I watched the first two episodes of The Last Dance, the ESPN Chicago Bulls docuseries, all about Michael Jordan’s reign as the king of the team, the championships, the works. It was a walk down memory lane, not because I’ve ever been a big fan of the team but because of the era it all came from. The era I played a lot of basketball, in junior high and high school. The era I was a die-hard NBA fan. The era I watched so much basketball that it brought me and my family to Phoenix to see the Suns play the Bulls and then to college at ASU in 1996 and I’ve been here ever since. The era my dad and I didn’t miss a game because when Sir Charles Barkley was on TV there wasn’t anything else that would pull us away. Those games were an event at our house.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I loathed the Bulls because of my devotion for the Suns. But, I appreciated Michael. I knew he was literally a game changer and arguably the greatest of all time. Sorry Kobe and LeBron fans. It’s just a simple fact. Neither of them had that signature tongue and finger roll, nor were they asked to star in one of the greatest movies of all time, Space Jam. I mean, co-starring with Bugs Bunny?!! COME ON! All kidding aside, he was awesome to watch and I can say I got to see him play live, one time, in the rafters of the then America West Arena in downtown Phoenix with my pop and ma, where we learned about one-way streets in my pop’s Ford 350. You likely aren’t surprised to know that when you’re barreling down a street, the wrong way, in the equivalent of a small bus, other cars pull over and honk. We learned really fast how to properly roll in the big city.

I think it was February 1994, around President’s Day weekend, when I had an extra day off from school. I was a sophomore in high school. We made the big trip to Phoenix, about a 10-hour drive. I hadn’t done much research on colleges yet and my pop, no joke, when we got to town, said he’d seen freeway signs as we were driving for a nearby college and did I want to check it out. Sure. We followed the signs that led us to University Drive in Tempe. The ASU campus, to a country bumpkin like me, was something I’d really never imagined. And it had been snowing back home in Bishop, California so seeing kids in roller blades and shorts sold me on the school. It was the only college I applied to. Now, the Cinderella in me would love to tell you that I got a basketball scholarship and that’s all she wrote but nope, I was no Michael Jordan or even close. Just a stocky power forward that did however learn how to throw up threes in a pinch, sort of Dan Majerle-esque, to get away from the towering Amazons that I typically played against.

After checking out Tempe and a little bit of the ASU campus (mostly Mill Ave, to be honest:)), we toured around downtown Phoenix and saw the sights like Hooters at the Arizona Center and found Marjele’s Sports Grill too. I think we ate there or maybe tried to and it had been packed – can’t remember.

Game time was everything I had hoped and then some compared to the TV broadcast we were all so familiar with. Our seats were up in the nose-bleed section with all the die-hard fans who even at that time couldn’t afford to sit downstairs because tickets were already pricey. It honestly didn’t matter. I would have sat in the janitor’s closet if there was a view of the court. We quickly bonded with fellow Suns fans around us as that yelled out things like “Sit down Sea Hag!” for Scottie Pippen. If you’re familiar with the old Popeye cartoons, you’ll remember that character, an enemy of Popeye and his crew, and Scottie does have a nose that is very similar to the sea witch. But, although there was a ton of disdain for the rest of the Bulls line-up, you didn’t hear people trash talk Jordan. It was hard to do when the guy was so fucking good. It was a love-hate relationship for most basketball fans or at least for my family. As much as we loved the Suns team, we had to respect Jordan and the increased level of play that he brought to the court, brought out in his teammates and all the teams they came up against.

The Suns played hard, as did the Bulls, and if memory serves and my research is correct, the Suns won by one point. It was a crazy ending, as I remember, and Marjele threw up many successful three-pointers, so many in fact that the commentators at the game and on the news said they’d be serving drinks on “trays” at his bar. We walked that way after the game and the bar wall-to-wall fans, spilling out onto the street. Out front, in the parking spot right on the street, was a black Mercedes with the license plate “Nine”, his number and probably one of many cars he owned. There wasn’t a chance to actually catch a glimpse of him inside because it was a mob scene but he’d surely be partying with his teammates well into the wee hours of the morning.

Seeing Sir Charles play and the rest of the team was great. And, for the Suns to press the Bulls as hard as they did was heaven. Jordan scored a ton of points, as he always did, and it was great to see them all battle it out on the court. Basketball was insanely good then to watch and be a fan. Our trip to the big city was very memorable and in August 1996, when I got to ASU for my freshman year, that was also the first year that Sir Charles went to play with the Houston Rockets. Go figure. He clearly didn’t get the memo that his number one fan was finally in town. We did get to see the Suns play one more time against the Utah Jazz before Sir Charles left and it was another crazy fun time.

