my joys of 2015

Long time, no write. I knew I hadn't blogged in a while, but I didn't know it had been almost two whole months. Oops. Well, it's almost a new year, so I can once again add "write more" to my list of New Year's resolutions... maybe 2016 is the year it will stick. I have a good feeling about next year... numerically, it's got two of my birthday numbers in it (2 and 16) and I'm already feeling a pull towards it. This year was sad and stressful. I'm ready for a change in a warm, fuzzy, happy, laughing way next year.



That's not to say all of 2015 was bad though.... at the start of the year, at the urging of Eat, Pray, Love author Elizabeth Gilbert (who I now follow on Facebook), I created a "happiness jar." I started with a small jam jar because I knew there was no way I'd remember to toss a piece of paper in there daily... and I didn't. BUT, I am happy to report that as of December 30th, "Kim's Jar of Joy" is pretty full. Maybe next year I will graduate to a pickle jar ;)

Here, in random order as I pick the dumped-out slips of paper off the sofa, are things that brought me joy in 2015:

• 1/15/15: Molly's going away from Disney drinks and seeing Molly, Lisa, Jason, Gino, Dana and Johannes again.
• 5/16/15: Lucky's liver numbers back to 49! Dr. Pitt says he's doing better (ed note: now this makes me cry :*(
• 5/6/15: Gorgeous hike with Marleine at Solstice Canyon, followed by food and cocktails on the beach :)
• 2/16/15: My bday Burke Williams massage and yummy dinner with Mom and Dad at Tuscany
• 11/22/15: Foos website countdown finally opens to new FREE 5-song EP, St. Cecilia. Woot! 
• 1/2/15: I just bought a RED washer and dryer!! Crazy!
• 6/23/15: Just bought Duran Duran tickets for the Bowl on 10/1/15... soon-to-be reunited with my first rock star crush named John. 
• 1/17/15: Mom and Dad's 45th wedding anniversary
• 8/13/15: Portland bound! Long vacay weekend with JZ and RZ! 
• 1/25/15: Finished Breaking Bad. SO GOOD!!!
• 5/30/15: U2 Innocence + Experience concert with Qball. Two+ hours of love, joy and music. 
• 6/19/15: Travel to Taos, NM for Josh and Emily's wedding. Stopped in Santa Fe for sopapillas. Fried dough heaven. 
• 10/18/15: Foos at the Love Ride with the Jorgies. Dave's throne updated to a motorcycle :)
• 2/21/15: Kings beat the Sharks in the the Stadium Series. Win #7 in a row! Back in 3rd place.
• 6/5/15: Finished binge watching Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. Love it!
• 8/1/15: Grillin' Saturday with James, Daryl, La Lizz, Juanita, Susie, Bhavani and new friends Pinky and Scott
• 8/17/15: Six cactus flowers blooming upon my return from Portland. A sign from Granny :)
• 11/20/15: New Adele album out today.. now on repeat in the car and my office iTunes. 
• 6/15/15: Finished throwing out a TON of old articles/papers from my office closet. Simplify! Purge! 
• 1/24/15: Five hours in the garden with roses, flowers.. and chicken manure - lol = Bliss!
• 9/13/15: New car! Zoom Zoom!
• 12/12/15: Christmas cocktails... I simplified this year and actually got to talk to people. Yay!
• 1/28/15: The Kings, who've sucked lately, beat 'da Blackhawks 4-3. Awesome game!
• 5/1/15: Avengers: Age of Ultron ... 2x in one day!
• 7/18/15: It thunder/lightning rained today!!
• 12/26/15: Updated the OS on my MacBook Pro for the first time in five years... and it still works!
• 7/27/15: RZ's Hermione Granger wand arrived today. Can't wait to give it to her :)
• 9/4/15: E.T. @ the Bowl!! LOVE. 
• 3/11/15: Just finished two days at Disneyland with Denise and Emily.. her first time. So fun! Met most of the princesses. Win!
• 4/11/15: Walk MS 5k with the whole family. Raised $8,502!
• 11/28/15: Brooklyn... loved, loved, loved this movie!
• 6/20/15: Josh and Emily's lovely wedding
• 9/11/15: Lenny Kravitz @ the Greek with Qball... and a guy who JUST turned 21. LOL
• 5/8/15: Awesome card in the mail from RZ about purple cups, Harry Potter and fun facts about cholera. Love that kid! 
• 6/3/15: My Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt screener finally arrived!
• 3/7/15: Luc Robitaille statue unveiled! Saw Luc, Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, Blakey and Matthew Perry (who did not look good :(
• 9/21/15: Foos @ the Forum w/ Christina, Niki and Lisa. Still in love with Dave Grohl's baby blue guitar.. even tho he broke it tonight. Also love the throne. 
• 12/18/15: Kings destroy the CaSucks 5-0. Tyler Toffoli hat trick #2 of his career!
• 5/4/15: Lucky gained weight and is seeming okay after almost dying a week ago (ed note: more tears now)
• 5/17/15: Got a TON done! Painted garage trim, gardened, cleaned black gunk off mailbox
• 10/4/15: Van Halen with DLR at the Bowl. Concert bucket list item = done!
• 5/14/15: Aveda Rosemary mint body wash - opened the BIG bottle! Love this stuff!
• 1/17/15: I've now seen by two favorite hockey players' numbers retired by the Kings. Tonight #4

