I haven’t posted on this here blog in over 2 years. I know part of it is because I’ve acquired a YouTube account, but I can’t help but think that there were maybe a few people that read this religiously, and once I stopped they were so confused about where I was and if I had died. I doubt that actually happened, but I felt like writing today, and I went through my Facebook notes archives to find plenty of posts from here. So I thought I’d start it up again, in case anyone cares.
There is no sense in filling you in, since it’s not like there is no timeline that only pertains to my wordpress presence. I have Tumblr and Twitter and YouTube for the rest of that. But for some reason, not sure why, but Tumblr just doesn’t feel like an appropriate place to just write. I scroll through long posts on my dashboard, so it’s not like people would read it. Plus, I miss seeing Keith’s face on the top of my posts. I just miss Keith.
So I’m here, but what am I going to write about? I don’t even know now. I mean, I came all the way here with nothing to say? What the heck, Abby? Should I put some inspiring music on? Shit, all the music I’ve been listening to lately is inspiring in some way or another – whether it be some of my favourite musicians from years past, or musicians that I now call my friends.
Yeah, that’s a thing now. I have friends in bands now. So that’s cool. To put it lightly.
It’s not like I’m going to write about all of my non-shenanigans with these musician friends because that would be essentially me trying to act cool, and sometimes succeeding. I feel like YouTube has both added and detracted from my coolness factor. In my head I feel cooler because I have over 2500 subscribers that care enough to not unsubscribe and people call themselves “fans” of me. But in the larger society, “video blogger” is still a pretty misunderstood concept. Some people still associate “video blogger” with Chris Crocker, and some people only associate “beauty guru” with Michelle Phan, which sucks, because Michelle Phan sucks. Seriously, she sucks.
Maybe I came here to remind myself that I still love writing. I never write scripts for my videos, but that’s mainly because when I read from a script or try to memorize it I just sound ridiculously fake and awkward. But I do love writing. I’ve spent so much time in the last 2 years taking photos and making videos that I’ve kind of lost my first love. I mean, I succeeded in NaNoWriMo last year, but it’s still hard to believe (especially since I haven’t even finished the novel, I just reached over 50,000 words). Novels are different. Fiction is not what I have always done. I don’t write books. I don’t write songs. I write this. I write what I know, and that’s my life. Why couldn’t finding a job be as easy as setting up a blog? Good lord, I wish someone from a big time magazine would stumble upon this tiny blog and fall in love with my words that they would make it their job goal to find me and to get me to work for them. Wouldn’t that be great? It certainly would, but that obviously won’t happen, because that’s not how life works. You have to find your work. Work doesn’t find you.
Where did this even go? I’ve gone through about 6 songs as I’ve written this, from Lemolo to We Are Scientists, to Pop Etc. (formerly the Morning Benders). Maybe I need to take a couple test blogs to get back into how things were, or maybe I’m just preoccupied with the gold glitter in my nail polish.
This actually just popped into my head – what if I stopped blogging because I started doing more meaningful things with my life? Now that’s an existential question if I’ve ever heard one.
I think I’ve got it figured out. It took me a long time to put these in the correct order, because I kept switching them around.
I originally wanted to just make this a “top albums” post, but because I went to so many damn shows this year, I realized that I should add that in as well.
Top Albums of 2010.
20. Beach House – Teen Dream
19. Sleigh Bells – Treats
18. Broken Bells – Broken Bells
17. Matt and Kim – Sidewalks
16. Lightspeed Champion – Life is Sweet! Nice to Meet You
15. Mumford and Sons – Sigh No More
14. The National – High Violet
13. Deerhunter – Halcyon Digest
12. Stars – The Five Ghosts
11. Cee-Lo Green – The Lady killer
10. Frightened Rabbit – A Winter of Mixed Drinks
9. Black Keys – Brothers
8. Vampire Weekend – Contra
7. Spoon – Transference
6. Two Door Cinema Club – Tourist History
5. Morning Benders – Big Echo
4. Arcade Fire – The Suburbs
3. We Are Scientists – Barbara
2. Local Natives – Gorilla Manor
1. Menomena – Mines
Top Live Shows of 2010
Honorable mention: Weezer at Bumbershoot. I think if I’d have been able to shoot this, it would have been in the top ten.
10. Builders and the Butchers at Berbati’s Pan
9. Florence + the Machine at the Showbox at the Market
8. Arcade Fire at Key Arena
7. Panda Bear at the Crystal Ballroom
6. Phoenix at the Showbox SoDo
5. Frightened Rabbit at the Showbox at the Market
4. Editors at the Showbox at the Market
3. Spoon at the Moore Theater
2. Menomena at the Crystal Ballroom
1. EVERY SINGLE WE ARE SCIENTISTS SHOW I ATTENDED ON THE WEST COAST INCLUDING ALL OF AARON PFENNING BECAUSE HE’S AN HONORARY MEMBER OF WAS.
No seriously, it’s been since August. This is a bit ridiculous. But I’ve been busy over at my YouTube page, posting vlogs, making YouTube friends, meeting famous YouTubers – you know – that kinda stuff. Here’s my newest video if you care.
But that’s not the point of this blog. I’m dreadfully sorry I have neglected my dear wordpress for nearly four months. Tonight I have something to legitimately say, and I’m too lazy to record and edit a video. And everyone is home, and I hate filming vlogs with people in the house. It’s just awkward.
STOP RAMBLING, ABBY. YOU HAVE A MISSION.
Right. It’s Thanksgiving, or it was like an hour ago. Whatever.
So Happy Belated Turkey Day! There’s definitely still plenty of friggin turkey, so it’s just an extended Thanksgiving.
What am I thankful for? I just thought about posting it in a Facebook status, but there were way too many things to list, so I came over here to WordPress.
I’m thankful for my family’s overall healthiness (even though my parents both have high blood pressure and my great uncle is losing his mind, but that’s kinda funny). Seriously, in terms of my own health – I’m basically back to normal. I’ve lost weight the normal way, not the sick way. And I feel awesome. My family’s got in plenty of car accidents in the last year, and we’re all still fine. Our car insurance isn’t the greatest, but we’ve come out unscathed basically.
I’m thankful for the amazing opportunity I’ve had in the last year. PopWreckoning has MADE MY LIFE. I’ve got to shoot my favorite bands, meet my favorite bands, and meet so many awesome people in Seattle that it makes me want to move there more. Seriously, before I started talking to other photographers I would go to shows by myself and be bored. It was lonely. But now I have friends. Ones that I can legitimately say that they’re my friends. If I drive to Seattle by myself, I still no I’ll know someone there, and it’s awesome.
I’m thankful for my Ledgehammers (newspaper staff), because they deal with my crap, my forgetfulness, and they still work uber hard and I wouldn’t be able to make the quality paper that we do without them. I’m thankful that I even got the chance to be editor-in-chief, even though I’m going slightly mad with stress. Stress pushes me. Deadlines push me. I need that.
I’m thankful for Nerdfighteria. Actually, I’m thankful that I got the subculture assignment last spring in Demaske’s class, because it forced me to watch almost all of the Vlogbrothers videos, and that led to me to so many awesome YouTubers, a lot of whom I’ve met now. It’s nice to have this community that never stops, and all shares the same belief of “Don’t Forget To Be Awesome.” Because of John and Hank Green and YouTube, I’ve connected with so many cool people (some in my own area code!) and met amazing semi-famous YouTubers. I love you, Nerdfighteria.
I’m thankful for my ever-growing network of internet friends all across the country and across the world I’ve met because of Keith Murray and Chris Cain. Well, now because of the WASTRAVAGANZA (see previous post) a lot of those friends are not just internet friends anymore. That trip was the greatest thing ever. And I’m thankful that I have you all to share in the love. And not just my uber-fan WAS friends. I’m thankful for everyone somehow connected to WAS. Example – Aaron Pfenning. That man is going places, and I’m glad I got to be apart of it. He just needs to get his butt back over to the west coast in 2011.
I’m thankful for my friends at home. I’m thankful that people are happy and healthy and getting their life together. Okay, fine. I won’t be vague. I’m thankful that LAURA is home and happy. When Laura is sad, I’m sad. And Laura isn’t sad anymore, so I’m happy.
I’m thankful for good music. For all the good music I’ve seen and all the good music that is yet to come. I thank you – bands – for being awesome. “Without music, life would be a mistake.” – Friedrich Nietzsche. I can’t fathom anyone who doesn’t think the same.
I’m thankful for my dog who is way too old and stupid to realize it, but I love her. I don’t know what I’ll do when she finally does kick the bucket.
I’m thankful for how close my sister and I are. Because even though it makes the fact that she’s up at school most of the time harder, it makes when she comes home so much better. This weekend we’ll be seeing Deathly Hallows again, and she cut my hair tonight. Not many sisters would trust their little sister to cut their hair for them.
