A World Full of Michaels, Part Two

Team Spontaneity is on a roll again this week.

After perusing through the pages of YouTube, I came across a link stating that a certain Michael Franti was performing at Amoeba Records here in Berkztown, fo' free! I thought to myself, "oh my gee. It's too good to be true!" but alas, 'tis! As I researched the topic, and even called Amoeba, I verified that the musician whom I listen to at all times would actually be within arm's reach... if not more! After finding that out, I knew I was not about to miss it.

So with my trusty co-team captain Clarisse, we ventured off to Telegraph Avenue and positioned ourselves to what looks like quite a lengthy line to get inside the store. After about half an hour, the line starts moving and we were instructed to situate on the ramp, and glory be, we were finally moments away from listening to one of the best Michaels in the world LIVE!



Yup, there they are: Michael Franti and Spearhead (Jay Bowman, left; Michael Franti, middle; Jolene Rust, right)

Not only did they happily entertain us by singing songs like "Sound of Sunshine," "Say Hey (I Love You)," and "Hey Hey Hey," but they were gracious enough to actually meet with their fans! Needless to say, we're like totz best friends now.



He's the sweetest guy in the world. We went up to him and he showered us with hugs and kisses. He even asked Claire how her week was, which I'm sure she greatly appreciated.

I'm pretty much also bffls with his band peeps Jay and Jolene:

We're adorable in this picture, I know... And this dude was about to steal my jacket. He was definitely manhandling my arm ready to rip it off. He was really cool with the guitar though and I was so ready to give it to him. The jacket, I mean.


Gah! What a night... I'm so glad I live in a city where I could just randomly go to things with famous people in it, then get to meet them. Life is good.

'Tis the season...

As Christmas rapidly approaches, I’m beginning to panic, mostly because I have literally nothing under my Christmas tree, ‘cept for Catlin’s ginormous box which I have yet to open.

My main problem really is that I haven’t had time to shop. I work nine hours a day and the rest of the time, I was freaking out about how I’m supposed to buy a bed for my mom in such a short amount of time. My other problem is that I have no idea what to give my children for Christmas. What do I give two 13-year-old boys that isn’t going to cost me $59.99 at Best Buy? What do I buy a 3-year-old girl who has literally everything? I’m stumped, guys!

I’m also slightly freaking out about the fact that all 16 of my immediate family members are spending Christmas in my 707 square foot apartment. It’s gonna be a blast having all of them there, but the preparation that comes beforehand freaks me out. I don’t know how to host a formal dinner party. What am I? An adult? Psh.

Well granted that I am legally, the only events that I’ve ever thrown that have ever come even close to a being a party is that one time that I invited people over for sushi and sake, and that other time that I invited people over to get rid of all the alcohol in my apartment by playing “Drunk Mario Kart” before my mother comes back. Those aren’t exactly “adult formal dinner party” material.

Any ideas??? Help me out here!

How to toot it and boot it...

...since apparently, not everybody knows how, especially cute Italian hotel door men.

Well I mean, neither do I...........so it's probably best to just stick to what I do well: tell you a story.

Plain and simple: I had one of the best times of my life this past weekend. Oh I've never felt this way before. Yes, I swear, it's the truth. And I owe it all to the coolest peeps on Earth... which is probably you... whoever is reading this....

So now, I begin my story:

In anticipation of my lifestyle suddenly changing in the next week, I've decided that it was time to celebrate: to celebrate freedom and to celebrate life and everything that comes along with it. And what better way to do that than with a little bit of alcohol, a whole lot of dancing, great food, and great friends.

Friday night:

When it comes to drinking, I don't do it to get drunk; I do it to experience a culture, to expand my taste buds, to try new flavors ... drunkenness just comes as a by-product (like a spandrel to an arch). Sometimes it ends in a whirlwind of mistakes and embarrassments, other times that whirlwind turns out to be the best decision of your life. So even though two shots of coffee Patron, Sake bombs, Irish car bombs, and bottles upon bottles of Japanese/Irish/IPA beers later resulted to the stumbling, the blurred vision, the water rings on the table, the crumbs on the carpet, the ridiculous load of bottles and cans to be brought to recycling by a 3'5" girl in a wheelchair, and the taking off of the shirt, without them, there also wouldn't have been gays dancing to "It's Raining Men," Christmas balls jokes, excessive laughter, and a reason to get the cute Italian door man's number.

Needless to say, it was a wonderful(ly gay) night.

(Almost forgot to mention the sushi platter from Nude Sushi! i.e. a whole bunch of California rolls with different fish/eel/shrimp on top! Not to mention the chicken sushi.)

Saturday:

The day after a party usually sucks. There are a million things to clean up, your head hurts from the night before, and all you want to do is lay in bed until Monday. Unless you're me... in which case, you naturally wake up at 8 AM, clean the house to the best of your abilities, and host a study party. Yeah that's right: a study party... and I'm not even in school anymore.

