MY FAVORITE THINGS: NO DOUBT/GWEN STEFANI
Gwen Stefani inspired me in every way possible. When I saw her perform at the MTV Spring Break ’96 I thought she was the coolest girl ever. I remember how much I loved her pants too. haha. I still think she is just the coolest person ever. And I love their music. The band is so eclectic and I feel that may have rubbed off on me a bit….haha. I pretty much know all of their songs by heart. haha.
So here’s to them. They are truly a cool as hell band.
MTV Spring Break ’96
Excuse Me Mr.
Ex-Girlfriend
New
Update: ALL DAY FUN! 8/28 PT.2 “QUEST CREW IS IN THE BUILDING!!”
I think I should explain why meeting them was such a big deal for me. I’ve been wanting to see them perform and/ or meet them since Ryan was on “So You Think You Can Dance.” For those of you who are into them you know that’s been quite a long time. That same summer he was on the show, he and the crew were going to do a show in New York. I was planning to go but it didn’t work out and I haven’t had a chance to go to their shows ever since.
We meet up with my best friend Ashley who’s already in line. Eventually we get in and immediately go over to the bar to get drinks.
I’m like “Should I get a drink so I won’t be tense?”
My sister’s like “Yeah just get something light. I’m getting a malibu bay breeze. That’s light. There’s like no alcohol. haha”
“Ok. Get me one of those then”
So we get our drinks and go into the room where they will be performing. People are dancing in front of the stage. Some are dancing on the stage. So we’re sitting in the back of the place just chillin with our drinks. Then, I decided we should at least kinda dance a little bit.
” I kind of want to feel like we’re out. Let’s dance alittle.”
So we go and just do a two step on the floor. I think for a brief moment I had forgotten this was an 18 to party, 21 to drink event. We’re 25 plus so it was kind of awkward when these baby faced 19 yr olds came to hit on us.
We politely said no and then proceeded to go sit back down. Then the DJ announces “QUEST CREW IS IN THE BUILDING! IF YOU WANT TO MEET THEM THEY’LL BE AT THE BAR. LET’S ALL MAKE OUR WAY TO THE BAR.”
So we go along with some other people. Everyone was a bit confused. “Oh that’s odd. I thought the meet and greet was after the show.” I said.
So we’re waiting for a few minutes like everyone else. My sister has the bright idea to go downstairs to the other bar. As we make our way down we see Hok chillin at one of the tables.
“This was the bar they were talking about.” says my sister. So she’s kind of pushing me towards him because I’m hesitating and she’s all like ” Just ask him ‘Hey Hok, is it ok if I take a picture with you?’ He’s either going to say ‘No’ or ‘Yes’ “
I say, “Oh I know. It’s just that I don’t want to interrupt….you know.”
My sister – “Just go.” At this point there wasn’t much further to go. haha. He saw I was there. So I was like ” Hey Hok, can I take a picture with you?” and he smiled and he was like “Ok.”
I thought I was smiling..haha.. He has a nice smile doesn't he?
As the picture is being taken my sister’s like ” We’ve been a fan of you since So You Think You Can Dance.”
And he’s like ” Well, Thank You!”
My sister – ” Is it ok if I take a picture?”
Hok – “Oh, …Well I kind of have to go…(points up the stairs)”
Sis – ” Oh Yeah I understand.”
He smiles and leaves.
We go back upstairs and into the performance room. About an hour later they go on stage and dance.
I don’t care how many times you’ve seen them on Youtube or wherever, you should go see them live. If you’re going to record, press the button and see them with your eyes, not the screen.Their moves and tricks look so much more intense in person. They look crazier and even more dangerous. For some reason video can’t really capture it. Ryan doing his flips and landing on his back. You can hear it. It’s like “OUCH!” Steve does some crazy fast transitions. It’s all pretty crazy. I Loved it!
So they finish and we decide to walk to the bar right outside of the room. Right at the hall there’s this smaller room where Quest Crew was doing their meet and greet.
