If you were stoked to see the costumes I made for Nightmare Before Christmas, or the costumes the other costume designers for our school's drama department made, I'm afraid that's not going to happen. You see, we didn't get the rights from Disney to put on the play. But we'd already put a bunch of effort into it, so we decided to still put on the show during school hours with no admission, rather than after school and charging 5 or 6 dollars a person. Welll, we planned on doing two showings. We ended up doing one. Someone who knew that we didn't have the rights ratted us out to a Disney representative. So Disney contacted us and said that if we put on the play again, they'd sue us. I'm pretty sure that the fee for this kind of copyright infingement is around $50,000, correct me if I'm wrong. Plus 5 years in prison, I believe. But that would all be piled onto the shoulders of our super-martyr principal. Also, I think we'd no longer be considered an official theatre company.
Now our entire Fine Arts department is under a microscope. Our choir, band and orchestra groups have to get rid of all the music they don't have the rights to. Our drama department is trying to get rid of as much evidence of Nightmare Before Christmas as possible. In all the commotion, I've come out with only three masks out of the four costumes I made. Oogie Boogie's body suit has disappeared, all I have is his head, which is really unimpressive without the body. But hey, I've still got the masks for Zero and the Wolf Man.

Soooo, that all went to hell.

You guys want me to cheer you up now? You want to hear a nice story?
Weeeelllllllllllll, my dear Ali and I went to three concerts in October, seeing ten bands total. First was Fall Ball, one of the two huge music festivals our local rock station (KFMA) hosts. Flyleaf, the Misfits, and The Used were all there, as well as probably four other bands I didn't care for. I didn't go into the pit until the Used came on. This was my second time seeing them. The crowd was super brutal and pretty much never stopped moshing. At one point Bert ordered the crowd to split into two, right down the middle. Do you know what that means? Because a lot of new kids didn't know what was coming next; a Wall Of Death. That's when the two sides of the crowd run at each other and beat the shit out of one another. "Cowboys versus the Indians", as Bert put it. That was fun. People were passing out and bleeding all over the place.

Second concert; Gogol Bordello. This show made my life and Ali's 19th birthday. You see, we got to the venue a good two hours before doors opened. We were the only people in line. Then the band comes out to check out their surroundings. Ali says "Hey Eugune!" and gets the lead singer's attention. Eugene Hutz (you may also know him as Alex Perchov from Everything Is Illuminated) comes over to us, talks with us a little, and then asks us if we want to go get food with them. So Ali and I ended up having dinner with Gogol Bordello. At one point, I was shivering because I hadn't dressed for the weather, so Eugene got a roadie to get me one of their merch jackets. I still have it. At around 7, Ali and I paid our part of the check and tried to leave. No no no no no, Eugene wants us to stay and have dessert. Ali and I ended up sharing the most amazing slice of chocolate mousse pie ever with Eugene Hutz. They gave us backstage passes, and we chilled with them for a bit. We got to see Eugene's atrocious outfit that he almost wore onstage (white and purple hawaiian print shirt with cutoff sleeves and a matching headband. He traded his hat for it with a crazy man.)
Ali and I still went into the audience for the show, since down there we could still dance without it being awkward and lonely. There were other girls with backstage passes, yeah, but they looked kind of...boring. Not gonna lie. They were pretty, but they all dressed the same, smoked cigarettes, and took wine from backstage. I didn't care for them.
Before Gogol Bordello went on, Eugene smooched me on the top of my head.
During the show, the energy was amazing. Gogol Bordello is a larger band that is overall super-unconventional, and their crowd matched. I was next to a 4 foot tall granny with a mowhawk for half of the show. Some guys tried to push past her, she pushed them into the 'dance' pit.
Best night of my life so far.

Third Concert; Owl City.
This was alright. The band did good, they were nice and they kept the energy up. It was in a venue in a city a two hours drive from my town. My town is probably actually larger than this city, but our mentality is much more like that of a small town. This city had the mentality of...a city. Their buildings were bigger, everything was cleaner, and the people were far less friendly. Much like the other girls backstage at Gogol Bordello.
Now I absolutely adore Owl City, they did an excellent job, their light show was wonderful, but the crowd just didn't know what to do with themselves. I was jumping and shakin' it the whole time, but these kids just wouldn't budge. Couldn't sing along to save their lives either. This city is very close to Phoenix. After that concert I remembered something Eugene had said during dinner; "Phoenix doesn't know how to party."

Ah, and my apologies to any Gogol Bordello fans in Phoenix, Arizona. I believe you'll be driving to Tucson to see GB from now on.