Look at this hot bitch!

ALTSP from Mary on Vimeo.

I finally met Adam Lambert! Well, I didn't really meet him so much as got pushed next to him for a 15 sec photo op, but hey, it's better that nothing!

Adam's been doing a radio promo tour this whole month, and of course, he hit 3 radio stations here in SF on Wednesday. Now for 3 years, I've known that the station I listen to does Meet and Greets and performances, and I've also known that you can often buy your way in using points from their rewards club. So for the past few months I've been whoring out my eyes and personal information to Radio Alice, clicking on their links and answering their trivia questions. And lo and behold, I guessed right. They offered up a short performance with Adam in a local club from noon to two and I could buy my way in for 50,000 points! So I did! As my plus one I invited my friend and fellow 'bert' Lisa, whom I first met when I answered her post offering a ticket for sale to Adam's show at the Warfield almost two years ago! I had also entered to win admission to a M&G and performance from another local station that same evening, but didn't get in. Then on Monday, Lisa got the email from them, telling her she was in, so she invited me to be her plus one!

The first show had about 200 people and there wasn't a M&G, just the performance, but Adam looked and sounded great. I was also really stoked to meet a couple of the DJs from the station, just to tell them how much I enjoyed listening to them. Afterwards a bunch of us went out to lunch, then we headed to a bar to meet up with a friend of Lisa's who was also going to the evening M&G, which was at six. The second one was much smaller, maybe 60 people, and I had a much better view. Once again, Adam did 3 songs and answered a few questions. He looked tired, but basically relaxed and comfortable. After that was over, they lined us up for the photos.

I have no recollection of what I said to him; I'm hoping it wasn't too stupid. Of course, I look like ass in the picture, but oh well. Next goal is to actually meet him in a setting where I can have a short conversation with him, but frankly, on the other hand, if that never happens I'll be OK with it. The fourth wall is a good thing, I've decided.

The bottom line is that I love the man's voice and love to hear him sing and as long as I get to listen to him do that, I'm good!





Never Close Our Eyes, off the new album being released (FINALLY) on May 15th.




He's so cool!

Erin Go Bragh! and Cead Mille Failte! and all that!

It also happens to be my cats' 15th birthday, so Happy Birthday Pumpkin and Skitty, you little lovable PITAs.


Adam's album was supposed to be released this Tuesday, but it's been delayed because he is a giant cocktease got some new songs last minute that he wanted to to record. He has been performing the title track "Trespassing" occasionally on his radio promo tour, and recently did a really awesome version in London. It was co-written and produced by Pharrell. I don't know how someone can make me LOL, UNF, and AWWWWWW at the same time, but he's such a sexy, precious dork.



Keep your fingers crossed for me-- Adam's doing radio promo here on the 28th, so I'm doing my best to win tix to a couple of Meet&Greets.

Green Day is in the studio working on their 9th(!!!) studio album. They've been putting out little videos on their YT channel. They all look great! Billie Joe said in an interview that this was the first time they're making a record about fucking, which made me laugh out loud. Really, Billie? You can say that with a straight face?

http://www.youtube.com/user/greenday

Still doing my fitness bootcamp 4 times a week. It's been 5 months now, so the improvements are noticeable. Next step is to lose some weight, but my motivation for that is nowhere to be found. :-(

I remembered that I never did post about my trip to Europe! It was short and sweet. Most of it was spent in Dordrecht, NL with my friend, but we went to Antwerp one day, and Paris for a weekend by high-speed train. I had never been, so it was really cool. We did a lot of walking and caught all the big sights. A "proof" shot:



Classic Northern European weather, as you can tell, but of course, it means the crowds are small. Fine by me!

Some friends of sick_of_me03 (who is staying with me for a little while) are having a party tonight, so I'm off to run a bit on the TM, then get ready to go party in honor of my heritage.

Hope you're all wearing green!

I WAAAAAAAAAAAANNNTTTTTTTTTT TOOOOOOOOOO GOOOOOOOOOOO!

http://sonisphere.co.uk/news/queen-adam-lambert/

http://www.nme.com/news/queen/62137

"I'm completely in awe of the Queen phenomenon. The thought of sharing the stage for a full set is so beautifully surreal. I'm honoured to be able to pay my respects to Freddie's memory. He's a personal hero of mine and I am deeply grateful for the chance to sing such powerful music for fans of this legendary band. I know the evening will be a huge milestone for me, and with the support of Brian, Roger and the rest of the band I know magic will be on display."



Day tix are ~$135. Airfare from SF to Heathrow? $1500

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

Wow, yesterday was my 6th year LJ anniversary! I obviously don't take the old girl out for a spin the way I used to, but I can't ever imagine abandoning her forever. After all, LJ is responsible for about 2/3 of my real life best friends! I can't forget that.

