On Saturday night my friend (and yoga teacher) invited me to see her husband’s band, The Salted Hand, play down at Fontana’s on the Lower East Side. It was kind of like a guitar school band recital for guitar students from the NYC Guitar School. 

All of their songs were covers and it was basically a concert of my favorite songs. They started with Green Day’s Boulevard of Broken Dreams, then played Amsterdam by Guster, followed by Weezer’s Buddy Holly. 

Their short set was awesome and the perfect way to begin a night out downtown. We went after to Excuse My French, The Mockingbird, and a late-night snack at Joe’s Pizza. 

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A Little Story About “Joy”

I saw this trailer and thought I wanted to see it because Jennifer Lawrence is awesome and she looked like she was playing a badass. I mentioned to my mother that we should see this on Christmas and she said, “Oh yes! We’ve met Joy several times. She’s the one who gave dad your guitar!”

Remember this guitar? The one that Billie Joe Armstrong signed all those years ago? I knew it had been a freebie that my dad had been given, but I had no idea by whom. Turns out Joy Mangano rented warehouse space from the company that my parents have worked at for decades. She also apparently lives in a massive estate two towns over from us. 

Back to the movie: I liked it. It left out things like the fact that she went to my alma matter: Pace. And they cut out one of her children. D’oh. The movie starts when she’s a child and building things and then fast fowards to her meeting her husband, having more kids than she should have, and working at an airport. So much for those dreams. After getting her hands cut up on some glass while mopping up wine, she invents the Miracle Mop and we go from there.

I liked the movie a lot. Mangano was a badass who handled mafia men without blinking. Jennifer Lawrence did a great job, too, as did Bradley Cooper for the most part. Despite how the previews make this look like a Silver Linings Playbook Part 2, it’s very much not at all. 

So, this happened today. Billie Joe announced it last night and then I renewed my Idiot Nation account this morning (hey, at least I’d get a t-shirt out of it, if nothing else!). The tickets went on sale about a minute early, but after approximately 13 minutes of refreshing the page someone’s order must have timed out and I finally got through. I gave my ticket for The Kooks to Ben (they’ll be around again soon) after he declined the ticket for BJA. 

It’s a 200 person space which is even tinier than Don Hill’s and The Studio at Webster Hall. It should be a good time. 

The final moments of the the final performance of American Idiot on Broadway.

I was playing Whatshername on my guitar for the first time in forever tonight. It brought back some good memories. 

My office was closed today but I’m taking a staycation this week anyways. I’m doing all sorts of awesome-sauce stuff like seeing shows, going to yoga, and going to whatever coffee shop has room for me (among other things).

I also went down to Rudy’s in Tin Pan Alley (aka 48th between 6th and 7th) today to visit my friend Dave. He knows I love pink so when I walked in, he immediately pointed me towards this pale pink, electric-acoustic Gretsch (I think that’s the maker). It’s only $1295! He took this picture and later posted it on Facebook asking the world to “give this girl $1400 so she can buy this guitar.”

I don’t think anyone’s responded with “Yes! Here’s some cash!” yet, but a person can dream. It was a really, really nice guitar.

A Weekend in Maine

I decided a couple of months ago to see if I could go stay with my aunt, uncle, and cousin at their house in Freeport, Maine for a weekend. They said “of course!” I took the train up to Boston on Thursday, where my aunt was in town for business, and we drove back together. Over the past four days I did:

• I learned “Imagine” on guitar, thanks to my uncle.
• Had two jam sessions including multiple guitars, a ukelele, and a mandolin.  
• Went to yoga
• Meditated
• Baked super kick-ass peanut butter chocolate chip granola bars.
• Baked double chocolate chip cookies.
• Cooked Indonesian-style fried rice with vegetables.
• Went to see David Byrne & St. Vincent at the State Theatre in Portland.
• Burned a CD from my family of a ton of Guster songs.
• Shopped: I bought three bras ($47!), jeans from the Gap (originally $60, on sale for $22), and super cute sandals from Bass (originally $90, on sale for $37)… among a few other things.
• Played Clue (yes, the board game) for the first time in FOREVER.
• Two days in a row I slept until the exceedingly late hour of 9AM. 

