Yesterday, I received some very depressing news. My most beloved secret email address that only a few special people got – but that all of my blog comments went to – was being discontinued.
Here’s the story. Follow carefully; it’s awfully complex.
A couple of years ago, I discovered my favorite band in the world, Valley Lodge. In fact, I discovered them through Twitter. It’s true!
My friend Calvert & I joined Twitter and started following a small group of really interesting and funny people. This was before I started using it for the advertising industry folk. JK! But you know – people who were involved in art and architecture and design and blogging and comedy. Teensy little list but very lovingly curated. Calvert was my main source of finding interesting people to follow in those days and he immediately suggested following the hysterical @mrdavehill . One day, not long after this, @mrdavehill didn’t post a funny tweet at all. Instead, he posted a song he had recorded with his band Valley Lodge and it changed my life.
I do not say that lightly.
It was a cover version of the super groovy ’70s hit by Bob Welch, “Sentimental Lady.” @mrdavehill said that it was downloadable but he totally lied. It only streamed. I tweeted him back asking if it was available for download anywhere and he replied with “right click” instructions. As if I didn’t know that! Okay, I know I shouldn’t still be mad a his reply. It was so long ago and he was trying to be nice and helpful. But, still, he had just insulted the small amount of highly technical knowledge I possessed. I mean, come on. Who doesn’t know how to download?
Deep breath.
Turns out my friend Ryan had seen this Twitter exchange. He tweeted back that I should hit him up on ichat and he’d send me a bunch of their songs. Wait, what? I was so confused! How did Ryan…? What…?
Sure enough, later that morning, Ryan sent me some songs, including the amazing “All of My Loving.” A couple of days later he met me for lunch. We had grilled cheese. And tomato soup. And then he gave me two actual CDs by Valley Lodge. He had just signed them to a multi-million dollar publishing deal. Well that’s not exactly true, but that is what their songs should command.
I was smitten immediately and wanted to do a video for them. Ryan hooked me up with @mrdavehill and before you knew it, I was casting a lot of naked men. And Valley Lodge was playing really loud while they were naked! Pretty much my version of heaven.
©freshbread
Just one of the guys in the video wasn’t naked. He was a Bear and for some reason, preferred not to disrobe. That was cool, I guess. Maybe he didn’t want to get naked in front of a lot of people and have it filmed. To each his own. But here’s what he did like to do in real life: organize leather invasions.
Leather invasions are where a groups of leather clad guys would invade places like museums, parks, shows, etc. It was art. Or as they called it, it was putting the kink back into NYC. By the end of the shoot, we were pals. And while I didn’t get a naked Bear in the video, I did get something better than that: an @leatherinvasion dot com email address. Amazing.
Since then it’s been a source of unending happiness. All my blog comments go there. Or went there. My Bear is moving on apparently and with his life change, my email address will no longer exist.
Sigh. ‘leatherinvasion’ is just so much cooler than ‘gmail.’ The only thing that can make me feel any better about this sad, sad, sad turn of events (I’m serious, I’m super bummed), is to watch the video and listen to Valley Lodge non-stop. It’s kind of the only thing that makes everything all right, always.
Wach this video.
Then you need to download “All of My Loving.” Right click.
And then, go to the super Valley Lodge website. And then, finally, buy some of their stuff. Oh, and lastly! They hardly ever perform, but they playing twice this month!
Now I’m going to send myself a few leatherinvasion emails while I still can.
margauxville 