Naked Punk Rock ChicksThe Writings and Rantings of a Mad Pornographer!

So Sparky was getting ready to go back up to San Francisco to work for Kink.com. She was gonna be staying at the Armory, which is the building that Kink.com owns that used to be a National Guard Armory. The building is insane! They purchased it from the city of San Francisco for 13.4 million dollars! And set up shop inside. The think looks like a fortress. Anyway… Sparky was staying there and shooting for them. We had talked about maybe taking a road trip at some point so I just decided to get out of town and fly up there for the weekend and drive back with her on sunday nite. Figured it was as good a time as any to do something spontaneous. I’ve been to SF a bunch of times before, but usually I drove up and drove myself around. This would be the first time I was going without my actual wheels to get me where I was going. I was gonna stay with my buddy Jim who has Johnny Legend living on his couch as well. Jim has stayed with me plenty of time down in a LA so I figured it was high time he returned the favor. Well, I got to his place and he had a difficult time finding the futon he had in the garage. Diffucult as in he couldn’t find it… So I was delegated to the floor. Not too comfortable to say the least. I decided to get a motel room in the city for the next nite. He lives in Almameda which is over the bridge and thru the woods from San Francisco and the drive was a bit of a bummer. I figured if I was gonna be trying to spend time with Sparky, I would try and be closer to the action than having to bum rides from friends. So I decided to stay at the Becks Motor Lodge, which Jim assured me was where all the hip indie bands stayed when traveling through the City By The Bay. His friend John Wesley Harding had stayed there just last week! The place was very close to the Armory so it was perfect. I met up with Sparky the next day at the Armory. And we went to eat and just hung out in general. It was nice to just chill and not have an agenda or things to accomplish. I had brought my Holga with the polaroid back and three packs of film…

We when back to the Armory to get Sparky’s car and I went into the Drill court where they all park. The drill court is a huge area in the Armory that is three stories high and just huge! I took a video panoramic of the whole thing. Here is a panoramic pic of the whole area!:

We then drove around a little and ended up at a malt shop to meet Mandy Mitchell, a friend of Sparky’s and a few of her friends ReeBeeKee and Arabelle Raphael. We ended up going back to Mandy’s walk up and going out on the roof where they all smoked a joint. The sun was setting and the view was really awesome. I had bought up the Holgaroid and took some shots of Sparky that really turned out cool. They had just found out that a friend of theirs had prostate cancer and had been keeping it from everyone. So the mood was sort of melancholy to say the least. I ended up going back to the Motel and chilling for the rest of the nite.

The next day Jim and I drove down to San Jose to see a old friend of mine Veronica Caine. I’ve known her since before she was ever in porn all the way up to after she left the biz and is getting on with her life. Jim’s car was not feeling so good, so we ended up stalling about ten times in the City before finally getting on the freeway. Once we were over forty it seemed to be fine. We got to San Jose and went right to Psycho Donuts. An amazing donut shop Veronica had taken me to the last time I was in town. I got two dozen donuts to go. One dozen was going to Veronica’s and the other was going back with me for a donut party at Sparky’s new apartment. She had decided that she was going to rent a room a few blokes away from the Armory so when she goes back up there to work for Kink, she can escape and not have to be locked up there 24/7. A couple friends of hers from High School had gotten back in contact with her and were living just outside of San Fran so they came over too. I met Sparky’s new room mates who were all very chill and very cool. We all pigged out on weirdo donuts and had a good time.

And I was slowly coming to the realization that San Francisco girls are really more my speed. The girls in LA are all quite hung up on image. If you don’t fit a certain profile, you really don’t have a chance with them. But I was getting the vibe that the girls in SF were more down to earth. I’ve always liked SF but sort of got a weird hipper than thou vibe from people up there. I guess it has a lot to do with not really speeding much time just hanging out. When ever I came to town I always had something to do. Somewhere to be and never gave the city and the people in it the chance to prove me wrong. I know know I would be down to spend more time there. LA is certainly getting on my nerves.

I also met Krysta Kaos on this trip as well. She was up at Kink doing slave training. And she came out side to meet us with a huge clock chained around her neck. Which she got for being 2 minutes late to a training session. Awesome chick.

My high school friend Tom was in town, but all attempts to hook up were thwarted. Two small kids and a 9 to 5 at Sunset magazine, kept getting in the way of hanging out. Next time I guess. Just before leaving town we stopped for a bite to eat at Sparky’s… I found out about this place and HAD to bring Sparky to eat at Sparky’s. It was Kismet!

On the way driving back we stopped by Alameda and Sparky met Jim and Johnny. Meeting Johnny is something of an event. Especially for someone who has no idea who he is or what he’s about. Sparky was very intrigued and seemed to sincerely like him.

We ended up getting on the road quite late. She drove first and I manned the iPod. I had made a play list of uptempo shit to keep us awake. We ended up talking for hours. Which was probably the best part of the trip. Sparky is so interesting and so much fun to be around. She told me all about her getting involved with that cult up in Canada and how she finally escaped. Then i drove for a while and she manned the iPod. She played a few songs that really hit me… They were completely strange and haunting. The first one was Roger Joseph Manning Jr. of Jellyfish fame from his first solo album. The song was called The Land of Pure Imagination. Sparky told me that she wanted that song to be played at her funeral. Wow!
land of Pure Imagination video:

When I got home I downloaded the album and listened to that song about 10 time straight. Now overtime I hear that song I think of Sparky and our road trip.

The other song was one I had heard before in a TV show, but driving up the grapevine in the middle of the nit hearing it blasting out of the car stereo, it had a ver surreal effect on me. It was Home by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros.

Home video

Another one I downloaded upon getting back to L.A. And I looked them up and discovered that they guy in Edward Sharpe was the lead singer to Ima Robot, who opened for Z-Trip down in San Diego during a action sports convention going on at the time… We all went to a party at their hotel room after the show. Apparently the guy had a bit of a mental breakdown from too much partying and too many drugs and sort of went off the grid and reemerged as Edward Sharpe. Very amazing song and very poigent after the talks we had had in the car that nite.

Well, we got back to L.A. and both got back to our lives and the hustle and bustle of the City of Angels. But for a brief couple days, I mellowed out and really got to know someone very special. Someone who I know is gonna be in my life for a long time. She plays the role of Muse perfectly. She inspires me to want to create. To take cool photos, to design cool shirts… to just be a better person. Sparky: Here’s to you! Can’t wait for the next trip and hope that you have new songs on the iPod to inspire and amaze me!

Toby Dammit

Sparky SinClaire and I had a joint birthday party cuz we have the same birthday! How crazy is that?!? It was like two weeks late cuz we were both hella busy. But here are some pics and video from it.