At the Riverside Metropolitan Museum now through September 14th. C'mon, who doesn't love Snoopy?!

I'm not someone who's big on celebrating my birthday - not out of any fear of growing older or anything like that - it's because I simply don't like the attention. A few years ago I figured out that my shyness often extends into annoyance when overwhelmed with attention, which results in people who are otherwise trying to show that they care about me feeling put off. I don't blame them, and figure that it's just better for everyone involved if I just treat my birthday like any other day.

My boss Deanne, however, has a different idea about birthdays, and because I adore her so much, I decided that I was not going to be cranky this year. And she, in turn, completely surprised me with what was quite possibly the Best. Gift. Ever.

I should back up. While in Nashville for the CMA Music Festival this year, my co-worker Trinity and I made the trek up and down Broadway on our first day in Music City. Trinity had never been to Nashville, and was really feeling the pull of all the crappy tourist shops on Lower Broad (a side note: after being in Nashville for the CMA Music Festival for the first time, I have no idea why people would go to this event for fun. It was hot, it was crowded, and after one pal of mine texted me saying she had awful seats, I thought, "Nashville's an awfully long way to go to discover you have crappy seats." Fortunately, I was there for work, not for fun.). It is said that if you travel with someone, you'll really get to know them, and I believe that now. I learned that Trinity is the kind of person who will buy a souvenir for everyone she knows, rather than letting them travel to said place themselves to purchase said souvenir. I spent more time that week in crappy souvenir shops than I've ever spent in them before. I tried not to be cranky.

But then, in one western wear store, I spotted these:

Granted, at the time, they were on a shelf. In a store. On sale. For $250. And while I did not try them on, I did not stop talking about those boots for the entire trip. After all, talking about the boots does not cost any money, and $250 is an awful lot to spend on boots when one is also about to pay for a new truck transmission. So I talked. I'm pretty sure everyone I met in Nashville at some point heard about those pink boots with the brown skull and crossbones.

Finally, on our last day, Trinity, Deanne, and I headed to Broadway for one more last round of souvenir shopping (because, for crying out loud, Trinity still wasn't done yet!), and Deanne asked which store I'd seen the boots in. She thought I should just try them on, and I thought I should not, out of fear that I'd fall in love with them and buy them. We located the store, and I was relieved that they no longer had them in my size. Deanne, however, wrote down the pertinent information, and said we'd look for them online when we got home. I was thinking, "I still have a transmission to pay for, though!"

We returned to Los Angeles, and I forgot about those boots. Meanwhile, the wheels were turning in Deanne's head. She and Trinity located a store online that sold the boots in my size and ordered them, making sure they arrived just before my birthday. The irony is that they had the boots sent to the office, and any packages that arrive for our department usually get sent to my office for me to distribute. I must have been feeling lazy that day, though, because after the package had been sitting in my office for several hours, I still hadn't walked it over to Deanne's office, or even looked at it. So the next morning - the day of my birthday - when I arrived at work and unwrapped the package Deanne had wrapped and left on my desk, I let out the loudest shriek known to man.

Yay for surprises! And for these boots.

I originally posted this blog on my MySpace page on May 27th this year, while Barflies was still under construction. Almost two months later it's still something I want people to know about.

A die-hard Dixie Chicks fan, I was a little embarrassed to only recently have stumbled across a blog written during their "Accidents and Accusations" tour (I feel like this was something I should have known about all along - should have been reading as it was happening, not long after the tour had ended). The Chicks had partnered with MSN to hire a blogger to travel with them on the tour and record it from his perspective. Junichi Simitsu is a law professor at the University of San Diego, and someone who liked the Dixie Chicks, but wasn't an uber-fan (at least not at the start of the tour - when he mistakenly thought Emily was the older of the two sisters - I'm sure after spending months on the road with them, he's a total Dixie Chicks nerd now).

I spent a good four hours poring over this blog: Junichi's observations are, for the most part, hilarious, and I laughed out loud at several of them. But one in particular wasn't funny to me at all, the one titled "The Evolution of an Anti-Dixie Chicks Protester." This one brought tears to my eyes.

The image of this woman symbolized for many of us Chicks supporters just how out of control the anti-Chicks sentiment had become in 2003. Reading that she attended this rally not out of conviction, but because someone told her she should go, was very unsettling. It frightens me how easily some people can be persuaded to follow a crowd without really believing in what they are doing.

However, it takes an awful lot of courage to admit you were wrong, and I applaud this woman for her apology and efforts to make things right. I only wish that this article had received the same media attention as "The Incident" that started it all.

