Mary's LJ

Also Happy FORTIETH Birthday tomorrow to Billie Joe Armstrong! I love you, you old-ass motherfucker.

Damn, I've been busy. I realized that I never even talked about and_ed's visit and it's been TWO MONTHS! So now you get the short version because my brain is old and my memory is feeble. It was less expensive for Barb to travel to another country to see the Foo Fighters than to go to her "local" show, and she got the added bonus of seeing MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. The show in Oakland was awesome! Dave Grohl would pay us to be his audience, I'm pretty sure...that guy loves what he does. He never phones it in. We had an extra ticket which we gave to the wonderful (but poor-as-dirt!) indie_wonka, so the three of us had a fantastic time for the 2 1/2 hour show!. The opener was Cage the Elephant, and the only thing I'll say about them is a note to the lead singer: DUDE, if you are opening for the guy who was the drummer for Nirvana, please leave your shitty-ass Kurt Cobain imitation at home in front of the bedroom mirror, K?

Anyway, other highlights of Barb's too short trip were some of the touristy shit that you never do when you live somewhere. We went to Fisherman's Wharf and had lunch at Bubba Gumps at a table with a great view of Alcatraz, we walked along Golden Gate Bridge, we saw the "Painted Ladies" the row of pretty victorian houses, drove around Golden Gate Park and saw the bisons (yes, there are real live bisons in the middle of San Francisco!), but the highlight was when Barb took over my kitchen and made an incredible 4 course meal! YUMYUMYUM. My poor kitchen didn't know what hit it! So it was definitely a wonderful but too short visit...I hope she comes back soon when thelackey can join us. But both my (musical) boos Green Day and Adam Lambert should be touring next year, and I know they won't skip Vancouver...

So, a funny thing happened last week. Metallica is celebrating their 30th anniversary as a band, and to do so, they rented out the Fillmore here in SF for a series of four shows. Tix were available only to fan club members, and if you won the lottery, you could buy a set of 1 ticket for each show for $19.81 for all four (1981, get it?) (For reference, Metallica regularly sells out 15K+ arenas, the Fillmore holds 1200.) As it turns out, the organization I volunteer for, RockMed, staffs First Aid at the Fillmore. \o/ Now, I'm not a hardcore Met fan by any stretch, but c'mon! IT'S METALLICA! I was scheduled for 3 of the 4 shows, and I really enjoyed them. It was very casual and laid back, and as James said one night "This isn't a concert, it's a party, and we're the house band." The crowd was very hard core and well-behaved, as you might imagine, and one of the nights they called out all the countries that were represented. Turns out that people flew in from over THIRTY countries! Amazing! Some special guests included Kid Rock, Marianne Faithfull, Ozzy Osborne, Iggy Pop, and their old bassist Jason as well as their old guitarist Dave Mustaine. One night I saw Billie Joe and Tré in the audience, but they were just spectators.

To make a long story longer, I wasn't going to work the Friday show, and the RockMed manager asked me if I wanted to work the local alt rock station's "jingle ball" concert with Jane's Addiction, Mumford& Sons, Florence+the Machine, and Bush. I said no because it would have involved driving across the city and the bridge into Oakland on a Friday afternoon, which means about an hour's drive to go 20 miles, so I passed. Then at the last minute, the Fillmore asked me if I would work Friday's Met show because someone cancelled, and the Fillmore is 10 minutes from my house so I agreed. After I got there I got two texts, one from Bren and one from RockMed, telling me that OH BTW, GREEN DAY IS NOW HEADLINING INSTEAD OF JANE'S ADDICTION...NOW DO YOU WANT TO WORK THE SHOW? LOL, so no I couldn't, but I realized that this was the true example of a First World Problem: I can't go see Green Day, because I have to see Metallica. lololol, my life! (Turns out that JA's drummer had a family emergency and cancelled at 8:30 that morning, so they reached out to GD, who agreed to play the show that afternoon! Gotta love those boys!) They played 1.5 hours of all old school stuff (only American Idiot was recent vintage) and as a three piece, no Jason! And I expect that Live 105 will be spinning Green Day's next single twice an hour for three months minimum to show their gratitude for GD saving their asses.

Alright this is long enough, so I leave you with this. Part of the Met show involved a video of various people and bands wishing the band a very happy anniversary, and this was Green Day's contribution.

Make sure you watch until the very end (about 1:50), OK?

No matter how far I roam...I will always come back to LJ, and I will always love Green Day.

Just putting that out there.

