that boy was a monster

Everyone knows that the very epic "The Fame Monster" came out in 2009. The story of how I got a copy of the record is one of my favorites from my old job... just having my boss walk in and start rummaging through my purse after we bickered on Facebook about the record. And there it was, in my purse all of a sudden. Viola, surprise here's the CD you've been nagging me for, for like ever.

The whole album is a banger. It's amazing. This song though, popped out at me when we started playing it as a single early in the year.



I've definitely danced to this one a few times in 2010.

Sitting here in Bakersfield

Social Distortion has a new record coming out in 2011 and this song is on it.

It makes me giggle for many reasons, one of which being some old friends of mine were on tour with them when they wrote it. The boys I knew had a couple of days off from the tour and did a show with Guttermouth in San Luis Obispo and moved into my house for three days before we all headed out to Bakersfield so they could rejoin the tour and my roommate and I could see Social Distortion and of course support our friends.

I've seen Social D about 15 times. I think the Bakersfield show was the 15th, because I haven't seen them since. I was standing on the side of the stage at Stramler Park that night, it was summer and I was behind the little fence that keeps "the public" out sipping on a Coors light that someone had handed me and listening to this song for the first time, after learning it was only a few weeks old. I could see all the old people I used to know in town, some now married with their babies on their shoulders in the park and it was just a really great night.

I had a lot of nights like that back in 2005... It was probably the second most fun summer of my life after the summer of 1999, which was for the most part spent in Bakersfield.

I'll be back in Bakersfield next week for three days. Should be a good time. I won't have a car though, so I'm not sure how it's gonna work out. I don't have money to go out anyway so it's not that big of a deal.

the songs of 2010

I heard this song for the first time driving to work to pick up my time card some time back in March.

Sometime back in March... ha ha I know exactly when I heard it. The words slapped me in the face and I remember getting the phone out to Shazaam it and looking it up when I got to the office. There wasn't any one else there, it was a Saturday after all and I listened to it again while I filled out my unemployment stuff. Maybe twice more.

I remember just sitting there wondering how it was that someone had snuck into my head and stole all the thoughts I'd been having that week out of my head and put them to music. I remember really being sick of that happening at the time. (I later found out that Pink co-wrote this song and it made even more sense, homegirl reads my mind. I sleep in a tin foil hat to prevent it.)

It was kind of a chilly day and I left the station and went to the post office and then because like a lot of the time in the Spring of that year I didn't want to go home, because home made me sad and frustrated, I walked around downtown SLO and ended up in the Black Sheep probably talking to Rachel and maybe Nicole after that. You never know how long you can nurse a cocktail or a glass of iced tea until you absolutely do not want to go home.

Back to the song, this song is beautiful and I think we've all felt this way some time or another. And sue me I like Adam Lambert, a lot more than I thought I would when the American Idol buzz was going on (I still have yet to watch an entire episode of that show. Or well any of it. I know how it works exclusively from the internet.) Anyway this is yet another song that was part of the sound track of 2010.

Heather.

Heather may have never remembered me, but I will always remember her. She was around during the best part of my Bakersfield life, the Misbliss days... Heather was the goddess that was my friend's wife.

Heather was a gorgeous, talented, brave, warrior woman. She was an Amazon. She may have even loved us little goth rock rug rats. What I do know is she was always extremely kind to me and a hell of lot of fun to be around.

I feel horrible because I heard what happened while I was home for Thanksgiving but it didn't click who had passed away, because of the way I got the information and because I never knew Heather by her birth last name, but as my friend's wife. My friend's last name.

Heather was never intimidating to me because she was so (excuse me) fucking inspiring to me. I loved her in this very little girl crush way. Because she was so brave and so sure of who she was. She wasn't at least in my eyes scared of anything or anyone. She was my own personal Siouxsie Sioux. I'll never forget her and a lot of my friends won't either.

Tell the people you love that you love them every day. Tell them constantly. Tell them until you're mute and they're deaf. Never let anyone you love slip away. Never let anyone you remotely care about feel alone. Never be afraid to tell people you idolize that you love them, that you care. Never. It's messy and embarrassing but it's real. Be real. Be strong. Be an Amazon.

This. When I think of Heather, this is what I think of:

It's the end of the year

It's the end of the year almost, which is when the "end of the year top whatevers" lists come out.

