Basketcase8's Blog

So Tuesday was my 20th birthday and I spent it at Disneyland.  It was also free pancake day at iHop (had breakfast there… yay) as well as Mardi Gras so there was a fun festival in the New Orleans portion of Disneyland.  So I got fun beads.  Anyways, I hadn’t been in to the happiest place on earth for about 6 years and got to ride all the classics like splash mountain (at night…. Mistake) and space mountain (twice)

So afterwards, my friend and I went to Downtown Disney to get dinner and we were looking for a place when I noticed someone dressed in black with a beard about 25 yards away walking toward us that looked familiat.  This was pretty much my train of thought:

Is that….. no it couldn’t be….. it looks so much like…. But no its impossible…. Maybe…. Yeah I think it is….. is it?   *man walks by* Yep, that was Spencer Smith.

Yeah, the last person I expected there was someone from PATD.  He looked like he was in a hurry so we decided not to bother him, even though I wanted to meet him.  Anyways, we walk around Downtown Disney some more and decided to go back to a restaurant that looked good to grab dinner.  We sat at our booth, and yet again, there he was in the booth right next to us with what we believe was his family.  He talked about recording (im guessing why he was in LA area….. and yes I couldn’t help but ease drop every once in a while)  We got our food before him and finished before the family so we left.  We didn’t get to meet him but the encounter was pretty funny. 

Thankfully, my friend tried to get the restaurant to sing me a silly birthday song when the waiter brought out my free icecream.  The guy said they usually have mariachis come out but they weren’t there cuz it was late.  THANK GOD!  That would have been REALLY embarrassing.

So yeah, it was a good day.

So I basically love the Cobras even more.  Yesterday was the Sassyback tour (my 7th cobra show) and it basically rocked my life.  I brought my friend along even though he knows only a few of their songs and we got meet and greets.  They brought us down to a small room, which was lit with candles and smelled of inscense. After a bit of a wait, I saw Alex walk across the floor and start dancing since no one was getting up.  (the chairs were comfortable)  So Gabe wasnt at the meet and greets so he could rest his voice but I made my way over to everyone.  My friend loved meeting everyone , just because they were all real nice.  Alex made a "thats what shes said" remark to my friend and Nate thought he was drinking beer and was real excited to sign his "bear can, which was just diet coke.  Vicki signed the can and put "MMM" on it too.  Talked to Ryland for a bit about guitar and This is Ivy League and he was so nice.  I got all of their signatures, except Gabe of course, and am going to give it to my cousin, who loves the band (I already got autographs at Warped)

We left and I got barricade spot but the the far right (stage left).  I knew we were going to be pushed but over the course of the night, I moved only 2 feet. 

The opening bands were good.  Not my cup of tea, but live they were fun.  FTSK were very entertaining.  (unfortunately cameras werent allowed)

Cobras were great as always.  The first song, I caught a guitar pick that Gabe stole from Alex and through out to the audience (however by the end of the night, the text (which said Cobras on one side and Pleasure and Suavez on the other side) has rubbed off.... I'm gonna have to sharpie it back in or something... I know I caught it, dont care what others think)  I also caught a glow stick thrown by Alex.  For the encore, Ryland came out and danced and talked about Pleasure Ryland.  It was kind of amazing.  The rest of the band came out and finished the set with Pleasure Ryland and Guilty Pleasure.  Gabe jumped into the crowd at the end of Guilty Pleasure and stayed there to sign autographs and take pictures.  He was honestly one of the nicest guys.  He loved that I was wearing the first Cobra Starship shirt ever made and took a picture of us. 

Gabe:  Myspace picture! *hold out camera high above head*
Me:  Are you sure you can handle the big camera?  (My camera is bigger than ost of the typical square ones....)
Gabe:  I can handle a big anything
Me:  Oooh, bigshot  *insert dirty thought here*

Awesome night.  The entire band was incredibly nice.  Finally got to meet them and talk to them.  Lucky number 7!!!

... I have a fun idea that may take a while.  I'm going to "modernize" the cover of one of my favorite band's albums, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.  (Obviously by The Beatles)  That album cover is insane.  But Ive gone through and mapped out who I'm going to replace with who (more with today's pop culture icons) and some of the people are members of the Fueled by Ramen/ Decaydance group.  When I'm done, I may post to see who can find who in there. (or any other allusions)

I thought it would be sort of fun.  I've already started and am almost done with 3 of the Beatles. 

I'm kind of excited.

