Going Downtown

“I’m not dead yet.”
This summer’s musical theater experience was Spam-A-Lot, and it did not disappoint. Though I have some coconut halves, sent to us by Rice’s dear younger sister, I did not bring them to the show and “clop” along. As much as I do love a good show, it seems with musicals I tend toward my enjoyment of them lasting the length of the show, but when it ends and the lights come up, I am more than ready to leave. I felt the complete opposite with Spam. If it would have gone on for another 30 minutes, I would have been happily laughing it up and gazing in awe at the genius of this wonderful reworking of MP’s The Holy Grail.

Suddenly [This] Summer: Downtown LA
It turns out downtown is not only good for museums, high-rises, and jewlery but free summer concerts at Pershing Square. My friend Teresa’s birthday wish was to take the metro down, grab a few hotdogs and rock out to Martha Davis and The Motels, and why would I say no to such fun? I’ll never turn down trying on a million outfit combinations at T’s, while drinking lots of cheap red wine.
On the way downtown, I got some great footage of Teresa and her friend Andrea singing Only the Lonely. And we got to hear the tales of how Teresa was not only in her fan club at age 10, she ended up working for her in her late 20s/early 30s. So, Teresa stood up and shook her booty to The Motels. I would have too, if I didn’t already feel like an amazon with my height, and since we were right in the front of a million people sitting down, I would have felt very foolish. [Sorry T. You know I’d normally spaz out with you, but in this situation, I needed to be a little square.]
Martha Davis was pretty fantastic. Since I only know the two most popular songs they had, her voice held me captivated. And after the show, any doubts I may have had about how well Teresa really did know Ms. Davis disappeared the minute Martha recognized her, leaned over the merch. table, hugged her and said, “Oh my god, TWINK!” (that’s a cute lil nickname of Ts. I do not remember the origin).
After they caught up a bit, we took some pictures and left Martha to the rest of her fans waiting for their pictures. We attempted a bar at the base of the Bonaventure hotel [Suede] but it was a bit fancy and Drew was wearing shorts—a dress code no, no. The bouncer recommended numerous other bars in the hotel (go Bonaventure!) and we settled on the rotating top floor bar, The Bonavista. Great view. Great [BIG] drinks. Great cheese plate. BAD SERVICE. If one rotation takes 1 hour, that is how many times you will see your server. After we realized we’d made it back to seeing the Ahmanson Theater again, and passed it slightly, we were finally able to flag down a guy to get our check.

 

X-ing it up!

I found myself somewhere yesterday that I never thought we’d actually get around to. It’s an event that every year Rice and I will say, yeah, we should totally go to that, and then complain it will be too hot/crowded/boring for the kid or we just forget all about it, then read about it later.  It is that extreme event which comes around once a year, combining sports, music and mucho mayhem: the Summer X Games.

Arriving late and only scoring tickets to the Rally Car racing, we scoped out the xfest (free junk everywhere, skate ramps and dirt bike tracks for the kiddies, wall climbing for the daring) then seated ourselves for something we’ve never witnessed live before. I was  amazed that I had such a blast watching the Rally Car racing, wondering if maybe deep down I am sort of a 15 year old male. I mean, I laugh at the most immature of jokes,  I geek out over Anime, The Venture Brothers and The Mighty Boosh, it’s no secret I’m attracted to women, and I discuss farts with my son. Sit me in front of Superbad and The Stoned Age all day and I’m good.

Keeping his ears covered to shield the noise in total Kieran fashion, he told me a hundred times that day what fun he had watching NASCAR. There was no point trying to persuade him that this was not, indeed, NASCAR. If cars are doing any kind of racing, that’s it’s moniker, and he will not be convinced otherwise.

We ended the day watching some skateboarding greats from the 80s duke it out. I think Rice was getting a bit misty feasting his eyes on Chris Miller, Lance Mountain, and Steve Caballero to name a few. I know I was totally impressed. If I could ride a board without flying off and bashing my skull in, or breaking all my body parts,  I would have been so tempted after watching these guys. See, again. 15 year old boy!

Well, I turn back into a chickadee tomorrow. Tuesday finds me heading downtown to see the Ting Tings in my newly purchased slutty top. I will be sporting makeup and dancing along to the drums, the drums, the drums, the drums…..

 

Working on September, Living in July

It’s hard to believe that I am working on the September issue of DAYSPA Magazine. Didn’t summer just begin? I have not taken in all those live shows I signed up for, or tended to my kid’s bruises after he takes off his training wheels, or shook enough sand from my bikini bottoms, or lost that last 5 pounds so I’ll feel really spectacular lying on a beach towel. Well, that last one’s pretty much not ever going to happen. I am female. There’s always 5 more pounds.

