First post in months is dedicated to SoulCycle.

How do I love thee? Trust. Many, many ways.

There’s not too many trends I will follow and become an evangelist of, but for this I will. Cycling is one of those things that I have a love/love for but the streets in Hollywood are both jacked the hell up and recent repaving efforts are so warmly welcomed but TOO LITTLE TOO LATE City of LA LA. You’ve killed my tires, my car and damn near ME many times.

Moving on…

My poor road bike gets some lovin’ when I get courageous but lately…none. Transitioning into my new life, I needed a confidence builder. I rolled up to SC in Sunset Plaza opposite Equinox, (A place I will never ever enter again. The air in there is so rich with the funk of people up their own ass. I won’t participate.) and began the first of 5 free classes.

I took my first class in February with Pixie Acia. I was intimidated, it’d been a while. Plus she seemed popular and I knew there would be some favorites in the class. I wanted her approval but what I found was that in wanting her approval, I would eventually find it on my own without getting permission to feel extraordinary.

So I sign in, unfurl my biker shorts and strap on my cycling shoes, dusty from non-use. I sat with myself. I’d been so lazy just working 13 hour days and partying non-stop. I knew I’d cry at the end. My only goal that day, to determine if it was a good cry or a bad cry.

Pixie is tattooed, fit and for real. The music vacillates between hip hop and classic rock. AC/DC to Jay-Z its exactly on my level. I was deflated when I got there. Emotionally and physically. Nothing bad happened. It was really all good. I feel freedom, confidence and set for the journey ahead. I was ready everywhere but could not connect my mind and body. It was a co-worker who suggested that that very misalignment was why my ADHD was off the charts.

We begin. I am pushing with all my might and start to sweat immediately. Its pouring from every pore. I give Pixie glances to keep my form in check. Our eyes meet and that burst of encouragement with Ni**as in Paris blasting above head, 808s thumping and I go…first class in months and I killed it. I knew I was killing it.

I’m naturally readjusting. The seat is funky, my ass hurts, I rip my shirt off and go harder. 20 minutes in, it just happens. I just start sobbing. I mean, I don’t STOP spinning. It was the great Jennifer Lopez who told me – “When I get down or feel bad, I say ‘Stop it, quit being so weak’” I knew why I was sobbing, I’ve been here 10 years. A deep ten years. The stress, the anxiety and happiness all in one big ball had been sitting in my back, hips, and weighing on my mind. It was just washing over me but soon, away went the fear and discouragement and in came the honor of being in the present and finding focus.

I haven’t stopped. I dont think I can now. Its the WOOT I get when I roll in, an Aquarius loves the attention but the “WYNTER!” from a teacher or a friend is a boost. Giving and getting encouragement is the good stuff.

I think about being on my bike, all the times my life has improved from being on them and what I enjoy is the freedom to close my eyes in a safe space, my soul being tended to carefully and I burn like a mother. Its been 3 months and I am a Soul Believer and Survivor. I am so good at this.

First time in my life, I don’t care about the scale. Its evident I’m losing – the clothes are smaller, the waist is tinier, the compliments and the energy you get from feeling sexy – its so easy to forget that when you are in this race to be the best at life. How about just trying to be amazing at one thing, then move to the next? This is one of those things I’m currently concentrating on.

So yes, I’m now that cheesy fool wearing the sweatshirt AND the sportsbra with their brand emblazoned on it, I am sitting at Caffe Primo, drinking a post-workout smoothie and salmon bowl, chatting with friends I see (its a scene up there, I WILL GIVE IT THAT) and I am recruiting my girlfriends. One after another. Whether its Pixie or Ben B., the teachers there are just amazing – but those being my favorite I have to give them a shout. That and the staff up front are why I go. I like them. I like seeing them and miss them when I don’t.

Its cheesy, give me a break. But I have to credit the wellness boost from doing this and doing it well for I am never better than when I’m on a bike. Freddie Mercury gets it.

Any friend who gives a friend a second chance after they’ve shown their crazy slip, I commend and honor.

I’m not certifiable. 5150 is not where I’m heading, I’m unpredictable and occasionally without logic but I have
common sense. Its just friendship these days…is dicey in this generation. Its not taken lightly for some and too flippantly by others. I err on the former. I love my friends, the ones I’ve made and have had for over a decade and some I’ve met in the last couple years that I hope will be friends for life.

