Doodling on envelopes for hand-written letters!
(Address smudged out to upset the stalkers.) This was a collaboration piece with Brent, featuring his patented chicken!!
So nostalgic! (My favorite part of flipping thru Wizard magazines were all the hand-drawn envelopes that people sent it~)
Back in late September, I discovered that Weezer was doing a Memories Tour, performing their first two albums on two back-to-back nights. I also found out about an “Ultimate 2-night VIP package,” which included:
Well, OF COURSE I got the 2-night VIP tickets!! One for me, one for Brent to come with me so I wouldn’t be alone~ It was $500 each, but it was well worth every penny.
Thank you soooooooooooooo much to Calvin for helping me with some of the logistics!
And…. thanks to coworkers for putting up with me that whole day when I was freaking out at work….
Brent and I arrived at the Nob Hill Masonic Center around 4:30PM, where there were people already lined up to get their VIP passes. Very small crowd, less than 100 people getting VIP passes. They let us in to buy merch way before the general admission folks arrived (doors opened at 7), which was pretty sweet. Turns out I couldn’t afford anything… ah well!
Shortly after, Karl Koch (the unofficial 5th member of Weezer) gave us a tour of the stage area that was being set up, with a Q&A afterwards. To get their sound as close to the Blue Album sound, Weezer brought out from storage some of their first amps! Very awesome~
@Weezer tweeted out this photo during the VIP tour. Brent and I are in it! :D
Next, we got goodies! Weezer tote bag, Hurley CD, Weezer tshirt, and poster (not pictured)!
Then… we met Weezer. (Oh God, this video is embarrassing, but I’m glad Brent recorded a recap because my mind was racing… *sigh*)
omg.
Weezer Blue Album poster! LOVE the border design!
We went to check out our seats for the show. Oh. Em. Eff. Gee.
Let the show begin!
Sheee's got eyeballs, in the back of her heaaddd
Pinkerton’s my favorite Weezer album. Even the night before, VIP fans I talked to didn’t seem to like Pinkerton as much as Blue, and someone mentioned that I’m a “rare one” for liking Pinkerton. *shrug* Maybe I just loved listening to it more as an adolescent because there’s so much raw emotion in Pinkerton: a bit of alienation, a bit of heartbreak, a lot of struggle. Across the Sea, The Good Life, El Scorcho, Pink Triangle (one of my favorite guitar parts evvaarrr), Falling For You, how can a Weezer fan seriously NOT like these tracks? Perplexes my mind…..
Anyway, I was stoked. Weezer’s never performed the whole Pinkerton album in its entirety ever before (other than at the LA Memories Tour), and I was getting reeaaalllyyy pumped! Brent and I got there early again and saw that there were a lot of familiar faces from the night before’s VIP tour. Karl showed us a bit of the stage again, and taught us some sound equipment stuff that was pretty interesting!
We got some different goodies, which was pretty AWESOME! Thank you event organizers for giving the VIP fans different items for the second night!
They then had us line up to meet the band again. Brent and I befriended Kingsley and Mike (aka HALLIWAX! I complimented his LOST jacket the night before, of course! It’s so brilliant)! Kingsley wanted to be the last in line for the meet+greet, and we decided to wait with them at the end of the line. We had a ball together! Shared stories, joked around, and shared goodies together! All =w= fan love! <3
After a while, it was getting close to our turn to meet the band again. Buttterrrfflliiieeessssss!! The night before, Brent gave me the idea to bring in something that they could sign. “There must be sooommmeethinngg I’ve made in the past that’s Weezer related…” Ah-hah! The ceramic Weezer box I made in high school! While there were about 5 people in front of us in line, I took out the box and held it in my hands, chanting in my head: Don’t drop the box. Don’t drop the box. Don’t drop the box. Don’t drop the box. I think people were talking to me, but I just.couldn’t.answer. Don’t drop the box. Don’t drop the box. Don’t drop the box.