We see people lining up so we join. But then, there were random people going in. It seemed like there was no system to get people in so we just went into the room. I guess Ryan was behind us. My sister notices.
“Hey why don’t you take a picture with Ryan now? He’s ur favorite.” says sis.
I look and he’s there just finishing up a picture with these other girls by the door. So I just walk up to him and I’m like “Hey Ryan is it ok if I take a picture with you?” (‘is it ok…’ haha)
He’s like ( with a smile) “Of course.”
My sister’s like “We’ve been a fan since ‘So You Think You Can Dance’.”
I chime in “Yeah since Sickstep!”
He just laughs a bit out of shock. I guess it was a pleasant surprise.
” Oh Wow!….That’s a long time!”
me- “Yup”
“What’s that like …..5 years?….”
Right there Ryan, sis and I pose for the picture.
Yay! 
Sis – “You guys kill the stage every time.”
Ryan – ” You think so? Thank you.”
Me- Thank YOU.
I believe I said something to the effect of ” I haven’t had a chance to see you guys since then…and now I’m here.. haha.” (perhaps I didn’t say it …just thought it….yeah I probably just thought it.haha)
He then makes his way to Steve, Victor, and Aris who are taking a picture with a couple of fans.
It was pretty crowded in there so we waited until it cleared a little. We went up to them to take a picture.
I said “Hi!”
They smiled and said (in unison) “HI!”
“I’d like to take a group picture.”
“Sure!”
My best friend Ashley told me “I’ll take the picture. I just wanted to see them perform.”
Me and the sis get in.
I’m all talking to Steve and Ryan…”should I go here or here…”
Ryan laughs a bit and makes room between he and Steve “aw get over here.”
The crew chuckles a bit.
And then…SNAP! Picture done.
:-)
Satisfied and unwilling to hold up the crowd waiting for the rest of the crew, we said Thank You and left.
They were so nice. I’ve heard fans say that all the time but Really….they’re really nice.
While we are approaching the exit at the first bar downstairs, My sister stops and says ” We should take a picture together. Let me see if these guys will take it for us.”
My sister walks up to the bar and asks the two guys. The one guy’s like ” Oh wow u are beautiful..u are all beautiful…” something like that. haha
We start talking. Turns out the two guys are comedians. Bobby and Nick. They’re funny so we ended up staying for two hours talking and bugging out. We met these other two guys, Eddie and another comedian, I think his name is Matt.
Then we all decided to go back to the room and dance. We were doing funny battles. Matt was dancing on the couch with these asian girls and the girls were all like “OOH! OOH!” The other guy eddie, put the flashlight to them and strobe lighted them…haha.
haha…I was having so much fun I forgot to take pictures of that. Damn! That would’ve been a good one.
We intend to go to their shows so that will be cool.
That was my day…..and night. I had a blast!! Can’t wait to do something like that again.
Update: ALL DAY FUN! 8/28 PT.1 Rock the Bells
I had one of the best Saturdays ever!
So I thought I’d write about it.
Intro
So mid week I find out that I am adding a 3rd event to my Saturday in NYC. I was originally going to my friend’s event and I was (FINALLY) going to meet Quest Crew and watch them perform. Now I was adding Rock the Bells concert to the list. Craziness. Why? Well because instead of being in New York from about 7pm to about 4am, I would now start at about noon. Noon to 4 am …non stop. Not to mention I’ll be getting up earlier than that to get ready.
Rock the Bells is an outdoor hip hop concert. It’s pretty much like a Warped Tour or something like that where there are port o potties, tents, grass, and of course possibly grime. There was no way the outfit I had planned would survive such an outing. What to do?
Well we had a game plan. We would definitely have to change in the car. Yup. So we obviously brought towels, wipes, whatever we thought was needed to be all fresh again.
On our way
So I got up at about 9 30 am. I got ready and ate breakfast while I waited for my sister to get to my house. We ended up driving off at around 11am. The drive was surprisingly smooth. There was barely any traffic.
