Anya Marina Rounds Out Her Tour With a Tweeting Ticket

Singer-songwriter Anya Marina recently finished touring with the Virgins and Lissy Trullie. Along the way, she sent Spinner her dispatches from the road and in the seventh and final installment, Marina mixes fashion and barbecue, signs her first boob and gets in a little trouble with New York's finest. Check out the end of her excellent adventures.

San Francisco, Calif., Great American Music Hall -- 5/20/09

Today, my longtime friend Rebecca Vandersteen, the jewelry designer and artist behind Venus Superstar, bedecks me in her latest creations -- feather earrings and hairclips -- and her friend Ikue brings me the sickest high heel booties by Sellenatela. I feel like a princess -- a warrior princess. Wade from the Virgins gets jealous and steals my feather hair clip for a quick photo op.

After stops in L.A. and San Diego, we head to Las Vegas to play the Beauty Bar. During the Virgins' sound check, I take arty shots of the back patio and meet a drag queen in the bathroom. She loves my shoes. We swing through Texas and end up in New Orleans, where my first words of the day are "stupid billboard" (uttered as I attempt to take an artistic photo of a Wendy's sign from my hotel window).

As I pull into downtown Mobile (about 6 square blocks) the next day, I come upon Buck's Bar & Grill's storefront sign which promises "The Best Wings in Downtown Mobile." After getting a sample -- being genuinely blown away by -- I ask the waiter why they don't go full bore and claim the best wings in all of Mobile? After all, it's not like Mobile is hugely populated.

"Well, you never know," he says. "There might be better." I decide to submit a new slogan to the City of Mobile and it goes as follows: "Humble. Honest. Mobile."

It has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?



We head to Birmingham next, where I stop by WRAX for an appearance on one of the most respected specialty radio shows in the country, 'Reg's Coffeehouse.' Reg knows a lot of my Hotel Café cronies well and we make immature innuendos related to BBQ ribs during the entire show. Afterwards he insists we go to Dreamland, Birminham's most famous barbeque joint. I do not end up regretting it.

It's June 1st now, and the Virgins kill in Orlando, playing one of their best shows of the tour. Today I have my first ever boob-signing request by a girl named Trisha. (My inner rockstar celebrates and my inner feminist raises an eyebrow). I get so nervous signing that I actually write her name on her own breast (which makes no sense) and to add insult to injury I misspell it "Tricia."

Note to self: don't use permanent marker when signing body parts.

Next up, a club in a city that will both remain nameless. The reason: I find my green room is stocked with a kettle. Finally, I think to myself, one of these clubs has the one thing I ask for: tea! As I open the kettle, it's revealed that the last time anyone made tea here was in 2005 ... and sadly, they didn't bother cleaning out the kettle.

In Fort Lauderdale, I pick up the new Anthropologie catalogue, which features me doing my best attempt to model their lovely clothes (which I did not get to keep). I recall the photo shoot -- hunger pangs, discomfort, feeling self-conscious about my inability to model -- and I thank God I get to do music (and not anything else) full-time.

Our last tour stop is in Annapolis, MD, where an unnamed member of the Virgins has so much fun at the show -- a rock cruise -- that afterwards he jumps onto a million dollar yacht. The owner of said yacht gets roused from a deep slumber and chases him off, screaming at the top of his lungs. The anonymous Virgin ends up jumping off the boat and back onto the dock but misses it by an inch, landing him head-under freezing, disgusting water -- a hilarious way to end the tour. Sadly, there is no visual evidence of this last fiasco as I was doubled over in laughter and without my camera.

Needing a couple days of R&R, I stop in to see my best friend in Ocean Grove, NJ. This town looks a little like the' Truman Show,' every block flanked by Victorian homes built right on top of one another practically, with American flags proudly spouting from every possible nook and cranny. Just as I tell her this is the kind of neighborhood where one could open a place called Knick-Knacks or a candy store named Brittle, Etc!, I spot a corner shop called Gingerbreads and another called Kitch and Kaboodle.

The next day, I get word that my one-line role has not been cut out of the forthcoming Kevin Spacey movie, 'Shrink' (in theatres July 29). I've even made it into the trailer. Well, at least my chest/tank top has.

On June 8th, the tour ends with a few promotional days in NYC where I visit Blender.com, Sirius radio, Cosmo Girl and have dinner with some friends from my parent label, Atlantic. It is such an incredible night of wine and food and great conversation that I momentarily forget about the $120 ticket I incurred that day, blogging and Tweeting while parked in traffic.

In fact, out of sheer rebellion, I am texting this now. While parked. In traffic.