May 26th, 2004
past anagrams	menu	utb

6:55pm

i'm going over to jason's to watch the finale of amerian idol!

go fantasia go! woo hoo!

4:08pm

holy crap fantasia sung so well on american idol last night!
she better win!

i must now watch tv for the rest of the day because i need a break from everything and i need my brain to shut off for today.

the show just won't be done and resolved for me until i get the photos and the videotape of it.
and get them up in here and show you.

but until then, brain must shut off, at least for today.

1:02pm

the photos i got to take while i still had 10 seconds of extra time:
the 1st few, the emptiness of the room we were in before everyone arrived. 2 women still furiously sewing as i was still working on my stuff, too!
a few pix from fuzzybumblebee's line. the new wave girl in the purple dress is from a different designer, and she was so unhappy about her outfit saying she looked like something from a "freak show". i thought she looked aewsome and should be in a flock of seagulls video. one picture of me looking down at the orange hat i was still in the process of creating while i still had the time., and then the muscle guy photos which is what i saw mostly for the first 4 hours of me being there. the 2 guys standing alone at the bottom were 2 of my models, treka and michael m.

 

10:57am

the show

i didn't get many photos because things were so busy and crazy for me that i could barely even breathe. i wish i had a videotape of me backstage working so you could see how insane that was. i did get some pix when it was not as busy. there was a professional person who videotaped the whole show. and i will get the video tape from him as soon as i can and make photos from that somehow. and also, there was a professional photographer who took all my models photos right after they got off the stage, and i neeed to get to his house to pick up a hard copy of that.
so, when i get those, i will put them all up in here.

i was weirdly amazingly super composed the entire evening and astounded myself with my way i was taking charge of the entire mess. i really did not know how on earth i did that. i am just one of those kind of people that in an emergency situation, like a fire, gets really clear headed and is able to multitask with great speed.

i'm glad that i had 4 of my friends come in to help me with make up later on, because without them, my show would have utterly failed. the make up artist who was given to me, i think had time to do 2 or 3 of my models and that was it. and i think there were at least 6 models that we did not get time to put ANY make up on them. the 4 friends who helped me saved my ASS that night. if it hadn't been for them, my show would have been, in my eyes, a complete failure.and i owe them BIG time.

and they did not put ANY of my make up artists on the list as i had asked!!!

at the last minute, all of a sudden , 1/2 my models showed up and 5 minutes was not enough time to do anything with them except just stick a hat on them, and hand them the bag with the chocolates and the confetti in and that was it.

this show cocordinator person who was in charge of getting people on and off stage kept going you're on NOW and i kept saying NO i am not ready! but it was too late, and everything was pure chaos. not to mention that i thought i had lost my masterpiece hat, and so i was utterly upset about that beyond words. but thankfully, i had brought an extra hat and so she wore that. i found the hat when i got home tucked way way inside one of my suitcases and i'm so glad i found it or else i would be HORRIBLY depressed about it because someone had has alread paid 500 bucks for that hat months ago.

i even missed fuzzybumblebee's models being on stage and missed the very first little part of mine which i just whizzzed through the crowd and , thankfully, got a peek at from sort of far away.

i didn't see ANY of the rest of the shows that entire evening. i was just up in the VIP room, where everyone was getting ready, just working my tail off nonstop from 3pm on. i didn't even eat.

one of my male models, antoni, didn't even fucking show up! i told all the other male models that if they see him, since they come from the same agency, to punch him. he didn't even have the politeness of leaving a message on my voicemail. pig.

luckily, this other guy named micah stepped and and was a total sweetheart and worked out beautifully.

the highlight of the evening for me was my male model named agwua. i picked him because he had a cool name and i had no idea what nationality he was. i guess, in my head, i was expecting someone asian. but he was this VERY tall african man who looked so regal but was so young and sweet and vulnerable all at the same time. and i put him in the newest hat i made which now has the name of either "cyber babar" or "deconstructing babar".
(babar the elephant). it was his first show ever and so he was so nervous. towards the end of the evening he FINALLY had ONE beer. i told him to have a couple of beers to loosen him up. he was so nervous. all the muscular male models in front of us kept trying to get him to have some rum (but he wouldn't) and they kept giving him positive support and telling him that they were nervous at their first show, too. i really thought it was very cool how all the male models were very kind to each other and not at all catty how i would have maybe expected. but they were just so supportive of each other and helping out everyone. and it was so nice to see another man fixing another guys hair...and most of these men were totally straight (as far as i coild tell). how often do you see a straight guy going up to another guy and saying "dude, the gel in the back of your head is all wrong, let me fix that". ?

agwua was the only model i had that no one else used for the entire night, so we had time to do his make up the most correctly. with silver lips and silver and white eyes and then very tribal white dots across his face. he looked like a fierce warrior and something from parliament funkadelic. but also was so completely gentle and shy and sweet i just felt motherly towards him because he was such this sweet little boy face, too. and he was SO tall, and wearing the tallest hat so his must have been over 7 feet tall with the hat on and he was so striking and different looking than any other of the models there that night, that i just really feel he stood out. he didn't have any sort of model walk down, he didn't pose or any of that. he just walked normally and looked a bit shy, i think, which made him all the more endearing and worked for him and not against him. and i told him i picked him because he WASN'T a big muscular tanned white guy. (although really i had no way of knowing, i just had a feeling he wasn't from his name...don't ask me why).