I'm not going to do that here. What I am going to do is recount some of the songs that define 2010 for me. I may not post every day, but this was quite a year for me and I have a lot of memories centered around music.

Back in January of this year I was quite aware that my life was completely different than it had been in years previous. My taste in music changed in part because of where I worked, where I hung out, who I hung out with and in part because rock music was kind of dead to me at that time last year. Nothing spoke to me.

I was also kind of sad and for some reason hearing this bad ass bad girl anthem from a girl who had gone through a really rough time in the public eye, I don't know it was inspiring and fun and for awhile this song was my theme song. I know I must have spun it on the air a million times, but I listened to it in my car, or on my iPod when I was running. It was the beat, it was the lyrics, it was the toughness, it was Rihanna who I love... Anyway I will always think of the early part of 2010 when I hear this song, driving home from the radio station in the dark, wondering if anything was ever going to change.

we'll be young forever

A year ago I was in a really really weird place.

Deeply unhappy at home but no idea how to express that I was feeling that way. It seemed impossible after all, how could I be unhappy? I'd just gone back to work, had started getting my body back, had a cute house, great friends, I wasn't single and I thought I was in love.

That sounds shitty when I say it that way. I was in love with him. That's true.

When I wasn't working, I didn't long for much but work. That year "off" was really hard on me both emotionally and physically. I guess I just stopped wanting anything but to go back to work and every failed job interview or resume I sent out without getting an answer was devastating. I was pretty sure I was never going to work again actually. I'd just about given up. The week I went in to interview to work at Wild, I had also applied at Starbucks, a jewelry store, a personal assistant, a receptionist... I'd even taken a job I thought was going to be rad at a "publicists" agency, which turned out to be nothing more than a bunch of spoiled rich kids playing "office." (Yeah I said it, wanna fight?) I left after two days.

Under all of this stress, this depression, this rudderlessness, I didn't notice that back at the ranch things were going sour in my love life. Because I didn't have the energy to worry. It was there. He hadn't left in the middle of the night and taken the cat. I was so focused on getting a job again and getting "me" back, that it was almost all I had energy for. Beyond the crying jags and the three or four trips I took to do things I never had time for while working just to do SOMETHING.

So I got the job at Wild. And the fog lifted and I started... I don't know mingling with my kind again. I didn't know how STARVED I was to talk about radio, to talk about music, to just talk about bitchy office bull-ish until there was one day I was at work and I made my boss laugh or something. We had started telling radio stories. In a weird way me and the boys in the back became the Three Amigos or something, because there we were in our little pirate ship doing what we love at any means neccesary. I don't know who did what first but by the time I went home for Thanksgiving, I knew I had a solid foundation back home. Friends. Brothers. People that opened my eyes to two things: I am not that bad and I am alive.

By Christmas, I knew... things weren't ever going to be the way they were again at home, no matter how hard I tried. Because I was someone else again. I was me, and not this defeated little thing. I'll tell you right now I walked into my last job not knowing shit. I knew how to talk on the radio and how to boss my boss around (ha ha, kinda) but not really how to do my actual job. I learned on the fly, on fire, with a team of cheerleaders and from one of the coolest mofo's I've ever known. It was very SoCal touchy feely but they let me in, they held me up and taught me everything they knew. Changed my life really. By Christmas I knew that my heart had changed it's mind and I had to do something with myself.

I didn't know last Thanksgiving, that a year later I'd be here, in Chico, hundreds of miles from everyone who made this possible, doing something I had always said I could do (and did do for awhile) and doing it better than a lot of people will ever let on. I have the professional gig I always wanted more or less. I made friends with lightening fast speed, I am seriously shocked myself, I'm a goober, I don't even want to hang out with me. I tried so many new things and met so many great people and formed my own little radio family up here as well.

And then there's the happiest accident of all, Ben. Last year I wouldn't see myself here, getting ready to go out to tacos with my boyfriend on a random Thursday night because we've been so good living off of boxed meals and staying home (or homes I guess, we don't live together) for over a week! There's a lot to be said for this boy, but the most important part of it is, he sees me for exactly who I am. He knows when I'm broke or simply too overwhelmed to function and he just fixes it. Brings me groceries because he knows I'll just not eat before trying to figure out how to go to the grocery store on 10 bucks, helps me with the dishes, brought me a vaccuum cleaner when I couldn't get mine back from the coast... I don't ask, he just does. I never thought of myself as the girlfriend of a grad student, a teacher, a hydrologist, a scientist, a beer snob who loves to eat Ethnic meals, a lover of music and movies who gives the best hugs in Chico? Forget it, I never would've imagined it.

