HEY EVERYBODY...

i moved the entire organization over to facebook and myspace...see you there. love~niki                                                                                                          

seize the green day -- the e-book is ready for download...free 11-page sample!

michael jackson

i'd be remiss if i didn't comment on the passing of michael jackson. i don't watch tv much, but all the press has finally gotten to me. even though he became a freak, it's astounding to watch old footage of the jackson 5 and then when michael turned solo as a young man. he was an inspiration and a magnificent talent. strangely, it's fun seeing him again in his prime, dancing and singing. i loved him as a kid. i even watched their variety show, i remember because i was in laura mcgraw's living room in potomac, maryland, the two of us splayed out on her living room floor, chins in are hands glued to the tube. i'm hoping someone will re-air the motown 25 special because his performance was spectacular. i saw the original broadcast.                                                                                                                         

people get amnesia when death happens; you could be the most heinous bastard on the planet, but when you die, someone's gonna feel sorry for you because death is fucking scary.                                                                                                                                                  

too bad about that creepy dude with the dentures and whacked out eyebrows who destroyed his spirit and more than likely turned michael jackson into an alleged child molester and a supreme weirdo with a carved out face. i may not be taking the popular stance, but so what. i still love looking and listening to the michael jackson before he headed south. he's free from it all and so i say thank you for the talent you allowed us to share...i am sorry for your pain~                                                     

                                                  

the lost eva cassidy tapes...

i found an unmarked tape in my garage 7 years ago and on it was eva singing live at a place called fleetwoods; a club opened in the early 90s in virginia associated with mick fleetwood...                                                                                         

the tape has been in a safe-deposit box all these years because i don't have the legal right to sell them and nobody seems to want to listen to them let alone buy them.  and so i'm going to give them away, over 20 songs live with eva's band including mick fleetwood on drums...                                                                                                               watch this space for free mp3 downloads~                                                            

http://www.myspace.com/missnikilee

green day e-book...

seize the green day july 4th weekend lulu.com~                                                                         

why we love green day...

50...

and here~                                                                                        

i don't need to open my eyes...

in order to listen--                                                                                       

on the couch...

nice~                                                                                                            

sometimes dreams do come true~

djrossstar got his ticket to the henry fonda and he's peeing himself!                                                                                                               (lucky i had a cancellation~)                                                                                           

dude--we are...

jeeves...my pipe and slippers~

could you please get the fuck off his stage, asshole~

                                             

VI IV MMIX

fuck phil spector...(that gun-toting whacko)

the wall of sound belongs to butch vig~                                                                                 

heat...

21st century breakdown redux (holy shit it's an eargasm!)

i wrote the previous piece about the album after listening to it on my laptop. today i got my pre-order and listened to it on my ipod. let me just add a few notes: this thing is hauntingly seamless, and somehow every new song, new genre, old genre, old song, transition, leitmotif, melody and harmony is perfect.

and, um,  billie joe armstrong is a genius on par with bernstein, sondheim, dylan, john lennon, lorenz hart, george gershwin and kurt weill, not andrew lloyd webber*...if i read that again i'm gonna puke! (and i hate exclamation points!!!!!)   

(*i'll make an exception for webber's jesus christ superstar...that's his best anyway)                             

if you don't give 21st century breakdown a five out of five or a four out of four or whatever the fuck you use, you might want to up your grade. if not, you may go down in history stuck in some hilariously unfortunate compilation of negative reviews written about artists who were later revered like, oh, beethoven or stravinsky...(didn't think i knew all that did you?)                                                                                                                                                                                         

p.s. they're not the who, not queen or the beatles; they're neither the clash nor the ramones...they're green day~                                                                                                 

21st century breakdown

green day's 21st century breakdown is a captivating, sophisticated work of art.  

true art endures. and to that point, i can't get these songs out of my head. i can't. i won't. i'm glad.     

