Wow, that was an awesome trip. It was like a few vacations rolled into one. I had a blast with the girl and our good friends and now new neighbors across the street, Tom & Lucan.
About 20 minutes from landing at LAX, I was out painting trains with my old partner Big5. It kinda felt like 97 all over again when we painted them on the regular, minus the ghetto bird turning the mission into a story for a magazine. I wish Wink felt better and could have made it out, but we’ll do it next round in SF 
The days in Joshua Tree were incredible since it had quite a few layouts, from large boulder masses, to mountains, to plains full of Joshua Trees and Teddy Bear cactus.
If you have the means, you should definitely check it out. I’ve done a ton of hardcore camping trips, so it was nice to roll in an RV and experience it that way. Especially when we rolled into the RV park in Palm Springs where all the OGs lived and we fit in like an old glove.
Back in LA, I took everyone to some of the classic spots I loved including, In-N-Out, Philippe’s “Home of the French Dip” and a walk down the back alleys of Melrose. I got to see the latest CBS walls as well as this SEVER production I only saw on the web, but really dig.
We went to some sushi place in a run down mall in little Tokyo for Tom’s birthday. The food was amazing and I ate some chicken parts I hadn’t really considered edible before.
The next night we rolled to Silver Lake and caught up with one of my best friends and comedian, Matt Fulchiron and our old roommate John Park. They brought up a lot of old party stories I had forgotten about, especially the ones when I lived in the walk-in closet in Hollywood. Matt was doing a show on New Years at the Comedy Store on Sunset but told us not to go because of the possible wackness factor from the audience. John has a show currently at the 01 gallery, that has moved downtown, close to where we were staying at The Standard (The rooftop bar has a super dope 360 view).
I used to love checking out 01 when it used to be on Melrose near our house. Good to see those guys doing well.
For New Years we ended up going to my friend Roger Gastman’s house for a small party.
I was always jealous of his paint collection but his art collection was incredible. Including some killer art in the bathroom.
If I only had another bottle or two of wine, some pieces in the 5 to 6 figure range might have ended up in the trunk headed to LAX. I got to see Joseph again and see some of the B-roll for the Cool Disco Dan movie which looked awesome. Good luck editing my dude. I also met Justin, and his very funny girl, who is a cool guy but living under unfortunate circumstances. I’ll link to REVOK’s blog for the info and hopefully get more people to help him out.
Shepard Fairey was a good sport since I had the paparazzi all over me once I was back in LA…
We got back to The Standard late night and the place was out of control. We luckily missed out on the douche bag party but I ended up a little drunk and screaming at the front desk. Note to everyone, complain about a supposed gang-banger who can’t can’t stand or talk in any comprehensible language when you try and help him out in front of your room, at any hotel and get a nice discount.
It was a great time and made me miss being in Los Angeles. I’ll have better photos to add shortly once I figure out how to add a gallery to the blog.
