Posts tagged brandy
That Was 90% Gravity
Mar 11th
MUSIC I’VE BEEN LISTENING TO: I have a cool story. It’s been so long since I updated my blog, that I can’t believe I haven’t posted it here yet, but I haven’t, so HERE GOES!!!!!
In 1998, I bought a brilliant CD by a girl named Rebekah called “Remember to Breathe.” It never left my player for more than a day for over a year, to this day I still listen to it at least once a month.
The problem is, she never put out anything new and I could never find out anything about her aside from the fact that she did some acting (she played Sylvia in Barry Levinson’s Liberty Heights). Years of googling and asking around on message boards, etc. yielded nothing.
Then, in December I went to see David Ryan Harris at the Temple Bar in Santa Monica. I picked up all the postcards of the upcoming artists like I always do. One was for a girl named Rebekah Jordan. When I went to her website and listened to her songs, I realized her voice was very familiar. It was Rebekah, who I’d spent so long trying to look up!
I’ve seen her twice now, at Room 5 and at Little Temple. I talked to her briefly at Room 5, but got a chance to talk to her more extensively at Little Temple. Brandy snapped a picture of us, but it came out very dark because I was too nervous to remember which button is the flash on my own damn camera! LOL
Anyway, CHECK HER OUT, she’s amazing:
http://www.rebekahjordanmusic.com
BEST SHOW ON TELEVISION, WHICH IS ABOUT TO GET CANCELLED BECAUSE IT’S TOO SMART FOR NETWORK TV: Arrested Development. If you don’t watch Arrested Development, please start immediately. Particularly if you are a Nielson family. This show is so clever, so smart, so subtle yet simultaneously broad (yeah, I know, I wouldn’t have said it was possible either) that I honestly believe that if you don’t love it it’s only because you don’t get it. LOL. If you miss the boat now, and the show gets cancelled before you have a chance to become a rabid fan (as I know anyone who is smart enough to be reading my blog certainly would *smile*), then you will definitely be saying to yourself later, in true Gob style, “I think I’ve made a huge mistake.”
In fact, it’s gotten to the point where it scares me to bring up Arrested Development to new people. I know that if they don’t like it, I will lose all respect for them, not to mention any interest in pursuing the relationship further. Case in point, the following exerpt from an IM conversation between myself and a guy from myspace.com that was trying to chat me up:
BTW, the screenames have been changed to protect the innocent (me) and the idiot (him).
GUY: what are you up to?
ME: i’m watching the second season of arrested development on my computer again. god, i love that show
GUY: never seen it
ME: are you serious? you need to. it’s the smartest show on TV.
GUY: i watch joey
ME: yeah….they’re not really comparable
GUY: i like it
ME: ok
LATER IN THE EXCHANGE:
GUY: so what do you look for in a guy? tall?
ME: i’m not a very externally-focused person. looks are not very interesting to me. i’m more excited by ideas and passion than looks. i suppose i’m somewhat of a neo-hippie in that way.
GUY: oh, cool. yeah. me too.
(FIVE MINUTE PAUSE)
GUY: so what do you look like?
ME: was that subtle irony?
GUY: was that what?
ME: subtle irony.
GUY: i guess i don’t know what that is.
ME: which explains why you prefer Joey to AD.
GUY: AD?
ME: Nevermind.
Needless to say, he’s getting nowhere with me. 
WORST DAMN MOVIE IN RECENT HISTORY: Abandon. Katie Holmes elects to play the exact same character as she played in Dawson’s Creek, except this time she’s a killer. I mean, come on…she’s “smart” (whatever), studious, comes from a disadvantaged background, guys are drawn to her, she has Daddy issues…damn, people. That is Joey Potter. Joey Potter with a big damn rock. Not to mention the fact that the male lead looks exactly like Cabrera and it distracted me.
FUNNIEST BLOOPER IN A CHRISTIAN PSUEDO-NEWS PROFILE: My mom and I were watching the 700 Club the other night (shut up!) and they did an expose…er…I mean, a profile on this youth ministry in Connecticut called “Frontline Ministries.” So when the founder is camera-talking about the origin of the name, he says (with a completely straight face), “When David wanted to get rid of Uriah, he sent him out to the frontline of the battle, where the most intense fighting was.”
Um…???? WTF? Yes, that’s the way that David ASSASSINATED Uriah, you moron! What does that have to do with your youth ministry? So unless your motto is: “Frontline Ministries – Killing Kids for Christ since 1987,” you may wanna rethink that, turbo.
But the most intensely frightening aspect of this whole anecdote, for me at least, is how many people must have seen that segment and approved it before it made air. YIKES!
BEST FREEWARE AVAILABLE TO LOAD ONTO A TREO 600: Verichat, a Trillian-like program for handhelds. The upshot? I can now IM from anywhere, my friends. Look out. Particularly ATBers, as I believe it has chat room capabilities. What what!
WHAT’S BEEN GOING ON: Oh, hell, I’m sick of typing. LOL I’ll check in again with real news about my life, as opposed to random pop culture observations. Like anyone cares.
