Goo Goo Dolls 11/7/11

Chiro-sis & I saw the Goo Goo Dolls at the National Theatre on Monday. WOO-HOO!  AWESOMEness. Last time we were up front, but this time we decided to go to the balcony. I've never done that except for U2 in a stadium, so it was a different experience. We came in at the end of the opening act & found our place further back. We had a great view of the stage, and it's not like we would miss the wall of sound from anywhere in that theatre. One of the best things was the music playing before the GGD came on. They played Magnificent Seven by The Clash! Back in college (the first time) I made a T-shirt that said, "Vacuum cleaner sucks up budgie. Oh nooooooo!"  Good times. So chiro-sis & I were bobble-heading along. Here are few pix from the show:

Guess which song they're playing? 

Something about a black balloon, perhaps?  ;-)

We kind of found ourselves in the family section. These 2 girls were there with their dad. And yes, they had ear plugs. Good job, Dad!

The only thing I tweeted was about making fish faces at one of the girls.  ;-)

Aaaaand more pix:

So I went back 'n' forth between taking pix & filming. Toward the END of the concert, this usher girl comes up during Become & tells me there's no videotaping allowed. Hahahaha Are you kidding me?  Usher Girl, meet the Goo Goo Dolls. What randomness that I got singled out, and she was so serious; which of course I found v. amusing.

I wasn't planning on doing a YouTube post because the sound quality on my camera isn't the best. However, I did post this because Johnny does a funny bit of giving away his clothes:



Me: They played all my favourite songs.
XM Radio Guy:  Of course they did.

Goo Goo Dolls Report

You may recall from Tuesday's post that I was headed to the Goo Goo Dolls concert with chiro-sister & friend Tereasa. As Tereasa & I were walking to the theatre, the tour bus was parked there. I said, "Quick, Tereasa! Go pretend you're going in & I'll snap your picture!" But she wouldn't. So I did:

This was the best of 2 tries with my camera. 1988 Hali would have been on the bus. 2010 Hali took a nap, ate some DSF, and drank 3 cups of PG Tips to stay awake for the concert!

Tereasa managed to be one of 15 picked for the GGD meet 'n' greet. AWESOME! And perfect for her 40th b-day. She took a little gift bag with good-for-you chocolate & I gave her some Virtual Massage CD's to give them. All right, let's get comfortable . . . .

Tereasa with the boys. :-)

On the way to the concert, Tereasa was telling me about the annoying couple at 2 of the other GGD concerts she's been to. "This HUGE guy was right in front & I couldn't see, etc. etc." Well. Guess who was there? HUGE Guy right in front who would periodically leave & come back with more drinks for his drunken tribe. There was this cute little group of girls near him & when he left they would shift over. All 6 of them.

All a part of the concert experience; I'm still amazed that I escaped without a beer bath! This is one of several photos where I took a photo and HUGE Guy's arm would block my shot. There's Johnny's guitar poking out at the mid-region of HUGE Guy's flabby tricep.

HUGE Guy's arm also made guest appearances in my videos.

The opening band was apparently a v. popular boy-band. Before the concert I was reading the band name on the drum kit. Rocket Swimmer? Is that a euphemism for something? But no, I was misreading it. They were called Rocket Summer.

Oh.

Is that a euphemism for something?

Anyway, they were very cute & the lead singer reminded me of Bono in his early days. No white flag to march around, but he was very hands-on with the audience & there were a few people singing along to the songs. They were prolly thinking, "Yeah! We're going to see Rocket Summer but they're opening for some band. I dunno--the Goo Goo Something-or-other." ;-) And then!
The GGD took the stage.

Chiro-sister & I wore our Tereasa B-day T-shirts. At the start of the concert, I pointed to my T-shirt & Johnny squinted & read: "Happy Birthday Tereasa." This was the moment to have my video running--but no! I missed it! I did get the rest of what he said, which was: "You know who else's birthday it is today? That's right, Hitler."

