heart/hand grenade

are you ready for some football?

2011-07-31T13:43:00.000-07:00

when i turned 30 i decided to set some goals for myself.

1. brew my own beer
1.a) become the sort of beer snob who says things like "personally, i like my brew more hoppy with a chocolate finish" and then one of my beer friends will say, "i prefer a nice summer ale with lemony undertones." and i'll reply, "how dare you!" and i will slap that person's face and storm out.

2. become a fan of a sport

these are just two of many. but this is where ive set my sights for now.

item 2 is more likely to be accomplished quickly and, obviously, step one of goal two is deciding on a sport to learn to like.

i considered something borderline obscure like soccer, rugby, or competitive eating. in the end i decided im no hipster. i want to be sincere. and i realized that part of this goal of becoming a fan included the shared experience of watching a game with other humans. i want high fives to be involved. so many high fives. and in the end it became clear that if i were a fan of rugby, i would likely end up spending time with dudes who have ironic mustaches, wear white belts, and would consider a high five too cliche.

something traditional then.
baseball, i thought. they have the best movies about their sport. the hats are good, i like the pants. and, i used to "play" softball in a real life league. i did. no, seriously. league rules stated that you had to have at least 4 girls to a team or you had to forfeit. the rules also included a clause that two of those girls must play infield positions... and thats the story of how i became catcher for the Mail Boxes Etc. softball team. the reality of this is that we held "mandatory meetings" at a bar before each game, which did not improve my skill or grace one bit. and one time i got hit by a pitch so hard i thought my wrist was broken. my mistake on that occasion, they told me, was that i tried to hit the ball instead of dodging it the way i usually would.
we didnt win alot of games.

i was 90% sold on baseball and ready to get started figuring out which of my cable channels is ESPN when dorian threw a wrench into the whole thing. i think he figured i was all talk until he realized that he was soon about to be subjected to watching baseball games frequently and would probably, at some point, have to take me to chase field (which is where they do the baseballing, as i understand it)
he cast his vote for the sport of football. actually, i think what he said was, "if youre going to make me watch sports it better be football because baseball is boring and dumb."
i put it to the facebook test and... football it is.
i like it when other people make my choices for me.

so. a fan of football i soon shall be. i figure there will be ample high fiving and im pretty excited to get one of those jerseys that football fans wear, its going to hide the baby weight really really well.

the thing im wrestling with now is the fact that i cant go buy myself a jersey until i pick a team to support.

last night on earth

2010-09-17T12:04:00.000-07:00

i was planning on being conservative, responsable. reasonable, even.
i knew that i would probably miss the fall leg of the 21st century breakdown tour... the red pants leg of the tour... the cigarettes and valentines leg of the tour...
i know what youre thinking- if you saw the first part of the tour why worry about it? or maybe youre thinking- if you 've seen them more than 20 times why worry about it? well. because. those times he wasnt wearing RED pants. what if everything is different now and i miss it and history remembers the best green day shows ever were the red pants shows... and those are the ones that i missed...??

still, red pants or no red pants, i made my peace with missing the show because i had a good enough reason... birthing a baby is probably one of very few things that would keep me away from a green day concert.

if one is not permitted to vacuum for 6 weeks after having a baby, i think going to the rock show is definitely out.
fair enough. i would miss this one. it was the responsable, reasonable, conservative choice.

turns out, im not responsable, reasonable or conservative. and missing a green day show is not something we lenzes do.

i was feeling the itch a few days before, when my sisters and friends would post things on facebook like "five days to the green day concert, so excited, LOL" and i would have to counter with my own status update "just got pooped on, isnt life prescious. LOL"

still, resolved to be responsable, reasonable and conservative and sit home with my pre-schooler and my newborn and my husband and all my tivoed episodes of 'big bang theory' to keep me from clawing the walls.

then, 10am on monday morning (day of the show) my sister sends over a text that xander, my 6 year old nephew, may not want to go to the concert and that jason, her husband and avid fan of the band Tool, would also probably not go and did we want her extra tickets if they cancelled?

suddenly possibility was alive. suddenly being reasonable, responsable and conservative seemed overwhelmingly stupid and my primary concern became 'how quickly can my mom get here to babysit rocket and zoe?'

of course, sarah (my sister) is at least 50% cold-hearted bitch. because there turned out to only be, say, a 25% chance that xander would not go and we would get to...
however, lest i seem ungrateful (or somehow incur sarah's wrath) just to offer us the tickets, just in case, just on the 25% chance we could use them, was incredibly generous- dont get me wrong- sarah is at least 50% wonderful, kind-hearted and pure.
but she did put us in a situation where we now had to sit and wait for the whim of a first grader to determine whether or not we could go see our favorite band and the man of my dreams in his red pants.

waiting is not something im good at.
but moving forward relentlessly once set in motion is an area at which i excell.
i knew months ago that i would not be going to this show, but now possibility had been introduced. all that reasonable, responsable crap went right out the window and now i had a willing and eager babysitter all set up and all i needed was the means to attend... the tickets.
sarah had given us the potential for tickets, i needed a guarantee.

enter the idiot club.
you may remember that last fall when we saw green day at america west arena we had terrible seats and i found out too late that i could have won floor access tickets from the idiot club if i had only checked my email that day.
well, i learned my lesson. and now that i was fanning the fire of possibility and burning the slaughtered remains of reason and responsability, i was also refreshing my email inbox constantly looking for word from the green day fan club that i have been a paying, card carrying member of for at least 6 years.

and it arrived.
a trivia contest for tickets to the show. and i knew all the answers except one, which i found the answer to easily on the idiot club news page... which i also refresh constantly.

so now, here we were sitting, waiting and wondering if we would either hear back from a sister or win a contest. should we put on pants for the first time in two weeks, or stay comfortable in our 'never leave the house' attire (the uniform of new parents)?
we waited. one leg in a pair of real pants, ready to be seen by other humans, and one leg in a pair of pj pants, ready to expand at the waist and be comfortable. one hand on the breast pump, ready to supply provisions for a temporary substitute mommy, and one hand on the remote control, ready to que up endless hours of sitcoms to pass the long living room hours. one eye on the phone, waiting for a text from sarah, one eye on the computer looking for an email from the idiot club... it was like green day twister.

then the inevitable happened, xander decided he DID want to go to the concert (which ended up being a good choice for him) and then the impossible happened, i won tickets from the fan club.

we stepped into non-pijamma clothes, fired up the pump and got ready to rock... red pants here we come....

to be continued with the story of how it ended up being the second best green day show of all time...
k.

so if you dare to second guess, you can rest
assured that all my love is for you.

ouch. my eye.

2010-07-06T00:26:00.000-07:00

no stranger to humiliating injury, minor emergency and small scale disaster- today i suffered an eye injury.

i got shampoo in my eye.
no, not a little lather run-off easily wiped away.
i got an entire squirt of shampoo in my eye. not the pea-size recomended dosage either, a good handfull of suave professionals. in my eye.

dont ask how it happened. i dont know.
i can tell you without hesitation that being 8 months pregnant and carrying 35 extra pounds has done nothing to make me MORE graceful or demure.

i dont know how i managed to get a fistfull of shampoo right into my eyeball, but now- looking back- im a little surprised it hadnt happened before now.

it burns. undiluted shampoo in your eye hurts like a mothereffingsonofamotherlessgoat. its the worst. i actually screamed.
and when the shower water didnt have the pressure or concentration to wash the offending gel out of my eye socket, i had to hop- screaming- out of the shower and rush to the bathroom sink.

a little back story.

a. the sink height in our new bathroom falls precisely at my belly's widest point. its a challenge to get close enough to wash my hands, let alone get my entire face under the faucet.

b. we recently installed a water saving device on the sink that has to be triggered constantly to make water flow. you cant just turn on the faucet and get a steady stream of water, you have to now turn on the faucet and constantly engage the device to get any water at all. tough to do when youre half blind, screaming in pain and can barely reach in the first place... this is my reward for going green.

so. i have to abandon that bathroom sink and run screaming for the hall bathroom sink. soaking wet. on concrete floors. still not graceful. still with the non-existant center of gravity and suddenly half blind and in obscene pain.
at this point i started to cry.
aparently, human tears activate the fire chemicals in shampoo. i was now in MORE blinding pain... making me double blind.

i was able to flip that faucet on and get a nice, healthy, earth-killing stream of constant, steady water to rinse the bulk of suave out of my eye... but that did nothing to stop the pain. i rinsed and rinsed and rinsed and cried and stood at the sink dripping and screaming and wishing i had a free hand to call poison control.

at this point dorian woke up and offered me one of zoes sippy cups to hold against my eye as a rinsing device... also did not stop the pain.

eventually i was able to wash enough suave out of my eye that it only felt like i had just been burned in the eye by a red hot poker and not that i was currently being burned in the eye by a red hot poker.

my eye continued to burn and throb for the rest of the day and i kept rinsing it out to little effect.
in fact, around 2pm i started wiping bubbles and soap chunks out of the corners of my poisoned eye.

the good news is, it feels better now. and its never been silkier.

k.

but now it's gone and I take the blame
and there's nothing I can do but take the pain.

Up and Atom!

2010-06-10T22:57:00.000-07:00

its not like i had any pressing social engagements or lavish events i was blowing off to spend the whole day at home waiting on various service people. quite the contrary. in fact, i still have PLEANTY of unpacking to do. At least 40% of Phase One Move is yet to be unboxed. So there was lots of slow puttering and back and fourth waddling and struggling to get my arms around things to do while i waited around for the Quest phone & internet guy and the Direct TV tv guy.
so there was no trouble. plus, at the end of the day, i would have my beloved internets back as well as cable television with DVR, which i had been missing for more than a year.

i did learn a lesson... that (thanks to HULU and large screen computer monitors) it is POSSIBLE to live without cable TV and a DVR... but not with a newborn baby. im not waking up at 4am and shuffling through HULU looking for something to keep me entertained as i operate as a human lunch box. not to mention that i will most likely be taking to bed at 6pm to facilitate such midnight snackery, and if i can record my stories and catch up in my wee hour walkabouts, i dont have to hate everyone on earth. so there. direct TV justified.

happily, direct TV was on the scene first. and only 1.5 hours into their 4 hour window! what luck! but the guy turned out to be a complainer and so i had to move the TV to a different wall. to be fair, i didnt move it myself. but i did have to stand there blinking at the guy for at least a good minute wondering how to explain that i would NOT be moving the TV and entertanment center myself... youd think 30 punds of baby sticking directly out ones front would be a subtle indication of ones incapacity to move large objects with success. oh well.

the Quest guy got here at the bitter end of his 4 hour window, but he set everything up swiftly and without hassling me to move any large pieces of furniture or electronics.