a night of foos, thrones, legends and the demise of my favorite baby blue gibson guitar

In November 2014, on a Saturday morning, I drove to Inglewood, CA to stand in the parking lot of my least favorite concert venue in LA (aka The Forum) with about 4,000 other Foo Fighters fans, all putting on numbered bracelets and waiting and hoping for their lucky number to be called. Once that lucky number was chosen (by a cute red-headed four-year-old), everyone lined up in bracelet order to purchase #beatthebots tickets at the box office. I ended up approximately 200 people behind lucky person #1. :)

Ten months later, I -- with my gal pals Christina, Lisa and Niki -- finally got to use those tickets. For a while in June, I was scared we wouldn't (#brokenlegtour2015). But in the end, it was worth every second of the 304 days of waiting and hoping and waiting.... and waiting ...

If you've ever seen Foo Fighters live, you already know why it was worth the wait, and should just skip down to watch the awesome videos I've posted below.

If you haven't, what the heck have you been doing on your musical adventure through life?

The Foos are one of the best live rock bands you will ever see/hear. And I'd say that even if I didn't love Dave Grohl, who is -- without a doubt -- the coolest guy in rock-n-roll. 

Dave, btw, also happens to play the most beautiful baby blue Gibson guitar you'll ever see/hear. I first fell in love with that guitar in June of 2007, when I first saw Foo Fighters live, opening for a little band called The Police. Ask me what I remember of that Police concert today and I'll say, Dave Grohl running around, jumping on top of speakers ... and wailing on that beautiful blue guitar before The Police came out. I'm more than a little obsessed with the guitar... so much so that when surprise guest Dave showed up six feet away from me at a Rick Springfield concert at The Canyon in Agoura in September 2013 to do a song with Rick, my comment on my YouTube video was, "So friggin' awesome! (even though Dave didn't have his gorgeous baby blue guitar ;)." But I digress....

Last night, Dave played that beautiful blue guitar, while perched atop his broken-leg-protecting, rock-star throne, until almost the end of the night (more on that later). And from the opening chords of "All My Life," he, drummer Taylor Hawkins, guitarists Pat Smear and Chris Shifflet and bass guitarist Nate Mendel where "on." They sounded amazing, performing all the Foo hits you'd want plus three of the eight songs from the awesome newish Sonic Highways album. The production (video backdrop, lighting, rolling rock star throne) were really cool. And there were surprise guests... including one rock-n-roll legend, who reduced cool dude Dave Grohl to a backup singer ;)

The show opener:

When he snapped his leg in half in Sweden at the end of June, I was really scared I'd be getting a refund on these concert tickets. Thank the rock gods for pain-killer-induced dreams of rocker thrones, and (as Dave said) a tour production crew cool enough to pull it off!
(Please also note the image of John Travolta from "Stayin' Alive" on Taylor's drum kit. LOL) 

Camera phone flashlights and twinkle lights in the sky.