*sigh*

The whole night people were telling me & chiro-sister, "Happy birthday, Tereasa." Hahahahaha After the third one, I stopped explaining that I wasn't Tereasa. ;-)

Look! Those heads are sprouting a bass player (Robbie)

They played all my favourite songs and-and-and! It was just an AWESOME concert. Worth the drunk people and the sticky floor and all of it.

I'll leave you with a few shots of Johnny: (You're welcome)

Loved the gauzy back drop!

Let love in.

UPDATE: Someone else got the Happy Birthday Tereasa Moment! Click HERE. YAY!!! "You know whose birthday it is? Yours." Hahahahaha

So Alive

Warning: For Goo Goo Dolls fans only. So if you are not a fan, you will prolly not be interested. If you are, you can read about my past Goo Goo Doll concerts, etc. HERE.

OK, ready?

The Goo Goo Dolls have a new album coming next month. Woo and hoo! They sang a new song for the first time over the weekend. I was struck with the differences in the versions that showed up on YouTube. Shot from different angles and distances, as well as how the song was edited. All offer different perspectives.

This was the first version I saw from GooChick:

I was thinking there's a point where the lighting is SO GREEN and just a bit unflattering. Yes, this is what I'm thinking during the first live performance of my new-favourite song. 

Here's the next one from Banker Lady, sitting in the balcony:

Here's another perspective  AND a bit before the song from HeatherGoo:

And of course here's my favourite because it shows a bit before the song. It's not the best visual quality, but this one gives a bit of the concert experience:

I don't expect anyone reading this blog to watch all these videos--but now I have them all in one place.  And here's a bonus:

New Years Rezzies

T'is the season to stop an old habit or start a new one tomorrow, isn't it?

It's right up there with birthdays that end in a zero.

I woke up this a.m. with the Goo Goo Dolls in my head singing Jalfreda. Yeah, and for you fans out there, you're thinking, Whaaaa? That's not a Goo Goo Dolls song. And you would be right, because it's not "Jalfreda", the name of some gal from the Norse. John Rezzie is actually singing Yeah, I'm fadin'. But there I am in the car singing at the top of my lungs, Jalfreda! Because I didn't hear the whole thing. I misinterpreted. But now I have more information, I've updated the file, as Dave Dobson likes to say. And I'm singin' Yeah, I'm fadin'....

Which brings me to this thought:
Sometimes we don't have all the information or we misinterpret. Often it's on an Other-Than-Conscious level so that our OTC mind links up something from an event and that's WHY we have a behaviour, habit or pattern. The problem with WHY is that the mind will come up with a million reasons and then our conscious mind gets into a loop of excuses or justifications. Or we give up.

*sigh*

This time last year I was fat. FAT. There are lots of reasons I could give. I was even asked by someone, Why did you let yourself go? Really, there's no good way to ask that. And certainly not more than once. Because what it really means is Why are you so fat? Of course, nothing has meaning and everything has the meaning we give it. Still. That's how I interprelated it.

I don't know how heavy I was because I got to that point where I didn't want to know. You know? But I stopped buying number sizes when my size 16's got too tight and I transitioned to stretchy XL's. And when I was heading into the XXL's, I decided I needed to do something. So I listened to my labyrinth CD every night with the intention not to lose weight, but to be healthy. And to pay attention to what my body needed from me: mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually.

There are a few changes I made specifically in terms of diet, exercise, etc. that I'll save for my next post. Most importantly is that I didn't do it through willpower, I went to the source: the OTC. I bypassed the conscious mind and communicated and updated and worked with my OTC mind. It makes it so much easier when you have the cooperation of the part of you that guides your patterns in the first place. THANKS, Dave.

And now John Morgan has a new CD I Love My Body, which I've written about before. This is what I'm listening to to keep me a size M, size 10.

Hallo from Marietta, GA!

I've no uploadability for photos, so they'll have to wait. I'm spending a coupla days with Dr. David Lee. It's turned into a more e-x-t-e-n-d-e-d visit than first planned. I got laryngitis during the Jerry Stocking seminar (more on that later) and it wasn't until this a.m. that I finally stopped denying I've been sick. "It's just laryngitis." The last time I did that, it turned into pneumonia while I was going through massage school, so I thought it best to address it. I'll say more about it when I have photos. Suffice it to say, I'm MUCH better, and should be leaving tomorrow...sometime...whenever...ish.

