Sneaks Of The Union Address: A Tribute to Ashley Davidson and Everything in Life

First post of Two Thousand Thirteen, and I kinda picked the right day to type this.

Traditionally, I would do a recap of the past year on New Years Day, but I didn't do it this time cause I had to care of some personal shit. It wasn't the best of the past couple of weeks and the past holidays was lame as fuck. I didn't receive anything other than some money, but I didn't fucking care. Adults would rather have money so that they can buy what St. Nick would put under the fake pine tree on their behalf, or they would receive a gift that they're not too fond of and exchange it for cash (if it came with a gift receipt) or store credit at a department store, or they can just re-sell that said gift on eBay or Craigslist. As far as New Years Day, well, I'll just say I had better New Years Days in the past. I didn't do a photoshoot with a gorgeous model or partied for 72 hours straight with friends like I did for the past two New Years. After spending January 1st watching overrated Nigerian films with the family at my uncle's and getting cussed at by my pops while leaving because of my disinterest of the holiday spirit, I was then recollected that New Years Day is just another day, same with Christmas.

I stayed away from reading current events in the news and CNN's website and uploading photos on Facebook and several different forums after that. Just like Brendan Fraiser and Eugene Levy from Blast in the Past, I honestly still don't know whether the Fiscal Cliff had gone through or not, or who won best Actress in the Golden Globes and what designer dress she wore while having drunk, champagne-celebrated sex in the following evening. The year 2013 begun a week before it even officially started after Kanye West announced to the world that he was going to embrace parenthood after going raw on Kimberly. Dude just squished alot of Black men's feelings and potential hopes (excluding mine). Yeah, her family is going to keep Ryan Seacrest and the mass media livid and relevant and irritating for at least the next nine months and about eighteen years at the most (21 years if their offspring takes after his or her mothers' clubbing habits in Vegas). If I never went around Beverly Hills and Robertson Boulevard taking photos of her and her fine ass four to five years ago, then that last sentence would've never existed. This is the new version of the Jay-Z/Beyonce/Blue Ivy Carter-expecting frenzy from a year ago (already a year?) but the exposure is gonna be much more bizarre.

Even though I had a rough couple of weeks (which is why this blogsite had been dry for over a month), I managed to make good use of that time. For example, last December, I went all the way on a long drive to Indio with The Orange Rev (now Astral Fractual) drummer Elena Castro, her sister, and one of their friends to a Tamale festival that was taking place there. I went for several reasons:

1)  I haven't seen Elena for about a year
2)  I haven't tasted Tamales for a decade
3)  I wanted to escape LA on that day
4)  Indio is one of my favorite places, and its in the same city where the infamous Coachella festival event is held every spring

The event was great. Tasted so many different Tamales, had some music-related discuss with Elena, took a few photos on 35mm Film, and listened to Eddie Murphy's Raw stand-up comedy movie through her car stereo on the way back while cruising on the 10 freeway. If the holidays wasn't full of shit last month, I would've blogged about this more at the time. Special thanks to Elena and her sister Lauren Castro for the invite.

Now as if I though that 2013 was gonna be set for another predictability-wasted 365 days and 52 weeks, I got hit with a serious bolt of reality this past weekend. I'll divide it into three segments, which are kinda a play on words from Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence: Life, Liberty, and Pursuit, for Happines.

Life
One of my friends' nieces (withholding her name just out of respect) gave birth to a young baby boy last Saturday. I was invited to her baby shower a week prior to that and another different baby shower a week before that as well. I wasn't in the mood to go out to events and gatherings in public this recent month due to the botherness of personal stress, and after this past weekend, and now I wished that I did attend just to show support and give them my blessings in life for their new life blessings. A simple birth will make an immediate impact of someones life, whether you're a family member, a close friend, or a co-worker. Any female who just gave birth to her child won't be the same person as you knew when you first met her, regardless if she's 17 or becoming a mom for the first time at 47.