I had an excellent time. I’ll post pictures of food and the concert later. Now it’s back to real life!

New guitar pics.

I used nails and everything.

After three years in my apartment, I just resigned for another 2 years and finally decided to hang things on my walls, and do a few other things as well.  I had a few things hung where I was able to get nails into my walls but since my walls are concrete (like, legit concrete) that’s rather hard.  My parents were able to procure a super powered drill for the day thought and we went to work.  Here are some before and after shots.

Okay, so this is the alcove where my bed is, and I didn’t use nails here but how depressing was this bed?  We got a duvet cover and straightened up the pillows (most of which have to still be replaced though. It looks a lot less depressing though now, no? I’m still considering paining the one wall behind my bed pink. Thoughts?

This was my doorway.  More blah…

To the left of the door, I hung a scarf/hat rack and a framed picture of Neve Campbell and Wes Craven, signed by Wes Craven himself.  On the other side I hung a Be-In poster from the revival of Hair that I had signed in winter 2010, and next to that is an “eviction notice” from the party after the New York premiere for the movie version of Rent.  I thought it’d make people, on their way out, stop and say, “Huh? You’re being evicted?” I asked Anthony Rapp to sign it that night, and it reads, “Alli – pay your rent! Anthony.”

This is a wall in between my foyer and the “living room.”  I put quotes around living room because I live in a studio, and despite the fact that it’s a big studio, it’s all basically my living room.  I took down a few posters and decided to mount my electric guitar.

Above my TV and in between two book cases was a big blank white wall. For the longest time there was a poster that a former boyfriend of mine had given me from the Royal Opera House in London.  I was a bit tired of looking at it, so we hung these two photos, one of Washington Square Park at night that was taken by a friend of mine, and the other a piece of London art that my mom gave me a few years ago.

My desk area was a mess. It still kind of is, but it’s better now I think.  I moved my bulletin board to the side of the desk, and hung up three Green Day posters.  L-R: American Idiot in Berkeley, signed by the cast; Green Day at Madison Square Garden in 1994; American Idiot on Broadway, signed by the cast. It’s a little bit off center, but then again, so is Green Day.

What did I do this Memorial Day weekend?  Besides a 12 hour BBQ, Saturday night drinks on a boat, lots of yoga, and spray painting my amp hot pink, I wrote out the tab to the entirety of Jesus of Suburbia using this awesome video.  My guitar teacher has a [better?] way of writing out tab, but this [semi-ridiculous] method works for me when I’m teaching myself a song on my own without his assistance.  And yes, it took five pages to write it all out.  

I can play about half of it right now.  Kinda shoddily but I’m working on it.  It’s about 8 chords in all but Green Day likes to switch up the order they’re played in a LOT so I’m finding it’s a bit mind boggling sometimes (a lot of the time!).   

For now, I wish you all …. Rage x ❤

She’s the salt of the earth, and she’s dangerous.

Pink spray paint always makes me think of the song She’s a Rebel now.  I bought pink spray paint a couple of months ago and have been waiting until the weather warmed up to spray paint my amp.  Finally on Friday, I was off work early and my friend Ben offered to come help me finally transform my amp.  

I was inspired by the February issue of Premiere Guitar which featured a few dozen pink guitars and amps for a cause called The Pinkburst Project.  It’s commissioned by Jay Jay French (of Twisted Sister) to raise money and awareness for a disease called Uveitis, a disease responsible for ten percent of blindness in the US.  I own the Epiphone Les Paul that was designed and named for French, and since I don’t have the money to commission my own amp, I did the next best thing.  We covered the front speaker and anything electrical, and in about ten minutes, my boring black amp was now hot pink.  

I may, or may not, have spray painted a tiny heart on one of the bricks outside before we called it a night.