Then everybody left and i sat down with the food network on ready to bask in the warm glowing warm glow of internet access... only to find it didnt work.
the Quest guy was literally five minutes gone, which just happened to make it past 5pm, and the internet was NOT WORKING. at all. not sending information. not receiving information, just an infuriating spinning wheel telling me that it was trying, that it would happen eventually, it was coming... just be patient.

but i am not patient.

oh, and, by the way, i JUST got my van back from the 'shop.' tranny the vanny (i call her tranny because shes a transport, and because shes busted, wore out and has had alot of work done) but she was finally back to me and, theoretically, all in one piece. except for the fact that, the second i got behind the wheel, the AC started blowing hot air in my face. so i made arrangements to bring it back to the 'shop' and, sure enough, it works just fine whenever anyone else drives it. only for me does it try to bake the skin off my face with convection oven-style winds. i explain that 50% of the reason i turned her into the shop in the first place was because the AC only worked intermittently and, even still, i had to occasionally bang on the dash with a book to make it come on at all... i explain this and expect it to be a clear indication that something is amiss, and then its everyone elses turn to blink at me and insist that its working just fine.

all of which leads me to believe that i am somehow radio active and therefore magically cause things not to work.

BTW, dorian walked in the door this evening and the internet worked just fine... which of course made him question what i was complaining about when i called him from our newly installed home phone (did i mention my cell phone wasnt working all day?) and told him the internet was stupid and didnt work. so. cheers. guess we can all assume which piece of the puzzle here is REALLY stupid and doesnt work.

in completely unrelated news, i am now the owner of a tazer.

see you soon.

k.
shes an endless war, shes a hero for the lost cause
like a hurricane in the heart of the devastation
shes a natural disaster, the last of the american girls.

30 seconds to glory

2010-04-08T08:49:00.000-07:00

so, the deal is you make a 30 second video and maybe get to go to NY to see American Idiot on broadway AND go to the opening night after party... surely something worth winning.

after alot of debate over what can and would be effective in 30 seconds or less, we settled on this:

there is some competition, though.
this one is cute

most are just people stating their case and arent even offering anything eternal or personally scarring like, say, their second born child...
i.e.

although... if someone had to win besides me (and NO ONE DOES, since they are picking two winners) i would have to reccomend this girl

i mean, that really demonstrates commitment. although, you could cover that up with a nice tattoo of a bird or a butterfly or a giant naked mermaid... it takes a special kind of person to offer up the life-long name of their only son.

just my opinion.
pick me! we will even throw in an extra, size of a cantelope person!

k.

looking back what i have done there's lots more life to live
at times when i feel overwhelmed i question what i can give
but i don't let it get me down or cause me too much sorrow
there's no doubt about who i am i always have tomorrow

pick me.

2010-04-07T16:51:00.000-07:00

currently i am figuring out what to put in my 30 second video.

30 seconds to prove that me and dorian are the biggest green day fans so that we can go see american idiot on broadway.

i would really REALLY like to win this. you might be surprised to find out, given my generally delightful and positive nature, that im not much of a contest winner. in fact... im not sure ive ever won anything. which kind of, in my own little shallow heart, gives me hope... maybe ive been saving up all my contest winnings to win this BIG one.
i cant think of anything id rather do with dorian as a nice vaca-get-a-way before our little man comes bursting out.

cross your fingers for me.

k.

Second Leg.

2010-03-31T08:55:00.000-07:00

i knew it.
i knew that green day would come back for a second leg of the US tour. it was exactly on this second leg of the american idiot tour, 5 years ago, that dorian and i went on our geek-er-ific green day blog road trip and followed the show to 7 different stops... and i was 5 months pregnant.

here i am again, 5 months pregnant, and yesterday was the pre-sale for the next phoenix green day show. which is in august. which is exactly when im supposed to be having a rocket baby.

due on the 16th, concert on the 30th... baby rocket will most likely be born already.

my thinking was, hey lets bring him! the show is at an enormous outdoor arena, we could easily find a nice little patch of grass on the lawn. it would be like a really loud picnic, with my favorite band playing in the distance but still not far enough away to exclude me. picture it, nursing a happy newborn at the rock show. its what jane austen would have done if she had been a green day fan.

i told dorian this plan and he agreed. and then i found out he thought i was kidding.

plan b? i hold the baby in for 2 extra weeks with some determined clenching and we all enjoy the show, still from the cheap seats as im sure dorian (who didnt approve of my collander strapped about the waist method of baby protection in 2005) will surely not approve of strainer-based armour in 2010, and everyone will be happy with a nice uterus barrier between noise and second hand pot smoke. right?

leave baby rocket with a baby sitter, you suggest? that may be an option, except for the fact that i know good and well that a two week old baby knows only one thing about babysitters- 'youre not my mom and i dont like that about you'

i didnt buy presale tickets, though i may still have a few days to convince dorian that my jane austen plan is solid. till then, im open to suggestions.

and i, i just wana see the light.
and i need to know whats worth the fight.
k.

the happiest pants on earth?

2010-03-05T13:51:00.000-08:00

youve heard of a man without a country? well, im a lady without pants. regular human pants, you know, the types with buttons and zippers, dont fit me and maternity pants are still too big.
im currently weathering this storm with the strategic use of a bellaband, basically a tube top one wears around one's waist to either hold regular pants closed or elastic pants up. the effect, i assure you, is both stunning and practical... and all this time i didnt know i could look MORE lumpy around the mid-section.

add to that a week long trip to disneyland.
why would that trouble me? in a small way because i am responsable for packing 3 people for a week long trip each and doing so means advance preparation. therefore, of the 4 pair of pants i can currently wear, 3 are packed away and one has been on my ass for the last 4 days. i finally gave in today and have been going about my business in a pair of yoga pants that are strechy and expansive but never intended to push the size "medium" into such rotund territory.

furthermore, i dont know about you and your pregnancy... but mine comes with vivid and sometimes scary dreams. last night for example i dreamed that zoe got lost.

i searched and searched for her among topiaries, castles, frontier lands, tiki rooms, but i could not find her. the terror, for me, came from picturing my little girl scared. as long as she wandered around amused and distracted i knew that i would find her and she would be ok, but the thought of her crying... and scared... and wondering where i could be... is terribly frightening. many times in her little life i have realized that what i am most afraid of is for her to feel afraid. or lost. or alone.
and so i woke up and immidiatly wondered how i could lo-jack her to prevent such a thing from ever happening.
of course, it will turn into a "what should you do if you ever get lost" conversation... but that can sometimes lead to trouble. i dont want to convince her that getting lost is a general possibility lurking around every corner. we had a talk about stranger-danger and her response has since been to introduce herself to everyone on planet earth, first name last name and address, and then they arent strangers anymore.

the importnat thing to remember is that i will be at disneyland for a whole week... unable to ride anything good. so come see me and lets eat turkey legs and snicker doodles and go round and round the jungle cruise, shall we?

k.
of course you will notice that this chamber has no windows and no doors, which leaves you with this chilling challenge... to find a way out! of course, theres always my way...

i dont need anything but you.

2010-01-10T12:57:00.000-08:00

my grandad passed away this week.
just a few short months after his wife of 60+ years.
he couldnt live without her, i guess.

the first time i was ever on stage was with my gradad. when i was about 5 we performed in one of his Shrine talent shows. yes, in addition to wearing the fez, driving the little cars and printing maps on the back of the declaration of independance, the Masons also throw talent shows. we sang a song from Annie... "i dont need anything but you"
ive seen it on tape, blurry fuzzy VHS tape taken with my dads first and most enormous video camera. i think it came in a set with his origional giant cell phone. and it must have been before he learned to zoom in, because at the distance it was shot i look like just a tiny blonde blurb. one has to assume i am adorable.

what i remember is that i got a brand new dress and my hair done up in curlers. i got to stay up late and my sister had to stay home. me and grandad got to hang out in a mysterious "Green Room" in which there were many strange old people in strange costumes and they all thought i was the cutest thing on planet earth. I was allowed to order Sprite from the bar. I got to go out and be on the big stage, with my Grandad. he was a bit of a ham too, so we made a good team. i dont think there was a prize, but im sure we would have won.

We're tying a knot,
They never can sever!
I don't need sunshine now,
To turn my grey skies blue --
I don't need anything but you!

obsessed with funny, unwilling to die.

2009-09-23T19:29:00.000-07:00

its a bit obsessing, constantly checking my videos on funny or die. how many views today? or, more specifically, how many votes this half hour? how many funny votes? any die votes? its pretty overwhelming.

and now, theres more.

today one of our videos, "two guys at the end of grease" was chosen to be one of four in a facebook poll. if we win this poll we will be put up on the home page as a F.O.D. team pick... which will lead to votes... which will really help in the competition.

so, now i have a whole new layer to obsess about. voting is live at www.facebook.com/funnyordie the poll is on the left side of the page.

go on and vote, ill be there watching the numbers.

Neil Diamond, Danny Zucco, Personal Trimmers and Serial Killers:

2009-09-22T10:14:00.000-07:00

An Open Letter to Schick: Confusing advertisement leads to trouble.

An Open Letter to Schick - watch more funny videos

Two Guys at the end of Grease: What was everyone else doing while Sandy, Danny and the gang danced away?

Two Guys at the End of Grease - watch more funny videos

Two Guys and the Terminator: Our friends from the end of Grease find themselves trapped with Kyle and Sarah Connor

Two Guys from "Two Guys at the End of Grease" in the final scene from The Terminator - watch more funny videos

Two Guys and Buffalo Bill: Two Guys find themselves in a scary situation in Buffalo Bill's well from Silence of the Lambs

Two Guys from "Two Guys at the End of Grease" Trapped in Buffalo Bill's Well in Silence of the Lambs - watch more funny videos

Neil Diamond Sings Songs about Movies He Likes

Neil Diamond Sings Songs About Movies He Likes - watch more funny videos

did i ever make it through?

