beat beat and the sweet sixteens! or: rock'n'roll pajama parties pt. 1

i feel like i've been away forever! as i mentioned last time, i've had houseguests for the past couple days. my friends from the band THE SWEET SIXTEENS were on tour with BEAT BEAT all the way from austria, so they spent a few days here in cleveland.

on monday nite both bands played at the bar:







why is it that all the bands i like insist on playing in their underwear?


on tuesday, they both played live on my radio show. here is a sweet sixteens living room practice session:








and here is pogo and lemmy being totally freaked out that there was a live band playing in my living room. poor megadeth was so scared of having visitors that she hardly came out from under my bed for two days straight!






here are the sweet sixteens later that nite at the radio station:





i mean, have you ever seen anything like it?! a keyboard duct taped onto a guitar?! wild!


and beat beat:







there was even dancin involved:



it's such a cool thing to have live bands on the radio show...it's like a mini concert, just for me!





it was a great two days! the dudes are all super nice and totally fun to be around. one thing i learned about being in a house with 9 guys: they sure do use up a lot of toilet paper in only 2 days! sheesh.

one of my favorite moments was the first nite when i was laying in bed. josh was already passed out next to me, and the guys were all laying on the living room floor watching "children of the corn." i could hear them talking about horror movies, and one of the dudes from beat beat exclaimed, "when jurassic park came out it was SO SCARY! it gave me NIGHTMARES!" all the other guys were laughing at him and yelling, "LAME! LAAAME!" haha i had to giggle to myself in the dark bedroom.


pinball!


so the past few days got me thinking about some other rock'n'roll pajama parties. but that will have to be for next time, because i'm about to pass out from exhaustion! more scantily clad rock'n'roll boys and tales of drunken debauchery in part two...!

pleasant weekend: CHECK!

ahhh! i feel nice and rested. the weekend was indeed a good one. friday nite josh took me on a date and we had dinner at a yummy mexican place. when we got in the car and i thanked him, he answered, "you needed that, didn't you?" it was super sweet that even though we don't really have the money to spare, he took me out because he knows i've been down in the dumps and cooped up in the house most of the time. i guess the fact that i curled my hair and put on my makeup and was sitting on the couch just watching tv gave him the impression that i needed to go out and DO something ; )

josh also got some good news friday nite: his friend is opening up his own tattoo shop and asked josh if he would like to apprentice there. this is something josh has always dreamed of doing, but he didn't know how to go about it and he knew he couldn't afford it. usually when you apprentice at a tattoo shop, you have to pay the person who is teaching you (kinda like going to school). so you end up paying $1500 or more, and in the meantime you aren't making money in return yet because the tattoos you are doing are just practice. you don't get to make money off your work until you graduate and aren't an apprentice anymore. anyway, josh's friend said he would let him apprentice for free, just so long as josh runs some errands or takes the garbage out or does stupid little stuff to help out around the shop. you can bet josh agreed faster than i can type SHAZAM! so not only is that awesome news for him because he gets to do something he always wanted to and he will eventually be bringing in a second income...but it's awesome for me because now i can get tattooed at a shop instead of my KITCHEN! ha.

saturday morning i woke up and cute josh was making a big huge breakfast. bacon, biscuits, coffee, and the first omlettes he has ever made! aww :)







later on we picked up his friend derek and hung out. we went to this store in medina called "the log cabin shop" which was filled with cool old stuff like antique guns and moose anteler tips and skunk hats. ha. but the parts that weren't animal bones or hunting supplies were ALL BOOKS! just rooms full of books. shelves full. boxes stacked on boxes. books stacked on the floor, toppling over! it was completely overwhelming and i wish i had more money/time to spend in there. we will have to go back once i find a job. josh was nice enough to buy me a few, including a biography about buddy holly, a book about marilyn monroe and joe dimaggio, and a book about the green river (serial) killer. wowie.





sunday josh and i laid around and ran some errands. perfect. tonite i will be meeting up with my friends from austria/indiana and i am dj'ing at their show. i haven't dj'ed out at a place (besides the radio station) in months so i'm pretty excited! it's always nice when you can actually see people in the room in case you make them dance or they request awesome things. sitting up in a room at the station in the middle of the night tends to feel very isolated, no matter how many people might be in front of their radios/computers at home listening.

here are a few new vintage things up today in FRENZY!:

60s navy long-sleeved mini-dress:


gah i LOVE mini dresses! i wish my bra size didn't prevent me from wearing such cute little stuff! some lucky gal is gonna look amazing in this ; )

white/floral beaded purse:


so dainty and adorable :)

hey hey we're the monkees 1" pin:


LOVE this band! everything about them. the show, the records, mike's green wool hat. everything.

gray and white saddle shoes:


gotta have a pair of saddle shoes!



