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
ADDENDUM: OH MY GOD WHEN I POSTED THIS THE FIRST TIME I FORGOT ABOUT DOCTOR WHO. D: So it’s down at the bottom now.
I figure since I can’t really get the reading done for my next class done, I’ll fill everyone in about my abso-freaking-lutely busy week.
No seriously. It’s the busiest my weekend has ever been, and I didn’t even do everything I could do. I still have an ass-ton of homework due Wednesday. So I’ll start from last Wednesday. Wait, no Thursday.
No, Friday. Thursday wasn’t all that exciting. We started layout early, which was nice, but it didn’t really save us any time, because we still didn’t get done yesterday until 10. But anyway, FRIDAY. Friday I had the following tasks: pack for Saturday, purchase two maple bacon doughnuts, drive to school, lay out pages, edit photos, drive to Seattle, find parking, meet Renee, give her a maple bacon doughnut, and see Spoon.
Mkay. Lemme tell you something. I thought I found amazing parking that night. It said $6, right? I paid on the way in, I thought I was done. Not quite. It turns out the next morning I had to pay an extra $24 for the night. $30 for parking. Balls. But now that I think about it, I don’t even care. It was totally worth the next two days. Because while they were ridiculously busy and kinda stressful and I got like 8 hours of sleep over the course of those 2 days, they were terrific. Like, really really really terrific. So after naively parked at the Warwick hotel next to the cute old building Renee was staying in, I walked over to the Moore to get my ticket and photo pass. I got there before Renee, but when she did get there we gorged on doughnut. It was awesome. But when I went to get my photo pass, I walked up to the will-call, gave them my name and said that I was supposed to be on the guest list for a ticket and photo pass. She took out an envelope and pulled out 3 stickers. One of which was my photo pass, but I had no idea what the other two were for.
Well,
Needless to say, I squee’d. I was quite confused, like “why do I get these? Why am I here? I’m not this cool. Oh my god life questions!” But I handed one to Renee and it made us even more excited to see Spoon. Like seriously. We got after show passes. How? But then I realized that I didn’t have my ticket, so I went back over to ask if I had a ticket. Thank god I did, so then I was all set. I love the Moore Theater. They don’t check your bags and let you bring water bottles in. That’s the one thing about the Showbox that drives me crazy. You have to pay $1.50 for a water bottle you could have just brought yourself. BUT, when we got inside the theater, no one got there for a good half an hour. Well, it was still pretty empty until like halfway through Deerhunter. Poor Micachu and the Shapes. That’s one thing I hate and love about seated theaters. You don’t have to get there first to get a spot, because you have an assigned spot. But it leaves the theater pretty empty for openers. It’s a shame that not everyone got to see all of Deerhunter’s performance, because it was awesome. Casual, and epic, and awesome. Bradford broke into this long, almost poetic story about being 27 in Seattle at the anniversary of Kurt Cobain’s death. And how when he was 12 and it happened, he would say, “I’ll never be 27!” And other things. But that was pretty cool. Then this girl jumped up on stage and started beating Bradford’s guitar with maracas, shaking around the floor like a crazy person and dancing with all the band members. It was adorable. Too bad it was after the 3rd song, it would have made an awesome photo. But I was going to be bad this time. I adhered to the rules. Um…what else? Oh, Bradford kept saying, “this is fucking ridiculous, like what are we doing here?” (Hmmm, I know how he feels.)
After Deerhunter was done, the seat next to Renee’s was still vacant. I could have EASILY sat down right there, but I found my seat. All us photogs (the same ones I always see) piled up to the front to shoot Spoon. Again, we swiftly moved across the non photo pit, and oddly enough, as I was shooting, my phone vibrated telling me that I had an email. One of the other photographers, right across the stage, started following me on Twitter. ??? I dunno, it was funny.
And then they came onstage, and people went apeshit. Which is fitting, because, you know – it’s SPOON. I don’t want to go into too much detail because I still have to write my review for Popwreckoning, and it’ll get really tedious coming up with more adjectives to describe how awesome it was. I’ll just mention that everyone – including all the photographers – started dancing during “The Underdog” like silly fangirls at a Jonas Brothers concert. Okay, maybe I’ll use that description in my feature. It was fun to participate in the dance party. You can’t not dance to that song anyway. It’s so freaking danceable.
ABBY, STAY FOCUSED!