2009-08-24T16:59:00.000-07:00

well, forces converged and planets aligned and people came thorough for us so that we were able to go to the green day show! dorian still had to handle the remote at ASU but he would be right around the corner so we hoped he wouldnt miss much besides franz ferdinand.

and, little storm cloud that i am, as soon as i knew i wouldnt be missing the show i immidiatly went back to complaining about how bad our seats were. and they were bad.

seats, to begin with, are always bad if you have intentions of getting your socks rocked off. and i did. our seats in particular were worse because they were total nose bleeds. we were stuck sitting with all the people who want to, you know... sit.

we sat all through franz ferdinand. it feels weird, sitting, when you know you aught not to be. it feels wrong. but we sat through their set, not wanting to be rude to the 8 rows of people directly behind us who, im sure, would consider us to be better doors than windows.

then a surprisingly quick turn around between bands. then drunk bunny. then green day.

they came out and kicked off with 21st century brakedown.
maybe its just me, after all i am a super fan, but when i see those boys in real life, no matter how far away they are, i HAVE to stand up. i have to hop up and down and clap like an idiot. its a compulsion... i literally vibrate with joy. wich is a questionable thing to do when standing on the edge of a balcony. and even more questionable when all the a-holes surrounding you DONT stand up to rock out with you. they sat. they stayed seated. they didnt stir. they didnt budge. it was shocking to me. who were these people???
i was lucky to not have to make the choice to either stand up and piss everyone off or have to sit down and suffer because i was right on the end and i could just stand off to the side and bother no one- the only standing girl on the top top level.

when the first song finished billie joe yelled at everyone to stand up and after that i felt vindicated to stand up where ever i wanted, in front of anyone dumb enough to sit. billie joe got out there in the crowd, for reals. and i think that everyone in the place got to come up on stage and hug him... everyone but me. i soothed myself with memories of the hot tubs and kept telling myself that no one should be allowed to embrace the man more than once... and i have already had that priveledge.
but then again, i think thats total bullshit and i would prefer to get to touch him many many more times should that ever be possible. which it isnt from the top of the back of the arena. like i said, i want everyone to miss out on what i miss out on.

i had a great time but the crowd seemed to be a little lethargic. having a birds eye view of the entire place i was frusterated by how few people there were on the floor and how little they seemed to be moving. where as i, a million miles away, almost fell off the balcony more than once.

dorian showed up just as they played 2000 light years away and she, two of our favorites that don't get played very often.
they played the judge's daughter... that i have NEVER heard live before and probably never will again. wow.
the a-holes who surrounded us sat their asses down through that section and didn't get back up till 21 guns. bunch of a-holes.
they killed jesus of suburbia in the encore and closed the show with mr. armstrong, on his own, as they did on the last tour, but instead of playing good riddance he played last night on earth. THEN he finished with good riddance.

sigh.
dear green day, please come back to phoenix again on this tour. i have learned my lesson and i will never sit that far away from you again.

k.
with every breath that i am worth here on earth
im sending all my love to you.

kicking myself.

2009-08-24T00:29:00.000-07:00

i didnt check my email at all on saturday. when i finally logged in this morning, there was a message from the green day fan club.... they were giving tickets away to the show! free tickets that were SO MUCH BETTER THAN MINE!

and i missed it. and i could have been THERE in the FRONT where i want to be. and i missed. it.

k.
while your ship is going down
ill go out and paint the town.

almost only ever really counts in horseshoes & handgrenades

2009-08-23T11:02:00.001-07:00

not letting it go.
new album. new tour. a long time since the last time.
already ive had it out with dorian about the shittiness of our tickets to the upcoming show, and now it seems like i might not even get to go.

Missing out isn’t really the same when you have a favorite band. For example, modest mouse played here recently and I wasn’t able to go. I got over it. I mean, they’re only my number four favorite band anyway and I have seen them live before at least once... you couldn’t keep me out of there if I had any money but im broke as shit so, life goes on.

The pixies are playing next month. That stings. The pixies are my number 3 favorite band. But I console myself that I have seen them 3 times before, a lot when you consider that in 1994 I thought I would never get the chance. But, going to see the pixies costs money and, as it is, I cant even afford the service fee.

But what were talking about there is #3 and #4. And perhaps that isn’t even correct. It might be more accurate to call the pixies and modest mouse my #5 and #6 favorite bands because green day would be #1 and #2, and Foxboro hot tubs would be #3 and my mystery other favorite band (the foo fighters) would provide the needed buffer between billie joe and all others.

I don’t know if very many people have a #1 favorite band. Or if they have a #1 favoite band that could reasonably be counted as 3 bands in a 1-5 band love scale… and if they do I wonder if they have the tattoos to back that up. And then I wonder if they have more than one. What im trying to say is, its not as though I just like green day or even just love green day… green day is MY band. Which is not to say that I own them but more like saying they own me. that’s my band. Their music has reached so far into so much of me that I cant separate it from, say, fond childhood memories or creepy emotional scars…

Ive seen them live maybe 15 times. It doesn’t lessen the blow of missing them on the 21st century breakdown tour. Not at all. In fact, it makes it worse. I feel like im getting robbed of something I deserve… the chance to see my band play songs I havent heard live before. The chance to speculate if they will play my favorite song from the new album, unlikely since I always love the ones that don’t make it on the radio, but I still get that burn of excitement that they MIGHT play restless heart syndrome or horseshoes and handgrenades.
it stings because i wont get to see it to know for sure. and even more because.... everyone else will! im not one of those people who want other people to experience the joys they miss out on. i want everyone to miss out on what i miss out on.

do you want to elope tonight?

2009-08-23T11:00:00.000-07:00

Sunday, June 1, 2008
best day ever.
me and the reverend strichnine twitch.

foxboro hot tubs has alot of the same band members as the network. the network has alot of the same band members as green day. that used to be more of a secret.

dorian and i went to see the foxboro hot tubs... and it was pretty much the best thing ever because it climaxed in the fulfilment of one of my life long dreams... to touch, smell and talk to billie joe armstrong.

it was kind of an all day thing.

the internets told us that lining up wouldnt be allowed before noon, tickets would go on sale at 3 but you wouldnt get a ticket, youd leave your name at will call and then the only way youd get in would be to show a matching ID at 7pm. all so that no one would be able to scalp the tickets.
well, suspicious and untrusting shrew that i am, i insisted that we cruise by around 11 to see if anyone was waiting in their cars nearby or something.sure enough, when we got there about 60 people were already in line.
after we had waited with them for about an hour a little man came out and said that tickets wouldnt be sold in advance at all and we would have to wait there, in the parking lot, until 7pm.

i blame the edge 103.9 for advertising the show on the radio as a green day concert. fuckers. the reason that things like a tiny foxboro hot tubs show with limited tickets and only shady ways to get them EXIST is so that actual real life fans who are willing to do the leg work and KNOW about the foxboro hot tubs will be rewarded. in point of fact, isnt that why the fucking foxboro hot tubs exist at all? so that green day fans can go see green day someplace other than the home depot center?i think so.leave it to the edge 103.9, that only plays music that came out while i was still in high school, to not get that and ruin it for all of us.

we werent planning on being there all day, so i had to make a trip home to change into my actual concert clothes and put on my night time face and i brought back books for me and dorian to read for seven and one half hours... in the sun.

around 1pm the little man came out and explained to us that we were a line "community" and that we were in charge of getting to know one another to ensure that no one cut in line.
obviously i balked at the idea of getting to know my line mates and scoffed at the little man. what a douche.
leave it to dorian to take that idea to heart and, indeed, make friends with our line mates while i was in the ladies room. turned out not to be all bad though. our new friend's kids watched our stuff and saved our place while we went to alice cooperstown and had a couple of beers. yes. we made friends with the line mothers. but... i got out of the line for an hour and got a head start on my drinking... i suppose thats worth aknowledging my advanced age and the fact that i am, in fact, a line mother. at least i was in good company. that will teach me to mock the idea of "community"

no it wont.

so, after about a million years of waiting and sunburning, we finally got in to the show. and we got a pretty decent spot, right against the barricade of tables that keep the nice clean ten year olds away from the dirty drinkers. still, the opening band didnt go on until 9:30. and they blew ass. girls with guns. it probably would have been better if they had some guns. all i know is that there were technical dificulties and that didnt do anything to make them worse.

but then, around 10:30, after 11 hours of waiting, the foxboro hot tubs came on. yowza.it was my boys, dressed up in 60s polka dots and big glasses and fur coats. the foxboro hot tubs album is fantastic. its as good as old green day. and its really great live. they have absurd energy. it was easily one of the best shows ive ever been to...and then i thought to myself, did i wait for nearly 8 hours in the sun to stand behind some tables while dozens of 11 year olds jump up on stage and molest my boyfriend? no, sir. i did not.

so... i wiggled my way up to the front of the stage while they played the last song before the encore. surprisingly not hard to do. probably because i was bigger and more agressive than the rest of the kids out there who were, lets say, at least 10 years younger than me. im being conservative. anyway. by the time they came out for the encore i was one persons width away from the stage.

they came back out and played red tide.
backstory: i have a tendency to like the songs that never get played live. if i had to pick my favorite green day song, i dont think i could. theres just too many. but roshambo, the network song, is easily one of my top 3 favorie songs. and red tide, the foxboro hot tubs song, is also easily in my top 3. i dont know which one is 2 or which is 3, and i have no idea what i would consider 1... but the price i pay for liking the slow songs is that you never get to hear them for real.
i got lucky enough to see mr. armstrong, fink- that night, play roshambo from about 10 yards away 3 years ago. and i thought that was as good as it would get.

and so last night, mr. armstrong, the reverend strichnine twitch, came out onstage and played red tide.
he was right in front of me. no barricade between the stage and the audience, he was easily within my reach. and so, i reached. and the man of my dirty dreams reached back and held my hand. best thing ever, right?

i thought so too.

and then foxoboro hot tubs started to play sally and about a hundred people rushed onstage. being only one row of humans back, i got swept up in the tide and ended up onstage, right behind billie joe armstrong. and then billie joe turned around. turned around. with his back to the crowd and his front to me---and I HUGGED BILLIE JOE ARMSTRONG. we embraced. EMBRACED. one of my arms around his shoulders and one around his waist. one of his around my waist and the other still holding the mic to facilitate the rocking of our socks off.

