lions and tigers and bears...oh my!!

so its been a pretty crazy past week and end.

tom and kamel (roomate and family) brought lauryn hill to town last thursday. 1st show sold out in 2hrs. I mean, it's lauryn hill. around 2PM I get a call at work. its kamel. hes like, are you ready? ready? ready for what?? well, lauryn needs 2 backup
singers...you down?

WTF?!?!?!? seriously? no. huh? wow.

apparently 2 of her 3 singers didnt make their flight which was why I had this opportunity. i had to be at sound check at 3:30PM. i was there at 3PM.

now im sure you've all heard that lauryn is in another place now a days. oh yeah, she is. you don't touch her, don't speak to her unless she speaks to you, don't make eye contact and you ALWAYS address her as ms. hill. but I don't feel like its hollywood like many people are thinking. she's really in a different mental place...

with that said, we didn't start sound check until like 3 or 4 hours later. the first show was to start at 8PM. ok, standing on a stage, holding a mic and singing (for like 1 min) with lauryn hill next to me and her 10 piece band behind me...RIDICULOUS!! well, they were able to find professional stand-ins so i ended up not being needed after all. BUT, it was still pretty amazing.

just being able to sound check with her was pretty phenomenal for me. i mean, i remember being 16 and saying that if i EVER did decide to sing, i would want to sing backup for lauryn hill. that specific. so yeah, pretty much my dream came true. how crazy is that!??!??! who can say that their dream, that thing you kind of put up there as probably could never happen but boy if it did... has come true?

the show itself was interesting. she played some miseducation... songs but shes given then a totally different. sounded pretty bad at first, but I think that once they get it all together, it will be pretty fantastic. the second show, that was suppose to start at 11PM, didnt start until 1AM and it was STILL packed at 1! thats the pull of lauryn. oh, i mean, ms. hill...

4th of july was great! went out to bolinas which is my own personal piece of heaven. its a small beach community of about 500 people that have all grown up together. Theres a huge tug-of-war between bolinas and stinson at like 9AM and then have a parade and then a street party in the center of town. ive decided that im an honorary bo-local :-) after that everyone goes to the beach and theres a huge family style beach party with local DJing and lots of dancing. my trips to bolinas are without exception, always refreshing and beautifully peaceful. this one was no different. it was utter perfection...

i think im going to be able to go to burning man this year! i cant even explain it. youll have to check it out : http://www.burningman.com/. kinda ridiculously awesome.

and how was your 4th of july?

peace