December was my SEVENTH anniversary of falling in love with Green Day and discovering that magical place known as fandom. I still love you guys, you are the band of my heart forever! (God that sounds ridic, but it's TRUE!)

Today is the 68th bday of the first musician I ever stanned, even though that word hadn't been invented. Happy Birthday to Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin! You changed my life when I was 15 years old, honest to god, and the repercussions are still here.

And finally, next month is the third anniversary of the first time I ever heard this guy sing on this tacky reality TV show and stood up and said "Who the fuck is that? He sings like Robert Plant!" Adam Lambert's new single is out this month, his album is out in March, and he'll be doing Leno and Ellen on TV next week. I am as excited about hearing him sing now as I was three years ago. I honestly remember being glad that the finale of AI was coming up in May 2009, because I thought I would get my life back. Nope, didn't work out that way!

This has been your fandom update! LOLOLOL

I hope everyone survived the holidays in a happy and life-affirming fashion!

I worked most of the holiday week, but was off the 29th through today. For NYE I volunteered with RockMed, first at the Warfield where the Tedeschi Trucks Band was, then The Regency where I helped clean up after a Kreyshawn show, then to "Sea of Dreams" which was one of those humongous Rave/party/new age/arty things which ended at 4:30 AM! It was a fun night; I've made a lot of friends in the organization and I enjoyed hanging out with them.

My New Year's resolution this year is a little different: I've resolved to go paperless. I started last week actually going through boxes and drawers and ENDLESS stacks of papers! I bought an inexpensive scanner (www.getdoxie.com) which comes with a nice little software program that will upload directly to Google Docs and set up my Docs with a bunch of folders that made sense for me. I discovered that at least half the crap I had I could just throw away (insurance policy on a car I don't have, for example) and everything I felt was important I scanned and threw the original away. I am down to half a file drawer of things where the original is important, like Deeds, Certificates, Tax Returns, and Licenses, and everything with my name on it is in a three foot high stack to go to a shredding service.

I receive all my recurring bills on line, so I don't have any paper statements coming into the house at all. I gotta say, it's a liberating feeling. After everything is scanned in, I'm going to put it in a zip file and copy it to a thumb drive, so in case an atom bomb hits Google's servers, I still have a copy of everything that I can print out everywhere.

I've also decided to get hardcore about backing up my computer, so in addition to my HD backups, I signed up for a cloud backup service (www.backblaze.com) too. Because of my crappy uplink, it will take about a MONTH to get my entire system backed up, but once it's fully backed up, updates are automatic. It costs $4/month, which is entirely reasonable in my humble opinion.

The next step is to start going through the closets and being ruthless about getting rid of stuff, but you have to be in the mood, otherwise you stew for an hour and realize you only put one thing in the plastic bag! Hopefully this enthusiasm will last past, oh, February.

Cheers to an awesome 2012 everyone!

Stressful fandom day Wednesday. My boo, Adam, and his boyfriend spent about 8 hours detained in a Helsinki police station yesterday.

( cut for no1curr rambley herd of tl;drCollapse )

Anyhoo, short version is that nothing came of it but embarrassment, and a whole lotta fandom angst. And oh yeah, Perez Hilton is still pissed that Adam wouldn't fuck him, so he keeps posting shit like Adam is an alcoholic domestic abuser. DIAF Perez. Slowly and painfully.

The happy news is that there is still some nice buzz about Adam's new single, even though it won't be officially released to radio until next month. My local station is actually playing it once or twice a day. *\o/*

In case you missed it ;-) :
Better Than I Know Myself by adamofficial

RL is pretty much the same. I've been going to a Fitness Boot Camp 4 days a week for 10 weeks now, and while it still continues to kick my sorry old fat ass, I am seeing definite improvements. Next step is to work on the diet so I can actually drop some weight. I don't know who those people are who say the weight just falls away from working out, but I ain't one of them!

I'm working Xmas and pretty much the whole week, but I'm taking a week off in January to visit my friend Christine in The Netherlands, so I'm excited about that.

Merry Christmas or Happy Hanukkah to those of you who celebrate, and Happy New Year to you all!

WooHoo. Adam's new single "Better Than I Know Myself" leaked, and the crack team at RCA decided you can't hold back the tide and started streaming it!

Better Than I Know Myself by adamofficial

It's definitely in the "Whataya Want From Me" vein, but it's more of an ear worm, and it totally grows on you with repeated listenings. (Which I may have done once or twice...ahem.) But damn, I just still love the sound of his voice!

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?