Hell, we’ve already had July 4th. We soaked up some sun at a pool party/BBQ/drink fest but never made it to fireworks. We still had an awesome time hogging the rafts and freaking out Jeff’s dog, Paisley. Kieran even got to try out a very lubed up slip-n-slide. I kept my nose in some Captain ‘n Coke, which is probably the real reason we didn’t hit the fireworks and nothing to do with one nervous Kieran.

Then there was The Hollywood Bowl. Figures my husband read “Show at 7″ as “Doors open at 7.” I nearly missed The New Pornographers, and actually did miss about 15 minutes of their set. They still amazed, though it was short, and I now I have a mission to see them as headliners. Ending the set with “The Bleeding Heart Show” was genius—our friends had to know the name of that song.

Next was Tegan & Sara. What can I say but, could I love these 2 anymore? They were the epitome of cute, bantering a bit between their songs, letting us all know how nervous they were to be playing such a large forum. I knew Rice loved them [I think he has a T & S marathon every few weeks] but he didn’t hesitate to buy a Tshirt and then wear it for the rest of the night. I just really want to hear them somewhere nice small. Guess that’s another mission.

Above: D, sad we missed some New Pornographers. Steve, Cindy, Jen, and Matt [Yokes] ready for a good time.

Death Cab For Cutie with the LA Philharmonic was the headlining act and though I’ve never given the band much of my time, it was a really great time. Of course, none of these bands I go out for put on “shows” like Brittany or Madonna, but the energy of the music was in full force, they were back and forth on that enormous stage totally lost in their groove. That’s what translates to me, gets me pumped, and the music turned out to be much more that I recognized than I’d originally thought.

The sad part? With three big bands [well, they are all big to me] we were home by 11:30. I know, right? maybe 3 hr. 45 tops for these insanely awesome bands? A travesty! Maybe there’s something to much lesser knowns opening up for you. TNP and T & S have 9 albums between them. NINE. And I know almost every one of them by heart.

But hey, atleast Death Cab went out with a bang. Rice and I got to see our fireworks.

 

LA School of Global Studies hosts College & Career Day

I was asked to volunteer for a College & Career Day event last week and I wasn’t sure of the reason I said yes, especially knowing I’d have to take off an entire day of work using my precious vacation or sick time. The selfish part of me probably thought I’d have a chance to tell really young kids what I do in the hopes it would sound extremely cool and glamorous; the exact opposite of what it really is. But I also felt this urge to do something good for these students, after finding out that this was a brand new school built in downtown LA to deal with overcrowding, but much more forward thinking than the usual public school. And many of these kids were to be the first in their family to go to college, or some kind of schooling after high school.

What I didn’t find out, until I started interviewing these students, is that for many of them, they were the first in their family to graduate high school. And the seniors I had the privilege to speak to, were so very proud of themselves to have achieved this.

The morning started off with some coffee and munchies in a classroom set up as a “break room” for all the professionals that came in to participate. Walking through the halls was strange—it was as if my high school days were creeping back in my mind even though this school looked nothing like the one I had attended. Kids were looking us up and down, smiling to help point us in the right direction, snickering to their friends to be cool. I’ll admit it, I was nervous to talk to them. It wasn’t any preconcieved notion of their behavior that frightened me. I could only think, what if I really blow this? What if I have no good advice for them? I’m a white girl from PA, who was taught that after high school comes college, and my family, although not rich, was able to set up a student loan for an inexpensive bachelors and masters degree state school. I rarely worked hard in any of my high school subjects, and my little ole SAT score, though embarrassing to me upon meeting other professionals, was enough to get me into my school of choice. I moved to LA on a whim and got lucky getting my first job at a magazine publishing company that wanted someone fresh out of school with no experience. What one thing did I even have in common with these intercity kids?

Frankly, I ended up asking them all the questions on the handout we were given, and tried to give them the advice I’d give anyone planning on going on to college. I found there was something that linked a few of us: they wanted to go to school but didn’t know yet what they wanted to do. Perfect, I thought. I hadn’t known a thing about what direction to take my schooling when I started so I worked on my gen-ed requirements and took a couple of classes that sounded interesting. Mass Communications is what hooked me into choosing a Comm/Journ major in Radio/TV. I had taken so many art and graphic design classes that I tacked on an Art Minor. My advice was go in there and try everything you can that you are interested in. Don’t make a decision right away, and don’t feel bad about it.

At the end of the day I was very exhausted from the interviews, the career panel I had also been on and the noise of youth. After parking the car in the garage, settling into the couch and putting my feet up, all I could think was, I’m so ready to do that again!