Special Guest #1 Jack Black jumped out on stage and sang two verses of the band's "#snippet" of Rush's "Tom Sawyer," climbing off the end of the ramp in the middle, but not breaking his leg... cuz he's not as cool as Dave Grohl.

This is called "A Grohl on His Throne"

Performing "Outside" -- the LA-inspired song from Sonic Highways

Towards the end of the show, Dave introduced special guests #2-4, Haim (a band of musical sisters), and after cutely bantering back and forth about Dave's three daughters and Haim offering to babysit, they started to perform a cover of the Tom Petty/Stevie Nicks duet "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around." Well, what's the point of that song without Stevie Nicks on vocals... ahhh! Witness the awesomeness of special guest #5...

Then Dave refused to leave without the jam band doing this song... (excuse the shaky camera towards the middle... I was multi-tasking. It was a long song ;)

After the rocker chicks left, the Foos went back to Foos tunes. Towards the end of either "These Days" or "This is a Call," Mr. Grohl got a little too excited with his guitar playing, and I learned one of my favorite bands runs just like the teams in my favorite sport. 

The first thing I noticed was a guitar-less Pat Smear rushing off stage for a new guitar. Apparently, being in the Foos is like being on a hockey team.. when your most important player (ie: the goalie ... or an incapacitated Dave Grohl) breaks his stick (or the neck of his beautiful baby blue Gibson guitar...sniff sniff), the closest player (like a defensemen... or Pat Smear) quickly tosses said important player his guitar to play so the show can go on. Then Dave Grohl proceeded to tell the crowd his signature guitars must be pretty cheap and you shouldn't buy one now. Um, hello! They're still pretty to look at!

The band didn't waste time going off stage and coming back for an encore, because per Dave, that's a waste of time that should be spent playing more music. (Note: Dave also can't climb off and on that throne very easily ;) But when it was finally time for the last tune, Dave said, "We won't say goodbye, we'll just say this...." 

Enjoy!

a few of my favorite things....

Inspired by the 50th Anniversary of "The Sound of Music" this year, and the fact that I need to get back to blogging (no matter how short and sweet), here is a quick hit of a few of my favorite things lately:

Foo Fighters: Sonic Highways HBO Series

This was actually one of my favorite things of 2014, but I never got around to writing about it. So here, in honor of it being released on DVD April 9, is why I love it:

1. It's directed by Dave Grohl, who can do no wrong and is quite possibly the coolest guy on earth.
2. It stars Dave and the rest of the Foo Fighters.
3. It tells the story behind every song on the Foo's Sonic Highways album. Watching the series, which takes place in each of the eight cities the album was recorded in, you literally see and hear the songs being born. Each of those cities was chosen because they are part of the history of music in America. And now, as I listen to the album, I'm reminded of each of those stories. It was just an amazing, inspiring and educational premise.
4. There is an episode set in the French Quarter of New Orleans. 'Nuff said.
5. Because Dave interviews Dolly Parton in the Nashville episode, I was able to trick my mom into watching an hour of Foo Fighter awesomeness.... and she liked it! 

Live Music

This is and always will be one of my favorite things. There is nothing like being in the presence of people who can take instruments and make magic come out of them.

I kicked off my 2015 concert series last night with one of the most amazing musical magicians around, Jonny Lang, who started off in 1997 as a blues-guitar prodigy with a deep, soulful voice coming out of a scrawny blond kid from North Dakota. He's now a veteran at 34 (ha!) and last night at The Canyon in Agoura, he and his band made some amazingly awesome sounds come out of beautiful guitars.

Coming up on the concert calendar:

• Fleetwood Mac  @ The Forum to check it off the concert bucket list since this will likely be the last time they're all together
• Bette Midler @ Staples Center (Mom's Christmas gift)
• U2 @ The Forum -- I'm only going once this tour, I swear!
• Foo Fighters @ The Forum 
• Idina Menzel @ the Hollywood Bowl -- GNO with Erin and JZ
• I will also be going to the Bowl to hear the score of my favorite movie performed live Labor Day weekend. I'm so excited! 
• And there is also the chance that I will cave and buy a last minute ticket to Maroon 5 @ The Forum this Friday.