One of my best friends from high school, Sara Gandara, came to visit me this weekend. We hadn't seen each other in four and a half years. 4.5 YEARS! Does anyone realize how long that is? Leaving Elk Grove was one of the best decisions of my life, but I seem to have forgotten that I also left some awesome people there, namely Sara. But luckily, Berkeley is only a couple of hours away, so it was fairly simple for her to hop into her car and drive to my new hometown. And I'm so happy that she did. We toured the campus, she saw where I work, we played with the Wii, we ate delicious Extreme pizza (with three of the coolest sophomores in town), drank saltless salted caramel hot chocolate (the one that I bought out of love and devotion to Claire... *sniff*) and wrote an essay about pathos, ethos, and logos and its relationship with a documentary about martial arts. You might think it's lame, but writing essays (along with studying Arabic, math, and o-chem) had never been so cool.

Sunday:

There are so many songs about Sundays: "Easy Like Sunday Morning" "Tell Me On a Sunday" "Sunday Bloody Sunday"... all describing how Sunday is supposed to be the chill out day. The day of rest. Stress-free. What did we do? Woke up relatively late, had a lovely brunch at Herbivore, and walked around downtown Berkeley for some time. It was glorious. Nice bonding moment with two really awesome people. Just proof that you don't have to get all cray cray to have an amazing day. Just stopping by the toy store and the video game store and the hotel to get a glimpse of cute Italian door man should suffice (sorry Claire, I know you told me to go on a Rigatoni hiatus, but I couldn't help it LOL... you know how bad I am with that). Oh and of course, dying of spiciness from the Indian food we got from the really huge restaurant with no one in it!

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So ladies and gents, that was my weekend. That's how I toot it and boot it. It might not be as misogynistic or sexual (unless you're Ashola) or crazy as the real thing, but to hell with it: it was fun.

Drama in the drama department

So today, there was a little feud between two Idiots on Twitter. Actually, it didn't even need to be a feud. It was such a little thing that was totally blown out of proportion. In any event, it gave me a great deal of entertainment today. So this was the little thing that occurred between John Gallagher Jr. and Aspen Vincent on Twitter...

JohnGallagherJr: I got shut down and bed ridden by sickness this weekend. My true apologies to all seeing American Idiot. It is killing me to not be there.

aspenvincent: @JohnGallagherJr Not sure what to make of that. We miss you but apologizing to those seeing the show devalidates us still kicking ass here.
aspenvincent: @JohnGallagherJr apologize to people that were hoping to see you. But don't apologize for the quality of the show while you're gone. Uncool.
aspenvincent: we thrash, sweat, bruise, and bleed onstage because we believe in this show. To read an apology to an audience for the show we just gave...
aspenvincent: ...Even if that's not what he meant, is hurtful. This isn't a personal attack on John. I love/respect him. But that hurt us today.

JohnGallagherJr: My apology was being offered from a performer who purely hates to not be onstage at his job. No disrespect meant to the amazing AI cast.

aspenvincent: @JohnGallagherJr apology totally accepted. I know what you meant and we look forward to having you back John. Heal up. Xoxo

JohnGallagherJr: American Idiot has the most talented group of swings/understudies I have ever seen in my life and they never ever fail to deliver.
JohnGallagherJr: And I would never suggest that the quality of our show would suffer merely because of my absence. It is worlds bigger than any one person.
JohnGallagherJr: And you will not once hear me talk ill or slanderously about any of my brilliant castmates.

So after reading all this shenanigan and getting slightly uncomfortable, my favorite Idiot totally made light of the situation, in addition to almost killing me and making me sweat and tear up from laughter. This thread of Michael Esper Twitter posts followed the silly feud.

airstreamrally: @aspenvincent @johngallagherjr that was the most polite Twitter-beef ever. Could you please try a bit harder? Listen to NWA or something?
airstreamrally: Also? I'm making "Team John" and "Team Aspen" shirts right now.
airstreamrally: Also, I just want to apologize to everyone for being in the show tonight.
airstreamrally: Ok that shirt comment was divisive. They've reconciled and are now locked in a warm cyberembrace. So one shirt: Team Jaspenny. Forever.

So yes, that made my day. I've never been so involved in a "Twitter-beef" before.

BART Adventures, Part 2

This morning, I got on the BART and I put in my brand new Skull Candy ear buds and turned my iPhone on shuffle, like I do every day when I go to work.

After almost-dozing off to some Wall-E music, then suddenly rockin' out to American Idiot, the song "Say Hey (I Love You)" by Michael Franti (another amazing Michael) & Spearhead came on. Now this song... this song has been favorited by so many Deutsch Floor 1-ians, most especially by me and Ms. Perlman (yeah, you just got mentioned in another blog). I dunno what it is, but it's the song that I could listen to over and over again while driving in a car on my way to heaven or something.