I think it was about halfway through Spoon’s set when Bradford came out to play guitar – OH WAIT! Michael Lerner (aka Telekinesis) played snare on a bunch of songs, which was a nice ‘lil local flavor. Back to Bradford, he came out and shimmied across the stage, dancing with Rob like goofballs, and I think it was during “Who Makes Your Money” when he snuck up behind Britt and thrust the guitar neck between his legs. Britt didn’t notice it for a bit, but then he stared down at his crotch and shoved Bradford back and they stumbled and giggled and it was awesome. And I don’t even know when this was either, but Britt looked down into the audience, and this was after I went back to my seat and I couldn’t see what was going on. He took his guitar off and jumped off stage to go into the crowd. Like, right into the crowd. Apparently some old dude was literally sleeping. Out like a light, and Britt went to go wake him up. Again – awesome.
Needless to say – it was all awesome. Afterwards, I made my way back up to the front of the stage to find Renee when she grabbed the set list, because she always gets the set lists. And we went out to the lobby to wait for whatever came next. As soon as the security people started shooing everyone away, I wasn’t sure exactly what we were supposed to do with our after show passes. Good god even when I say it now it sounds so flipping cool. What the hell? So it was us and a few other people who looked legitimately worthy of going backstage into Spoon’s FUCKING DRESSING ROOM. We were led behind the stage, and I turned around the glanced into the empty theater and I almost pissed myself. We climbed a steep set of stairs past Deerhunter’s tiny-ass dressing room where Jim Eno was talking with Micachu and the Shapes, and we heard a bustle upstairs. Spoon’s dressing room was small, but not obscenely small like Deerhunter’s. But still, we were in their dressing room. Renee wasn’t quite as all, “d’uh…I’M NOT WORTHY” as I was, because she’s met them like a gazillion times before. Literally, she’s following their tour right now. And she’s going to make cupcakes for Rob’s birthday this week. At least that’s what she told him. So we stood around for a bit looking like fools who for some reason got after show passes. I still was like, “I’M NOT WORTHY, I’M NOT WORTHY…WTF.” But eventually all the members of Spoon made it our way and we – and I mean Renee mostly – talked to them for a short bit before asking them to sign her set list and my ticket stub. Oh, that’s right here.
So completely running on adrenaline, endorphins and bacon doughnuts, we walked around the corner to Renee’s cute ‘lil rented apartment. $45 a night for cozy dorm-like room? WIN! I don’t know how the hell she finds these places. But I managed to upload and edit my photos that night, because I didn’t feel like sleeping. I couldn’t post them to Flickr until the next day when I found a Tully’s because the internet at the apartment was uber slow. And I didn’t notice this until I uploaded my pictures to Flickr, but I shot most of Spoon’s set in 400 ISO. What the hell? I was so confused how it got to 400 ISO. I shot Deerhunter and Micachu and the Shapes in 1600 ISO, which is what I normally do, but miraculously the pictures on 400 ISO turned out awesome. No wonder they had no noise. I’ll have to shoot shows at the Moore more often. Brilliant lighting = brilliant photos, not to mention much easier. No need to shoot in black and white to relieve the super-saturated red light. Nope, theater lighting is pretty.
Before I move onto Saturday, I’ll post some of my favorite pics from the show. I’m so happy with this set!
Now I can the difference in noise on the Spoon and Deerhunter pics. Britt and Rob are SO CLEAR.
Friday, done.
Saturday, begin.
Saturday morning came way too early. I woke up at about 6, because I couldn’t fall back asleep. So about 4.5 hours is all I had, which actually was probably better than getting 6 hours. I always seem to be really really sleepy on 6 hours of sleep. By that time I’d reached the deep REM cycle. 4.5 hours it’s still nap-mode. But anyway, I woke up and got ready, didn’t take a shower because I was lazy. Just put my hair in a ponytail. I didn’t really know how many blocks I’d have to walk. Turns out I didn’t walk. It was 8 blocks away technically, but you couldn’t walk there without passing through a drug-dealer-infested street. I learned that when I was driving and a bunch of crackheads tried to flag me down in my car. IN MY CAR THEY WERE TRYING TO DEAL. But I missed the turn and ended up going like 5 miles out of my way down to the industrial area, and I got to the Bell Harbor Conference Center with like 2 minutes to spare when I left with 40 MINUTES TO SPARE. Boy do I suck with directions. Really.