The thing about Shawn Mullins is that his voice is so big it fills the room all by itself - he doesn't need a full band behind him for a full performance.

So two or three songs in during his acoustic show at the Troubadour last night, you forgot he was the only person on stage.

Shawn's currently promoting his new album Honeydew, and this show at the Troubadour was sparsely filled, mostly with industry folks - and I understand this was by design. The Troubadour had set up chairs on the main floor, in addition to their balcony, and nearly everyone had a seat. And the audience felt comfortable enough to ask Shawn questions in between songs, like whether or not he would collaborate again with the Thorns, to which Shawn said it was a possibility, and then jokingly asked if this was a press conference.

Shawn gained national attention some years ago when "Lullaby" became a #1 pop hit, followed by another minor hit, "Shimmer," from his Soul's Core album, which I hear as an Americana album, not a pop album. If you need further proof, you should have been at the show when I started bawling when he sang, "I'd drink a whole bottle of my pride," from "Shimmer." That's some good songwriting.

Shawn also told my favorite story about "Blue As You," from 9th Ward Pickin' Parlor, in which he was writing with Matthew Sweet and Pete Droge (the three of them round out the supergroup The Thorns), and Matthew was a little hung over from the night before and was napping in the other room. But they needed him to contribute the third verse to the song so they could properly share writing credits, so they carefully woke up him, and Matthew mumbled, "Interstellar rainbow on its cosmic wheel; rollin' where the wind blows, never standing still," while Shawn and Pete hastily wrote it down. And Matthew promptly went back to sleep.

THAT's great songwriting.

And there's more where that came from on Honeydew, as evidenced by "For America," "Cabbagetown," "All In My Head," and especially in the tragic "The Ballad of Kathryn Johnston," all from the new album. Shawn also covered James McMurtry's "Where's Johnny," and came back for TWO encores (even the Chris Thile Fan Club didn't get TWO encores!), which included two Kris Kristofferson songs.

An awesome show, and a sweet new album.

Slim Cessna's Auto Club tried to save me last Monday night, so I had to let Bad Religion lead me astray again last night. They do good work.

My knowledge of Bad Religion is peripheral at best, but it appears that I'm even more indie than I thought - because I thought the songs that weren't their radio hits were their least interesting songs (except for "The Hills of Los Angeles." That song kicks ass.). However, are they still a punk band? 'Cause I went to this show to see a subculture that seemed to be absent...Can the punk experts elaborate? I need to know!

(And if you want to take me to one of their sold-out shows in Anaheim this week, I love you.)

This weekend, my dad made my mom and I watch PBS's documentary about Pete Seeger (such a thing is to be expected when your mom is a former hippie and your dad is an aspiring banjo player), and what I learned is how grateful I am to be living in a society that doesn't ban artists from the radio or blacklist them from TV shows because of their political views. Oh, wait....

I went to the Foo Fighters show Wednesday night.

Yes, I said the Foo Fighters.

"You mean you know who the Foo Fighters are?" asked my 22 year-old sister, who apparently thinks I live in a cave.

(Okay, the only reason I know who the Foo Fighters and Serj Tankian are is because they've been featured on Loveline. And they sounded pretty smart when they were on that show - especially Serj Tankian - so I figured I'd be interested to explore their music a little. I realize that that's kind of the opposite of what Loveline's goal is - what they really want to do is draw in listeners with the bands, in hopes that the listeners will learn something. Instead, I listen to Loveline in hopes of laughing at their stupid callers, and end up learning about music, too.)

Not realizing that I'd accidentally be seeing Mike Stinson at the Gaysian bar last Saturday, I was afraid of having live music withdrawals, so at the last minute, I scored a pair of "obstructed view" seats in the rafters of the Forum - which is a nightmare venue to try to park at (the freaking House of Blues is easier than this joint), little did I know....So we missed all of Against Me! and most of Serj Tankian, but saw enough of him to realize that he is the brother from another mother of Big & Rich's Big Kenny. And when Dave Grohl announced that this was the show at which, "Everyone who has to work tomorrow is fucked!", he wasn't kidding (I was useless at work on Thursday). The Foos went on at 9:30p, and didn't stop until shortly before midnight. They're a band who is clearly proud to consider L.A. their hometown, and thrilled to have sold-out the Forum for two nights in a row.

