Rockapella Live in Japan ('96) 3/8

Scott speaking Japanese! Love it. Jeff appears to be doing some oohing before the rhythm part starts. "I Am Your Man" eventually becomes much more rhythmic in later versions, and after Sean left, it was the opening song for many Pella shows.

Then there's El's "Let's Get Away From It All", which makes me smile ... and "whoo!" during the Live taping in Santa Barbara. :)

El looks so much the part of the Engineering Major he was back at Brown with those horn-rimmed glasses on!

Buddha Boy Turns 4

Four years ago today, my brother woke me in the middle of the night to say, "Hello, Tita Sherry."  I didn't even know that V was in labor!  She was tired, but still willing to talk to me about her experience.  About a month later, I met my nephew in person for the first time.  Here's a picture of him in my arms, while I'm sitting on the couch and eating a cookie.  It's like he knew that I would be the provider of cookies for the rest of his life. :)

Now he jumps around and throws balloons that hit my face.  My, how our relationship has grown. :)

Happy 4th Birthday, Brady! 

Rockapella Live in Japan ('96) 2/8

Actually the song in this video is titled "Falling Over You." Not 4 words as noted in the comments, but 3 words. And with a "G." But I'm picky.

I like El's glasses!

Rockapella Live in Japan ('96) 1/8

Here's the 1st of 8 (!) videos of Rockapella in Japan in 1996.

This one includes "Land of a Thousand Dances," which I've never seen in a live performance. AWESOME!

I'll post the other 7 later, not because you can't see them for yourselves, but for the blog's sake. ;)

Wright On!

In my last post, I mentioned that my friend Ross now does a lot of photography for Rockapella.  He was even the official photographer for George's wedding this year!


Anyway, since has an "in" with Da Boyz, he gave me a sneak peek of some stuff, and now I guess the site is public, as it has been released on the boards of the Rockapella Fan Lounge.


Enjoy Kevin's new website!


http://web.me.com/kevinwright24/Site_2/Welcome.html


I think that *somebody* would like what he has listed on his ipod playlist. ;)


Want to see him with straight hair?  OMG! 


Craziness. LOVE it!

Waiting with EmJay and Jimmy Olsen

The other night, I had the pleasure of having dinner with MJ & Ross, who were in the L.A. area for a vacation for the week.  We had dinner at Max's of Manila, a Filipino restaurant chain.  We were at the Glendale location.  The staff pretty much ignored us most of the time, which was annoying.  The size of the restaurant is smaller than the Puente Hills location.  I think that given the choice, I'll keep going to Puente Hills.  I don't remember waiting 1 hour just to get our food at Puente Hills.  Yes, I had halo-halo.  They only had the "special halo-halo," which annoyed me, too.  You couldn't just make it a regular?  Whatever.  I just looked on the website, and APPARENTLY, the Glendale location only has one style of Halo-Halo, while the Puente Hills location has 3 kinds.  PH wins.  


Anyway, I first met MJ & Ross in line at a Rockapella concert in 1999.  (I would link you to an old trip report here, but I wasn't doing those back then).  They were actually the 1st people that I met in line with whom I actually kept in touch with afterward.  They were really nice, and after a few shows, invited me to stay over at their place with my friends if we were ever in town for a show.  I mean, how nice is that?!  Back then, they lived in the Bay Area, and they also go to know the Bro because he would go to the Pella shows in the Bay Area with me, as he lived there for awhile, too.  One of my favorite moments waiting in line with MJ was when (then-Bro's-girlfriend) V asked her, "How do you spell MJ?"  I replied, "M. J."  It was hilarious.  


I can't believe that it's been almost 10 years since I met MJ & Ross.  Those days at the Great American Music Hall were great fun, with me giving out KFC & the homeless people wanting money instead, the juxtaposition of the exotic dancing theater nearby, and walking around San Francisco with Liz, hoping that she'd kick the ass of anybody that dared try to mug us.  Yeah, it was that kind of neighborhood.  


MJ & Ross were there in Saratoga on the night that Kevin chose me to be "Pretty Woman," and I could hear MJ screaming at the top of her lungs, and Angela doing the same from her seat, with Ross taking as many pictures as he could.  I'm glad they were there that night, because to me, my Pella friendships are all based on my experience with them, and they were there for my big night. Wow.  That was when George was so new that he had no idea what he was doing during "Zombie Jamboree."