(FYI, The Forum is NOT one of my favorite things, yet I sure am going to be there a lot this year. Ugh.) 

Wild

This was my favorite movie of 2014. I was crushed that it was not nominated for Best Picture by anyone. I don't know if it was the hiking, the beauty of nature, the being away from everything, the searching for something, the writing in a journal every day, the anger at disease striking a beloved mom or all of the above, but this movie spoke to me. I'm now reading the book, because BKF said I should. (If I ever finish it, I'll let you know ;) The movie comes out on DVD/Blu Ray this Tuesday.

My Garden

It's in full bloom and the weather is great. Next weekend, I'm uncovering the patio furniture and filling up the grill's tank and going to buy a lounge chair. I want to spend the summer out there reading (when it's not 100 degrees ;).... and maybe even writing more. We'll see.

the year was 1981...

... and I was a young, impressionable tween (although we weren't called that then). My aunt, who is only 11 years older than I, bought an album with a dog on the cover, and I soon realized the guy singing was the cute doctor on the soap my mom watched, General Hospital. 

And thus began my lifelong love of musicians legally named either Richard (Rick Springfield, Richie Sambora) or John (Taylor, Bon Jovi, Rzeznik).

I eventually somehow -- by either begging or stealing... I don't remember ;) -- moved my aunt's "Working Class Dog" record out of her house and into mine. And today it still lives in my house (granted this is now six houses later), collecting dust in a big bin of records, including six other Springfield releases from the '80s and maybe early '90s. 

For those of you not alive in the '80s, this is what records look like. They were big flat cardboard things with cool photos or graphics on the outside and a big round black piece of plastic inside :p 

Tonight, I traveled back in time musically (and somewhat physically -- have you ever been inside The Canyon Club in Agoura? Eek!) to see Rick, my very first rock star-crush perform up-close-and-personal. (This is the only benefit of the trapped-in-time Canyon Club... it's tiny.)

The show was super-fun, and nostalgic, as seen here (just ignore the crazy, old-enough-to-know-better groupies)... 

... and was infused with a dash of friggin' awesome in the form of Dave Grohl from the Foo Fighters. Dave appeared onstage (although he came without his beautiful baby blue Gibson guitar that I might love just a little more than him) to perform "The Man That Never Was" from his documentary Sound City with Rick, as seen here:

Overall it was a great show! Rick knows how to work an audience and -- even though he's technically only a year and a half younger than my dad (oy) -- totally still rocks out.... even if he does need some help from Starbucks to do so ;)

This might be my fave photo of the night. LOL.

random thoughts on 121212

I'm watching the 121212 concert for Hurricane Sandy relief tonight and having a lot of random thoughts I'm going to document here because there is no one in my living room at the moment to share them with. I apologize in advance. I'm in a snarky mood. But to make up for my snarkiness, let me remind you that you can buy music from the concert here on iTunes, with all proceeds going to the Robin Hood Foundation. (Hopefully that will keep me from going to hell for what's about to occur ;)

First, one non-snarky comment: This is the first time I've heard Springsteen and The E Street Band play live since Clarence Clemons passed away. "Born to Run" just isn't the same without The Big Man on sax :(

Now, let the snark begin:

Kristen Stewart needs to fire her stylist right now.

Jon Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen should not duet together anymore. They don't sing in the same key. Jon messed up "Born to Run." Bruce messed up "Who Says You Can't Go Home."
-- Sincerely, a huge fan of both Jersey Boys... separately.

Why were the only musicians who played this benefit OLD? The Who, Clapton, Springsteen, McCartney, The Stones, Billy Joel. Even Bon Jovi is now all officially 50+. Do the organizers think fans of people under 25 have no cash to donate? Or did Taylor Swift and One Direction have a hot date tonight? (Not that I actually want to hear Taylor Swift and One Direction, mind you. But maybe the concert could've been on network TV if they had an act or two that wasn't a member of the AARP. Just a thought considering the goal of this whole thing was to raise money.)