Recently, good friends lost someone close to them. This person took their life. Its too fresh, way too raw to go into how selfish an act this is. But in the Twitter/Facebook MEMEME generation – what’s tweet worthy one day, becomes a non-issue the next. Its really time we started putting mental health care at the forefront.

If I had a friend that was depressed, I’d ask why and try to help. I’d also know when to give them their space to hash it out for themselves. I’d keep vigil and check on them. Call and write often. I’d talk them down off the tower. I have no doubt that my friends tried to do these things. If they didn’t know, or that person didn’t reveal the extent of his demons, they would have done it if they were aware.

Coulda, woulda, shoulda.

We live in Los Angeles. A vapid pit of a city with few redeeming qualities. Newsflash: Sometimes it rains, sometimes you won’t get famous, sometimes you might have to leave. If you hustle the right way you’ll win, and the marathon doesn’t stop because you have to keep winning in order to keep that “Champion” title even if you’re your own cheering section. That’s life.

I have to admit, I don’t know why this young vibrant man took his life. May god rest his soul. But I do know those that mourn him are a solid group. My heart aches for them.

Loving a friend in a time of need is such a precarious position. I’ve failed before. Might fail again, but no one sets out to be a bad friend. Its my belief most people want someone close to them that they can trust and admire and hold dear.

I recently cut off a relationship with someone I’d known for more than a decade. It felt like a break-up, but it also felt like a clean break. There was shift and suddenly I didn’t even know this person anymore. And like that, I knew I couldn’t go on or even pretend like it was ok. It made me feel bad, and like I couldn’t trust her. In the end, I couldn’t and I had to let it go.

I’ve never taken friendships lightly. Losing touch with most of my extended family, its been my immediate family and the secondary support system I’ve created with my friends. There’s the circle of trust, mutual acquaintances and associates. There’s the layer that I will walk the ends of the earth for and the layer I’ll waver on a trip to Trousdale for.

I’m kidding, I hate that place.

It wasn’t until the recent break up that I knew what I wanted from a friendship. Its not a ride to the airport, to borrow cash, to listen to me drone about guys or work. Its the people I can laugh with, travel with, share my ups and down and bounce ideas off of. Its the people who are happy for me when I’m happy, and shed a tear with me when I’m sad. Its the ones who celebrate my win and don’t pray for my down fall. Its about trust and safety.

I’ve grown out of people for sure. Its to be expected. But the ones I have in my fold right here, right now, I love them with all my heart. They’re good people who deserve good things. They make mistakes and try to right them. Most importantly, they’ve accepted apologies and I have accepted theirs. And they know how to buy a girl a vodka soda when its most needed.

“Call your friends, and tell them you love them”

I didn’t know you but you knew people I love, and for that I love you too. RIP Collin.

Watching Andy Rooney’s final night on 60 Minutes had me pretty emotional.

Safer: Do you think about death?
Rooney: I do. Quite a bit.
Safer: What do you think?
Rooney: I don’t like it.

For a newshound like myself, he’s a hero, an icon. And like most people focused on journalism and activities fostering appetites for information, he’s a nuisance. But he means well and meant well. But like most celluloid institutions, I watched him with my elders and its just another part of growing up and band-aid ripping that reminds that I’m doing just that. I’ll miss his influence and comments and I never even watched him that often but when I did it reminded me of what I missed most in my grandparents. Their influences and ridiculous commentary.

My grandparents and great-grandmothers Laura and Viola were in my life well into adolescence and for all their archaic viewpoints and crabby commentary, it was a world that we won’t have ever again. They witnessed alot of what laid the foundation for what we are today as totally jacked up civilization. Could they have given us a warning? They tried. Because for all the faults of today, they were just trying to raise us to deal with what was to come.

My Nana taught me how to make a bed with hospital corners and fold my sheets to avoid creases. My Grandmother would not let us sleep past 9am, and if we did we’d get talked about. Her food was fresh, healthy and very Southern but delicious. Hygiene was next level, they really encouraged baths versus showers and hair freshly coiffed weekly. Clean clothes, holes patched, shoes glued. They grew their own veggies and held dear those Southern values thrust upon them by their parents.

You know, things that we rolled our eyes about and complained about to our parents after our visits. Little did we know, we embody all that they gave us and we’re better for it.