A Plethora of Concert Lovin’
Sep 27th
WHAT I’VE BEEN READING: Portofino by Frank Schaeffer. This book is so great. It’s a coming-of-age story about this kid, Calvin, who is vacationing with his fundamentalist christian missionary parents in Portofino, Italy. The seminal quote is “Most kids told lies to be special. I told lies to be normal.” It’s funny and poignant…I love it.
MOVIE I’VE RECENTLY SEEN: Shaun of the Dead. Oh my God, hilarious! I love British humor and this had the added benefit of some truly jump-worthy scares as well.
CD I HAVE BEEN SPINNING: Marc Broussard. http://www.marcbroussard.com Marc Broussard is pure sex. Pure. Sex. I think that straight guys should not even be allowed to listen to Carencro because the pure sex in their ears when those sounds start pouring out of their battery-deficient ipods just might turn them. And that would mean less boys for me. And that’s not OK. Because it’s all about me. (I know, I know…they solved the battery issue in the 5th generation. Whatever.)
GUILTY PLEASURE: Ashlee Simpson. Damn. I hate to even admit that.
I mean, don’t get me wrong, her songs are catchy. Whatever. But she did not, in point of fact, write them. Sure she has a writing credit on every song, but hell, the songwriting team Geffen hired to spruce her shit up could probably turn my blog into a hit song. It doesn’t mean I wrote said song!
She doesn’t play any instruments. That’s a problem for me in her genre of music, even if maybe it shouldn’t be. But while I don’t EXPECT pop airheads to be musicians, I DO expect rockers to be actual musicians, dammit! Is that so wrong????
She never had to pay any dues…she never had to convince a club to book her. She never had to do load in/load out. She never had to stand in front of a hostile audience that’s just waiting for the next guy and try to win them over. She never had to do any of a hundred things that people who have fought through and become seasoned have had to do, and therefore I will never admire her the way I admire the musicians I *DO* respect.
But, hell…was I playing my sister’s copy of “Autobiography” on the way to work this morning and guiltily enjoying it? Fuck me, yes I was! I hate myself a little right now. LOL
WHAT’S BEEN GOING ON LATELY: Well, one major event was the David Ryan Harris show at Little Temple here in LA. Oh, man, what a night. http://www.davidryanharris.com or http://www.ifihadadime.com (lots of good downloads at that last one)
First off, I got to meet a bunch of MSMers that I’ve never met in person before. Brandy, Trudy, Cy, Pearl, Michelle, Chandler, and Richard Young (the founder of MSM, also http://www.ifihadadime.com and http://www.firstlisten.org). It was such a small, intimate show. Maybe 50 or 60 people there. The club is incredible! I thought of Cat, because I felt as if I were in the movie Love Jones. It felt, also, like being inside a Genie’s bottle. A very cool Genie who has a Vern-influenced decorating sensibility.
Also, on the celebrity front, Scotty Crowe (Mayer’s merch manager…er…tour journal writer…er…ok, let’s just call it like it is. Mayer’s bitch. was there. God, I used to have such the crush on him. He was standing about 5 feet from where I was sitting. It made it someowhat difficult to concentrate on the show. Haha. Apparently DRH is his next big project. He’s propelled Mayer to stardom and next DRH. Awesome. Randy Jackson was there. Or should I say, Randy Jackson was there, dawg. Last, but SO not least…Adrian Zmed was there. Oh, yeah, baby. TJ Hooker 4 lyfe!!!!!
I concert-called Shawna for Pretty Girl. I figured since that song is about her (in our minds, anyway! haha) she should get to hear it. The show was just great. My favorite number was “Good Thing” at the end, because it was audience participation…we got to sing and clap and sway and I felt like I was back in Tongues of Fire!
“We had a gggooooodddd thing, don’t get me wrong…” FUN!!!!!!
Last Thursday, I drove down to San Diego (well, Solana Beach, technically) to see Tristan Prettyman http://www.tristanprettyman.com and OH MY GOD she is even more beautiful in person than in her photos, which I would not have thought humanly possible. Opening for her were Pete Thurston http://www.petethurston.com and Saba http://www.sabamusic.com. They were great as well. But Mizz Trizzy blew me the fuck away. She was incredible. Between everyone’s sets, it was about 3 1/2 hours in by the time she finished and I did NOT want it to be over, even though I was tired. I wanted it to keep going on and on and on and on. WOW!
Last thing to talk about, roomie Evelyn http://www.angelfire.com/va/downeasteralexa and I had a housewarming ‘do. Well…mainly Evelyn, let’s be real. haha. Evie cooked Chicken Cacciatore with Polenta and made a fabulous Mocha Almond Torte for desert. MMMMM….. I got to see some people I hadn’t seen in a while. Amy Crego was there, she is about to leave for bootcamp in a month, she joined the MARINES if you can believe it! WOW! My summer 2002 roomie Tessa was there, and I haven’t seen her for two years. I love, love, LOVE that girl. She is an incredible human. Evie’s friend Carrie came, as well as Cliff and Cerene. Chris bailed, and you can BELIEVE there is going to be hell to pay the next time EVT sees him. She denies it, but…come on. Stacie and Pat (friends of Evelyn) dropped by after the party and we did not end up getting to bed until 4.
All in all….it’s been a GREAT week, y’all!!!!!
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