“Hi guys. Would you guys please sign this box I made like…. in high school?”
And then all these things were happening.
Rivers was signing first so I had to make sure the pens they were using were permanent silver sharpies so it will write on the black glaze, Pat Wilson said he liked my Oakland shirt, Brian Bell said “Whoa, you made this?”, and I had to explain to Scott Shriner that I had to improvise with a new pic of him to replace the side that has Matt Sharp on it. It’s all a big blur to me and I got shuffled along to take a pic with them and then I stood off to the side and Don’t drop the box. Don’t drop the box. Don’t drop the box. Putting the box away, putting the box away. Breathing.
Thanks for making all my Katy Perry Teenage Dreams come true, Weezer.
Autographed Weezer box!
Shortly after, they rounded up the VIPs again for a surprise: Rivers was sticking around to hang out with us for a bit longer! I have this horrible tendency to not say anything intelligent or anything worth anybody’s time whenever I meet musical idols. (“Umm… hi… i love your music??”) And I don’t want to take up other people’s time either so I just panis, don’t say anything, and just ask for a picture and run away to hide in my little corner.
Thanks for taking a pic with me, Rivers!
Showtime!!
So earlier in the night, Mike showed us a custom-made Weezer flag that he ordered a while back. He brought it to a Seattle show and waved it around in the large crowd. Supposedly Rivers spotted the flag and shouted out to him. Mike brought the flag down with him from Seattle (just to see the SF Memories Tour shows, btw! <3 Dedication!), and even had this whole plan for when he’ll bust out the flag (El Scorcho was the plan), involved a collapsible flag pole that he snuck in (hilarious story about this too), and he was totally ready to be escorted out by security. I told him I’d record him, and I was ready to go for El Scorcho.
Except…. Things got really exciting when Weezer started playing some B-Sides: Suzanne and You Gave Your Love To Me Softly. During the latter, I look over and saw that Mike was pulling out his flag! Here’s what happened:
IMPORTANT [self preserving] DISCLAIMER: UMMMMMM Okay, for the record, my voice was shot already from the night before this, so it was already cracking. I promise I’m not as hysterical as I sound. I was just doing my regular cheering… that happened to make my voice crack….. okay, fine, I really was freakin out about Weezer….!!
In conclusion: best birthday gift to myself ever. Thank you, Weezer, Karl, ILoveAllAccess, new friends, and BrentBrent for two fabulous back-to-back days! <3
Where are you guys??
Is there an IRC channel anymore? :~(
/me sitting in my corner….. waiting……….
——————
Update: I’m gonna be lounging around on IRC again, suckers! Funnet, #pinkbunnies
Alright, I admit it. Brent and I were pushin it a liiitttttttllleee close by going to Costco around 8:10PM tonight. They don’t let people in after 8:30PM, and we were finishing up our super yummy dinner at Sabuy Sabuy II in Berkeley. Totally got primo parking when we got to Costco, though!
We slowly perused the electronics section at the entrance of the Costco store, and I totally picked up an uber cute children’s outfit! (Not for myself. Well.. if there were an ADULT-sized dragon outfit like the one I saw, then yes, it would have been for me. Along with the dinosaur onesies I always see at the entrance too. Fawk. I want those SO badly!!) We even killed some time looking at some Iron Man mask toy, bikes, tennis rackets, lawn chairs, and yeah, I guess Brent and I are just big kids.
Okay, okay, concentrate. We need to get food. There’s no food at home. We need food. CHICKEN! We have to get those packs of chicken breasts. Heh.. breasts… CONCENTRATE! Chicken!
I send Brent off to pick up a case of beers while I head over to the meat section. What the heck? EMIL!!
“Uhhh, someone’s doing some grocery shopping for their going away party this Saturday!” I scuttle over to Emil and give him a hug. Not a big embrace, just one of those not really meaningful ones. I decide to just keep holding him until one of our partners notices…. Does Brent notice yet? Where’s Maria?