I’m thankful for this – my freedom to say what I want where I want. I’ve been taking so many media classes that it makes me incredibly cynical about what’s being told to me on a daily basis by the mass media. But these places on the internet that gives us the power to say what we want and connect with people astounds me every day. So many media theorists are so against the idea of the internet as a medium for journalism, but so many of them are so stuck in their ways that they can’t see the opportunity that this giant “series of tubes” creates. I love it, even though right now my business isn’t the most lucrative. Since my sister and I are so damn close, I figure I’ll just live with her and she can make all the money doing math stuff. Lord knows I won’t be able to do all my own taxes.
Happy Thanksgiving everybody! Go crazy on all those Black Friday deals that the commercials keep raving about. I’m poor, so I’ll be making personalized Christmas cards for all my pals. Cause I’m creative like that.
Here’s my vlog from the first two parts of WASTRAVAGANZA so I don’t have to explain anything. So if you feel like experiencing these things in order, watch the video below first before reading the rest of this.
Otherwise, I don’t give a shit if you read before you watch or watch before you read.
So now that you’ve been completely caught up on the awesome that was the last week of July, let me tell you about the how even the last 5 days of my life were better than that stuff my face talked about up there.
Thursday afternoon I drove to Adrian’s house in the Couve. We ate corn dogs and watched a Scottish b-movie called Dog Soldiers about werewolves. It was ridiculous. Then we went to Costco to get some food for our trip. It didn’t occur to me that you can’t really get normal sized portions of anything at Costco, so we bought a 50 pack of cream cheese packets for our bagels. We ate three. Because we failed to put ice in the cooler. Thankfully it was only about $4 so we didn’t waste much money. We literally left Costco five minutes before it closed. Then I put more gas in my car. The next morning around 8:15 we left to pick up Ash from Voodoo Too before we set out on our trip to San Francisco.
SAN FRANCISCO, YOU SAY?
Yes, my friend. In case you didn’t know – I traveled 800-ish miles south to San Francisco to see We Are Scientists, along with some of my other favorite people. A few of which I’d never met in person, so this was definitely a new experience.
But I’ll get to the really cool stuff in a minute, after the clusterfuck that was my car.
No, really. My car drove wonderfully because we’d just maintenanced her the day before so Janice was good to me. I just wasn’t good to her. We didn’t stop (besides pissing at rest stops) until we got past the OR/CA border where some border patrol thing stopped us to ask if we had fresh fruit or plants. I wanted to be like, “no, but we’re harboring illegal aliens from Canada and we had an endangered species of ape shoved in the trunk.” I don’t think they would have been very amused.
So that was weird.
But then we stopped in…Redding I think…to go to In N Out, because I’ve never been to one. Because it was around 5:30 p.m., as soon as we stepped out of the car the sky breathed its hot, humid breath on us pale out-of-towners. Seriously, everyone who walked into that place was tan, thin, and mostly blonde. Weird. But I never realized that the In N Out menu was so limited. I hoped for chicken, but because they only sold hamburgers, Adrian and I got french fries while Ash got a cheeseburger “animal style.” Apparently that means that the bun is toasted or something, but “animal style” it sounds like they just ran outside and slaughtered a fresh cow and stepped all over the meat to make the burger. Ack. But it looked tasty. Our fries were really good. I can say I’ve eaten at In N Out now, but it’s a bit of a cop-out getting just the fries. Oh well.
Several more hours went by, and we were literally like 60 miles from our destination and I had to stop and get gas. It was a good thing we did though, because there wasn’t a station for about a gazillion miles after that. I turned off the highway, around to get into the station and went over a giant curb, bottoming out, and Janice made angry noises at me while I drug her undercarriage along the road. Freaking out that I’d busted my radiator or something like that, the LEAKING coming from Janice almost made me piss myself. Thankfully this nice woman came up to us and reassured us that it was our AC letting off condensation because, ya know, it had been on for a good 600 miles. I didn’t kill my car, yay!
Because I was so startled by our near run-in with car trouble, I failed to realize that I’d set my phone on top of my car when we DROVE AWAY. Coming around the turn to get on the highway, Adrian and Ash noticed that something fell off my car. We backed up in the freeway entrance and parked my car and looked. And looked. I was worried that I’d run over my phone and the pieces from lodged in my tires. Tremendously, they weren’t. The back cover came off and the battery flew out, but we eventually found the phone part and Adrian put her hand into the prickly bush to retrieve it for me. I love her. In the car Ash looked for “poisonous california plants” from her iPhone just to see if what we were stepping through wasn’t going to give us a rash or kill us or something.
I’m obviously not dead, and if I’d gotten a horrendous rash, I’d have already mentioned it. So no poisonous plants.
It was so weird once we got to the bay, because this heavy sheet of fog that reminded me of Mount Doom hovered over the city, but with a layer of clear sky right below it. It looked pretty creepy. And this was about 8 p.m. I think. Yeah. Cause we got to the hotel at 8:30.
THE HOTEL THAT DOLORES GOT US. We stayed at the airport Marriott that night, and Adrian almost finished up her dolls that night. Aren’t they awesome?
Not creepy in the slightest. Mine are the big ones in gold jumpsuits on the left. Original Keithdoll is the really big one with pink eyes and a Tapper pin. Aarondoll was added after this, because I got to perform surgery on an extra Chrisdoll so Adrian could stuff Aarondoll with Chrisdoll’s stuffing.
That sounded dirty.
That night at the hotel I also learned the Fresca is Adrian’s favorite drink, southern flight attendants with those ridiculous accents actually do exist, and hotel porn is really expensive. Nah, we didn’t actually buy any. We watched Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, and That’s So Raven the next morning. We’re cool like that.
Also that night at the hotel, we got to meet up with Dolores, who was one of the people whom I was dying to meet in person because before she solely existed to me on the internet. She’s so funny and feisty. She stuck around at the hotel for awhile after we drove around Millbrae for a bit and got pizza. We watched more Ace Ventura, ogled at Adrian’s dolls, and talked about Kings of Leon and Amanda Bynes.
Real quick – OUR HOTEL ROOM HAD A BOTTLE OPENER IN THE BATHROOM. MOUNTED ON THE WALL.
Since the hotel didn’t have free Wi-Fi, we went to bed relatively early. The next morning we ate bagels and showered before we departed to our Slorestravaganza at the Metro Hotel. I didn’t drive this time, because I don’t like hills. So Ash got to check parking up a hill in San Francisco off her list. It was kind of awesome, because literally the San Fran hills are horrible. Well, we first parked right outside the hotel to unpack our shit. I noticed that there was a sign in the window warning people about recent sneaky thieves, and then saw that our hotel was on the most adorable block (save Haight/Ashbury). We were next to (and our room was actually above) a Comic book store, a vintage clothing store was to the right of the Metro, then a vintage record store, and a cute little grocery store. Can I move to San Francisco please? Once we go all our Fresca, doughnuts, and dolls unpacked, we noticed that our hotel room had a tiny back room. The walls were all painted red, and a queen-sized bed sat raised up two steps. There was a mirror too. That’s all that was in the room. I wondered what one would do in that room, so we started calling it the sex dungeon. Then someone said that we needed to get Aaron Pfenning back to our sex dungeon (with how wasted he was, I’m sure he would have obliged if we asked).
While Adrian stayed back to finish the dolls, Ash and I walked .7 miles (which seemed way longer up and down hills) to this tea place that she’d heard about from Kevin Rose of Diggnation. He’s her idol, and he’s apparently a master of tea.
This is where we enjoyed our English breakfast (me a chai) and stumbled upon Kevin himself.
Ash about vomited, because she loves him so much. We were sitting against the window near the door and Kevin was up in the back nook area. So after…about an hour chilling, freaking out, drinking tea (because I’m such an Anglophile) Kevin was leaving, and as he walked by our table, Ash said “Kevin, I just wanted you to know that I’m a huge fan of Diggnation.” “Oh thanks, what’s your name?” “Ashley, would it be alright if I got a picture with you?” Ash was fangirling so much she said her full name. Kevin was very friendly and gracious, and when he left the waitress said that it happens a lot. So Kevin probably didn’t feel as weird as we did.
After this happened we wanted to run into Steve Jobs so Ash could punch him in the face. I really wanted to see that, actually. Ash had terrible reception on her new iPhone, so Jobs deserved it.
Because it was warmer outside than we expected, and Adrian had texted me letting me know that Renee and Meghan had gotten to the hotel already, we took a bus up the hill to the hotel. It was so nice seeing Renee again, after our fantastic Spoon encounter in April….awww after show passes…but this was SO MUCH BETTER. After sitting around for awhile, Ash and Adrian (who’d finished Aarondoll in the time we’d been gone) went in my car and Meghan and Renee went in their rental car. Because Adrian’s hardcore and a bit paranoid, we dropped her off at the venue early before heading over to Amber and Scott’s loft (!!!) There was already a girl waiting outside Slim’s but only one, so Adrian got to save our seven spots in line. Yeah. Seven. But it turns out that Slim’s stage is very long, so there was plenty of room. If we’d been at Neumo’s we would have covered the entire front of the stage.