And now for something completely different...Jerry Stocking through the door of the Goo Goo Dolls:

It takes 36 muscles to smile, and only 4 to stick up your middle finger. ~John Rzeznik
Well, that's how I felt a couple times as I got pissed off. But we're never angry for the reasons we think we are, and it's really just patterns we're running. So I got over it. Eventually. By Day 3 I lost my voice, another pattern. Did that stop the excruciating 3-minute videotape where I had to answer the question What's it like to be you? NO. D'oh!

Jerry showed us Prince's performance at the superbowl where he sang in the rain. He said who else could pull that off? The Goo Goo Dolls at their 4th of July concert, of course. IN THE (non-purple) RAIN.

Everything's wrong, but it's all right. Jerry says if you deny the downside, you ignore 50% of life. And we make ourselves miserable wishing for things to be other than they are. I was struggling through some things [see Rezzie quote above] but I'm stepping out of my own way. I'm making a space not to have to know.

Name My only reference for models is The Devil Wears Prada. A v. famous one was at the seminar. I didn't know her name before, but I recognized her from magazines. Think about what your perceptions might be about models: Now throw them away.

Jerry sent us on a day-long scavenger hunt of sorts. We had to:
*see a dead body or lie in a coffin
*eat a bug [Eeeeewwww!!!]
*buy a pair of shoes for $5 or less and then negotiate a lower price.
*give the shoes to someone who needed them
*sing a song to some senior citizens
*donate an hour's worth of service [I took my percussor to the community center]
*tell a joke to 5 different people:

How many surrealists does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Fish.

Yeah, I got nothin'. I followed up with my favourite knock-knock joke:

Knock Knock
Who's there?
Olive.
Olive who?
Olive you.

*give & receive a hug/kiss from a man and a woman
*get on the radio or TV [60 second interview on the radio]
*get a free lunch
*make a bet with someone
DO ALL OF THIS WHILE STAYING IN PHYSICAL CONTACT WITH YOUR PARTNER.

That last part was v. challenging, especially getting in/out of the car! But we did it all--except for the bug-eating. The first was the dead body. We went to a funeral home and the director kept saying, I think ya'll are on something. So we showed him our list. I think y'all are on something. But he showed us Miss G. who was 2 days shy of her 92nd birthday. Did you know that you can't lie in a coffin? They have steel bars and aren't good for your back. You know, because they're made for dead people. My partner didn't think our free lunch at the community center counted (we attended a going-away party and they had food). We stopped at the end of our v. long day to get tea. Everything is always better when you have a cup of tea, and we were both exhausted. So we went to Crapplebee's first. Not only could we not get a free cup of tea, we couldn't get a server. I counted 8 TV's in the room, and it was so noisy. Not conducive to tea-drinking, anyway. I found a Mom 'n' Pop diner and they had homemade cheesecake with blueberry topping (YUM!!!) Pinkey, the gal behind the counter asked us about our day, and we showed her the list. There was a sign on the counter about entering for a free lunch, and I pointed to it for my partner and said, "Here's your free lunch." Pinkey said, "Would your tea and cheesecake count?" YES!!! So we got 2 free lunches. :-) All in all, an AMAZING day. When we got back, we recounted our experiences to the rest of the group. Then Jerry gave us each a single adjective that we had to use in lieu of any other adjectives. Mine was substantial. Others were terrible, questionable, delicious.

Back to the bug: I realized after talking to Delicious that I had made scary bug-eating pictures in my head. She said, "Just a little, tiny one. No chewing, swallowed with water, very fast." Oh. I was making HUGE pictures in my head of spiders and other creepy-crawlies. How many gnats have I inhaled and swallowed accidentally?! I also was the only person who didn't swim in the pond. Eeewww!!! I made it colder and ickier than it was. When Jerry challenged me to go to jump into the pond, I did it. Thanks to Delicious for going with me. She even offered me her bathing suit except that she couldn't find it. So I took off the top layers and ran in. Not as bad as I had made it out to be. I will remind myself of this when I'm making other molehills into mountains and bugs into watermelons.