I’m a good woman because I learned from good women how to be one. I’m a good woman, I didn’t say perfect. I throw caution to the wind in matters of love, law and luxury but in my soul it is etched with their wisdom, ethic and principles. They were good to my sister and I. I can whip up a meal in under an hour because of Grandmother Jewell, I can sass because of Great Grandmother Viola, I can sit back and observe when needed because of Nana (my Great Grandmother Laura) and the sour cream in a Duncan Hines is all the different for a moist lemon cake like my Grandmother Gladys’ recipe. My grandfather James, told stories like the dickens and knew a bowl of grits that needed something extra but it was my Grandfathers Mack and Willie who were the heavies and showed the endurance of being stoic men.

Dragnet, Lucy, Eastwood films and 60 Minutes. Shows not in our demo as children. Old church hymns and jazzy operatic and boozy wails from Sarah Vaughn and Ella Fitzgerald. Count Basie and Nat King Cole. Traditional Christmases, making my own birthday cakes, wearing the best Sunday shoes and having a traditional easter egg hunt. Things I took for granted then but appreciate now. Its because of them I can name old Hollywood stars and their signature roles and films. That I can spend a day listening to Nina Simone and think fondly of Nana sitting in her corner chair, apron on all day even without a chore to be done. My Grandmother coming home from work and slaving over a stove. I could go on about what I miss most.

They watched this world move and shift and weren’t terribly happy about it. We didn’t agree on many things.

They didn’t understand our music. They liked MC Hammer and Will Smith but Ice Cube and Tupac? Too Far. They liked “The Urkel Show” but Beverly Hills 90210? “Strange and filled with fornicatin’!” Grandmother Jewell said, the words Southern drawling from her brandy soaked lips.

“You know you can catch AIDS from a toilet seat!?” Grandmother Jewell announced one day in later in the 80s as she clasped a sheet of the National Enquirer in her left hand, a Marlboro Light in the other (and by the way, secondhand smoke was totally OK.) I didn’t believe her even at 8 years old. I tried to teach my Nana how to play Super Mario Brothers. She thought the games were going to give us an aneurysm based on a report by Dr. Dean Edell. Then when it was apparent we spent more time in her bedroom watching the game than sitting with her, she joined in. 79 years old and clasping the controller she made it through level one after dying 23 times. I was never more proud of her than that day.

They were oft cranky, questionably rude and impossible to debate with but all that demanded from us was to be good girls and as the Lord plucked each one from our life we wailed and whimpered for months, which turned to days and then hours and now once in a while I can well up and cry for a good 10 minutes because I wish I could tell them things and get their opinion and spend just a few precious moments to crack on about Occupy protests, President Obama, healthcare and the tragedy that was the overly hype Kardashian wedding. With soaps gone and nearly forgotten, Grandmother Jewell would have loved it. And then every Sunday just before bedtime, in my dreams I’d ring her, let her coo and prod and prejudge my life in LA away from her, listen to her prattling and smile.

This is going to be short and sweet. Much like a relationship that shifts your whole being. Adele, I’m not gonna tell you to stop thinking about your exes, but you must make a working effort towards moving on.

Ah hell, what I am saying? She’s 23 years old. Remember 23? Nothing was clear or succinct in matters of love and especially of loss. I cry watching puppies cuddle now. At 23 I would have laughed those puppies out of the room and off a cliff (No PETA). Sensitivity chip is online and fully operational these days. That comes with heart warmth, heartache and heartbreak.

If her rekindling of a “friendship” (insert long, lingering eye roll here) seems like a healthy option for he right now, I hope its not at the expense of her career. I was concerned because she’s been canceling shows lately and look, I know myself – much like the emotional, sensitive and defiant Adele, is she really sick? Or just lingering too long after an evening out with him smoking and drinking and reminiscing?

Girl, if you want the advice, put the brakes on this nonsense. There’s nothing I will enjoy more as I careen towards success than rubbing said success in the faces of the various douches who have caused me misery and sorrow but the closer I get to feeling like a champ the less I want these dudes in my ring. I don’t want to see them. Our pasts can fuel MY future but you don’t get to ride in the limo or kick it on the yacht in the Amalfi Coast. Its just going to cause additional distress, I just know it. Its like when Madonna had a baby and went from Bedtime Stories to Ray of Light. There was a “shift” or when Alanis fell back in with Ryan Reynolds and all her music sounded like she just didn’t…have it in her. I want the rage, I want the scandal, I want that deep stirring swell. You will know happiness when you find it and it finds you. Regressing backward with this twit is not the way.