so, after all these years, i've decided to come out of the closet and admit a stone-cold musical fact about myself: i have never been wrong in my assessment of any kind of music, ever. it's not ego, so don't bust my balls, it's instinct. there are plenty of things i can't do well, this is one i can.                                                                     

my choices may not be to everyone's taste, that doesn't matter to me. i'm saying that no one's ever had to explain to me the greatness of an artist. the beatles nabbed me at 3, mozart at 8, then ella fitzegerald at 10, barbara streisand at 11, eva cassidy (1986), bob marley (1978), sting (way before the police), elvis costello (1976), little feat (1976), linda ronstadt (1975), elton john (1973), janis joplin (1969), the pretenders (1979), the ramones (1980) and that's only a partial list of performers that i've recognized for their talent within 5 seconds or less upon first listen.                                                                                   

sometimes it's a curse; if something is awful, i know that right away as well.                                                            

i'll admit i didn't know much about green day before american idiot but that's only because i didn't listen to the radio much in the 90's. hey, i didn't know about nirvana until after kurt cobain was dead but that didn't stop my brain from being knocked-out by his talent the first time i heard his voice coming out of my truck's shitty radio.                                

when i fell for green day in the fall of 2004 it was hard and visceral.                                                                                                               

those guys kick musical ass and fucking mean it! it doesn't hurt that billie joe, mike and tre are all virtuosos at what they do.                                                                                                

21st century breakdown is a refinement of an idea put to music and lyrics. the idea? that there is no one answer to human unrest but there's plenty of it. the revolution is within you, what the fuck are you going to do about it?

war and peace overlap. if american idiot was a war, then 21st century breakdown is the coming of that storm.                                 

congratulations on another brilliant artistic achievement that makes people think and act~                                                                                             

                                                                                                                                                           

viva!

caesar

last of the american girls

i balked at listening to the 'leaked' green day songs from 21st century breakdown, but they're everywhere and thus unavoidable.

and last of the american girls is one cool dude: what a fucking melody set atop smartly delicious changes!

how do those green day men write about the complexities of a woman?

who cares...i'll just say thank you, for as an american woman it's nice to be acknowledged for your beliefs and your brain every now and then~                   

breakin' it down in the 21st century...

well it's green day season and after an absence of about 5 years, fans are more than antsie for the may 15 release the band's new tone poem, 21st century breakdown: reviewers are busy with their opinions, tickets for a summer/fall tour have gone on sale in selected cities, there are interviews, photographs and streaming audio and visual clips of billie joe, mike and tre everywhere.  

(pressure...)                                                        

for me, they never have to try and outdo themselves because, unless one of them really has undergone a lobotomy, each batch of songs green day has created over the years has proven to be some of the greatest rock and roll and some of the best music ever written.                                                                                                 

why not? face it, the art springs from the genius minds of three immensely talented, magnificent jackasses. they can't help but evolve...that's what makes them relevant in an irrelevant, insane world~

myspace

link it over to my myspace!                                                                    

no need to grow up; just in~                                       

smithfield foods

                            (swine flu epicenter: they had no chance)                           

we kill pigs and people too!                                                

                                                

kimmy (and joey)...

i couldn't go to the secret green day shows in the bay area last week...but that's ok--i got something special anyway--                    

kimmy and her husband joey and i spent a very, very excruciatingly hot day in oakland last year waiting to see the foxboro hot tubs--      

she went to two shows last week!                            

                                                                                                            

and, in the midst of all the chaos, she still found time to get and mail me one of the cool 'playbill' like programs from the fox theater show: it has the lyrics to all the songs on the band's new cd, 21st century breakdown--                                                                                         

i read them all...they make me happy                                      

(i really like kimmy)                                                                            

thank you kimmy (and joey)~                                                                   

                                              

                                                                                  

kat

kat deserved to sing onstage with green day last week at one of their secret shows in the bay area. why? because she is a front-row specialist, a superfan and a wild free spirit. i should know: cat and her friends have grabbed me into one or more mosh pits at one or more of the band's shows in the past year...

last year at a foxboro hot tubs' show in rodeo, california, i was almost bumped out of my ring-side stance by an obnoxious girl who tried moving in front of me by flirting with the guy to my left--      

however, who was i behind? kat. so i whispered in her ear, 'pull me in front of this girl.' 

she did...
*******

i once heeard tell that the band let a fan sing on stage with them during a show; all he had to do was jump from his balcony seat and surf his way up--that's what kat has done-- 

hi kat!