Doesn't mean it's not awesome. Doesn't mean I'm not happy.

A year ago I was lost and a group of people took me in and gave me the tools to find my own way home. I may still be traveling, in fact I know I am, but I'm closer than I was before.

on a Mansion World

A long time ago there was this band Deadsy. My friend Russ got me into them back in 2000 when he took me to one of their first public shows. Actually it was before that, we were going to the Orgy "Vapor Transmissions" signing and he told me about this band he found searching Orgy on Limewire or Napster or whatever thing that isn't around any more. We went to see Deadsy about 3 months later at the Roxy Theatre in West Hollywood. It was the only show I ever got to see where Craig "the Beast" Riker played because unlike a lot of the old school "Legions" I didn't live in Los Angeles.

You wouldn't think so, but this band ended up actually changing my life. Like on a very real level. During the eight years I ran around in their circles I met some people who are still my family, my heart to this day. I've met Legions from all over the country, either that have flown in for a show or just flown to California to meet friends from the band's message board.

There are stories.... They are epic. For instance I met my former roommate and my best friend Jennifer through this band. My closest neighbor here in Chico, the amazing Casey Bowden up in Redding? Met him through this band. Susan, my gorgeous girlfriend who I've spent many a lost weekend with? Definitely through the Deadsy experience.

At first it was about the music. Getting what we thought was this crazy amazing band some exposure. Then honestly it became about the people. The boys in the band (well most of them) were down to Earth and more than happy to hang out with their fans. The fans were all dedicated and maybe we were not the coolest kids on the block at home but we made our own little world. There was message board royalty. Seriously. There were the people you always wanted to meet when you went to shows, either because of their pictures or posts or how rad they were in the weekly Deadsy chats and later because of their Myspace pages or whatever...

A few days ago one of the former board members, Stillbirth was one of his more popular handles, started a group on Facebook called "Deadbook," and we've all been meeting up on there and talking and sharing pictures and stories from the old days and it's almost like no time has passed at all. For some of these people this is like their high school reunion. For me it's like a family reunion. I can absolutely say that these kids saved my sanity when I went through a really shitty break up back in 2007. I was running the West Coast street team when "Phantasmagore" came out and I had to watch the board, mail posters, go to shows, meet people and make phone calls. When I wasn't working at the radio station I was doing Deadsy shit. And it was the only way I didn't go absolutely crazy. Because even if I was sad or depressed about my situation, these kids wanted to talk to me on the phone or chat online. We shared each other's lives. I knew what was going on in each and every one of their lives and they knew mine, even people I've never met. We bonded over this band and then took each other in.

By the time the ride was over, it wasn't even about the amazing music anymore. It was about the amazing people, the great times, and the feeling that at least for awhile, we all had each other. Most of these people are still my friends. Even people that haven't listened to a Deadsy record in years, I still talk to them. Actually it's funny Carlton, one of the guys in the band plays with Berlin part time now, and I saw him back in SLO before I moved and I hadn't seen him for more than five minutes in probably four years and it was like no time at all had passed. He's one of the great ones. I am grateful I got to spend a little bit with him before I moved up here.

And I'm grateful to L for bringing this group online again. I missed the constant interaction and I'm glad that at least for a little while, we're all together again.

This was filmed at the first show I ever went to.

Day 02 – Your first love, in great detail

This is easy.

My first love was Christopher Michael Page. He's dead now. He killed himself two years ago and tomorrow would've been his 32nd birthday.

Pause...

I met Chris when I was 14. Fourteen. I turned fifteen about two weeks after started dating. Chris was one of those magic people that like... change everything. He had so much inside of him, so much art and poetry and creativity and laughter. I can still hear his laugh like... wow.

It was really innocent, the way we loved each other. Innocent and fast. One day we were just boyfriend and girlfriend, we did the whole holding hands and kissing and giggling. One day we were just having four hour phone calls every night and one night I remember him finally telling me he loved me and I didn't even know I had wanted to hear those words from this wonderful boy who made me mix tapes, drove a funky little car and never took anything seriously. But I did and it was awesome.

