oscars & wallet chains

ok, in this town, oscar fever is no kidding around.
especially after the three month writer's strike...
hollywood needed some flash & some infusion of cash that parties & prep will bring.



i know the oscars were last week, but i have been a little bit behind & now playing catch-up. been working some of the Eagles rehearsals at the Forum--witchy woman!

two days before the oscars, Drew took me down to the site for a look at the set-up.
the sky was stormy, but sun was giving a strange light. We took the roof off of Ghosty and drove over to the hollywood & highland complex.



After a wonderful lunch of sushi & shabu shabu...




we did the oscar exhibit, where they have everything a movie fanatic like me could desire. some of the Hitchcock storyboards from "the birds".


a tv news crew was filming while Drew did his acceptance speech. this year he didn't knock over the podium, he was ready for the short leash they had the (very heavy) award on.


and so. diablo cody won an oscar, good for her. it confirmed my belief that really you can accomplish magic if you put your mind to it. i wasn't such a huge juno fan, the dialogue felt a very self-conscious to me, a hipper-than-thou scene. i thought the stand-out performance was jennifer garner. so very still in the role. go little elektra.
anyway...we looked out over the red carpet, and watched the lighting techs & riggers get things ready for the event.




oh, and look at the wallet chain Drew made for himself...



true confession, when he first told me he made jewelry, i secretly steeled myself...what if i didn't like what he made? but no, i love his chain mail work, it is beautifully crafted.

going to make a webpage for him to sell his work, he has some gorgeous designs. for christmas we got together on a pair of earrings for his sister Heather, i want to make more jewelry with him...!



Malena wants him to do a chain mail line for her collection (malenacollection.com)
here she is wearing some of the jewelry we did for her line...

new orleans to LA in 3 days....

we did it.
from mardi gras to superbowl to home.
here are some photos...
i flew into New Orleans on thursday,
on the plane with me? hulk hogan.
just so happened he was to be king of bacchus.
my airplane was nuts, they were all taking photos of the old wrestler.
who knew how popular he was? didn't realize....

Red picked me up at the airport
and we went into town.
weather conditions cancelled the first parade of the weekend,
so we went across teh street from our hotel to meet
our friend judd in town wtih kevin costner,
who was representing the endemyion (sp?) crew.

beads were being thrown from balconies.


we went to the dungeon, where Red got proposed to.



next day we got up and had a little gumbo in the quarter before pushing off.


this one is for the psychic mlle. Malena:



we headed off on the I-10 west and stopped off to see Miss Abby, home on a break from bon jovi tour.
she took us to the LSU campus to introduce us to Mike, the tiger, who was snoozing in the sun. he stole my heart:



we had perfect sandwiches here on the recommendation of Scotty:



we mostly followed the bad weather, here was the fallen sign of our cheap hotel in texas:



then we stopped in the caves of sonora, for a little tour. peacocks greeted us in the parking lot, fearless birds.



the caves were warm, humid and dark. our guide was very imformed, and i had never really been that far into a cave before.
he said that the show caves were very controversial because of man altering nature. i understand that argument, but i was very grateful to have been able to visit a site like that.
look:





this was called the horseshoe lake--my favorite spot in the cave:




the hotels were different than on tour, our shampoo came in soy sauce packets:



it was a good and easy trip for the most part, we stopped and photographed things all along the way.
we saw a serious accident in phoenix, right as the superbowl was starting, hope they are ok.
the sunsets were beautiful and we only ran into some rain in california...





the skyline coming into hollywood, home sweet home: welcome to LA, Red.

oh-so-busy (& it's still january)

2007 went out with fireworks, 2008 moved in like a hurricane.
i’m well behind in my journal here, but a quick catch-up is in on today’s menu....

we ended the Tool tour with 3 days in Las Vegas.
On the last night, the Palms gave us the bowling suite (can’t recall real name of it)
and we bowled non-stop---

this was right by the windows looking down...the views were amazing of the glittering skyline
and it was the bar-none, best end-of-tour party i have ever been to. (& that is saying something)


My lovely parents came to visit and stay in the treehouse with me for the holidays, my friends rallyed to take them to a Redskins bar here in LA called joxter daly's...i even saw an old friend from high school there, Denny Dixon--uncanny.
and we had the best time. (and my Dad's team won--)
I miss them still. Come back--please!?



We saw my favorite merch guy in Vegas, he was out with Bjork, and we met up days later at the Tori Amos show @ Nokia theatre (home of my Eagles workathon).
She put on a brilliant show, and it was the last night of their tour, so we got to relax a little with my old crew. Drew came with me, he had never seen a Tori show. Amazing sound. I can’t get “Secret Spell” out of my head (from her new ADP album)

Then I worked the Van Halen show in anaheim, a different kind of amazing.
The set list included everything from “jamie’s crying” to “ & the cradle will Rock”—they ended with “Jump”---I should have taken photos, but... they are in my head.
Eddie ran off stage and hugged an unsuspecting local security guard, this guy looked like he won the lottery, Eddie is such a star...turns out Eddie’s son, Wolfgang (who is playing bass with them on the tour) is a big Tool fan, he played a little riff from “Schism” during sound check...a rider detail—no brown M&Ms...


New Year’s eve was spent at Coop & Ruth’s—i believe you should spend New Years the way you want sort your year, so mission accomplished.

