Christina Aguilera on Rolling Stone magazine, Double Issue, July 2000
This cover is oh-so 2000. The first Best New Artist Grammy winner of the new millennium on the cover, wearing low-rise bottoms and a playful smile with a CD player in tow, and headlines on Napster (IYKYK) and Slipknot. And if you’re wondering, yes, a Boy Scout can be gay.
Listen to the lyrics of this song. More relevant than ever. (The song also reminds me of the movie Casino, oddly enough.)
TIL that the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz (which he is a part of, naturally) is the lead partner for IJD.
There are a few versions of the last song, with its only constant being Gillespie playing on every version. I’ve always preferred this collab with Miles, and the beat also got sampled in this early 90s rap song, which I first heard before “Tunisia”.
It is not IJD without some actual international flair via bossa nova jazz! While I also enjoy the vocalized version, the instrumental version above will always be next-level aural paradise.
Yesterday, I got to break some tension in San Francisco by attending the Tension Tour featuring pop icon Kylie Minogue! While I got to see her for the first time a year ago, it’s not every year she tours the States. Let’s get to it with the pics!
(Note: there are no pics of her opening act Rita Ora, but only because I was in a long-ass line for Kylie merch while she was performing. Sorry!)
Like many real ones with social media these days, I have joined the land of blue skies. I haven’t abandoned the right-wing cesspool known as Twitter just yet, although I may consider it if I get more followers on Bluesky than Twitter. The Bluesky app also needs some work, but I must say: it’s soooooo refreshing to see a social media site not bogged down by its MAGA manchild owner, vile right-wing trash, algorithms that are obviously drunk, and dumb bots. Here’s hoping the site stays the course and doesn’t devolve like Twitter.
I’m also on Threads and still have my IG. I got a TikTok but I haven’t touched it for a year now. (I’m just not a TikTok girl.) In the hierarchy of SM posting, Bluesky now gets first dibs on my short-form nonsense, then Threads, and, if I feel like it, Twitter.
My Vegas birthday trip pics will be coming shortly. I’ve posted some on my socials a few weeks ago, but I got a lot more pics and a whole lot to say about them!
I travel for my day job a few times a week, and some of the things I’ve been seeing on the digital billboards when I take 880 North back home…😒”Be Kind”? “Choose Love”?? What in the sappy Etsy boymom hell is that? Many people in this country certainly weren’t kind at all at the polls two weeks ago!
Meanwhile, that parallel universe is looking more lovely by the day. We’re all looking forward to what the Kamala administration will bring to this country after her landslide election win two weeks ago, the House and Senate going blue, Trump and Elon finally going to jail, the racists/misogynists/Nazis all staying pissed on their Truth Social accounts, and next summer bringing us the release of Xtina’s newest album and the Batgirl movie. *sighs*
I think I found THE cold-weather fragrance…
…and THE scent for femme fatales, divas, and the bad girls your mother warned you about. In other words, MY kinds of scent! It’s a few steps above Black Orchid, which I also own, and that’s all I can say because I’m not well-versed in describing fragrances and its notes (and that’s something coming from a novelist-by-night).
Someone send me back to Vegas for the next seven months with a $15,000/month stipend to cover lodging, food, gas, bills, my rent back home, and miscellaneous. I only say this because the Penguins aka my hockey team won all their games while I was in Vegas. Superstitions and all that.
I’m really gonna miss Rafa. It was only a matter of time before he hung up his racket for good. The first time I saw him play was Wimbledon 2008; I tuned in after getting curious over the whole Nadal-Federer rivalry going on then. That Men’s Finals match, honey…talk about an intro! I enjoyed watching him play ever since, and he was the total package: talented, class act, and, yup, a hottie. 😘Him and Federer defined one hell of an era in Men’s Tennis that I doubt can be topped any time soon. Happy trails, Rafa! 🫶
Ending this post with a song that will go multi-platinum in the households of young women fighting against the emboldened, yucky incels. Listen to the lyrics and you’ll know!
Aretha, Shirley, Whitney, and Christina…if vocals were energy, their pipes would power a metropolis for days.
I will always love me down a singer that can sing. Having listened to pop and R&B during the 90s, I got spoiled by singers of the time. Whitney, Mariah, Celine, Toni Braxton, Faith Evans, Leann Rimes, Christina Aguilera…While I don’t mind an artist who may not boast the best pipes (but at least make catchy songs), what a great singer does with their voice–on top of making good songs–is next-level art that seems to be a rarity nowadays. (Really, who is the vocalist of the current generation of pop stars?)
Also, if you don’t know who Shirley Horn is, give her a listen! My favorite jazz station played one of her songs a while back, and I got hooked by her voice. She’s an underrated vocalist, IMO.
I’ve enjoyed the sport for 15 years and counting, and if you’d like to know why I got into it, blame the Pittsburgh Penguins.
During the 2009 Stanley Cup Playoffs, I made an unserious $10 bet with my then-friends that the Penguins would win the Cup that year. The bet was made during the Eastern Finals, and I had been impressed with them after seeing them play for the first time against the Capitals in the Semifinals. (I had no clue how legendary that series would become over time. What an intro to hockey for me!) After Game 5 of the Finals, I thought I would lose my $10 for good. All my other friends placed bets on the Red Wings to win, so during that Game 7, I was feeling both good and nervous. After that Game 7, I became $50 richer. 😊(And to think I was close on betting on the Sharks that year. They had the best record in the league but got bounced in the first round, proving the Presidents Trophy winner curse real again.)
I’ve stuck with the Pens since 2009; they’d become quite the winning team since then, with the exception of the last few years. Although the Sharks are second–you best believe I got FED during the 2016 Stanley Cup Finals. I’ve also enjoyed non-NHL games, such as the IIHF World Juniors and Winter Olympic hockey. Tomorrow marks the start of the NHL season and yours truly will be seated for it!
**Update 2/27/26: if you wanna know how I now feel about the sport (the pro men’s league, in particular), read this.
Out of all the months in the year, October is the best-ever month. Bay Area weather is near-perfect, Halloween at the end, holiday gifts and decorations hitting the shelves, the start of the NHL and NBA seasons, playoff baseball and the WNBA Playoffs, pumpkin spice everything, and the national holiday that is my birthday!!!!
(PS: I’m very aware that song has nothing to do with the month of October but I still like to play it at the start of the best-ever month!)
After a Saturday night party, we chill on Sunday. These are the tunes I listen to when I want to unwind or sleep. For those wondering what “Naked” Music is, it’s basically chill-out music from the late 90s/early-mid 2000s. And it’s free of things like autotune, anger, and artificial lyrics.