We were suburban innocent teens. We were cooler than the room at all times. We were a people of our own language. And we were happy. Incredibly happy and in this first rush of love that lasted almost the entire time we were together.

And then we weren't together. Stupid high school stuff. We might have even gotten back together if I had tried. But we slipped easily into the friends mode, a place we stayed for the rest of his life. When shit broke, I ran to him, just like that. And he was always ready to listen. To take me for a slice of pie at Lyons. To meet me for a drink at the Padre. To be my Christmas at the Mint pseudo date... Chris always kept a piece of my heart, he took some of it with him when he left.

The last time I saw him was at the Mint over a Christmas. Maybe even Christmas Eve. I can't remember. I remember being embarrassed a little bit because we were all so ridiculously drunk and he and I ended up kissing in this really silly drunk sloppy way out on the back patio. OH EM GEE, how could I? And in hindsight I'm glad I did. And now in light of things, I'm glad I told him I loved him and held that last hug a little longer than is normal with old friends. I can still remember what he smelled like, the way it sounded when he laughed and how that hug felt.

This boy has gone from the world for two years now... his number is still in my cell phone.

I miss him every single day. But I couldn't have asked for a better first love if I'd gone to some movie script writer and said make me a rom/com.

So there you go.

30 days meme

So there is this meme going around the internets where you blog on certain subjects for 30 days. I have decided to do this! Shocking, I know.

I'll actually be posting two days of it at once right now though, since I started it yesterday and just didn't post it.

I'm Stephanie. I'm 31. I just moved to Chico, CA for a job

I like music (who doesn't) playing radio, kissing boys, eating sushi and laying in the sun on a nice day and getting a tan. I will probably die of skin cancer by the time I am 50 and I simply do not give a crap about it. Not giving a crap is one of my other hobbies, by the way.

I like mystery. I like getting inside peoples minds. Sometimes great conversation is better than anything. I like fashion and other shallow, vain things. I fell in love with pop music. I love a good mix DJ. I love people who create something out of nothing, in fact it's about the sexiest thing there is. I love people who LOVE. I love people with gorgeous beautiful minds. I know a few, you know?

I love my iphone. I love pictures.

I have this cat Lily Monster Boo Face Kitty Meow who is the raddest thing in the world. Seriously, she's so gangsta, it's ridiculous.

I'm a total Daddy's girl. Sue me. My two sisters are the coolest women on Earth and put me to shame with their powers of awesome.

My friends... man I have a collection of flame throwingly awesome friends. They're even more badass than a robot dinosaur pirate ninja zombie. No joke. They rock the free world.

I love fancy things.

I am a dork. Sci Fi dork. Radio dork. Seattle Seahawks fan dork. I can explain the rules of baseball. I like martinis. I like dying my hair. My favorite book in the free world is Francesca Lia Block's "Wasteland." I read it probably once a month, no joke.

My headphones are my babies. Radio is my life. I hate wearing shoes.

This entry is lame, but I'll get to the good questions in good time I guess.

time

Yesterday I had to get into the boxes in my closet to look for something and lo and behold I found my box of year books and some photos that I thought I had lost and for a second I was super giddy and couldn't wait to go through them all. And so I popped open this box and sat down on my bed and started digging through it. I mean I haven't seen some of this stuff in over two years.

Process that for a minute.

Two years ago the majority of the people in my yearbooks were alive and well and looking through them probably wouldn't have taken my breath away, but it did yesterday.


I miss Chris every day. Probably more this time of year, because it would be his birthday still if he was still around.

Still around... man I was going through that box yesterday and here is all this physical evidence that my friend, my beautiful amazingly talented, funny, creative, caring friend once walked the planet Earth and made it a far sillier, far out, awesome place to live. And it made me sad because he's not here anymore and then it made me angry...

I can't ever say I will ever understand what happened. What I can say is I will never forget this sparkly eyed, wide smiling, sort of bratty boy who taught me so much and to whom I owe so much. I miss you Chris, still.

More music I like that no one else does

music and i

Music makes me dopey. This is a point of fact, a very important thing to know about knowing me. I meet people and wham a song is usually attached to them immediately. Or several songs in some cases. I mean music is around me all of the time and I will be in the middle of a situation and hear some song and think to myself "This song belongs to you and I and this place and time." You do do it too by the way, you probably just aren't as hyper aware of it as I am.

