What I love about L.A.: Passionate People Performing

I love long 3-day weekends because I don't have class on Tuesday so they really turns into 4-day weekends. And there's so much to be done in 4 days.

I love seeing people create with passion and L.A. has it's share of beautifully passionate people performing all kinds of creative things. This weekend I witnessed some great performances from L.A.'s finest.

Live music has been a huge part of my life over the last few years that I lived in the San Francisco bay area. Few people know this but I started my own business with my Ex-boyfriend, Jealous Jason, before we broke up. Our business focused on helping local musicians with public and business relations. Which is really a fancy way to say, we handled publicity, merchandising, and other promotion-based stuff for local bands. It's actually how I met my best guy friend, Bass Bob, who is a bass player. I worked with his band and actually got them press coverage. And come to think of it, it is also the way I met my best girlfriend, Attractive Ashley, too. I wouldn't trade those experiences for anything in the world.

I've seen some of my favorite bands perform live too. Being apart of that local music scene made it easy to be apart of the large touring music scene. I've gotten backstage passes to the warped tour, hangout with and ate with my favorite touring musicians, and took a 12-hour road trip with my younger brother, Too-Tall Timmy, to Arizona to see our favorite band after bowling with them before their show. You've never lived until you've done something uniquely interesting like that.

Until this weekend, I've yet to experience anything that cool in L.A. I know it exist here but I just haven't had the opportunities I had in the Bay Area. This weekend I got to see interesting live musical performances. Well, technically it wasn't in L.A. It was just outside of L.A. at a music store that turned into a venue at night. This was a cool place. All the vinyl and musical instruments were cleared out of the way and a stage was erect. There was strangely interesting artwork and decor in the music store. Several paintings that looked like they were inspired by Salvador Dali and some Halloween inspired items, including a life size skeleton sitting on a bench wearing a tie. And if you know me, you know I love ties and Halloween stuff.

And it amazes me what people can do with electronics live. The first performer had his own electronic instrument that he played. I forget the name of it but this guy was good at it. The next band had a real guitar and bass, plus electronic drums and other sounds, and a very talented and beautiful singer. The last group was the reason my friends and I were there. I was with Sexy Sharon and Crazy Carla and we were invited to see Artsy Aaron and his friends jam. And it was truly a jam session. Artsy Aaron had his own electronic music and a sax, guitar, and bass player jamming to his music. Finally, the last performers to the music stage were some DJs. But before the last DJs went on there was a fire performance outside.

I love fire. I love the way it looks when it's being performed with. I had an Ex-boyfriend who performed with fire, Jostled Josh. This weekend Bad-ass Brenda performed and she was hot. I've never seen a fire hoola-hoop before and it was amazing. Sexy Sharon said that Bad-ass Brenda was a really cool chick because she enjoyed showing other fire performers how to do certain tricks, which I guess is rare amongst fire performers. As long as I've known Sexy Sharon, I've never actually seen her perform fire and she was too tired to perform it that night. But I saw Crazy Carla perform with a staff. I love it when she spins the staff to make the flame go really high into the air. Something about fire gets me hot.

Speaking of hot, Sexy Sharon also invited to me a Burlesque show at Aqua on the following night. That place is amazing. They have aquariums in the walls and beautiful decor. And the bathrooms aren't for men & women; they are for sharks and mermaids....ha. Sexy Sharon showed up with Jezebel Julie. Jezebel Julie is a firecracker. She's boldly beautiful with brilliant black hair (I love alliterations) and picturesque features. She boldly called out to a young man, Ex-Eddie, who was sitting alone. She lured him over towards us with the sole intent to entertained herself while we waited for a table. He was fun. We talked about tattoos before getting our table.

He asked a lot of question and answered all of ours. He was stopping by to see his Ex-girlfriend who turned out to be our waitress. We'll call her Waitress Wilma. She made a comment about all men being liars later in the evening and I asked if her Ex-Eddie was a liar too. She said "Oh hell yeah" She was a live wire and sassy as hell. And from the looks of it it doesn't seem like Ex-Eddie will be her Ex for much longer. I saw them kissing in between sets. Young love is so fascinating.