So we left Adrian is this sketchy-looking area, wearily…but it’s okay because she was there when the guys got there for sound check. And she got to give Aaron and Danny their dolls, which they very much appreciated.
Uhhhh, Aaron’s so hot.
But Ash and I drove just over a mile to Amber’s loft, and they had to ring us up. I think I was the most excited I’d been all day, actually, because I’d never met Amber in real life and she’s one of my favorite people in the world. One of my favorite tiny people. They rung us up to the fifth floor and I giddily hustled down the hallway and Amber greeted me at the door with her cat to a wonderful hug. I can’t for the life of me remember which cat it was. There were three, so it’s hard to keep straight. Let me tell you – the Gregorys’ loft is pretty sweet. We didn’t have penis pasta, but we did have tasty basil pasta with parmesan cheese – and Pirate Booty. Amber said that even though she couldn’t get penis pasta, she would have other food that had either a sexual-sounding name or was phallic in shape. Pirate Booty and summer sausage. I love her.
Ash and I were the first ones there, and by that time Ash had gotten a damn ear infection, so Amber got her some benadryl, then Renee and Meghan got there so we sat around and ate food and talked for about an hour before leaving for the venue. Because Renee’s awesome, she got these plushy mustaches from Comic con for Meghan and Amber, because we all know how much they love mustaches. I’d taken Adrian’s cat bag with all her dolls in them, so Amber could pick out her dolls and Dolores could get hers.
Amber’s dolls.
Dolores’ dolls.
My favorite part about Amber’s dolls is that Keith has a v-neck and Chris has a crew neck. Adrian, you’re awesome.
When it got to be around 7:15, we all left Amber’s house in car my so she could get dressed in her snazzy show garb and Scott could get some work done before heading out. We got to the venue and there were probably about 10 people in line after Adrian, but we stood up front with her because she saved our spots. That was after I got my will call and Renee got her guest list spot (even though at first her name wasn’t on it because Keith and Chris suck). She called Chris (I think) and got it all squared away, because Renee’s cool like that.
We got into the venue at just after 8, and went and took our spot in front of Keith. I was between the speaker and this obnoxious pole, but the pole kept me cool…and something to drum on. Amber was to my left taking pretty pictures with her magic camera and pretty f1.4 lens. I’m still waiting for those pictures, too. You can hear us in several of the videos I took, because we didn’t stop talking. Meeting everyone in person was so not weird. I was expecting to have this awkward feeling of “oh right, you exist. What should we talk about?” But it was like, “hey I know you!” It wasn’t like meeting someone for the first time, more like seeing someone you haven’t seen in a REALLY long time. That’s how it was. And also kind of how it was when we talked to Keith and Chris that night. Even though we’d seen them the week before.
Aaron Pfenning came on stage around 9, and he was dreamy. Like…hnnng. I still get a girl boner watching videos back. And even better, he spent quite a bit of time over by us during his set. After all, we were most definitely his biggest fans in the venue. At one point I was looking over at Renee and Adrian, and failed to realize that he’d stepped up on the speaker and wrapped himself around the pole I’d been clutching all night. Renee laughed and gestured for me to look up, and I found myself looking right at his Marty McFly sneakers above my head. Again a little later during “Come Close to Me” (that song makes me thing dirty things) I was singing along because I’ve listened to that song so many time, and he came right up to Amber and me and sang to me with his floppy blonde bangs in his face. This made for quite a good photo opportunity for Amber though. It just made me awkward, still singing along and smiling a HUGE fangirly smile. *Sigh* He better tour with more people and come back to the northwest, cause I bloody love him.
All this time, I’d been filming little clips of a couple songs as to avoid getting caught with my camcorder. But when Keith stepped up to the drums and Chris grabbed his bass and Danny put the SG around his neck, Aaron was like, “if you have a camera, it’d be really cool if you filmed it, because I’d like to see it.” He wasn’t talking directly to me, but to the whole audience. So naturally I shot the whole thing.
Yeah, isn’t it wonderful? I was pretty happy with the filming I did that night. And I didn’t get caught EVER. Now I just wished I’d filmed more of Pdreamy (which is what we all started calling him). Chris even called Aaron Pdreamy the night before when they were in LA.
OH MY GOD I FORGOT.
When Adrian, Ash and I got to the hotel the first night, we were getting constant updates from Renee in LA, and he told us that WAS had a special guest playing with them. Automatically Adrian and I thought “TAPPER!” Because he lives in LA, and we got all nachos. We would have cried if that had been the case. It wasn’t sadly, but not so sadly – Max played two songs with the guys in LA and Renee got to see him again. Max has been playing with Katy Perry lately, because he likes money. But when we heard Max, I thought “LETHAL ENFORCER” because Max plays synth, and that’s all “Lethal Enforcer” really needs that WAS doesn’t have regularly now. To our dismay, he didn’t play LE, but he did play “After Hours” and “Jack & Ginger,” with its awesome synth line, definitely the best synth line on Barbara.
Back to now (well not now, but chronologically correct time).
Um…so Keith drumming is one of the greatest things ever. What made it even better was that he was wearing a Mickey Mouse sweatshirt. So he looked even more like a 13-year-old boy.
After Pdreamy (I love how we’re not even calling him Rewards, because we’re all BFFs now) was done, we had a short intermission where Keith was peddling his merch again. There was a huge line so I wasn’t about to go wait in it. I needed to get a shirt, but I waited to do it until after the show was over.
I got video of a lot of the songs they played that night, but I don’t remember the setlist. Thankfully Adrian has a fantastic memory – so it went like this:
Nice Guys
Nobody Move
Rules
Carol (I Don’t Bite)
Scene is Dead/Inaction
Impatience/Let’s See It
Pittsburgh/Ambition
C’lit
Jack & Ginger
It’s A Hit
Dinosaurs
The Great Escape
After Hours
Cash Cow (Encore)
Even though “Impatience” isn’t my favorite song, it was one of my favorite moments of the night, because Pdreamy got up in stage all nonchalant in sunglasses lounging in a chair to play tambourine.
Here you can definitely hear me and Amber laughing like crazy people.
Honestly I don’t want to include excruciating detail of the show because you can see a lot of the clips below. But I will definitely say that when they started playing “It’s A Hit” I jumped up and down like a 10-year-old at a Jonas Brother concert. What can I say? I didn’t get it in Seattle and Portland. The stage was really tall though. And I’m relatively tall, so this was different. It made the Neumo’s and Doug Fir stages look short. It was funny though, because I kept looking over at Adrian after Keith would tune his guitar to see if she knew which song was coming next. She didn’t. But that was another reason why this show was so much better than Seattle and Portland – all of us were there, and since this was an all-ages show, Adrian got to see it with us. It was all of us sharing in our love for We Are Scientists, we slores came together in San Fran-fucking-cisco for the WASTRAVAGANZA.
Once the encore came, I got all sad. I mean, I knew that the night was definitely not over, but still. “Cash Cow” is the last song I’m going to see them play in a long time. I don’t even know how long. If I wasn’t in school I’d be booking a train or something to Texas for Ghoulsfest. But it turns out that Sufjan is playing that same night in Seattle, so that will be good I guess.
After the show was over, we stood around by the stage (well, Adrian and I sat down because we’re lazy) before the venue people kicked us out. So instead of leaving, we went and stood in line for merch. I needed to get my t-shirt, damnit! The line was ridiculously slow, because Keith talks too much. But we still love him. We finally got to the front, and Dolores showed Keith her doll. He made a comment about his hair not being the right color. Keith, don’t deny it. Your hair is going to be that grey one day. Then Dolores said that it was Apocalypse Keith, but Keith exclaimed, “Post apocalypse you wanna cover all exposed skin!” And he got all fired up. Once I got to the front, I slapped down a twenty and asked Keith for a medium of the one of the new WAS logo shirts. He said they were out of mediums. Damnit. I asked, “which shirt DO you have a medium in?”
“The bass your life on Chris shirt… you want it?”
“Ummm, sure! Give me one of those!”
And then he leaned on the table closer so I could hear clearly. “Okay, I’ll sell this to you on one condition. Will you follow the prescription? Will you base your life on Chris?”
“Absolutely.”
“Well alright then!”
So now I think I’m the only one of us that has that shirt. Next time I’ll have to have Chris sign it, as well as my dolls.
At that point Scott took Amber home, because she’d been to three shows in the last three nights and was really REALLY tired. It would have been nice to have her stick around for awhile, but it was really fun to have her shooting right there in front of me. Amber’s short, so it’s not like she got in my way or anything. Right before the show I realized that this is the first show I haven’t SHOT since October (besides Muse in April, which was a last minute thing and their photo policy was rubbish). I mean, I was videotaping a bunch of it, but as I was recording it I kept seeing photos in my head. This was the first time I haven’t had to worry about getting good photos, and it was kind of freeing. Besides, if I’d shot it as well as Amber, I’d have been comparing our photos the whole time and I’d feel inferior.