There were a couple of songs that just killed me when I was living in SLO, especially during that last month or so while going through the interview process and the leaving process. I won't say who or what they remind me of but when they come on, I can remember exactly what I was doing when I first heard them, who I was talking to, what was going on in my life, etc.

There was a lot going on back then. Behind the scenes I mean, stuff I'll never blog about because it's not just my story to tell, you know? And it wasn't anything horrible or dangerous or bad really, just stuff I didn't know how to process.

Anyway, there is this one Train song we used to play and pretty much every time I hear it I want to laugh. Or cry. Or track Train down and rip their faces off for ever writing it and putting it in my life, because it's like they straight up sucked it out of my head and are making millions of dollars off of it in a way.

I heard it again this morning, doing the Music Choice thing on my cable, and man... I had to sit down for a second. I let myself forget sometimes how much I miss certain people. Because you have to, sometimes, you just have to. Today, I guess I was just reminded how much I miss some people. And honestly that's all the detail you're going to get from me on that.

PS Eff Train. Eff Music Choice and Eff my brain. KTHNXBYE

back into your head

When I lived in San Luis Obispo, my home "office," as it were was the Black Sheep Bar and Grill on Chorro. It wasn't always the case but during my employment drought a friend of mine started working the day shift there and a couple of times a week just to get out of the house, I'd take my laptop or a book up there and go hang out with John while he worked. John and I would shoot the bull about music and I'd get to talk to someone other than my cat for an hour or so.

John moved on to another job about the same time I started working at Wild and Nicole came back from her hiatus. I love Nicole. Since the Sheep is a lunch spot too, I'd stop in and see her a couple of times a week and have the vegetarian chili and talk music and fashion and Hello Kitty and of course boys, I mean what is good girl time without gossip about boys. Also the Black Sheep became our after work happy hour spot. No idea why, there are a million bars in SLO county, but Teresa and I would go to the Sheep after work for a Safety Meeting, which was basically us whining about our jobs and boys. Hey what's girl time without some whining about boys? You know this is 50% of what we do, when you're not around guys...

While I was making the transition from SLO to Chico I used to go the Black Sheep and make phone calls on their back patio. AT&T picked that week to just destroy service in my home area, so my phone was useless at the house. I had to go to SLO for one thing or another every day anyway, so I just blocked out time to sit in the back where it was quiet and do my thing. And gossip with Nicole about my plans and sometimes, yeah I'd get weepy and scared and Nicole was always ready to tell me I was doing the right thing, that I was going to be great and that I was going to be happy, just like a good friend does. And a couple of weeks ago she sent me a card that made me laugh so hard...

It's funny to think you can miss a bar. And really it's not the bar I miss, it's the familiarity, the friendships I made with a few people who worked there and the ability to walk in, ask for "something red," to drink (I tried that here, man that didn't go as well as I would have liked) and pick up mid conversation where you left off.

It's a Monday morning, which was normally a Black Sheep lunch day for me. Vegetarian chili, Tegan and Sara, Betsy Johnson bags, gossip gossip gossip and a hug to get my week started. I miss it.

this one time

A long time ago, the last time I was a single girl in the world, this song was very very popular.



I remember one time, driving home from a date,(this one of course more promising than the last, ain't that always the way? Ha) and hearing it. It was summer time, wasn't it always back then and I had my windows down and was driving down the 101 back to Grover Beach and for a minute, just one minute, I felt like I was in a movie, or that life was always going to be the most beautiful thing or even, I don't know, my own little happy ending was out there...

That freeway, that person (good lord this was at least six five or six years ago, right?) and that time is gone. But I still love this song...

in my head

Last year when I went to work at Wild and the Beach I told myself I was not going to get into that trap where I hated the music without giving it a chance. As a result I got into pop music and yay, sometimes this is just what you need. I mean I'm all for listening to Joy Division in a dark room and all that, but sometimes you're going to go out, you're going to party and you want to be in an up mood when you hit the town.

Anyway I'm late to the party on this one. I played this song on Wild and heard it every day for awhile but it wasn't until it came on the other day, I was driving down Cohassat with my windows down for the first time in awhile since moving here blaring a CD (I know right?) that I picked up at Target because it was pretty much all the music I was missing from the radio station back home. And it was sort of like hearing this song for the first time again, only I already knew all the words.

It reminds me of a really happy time, a special time in my career, which while at first I thought was doomed, ended up being just what I needed. And all the hours I put in for free and all the hustlin' and working free events or just going to clubs to show my boys there that I had their backs? Man so worth it.