I got to the conference center at the exact same time Niki did, and I was still pretty high from endorphins from the night before. Who needs sleep? Not me! We took the elevator up the third floor where everyone else was waiting, and they had free food. FREE BREAKFAST. I was so happy, because when I woke up it was too obscenely early to eat breakfast. 8 am is perfect for breakfast. So we ate our breakfast and I told everyone about my amazing night before, and tried not to sound like I was gloating. If I sounded like I was gloating you guys, tell me. I’m sorry. I like sharing my excitement. And I took my ticket stub out and they all – well some of them – ogled at it. And I squee’d again.
We went to a few sessions, learned a few lessons, and met with some of the Daily staff. Only about half of them came and introduced themselves, but the ones we did meet – Andrew, Lexie, and Nicole – were pretty cool. I can’t even fathom having just one job to do on the paper, which is what they do all the time because it’s daily and they have over 100 people on staff. ONE HUNDRED PEOPLE. We have TWELVE. That was my favorite part of the conference, meeting with them – because they are people that we can legitimately collaborate with, even though I’m starting to hate that word.
Here are some shots of us, sans me, since I was taking the pictures.
We got free lunch too, which was nice. After the conference, I tried to convince any of my fellow Ledgerites to join me at an awesome comedy show with Chris Hardwick, but no one obliged. I actually contemplating not going because I had so much homework due for Wednesday (which I still have not done yet), but then I thought that I’d regret not going. I’ve done that too much this year, and since I’m going to get paid more this quarter, and I might not even go to New York in July, I didn’t feel bad about spending more money on tickets and parking. I found an $8 parking garage a couple blocks away from the Showbox, which was great because it was half the price that I normally pay for parking. Definitely not parking right next to the Showbox anymore. Just let me tell you, I know my way around the Market now. It took me forever to find a place with free wi-fi for me to upload my Spoon pictures. I went into Starbucks naively thinking that I’d get wi-fi since we get it at school, but you needed AT&T. So I left and searched “free wi-fi pike place seattle” on my phone, and they gave me 3 locations. Tullys was about 5 blocks away, so I went to Tullys and uploaded my pictures, bought a chai and waited a ridiculously long time to use the bathroom. I swear this girl spent like 15 minutes in the Tullys bathroom. It pissed me off.
Oh well, because the rest of the night was totally worth waiting to pee and paying $30 for parking the night before and not doing my homework. I just wish I could have shared the experience with someone else. GAH I need to find people to hang out with who live in Seattle. It would surely make my spontaneous trips less lonely.
I stood in line for about a half an hour before they opened the doors, and alas, there were still tickets available! The Showbox set up chairs. CHAIRS. There are never chairs at the Showbox. It was weird. I sat right up front, because no one else did, but I was just a bit off to the left side, near the bathroom and the speakers. I think they started the show around 8-ish. Possibly before that. I dunno. Molly Lewis started the show with funny ukulele songs about breaking up with Wikipedia and a cover of Britney Spears’ “Toxic.” Apparently she might be playing at next month’s “w00tstock 2.0.” Yes. Three hours of nerd and music, featuring WIL FREAKING WHEATON and ADAM FRAKKING SAVAGE. To borrow from Trenton’s vocabulary – ADAM’S A SAVAGE. Okay, nerd tangent over.
Wait, no, nerd tangent NOT over. It’s FAR from over.
After Molly Lewis came Mike Phirman who told some jokes and played some songs. The mic kept cutting out, which led to some funny jokes – both from Mike and from Chris. My favorite joke was about how Mike wants marijuana legalized merely because he has an idea for a business venture. A pot cookie company called Chips A-huh. It’s better when you hear it, but it was funny. I didn’t take any pictures because my crappy camera was dying, but this guy did. Apparently he was part of the Street Team that Chris put together from his Nerdist website.
Here’s some of my favorites from his Flickr page.
So I have even more of a total nerdy fangirl crush on Chris now. It’s ridiculous. He came out with a tiny polo on, and told nerdy jokes about the south, G4, Cracker Barrels, Motorhead, Tacoma, his nerdist street team and tentacle porn. No seriously. Right when Chris got on stage a couple of his street teamers held up signs that said “Hard for Hardwick,” and “You’re my Palate Cleanser.” D’aww. And then a guy who was sitting behind me threw a rolled up poster to Chris on stage. Curious as to what it was, Chris opened it up and it was hentai tentacle porn. And he proceeded on a tangent about how ridiculous hentai is.
