The Story About How I Met Adam Dunn
Whew boy, are you ready for a story that’s so topsy turvy, has various twists and turns, even loop-de-loops, so much so that it’ll make you vomit by the end of this very article? You will be so sick you’ll be questioning who’s more magnetic: Adam Dunn or Amsterdam? Hold onto your butts.
My journey into becoming family friends with the Dunn family started back in October 2024. I had been on a dual-purpose trip with my mom to Paris then to Amsterdam to visit one of my mom's best friend’s sons. Penny had died tragically about a year or so prior and we haven’t seen Eric in years, especially since he moved to Amsterdam a long time ago. I was also attending Amsterdam Dance Event for the first time – and as a business owner.
I booked a round trip flight from Paris because 1) it was a hack 2) FRANCE 3) trains. My mom and I took the train because we’re American AF American’s in Europe wanting to enjoy Europe for what it has to offer that we just don’t have in the Americas – and, that’s really sick commuter trains. This is foreshadowing here for all those AI brain rot idiots.
So, we’re on the train from Paris to Amsterdam crying about losing Penny Hanson. My mom was absolutely weeping with guilt about Penny dying, not being there really at all for Eric – her living son, and how she was really upset with seeing how Penny’s other best friends just seemed to forget and move on – forgetting about Eric, too.
We arrive at Amsterdam Centraal Station and catch the Noord ferry to check-in to Sir Adam at A’DAM Tower. We get checked in by the cutest freaking Italian girl I’ve met in my life, Giuliana. She had big Gucci eyeglasses, long red hair, and the sweetest Italian accent like Pewdiepie’s wife, Marzia. She was asking why we were staying in Amsterdam and at Sir Adam while getting us champagne being very hospitable. I tell her why I am there and we just girl bonded instantly talking about ADE, music, fashion (like Gucci eyeglasses wink), and Amsterdam.
Humorously, no one has ever asked me why I booked a hotel room at Sir Adam… Well, the very reason I stayed there was the very thing I was in the very midst of ditching: Mohammad Khan, remember that shitbag of a human? Ravelord Mohammad Khan never picked up that my memory is very special and everything he ever told me I remember. The black market, airline and hotel network companion passes, how to stash ketamine and other chemical substances on airplanes, literally everyone and their mother’s drama, all his DJ friends and the gossip going on at Burning Man, Insomniac, Live Nation, AEG, Desert Hearts, ya know the list can go on… oh yeah, he made one murmur about the Sir Adam being the it place to be at for ADE because of this “legendary party” on Monday up in The Loft. Thanks, Mo! You literally gave me the golden key....
What do we say in the face of death? Not today. And, this article is about Adam fucking Dunn. Not pathetic creatures like Mohammad Khan. We don’t give a fuck about 40-year-old status chasing losers like Mohammad Khan who can’t shut the fuck up about Burning Man and how baller he is while he lives with his mom. We give a fuck about the intelligent, hardworking, kind, and just the rawest of humans like Adam Dunn.
So, my mom and I are in this legit shit, concrete sardine box of a room at the Sir Adam and I am sick AS FUCK (sorry guys it’s been almost 3 years now – I can say it now), I needed weed, and we needed to eat. We go talk to a pharmacist, I get the most amazing hacking mucus medicine of my life, I’m spitting loogies out all over Amsterdam lol, we eat, and I take my mom into The Bulldog (it’s proximity guys get over it). My mom is looking around all wide eyed down for the experience and there’s this dready dutch chick checking me out with a scowl. I start looking at her tattoos and said how much I loved the twisted snake around her forearm. Her entire state of being shifted and ya girl left with a lot of freebies.
It’s about midnight and I am sitting in the concrete hell hole with my mom like fuck I need space before we go see Eric tomorrow I just gotta go outside smoke a cig and smoke a J. I’m sitting near the workers cigarette area and there’s this guy about my age who turns to ask if I have ever heard what a spliff is in a proper British accent. HAHA, deadass I look him in the eye and say, “motherfucker, I know what a spliff is” like the American I am. So, we start chatting, we “get on”, and this dude just starts dumping about how much HE LOVES DUBSTEP. I’m like oh really… I know a bit or two about dubstep… and, I start talking about my Colorado days and Skream and Benga were the nail that was hammered into my personal emotional baggage coffin that made me leave the music industry. He’s like, “Oi [paraphrased], I am going to Skream and Benga in a few days, wanna come?” You know me – I can’t say no to a good time even if I have a personal vendetta, lol.
My mom and I visited Eric and his wonderful family in Almere. Growing up, I nicknamed Eric to my family as “Prince Eric” cause I had the biggest crush on him – he named his son Sebastian. Eric and I have some alone time and have new adult conversations with one another. He’s a Poli-Sci major from University of Colorado so we were talking about politics, cameras, Amsterdam, and having the most honest political conversations I have had – ever. Boom, I get out of his car at the Almere train station to head to Centraal Station to pick up my ADE badge haggard (still sick af too), I get in the ADE Pro Pass line at Centraal Station, and this translucent baby faced blonde Danish boy who looks like a baby Armin van Buuren just starts talking to me. And, naturally, cause I thought he looked like Armin I told him and he just blushed. Then, idk what he said about Psy Trance, but he got my immediate attention and respect right then till the day I die. Imagine – psy trance, hahaha!