So here you go... enjoy a little piece of the year of my life before I came to Chico. Those pink Long Islands (what are they, Long Beach Iced Teas?) watching the night blow up from up inside the booth and of course sometimes even dancing to songs like this...

music

Music is completely weird sometimes. Like it can throw you for a loop every so often and today, no exception.

Yesterday when I was deciding what we'd play here today, I didn't think about what I was sticking in one of our retro feature spots and dumped a song in and moved on. Today doing my show though, I realized what song it was and when it came out and how much it reminds me of my friend Chris who passed away two years ago.

Passed away... man I hate that term. I hate all the terms that describe what happened to him though, because they all mean he isn't here right now and that I miss him in an entirely different way than I did when he just lived in another state. Such is the way of the world.

I signed the paper work to come work up here on the two year anniversary of the day we lost him. How's that for freakin' weird?

Anyway, enjoy this little slice of my teenage life, and a little peek into what this one boy I love who just isn't with us anymore and I used to listen to....

365 days later...

This is me on the last day of being 30 years old. Tomorrow I turn 31, if I like it or not. Oddly enough although I dreaded my 30th birthday like I was going to the gallows, being 30 ended up being kind of a roller coaster ride of sorts...

365 days ago I wasn't working. I didn't think I'd ever work again to be honest, I was ready to get a job (shudder) outside of radio and just do what I had to do. I wasn't particularly happy with my weight, my situation in life and I just sort of felt like... well like being 30 was going to just suck.

Then about a month into it, my friend Teresa called me. She'd been working at some radio group in town and they had an opening. And I applied and through some miracle of miracles I got that job and went to work with a bunch of people I've come to think of as my family. I made new friends, I became closer with friends I already had (hello Teresa is my SISTER these days, yo) I tried new things and started running, for my health, not because a big damn bear was chasing me.

And then another job came along. And it was like job Christmas, this was the job I'd been waiting for my whole life and suddenly there it was. Waiting for me to come take it and take a big scary leap. Which I did, because hey, what's life but a series of big scary leaps, one right after the next? So off I went.

So here I am. 30 for just a few more hours. It's a trip to think about how much has changed in just one year and to think how many people became so important to me in that short time and really touched my life. I just feel blessed. And oddly enough calm about turning 31. I have a feeling everything is just getting started for me...

The last great San Luis Obispo mystery

When I was working in SLO at Mapleton part of my job was to cut up and load this talk show hosted by a guy named Karel for our AM station. Karel is an openly gay liberal talk show host and his show is GREAT. Seriously if you're still in SLO or a market that broadcasts him, listen dude, he's fantastic (he also pod casts!)

Anyway part of loading the shows was listening to his bumper music which for lack of a better word was always FABULOUS! My former boss and I would crack up at all the Timbaland and Justin Timberlake and Cher going out over the AM airwaves, but Karel had this one song that Jo would sing all the time and we never knew who did it. Why I never thought of looking it up via the lyrics while I was still in SLO, I'll never ever know. Probably because when we were joking and singing this song, I didn't think two weeks later I'd be 300+ miles away.

At any rate, yesterday some conversation I was having with someone brought this song back up in my mind and I was determined to figure out who the hell sang it and I finally did! Yay me!





Enjoy

stuff i mentioned on the air

I think it was today, I was telling the story about one of the times I met Godsmack. I can't remember if it was today or yesterday or five minutes ago. I'm just in a constant state of exhaustion these days. What year is it again? Who are you people?

Oh right, Godsmack. Here's a picture of that.



This was in like 2000 I think.

A few years later they came to Santa Barbara and I met the rest of the band.



So there, my rock radio cred. Or something. It's Friday and I'm beyond exhausted.

Michael Jackson

Today is the one year anniversary of Michael Jackon's death. I can't say I was a huge Michael Jackson fan growing up. I recognized good music and that he made amazing videos and was a great dancer but I was more of a Prince kid.

However I do remember where I was when we heard that he died. I was sitting in the Black Sheep with Kristin and Todd and we were getting ready to go see Transformers 2 (which in hindsight we should've just stayed at Black Sheep watching CNN.) It was just one of those surreal moments that you will always kind of remember where you were. And that's where I was.



This is my favorite Michael Jackson song. So here you go.