Now Ross is pretty much the official publicity photographer for Rockapella in NYC.  His photos are magnificent, and I always look at the photo credits to see if the picture was taken by him.  I'm honored that he was the one that took pictures at Saratoga. :)

Here's a picture of me with MJ in Napa at the last show that I remember seeing them.

I don't think I have any pics of Ross, because he's usually the one holding the camera.  Of course, he was doing photos for the guys that night, too, which you can see here.  


Thanks for a great time, you two.  Thanks for dinner, Ross.  Thanks for all of the wonderful memories that we've shared.  I hope to see them on one of my Pella trips back East, actually hoping that I'll see them in Tampa for Kevin's last show.  It just seems appropriate for them to be there to cry with me. :)


As I drove home from Glendale, I thought of those happy memories, and I all of a sudden realized that the song playing in my car's CD player was none other than "Mary Jane" by Alanis Morissette.  Awwww....EmJay.  A big smile came to my face (just don't tell her that it's a sad song).  It's funny, now that I think about it.  I met MJ and Ross while I was waiting for Pella.  We always seem to be waiting for Pella when we get a chance to talk.  But tonight, without the Pella there, we were still waiting, for food, which was, I joked, on Filipino Time.


You two are welcome to stay at my house if you're ever back in town for Pella or whatever, no matter what time of day.  It's OK if you get here late.  I'll wait. :)

As Time and Tears Go By

Jenn and I met up at Paseo Colorado last Friday.  She arrived while I was trying on a gown at Loehmann's, so she went shopping, and found some stuff for herself as well.  We had lunch at Islands, and I enjoyed my Coke Lime Ice.  Oh, the food was yummy, too, but that's a given at Islands, right?

We then saw "The Time Traveler's Wife."  Jenn had already read the book, so she had been looking forward to the movie.

My thoughts:

• Hello, Eric Bana's butt.  It's very nice to meet you so early in the movie. :)
• So the Bana nudity made me think of him being the Hulk, because, really, the Hulk's clothes would not actually be magically stretchy in real life, so he should be nude, right?  Well, yes, and green.
• I actually wasn't sure if I'd like Bana in this role, but he did a great job.  I think that he won me over when he finally showed some emotion.  Up until then, I was like, "Does he have a facial expression besides this one?"
• Rachel McAdams did a wonderful job.  I could feel the happiness that she was portraying with the character, and the sadness and the frustration.
• I liked the casting of Brooklyn Proulx as Young Clare.  She really looks like a young McAdams, and I absolutely enjoyed the way she was jealous of Henry's wife, not knowing that he was actually married to *her* in the future.
• The special effects of the time travel seemed to be like Patrick Swayze's effects in "Ghost." 
• The funniest part of the film, and probably my favorite part, was the wedding.  I loved the switching of the different ages of Henry.
• Very interesting about the pregnancy.  Makes me wonder if Henry's mom had miscarriages, too.
• What I enjoy most about time travel stories is that many times, there is a love story that heavily involves the concept of destiny.  These two were destined to be together, and I loved the romance of it all.  I had been watching the "Back to the Future" trilogy on DVD in the week leading up to seeing the movie, so destiny, or "Density" was already in my head.
• The other part of Destiny, though, is that fundamental things can't be changed, no matter how Henry tried.  It was just heartbreaking when he told his father that he tried to stop his mom from getting into the car on the day of the fatal accident.
• But in the end, the romance is the story.  The hopeless romantic in me was an absolute WRECK at the end of this movie.  Jenn tells me that the book will make me cry even more. (She handed me a tissue before the movie was even half over).  Looking forward to reading it...with a full tissue box nearby, of course. :)

Thanks for the great time, Jenn.  I'm glad that you found a new place to shop!

In the Ghetto

I stopped by Linda's new digs in Westchester last week. We had lunch at Johnny Rockets at The Bridge last week, and saw "District 9" in the fancy Director's theater. The theater itself is fancy anyway, with fancy popcorn and chicken wings, and they'll even take your order in the theater and bring your order to your seat. We sat in comfy leather seats, and the seats themselves were assigned, which we chose when we purchased them at the box office. Expensive, but nice!