After the show we waited for quite a while before the guys came outside. There were other people out there too, but I’m not sure if they were there for the same reason as we were. I filmed a little bit of it, but it was way too dark to get any good picture on it. The guys were packing up there stuff, and at one point when they were shoving things into the van, Adrian yelled at Keith.
“KEEEITH!” No answer.
“You should try again.” I said.
(IN A MANLIER VOICE) “KEEEEEIIIITH!”
Then Danny joined in. “KEEITH!”
“Just a second!” And Chris came and talked to us. Renee asked him about his different glasses, because he’d been wearing the sexy horn-rimmed ones recently, but that night he wasn’t. I think he called these ones photochromatic or something.
“Transition lenses?”
“Yeah, but I like the way I said it better.” Then Adrian accidentally called his other glasses rim-horned, and Chris smiled and laughed. So I proclaimed that it would be a good name for a band – the Rim Horns. We’ll do Chairlift covers, and I’ll sing the high parts that Caroline does, and Adrian will sing the really low parts that Aaron does, and Keith will play drums, and Chris will be our manager. We’ve decided.
Danny told Adrian that he’d been protecting his doll with his life, because he’s worried that someone might hurt it, in turn hurting him (they’re not actual voodoo dolls, guys!).
“Like that guy!” Adrian pointed over at Keith.
“Hey!” Keith said angrily.
Keith eventually came over and gave Adrian the most epic hug in the entire world. I was jealous of that hug. They literally didn’t let go for…forever. It was magical.
I’m not going to try and rewrite everything Adrian wrote, because she already wrote an awesome blog about it.
But I will include the photo we all got. I handed my camera to this guy standing around outside, and he failed in pressing the button so the second photo is not focused right, but it’s still awesome. We all knew what happened there, and we all knew how amazing everything in that photo is.
Aaron’s nomming Renee’s shoulder, and Danny is nomming Keith’s leg.
Then Chris jumped in, which is when the focus fucked up. CHRIS FUCKED UP THE FOCUS.
Can you see Aaron in the corner there? Yeah, he was drunk. Adorable Aaron Pfenning drunk. Adrian and I came up with that new description for adorably drunk after that night.
As the guys were almost done packing their stuff, Aaron gave Adrian an epic hug himself. He went in for the normal hug, but then they stumbled off the sidewalk and into the road, and into me. I think I helped keep them from falling. We talked to Aaron for awhile, and Renee asked him when he’d be touring again. All the while, he was struggling to stay standing so his feet kept shifting around. “I might…tour with them down…New Orleans…to make music…down…” And he pointed to the ground. We all laughed. Then Adrian said “down on the ground? that’s a good place to make music.” So then he smiled and giggled, all drunkenly and adorable-like. *Sigh*
Before they all left for the bar called Butter, Adrian told Aaron that he had to sign her Talkboy. That got him really excited. She pulled it out of her bag and he was all, “I can’t believe you have this. Oh my god (giggles).” She handed him the Sharpie and it took him forever to finish drawing what he was drawing. It was his name, quite illegibly (not as bad as K-squiggle) and another random squiggle. He said it made him feel nostalgic. At this point we were all standing in a circle on the sidewalk in the cold, possible misty rain. So it called for a hug huddle. Me, Adrian, Aaron, Renee, and Ash (Dolores had gone to get her car) all put our arms around each other to keep warm. Apparently Aaron’s hands were really cold because he had his hand right on Adrian’s neck. He said, “It’s so cold, but it feels so good!” I love him so much.
What was next?
Oh right, Renee had gone to put her stuff in Dolores’ car while Adrian and I kept talking to Aaron.
“Aaron, I got really good video of your last song with Keith on drums!”
“What?” He didn’t hear me and leaned in closer to hear.
“Two Cardinals, I got really good video of it!”
And his eyes lit up, “Where can I see this video?”
“On YouTube in a few days.”
“Awesome.”
Then they were all getting ready to go to the bar. Aaron started getting really excited and jogging drowsily in place
“Can I go in? Will they let me in?” Like an anxious 7-year-old.
“I don’t know if you should drink any more.” (WHO SAID THIS? I CAN’T REMEMBER)
And Keith and Chris were like running, gesturing Aaron to hurry up.
(Still running in place) “I’ll be RIGHT BACK!”
He didn’t come right back, but they did all invite us into the bar with them. Since Adrian didn’t have a fake ID (which disgusted Keith), we sat outside and got some crepes. But at one point Ash and I did go into the bar to see if Aaron was okay, and to make sure Keith wasn’t taking advantage of him. It was so weird being in that bar. I handed the bouncer my ID, and we walked in to like three chicks dancing on the counter. We didn’t get up from the table for like ten minutes, and just kept staring back at Aaron and Keith giving flirty eyes to each other. I guess I can say that I went to a bar with We Are Scientists. That’s cool I guess.
We left eventually because it was weird, and Dolores, Renee and Adrian were outside eating their yummy crepes. I think about 20 minutes passed before the guys came back outside because APPARENTLY they needed to go to this burrito place that closed at 2 a.m. So we were in front of the crepe place, and they were down just a little ways, and when they stumbled out of the bar and saw us down the street and pointed at us all excitedly. We pointed right back at them.
“You guys are crazy!” Chris shouted at us.
So we all ran up to them before they could leave, and there was another round of hugs.
Adrian went up to Keith and said, “One more hug?” And then there was another epic hug.
“You’re making a mockery of my hatred of you!”
“You love it.”
Before they skipped out to find the burrito place. I went in for a Chris hug and he said, “It was nice to see you again Abby!”
I just about died.
I know that it was like a week and a half before when we’d seen them, but it was one of the best things that had happened all day. Well, that whole day was the best thing that ever happened.
We ran across the street in front of the van to get to my car, and waved at them as we departed.
I really hope that it doesn’t go another two years before I see those wonderful guys again. Hopefully Aaron will tour with someone else so we can see him again too.
We drove back to the hotel, and it took up about half an hour to find parking, and Ash went up and down the craziest hills ever (I’m pretty sure one was at least 45 degrees). She had to piss like a racehorse, so it made the searching all the more stressful. But we eventually found a free spot in a non-tow-away zone, but we had to walk at least 6 blocks back to the hotel at 2 a.m. in downtown San Francisco. We did see a guy standing on top of his apartment building and he waved down at us. I’m pretty sure that he was drunk, so I was worried that he might fall off, but he was okay.
Back in the hotel room, we stayed up for quite awhile, and reflected about the awesome night and Pdreamy’s dreaminess and how he gave us all girl boners. And how much we love Keith. And Chris. And Danny. Adrian and I were the last ones to go to sleep at around 4 a.m. Laying in bed after the best night of my life, I cried just a little bit because it was over. I wondered if Adrian was doing the same thing, because I was listening to my headphones and couldn’t hear anything.
The next morning we took Renee back to meet Meghan at Amber’s house and so that we could properly say goodbye to Amber and Scott. And get rid of some of our doughnuts. We still came home with quite a bit. Four-day-old doughnuts. Yum. We said our goodbyes and set off to find Amoeba Records before we officially left. Amoeba was as epic as I remember it. They didn’t have any copies of Brain Thrust Mastery, which was kind of lame, but they did have the Deftones! And an entire row of Bright Eyes, and an entire row of Mountain Goats.
Our final goal for San Fran was crossing the Golden Gate, because we had to do one touristy thing while we were there. It took us FOREVER to find the damn thing, because my GPS is a piece of shit, but we eventually found the exit, where we met lots of traffic. It was okay, we danced to the awesome playlist I’d made for the car ride. It was quite awesome. Adrian and Ash can vouch for that.
The Golden Gate is so long. Like really really long. Once over the bridge, we stopped to take touristy pictures.
I have the best friends in the world.
The drive that night seemed way longer than the drive there. For some reason. We stopped at In N Out again, where we found out that there are veggie burgers, but after Adrian and I ordered our fries. Fail. But I’m pretty sure i can write a travel guide to all the rest stops up the west coast from San Fran to Seattle. Most of them are quite nice, which makes me feel like an idiot that I stopped and peed at a gas station bathroom when we got gas. I walked over to the bathroom on the outside of the building and this little boy was just getting up from the toilet WITH THE FUCKING DOOR OPEN. I didn’t need to see that. It was awkward, and the bathroom smelled like piss really bad. I’m surprised I didn’t get any diseases.
As we were getting to Ash’s house in Tigard, I was literally on my last gallon of gas, so once we got over the border to Washington, I immediately got gas. I like filling my own gas tank. But once we pulled out of the gas station, I was going the wrong way down a one-way street. Thank god it was 2 a.m.
Adrian and I didn’t go to bed until like almost 5 a.m., when the sun was coming up. We were up reading all the tweets from the Visalia show and I uploaded the photos from that day. I didn’t want it to end.