This is the only video I found on Youtube from it. They were kinda prohibidado about filming, but this guy didn’t care.
Some girl sitting at the bar kept shouting like “my kids love you on Barnyard!” Chris asked her where she was from, and she said Tacoma and people laughed. It turned into a theme. Apparently Seattleites hate Tacoma. I gotta admit, if I had Seattle all the time, I’d hate Tacoma too. One girl in the front had an awesome purse made from the face of Animal from the Muppets. At some point Chris was like, “oh my god is that your purse? That’s awesome! Can I see that?” And she walked up to the stage and showed it to him, and he proceeded to make noises like Animal, and the girl walked up a little closer and told him that his zipper was down. This was halfway through the show, and his fly was down the entire time. So hilarious.
And toward the end of the show, he brought Mike back on stage to sing some songs – INCLUDING THE PI SONG. At this point there were 3 mics on the floor after they died. The awesomeness of the show KILLED THE MICS. So I think this was the second song they played, but during their “Anything” song, where it’s all about determination, how you can do anything, fly like a bird, unless you’re a girl – Chris decided that he’d croon to the audience. Since it’s a power ballad, he got all up in people’s faces and sang right to them while Mike played guitar onstage and kept singing. Chris started on the right side of the stage, being all ridiculous and serious, and as he got closer to the left side of the stage, he got more and more intense, grabbing people and almost seducing them, right? So he walked up to the guy sitting two seats down from me, and he grabbed his head and shook it around while belting out this song about perseverance.
Then he got to me. Seriously. I kinda got molested by Chris Hardwick. Seriously. He got right up in my face and sang right to me, grabbed my face and started to crawl on me, grabbed my ponytail and I got a faceful of Chris’s chest. I have to say that I awestruck with the WTF-ness of it all, but I kind of enjoyed it. Okay, I was really excited when he grabbed my face. I mean, I see him on TV every week. And he was like, crawling on me.
Come on, stop looking at me like that.
So after the last song, Chris announced that he’d be in the lobby signing stuff and taking pictures, because “apparently people like that.” I stood line in front of these two high school guys, who were clearly nerds themselves. Except in all of this, I didn’t have anything for him to sign. I had $20 bills and the Ledger business cards. But I had my purse. My gun-wielding cougar purse.
I swear, it’s the only thing I had. But maybe I could turn it into a “thing,” where I get all the famous people I meet to sign it, so it’s not just Chris Hardwick and then WAS. I almost felt kinda bad for having the first signature on my bag to not be from WAS, but then I saw what he drew, it made me happy.
And the first thing I thought of to talk about was Spoon, because he mentioned earlier in his set referencing a hypothetical heckler, “hey if we leave now, we can make the last ten minutes of Spoon!”
So I said, “I was strategic and saw Spoon last night so I could see you tonight!”
“Ah, great! I haven’t seen them in a long time, how was it?”
“Awesome. And Britt totally jumped into the crowd to wake up an old guy who was sleeping.”
And Chris looked up from my bag for a second and said, “what the hell, who sleeps during a Spoon concert?!”
“I know, it was ridiculous.” And I said some sort of thank you and asked for a photo, and the guy standing behind me took it with the crappy coolpix.
“It’s really bright.”
“That’s what Photoshop is for.” And Chris laughed. And I squee’d and said thank you again and walked away.
Eeek yay.
I just have to say that there weren’t enough Doctor Who fans in the audience, because when Chris made a DW reference, “Doctor, are we going to take a trip in the TARDIS?” in a British accent, and like four people shouted. I screamed so loud. Seattle needs more Who fans. We really do.
LAST WEEKEND was the Doctor Who series premiere. I have to say that I love Matt Smith. I felt really bad for a bit that I liked him because I felt like I was cheating on Ten, but now I don’t feel as bad. Matt did such a good job. Like a really good job. I so excited for this season. I was house-sitting for Andrea’s old neighbor and their horrific dog, and I downloaded the episode while I was doing nothing surrounded by an incredibly windy day. Heck, I was getting paid $20 a day to do my homework and make sure the dog doesn’t go too apeshit. I’m all for that. So what else better to do than watch Vlogbrothers videos and download Doctor Who? Ahhh, spring break.
I mean, look at Matt. He’s adorable.
