"if you're looking for someplace to drink"...

You can go to the Blarney Stone Irish Pub in Clairemont and find out why Monday is my favorite day of the week. Local talent and cover artists FeverCrotch will test your lyrical knowledge of pop classics including a healthy dose of Weezer.

When I was first invited to partake in this Monday night event I felt like I was in a scene from a movie. It was a room full of strangers singing at the top of their lungs songs I know and love, all with smiles on their faces. The fact that sobriety was lacking in most participants probably helped set the mood, but nonetheless it was a great moment and I’ve returned every Monday ever since.

The act of Fever and Crotch consists of just two young men that know how to work a crowd. The singer, Sean O’donnell also heads the band playing guitar, while longtime friend Matthew Gorney keeps it together by playing the cajon, what some people may refer to as “the box.” Aside from only having two instruments the integrity of the songs they play are kept intact. Along with the many covers, Fevercrotch has a few entertaining originals such as The Blarney Stone Theme Song and Super Nachos. Never played the same twice, 97 forerunner is a hit in which they talk about the similarities and differences of the 97 forerunners they both own individually. Having the same car as the other person in the band, to me, screams dedication.


Recently Fevercrotch had the chance to perform in front of a crowd of thousands at the latest Weezer concert in San Diego. At every venue a select few are chosen to be apart of the Weezer hootenanny. This is where the twenty or so people that are chosen play their instruments along with Weezer on stage for the first encore. It was amazing to see them up there sharing the spotlight with the headlining band and I was happy for them. In between the two songs they all played together, the lead singer Rivers Cuomo, questioned Gorney about his box. Nervous and drawing a blank Gorney gave Cuomo very short answers compared to the long and elaborate stories I’m used to hearing at The Blarney Stone. To top it off, in the middle of a song Cuomo called out “box solo,” which for the loyal Fevercrotch attendees, is known to be O’donnell’s line every week.

Not only are the Fevercrotch above and beyond musically talented, but comically inclined as well. It’s hard to believe that someone wouldn’t get tired of going to the same thing every week, but aside from the songs, the show in itself is never the same. Whether it’s talking about their daily life or making a comment about someone in the audience it’s hard to walk away from this act without cracking up at least once. All in good taste, apart from the name, O’donnell and Gorney make a great comedy and musical duo.

If your not one who normally goes out on a Monday, Fevercrotch is known to play later in the week at other venues as well as an occassional weekend performance. For more info and dates you can check their page at www.myspace.com/fevercrotch

Sorry to get all serious

I like to think that I'm more aware than the average person(just a little bit), but not as educated as I could be on politics. I do have things that I am passionate for and there are certain things that I definitely stand on one side about, but I hate getting involved in political discussions. I love hearing other people talk about their opinions, but I don't like to participate, because I take a lot of things personal and I know very well that people won't see eye to eye on everything. So, I let people live their lives the way they want to and I live my life according to how I want things to be in the world. I know I can't change the world, but that doesn't mean I have to make the same choices, so I change the world that I live in and my surroundings. This will be the first thing I've written that is politically motivated since high school and I don't like it one bit.

I was working cash wrap at the good ol' Barnes and Noble last week. For the retail unsavvy that means working the cash register, something I don't do often and am quite OK with that. I had a customer who was purchasing books ask me to check when a certain book was going to come it again. I looked it up and informed her that it has been back-ordered and could take weeks. She said "Ahhh, my wife is going to kill me, that's all she's been wanting." I am immediately consumed with emotion and can't keep the smile off of my face. If she noticed, she would have thought me insane. I tell her which stores have it(cause I'm thinking her wife needs this book!)and i finish the transaction.

I'm glad there were no customers after her because my eyes got a little watery with all these thoughts running through my head. It was not that long ago she would not have been able to say something like that, but now she can and no one is hurt after the matter. I saw the world be a little less stupid right in front of my eyes that day. The LGBT community has not gone through nearly the struggle African Americans have gone through but I think it IS the civil rights struggle of our era. It's a time where every little thing is a move forward and a slap in the face of ignorance. I guess I just thought it was moving to see that change can and does happen.

I also realized how passionate I was about this subject. It shows that now, the subject is not just about not giving certain people rights, even though I would be all for that too, but it's about taking peoples rights away. I can't even imagine what it would feel like to want something, so bad, for so long and finally be able to get that, but that's the thought that makes me all teary-eyed, and to have that possibly taken away from you is even harder to imagine. As someone who believes in altruism above anything(even though I am an asshole) I couldn't be happier to see people who love each other have the same rights as every one else. I realize that I just put an emotional reason for my stance and I'm OK with that. I am well aware of all the reasons there are to be against this proposition, but that's not what I wanted to talk about. These are real people with real emotions and real love. I suggest voting No on Prop 8.

i really almost forgot.

