My Jawsome Weekend: Friday (featuring The Not Ready For Reality players)
My Jawsome Weekend, Part 2
Happy belated Independence Day, my fellow Americans! To celebrate 232 years as an independent nation (and of course to celebrate the completion of Frank's second home-brewed beer) we hosted a barbeque from the top of our apartment building.
You can take the kids out of Boston but you can't take the Boston out of the kids.
Frank is bending over, but I'm pretty sure that's just part of the grilling process, right?
Frank or Marty set the chimney down on the roof and the tar began to bubble and liquify. The tenants below us may or may not have a hole in their roof. Woops.
Travis loves Marty's nips.
We had a decent turnout, thanks to all who made it up here to drink our beer: Marty, Katy, Travis, Adrienne (nice to meet you), Rae, Jen, Nico, Paul (thanks for the ice guys), and Ryan (you are a hockey star, sir).
For those unfamiliar with the greater Los Angeles area, Hollywood, Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, Venice Beach, etc. are in Los Angeles proper. Burbank, Studio City, and yours truly are in the San Fernando Valley, aka "The Valley," where terms like "valley girl" and "val party" (Clueless) reference. As a general rule, whatever the temperature in LA proper, add a good 5-10 degrees and that's the temperature in the SF Valley. On this day it was about 92 in LA proper...you do the math. Katy got overheated and went back inside early to get ready for her show that night. The rest of us toughed it out on the roof then went inside for parfait and more beer.
Katy ( Bearkat) played a set that night at The Derby's acoustic room. The act before her was a guy named Reed Turner, and singing with him was some girl who was very fidgety and attention grab-y. Martin thought she was Reed Turner. Uh oh, time to get a new harmony singer! Their supporters were obnoxious, calling out for their friend to perform Freebird and heckling and joking. I noticed one of them reminded me of a kid I had once had a class with in Boston, and the only reason he stood out from anyone else in the class is because he looked like this:
Gary Johnson of Team America: World Police, crossed with:
Luciano Pavarotti. It's weird.
So the attention grab-y woman was speaking to the audience as Reed was tuning his guitar and was saying a bunch of things, then mentioned "...Reed Turner just graduated from Berklee College of Music..." and since most of my friends who were there to see Bearkat were recent Berklee grads ourselves we were a bit shocked that we didn't recognize him. Then a cheer came from their friends and it was then that I realized: that IS the kid that looks like a Pavarotti/marionette hybrid that I'd had that class with! And he's annoying as hell!
I checked myself and my friends; I wondered if we were as obnoxious as they were. Sure I'd been loud and silly back in Boston at places like All Asia where nobody took anybody's shows seriously in the first place, but now that we all live out here in LA, well, I know to shut up and let my friends shine so they can focus on "making it." I'm starting to understand and feel that real support is your full attention, not your peanut-gallery jokes and sideline singalongs, which I've been guilty of in the past, but I've changed my ways. Anyway (steps off soap box)...
A bunch of folks came back to my place after the show, including Jess and her friend Carrie, who after stealing away to smoke a j upstairs with Jess, came back down and got really weirded out by all of the yellow and red combinations in our living room. It was bizarre, yet funny.
Thanks to Katy for the pictures!