i decided last nite that i am going to do as much of my christmas shopping as possible on etsy this year. once i came to that conclusion, i felt a lot better about myself and the fact that i will be supporting talented crafters and artists rather than throwing my money away to get a gift that isn't even worth what i paid. the love and care that goes into homemade really DOES make a difference :D

the roof the roof the roof is on FIRE

something awful happened last nite! it started with a lot of commotion in front of the house. i looked out the window and saw flashing lights. at first josh and i did not think anything of it, because we have a fire station at the top of our street and they are always using our street as a cut through to the other main street at the end. but then i realized that they were parking awful close by, and one fire truck was even blocking our driveway. i got worried when it looked like they went up my neighbor's driveway. and then i saw smoke. there were sirens and flashing lights all over in the front of the house:



but that was nothing compared to what i saw when i walked into the backyard. the house two doors down caught on fire. it is a side-by-side duplex, and apparently the side that was vacant is the side where the fire started. i don't know how. the family on the other side was able to evacuate in time and everyone is safe, but they still lost everything in the back portion of their house. they might have lost everything, i'm not sure how much damage was done to the front of the house because of smoke and water, even if the fire didn't reach that far. i guess the family was asleep and got woken up by their two dogs barking, who knew that something just wasn't right! that's amazing. but the whole thing is really sad and scary.













the firefighters were here for over an hour putting it out, chopping parts of the house down to get to the fire inside the walls, breaking windows, and blasting the houses next door with the fire hose so their houses weren't at risk of catching. josh and i stood outside with our neighbor (who was the one right next door to the fire -- scary!) and couldn't believe our eyes. at one point when they had been spraying down the fire for about twenty minutes, it suddenly got really bad and i got super scared that it was going to spread to other houses. luckily, the firemen got it under control after an hour and we went back inside. but then i was kept up til past 3am because the landlord was called to his property and apparently he was told to board up the house immediately. so i laid in bed with my bedroom window open, smelling smoke and hearing him use an electric saw to cut boards and nail them into place. sheesh. i feel so bad for that poor family.

in lighter news...new vintage up today in FRENZY:

are y'all scared of me yet, or have you finally come to terms with the fact that i have a serial killer fetish?

1985 hillside stranglers book:


1984 gremlins book:


spritz cookie gun:


floral handbag:


brown leather jacket:



i joined the cleveland handmade team on etsy and i'm excited! now maybe i can actually get involved when there are craft shows and events in my city.



as for plans this weekend, josh and i have nothing on the calendar and that sounds sooooo good. every night he gets home from work and i give him dinner, and then he is already passing out on the couch because he's so exhausted. we get into bed and i stay up reading and feeling like i hardly got to see my boyfriend at all. hopefully after this weekend, i will feel like we got a chance to hang out together.

then starting monday, we will be hosting house guests at hotel hot trash! some dudes from austria in the band BEAT BEAT and their friends from indiana, THE SWEET SIXTEENS! they are staying with me for two days while they play at now that's class on monday and my radio show on tuesday. tune in tuesday nite to hear how much fun we're having! or listen to them on myspace, see how much of a party they are, and then see if they are coming to your city and go rock out! that would be awesome of you.

blog facelift

THANK GOODNESS FOR KELLY!!!

here's a little something you might not have known about her: not only was she sweet enough to help me tweak my blog so it isn't so ugly it makes me want to puke anymore...but she can also turn your favorite cat into a pair of earrings! wait, that didn't sound right, did it? she is not some creepy cave dweller who lives in the middle of the woods and skins stray cats to make delightful jewelry out of them. i promise. don't believe me? THAT'S PREPOSTEROUS! but visit her etsy store the lost earring and see what i mean ANYWAY! thanks for the help, kelly!

as you can see, i have a new background. i never even thought to use one of my own photographs to liven things up a little. i decided to go with THE MUMMIES since it was and still is one of the highlights of my rock'n'roll career. actually, it probably IS the ultimate. it has been the pinnacle of my 27 years!
*NOTE* i have always been a rocker. case in point:



here is a video i took from when i saw the mummies, just in case you don't understand what i'm going on and on about. keep in mind they had been broken up for something like 10 years when this took place. lucky me!






and finally, FRENZY! was chosen as the first shop feature in the blog the hempsphere! yay!

cleveland

yesterday i started reading the book "cleveland cemeteries: stones, symbols and stories" by vicki blum vigil. of course it had a section on my favorite place in the whole world, lakeview cemetery, and it featured several other cemeteries i have visited and photographed before. i plan to visit some of the ones i haven't been to yet, especially now that the leaves are changing. fall is a beautiful time for cemetery photography, or outdoor photography in general.

i looked around on etsy and picked out a few of my favorite "cleveland" items, including a few from lakeview. please visit the artists and their shops! i have called cleveland home for my whole life and have just recently come to appreciate all it has to offer.


vintage 1937 map of cleveland by bananastrudel


"contemplation" 8x10 print by blamethemoon


cleveland skyline wall decal by savvygaldesigns


"places of rest" 8x10 print by nemesisproductions


cleveland scrabble pendant by hellobrowneyes


vintage bicycle plate by bagsandmore


"all we have is now" 8x10 print by driftstudios


vintage post card by calloohcallay


vintage higbees christmas photograph by vintagepotluck


"the haserot angel" framed 5x7 print by swampratphotography