His name is Mathias Warming and he’s the most amazing human on this fucking planet. An incredibly talented musician and now sound masterer, as well. We had instant twin flame-y energy between the two of us where we don’t need to communicate to know – #IYKYK. He asked me for a pint and I obliged and it was a lovely place where he knew the bartenders. I told him the literal pile of flaming dog shit I was dealing with, the ego bullshit I was juggling with Mohammad on top of our Egyptian Yacht Party I PAID FOR and MOHAMMAD & I WERE THROWING together, and how I had to go pander his ego so he doesn’t blow up into toxic smitherens. Mathias stayed with me all night long. Checked in on me the next day. And, we have been besties ever since. Along with his exquisite life partner, Emilie Nielsen, who is just as incredible of a human as he is. Our trio is another kind of amazing for another day on another article. But the point with the long ADE story is – this was the first time I was feeling ACTUAL WARMTH from humans for the first time in my entire life.
ADE was still going, I was still managing Mohammad’s fragile male ego, and I am trying to hit every single networking event and party alone. Sure as shit wasn’t going to do it with Mo. I’m texting Jamie/Jay and gonna go to this Skream and Benga party cause that sounded better than anything at Awakenings and I felt a ton of warmth from Jamie like we had some sort of understanding of who each other were but in all honesty we didn’t know each other at all, haha. I text him when I arrive and he just takes me straight backstage + we had a blast. Oh, it was so fun. It also was my first dubstep show in a LONG TIME and Skream was smashing it, the crowd was eating it up like Chef Boyardee ;), and it was a classic rave night with new friends. I’d like to bring it back to the movie Human Traffic – Jamie and I are like that all the way down to the SPLIFF POLITICS.
Man, I was having so much fun at ADE and Mohammad was a cesspool of negativity. I agreed to go to one warehouse party with all Californians. I arrived alone and sat in the entry line chatting to the guys next to me. They were Egyptian immigrants residing in Amsterdam celebrating a buddy who just graduated from university and another who just landed a new job – big celebratory night for them. They teach me my favorite arabic word “ yellah” (let’s fucking go), we add each other on Instagram, and we find a common friend – a Palestian chef I had approached at Gates of Agartha in Pula, Croatia telling him he had the best energy of one of the better EDM festivals of my life. They told me he found refuge and work in Amsterdam + they are good friends now, we all hug, and I’m like in tears cause he told me when I went up to him he had just “...escaped Palestine 2 days ago” and he said he was “so happy and free” when I told him he was radiating. I mean, music is really incredible guys. Chivalrously, they’re like you’re coming with us, they meet Mohammad and are like “yo, are you okay?” They lost me but kept checking in on me all night, all next day, and we are still connected. Hilariously, Mo was being pathetic texting and whining to BAGGIE about not getting him backstage to the GOLFOS show like a loser and it showed, HAHAHAHA.
Mohammad was the pest I couldn’t get rid of and I had my last thing actually planned with him, which was what slammed the door like wtf why am I dealing with this shit cause I was meeting Christian Davidov for the first time – we linked on the ADE portal to LinkedIn, where we found we had a common connection: Jeff Ponchick. Anyways, Christian and I had been chatting cause me being USA, him being SWEDEN and both being in music + tech we had already bonded. So, here I am at this gourmet dinner I don’t give a shit about I just wanted to meet Christian and Mohammad + his trust fund Californian friend wouldn’t shut the fuck up about Burning Man, how some dude was putting viagra in everyone’s drink - they thought it was hilarious, and I’m SWEATING BULLETS. So Christian and I just tune them out because we’re people who have the capability to do that and we finally chat alone once they leave. I believe Christian’s exact words were, “yo wtf is with Americans and gossip” and I was literally crying on the floor from laughing like thank god RIGHT. Here I am still getting over being sick, networking my tits off, going to shows, dealing with industry politics, and I had this first big sigh of a relief that came as a laugh with Christian because I was finally being seen. RIGHT? AREN’T US AMERICANS SO FUCKING CATTY? LIKE WOW, it just made me feel good. Well, me and Christian – we are still very connected both sitting around asking questions like bro do you guys internet at all??? Again, another amazing person worth their own article on another day.