I’ve been to a few games in recent years and it’s really never been the same for me. The Jock Jams music, the Suns Gorilla and the vibe in that arena is still there but the team has had big shoes to fill for a long time. The retired jerseys hanging from the ceiling, along with the Western Conference Championship banners are full of memories. I did enjoy watching Steve Nash, Amar’e Stoudemire and Grant Hill play in later years. But, they were still a close second to Barkley and team.

I’m looking forward to the rest of The Last Dance and my continued walk down the NBA Memory Lane. I honesty didn’t know much about what was going on with the Bulls and the wild internal struggles they faced as they entered that last championship year in 1998. ESPN has done an awesome job with the series and I’ll keep soaking it up. I heard Sir Charles makes an appearance because they interview all the greats from the Jordan era. I’ll have my tissue box ready since I know I’ll be weepy. Blame it on the Rona or just my old age. Nostalgia chokes me up the older I get and when I remember awesome family memories. Cheers to basketball and the Jordan era. Thank you for entertaining us and bringing all that magic to the court. The teenager in me will never forget it.

The past two years have been like a Christmas miracle. One of my favorite sitcoms, Will & Grace, came back for another run. It really has been a TV gift and a love letter to the fans.

Only until recently, since I’m at home with more time on my hands then usual, has it finally sunk in that it’s coming to an end, a real end this time. Thursday, April 23, is the final episode. I plan on making quarantinis in honor of my favorite quartet and, of course, for Karen Walker. And, I won’t pour one out for my homies, since that would be wasteful. I am my father’s daughter

A week ago, a special episode aired. They performed a tribute to I Love Lucy, showcasing scenes from some of the top episodes and fan-favorites including Lucy Does a TV Commercial (Vitametavegimin), Job Switching (The Candy Factory) and Lucy’s Italian Movie (The one where she goes grape-stomping). Each actor played different roles and switched during the episode. It was fantastic and the amount of time spent researching and watching the physical movements of the original characters was crazy – it was frame-by-frame perfect with some additional Will & Grace cast ad-libbing.

Growing up, I was a huge I Love Lucy fan. It was a show that my grandma and I could watch together and laugh for hours. It was tough finding much of anything that my grandma liked. She was a tough old broad, what you would call a Grumpy Cat these days. This show helped to lighten her mood and we never missed watching all the reruns together. She bought me a VHS series of the best of the best and we watched those over and over again during her visits to my house and I’d take them with me to watch at her house too. It was our thing. Aside from occasionally fishing together, those were the best memories I had of my grandma enjoying something. There was likely no better actress than Lucille Ball who could have broken down grumpy barricades. And, since I wasn’t a fan of Lawrence Welk, my grandma’s other favorite show, I Love Lucy was our common ground.

My grandma passed away in 2010, a few months shy of her 92nd birthday. She had a really great run, as they say. The other night, while watching the Lucy tribute episode, I’m sure she was laughing along with us. There’s zero chance she missed it. I saved the episode to rewatch, it was that good. I know I’ll need more Lucy and Will & Grace laughs before too long. It’ll help balance out all the horror shows I watch and death metal I listen to.

Big thanks to the cast and crew of Will & Grace for tackling that iconic comedy. You too are in the iconic comedy category and I’m sure Lucy was impressed. Cheers to you and eleven seasons of laughter!

I’m a huge Foo Fighters fan. My bestie and I were actually supposed to be at the opening show of their 25th Anniversary Big Red Van Tour on Easter Sunday night, seeing Dave Grohl and the boys rock out with us Phoenicians. Luckily, it will now be an early Christmas present in December and they didn’t have to cancel our tour stop.

Aside from the awesome tunes that Dave writes, he started an Instagram account of Dave’s True Stories during this dumpster fire. They are so great and so funny. I’m hoping he collects them for a book or keeps writing after everything is back to the new normal. But, it’s inspired me to put some of my own stories down on this blog, how I have in the past, but in particular, a few that fall into the rock ‘n’ roll category. Yes, there actually are some of those. So here goes nothing. This one’s for Dave.

I had an internship at a dot com my last semester of college at ASU. I was graduating with a B.A. in Journalism from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism in May 2000. My guidance counselor helped me get the internship at AccessArizona.com and it was paid which was really hard to come by so I was thrilled. I wouldn’t have to work an extra job – just that one. It wasn’t exactly front page, ambulance-chasing news like I wanted but lots of fun entertainment stuff that I dug. They gave me a lot of freedom to create fun new sections of the site like Downtown Amy Brown where I wrote a column reviewing the latest music venues and local bands around town. It was fun. And, after being there one month, I turned 22, so was still in my newbie legal drinking-mode. It was perfect for hitting the town on the regular.