Yikes is all I have to say about that. I remember crowding into Empire Theater in West Portal to see Back To The Future 2. It was my favorite theater and we went there often. I saw the Blair Witch Project there. I’m sure the reason it was my favorite and what kept me going there was that they didn’t card if you were under 17 and Stonestown definitely did.

I get nostalgic over stuff like…shoes that are made to specification (MINUS THE POWER LACES) from one of my top 10 favorite movies of all time. It warms the cuckolds of my heart. Its like waking up from a dream about it and having the dream be true. On a particularly bad day I probably would have cried over this.

Yea, I’m getting old. 31 isn’t old. I’m still young, but I’m old to a 12 year old. I’m a “lady” or a “ma’am”. How’d this happen? I know, I sweated my teen years and partied the entire 20s to get to 31 where my primary worries of today for instance was owing taxes, figuring out how to write the book (oh yea, I have a book deal) and what color my living room is going to be.

Its 2011, Our President is black, my living room TV has 3D and I can pay for things without seeing anyone. I’m an adult. Michael J. Fox is battling a disease, the same disease that took my grandfather…now Nike, ahead of Doc Brown’s schedule has released these shoes. I can’t afford them and for the off chance that I did have 5k laying around – earlier this year I did – I would have bought these and 4 years down the line forgotten where I put them.

Nostalgia for me now is listening to Sarah Vaughn on a muggy Sunday and thinking of my Grandmothers and Great-Grandmother. Life rolled down to this quaint simplicity that is just not offered to people today. They refused to change for the world, or distort their values. Everyday was still the 50s. The new rules of today didn’t apply.

I often wonder what they’d think of me now, if I’m doing them proud. I like to think I am. I’m a good kid. Rough around the edges but I love my parents, I love my sister and I love my job. I could stand to ease up on the drink and put down the Parliaments, maybe lay off the sugar but I stay out of the streets and would rather tear open a book than a party if I can manage it.

These shoes, I dont know…these shoes represent a time when I had no idea what my future would hold. Where I’d be in life. Sitting in that theater, excited that my Mom actually joined my sister and I. She hates crowds. It felt like she let us into what makes her laugh, she and my father seeing the original only a few years before without us and gloating that day about how great it was and we should see it sometime. They were obnoxious like that. had I been more obnoxious I would have walked to a cinema, all 4 years old and change with my months old sister to see if and been on the news. Back when seeing a movie required people to talk about it, in order for it to get buzz. Pre-Twitter, Facebook, pagers, bulletin boards.

I’ll cover this topic alot more as I write this blog and document what’s next. Working on this book with my subject will probably give me a lot of “Oh my god, I’m old” moments but I look forward to it. And hey, if its a best seller soon to be on CW hit? Well…we’ll see. More on that soon. In the meantime, if you can afford a pair of Nike Air Mag’s, sweet, let me borrow them on Monday. They’re going to a really good cause.

(originally written in may 2011)

I’m not one for standing in lines.

Okay, there are rare times when I will: Banksy’s LA show- 3 hours, Sistine Chapel- 1.5 hours, meeting Lil Kim – 2 hours… it was 1997 don’t judge me!) I was queued up at Amoeba one Tuesday afternoon days ago with about 200 spastic teenagers of varying races and wardrobe choices, trying to get a wristband for their show that night. My efforts seemed futile.

Ultimately, I made it 15 minutes. I wussed out. I have this new found obsession with Odd Future, a grungy-skate-hop band headed up by Tyler The Creator, the Tony Montana to this junior mafia of musicians. My obsession stems from more than just a need for new music. What the world needs now more than love is brutally honest and heaving rhythmic sonnets beating numbingly into your skull with a lack of formulaic bippity-boppity and its spewed from a kid who grew up with two options: live or die. He’s foul, lyrics are misogynistic, he may or may not be homophobic – his vacillates wildly on his views between “Bastard” his first album and “Goblin” his latest offering which dropped a couple weeks back. He’s confused and only 20. If a record label gave you a record deal and said “Do it! Whatever you want buddy!” what would you say?

