Two weeks ago, a few friends and I went to Muncie, Indiana to see....guess who....Ekoostik Hookah!!! We were all so happy that our boys were in our home state.
They played at a bar called Doc's. It was a pretty cool place, but I definitely felt a little old hanging out with all the little college kids. Hookah brought in a pretty good crowd of their own with all us regulars, so it wasn't too bad.
There was an opening band that played some jazz. The percussionists were all a lot of fun to watch and hear, and the keyboardist wasn't too shabby either. It's always fun to see who the local opening bands will be in different cities. I was surprised that they didn't have some college kids opening up for them though. After all, we were right in the middle of a major college town.
My neighbor and good friend, Marcus, was my date for the night since Ryan was working. We met up with Kelly, Liz, and Matt at Doc's before the show for some drinks and dinner. Kelly is definitely up to something here............ :-) 
Liz and I, cheek to cheek before the show!!
One of our favorite Indiana boys opened for Ekoostik Hookah as well as the jazz band. His name is Derick Howard. He is from Columbus, Indiana. We originally met him as a fellow Hookah fan at several shows, and soon realized that we were hanging out with an extremely talented musician.
Calling him a one man band kind of gives the wrong idea, but I don't know how else to describe him. He plays a lot of different instruments and records as he plays. He then plays what he just recorded back in a loop and plays another instument over it and records that too. This process goes on and on until it sounds like there is a seven man band up there.
In this photo, he is playing a percussion instrument (while he is sitting on it) that sounds like a large congo drum. I'm sure it has a name, but I have no idea what that might be. It can sometimes be exhausting to watch him because he is all over the place switching instruments. All the while, his music that he just finished recording is playing along and he hops right back into rhythm with something new.
Cliff Starbuck, the bassist for Ekoostik Hookah, joined Derick for a couple songs. It was really fun seeing them play together.
From talking to Derick, it sounds like a dream come true to have Cliff Starbuck by his side. I can only imagine!!
Here he is working his magic making some crazy music on the sound board and playing his guitar at the same time.
Matt and Liz are big fans of Derick too. All of us are....like I said, he's an Indiana boy too!!!
Marcus had a good time tagging along with us. We have done our best to turn him into a Hookahhead too!! I was glad he went with me so I didn't have to ried down there alone.
The stage at Doc's was a pretty decent size, but the set up was a little screwy. You could see John Mullins just fine up front and center, but Dave's keyboards were behind a big stack of amps. You could hear him really well, but you couldn't see him unless you were way over on the Sweney side of the stage!!
Of course, I was front and center for most of the evening. I feel out of place anywhere else!!
Cliffy had the harmonica out again. We always love it when he plays the harp for us. That man is so talented!!! He belted out one of my favorite songs called "Hoist That Rag" by Tom Waits. It is by far the best cover song Cliff has done in a long time. It totally made my night hearing him do that song.
We were able to see Dave when he finally came out to play the guitar. I was glad to see him crawl out from behind those amps!!
I ventured over to the Sweney side for awhile to get a couple pictures without microphones in them. It was kinda hard to do that while I was in the Muffins middle :-)
The first set was on fire, and I really didn't expect the second set to be so energetic. I have no idea what I was thinking. I should've known they would blow my mind all over again, cause that's exactly what they did.
This was a little later in the evening after Kelly and Liz had had a few drinks (I was designated driver.) As you can see, Kelly was running for her life any time the camera came near her toward the end of the night. She always hates pictures of herself even though she always looks beautiful!!!
Even with her little tongue hanging out, she's beautiful :-)
My man Eric rocked it on drums as usual. I even got one of my favorite songs called Caribou that Eric sings. I never think he sings enough, so I am always thrilled to get even just one song out of him.
I tried to get a good picture of Eric without my flash while Buddy the light guy was doing his thing, but this was the best one I got. I really wish that new camera from Christmas was still working :-(The whole night was full of great surprises. They covered Black Water by the Doobie Brothers and the whole crowd chimed in until they just stopped playing and let the crowd sing a capella. We chanted on for a few minutes before they jumped back in with us. I think that was about the time that our friend Jess pulled out her giant jar of bubbles and blowing them up at the boys on stage. That episode even made the setlist on their website.