yes, friends, we- that is, billie joe armstrong and i- shared a moment. yes, shared. and ben affleck can blow me, because he has no idea what sharing a moment means... it didnt exist before last night.
in case you were curious, as i have always been, about mr. armstrong... he is just about as tall as me. seriously, shorter than dorian. and im totally fine with that. for the record. he also smells wonderful even when he smells bad and is every inch as fucking hot in real life and up close.

and like i said, his arms were around me and mine were around him and we jumped and jumped while he sang like a rock star (
just so you know.
and that lasted at least 15 seconds.
and then more and more people came up and knocked me down. but my friend billie joe picked me up. and then he asked me if i was ok. and i said that i was. and by then the song was over, and set me on my feet and dissapeared.

k.

bullet in a bible

2005-10-16T11:41:00.000-07:00

im excited.
i have the international superhits DVD with all the music videos.
i have the network DVD, which i stole from my friend jillian and probably should give back.
i had the riding in vans with boys DVD that chronicled the journey of the band that opened for green day and blink 182 on the pop disaster tour, i had it because there are parts with green day of course. but i had stolen it from my friend tommy and i guess he must have stolen it back because... i dont have it anymore.

p.s. when i say "stole" i mean "borrowed with a remote intention to one day return... if asked to"

id like to win an early copy of the DVD. i am a member of the idiot club. but... if my blog reveals nothing else it should tell you that im not the sort of person likely to win things.

so ill buy it on november 15th like every other sucker.
ill watch it in the mornings while i get dressed and while i clean the house and before i go to bed, probably.
until someone tells me that my behaviour is absurd and that i should grow up.
you have a kid now, theyll say, what kind of example are you setting?
i figure on hearning that alot.
and always ignoring it.

k.

i know i am crazy
and a bit lazy
but i will try
to bring you up again
somehow

the last green day show.

2005-10-13T20:17:00.000-07:00

its very sad to hear the bunny's music and not get to see the bunny. for serious. i know they brought the costume. does aol have something against the bunny? come on, aol. we like drunk bunnies.

i had commented earlier about how empty the floor was so it was awesome when billie joe called for more people to come down onto the floor. but, it also sucked, because they went nuts and crushed the fuck out of us, in the HANDICAPPED section. handicapped means "please do not crush". dont people know that.
plus, i had a laptop with me. and it wasnt mine. it belonged to some guy from network live and i feel they would have been upset if it had been crushed. so i spent the whole rest of the show cradling it between my feel and making sure no one got too close.
it made it so i couldnt blog during the show, which was probably for the best. for me. no one would have been reading it during the show anyway. i took notes on my arm about stuff i didnt want to forget to mention. mainly things i just didnt want to forget.

it was great to hear american idiot all the way through again. we saw them do it this way last october, before the album came out. its a lovely bookend to the green day trip experience.
also, it gave them a good reason to use all those extra banners they had aparantly been saving. they had a jimmy banner and a homecoming banner and... other banners as well.

the best part is when they do one of the songs that makes billie joe go all crazy. st jimmy, king for a day, homecoming... those are the ones you wait for. he does something that can only be called scampering. manly scamering, though. punk rock scampering.

i do think that playing whatsername as an encore instead of the last song on the album, which it is, is a weird choice.
i think the idea of saying that minority is the last song and then leaving the stage for a few minutes before coming back and playing an encore, is weird altogether.
the idea of an encore is that the audience wants more, right, that they are so excited to see more that the band decides to come out and play more songs to reward the good audience for being a good audience.
so... its kind of beyond the point to do a fakey encore.
not that i didnt want to hear more songs. i always want to hear more songs.
but i also want to feel like, if i cheer hard enough and loud enough, i can hear EVEN MORE songs.
i dont know. its not a well thought out theory.

loved the big group hug moment at the end of the show. i dont know if that made it to the AOL airing. but they all came out and did the equivalent of a curtain call.

afterwards we went back to the network live room downstairs to get rid of the computer and get our stuff.
we saw many famous people in the backstage areas. zach braff. matthew fox. tim armstrong. some kid from the OC.

we didnt get to meet the band. i guess that would have been the ultimare ending to our experience. but, as it was, the show was a high enough note to end on.

besides, i have this theory that its bad luck to meet your idols.
again, its not a well thought out theory.

k.

there is no return from 86
dont even try

the network, revised edition

2005-10-13T19:48:00.000-07:00

we got to see just a few minutes of the sound check for the network. that was maybe the coolest thing. they were kind of just messing around, seemed like. i dont know what a sound check is supposed to be like, but that was the best thing ive ever seen. they wore their masks and complete costumes the whole time, which i imagine was sweaty, but i would have really really really liked to see them in the costumes without the masks... i would have felt like i had won something.

i like that even the roadies and techs wear ski masks, it really shows comitment to the overall effect. i think i should wear a mask if i ever get to see them again.

the show started late, and i guess thats because the sound check went way long. it was sort of cool to be privy to that information instead of standing outside going, "what the fuck... theyre 15 minutes late!"

keytars are so cool. i would want to play that, if i had to pick one instrument. but, i might have a hard time finding a band that wants me.
i really wish they had broadcast the network. i would like to watch the highlights again and i know people want to see them play.
they all wear creepers. its kind of amusing to think of billie joe changing from his network shoes to his green day converse. hes wearing a silver jacket that says "disease is punishment on the back" punishment for what, i would like to ask him. because i have some overdue library books and i would hate to get SARS over it.

so they worked out this little routine, and they did it at the last show too, they do this choreographed, synchronized dancey routine with guitars side to side, head bobs and so on. its a nice break for jason, i think, from his step-together-step-together number.

when they did spike, which is amost the best part, it was really hard to hear. i like to hear billie joe talk. or... fink... talk. about anything. anything at all. he could talk about what a bitch i am and i would just listen with dreamy eyes.
i heart fink. i wonder if it wouldnt be possible for me to marry his alter ego... something to look into... i could be the sassy wife of the lead singer/guitar player of the network, the counter part of adrienne, but we would never be in the same room together. and i guess i would have to wear a ski mask. and our babies, which we would have ten million of, would have to wear ski masks. then we would be a little bit too much like the jackson family for me to feel comfortable.
but, when he plays roshambo, my very very favorite... i figure i will take whatever i can get.

i like that mike, as van gough, gets to be in the spotlight and kind of front the network at least half the time. mike is rad. my overwhelming love for billie joe sometimes distracts me from this fact, but it remains true.

the network is an awsome band. a fun band. they are like pop tarts. sure, filet mignon is good, but every once in a while a pop tart is exactly what you fucking need.

k.

im a teenage rebel and im fucking bored.

green day at the wiltern

2005-10-11T22:27:00.000-07:00

Pink bunny!!!

Well, it’s the ymca at least, I hope theres a pink bunny….. not yet…no pink bunny… so sad…

How can they play ymca and leave the bunny backstage, hes probably drinking and crying back there. Throwing his tiny bunnies at the wall.
He should be crying and drinking out here.

Theres all these little kids with hairsprayed fauxhawks. Which might be adorable to some people, but they are edging into my area. I guess I have to learn to like kids pretty soon.

Blitzcreig bop and still no bunny. Unfortunate.
But now its time for green day

American idiot
Billie joe is bringing 100 more people to the floor…

Ok, theyre going to ctush my computer… more later…

as soon as the show started we got so fucking trampled, in the handicapped section... that i had to protect the computer that the tech guys gave me with my life.
to be honest, i used the computer as a sheild to protect my baby.
sue me, network live.i took notes on my arm.

here are the show notes:

played american idiot front to back

he said the home depot center show was a 60 yard stage and he must have scored 5 touchdowns.

st jimmy banner

he brought 100 more people onto the emptyish floor, thats when we got trampled

st jimmy is the best song they do. billie joe goes crazy

ditches the vest after jimmy

adrienne told him to put novocain on the album, thank you adrienne

so much fire... so hot

extraordinary girl is different. i have no idea what different instrument they use on the album. maybe i will find out.

jason white always looks really worried while he plays

he lost the tie

i miss the blue guitar a whole show without it is no green day show

mikes guitar has an anchor on it

homecoming banner

billie joe does what can only be called scampering during homecoming

what happened to whatsername?

whatsername played as an encore... ok

leaving the stage for ten seconds and then coming back makes us FEEL like its an encore... but its sort of not. unless they werent going to do it and then the audience response talked them into it... right? i dont know

longview, theres baby blue guitar...

tim armstrong is here

minority, the extralong version with billie joe on harmonica

billie joe gestures to the band to quiet down or get louder or slow down or hurry up

he did the super long heeeeeeeeeeeeeey-oh. and the the audience does it and we feel like we acomplished something. impressed him maybe.

after the show adrienne got cornered by fans and had to get pulled out by security. thats exactly the kind of psycofan i dont want to be. super not psycho. super fan.

love,

k.

i will make sense of this, into some sort of coherant something. at some point tonite.

this was the best fucking show ive ever been to. ever. i should never go to another show again because ive peaked.

thank you mary forrest.

and... i just saw matthew fox. tvs mathew fox. from lost. and once he was on party of 5.

k.

shes an extraordinary girl
in an ordinary world
and she cant seem to get away

between shows.