But what I was most proud of is that I anticipated an unheard of level of debauchery, being in the "Cheap Seats." I expected to see fights, pot smoking, many overserved patrons...But what I witnessed in Collonade 24 at the Forum was nothing, NOTHING compared to the debauchery that went on in the lawn section of KZLA's Country Bashes at Verizon Wireless in Irvine. We had people puking on other people, enough weed to make Willie Nelson feel at home, men fighting, babies crying, and security guards having sex with female concert goers (we made the venue hire a different group of security guards the next year). The worst thing I saw at the Foo Fighters' show was a guy who'd lit up a joint, only to obey when security told him he had to put it out. WTF? Oh, and the drunk guy who got his leg stuck in a chair while trying to climb into another row was pretty funny, too.

But overall, compared to the country fans, you rock fans have NO IDEA how to party. Once again, the country fans have made me proud.

A friend thought it would be funny to take me to his favorite Gaysian (get it? Gay + Asian = Gaysian) bar for their country night, which happens the first Saturday of the month, and to be honest, I thought it would be funny, too. I was really looking forward to having my picture taken with a bunch of Gaysian Cowboys, but I guess there's not really a big draw for that, because the crowd was (disappointingly) much more straight than that. However, I was happily surprised that Mike Stinson was playing that night (we were standing outside so my friend could have a cigarette before we went in. We could hear the band playing, and my friend saw a look of recognition pass over my face. "You know this song?" "No, I think I know the singer!" And I was right. I'm that damn good, people).

The only way you really know the Stone Bar is an Asian bar is it's a) in the middle of Thai Town, and b) there's a very large Buddha on the counter). So no pics of me with Gaysian Cowboys (but can someone arrange that?!), but I did have a great time. And I learned that I don't like duck. We went to eat at a Thai restaurant afterward, and in my drunken stupor, all I could remember was that my friend Britta (who is much more cosmopolitan than I am) loves duck. So I thought I'd order it. About half-way through, I realized I was eating duck, and couldn't eat any more. And when I got home, and was still thinking about having eaten duck, I threw up. Not from drinking. From duck.

But at least now I know.

Every year at the Country Radio Seminar in Nashville, the show I work for, After MidNite, hosts a Disco Party on the last night of the seminar. From what I hear, that is THE event to go to. I've always wanted to attend CRS, but the one year I thought that maybe I could actually save up enough money to go, my boss at the time talked me out of it, saying, "It's kind of just a big drinking party," (Hel-loo?!?! Isn't that right up my allegy?!), and in the years after that, I became important enough to run the station and shows while everyone else went to CRS, but not important enough to get to go.

THIS year, a trouble-making colleague suggested that I take one measly day off of work to fly out to Nashville and make a one-night-only appearance at the Disco Party. I found a cheap flight, my boss excitedly agreed (she's thinking, "Ha! Now I'll have someone else to help me work this thing!"), and plans were made. Except the most important question...What am I going to wear?!

I didn't want to spend a bunch of money on an outfit that I'd only wear once, so my initial reaction was to create some sort of "My Little Pony" '80s look (the host of our show is going as Gene Simmons, so I didn't think MLP would be too out of place at a disco party), but that turned out to take too much preparation for lazy little ol' me. Instead, I found a bargain at the vintage clothing store called Someone Else's, within walking distance of my apartment. Here's the outfit:

(Yes, these pics were taken in my fine My Little Pony bathroom.)

Dress: $27.
Platform shoes: $28
Pink Peace Sign Necklace: $5
Assorted other bracelets: Free.

Did I mention that Someone Else's is going out of business, so everything was 30% off? I got the whole thing for less than $50.

Here's a close-up of the dress:

And the shoes:

The dress I can pair with cowboy boots and wear to shows (in fact, I already have: at the Kelly Willis show. And I totally plan on wearing those shoes over the summer. But not in front of my mom. She thinks I'm too clumsy to wear crazy shoes like that. She's probably right, but that doesn't stop me.

Pics from the actual party forthcoming!

Sometimes I think I say I'm a bigger Jay Farrar fan than I really am. I guess he's someone I think I should worship, but in reality, don't.

I went to the Troubadour with high hopes on Tuesday, and for the first fifteen minutes of his set, was really impressed but after that, all of his songs kinda started to sounded the same, as I frequently find is the case with shoe-gazers. Since his opener was Anders Parker, also a talented musician, but also a little boring, I was hoping for there to be maybe a little something from their Gob Iron collaboration, and yet...nothing. Having said all that, Jay totally redeemed himself with his encore, a cover of "Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way" Jay Farrar-style. BAD. ASSSSSSSSSSS. Maybe I do worship him. A little.