I love him. And I love Karen. And I love what Moffat has done so far. I still feel a little nostalgic about the old Tardis and sonic screwdriver, but it’s still early, and I’ll probably end up loving both of them. We need more Doctor Who love, seriously. At least Nerdfighteria is all for the Doctor Who love.
I think I’m done now. Holy hell that was a long, photo-loaded post. But I told you it was a busy weekend. Was I right?
Been listening to the new MGMT song, and I’m not sure if I like it or not. Apparently, MGMT thinks so too.
It’s pretty funny though, right? I feel like Ben and Andrew were totally high when they wrote this. And perhaps when they recorded it too.
But that was just a funny lil’ lead-in. That’s now why I’m writing this post tonight.
WINTER QUARTER=PWND.
Yes, my fair readers (if I can call you fair), winter quarter is officially over, and now I have a good ten-day break until spring quarter starts. Although, I don’t really get ten days to rest. I have ten days to finish a couple reviews for Popwreckoning, work out like mad, clean my fish tank, order my books for spring quarter, and all the while trying not to spend any money. Wait…damnit books! Okay, I won’t spend money on ANYTHING else other than books. I’m not broke. I’m not, but I want to have enough money so that my trip to NYC for Laura’s birthday in July won’t make me broke. And I want to be able to sell my Sasquatch ticket to make back $170 (+$16 for Ticketmaster fees). No more Starbucks, no more tasty soup or salads from Coco Bobs, and not Subway. I’m brown-bagging it this quarter. The only thing I will spend money on will be gas. And Seattle parking when I go to shows. But this will take effect after I buy my ticket to see Chris Hardwick at the Showbox on April 9. OH RIGHT! I should tell you!
I was on Twitter the other day (like any other day), and I was debating whether or not to drive to Seattle two days in a row to see Spoon on friday and Chris Hardwick on saturday. All the while I was tagging my tweets with @Nerdist and @Spoontheband, which if you know Twitter, people can click to see all their @replies. So this was a real conundrum. I’ve been watching loads of Web Soup lately, because it just started back up again, and I’ve listened to 3 out of the 6 Nerdist podcasts (the Joel McHale one’s pretty good), and Nerdist is one of my favorite blogs. Apparently Chris (Hardwick) has just discovered how awesome Doctor Who is. I love it. Maybe if and when I meet him we’ll talk about DW. That’d be awesomely nerdy. BUT! After I stopped discussing my Seattle conundrum, my phone vibrated a short time after, and I got an email from my Twitter titled “Direct message from Chris Hardwick.” I was like, “FU-WHAT?” And this is what he said: “TWO DAYS. See me!!!” (In direct response to me considering driving to Seattle two days and see Spoon and Chris or just one day to see Spoon.) It made me all giddy. But in this instance, I was like, okay now I have to see him. CHRIS HARDWICK TOLD ME TO.
I kinda really dig him.
What else?
Speaking of Doctor Who – it starts in…SIXTEEN DAYS. Boo yeah. Just to prolong my distorted reality that Ten never actually regenerated, I’ll be watching loads of David Tennant episodes this week. I’ll try not to go on and on like I did a couple months ago. Sorry about that. Seriously, we were copy-editing an issue of the Ledger a few weeks ago and I genuinely forgot that tenant was spelled with one N. Hehe. But Tumblr’s been my new source of Tennant love, and LOLs.
Speaking of attractive men from the UK, Libby and I were watching 30 Rock tonight, and it was the second episode with Michael Sheen in it, and I can’t help but find him kinda really hot. I don’t know why. He wears a suit quite well, and his Welsh accent is sexy. When I mentioned that, Libby’s ears perked up and was like, “who is he?”
“That’s Michael Sheen. He was Frost in “Frost/Nixon,” and one of the Volturi.” Please don’t hate me for knowing that. It was unavoidable that I’d consume at least some information about New Moon from Oh No They Didn’t.
“Right, but he’s really hot!”
“Okay?”
“No, with long hair and facial hair, he’s really hot. He’s in Underworld: Rise of the Lycans!”
“When the hell did you watch that movie?”
“Today! It was on TV.”
“Oh, okay.”
And I rest Libby’s case.
Yeah, I know right? Mmmhmm.
He’s quite dashing as a normal Welsh man too.
In music news.
