news: poor old lu photos are up. boring arrangement but there they are. yeah, click here.
ok. so here's the seattle story. before i forget i gotta get all this down. and my internal hard drive has gotten so that as soon as i add new data, i lose old data to make room for the new, so if i don't write stuff down, it's gone. so this is really for my benefit, so i don't forget what happened on the trip.
just a little background on me and seattle...this was my fourth trip to seattle. my first time there was back when i was like a sophomore in college (yeah, back in the stone age...) it was during fall when the leaves were changing, and all i remember from that trip is the sight of trees covered in beautiful orange and gold leaves on the UW campus against the backdrop of massively gorgeous buildings on the campus. i so wanted to transfer there, but it was too far away. i mean, i couldn't even go to U of I Urbana; like how could i expect to go to UW? then the 2nd time i visited seattle was with my cousin kris back in october of 2000. we'd taken a red eye, and when i stepped foot outside our airport hotel our first morning there, i was overwhelmed w/ this feeling of being at home. i can't really explain it, but i think it was the topography and landscape that reminded me of the motherland, back in seoul, korea. it was that trip that planted in me a deeprooted love for seattle. so i knew going into this seattle trip w/ megan that i was going to just love every mintute of it and that i wouldn't want to come back to chicago...so yeah, here we go.
thursday night, megan and i are waiting for the boys from serene--ryan, jesse, matt & erik--to meet us after their gig down @ tomfest. we had wanted to see them play, but our flight just didn't get in on time. we planned on meeting them at the knarr tavern in the university district, and megan & i were starving so we stopped in at atlantic street pizza to grab a bite. it was quite an experience. that place is a hole in the wall, but every inch of it was covered in autographed photos of rock & roll stars. it was a great way to start the trip. and the pizza was awesome too.
so we meet the boys probably around 9pmish, and i walk into the knarr and what do i see? ryan has a mohawk. i thought it was hilarious. apparently, he'd let someone at tomfest shave his head. it was such a fuzzy little mohawk--quite cute actually. i'm glad i got photos of it cuz he shaved it off the next morning. so we hung out a bit at the knarr which is a cool bar with like shuffleboard and everything. 
then we headed over to a bar that erik likes called linda's up on capitol hill. it was a happening place. it was fun just hanging out, getting to know matt & erik whom we'd met for the first time. matt was actually flying back to new york the next morning. it was so good to see ryan and jesse again...
friday, ryan & jesse had to go back to tomfest cuz jesse had to play w/ morella's forest. i had planned on going w/ to just hang w/ ryan, but we got a call from rosie thomas at the last minute and she and eric fisher wanted to see megan before they left for the u.k. saturday morning. i decided to stay w/ megan instead of going to tomfest, although i really wanted to spend time w/ ryan and jesse. it all worked out. we had a great time @ bumbershoot w/ erik. saw the nappy roots who were awesome. then we met up w/ rosie & eric and a bunch of their friends at sunset bowl, which is a 24 hour bowling alley & karaoke bar. erik loves to karaoke. i do too but don't tell anyone. oh. erik introduced us to dick's french fries. they were awesome! yeah, the whole day we ate french fries for lunch and french fries for dinner.
saturday, megan and i drove down to tomfest in stevenson, wa. we had to drive through portland, OR to do that which was cool. tomfest is kinda like a more conservative cubed root of cornerstone. lot smaller. and this year it was mostly hardcore punk. we mainly hung at the poor old lu merch table w/ ryan and jesse (once we found them) and then we went to dinner at this little diner that was totally empty. this was like the first real meal megan and i'd had since we got to the state of washington. so far, we'd eaten pizza on thursday, french fries on friday (actually, i had some pad thai from a vendor at bumbershoot), pizza for lunch saturday again. obviously, this trip was not going to be remembered for the food.
we got to see poor old lu play saturday night, which was one of my goals for doing this trip in the first place. it was so awesome to see jesse drumming close up. he is like an amazing amazing drummer. i could literally just watch him drum for a whole show. i love good drummers. they're so fun to watch. there was a good crowd for the show, and i got to take pictures which you can see here.
we drove back that night and arrived in seattle sunday morning around 5am. on sunday, megan, jesse & i went to hang out in the u-district, jesse's old hood. we ate middle eastern for lunch then hit the cd stores. i found this sloan cd i'd been looking for (smeared) so i was pretty psyched. i also saw a copy of idlewild's 100 broken windows for only 5.99 which in retrospect i wish i'd picked up cuz that's like really cheap and that's a damn good cd. i could've given it away. we went to bumbershoot and tried to get into damien jurado, which was totally packed out. i was bummed. i did get to talk to andy myers, the drummer after the show. we'd met the night before at the bowling thing w/ rosie & eric (eric plays guitar in damien's band).
jesse had to go to a dinner thing, so megan & i met ryan @ pike place pub & brewery where we ate good food for the first time and shot pool. erik & his friend james met us later and we all went to bumbershoot for the death cab for cutie concert. there were like a million people there. i almost got in through the vip entrance, but i had too many friends w/ me. 
