This past weekend, my boyfriend and I gallivanted up to our home away from home – San Francisco – to attend the 13th annual Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in Golden Gate Park. The festival was started by Warren Hellmen, a philanthropic investment mogul with an affinity for the city of SF, bluegrass music and the community surrounding both. Though he passed away in 2011, his legacy – and festival – live on through a legacy fund he set-up. The event is entirely free and full of the most ridiculous intersection of people ever; but hey, who doesn’t like free, right?! I’d say that easily half a million people showed up, but it could’ve been nearly 750,000. Old hippies, young hippies (which, by the way – it actually costs of money to look that poor), families, stragglers, groups of friends, groups of couples, etc, etc. We only went for Saturday but that was plenty for me! I caught part of Elvin Bishop and then it was off to see Dave Alvin with Greg Leisz. We saw all of Boz Scaggs, who gained notoriety as the head guitarist and sometimes lead vocalist of the Steve Miller Band; he ROCKED! Then we sauntered over to see Los Lobos Disconnected – a unique, acoustic set by one of my childhood favorite bands; and finally, to wrap up the day we headed back to see Natalie Maines, a third of my childhood favorite country group the Dixie Chicks. Other than the festival, we spent the weekend eating amazing food with great company. I have to admit, it’s the first time I’ve been home with my man and resigned myself to just doing family stuff – and it was wonderful! If this is growing up, I can definitely get used to this. Now, onto the pics – enjoy!
Good morning, San Francisco!
Last time we were in the city, my man wrote a thank you note to my family; it was beautiful seeing it up on their wall!
Starting the day off right with some Old Vine Zin and fabulous cheeses!
There’s nothing quite as enjoyable as manifesting your own reality and thanks to social media, I firmly believe that each and every one of us is fully capable of doing so. Whether it’s attending the right events, donning the right duds, being up on the latest makeup tips or rocking out to the latest and greatest jams – sites like Pinterest, Instagram, Tumblr, Hypem, Soundcloud and Yelp. Over the past few years, we’ve essentially been watching sites like Facebook and MySpace – broad, umbrella social media sites that encompass the entire breadth of what you would want to share – dissolve into specialized verticals. If you’re shaking your head saying “No, that doesn’t seem right”, take these facts into account; in 2012 Facebook acquired Instagram for $1 Billion and last May Yahoo bought microblogging site Tumblr for about $1.1 Billion. Whether it’s to be part of the competition, or remove the idea of it by purchasing the competitors – both Facebook and Yahoo! seem more than aware that there are other verticals to conquer; so it only seems right to be jumping on that social media train with them and watching the journeys unfold! Now, social media (in my opinion) has primarily one of two functions – either individually promoted posts strewn across the interwebs in hopes that someone – anyone – will acknowledge them, or interactive and community building. Tumblr, for me, sits happily between the two as the perfect fusion of sharing and caring whereas sites like Instagram, Hypem and Pinterest rest their laurels on promoting your individual posts, siding more on the sharing and a little less about the caring. Yelp, for me at least, is on the other end of the spectrum – they’ve built an entire enterprise on helping people cultivate a “small town” community in a big ass city; exhibit (a): me in Los Angeles.