The concert was at Governor’s Island so everyone from the concert was told to take a particular ferry. We get to the Piers and start driving around looking for a parking garage. Luckily we managed to find free parking on the street which is practically impossible in the area. So we’re like “Yes! saved money for a whole day of parking”. We walk over to the ferries and we were confused as to where to go. There were apparently multiple lines for concert goers depending on whether you were general or “VIP”…yeah…they paid one hundred dollars more than general and they ended up being right there on the grass with us. haha. That sucks. The VIP’s that paid over 400 dollars were practically right on stage watching the show.
We went over to a staff guy and we were like ” Excuse me, which line is for Rock the Bells?” And he’s all like ” It’s over there”. So we get on line and my sister and I are talking as we inch closer and closer to the Ferry. At one point I remember looking at the Ferry and thinking “oh that’s cool. It looks like a Taxi.” Then I look at the marquee on the ferry and I’m thinking “Well That’s weird. Are we going to Ih Kee Uh Brooklyn? I guess that’s Governor’s Island? but I don’t know. I don’t think so.” Then as my sister is commenting about something I noticed the people on the line. They were pretty much all white, dressed in like fatigue green, brown colors with jeans and sandals. They were looking like…those people uptown I guess. In my head I’m like ” Hmmm….I didn’t think so many of them liked Hip hop…this can’t be right.”
I look to the next line on my right and I see girls with leopard shorts on and I’m like ” That’s where we belong”.
“Sister,” I said “I think we’re on the wrong line…look at the people in line..and look at the people in the other line.”
“oh yeah…wow.” She goes to ask the staff dude handling the line we’re on. “Excuse me, Is this line for Rock the Bells?”
He’s like “No. This is for Ikea in Brooklyn.”
So we leave and go on the other line.
We both said to the other “Oh no wonder they looked like that haha”
My sister said to me “Whew! Thank God you noticed. We would’ve been going to Ikea.”
Rock the Bells
We get to the place and immediately get a bottle of water. Thankfully the weather was great with no humidity whatsoever, which meant my straightened hair would not frizz. I was worried about that. We go straight to the main stage and we managed to get into the middle right section of the crowd so we were pretty close from the beginning. It was about 1pm at this point. Lauryn Hill’s set ( the main reason we went) wouldn’t start til about 5 30pm.
The sun was bearable but still beaming on us. The one thing that was bothering all of us were the speakers. That audio was so freakin loud, the bass was so strong that I thought I was going to die if I stayed in the area for too long. You could probably die from that. I’m assuming this only because I saw a cricket die like that. It was in our speakers….but I digress.
You could literally feel the waves violently pounding inside you’re body, chest, and throat. I literally gagged and coughed at a couple of points. At one point, everyone on our side was trying to get the staff’s attention by yelling…”Turn the audio down…The AUDIO!”…but nope..nothing.
The concert was cool. The average age of people there was probably around the 30′s. MTV was filming the whole thing. I don’t know if they were airing that live or not but whatever. In the middle of the stage there was a big screen. That’s about it. So I don’t really know why they took so long in between sets to prepare for the next one…but uh..ok.
The first set we saw was from Slick Rick. He, with his eye patch and infinite amount of heavy bling’d out chains (more than I’ve ever seen him wear) did his usual songs and there were random scenes being shown on that screen. I was just wondering why. It was still fun though.
After that ended, we all waited, ….and kept waiting… and we were like “ok, let’s keep it moving” You could sense the frustration in the audience. Then, we hear a sound come from the speakers so we look at the stage and on the big screen….is a commercial. …For the movie “DEVIL”. Really? Then there was one of Vibe’s 15th anniversary issue (which I’m not getting btw), then of some other event…etc. I mean it was endless. It’s like one girl said “We already gave you money…damn!” This would happen between every set for about 20 minutes.You don’t realize how hot and uncomfortable it is being there until you are no longer entertained.
Finally, Rakim takes the stage ( it was good), then KRS – One performed and it was cool.