You know what I said in the vlog about about Seattle being the best day of my life? Well, I lied. San Francisco was the best day of my life. I tear up a bit thinking about it now because I want it to happen again, and I never want WAS to stop touring, and I want to see Aaron Pfenning again, and I want my friends who exist most of the time in my computer box to exist in real life more awesome. Now all I have to do is see all Y’ALL over on the other side of the Atlantic. That’s my next goal. I honestly cried in the car on the way home from Adrian’s house on Monday. I was driving by myself for 2.5 hours, Keithdoll was sitting on my dashboard and Chrisdoll in my lap, and when “Foreign Kicks” came on I started singing along and couldn’t keep my voice steady. I wish I had a TARDIS so we could all do it over again. Exactly like we did it before, because it was perfect and if we changed anything it might make a crack in the universe.
That’s not the kind of branding I’m talking about.
Since it’s been summer for officially…almost 2 weeks…all I’ve been doing is cleaning my house for Libby’s grad party last weekend, general planning for Ledger next year (EIC WHAT WHAT!) and Internet-ing. Okay, that’s not a verb, but I’m making it a verb for now.
I figure with my free time this summer (whatever goddamn free time I DO have), I’ll increase my overall presence on the web. And some of your may think that it’s a complete waste of time and bandwidth, but I’ve come to find out that it most certainly is not. I’m not saying that I’m going to get a website, because that costs money, but with all the different networking sites where I exist, it adds up.
I’m serious. I kind of love vlogging, and with my recent mega foray into Nerdfighteria for Chris’s class (in which I got a 4.0!) I’ve seen how connective it is. Not that I will stop blogging, but vlogging is a completely different kind of thing – since you get to see people and their gestures, and hear their voice and tone. And YouTube is kind of awesome. I mean, I met Hank Green technically because of it. And I found this video:
Tres Piece never gets old.
Anyway, I love YouTube, and I insist that if you pay more attention to the parts of it that aren’t adorable cat videos (although those are always nice palate cleansers) or Miley Cyrus music videos. YouTube isn’t just a website, it’s a community.
I’ll actually be posting a video eventually defending my proclaimed status as a hipster, because so many people hate them. There are also several other videos on the docket that I’ve brainstormed:
1. Why I love Nerdfighteria
2. Doctor Who
3. 4th of July – why I love America, but would gladly live somewhere else
4. Camera nerd
5. The mega awesome WAStravaganza we have planned at the end of July and beginning of August.
I should probably fill you in on that, but I’ll get to that in a minute.
What else have I done to rebrand myself? Well I’ve updated my Tumblr to match the YouTube.
I do love Tumblr. It’s like Twitter but not limited to words and links. I think I may have said that before, but I need to reproclaim it now. And today I got a Dailybooth, because I’m that narcissistic. Not really, but I figured, why not?
Now I just have to get on that internship thing and getting more photography gigs. I’ll need to set up my own Facebook fan page for that, and maybe get my business license, so I can write my lenses off on my taxes. I do have Lindsey and Chris’s wedding next May. Right, oh shit. I really want that lens.
Speaking of lens – LOOK WHAT I FOUND THIS MORNING. I can’t tell if it’s legit, or if all the things he’s selling are pieces of shit. Seriously, $2100 for a 5D Mk I and two awesome lens, one of which is normally at least $1300 by itself. This would be the ideal package though, right? A shiny new 5D and the wonderful wide angle with the most badass telephoto? Except in this guy’s photo of the equipment, the 70-200mm doesn’t look like the 70-200s I’ve seen. It’s all black. Hmmm. I’ll keep this in mind. I’ll just keep checking craigslist. I don’t wanna get scammed or stabbed or anything.
Internships – yeah, about that.
I’ve been scouring the internet for good ones, and sadly enough I’m too late for any summer ones, which I guess is fine because I’ll be preparing for next year (EIC WHAT WHAT!) and going to a bajillion shows. Have I introduced you to my schedule? These are all the shows I WANT to hit up this summer. And that’s not including what may come up randomly on the schedule. Except I don’t think I’m gonna go to the Capitol Hill Block Party. If I’m not getting in free, I’m out. That’s basically how I feel about most shows lately. Except for WAS.
Now I’ll get to the most badass part of my summer, except for the part when Laura gets home. Well, directly after Laura leaves to go back to New Jersey, I’ll be embarking on an as-yet-undefined-number-of-days trip to San Francisco to see my beloved We Are Scientists. It will be me, Adrian, her friend Ashley that I’ve never met, Renee, Amber, Dolores, and Jenn in San Fran. I’ll drive down to PDX and meet up with Adrian and Ash on August 6th so we can all drive the 10-hour drive to San Fran from there, cause the show is on the 7th. Like I said before, I don’t know how many nights we’ll be staying, but I think that we may end up staying at the Ritz-Carlton and split the price. It was $100 a night! And with 4 people, it would be about the same amount as paying for a hostel, but it would be infinitely cooler because it’s the damn Ritz-Carlton.
So we’ll be in San Francisco, WITH A CAR, so we will have some mobility, even though the public transportation in SF is quite awesome as I remember from high school. Of all the things to do in SF – GO TO AMOEBA, EAT IN CHINATOWN, and of course SEE WAS with all my cool peeps (or as Adrian has started calling us, “slores.”)
I think I’m done, but I have one last thing to add.
I changed my header. It’s been awhile since I’ve posted here, but I’m procrastinating finishing my paper for David’s class, so I figured where better to go than my own blog, right?
So as you can see, I have a new photo of Ezra. And it’s from Sasquatch. And I really don’t want to write all about it because I already have.
But I’d gladly marry Ezra Koenig, because not only is he adorable and dresses well, he writes catchy awesome songs about crazy-ass cousins and the oxford comma (which I do give a fuck about), AND HE’S A FONT NERD. Seriously. Both Vampire Weekend albums use Futura for the cover. Futura, as in Wes Anderson’s font of choice for EVERYTHING. Yeah. Ezra, it’s destiny.
Here are the recaps from the ‘Squatch though: Monday, Sunday, and Saturday. I have more pictures here too. I took over a thousand photos at Sasquatch. Close to 2000, but I deleted a bunch in my free time while I was there, whatever small amount of free time I did have.
But I will say one thing – I’ve never felt cooler in my entire life. I’m serious. I was standing in line with my camera and camera bag, and several people kept saying “they’re not gonna let you in with that.” I just rolled up my sleeve, showed them my wristbands and they were all, “yes they are!” I thought Deck made me feel cool – that was nothing. I sported my wristbands for many days after I got home. Including my “Drinking age verified” one. I should have taken a picture of my arm. Oh well.
Wait, did I just say “drinking age verified?”
I sure did, Abby!
So yes, I’m 21 now. And I can’t say anything especially 21-ish has happened. I didn’t go to a bar. I haven’t drank a beer yet. Libby kept insisting that I get a PBR, which would have been ridiculous, because I hear that they’re disgusting, and the alcohol at Sasquatch was horrendously overpriced. I have looked through all the show calendars in Seattle, and sadly enough I haven’t found any particularly awesome 21+ shows for the month of June. I did find a Portugal. The Man show at the end of the month though, but it’s all ages. Oh well. I still have my 2 (or possibly 3?) WAS shows this summer. They’re going to be awesome. I just have to think of a gift to bring them. Something cool. As cool as I felt at Sasquatch.
Okay. I’ll stop talking about it now.
School. Ledger. Finals. That’s what I’ll talk about.
I don’t think I failed my final yesterday, which is good. I actually feel quite pleased with my performance, insanely enough, because I had barely any time to study this weekend. Literally, I studied Saturday night from about 1 to 4 a.m., but only because the coffee I’d gotten at 10 p.m. hadn’t worn off yet. I would have liked to have at least ten more hours in each day this weekend, because the most… can I say unbelievable? Yes, because at the time it was unbelievable. It’s still pretty damn hard to believe, but kind of funny. I won’t detail it here, (I’ll link you!)but I’ll just say that it was the hardest thing we’ve had to deal with on the newspaper…ever. At least since I’ve been there. And I hope that nothing like this happens ever again.
Ugh….
Deadmau5 is giving me energy right now to finish my subculture feature, which is due tomorrow night by 5 p.m. by email to Chris. And I still have to write my final essay for David’s class, which is – get this – about why it’s important to study advertising and consumer culture. Seriously. And we only have to use 4 of our assigned readings in it as back up. It is 5 pages, so I should get started writing. But David’s so lax with his grading I’m not even worried about it. I got 56/60 on my midterm, and 58/60 on my final project, and like 10/10 on every insignificant assignment. I think I’m good.
Off to listen to Deadmau5. The Mountain Goats aren’t nearly as energetic as I need right now. And I’m afraid if I start again on my Local Natives binge, I’ll forget to actually write my paper, because I love Gorilla Manor THAT MUCH. It’s SO GOOD. I just wished someone would have recorded Taylor Rice’s super sweet dedication of “Who Knows Who Cares” to his super awesome girlfriend on her 30th birthday as Sasquatch (which also happened to be my birthday, and Amber’s dad’s from the Dirty Projectors. It was weird.)