Then i flew out to the snowy tundra of Minneapolis...


and photographed some frozen bees.





(Boss modeling the new “I Believe” shirt available @ www.neverwear.net)

when I returned, Drew was working the STar Trek: The Tour down in Long Beach.
I went and couldn’t get over it-- Go!
It is there until March... my guardian of forever...uhuru! kirk's uniform! you can walk on the Bridge.....endless..














I can’t take so much time off between journal entries because i still have so much more to put in here---but I am flying to New Orleans for Mardi Gras (accidently) and will post the photos upon my return...


Next post: the Malena Collection that we have been working on----

http://malenacollection.com/store/
look at this beauty,,,,we had so much fun photographing the jewelry on Malena,
more soon!

as promised....

the most Christmassy sign ever Spokane, WA


the beautiful Davenport in Spokane, WA


view from my Kelowna, BC hotel.....beautiful and icy cold


view from the Victoria hotel...waterfront, we dined on the freshest fish....



miss Cyn @ her booth in Seattle----best globs ever.


salmon waiting to be thrown in Seattle Pike Market----


worked in LA with my hero Ali, here she is on the porch of the treehouse
modelling a Neverwear girls shirt---we have a new design up: www.neverwear.net
Neil gives us a great nod in his last journal entry: www.neilgaiman.com
thank you, boss!


Jello & the boys on stage San Francisco

travelling kitten & a jello shot

Here is is almost ten days since we left Canada....
so busy.
The tour took us through Portland & Seattle where I saw Nancye & Cyn,
those girls & their towns are so high on the applause meter for me, i really am a true fan.
Nancye came and helped me do my job, she even drew the secret santa names....
I got to visit Cyn at the hippest craft fair, one that ate a goodly chunk of my per diems....
but am now in possesion of some fine crafted wares, by local artisans that i met in person, not some nameless faceless toiler...
i do have photos of everything, but am in a rush to post this, we are heading to Vegas tomorrow for a day off @ the palms resort where i will see mister Drew, home fiinally form timberlake,
and i don't know that time will allow for tinkering on the internet webs...did i mention that some suites at the palms have bowling alleys in them??? what!!??? i actually remember some torried stories from motley tour of the girls that came to see the boys in those suites...
can i mention how much i LOVED Spokane? we stayed in the enchanting Davenport, complete with stained glass tigers.
i organized, with Ngoc's generous help, a crew outing of Beowulf in imax (not in 3-D but hey...) & then went to the peacock lounge for a glass of wine. It was so wintery, so christmasy. I will post a big bunch of photos, i do swear.
Last night we were in LA, and the guest list was silly with those famous types, but Anne really hates it when i name drop so i shan't. We stayed at the hilton downtown and jon there treated us like royalty. we played the nokia theatre where i was for my run with the eagles about 6 weeks ago, and i was having "witchy woman" flashbacks. I will be there for the tori show when i get home, and that is something to look forward to!
This morning we woke up on the streets of San Francisco. Jello biafra of the dead kennedys is slated to sing a song on stage with the band, they are about to launch into "holiday in cambodia"---i have to see this. pinch me, i am dreaming....

frozen

am in Canada, woke up this morning at six am to an amazing view of evergreens & snowfall, mountains & ice. we crossed the border and lost a few of our guys to the new laws governing entrance, and so we have a few Canadian pitch hitters (pinch hitters? can’t be sure of the terminology, at ths point) Our few left-behind guys will simply have a week off and sit in a hotel room, awaiting our return to collect them. This happens alot more these days, as the US border tightened up, other countries responded in kind.

When we arrived in Saskatoon, it was 6*F and no kidding, the winds were knife-like. It was so beautiful though, like an old fifties movie on those snowy streets. I was, as usual, in a bit of denial, so i didn’t bring a coat or snow boots or mittens. i do have my hat, though. I saw my sister over Thanksgiving, and she took me thrift-shopping in Denver. We drove around to a treasure house of a store, where prices are still sitting somewhere in the 1980’s. I found a fantastic made-in-Ireland wool catholic-school-girl type skirt, some toasty sweaters & a mohair scarf that looks like the pixies made it. still no coat, but i think it will be ok. It was so fun to see her in her new cozy house on the water, complete with geese.








haven’t downloaded all my photos from Houston & British COlumbia & other points of interest, i will have to do some work tomorrow on the day off in Victoria. In Texas, I went to see the Lucy exhibit—did i write about her? They didn’t let me take any photos in that section there, but i was proud of Houston for presenting this exhibit, in this time of rampant creationism & elements of fear.
So instead took this photo for miss Red the lioness, one of her sisters...she has been banking the home fires, caring for my mister Batman & also, as it happens..... the ever-lovin' Spice Girls.
That lady-- she can do it all. thanks alot, my friend.

I toured a very thorough gem display, i got shivers more than a few times of the beauty found in the rock.
Here is the view from our hotel there, the science museum, which i walked to from the hotel, also had a butterfly wing which you can see if you look up in the left corner of the photo, looks like a big cage, and butterflies of all species flew around my head..

more soon, i am leaving out whole big parts of this tour, but i can't keep up lately.
Meanwhile, my radio is blowing up, people are calling, something is happening here on the Kelowna stage....let's go see.