The freestyles were crazy. He was talking about the real meaning of hip hop. It was cool that he incorporated that into the set but at one point this dude in the audience was just talking too much out of nowhere. He was very hyper and I guess he thought he could talk to the people on stage. You know, because KRS -One would stop his set to hear what he’s saying. hmmm…
It was annoying but everyone has a purpose and eventually we all saw what loud mouths are good for. As it came closer to Lauryn Hill’s set, we were already in the front right on the barrier and it was becoming more and more unbearable. That’s when the guy showed what he’s good for. “Hey everybody!!! You got to back up! BACK UP!! THERE’S NO ROOM ANYMORE. PEOPLE ARE ABOUT TO PASS OUT. BACK UP. BACK UP.” It worked and people actually stopped moving forward giving us just enough air to breathe.
Lauryn Hill goes on and it was good to see her. She’s getting closer to looking like the Lauryn Hill we all know and love so that’s good. She decided that for her set, she would remix all of the songs we love. The first couple were pretty good but it was hard to recognize what song it was. I mean, she would sing the lyrics too fast so you couldn’t understand her, the drums were going too hard when they shouldn’t be. Talk about over remixed. It was a bit disappointing because it started to get annoying. She was yelling and speed talking more than singing and it was repetitive. The really nice part was when she brought out her kids during “Zion”. That was sweet. After that was over we left the crowd to get something to eat. We were exhausted.My ears were hurting by then because I was in front of the speakers the whole time.
She brought her kids on stage including her little daughter.
We were sitting on the grass eating our hot dog (which btw, 2 hot dogs and 2 sodas = $18 bucks. What the?) when this girl comes up to us and asks “Are you guys Lauryn Hill fans?”
“Yeah”
“Wasn’t that a disappointing performance?”
“YES!!”
from there we got to talking and she was a nice girl. We met her friends and we hung out with her during A Tribe Called Quest’s set was on. Then, we had to leave in order to make it to Quest Crew’s performance.
“Act Natural”
So we leave, take the ferry, and go back to the car. Thankfully it was a quiet street so we took the things out of our trunk and changed in the car. It’s pretty simple to get dressed that way. The only thing that’s difficult is pulling up the pants.
“OMG! How am I going to do this?” asked my sister. “This car is too little for this.”
As we were struggling with the pants, cars were passing by, and a few people were too. My sister’s like “Stop. Act natural, like we’re just talking in the car.” So we’d do that every time we saw someone walking by…haha.
MY FAVORITE THINGS: AFI
It all started one late night while watching TV. I was watching music videos and they gave “Girl’s not Grey” I instantly loved the song and as I always do, I made sure to remember the band name and the song. I looked them up online and I think I saw their other video Leaving song pt. 2. I liked that song also so I decided eh…well let me download (yes download) the Sing the Sorrow album. I think it was a Rolling Stone article that said that album was great and it already had two songs I loved so I said to myself “If this album is as good as what I’ve heard so far, I AM DEFINITELY buying their next album.” The songs were so great, I downloaded some more of their old stuff, watched their old videos, and I was hooked.
And of course by the time decemberunderground came out (3 years later), I thought they were one if not the best band ever so I bought it…the day it came out. I went to their concert 17 days later in NY which was amazing.
Davey Havok in particular has also become a fashion icon for me. He’s the reason I started getting into makeup. I saw one picture of him, gave it a try and now I can’t imagine life without dramatic eyes. I like getting alittle crazy with it. My friends know about it. haha.
Looking at his cool pictures also lead me to two other cool people who do amazing things with makeup and fashion. Jeffree Star and Raquel Reed. He does amazing makeup and has great pictures. And Raquel, well she is just living my fantasy…haha….but I digress…..
I’ve been a big fan of AFI for about….7 years now…wow….to think…it all started because of one late night….AND…some downloads.
Girl’s Not Grey
The Leaving Song Pt. 2
The days of the Phoenix
Miss Murder
Beautiful Thieves
MY FAVORITE THINGS: Janne Da Arc, Acid Black Cherry, and the Genius that is Yasu.