Over the course of my five years in Los Angeles I’ve developed quite the knack for being social media savvy – especially when you consider the fact I dropped my Communications major before the first week of college had started. Not to say that I hadn’t grown up around all sorts of cutting edge technology and extravagant modes of communication + connection, but compared to my close circle of friends it’s something that I’ve gotten to hone in on and develop on my own time as opposed to it being force fed down my throat. When Yelp surfaced a few years back, it was a resource – a way of determining what’s hot and what’s definitely not and to be honest, it fell more on the end of promoted posts versus community outreach. Back in the beginning, I was I guess what you’d call a ‘Lurker’ – I was a non contributing member of the community down to search some data and get what I wanted but somewhere, deep in the heart of my second year something changed: I found businesses – like retail boutiques and family owned restaurants – that I thought were either misrepresented or underrepresented on Yelp and I took it upon myself to start reviewing them. And then, well, it just kinda kept going…and going; what started out as a save-me-from-my-own-boredom style hobby fully escalated to being a Yelp Elite in ’11. What’s that you ask? Oh, just a collection of the nicest, friendliest foodies you’ll ever meet: we get to go to kickass events, try out tasting menus and explore the heart of our cities thanks to our amazing Elite Team Leaders but get something straight before you join, you gotta give a little to get a little – kapish? Over the course of a calendar year, I probably pen at least 100 reviews – yeah, I know what you’re thinking: that’s a lot of opinion! But I love it…I love telling stories and letting people in on the good parts of my life; I like letting people live vicariously through my proudest moments and my failures. Ultimately, it comes down to this – I love sharing, and Yelp has given me a great, warm and welcoming community to do it with.
My +1, with his flare
This past Monday, our Fearless LA Leaders took us out on the town to celebrate the amazing things that we’ve done and give us a taste of good things to come! Due to scheduling, time conflicts and availability I’ve only been to a handful of Elite events – of the ones I can remember, only a tasting at The Grill at the Beverly Center and a Spa Night at Blue Medi Spa. Truth be told, after I won their amazing Spa Package I had a heart-to-heart with myself and thought I’d rather sit a few out since I’d been so blessed with amazing luck and opportunity; but, when Yelp’s ‘Rock the Yacht’ event cshowed up on my radar there was absolutely no way I could say no – especially since there was a plus one! Ps. Ladies, take note – the key to a man’s heart is through his stomach – so, due to the transitive properties of math: being Yelp Elite is sexy, right? Right!
When Monday night came around I literally couldn’t sit still at work because I was so excited! One perk about working from home is that every half hour, I’d peruse my closet in search of anything nautical – I had snazzy stripes and a crisp color combination of blue, white and black in mind; and my closet delivered! We showed up to the Hornblower in Marina Del Rey around 6:30 and I’m so glad we did, the yacht was almost at capacity and it would have been beyond a shame to not get in. There was a hosted, open bar and so, so many vendors – including, but definitely not limited to: Bombay Sapphire, Hamilton Wines, Beach Pizza, Pork Belly’s Sandwich Shop, Krave Jerky, Balvenie Single Malt Scotch, Grants Scotch Whisky, Scott Cellars, B Sweet, Sapporo and Stella Rosa Wines. Needless to say, I left with a big smile and a full (and slightly tipsy!) belly. Kudos to Hamilton Wines, Beach Pizza, Grants Whiskey and B Sweet for finding permanent homes in my heart and a mega-huge thank you to Katie B, The LA Yelp Elites and Yelp in general for always putting on such great events with amazing crowds. Until the next one; xx!
“Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson
On the way back from San Francisco, we had two options for our drive: take the 5 and suffer through the dusty drabness that defines the middle of our state, or cruise down the Pacific Coast Highway and enjoy ourselves. Well, after doing the later I can firmly say that as in all of life – it should be about the journey and not the destination; and journey we did! Not even exaggerating, we stopped at every third turnout to catch a view of the stunning California Coast! Now, I grew up in the Bay Area, came down for college in the Central Coast and cruised on down to LA when I was done but never have I ever taken the 1 down the coast. Well, after yesterday I can check that off the proverbial bucket list and I have the pictures to prove it! We roamed the beach, found beautiful foliage and gorgeous coastal views; it really was like a dream come true…
This past weekend I took the love of my life up to my favorite city for a weekend full of eats, drinks, adventures and my favorite people. We spent a few days in the city with my family soaking in the beautiful and breezy weather, exploring the Farmer’s Market at the Ferry Building, graffiti in the Mission, epic views from both Bernal Heights Hills and Twin Peaks and last – but definitely not least – and enjoying the Exploratirum and Pier 14 with a few of our close friends. On Monday, we took to the city just the two of us to see what trouble we could get into. Below are some of my absolute favorite moments of the weekend but even the pictures can’t do it justice; it was absolutely perfect and I’m more in love than I ever thought possible!