Whether having a child is intentional or not, just seeing that newborn is an amazing feeling, especially after being inside a woman's stomach for three-quarters of a year. That's statistic gives me much more respect to women dealing with pregnancy, and the husband/father/life partner that has to deal with her emotional mood swings every night as well. I'm not a parent (thankfully), but I was there when all of my siblings and majority of my cousins were born. Half of the females from my high school graduating class already full time moms, and I got a fortunate chance to photograph some of their children, which is another reason why I like to take photos. Young children grow and evolve mentally at an unprecedented rate and before you can realize it, your son can configure and sync your iPhone5 to your computer or your daughter will learn most of her vocabulary from a Katy Perry or Taylor Swift record.

As I look as at my close friends' kids, I realize that these children will never get to select a movie to rent at an actual video store on a Saturday night, or purchase stamps for less than 50 cents so that they can write in their best, awful cursive to a another kid their age in Thailand or Lebanon as a pen pal, and those kids will probably never know what a smog check or an oil change is now that 100% emission-free automobiles are starting to exist now (unless if they treat maintaining modern day Honda Civics and Cadillac Escalades in the future as we treat maintaining Ford Mustangs, Dodge Challengers and Plymouth Barracuda's from the '60s and '70s today). If you were a parent not too fond your kid's legitimate decision of having a kid (say she's over 18 and still living with you for example), you may not like it, but from a challenging standpoint, its best if you respect her decision so that she may be more comfortable and less stressful while she delivers her new part of life. The bottom line is this, however way its put on or viewed, the birth of a living being is the greatest moment in life.

Liberty
As I'm typing while listening to every Sade album on Spotify, not only is today Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, but also the day that Barack Obama gets sworn in for his second term as President of the United States  again. The last (or First) time that he got sworn in was back in 2009. I know that day very well cause that was the day I joined Twitter, without realizing how much it would have an immediate impact it would have in the years to come. I've told the story before, but the reason why I created a Twitter account was because my Facebook profile at the time got suspended and deleted, just for hitting on a random girl (I was 20 at the time) and she had ovaries to report and flag me. I thought snitching was just a kids thing. So then, just to get over this, I joined Twitter as an alternative to Facebook while they were televising Beyonce performing at one of the inaugural balls that The President was at. Here's the screencaps from exactly four years ago today.

Now a days, its kind of hard to imagine a time when this wasn't possible since we're used to a kind like Barack running the show in this country, let alone the entire world. But there was a time when people were specifically limited to exercise the options and opinions. Today is being recognized for a person who went out and did all he can physically and mentally to show that people are just people, regardless of their appearance and their beliefs. If the Civil Rights act never took place in the 60's, then I would've never lived in the Valley, where at the time its was mostly populated by affluent middle-class Whites. The whole purpose of Dr. King's vision, to me, is not just only about race, but there is more into that. People's hopes shouldn't be put down just by an opinion of another person with a higher authority.  That's like barging into a foreign persons home at their own time and telling them that they should not be practicing their everyday traditional rituals, even though YOU have nothing to do with it. That is was the purpose of this country is.

Many of the views and ideals here are either forbidden or not used in other parts of the world. They're certain places where you have to like something or listen to whatever the media there want to put on the news in that said country. Many people want to take advantage of their lives here either because, no offense, they're fed up with the rules from where they came from and they want to have their kids not deal with the shit that they dealt with when they were growing up. Dr King envisioned this. He didn't want to see the segregation and discrimination for those who have similar interests or achieving the same profession. They are some people out there in America who still don't agree with having Barack in the White House or stuff with that nature, but to each its own.

The impact that Dr. King made from his time done in jail for taking a stand in equal rights, to that march on Washington back on August 28, 1963, being part of the Civil Rights Act the following year as well as receiving the Nobel Piece Prize influenced so many people and activists that it lead for Dr. King to have a legal holiday created after him every Third Monday in January, which is around the time of his birthday. Its one of those type of days that should be respected, which is why a lot of public schools and federal/city offices are closed today. What threw me off was when I saw club promoters posting flyers for their events on the Sunday night before Dr. King day since there is no work or classes on that Monday. I mean, its cool to celebrate Dr King's life, but leave off the VIP lists, the $800 bottles of Cirocs and Grey Gooses, the thick chicks in mini-skirts, and the house DJ mixing the music with his iPad. Anybody here is fortunate to do whatever they want (except take people's lives away) and exercise it. Just respect their work and let them do them since you don't have anything to do with it or have any part in it.

