That Time Mark Wahlberg Kissed Me Goodnight

It was 106 degrees yesterday and Garrett was home covered up in blankets and piles of kleenex feeling sick as a dog. Super duper YUCK. Isn’t summer the worst time to have a bad cold? He was feeling pretty sorry for himself yesterday so I spent the afternoon manning the station at Man Cold Central, doing some work at home and finishing some organizing projects. While I was cleaning out the closet in our front bedroom I came across a giant tub of old photographs which led me to the realization that digital photography provided by the Video production Toronto is the only reason I did not end up on Hoarders. If you need the best portrait studio, you can check this out here!

THANK YOU, DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY. I owe you one.

I have SO MANY old useless pictures. Would you like 100+ dark and blurry pictures of the Joey McIntyre concert I attended in 2002? No sweat, I gotcha covered! And don’t worry, I have THE NEGATIVES too in case we need to reprint the batch. I mean, I must have had to CHANGE THE FILM IN MY CAMERA MORE THAN ONCE. So glad I meticulously documented that night out! 🙂

In the end though, there were some hilarious old photos too, so I busted out a few so Garrett could have a laugh while feeling like death on the couch. His personal favorite of old dorky pictures of me is still this one that now hangs on our fridge:

Yes, I do have a license for those finger guns, why do you ask?

Also, random aside, this was the era of my dance career where I was constantly being told how fat I was. This was the year when I first started Weight Watchers. Seriously? WHAT THE FUCK EVER.

Anyway, I posted that to Instagram ages ago and some of you got a chuckle over it, so why not post it here for more of you to point and laugh. Anything for you! I also posted this next photo to Instagram last night and a few of you asked for the story behind it so I’ll give ya the (long winded, apparently) cliffs notes.

First let’s talk about the obvious: my tongue is pierced in this picture and I look ridiculous. I pierced it when I was 18 and left it in on and off for about 5 years. My family hated it. I loved it. I guess I’m just glad I did that instead of getting that super meaningful tramp stamp of the Chinese Symbol for Whatever It Was That Was Cool in 1999. Bullet: Dodged.

Anyway, the other obvious thing: that’s Mark Wahlberg on the left. Maybe less obvious, for those who didn’t have a super psycho 90s obsession with Third Eye Blind, on the right that is Stephan Jenkins. Do you know why I loved him? (I mean, aside from the fact that moody looking dark haired gentleman are totally my type. duh.) Because he was a “smart” stoner (Valedictorian at UC Berkeley. And um, decidedly NOT sober in that picture.) Listen, I was 22. I was not the arbiter of good taste in men at the time. So.

It was 1999, I was living on the westside of Los Angeles, my life was kind of a mess and my roommate and I had gone out that night to The Key Club for some sort of benefit for Breast Cancer, I think. It had some kind of cheeky name involving boobs, but all we cared about was that Stephan Jenkins was headlining the event solo. My roommate at the time may have loved him just a smidge more than I did, if possible, so we showed up and decided that Operation: Get Backstage was in full effect.

Obviously we did what any self respecting determined young ladies do when they want to get backstage, and we chatted up the bouncer. Well, at least my roommate did. As you can see from the photo I was wearing a button up shirt. I mean…had I just come from my day job? (I was working as a PA at Extra at the time. Sadly it was Pre-Mario Lopez. But I was a career woman, nonetheless. HA!) WHAT WAS THE BUTTON UP SHIRT ABOUT? So yeah, I’ve just never been that girl who is oozing with sensuality and can sweet talk bouncers. I am more of a seducer with my awkward. I was the loud chick with her tongue pierced who sends her desperate-to-be-slutty roommate to do that. MUAHAHAHAHA.

ANYWAY.

