Guess who slept in my house Friday night. Oh, yeah… it was Bossy. No, the blogger, not the dominatrix. Bossy has been doing a road trip to meet fans, bloggers and friends and has been on the road since March 25. No wonder she was a little tired when she showed up at my doorstep and immediately demanded that I serve her white wine. I kid. I pushed the glass of wine on her.

We had a lovely conversion about her trip, our cancer-related experiences (her dad has a form), blogging, Denver bloggers, politics and, of course, music. We have frighteningly similar tastes in music which came to light when I published my entry in The Spicy Cauldron’s writing contest last year. Our political views are almost exactly the same as well. In fact, I’m convinced that she is my long lost fraternal twin. I say fraternal because I stand at 5′7″ and she’s all *BAM* towering over me at 7′10″ or something. We know who got the legs that go up to heaven in this family.

At 7, I drove her over to Mezcal to meet with some other Denver bloggers, nosh, drink and make fun of the gaggle of early-twenties girls sitting next to us who all looked like they had just arrived from the first casting call for Cycle 11 of “America’s Next Top Model”. They were a bit obnoxious to say the least; however, I can’t say that about the others that showed up in our party.

Melissa (in the orange tank-top. Sorry, I don’t have a link to her blog yet.) was already there waiting for us and was very fun. Hers is a personal blog that she only gets to update between April 16 and December 31. She’s works for a CPA, so you can understand that. Tara (in the black jacket) was a hoot. She’s extremely energetic and outgoing — she even does stand-up. Her blog is more work related. Tara works for Lijit which is a company that has developed search engine for bloggers that includes social networks and blogrolls. In fact, if you look in the left-hand column, I put up their widget to test it out.

Our evening together was a lot of fun as we discussed more of the above mentioned topics plus finding out that Tara’s mom is in prison for protesting on a military base, which was an awesome story. Melissa, Tara and I insisted on buying Bossy her dinner and drinks since she’s been spending all her money on gas.

As for Bossy herself, she’s an extraordinary woman — confident but down-to-earth, serious about world matters but loves cutting up, and she is quite beautiful in person. (I hope she’s blushing.) She had wonderful things to say about all the people she’d met on this trip and her experiences, but her only regret is not having enough time to write about everything. She did say that she had been in talks to make a documentary of the trip but decided it would be too much. Of course, I missed out on being in a movie now. Hmmph.

Safe journey home, Bossy!

You can see a couple more pics of dinner here. Or you can check out the high-fashion shot where I’m totally so not posing she got of me at the restaurant.

Listening to: “Those Were The Days” - Mary Hopkin

…that with Pluto being demoted to non-planet status that Holst was right the whole time.

Yeah, I’m slow.

There was supposed to be a review of The Weepies new album here today (it comes out tomorrow), but it turns out I had a Monkey’s Show to get ready for. It’s tonight, by the way.

Listening to: “I’m Gonna DJ” - R.E.M.

…that ‘verb’ is a noun?

Have a great weekend!

Listening to: “Euroboy” - Pet Shop Boys

Back in the early 1980’s when HBO was starting to make a name for itself, they produced a 30-minute program which I would never, ever miss — “Video Jukebox”. Thanks to HBO, viewers were introduced to mainstream hits and a few special gems including The Flirts’ “Jukebox (Don’t Put Another Dime In The Jukebox)”, The Models’ “Out Of Mind, Out Of Sight” and one song that has stuck with me for decades and has been unavailable for almost as long: Iam Siam’s “She Went Pop”.

Iam Siam was the brainchild of Brian Rothschild, who, after spending most of his youth listening to and playing classic music, discovered rock ‘n roll. He began working with Japanese synchronized swimmers and developed a piece of music that would eventually morph into the track “I Am Siam”. He then met his main collaborator and main songwriter David Sonenberg who convinced Brain to come back to America and expounded about their mutual ideas. These ideas turned into the studio project entitled She Went Pop.

The title track was the first single and only got a small amount of attention. Unfortunate because I think it’s one of the catchiest pieces of dance pop from the 80’s. The song tells the story of Rena Devere, a Hollywood starlet tempted into the dark, hedonistic side of the celebrity industry who is found dead from an overdose. The song typifies the overindulgence of the 80’s both in lyric and in the video. My favorite moment from the song is a surprisingly touching moment focusing on fan of the Rena’s: “There were tears in his eyes/Full of shock and surprise/Can someone tell him why?” …and then back into the great chorus. Chills, I tell you!

Here is the video I fondly remember from HBO. Yes, it’s oh-so-80’s, but does an incredible job of capturing the time period. Enjoy.

Listening to: “Ya Had Me Goin’” - L.E.O.