We're gearing up for another round...secret shows and new songs on the way. I even shelled out the $25 (or whatever...I've already forgotten!) to rejoin the Idiot Club, because, damn, now that I live here, I don't want to miss the next secret shows. C'mon, guys, have one on my day off this time.

So, I'm REALLY excited for this: Billie Joe is going to be in a 2 episode arc on the cable TV show "Nurse Jackie." I saw it on the IC, but Perez Hilton posted about it today. http://perezhilton.com/2011-10-07-billie-joe-armstrong-cast-on-nurse-jackie#.To-goutmtsY

Someone in the comments has some casting information:
[JOHN] (Male, 45) He is a badass, has a tattoo that says 'No Regrets' on his hand, and is a drug user addicted to Oxycontin who meets Jackie one night. He is chasing after the ultimate high. He has kids and a wife who don't talk to him anymore.

Billie's going to hit the big 4-0 in about 4 months, but I'm sure he'll manage to look the part!

Working full time nights is tough on a body, but I'm taking steps to combat it. I signed up for a fitness boot camp starting Monday. Getting started back on the road to fitness is always the hard part, so this should by the kick in the ass I need. Kill me now. /o\

Volunteering for RockMed keeps me busy, but it has its advantages. These are the bands I have seen or will see shortly in a 30 day period:

Don Henley
Jimmy Eat World
Robert Plant
Fitz and the Tantrums
blink-182
My Chemical Romance (Angie, if you're reading this, they were GREAT. Best I've seen them.)
Stevie Nicks
Foster the People
Foo Fighters (More on this to come...)
Neil Young and the Bridge School Benefit


Oh yeah, about the Foo Fighters. I am almost wetting my pants with excitement because the one and only and_ed is coming down from the great white north to visit MEEEEE and go see the Foos with MEEEEE on October 19th. And of course, we will hit some tourist spots including Rudy's Can't Fail Cafe! And Barb is gonna cook for me. My poor stainless steel appliances won't know what hit them. And she's probably gonna make me watch Hawaii 5-0 while she's here too.

Also, if you like indie pop-rock, may I suggest you check out Foster the People? They are awesome. Someone uploaded their CD on YT if you want to listen: http://youtu.be/Fvq7VMcifKk

In other fandom news, my obsession with Adam Lambert appears to have the staying power of my obsession with Green Day! o_0 It's going on 3 years now. For those of you who don't follow his every tweet with bated breath, his second album will probably be out in Jan or Feb 2012, but he may have a single out as early as next month. (IT'S ABOUT FUCKING TIME DUDE!) He remains as adorable and presh as usual, especially with his equally adorable hot Finnish twink of a boyfriend. q.v.:

Posting on LJ is just like working out. Getting started is the hardest part, right?

Sucking at this everyday posting thing again. :-) But in my defense, I've worked like 18 of the last 20 days, or something ridiculous like that!
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Of course, one way to cheat is to use my f-list's content. :-) One of my flisties, heros_and_cons saw Green Day in Connecticuit and made an epic post of epic about it in her LJ with pics and vids! Go enjoy!

http://heroes-and-cons.livejournal.com/29433.html

Nice LJ name, huh!?

thelackey's Sexy Island Meme is still going on...check it out! (BTW, When heros_and_cons did hers, Adam Lambert won. Just so you know!)
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Speaking of Adam (aw, c'mon, you know that was happening...) On his off day at Philly, he hit the bars and made some new "friends," and seemed to have made one "friend" in particular. To which all the fangirls screamed "GET IT BOY!"
Never have so many women been so thrilled about a guy banging someone who isn't them!


(The guy in the pink shirt is the "special friend.")

The funniest part of the whole thing was when Adam showing up pretty bleary eyed for a radio interview the next day...IN THE SAME CLOTHES, BUT MISSING AN EARRING.


Yes, Adam did the Walk of Shame! And even joked with the DJ about going out and getting frisky the night before.
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I'm making a DVD from video shot by mindchnger at the Erie, PA concert. If any of the Adam fans on my flist would like one (or even if you're not a fan and not on my flist!), let me know. :-)

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Spending tomorrow in Golden Gate Park working medical services at the Outside Lands Music Festival, then at the American Idols concert at night. Last year I had to buy a scalped ticket to the AI show, this year they're practically giving them away. What a difference a year makes.

Sunday night I'll be at the Rob Thomas show in Saratoga. I'll be thinking of you, linzeestyle!

So, the problem with trying to post every day is that sometimes you don't have anything interesting to say!

I only have a sec since i'm on my way to work, but fandom is always a good topic, right?

