OK so . . . I have awesome friends.

Got a call last week, saying essentially "Would you wanna see the Stray Cats?"  Me:  um YES.  (I knew they were doing exactly one show in the US on their farewell tour .... of COURSE I'm interested!)  "OK well we bought three tickets, so come down Tuesday and meet us and we'll take you to the OC Fair with us."

Squeeeee!

So here's the thing.  There was potential for this show to be really awesome or really creepy.  Why?  Well think about this - Brian Setzer is 49, Slim Jim Phantom and Lee Rocker are both, I think 47.  Do you wanna hear a 50ish man sing "Sexy + 17" and mean it?  Um.  No.  I mean, I don't.

BUT it was NOT creepy at all.  It was like a bunch of buddies having a beer and telling stories of a time they remember fondly.  Except those guys happen to be three fabulous musicians who have talent oozing out of their pores and great gear.  *grin*  And they are more musically accomplished now than they were then, so the flying fingers of Setzer and Rocker are .... I would swear they're faster.  Or more precise or something because oh my WORD!!!!  Not to harsh on Phantom's drumming either - they all three just rocked out solid.  It was an experience for sure.

The other fun thing about this show was the mix of people in the crowd.  You had everything from teenage rockabilly babies to more conservative looking folks who probably caught rockabilly the first time around and enjoyed it as much this go.  Another thing I noticed is that it was a fairly heavily tattooed crowd - not necessarily that individual people had more tattoos than I normally see, but more people had visible tattoos.  And that very well could be because it was a rockabilly show and that's a thing with the rockabilly crowd ... but who knows.  It was interesting to observe anyway.

Hot Rod Lincoln, the first opening act, was really great as well.  You can listen to them on .... yep, myspace.  Their page is down for now it seems.

OK I'm really brain dead today and a little sore, so how about I leave you with some very young Stray Cats, courtesy of the YouTube?

Here's a more current vid of them live

Happy Wednesday, friends!!  Hope yours rocks.

Well tonight was the last of the beginners' tango class.  Starting Monday we're in 1.5 if we want to go.  Some folks are going to repeat the beginner class, but I'm kind of excited to move up.  We learned a couple moves the past two weeks that we strung together tonight.  I can't find videos to show you but I'll look again when I'm more awake.  Essentially one step is a half turn, and the other is a traveling full turn - sort of a grapevine on good drugs.  *chuckle*  Now the traveling full turn has emphasis on travel, but you gotta turn to get there, and it's actually pretty neat.  The half turn I'm sure is handy but I'm not sure how.  Still, I have it in my repertoire, and if someone leads it I can follow.  Yay me.

Anyway you can see how this goes - traveling turns all the way around the dance studio!  Traveling turn, half turn, half turn, traveling turn, and so on until crafty is a dizzy little tanguera.  But it is a lot of fun, and really that's the point of it all for me.

So Monday I graduate to 1.5, and we'll see what the tango holds next.  Oh yes, and I'm wearing my new shoes.  Cruise ships beware, crafty's got shiny toes now!

*laughing*

Well this is interesting.  It's fairly common knowledge that medical marijuana has been legal in California for about 12 years.  Locally, it's also fairly common knowledge that if you want a prescription, you can get one with or without official reasons.  The whole process is kind of a joke, but the enforcement of the sale to patients only is pretty good.  I can't even walk in the door of someplace that sells marijuana, as I don't have any sort of documentation that says I'm legal to buy it.  It's actually not a bad system overall, and it seems to work.

That being said, there's a petition currently in circulation that would put a measure on the November ballot to fully legalize marijuana here.

From the CA Secretary of State Elections page:

quotes, documentation, etc