(the above is kat in her usual spot, dead-center...she's the one with the red-streaked hair...and i was buried somewhere beneath her left side~)

before the lobotomy...

lucky for us, billie joe armstrong isn't afraid to use the sweetness in his voice~                                                                                     

troubled times...

holy shit...i never thought that being poor, unemployed and desperate would ever be in vogue --                                                        

i feel like such a trend setter~                                                                  

enlightenment...

you can survive on anger, you can survive on love,

however a combo is preferable...                                                                     

i got the combo pack, so quit honking, i'm just waitin' on my fries~              

dr. michael zola is a good man...

if you need a dentist in los angeles, he's the one--                                                            

i have no money and have to file for bankruptcy; (whatever, i'm dealing with it). because of this, he saw me for free today...saw me for free and took an x-ray for free just to make sure everything was going to hold up for a while--

(plus, he's got these really cool machines like the one where you can see your x-ray right after they take it...and he's very supportive if you have crappy teeth...the first time he looked in my mouth he said, "huh, maybe you could teach me a thing or two!")                          

thanks dr. zola~niki                                                                                        

the green day authority

see this guy next to me...it's andres martinez.                                                                         

andres runs the best green day site on the web, and that includes the warner bros.' (sorry, but it's true)...                                                                                             

we met for the first time this past week at the opening of john roeker's brilliant film, heart like a hand grenade. i have a soft-spot in my heart for andres because he helped me with something big time--                 

gda, as it is affectionately known, gets info about the band way before it hits the public; so much so that i asked andres once if they had a pipeline up green day's ass...                                                                                                          

thanks to the green day authority for doing whatever the hell it is you do...love~niki                                                                               

'shhhhhh...' (heart like a hand grenade)

the secrecy surrounding the premier of the new green day documentary, heart like a hand grenade, was brilliant; i'm telling you, you couldn't find anything about it anywhere, anywhere! (and i hate using exclamation points!!)                                                                     

well, that's not exactly true. but with these guys, miss one webcast and you're out on your ass!                                                                  

heart like a hand grenade is astounding in its ability to show the creative process from the raw twinkling of an idea to a polished gem. in other words, if you want to see what was going on in billie, mike and tre's minds when they were coming up with the licks you hear on the album, it's all there...you see every song on american idiot and the concept of the entire album constructed right before your eyes!!!                                                                                          

filmmaker john roecker followed the band around while they were in the process of recording american idiot and his film is funny, unassuming and visually, weird; weird good, not weird bad. for instance, the mod dance sequence to holiday (i think it was holiday, i didn't write it down, shit!)...it's a hard day's night hallucination. and that's not the only beatles' reference, which always makes me happy...                

the secrecy of the venue worked. the egyptian theater, an old hollywood movie palace, wasn't overcrowded or loud; it was beautiful and comfortable. 

and how about this, the whole show was free! free!! with t-shirts and posters, also free!!                                    

roecker shot hundreds of hours of film then, collaborating with a genius editor, dean gonzalez, morphed the images into a time-lapse symphony of the best, strangest and possibly smelliest moments of billie joe armstrong, mike dirnt and tre cool in and out of the studio as they hatched american idiot.  (also included is footage of the debut performance of the album at the henry fonda theater in 2004)              

plus, there's nudity! (!!)                                    

with the help of some green day travelin' fans, beth, diane, j'net, cheryl, andres and mark, i got into the theater--(i didn't know you had to be on a list!). my grammar is all fucked up!!!!

thank the flowers and the trees that john roecker and green day had the foreskin to know that the making of american idiot needed to be captured for the silver screen~(just wanted to see if you were paying attention!!!)              

*****************************************

                                                   +

                
                                                                                                              

the ol' three stooges bait and switch...

i know...every three stooges fan has the same complaint--so what? i can still say, I'M SICK OF STOOGES COMPILATIONS THAT PROMISE CURLY AND DELIVER SHEMP!! (ah~)                                

"Dalai Lama Harshly Condemns China Over Tibet"

FREE TIBET

i'm out there and loving every minute of it...

i think i shall hit some open mics in los angeles now that i can walk and play and sing, again...                                                    

at least no one can tell me to keep my day job cause i don't have one~

peter tork

i heard peter tork has a rare form of cancer...he was my favorite--(get well soon~)                                                                                               

mistakes...

are the hardest things to admit, to learn from and to forget while waiting for the wisdom that comes~                                     

"the air is humming cause something great is coming..."*

march 25th l.a. 

*stephen sondheim                                                                                         

kindness...

it was pouring down rain in los angeles today and i was caught without an umbrella -- walking along santa monica boulevard, l.a. weekly newspaper over my head, some man stopped his car, leaned over the passenger seat and handed me an umbrella~

(thank you...)                                                                                                                               

quote...