2005-10-11T21:04:00.000-07:00

waiting for green day now.
since this is such a small show and they sold so few tickets, it seems like everyone here has a pass, a laminate, a sticker, a premission slip of some kind granting them all different levels of access.

they're being very stingy as to who they let down onto the floor in the very front.
theres so much space down there we could have a square dance. which sucks for all the poor suckers who waited for days and days to get in here. i bet everyone who actually got down there knows someone whose working for the show. or aol. or network live or the wilturn. or knows someone who knows someone and thats why they get to be down o0n the floor. ordinary people dont get to be that close.

but... as someone who actually knows someone this time around.... im not sure how to feel about it.

all the stuff theyre putting up as promo for the show is of billie joe in his black short sleeve red tie look. which is his summer look. they should update it to his long sleeve vested look, since it is the fall...

im wondering if we will get to see the pink bunny out here. i really really hope so. people need to know about the pink bunny.

k.

network notes

2005-10-11T20:11:00.000-07:00

so, i have to fix this later to help it make sense. but for now, this is whats happwning at the show.

theyre starting late. i guess they had to wait for the stage to get smoky enough.

transistors gone wild.

i heart keytars.

reto.

i really like all the pants made out of tape. very hardcore.

they seem to be filming the network play even though i know network live isnt airing it online. which is ridiculous. anyone who cares enough to see this green day show cares about the network too.

disease is punishment. is what it says on the back of billie joe... fink's jacket

it has a beginning, it has an end... joe robot...

ok its really hard and weird to type during the show... misspellings will abound.

money money 2020

they soundchecked with their masks on. if thats important to note.

jason, whose my new best friend since i saw him eating a hot dog, is very sexy with his head bounce/ side to side footsteps routine...

love and money

dont know this song.

even the crew guys wear ski masks

they do this choreographed little dance with head movements and guitar swings and what have. its like a ballet. a new wavey punk rock sort of costumed character ballet.

spike!!!!!
no phone this time

mike...van gogh, who sings most of the networks songs and was wearing a navy blue sweater over a white shirt just a second ago is wearing a red velvet coat and baret now for some reason that im sure makes a ton of sense when explained.

im a teenage rebel and im fucking bored

i would like to have my own pair of silver creepers someday.

supermodel robots

not quite a femmebot but almost an alien...
lesbien chunky fucky slam dunk cosmonaut...

this is pretty much the best thing ever.

spastic society.

mike has a podium.

prescription...nitrogen... automatic autostatic...

they all have creepers on.

fink is standing behind the drums. arms folded. like hes secret service. he hits the drums as he puts his fist up in the air.

right hand o rama...

this is my second favorite.i dont know why i dont know why it sure feels good most everytime...

i heart fink. i wonder if it wouldnt be possible for me to marry his alter ego... something to look into...

roshambo. my very very favorite.....

they all have tape/leather pants. im trying so hard not to, but all i can think of is the amount of ball sweat these men must be experienceing...

hovering spaceship....
song i dont know....

spaceship not hovering so effectively, but i expect thats the desired effect...

im very seriouslyu considering going as fink for halloween. just in case anyone wonders what that might look like on a pregnant chick, leather pants and a silver ljacket with a ski mask...

the hovercraft is pretty much two kiddie pools spraypainexd and stuck together with strobe ligfhts on the inside.

x-ray hamburgers

van goghs tape is coming away, peeling off... its creepy..l..

x ray hamburger is you...

i think they could use a few more spinning flashing lights in their stage show. and i say that 100% facitiously because thre are at least 1000 flashing spinning lights onstage.

and thats that for the network. fucking fucking awesome.

every fucker here is so god damned lucky. i hope they know it.

k.

WILTURN- preshow entertainment...

2005-10-11T19:56:00.000-07:00

well. we made it here.

the coolest thing so far was that we walked in right past adrienne. we were wandering around mysteriously in the same restricted area that she was wandering around in mysteriously... very satisfying.

we had to sit outside the house while the network did their sound check because, as we were told, the band wanted everyone out of the building while they did their checks. but we were in there for about a minute before they kicked us out. best minute ever.

now im sitting in a handicapped section with someone elses computer on my lap getting ready to blog during the show with a whole lot of strangers looking over my shoulder. exciting.

k.

sausage.

2005-10-11T16:18:00.000-07:00

were getting ready to go to the wilturn for the super secret network live show. i guess its not secret anymore though. but, no matter, dorian and i have crew passes. which means we get to go places that weirdos like you and i are not ordinarily allowed to go.

we probably wont get to meet the band, but we might... theres a chance... a better chance than i have ever had or will ever have again.

so, i put on make up and put product in my hair, which is further than i am normally willing to go as far as dressing myself is concerned.
i would like, if it were possible, to look hot. or sexy. or... at this point i would be happy to look vaguely humanoid.
i cant wear anything a normal person might wear and i refuse to wear the sorts of things that they expect a 5 months pregnant woman to wear, so im stuck finding something that will just, you know... fit. the result is that i look like a giant sausage.

it makes sense, at least as far as my life goes, that on the evening that i get to go to the coolest thing that i will ever get to go to and on the one occasion that i might be within the sight line of my hero/make believe boyfriend... i look worse than i have ever looked in my whole life.
wheres the glow i have heard people talk about? cause it aint on me.

sigh.

k.

look this direction
i know its not perfection
its just me
i want to bring you up somehow.

holy shit again.

2005-10-11T16:05:00.000-07:00

theres a link to my blog on AOL music.
for serious.

http://music.aol.com/network_live/concert_videos/green_day/live

theres a thing at the bottom that says green day road trip and it links to my blog... this blog. so heres a link to that page so you can, you know, go around and around between them.

its what im doing.

k.

shes a symbol of resistance
and shes holding on my heart like a hand grenade

PINKs.

2005-10-11T01:34:00.000-07:00

we just went to pinks for hot dogs like you do at midnight on a monday.
and while we were there we saw jason white, who plays guitar with green day.

dorian said hello to him. im always too nervous and weird to talk to celebrities. seriously. once i saw the guy who directed cabin fever. who? you ask? cabin what? and youd be right. its not like he was tom cruise or some celebrity with snipers to shoot you if you approach them. its like being afraid to say hello to your local news anchor.
when you see someone whom you recognize, that probably doesnt often get recognized, doesnt it even almost prove youre cool to say hello to them?

theoretically im down. but i have enough trouble talking to regular people without being a spaz. so i mainly smiled while dorian got hot dog advice from a member of our favorite band.
it was really cool.

k.

sugar and spice and everything nice
wasnt meant for only girls.

better thank your lucky stars.

2005-10-10T18:37:00.000-07:00

we do get to go to the super secret wilturn show after all!
mary gave us our passes today, they are glorious. they are perfection at the end of a lanyard... and laminated and the word CREW appears... did i say they were laminated...
very exciting. terribly exciting.
what sucks is that mary wont be with us for the green day performance. her company seems to think that she can do better commentary on the show from home, rather than from the show. genius.
shes going to come see the network with us though, which is something at least.
i will be blogging from the show. and im so excited. even the baby is excited. either that or it has a hampster wheel in there.
i like to think that baby heart green day too.

k.

gotta make a plan gotta do whats right
cant run around in circles if you want to build a life
but i dont want to make a plan for a day far away
while im young and while im able all i want to do is...

Greenblog

2005-10-10T15:16:00.000-07:00

photo's from our trip

http://www.greenblog.textamerica.com/

something unpredictable

2005-10-10T01:33:00.001-07:00

the very last thing in the show, on an otherwise dark stage, billie joe stands by himself and plays good riddance (time of your life).

now, it may just be the hormones or the hormones in addition to the fact that i felt the baby really seriously kicking and jumping and doing its thing in there, which means in ME, for the first time today...
but when he was up there singing, i got a little bit emo.
ok. i got weepy.

we have to go home on wednesday. its the end of our trip. its the end of alot of things. its the end of the world as we know it.

for a green day fan, an old school one at least, things will never be like they oncce were. we'll never get to see them play anywhere other than a giant stadium after this tour. thats why the wilturn show is so exciting.

im glad its the last stop on our last trip.

this whole thing was the last irresponsable, ridiculous and carefree thing that me and dorian will get to do for the next 18 years.
the last time we get to be kids before we have kids. the last time we get to be a couple before we are a family.

there are so many things that are changing for us. well, everything, to be specific... everything is changing for us.
and its scary. well, terrifying, to be specific... everything is terrifying.
but its never been better.
and, as far as last hurrahs go, im glad this was ours.
because ive never had so much fucking fun.

so as billie joe says at the end of his shows, thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you for making this the best tour of our lives.

im feeling emo again.
im going to blame the hormones.

k.

Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road.
Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to do.
So make the best of this test, and don't ask why.
It's not a question, but a lesson learned in time.

It's something unpredictable, but in the end is right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

So take the photographs, and still frames in your mind.
Hang it on a shelf of good health and good time.
Tattoos of memories and dead skin on trial.
For what it's worth, it was worth all the while.
I hope you had the time of your life.

los angeles

2005-10-09T23:48:00.000-07:00

home depot center
sunday october 9th, 2005

LIGHTS OUT

tonite was the last official night of our extravaganza. it was the last show that we had tickets for and, since it looks like we wont get to go to the super secret wilturn show, it was probably the last green day show for us.

so, makes sense that this show would be the best and worst of the whole thing.

2,000 LIGHT YEARS AWAY

we never got our tickets in the mail so we had to call and then go pick them up at will call. i thought we had general admission tickets. turns out we had seats. and not awesome ones.
home depot center is about the biggest fucking stadium ive ever been in. and we were about as far away as you could get from the stage and still be, technically, inside the home depot center. somebody said that it was an "intimate" stadium setting. yes. "intimate". indeed. in so far as the state of arizona is an "intimate" setting.
it had to be great for the band because there were so many fucking people there it was unbelieveable. but we may as well have been watching the show from a plane flying over los angeles. or we could have just stood outside marys front door and simply turned our heads in the direction of the stadium and it would have almost been the same distance.
the good news was that they had many large screens so we could see what the little dancing blurs on stage were actually doing.

THE WEST COAST HAS BEEN TRAUMATIZED

we were also dismayed to see a big flogging molly banner hanging onstage. i dont much care for flogging molly. yes, i find their scottishness delightful, if they were to stand onstage and simply read from the phone book then i might count myself a fan. but as it is, i could live without them.

jimmy eat world played a few different songs this time. they played blister, it was the only song off clarity they played at all and its one of my favorites. its always nice to see tom linton sing a song or two. dorian has a big man crush on him. dorian loves most things that come from the grand canyon state. im glad we got to see jimmy eat world on this tour. they are our home town rock stars.

