I am currently writing this blog post from 30,000 feet in the air, 30,000 feet in the air while drinking free booze holla!
When I arrived at the airport, I tried to scan my passport a few times to check in, but it didn’t recognize it… So I had to look up my flight itinerary number. When I touched the screen, angels came down from heaven and bright lights nearly blinded me that said, “First Class” I have never flown first class ever in my life.
I instinctively entered the common people security line before I noticed that I could use the fast track line. First amazing moment.
Then I showed up a bit late to the gate and got to cut in front of everyone. Second amazing moment.
Then I got into my seat, extra leg room, cozy, like sitting in a small throne. I looked below – free blanket (third best moment of my life). I looked to the right, free headphones. I looked up – mini TV. Also, the gentleman next to me had a monogrammed, leather-bound journal in which he was writing percentages and occasionally he would rest the weight of his head in his hands as if life was just too much to take within that moment. I appreciated that. His name was Kerry. Which incidentally was the name of my 8th grade history teacher whom I had a crush on until several years later I realized was more than likely a homosexual.
The brought out hot towels, then chicken stuffed with cheese and spinach. I hardly noticed how great this was because they kept funneling me free Bloody Mary’s.
I will try and update this post later with pictures, but, in short, is first class the best thing that’s ever happened to me? No. Is it close? Yes.
As some of you already know, I went to New Orleans last weekend for BUKU Arts + Music Project. I would have liked to have posted earlier, but I fell ill upon my return…
First Day Outfit
Let’s start by saying, I did this trip grown-up style. I rented a car for the weekend, I got a hotel room, I bought my ticket before I arrived at the festival grounds. I also decided to go for a more generic hippie chic than my usual kandi kid style neons and LED accessories. So I will take you through my outfits and favorite sets. Day One I was determined to wear a floppy hat and a long cardigan. I made that dream come true. I think I went a little overboard on the spray tan, but hey, when in Rome, right? I am very against mirror selfies but this was the only time I remembered to take a picture of my full outfit so please disregard my mirror selfie.
Now pretty much everything I wore this day was from Forever 21 because I know they have festival attire and boho chic clothing that won’t break the bank (even though it almost did break mine). Where to get:
Bone Thugs N Harmony, Ellie Goulding, and Zedd are what I remember knocking my titties off on the first day. Kaskade was solid, but I had seen him recently so I don’t feel like including him. I particularly enjoyed when Bone Thugs started playing Biggie Smalls and yelled out to the crowd, “Let’s bring that fat motherfucker back to life!” With 22 years as rap artists, they had a wealth of songs to share with us.
A personal favorite from Bone Thugs
Ellie singing the repetitious but amazing Anything Can Happen
Singalong with Zedd
The Hammock
There was a large hammock near the back of the main stage with a gatekeeper named Winchester who decided who could and could not get on, apparently only 30 people at a time could be on the hammock and if person 31 attempted to walk on to the hammock, Winchester would immediately start yelling, “HEY! HEY!!! HEY!!!!” in a short, dismissive tone and then the starry eyed gypsies that were happily skipping towards the relaxation promised land would shrug at him as if to say, “Please, I belong in there!” After Winchester made it clear that they shall not pass, they would slowly retreat back to the crowds away from the safety of the magical hammock. The irony was not lost on me that a man named Winchester was entrusted to protect a small piece of land much like the rifle he was named after.
My group at various points of the weekend made it on to the hammock due in part to our southern hospitality and our growing friendship with Winchester. One particular time stands out due to a foursome in the middle of the hammock consisting of three girls (all in matching BUKU zip ups) and one guy (with a bandanna on his head) mauling each other while on what had to have been the most magical combination of drugs ever.
Two of the girls paired off and looked like sorority sisters who had just decided tonight that they were in love and were going to push their parts up against each other. We watched them and the set that was on (I couldn’t tell you who was playing) while the foursome in the middle got dangerously close to public sex. At one point we noted that there group had the same number of people and girl to guy ratio that our group had, but our BUKU experience was drastically different.
Then, bandanna boy started yelling at the whole hammock claiming that someone had stolen his banana and his mango! What the fuck! This is serious shit! His banana and his mango were gone! My reaction was “Yeah right buddy. You brought a mango in here… to quote an episode of Sex and the City, “A mango isn’t even a fruit you can bite into.” The whole hammock laughed at Bandanna Banana Boy and about ten minutes later he stood up (as best you can stand up on a hammock) and screamed, “I found them! Everyone calm down, I found the banana and the mango!” he held one fruit in each hand with his arms outstretched in a ‘Y’shape and exclaimed, “Buy local, buy organic! It’s worth it! Do it! Yes!” Then the foursome frolicked off hand-in-hand and we all just sat there in bewilderment. Then several people commented that the banana was most likely being used by the two girls.
Day Two Outfit
This outfit I had a vague plan for that came together in the week before BUKU and I was very pleased with the outcome. I even had my picture taken for a fashion blog this day and it is very easy to recreate and modify for different occasions (I think? Did that sound good? I’m not a fashion blogger so…)
I have to say that my favorite sets that night were Glitch Mob and Tyler the Creator.
