“I Love Strippers!”

As Blender stands outside Vanessa Carlton’s front door in a San Francisco alley, we can’t help but feel a little nervous. Sure, the piano-playing songbird is a big star who scored a breakthrough hit with her 2002 single “A Thousand Miles,” but that’s not the reason. Nor is it the fact that she has suggested she spend her $848 of Blender-provided money “chumming,” an activity in which animal blood and guts are thrown into the ocean to attract sharks.

No, the reason for Blender’s nervousness is the fact that Carlton is hurtling toward us at an alarming pace on the back of a Ducati driven by her boyfriend, producer Stephan “Third Eye Blind” Jenkins.

“It’s really fucking ugly,” Jenkins remarks of the bike, after braking too close to Blender for our liking. “But it’s almost so ugly it’s beautiful.”

Carlton, meanwhile, has bad news on the chumming front.

“We’ve just been down to the water and it’s too windy to go out,” the 24 year old explains. “It’s probably for the good. If I had seen a shark, I’d have shit myself.”

Instead, after bidding Jenkins adieu, she suggests spending the money in her Union Square neighborhood, promising “surprises” along the way. And surprises there will be, as well as drinking, probable illegalities and, well, no small amount of fresh semen.

Read all about Vanessa's experience with porn and nubile voters in the latest issue of Blender, on newsstands now!