This is one of the best ones I can find. The sound is relatively good. Even though “Sun Hands” and “Who Knows Who Cares” are my jams, “Airplanes” is still pretty damn good.
The Lost finale was last night. And it wasn’t just the season finale, it was the series finale. Like, the end. It’s done.
Wait, what happens now?
Okay, I’ll admit that I didn’t watch all of this season until literally friday night. I had twelve episodes to get through. Friday night I watched three, saturday morning I watched two, and saturday night I watched six. Sunday morning I watched the last one before the finale. I was on my own personal Lost marathon. And I feel like I should have been having an entire 6-season rewatch for the last 2 months or so, but in those last 2.5 hours, it all came back. I didn’t need to go back and watch 6 of the greatest seasons of television, because along with the characters, I remembered. I won’t try and explain anything, because it’s far too complicated to understand the depth of the story that Lindelof and Cuse put forth all those years ago, but the finale was beautiful. It was exactly how it should have been.
I cried. A lot. I cried the night before when Jin and Sun died together, I cried during the finale when Charlie remembered Claire, and Juliet remembered Sawyer, and when Jack passed the torch to Hurley. And at the end when Jack was dying, for the good ten minutes. No, really, I’m pretty sure Jack stumbled around the Island dying for the last ten minutes of the show, after we all finally found out what the Island actually was.
Some people are probably still unsatisfied with the ending, because there were still questioned unanswered, but did they really think that they could answer everything question without being incredibly campy and ridiculous? Cause some things don’t even matter anymore, so why try and resolve them. The only things that were resolved were part of the whole story to begin with.
[EDIT] I figured that the Island was purgatory all along, but I was wrong. All the symbolism and plot that went into finishing out this great story astounded me. It was so much deeper than just purgatory. The Island was real. They were really there. The last scene exemplified that with the footprints on the beach by the crash site. The Island happened. I read this article earlier, and it explains it pretty well. The crash actually happened, they were actually on the Island, but they died. They all died. This alternate universe that we’ve been seeing all season with Sawyer and Miles as cops and Jack and Juliet married, that was the dream. The dream that they were living in this millisecond between death and actually moving on. Apparently in the Tibetan belief of bardos, once awareness is freed from the body, it creates its own reality as one would experience in a dream. This dream occurs in various phases (bardos) in ways both wonderful and terrifying – that was the dream. The dream that they were trapped in that they had to move on from.
My mom was watching the last bit of the recap with me and was like, “did we always know that Jack’s dad’s name was Christian?”
“Yeah, mom.”
“Good lord, I could have figured it out a long time ago if I’d known that.”
“Yeah, I know mom.”
I’m not a religious person, but I think I’m a person of faith. I believe in things. No specific things, but things. And what I loved so much about Lost is that it made you ask so many questions – not just about the show, but about yourself. I mean, in a time where shitty shows like The Bachelor and Private Practice – ones that involve no thought whatsoever, shallow and useless, we had Lost. They had these series of notes from viewers in between the recap last night, and one very aptly said, “who says TV fries your brain?”
Here are a couple more that especially touched me.
“Our minds may tell us that it’s over, but our hearts will forever remain on the Island.”
“The world is full of smoke monsters. There is a smoke monster in all of us.”
“I lost 6 years to you, and I don’t want them back.”
“Why does this have to end?”
“I’ll miss you, Freckles.”
“Thanks some much for an amazing six years.”
“To all the Losties out there, may the love of this show unite us forever. Goodbye, LOST. Thanks for the memories.”
“You were ridiculously awesome at keeping me addicted to confusion.”
“May as well sell the TV! Nothing can compare. Thanks for 6 amazing seasons.”
I’m just sad I didn’t get to watch the finale with anyone else. I literally got home last night at 12:30 and had to eat dinner and help my mom with something for work before I watched the 2.5 hour finale. Well, with fast-forwarding through the commercials. But I didn’t get to bed until 3:30. So I got less than 5 hours of sleep. Or less. Depending on how long it actually took me to get to sleep. I woke up with a sore throat, headache and puffy eyes. Good job, Abby. Now I’m gonna be sick for Sasquatch. Time to take way too much Vitamin C. Not that Lost got me sick, it just got me hella tired for today. I’m going to bed at midnight. And that’s that.
But I know some people are probably reading this thinking that I’m ridiculous. I am. But am I ashamed for loving Lost? No. It’s a show that made you think. And sure, it’s completely fictional, but it’s just like when you finish reading a great novel, or a great series of novels. I guarantee that if you read all 7 of the Harry Potter novels, you cried at the end. Unless you’re, like, heartless or something. And I cried at the end of Lost not because everyone died, but because it was over. I mean, you can’t really write a show to take its place, because nothing will live up to it. It’s not like a sitcom or medical melodrama, or a cop show or reality show. Serial dramas don’t follow a formula, and that’s what I loved about Lost. I literally had no idea what was going on half the time, let a lone what was going to happen next. It was a show that you had to actively watch. Like reading a book, but with a wonderful score and really attractive male leads.
And it’s different when serials end, because when series end, we know that in the universe within the series, life still goes on. It’s just that the story is no longer being told in episodes. When serials are over, they’re over. The story is over. It’s really the end. And in Lost’s case, it was all of their end.
When I read that article I linked to earlier, one point that she made hit me.
“If you live together, you won’t die alone.”
I can’t explain why it poked at my brain so much, but it was kind of wonderful. The Oceanic 815 passengers had to find each other so that they could leave together. I swear to God Jacob and Christian explained the entire reason they were there.
In the last few moments of the finale, I had the perfect sense of deja vu. There Jack was, dying in the middle of the bamboo reeds, and Vincent comes to sit with him so he won’t die a lone. And then the camera comes in on Jack’s eye closing. The series started with Jack’s eye opening and Vincent barking after the plane crash.
God this show was fucking amazing.
Goodnight, Jack. Goodbye, Lost. It was nice knowing you.
❤ Abby
P.S. Another excerpt from Jezebel's article. I want to live my life like this. “Because a part of the shared human experience—which is basically what the entire show boiled down to—is that we want to leave our mark, so that people know that we’d been here. (I mean, that was the point of all the different shit, like the statue, and hieroglyphs and the empty Dharma barracks. They were all just footprints of the people who had been on the Island before.) And a large part of that, of leaving a footprint, or a mark, is to establish a basic need: To know that we matter.”
This post is a day too late, but it was super late when I was getting to bed. But then again, it’s almost 2 am right now. But who needs sleep? NOT ME! Hell, it’s layout weekend. I bet Sarah, Alexis and Lana aren’t sleeping right now. So I don’t need to either!
Plus, I went and saw Iron Man 2 tonight, and it was AWESOME.
But that’s not the point of this post!
Last night was w00tstock. Wil Wheaton, Adam Savage, Paul and Storm, MC Frontalot, Loading Ready Run, Stepto, Molly Lewis, and…wait, what’s this? HANK GREEN!
Yes, it is a Hank Green!
But I’ll get to that later.
I’ve never been in a bigger gathering of awesome nerds in my life. It was funny, because it was a COMPLETELY different crowd than I’ve ever been in at any venues in Seattle. Normally I’m surrounded by 18-year-old fangirls and hipsters. But then again, nerds don’t usually leave their house unless they have to. And this was one of those times.
I sat down next to this girl and her dad. I didn’t say anything but “hi” right off the bat, but I soon learned that I’d been seated next to another legitimate nerdfighter. When Wil Wheaton came out on stage and announced all the people, the girl to my right cheered the loudest at Hank’s name. Another nerdfighter? Awesome! I thought to myself. Eventually I found out that her name was Katelyn, and she was from Monroe. She complimented my “I Are Scientists” tee shirt, as did several other people throughout the night, which felt pretty cool. But Katelyn told me that Hank was the main reason that she drove down from Monroe that night. And we both kind of sang along to Anglerfish, which was so jokes. I wasn’t expecting to find anyone else there, because no one responded to my posts at the Ning, but it was all fine in the end.
But I won’t jump ahead.
Wil Wheaton is so cool. Like, so cool. Throughout the night, we had ceiling cat staring at us from the projector desktop.
This ceiling cat. He was on the desktop of the laptop controlling the videos and introductions for each act. At one point the screen saver came on and everyone started laughing.
Wil said several times throughout the night when the audience laughed at EXTRA obscure nerdy references, “I love you guys.” And he made several Doctor Who references, my favorite being how he called the theater he first saw Rocky Horror in “Tardis-like.”
“It seemed bigger on the inside.” Hehe.
Speaking of that, Wil told us a story about the first time he saw Rocky, and how he lost his Rocky virginity. And Paul and Storm provided the soundtrack for that story. It was adorable.