                                                                                                                                       lenin -- mickey -- jesus                                                

"there's nothing more spiritual than rock 'n' roll..." 

                                                                                             

luck

i found this laminated four-leaf-clover when i was about 10...

walking through the grass at valley mill day-camp, i decided to see if i could find one...i did~                                                                                

the underground railroad to candyland

i love these guys because they can be silly and still rock their asses off  --                                                                                     

and what do i mean by silly? i mean, a bass player/drummer in a duck mask, a guitar player in a bright red raggedy andy wig wrapped in a blue headband and a lead singer who loves his sunglasses and the floor!                                                                                                            

since i smashed my back, it's not good for me to move too strenously...but it's impossible not to when they start playing because they just fucking rock...                                                                             

i went to see them last night at the troubador in los angeles: to make it through i held onto the wall and then did whatever spastic movement i could manage...                                                              

can't wait til the next show and thank you thank you for the free pass~                                                                                                         

a belated happy birthday, eva...

i still miss you...                                                                          

november was put on youtube by a woman who doesn't want to mentioned -- at first i thought it was a bit weird, but now i'm glad she did it and i'm more able to share --  can you believe we did this 15 years ago?

love, 

niki

(how old would you be? god, 46, right?...that's even weirder)                 

adrienne armstrong

i don't think enough has been written about the woman who, whether you like it or not, goes by the name mrs. billie joe armstrong. 

so, let's pause, shall we, and pay some respect to someone whose life is about to be turned inside-out and upside-down very very soon --

when i was in the midst of my green day/american idiot fever, i attended a show in atlantic city where billie joe armstrong was participating in a vh1 tribute featuring elvis costello.              

i know, i know i've written about that before, but not this part: i ended up sitting in the row right in front of adrienne armstrong and her friends, but i didn't realize it until i felt this heat, this presence behind me in my blue plastic aisle seat.

i turned around and there they were: a gaggle of pre-teen girls dressed from head-to-toe in green day apparel.

adorable...

that's when i saw mrs. armstrong; the girls had stalked her out and were ready to descend upon her person with cameras, autograph books and cell phones --

i relinquished my seat so they could move closer to her...

she made her way through the aisle after a woman standing next to me called her, and, as she did, i heard some man randomly ask her what she was doing at taj mahal?

she smiled and answered, "my husband is playing tonight." that's it. completely normal in her unassuming jeans and dark hoodie.

she approached the little girls and said, "i have to go talk to some people but i'll be right back, i promise."

i looked at those little girls and thought, 'oh god, i hope she does come back, i mean she promised!'

i knew that none of my adult friends could appreciate the weirdness of the moment; they were long past the point of rolling their eyes whenever i'd mention green day -- instead i turned on my cell and called one of my teenage guitar students, max -- (max has always been a good listener, even to the craziest stuff) --

a few minutes later, adrienne armstrong returned and, with honest affection, she signed the autograph books and took the cell phone pictures with every last one of those little girls...

how about that~                                                                                          

girlfriend pass (i think she tells the story best...)

Girlfriend Pass

Originally uploaded by "Shanty" Cheryl

"shanty" cheryl strikes again! (and we're all the better for it...)

Thorns of Life
Originally uploaded by "Shanty" Cheryl

talk about guts...cheryl was so sick when she took these shots of the secret "thorns of life" show this past weekend in long beach, ca, that she had to go out to the band van to to chug shots of wild turkey --      

STILL she got right up front, to the point of personal injury (a bashed-in shin...as shown above), and, she climbed some very scary scaffolding in an effort to capture the insanity of the evening from above...she's quite something, dude~                                                                                                                                                 

oh mrs. parker...

algonquin roundtabler and remarkable writer, dorothy parker, gave her entire estate to dr. martin luther king when she died in 1967. if you don't know about mrs. parker click on the link and you'll learn more than you ever wanted--          

she left him all of her copyrights and about $30 grand -- she didn't even know him...                                                                                  

parker fought against injustice most of her life and was quite outspoken on the issue of bigotry -- she was a founding member of the writer's guild, ('member when all those hollywood writers struck last winter and your t.v. scheduling got all screwed up), that was a huge part of her legacy...                                                                         

in the 50's, she was blacklisted for her leftist views and couldn't find much work...                                                      

when king was murdered in 1968, as stipulated in her will, parker's estate was transferred to the n.a.a.c.p.                                                     

oh if she could have been here the last two days--who knows, maybe she was~