:-)

... so its about 1230 and I'm still dancing on the inside.  Just got back from the Bill and Trav tour show in San Diego and it was pretty amazing.  Met a new friend while waiting in line, Cali.  Shes pretty awesome.  Got meet and greets/ early entrance w/ TAI and they were all really nice guys.  They all seemed pretty soft spoken too.  I gave Butcher that art thing Ive been working on.  He seemed to like it.  (I was kinda tired of looking at it, glad its no longer w/ me)

Inside the venue, we got barricade center.  Only moved a little throughout the show.  Unfortunately we got the girl who makes dogs go deaf behind us.  

Hey Monday and Carolina Liar were alright.  They were entertaining but I'm not that into them. 

We the Kings improved from the last time I saw them.  They were really good.  They covered Feel Good Inc. (Gorillaz) which was kinda the most amazing song Ive heard covered.

TAI is incredible as always.  William was sick but his vocals did pretty good throughout the night.  It was wierd, everytime he'd look down at me (or in my general direction....being right in front of him) his eyes gave me the chills.  Not in the "OMG BILL!!!1111" tween sort of way, but they were just a bit piercing is all.  They played Classifieds (my fav TAI song) which made me happy but didnt play any of the songs I like off of Fast Times.  Oh well.

Got one of Carden's guitar picks.  But for some reason, it got misplaced from me leaving my car to entering my house.  >.<  I'll look for it later.  When its lighter outside.

I got some good pics that I'll put up tomorrow.  Right now, I need sleep.

... God the heat here in San Diego is killing me.  I feel wiped.

Anywho, so life has been pretty damn boring.  School, homework, looking for a job, and sleeping when possible.  Right now I'm watching Fight Club, and singing LAX to O'Hare in my head.  (I always get that song in my head while watching this movie.... if youve seen the movie... you know why) 

Anywho, Ive also been painting, as some know.  Ive never painted people before in my life but I'm pretty happy with how its turning out.  I'm half way through it.  I'm done with Michael, Will and Butcher.  I wanted to throw the painting out the window doing the Butcher's tattoos.  I have to razor (painting over then using a razorblade to chisel out small areas) it because the detail in the trees is so small and cant be done with a brush. 

I miss playing music.  Ive just been too exhausted to pick up drum sticks or a guitar pick.  Ugh.

Youre not the only multi-instrumentalist/artist on FOE Butcher!  (haha)

On a lighter note, the first day of Panics Rock Band Tour was amazing.  Took some awesome pictures.  I have TAI concert on the 17th.  Jacks Mannequin on Halloween.  And then the Cobras on Nov 2nd.  After that, I got no shows to look forward to.  So thats about it. 

"I listen to the sun's melancholy tune while resting in the arms and glow of the moon.  Remembering that one beautiful time where we painted the world on our mountainside."

PS  So while driving along, I saw some Chinese place called "Santi" something, not to be confused with our neighboring community of Santee.  So I decided to look it up, and found theres a place called Santi Herb Shop.  But I noticed something else peculiar about it.  I would tell you but FOE thinks I'm spamming.  So type in "Santi Chinese" into google and its like the 5th down or something.

I'm still laughing!

2 days ago was Vans Warped Tour in Mountain View, CA and let me just say, it may have been one of the best concerts I've experienced. Everything leading up to the concert, not so much. My car began to overheat and it had to be towed a mile from the concert.


I meet up with Lauren and Katelyn and we head backstage to put our stuff down and figure out what we wanted to see. The 2 bands I wanted to see the most were first so we headed over to watch The Academy Is... and Cobra Starship in action. During Cobras, I got separated from Lauren and Kate but we met up backstage at the catering area again. I saw Sisky getting some food, but that was the only guy I recognized. We ate pizza again and just chilled out for a bit, as well as play some arcade games.


We left to see Gym Class Heroes and saw the remaining little bit of Angels and Airwaves. GCH were fun as always. They actually covered a metal song which was so wierd but hilarious because Travie was running around with a guitar hero controller and pretending to shred on it.


After that, Lauren wanted to see a band, but I was looking for a certain tent so Kate went with me. We found the tent where there is a bunch of musical instruments set up for anyone to play, so of course I hop on the drums. (I actually ended up playing a little bit of bass and keys, but focused on the drums since the guitar was missing a string.
)

Kate suggests we go backstage again to get something to drink so we do only to come across Alex and Ryland from Cobra Starship setting up for an acoustic session for a small group of people that payed a pretty penny to get back there. We summoned Lauren down to watch but she took forever. The setting was so much more intimate, it was great. Some girl did Travie's rap, Alex wouldnt stop saying, "Touche!" and Ryland is always incredibly funny. They adlibbed some of the lines in Guilty Pleasure ("I dont even read, cuz no one ever taught me how to...." or "So fuck them if they can't take a joke, hahaha, I'm just fucking with you.") Gabe actually read this dirty letter some girl gave him and we all laughed hysterically.
Some things said were:

Gabe: It really says penis here, no shitting ya.
*shows crowd letter*

Gabe: *reading* If you are ever feeling sad, or erect, just give me a call.

