Kay Hanley

The Red Sox lost last night.  The Earth’s financial schemes are collapsing.  My favorite morning radio show with Adam Corolla is being overrun with ads calling for people to vote yes on a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage as well as a weird dating website for people who want to cheat on their spouses.  Our nation is squandering blood and treasure in 2 wars, one of which is (or was) completely unnecessary and the other a victim of neglect.  There is the possibility, however remote, that John McCain and his foxy coadjutor, Sarah Pailin, may ascend to the highest office in modern civilization.   It’s Monday morning and I have a teenager style breakout and to add insult to injury I totally chose the wrong frames at Lenscrafters and now I look like this:

Where is the fairness in the world?  There is none, I tell you.

SIGH….. Whatever.  Here is some stuff that happened over the past few weeks, months, years.  I don’t even know anymore.  

we backed up billy ray at miley’s sweet 16

 the amazing gary & justine got married in dc

 met up with jessie in london

 kelly ozbourne interviews miley backstage in london

schmidley, me and nadia pub crawling in the ldn 

I’m off to sing some Care Bears songs and then at the insistence of a horrified USA Mike, go exchange my ill chosen glasses at the mall.  I hate the mall.  But he hates my new glasses more than I hate the mall.  Done and done.

xok 

When I started this little writing experiment last Fall it was because I wanted to document my first gig as a back-up vocalist.  On the biggest concert tour in history.  Also, Greg Garbo from the Jonas Brothers and Miley’s keyboard player, Mike Schmid were both blogging so I felt it was my responsibility to talk about myself too, because lordy knows they were not going to talk about me nearly enough for my liking.  I have a track on Weaponize called Strange Life so I christened my blog with that title.  It seemed fitting.

Here we are, 10 months later and my life has never been stranger.  I mean this in a good way. It is a rare thing, indeed, for a person to have a career and personal life that so vastly blows away anything that mere imagination could concoct.

For example, this was how I spent last Friday morning, courtesy of Vashon’s iPhone at The Today Show in NYC as we prepared to soundcheck for Miley’s set.

nadia and me get ready to shake them asses.

In other news, my girlies from the late, lamented Shut Up Stella continue to kick ass and take names on their solo projects.  Jessie Malakouti just released this video for the song, Trash Me.  She wrote, produced and financed the video by herself which is a stunning accomplishment no matter what the final result.  The fact that it looks gorgeous is frosting, baby.  Check my little sis out:

Dinner at Hungry Cat tonight with USA, Ryan McMillan and his wife Alana.  So excited.

xok 

Due to the nature of my work, I have acquaintances from all over the world and from all sorts of backgrounds.  Some of the people that I know start out as Cleo fans or posters on my message board and then somehow they just become part of my life.   A few weeks back, one of the KH message board peeps sent me an email saying that he and his wife were coming to LA from Chicago to hang out, so despite having never met in person, we made plans to have lunch.  It’s funny how in this day and age, when we do so much of our communicating over the web, that you can meet someone for the first time and connect as if you already know each other because you DO know each other from sharing similar virtual interests, sometimes for years.  It’s a strange kind of vetting process, isn’t it?

Adi and Shayna showed up at 11:45am.  I showed them around our house and then brought them out back to check out our recording studio and introduce them to USA Mike, who never leaves the damn place, and then we strolled over to Mexicali on Ventura for some people watching and grub. It was a gorgeous afternoon even by LA standards so we chose a table outside and caught up on what has been happening with all of us; their years in Israel before they were a couple, my cockamamie schemes, real estate in Los Angeles, blah, blah.  Because Adi and Shayna are newlyweds, the conversation about how they met and got married came up quickly.

• • adi:   “it was kind of a saga.”
  • me:   “the best stories always are.”
  • shayna:   “does she know?”
  • adi:  “no.”
  • me: “what are you talking about?”
  • shayna:   “i was shot in the chest during a terrorist attack in israel.”
  • me:   “……….” 

 Hands down, they are the all time winners of the “how we met” contest with their star-crossed, globe-trotting, death-defying tale of love ignored, found, lost and then found again.   The tale also reminds me that even one life lost to violence and war diminishes all of our lives.   The innocent woman blown up by a god driven terrorist in Kabul, Jerusalem, Karachi, New York, Mosul, Yemen, London or Mogadishu is surely someone’s daughter, sister or mother, but she may also be your future wife and mother to the children you hope to have someday.

 That was the the most fascinating lunch conversation I’ve ever had guys, and I thank you for sharing the story with me.

  shayna & adi     

After I parted ways with my fabulous lunch companions I had to get back to the house and take care of a bunch of stuff and then get ready for sound check at the Henry Fonda Theatre.  Michelle had been asked by our friend David Gray at Island Records to put together groups of backup singers for an Aussie superstar by the name of Delta Goodrem who was performing industry showcases in NY and LA.  Since I am totally a profesh backup singer now, Mish roped me into generously offered me a job on her LA team.   It was actually a lot of fun.  The other singers, Nadia and Brandon (stacy lynes, i’ll give you one guess where you know brandon from) are ridiculously good, as is Michelle, so I’m sure nobody noticed when I stopped singing at a critical moment at the end of the very spare piano/vocal song because I started choking.  Literally AND figuratively.   Sorry about that, Delta.  At least we know it will never happen again. 

 On that note, I’m deciding that being a professional backup singer kind of sucks.  I’ve only ever done the backup gig with Miley and I LOVE that job so I assumed that you get always treated a certain way.  Even though Delta was super pro and respectful, I had this weird “faceless employee” feeling all night that made me think that the backup singer career has the potential to be a little dehumanizing.   No matter, even at its crappiest, any career where you get to sing or play music all the time beats punching a clock.  

we will not work under these conditions!!  unless you pay us. 

 xok