6 posts tagged “san francisco”
First off, I totally lied in my last post about anonymous comments. Sadness.
This Saturday is Love Fest, the Bay Area's excuse to get outdoors, dance down Market Street during a parade and then continue dancing at Civic Center Plaza. I'm getting my hair did earlier that day ('cause ooh, girl, your straight roots are coming IN), but hopefully I'll be able to trek down to Civic Center with enough time to dance to some Deep House at one of the floats.
Saturday night is Girl Talk at The Fillmore. OH. BOY. The girls and I will be going and will probably elbowing the fuck outta the scenester kids on the floor that aren't moving and taking up valuable dance space. If his set Saturday night is anything like his set from Coachella... heads ain't gonna be ready! I'm completely prepared to be sore as hell on Sunday.
I haven't danced my ass off in ages, I'm so looking forward to this!
That area is right above a major freeway overpass, so I like to think that late one night a young couple was driving over on their way home from a bar with the windows rolled down. The woman, possibly drunk off her ass, can't contain how much fun she just had and literally kicks up her feet in excitement. (This story works better in my head if they're driving a convertible and the woman is also trying to get at her boyfriend while he's trying to drive... but we'll just leave that part out.) Of course, her too-big Candies heel decides it can't take the abuse anymore after a long night of off-beat dancing and getting alcohol spilled on it, so it decides to liberate itself from her right foot and bounce it's way over the overpass.
That Monday morning, a construction worker spies the shoe and, aware that picking it up and taking it home would signal "Very Weird Shoe Fetish" to his coworkers, hooks the heel onto the fence so that it could greet him every morning before heading off into the trenches.
Thursday night I was at The Fillmore for the VH1 Hip Hop Honors Tour starring Big Daddy Kane, MC Lyte and The Roots. The Roots backed Kane and Lyte during their performance and started off the show with Skills and Black Thought doing covers of classic Hip Hop tracks, everything from N.W.A.'s "Gangster Gangster" to Eric B. & Rakim's "Microphone Fiend." The entire night was amazing. MC Lyte looked like she just stepped out of one of her videos, Kane worked the crowd well and Thought sang some Luther Vandross! I love The Roots.
I woke up at 7am thanks to an awesome charley horse that hit my right calf. As a matter of fact, my neck, lower back, abs, arms and left calf (apparently the charley horse in the right calf this morning meant that it would be fine for the rest of the day) are all sore.
I wish I could tell you that the reason for this was because I did an epic workout at the gym yesterday, burned 5,000 calories and can see the beginnings of a six-pack. Nope. It's because of the crowd at Rock The Bells, man.
Thanks to the 45,000 people around me I managed to get pushed about 3-4 people from the front barricade. During the groups leading up to Rage (Public Enemy, Cypress Hill, Wu-Tang Clan) it wasn't too bad. Once Wu-Tang finished their set and they started resetting the stage for Rage, though, all craziness broke loose.
I've figured out that I need to be at least 4" taller and probably 30lbs heavier if I ever want to brave the pit area of a Rage show again. Being a guy might help too. The surge of the crowd behind me trying to get to the front meant that at one point I was almost 45º to the ground, feet off the floor being held up by all the guys being squished with me. It was simultaneously really fun and really scary. Being one of the last girls in my immediate area that tried to stick it out, there were a couple cool guys next to me that constantly asked if I was all right and, at one point, grabbed my arm and pulled me to him so I wouldn't fall and get trampled by the guys around me.
Around 10 minutes before Rage even got on, though, another big surge came and I was basically enveloped by two bigger guys surrounding me. It was like a fucked up cave made up of body heat and limbs and yelling and... fleeting thoughts of this being one of the worst ways to die.
That's when I knew I had to get out.
So, 10 minutes before they even took the stage, the guys around me lifted me up above the crowd and the security guy at the barricade pulled me out. So much for trying to be hardcore!
As I was walking past the stage, I realized I felt a little "freer" than usual... turns out my bra had gotten unhooked while I was battling with the crowd. Awesome!
Do I even need to tell you how dope this show was after that whole story, though? I hope not.
Tarragon smells a lot like crushed dandelion leaves when you chop it.
This revelation brought on by the fact that I just finshed making a little under two dozen cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off.
And that little endeavor was sparked because some friends of mine and I will be cosplaying from Ouran High School Host Club tomorrow. The cucumber sandwiches? Well, we are cosplaying a bunch of hosts, so why not step it up a notch and offer "high" tea to the ladies? Granted, my sandwiches are hardly high tea worthy, but close your eyes and maybe you'll get it. If any of you are going to Yaoi Con tomorrow, come check us out in all our crossplaying glory! I'll be one of the red-headed twins.
Tomorrow night brings on Diamond D to a old school warehouse party in SF, map point and all! I haven't been to one of those since my raver days when I was still going to school at UCSB. Dude, a map point. Dude, the party goes on till 6am. Dude, I really need to stop talking about my raver days. It just makes me feel old.
Anyway, I plan on being butt tired by Sunday afternoon, but I'm still going to CAPSULE: a Street Festival for Design in Hayes Valley later on that day. I imagine I'll be a wandering zombie, enthralled by all the cool things I really don't need but want. But, really, that sounds like any other weekend.
So what's everyone else up to this weekend?
It must be "dance outdoors with tons of people and get drunk in Civic Center Plaza" month because this Saturday is the Summer Music Conference Outdoor Festival in SF. I wonder if this will draw as many furry legwarmer-clad people as last weekend's Love Fest?
The Winter Music Conference in Florida has always been on my list of "Music Events I Need to Attend Before I Die" (right up there with SXSW, Coachella, and Summer Sonic (but mostly that one because it's in Japan, not necessarily because I can't see 80% of those artists here in California, and I've never been to Coachella because I'm always broke when it rolls around... d'oh!). I figure the SMC can be a pre-school training session for the real deal when I eventually make it out to Miami *gag*.
An event that basically gives everyone and their mother an excuse to wear furry legwarmers, dance around like a bunch of crazies and get inebriated outdoors. I don't know about you guys, but that basically spells out "Good Times" in my book. Granted, I could've done without the random flashes of guys wearing nothing but cowboy boots and a smile, but I guess things could've been much worse.
And, while I did miss the Hip Hop float, the people watching more than made up for it. Didn't do nearly as much dancing as I did at last year's event, mostly just head-nodded and took pictures like a Japanese tourist.
I'm ridiculously tired from the last few days and I have my nephew's 4th birthday party (with pony!) tomorrow. I think it's time for me to give up the attempt at being interesting in this entry and instead leave you with a link to my Love Fest photos. (Warning, a couple of them are NSFW, but you should be able to tell them apart by the thumbnails in Flickr without getting too embarassed by what's on your monitor.)