So that's all I'll write for now. I'm at Dr. Lee's again tomorrow a.m. and then I'll be on the road on my way back home. Unless I'm not. Will stop in to see the rellies in Richmond. [Treasure hunt a huge hit!] Until then...adieu.

P.S. John Morgan is having a half-off sale with FREE shipping for ALL his products!!! The marketing dept. is streamlining all the products and getting rid of the old packaging (same recordings). Personal faves are Self-Image, I Love My Body, Relax in 2 Minutes. You may want to go see for yourself now. ;-)

Goo Goo Dolls Graphic

This is a graphic I did for "Come to Me," by the Goo Goo Dolls:

 I got the graphic from The Graphics Fairy, which has almost any kind of graphic, drawing, photograph you can think of, copyright free. Lots of crafty-types use her site. You know the kind; with their glue guns and stencils and printing on fabric.  ;-)  

England, Part 3: Birmingham & The Goo Goo Dolls!

Mum will roll her eyes and ignore this post. Stay with me for a bit, Mum.

Brother Atlasta & I went to Birmingham to see the Goo Goo Dolls, who just happened to be on their U.K. tour with Flesh for Lulu. We had some time before the concert, so we went into this church:

Outside of the church.

And then we went into some shops:

I told him to do something to illustrate "BAM". 

This was the venue where the concert was:

OK, this is prolly where you can stop reading, Mum.  ;-) The rest of us shall carry on.

Jolly good.

Flesh for Lulu. Such a blast from the past! I saw them the last time I was in London in 1985.

Everywhere we went, people assumed we were married. Ha! And then would doubley-apologize with "I'm tebbly sorry" or "dreadfully sorry" or something else very politely British.

I posted this even tho it's blurry.  Hehhhh . . . but look how IN-FOCUS that guy's ear is in front of me! But I posted it because John Rzeznik is a pretty funny guy. And Atlasta said that it was a good concert and also like going to a comedy show.

As John Morgan said to me, "You'd have to be a real fan to like these."

Someone else posted a decent clip, tho:

Is it just me? I swear I heard him say "Something-something-something" in there. 

So here's another clip talking about accents:

And here's a song, but the sound quality isn't that great, so to re-quote John Morgan, for "real fans."

We stood in line with some die-hard fans; a coupla gals from Germany. Oh yeah? WE came all the way from AMERICA. (Not really true, we were  there for a wedding. Still. Farther away than Germany. So we WIN. Mum will like that. We beat the Gerries. Heh). And we met a British gal who was following the tour & it was her 27th show that night. We never got her name, so we just called her 27, of course. She told us about a game she used to play with her brother in the car; points for whoever saw road kill--and what kind, how big, etc. So we could've named her something way worse than 27. Such philosophical convos, standing in line.

Goo Goo Gal

This is the T-shirt I made that Chiro-sister & I are wearing in honour of our friend Tereasa's 4oth birthday:

For those who don't know, that's a picture of the lead singer of the Goo Goo Dolls. Tereasa's a huge fan & we're all going to the Richmond concert tonight. YAY, us! Back tomorrow with pics & concert report.

P.S. If you're reading this Johnny Rzeznik, please sing HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Tereasa! :-)

My New Car & A Farewell to My Old One

I got my Honda Pilot on December 19, 2003. I know this because I looked at the paperwork as I was cleaning out the glove box. It was my most-favourite-car-ever and came with GPS, built in to the console. And I could have either XM Radio OR GPS, but Honda wouldn't let me have both. 5 days after buying it, I drove to NYC with my friend Dee for a Resonance Repatterning seminar. The GPS took us right down Broadway on a Friday night at midnight. Dee was oohing & ahhing and said, "Oh myyyyy. Look over yonder!" We had so much fun, and have had many road trips over the years.

