Bubble Pirate: Revisited.

An old blog post from September about a trip Katie and I took to see our fave band, Stampead (see link for Milk and Honey under "Currently Rockin'") written on 9/26/07. We may have different opinions on lots of things, but we do agree on one thing: we love each other! :)

So there aren't many things that happen in my life that are all that blogworthy these days. Not that I live a completely boring existence… or maybe I do… it's just that the time isn't all there to sit down and partake in the blog antics of days of yore. However, I do want to take this opportunity to confess that I am a complete and total Band Aid, a la Almost Famous except without the sex and without traveling with the band, along with my trusty sidekick Katie, who has been there for some of the best memories of my life to date, i.e my 24th birthday, trips to Mexico and Flagstaff, and the subject of this particular blog, Sedona. Thanks, Katie.

from: Katie C.

to: Andrea E.

date: Sep 4, 2007 11:14 AM

subject: where are you???

did you get my retarded message about our boyfriend?!!!!!

i'm slightly excited. should i make the band a lasagna?

Now let me just clarify something: Katie and I are NOT stalkers. But we are polygamists. Or rather, we are obsessed with the show Big Love. Right around the time we were in Flagstaff in January, any guy we saw who we thought was cute became OUR boyfriend. This particular genre of men happens to include a dude in a band with a giant fro who can play the harmonica with all the passion of Beethoven, Hendrix and a rowdy presidential candidate debate rolled into one. You think I'm kidding, fine, you go watch Stampead live and see if you can ever look at a harmonica the same. After this weekend, I sure will never view the fall equinox the same. But, I digress.

It was raining on our way up to Sedona, and I was stoked given that I haven't actually witnessed rain in about six months. Katie, not so much… but she has curly hair that bears a striking resemblance to the above-mentioned fro at even the mere mention of humidity. When we got there, after much deliberation about which hotel with the word "Kokopelli" was actually the one where we were staying, we went off to find Oak Creek Brewery, the place where Stampead was playing, ahead of time. This was a good call because when we went back at night, we never would have found the place. This random little watering hole was tucked back in a dirt alley with NO LIGHTS to mark it until you're basically on top of it. So anyway, I'm expecting this to be a pretty big place, comparable to Four Peaks, because their beers are sold in every grocery store in the state, but… it wasn't. It was TINY. We park the car, walk in the door, pick a table (there were only 5 to choose from), and sit down with a little apprehension because 1. we weren't sure if they would recognize us from their show in Flag and 2. we weren't sure if we WANTED them to recognize us from Flag, mostly due to a particular comment someone made about 10,000 hairballs. The type of comment where your mouth seems to be moving, and sounds are coming out, but without the permission of your brain. So of course as soon as we sat down, a couple of the band members looked right at us and smiled. We weren't sure whether to be flattered or mortified. Our fears were further confirmed when their publicist asked me if I was ae. from MySpace… uhh… yes? But it was all made better when our boyfriend came over and said hi… and that he remembered that Katie was the one who sent a picture with one of the shirts that Sean gave us in Flag. Fortunately he didn't seem to recall anything about hairballs.

So the band played on. We chatted with them on their breaks, learning a few things here and there about their favorite stops along the way, their excitement to go home after 15 months of touring, how stoked they were that Katie has a camera that doesn't suck. Judd must have asked her about her Flickr page 465709824670274378206748102 times throughout the course of the night.

So this blog is about what happened in Sedona, but let me just throw in this shameless plug. GO TO ITUNES NOW AND DOWNLOAD STAMPEAD. All of it. And for goodness' sake, if you have the opportunity to see them play live, do whatever you can to go. Some of their lyrics, the kind of lyrics that make you wonder what the songwriter had been through that would inspire them in the first place, are so profound and heartbreaking you might want to curl up in the fetal position and cry your eyes out if it weren't for the energy and vibe of the music accompanying it. The song "Laid Down"? Um. Amazing. "Bang Our Glasses Again" is another fave. "Sinners, Saints and Accidents" and "Waiting for Tonight" are a knee-slapping good time. When you're watching a band play with the same energy and excitement in front of a room with five people as they would in front of a stadium with 50,000 people in it, you know that if they haven't hit it big yet, they absolutely, positively will. That kind of passion is rare and just can't be ignored for long. Hence the shameless plug.

Next stop: random house party. There is one thing I learned about Sedona and one thing I already knew: that Sedona is PITCH BLACK at night, and that it is New Age central, respectively. So after maneuvering our caravan, which included the band's van and trailer, a Honda Civic, and a Hyundai, around a very unorganized ten-point u-turn down a rocky red-dirt road, we eventually parked where we could safely assume there was a party, the only evidence being a long line of cars parked along a cliff road because we sure couldn't see anything else. We trekked along the road a ways and we look over and the WHOLE SIDE of this cliff is illuminated and we hear music. This house had to have been the coolest place I had ever been. Dancing commenced and didn't really stop until about 3 a.m. It also poured rain pretty much the whole time.

There were three things that were noteworthy about this party. We will do this in outline form:

1. One band member, who shall remain nameless, was, according to Katie:

a. Making out with this chick who was

i. Really blonde

ii. Really 45

b. At some point they went MIA.

c. I must note that

i. There was a lot of alcohol at this party

ii. Who knows, maybe he doesn't discriminate.

2. Somehow, I ended up on Eric's shoulders. It was like:

a.  A game of chicken, only:

i. Without the pool.

ii. Without anyone else playing.

b. Also according to Katie, I was freaking out and Eric was trying to tell me to calm down, but like, what do you do in that situation? If you fall, do you:

i. Grab his face?

ii. Uhh… no, you grab the FRO! That thing really comes in handy for things like

1. Impromptu cheerleading moves, and

2. Getting invited to parties at the grocery store.

c. If the picture Katie took is any indication, by the look on his face he probably regretted that decision.

3. There was a guy there who we all affectionately referred to as the "Bubble Pirate." He was:

a. Dressed like a pirate.

b. Covered in glitter.

c. Carrying around bubbles and a wand.

d. Giving bubble blessings to celebrate the fall equinox.

i. The fall equinox was apparently the whole reason for this party in the first place.

Then I remembered where we were. Oh, Sedona. I heart you for so many more reasons now.