The next night, Kelly and I drove up to East Lansing, Michigan to see them again.
Kelly rode home with me from Muncie on Thursday night so she could catch a ride up to the next show. We woke up Friday morning and just kind of hung out and recuperated from a late night Thursday. Then I took her to Don Panchos for lunch (My absolute favorite Mexican resturant these days.) Then we headed out of town.
East Lansing is about a three and a half hour drive from Kokomo, so it wasn't a bad drive at all. We did have a little incident on the way up there though. I'm almost too embarassed to post it, but it is kinda funny...........When we were only about 20 miles out of Lansing on I69, we ran out of gas. I know, I know....I'm an idiot!!! I was paying no attetnion whatsoever, just talking away, and all of a sudden the car started acting kinda funny. Before I even realized what was happening, I started to pull off on the closest exit and then BAM, she died. Luckily, we had gotten far enough off the road that we were safe, but we had no idea where the nearest gas station was, and the sign for the exit we were on had nothing saying "Gas Station ahead." So, we grabbed our important stuff and our flashlight and took off walking. ( I know the family is probably all having heart attacks reading this...sorry)
Lucky for us, there was a gas station just around the bend where we couldn't quite see it from the car. So I think we probably only walked a quarter of a mile or so. We ran in real quick, bought a gas can, pre-paid for two gallons of gas and were on our way. By the time we crossed the street to walk back down the exit, a couple of cops pulled up and asked us if we wanted a ride back to our car. Well, of course we did!!!! So, we hopped in the back of their car with the gas can and they flipped their lights on a drove us the opposite direction down the ramp to our car. It was actually kinda fun to ride with them and have the lights on because everyone was getting out of our way. We were heading into oncoming traffic....FUN!!!!
When we got back to the car, I tried to get out of the back of the cop car and I couldn't. It makes total sense to me now, but apparently the doors in the back of a cop car don't open from inside. You learn something new every day :-) The cops just laughed a little and then hopped out and let us out.
I fumbled around with the gas can and the spout using the cop's headlights for a few minutes, and they ended up getting back out to help us because I was struggling. Apparently I picked the hardest spout in the world to buy that night because it took me, Kelly, and two cops to figure out how it worked. It was pretty funny really. Those guys were a total blessing that night. They helped us get the car going again, and made sure it was running before they took off. The really ironic thing about all this was, they stopped just as we were driving away to pick up another person walking down the same exit with a gas can in hand. It's nice to know that they were out there protecting and serving like their cars always say.
When we finally got to Lansing, our friend Kelly Jo was impatiently waiting for us. We met up with her and ran into Eric from the band and had a couple drinks together. I was ready to get wasted after that whole incident on the way up to the show. Plus, we thought we had a place to stay for the night.
We had a really good time at the show. They played a lot of great songs, and the energy from both the band and the crowd was impressive. I love the close up feel you get watching Ekoostik Hookah. Very rarely do they play a show at a venue where you can't touch the stage. In fact, most of the time, I'm laying my purse and coat on top of the stage. They don't mind us putting that kind of stuff up there. It's just the spilled drinks that get on their nerves.
In all the fuss of getting our gas situation under control, I totally forgot that I needed batteries for my camera while we were at the gas station. I didn't get many pictures from that night, but I'll give ya what I got!!
This spot in front of Cliffy, the bassist was where I posted my stuff for the night. I couldn't quite squeeze into the Muffins Middle for most of the night, but I was happy over in front of Cliff and Sweney. It isn't very often that we can squeeze over to Sweney Side, so we enjoyed our footing for the night.
This is Kelly Anne and Livia. The original plan was that we were supposed to stay at Livia's brother's house in Lansing after the show was over. With that plan in mind, both Kelly and I had a few drinks. After the show ended, security was practically picking people up and throwing them out the door so they could close. We barely had enough time to say goodbye to Eric before we had a guy telling us it was time to leave. It was kinda funny when security came up to us because he obviously didn't know Eric was part of the band. He tried to tell us we all had to leave and Eric told him he wasn't leaving without his stuff. He started to get a little attitude with Eric until he explained that the "stuff" he was talking about was his drum set from off of the stage!! He backed off a little after that. We were still so rushed to get out of there that we never got the correct address of the house where we were supposed to be staying.