Molly Lewis also played last night, 4 songs I believe, the last one being “Conjunction Junction” with Jason Finn from the Presidents of the United States of America. I got lots of video of her, but I haven’t uploaded it to Youtube yet. Once I do, I’ll add it here. It was funny, because when I heard about who was going to be at w00tstock, I was like, “hey, Molly Lewis opened for Chris Hardwick last month!” She was pretty cool, with her Wikipedia breakup song and another one about how she wants to have Stephen Fry’s babies.
So I’m not going to explain the entire show, because that would be really long, because it was a good 3.5 hours of awesome geeky nerdiness. The intermission came and I went to see what kinda merch I could get. I ended up getting a w00tstock tee shirt, which came with a poster. The girl at the merch table was one of the people who complimented me on my WAS shirt.
I can’t remember if Stepto was before or after the intermission, but Stephen Toulouse, the director of Xbox Live, came out and gave a “sermon,” if you will, about all the douchebags on Xbox live. It was the story of the aptly named “p00nhun+er” and his asshole gaming ways and vulgar video feed. I don’t have an Xbox, but I’m guessing that it’s a common problem. Two of the members of Loading Ready Runs stood next to Stepto in brown hooded robes, and there was a giant ancient-looking book that he read from.
“Be thou not a dick,” he said. Guaranteed that bit got some of the biggest laughs. Because even if you don’t play Xbox live, you understand the internet assholes. It’s the whole freaking internet, and there are bound to be dickbags.
Now onto the best – well, most anticipated – part of the night. Wil, I think Wil introduced him, got up on stage and mentioned something about Youtube and DFTBA records, and Katelyn and I cheered madly.
I’m pretty sure at that point in the night, he did. I doubt that the most people were there to see Hank, but the people who were there to see him were quite possibly the loudest. I only got video of “Quarks,” because I saw my LOW BATTERY signal, and didn’t want it to die if I was going to take a picture with Hank afterwards. Idiotically enough, I forgot to get a picture with Hank at the end, but what I got was so much better. After my marvelous filming, Hank played “A Song About An Anglerfish” and “What Would Captain Picard Do?” And Hank mentioned how weird it was to be playing the latter song in a room with Wil Wheaton (most famously known as Wesley Crusher from Star Trek: TNG, if you don’t know). It was so cool sitting there with Katelyn singing along to Anglerfish and being completely enthralled by one of my favorite Youtubers. I couldn’t stop smiling. In fact, I couldn’t really stop smiling the whole night, except for the sudden “ouch” faces I made when Adam Savage showed us extra special footage of an upcoming episode of Mythbusters. I gotta tell you, it’s gonna be SO GOOD.
In fact, Adam did bust the myth that Jamie isn’t intentionally funny. He told us about this interview with Billy Bob Thornton, who said something like sleeping with Angelina Jolie is like fucking a couch. And Jamie said, according to Adam, “If my couch looked like Angelina Jolie, I’d fuck it.”
And just picture those words coming out of THIS FACE.
Jamie doesn’t try to be funny. HE JUST IS.
After Adam’s hilarious stories about latex jumpsuits, drunken treadmills and Jamie’s junk, there was one final song from Paul and Storm, about Pirates. What made it so great was that when the audience was cued, we’d answer with a resounding “ARRRRHHH.” But say they asked us a question like, “what was your favorite science fiction film?” “STARRR WARRRRS.”
“Who was your favorite character?”
“ARRRTOOODEETOOO.”
“Who was your least favorite character?”
“JAARRRR JARRRR!”
Apparently most of the crowd was very hateful toward Jar Jar Binks.
And the song went on like that for about ten minutes.
“Who’s your favorite host of the Tonight Show?”
“CAAARRRRSON!”
And this was perfect. Wil Wheaton answered that question with, “Conan O’Brien!”
It made me smile. Like I wasn’t already smiling, right?
So at the end of the show, I went and got my tee shirt, went to pee chatted with Katelyn for a bit, thinking that the line was to have everyone – including Hank – sign something. After I got at the end of the line, cause I wasn’t about to cut in front of people, I saw that Katelyn had already gone to the lobby floor and was talking with Hank. I ran around the long line, too impatient to stand in line for that long, even if it was Adam Savage and Wil Wheaton. But at that point it wasn’t even them in the lobby signing things. It was Paul and Storm.
I walked over to Hank and Katherine, who were talking with Molly Lewis at the time, and another girl walked up next to be and had him sign something. I said hello, introduced myself, and right then and there Hank gave me a hug! Like, I didn’t even say anything but my name, and I was in Hank’s hug bucket! I must say, he’s way tall in person. You don’t really get to see on Youtube, because he and John are always sitting down, and they’re in a tiny video screen. I told Hank how excited I was to be there, and that I wasn’t going to go, until I heard that he was going to be a part of w00tstock. Totally true. And then in seeing his large black Sharpie, it hit me!
“Could you sign my bag? I’m gonna try and turn it into a thing, where I get really cool people to sign it!”
“Who do you have so far?”
“Chris Hardwick.”
“Is that a cat, with a gun?”
“Yes, it’s a gun-wielding cougar.” I didn’t bother trying to explain it, because no one but us Sci-Cavers would really get it. Actually Markas pointed that out to me today.
“That bag is so indie.”
“Yeah, but unless you get the reference!”
“No one will get the reference. That’s why it’s so indie.”
“But that’s not a bad thing. I didn’t spend $40 on it at Urban Outfitters!”
“That makes it even more indie!”
Anyway, so I had Hank sign my bag (he has beautiful handwriting, btw) and I thanked him profusely for coming to Seattle on this glorious night of geek and awesome. As I walked back to my car, I literally wanted to skip. Seriously. But it was about 11:30 on a friday night on 2nd street, and I could have easily been accosted if I started skipping. But once I did get to my car at the garage 4 blocks over, I did squee quite a bit sitting in the driver’s seat. And I did all the way home. I texted Adrian while I was driving, which is a terrible idea, but I had to tell someone, and no one else in my contact list would understand my excitement. And it was damn exciting, damnit!
I don’t think I’ve experienced such a low after so many highs in a long time.
I had a feeling that something bad was going to happen. I swear. Last week after all the Conan/Florence/Sasquatch/Spoon/Chris Hardwick/EIC awesomeness was all over, I just knew it had to end.
This past weekend, four of my sister’s peers were in a car accident just this side of the bridge. They hit a patch of gravel in the rain and flew into a ditch, hitting 3 trees on the way down. Noah Turgman, the driver, suffered fatal injuries, and Anna Heacox is still in the hospital with a broken back and potential brain damage. Harvey and Emery sustained minor injuries, and they’ve been back at school most of the week.
Libby knew Noah. I didn’t know him, but I knew his sister. We’ve known Anna since 6th grade when she was on Libby’s basketball team, and she’s one of Lindsay’s best friends. I played golf with Anna senior year, I’ve hung out with the girls loads of time since I’ve graduated, and when I heard that she’d be going to Western with Libby next year, I was really really glad.
I don’t consider myself a religious person. Hell, I’m not even sure what I believe anymore, which is fine with me, but I prayed for the first time on tuesday since my grandmother died in 2002. I tend to hold grudges, so me and God haven’t really been on speaking terms since then. But in all of this mess with Noah dying and Anna in the hospital, we didn’t know if she’d wake up. I’ve seen enough doctor shows to know that swelling in the brain doesn’t always end well. At that moment, sitting in traffic on 19th, in the rain, I started to cry in my car. Anna’s a great kid, and it wouldn’t be fair. It wouldn’t be fair to Anna, or to her family, or to all her peers. I love my sister and her friends so much, and they’d had enough pain for one week. I didn’t want for the death of two of their peers to ruin their senior year.
I remember how hard it was my junior year when Brian, Josh, and Arthur died. I didn’t even know them, and it was still hard. It took Outlook weeks to figure out how to cover their deaths. Three boys, three deaths, three weeks in a row, and one of them a suicide. It was the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to deal with in all my years as a student journalist. The editorial board discussed it for hours. We were almost split down the middle about how to cover it, and in the end I felt like we did the right thing doing two memorials instead of three, but I still felt dirty. I felt dirty and hated by my peers because of it.
Since then, there haven’t been any deaths at PHS. None. Until now.
After we heard the news on Saturday, it messed with everyone. Rumors started, horrible rumors that didn’t need to happen. It took the local news outlet – THE PENINSULA GATEWAY – until Sunday to post a link on their Facebook page to the News Tribune story. This whole ordeal has made me lose complete faith in The Gateway. Sorry if you like it, but I hate it. By the time I tweeted at the TNT and Gateway, I had more information than the TNT gave back to me.
But my point isn’t about hating on the news. Because they do good things sometimes. Komo 4 sent a reporter to a bonfire the kids had Saturday night to share memories about Noah. One day. One day to organize over 100 kids together at one friend’s house. I highly doubt all these kids were friends with each other, or even knew each other, but Noah brought all them together, and what’s happened since then has been the most inspiring thing I’ve ever seen.