 

Another new apartment. This time with granite countertops!

The L.A. Car Show came and went. As did my lovely co-worker, Kimiko’s, final days at CAP, which we warmly sent her off with margaritas and salty chips. Then one weekend the family unit decided to go out apartment searching again and voila! We’re now living in a new(er) 2 bed/2 bath within walking distance of Trader Joes.
Oh, if only it happened so quickly, and easily, as that sounded.
Years ago, when Rice & I moved from the one bedroom to that last apartment, we didn’t have much furniture. But inhabiting the place for 5 years, gave us plenty of time to do some proper furnishing, and cramming of closets. Apparently, 2 bedroom apartments can hold quite a lot. This was something we seemed to over look, or suppress, when we decided to jump on this new place and be out of the old in 19 days. We spent days here and there taking over a few boxes at a time, and after about 10 days of this, it seemed we had barely made a DENT.
Not the smartest plan we ever came up with in the history of Rice and D, we rented a VAN and didn’t ask anyone for help, with the exception of dumping our kid off to the Malloy’s for the entire day. There we were, the 2 of us, hoisting and hauling, overextending and grunting up and down 2 flights of stairs. When the mattress finally made it out the front door and I had to stop because of a cramp in my foot, I was ready to throw in the towel. Yet, by some force or magic “moving man” fairy dust, we made it. We’re now officially all tucked in to the new diggs, with only a few more broken down boxes to trash. It only took, exactly, 24 days.
Next time, I pay for movers.

Thanks to Patti, my co-art dept. worker, we had a holiday party to attend this year. I don’t quite count the CAP holiday party this year, as we’re having some $$ troubles and everything was cut back. Patti’s party was fun for the whole family. Booze, food, Guitar Hero, White Elephant and Pictionary all went very well together.
Throw in hanging out with my sis for New Years (Rice and Chris are heading to the Rose Bowl!!) and it will have been a nice, surprising, yet very chaotic, holiday season.

Peace out,
The Caseñas’

P.S. Please don’t ask about the paint job.

 

Jenny Lewis @ Spaceland. D life just got better.

Jenny Lewis, how I love thee.

I’m so glad my friend Adrienne and I didn’t get discouraged by seeing sold out tickets online for her shows at Spaceland and the Echo. The day before, Adrienne says to hell with it, she wants to go see how long the line is.

Though I had to suffer through hell at work, drive to the westside to pick up Kieran, suffer through traffic to get back to Hollywood to drop him off with his dad, it all ended up to be worth it. There was barely any line when we arrived. And though we had to wait for many hours and suffer through some questionable BO, Jenny and her band went on to perform an unbelievable show. You WILL find me in a music store come Sept. 23rd to purchase her new album. Even though I will be in Maui on vacation. And even though it’s actually Rice’s birthday that day.

Adrienne’s recording of You Are What You Love: www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOUx40sdJNc

 

A few favorite things….

I never thought I would actually look forward to hearing about sports, but every wednesday morning, as I’m cruising up the 405 to my work, I’m suddenly filled with glee at the sound of Frank DeFords voice coming over the airwaves. Frank DeFord, for those not in the know, is Senior Contributing Writer for Sports Illustrated, an Author and commentator. He has made sports more intriguing for me. It’s all in his telling: his style of vocabulary is so unlike what you’d think you’d hear from someone talking about sports. He thoughtfully has had me really thinking about all aspects of sports, and rethinking some positions I may have held. He is so intelligent and witty…oh man, does it sound like I have a crush?

Parties. That’s one of my favorite things. Recently, I got to have margaritas with some of the newer gals on my magazine. It was fun, and I really hope we go thru with the party we discussed (Alter Egos and all!)
Then we attended our friends’ 30th, and hung at a Karaoke room on Sawtelle. Would have been a bigger riot if only everyone was as bad at singing as Rice and I are, unfortunately this bunch all happen to be good. REAL good. Knock yer socks off good, including the lead singer of a Smiths cover band who really got the room rockin. Damn singers.
Lastly, the Art Dept. had our own Christmas gathering, which was fun, even though we had to drive out to Chatsworth. We got to bring Kieran, all the food was fabulous, and Rice won $24 so it wasn’t a bust.

Coming attractions: Trip to San Diego to exchange gifts with my sis, excursion to Disneyland for the Second Annual Christmas Eve with Mickey, Christmas Dinner with the Kellys, and a nice relaxing day for Rice and I to spend ALL BY OURSELVES (or atleast until 6 pm.)

Happy Holidays, y’all.

 

Blogity blog blog blog…..