I’m in no position to launch a defense for these kids since I don’t subscribe to that train of thought at all. I grew up in San Francisco in the 80’s. You’ve heard of it: incense, peppermints, the color of time…and shit. Raised smack dab between the Age of Aquarius and the 1st dot-com boom I was as wild of a card that you could pull from the angry deck. I love everyone; I support everyone doing whatever they want without their civil rights being infringed upon (or murdering someone.) But I know even writing this, they’d probably hate me from word go. I’d sound like the marble-mouthed counselor who bookends his tracks, offering sad and clichéd colloquialisms to the group’s fearless leader. He’s not that fearless. Clearly, he’s got Daddy issues, and without delving too far into the psychology of why Tyler wishes him dead and how if “Sarah” – the muse of the track — continues to resist his affections he’ll drop her mutilated body in a basement, you’re gonna have to trust me to put your Tipper Gore to the side and really listen. When your options are few, your Mom’s not listening and your Dad is distant – your imagination runs wild.

Truth be told, we aren’t “listening” to rap anymore anyway, its background music like the synthetic droning in the elevator at Nordstrom. We’re throwing on Lil Wayne and watching him be whimsy and mercurial to a slack jawed Katie Couric on 60 Minutes. It’s the same way I thought Luda’s “How Low Can You Go?” was titled “I Love Pink & Gold” for 7 months. I just nod my head and shake my hips. I’ve ceased investing in lyrics from these people. They don’t do it for me anymore. But I don’t hate him for it, hell they’ve all earned “the life.” But it’s been a long time since I was 14, laying on my living room floor and letting lyrics pour in. I threw on “Goblin.” I dry-heaved a couple times, sure, but I felt something. The future is odd anyway, so why not let them talk about it? The boy fears plenty. Tyler is completely aware of just how many issues he’s dealing with. How much confusion he was raised in and as he sees just how pure fucked up it is for this generation. He just wants a cuddle. Enter fame and fortune.

Back to the scene: I’m up against the building and these overgrown rug rats with their ironic tees and rancid chastisements to the unfortunate dudes dropped off by their Moms, who circled slowly around the city block in late model mini-vans. Their very id’s caught in a purgatory somewhere south of Hipsterville but north of Shel Silverstein-land. Suddenly I didn’t feel as “cool” as I thought I was. I felt mature. Not Depends mature, but I may as well have been. I slink away back to my car. Later, I order sushi and watch Real Housewives Insert City that night. I’m lame, I think, while staring at my TV and rubbing my lower back. It was the line standing.

Defeated. I frantically text my network and found the PR. I didn’t get a response till 2 days later, “We’ll take care of you when we’re back in June.” he offered. But the thrill of the hunt is my thing. It’s the only real risk left. I can’t get wild and not pay rent or party till dawn and look crease-less and de-puffed at the office anymore. PR can and will of course hold a pair of tickets at will call and maybe set up a “Hey how’s it going…?” backstage politic with Tyler, but it is just not the same but yet I’m quietly satisfied. I’ve experience enough great highs and great lows to say “I’ll sit this one out.” My Dad’s endless statement of “There will be more parties,” a line I didn’t stop hearing all my teen years, rotating over and over in my head. I never got to go to ANY parties, now I hide from the same events in my apartment. Its happened, but actually I love those rushing moments of full-blown maturity even thought they are coming fast and often these days. Just because I’ve become that asshole of the “meet my needs now” variety: I know the owner, the rep, the agent the doorman. I didn’t want to have to say…I mean really, don’t you know who I am?

They do, but don’t. As “old” as I felt that day, I recognize the thrill of their music; it makes me feel like a kid again. The kid I was to myself – not to everyone else. They make me find the beauty in the angst when it was ugly. I hated being a teenager. I hated going to school. I hated my friends. I hated my parents. I hated my life. I hated waking up. Everything was confusing and small, people spoke in reverse like David Lynch fare and I was judged harshly. For my dress, my speech, my hair, my whole being. Even if I’ve been able to shake off any remnant of the teen rebel I had become well into my twenties, what remains is my penchant for mouthing off retorts to disturbingly cliched (and rudimentary) unsolicited assaults from people who think that “know” me. I like that part of me. It took 15 years to stand up for me. That’s the bottom layer. The top layer – the 31-year-old skin, now just smiles, nods, dismisses and says please, thank you and excuse me. The bottom layer remains, a personal treasure. I can conjure anger and angst likethat. It’s a delicate daily balance eased by the desire to succeed without becoming a total asshole to myself and those around me. I busted loose years ago frantically taking back my sanity like I was stuffing bags of styrofoam peanuts into a plastic bag.