My step-mom just got back from Cuba; and gifted me with these!!
What happens when you combine 16 close friends, one condo in San Diego, copious amounts of shenanigans, amazing weather and good music? Well, some might call it a dream, others might refer to it as ridiculous – but for all intensive purposes, we’re choosing to refer to it as Sharknado 2013. On Saturday, we set our sights on the ocean and never looked back – traveling the high seas like a group of rowdy pirates with our drinks and our two step. Our hostess with the mostess recruited a bartender to serve us tasty beverages as we raged our way through the day and we brought assorted snacks to keep us healthy and happy. Plus – throughout the weekend we all lent a hand in the kitchen which saved us an epic amount of money. We assembled the meals by predetermined teams for the party and the end result was we all had the chance to contribute something equally delicious and awesome to the group. Sunday things culminated with an epic build your own Bloody Mary session, relaxed beats and some quality time poolside in the stunning San Diego sunshine. Per usual, I’ll be reveling in these memories for a while as I sit here, waiting patiently for my next adventure.
San Diego Sheraton Marina
Getting weird.
We’re on a boat!
Build your own Bloody Bar
The Gang
Of course, I couldn’t leave y’all without giving you something to groove to on this manic Monday so here’s a little dose of the music we were bumping over the past weekend – from dubstep to deep house, we found a place for it all and I hope you guys can find a way to do that, too!
‘It was deep, it was soulful , it was techno, it was disco – a kaleidoscope of sounds.’
A tribal beast of rhythm, a ceremony of sound, the gathering of the spirits that would lift us off the ground,
My vision was so clear, but it was still hazy in my mind;
I must have went to house heaven, because nothing’s that divine.
My Love
This Summer has been one of my busiest and best to date; but between the caliber of friendships that I’ve developed over the past year and the effervescent and ever-evolving music scene in Southern California why would I expect anything less? This past weekend marked the annual mayhem and debauchery that is Hard Summer – one of the only multi-day EDM festivals left in the city of Los Angeles. It’s taken a few days to recover, but somehow and somewhere between the laughs, the stories, the ‘did-you-guys-see-that?!’ moments and our tired joints we’ve managed to detox from one hell of a wild ride and revel in its glory.
One of the best things about the way HARD has transformed in the past year is that you could get fresh and funky one minute and dirty and dubstepping the next; with acts like Disclosure, Alex Metric, Oliver and Claude VonStroke‘s DirtyBird crew – J.Phlip and Justin Martin in the ‘Underground’ tent you could take a break from the ear thrashing bass (not that I don’t enjoy a good rage sesh every now and again) and groove to something different. All in all, we couldn’t have asked for better company, weather, food trucks, people watching and amazing acts to see.
On the flip side my friends and I walked from the event with a few legitimate concerns about the safety of the set-up and layout of certain areas like the location of the food trucks, merchandise tents and the ‘Underground’ stage. The vending areas were in an incredibly central -read: profitable – area and disrupted an otherwise pleasant flow to the grounds. The biggest problem for me was having a tented off stage with closed sides. The Sahara and Gobi tents at Coachella created a similar relaxed, shady atmosphere but the addition of sides on the tent made the crowding unbearable and trampling a definite possibility. I was there for Disclosure and so thankful we escaped – the lack of oxygen was pretty brutal!
HARD works hand in hand with Los Angeles: when you purchase your ticket, you’re granted free access to the Metro systems in the city for the entire weekend. It makes so many things absolutely easier on all of the festival go-ers – driving, traffic, parking, the possibility of accidents and DUIs; the list is endless and we didn’t have to fret about any of it! Once we hit Union Station, we were a mere hop, skip, jump and a ten minute walk to LA Historic Park. On the way there was an amazing vendor handing out deliciously flavored, and might I add free, fruit-infused waters to all of us so we could fend off our impending dehydration – thank goodness!