Just found out that my darling Gale Harold will find his way back to my TV set this fall on a semi-recurring basis on a CW show called "Hellcats." Don't know a damn thing about it, but will set my TiVo just the same. I'm still melancholy about how his accident messed things up the last time (uh, not to mention how he almost died or could have suffered brain damage!), but this should cheer me up. Expect to see more of Gale in this LJ again. :-)

A good day in Adam-land radio-wise...RCA started pushing "If I Had You" to Hot AC format radio stations today and it did quite well...it got 15 adds (meaning the station added it to their playlist), and was the most added song to that format this week. *\o/*

And to complete my fandom trifecta, Green Day starts their 2010 US Tour this week, which will end in the Bay Area in Sept! And it seems that a huge percentage of my flist will be there, so YAY! Good times ahead!

Hope your Monday went OK!

I don't care if it's stage gay or Oscar winning performances, or if they're fucking like bunnies in real life, I could watch 00:20 - 00:40 on loop forever. Tommy's omnomnom and Adam's "I'm so ridiculous" laugh at the end are the best parts.



Which leads into a "When Fandoms Colide" moment from TMZ:
Green Day's Man-on-Man Kiss
Green Day lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong pulled an Adam Lambert and kissed a male fan on the lips while on stage at a concet in England on Wednesday.
No word if "GMA" will cancel any future Green Day performances.

Source
Of course, we all know Billie's been doing this for YEARS! (Including with his cute bass player!)

Adam and Green Day have been doing incredibly well on their respective tours (albeit, on different scales), which makes me squee with happiness. The boys played to 75,000+ people at Wembley last week. They played almost 3 hours and the set list was to die for. I'm hoping a little of that magic stays with them when they make their trip back home in a couple of months. Audrey and Marisa and Kat and I have tickets for the last show of the tour at the Shoreline in San Jose, CA, with AFI opening, which is one of the best double bills I can think of! We've decided to do it differently this time. Since we've seen them from the front row already, we bought lawn tickets for $20 so we can see them from the back row. There will be blankets and binoculars and booze. It should be an excellent time.

Adam's tour is doing better than even hardcore fan-tards like me have hoped. He's sold out virtually every show and is getting good critical reviews. He's playing the Warfield on 23July, then the Thunder Valley Casino, near Sacramento on the 24th, then because his first SF show sold out so fast, they added a second show on the 25th at the Warfield, which also sold out in a day. * \o/* And yep, I've got tickets to all three, and Kat and Marisa and Audrey will all be at the second SF show with me. YAY!

He's been closing his shows with a seriously scorching hot cover of Whole Lotta Love. Someone on twitter said her bf turned to her and said it was like his first gay fuck...and he liked it!



In RL stuff...work has been kicking my ass, as usual, and it looks like it's going to be that way through at least September. I'm hoping after that I can slow down a little. The weather has been sucky lately, so that takes the sting off it. I am often reminded of Mark Twain's famous saying "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco."

I hope everyone is going to have a great weekend!

Anyone who says these guys are sell-outs and fakes because they're on Broadway and have three Tony nominations can fuck right off.

Indonesia was just lovely, but it's great to be back home again! Great diving, great boat, great friends, but I'm worn out! Two and a half weeks is a long time to be away from home. My cats are only now beginning to forgive me. The other price I'm paying is that I'm working just about every night for the next 2 weeks, including tonight, so this is a quicky post. BLARGH.

My camera died right before the trip, but I borrowed the Dive Master's for a couple dives, so I'll post a few pics after I upload them, but here, have one:



Yes, I found Nemo.

In a bizarre fandom coincidence, on my way to Indo, I arrived at the Singapore airport at the EXACT SAME TIME as Adam Lambert...I from Tokyo, he from Australia. But did I see him? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

In other fandom news, both my loves are touring the US this summer: Green Day announced a tour this summer while I was gone, and Adam confirmed he'll be doing a headliner tour in the US this summer as well *prays to the gods he does a San Francisco date* C'mon Adam, we have lots of pretty gay boys here! *also prays that Green Day adds a Bay Area date, because I don't want to go to LA*



*prays to the Lotto gods that I win a million dollars to support my habit*

Missed you guys!


ETA: In even more fandom news, this is the 35th anniversary of the first concert I ever attended, my first and dearest fandom before I ever knew the word, the incomparable Led Zeppelin, at the Inglewood Forum, (Los Angeles) California.

Have you ever had the experience of discovering something in your iTunes library that you didn't know you had?