I didn't even know it was Sunday and when I did I realized I have forty minutes to write of something awesome.

Double A had their television debut this week in the new Weezer video for troublemaker. The video sucks, but making it was too much fun so I will talk about that.

It was a Wednesday night and Ashley closed at Barnes and Noble so I had to wait for her to head off to Los Angeles to film a video shoot. We had to send tons of Emails and wait for several replies before we got the ok, the day before. We didn't want to drive in LA traffic so we left that night. But we didn't have to be there til the next morning so we stopped to give Fevercrotch our regards on the way out of town. The singer also known as Fever asked someone how to get us in to the shoot cause we were worried it might not happen, and he said we were in, but we heard nothing from his contact so we just thought it was cute he thought he did something for us, even though we ourselves in with the emails.

We stop at a twenty-four hour Wal Mart in an attempt to make shirts that say trouble and maker in the parking lot, but Wal Mart failed to provide us with the tools that we needed.

We get to the shoot about 7am and we're one of the first ones there. When its time to check our names off and get teh red wrist bands ashley notices our name on another list and we ask oh which wristband to we want!? They reassured us that Yellow is the choice color of wristband and they were right as they designated us "friends and family" of the band. We felt bad realizing Mr. Fever had pulled through tenfold and we professed our love of him and vowed to buy him drinks in the near future.


The video theme was breaking world records. Here are some that were broken:
Worlds largest dodgeball game- NOT FUN, somewhat painful.
Worlds largest logo made of nachos- only thing we didn't participate in as it was before we realized the power of our yellow wristbands.
Worlds smallest drum set- pat the drummer was the only one who did this actual
Worlds longest car pool with teeth- We sat in the front seat in the middle and look ridiculous.
Worlds largest air guitar something...?- This felt stupid, but was funny.
Worlds largest skateboard- you can see Ashley ducking on it in the video!
Worlds largest hootenanny- I played the flute and Ashley the didgeridoo(sp?)
Most guitars being smashed in a music video- there was only one shot so it had to be good.
Worlds largest pie fight- WOW. that was great. and disgusting and the last thing we did before a two hour ride home. I was covered in custard and Ashley in tapioca!! that's gross.


With our handy dandy wristbands we met the lead singer, River Cuomo's father, though we had no idea who he was at the time. I noticed he had a yellow wristband and asked him what that meant. He wasn't quite sure what we could do with it but tried to figure it out with us and we decided it meant we can do anything. His name was Norman and he was sweet. We told him we wanted to be in the car that the singer pulled to break a record and he only wanted to be in the air guitar scene. We told someone else that worked there what we wanted they got us the OK. When we were called upon for that later, Norman was excited for us and was like you did it!! and he showed us pictures he took of us in the car. We were like wow, river's dad has pictures of us in his camera. The other awesome thing about these wrist bands was lunch. Instead of waiting under a red tarp area called "holding" we got to walk around the set and have "the good lunch." While everyone else got boxed pizza, we chose from a buffet of food that I have to say was very vegan friendly and quite tasty. We sat at a table, next to Norman which also happened to be two seats away from Mr. Cuomo, the younger one. This is when we heard Rivers ask Norman how mom was doing and it hit us who this man was. He wasn't just some awesome old guy, so then we felt kinda weird, but still awesome. We never stop that.

We had a great time even though it was shot and we were there from beginning to end, a whole 13 hours. We weren't elitist and spent time in the holding area as well because we did meet really nice and fun regular people too. We shared our hoopla of instruments. OK I'm gonna try to name everything we brought: Flute, Guitar, mini accordion, cowbell, tambourine, spoons we stole from Denny's the night before, finger cymbals, tap shoes, kazoo and a didgeridoo.

I hope that was all of it cause it was a lot. While showing people or hoopla our backpack felt like a never ending Mary Poppins bag. But like I said, there were good people there who tried to keep their spirits up the whole time and got their own hootenanny going by playing Weezer songs with all the instruments they brought. There's a video of Ashley and I dancing to this on you tube somewhere as well. I guess we tend to get around. Thanks to everyone there and the people who got us there. It was just an overall really fun day, but everyday is pretty fun when Double A is around.

I trolley dance, do you trolley dance?

I had a lovely Saturday morning starting off at the wrong location. NO i did not wake up in a strangers bed! I went to watch the 10th annual San Diego Trolley dances presented by the Jean Isaacs dance studio. The only problem was that it started at the Hazard Center trolley stop NOT the Horton Plaza trolley stop. As a writer, you learn to pay close attention to details. We needed the exercise anyway and for those of you who didn't already know, get with it already: Horton Plaza offers three free hours of validation... during business hours of course. The drunk after hours crowd would get lost trying to find the validation machine anyway, let alone be able to figure out how to use the thing.