Especially compared to the last few HARD events I’ve gone to (last year’s HARD Summer + Day of the Dead), the lines were so much more manageable this year and we barely had to wait; the addition of metal barricades between the lines was absolutely necessary and completely welcomed. After a friendly little frisk by the security team, we were on and through to the other side: lights, camera, action – here we go!
I had-had-had to make sure we were inside by the time Keys n Krates hit the stage and rightfully so – I guarantee you one thing, they are part of an EDM revolution with the likes of Modestep, Infected Mushroom and the old Pendulum live sets. There’s just something so damn magical about live instruments – especially the evolution and pairing of them with modern forms of electronics and technology. It’s giving me a braingasm just thinking about it! We bounced around between the stages essentially the entire day, because we have severe forms musical ADD and after Tommy Trash tore the city a new one the main stage never really sounded the same.
Day 2 was a whole horse of a different color when compared to the first day; chalk it up to people on Sunday needing to go to work on Monday (or, conversely, people on Saturday who planned on partying for 36 hours straight) but the vibe was a lot more low key and I heard lots more people interject with a “Sorry!” or an “Excuse me…”. It was like we all got some unwritten memo about chilling out, and we did. If the aggression of the first twelve hours dissuaded anyone from coming back to another HARD event I surely hope they let the second day change their minds. Like usual, I came out of this festival with more friends than I went into it with; but, I’ve been doing one thing differently as of late that I hope everyone employs at festivals sooner or later: turn off your phone. Not just the mobile network but the entire thing! Sure, in emergencies whip that shit out and find your passe but while you have one: enjoy the moment and focus on the friends that are next to youinstead of concerning yourself with people that aren’t around. You’ll find your entire experience so much more enjoyable; trust me!
Justin Martin
Miau!
Zedd
For an excellent way to bounce through your day, peruse these fine sets from my favorite acts at Hard Summer; enjoy!
When’s the last time someone not just asked – but insisted – you keep your childlike imagination and magic alive? For most people trying to make a name for themselves, it’s been a hot minute; and from a young age it felt like most of my friends from high school had their formula for success figured out. They left our hub in the Silicon Valley for a four year degree that would inevitably translate to infinite amounts of success in the “real world.*” Me, on the other hand, well….I had loftier dreams and less tangible goals. I found that love and happiness are better when shared, however you can’t hold them in your hands or stuff them in a box in a corner; a college degree doesn’t make either of them more valid and all the money in the world can’t replace them.
You can travel the world and have all the experiences you want, but there’s something so incredibly special and connective about music festivals. But take into account my generations propensity to say ‘fuck the man’ and ‘fuck the system’ and the fact most of our spiritual belief systems have little in common with organized religion and you’ll see that the festival is our ‘church’ and our friends are the ‘community’. Thousands of people jumping to the same beat, hearts syncing in time and singing along with the music; we are in worship and music is our savior. A recent study has even shown choral singing to be on par with the health benefits of yoga. My eyes were opened in 2006 with my first Electric Daisy Carnival and again in 2011 with my first Coachella; but if I said that either of these events held a candle to Lightning in a Bottle I would absolutely be kidding myself. Don’t get me wrong, the music and crowd at the other events are phenomenal in their own right – but Lightning in a Bottle is something completely and utterly different.
The other festivals are centered around music – and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that; but Lightning in a Bottle is about the culture that surrounds music. There were speakers on multitudes of topics, including authors Daniel Pinchbeck (“Breaking Open The Head“) and John Perkins (“Confessions of an Economic Hit Man“), yoga sessions taught by yogis from all over, areas where you could experience sound baths and even a ‘Pineal Playground’ set-up to warp that pretty little mind of yours. Live artists were out at stations around Lake Skinner during the day and had ample resources for inspiration; from light installations in trees to full on fixtures out in the parks – the people of LIB brought their A-game and you could tell how excited they were to share their unique visions and creations with the world. What’s more is that almost everything was interactive – you were encouraged to touch, play and experience. I felt like an overgrown five year old on vacation!