“I’m just gonna keep hugging you.. I think Brent’s coming over… Oh! Here he comes!”
Brent comes over and we do a three person hug. Yes. This is how we roll. Tri-force hug. We added in a little swaying too. Very sentimental. Very emotional.
“Dude, where’s Maria?”
“Oh,” Emil whispers, “she’s back there. Let’s go scare her!” Yes we’re a bunch of kids. And we have grown-up kid friends that we hang out with too.
The three of us, in group huddled form, move beyond a few Costco meat aisles, sneak behind Maria while she’s looking at packs of salmon, and sneak behind her for a “GROUP HUG!” welcome.
“Hey!! It’s you guys!! I saw some people hugging from the corner of my eye and just thought, ‘That’s some Costco lovin!’”
We go about doing our separate shopping. I grabbed a pack of chicken (cheapest pack, baby! $15!)
Then, Brent and I are in the vegetable/fruit section, gathering berries for our dwelling, and we hear this lady in the distance (in the peanut butter aisle, if that gives you an idea of how far she was). She’s yelling something indistinguishable, really loudly. Sounds like some foreign language. Ignore.
Gathering berries. Berries for our empty cottage. %(*!@#&!$!@#* <-- repeated indistinguishable phrase is yelled out again. What the hell is she saying? She's pushing a cart, and there's this kid following behind her. Okay, she's prolly missing her child and is saying some secret phrase so her kid can find her. But she just walks around and keeps repeating it. She's in the frozen food area now. Ignore.
"Brent, does that mean anything to you? Can you hear what she's saying?"
"They probably want people to leave soon." It seriously sounds 0% like English to me. Ignore. Oh wait... she's coming closer. Lemme get a good hear. Oh. I see. It's a very slurred.
"COS CONOW CLOSE! ..... COS CONOW CLOSE!"
Oh okay fine. I guess she was herding the remaining Costco shoppers. Brent and I split and gather the rest of the items that we needed. We meet at the cashiers, start placing our items on the conveyor belt thingy and Brent notices something about the pack of chicken. And then I notice it too.
"Uhh.. does that look grayish to you?" It was gross. It really did look like a hint of gray. I've had Upside-down Jook but I will not have Gray Chicken. (Clearly, I did not focus very much of my attention on selecting the pack of chicken earlier. A.D.D.)
In the distance, a woman yells, “COS CONOW CLOSE!”
I grab the pack of Gray Chicken and head back to the meat section to swap out for a better pack. Jogging down the main aisle to the back of Costco, I see her. The shepherd.
“COS CONOW CLOSE!”
She sees me heading her way. She looks at me and says, “Costco now close.”
“Oh, I just want to run back and swap this pack of chicken.”
“Costco’s now close.” While I’m confirming in my mind that she’s actually saying “close” and not “closed” she says something else. I really had no idea what she said, but she definitely wasn’t talking to me because she was looking in some other direction… but there was no one else around us? Oh well, screw it, I’m just gonna go get another pack of chicken.
When I try to walk past her and her empty cart (why was she pushing a cart??), she extends her arm across my path and says, “Costco’s now close.”
“Oh, I know,” I respond. “I’m in line to pay for my stuff right now, actually. Can I just run back there and just swap this pack of chicken?”
She shakes her head and responds (I kid you not), “Costco’s now close.”
“Ummmm…………………… okay. Well… can I give you this chicken?”
She nods. I place the Gray Chicken in the cart. Maybe that’s why she had the cart???? *unsolved mysteries*
Brent and I pay for our stuff. No chicken. Oh well, the gods just didn’t want us to get any meat for our house today. We walk out with Emil and Maria and say our byes.
Brent and I start loading our car, all while yelling out “COS’ CONOW CLOSE!” It was pretty amusing, I have to admit. I mean, no hate on her or anything, she’s just doing her job. It was just funny how it was all executed… and that was the only thing she said to me when I asked her questions. Resilient. They hired a good shepherd.
