Remember that movie with Frankie Avalon and original Mouseketeer Annette Funicello? Beach Party? Frankie got to surf (and was known as) the Big Kahuna. Whether my memory is making a mess out of the 1963 flick or not, I seem to remember the surfers were always on the look out for a huge wave; certain that this wave would be the one to make them a local legend and get their girlfriends’ wandering eyes back to adoring only them. Not to mention make’m kings at the local beach bonfire where everyone wiggles their bikini bottoms.

The Rock Out With Your Socks Out Sock Hop + Art Auction is Jordan and I’s Big Kahuna. We are hoping this soiree will make fundraising legend within our own smaller sized blanket weave of the year We Raised $13 000 for The Arthritis Society.

It is no longer the Year We Will Run a Marathon or the Year We Eloped in a Foreign Country or The Year We Danced to Queen and The Doobie Brothers for Cheap Entertainment. Nope.  It won’t even be The Year We Took a Ferry Ride to Turkey, or The Year we Adopted a Forever-Friend. No, this will be the year We Raised $13 000. It’s a feat. And we’ve been slapping our boards on waves big and small, so far raising a couple of hundred dollars at a time bringing us to 43% of $13 000. (Which is pretty darn-tootin amazing when we look at where we started from -0%!).

But the glitch and there’s always at least one, is we need to raise 75% of our goal by July 1st so we can stay a bit longer overseas after the marathon and take that boat ride to Turkey and make that wedding ceremony on November 4th. If we raise the 75% we don’t get penalized for lengthening our plane ticket (for free!) to squeeze in an extra week or two after the race. That’s $4056 bucks we need to raise in just a few weeks. So this is the time for the miracle worker, the bikini bottom shaking extravaganza, or the Big Kahuna.

And we’re hoping that Rock Out With Your Socks Out will be just the bonfire we’re looking for. (We’re also having a bake sale and bottle drive this month too).

If you’re in Vancouver and want to come the sock hop + art auction, we’d love to have ya! (And if you would just like to donate to the cause, you can do so online here).

And oh gosh, ignoramus confession time: The term ‘Big Kahuna’ is sort of like Coca Cola saying you can open happiness. “Kahuna”  is actually a word meaning “priest, magician, minister, wizard, expert in any field”, (not a huge wave you can surf). Also according to wikipedia pro surfers such as Duke Kahanamoku, have resisted the word’s pop culture lure out of respect for its original meaning. Hmm.

So, in our next big wave of fundraising, Jordan and I are looking for our “humpback“. (According to Wiktionary under Glossary of Surfing this is a big wave that is more like two waves. It’s also called “double-up”. And we sure hope this fundraiser does exactly that. Cowabunga!

Big Wave Surfing

Draw by Night is forking over all the sketches and drawings, masterpieces and doodles made on May 12th to us!

Well, not exactly to us, but Jordan and I will be the safe-keepers of them until our next *big* Arthritis Society Fundraiser – Rock Out With Your Socks Out!

(This is my second ever photoshop attempt. I'm more proud than a mom, er, even if you can't read it, I guess the mom equation works well, then).

At this event we will divide all art sales between The Arthritis Society and Draw by Night. Win-win-win, because if you bid $5 or more you may get to take home an original from a Vancouver artist who will rock the white right off of that bare wall of yours.

Anyone can come and draw too! That party puts the pen to the paper on May 12th, 6pm -9pm at the VFS Cafe, 390 W Hastings.

And of course, anyone can come rock out at the sock hop too. Even with your shoes on! You can find ‘Rock Out With Your Socks Out’ dance & auction info here.

And one last thing about tomorrow night, DJ Noble -all the way from Norway- has created a specific ‘Meat Legs’ themed song list.  You won’t know what got into that pen you’re holding until you hear the music!

Owww!

(Can ‘Meat Legs’ howl?)

They sure as heck can!

I was thrilled Jordan and I could join Compassion for Animal’s worldwide project: The Worldwide Vegan Bake Sale as a part of our Arthritis Society fundraising.

