Posts tagged chris miller
Maybe I Should Drive :)
Nov 11th
WHAT I’VE BEEN READING: Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris. Next week, on the CRUISE (YAY YAY YAY!!!!!) I will be reading a LOT of books. 
God, I love to read.
WHAT I’VE BEEN LISTENING TO: Soulstice by David Ryan Harris. Oh my sweet lord, his voice is like honey. Every song on Soulstice is perfectly balanced. It has some of my favorite songs on it, too, like Pretty Girl, Good Thing, Get Your Way, and the heart-melting Sweetest Berry.
AMUSING POP CULTURE OCCURANCE: OK…was I right or was I right about Asslee Simpson? For the uninitiated, scroll down and see my earlier entry. I’d look it up, but I’m kinda fucking lazy right now. The most hilarious part of the whole Milli Vanilli/SNL snafu is how, just one month earlier, she was quoted as saying (regarding lipsynching), “I’m totally against it and offended by it. I’m going out to let my real talent show, not to just stand there and dance around. Personally, I’d never lip-synch. It’s just not me.”
Really, Asslee? Is that right, now? Excellent. Irony and I will be over here in the corner just laughing our asses off at you.
WHAT’S BEEN GOING ON: I have been driving. A LOT. My car is my second home.
First of all, my Joey turned 9! So I drove home for a few days to celebrate with him and take him to the Exploratorium. He and AuntieMel had a very special day together.
On Friday, I wanted to get down to Palm Springs to see Marc Acito read from his book “How I Paid For College: A Novel of Sex, Theft, Friendship, and Musical Theater.” I LOVE that book.
You would think that leaving Tracy at 9 am would provide enought of a window to compl,ete a (normally) 7 hour drive by 7 pm. Well, you would be wrong. Dead wrong.
The traffic was SO HORRIBLE that I didn’t make it. Not even close. I didn’t even get home to Woodland Hills until almost 9 pm. 12 hours in the car for nothing! I didn’t even make the damn reading! I was PISSED OFF to say the least. Fucking LA Traffic!
The very next day (Saturday) I took off for San Diego to see my friend Chris playing Scoop in The Heidi Chronicles. What a fabulous play! I read it in college but had never seen it before. Chris and the actor that played Susan were the standouts, IMO.
I crashed at Chris’ in San Diego, but I knew that on Sunday Marc Acito would be signing books in Palm Springs from 1:30 to 3 pm. I decided: DAMMIT!!!! TRAFFIC WILL NOT DEFEAT ME! Ev and I decided to meet up in San Bernadino and drive the rest of the way out together. A few weeks ago, I bought her a copy of Marc’s book and she loved it as well, so she was excited to meet him, too.
We made it out to Palm Springs and (after a bit of searching) located the festival (http://www.pspride.org). How spectacular!!! Drag queens, leather, costumes of all sorts…..fan-fucking-tabulous!
We found the Q Trading booth and introduced ourselves. As Marc was hugging me and I was telling him my name, he said, “Not the Melanie that’s been emailing me?” I said, “Yes, I’m the girl that’s been cyber-stalking you.” He gave me another hug and his tone totally changed – it was like we were old buddies. I think that either he must be a genuinely nice person or he’s a PR genuis, because I definitely felt special after talking with him.
He joked around about how it felt so nice to hug soft breasts after hugging hard chests all day. I think that, personally, I could get used to hugging hard chests all day. Also, he was so impressed that we drove all the way out just to meet him that he actually left his post at the signing table to walk us to the drink tent and buy us margaritas. Woo!
We took pictures and hung out for a while. Man…what a sweetheart! Believe me, I was completely committed to pimping the book before, on the strength of the book itself, but now I am ten times MORE committed knowing that, via the pimping, I will be helping out such a truly wonderful, as well as talented, person.
Anyway, BUY THE BOOK!
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!!!!!
Major Updates!
May 11th
WHAT I’M READING: A Cold Heart by Jonathan Kellerman, No Second Chance by Harlan Coben, Dreaming of the Bones by Deborah Crombie and Until the Real Thing Comes Along by Elizabeth Berg. Ha! Take that! Four at once!
WHAT I’M LISTENING TO: I just discovered Bowling for Soup and Arrogant Worms. They’re cool!
MOVIES I’VE SEEN LATELY: I saw “Max” when I was on vacation visiting Evie…probably the last really GOOD movie I’ve seen.
COOL WEBSITE I’VE JUST DISCOVERED: http://www.chicklit.com A website devoted to chicks (which I am) and books (which I love)…how could it be anything but right up my alley? I love it!
WHAT’S BEEN GOING ON: So many things have happened since I last wrote! I was off-track for a month in March (meaning school was not in, so I was off from work) and so I took two trips. One short one was down to Southern California to visit my college buddy Amanda. I stayed with her in her apartment and we had a blast hanging with her friends and just generally goofing around together. I also saw my summer roomie, Tessa, and her fiance Dave, who are getting married in August. They are a cute couple!
Then I went out and visited Evie, my roomie for Junior and Senior year of college, in Baltimore. That was the first time I have ever been on the east coast. It was cool! I saw Washington DC for the first time, and met some of Evie’s family in Northern Virginia. I also got a chance to meet some of her friends, which was cool…to get a glimpse into her world.
She hosted a dinner party while I was there where she made awesome paella that everyone loved. They also have amazing restaurants there, and Evie took me to this cool place that Amanda would love called Panera, all they have there is different kinds of bread. She also took me to a cool dessert place called Cosi where they bring a Sterno fire to your table, along with graham crackers, marshmallows and chocolate so you can (as I’m sure you’ve figured out by now) make S’mores at your table. Neato!
A few weeks later, I went to San Diego to visit Chris and see his play. Not a fabulous play LOL, but Chris was awesome in it. We also had a really good time on the visit, went to a cool Greek diner and the beach and played a rockin’ game called Therapy. Good times, yeah, Therapy is fun. Yeah. LOL
Well, that’s about it for now. I vow to start posting more often, and provide a more detailed, anecdotal recitation of the events of my life. For my own benefit later in life, should no one else care to partake. LOL
Later!
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