Tyler’s set was hilarious. He insulted the crowd at every turn. He was fresh off of starting a riot at SXSW so I’m sure he had a lot of emotions to get out. Apparently, Tyler hates Jason Derulo and how he has YouTube videos of him screaming his own name, so before he left the stage, he made the whole crowd scream Jason Derulooooooooooo a few times. He repeated this command throughout the show.
Before a particularly bass heavy song Tyler instructed us to stand completely still and look at him like we hated him and then essentially have a seizure when the bass dropped, “Okay you assholes, you pieces of shit. I want you EDM motherfuckers to stand there like you’re retarded and you fucking hate me, you EDM bitches.”
T’was great. We were also standing in front of the VIP section where a girl who had worked the event just to see Tyler the Creator screamed during the entire set, “OMG I love you, I want to marry you! Look at meeeeee! Tyler, LOOK AT MEEEEEE!” There’s no way she had a voice the next day.
We also sat at the Flaming Lips for about thirty minutes and their set was the most visually appealing I have ever seen. It looked like the magical forest that I expect heaven to be and the lead singer looked like a sparkly willow tree standing on a mountain of glitter while glitter rained down. He was glitter Jesus, it was amazing.
Glitch mob was just amazing in every sense of the word and if I hadn’t been so physically beaten down I would have seen them in Dallas when they played two days after BUKU. They put on an amazing show and I loved hearing their remixes of the TRON soundtrack.
We had some amazing brunches and fun on Bourbon as well, but I will have to either do a follow-up article of the places we went in NOLA as a part two since this article is already forever long.
Festivals are worth getting sick for a week and a half.
I remain uncertain about what I can and cannot say, just as I am not sure what pictures I can and cannot post to here without getting sued. Either way, this I know–St. Patrick’s Day is a white trash holiday. I remember this every year when I get outside and and some chain smoking bleach blonde dumps her beer all over me while her boyfriend with sunburn over his state of Texas tattoo tries to strike up a conversation with my boyfriend. Can’t you see he’s wearing a shirt with a collar and I have perfect hair? Stay away from us.
Ludacris didn’t go on until 5 pm, we got through the gates at noon. So the only activity was drinking. Luckily, I kept running into people I knew from another life, years and years ago. Which, if you’re going to run into people you haven’t seen in 7 years, it’s best to do it in the rain when you’re both drunk.
All in all the concert was worth the agony of celebrating St. Patrick’s Day. Hundreds of intoxicated white people twerking on each other in the pouring rain while screaming “Move Bitch, Get Out the Way” You know I wasn’t going to miss that.
Along the way we sacrificed a winter coat, $60 each, and a little bit of dignity. It was good preparation for BUKU this weekend.
In a few weeks, some friends and I are going to BUKU Music + Arts Project and there are several headliners who are rappers. Since I want to be able to fully enjoy and sing along to all the sets, I recently immersed myself in the music of Tyler the Creator, Schoolboy Q, and Childish Gambino. Since then, I have started thinking I am really really badass.
But here’s the thing… I’m not. I have not had the kind of struggles in life that make a person scarily badass, apart from a mild eating disorder in high school. I am white and middle class and have been educated at only private institutions. I drive an ’05 Honda.
Since then, I have started picking fights, a few with my own boyfriend. (sorry Nick) Having wine on weeknights (fuckin’ crazy I know) and driving excessive speeds (in my ’05 Honda named Dixie). Now I know what happened to Miley Cyrus. She told her songwriters that she wanted her record Bangerz to have a more “black sound” And since then she’s usually some version of naked, trying to lick everything around her, and singing about doing blow in the bathroom.
I have listened to a couple of old Jason Mraz albums since then and it seems to have evened me out. But there’s really no telling how long the effects of my foray into rap will last. I’m not saying that African Americans are more badass or that all of them have struggled, I have many… okay that’s a lie, I have a few black friends and they are more responsible and well adjusted than me. My friend Krystal is prettier than me, and pays for all her own shit, she even has her own apartment, which is more than I can say. She is even starting her own business.
We all need to go batshit every now and then, but I believe that rap music can be like alcohol, some people can handle it and some people can’t. All I can say is… I know what happened to Miley, and I know how she reached the dark side.
So, it’s March here in Texas and last Saturday was an amazing 70 degrees ish. We were all out on patios, I was wearing a crop top, it was Texas Independence weekend, all was right in the world.
Then black clouds descended from hell or Wisconsin or wherever and decided that temperature should and would drop down to about 18 degrees. This really pissed me off. All throughout the day on Monday I decided that it would be summer. At least for me. I put on a bright, orangey red lipstick, and “borrowed” a co-worker’s mini space heater.
There was a motherfucking icicle on my motherfucking car.
This shit is not okay.
Desperate measures needed to be taken. I decided to make Pina Coladas.
I used to work as a bartender and liquor sales rep during my multitude of jobs after college graduation and have gained a bit of knowledge on how to make decent cocktails. So If you are feeling the winter blues like I am, feel free to borrow this super simple Pina Colada Recipe.