We, as in Ashley, of Double A, Rechelle and I, also of Double A, finally get to the initial point of trolley dances at Hazard Center. Now, this is my first year doing this so I wasn't too sure how it would work, but you spend two hours on a trolley "tour" of five locations where dancers will put on a performance for you near a trolley stop. If I were you I would be thoroughly intrigued by now.

We bought our tickets that consisted of a lanyard with a thin sticker on it stating, "trolley dances 2005." Ashley's was actually very used and had three previous stickers on it before her current one. I support the arts as well as recycling, so I was OK with this.

The First Stop:
As well as the first trolley dance was at Fashion Valley. As a group-a very large semi-manageable group-we walked down the stairs and across the street to the "stage area" There were dancers dressed as homeless people. While waiting for everyone to arrive and get situated one of the "vagabonds" went through the crowd with his hand out. Our personal group trolley cop, the genius he is, followed this man and attempted to escort him out until someone informed him that he was a dancer. Everyone laughed at this trolley cop and he was embarrassed. It was already a good show by my standards. As I suspected it was modern dance, and was confusing but still nice to watch, not to mention the unconventional location.


This GUY: As usual we ran into some eccentric personalities on the trolley. Waiting to get back on at the Fashion Vally station, this gentleman started off by asking everyone why they were hungover. Though loud and in your face, he was very smiley and nonthreatening. I was personally a fan until they made him leave. Here's some of the things he said: "White people get hungover too!" "You drank with your mom last night, now you hung-OVER!" "The one and only, never leave you lonely"(after hitting on some girl). "mmm I like white girls TOO!" "white people"(after standing next to some white people." and my personal favorite. "I'm Obama, Damn it!"

Second Stop: Morena/Linda Vista
Here we had two locations to wonder about and watch some dancing, and they will both be modern dancing. We actually get excited when we hear about the first dance that takes place in a pool. It wasn't exactly the synchronized swimming we were expecting but it was really cute and different. And there was this kid playing in the jacuzzi behind us who's dad kept shushing him. The best part though was when some innocent bystanders were in the middle of watching the act when the outside pool shower all of a sudden turned on and they all ran out of the way. WE had to hold in our chuckles. I guess we're insensitive.

Next we head on over to the nature preserve. There is a big uproar about the fact that we have to walk on dirt. After the panics were settled and arrangements were made, we made our way down to the first point of dance as there would be several here. The theme was kinda like hikers who were hiking and then started to dance instead. There was a violin here as well. I like violins. I think this was the most uncomfortable perfomance as it was the hottest part of the day and at not one of these dances were we able to attain a decent view of what was going on most of the time. It was a good chance for us to catch up on text messages though.

Third Stop: Old Town
Nothing too interesting here, but the dances were really fun and I actually could tell what was going on although it was still pretty much modern dancing. It was called "Ode to a Cowboy" and was western themed with a few quick draws involved. Johnny Cash' s "Folsom Prison" was used in this act, which was more upbeat than previous musical selections. There was more acting along with the dancing used in this one too. Oh! Violence was a big theme in this one. The dancers at certain points either really liked each other or wanted to kill each other. Very good dynamics. Kept us on our toes, but we actually got to sit at this performance so that was definitely a metaphor.


Fourth Stop: Little Italy
This one was called "Alice and the Escape from Fire Escapeland." At the trolley stop we were met by an odd "girl" who made us follow her and a "rabbit" to a nearby fire escape. This dance was interesting not just because it took place on a fire escape but it was modern BUT infused with hip hop. I personally just had a step class and recognized the stomp the yard movements used. Go me. I thought it looked out of place and forced and would have rather it been all hip hop, but that's OK. I like to broaden my horizons. I really do. The picture is one of my favorites. The "Alice character looks as though she's suspended in midair. It's good.

Fifth and Final Stop: Santa Fe Depot
Overall, this is my favorite dance. It was more jazzy and choreographed. I happen to like things that are more structured and are against things that aren't, such as poetry and modern dance. I highly respect people that can do either one though, because I would struggle with both. This last dance was also a repeat and was done at the first San Diego Trolley Dances. There were people in trench coats dancing with luggage carts. Ashley really wanted it to be a commercial. She REALLY wants it to be a commercial. At the end they all left waving with one hand and pulling their cart with the other but two small children followed at the end of he line doing the same thing with tiny luggage carts. It was kind of adorable.

Thank you and good night.