True facts: I remember my mom making me return “Doggystyle” to Tower Records. I remember listening to “ Eddie Murphy’s Delirious” on my Cabbage Patch Kids record player low so my Dad wouldn’t hear. I remember pressing my ear to the door of our den as my parents’ entertained friends around “good cheese” and Bartels and James for hours, cursing and laughing at Richard Pryor talk about crack on HBO. No matter how much they tried to prevent us from being exposed we took it in anyway. We would not be denied.

It’s because they tried to shield me from the inevitable that I grew up knowing how to be fearless by testing limits. It’s a reverse psychology Tyler knows all too well.

I guess my only words of wisdom to Tyler, seeing as he can now afford the women and toys he so desires, are but a singular sage and true fact: The world is yours, don’t fuck it up.

“i feel good about the good things, i feel bad about the bad things. but i dont regret any of it.” – dave grohl.

needless to say, this summer’s been a game changer. what the hell is it about summer that just tilts your universe on its axis and promotes…evolution? is it the abandon and freedom? is it the sun’s energy? i’ve had some pretty amazing experiences that i wouldn’t trade for all the tea in boston. makes my life feel blessed. one of those things was getting the chance to meet dave grohl. it was a 2-step process so stay with me.

earlier this summer one of my best friends ajay was working on a project. backstory: we just regrouped after a stupid falling out over stuff that doesn’t even matter in life’s grand ridiculous scale. but we’re young and arrogant. its expected. all murder to excellence (and ill write about that “watch the throne” reference in my next post.)

ajay was working on a huge 3D project, its what he does. he’s touched on some pretty great projects but he’d been talking about this for a while. he was working on streaming a 3D version of “back and forth” to play theatrically. its the foo’s documentary about the past 16 years tracing their beginnings from the moment dave and pat smear dealt with kurt cobain’s death to being the rock gods they are today and making “wasting light” their latest album.

he called me up, ajay did, says “hey, do you want to come with me to this production, its for the foo fighters.” i dont think he finished his sentence before i was out of my seat saying “yes”. the next day, i drove to north hills where the foo’s studio was. i was nervous. do i wear my nirvana shirt? no, don’t be the chick. do i bring something to sign, oh HELL no, wyn you are way too cool for that and you know it. most importantly, how do i face my friend that i was a dick to only months earlier? so many emotions, conflicting, taunting. i employ the Fonzie technique. “Be cool.” i hug ajay. i missed him and our banter. he’s like a little brother to me. he’s a karmic twin almost. i missed his energy and he was a great motivator. friends, good friends motivate you.

in the case of how to deal with the foo’s, i know how to be “industry” and “unaffected”. i thought it was an audience set up – few hundred milling about perhaps, and lots of the same ol’ same i’ve become used to. my job is the hurry up and wait of all hurry up and waits.

i see pat smear and my palms get clammy. he’s smoking a cigarette with butch vig and i wait for ajay to collect me. he takes me to the set and i just can’t believe it…

FF insignia everywhere, dave and pat’s guitar on their stands. taylor’s drums at the ready. its epic. i look for an audience and there isn’t any. i look at the seats sidestage, there’s 8 chairs. we’re going to be watching this with a few other people. i died. im rarely silent, but this was a very big deal. on that day i really appreciate my life and my friend ajay. he was making a childhood dream become a reality. i dreamed about meeting idols – NOT CELEBRITIES, no IDOLS. you might get stoked to meet i dont know…Snooki. That’s cool. She may have provided fodder for you to snicker at – but Snooki hasn’t written some of the most compelling lyrics the world has seen.

we watched the documentary and i cried a little bit when they talk about kurt. kurt wasn’t this major influence on my life, because the media wouldn’t let him be. looking back, he was rebelling against what has come. being a rock idol these days is no fair shakes and you BETTER be good. you better be able to play your guitar for 3 long years traversing the world and be on time, give the fans what they want, with the quick and do not disappoint. i listened to nirvana incessantly as a 13 year old. i was angry, so were they. i was confused, so were they. i wanted to rock and bang my head, they did too. nirvana’s lyrics were not what i knew, but what i grew to love and accept as part of my daily listening. i’d take my dad’s walkman that i turned into my owna and tape rock songs off of live 105 and listening to them on my way to school during my morning walk. too young to afford their music at tower or amoeba. before mp3′s, before streaming, when record stores were king.

