Damn, that was one rough flight com­ing into OAK. Don’t do it again SW, or… NO SOUP FOR YOU! (I’ll update this entry lat­er today, sooo tired from the week­end… lots of stuff to write about. Good times.)

I flew down this past Thurs­day night by SW. Seems that they were delayed by 30. But oh well, I got to do online checkin and got sat with group A—yayer! First time I actu­al­ly got to sit with that group, as its usu­al­ly C and a cou­ple of times in B. I just dont like sit­ting in the back cause by the time you get your drink (for an hour flight) you’re already land­ing.

Fast-for­ward to Sat­ur­day
Woke up pret­ty late, as late as 11am. Yah I know, thats pret­ty ear­ly for a Sat­ur­day but I’ve been get­ting up pret­ty con­sis­tent­ly around 8am on the week­ends for some rea­son unknown. Got ready and went with my bro to his band’s prac­tice in the val­ley. Man oh man, it was freakin’ nice, warm weath­er. Its been a while since I have worn shorts and actu­al­ly felt com­fort­able to wear through­out the whole day and night. But yah, these suck­ers are crazy when they prac­tice. I took some doc­u­men­tary of it as well.

Mean­while, 5:30pm rolls around so fast that we were in a rush to get back because of Tinz’ hula recital (which was first-come first-serve seat­ing). I guess its real­ly true when you’re hav­ing fun, time flies. And as a char­ac­ter­is­tic of LA, good ol’ fash­ioned traf­fic (plus smog of course). Oh LA traf­fic, how I miss thee…

I final­ly got home to change a bit. Might as well, so I can just go straight to the club right after. But yah, I real­ly want­ed to take pics of Tinz’ show but could­n’t cause there was this huge ass doo­ds with sarongs(?). Kin­da like the ones that are on those “hawai­ian pow­er” shirts. Yah man, alo­ha to you too brotha. Fur­ther­more, the stage was real­ly damn close to us, thanks to the patience showed by BelLou.

Flash­doms
It was Jevon, Jua­na­ton, Tom­my, Ryan, Jovan­horne, Cice­ly, Jay, Bel­Lou, and I attend­ing. I swear, we were like the press—a cam­era per indi­vid­ual. Even though they were strict about the cam­era, Lou man­aged to get some cool pics since he got the great seat—right up the mid­dle and away from the “mus­cles” to see. Besides that, I learned that you can use nylon (from under­wear) to make the harsh­ness of the built-in flash of dSLRs soft­er. I am label­ing that thing as a “flashdom”—kinda like a con­dom but for flash, keepin’ it safe from over­ex­po­sure-titis. And who bet­ter to teach me this? Yes, its him, Con­fu­cious rein­car­nat­ed… Jua­na­ton. I tell you, those “flash­doms” are gonna be a great hit.

Feel the Aura
The hula thing went well, kin­da remind­ed me of PCN but no “Cel­e­bra­tion” song. I was glad some­what that it was done as it took a long time to fin­ish. The head guru (I guess) planned giv­ing out the raf­fle stuff at the end; which dragged for more than 30+ min­utes or so. I was step­ping on it to go back home cause I left a bat­tery for my cam­era.

But alas, I got to the Rhythm Natives’ album release par­ty and show @ Aura Night­club in Stu­dio City. I was stress­ing out cause it was daaamn packed. The line was extend­ed pro­l­ly a good 100 feet; and that aint sin­gle-file. I freakin’ just paid $11 for VIP park­ing since I know I ain’t drink­ing cause of meds. Got out quick­ly with all my gear and pro­ceed to call T (my bro’s gf), which did­n’t pick­up… thanks. So I rushed through the back and made my way inside. First time I’ve ever done that; got lucky cause there weren’t any bounc­ers when I went through.

I took quite a lot of pics, or tried too. It was way packed inside, more than I was expect­ing for a gig like their usu­al ones. I tried tak­ing clear pics but that was a prayer since I had no clear sight to take a good expo­sure on. But any­ways, I got a hand­ful show­ing how great of a show it was. If you haven’t heard any of their stuff, you can go to www.rhythmnatives.com. Go and sup­port, they’re real­ly good—surprisingly.

Besides hear­ing that Lil’ Wayne was there, we saw JC Chasez with a cou­ple of hot ladies. Did­n’t real­ly get to take a pic of him, I shoul­da cause I just remem­bered that Gwen like that dood (if I can recall). But yah, he had some weird haircut—I think it was a mul­let.

Great Week­end
Got to see the doods/doodettes from Irvine, the fam and catch anoth­er RN gig—a band on the come up, I swear! And oh yah, got to eat one of my favorite late night spots—Sanam­lu­ang! Man oh man, can you say “mmm mmm good” in Thai?!

From my mind to yours, sup­port my bro and his band—the Rhythm Natives.