Also interesting that they were all either from the tri-state area (not surprising since that's where the hurricane hit) or Great Britain.

Alicia Keys looks to have hired Victoria Beckham's hair stylist. OOOH! Alicia's under 40. There's one! She's also from NYC.

Did Roger Daltry really think unbuttoning his shirt to show off his waxed, fake-n-baked 70-year-old chest was a good idea?

Okay, Kayne West is now rapping. The "one of these things is not like the others" song is playing in my head.

So this Nirvana reunion thing with Sir Paul McCartney singing... ummmm. Let's just say I never really liked Nirvana. And that fact has not changed tonight.

This was, I am fairly certain, the longest concert ever.

enjoy the musical moment

So I'm once again sitting on the sofa watching stuff on TiVo. My current selection is the Jimmy Kimmel Live After Oscar special, which featured this year's celeb-studded viral wannabe Movie: The Movie (sorry Jimmy, it's no Handsome Men's Club) and a skit where Oprah actually allows herself to be made fun of. The show also featured a live performance from Coldplay, which is why I'm typing...

All throughout the crowd, there are hundreds of digital cameras and cell phones pointed at the stage, all with human beings attached, whose focus is clearly on the screen of their device, NOT the actual Grammy-Award winning band performing mere feet away from them for free.

I'm all for recording things for posterity and saving memories, but this practice has become far too common and addicting...especially when you are in the audience of a concert that is already being recorded... like for a national TV show you can watch and relive online whenever you want!

I'm totally guilty of it too. I spent most of U2's concert at the Rose Bowl in 2009 -- where I was lucky enough to have had a general admission floor ticket that enabled me to end up right in front of the catwalk surrounding the stage AND that was recorded for their 360 Tour Live DVD, btw -- with my camera out, recording video of my fave songs and trying to get perfect photos of Bono and Larry Mullen Jr. But I'm kinda bummed that I didn't experience more of the actual experience of being there... "stuck in a moment," if you will... in the FRONT ROW!

Luckily, the most recent concerts I've gone to -- specifically Foo Fighters at the not-so-fabulous-anymore-Forum in October -- have required that I focus on the music, not my camera. See, my camera broke at some point over the summer and refused to focus on anything. So any footage I would have attempted to film would have looked like a super-fuzzy mess. And while I wish I had clear video of Dave Grohl performing Everlong, I am kind of glad I don't. That concert was awesome and I remember huge chunks of the performances and how great the music sounded. I'm not sure that would have happened if I'd been too busy recording the show to actually enjoy the show.

2010 -- the year that was

It's New Year's Eve, my most hated of holidays. People put way too much emphasis on going out, drinking, and cheering when the clock strikes 12. Any time I've tried to "celebrate" this "holiday," I usually regret it... I get in a fight with someone, or the evening doesn't live up to the artificially manufactured expectations that it be awesome, and I feel like I've failed the Party Gods. So this year, I'm sitting on my couch watching movies, with a vodka cranberry in hand. This has been a not-awesome year, and I prefer to just let it slip quietly into the past.

The year 2010 actually started off really well. I was the happiest I'd been in a long time... for about six days. Then things went awry. Sadness, worry and stress took over my personal and professional lives. I'd like to say those feelings lessened as the year went on, but alas, they did not. My mom was diagnosed with MS in June. Work got all re-org-ish over the summer, some people I loved working with are no longer there, and it now seems more in flux than it's ever been. And since July, four colleagues, all under the age of 50, have passed away, three from health issues that took them from this earth way before their time; and the fourth was killed the day after Christmas at the hands of a drunk driver in Vermont. (RIP Johannes, Leslie, Wayne and Kaye.) So sad.