Since the wedding, the Rilo Kiley Concert, the writing up of my fake Product Choice, much has been going on. Transport striking cripples France, Brittany Spears is headed toward bankruptcy, and gas prices are still rising. Oh, with me? What’s been going on with me? So glad you asked.

Halloween wasn’t too bad this year. The weekend before, we took Kieran to a pumpkin festival at the Pasadena’s KidSpace Museum grounds. I think he had a pretty good time because he still asks me about it often. They had a huge pumpkin patch where they sold pumpkins, food, games, crafts, tattoos and face painting, petting zoo, pony rides and their runaway train ride. Then we took our pumpkin home and he and Rice gave it a carve job. I toasted the pumpkin seeds like a good little wife (see what I did there, Rice. I said “good little WIFE’).

The day of Halloween, CAP had it’s usual festivities during the work day. I went as Mommie Dearest, decked out in an old black dressing gown, headband, huge eyebrows and a wire hanger. I didn’t expect to win, but it did give me the chance to shout my hatred of wire hangers. I suppose I could have pulled my hair up in two pigtails and switched characters halfway through the day—first being Faye Dunaway’s portrayal of Ms. Crawford, then Ms Crawford’s character, Blanche. Friend and co-worker Robyn won 2nd place with her homemade Wonder Woman costume (damn her awesome body! Love you Robyn!:) Mike won first for Beetlejuice.

Kieran was an ER Dr. in green scrubs and a stethoscope. He liked listening to my heart through my arm, knee, elbow….anywhere but where the heart is located.

I also went out to a Ladies Night at Robyn’s place. It was “international” so there was Empanadas, Pieroges, Mojito Chicken with Dirty Rice, Flan, German Chocolate Cake, Fondue with veggies and beer bread. I made Biko, the Filipino Sweet Rice dish and it turned out pretty excellent! I got to play a bit of Guitar Hero III before and after the party, and during we drank lots of wine and played Pictionary. It’s been so long since I’d been to a party with so many women. Good thing I stuck around and got to talk football with Charlie, Eugene and Patrick afterward!

Since then we’ve just been working, watching Florida State football, taking Kieran to the park and such. We attempted the Tamale Festival in downtown LA last weekend, but the part of town was real shady and really new for me, so since we couldn’t find parking, we gave up and went to our local farmer’s market for BBQ and corn tamales. And I’m finishing up my first in the series of 3 Graphic Design Studio classes I’m taking at the SMC Art & Entertainment campus. It’s been challenging, as our Miss Cottingham would have us say instead of hard.  Sometimes, for me, it’s just damn hard. I’m glad I decided not to skip this class and go straight for GDS2. Having to draw out things by hand, mount and present projects has been different and new and, though I complain at times, rather fun.

 And this guy who sits next to me looks like freakin’ Dexter, if you shave 12 years or so off him!

 

Hitched…

Friday, October 5, 2007 I married my bestest friend.

 

Lobster. Why bother?

San Pedro Lobster Fest? Waaaaay overrated. $$ to get in, $$ for a 2 lobster dinner, which is in no way a dinner as it consisted of 2 small lobsters, a vat of butter sauce, and one measly roll (not one roll each, just ONE roll), $$ for food at any of the other vendors like $5 fresh cut french fries (actually, pretty good), $$ for tickets for rides your timid toddler wont ride on, and a whole lot of vendors we weren’t interested in. On the plus side, there were plenty of port-a-potties, that weren’t too nasty, and handwashing stations with lots of soap.

Also this past weekend was Kieran’s friend Danny’s 3rd birthday party. The Redondo Beach park was pretty nice, and it was so cute to see Kieran hanging out with Danny and Monica (who is also 3 and used to attend the same daycare). We arrived around 10:45 and didn’t leave ’til close to 4. The kids were pretty much non-stop the entire time. Well, how could they not? They pretty much put aside their veggies to have the gift bag candy, the piñata candy and the Mickey mouse cake. This was any youngsters dream day, and what was our thanks? A screaming, jealous, tired KX monster that we had to lug to the car at the end of the party after Danny opened his gifts.

On the wedding news front: Rice and I got our outfits for the big day, new clothes for the party (hey, it’s our chance to indulge a bit), reservations for our hotel in West Hollywood, and all the plans for the special cupcakes squared away! Woo hoo! This weekend is Rice’s birthday so it’s all about him, but after that, the rest of R & D’s Wedding Weekend plans have to be jumped on.

It’s going to be so fun.

I’m still stressed out. So many parents, so little time, staying in so many different locations. All of them to be intermingling with our friends on Saturday night.

All in all, should be interesting!