Pursuit, For Happiness
I was gonna label this last segment with the word "Death" instead of "Pursuit, For Happiness", but I though it kinda sounded too dark.

Just this past weekend, I learned that a mutual friend of mine named Ashley Davidson has lost her life from a car accident at the end of last week. That really got me by surprise. She was close friends of the members of Aftergloam and I met her only once at a Christmas party that Aftergloam drummer Tianna Edmonson hosted back in December 2010. After that, she added me on Facebook and we spoke a few times. I wanted to meet up with her and get to know her more. I even wanted to do a photosession of her cause I thought she looked beautiful. But she was always busy and didn't have the time to get together. Out of all the great people that I met through Tianna and her Aftergloam bandmate/vocalist/lead Guitarist Elvis Galvez, Ashley was the one I wanted to meet the most. Afterwards, I stopped messaging her to see whenever she's free, and I don't blame her since many people around my age during 2011 didn't have the time to go out alot. Earlier, wrote that I stayed away from Facebook since New Years Day, but I only went on just to message certain people, not upload a photo or to "like" some random status. After I read that one of my homeboys posted about Ashley's tragic passing, I was surprised. I'm talking "NO FUCKING WAY!!!" surprised. I felt kinda cheated. Its like a business you wanted to work for so bad, that you had to go to a number of years of schooling and invested so much money from your parent's savings to pay for it that when you just a few steps to start your goal, you get stamped on the face saying that the job you deserve to earn is no longer valid since its operations are no longer in existence.

That's just shows that nothing is forever, regardless if its a person, place or thing. Its just takes a few unnecessary words and a slight lack of honesty to lose your girl to another person. You can make out without the rubber to some female you just met at the club in second only to find your swinging days are gone for the next 18 years (even after all the legal custody shit, you'll still be labeled as a father). Also, that $200 21'st birthday money you got from your grandparents will be dry off your wallet after experiencing a Vegas casino for the first time, where "The house always wins" as they say.

What I'm saying is that anybody can obtain anything, whether is cold hard cash, a nice beautiful girl to their desire, the hottest whip, the flyest job, and the bad-ass doberman to guard your crib. However, the hardest part is keeping and maintaining it. People can tell you how to raise something and give you pointers about it, yet its your responsibility to find the answers and resources to keep your possessions active. If not, then its gone just like that. The part that sucks about it the most is that even if we were keeping and maintaining that said possession, sometimes, just out of nowhere, its can disappear just like that. We have no control of it, but the only thing we can control is our emotion and reaction to it.

I feel very sad and disappointed that I'll never get the chance to meet Ashley again. If I knew her alot more, then this portion of the blog post would be five times longer, if not, the whole entire blog post. I'm not used to experiencing losing someone that you have a connection with aside from Steve Jobs' death, a celebrity you saw getting slimed at the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards back in the day or a sports athlete that hung over your bed in a poster when you were a kid. From what I heard and talking to her a few times on Facebook, she seemed like a very nice woman. Not to sound like an overused Wiz Khalifa/Drake inspirational-type quote on Tumblr, but whoever you have in your life, hold on very close to him or her. Whatever you have in life, hold on to it. Living is precious and fragile, and everything else is secondary and materialistic. These are the only photos I have of Ashley Davidson from my first and only encounter with her back in December 2010.

Ashley on the left with the homegirl Julie Canizalez. 

Two photos of Ashley with my good friend Christina Campa.

I really hate to post this, but out of respect, this screencap image is one of my last conversations I had with Ashley on Facebook.