The year was not all bad though. I traveled a lot, (although most of it was for work) and went three places I'd never been before. I also saw a lot of great shows and concerts, participated in three great volunteer events, and made a great home improvement. This year also saw me convert from PC to Mac at home, and I must say I love the freedom of my light, easy to use, virus-free MacBook now, even though converting all my files (or not, as the case may be) was a pain. I got my awesome Droid Incredible phone. And I went to Pilates almost every week of the year. (But went on only one hike due to my knee problems, finally diagnosed in May as runner's knee... although I do not run). Here are some of the highlights of the year:

January:

• My mom and dad celebrated their 40th Anniversary

February:

• Bon Jovi Concert #1 in Anaheim
• Saw Cast and Producers of LOST at PaleyFest

March:

• Bon Jovi Concert #2 in Los Angeles @ Staples Center

April:

• I started blogging (here) again!
• Michael Buble Concert @ Staples Center
• Trip #1: Seattle, WA, for the first time
• The Los Angeles Kings make the playoffs for the first time since 2002!

May:

• Trip #2: San Francisco for Web 2.0 Expo
• The 2010 Summer Movie Blockbuster Club kicks off its season
• Renoir in the 20th Century @ LACMA, with Mom, on Mother's Day
• Trip #3: Boulder, CO
• Upgraded to the Droid Incredible
• Trip #4: New Orleans (my one non-work, just for fun trip, for Jason & Nora's wedding!)

June:

• Sting's "Symphonicity" @ the Hollywood Bowl
• Jonny Lang @ House of Blues, Hollywood
• Grease Sing-Along @ the Hollywood Bowl
• I got my new, gorgeous back patio installed!

July:

• Hosted my first 4th of July BBQ
• Went to the Grammy Museum

August:

• RENT @ the Hollywood Bowl, directed by Neil Patrick Harris
• Trip #5: St. Louis, MO, for the first (and hopefully last) time ever
• John Williams @ the Hollywood Bowl
• Goo Goo Dolls @ the Greek Theatre

September:

• Trip #6: Raleigh, NC, for the first time... at the same time as Hurricane Earl
• Trip #7: Palo Alto, CA
• Southern California Coastal Cleanup Day
• Trip #8: San Francisco, again

October:

• Trip #9: Phoenix
• Trip #10: New York City & Hackensack, NJ
• Apple and pumpkin picking in Yucaipa, CA
• The Kings season begins... awesomely. 

November:

• Volunteering for Operation Gratitude
• Disneyland with The Z's 

December:

• My first year with outdoor Christmas lights!
• Volunteering @ LA Regional Foodbank
• Christmas Cocktails
• 12 days of vacation kicks off

And here's what I did this year, according to some of my favorite Facebook status updates:

As 2011 nears, I'm thinking about what I can do to make it better than 2010 was. I think my overall goals are to take care of myself, and strive for happiness in my life and the lives of those close -- and not so close -- to me.

To that end, I want to:

• Get Healthy: I will eat better and utilize either my Wii Fit or the treadmill -- that I plan to "borrow" from my parents' garage -- at least three times per week, in addition to continuing Pilates. I also want to resume hiking when the time changes.  
• Write More: I will not put my journal in a drawer. I will keep it in eyesight and use it to brain dump feelings and ideas not for public consumption here.
• Read Actual Books: A minimum of four this year. One per quarter. That's doable, right? (Sub-goal: I will not let my magazine pile deter me from this goal, no matter how tall it gets.)
• Volunteer More: Operation Gratitude takes place four minutes from my house. I can give up three hours of my life every few weekends to bring some happiness to the lives of people sacrificing theirs for our freedom. I also plan to participate in the "Walk MS" in April to raise funds for the National MS Society.
• Host More: I love my house, I have a great kitchen and I just spent a lot of money on an awesome patio. I need to invite people over to enjoy it with me more. I also need to practice cooking more, minus eating more (see goal #1 ;) 
• Travel for Me: I will go to Portland this year to spend time with friends -- I've made that promise. I also hope 2011, one way or another, will finally be my Italian vacation year. I'm thinking either April for someone's birthday, or a solo tour in the Fall. 