LIGHTS OUT
i pledge alegiance to the flag
of the united states of america
and to the republic for which it stands
one nation
under god
indivisible
with liberty and justice for all.

green day was on fucking fire tonite. this was the best ive ever seen them play.
and they had fun, you could tell, they had a great fucking time.
and they changed up their set list. which, for me and dorian, made a big difference.
and billie joe changed up his chats, which made the biggest difference.
after the first couple of songs he usually mentions that green day has been a band for the last 17 years.
then he talks about the first times they came to whatever city they happen to be in. he drops the names of some of the small local venues they used to play in and then he thanks everyone for making the american idiot tour the best time they ever had.
tontie he started out that way. and then he veered.
he talked about how every show they play is the best fucking time they ever had because they do exactly what they want to do everyday. he said not to let your bosses or your teachers or your government to tell you what to do. do what you want to do, do what you love to do, and live your fucking life every day.
it was far more inspiring than any episode of oprah ive ever seen.

during holiday billie joe calls for lights out and the whole place goes black.
he shines a flashlight into the crowd as he recites the pledge of allegiance.
its a really great moment in the show but, mainly, i think he does this mostly for his own amusement.

they played J.A.R. instead of 2,000 light years away.
first time i heard it live. fucking rad and amazing.

billie joe brings a kid up onstage at each show to shoot a watergun out at the crowd. tonite he brought out his son. now, dont think that im creepy enough to just recognize his kid on sight. i am not that creepy.
billie joe brought him out from backstage rather than from the audience. and he called him joey.
yes, i am creepy enough to know that joey is billie joe's sons name. but its tattooed on his arm, so its really not that weird.
also, the kid looked like billie joe. cute as can be.

before they played knowledge billie joe started calling out for tim armstrong. i got so fucking excited at the prospect of getting to hear tim armstrong, who ive never seen play live, sing knowledge, his own song, with green day. but i guess he was suddenly missing or something, because he never came out and they went ahead and played it green day style with only one armstrong.

for their encore they started with maria, as per usual. actually, jason white started to play boulevard... but he stopped quite abruptly as if to say, "oh... right... sorry." and then they played maria.
which they followed up with homecoming.
a perfect perfect perfect ending for their official end of the american idiot tour.
its an awesome ten minute long song that wraps up the whole album and mike and tre both get to sing their little vignettes.
it was perfect. did i say it was perfect? well it was. so fuck you.

k.

so send my love a letter bomb.
and visit me in hell
were the ones going home.
were coming home again.

shes a rebel

2005-10-08T19:40:00.000-07:00

ive seen adrienne armstrong (mrs billie joe) at the last 5 green day shows ive been at
she can be seen over by the stage or in the wings or over by the sound booth or just genrally wandering around in places where suckers like you and i are not allowed to wander around.

adrienne is beautiful. shes an awesome punk rock mom. shes, like... the only role model for someone like me.
everytime i see her, though, i wonder just exactly how creepy it is that i know who she is.
maybe its not that creepy. she was with them at the grammys and at the VMAs and she was on their episodes of behind the music and driven.
still, if i were to scream at her next time she was walking by me, that might be weird. and besides, what would i say? "adrienne! i love... your husband." "adrienne! how do you keep your hair in dred locks like that?" "adrienne! will you please be my friend??"

mmm... no. i think that would cement me into the psychofan hall of fame and, as it stands, id like to stay just a superfan.
its better for both of us that i leave her to wander around mysteriously.

k.

shes a rebel shes a saint
shes the salt of the earth
and shes dangerous.

Las Vegas

2005-10-07T10:50:00.000-07:00

Thomas and Mack Pavillion
thursday october 6th 2005

ALL I REALLY BELIEVE IN IS YOU...

we were sitting around in our hotel room, grateful to finally have a few minutes to spare between car and show and, because theres obviously nothing else to do in las vegas, dorian was using that time to look at the green day website. lame, yes. but useful. we found out that the network was opening. so we went down to the theater way way way early.

and... the best part was... that the jailer, my very protective and tenacious d, let us get right up front.

the network was fucking rad.
they played almost all of the songs off of money money 2020 and a couple of songs that i have mysteriously never heard before. they played roshambo which is my favorite song at the moment. billie joe or, should i say, fink, did spike, and it was so fucking rad. its basically just him doing a monologue with a chorous of mike, or van gough, chanting "heroin".
it was a total awesome surprise. like finding 20 bucks in the pocket of a pair of jeans that suddenly fit again because you lost ten pounds without even trying.
i thought i would never get to see them play.
especially beacuse they arent really an actual band.
and speaking of that, aparantly it is a well kept secret.
only a few other kids there seemed to know anything about them and most of the people on the floor with us were standing around wondering who the hell the freaks in costumes were.
... which was the best.
finally, it was like they were my dirty little secret again. me and d screamed along with the band and we were the only ones.
but, even in that shiny leather suit and with a sock over his head... theres no mistaking billie joe armstrong.
those kids are all suckers. someday they will find out what they missed and they will feel like jackasses. and i will feel satisfied knowing they feel like jackasses.
why am i so competitive? maybe im not taking enough folic acid.

we had to move back a little for jimmy eat world. they were good. they havent changed much in the last five years. but its nice to know that a bunch of kids from mesa can escape. im not a huge fan of futures. i like futures, the song. i like pain, polaris and a couple of others. but overall its not their jaunty best. i long to hear something from clarity. wheres lucky denver mint? sadly, it was not to come. but, when they play in the middle everyone goes nuts and you have to like that.

when green day started we were so close. ive never been that close. i was less than ten feet away from billie joe. i could see how much eyeliner he had on. i probably got sprayed with a little bit of his sweat. mmm... sweat.
i made it through the first three songs up front and screaming, and then i found out what the limit is for a lady whose 5 months pregnant and whose been to three rock concerts in three days...
i got really dizzy. i got really hot and i couldnt breathe.
dorian had to drag me out of the crowd and we spent the rest of the show at the back of the floor trying not to faint. i never really got my breath back. as bad as i wanted to get back into the frackus i couldnt stop seeing stars. and not the pyrotechnic stars one is supposed to see... the ones that mean your brain is slowly dying. so we spent the rest of the show in the back.
but we stayed. we stayed until the end.

k.

i dont believe in the solar eclipse
i dont believe in valentines
i dont believe i asked opinions
i dont believe i stretched the truth
i am not looking for a bargain
all i really believe in is you...

HOLY SHIT

2005-10-06T17:35:00.000-07:00

the network is opening for green day tonite....

holy shit!

k.

phoenix.

2005-10-06T16:57:00.000-07:00

america west arena
wednesday october 5th 2005

for the first time on our green day trip me and dorian had general admission tickets... floor acess... little red wristbands that give one permission to run around and smash into a whole lot of other people with little red wristbands.

and even though there were little kids and old people all over that arena floor there was only one person being physically held back from the fray... and it was me. and the holder back was dorian.

we were still up pretty close, over to the far side near to the aparant protective powers of the low barrier wall. i was closer to the stage and the band than i have ever been at a green day show, or maybe it just seemed that way because of all the short ten year olds. i knew i could get closer though, i could see the wriggle room to get up to the front and be close enough to reach up and touch billie joe... but every time i took a step in the direction of the stage i was grabbed by the waste band (albeit the elastic maternity waste band) of my pants and dragged back to the safety of the wall.

becky nelson suggested that i get a metal collander and strap it over my belly as baby armour.
im starting to think its a good idea.

the show was great. the best so far. and im sure its because being down on the floor makes the whole thing seem more real and exciting. like, maybe they'll see me in the crowd and fall in love with me and take me away with them forever and ever. or... maybe i can catch a guitar pick... something... anything...

were in vegas tonite. we have floor tickets again.
ill let you know if i am able to escape this time.

k.

cold turkey is getting stale
tonite im eating crow

where have all the riots gone?

2005-10-06T16:44:00.000-07:00

As the cities motto gets pulverized
Once in love but now in debt
On your birth certificate
So strike the fucking match to light this fuse.

Gracious, times have changed.
In my lifes concert going experiences ive always been among people of the same general ilk.
The sort of people you’d figure would go to see the pixies. The sort of people you expect to see at the white stripes. The sort of people who would, absolutely, stand in the sun at Coachella.
Im used to looking around at a sea of sweaty, smelly, surly type people and realizing that, although weve never met… we know each other. At least in the vaguest and most superficial ways.

The ways that soccer moms know other soccer moms and can give each other advice on the latest juice box technology. The way dentists know other dentists and can discuss the philosophies behind waxed and unwaxed flosses. The way that hedgehogs can smell and identify other hedgehogs… I don’t know.

As much as we are all beautiful and unique snowflakes we are also all… well…. We’re all still snow. We all find our way to a tribe of people who have all had, essentially, a similar life experience. A little group that’s always been and always will until the end.

Do you dislike your parents? Do you have a college education or quasi-college education that is completely going to waste at your current retail/office/food service job? Do you Tivo the Daily Show? Do you think the president is a douchebag? Is your hair style unnecessarily complicated?
Excellent!
See you at the green day concert.

…or so I thought.

Now I look around at the green day shows and I don’t see anyone I recognize.
I see kids. I see parents. I see frat boys. soccer moms with juice boxes. Cubicle people. Clean people. Groomed people. Brand name people.
They sing along to American idiot, they love Boulevard of broken dreams, they go nuts for Shout, they know time of your life, but that’s as close as they come.

And I cant help but feel sorry. Theyre missing all the good stuff. They’re getting cheated. And, much much more importantly, they are cheating me. I want to walk away with that feeling that we are all in it together, we “shared” a moment, I want to always feel like part of this was mine.

And now, instead, I have to face the fact that I am old. That the times they are a changing. To everything turn turn turn and all that bullshit.
The world has changed. Turned and left me here. my life has changed, and is changing, in at least one very obvious way that tends to get a little weighty around my middle section.

And besides all that, I have to let go.
Green Day belongs to the world now.
To VH1 and MTv2
Theyre never going to be my dirty little secret again.
Ill have to go on knowing that my mom knows all the words to wake me up when September ends. Ill have to shop in target while they play waiting over the speakers.
Ill have to go to the concerts and stand between the middle aged and the middle schooled and find a new way to feel like part of this was mine.

the band deserves all of their success.
but i still wish that i could send the fakers packing, back to their coldplay albums and avril lavine concerts... we'd all be better off.

k.

tattoos and memories and dead skin on trial
for what its worth, it was worth all the while.

new mexico

2005-10-06T07:35:00.000-07:00

NEW MEXICO
Journal pavilion
Tuesday, October 4th 2005

SOMEBODY GET ME OUTA HERE

Anybody get me outa here
Somebody get me outa here
Get me the fuck right outa here
So far away, I don’t want to stay
Get me outa here right now….