not that i care, i'd much rather be with friends than get in through some shortcut of an entrance. the concert was cool. i love those kids. they're so cute. and they literally were cute like little bugs on that stage. it was awesome to see them all excited over the huge crowd. and they did my seattle song (blacking out the friction..."i don't mind the weather...").
so after the death cab for cutie concert, ryan, megan and i went to drop off mofo's gear at some dude named paul's house. it was this really cool little house in the middle of this industrial district w/ like these semis on the property and it overlooked a reservoir. you could have conducted shooting practice w/ bottles or tin cans and no one would've noticed. i got to meet the morella's forest folks. shawn johnson who does i don't know what for mofos was in a um good and talkative mood (maybe he's always like that) and we all got into this heated discussion about stuff. yeah. uh huh. ok. we were there till like 4 in the morning and then me and ryan continued our discussion until past 7am once we got home.
meg & i were supposed to meet ian moore for the wilco concert @ bumbershoot around noonish, and we got a late start cuz i had hardly slept. we made it though and it was so awesome to see ian again, and to share a wilco concert with him was an added bonus. ian and i are both crazy about wilco, so it was special to see the show w/ someone who loves them as much as me. kinda like seeing the wilco movie w/ caleb, ya know. and since caleb couldn't be there with me, it was great having ian there. it was a great show! it was my first time seeing them live and i was so excited. i wish they'd played longer, but oh well. we didn't get to spend too much time w/ ian, but i was so glad we had a chance to see him while we were in seattle. i'll have to go back to see him sometime to meet his family and all.
ok. after we said goodbye to ian, what did we do...man, this is why i need to write this stuff down...oh! we were starving so we went back to this bar/restaurant at the seattle center where bumbershoot was going on and had a lovely lovely lunch. i don't remember what i ate but it was frickin dee-lish. but what was really awesome was this concoction they had called italian punch. it had like amaretto, sloe gin, melon liquer, a few other liquers, and like some fruit juices. that stuff is dangerous. you can't even taste the alcohol. it started raining while we were there so we just hung out by the bar for like a really long time. i was actually happy for the rain. you can't do seattle without rain. when the rain slowed to a drizzle, megan and i went out to our car and went to pick up ryan. then we went over to jesse's to pick him up.
we went to this pizza place that ryan swears is the best pizza on earth called ummm pagliacci's or something. i have to admit it was pretty damn good pizza. but i'm from chicago, ya know...we have high standards for pizza. after pizza (can you believe megan & i went to seattle and 3 of our meals were PIZZA? and we're FROM CHICAGO??), we walked over to this bar called flowers, which was right next door to the middle eastern restaurant jesse had taken us to the day before. it was a cool bar. really low key. 
and the ceiling had mirrors! i was having fun just taking pictures. and the men's bathroom was the most incredible blue i'd ever seen. the four of us sat at the bar and just talked. the bartender (i think his name was john) was really cool. he made this awesome vodka lemonade that was to die for. if you're ever in seattle, stop by flowers and get the vodka lemonade. i don't know where it is except that it's in the university district. 
it was cool to just chill out and talk without any distractions. there's something about just sitting at a bar with people you enjoy being with and having a conversation. and it wasn't one of them trendy noisy bars where you're like pressed up against bodies getting hoarse trying to talk over the thump thump thump of the music. the music was subdued, and we could actually talk in normal voices, even lower than normal voices and still be heard. that's my type of a bar.
jesse decided we should go to a place called i think red square on the uw campus, so we walked there. the evening was a bit wet and chilly, but it was lovely for walking with friends. when we got to red square, it was so beautiful. it's basically this open space with a couple sculptures and surrounded by campus buildings, including the library. megan and i were blown away at how beautiful it was. we goofed around a bit. 
ryan did some tricks for us, like jumping over me. yeah, thanks, remind me how short i am. that black blur is ryan jumping through the air in front of the library. he jumps well.
there was something magical about the evening...i think it was the lingering effects of the rain. the puddles, and the reflections of the light in the puddles...i love that stuff. i thought about leaving the next morning, and i didn't want the night to end. i felt so at home in seattle...megan and i were very reluctant to go back home the next morning. without a doubt, seattle had secured itself a place in our hearts. i'm already thinking of going back...and how i can move out there......
Tuesday, September 17, 2002 at 12:48PM 
alright, let me explain. the first concert i went to where i took photos was deni's show in rockford on 3.7.2002 and then the next day at schubas. that's when i got hooked on going to concerts and taking photos. if it weren't for denison, i wouldn't have gone to 3/4 of the concerts i went to, and that bill mallonee concert ended up being pretty life-changing, ya know? it's weird...if it weren't for deni, i wouldn't have gone to bill's concert, which means i wouldn't have met tim, which means i never would've met megan, which means megan would've never met denison, and those two wouldn't be such buds! i find it quite amusing that denison has himself to thank that he's friends w/ megan now. i'm just the middle gal.