[Begin rant] I WANT TO BE AT SXSW RIGHT NOW. I REALLY REALLY REALLY DO. I KEEP SEEING ALL THESE TWEETS AND FACEBOOK POSTS FROM SXSW, AND IT MAKES ME SAD. I'VE LISTENED TO TWO LIVE STREAMS SO FAR – SPOON AND FRIGHTENED RABBIT. AND I COMPLETELY FORGOT THAT WAS PLAYED EARLIER AND I MISSED IT GRRRRRRR!!! [End rant]
But I am going to see the Morning Benders at Sonic Boom on April 2nd. I've been trying to figure out a way to not to have to drive to Seattle and park, but my ferry plan has failed. Sonic Boom is a good 6 miles from the ferry dock, and I'm not about to walk 6 miles there and back. I could take some public transit, which I haven't done in a long time, but that'll take a good half an hour with the Seattle transit schedule Hmm. I'll keep that in mind. I just don't want to battle with Seattle traffic and pay $10 for parking. Plus, driving to Bremerton is way shorter than driving to Seattle. Half the distance to be exact. And if there's a chance that I'll be going to Seattle twice that week, I don't want to drive twice like I will be doing the next week.
Why would I possibly drive to Seattle twice a wee, two weeks in a row? Animal Collective and Danny Perez's "visual album" ODDSAC is having a screening at the Egyptian Theater on March 30th. It's gonna be all acid trippy and psychedelic and AMAZING. But the real reason I'm considering paying for this crazy bit of AnCo madness is that the info says that Perez and "members of Animal Collective" will accompany the screening. What exactly does "members of Animal Collective" mean? Does it mean that all members or just Deakin will be at the screening, because Deakin is playing a solo show at Neumo's the next day? Grrr. If I miss the chance to see Panda Bear in any capacity, I'll be heartbroken.
Looks like some fucking crazy stuff. Even The Stranger recommended going in this week’s issue.
Oh, I should probably address where my title came from. It’s another Doctor Who reference, but this one is from the Who-centric Trock (Timelord rock) band Chameleon Circuit. I don’t know why I didn’t discover them before now, because all my Youtube channels were pointing me into its direction. Seriously. The Vlog Brothers (Hank and John Green) were integral in getting DFTBA Records started, and Hank releases his nerdy stuff on it, and Chameleon Circuit is on DFTBA (Don’t forget to be awesome), and guess who’s in Chameleon Circuit?
This guy.
That’s right. Alex Day of his “Alex reads Twilight” videos. In them, he’s all snarky and British in his critique of Twilight. It’s quite entertaining. Yay for Nerdfighters!
I just had to start with this video because my favorite band from San Fran that opened for We Are Scientists in 2008 released it this morning. It makes my heart feel full. It’s such a Valentine’s Day-y song. So cute and lovely, but not cutesy. Not only is it shot beautifully by Yours Truly (not me, the name of the production team), but it’s all warm and fuzzy and sweet. Don’t you just love the first couple lyrics? They’re kinda dirty, but from Chris’s lil’ crooner voice it sounds adorable.
I love the bit at the end when Chris explains what it’s about, the Phil Specter shout-out, when Julian and the two other drummers are playing in unison, and the violins, and Chris’s voice, and the Echo Chamber Orchestra, and John Vanderslice, and all the hugs. I just love it. It was a great way to end the day after finally turning in my personal essay for creative non-fiction, checking the IAS class schedule for next quarter, and having the easier midterm ever.
Seriously. Today was a good day. And Gary and Lucy came over. I swear I haven’t seen her since right after Christmas. The last two times Gary came over I wasn’t home. I was at Ledger one weekend and seeing Phoenix the next time. I was almost too excited to get home today, and when I walked in the door, Lucy could not have been more excited to see me. I really am her favorite. I’m not gonna lie. She didn’t stop jumping on me for 5 minutes and whining and gnawing at my wrist. That’s how she shows her love. She chews on me. I don’t know what I would have done if that dog had gotten away the night of Gary’s accident. I don’t know what HE would have done, because she’s clearly the best part of his life right now. Most likely what’s keeping him from looking for a job. Anyway… so…yeah. Good midterm.
Took photos at a school event today. It was called “Am I Beautiful?” So I was expecting this motivational thing about self-esteem, being yourself, ignoring stereotypes and uber skinny models, blah, blah…high school stuff, but nope. I walked into this room and a Bible was sitting on the table.
