Bolt of Blue

Concert meme from parlance.

First concert?
New Kids on the Block, Magic Summer Tour, September 14, 1990 at Dodger Stadium. 60,000 sold out. 2nd row seats. INSANE.
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Duran Duran played a special show with Mark Ronson in Paris the other night. Mark picked all of the songs to play for the 90 minute set and remixed the whole show. They played an incredible slow version of A View To A Kill. And this….

Trying to kill me. My favorite band in the world playing my favorite song ever (The Chauffeur) which is then MIXED into a cover of Song 2… by my other favorite band in the world. Head. Explodes.

Just spent the past few days moving into our new home (and still crazy enough to manage two Duran Duran shows this weekend too.)

I’m sore, overwhelmed, full of emotions, thrilled, excited, tired, happy.

I love our new house. It doesn’t quite feel like our home yet because there’s boxes everywhere and we haven’t yet made it our own. But I know it will get there in time.

I love the view from our new house. Cars whizzing down below on the 10 freeway. Hollywood Hills and San Gabriel Mountains in the background. Hollywood sign visible from the roof of our garage. At night, the city lights are like glittery gems or fairies filling up the sky. Squirrels run all over the back and front yards. And the birds! It’s a haven for an amazing variety of birds. A family of hawks live in the tall redwood in our front yard. Finches use puddles in our garden for baths. Songbirds wake us up to the rising sun every morning. It’s bliss.

To top it off, I saw my favorite band in the world with new and old friends. It’s always a reunion of sorts at shows like these. Meeting up with old pals and meeting new ones (randomly met someone from my Tiger List days last night). Both shows were incredible and quite emotional (for those who couldn’t be dancing with us). The guys sounded and looked fabulous. Their music always has a way to heal, to inspire, and to whip up crowds into a dancing frenzy. I’m looking forward to the San Diego show on Thursday as a nice way to cap off this tour.

And looking even more towards the future… of making our new house into our home and planning the next adventure, wherever it may take us.

ps. Happy Cinco de Mayo!

I checked my email today to find out some sad news about someone I know in Duran Duran fandom. He was sadly found dead in his apartment yesterday. I felt immediate shock and disbelief. I didn’t know him well, but he was always friendly to me and always in great spirits. My last memory of him will be at the Spice Girls concert in December, where he was dancing and enjoying himself. A moment that I was feeling carefree, weightless, and very much alive. I hope he was feeling the same.

People die, every day, every second. People are born, every day, every second. It’s the way things are. And we only have so much time. We can’t control it, but we can try our best to make the most of it, make it count, make it matter.

“You are both stars, don’t forget. And the stars exploded billions of years ago, to form everything that is this world. Everything we know, is stardust. So don’t forget, you are stardust.”

“You know, I believe if there’s any kind of God, it wouldn’t be in any of us. Not you, or me… but just this little space in between. If there’s any kind of magic in this world, it must be in the attempt of understanding someone, sharing something. I know, it’s almost impossible to succeed, but… who cares, really? The answer must be in the attempt.” – from Before Sunrise

Update: The sad news was just posted on Duran Duran’s website and couldn’t have been said in a more beautiful way.

So much going on right now. Here are some highlights:

• I finally put up the Brilliance redesign (a Jude Law fansite)… like 5 minutes ago. I’m still working on fixing the Gallery, but it’s mostly all up. This took me way too long and was so overdue it was ridiculous. I converted the site to WordPress and put in a simple and clean design (I hope!) I’m happy with it. It’s a very different design compared to most typical actor fansites out there. But I wanted it to be different, I want it to be less busy and easy to navigate. Hopefully, I’ve succeeded. I’ve also met one rad fan who is going to contribute to the site (and already has). I’d love to meet some more like-minded Jude fans who might be interested in helping with the site.

• I went to a Duran Duran listening party held by Sony last week! Not only did I get to hear their fantastic new album, but the guys were there. I finally got my photo taken with Nick and Simon. And had some awesome conversations with Nick and Roger. I’m very tempted to figure out a way to make one of their NY shows now. Roger did tell me I should come. How I’m calm about all this and not fangirling out, I honestly have no idea. *squeeeeee* Okay… I let it out a little there.