Anna’s been in a medically-induced coma since Saturday, and all the procedures she’s going to need is going to cost a lot of money, and it will take time, because no one knows what kind of brain injuries she endured. On Monday – TWO DAYS AFTER THE ACCIDENT – enough kids organized together for the school to wear pink in honor of Noah, because it was his favorite color. Tuesday they wore green for Anna, and wednesday they wore yellow. Instantly the kids started planning a barbeque to raise money for her care, and to make tee-shirts with Anna’s favorite walrus silkscreen to sell. They got tee-shirts donated from different companies around town, and the Boosters provided money for them to buy hot dogs for wednesday’s barbeque. I don’t know how they did this so fast, but yesterday when I was at the barbeque, multiple people were already wearing shirts that simply said “Noah” and had the friendship symbol underneath it.
They raised over $2500 yesterday at lunch. Selling hot dogs, cupcakes, and Otter Pops, as well as taking donations up to $100 from random people. I skipped my first class to take pictures of the event, and my sister needed the car anyway.
That last one is just a small amount of kids compared to everyone that came. And they had two lunches to cover. Mom had to go to Costco and get more hot dogs because they were all out after first lunch.
They’re gonna do it again on Saturday, and on Sunday run a 5K as a fundraiser for Anna.
I’ve never been more proud of my sister and her friends. Being at the barbeque yesterday almost brought me to tears again, because it was so wonderful.
The doctors put in a feeding tube yesterday, and today Anna coughed, and I guess just a couple hours ago they started slowly taking her off the coma medicine, and it’s the best news I’ve heard all week. I’ve never been so glad to hear about someone coughing than I was this morning.
I’m just keeping hope that May starts out as well as April did.
I’ve told quite a few people this, but I feel like something bad is going to happen to me soon. I mean really. It’s like the stars have been doing a conga line in my favor for the past 3 weeks. I’m serious. I don’t mean to gloat, but this is a list of everything good that has happened to me in the last 3 weeks.
1. I got editor-in-chief.
2. I got press-passed to Spoon.
3. I inexplicably got after-show passes to Spoon, in turn, meeting them.
4. I got groped by Chris Hardwick, then met him, and he signed my gun-wielding cougar bag (yes, in that order).
5. I got press passed to Florence + the Machine, who was amazing.
6. (THIS IS THE BIG ONE) I GOT CREDENTIALS FOR SASQUAAAAAAATTTCCCHHH!!!!
7. Mom and I went and saw Conan on Monday, which was already awesome…
8. …but then he brought out special guest EDDIE VEDDER. WHAT THE HELL?
9. And mom got out of a ticket for a moving violation after Conan’s show in Seattle.
Now my car needs to explode or something. Or my hard drive will die. Or we won’t get all new technology for Ledger next year. Oh god please not that.
Or maybe karma is coming back around after all the crap that happened from 2006-2008. I mean, I got a life-threatening disease for no apparent reason and the first college I went to sucked ass, and a 5-year friendship ended in a ridiculous clusterfuck. And 2009 was pretty scary too. Mom got in a car accident, Dad collapsed, Gary crashed his car, and we had to give him Cedric back. I don’t know. Hopefully all this good stuff is my return for everything shitty that has happened the last 4 years.
Okay, so I filled you in until last…fuck it was ten days ago!
Florence. I wasn’t sure if I was going to get a press pass for her until literally the morning of. It hadn’t been that close since Deck the Hall Ball, which was 5 hours before. So I got on Holy Hail’s guestlist, but once I got there they said I couldn’t take pictures after Holy Hail or else they’d take away my camera or something. So I had to be shifty. I literally had to prop my elbow on Libby’s shoulder so her head would block my camera from the security guard’s view. I mean, I got on the list, so I wanted to take pictures of the whole set. Libby was happy though, because Florence in her new favorite, and if she didn’t have to be to school the next day, I would have wanted to stay after and say hi, because Florence Welch is absolutely adorable.
This was one of my favorite shots from the night.
Um…
Saturday. Saturday morning I emailed Jaime from the Sasquatch people asking her if she got the email I forwarded from Josh with my assignment letter. She emailed me back a little later telling me that she had, and ten minutes later, she sent me this:
You are all set by the way. Approved!
That was it. And I started to cry. Crying and laughing and shaking and jumping up and down. Millie looked at my like I was a crazy person. I probably sounded like I was a complete nutter, but I didn’t care. No one was home, and I got credentials for the Sasquatch festival. Libby gets my tickets now. She gets to go. I was so nervous that my mother would have to buy her Stubhub tickets for a kajillion bucks, but she doesn’t have to. AND I can sell my Saturday ticket because Libby has prom that day, and I can probably make back any money I use to rent out the badass lens I want. I’m sure I can manage with my 28-135mm, but I REALLY want to rent the 70-200mm from Glazer’s. It’s so badass. And beautiful. And heavy, but I have a monopod that will help with that. Oh god I can’t wait. Just over a month….oh god. 5 WEEKS. 5 WEEKS AND I’M 21. REJOICE, HALLELUJAH!
Okay, I’ll calm down now.
But seriously, 5 weeks isn’t all that far off. I don’t even want to focus on school right now.
There is one buzzkill, but it will turn out better anyway. Laura’s peeps won’t let guests stay, so if I were to go to NJ in July, I’d have to pay for a hotel, and when I heard that, we were like, “hell naw.” So Laura’s gonna come to Portland for her birthday and we’ll party in PDX. I’m kind of gutted that I won’t be able to hang out with Susie in NYC while she’s there, because it’s always nice to meet my WAS peeps in person. And it’s too bad that graduation is the day before Barbara comes out, or else I’d be all for driving to San Francisco to Amber’s for a Barbara release party with penis pasta. D’aww that’d be great. But Libby’s graduating. We’ll do some cool stuff of our own.
Oh my god Libby’s graduating in less than two months. Holy shit.
I have such ADD. What was I saying? OH CONAN. Wait, I wasn’t quite to Conan yet, but I think I got the point across about Sasquatch. It’s awesomely awesome.
Now to Conan.
Mom and I got the cheap seats for Conan’s show at McCaw Hall in the Seattle Center on Monday, and I left before my third class, which is my favorite class, but Conan’s worth it. We got there way too early, so we hung out in the Center for 2 hours before going to the Sport for dinner. I got a turkey sandwich and salad, and the bread I had was so stale. I swear. It was chewy and hard to eat, and dry. Ack. The salad was good though, with crispy fried onion strings. Mmmm. Mom and I didn’t get any Conan merch, but the tee shirts were like $30. And we already paid $37.50 for the show. But now thinking about it, it was worth even the expensive seats at $77.50. If I’d known what was going to happen, I would have paid the $77.50.
Conan’s “Legally Prohibited From Being Funny On Television Tour” was awesome and funny, and we got to see the Masturbating bear, which is now the Self-Pleasuring Panda, which is ridiculous because apparently the Masturbating Bear is NBC’s “intellectual property.” INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY. It’s a MASTURBATING BEAR for Christ’s sake! What is NBC going to do with it? And the Chuck Norris lever is NBC’s too, so Conan had to rename it. But we did get some great oldies but goodies. Mom and I would have liked to see “In the Year 2000,” but it was okay that we didn’t. Andy Richter was there, and Triumph the Insult Comic Dog was there, and Reggie Watts opened the show. That reminds me, I have to download some of his stuff. He’s hysterical. But the entire theater gasped in awe when towards the end of the show, Conan was like, “I’d like to bring out my very special guest, Eddie Vedder everyone!”
Wait, what?
No.
Really.
It can’t be.
That was mine and mother’s short dialogue as everyone was equally confounded and excited.
And Mr. Vedder walked out on stage and the audience rose into a standing ovation. It was just him and a mandolin. And after everyone sat back down to realize that he was actually standing on that stage, it was silent. He played “Rise” from the Into the Wild soundtrack, and it was so beautiful. So somber and epic, it made mom almost cry. “I want him to sing at my funeral. No really.” Mom and I talk so alike. I got video of the second half of the song, but haven’t uploaded it to Youtube yet. I should probably do that, because I have video of Conan singing too, and a great “local commercial” Andy did for the Fremont troll. “Come see what has mildly impressed out-of-towners for decades, the Fremont troll.” I love Andy.
But Conan can actually sing, and his Strat is wicked.
See! Eddie!
He has aged so well. He’s way better looking now than he was in the 90s.
OH MY GOD THAT REMINDS ME. Soundgarden played a secret show at the Showbox last friday. That was the one piece of fail I incurred this week. I failed to get tickets, but Anna got one, and she said it was amazing. The first show in 13 years, dude that’s amazing. Okay. I think I’m done. I’ll add more videos from Conan’s show if and when I get them posted to Youtube.
For now, I’ll leave you with this wonderful La Blogotheque video of Grizzly Bear. I love them
THIS IS A TANGENT. 