Everything in new mexico is lame. For serious. Worst place ever.
First of all, was anyone else aware that New Mexico is in a different time zone than the rest of the south west? Because I didn’t know. maybe I didn’t know because ive never been to new mexico or maybe because I never bothered to learn anything about new mexico or maybe because I see no reason for this smelly, flat, deserty state with its dumb southwestern freeway art to be any different from its neighboring smelly, flat, deserty state with their lame southwestern freeway art.
Seriously. Come on new mexico, get with the fucking program.
California can afford to change its time whenever the fuck it wants because America cant live without California.
America has no use for you, new mexico. So keep that in mind when you decide to be all difficult with your time changes. If the USA ever decides to trim the fat, you will be the first state to be given back to old mexico with our sincerest apologies.

And yes, its true, I am just an impatient person who never bothered to “learn” about “time zones” I admit it.
But I still vote no on new mexico.
Even their streetlights are dumb and sideways.

Anyway, we would have had time to spare.. until we found out that crossing the border into this state steals an hour from your life and, suddenly, we were running late.
So we headed straight to the show.
Now, the Journal Pavillion happens to be situated at the top of a fucking mountain which can only be reached by a two lane windy ass road that goes on and on for at least 73 miles. Not a very convenient place to see a show.
Then, once you fucking get through the 73 miles of bumper to bumper cars and park in the dirt and straw covered waste land and you think you are finally on your way to see the show, that’s when you find out that you have to hike at least 37 miels back down the fucking mountain to get to the stage.
At this point, and im not kidding, it started pouring rain.

We missed Jimmy Eat World, for the second time, while we were on the windy mountain road.
We missed the drunk pink bunny while we were on the hike down to the entrance. Which sucks. Because I like that drunk pink bunny. I really do.
We could hear American Idiot while we hiked down from the entrance to the stage
we didn’t find our seats until halfway through jesus of suburbia.

But once we found our seats, and we could see the show, I had a giant, involuntary sigh of complete relief. my back was about to break from the million years in a dodge neon and the weight of baby, but there was mike dirnt in his sleeveless shirt bouncing around with his bass. My feet were aching and probably a bloody mess after our unexpected expedition down the mountain, but there was tre cool with his impossibly high hair and that dumb look on his face. I was quickly soaked in the pouring new mexico rain, but there was billie joe… sweet sweet billie joe… in a vest and a tie… one full sleeve and one three-quarter sleeve… one arm band with a big red star and one arm band that said RAGE… tight pants… hardcore belt… the humidity was clearly not a benefit to his shaggy hair, but once you see him standing there with that baby blue guitar… you could set me on fire and I wouldn’t be distracted.

The show was basically the same show we saw in san diego. Same set list and what have. Less fireworks but more rain. Instead of slurring “san diego” every so often he slurred “new mexico!” instead of telling stories of their first visits to san diego, playing at Canes and Soma, he told stories about visiting New Mexico and playing a place called the Store Front. And strangely the trumpet player, who had been from san diego two days before, was suddenly from albaquerque.
The energy of the show was different. That seems like a dumb thing to say… the “ambiance” of the show was different? The mood? The atmosphere? What sounds less gay?
The people of albaquerque seemed genuinely more excited than the people of san diego. They seemed to be way way more thrilled by every shouting of “heeeeey- ooohhhh” and they seriously lost their shit when billie joe did his traditional screaming orgasm routine. Not that I blame them. Whenever he calls out for somebody to fuck him I have a small stroke.
It was awesome whenever he would shout “new mexico!” because everyone would really really go nuts in a way that seemed to say “that’s us! WERE from new mexico! Hes talking about US!!”
I guess the thing I noticed the most was the crowd had a great fucking time out in the pouring rain. They went crazy. They freaked out. I have to assume its because they live in new mexico and things to get excited about don’t come along that often. But the crowd was amazing. They sucked the life out of every moment of the show… in the good way one can suck the life out of something.

Oh… and the kids they brought on stage to play knowledge were great. The drummer was awesome. The bass player was really really good. Ok, the first two guitar players got thrown off stage, but the third one was rad. They finished the song and billie joe got to sing the last verse. So, well done there.

Bottom line, wonderful show. A delight. Truly.
I cant wait for tonites show, two down… four to go… and I still cant get enough.
Mostly though, im so so so happy to be getting the fuck out of the fair state of new fucking mexico.
So long suckers!

k.

somebody fucked the president
and no one knows where maria went

wont kill you.

2005-10-03T22:58:00.000-07:00

notable things on the way to New Mexico:

theres a place called "alien fresh jerky"
it uses the power of extra terestrials to sell dried meats.

theres a place on the 15 N where the ten commandments are displayed on the side of the highway.
we only saw 4 of them, but i have to assume the other 6 were there somewhere.
they were dumbed down for us sinners too, "you should not kill" rather than the more difficult to understand "THOU SHALT not kill"

we saw a pair of hitch hikers whose sign simply read "wont kill you"
which made me want to stop for them, untill i realized that is exactly what someone would say if they WOULD kill you.

in all of these instances i was too slow with my camera.

now im at a place called the Knights Inn in Kingman, AZ. it is dissapointingly not midevil themed.

k.

always move forward
going straight will get you nowhere

san diego

2005-10-03T09:21:00.000-07:00

coors ampitheater
sunday october 2nd

ive seen alot of green day shows. im about to see alot more. the san diego show was the first in our green day marathon.

BABYS FIRST ROCK SHOW

we had seats for this show. good seats. but seats.
its awkward in the rows of seats. confining your rocking out to the twelve inches of space around you. we were on the end of the row, and i got slightly trampled. billie joe always invites people to run down onto the floor, and those people trampled me. aparantly only fat guys run down when billie joe calls to them. dorian got all secret service and dove over in front of me. im not sure if his plan was to guard me or to attack them, but its nice to know that the instinct is there. we have seats again in new mexico, so we'll have to wait till phoenix to discover the joys of general admission.

ALL I KNOW IS THAT I DONT KNOW

its a well known fact that the band always invites kids from the audience onstage with them when they play knowledge. they get a drummer, a bass player and a guitar player.
in fact, ive often thought of learning to play knowledge on the guitar. i dont really need to learn how to play the guitar, i just need to learn one song. then, i can lie and say ive been playing for years and no one would never know the difference.
why havent i dont that yet? well, first off, im lazy. and secondly, i dont want billie joe and i to build the foundation of our relationship on lies.
right.
so. this time, the kid they picked to play the drums didnt work out. after tre smacked him on the head one too many times they threw him offstage uncerimoniously and some old guy from back stage in a white t-shirt took over.
the girl they picked to play the bass, they said she was a girl at least... she did run up and kiss billie joe, but im sure that was the only female/male contact shes ever had, anyway, she also got kicked offstage after she couldnt quite play bass. another older guy... also in a white t-shirt... took over for her.
obviously those two didnt share my brilliant plan and never learned to play knowledge.
...or instruments.
the kid he picked to play guitar was actually pretty good. so he got to stay.
but the song fell apart. every other time ive seen them the kids they got onstage to play did a great job and they finished the song. and everyone screamed like crazy and we all felt a little bit closer, like we were all in it together.
not this time. this time we, the kids-the band-and the audience, were all singing a different tune. literally. billie joe couldnt even sing the last verse because no one was playing together. i bet it happens alot. but its the first time ive seen it. i hope the kids in new mexico are a little bit more savvy. i know i know, the odds are slim.

BABYS FIRST CONCERT CTD...

everyone at the show was either very old or way way too young. and generally the way too old were there to escort the way too young.
if you bringing a 7 year old to a rock concert, you are an asshole.
you are ruining it for the rest of us.
and, id like to add, that i didnt get to go to a punk show until i was 16. and i certianly would have been properly humiliated to have my parents bring me to a green day concert.
where have our standards gone? have we no pride? does no one remember the rules of concert going?
well, let me remind you of a few of the cheif principals:
a) dont bring your 7 year old, asshole
b) dont ever allow yourself to be seen with your parents
c) you can NOT wear the t-shirt of the band you are there to see. no green day shirt at the green day show. its not proper. its not done. you can wear a band t-shirt only if it advertises a band that proves you are legit. so, you can wear an op ivy shirt to the green day show. you can wear a rancid t-shirt to the green day show. you can wear an n*sync t-shirt to the green day show, but only if you are the sort of person who exhudes irony.
the only exception to this rule is if the green day shirt you were to wear was advertising a tour that was so long ago that it proves you are a real, old school fan.
the worst thing you can do is wear a t-shirt you bought at the swag shack earlier that night.
d) please use deoderant. thats a good rule in every situation.

SHE HOLDS MY MALA KITE SO TIGHT

they played 2,000 light years away. none of the children or old people knew the words. that was satisfying. fuck you, i thought. you should leave in shame. the followed it up with wake me up when september ends and all the children who stood silent during 2,000 light years away suddenly sprang to life with giggles and held their cell phones high. then they were quiet again when the band played she, one of my favorite songs. and again, their shame was delicious.

WHO ARE THE CHAMPIONS?

...we are the champions.
i realized that dorian and I know the green day show. we know it like you know your favorite sit-coms formula. in every episode of friends phoebe says something weird. in every episode of seinfeld george does something awkward. at every green day show they play king for a day, followed by shout. they end with we are the champions. the band leaves the stage. billie joe stands alone and plays time of your life. and its the best. and im in love. and i want to have ten million of his babies. and, most of all, i cant wait to see it again on tuesday.

k.

i hold my breath and close my eyes and dream about her
because shes 2,000 light years away

soon.

2005-10-01T18:49:00.000-07:00

in spite of the fact that im sitting at home doing my laundry at 7pm on a saturday night im very excited.
tomorrow is the first show of our green day trip.
monday were heading to new mexico and from there, phoenix, vegas and then LA.

its been such a long time since we decided to do this crazy and fairly dorky trip as our 5 year anniversary gift to each other. whever you have to wait a long time for things it seems like they may never actually happen. and... alot has changed since we bought all the tickets.
...mainly me getting knocked up.
im wondering how that will work out, down on the floor with the sweaty guys and and the scrappy teenage girls and me running around avoiding elbows and protecting my big fat belly. maybe i should have a shirt made that says "please dont smash my baby."
at least the kid is going to its first concert early in life.

another reason im excited is mary.
mary is hot and she knows everyone. mary always has some kind of ridiculous hook up for some sort of awesome happening. mary is getting us in to the secret LA show next tuesday.
mary is also trying to set it up so that i can interview green day at some point during our trip. kind of going for that "scary superfans following the band, finally getting to meet them and then spontaniously combusting" angle.
its a long shot that it will actually happen, but mary is pulling all of her strings.
and mary forrest has pleanty of strings.

if it did happen it would certianly be the raddest fucking thing ive ever done.
it would also be the most terrifying thing i can think of.
what will i say? once i apologize for having peed in my pants i might draw a blank.
of course i will ask billie joe to marry me, but it might get awkward if he points out the fact that we are both already, technically, "married" to "other people."

also, what will i wear? i cant even wear real pants.

the bottom line is that this is going to be an awesome trip.
and, unexpectedly, it will be the last unreasonable and irresponsable thing i get to do before im the mom of a real live baby. aparantly those things need to be supervised at all times.

k.

ive been waiting a long time for this moment to come
im destined for anything at all.

nice ink.