My thoughts on "District 9":

• The movie started off Documentary-style, which I thought would end a lot sooner than it actually did. Interesting effect, as it educated the audience about what we were watching.
• I didn't understand how the inter-species prostitution was supposed to work. I mean, I know that they didn't show the aliens up close in that much detail, but how are you supposed to even know what gender they were? Oh, I guess prostitutes don't care? But how do they...oh, whatever. I was confused.
• Why didn't all of the people at the surprise party notice how sick Venter was? I don't think he normally looks that pale and sweaty, with a big bandage on his arm. They were just asking for him to do that to the cake when they were being so inattentive.
• Lots of disturbing stuff to see, not just because it was dirty and eew-y, but also the way that the aliens were treated, with the experimentation and the "abortion," when the MNU people lit the eggs on fire. That's the image that disturbed me the most, actually.
• I loved Christopher's little boy: cute, intelligent, just wanted to go home.
• I'm confused by the term "non-human." Wouldn't that include animals, too? Or is that the point? It's humans versus everyone else?
• There were several times during the movie where I hated my own human race.
• Loved how the bad guy got his come-uppance. It was like Ancient Rome.
• I was a complete wreck after that movie. The love story was quite touching, the wish for Christopher to get to his son and get into the mothership brought tension, and all of the hatred and violence had my psyche all wound up. It was quite a relief when it was all over.

This was an AMAZING movie. If you're interested in good social drama, with some dark humor mixed in, I highly recommend it to you. Just get past the sci-fi aspect of it if you don't like alien stories: it's much, much more than that.

The Devil Chops Onions

Linda and I saw "Julie & Julia" 2 Sundays ago. Then Lo wanted to see it when we were hanging out on a Friday night, so I've seen it twice now. It's good that I liked it enough the first time to go back for seconds!

My thoughts on all of the deliciousness, which did not waver from one viewing to the next:

• I'm demented. I was happy that the live lobsters that V and I brought home one night were killed in a car accident. Or was that just one of the lobsters? Oh, yeah, Bro played the Lobster Killer part that night. None of us jumped that night that I remember. But Lori did, while watching it.
• Bouef Bourguinon. Somebody with a lot of time on their hands, or that is trying out the Julia Child cookbook needs to make that and let me taste it. That's YOU, Jenn. :)
• Amy Adams was cute in her part, and I think that I was annoyed with her in the appropriate places.
• Meryl Streep was jaw-droppingly awesome, as usual. From her first word to the final expression, she WAS Julia Child.
• Loved the shoes that Julia wore (those brown/cream ones). If she was so tall, why did she keep wearing heels? I guess either she didn't care, or she couldn't find flats in her size.
• As Lo said, "Why did she seem to have a British accent if she was from Pasadena?" Nobody I know talks like that, and I've lived in the Pasadena area for most of my life.
• Even though I had a big brunch before the first showing, I was hungry after the movie. I armed myself with Red Vines for the second one, and pretty much ate a piece of licorice each time a new dish was on the screen. Surprisingly, I had some left over, and I had shared with Lo. My goodness, that food looked divine.
• I've decided that I don't want to be a French chef. Far too complicated for me. I would need a ton of time, a huge vat of butter, and people to eat the food that weren't worrying about weight or cholesterol or any other health problems.
• I do, however, want to eat French food soon. It's been awhile.
• Really liked the chemistry between Meryl Streep & Stanley Tucci. It's weird to see "The Devil Wears Prada" after that, though.
• So, seriously: people actually pin those huge paper hearts on themselves for a beautiful Valentine's Day dinner? And what was up with that big blue ring that Paul wore?
• I liked the parallels that were shown in the two characters' lives.
• So I'm picturing a bunch of fans of Julia and/or Julie now placing butter at the Smithsonian display. Do you think they had to put up a sign saying "No Butter Here, Please"? Or did they place a sign saying "Butter Donations Here" and then leave a little refrigerator there? Clearly, I've thought that part over too much.

A great movie. Here is an interview with Nora Ephron about making the movie. Love the stats at the bottom on how much food was made.

If you're anywhere near being a foodie, or just like to see great acting, see this movie. But don't blame me for being hungry if you don't eat beforehand. Bon Appetit!

DLR LotD 09/04/09

Disneyland Resort

Line of the Day

Friday, September 4, 2009

"I'll just be a cold bitch from now on." -- Principal Shannon, at Catal

DLR LotD 09/01/09

Disneyland Resort

Line of the Day

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

"RRRROOOOOAAAAAARRRRRR!!!!" -- The new Fantasmic! Dragon, in its long-awaited public debut