Now, I’m not going to lie, ok, I’ll lie a little, I didn’t think I’d be able to bake anything that could even remotely be considered delicious without eggs or butter or Betty Crocker. And even if some talented vegan bakers could, I had a niggly vague sense I probably wouldn’t be able to. It’s that sort of underlying mundane terror that can crop up any time in life – ‘what if I can’t figure out how to put the bus ticket into the machine?!!’ Which, when roughly translated means: ‘everyone dies, but I’m still afraid to. Oh, god just let me put the damn ticket into the machine.’ So, when I put on my makeshift hairnet and rallied up some new ingredients, my wooden spoon was shaking. Yeah sure, I was afraid of death, but worse- I was afraid of death from embarrassment… what if I didn’t have the vegan baking gene? What if I sullied the name of the Worldwide Vegan Bakesale and of one of my favourite veggie places to eat in the whole wide city? What if my spoon served to confirm the stereotype carnivore’s everywhere say when vegan baking comes up, “that’s an oxymoron, right?” Or “disgusting, I’d rather eat sawdust sprinkled with brains.”

But I committed to this fundraiser, dang it, and Sejuiced called me back and said they’d love to support both causes and I could set up in front of their store. And here’s nothing but the truth: getting that call from Sejuiced was like someone telling me my first story was getting published, I was elated. I jumped up and down. This was real help from the community. And not to mention from a legit, healthy, feel-good place. I pushed the mundane terror back behind the eggs in the fridge, picked up the tofu instead and got to baking.

These chocolate chips are delicious! I'm still eating them!

We went to a new grocery store called Greens on the corner of West Broadway and Maple - they were super friendly and had the stuff we were looking for.

I used -with some minor adaptations- recipes from three Vegan Cookbooks: Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World; The Garden of Vegan and Vegan Vittles. The pages now look like 18th Century treasure maps due to all the oil and flour and maple syrup I accidentally spilled on'em.

The baking started to pile up once I got the hang of it and ps, it's actually pretty easy to bake vegan.

Here’s some cover shots of the cookbooks that proved to not only be useful but late night friends too:

And speaking of friends, it felt like we were hanging out on Sesame Street setting up shop on West 4th avenue. People were so friendly! Our first customer of the day told us we made her day as she bit into one of my-first-time-ever-made-vegan-brownies and said “delicious”. I started breathing again. If it wouldn’t have been weird I would have hugged her for at least three seconds.

I got to thinking, if we could impress these healthy shiny people on West 4th, then maybe we could keep having some bakesales for The Arthritis Society. And heck, maybe even throw in some raw-food desserts sometime. We got to chat with one young woman who makes raw food desserts regularly. I told her I felt like Sly Stallone in Rocky 5 over the brownies, and that I would have no idea what superhero I would feel like over a successful raw food dessert bonanza… John McClane? Yippee-ki-yay…

We got to talk about the Arthritis Society, the upcoming marathon, and the Worldwide Vegan Bake Sale to moms, kids, dads, dogs, shoppers, runners, bikers, people on dates, people who work in the area and the fabulous people who work at Sejuiced. We raised $96.50 too!  That pulled us up an entire percentage point towards our goal of nabbing $13 000, we’re resting at 41% of that so far ($5300!)

It’s T-minus 21 hours until our next Arthritis Society fundraiser and this one is even sketchier turn-out-wise. We don’t  have the White Stripes behind us, but we do have Commodore Lanes & Billiards and while it may not be rock n roll, it’s bowling. Which is really a lot like rocknroll but with bigger balls.

——

I have to come clean the above paragraph was a draft of a post written the day before our Chuck the Stapler and pick up a ball fundraiser which was an Office Space & Big Lebowski dress up party (is someone going to catch on that we’re having way too much fun coming up with fundraisers?) And while it was sketchy turn-out wise (about 15 people showed out of 42) the people that came made it one heck of a good time.  A few even dressed up. And all beat their case of the Monday’s with a cold beer and a few 5-pin strikes.

In reality, we raised $3 that day. But we put the whole $300 in. The thing was, people were really stoked and want to help us do the next one and the next one after that, so really that 3 bucks does feel like 300 when you’ve got those kinda dressed-up-awesome people helping you out.

Flare and all.

This was our top prize

Not only was it won, but the person who won it then wore it and bowled a strike, that's the "wild" in wild side!