• I’ve been bugging Remi for a while now that he should have his own website. Now he does… take a look at BugEyedMonkeys.com. I had a lot of fun designing it for him.

• Posted Day 4 photos from our road trip. Most of the photos are from our drive through Yellowstone, which was incredible and I’m so glad we didn’t go the faster route. We saw Old Faithful, bison, more deer (this time Elk), a wolf (didn’t get a photo of him though), and so many waterfalls. We made it to Edmonton very late that night… when we passed Calgary, we got stuck in the middle of a crazy lightening storm. Rain was pouring in buckets and coming down so hard we had to slow down to be safe and be able to see ahead of us… and lightening was going on all around us. I’ve never seen lightening actually hit the ground and sparks go flying into the air. But now I have and it’s pretty scary when it’s happening 20 feet from you.

• My father-in-law is flying in today for a weekend visit. It’s completely last minute. We only found out he was coming yesterday morning… and it was also a surprise to him too (we found out before he did). He really needs a break from work and Remi’s mom found a great deal on a flight. We’re looking forward to seeing him and I know he’s looking forward to using our condo’s jacuzzi.

• Next week, we head up to Seattle for NWBrickCon. So excited!

I’ve posted photos from day 3 of our road trip. That day was probably one of the best days of our whole trip. We went canoeing on gorgeous Jackson Lake, went for a fantastic hike into the foothills of the Tetons and literally ran into a black bear on the way back down, we saw butterflies, a glacier fed waterfall, and lots of adorable chipmunks, we were finally able to take a nice hot shower that evening, and had a great meal of buffalo burgers at the Jackson Lodge.

I’d go into more details but those are the highlights. Besides, it’s hard to concentrate right now because but I’m in full Duranie mode.

“Red Carpet Massacre” is due for release on November 13. Duran Duran is going to do a 2 week run on “Broadway” in NYC following the release date. No specific dates/venues have been announced. We’d been hearing rumors of this for a while and both Roger and Nick confirmed it. I was trying not to be too bitter. They did a special fan club only show in New York over the summer and now this??! I don’t understand why they are ignoring Los Angeles since they have such a supportive and huge fanbase here. So I’ve been annoyed.

But not after today. And that’s all I’m going to say for now until after Tuesday. Ahem.

Plus…

• I got to see Hot Hot Heat last night for a special free show at Cinespace and it was rad (great crowd, great energy by the band, great show!)
• We have our trip all set for NWBrickcon.
• I get to see The Hives again on November 7! It’s been too long (their new album hits October 9th).
• The spoilers for Season 5 of One Tree Hill are AWESOME (even K-Fed can’t bring them down).
• I’ve made 9 sales on half.com since I put up a bunch of stuff (9 sales in 11 days!) I’m amazed!
• Remodeling our place is going well. Who knows… maybe by the start of the year, we’ll be able to sell our place and buy a house. Gulp.

Coachella write up coming. Incredibly awesome weekend. Full of amazing music and memories with dear friends.

This week has been taken up by getting back into loads of work. Working on another immigration form that we have to file as soon as we can (this time adjustment of status for Remi’s permanent resident card) and getting all the evidence together. And Remi and I are planning a big summer road trip through all of western North America (more on that later). Involves more research, mapping routes, and making reservations before things fill up. We’re super excited though… it’s going to be rad.

Plus… Spider-Man tonight. Duranie dinner tomorrow night (I won’t get sad that we missed a JT/Roger show last weekend in LA or that the boys are doing a special fans only show in NY next month). Friends getting married on Sunday. Monday is a Phantom Planet show at the Roxy that we just found out about. Thursday we are seeing Loreena McKennitt at the Greek… and then there’s also hanging out with Kate all week before she head’s back to Australia.

And you know, new OTH. Finally.

Life is busy. Life is good.

What a weekend. And a couple of days. My voice is pretty much gone. Too much screaming, running around, jumping around, and definitely not enough sleep. But I feel excellent! Be forewarned, this post is LONG. Ok.
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