He let us back there for some reason and so we decided to hang out in the absolutely empty green room which was indeed green and filled with All Of The Heineken. Also some shitty cheese tray, and a Coscto sized box of altoids. I guess the condoms were hidden somewhere. It was skeezy. We immediately realized though that everyone who was wandering around backstage had these “All Access” Bracelets on. We had no bracelets. Hmmm…but we were smart girls so we got the bright idea that we would just sit on stools outside the green room and “check people’s bracelets” as they walked by and look very official until our boyfriend Stephan showed up. And dude it totally worked! Everyone seemed to think it was business as usual. Must have been my very official button up shirt.

Then we realized that the reason that it was empty in the green room was because there was a VIP bar down at the basement level. OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH, ok. So we headed down there because we heard Stephan was “IN THE BUILDING.” Squeee! He totally was! And without Charlize, which you know, was essential. Because obviously it gave us waaaaaaaaaaaaaay better chances of all running away together if his OSCAR WINNING SUPERMODEL GIRLFRIEND wasn’t there. Makes sense. Out of sight out of mind, I’m sure. Whew!

So he’s down there, but we can’t *actually* talk to him because that requires using words and in that moment I think we could only just look at each other wide eyed and squealing under our breath. So we decided to head back upstairs to get it together. Back to the green room we go, where we have to put our Bracelet Checking Identities back on. As we’re sitting on our stools Duncan Sheik shows up (he was also performing that night) and immediately asks “Oh do you need to see my bracelet” Um…duh, Duncan. Get with the program. So he does and heads into the green room for some…altoids? Cheese? I don’t know. But since he is there all alone we decide to chat it up with him and crack open a beer.

“Are you allowed to drink while you are working?” he says, “That’s cool.”

So now that we are all 3 BFFs we confess to Duncan that we, in fact are dumb groupie chicks dying to meet Stephan and right as we do this Stephan comes in the green room for some…altoids? I don’t know. BUT THERE HE IS. And luckily my roommate has some sort of ability to talk normal to him. I think I was buttoning my shirt or adjusting my choker or something, but he tells us he’s about to perform and we should watch him from the side of the stage. We ask him to play our favorite song. HE TOTALLY OPENS THE SHOW WITH IT.

As we are sitting at the side of stage being absolute fucking idiots, we realize that the gentleman in front of us is MARK FUCKING WAHLBERG. And then I die, obviously, because I am one degree of separation from Donnie. He was rolling incognito that night with a hat and beard (later I’d find out he was filming The Perfect Storm at the time) and so it took a minute. But we ended up finding out that he had just finished making a movie with Charlize Theron and so obvs, they must all now be super Hollywood BFFs and we were going to find a way infiltrate this circle with our coolness, if only to wedge Charlize out of the picture. Duh. PIECE OF CAKE.

When the show finished, Stephan came off stage, hugged Mark and they both headed up the stairs, past the green room to a SECRET GREENROOM that was outside in some random refurbished bus situation with some bodyguard-esque dude. We totally followed. And spent the rest of the evening shooting the shit in a bus with Mark Wahlberg, Stephan Jenkins, and some bodyguard that totally thought we were sluts. Newsflash: WE WERE NOT. Again, I WAS WEARING A BUTTON UP SHIRT. I didn’t even know from slutty, sorry. Well, let’s be real, I’m not sorry. But the night wound down and they were going to go over The Viper Room and did we want to come along?

UM, DOES A BEAR SHIT IN THE WOODS?

But my roommate was only 20 at the time. The show was an 18 and over show. AN 18 AND OVER SHOW, YOU GUYS. THIS ENTIRE TIME. I mean, what?????????? We were so lame. So we had to say goodnight, and as such there were lots of hugs and goodnight kisses and photographs taken by bouncer dudes that thought we were sluts, and one of those kisses from MARKY-EFFING-MARK landed right around my lip area, mostly because he was wasted, not because he was trying to put the moves on me. Maybe he was actually just trying to get a better look at my awesome choker.

But from that point on it became That Time Mark Wahlberg Kissed Me Goodnight. That has such a better ring to it than dorky, desperate groupie chicks stalk Hollywood dudes and watch them smoke weed in a bus, right?

Better SEO too, I’m sure. 🙂