I absolutely love these bands and anything composed by their lead singer, Yasu.
Yasu’s original band Janne Da Arc are busy doing separate projects.
Acid Black Cherry is Yasu’s solo project.
He has a song for all of my moods. And they’re really well done.
I’ve dabbled in other Jrock artists’ music (Psycho Le Cemu, Miyavi, Dir En Grey, XJapan) but there’s something about the music he makes that keeps me coming back for more. I get emotional when I hear the music. Not in an crybaby type of way but more like a throw my hands up and shout “Oh Yes! That’s my song!” hahaha.
I have to say I pretty much like every song he’s made which is rare for me.
So here’s to Yasu, who, according to me, can do no wrong.
Janne da arc (including Acid Black Cherry) music translated
http://www.papersnow.net/kiku/
Janne Da Arc- Diamond Virgin
Janne Da Arc- Destination
Janne Da Arc- Gekouka
Janne Da Arc
ABC- Aishtenai
ABC- Spell Magic
ABC- Black Cherry
ABC- Yasashiiuso
MY FAVORITE THINGS: The Color Orange
After many years of saying otherwise, Orange is indeed my true color. Let me explain. Since I was a kid, I loved the color blue. You’d ask me and I’d say that was my favorite color. “I like Sapphire blue, Electric blue” I’d add. Then one day I realized that most people can be bunched into two categories; The “Blue” people and The “Red” people. I wanted to stand out and I noticed for all of my supposed love of blue I rarely owned anything that color. I was maybe 19 at the time. I came to the conclusion that the color I truly loved was Orange. Everything I enjoyed was orange. So here are the things that come to mind when I think of Orange.
Orange is the first blazing summer afternoon when the sun is shining so bright, it emits the color onto every surface. Orange is the heat that compels everyone to jump in the pool and get cozy and crazy. Orange is the excitement you feel when you know your world is filled with the best people on earth. Orange is tangy. Its flavor and juiciness is much like life through the lens of the optimistic explorer.
even my room has lots of orange....Nevermind me...hahaha.
My extensions...hee hee.
Orange is the best of both worlds with the intensity and ferocity of red tempered by the friendliness and tranquility of yellow. Orange can be obnoxious. Orange is an attention whore. Orange is a dancer. Orange is a coquette mingling with anything that’s in its way. Orange is energy. Orange is joy. Orange is your D and C. Orange is powerful, glowing and cannot be dimmed.
It’s the color that electrifies me, inspires me and represents me. I hope to exude more of that energy as a person each day.
first quick attempt at photoshop....Of course It'd be Orange...haha
See?!! I know what I’m talking about
Great site I bumped into about the color Orange. ( Make sure to click the links too )
MY FAVORITE THINGS:HIM
While taking a long, wet walk in rainy NYC, I realized most of the songs on my first mp3 player were from HIM, a Finnish Metal band. Thanks in part to “Jackass” star Bam Margera, who has directed some of their videos, they also became well known in the U.S. I haven’t heard them in a while and so listening to the player made me remember how much I like them.
I think most songs in any genre talk about love but I like their take on it. There’s more of a realist, matter-of-fact, dark perspective about the dynamics of love and life that I can relate to.
They are definitely one of my favorite things.
This is their latest.
MY FAVORITE THINGS:Quest Crew
Sure, it can be argued that my whole blog is about my interests. However,”My Favorite Things” will cover subjects that don’t usually come up in conversation.
Take for example Quest Crew. Unless you REALLY know me you wouldn’t know I am really interested in all things Quest.
Quest Crew is an amazing dance crew from Los Angeles, CA who won season 3 of MTV’s dance competition America’s Best Dance Crew. A few have also competed in the Fox dance Competition “So You Think You Can Dance”
If you don’t know about them, just watch….There’s no need for me to continue..
Quest Crew On ABDC
Fun Video About Quest Crew
http://www.questcrew.com/in-the-media/win-quest-in-times-square/