That's six things, some more complicated than others. But I was quite amazed with everything I got done in December simply by planning my month, day by day, and checking things off a list. Tomorrow is the start of a new calendar and I can start filling it in right away :)

back to goo

So the Goo Goo Dolls are one of only four bands I will pretty much go anywhere to see in concert. I've had some pretty up-close-and-personal concert moments with them in the past at House of Blues (where John Rzeznik squirted his water bottle on my leather jacket laying over the barricade in front of the stage. I forgave him cuz he looked really good that night ;) and Verizon Wireless Amphitheater (where, after an awful experience waiting for fan club tickets to arrive at the box office for like two hours, my Goo-buddy Miriam and I discovered we were once again in the front row, but at a much bigger venue and with a seat number on a ticket!). So when the Goos announced a show at the awesome Greek Theatre on August 29th, I signed up, even though their new CD -- Something for the Rest of Us -- wasn't out yet and I had no idea what to expect.

The show started with a new song ("Sweetest Lie") I didn't know... by the end of the song, I loved it!. Then they moved into hitsville for a while... the sound was so good, both instrumentally and vocally -- John's voice sounded amazing! They sang a few other new songs: the first single, "Home," "Not Broken." By the end of the show, I couldn't wait till Tuesday to get the new album.

I stopped at Best Buy last night to purchase the actual physical CD on the way home from work (I do that for bands I'd go anywhere to see in concert ;), and ripped it to my Droid so I could listen to it today on the plane to Raleigh. I've often felt that the band has never quite topped the overall goodness of 1998's Dizzy Up the Girl (which brought us "Slide," "Black Balloon," "Iris" and "Acoustic #3" some of my fave GGD songs, along with "Here is Gone" and "Sympathy" from 2002's Gutterflower) that could be listened to end-to-end without feeling the need to skip a song or two. That's a rare feat for an album, especially these days when very few people actually buy and listen to full albums.

But after listening to Something for the Rest of Us approximately 10 times in a row today, and actually reading the lyrics (many of which read like love letters), I think they might have done it. This album is beautful... full of extremely emotional, personal stories of love, yearning, happiness, acceptance. It's not loud, it's lyrical and I love that. My favorite songs thus far, in no particular order: "As I Am," "Home," "Notbroken" (which is already the second most downloaded Goo song on iTunes ever, 2nd to Iris), "One Night," "Nothing is Real," and "Still Your Song." After the emotional roller coaster I've been on this year, those songs really spoke to me in different ways. I really love this album -- it was definitely worth waiting four years for.

symphonicity

I just got home from the Hollywood Bowl, where I experienced another musical spectacular from Sting, who, like fine wine, just gets better and better with age. I don't know how many times I've seen the man in concert (let's just say "a lot"), but tonight was unlike anything he's done before. He was backed by the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra + a tiny band, fronted by his long-time guitarist and songwriting partner Dominic Miller. It was, in a word, AWESOME. The evening was a beautiful celebration of music, lyrics and the stories behind them, as Sting introduced almost every song with some sort of anecdote about how he was inspired to write it, or why he wrote it. He seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the show as much as the audience was, playing guitar, tambourine, and collaborating on stage with Dominic and guest trumpeter Chris Botti. And experiencing this concert at the Bowl, which is one of my favorite places to listen to music -- outside, under the stars, with a slight chill in the air tonight -- only added to the beauty of the evening. It was an amazing show. 

diana's happy buble' day

No that's not a typo. Today (well, I guess at this time of night it was yesterday) was my friend Diana's birthday, but it was also the night that Michael Buble' played Staples Center. So therefore we shall deem April 9, 2010 "Diana's Happy Buble' Day." She even made a sign to hold up so he'd know it was her birthday. AND -- here comes the happy part -- he actually saw the sign and gave her a wave cuz our seats were just that awesome. (So awesome, in fact, that Dick Clark Part Deux, Ryan Seacrest was sitting right in front of us -- like I-could've-kicked-his-date-in-the-head-in-front-of-us -- and caused quite the hub-bub in section 119, but I digress....) Diana looooooves Michael Buble', who (for those of you out of the know) is a 34-year-old Sinatra-esque Canadian crooner with a HI-larious sense of humor. His shows are a blast, and this one was no exception. So Happy Buble' Day to you Diana! And I'll try to remember to download the video of "Bubbly" giving you the wave at some point this weekend :)