"What in the world is SEMI parking? Is that half-way parking? Partly parking?" So I took Dee's photo with the sign in the background.

Dee knows quite a bit about cars. Here she is in Indiana, checking my tire pressure.

"Dee, go stand in front of the scenery so I can take your picture." :-)

I have had all my dogs in the back of this car. Barkley and Remi back and forth to the Bay House. There was a ramp that went around from I-70 onto I-81, and whenever I went around that loop, Remi would rouse from his sleep in the back and make a groaning sound. I used to call it Remi's turn. I hear him in my head whenever I go around a loop like that.

Neither Barkley or Remi would jump into the car. And they wouldn't use the fancy ramp I got. I got some steps that they use on horse farms, and that's how I got Remi & Barkley into the car.

Back yard at the bay.

Barkley on the pier.

Remi at sunrise.  :-)

The River House

I moved to the River House with Barkley & Remi, Memorial Day weekend of 2007:

And thus began many trips up and down a 7+ mile dirt & gravel road:

After a long rain. 

Foggy day.

Walking to the post box.

My driveway. One of several floods.

The Goo Goo Dolls were my soundtrack down this road. 

 

I've had so many good memories with this car. Road trips, and loading all my dogs into the back. Trips to the beach and seminars. 181, 000 miles! And anything I ever had wrong with it: shorted-out back lights, replacing all the rotors--the conversation always began, "Do you live on a dirt road?" 

Why do you ask?

I did this fancy frame around the photo for Mum for one of my River House posts. This is the only time I purposely took a picture of the car! 

 Maggie & Millie

Picking up Maggie & Millie from Mari.

I had special system for getting Maggie & Millie into the car:

Car backed up against a hill so they could walk straight into the car. 

A bit of a longer walk for them, but not such a steep incline to walk down.

Hullo.

 Millie hanging out:

Fisherman Willie.

Hullo. Look! You can see Millie wagging her tail on the right! 

And then THIS:

Millie was after something under the car, in the tire wheel or SOMEthing. COVERED in river road dirt!

Look at that happy face!

Maggie wasn't as interested & came up the ramp to leave Millie behind.

 Speaking of the ramp:

Millie leading the way.

Maggie. See the perma-dust on the car?

See the bears? Kidding. It's Maggie & Millie in the woods.

March 30th snow! View out kitchen window. Wish I'd turned those lights off!

Summertime view out kitchen window. That grey blurry thing in the window is a hummingbird. I managed to cup it in my hand and it went completely still. Then I opened my hand when I got outside, and it flew off!

 Last Time Down the Road

I went back to the River House a couple times after moving to Lake House. The last time was with Chiro-Sis to dismantle the labyrinth and transport as many rocks as I could:

I really LOVED this car. It was great for hauling things. You know. Like rocks. 

Last time up this hill. It doesn't LOOK that steep, but coming down on a sheet of ice Christmas of 2009, I really thought I was going to slide over the mountain side or into the river. Yikes!

Here's a shot of it looking DOWN the hill. I know--not terribly formidable-looking. Just take my word for it: YIKES! 

At The Lake House 

Maggie on the front porch.

Hullo.

My sweet Maggie. Look at those eye dots.  :-)

Vizzie from the missionaries; Elder Huntzinger with T-Bob.

Front porch with Maggie, Chiro-sis, RoRo & Tabby.

Maggie watching Lawnmower Paul weedwacking.

Bingo & Reggie

 And then came Bingo. I don't have any pics of Bingo in the car. She was the first dog I've had who just jumped into the car without any kind of coaxing! She LOVES riding in the car. She knows when I grab the leash with my purse, that we're going for a ride. 

No picture of her in the car, but I can't leave her out, can I?! Look at that face. 

 And here's Reggie:

He's another one who just leaps into the car! This is on our ride home after I picked him up.

Zzzzz . . . .

  And so now, here is my new car:

Another Honda; a CRV. It has a 6-CD player so I can load ALL my favourite Goo Goo Dolls CDs. Woo-hoo! Here's to another 181,000+ miles!