Ryland: Yeah Gabe, but ONLY if you are like "Hey man, I'm feeling kinda down," or if your like, "Hey, look I have this massive erection.
"

Gabe: You can put your Cobra in my Starship anyday.


After that we headed up to the Cobra dance party but they werent there yet so we headed back to drums and had some fun there. Then we headed backstage again (passing Nate Navarro on the way..... we passed him like 3 times during the day and I never said anything.....damn) We chilled out for quite a while. Played more basketball. Went back up for the last time to watch Anberlin.


We the Kings played at the same time Anberlin did so I went off by myself to see them. Checked out the Keep a Breast tent, went back down to get batteries, and came back up just in time to see WTK play Check Yes Juliet. Afterwards I headed over to the TAI tent because I entered into an auction to win one of The Butcher's art pieces. (There were 3 paintings and this cool little cardboard thingy) I was the highest for the cardboard thing and one of the paintings but was outbid by someone from San Diego (go figure) on the painting. I ended up winning the cardboard thing though, it was really interesting.


I hung out with Angie, who had found me at the tent, and the people working the tents. I watched the TAI merch guy dance to his headphones which was hilarious, and he was also a really nice guy. Then the Butcher showed up to the tent to see everyone who won his stuff. He was probably one of the nicest people in a band Ive ever met. He signed the cardboard thingy, thanked me, we talked for a little bit, then gave me a hug as I was leaving.
(I honestly could have died happy right there)

I joined back with Lauren and Kate and we just chilled backstage for the rest of the night. We played even more basketball and just fooled around. We met up with Angie and headed home, which turned into one of the most messed up conversations ever.
We were talking about race and it went down like:

Me: Someone actually once asked me which country from Africa I'm from. I was like, I have no idea! *sarcastically* I'm from Sudan, (everyone laughs*) help me against the genocide against my people.

Lauren: Oh God, thats terrible.

Me: Ok, I'm one of the Invisible Children
Everyone: *laughs*
Angie: See my invisible gun
Everyone: *Laughs harder*
Lauren: God you guys are terrible
Me: I'm just tired
Angie: No, I'm just terrible
Lauren: At least someone admits it...

Overall the day was freaking amazing. It started with a car breaking down and making a wrong turn in Oakland but ended with nice spicy chicken and watching Jackass at 11 at night.
What a day :-)

So a few days ago, one of the most imaginable events of my short life happened.  Something that probably scarred my brain to the point that it has lost all function except to "Wierd Al Yankovich" songs and play them.  In what seemed like the blink of an eye, my iPod was stolen.  My life was on that thing.  Pictures, videos and music that kept this forever scarred girl going on in life.  I was heartbroken for days.  Still am.  But theres this thing called Craigslist where I was able to buy a cheap used iPod (you know us art college kids....we barely have money as it goes).  I bring it home, but of course, am unsatisfied because it is not the one Ive known.  It is scratched throughout and is encased within what feels like my old hard acne cream.  And when I plug it in, it will forever be known as Matt's iPod, instead of my own.  That hole in my heart could not be filled up by a replacement.  But alas.  It is another lesson I must learn.  But as I take in this new replacement of my heart, I continue my hunt for the bastard that started it all.  I will have my revenge.

*evil meniacal laugh*

On a lighter note...

STREET SCENE THIS WEEKEND!!!

I'm gonna go play guitar somre more

and maybe get ice cream

yummy

Oh shit, I'm tired.  I feel like Edward Norton's character in Fight Club.  Insomnia sucks, but it allows me to work on stuff that I usually dont have time to.  I can play my music longer, try to write music (I'm terrible but I strive on getting better)  Kinda mad right now cuz I made this video and accidentally deleted files that to video needed to play so now its just this one big corrupted file.  >.<  Go figure, shit like this always happens, but if worse comes to worse, it gives me the opportunity to make it again but maybe bigger and better.  So I'm new to this whole Friends or Enemies thing so if you wanna be a friend, or an enemy, I dont care, just add me or whatever.  I like meeting new people so if ya wanna talk, just send a message.  So yeah, I'm gonna go play guitar/ piano now (hopefully I wont wake anyone up)  Damn, I need to learn something new on guitar =-(