Our second performance was at a place called Kimo's. Oh, Kimo's. Kimo's has become a famous part of Ovulator lore since after we played there 3 years ago, Tina wrote the song "Drag Queen" about our experiences there, and the song is on our album, so you can hear the story yourself about how Kimo's used to be a drag queen bar that the punk rockers took over. The place is painted red, although the mural we remembered was gone. We played with two very supportive bands, The Tender Few opening the night. The n the cops showed up to tell us we were being too loud. The sound guy gathered the a spokesperson from each remaining band and let the police lecture us about sound and about how if they had to come back they were going to arrest the sound guy. This didn't come as any surprise to me, a friend had warned me that Kimo's had a reputation for getting closed down. So, The Ovulators donned in gold, kept it quiet. Something about being quiet, and our exhausting day kept our energy low. Just when we had discussed the goal of giving two hundred percent when we're on stage. Luckily, Kasey had set up an extra performer "Revolva" to perform with us. She is this amazing hula hooper who busted out moves that I didn't even know were possible with a hoop. She had a hula hoop that was lit up, so in the dark bar it made a bright impression. Thank goodness for that extra bump from Revolva. Tina's dad, Lou, traveled a couple hours to come support his girl, so they got a hotel room across the street and separated from us. The rest of us bought some beers and nachos makings at the supermarket, where I bumped into Klevland! A rock band friend of ours from Portland. One member asked me, is that really SOB's van. Yes, I validated. I pissed in that van, she told me. Aw, shit, no wonder it smelled so bad. No, she told me it wasn't piss that made it smell bad, a band member had lived in the van for months. Whatever. The van is Ovulator-ified now. Smells like sweet girls.
We went back to Jay's place and partied ourselves to sleep.
Jay and I partied more in the morning while Dori and Kasey still slept. Then we spent the day walking around the Mission, eating at my favorite burrito place and attempting some shopping. Then, Oakland, but that's all for now. New installment soon!

Spring break does not feel like a break at all. The first three days I prepared for my trip, thought about my trip, dreamed about my trip. Not like a vacation trip, but rock band tour trip. 5 days, 4 shows booked. Ashland, San Francisco, Oakland, Medford.
Now, I'm in San Francisco, the morning after our performance at Kimos.

The band has a big band van now. It is so much fun. It is the grand excitement of my adventure. I love the van. We are renting it from In Music We Trust (publicity), who acquired the van from I Can Lick Any Son of a Bitch in the House (defunct rock band). Even though we are paying money to use the van, it was filled with trash and stink of boy when it was picked up from Portland. Dori picked it up, and scrubbed the stench out of it and smoked it out with sage. We donned it with faux fur, and hit the road.

Our first performance was at the Jefferson State Pub in Ashland. Right away, I could tell something was missing as we talked to the manager. It became quickly clear that we had not been given the information that we would need to provide our own sound system. We were hungry, and had a little more than an hour before we performed. It turned out that there was PA equipment, but we had to set it up, and there was only one microphone. So, we did what we could. Pulled together the sound system, pulled on black and white outfits, sprayed ourselves with glitter and hit the stage without a sound guy and only one mic. Since we are a three vocalist band, one microphone was challenging. We had a friend of ours setting vocal levels. It was rough. Still, there was a wonderful vibe in the room. We had gotten a write up in a local paper, they coined us as "femme punk", and a bunch of girls showed up to see us. The girls were dressed wonderfully, I was so impressed and inspired. One girl even came in black and white theme.
About 45 minutes into our performance, some wonderful boys showed up with microphones and mic stands and we were gratefully back to being our regular Ovulators. We rocked the rest of the night. Afterwards, we went to the nice boys house for a party. It was very sweet and fun. I jammed on a drum machine with one of the boys who saved the day while Dori got deep with the girl who came in theme. It felt good to connect with all those people and be able to say: we'll be back in three days, come see us at Johnny B's in Medford. Medford being just a town away from Ashland. And we always have a wonderful friend who gives us a great place to stay.
We had to wake up around 7 in the morning, to drive to SF in time to do an interview at KUSF. That was wearing. And I'll just have to tell you the rest of the story later, because multitasking my social intereaction with Jay while I write out my experiences is getting tiring. And we need to go shower, and eat...

The beautiful weather we've been having has had me thinking that Winter just decided to throw in the towel and let Spring take over, but then this morning my car windows were covered in frost. I guess Winter isn't quite done with us yet...
I remember last year on this day, March 21st, the official first day of Spring, it was quite the opposite. Spring was making itself known with a warmth in the air and a scent of blooming. I suppose Spring has had so much early acknowledgement as of late that she was kind enough to step aside for a moment and let Winter have its last word before slumbering.

For all you Organic Star Wars fans, click here.

Life after Hedwig has taken some adjustment. To begin with, I've been Famished. My body seems to be catching up on my one month adrenalin rush. Then, I had to clean the house. Then I got sick and had to cancell things. Then I had to veg the hell out, and since our TV set blew up awhile ago, that meant getting on line, getting plugged in and getting addicted to something new. Sorry, can't blog, need to save the cheerleader...

I have mixed feeling as this year's run of Hedwig comes to a close. I am relieved to get back to my regular life. This month has been CRAZY, some how creating me to be much less grounded than usual. Our performances were limited to the weekends, yet somehow effected my ablities to feed myself, get enough sleep and excercise through out the week. Today, with the performances behind us, I am already feeling grounded in a way that I have not felt for a month.
Yet, the other emotion is saddness. This run has been so lovely. I am still wrapped up in perfecting my presentation of Steven Trask's music, and still laughing at John Cameron Mitchell's one liners that fill the Hedwig script.
Last night was beautiful. Especially the late night show whose audience was screaming before the house lights even went down. I felt like such the rock star with that crowd. It was difficult to remain in surly rock boy character with such love beaming upon us, I think I even caught Itzak break a smile. Our performance was a grand cumulation of all our hard work, it felt fantastic. I want to thank all the Hedwig and Ovulator fans out there who came to the show two and three times to cheer us on and make the show as fabulous as possible. It is really an interactive play and the audiences' participation allowed us to put on a better performance. Thank you so much to everyone at the Lord Leebrick Theatre, especially our director Craig Willis, who treated us so well through the run, and made this all possible.