After leaving the venue, we tried to get ahold of our friends, but nobody would answer their cell phones or answer their texts, so we drove through Burger King and decided to get a room for the night. We actually found a really nice room that I would have liked to have spent more time in, but we had a four hour drive back to Kelly's house the next day and another concert that night, so we only slept a few hours before we woke up and left.
When we woke up, there was snow on the ground. There wasn't much, but the wind was blowing so hard that it was hard to see while we were driving. After about an hour of driving, we were finally out of the snow and had clear roads ahead of us the rest of the way home.
I had to drive Kelly home to Indy before I got home, so I had to go a little out of my way, but it wasn't bad. I got home at about 5:00 Saturday afternoon and talked Ryan into going back down to Indy for the Freekbass show. It was a free show at The Mousetrap, and I knew several of our friends would be there, so I really wanted to go. It didn't take much to convince Ryan to go down there with me.
We hung out with Nick and Ashley for a little while before the show and then went to Matt and TeShannah's to catch a ride. We all carpooled over to The Mousetrap and met up with Dave, Kelly, Matt and Liz. The picture above is Tsly on guitar.
This is me TeShannah, Ashley and Polly.....having a ball!!!
I was so happy that Ryan was actually able to join me for this show. I missed him on Thursday and Friday while I was running around without him. Sometimes I wonder why I even do anything without him because I have so much more fun when he's there.
Kelly will probably kill me for posting this one. She never likes any pictures of herself, so we'll see what she thinks of this one!!! :-)
Liz and my baby.....do you all like Ryan's Jamaica beard?
The guy in the mask is "Freekbass." He usually dresses up pretty funky, but doesn't normally look as gay as I thought he looked this night. He's an extremely gaudy bassist and very lively. Some people would maybe compare him to Les Claypool from the band Primus. (who by the way is gonna be playing at Hookahville this spring) The drummer's name is Chip Wilson, and like most drummers, he is full of energy!! I love him!!
Here's Freekbass...the man in the spotlight. 
Here you can see Chip Wilson, Freekbass, and Tobotius on turntables on the other side of the drums.
Needless to say, I was completely exhausted after that weekend. Luckily, I had a day off the following Monday to recuperate. I love those three day runs, but I really missed Ryan the two nights I was gone. If he could just get some weekdays off, then maybe we could do some of these runs together. After Jamaica......after Jamaica...............
Yep, that's the one!! I bought some for Dave and Kelly too!! It's always more fun when you have props!!
I was all over the place that night. I spent a lot of time up front like I usually do, but with everyone who was there being spread out all over the place, I found it hard to stand still for long. I wanted to see everyone and play with everyone!!! I'm pretty sure I danced for miles, literally!!!
John Mullins had his hair down that night. It was kinda weird to see him like that, but I guess I liked it alright. I definitely prefer the ponytail though. Looked like he even used some hair spray on that do!!
Ryan had ahold of the camera for a lot of the night, and kept taking random photos from above everyone's head. This is the only one where I actually recognized anyone....and it was me!!!
I loved it that the balcony was open. It was a great place for photos.I was happy to be up there when Eric, the drummer, was singing. We never hear enough out of him, and the few times that he does sing, I'm usually not anywhere where I can actually get a good picture of him.
Another view from the balcony. This was after midnight...there's confetti everywhere!!!
TeShannah was there to ring in the New Year with us!! I just love her!! I believe this was just before we both fell down in eachother's arms....and the sad thing is, I was drinking Pepsi!!!!
Of course, I had to throw in a picture of Sweney, the guitar god!! He was on fire that night. You could tell that the whole band was having a great time. We got to hear some of our favorite songs along with several suprprises. The one that totally blew me away was when Cliff sang "Hoist That Rag" by Tom Waits. I think I might have peed my pants a little :-)
On Saturday January 17th, Ryan, me, and a big group of friends from Indy headed down to Louisville for The Forecastle Festival. That is a festival that supports local musicians, artists, and gives people who are volunteering their time for a good cause a great place for exposure. 
