a few times....... or more even. I know I promised to take lots of pics from this trip but looking back now, I barely took any. We ate some Chinese food, and I passed out on the couch. Which in the end was a lot more comfortable than the concrete sidewalk next to her garage where I had planned on staying!
Sunday came and we had originally made plans to ride on up to Hollywood and attend a benefit with the entire cast of Sons Of Anarchy. They were helping out with a benefit for soldiers and you guys know how passionate I am on that cause! Later we planned on heading from there over to see our friends Qian and Betsy who was luckily in town at the same time we were! Like they say, plans are meant to be broken and that is just what we did. We slept in and moved like 90 year olds with our depends under garments filled with shit! We never even fired up the bikes until after 1:30 that afternoon! Looks like Hollywood was out! Miss Chopper Doll had us covered and took us on a gorgeous ride through some canyons and through the Cleavland National Forest or some shit. Why anyone in California would name a national forest after Cleavland I have no fuckin idea. Let's name something beautiful after something ugly. Then I thought maybe it's named after President Cleavland and the same thought prevailed, yeup, still fuckin ugly! We rode our asses off and arrived at this bad ass lil bar in the middle of nowhere called Hells Kitchen. The concrete walls were made in the form of human skulls and the walls were cut flames. Well, here, check it out!
We arrived dying of thirst and starving. We got off the bike, stood in the sun which only made us even more thirsty and shot some pics. We walked in to the bar and it was dark as hell. Awesome, I love dark lil hole in the wall bars but this one was REALLY dark. Then I heard the girls voices "Jack, the power is out"! Okay, so we drink and eat outside. Well we can't get anything to drink from the fountain because that needs power and we can't get any condiments because with the power out, the coffin can't be opened and because....... wait, DID YOU SAY THE COFFIN CAN'T BE OPENED? That matters to us why? Does a vampire make drinks and cook the food? "No, we store all the condiments in the casket" the bar maid said.... oh well, that makes complete sense, where else would anyone store condiments?
Eventually the power came back on and I could not help but go open and close the casket! Hey, a guy needs bbq sauce! We sat there and watched as every few minutes a bike cop took off from his little hiding spot between two trees and chased people down to give them tickets. FUCKIN CALIFORNIA trying to make up for their budget shortfalls on the backs of their citizens! It's a disgrace. Needless to say, when we pulled out, we rode with a little less aggression than we did on the way in. Especially after receiving the warnings from others in the lot that cops were both up and down the hill and they had been there all day. Shit, did we blow right past them on the way in? We took off and then headed down the hill and through the canyons back down to Cook's Corner to see if we could still catch the Fryed Brothers on stage. We didn't but we did manage to catch them in the parking lot, not as good but nice anyway. We hung out and as Diane and Chopper Doll began to look on in disgust at the drunken parents who had brought their infant baby to the bar and were speaking of how great it was to be out of prison, especially after being violated so many times by parole officers, I decided to suck down my Jack and Coke and beat a hasty retreat before they ended up back in prison for choking me to death!
You can see the devious looks on their faces here. I knew that they were going to be up to no good so I set up he camera on the timer just to capture this moment while was face was pretty much still reasonably attractive and didn't have boot prints on the side of it yet! The ride out of there through the canyons and then down towards the ocean absolutely rocked! We rode out in to a southern California sunset and it was truly gorgeous. We made it to the freeway, cut across 5 lanes of traffic to the HOV lane and until we hit the exit never once had a single car in front of us! It could not have been more perfect. It had gotten late and now there was no way on earth to make it up to the valley to have dinner with Qian and Betsy so I sent a text saying sorry for missing them. I decided that since it was Diane's vacation, she had the night off and I ran over on the bike to the supermarket, picked up some shit and then came back and destroyed Chopper Doll's kitchen! I whipped up some of my famous Rigatoni w/ vodka sauce alla Jack Shit and we had a kick ass dinner together. Okay, so Diane was not totally off duty, when we were done, being the amazing girl she is, jumped up and cleaned the kitchen and the mess I had made of the most beautiful Viking Stove, thank God, I would not have known where to even start cleaning that shit! We followed it up by eating cookies on the couch and watching more reality tv. Tonight's viewing, Real Housewives Of New Jersey..... shit, I'm married to one, why the fuck do I need to watch it on tv? But being a good man, I sat and we all made fun of these Jersey Bitches! I have not seen that much drama in Jersey since the first party that I attended at Diane's house when we started dating! Our host had to get up early for work and finally told us that we no longer had to sleep outside the garage on the sidewalk and if we wanted to, we could move right on in to the garage, so that was really nice! Hey, I told you she treated us really well didn't I? She went off to bed and Diane and I both fell asleep! That garage was really warm and comfy. We slept so well that we didn't even wake up until near 11am.