In addition to running a few entertainment channels of the website, I was also gifted the “Webmistress” title for running the Edge’s website. Now, the Edge was all alt-rock radio station in Phoenix that sadly no longer exists. It was awesome in its hayday. We had a number of partnerships with local radio stations where in exchange for us running their websites, they’d give us free advertising for our website. Seemed like a good tradeoff, one would think. But man, those radio personalities could be a handful.

For example: I’d be driving to work to Downtown Phoenix from my condo in Mesa, so a bit of a drive. This was in 2000 so not as much traffic as we have now but still Rush Hour. I’d be listening to the morning show and they’d say things like “This will be on our website within the next 10 minutes so check it out!” Yeah, good times. I was more like their radio bitch a good chunk of the time but all-in-all, it was still a ton of fun especially at 22 years old. And, when I finally broke through the barrier of their too-cool-for-school attitudes, I became close with a number of the DJs and the promotion folks, letting me tag along to shows because they wanted to make sure they got photo slideshows of everything. So the “Webmistress” was finally part of the gang and not just some dumb college kid (who then graduated and got a full-time gig with AccessArizona, BTW).

That summer after I graduated, they had their big annual EdgeFest, a full afternoon and night of bands at what’s now Ak-Chin Pavilion. I think it was in June or July, so nice and hot. I usually avoid that music venue in the summer but I was the Webmistress and ready to rock out with my trusty digital camera. I don’t recall all of the line-up but I remember some of the highlights – Cypress Hill, Bush and Everclear.

Pistol Pete, one of the DJs, was my very favorite. I loved paling around with him – he was ton of fun and such a character. He had a ginormous crush on Gavin Rossdale, the frontman for Bush (and now ex-husband of Gwen Stefani). He told me leading up to the fest that his goal was to find him, have him sign a poster and was very hopeful for a big hug too.

That night, in between snapping photos of the other bands backstage and the sidestage where there were all the pre-show interviews, we walked by tour bus after tour bus yelling “GAVIN! WHERE ARE YOU, GAVIN??!!” like the couple of crazies we were. We weaved our way in and out of the buses, dodging bodyguards and security. We had official backstage passes so that was excuse enough for us to be super-coo-coos. Bush was the second to last band before Everclear would close out the night. And the band before them was on stage right then.

We struck out with the tour buses and decided to head inside to the green room. And sure enough, there was Gavin in the hallway, tall and hot as ever, talking to some fans. I’m pretty certain Pete nearly passed out when he saw him and he grabbed my arm and squeezed.

“Oh. My. GAWD, honey, it’s HIM!”

I got my camera at the ready and we walked as slowly as we could up to him, not being too neurotic, but picking up the pace as we saw that he was ending his coversation with the couple of fans and starting to walk away. I wasn’t going to miss out on Pete getting that autograph on his poster and most importantly, that hug. I also wanted to fangirl a bit and at least get my ticket stub signed.

I honestly don’t even remember the conversation we had – I just remember how nice and gratious he was, especially to Pete, who had turned three shades of red and did get that autograph and hug he had been dreaming of. I snapped multiple photos that I’m sure Pete printed and hung up everywhere he could. I remember one being in his office at the radio station.

They went on stage shortly after and we ran out front to watch, both of us grinning ear-to-ear. They were awesome – I hadn’t seen then perform before so it was a real treat. And, that we’d just met Gavin, made it even sweeter. They could have sung nursery rhymes. It didn’t matter – we’d achieved Pete’s goal and that was that.

We then went backstage and watched Everclear from Stage Left. It was beyond surreal to look out at the crowd when I was always used to being in the crowd. The sound of the fans and the loud music combo was overwhelming, not to mention the heat exhaustion and all the beer I’d had. It was one of the best nights of my life. I think I slept for a full 24 hours, once I got home at around 5 a.m. It’s tough partying like a rock star. The cliche is so fucking true. That was the first night of a few more memorable shows I was fortunate to be invited to. Pete was always so great to let me be his sidekick and I loved him for that.

Years later I saw Bush open for Nickelback. Yes, I’m a huge fan of Nickelcrack, as my bestie and I call them, and proud of it. And no, I don’t care that a pickle has more fans then they do. I still dig ’em.

