San Diego January 2007

Our good friend Al Guerra invited us down to play a party he was having and to hang out in a friend's beach house for four days. This was kind of a last minute invitation, but one that we jumped at the chance to do. While the weather in San Diego wasn't exactly tropical, it was good enough for us. Calgary was snowy and cold. We added a Sunday night show at the Casbah to make the already cool weekend even cooler.

The rental place only had PT cruisers left. Seriously!

We got to the beach house late, but early enough to get to the liquor store down the street just before it closed. Usually when people say "beach house" they mean three blocks from the beach. We were happy to see that our place was right on it.

Did I mention that we stayed in a beach house?

The next day we went to Tijuana for some south-o-the-border action.Tip: Tijuana is not really an early town, especially in the winter. If you're looking to party, go at night.

KJ winces as he gets ready to pay his asshole tax

Vendors and bar dudes were yelling at us from three blocks away to "cheggitoud". They had us, the only gringos in TJ, wondering why we were so popular.

Mark gets a Tijuana haircut in a liquor store

TJ got kind of boring quick, so after buying what we needed to buy, most of us left. Jason and Mark decided to stay for a couple more hours to get hammered and check out some "female" strippers.

Text message 6:43 pm from Jason's cell "we're moving here"

Text message 7:02 pm from Jason's cell "we got arrested"

Apparently it's illegal to drink on the streets of Tijuana now. What's the point of there even being a Tijuana if you can't drink on the street there?

Jason and Mark ended up in jail and went to court and everything! Not sure what the exchange rate for Canadian to American dollars is right now, but Jason paid $110 CDN and Mark $38 US. Coincidently, that also happened to be all the money they had on them. It also leads us to wonder why anyone would bring 110 Canadian dollars into Mexico?

While the rest of us enjoyed this beautiful sunset, Mark and Jason were getting the love eyes from a Kris Kristoffersen look-alike

We had a few drinks at the beach house to celebrate Mark and Jason's release from jail and watched some made for TV movies.

Saturday morning we got up early to pick up Kepi from the Groovie Ghoulies at the airport. Kepi was filling in for Mike who stayed back in Calgary to freeze his ass off with his other band The Madcowboys.

KJ and Kepi at the beach house we might have mentioned earlier

We got caught up, changed strings, took naps and went to Target. We don't have Targets in Canada, which is too bad - J Crews either, but we're ok with that.

Still worn out from their trip to the mexi-slammer, Jason and Mark savour the freedom to sit wherever the fuck they want

The show that night was in a town called Alpine about 45 minutes East of San Diego. It was a kegger kind of thing in a cabin on a lake. Mark bought a blue tracksuit at the outlet mall there before the show because it matched his shoes.

Mark tries his tracksuit out at sound check. It's a go!

Super fun and intimate show. Everyone got hammered up and walked home to their respective cabins.

The Chixdiggits walk to the Liars Club for some breakfast grub

Had a great breakfast the next day at the Liars Club in Mission Beach. The owner Louis took care of us with food and drinks for our stay. Their flautas are awesome. All their food is. Louis also set us up with bikes so we spent the afternoon riding them on the beach.

According to the woman pictured, Mark is the first person to ever spill coffee in the new Starbucks in Mission Beach

Gimme a W

A nice shot of the band on their bikes

The Casbah is a club we used to play all the time, kind of like our home in San Diego. We hadn't been there in seven years, and, thankfully, it hasn't changed much. Our friends came down from all over Southern California and made it a party. Mark and Kepi played the entire show without amps! Straight into the PA! Very rock 'n roll!

KJ and George from UJBOD (first US tour mates) find that they both still like to drink behind 7-11 stores

Thanks to Louis, Tim Mayes, Al, Erik, Laura and Michelle, George UJBOD, Sharon and Darren McLaren, Suzi and Brooks Boneshaker, Valerie, Natalie, Drunk Ted, O, Josh, and everyone else for coming to the shows and showing us why we're stupid for not coming down there to play more often. Special thanks to Kepi for taking the time to learn our songs and hang out with us!

See ya soon!