To the beach to the beach to the beach we go! We hopped on the bike and rode on down to Seal Beach which for the record, I still, in three trips now have yet to see one fucking seal! So I think there may be some bullshit going on here! I'll keep you posted as my investigation furthers! If you have never been to Seal Beach, you should really get over and check it out. You may remember it from my writing about Born Free Chopper Show and the after party at Chicago Will's place. As it turns out, he lives only two blocks from the ocean. Main St. there is filled with great little shops and restaurant bars. Definitely worth checking out and your ladies will thank you for it, trust me! The beach is like the beaches that I am use to back east. Big and beautiful and a long walk to the water. Great sand and lots of people having a great time made the afternoon perfect. We planted our asses down and staked a claim!
All done with our 2 slice one drink lunch special and ready to hit the beach!
The Beach had a great view. Funny thing is, the sun was so bright that I was shooting the pier and could not see the screen on the camera so I zoomed a bit and hit the button. I laughed afterwards when I saw this!
Sorry, just a Baywatch moment! No Pamela though.... or CJ I think was her name. Hell, no Carmen Electra either, just these three wannabe rockers!
Self Beach Portrait. I was bored, Diane was working!
Even on the beach, even on vacation and even 400 miles from home and she is still on the phone working but this time she is doing it with a smile on her face! That makes me really happy!
By the time we left, this is what the beach looked like and nope, still no damn seals!
One last shot before loading up the bike to split the beach.
We had planned to head back to Chopper Doll's house where she said we could clean up. She was even willing to hit us with the pressure washer in the garage or our guest room as it is now being called. We were going to roll out just prior to sunset and hit the desert in the dark as temps were still supposed to be over 100 degrees. By 7 pm we are out the door and rolling down the road, that was the plan! I was really worried about the heat from the engine and the pipes along with the heat from the desert and how it would affect Diane so I was pretty intent on sticking to the plan! I guess plans are made to be broken! As we were just finishing dinner around 8:30 at the restaurant and I had yet to pack up our shit and clean the garage, I knew we were going to be very late getting home. Yes, we cleaned up the garage, after all, we are good house guests. You can't stay at some one's place and not leave it clean. Too bad we didn't have any laundry to do because the washer and dryer were right there in the garage. It was nice too because I like to leave a light on when I sleep and all I had to do was open up the door on the dryer and there it was, night light, perfect!
So now here we are, running late and having a big dinner! We are staying with a friend and rather than give her a gift, she is giving them to us. What a sweetheart! If you guys remember a few months ago, we did the necklace and bracelet giveaway. If you ordered some I know Jack Shit shirts you were entered to win. Well Chopper Doll was the one who donated that jewelry for our cause and I won't forget that! You guys should check her out at lolasboutique2u.com, the stuff is gorgeous! The bracelet and the necklace that you guys always ask me about are pieces that she made, they are so fucking cool! Well she gave Diane the baddest necklace and made me for my birthday, the sickest wallet chain you have ever seen! Thank you so very much Chopper Doll, you rock!
I got all dressed up for our last meal and rocked my new Wall of Death T'shirt! Damn I'm sexy! Oh yeah, the girls, they sort of looked okay too.
It was a really, really long ride to the restaurant so we had to shoot some pics on the way to keep us occupied. I wish I could have driven so that I could at least say I was driving Miss Daisy. Next time maybe.
A little pre dinner, pre gift shot! What a really great weekend, it sucked that it was so short!
Diane was so happy all weekend!
Diane rocking her new necklace! Thank you Chopper Doll!
So we chowed down like animals and shot back to the house for our middle of the night blast home! Packed up our shit, cleaned up our socks and underwear off the garage floor and said our goodbyes! We took off down the road and we were just getting in to the ride when this maniac pulled up next to us. I thought this crazy California lunatic was going to shoot out the window at us or something but luckily we made it out safely. Each time I see a white BMW I will get chills and watch my back from now on, you never know when that maniac will be back! Our 1am arrival at home turned in to a 4 am arrival and you know what? It didn't matter even in the least! We both have been working our asses off and we needed the break. Our no work rule for the trip was almost followed. Hey, we can't be expected to stop cold turkey ya know. So I did some work at a movie premier and Diane negotiated contracts from the beach, no harm, no foul! I will look back on this August and have fond memories. I knocked it right the fuck out of the park at the Broken Spoke, kept my word to my girl and took her away, made some amazing contacts and I didn't even go and talk to any of those tv guys in LA..... hell, tv will always be there, we needed a break!
Until we see each other again,
Keep the wind in your face,
Tits in your back
and The Man off your ass.
Your friend,
Jack Shit
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