2005-09-23T23:59:00.000-07:00

nice ink

So I don’t know if you have tattoos or not, but I have tattoos.
And peole are constantly asking me what they mean.
The two tattoos that are most visible are my warhing lable and my heart/hand grenade. Both kind of aggressive symbols. Both kind of vaguely insinuating that I am dangerous… I am not.
I am, relatively speaking, about as dangerous as a kitten. And if you don’t think that’s dangerous, talk to someone with allergies.
That’s me.
Mildly irritating to people with a genetic predisposition. Grrr! Watch out!

So I don’t really have any explaination for the warning lable, except that it looks cool and it’s a slightly obscure homage to green day.
If I wanted to get all philosophical and deep about it might tell you that it’s a warning lable that, like the song suggest, reminds one to live without warning and not waste time worrying about all the things in the world that can hurt you. Because worrying is like a rocking chair, it give you something to do but it doesn’t get you anywhere. (write that down)
but I wont say that, because it sounds stupid.

Now my heart/handgrenade… what do I say about that?
It looks cool. Another, slightly less obscure homage to green day.
But it’s a heart. And it’s a hand grenade. Its hard to escape the symbolism.
rage and love. story of my life.

k.

are we, we are, the waiting. unknown.

my shallow heart.

2005-09-23T23:55:00.000-07:00

Sunday, November 21, 2004
my shallow heart.
i beg to dream and differ from the hollow lies. this is the dawning of the rest of our lives on holiday.

just got home from the green day show. it blew my fucking mind.
they always blow my mind. with a consistancy.

we were down in the shit throwing elbows and gettin hit in the face and smelling the wonderful smells of the surging crowd. a little wiff of weed. an opressive fog of body odor.

i want to be billy joe armstrong. i want to fuck him also, yes. i want to fuck him till my teeth bleed (as my good friend ricky would say), but i also long to be him.
i want to wear tight pants and hardcore belts and a tie and i want to fucking rock that baby blue guitar and i will even take the fucked up snaggle tooth.
and if i cant BE him or DO him then i want to dress dorian up like him and pretend.
its easy enough to do.
when he shoves his hands down his pants and makes orgasim noises, my knees give out. and when he screams "somebody fuck me" i thrust my tatted up fist into the air and volunteer, like everyone else.
i think dorian may have raised his hand too.

and then, way too soon, im walking to the car with my ears ringing.

k.

are you locked up in a world that been planned out for you?
and are you feeling like a social tool without a use?
scream at me untill my ears bleed.
im taking heed just for you.

shes a red bull

2005-09-23T23:48:00.000-07:00

Sunday, December 12, 2004
shes a red bull...
so.the thing about me is that i get obsessed so easily and so often. and you should know this by now.
its true that the obsessions shift from season to season
when i finally get to go to disneyland, i will immidiatly be re-obsessed with nightmare. and legitimately so, i feel. its an imaginary world that i would desperatly love to be animated into. and, from october thruu january, it sets up temporary shop in the fakest happy place on earth.

then, when the new harry potter book comes out, there will be that. and that will last thru the first four readings and subsequent discussions.

every sunday night its the simpsons.
and now, since september, its been green day.

its lame, maybe, to be obsessed with a band. but i just cant help it. its hard for me to like things a little bit. if i like something, i want to wrap it around me like a good hooded sweatshirt. i want to pitch it like a tent and live in it out on the front lawn. its just how i roll.

and green day has seen me through some hard times. dookie, kerplunk and 1039 were the soundtrack to me giving up popularity and athleticism for cigarettes, alcohol, hair dye and an attitude problem. viva 1994.
insomniac is my go to "angry" album.
nimrod provided all of us with "time of your life", the song that would become my generations "turning point" anthem, which will continue to be played at all of our graduations/weddings/funerals.
warning was the soundtrack to me growing up and getting my shit together.
and now, american idiot is the sound track to me getting sick of growing up and wanting to set fire to all the shit that i have gotten together.

anyway, ive been noticing that all i do lately on this myspace account is make references to american idiot. therefore, whoever can count em up and get the right answer wins a pencil topper.

k.

shes a rebel, shes a saint
shes the salt of the earth
and shes dangerous.

ode to billie joe.

2005-09-23T23:41:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, February 01, 2005
ode to billie joe.
theres this channel called fuse. i dont know what it is or where it came from, but it keeps playing shows about green day.
i like shows about green day.
or articles about green day.
or trading cards. or bookmarks. really, anything that has billie joe armstrongs picture on it, i like.
hes really the sexiest man ive ever seen. and that includes brad pitt. even when you can see brad pitts ass, billie joe is sexier. i really think hes completely responsable for my continued interest in men.
if your thinking of what to get me for my birthday...
just get me twenty minutes with billie joe armstrong. thats all i need.
billie joe armstrong. and maybe a new car.
billie joe armstrong and a new car and thats all i need.
and a plasma screen tv.
billie joe armstrong and a new car and a plasma tv and thats it, i'll be set for life. i'll never ask for anything again.
except maybe some bath salts.

k.

give me something to do to kill some time
take me to that place that i call home.

what a way to go.

2005-09-23T23:32:00.000-07:00

Sunday, May 15, 2005
what a way to go.
mary has a friend who works for dick dale.
this friend had dick dale call mary and play misirlou on her voicemail. the whole thing. ive heard it.
why is that the coolest fucking thing ive ever heard of? because the friend had to be cool enough to ASK. and then dick dale had to be cool enough to do it. and they both turned out to be cool enough, and what are the odds of that?
this friends name is evan, and i dont know him, but he deserves his credit... evan, you kick ass

.mary had a friend who worked on the green day holiday video. she gave him my number and told him to have billie joe call me. he didnt. and i have to assume that it is because her friend wasnt cool enough to ask him to.
but, its probably for the best that billie joe armstrong didnt call me, because i would die. its true. i would die. i would need to say something to him and i would also not be able to say anything to him. these conflicting needs, coupled with the orgasm i would be having, would make my brain jump out of my head like pop tarts.
still. thats exactly how i would want to die...
if i got to choose.
and... if 'eaten by bears' wasnt an option.

k.

p.s. to clarify the whole 'eaten by bears' thing... i want the bears to kill me first... painlessly... maybe by cuddling me to death... and THEN they can eat me. and when you all talk about it, like i know you will, you must say "well, its exactly how she would have wanted to go."ok? good.

i was there.

2005-07-08T22:33:00.000-07:00

if im anything at all, it is unreasonable.
if i do anything at all, it is ridiculous.

keep that in mind when i tell you about the plan.

dorian and i are celebrating our 5th wedding anniversary this year.
whats more romantic for a young, childless couple with matching green day tattoos to do than follow their favorite band for 5 shows across the south west?
should we go to a fancy restaurant? no. dorian only likes to eat burritos. we can stop at taco bells along the way.
should he buy me expensive jewlery? no way. i wear jewlery made of plastic and duct tape because i like it that way.
should we have a party with coctails and horsdevours with our closest family and friends? no. just... no.

so instead we will go to see green day in san diego on a sunday.
we will see them in albequirky on a tuesday.
we will see them in arizona on a wednesday.
we will see them in las vegas on a thursday.
we will see them in los angeles on a sunday.

and thusly we will celebrate our love.

k.

if you live with me ill die for you
and this comprimise.

bite my lip and close my eyes

2005-07-08T19:04:00.000-07:00

i wish i could say i was a cool kid.
a bad ass punk rock kid, knee deep in the scene before it was cool.
i was not that kid. i was a dorky kid. i was an awkward kid.

when i turned 13 my friends started joining student government, wearing no fear t-shirts and listening to garth brooks.
...we drifted apart.

the good news is that i got mono.
if you've never had an incapacitating illness and are looking to try one out, i highly reccomend mononeucliosis.
at first you get so sick you wish to die a thousand deaths. but after that, its cake.
i got to stay home from the 7th grade for months.
i slept for hours, then id wake up for fifteen minutes, then id go back to sleep for hours. its a lazy persons dream.
the entire living room became a quarantined area and, therefore, mine.
in my fifteen minute intervals of consiousness i watched MTv.
this was back in the day when MTv played music videos.

i saw the basket case video for the first time.
i saw the when i come around video.
i saw the longview video.
i thought to myself, these spazzed out, drooling boys are the prettiest things i ever did see.
i wrote billie joe armstrongs name around the bottoms of all my converse. which, if you are 13, is about the highest level of devotion available.

now its true, i was mostly out of sorts at the time.
and easily influenced in my weakened state, to be sure.
in fact, a beavis and butthead commercial convinced me to cut off all of my hair into a terribly uneven sort of situation that was supposed to convey "punk rock pixie" and instead gave off more of a "escaped mental patient" vibe.
but i digress...

this was a good time to be home all day and night watching MTv.
green day was all over the place.
i watched them at woodstock 94.
i forced myself to stay awake to watch jaded in chicago.
i listened to dookie and kerplunk and 1039/smooth over and over while i slept.
it was pretty much the most fun a 13 year old girl could have while extremely drowsy.

in spite of myself, i eventually got better.
i went back to school with my new, odd haircut... which i had also dyed orange...
and i officially became what i had always threatened to become... an outsider. a freak.
a kid somehow different than all the other kids in shiny scottsdale arizona.

so thanks for that, green day.

i know its probably not the best idea to love one band and one lead singer more than everything else. but green day got their roots in deep, no matter how mushy my brain may have been at the time.
its been 11 years since then. and im still permanetly adhered and obsessed with one band and one snaggletoothed lead singer.

k.

give me something to do to kill some time
take me to that place that i call home.