OMG, I found Green Day's cover of Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" today. IT IS AMAZING! Honestly! It blew me out of the water. It's better than Bob. Way better. I was singing along at the tops of my lungs and scaring my cats. Here. Listen and be amazed too:

And if you loved it as much as I did, here, have your own 320kbps copy: http://www.mediafire.com/?m4mytzqrwzu

In Adam news, he's visiting our good friends in the great white north, Toronto, to be exact, where he did 8 gazillion interviews (I know, I watched every single one.) I asked and_ed if she noted glitter in the air, but sadly, it does not appear to have drifted as far west as Vancouver. It's the first volley in what is going to be a world-wide international push, and he is going to do great! He has already done telephone interviews with radio stations in Australia, NZ and Singapore, and he seems to be very well received and liked. I cannot wait for him to tour. The latest rumor is that he could open for Christina Aquilera, whom I would die to hear him duet with, even though I'm not exactly a fan of hers.

In personal news, I've been suffering from the creeping crud for the last week. Unfortunately, calling in sick is not an option, so it really sucks to be unable to speak because you're coughing up a lung, or sounding like Kermit the Frog when you can choke a few words out. The good news is that by catching the death bronchitis now, it means I'll probably be OK in March for my big scuba trip to Indonesia. YAY.

In random musings, I've been thinking of earthquakes a lot since I moved to San Francisco. (Go figure, huh?) And obviously the situation in Haiti has intensified it, although the situation will be much less dire here due to enforced building codes. But my house was built in 1932, before they had earthquake codes and I know some retrofitting was done, but it wasn't complete and I don't know if it is adequate. Then I found out that the Hayward fault usually slips every 148 years (± 100 years), and the last quake was 149 years ago, and they expect it to be greater than magnitude 7. EEK :-) So now I have this OMG I MUST GET MY HOUSE RETROFITTED THIS WEEK attitude. My quote for earthquake insurance was $1500/yr, so even if it costs me the big bucks to protect the house, I figure it's worth it. Still, I'd rather live here than in tornado or hurricane country any day of the week.

In weather news, is the rain ever going to stop? We've received almost 2/3 our average annual rainfall in like, 10 days!

In fic news, if you are interested in a short, Adam/Tommy Joe pornlet, may I recommend Little Rock and Roll by linzeestyle?

Hope you all are keeping dry.

Big day tomorrow. Generally, I would rather have a root canal than watch awards shows, and that includes the Oscars and the Grammies. But the American Music Awards are tomorrow and I am so excited I can hardly stand it. My two favorite musical artists will be performing: Green Day and Adam Lambert. Yippeeee!!!!!

I was hoping Green Day would open, because NO ONE can get a crowd in the mood like them, no one! And my guess is that they would be the opener, except that Michael Jackson died, so now Janet Jackson gets 8 minutes to open the show. But I know my boys will get the crowd going, especially if they do the East Jesus Nowhere/Minority mash-up they did for the EMAs. And being the generous fun-loving boys that they are, they are playing a free show at the Nokia the next day for Carson Daly's show, and I have a handful of lucky friends who got the rare-as-hen's-teeth tickets. Have fun, bitches. And if the Foxboro Hot Tubs make an appearance, tell 'em I said Hi!

BUT, the really amazing news is that Adam is CLOSING the show! I don't know who 19E and Simon Fuller had to blow, or how big the check they wrote was, but for a brand new artist to close? Pretty freaking awesome. And Adam's show features lights and dancers and pyro, so it should be an impressive spectacle. Love him or hate him, people will talk about him.

I'm also interested in seeing Lady Gaga's performance, because you just never know what the hell she'll come up with next.

The rest? Big meh. I'm betting on Whitney Houston (or possibly Jennifer Lopez) being the biggest train wreck. I predict the show will become one big Michael Jackson lovefest. Given that they changed the rules just so they could nominate him for Artist of the Year, it's not hard to figure out that he will win it (and the other 4 awards he was hastily nominated for.) Then the whole Jackson clan, including the kids, gathers on stage at the end of the show to accept the award and pretend that they are not one of the most dysfunctional families on the planet. At least that means that people will hang around until the end for that and catch Adam's performance.

DO NOT ASK ME WHY I AM SO INVESTED IN THE SUCCESS OF A SECOND PLACE FINISHER ON A FOX NETWORK REALITY KARAOKE CONTEST. DO NOT. I HAVE NO ANSWER. Except that he has the best set of pipes I've heard since Robert Plant. And even though I'm more of an alt rock than a top40 girl, I absolutely love his album. Had it on repeat since I got it in the mail yesterday.

Go ahead. Mock me! I can take it! *puffs out chest*