Uh. Oh.
It was a Christy event. That’s what I call them. I think it’s more vague that “Jesusy” or “Gody.” And besides, Gody could be misinterpreted as gawdy. And that’s not what I meant. No, it was Christy. I’m sitting there, listening to this woman talk about God and Jesus and the Bible and creation and all that, and I’m just taking pictures. At one point I think the woman said something about wanting scientists to come out realizing that they were wrong and be all “creation woot!” Well, not in those words, but basically that. It was WEIRD. They ended the thing with a prayer, and I snapped a couple pictures of the prayer, which turned out kinda cool actually, and I skipped out of the room before they opened their eyes. It was weird.
Oh, okay. Guess who’s April schedule just got even more inconvenient?
Well, obviously mine. But I just found out that Chris Hardwick, aka Nerdist, aka the host of G4’s Web Soup, aka the former host of MTV’s Singled Out aka one half of comedy duo Hard n’ Phirm is going to be in Seattle at the Showbox at the Market performing stand up on GUESS WHICH DAY?
No seriously guess.
Nope.
Not quite.
You’re getting warmer.
Okay, I’ll tell you. April 10th. Same night as Spoon, AND Jonsi Birgisson of Sigur Ros. And I find out today that layout weekend is April 9-11. So basically I have to decide to either drive 200 miles in two days or just go see Spoon on Friday the 9th and bail on Jonsi and Chris Hardwick the 10th. Cause I’m not missing Spoon. Not even for layout weekend. And besides, it’s on a friday, and we never stay as late on fridays. But saturday will be a problem. I skipped out early to see the Cribs two weeks ago and we ended up staying really late on sunday. But then again we didn’t get a lot done on friday. I still have two months to figure this shit out, but I just know I’m not missing Spoon. Plus, La Roux and Florence + the Machine are both within the next ten days of Spoon. Hooray for insane schedules!
Five…wait, four more days until we find out the Sasquatch Lineup. I cannot wait any longer. I need The Doctor right now to take me in the Tardis to four days into the future so I can know if my beloved Scientists will be gracing any of the stages at the Gorge. If they don’t Miranda and I have already devised a plan to record a video begging them to come. I think I might cry either way – if they do or they don’t come. And I’m also keeping my fingers crossed for Arcade Fire. That’d be wicked. And I think someone on Last.fm mentioned Panda Bear possibly coming back because of his new solo album. I would die. I would seriously keel over and die if Panda, WAS and Arcade Fire were there for me to celebrate my birthday. Good lord yes. And what else would be amazing – if the Morning Benders came to Sasquatch! They’re playing SXSW, why not come north? It’s only fair because their show at the Crocodile in April is 21+. Don’t they remember what it was like to not be able to go to shows they wanted to see? It wasn’t that long ago. Grrr. I should have started a Facebook campaign to bring my favorite artists to Sasquatch.
Well, we’ll know in four days, won’t we?
What else?
I won’t talk about Valentine’s Day until Valentine’s Day. But as of right now, I still don’t like it. It has an ugly color scheme, like the color of those creepy cartoony diagrams of your insides, and it’s like they have to put nasty chocolates in the boxes to make the mediocre ones seem amazing. Honestly, who eats the coconut ones? I don’t. I like Easter candy much more. You don’t get coconut eggs. Easter and Halloween candy isn’t a mystery. You don’t have to punch a hole in the bottom of Easter and Halloween chocolates to know what’s inside. Damn Valentine’s Day.
You know what I wanna do? Go to the new Hard Rock Cafe in Seattle. I’ve seen pictures, and I don’t think I’ve ever been to one. In 8th grade we went to Planet Hollywood in New York, but never the Hard Rock. Pretty sure. And it’s right off Pike Place, so it’s in a nice part of town, not sketchy at all.
I need voodoo doughnuts. I want a maple bacon doughnut right now. When Cassie comes to visit, she better bring me doughnuts. Or if it wasn’t layout weekend this weekend I’d drive down for the long weekend and stay with her. Oh well, we’re going to make a good paper. I’m proud of my pictures, and I think we have good content. I wasn’t at the meeting tuesday because of my stupid writing group for creative nonfiction, so I’m not sure what’s going in this issue.
I told you it was nonsensical.
I’m having Editors withdrawals. Off to watch more Youtube videos of various live performances.
THIS IS A TANGENT. 