Thank You OSU and CSULA!

Our performance season began this year at Oregon State University on January 23 and California State University in Los Angeles on February 24. Special thanks goes out to DaMarcus at OSU and Nick at CSULA for all their hard work bringing us out and putting together great shows.

The OSU show was part of an MLK Celebration event called "Social Justice Through Hip Hop." We made the front page of the school paper THE DAILY BAROMETER.

Our journey to OSU took us through DC to catch a connecting flight to Portland. While in DC, Catzie and got caught up in the throngs of people leaving from Inauguration events. The commercialism surrounding the Inauguration --and the Obamas in general--is truly unbelievable. Lookee at all the stuff that was on sale in the airport:




Yes, t-shirts, caps, bobble heads, teddy bears, buttons, life-size cut-outs. It's all a bit insane.

We arrived in Portland around 8pm PST and were picked up by Ron and Tab. They had the coolest sign to greet us with--we took a picture of it with Ron later. It took us another 2 1/2 hours or so to get to the hotel. We stayed right next to the campus.


And directly across from us was the football stadium. Here's the back view.

And here's the front.


Did you know that the OSU mascot is the beaver? And that you're not allowed to mention that quacking fowl which is the mascot of their rival school under penalty of severe torture? Yeah, I was reminded on several occasions of this by DaMarcus who kept eyeing me sideways anytime I mentioned that we had performed at said-rival school last year. :) Anyway, you can see how serious they are about the beaver-mascot--it's all over the campus:


And there was a scary, rabid, and huge wood statue homage to the beaver inside the entrance to the student union. Note the on-campus barber shop in the background.


DaMarcus, who used to be a campus guide, took us on a tour around campus, and I kept asking lots of questions about stuff to test his knowledge of mundane OSU tidbits. I think I did stump on a couple of things. But he showed us some interesting and cool statues of "kows" that are on campus and around Portland which benefit a program called "Kows for Kids on Parade." The program was established to help at-risk youth.


After the tour, we went back to the Multicultural Center for a meet-and-greet with other artists and some students.


And, of course, the most important part of it all was the food:

And we met some cool people.

It was soon time for the show. Here's DaMarcus getting the crowd warmed up.


And our host for the evening was JarVez (I'm not sure if I spelled his name right) who was so damn funny. And, yep, he's a Biggie fan.


We set things off to start the show. Later, we took pictures with many lovely people.


Here's Ron with the airport sign. It's so sparkly!

Here are some shots of the ballroom space that we performed in. Um, yes, that's a runway. We didn't use it but some of the hip hop artists did. From the stage-view:

From the audience-view:

And here's the audience:

I couldn't get any really good shots of the other artists that performed b/c the lighting was not that good and they kept moving around so much. Here's the American Indian hip hop group who performed, Rez Hogs:

Here's DJ Fat Boy who spun for Diezel P.


And here's Diezel P.



It was so nice meeting everyone, and we had a great time. Special shout outs to DaMarcus, Ron, Tab, Jun, Shannon, and JarVez.

On February 23, we flew out to Los Angeles for our show at CSULA. Isn't this the coolest sign/promo ever!? It was up on all the flat screens in the student union.

The hotel we stayed at was so purdy. One thing I love about performing in Southern California is the feeling that I really have traveled outside of Philly. Look at those palm trees!

Catzie and I had separate rooms this time--doesn't mine look nice?

I don't know if Catzie had a view, but I had a gorgeous view of the outside courtyard and the mountains. These were taken right after sunrise.




Then I went outside for a short walk. The weather was so beautiful--I caught Spring Fever b/c Philly was FREEZING when we left.



After breakfast, Catzie and I met up with Kirstie from the University of California, San Diego (2 hours away!) who was interviewing us for a paper she's doing about Asian/Asian American womyn and love.


Kirstie came down to LA with a couple of our favorite San Diego peeps, Janice and Mary (sorry we missed you, Xander!) After the interview, which lasted about 3 hours or so, we decided to get something to eat before the show. But Catzie and I had spied a Hawaii Supermarket down the street from the hotel, so in our endless quest for Hawaiian Hurricane popcorn, we begged Kirstie to drive us down there. Here we are (with Kirstie and Janice) ready to go crazy in the Asian supermarket (yes, that IS a shopping cart Catzie is hiding behind her). Later, I was like, "How the hell am I supposed to get all this food in my carry-ons?!"

When we left, we bought cakes that a lady was making outside the supermarket.

Here's Mary about to bite into one of the delicious morsels.

Here are the cakes cooking. So you could get them filled with red beans, coconut, cream, and some other things I can't remember now. I got one filled with red bean and another with cream. Yummy!

But we were STARVING and looking for a place to eat. Suddenly, Catzie announced that she wanted to eat at Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles. The closest one was in Pasadena, so off we went even though we knew it would make us late for our arrival time for the show. I mean, you can't really argue with a pregnant woman when she wants food/a certain meal/has cravings, right?

Ever the tourists, we took a picture in front of the restaurant sign even though everyone in the restaurant was looking at us.

Catzie's camera was acting up, so I took some pics of the food. Here's a lemonade/ice tea mix called "Lisa's Delight."

I think the dish I ordered was called a Country Boy: 3 wings and a waffle. It was scrum-delicious.

We were crazy late leaving Roscoe's to head to CSULA. We're sorry, Nick, if we caused you a great deal of anxiety! But thanks to Kirstie, we made it with plenty of time to get settled and rehearse. Here are Janice, Mary, and Kirstie again. They stayed to hang out at the show.

I gave the ladies my camera to take pics of the show. Um, the pics didn't turn out so well--but it wasn't their fault! My camera is not that great. Anyway, here's the best pic of me in the bunch. Eek, I have no face! Alas, the stage can be a lonely place . . .

They managed to get a great shot of Catzie's boots. And water bottle.

We met up with our good friend, Bert. It was really wonderful to see him--it's been, like, 7 or more years since I last saw him.

The ladies from San Diego had to leave so we had to say Bye-Bye (sniff!) Here's one last group photo.


Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone at OSU and CSULA. We hope to see you all soon.

Much love,
Michelle