Meeting Rockstar Rathbone

After we found out about the Grape Release Party (a few days after our first 100 Monkeys show), I was ecstatic… the first experience was so fabulous I simply couldn’t wait to see them again.

Nov 29 (I'm so slack, I know): We yammered the whole way up and pointed out every Toyota Prius on the road (OK, not EVERY Prius…). We got to our hotel just off of Hollywood and Highland… we were pleasantly surprised at how nice our room was for just a one-nighter. We decided to calm our excitement (as we still had a few hours to kill before getting jacksonlicious) with a bit of twicuzzi (twilight talk in the jaccuzzi) :)

I just thought I'd say that my hair looks super yellow in that photo, and the red eye reduction gave us "thirsty eyes!" -Jen

We shared an appetizer and had mojitos before the show-we were right in the center of Hollywood erm…’goodness’ and there was a xmas parade going on… and traffic we hadn’t anticipated. We set off to find a cab. Jenni thought she found one and HALEd it down… It was a cop (oh hale no). The cop turned around and came back and began chatting her up… wowza… while it was flattering, there were more important things on our minds; 100 monkeys! Our cabbie was a crack up… he didn’t know where the V Room was, so us non-locals had to direct him… he cursed under his breath about celebrities.

Eventually we arrived at the V Room… there wasn’t much of a line-this confused us… Mom Jeans , however, was in front of us again and … in a desperate attempt to keep her from ruining our chance to meet J-Action this time, we told security about her immediately. She was nowhere to be found once we were inside! Heh-take that Mom Jeans! You keep your psycho, belligerent strain of jacksonitis and yourself away from us (and more importantly, jackson).

We found ourselves two people deep and then one person deep... But that wasn’t good enough-our previous LA motto of In It To Win It prevailed- we had to be UP FRONT damnit!
The first act was a YEDI band which was hysterical and a little scary… Jerad and the Bens were hanging out in the back listening… I found the urge, several times, to go talk to them… I was a little afraid to lose our spot.

The second band, The Absolute opened and they were incredible-Jerad and Ben G were standing towards the back watching… I was so impressed with the crowd again-everyone at the V Room was so respectful. Suddenly the set is being swapped out and we are at the front, touching the stage (OK, so all through the end, my left toe kept creeping-just about twitching, towards the stage and the girls in front of us left). Ah victory… I could almost taste satisfaction. Yippee!

We enjoyed a sneaky Stella and suddenly, I realized they would have to walk right by me to get on stage… Just then, there they were, at my left, walking up to the stage. Jackson hesitated for a minute due to the traffic getting on stage, so I reached over and put my hand on his arm and gave him a grin, he grinned back and up he went. Swoon. Ben G kept sticking his shoes out at me from under the curtain as they were setting up, and wiggling his butt into the curtain… I played grabby with him … because no one else was. The curtain opened and they began with Orson Brawl . I don’t know about Orson Brawl… but sista and I had it all-had it ah-ha-hall.

The whole show was amazing-their energy was addictive and it was fabulous knowing their music better this time around. They danced around on stage, made jokes, did shots of Grape, a concoction compliments of the Viper Room bartenders, and just had us basking in their general fabulousness. Jackson caught eyes with me a couple times and looked at my boobs three times… yes, he did, yes I counted. Normally this would bug me… but because it was jackson I thought, meh go right on ahead, Mr Mouth of Sex God-ness (OK fine, he might have just been looking at something else, but let's pretend not). In fact if you could just put your mouth of sex godness.... Oh damn, did I mention jacksonitis causes loss of train of thought? Well, it does.

The show finished after a double encore… … but we wanted MORE.People started to move around… and some left… but sista' and I knew better! Jerad jumped off the stage and I grew some balls and chatted with him about a mutual family friend and about how great the show was and then Jackson emerged, winked at us and bounded towards the green room. Oh Holy Hell. Jerad followed and we stood, stupidly.

Ben G, Bananager Marty & Uncle Larry were all hanging out drinking, so we followed suit-we had nowhere to go and a cab to escort us when we did. We assumed once the bar cleared a bit Jackson would come back out too. Come back he did! With a vengeance! Jackson was extremely down to earth, chatting with bar staff and to fans intermittently . I wiggled my way over to him and sista' wouldn’t come once I had a clear shot to him… (She has a tendency to get starstruck and or embarrassed… remember her recount of getting close to R Pattz at the NM premiere? Maybe she didn’t mention she almost pooped her pants and started screaming like a thirteen year old… Heh). Eventually, after silently threatening sista, I approached Jackson, congratulated him on the show and asked if he would mind taking a photo with us. Thank god I had had a couple of drinks… I would not have been able to stand there so confidently. To those who have not met Jackson-beware if you ever do-his smile and eyes, in person, are so intense and dazzling, you lose focus of everything else-jacksonitis hits full force.

Jackson’s eyes of sex godness looked into mine and I almost fell backwards I was so dazzled . He grinned and replied, ‘why would I mind talking a photo with two beautiful ladies?’ I can’t remember what was said after that.. .I was too lost in him at that stage. And no, I don’t care if he says that to girls on a regular basis. If he does… I don’t care. I am going to pretend that he has only ever said it to us. Sigh. He set us up himself making his way to the middle of us, with his arms around our waists… sort of a jackson sandwich, if you will. He squeezed/rubbed my side a couple of times and bananager took our pic… I heard him say something else about ‘beautiful’ and we thanked him for taking the time and we had a bit more chatter (which consisted of me stammering ‘you were really great, you guys are amazing’ again as he stood grinning at me). Looking back he was probably thinking, ’poor girl, bad case of jacksonitis…’ ;) Then we thanked him and walked away in a complete jacksonitis haze. I know a way he could have eased my jacksonitis… heh.

The whole way back to our hotel I just kept squealing with delight and then proceeded to do a victory dance (to 100 Monkeys mix) before bed.

We saw New Moon at The Grove for the third time the next morning… and saw Julia Jones (Leah Clearwater) wandering around with another girl and a cameraman when we went to have lunch. My second JJ sighting (first time was during the premiere-I went to pee in CBTL and she was in line behind me… didn‘t realize until after we‘d chatted)!

Next up: 100 Monkeys San Diego (all ages-poooo) Recap


...Rather than put pics and a super short vid all over this post, I put them... down there. Enjoy :)

x

S

(Oh, the photos start with my jacksonitis face... I had just walked away from him)