Winning?

This past Satruday, my lovely co-blogger, Jacquie, her man, Mr Can, and I went to a local radio station's "block party." Lucky for us the party was within walking distance of my house.

So after a pre-party cocktail, we walked ourselves down there. It was a really incredible October day, as they tend to be around these parts. There were two stages, so really no down time between bands, some food trucks, a bar, and a few local businesses marketing their wares.

Lucky for us, there were a couple of wheels to spin at these business tables. You know the kind, the spin-the-wheel-to-see-where-you-land-which-will-determine-what-specific-swag-you'll-walk-away-with wheel. The first one was, um, lame. They were offering ugly bumper stickers and the like, and when Jacquie suggested that she'd like to switch out her sub-par ugly bumper sticker swag, the snotty girls behind the table said it "wasn't allowed." Really? What, are your bosses videoing every spin of he wheel so as to make sure that people don't walk off with swag they didn't actually land on?! I mean, the horror! The nerve! Geez, Jacquie.

These girls were cute, and probably nice people, but unfortunately too young and stupid naive to realize their job was to promote the business, not police the wheel spins. We all walked away with nothing, and I now don't even remember the name of the business.

The second wheel we tried was much more fun. It was the Belly Up's (a local music venue) wheel, and they were giving away far better swag. Here's Jacquie's recent Facebook posting as proof:

I took a spin after her, and, baby, I was a winner too. My spin didn't quite land on "winner's choice," but it almost did, and I suggested we could pretend it did, so we did. (Apparently no big brother videoing going on at this table.) My "choice" turned out to be a choice of which two concert tickets to pick from a fat stack the guy behind the table pulled out.

After much deliberation and asking him a thousand questions about each band, I decided on a pair of tickets to see Vanessa Carlton. No, I'm not sure who she is either, but he suggested she was sort-of like Selena Ryder, who was on the day's lineup, and was really incredible. I thanked him profusely, put the tickets in my pocket, and proceeded to get drunk have a good time.

 The highlight of the day for me, was, not surprisingly, Michael Franti. He is such fun to see live. Totally high energy and animated. He is NOT afraid of the audience, and was out there with the people a few times, plus he had a whole crew up on stage with him by the end of the show.

We did not make it up on stage, but we did make contact with the big man (the guy is an incredible 6-foot-6 yogi god), which was, um, fun!

 And Jacquie and I did make it down to the stage to extend our up-close and personal time with Michael (and managing to piss off most of the security people while doing so).

I swear, you can see Jacqueline in this photo, look to the far right-hand side, third person in. Right?

And I do believe that is me, in the gray sweater and long hair in the left-ish corner:

Oh, and bigger and better, this one with my big, fat, clapping hands ;) (And Franti with a Surya mudra going on.)

Sadly, the concert ended, so we gathered our things, hit Stone Brewery to fuel up before the walk home, and eventually the night came to a close.

When I woke up, I grabbed my discarded jeans to pull out my lucky Belly Up tickets. What night were we doing to see Vanessa Carlton? Some night in mid-November was my recollection


Ha - this is what I found:

Doh! Winning?