Trying to shop for a tire and navigate San Diego traffic were the cause of our getting to the Sunday LA show with little time but for the band to set up and start playing. After the stresses of traffic and repairs, we followed some friendly locals to a bar called the Cha-Cha (which is actually run by the same owner of Cha-Chas in Seattle). I was holding the keys and thus no beers while there, and also stood holding them while surveying our situation at 2 am on the streetwalk. Going to our previously arranged location was out of the question - the friend had long since gone to bed in time for work Monday. Besides, many in our party were too preoccupied with taco truck, new acquaintances, and their own confusion to be easily corralled in a quiet house. We were contemplating where to park for the night to sleep in the van, when Devon's former roommate Brittney offered up her apartment. Some of our more intrepid new buddies came along for the adventure, and we clamored into the van for a 30 minute ride through the deadened Sunday evening streets.
We parked on a quiet side street just a ways down from Brittney's place, and immediately set to to break up a fight that broke out in the van. Geoff was nursing a broken heart, and didn't feel the need to associate with anyone. Woken from his deep animal slumber in the back seat by a too festive Ryan, and we were prying the hands of one off the other in the lawn two minutes later. Leaving Geoff as he wanted to bed down alone in the van, we headed to our night's accommodations.
Brittney lives in a funky apartment complex, where two buildings with two levels of apartments share a central courtyard with a dinky pool and some benches. The apartments on each level are connected by a balcony walkway, where our friends' clumsy footsteps and loud carousing probably woke more than a few neighbors. We entered a two room space where living room had been converted to second bedroom, and two cats cavorted about our feet. It was very nice of Brittney to host us, though I wondered how exactly we were all going to fit in here.
Brittney seemed unperturbed by her newly thrust upon late-night hostess responsibilities, and broke out pictures of a much younger Devon sporting rocker bangs and the same style leather jacket. (I don't think he had then the red leather snakeskin pointy half boots he wears now though - at least I didn't catch a glimpse in the photo). Devon as generously broke out a bottle of booze and they proceeded to pass about the bottles and banter with equal gusto.
After a time, Noble and I asked for a place to sleep and crawled into our sleeping bags in the other room. Devon started telling a raucous version of tour immediately upon monopolizing the new audience, and we listened as he talked about the farting, the flirting, and the partying. Like the veteran rocker he is, the stories took on an epic quality, and a rather enlightened view of the storyteller himself. Noble and I, both silent before in the darkness, now burst out laughing at our band hero in the next room. Most warming to my heart though was how he praised the better balance struck this tour with the addition of a certain merch girl Shanana.
At some point after (wherein shirtless dance shenanigans were commenced in the rinky-dink weight room) the rest of the bunch joined Noble and I in the sleeping endeavor. Six of us bedded down in the rooms, with Brittney and boyfriend leaving to sleep at his place nearby. It seemed only moments before that Brittney stumbled out the front door, and her unexpected roommate fumbled in. He spent some time contemplating the situation in the dark - strangers in his bed, on his floor, making it hard even for him to enter. We later found that Brittney had not gotten a hold of him before, and she'd stopped trying to convey the message somewhere between rolling rock and Sailor Jerry.
The roommate went into Brittney's room to ask her about the present situation, and found yet two further strangers bedded in Brittney's bed. He walked back out and stood in the kitchen silently texting and waiting for someone, anyone, to tell him what was going on. Which is where we all found him staring at us when Noble's alarm went off at 7:30. We hastily sprung from the floors and couches and beds to grab our things and exit. I hate to think of the bad day we started for you, roomie! I hope you and Brittney work things out....
With little sleep, and such an abrupt awakening, I stood upon the balcony as our two new buddies walked out and leaned against the railing, one shakily lighting a cigarette. They turned to one another and immediately shared a laugh at their situation. Moments later, Devon stepped jauntily along the bleached sidewalk in his snakeskins, clutching a 1/4 bottle of rum and a sleeping bag with the arm that wasn't thrown over the shoulders of his new friend. We beelined the van for Discount Tire, and replaced the front two for our 7 hour drive to Tempe and the final show before SXSW.
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