When Bush took the stage at the Pepsi Arena in Denver, I couldn’t help but smile and remember that epic summer night. It would never fade, no matter the years or excessive drinking. It was locked away in my memory forever, as it should be, and came back in a rush as soon as they started playing Glycerine. Thanks, Gavin, for the sweet, sweet memory and Pete, for everything.

So there really are no words to describe what all has happened but I’ll try.

First of all: What the actual FUCK?! Did y’all think something like this could ever happen?! Did you ever think that Disneyland would close for an indefinite amount of time?!  Man, it just feels like a bad movie. Like a Lifetime bad movie. There are literally days like today where I wake up thinking, and forgetting, this dumpster fire is still happening and yep, I have to first remember what day it is, because that’s a struggle and then second yep, remind myself that this shitshow is REAL. Then, I decide if I’m going to really “get ready” or just throw on a hat. You decide what’s my typical daily routine. My “Chaos Coordinator” trucker hat has seen a lot of action.

When this all started, I decided to be lazier than usual but try something new, since ya know, got some time on my hands. I’ve been rambling on a pseudo podcast. I’ve got the writing thing down, or at least I think I do. You tell me?! BUT, I’ve wanted to try the spoken word for awhile and with a face for radio, a podcast was born. Originally, Syd had wanted to try one this past summer. I gave her the opportunity to do it now but no go – now that she’s 13, she’s too cool for school and her mom most of the time. That’s ok though – I’ve been enjoying it and it’s mostly for me because I think I’ve gotten a handful of people listening. It’s just stupid shit, things to do and watch, my comedy, blah, blah, blah.

Anyway, if you’re interested, you can check it out here. I hope to get some “special guests” on there at some point but that would require me to plan a little bit and right now I’m just flying by the seat of my pants. I have a little notebook that I jot down funny things, entertainment updates, things to do and anything else I think of to collect for my daily rants and that’s about it. The notebook does say “Girl Power” on the front so there’s that. Super low budget. So we’ll see about roping some of my friends and family into the mix…if they’re willing.

Otherwise, for me, being an extreme extrovert as in I was given the title “Cruise Director” long ago because I’m the planner for my friends and family, this whole COVID-19 disaster has been super-shitastic. Concerts and events cancelled or postponed, the movie theaters shutdown, restaurants and local businesses just trying to keep afloat (but knowing most won’t be able to reopen), people suffering and dying…fuck…just the world on pause and having to take everything one day at a time, and a day at a time that feels like years. I can’t wait to go to an event again, actually sit down in one of my favorite restaurants and bars, see a movie in a theater, and most importantly, see my mom and my friends all in person.

I’ve managed to continue to be a shopaholic from the comfort of my own home and get tons of shit from my fam because of all the packages that keep arriving but hey, you gotta do what you gotta do. And I’m supporting local, GOD DAMNIT! I’ve even done some baking which means pigs have officially started flying, along with a hellmouth opening up next to my pool. Betty Fucking Crocker, right here. FML.

The meme game is stronger than ever right now too – it’s amazing to see how clever people are. There are A LOT of funny peeps out there. Give ’em a quarantine and they go to town! And that Tiger King shitshow on Netflix, that brought out a whole new batch of crazies. What a show! Meme after meme and GIF after GIF. It’s crazy fun! It definitely helps to pass the time and laugh. Laughter is the best medicine after all and the ONLY medicine I want to have at this point…well, that and beer. There’s always beer.

Speaking of beer, has that not been the strangest thing you’ve witnessed at the grocery store during this mess? The TP is gone yet the booze aisle is still fully stocked. Makes zero sense and it’s still like that every week we go! That’s what I’m hoarding, just saying.

The free entertainment is at an all-time high. Bands performing from their livingrooms, late-night talk show hosts doing the same. New shows coming out left and right on streaming services and movies on VOD. It’s hard to even keep up there’s so much to check out. It’s awesome to see everyone helping people stay home. And, the gifting and donations is beyond wonderful! Everyone pitching in to help. No matter what anyone says because the White House is run by a reality show assclown, Americans still do what they need to in a time of crisis and all on their own – they just dig in where they need to. Not all heros wear capes.

Well, there’s not much more to say than stay the fuck at home, stay safe and wash your fucking hands. Three step process. That’s it and then maybe we can finally go back to normal, whatever that normal will be now. Just as long as I can start filling my calendar up again, that’s all I ask. I’ve got shit to do, people to see and places to go. Oh the places we’ll go. Thanks, Dr. Seuss.