Materials:
1 Can Coconut Cream (I used Coco Lopez)
Pineapple Juice
Light Rum (I chose Plantation because I saw it first and we used it at the bar I worked at, I am sure you would be fine with most liquors if they’re not in a plastic bottle, since this drink is a sugar bomb)
Blender
Ice
Pineapple for garnish (not optional, why would you not make your drink pretty, take the extra 3 minutes to cut up some pineapple, don’t be sloppy)
I didn’t know how to tell if a pineapple is ripe because I’ve never bought one before (shocker, I know) If you encounter the same problem click this link.
I used equal parts Coco Lopez and Pineapple juice, because in my opinion you need to have a good balance of acids and sugars. An easy way to do this is to use the can of Coco Lopez then refill it up with pineapple juice.
Then I added about two cups of ice because I like my Pina Colada very smoothie-like.
Then add as much rum as you want. I don’t want to tell you a certain amount because I don’t know how your day went. I also don’t know what your tolerance or taste levels are, so start with a 1/2 cup of rum and move up from there, tasting along the way.
Then slice the pineapple into a triangle like a mini pineapple pizza and cut a slit down the middle of the pineapple chunk, use it for garnish.
So good.
I paired my Pina Colada with a gluten free Fiery Hawaiian Pizza from Dominos. (If you haven’t had this pizza yet, you aren’t experiencing life to the fullest.)
Then I covered myself with a heated blanket and watched HBO. It was as close as a day to the beach as I could get. I am sure that exercise would be a good remedy for the winter blues, but you’re going to have a to go to someone else’s blog for that kind of content.
Think of a movie and all the characters that are in it. How boring would your life be if you only had a supporting cast of allies? Having people in your life who you really can’t stand give your life flavor. They remind you of who you don’t want to be and how not to act. Your friend who has the high paying job and incessantly talks about how taxing the travelling is she has to do for it? Yeah, don’t be that bitch.
2. Your Ass.
Your ass is most likely never going to this good at any other point in your life. One day you’re going wake up and unless you are religious with your squats, your ass is going to sag. Yes, sag. Sad, saggy ass. If you don’t know what squats really are and what they can do for your ass, Google it. Seriously.
3. Your parents.
Now I know that this seems like a given… And you feel like you hear this all the time, but your parents are going to effing die. Sooner rather than later, you are going to see your friends post status updates about staying in the hospital with their parents watching them battle an illness that will probably take their life. You are going to have to help your friend pick out a black dress to wear to her mother’s funeral. You are going to have to go through your dad’s closet with your brothers and sisters to pick out a tie to bury him in. Your parents took care of you your whole life, you need to let them know you love them, You should probably text them right now.
4. Your first “real job”
Whether you love it or you hate it–it is helping you build some personal worth. I’m sure you have an amazing smile and some killer internship experience, but you don’t want to wake up at 30 and realize that your resume was better the day you graduated. Now, what you define as a “real job” is up to you. I, personally, define it as a job that I give at least one shit about losing. If you give negative shits about a job, if you could walk in and quit without nearly any problems, I don’t consider that a “real job”. When you are hating your real job, think about what it would be like to be sold into international sex trade, with no hope of detective Benson and Stabler finding you alive, then think about your job… It probably won’t seem so bad in an hour or two.
5. Your alone time.
Real, true time that you have to yourself without distractions, TV, friends, lovers, family, work or pets. If the closest you come to meditation is zoning out to the sound of your Sonicare toothbrush twice a day, you need to learn how to set aside 5 minutes that is free from worry, thought, or even excitement. It’s tough, but give it a try.
I generally have a manicure, that manicure unless it is in the last three days of a strict two week schedule, looks flawless. In Girls, Shoshanna refers to her friend who works as a hostess andwho has great clothes “and fresh gel nails all the time!” That hostess was me, has been me, I have been that hostess. I even was a hostess for seven months. And my nails were fantastic.
However, there is a certain moment when your gel nails will crack, and then you will do the same shortly thereafter. That initial first nail that chips away in the most unattractive and physically annoying fashion, becomes the equivalent of opening a bag of Reduced Fat Ruffles. The compulsive urge to pick and reveal the thin, fugly nail underneath cannot be suppressed. You contort your arm to get the right angle to chew from, you slide your one good nail underneath the shale-like fragmentation of the others and you proceed to ruin your life.
The result is stubby looking troll fingers that make you wish you knew how to embrace the “natural look”. You then have to start over entirely and grow your nails out. You can’t rush to get another manicure, unless you want to endure extreme pain and potential blood loss. So I implore my fellow manicured sisters to file down your nail at the first sign of chipping. Think of it as a split end, better to nip it in the bud before it gets worse than to let it spread like a cancer and destroy any hope of having the best nails in next Sunday’s brunch picture.
So get yourself some cuticle scissors, (I find them more precise than regular nail clippers) Cut off the offending nail, then file it down as short as you can. If you leave any nail length, the gel polish on top will chip off eventually. Then, you can cover it with a band-aid if you really lack any self control. Which I do.
A Meal Without Wine Is Called Breakfast 