And we met up with Jaded James. He studied at my school in a professional program that I am interested in pursuing after I get my B.A. He gave me some advice. Sharon was bragging about my current writing project but I don't really like talking about it too much. So the conversation quickly turned to the food and the beautiful burlesque babes. The food at Aqua is really good but really expensive, so it's a good thing I ate before I left the house. And the Burlesque Babes were smokin' hot. They performed one of my favorite numbers from Chicago. Nothing like a Cell Block Tango to start of the night.

Jezebel Julie wanted to head home early so she could play with some of her new "toys". Later Sexy Sharon told me that Jezebel Julie kept commenting on my looks and said I was the type of woman she would have been attracted to when she was dating women. Too bad I just met her this weekend. We could have had some fun. I am not sure where Jaded James went to but Sharon and I wound up at nymph party in the valley.

There's nothing hotter than a house full of half-dressed mystical creatures running around a party. I love themed parties. I used to go to these "Kinky" parties in San Francisco monthly. Every month the theme would change. I always find it fun to dress up and mingle with like-minded people. The house in valley was designed with social events in mind. And all the ladies were incredibly beautiful.

I thought it was strange when one girl asked me if I was a model and when I said no, she asked, "Then what are you?" I laughed and told her, "I am a student". She pointed to her friend that looked like Alanis Morrisette and said she was a model. That whole interaction made more sense after I realized that the party was also a "models and artists" get together. One things for sure, the "Kinky" parties in S.F. never had this many beautiful people.

A funny thing happened when I went looking for weed. I ran into Director Derrick. I have been avoiding him lately because I don't want to get physical with him. I've used school as an excuse not to see him, which is a legitimate excuse, by the way. He tried to bust my balls by saying, "I thought you'd be studying." My reply was, "I studied for 6 hours today and thought I could really use a break." He was cool about it. In fact, I'd say he's a really cool person. He smoked me out. And introduced me to a bunch of his friends. I had met some of them previously, so it was cool to have familiar faces to bump into. His friends are all very intriguing.

There was Pregnant Polly and her lover, Alluring Allister, and her gay brother. Pregnant Polly is expecting Alluring Allister's twins, she's 40 and her gay brother is going to help raise the kids. As far as I can tell, Alluring Allister is going to stay around to be the father, while the gay brother plays nanny. It sounds like the kids will be well loved and taken care of and it seems like everyone involved is level headed enough to pull it off.

Alluring Allister told me a story about the inventor man he works for and his crazy Hollywood Hills home. I guess there are 2o-something themed rooms that were designed by a Broadway set designer. The place sounds amazing. I'd love to see it in person. Director Derrick said he had plenty of good times there.

I finally got to see Sexy Sharon perform fire, topless. She didn't have the proper clothes on so she did it without a shirt. It's ok because she wasn't the only exposed-exceptionally beautiful woman there. She's good. She's been doing it for years. She does poi and staff. And I think she's starting to branch out into other tools too (such as sword, fans, ect). There were other performers too. And all the fire performances were wonderful.

It felt like we were camping out. There was some very fascinating conversation whirling around the fire pit. The sexual control of women in the Elizabethan era; modern socialization of sexual pressure; a South-African instrument that someone had; the rarity of beautiful black women in that scene; mystical woodland creature talk; and Director Derrick gave me a great pep talk about not allowing school stress to get me down. Great conversation and company always make a campfire cozy.

And as if all that wasn't enough. There was a performance piece where all the beautiful, barely dressed, nymphs did ritual things together. At that point in the night, I really wished I was sharing it with the guy I like. The party went into the wee earlier morning and needless to say I was useless the next day.

This weekend I got to see a lot of passionate people performing they passions. Whether it was soulful musicians mid-set, sensual lovers mid-coital, fabulous fire-dancers mid-spin, pretty people mid-exchange, or beautiful burlesque babes mid-number. It's always amazing to see people in the middle of what they are passionate about. And L.A. is full of passionate people.