Have you ever ridden in a hot air balloon or a helicopter? Where did you go?
ooooh a QOTD i actually want to answer! (sorry vox, there have been some lame ones of late....maybe it's just me.) a few weeks ago in hawaii, geoff and evan and sara-with-no-h and i went on a helicopter ride over volcanoes. one interesting tid-bit: evan and geoff weigh EXACTLY the same amount! sara and i do not.... at all. (i've got abt 300 lbs on her tiny self)
what is it that's so awesome about volcanoes? you're in this volcano just dying to see lava shoot up in the air but then you realize how destructive that could be and feel bad. our pilot-- we called him "shaky ray"-- was very philosophical about the great paradox of volcanoes creating (land) while they simultaneously destroy so much. sorry, geoff has all the photos. but here's one we did not take.
as i edge closer to having some semblance of a real job again i'm noticing that my insomnia is returning. not something i'm particularly happy about. i don't think it's so much a factor of working more hours or being more or less preoccupied with what i'm doing. i think when i was working on the book, all i was focused on was the book. and now, i've got so many different projects, there's a fear that something is slipping through the cracks or there's some horrendous mistake in something. sigh. guess the good times are over...
latest valley girl column
in case you didn't know-- my dream is that one day i will google "valley girl" and i come up as the first entry. your clicks can help make that possible...
geoff won this massive thing called the phelan award, which is only given out every other year to the most bad-ass photographer the state can find. last night was the opening of his show and check presentation-- unfortunately it wasn't one of those large novelty checks. but his work looked fantastic and people seemed to love it.
so i am starting a new part-time gig mid-nov. in addition to my businessweek column. it will entail me commuting south again a few days a week-- something i said i wouldn't do. ah well. no commute was nice while it lasted.
so i'm enjoying my last week or so of working at home. ("working" ha ha. i'm mostly napping this week, i admit it.) today i had one of my favorite lunch time "work" or work breaks: drunken noodles from the thai place in the tenderloin and an episode of charmed.
sarahcuda has been busy. posts (and maybe photos) to come soon....
the book is in. i am taking a nap.
do yourself a favor: next time you get a rental car, make it a chevy impala. i'm not kidding. it's luxurious! the coziest thing i can imagine on a rainy day. which is good because our first rental car we got this week was the grossest thing ever. it felt like it'd been driven into the bay and they just solved the problem by dumping a pound of cherry-flavored air freshener in it. geoff and i got sick after being in the car about 20 min. but this impala.....niiiiiceeee.
i am *slammed* in my last two weeks until final book due date. slammed! i'm glad i was ahead most of the process-- because i have SO much more to do. i am in that last sprint of the marathon.
still, got to take a moment to blog about geoff and my amazing trip to memphis last weekend. some friends of ours were playing in a local garage band music fest called gonerfest and we promised if they ever played in my hometown we'd come and help show it off. to boot, geoff's old friends own goner records, the organizers of the fest. goner had sold out of geoff's last memphis zine in little more than 24 hours so he figured he'd try his hand at photographing bands-- something that had always intimidated him-- and see if he couldn't come up with enough good stuff to produce a mini-goner zine.
but in the days leading up to our flight we were wondering why we booked the trip. geoff was slammed at work and i was in the homestretch of the book-- and getting over a nasty cold (that unfortunately took a worse turn for stomach flu on sunday- gross!) still, we sucked it up and went.
as it turned out several bands were from san francisco and bay area kids just flooded the joint taking over much of midtown memphis. and-- my years of preaching how great memphis is and yelling at people when they mistakenly said i was from nashville-- were finally proven true as nearly everyone fell in love with the town. my friend andy had two great lines on the subject. at one point he came inside the club, holding up his cell phone and said, "this is the danger of living in the cell phone age. i just bought a condo across the street and joined the local country club." he later remarked, that real estate agents should set up a table alongside all the bands' merchandise tables asking people if they prefer their property by the acre.
of course in true memphis-style, few people actually LIVING in the city came out. this is what keeps memphis from selling out: it has no idea how great it is. many of the bands participating marveled at how goner had seemingly pulled off the impossible in the fourth year of this festival: keeping the quality top notch, the crowd small, the scene non-commercial.
oh, and geoff's photography was simply amazing. it's fair to say he's conquered his fear. here are some shots on his blog of Jay Reatard, who headlined Thursday night and was discovered by the Goner folks. geoff very impressively elbowed his way to the front of a near-mosh pit to get them. i was sitting on the bar a safe distance away supervising. i'm too old to mosh.
What shows are you looking forward to in the new fall TV season?
ugh. not "heroes." i just think it's overrated. all you people who love it: have you ever watched an HBO or FX show or even battlestar?? heroes is *amazing* for NBC but overall mediocre. sorry. i'm watching them on DVD right now. just. not. that. good. well, actually if you fast-forward everything involving micah, parkman, suresh, eden, and simone it's ok. that casting agent had a knack for hiring women who are supposedly hot, but not quite. i know that's obnoxiously catty. but i'm a girl. it's what we do.
re: new shows- wondering if "pushing daisies" can live up to the hype. and in a little pre-fall season action, i'm loving "damages" and "mad men." i think i should have been born a 1960s advertising exec.