Now, I have to admit I was a little nervous going into everything – I haven’t been camping since I was five and my parents can tell you, I wasn’t exactly “good” at it! I was so nervous that I would be unprepared, so I made a lovely little cheat sheet with a list of all the ammenities I’d need for the 5 day, 4 night excursion and there’s a few things I can tell you off the bat, first and foremost: I TOTALLY overpacked! I could have brought half as much clothing and would have still had options on what to wear; and there was so much creativity that went into some of the outfits! Definitely something to take note of for next year.
And as far as camping is concerned….it isn’t exactly camping when you’re with thousands of your new best friends, kickass sound systems, awe inspiring sculptures and have Lake Skinner as your playground. Everywhere we turned, there was literally something new to experience and someone to meet that chances are – you have some ridiculous connection to. Before the festival even started, I realized in line for wristbands that I was in college dorms with the girl in front of me and for my phone being dead, I ran into at least 50 friends I’d made in college or at festivals. I even met a girl who used to live in my apartment complex in LA!
My friends and I decided to cruise in to Lake Skinner on Thursday night so we could get the whole festival experience; we wanted a chance to set-up our tent in a leisurely manner and explore the festival grounds. We waded through a sea of people to get our wristbands (one thing about hippies – they’re a punctual bunch!), we were lucky enough to have friends there starting at 2pm because the line took approximately 7 hours from start to finish for them, compared to our measly 3 hour wait. Once that was over, you could see eyes light up and smiles pop up on everyone: shit just got so real! Once we got our massive tent it was off to explore…
The second day started with exploring the Temple of Consciousness and the Pineal Playground; we got to be part of a sound bath and then headed down to the lake to catch the view. Between the swings, shade and speakers we had so much to do during the day before the music started; there was definitely a ‘sleep, eat, mingle, rave, repeat’ vibe going on all weekend and I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Now, before I get into my favorite pictures from the weekend I have a little PSA about the event. As with every event, not everyone can have a life changing-best weekend of my life experience; it’s simply not feasible – but from the sounds of it people went to an entirely different festival than my friends and I. The Do Lab gave us more than I could have hoped for with festival grounds like Lake Skinner, top notch productions, amazing art and a culture of people that I can only describe as the middle section of a ‘Hippie-Carnie-Raver’ Venn-Diagram. I had the time of my life and I hope everyone gives the festival a chance to change them for the better instead of living vicariously through someone else’s bad dream. Though LIB has been around for a hot minute, being able to experience Lake Skinner together for the first time was such a great experience. Eyes, brains and hearts were wide open and ready to explore. I know a lot of people are whining and lamenting the fact their reality didn’t match their expectations but expectation hangovers happen when people aren’t willing to take responsibility for their actions. I got to explore the festival grounds on Thursday when no one was around and take full advantage of the art, fog machines and light fixtures before people got there; on Saturday when the music in the camp turned off, my friends and I hunted down some music and created our own little community within the LIB community and have created bonds to last a lifetime. Essentially the festival, like life, is an adventure and it’s up to us as individuals to make it magical; and for me – it was so, so much more than that! So on wards – to pictures!
Thursday night at the Bamboo Stage being silly with the boyfriend
Swings, for all ages!
Under the shade of the Tepees
Sunset on Lake Skinner
The people with signs made my day! Also, thank you Mud People for showing us how to get down!
Woogie Withdrawls: It’s a real thing.
Getting to connect with artists and watch them do their thing was awesome; the festival oozed creativity from every angle.
Before I get to the videos I just want to say a big thank you to the crews at the Do Lab and Lightning in a Bottle; this was a truly eye opening and awe inspiring weekend and I can’t wait to move the world the way the festival moved me. I’m a better person for being there and have made friends to last a lifetime. Thank you, thank you from the bottom of all of our hearts for the weekend of the year and can’t wait for the next one!
The Bouncy Kitty 
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