1994 – suicide of a rock star is not cool. it was debated in class at a limited amount. mtv tried to give him a dutiful tribute but watching “smells like teen spirit” on loop with suicide prevention ads stuff in-between just harshed the mellow. our parents had seen this before and didn’t approve. rock music is not for dying quietly in your home in your sleepy, rainy hometown. your rock god doesn’t wear sweaters, with his spray less hair in his face, he doesn’t question god, authority or dare leave this earth unless it was a sweet ride on the way out.

i watched intently, i was sure the band had seen it right? i sat in my chair enthralled and i felt someone behind me. then i heard “oh cool, i haven’t seen this.” and i turned around, it was dave grohl. i froze. could not move. he walks away. im not trying to get in that guy’s head, i dont know his pre-show ritual, i can’t do that i’m a dork. i look at ajay and smile my dumb ass smile when im really stoked on life. as the doc ends, dave says something that just slays me, “i feel good about the good things. i feel bad about the bad things. but i dont regret any of it.” that summed up that entire evening. the day we watched them rock the entire WL album was the day kurt died 16 years ago. it was insane. the universe just does stuff to you in only the way the universe can.

i felt bad about what ajay and i argued or didn’t argue about. but i knew that i loved him and i never wanted to fight with him again. even if he didn’t invite me to do this, i would have felt the same way. life is way too effing short to disagree about something that means very little to both of us in the big scheme of things. it was semantics is what it boiled down to. at the end of the day, i never wanted to lose my friend again.

the foo’s played the entire album and it was impressive, hearing it in its entirety live in this intimate setting was cathartic. it wasn’t the vmas, it wasn’t a concert venue, it was 12 people and the foo’s. later, i was given 4 of dave’s guitar picks. that coupled with my lanyard is getting framed inside of a photo of dave and i. cut to lollapalooza and i somehow ended up backstage the entire time. but for eminem, the cars and muse – this is where i was. it was all those things that being backstage is these days. but the energy reminded me of my childhood. i was like a kid at the circus for the first time. oohs and ahhs. i felt like i’d made it and this isn’t even the end of it. by sunday the foo’s played and i stood in the rain with thousands of people and let the sky open up on me. hair ruined, make up done, dress drenched. we hopped into perry farrell’s golf cart and the crowd sea parted, people cheered him and clapped.

it was amazing. once we get back stage again i sat and waited. i wanted to meet dave grohl and tell him how his music had fueled the last 16 years of my life. arguably the most difficult and challenging and exciting years of my short life. how their music fueled simple things like cleaning my house to writing in my diary to getting over a breakup to starting a party.

dave arrived, he looks familiar now, like a buddy. i let him do his thing, i never want to be that girl. ever. im too cool for that and thats my san francisco upbringing to thank for that. god bless a san francisco upbringing.

after an hour he comes outside and i make my move. he’s open. i tell him in that limited time that i was at the north hills production and that he’s one of the few artists that’s motivated my life since i was 14. i thanked him for just making great music and helping me get through some good times and bad times. he’s listening and laughing at my nervousness and gives me a big hug thanking me the entire time. i put up my camera and he laughs at the bright flash and thanks me again saying “that’s the sweetest thing i’ve ever heard, thanks alot wynter.”

i love the foo fighters because im a young black woman who grew up with r&b, hip-hop and rap fueling our lifestyles and households. i dont begrudge that and i will soon display the same love i have for this band for a select group of artists that have shaped my world. but when i was alone, and oh so angry or with my GATE peers, or riding the bus to sutro towers to watch the tide and just get away, this is who we were listening to.

the fact that they are still here, kicking ass and are able to evolve is just a testament to their awesomeness. you dont become amazing rock stars if you dont have talent and these days if you do, you dont last. they have, and grohl’s a great leader.

i never thought id have experiences like that, i thought i was incapable or inadequate. i fought through my teens to still be here, through angst and anger to be “here”.

“here” is success at this level. i’ve done something right. i lived. i made it through whatever dark cloud that i carried through my teens and did away with in my 20s to get to my 30s. its sunny, like summer on the good days. its dark and stormy on the few bad days, but its will smith in a lambo driving down collins in miami beach, florida compared to a sleepy damp house where kurt took his life. would he hate the world now? probably. but i’m pretty sure he’d be proud of what dave’s become.

motivation to be great comes in many forms, dave grohl is one of my many motivators. i dont want to be a rock star – i want to be a rock author, a rock producer. i want to rule in my profession. so thank you dave for just being a cool fucking dude and being one of the foremost soundtrack mainstays of my life. and thank you ajay for being my friend. i love you both.