I mean, I had zero idea the ADE train literally doesn’t stop so if the train doesn’t stop I don’t get off – take that how you want, haha. SO… ADE kept ADE-ing, I found my new crews, I molted the yucky American EDM baggage (mostly lol), it’s Monday, and ya girl pushed herself so hard she missed her train to Paris – yup. I go downstairs at A’DAM TOWER on my MacBook like FUCK what am I gonna do and some German guy with blue hair asks me if I want a Blue SoundCloud and if I’d like to go to the Loft? I run up to the Sir Adam desk asking for hotel rate, I say “fuck it” knowing this is THE PARTY you want to be invited to so apologies mom and dad, I took the damn pill, got my room, we throw my luggage into my new room, he’s doing drugs while I’m getting ready and trying to not look like a trainwreck, and beam me up Scotty. I don’t know who this guy was but he was one of the techno DJ’s manager and he was fished out within 2 hours so I just hung up at the top of the Loft. And, ya know guys, I am just really friendly and it’s easy to make friends at parties so I get doors opened for me and my first ADE ended with me at the secret floor at the very top of A’DAM Tower. I learned all of A’DAM Tower my first stay at Sir Adam – that’s quite a feat innit? Little did I know I opened Pandora’s Box and I was just at the beginning of whatever path I am supposed to be on right now.
Jamie, Mathias, Christian – love you guys so much. I think you all know this but if you didn’t you were my life raft and I am forever grateful for all of you. We’ve been through and seen some shit, haven’t we? And, guys, I gotta be honest, at this point I just want to get all of you with me in a room with Adam Dunn cause I’d say it would be a room of the greatest people I’ve ever met in my life.
I don’t know… about $1K and some change of a big mistake later… I was back in the USA and my talent was playing at Red Rocks so Jamie told me I just had to meet his best mate in Colorado – Adam Dunn. I’m like “yeah, okay, sure” and before I know it THE Adam Dunn is DMing me just telling me I’m going to be on his podcast. I’m WhatsApping Jamie like “wtf Jamie you got me on a podcast… well okay”, haha. Adam invited me to a grow, I saw a bunch of cool machines, I went on the podcast, and I legit did my first dab on the Adam Dunn Show.
SOOOO… I have one rule networking and I obtained it back in 2003 on MySpace from looking at my current crush at the time, Travis Remington’s, comment log and feeling CRUSHED cause he had all these other cute girls saying cute things. TLDR: I stopped looking people up. Then, I started applying it to everything. And, guys, let’s be honest I’m just naturally a bit aerie-faerie if ya know what I mean.
I had just had this cool day with Adam and the cool machines and before I know it I’m getting HIGH AS BALLS on the Adam Dunn Show not knowing a single thing about cannabis (other than it being “kind bud” or “schwag”) or Adam Dunn. Literally nothing. I JUST LIKE TO GET HIGH GUYS IS THAT OKAY JUST LET ME BE! HAHA, kidding. Kind of.
Anyways, I’ve spent this day with Adam and I am having a god damn ball on the podcast not knowing shit about shit and it was all okay cause I was in good company. I’m a media person, I’m a YouTube person, I am a podcast person, and I am a music person so here I am marveling at this lanky Gen X creature who is absolutely gushing about his plants, the agriculture, the science, the processes, etc etc thinking here LIVE ON THE ADAM DUNN SHOW after doing a dab for the first time thinking: “omg did I just find THE GUY?”
I found the guy. Who is the guy? I mean, I didn’t fucking know. I didn’t know what “the guy” would look like, be like, act like, and how would I know? I was high as fuck off my first dab thinking “are we in a simulation?”, respectively ;)
The guy is Adam Dunn. I have a whole fucking story about how I met the guy, Adam Dunn, and that isn’t even THE STORY. I mean, ya wanna talk Amsterdam?
I met Adam Dunn and I saw myself. When I met Jamie – I also saw myself as a bass music STAN and why I followed that path AND why I am still currently following that same path… that led me to Adam Dunn. The same goes with Mathias – we’re mystically telepathic with one another + can sense things and with Christian – we just get each other and can have raw dog life talks. And, man, I’d go on gushing about all the new friends I have met because of you four.
This one is for Adam though. And by Adam, I mean all of us, the underdogs, the overdogs, the what the fuck ever dogs, the DAWGS. I have never met someone quite like Adam Dunn. And, I think the reason why I admire him so much specifically is because of how much he cares… about everything. I have traveled the entire world and I have never met someone with so much passion, intention, and humility as Adam Dunn.
People like Adam and I see some shit, we see all the attitudes, we see all the clout chases, we see the drama – hell we are the drama sometimes, we see the absolute worst in people, and still at the end of the day Adam choose to say fuck the bullshit keep it moving. No one else says that but he does. Not just says it, he lives it. And, I think that’s the genius of Adam Dunn. His ability to look at very complicated scenarios, manage a balancing act of the craziest of concepts, and he still always finds a humble reason to keep it moving. Man, what a relic. A true legend. What a ride it has been with him, his family, his friends, and be privileged enough to learn all these new things from various parts of his worlds.
After ALL that drama through the 3 years of knowing each other to just every day life — witnessing the egos, the bullshit, the loop-de-loops Adam is the one guy who just gets it. Adam Dunn is a grade A human. The realest of the real. He sees all the same shit I do and still chooses to say fuck the noise, keep it moving, take care of your people. And honestly, that's all any of us need to do. Show up for each other and hold each other down when it's hard.
Be the Adam Dunn in room.
