By: Jillian Lauren

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The guys saw the tour out with a hometown show at Irvine Meadows. We watched from the side of the stage and Tariku picked up a classic move from the folks in the front row. He’s now pumping his fist with the best of ‘em. He had extra time to practice, as we stayed to watch Blink’s first few songs. By that time, people were giving me the I-can’t-believe-you-have-your-baby-out-after-10pm stink eye. But they don’t know my baby. He was thrilled to party all night then sleep in until 9, splayed out across the pillows with a bottle still clutched in his hand and a dog on either side of him.

Here’s a pic of the gang backstage. That’s me, T, the very lovely Nicole Amdurer (Josh’s babymama and soon-to-be bride- someone finally told those nice kids that they were living in sin), Josh Freese, and Jen and Pat Wilson. The best part of the evening was seeing Jen out and about, crowned with soft, blond hair and facing her very last radiation treatment the next day. I feel privileged to have been a part of her life over the past year as she kicked the ass of some really awful breast cancer. I learned a lot from her about honesty and courage and how being the perfect mother doesn’t mean always being perfect.

Sayonara, tour. Next stop….. is a secret. The new album comes out in October.

By: Jillian Lauren

When the inimitable Dolly Parton gave the above-mentioned advice, she was no doubt on tour in San Francisco. I don’t have any pictures from the Mountain View show because I was busy stumbling after the baby while wearing- you guessed it- high heels on a soggy lawn. Or more like a slippery backstage deck area. But there is something gorgeous about rock in a rainstorm. Seen from backstage, the rain catches the stage lights and intermingles with the smoke amidst an amphitheater full of undaunted fans in ponchos and it feels like something extraordinary. Which it always is, really, but sometimes it’s easy to forget how lucky I am to regularly witness the transformative potential of live music. My friend Gina (wife of Bad Religion’s Brett Gurewitz) once told me that she always feels fortunate to live in rock-wife liminality- not exactly an audience member but not a performer either. My friend Danica was in the audience and now has a massive crush on Rivers, which probably would have happened anyway, but I think there was a little extra magic in that rain.

The guys still have the San Diego and Irvine shows left to do, but writing this from my desk at home, I feel like the hard part is over. And the hard part got pretty hard for a minute there. I skipped the Seattle show due to a raging migraine and schlepped all of our stuff through the airport the next day wearing sunglasses and barfing in trash cans (which, I suppose, is about as rock as it gets). The worst part was that I missed seeing our friends, but you can read about the show (and more about Ethiopian adoption, if you’re interested) on my friend Karin’s blog.

Things soon looked up, though. Our hotel room in SF was awesome, to the point that upon entering I felt it was necessary to grab Tariku and jump on the bed for a few minutes while laughing diabolically. Tariku ran laps around the Yerba Buena Gardens all evening while I tried in vain to convince him to go see the vogueing competition at the neighboring Center for the Arts. He was totally uninterested in the men walking by in glittery drag, preferring the eternally captivating delights of shuffling through dry leaves.

The next day I met up with my SF gal pals, one of whom happens to be the manager of exquisite corset shop Dark Garden. I used my iphone to bribe Tariku into compliance while Andrea fitted me with a gorgeous corset, coming soon to a Halloween celebration near you…

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Jillian Lauren

By: Jillian Lauren

We had a few days off before the Seattle show, so we decided to try to get away from it all and rent a house out on Bainbridge Island.

Here is what I learned:

1. Bainbridge Island is quaint and lovely and has a charming indie bookstore.
2. It is wonderful to sleep with the sound of waves breaking right outside your bedroom window.
3. There is no such thing as “getting away from it all” when you have an eighteen-month-old in tow.

I believe I expressed this sentiment in a less articulate way last night. It went something like the following (imagine this punctuated with desperate sobs): I am NOT going ANYWHERE EVER AGAIN. When we get home, I am staying there FOREVER.

What happened to your circus gal, your Gypsy pal? She was felled by a migraine and a wee lad. All I can say is that he’s small but he’s cunning.

I think the highlight of our island excursion was actually the ferry ride over. Bainbridge Island is about 35 minutes from downtown Seattle by ferry. It was T’s first time on a boat and it was so great to watch him screaming with delight and running headlong into the crazy wind. Here he is posing as the new Adam for the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

n-between bouts of panic and dread, I did take a moment or two to enjoy the clean sea air, the lush evergreens all around and the views of snow-covered Mt. Ranier from the beach outside our pad.

We also went to visit a little Norweigian-themed town called Poulsbo- kind of the Pacific Northwest’s equivalent to our Solvang. It was cute and touristy and had lots of viking dolls and lingonberry jam. I dubbed it “Little Ikea.” Here is the window of the town pirate store. Every town should have one.

And for those of you who saw the Vanity Fair blog I wrote from Japan, you’ll appreciate that I was somehow hypnotized into buying yet another faux-fur Doctor Zhivago hat. That one was grey and this one is off-white and brown, so they’re apples and oranges, really. Plus, it was made by a local artist and was called a muffette or a muffalette or something, so I had to buy it.

I have no pictures of it, since its purchase preceded a rather unpleasant exchange. Why don’t men understand that an LA girl simply can’t have enough faux-fur cossack hats?

By: Jillian Lauren

Tariku woke me at 6AM and I blearily bundled him off to the back of the bus so he wouldn’t wake anyone else. Unsure of what time it was, but sure it was pretty fucking early, I lifted the shades to smudges of clouds the color of orange creamsicles and the full moon still hanging over a little white farmhouse. Fields of sunflowers turned their expectant faces to the horizon.

That kind of sunrise is God’s gift to farmers and baristas and mothers of wakeful babies.