Watch The Throne’s first leak “Otis” by Jay-Z and Kanye. First given honor to them both, they know how much I love them to def.

This is just a taste, this isn’t 1/2 the heat they’re about to bring. If WTT is not certified banger thereafter, I’ll eat those 2 for $20 bermudas I bought at Old Navy earlier this spring. The ending is not my favorite part but….this is only a test.

Link to download at the source…tell a friend.

Source: Illroots.com

I love summertime, I get so inspired in the summer.

My new favorite things are

I’ve been cheating on 24 Fitness for years, I left Gold’s holding the ring, and dabbled with SportsClub LA on the side but I’ve gone back to my first true love, Crunch. Man, that place knows how to make a body and boy am I loving the results. I bought a trainer, he was meh but then I slowly realized I don’t really need one. I’m great at sculpting the body I want (when I want to.) Also I literally spent yesterday following a hot guy from station to station. I did 120 sit-ups just to watch him on the Smith machine. Embarrassing but healthy.

and I’m pretty obsessed with this dude…

Tyler The Creator. Misfit. I love a good misfit and I absolutely love his album…before this album “Goblin”. “Goblin” is okay. Its not great, his stuff with Odd Future – the collaborative stuff – is pretty good. I wrote a whole essay about it that no one read cause I’m long winded. So download his mixtape stuff if you’re interested.

I’m also really into…

This idiot who wrote an email about Quentin Tarantino sucking her toes and then sent it to her friends and then one of her “friends” or frenemies sent it to Gawker and well…I’m pretty sure she’s in queue on the EDD line right now…but in thinking of that I really just want to know who @agenttrainee is so dearly. I’ve decided he works at William Morris.

I’m obsessed with my new little iPod shuffle I was lucky to get at the Rihanna concert while hanging in the Nivea suite with my homies. Thank you Nivea and congrats on #Nivea100years campaign with Riri. I got to meet her later on. Will post pic when I get it, it was fun. In all sense of the word fun and if that’s what she’s going for then she hit it right on the head. She’s no Aretha but the girl has charisma and a heartbeat – the obvious underlying target of that insult shall remain nameless). But my ipod shuffle now solves the issue of having to bring the Touch or Nano to the gym. I just want something to clip on so I dont have to think about it and this just did the trick.

Let’s see, this thing is cool

and super convenient. I’m not gonna sell it to you its just nice to have one of these things. It chops everything. I used it in one night to make smoothie, guacamole, stir-fry and a cocktail.

I love summertime.

Slap on my wrist, egg on my face.
I dont post here enough. I know I should and I will.
Lets go through my day (in theory) and maybe you’ll get an idea of why its so hard for me to keep up.

7am – Wake up.
705 – Go back to sleep
715 – Really wake up, shower, check emails.
730 – Yes I take 15 minute showers, no I don’t mean to.
745 – Maybe have breakfast? Maybe not.
750 – Dress, apply make up, check emails.
815 – Hair’s done. If I actually do it. Otherwise its a cap and that’s so declasse. Gather my accoutrement.
830 – Out the door
845 – Back in the door, forgot my phones ( I have 2 – one for work, one for self, one’s a mac the other a pc.)
900 – Get to work, check emails again – by now 20 have come in since an hour ago.
930 – Coffee and something probably not healthy.
1000 – Interview a director about his summer movie
1015 – Transcribe, water.
1100 – Talk to source about antics on the set of said summer movie
1124 – More emails
1200p – Lunch in BH with a publicist/friend
130 – Back to the office, check emails
230 – Meeting
400 – Emails…sources…snack
500 – Do some writing and work on personal stuff, make a few phone calls, reset a few meetings
600 – Drinks at Hudson with @cat_schwartz
800 – Dinner with a source at Matsuhisa, yumm
930 – An event in Hollywood, I’m gonna be up till midnight at least
1200 – Event was more fun than expected!
1230 – Crawl into bed, WASH OFF MAKE UP, then crawl into bed.

REPEAT.

See, this is pretty much my Monday through Friday. So how on earth shall I get it all done?

I will find a way. Ladies, it is not easy being an independent woman in this era. Whatever this era is. But I certainly intend on making it some way, some how. I’m busy – its hard to keep up some days. Usually on the weekends I find myself fulled invested in the worst of the worst on TV and some minor game play on my PS3. But overall I’m always looking for ways to make the time more worthwhile. One life to live folks, lets do it right!