Anyway, loading the car. We’re yelling out “COS’ CONOW CLOSE!” and laughing to ourselves. It’s pretty dark in the parking lot now, and I only saw that a group of people (family, I’m guessing) are walking past us. A young dude says to us, “Hey! Don’t I know you guys from somewhere?”
Thoughts in my mind–all within a millisecond, of course: This guy’s gonna try to rob us? Right now? With two of us? My tongue and lips are beginning to form the words, “No you d–”
“From Elephant and Castle?” he finishes.
Okay, who is this man in the dark… and how does he know our former Embark go-to bar?! Ooohhhh crap! Our favorite server from E&C, Carlo!!
~Another Costco miracle!~
Pretty eventful Costco trip! All within 30-40 minutes too!
… k, It’s getting pretty late for my bed time now. And I’m sure by now… “COS’ CONOW CLOSE!!!”
Yesterday was the end of something that meant a lot to me. On a very personal level, LOST sparked my creativity and imagination for the last six years. It’s fed my inner artist, and inspired the student in me. So many ideas, projects, parties, people I’ve met, and things I’ve learned have come about because of my love for this show and the way it makes me feel. I’ve laughed, despised (Michael!), and cried during the course of this show, falling in love with its characters and twists and turns. It’s something that only the uber loyal hard-core fans seem to all understand amongst each other.
Casual watchers just don’t understand how BIG of a show this is for us. It’s not the show… it’s the EXPERIENCE. After every episode, I rounded up my crew of hard-core LOST fans in an email thread and we would theorize, research, and joke about all the things we’ve all seen. (Janelle, remember when I didn’t wanna get caught reading Lostpedia while working at Embark, and I had you paste all the info about the latest episodes into a .txt file for me to read in Notepad++ so it’d look like I was coding? WINNER.) A COMMUNITY of forums and sites were formed out of pure fanship, as we all searched for answers, shared our thoughts about the island and its mysticism. Did you see that this book was mentioned? Did you know the book is about this and that? The show PUSHED us to a point we didn’t even know we were willing to go! I’ve bonded with new people, became even closer with some of my fellow LOST friends, and I even found love.
One of the first things I ever said to Brent was, “HEY! You watch LOST?!” I saw the Season 1 DVDs sitting on his work office’s desk. The ultimate test: “Are you catching up, or are you lending out your set?” “Heck yeah I’m all caught up!” The only two people that could keep up with my theories and ideas at that point were Batz and my brother Conrad. After a few weeks of watching LOST on tv while chatting with Brent, I knew he was someone that was inspired by LOST too, and he too could also harness that inspiration with a plethora of ideas of what was going on in the show.
Uncontrollable Crying Scene #1: If you weren't on the brink of tearing up during this scene, you have no soul. ... Just sayin. :)
But in the end, theories, questions, super complex and thought-out formulas of what was going on with the island’s mysteries, none of those things really mattered. And at the same time, it ALL mattered.
Jack and Desmond debated outside the heart of the island, Desmond stating that none of it mattered, that nothing they do matters because they’ll eventually be at a better place. Jack, on the other hand, was arguing that it ALL mattered.
As Christian Shepherd explained, the church and that “reality”, was a place that they all created so they could all be together again, where they could all remember everything they did together. This hit such a strong chord in me: a place, somewhere beyond space and time, where you and the ones that matter to you most can share a place brought together by… some sort of COLLECTIVE consciousness. A love SO powerful that this place is created for you, your loved ones, the only thing that’s ever really mattered, just to BE together. [Wasn't there a similar movie like that? Where someone magically made all these things come true (subconsciously) because he NEEDED those kinds of scenarios to happen (i.e. flash-sideways events) in order to stay connected and remember those he loved?]
With that in mind, Desmond and Jack were BOTH right. NONE of it mattered because in the end, they would all be together again in a better place. But all if it DID matter because the island is where they all came together and have grown to love each other with all their crazy experiences there.
… and everything else is moot.