The Punch Brothers were playing Thursday night, but silly me - I didn't realize until I got there that this was a show to be attended almost entirely by the Chris Thile Fan Club. Seriously. With a name like "The Punch Brothers," one would think that this would be more of a collective band unit - no, this show should have been marketed as Chris Thile and Everyone Else - okay, that's unnecessarily mean - Chris Thile and the Punch Brothers, instead of The Punch Brothers featuring Chris Thile, as it was marketed. I don't mean to say that it's a bad thing that Chris is the star, because he clearly is - and while the rest of the brothers are also clearly talented (No way is the former member of Nickel Creek going to associate musically with anyone who's not a virtuoso), I'm just saying let's call it like it is. Especially if Chris is going to keep referring to Punch, the new record by the Punch Brothers, as his second solo album....I mean, come on.

But yeah, I'd go see them again, too. In a heartbeat. Even with the Chris Thile Fan Club.

...that I can't believe Tink and the Occulator forgot was THE MAN CHANGING HIS PANTS IN FRONT OF THE OPEN HOTEL ROOM WINDOW.

What else needs to be said?

I've only seen Kelly Willis - one of my all-time favorites - play live once, and hardly even that. It was about a 20-minute Rykodisc showcase at SXSW (Yes! Only twenty minutes - not even the "full" 40-minute set that comprises a normal SXSW showcase!) some years ago, so you can only imagine the panic I felt when I read on her website that she was taking an indefinite hiatus from touring to focus on being a mom and raising her children (by the way, it's not like Kelly tours all that much to begin with - so when she says she's not touring any more - I kinda take that seriously!). I called my friend Pam and begged her (okay, she's a Kelly Willis fan, too, so it wasn't like I was pulling her arm or anything) to go with me to Santa Barbara last weekend to see her show at the Lobero Theatre. She agreed, and off we went, Thelma and Louise style, to Santa Barbara.

I should back-up a bit, before I get too carried away, and mention the prelude to our evening in Santa Barbara. The previous evening, a Friday night, I went (yet again) to The Mint to see Hayes Carll and Chuck Prophet (Chuck produced Kelly's latest record, Translated from Love, and was also playing in Santa Barbara the next evening). I've seen Hayes in better form - I imagine that because this was his first trip to Los Angeles, he wasn't as surrounded by as many people who were familiar with his music as he's used to. The band scheduled between Hayes and Chuck was the Carnival Dogs, but it seems that most of the band was unable to make it, so as filler, they got some terribly boring coffee-house singer to perform for a half-hour, and then two members of the Carnival Dogs joined the founder of the Mint (I found this a little confusing, 'cause I thought the Mint was founded in the '30s, but it seems that this was really the guy who refurbished it a few years ago) for three or four really boring songs that made me seriously consider leaving. I stuck around, though, and got to see Chuck play for about 30 minutes before I had to go back to work. Chuck was so-oo good, and it was really hard to leave early.

I wish I could say that Pam and I headed up the coast to Santa Barbara early enough on Saturday to do some wine tasting and sit down to a nice dinner, but c'mon, we don't have our shit together THAT much. We made it in time to walk up and down State Street a bit, and have Ben & Jerry's ice cream (Brownie Cheesecake is DELICIOUS!) before heading back over to the Lobero. Outside, we marveled at how cool it was that so many people knew who Kelly Willis was, and then we realized that her show was part of a subscription series called "Sings Like Hell." It was a very different setting and crowd than we're used to at the smoky bar joints - a sit-down theatre with no alcohol allowed inside. We worried that people would complain if we tapped our feet too loudly, and backstage, even Kelly admitted that shows like that are terrifying - because those people are actually listening! Kelly played a fantastic set accompanied by only a couple of guitars (and Chuck and a drummer at one point for "The More That I'm Around You"). I also learned at the show that the Dixie Chicks had requested to record Kelly's "Not Forgotten You" for their debut album, which Kelly denied them, saying, "That's MY song!", not realizing that they'd go on to sell a gazillion copies of that album. Now, of course, she's a sister-in-law to one of them, and the song they recorded by Kelly's husband, Bruce Robison, "Travelin' Soldier," became "the fastest descending #1" in the history of the Billboard charts. I would have loved to hear Natalie Maines singing that, and it seems like it would have been such a great inclusion on their Wide Open Spaces record, but I'd take Kelly Willis singing her own song over that any day.

This show has definitely left me yearning for the day when Kelly returns to touring again.