Thank you!

A few weeks ago Conan O’Brien did something Vancouverites won’t forget for a long time: he came here.

That’s how funny the guy is- he moves his eyebrows just so and we will love him forever.

And love him forever I do.

I’ve had a picture of Conan next to my bedside since i’ve been 19, that’s a long time. Actually anytime I get a photo frame as a gift, I put Conan in it. (I’ve only been gifted two photo frames so far in my life).

This year I got a special two-hearts-as-one-photo-frame that’s probably meant as an xmas tree ornament for you and  your significant other. So, Jordan put his main love in there too. Voila: Conan and King Diamond brightening up a light switch. More than electricity ever could.

So, to indulge my sadness that I was missing Team Coco, Andy Richter, Max Weinberg, and ‘the best crew in history of the medium’, I went for a lonely walk down to the ocean the morning before his second show.  I stood by my favourite ship that washed up on shore a week before during the windstorms. (I will really miss this when it goes, although I’m sure this is a nightmare for the owners to have it perched like this, it has been a delight to anyone strolling by and the dogs just love running around it).

I imagined seeing Conan come down to the beach; both of us standing in the sun watching my favourite ship slowly being taken back out to sea. Us pausing in the sunlight and in the infinite wisdom of the present moment and then after a long silence, easily trading jokes back and forth about pets and hair. About what it’s like to be so tall and so short. So pale and so pink.

He didn’t show up. Not that he didn’t feel any Vancouver love, anyone who I’ve heard from that went will have coco stars in their eyes for the rest of the life, they loved it so much.

And you know, even in my fantasies that guy can make me laugh so hard at so much, including myself.

Come back to Vancouver, soon, Conan and do three shows -and maybe one for free outta a 7-11 parking lot!

Three cheers for Sejuiced! Hip-hip-sejuiced! Hip-hip-sejuiced! This veggie-delicious restaurant is letting us set up shop for our next Arthritis Society fundraiser tomorrow.

And between now and then I have a lot of vegan baking to do.

We’ve hitched our little wagon to the tractor that is The 2nd annual Worldwide Vegan Bake Sale. As a part of this worldwide 2-week event, we’re whisking up cookies, cupcakes and brownies (oh my! – I never get tired of this joke or The Wizard of Oz, sigh). So, if you’re strolling along beautiful West 4th avenue tomorrow between Noon and Two, stop by Sejuiced (1958 West 4th Avenue, Vancouver, BC) for a little taste of what hopefully will be delicious.

Grace is located at 2685 Maple Street in Vancouver. It’s become sort of my daily prayer in staying playful. A reminder: This is it! This is what we’ve got and ain’t it beautiful?

Owner and creator, Wendy Williams Watt is a force -full of fun, insight, and that elusive “it” quality. (What is “it”?! It’s definitely bright (as in light and smart) and something some of us wear on our sleeves and the rest of us rub up against).

(Wait a second, does that make us some of us cats?)

(And what’s up with all the parenthesis?)

Sigh. That’s the thing with trying to describe “it”, you get cheap and feline in the process.

So, onto the short video we shot as a part of a job application. Wendy Williams Watt let us step over the threshold into a place of magic, a place full of “it” with not a cat in sight.

Last week on M2M on CJSF 90.1fm Sarah Hyde and I took our recorder out for a walk and visited some of the coolest places in the city.

You can hear that show here.

 

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 Standard Podcast [30:00m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

One place that captured my imagination and took a little piece of my heart is called, Grace.

You can walk by this world of wonder on 2685 Maple Street day or night. The big window looking into the front room is like the rabbit hole, crossing over into a world that doesn’t quite ressemble the one outside of it.

It’s inviting and magic. Elusive, arty, thrilling, unique. I’ve spent long minutes standing in front of this window watching my perspective transform, taking in a “f gossip t-shirt” and a Mad Hatter/Dr. Seuss/Vogue magazine-esque stack of vintage suitcases careen just so. I’ve seen things moved around, new things added and marveled at the sometimes posters in the window. I’ve felt like any message posted was posted just for me.

And as the days carried on, I noticed I made sure to walk by this place and stop to peer into the window.