SO many people I know are asking MORE questions, thirsty due to the lack of answers, and not really grasping what the show was all about. LOST has always been about the characters. Every single episode has been centered around one character and their struggles, hardships, and how they eventually overcome that challenge. The BEAUTY of the show and the reason for its success is mostly because we can RELATE to these characters. All the characters had to deal with some sort of desperate emotion that we’ve all had to deal with at one point of our lives: loneliness, stubbornness, internal struggles of what is right and wrong, trying to figure out the “meaning of it all” is, loss and failure, separation, and love.
I suspect the people that have watched the show for the shallow mysteries, not really caring about the characters (or even just watching the show via the recaps and thus not fully experience the ART that is Jack Bender’s direction and Michael Giacchino’s musical perfection) are the folks that are left unsatisfied with this series finale.
So, let go, let go
Jump in, oh well, what you waiting for?
It’s all right, ’cause there’s beauty in the breakdown
So, let go, let go
Just get in, oh, it’s so amazing here
It’s all right, ’cause there’s beauty in the breakdown
This is one of the biggest messages that I realize now that’s incredibly prevalent in Season 6. I think it’s even a direct message to the shows viewers: are the answers really that important? Would you really be content if we blatantly answered it for you?
That reminds me of a very powerful lesson I learned in Sociology: we’re always searching for the next best thing. For some reason, we’re raised in a culture where we are piled on with options, and we constantly think that there’s something BETTER out there, better than what we already have. (e.g. gadget-fiends that are always the first to buy the brand new tech toy) Our professor would question us: we’re always trying to get the next best thing, but would you know it if you have it? Would you be SATISFIED with what you have? Or would you simply go out and keep looking for something that you think is better?
Uncontrollable Crying Scene #2: Everything will be okay in the end.
Part of embracing the present is appreciating what you already have, and not worrying about the past nor the future. I think that was LOST’s biggest message. Whatever happened happened, and there’s nothing you can do about it. And at the same time, stop worrying about HOW you’re gonna get to the end—you’ll get there, whether early or late, and the outcome will always be what it will be.
That was an amazing realization for me, and blew my spiritual-self outta this world. I interpreted LOST’s ending to mean that the end will always be the end, but the MEANS to that end can be whatever you choose. I can see that when Hurley says to Sayid, “It’s your choice [if you want to go], but if you stick with me, you’ll be happy you did.” I like that… and it’s something I really couldn’t put into words what I’ve felt too: I DO believe in fate, and I DO believe in freewill. I TRUST that things will always be good in the end. “Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay right now, then it’s not the end.”
One of my interpretations is that the whole show of LOST was a journey through Jack’s experience in learning to let go: of his pride, his father, his need to be a leader. Even in the end, he was so hesitant of remembering everything from the island. But when he let go, he was able to tap into that collective-consciousness place where he was finally able to reunite with the people that mattered most, even the ones he lost long ago.
In order for us to truly appreciate and embrace the present, we need to let go of the past and trust in the future. I found myself feeling extremely content and satisfied with LOST finale because it made me realized that just like in real life, we’ll never have EVERYTHING answered. And it DOESN’T matter to have all the answers.
What matters to me is that I lived the LOST experience. LOST created characters that I fell in love with. It brought together a community of creative, intellectual, and loyal fans that spent hours and YEARS working together to contribute to something awesome! The writers listened to the fans, and it gave back to us in what I think was the BEST way to end the show. LOST has redefined viral marketing, and has pushed the limits of television. It was an excuse for me to plan an all-out September 24 party. And it’s one of the many reasons why I love Brent! (Gushy moment)
Thank you, LOST team, for the six years of artistic excellence, and for inspiring our hearts!
September 22 LOST Party
I knew it!!!
We can go dutch!
"You were a real good Number Two." "You were a great Number One."
Live together, dont need to die alone! Yay! :D
Thank you for the good times, and see you again soon! <3
——-
UPDATE (5/25/10):
I needed to include this for all my LOST peers!!