Anywho... so as I was listening to this song (probably one of the most engaging, happiest, and best picker upper in the world), I found myself nodding my head like yeah and moving my hips like yeah to its upbeat music and lyrics.

I look to my right and an old woman in a tweed jacket and perfectly quaffed hair was swaying her hands from side to side as she hummed a tune to another old woman across from her. After watching her for a few seconds, our eyes met and she smiled at me. Across from me was a young man in a leather jacket, shades and earbuds, bobbing his head at the same beat as the song playing in my iPhone. To my left was a slightly chubbier woman in a tracksuit, wearing yellow headphones, who held on to the vertical pole by the doors. She had her eyes closed was shaking her booty just ever so slightly to the music playing in her ears. And directly next to her was a tall, skinny guy with long hair playing air drums.

I'd like to think we all had the same song in our heads; that Michael Franti was bringing joy not only to my ears but to everyone else in that train. In fact, I think I'll contact BART and tell them to install a speaker system that would play fun music. That'll brighten up everyone's day.

That was a fine moment though... I feel like the five of us connected in such an inexplicable way. I hope it happens again soon.

BART Adventures, Part 1

For the past month, the BART ride has been one of my most looked-forward-to form of entertainment. Even before I started working, I've been having the most interesting experiences during my commute.

For instance, two days ago, when I got to the MacArthur BART station from Berkeley (SF bound train), I went to the elevator where it would take me to the other set of platforms so I could get onto the Pittsburg/Bay point train and get to Concord. I was in the elevator with a woman and her baby in a stroller.

As the door was closing, this guy on a bike comes and crashes his front wheel to the back of my wheelchair so that the door wouldn't close on him. Though he seemed to be perfectly capable of taking his giant bike up the escalator, with his muscular arms and protruding chest muscles, he proceeded to force himself and his vehicle into the elevator. Since his bike was huge, it took us at least 3 minutes to figure out how he could fit in, the time he could've easily spent leisurely walking towards the escalator and up it without a problem.

Finally, he gets in, with his front wheel lifted from the ground and about 6 inches from my face. I run to the second elevator up the platform. As it was coming up to the platform, I could see through the glass elevator doors the train I was trying to catch and how its doors were closing and how it was speeding away.

I had to wait 12 minutes for the next train, which by the way was packed like a sardines can. I was/still am pissed at that guy.

On the bright side, Jim Coyle, one of the bigtime contractors from Pankow was on the train and as he was getting off at Rockridge, he saw me, remembered my name, and said hello.

Mel Gibson is Cray Cray! But so is Oksana Grigorieva!

First and foremost: Read this and listen to the sound clip.

My favorite line: "ALL I WANT IS MY DAUGHTER AND A MAID!!!!!"

So every day in the car on the way to work, Kuya Tammy would turn on the radio and set it to 650 AM, and we would listen to the Armstrong and Getty show. Well, assuming that I'm not curled up in the ball, sleeping.

Today's topic of discussion is the newly released recording of a phone call between actor Mel Gibson, and his current wife or girlfriend or whatever, Russian model, Oksana whatsherface. According to whatsherface, she is suffering from domestic abuse from the actor and he knocked off like two of her teeth at some point or something like that. In the recording, Gibson starts yelling and screaming at her, calling her all sorts of names, accusing her of cheating, and a whole bunch of nonsense. He even did like a gorilla/having your legs cut off without anaesthesia/Braveheart yell somewhere in there. In other words, Mel Gibson was like totally insane. Like, I don't think I've ever heard so many *beeps* on public radio/television before.

In my opinion, both parties in this shenanigan are stupid. It would be a different story if one side is like all sweet and nice and beautiful inside and out. But no! Mel Gibson is an asshole and whatsherface is a bitch!

She's getting older, her career is falling into shambles. She goes and hits it up with a man (whom by the way was married for 28 years or something prior to meeting her) and has a child with him to save her image and her bank account. She knew Gibson had aggressive tendencies, so if she really was willing to accept that crap, then she should probably be more cautious and shut her trap when she needs to in order to avoid any trouble.

Seeing as she was fully aware that the whole phone conversation was being recorded, I'm sure she did everything she could to provoke a violent verbal reaction (like we heard on the recording), while also ensuring that she seemed innocent and calm. Manipulative much?

Now don't get me wrong, domestic abuse is an incredibly serious matter. When I get married and I see signs of potential abuse from my future husband, I will immediately get a lawyer and get a divorce. I'm really not gonna stand for that shit, and neither should any woman (or man) out there. But as I've said before, this type of thing could have easily been avoided and handled at much more poised, mature, and undeafening manner.

I don't think it's necessary that she broadcasts this whole phone conversation to the world, and for him to blow up like that (instead of just hanging up on her per se), and for him to ditch his wife for that Botoxed bimbo.

Whoo... that was tiring. It is now time for me to CTFD.