We all  know in this economic climate that getting a job in publishing, broadcasting, arts is akin to making a living off of designing paper cranes, it seems only the geniuses can do it. So, Grace became an anchor. A continuing possibility in a wide arrays of “not now’s/no’s/sorry’s/why-don’t-you-try-this-instead’s.

This window kept me going, ‘keep applying’ it seemed to say. You can be a part of this world, this conversation.

In yet another stab at a position, for an internship no less, I got to meet Wendy Williams Watt, the creator of Grace.  (She’s as amazing- if not even more so than the window itself). I’ll post next the little video Jordan and I shot as a part of that job application.

I didn’t get the job, but you know what? I got a ‘f-gossip’ t-shirt. How f’in brilliant is that!

First off: THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU  to Zulu Records (making us legit by helping us sell tickets); Pacific Cinematheque, (the people working & volunteering there are gods and saints); Videomatica (giving us a way cool prize pack and a much needed high-five); Jordan’s mom’s (baking supplies trip or should I say mission?) and the friends who iced cupcakes late into a Friday night, with no bottom of the tub in sight.

Our house the night before the fundraiser, icing 144 cupcakes. Thank god my friends are artists, or the decoration would have consisted of a blob of icing on top.

a close up!!

the most important part to making cupcakes...(don't worry this was a staged event and no real icing dipping or licking took place).

The duds

We raised $968 in ticket/cupcakes/50/50 draw sales and $200 in donations!! That’s $1168!! Bumping us up to 32% of our total goal!  We threw in the price of the theatre and insurance and gave a little speech before the show.  We were so amazed to see people come out. That we even gave out prize packs consisting of a dinosaur, fake tattoos and a $5 gift certificate. (So, if you were wondering whether or not you’d wanna come to our next event -may the prize pack sway you over-  because we’ve got two more to hand out for next time!)

We were a little nervous first time around that we only got pictures of the cupcake table before people arrived and the film started. hahaha. So, there’s no pictures of the actual turn out or how good the movie looked up on the big screen. And let me talk about the film for a second, holy holy, how grateful we are to The White Stripes, B-side entertainment, Emmett Malloy for letting us do our own screening of the movie that turned my heart into a six-string guitar and made it weep and howl.  A few years back one of my best friends and I took a greyhound bus to try and follow the White Stripes around for a few shows. Afterwards we stood waiting beside any vehicle that looked like it could be for them just to catch a glimpse of the band that brought our souls back. I didn’t even feel foolish. I was old enough to be the mom of the kids waiting with us. (Well, a responsible teenage mom at least). I love that band and everyone who showed up on Saturday loves them too. Even Jordan’s mom left the theatre raving about the mystifying/electrifying twosome. So, heck yah!

Me really hoping people will show up

One of our two tables at Pacific Cinematheque

These swirly goodies raised us 70 bucks!

Yay white stripes loving, cupcake selling friends!

We’ll post soon about our next event on Monday, April 19th. Just know this: it’s gonna bust your case of the Monday’s wide open and pour some bowling balls’ worth of fun right in till Tuesday. 5-pin style.

On this week’s Mouth2Mouth broadcasting outta CJSF 90.1fm, Sarah Hyde and I talk pseudonyms.

Have you ever changed your name?

Sarah Hyde talks about what it was like to live a year as Molly Hopkins. Turns out Molly is a whole lotta fun! (So is Sarah- she picked up a thing or two from her name-changing alter ego).

We talk to Orene Askew, who really prefers to be called “O”; Maegan Conway on changing names during a pub crawl in Berlin, Nick Kempinksi on how a name change can make a big difference and Katie K on what it’s like to catch someone using a different name. And as the world funnily turns, that someone just happens to be the same someone Sarah Hyde and I know…by a different name. I know. I know. There’s a lot to a name.

Including some silly fun. Sarah and I rename each other for a day.  And I’m not sure what she thought of my name for her but I was pretty happy with what she came up with for me, especially when we shortened it to a nickname.

So, go ahead, pick up a Sharpie and fill in that blank “Hello, my name is” box. Write whatever you want. We found out it doesn’t hurt a thing.

Until someone finds out.

The Pseudonyms Show Part I

The Pseudonyms Show Part II