Later we cruised the Cherry Creek Farmer’s Market in the parking lot across from the hotel. Visiting farmer’s markets is one of my favorite things to do in cities not my own. I met a fellow crafter named Tyler Larsen who makes adorable onesies under the name Baby Lux Designs. She turned me on to Craft Hope, an organization that shares handmade crafts with those less fortunate. Tyler donated a hand crafted sock monkey. The question is, is there anyone out there who would actually want one of my many ambitious-but-often-ugly scarves?

Which leads me to why I craft. And why I shut myself in the back of the bus and just look out the window while the insomniacs in the front of the bus compulsively scan Craig’s List. I love knitting my lopsided baby blankets because it’s a slow process. The Slow Movement is a really interesting website that addresses issues of “time poverty” and supports a “growing global shift toward slowing down.” She says as she blogs.

Unrelated (or maybe not): here is a picture of Tariku on a giant waffle in the Cherry Creek mall. If you think that’s gross, you should have seen the sausages.

Jillian Lauren

By: Jillian Lauren

Chronicles of the Weezer Tour 2009

We had a couple of unplanned days off in Cleveland and spent one of them at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with Grandma and Grandpa, who drove in from Toledo. It was more interesting than I expected. I wanted to take every fabulous costume home with me. Tariku was running around and dancing to the music and having a grand ole time, but he was making the security guards a little bit nervous and a few started following us from room to room.

Their vigilance was justified. Tariku turned suddenly, ran under the ropes and made a wild attempt to play John Lennon’s piano. I (with admitted reluctance) pried his little fingers off the ivories while Scott explained to the security guards that we’d leave peacefully and there was no need to 86 us.

Yes, we got kicked out of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. But not before we took this picture with the Weezer W.

I told Tariku we’d be back and they’d be begging him to play that piano.

Just you wait.

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Jillian Lauren

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By: Jillian Lauren

The Chronicles of Weezer 2009 Tour Cont.

I love this picture because in Scott’s glasses you can see the reflection on the sky as seen through the bus window. My boys love to sit together and look at the sky.

35,000 fans showed up for yesterday’s show in Columbia, MD. The free Virgin Mobile Festival was held at Frank Gehry’s soaring Merriweather Post Pavilion, though I didn’t get much time to admire the architecture because I was too busy trying to keep Tariku from eating smooshed french fries out of the dirt and playing with used beer cups.

I was looking forward to this tour date, because my cousin Andrew actually organized the whole festival. Andrew is one of my fave relatives, though his wife Maria gives me a complex. She’s an MD who does research into women’s public health policy, while looking and dressing like a supermodel. I have a friend who was attacked in New York and woke up in the emergency room at Bellevue looking at Maria’s face. He told me that he seriously thought he was looking at an angel. Barf. I wish I had a picture to share, but T blew by everyone so fast I barely had time to give my family a hug. He made a mad dash for the barricades and I spent the next three hours chasing him while he romanced teenage girls. He likes to charm the ladies by pointing out airplanes, then he leans in and tries to bite their thighs.

We did catch Richard Branson’s parachuting escapade, which was impressive. We also got to spend some time with my old friends writer Shawna Kenney and guitarist/hubby Rich Dollinger, the self-titled baby roadies for the day. On most days they’re stars in their own right.

We missed the Public Enemy show, but T had his ‘fro tousled by Flavor Flav on Flav’s way off stage. In his short almost-18 months on earth, T has had his ‘fro tousled by Sir Paul McCartney, Brian Wilson, Flavor Flav, Jeff Lynne, the Blink guys and all the members of the Weez, of course. That’s a lot of icons to have up in your hair.

My photographs are suffering terribly as a result of my mom duties. My iphone is all I can handle most of the time. At my friend Danica’s suggestion, I got this toy camera application, which puts random filters on pictures. Cute, right?

By: Jillian Lauren

This used to be my town, but leave New York and it leaves you behind so quickly. I don’t know what restaurants to go to or where to shop or where the nearest subway stops are anymore. At the end of the day, I prefer my garden and my house and my slow, sunshiney LA life, but I still always feel a sense of longing when I arrive in New York. There’s something about the pace of the sidewalks here that feels like home to me.

I thought that Tariku would probably like it here, but I didn’t quite anticipate the depth of his passion. Our hotel is four blocks from the park and we’ve been spending hours there every afternoon. He pretty much thinks he’s entered paradise on earth. Horsies, buses, airplanes, flowers, swingsets, boats, fountains, the zoo, a giant meadow, hot dogs, street musicians, break dancers, a sketchy guy making giant bubbles with a rope contraption and a bucket of detergent…the list goes on. Each of these delights could alone fill an entire afternoon. But a place with all of them? I’m sure he wonders why I’ve been holding out on him for so long.

We’re not going to all of the New York area shows because the drives are a little long for T without a bus. I’m also scrambling to get some work done in a town where I know people and I can get a babysitter for a couple of hours. After we get on the bus on Sunday, writing is going to be a whole new kind of challenge. But we had a fab time at the PNC Bank Center show last night. Jersey is my home state, so Grandma and Grandpa came to the show. They were definitely the only senior citizens sitting in the first ten rows, but they’re old pros at this now. My mother actually called afterwards to offer some lighting suggestions.

I didn’t get great pictures. Try taking pictures while keeping a squirming baby from ripping off his headphones. I did get this one from the dressing room…

Current tour reading selection:

The time demands of motherhood have made me a greater short story enthusiast. In my spare moments, I’m reading Mary Gaitskill’s Don’t Cry. I feel about her work the way Tariku feels about Central Park.