(im adding things into these paragraphs as i go along writing this, so this is not very linear)

right across from my station this philipino designer picked all these very very buff super duper tan macho as hell guys. who were all drinking rum and doing pushups in front of me for hours. i kept telling them that they looked exactly the same AFTER the pushups as before. but they kept saying that somehow this improved their looks slightly for going onstage. i couldn't tell any difference. they also had the tip that they take midol to debloat so it shows of their muscles more.

one guy complained to me that everyone thought he was a meathead. but he made sure to let me know he was actually very smart. he was at the bar drinking beers topless and he kept asking me if he looked ok. and asked me if i thought he looked a bit too fat, and he did this GREAT freudian slip after he said it, "i'm feeling a bit self-confident" haha. but it was impossible to be annoyed wit him for that, i just found it endearing and very hilarious.

i have just never seem that many muscle men who were male models and all that sort of male bonding stuff they go through, like who can do the most push ups and what is the right way to do one. some person in the room remarked "did you see how the energy in this room went up when everyone took their shirts off?" and one guy said, "no, the energy went up when we started drinking", and i said "no, actually, the energy DID go up when you took all your shirts off" hahaha. and one guy looked at me and gave me a knowing blink :)

anyway, it was all very hilarious and a took a photo of them all and they were very very excited to get their photo taken all together topless. :) and all of the models were very sweet and kind, from what i saw.

and i met a couple of fabulous dragqueens.

and i just met a whole slew of other people, too. but didn't have time to talk to any one person for more than 30 seconds or less. but i think i handed out only 15 business cards and that is all i had time for.

i wish i could have gotten out into the audience right after my line went out, because i would have loved to know what people thought of my hats. but i did get a ton of positive feedback on them as i worked with them backstage.

and after the show, agwua was just BEAMING and he gently leaned way down to hug my tiny self compared to him. it made me so happy to make him feel better about himself and that he could do it and that he was beautiful the way he was and didn't need to be a big muscular tanned white guy.

when we did the make up on him, he just stared into the mirror completely in awe because he had never seen himself in that way before. it was like a person discovering a new aspect of themselves they did not know existed.
and i felt a bit like sonia in how she could make people into goddesses so they could see themselves in a new light.
and it felt really good to do that.

and all my models wre just so happy to have all this weird make up put on them. all of them got to see themselves in a new way. and one model was as beautiful as Iman. she looked almost identical to her, it was uncanny.

i think i had about 3 white people in my entire line. i didn't realize that until i had them all together :)

i need to get my hats up on my website now so i can SELL them! but i have zero energy to do this today.
maybe later....i really need to chill out now and go watch american idol that jason taped for me from last night.

i'm glad that i learned from past band experience that you cannot rely on anyone else to get things done
and so i brought in some of my own make up help.

but the new thing i learned is that sharing models with 18 other designers is NOT a good thing.
it leaves me with ZERO time in which to work with them even for 1 minute before they go on for mine!
and that is not at all acceptable.

i also learned that i can't count on anyone for ANYthing, and must even check the guest list now to make sure my people get on the list.

and i learned that if i cannot have more make up people at my disposal, 15 people to get done within that short period of time is completely impossible.

i did get asked to do another fashion show at the fine line in july, and so i hope they get in contact with me.

and if i do it, i will definitely show only 7 hats instead of 15 to make sure things get done better.

i also know now that i need to bring foam heads for all my hats and put them in a place where i know where they all are so i don't lose hats last minute like that because that was a serious disasterous nightmare.

all in all, i don't know if anyone who was actually watching the show would have known things were this awry.
but i wish i could have done it better so i really could have sparkled and shown these hats in the manner in which i envisioned them. and the place was PACKED. must have been maybe a thousand people in there.

and i don't know who to exactly blame for not putting my make up artists on the guest list and not giving me more make up artists to work with, anyway, and also, not letting me know that the logistics of trying to get my models done in the time that was allotted me was a completely impossible task.

i had a feeling this would happen, but it was even worse than i had imagined when i tried to imagine the worst possible scenario.

but that is that. and i guess when all is said and done, no one probably noticed the blaringly obvious mistakes that were painful for me to see. and i'm glad it's over and i found that hat! *BIG HUGE SIGH*

i will probably think of more things to write later. but this is all that comes to mind at this moment.

now i'm going to work on getting a few pix that i did take up in here.

oh, and they said that i gave them a TON of traffic to fashion show website. like 90% of the traffic they got was from me. so that made me feel happy that i could do that :)

and i'm happy that i did the show, as much grief as it caused me.
and i thank anna lee who was the one who asked me to do the show, and i hope she asks me again for other ones.

and i'd like to know how much money was raised for the benefit for children and music.

oh! and at the very end, fuzzybumblebee and i got to have our pictures taken together by the proffessioanla photographer and i can't wait to see those!

and i got a paper copy of the skyway news that she is in and she got a whole huge page and the photos of her look awesome!

i can't wait to see the videotape and photos of all of this, it's so frustrating to not be able to see it all now so i can know what on earth exactly happened there that entire night!

i don't think i am going to be feeling entirely happy about any of this until i can see the photos.

and jason was there supporting me the entire night, even tho i couldn't talk to him much, and he gave me a ride home with all my gear. and now he is at work with only 4 hours of sleep. poor guy :(

oh, and i let all the models keep their dresses which made them very happy :)

 

2:04am

holy fucking fuck! things were amazing! things were a nightmare!
exhausted isn't even a word to describe. i need to make up a new word for what that was.....
i feel up , i feel down, i feel everything. i feel drained i feel energized....i am everything all at one.

i smell like cigarette smoke.

i definitely , tho, picked the most gorgeous models THAT is for sure.

more later ...it will take me a bit to recuperate from this...

i am repulsed, in shock, and in love....