The Festival was held in building appropriately called The Green Building. The entire energy system running everything in the building is run on green power. Also, all of the remodeling on the inside of the building has been done with recycled materials. It was a pretty cool place.
It was a very interesting place, and seemed a little uppity for our taste at first. After sitting on some big comfy couches with a glass of wine and a petrified log as a table, Ryan hopped up to explore a little. We had no idea when we walked in how cool this place actually was. From what you could see when you first walked in, it was just a hoity toity restaurant with some nice art hanging on the walls. But no, that doesn't even come close to describing what this place is all about. It was awesome!! Here's the website so you can go explore it yourself: 
This is THEIR picture and description of the ginormous chandelier.
The artist Dominic Rouse had a display of his artwork that was extremely eery, but made you very curious nonetheless.
Felipe Barbosa (Brazilian), Ursa Major (Great Bear), 2006-2007.Teddy bear covered with small explosives. © Felipe BarbosaBarbosa’s work often challenges the meaning of the objects he appropriates by altering their physical compositions and creating unexpected and formally engaging situations. By covering a readymade teddy bear with snaps (novelty firecrackers), the artist has depleted the cuddly and affectionate associations of the bear and make it more volatile and threatening.Similar to Golden Rhino by David Mach, made entirely of live matches (currently installed in Proof), Barbosa shifts the focus from use and intent of an object to its formal qualities - allowing new ideas and associations inherent to the materiality of an object to be more recognized. The materials such as matches and snaps not normally associated with sculpture loose their original function and become purely aesthetic. 
Sean Bidic (American), In the absence of voyerism #6 and #7,2002-2006. © Sean Bidic
After all our fun at 21C, we headed down to an area called Fourth Street Live. It's basically like a block party all the time. The roads are blocked off to motor vehicles and everyone just hops from bar to bar. There were several places to eat down there and we chose the one simply called "The Pub." It turned out to be a great place for cheap drinks and good food.....just my kind of place. AND the guys who worked in there had to wear kilts. Our bartender, Chip, was a pretty husky fella. He kinda looked like he should have been playing center for a pro football team...until we saw him in the kilt. Then I couldn't help but let my mind wander......"I wonder if he's wearing any underwear"...........It was confirmed later on that he did NOT wear underwear to work!!! Oh Chip!!
This is a picture of the whole gang, minus myself. (someone had to take the picture!!) From left to right we have our neighbor Marcus, Ryan from Indy, Kelly Anne, Juanita, Andrew, Dave, my Ryan, Lizz, and Matt.
Andrew, Ryan and Marcus found this cool statue down the street from 21c and spent some quality time trying to look intellectual by standing near it.
Then Lizz and I jumped in.............
Of course, it was one of the few days that I was actually running on time to work, and this little doll totally blew that out of the water for me.....I am so bad. But anyway, I turned back around to take her home, called my boss and told him what I was doing ( I don't think he thought it was a very good excuse for being late) When I got home, Ryan came barrelling out of the bedroom wanting to know what all the chaos was about. Our dogs always go nuts when I first bring another animal in the house.
As soon as he saw her, he knew. I felt kind of bad because I had to turn around and leave right away to get back to work, but Ryan fell inlove right away, so it was no problem at all. 
I'm just getting ready to leave work and go back home to see how the day went. Ryan dropped her off at the groomer's to have her bathed and get her nails trimmed, so she has hopefully had a nice day of pampering. We will be trying to find a home for her on our own like we have the last few dogs we have rescued, but if we don't find something within a couple weeks, we will turn her over to the Companion Animal Association. We have just found it easier to place dogs in homes without the huge adoption fees. Of course, we're only providing very basic care for these dogs while we have them. We have not had any costly vet visits with the rescues yet, so we have been fortunate.
Once again, I'm throwing a line to everyone who reads this: If you know anyone who might be interested in giving this little girl a new home, please let me know. We think she is a chihuahua and it's a female. That's about all the details I have at this point. I'll know more after tonight.