I can't think of anything else to say other than to take good advantage of your life and everything about it. Cause once its gone, its gone. In closing, I just wanna say thanks to the little brother for going to church with him over the weekend and to Jim Mcdonald (http://www.jimmcdonald.org/) for taking over the service with his singing voice and his stories from living in Normandy, France. Also, special shoutout to Vanessa Cuenca and Cecilia Navarrete for the luncheon yesterday in Northridge, even though it was rushed, it was all about spending time together and another shoutout to the De La Torre's for a interesting quality time on Sunday Night while watching the Baltimore Ravens get the AFC Championship over the New England Patriots in Gillette Stadium (where the Patriots play at) and reflecting on Ashley's life as well as getting to know some more stuff about her. Finally, my condolences go out to the Davidson family and very close friends of Ashley. 

I really wanted to get to know her more, but that'll never happen. Rest in Paradise Ashley Davidson. 

  

Well, that happened

Barack is back for four more years. Not totally surprised about the result, but its not like he's going anywhere. I knew that was coming cause most Americans are already used to him so far, and his wife is doing a fantastic job by making kids in this country more active and healthy. The other thing is that everyone is completely different in terms of diversity and beliefs, which is why most relationships don't last. But nonetheless, they still manage to work progress together, even if they don't like each other at the office or on the Junior Varsity basketball team inside the team bus.

What's going to happen during the period of Barack's second term? I'm not really too sure since I don't like predicting shit, but all I know is that everything will be different (including the adult industry business in the San Fernando Valley) and people will grow older and think maturely by the time Barack and his family are due out of the white house four Election days from now, which I'll be 28 at that time. This recent Election didn't feel as crazy and buzzed as the previous Election 4 years ago in 2008. Everyone (specifically minorities and twenty-sometings) was in good spirits then. I remember the following day when I took the Orange line on my way to Pierce College at the time I was attended there, and once the transit door open, the driver greeted me like it was the movie Pleasantville in the 1950s. In other words, he was fucking happy, and that was the first time I've seen a driver that enthusiastic just from Barack winning the Election over John McCain. The dude was black, if that matters. But from this recent Election, people (except Mitt Romney supporters) are still happy that he won. Again, I REALLY don't like discussing politics, but all I can say is that as long as Barack knows what he doing and performs it for the next four years, then I'm straight with that. Oh and he should tighten up his Secret Service clique and stop having restaurant managers lift him up among other things. I know he's having fun and all, but still, its a non stop job he positioned with, and his crib at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave is a fishbowl that everyone is looking at.

Alright, well now Barack is back to where he left off in his work instead of somebody else, such as Mitt Romney for that matter, taking his place. Special thanks to Nicole and Jon Stetter for letting me watch the Election at their place on Tuesday night. Oh and Diane Sawyer is fucking hot for her age. You can totally dislike and disagree on anything that I type on here or yell at me as much as you want, but I'm just giving my thoughts about the 2012 Presidential Election. Thanks for your time reading this.

November to Remember

Already a year since I took this photo in Downtown Los Angeles.

That was during the Occupy: Los Angeles protest at city hall park, probably one of the most epic experiences I ever witnessed. I didn't participate in the whole Occupy movement and I wanted to photograph the protesters in Downtown cancelling and transferring their accounts that they already regret  to credit unions during "National Bank Transfer Day" (I took this photo the day before), but I couldn't because I had to cover my good friend Yvonne's baby shower that day. To see the photographs of the Occupy LA movement and photos from Yvonne's baby shower as well, check them out on my Facebook page in the photo albums.

So the next 24 hours will be the last 24 hours of advertisers and the media dousing us with which measures and propositions we should say Yes or No to, as well as President Barack Obama and Republican candidate Mitt Romney doing whatever they can to get American citizens to make each said candidate chill inside the White House until January 2017, which is the month the "will-be" president -elect who was elected two months prior will be sworn in. For those who are voting, just make the best decision that you think is best. Nothing else more since I don't really talk about politics on this blogsite, but I will make a post either tomorrow night or the Wednesday after pertaining to Election Day. Should be interesting.

Oh and the Lakers finally won their first game last night since May 18 of this year during the NBA playoffs against the Oklahoma City Thunder. Instead of witnessing it, I was going back and forth between Sunday Night Football and a new episode of The Simpsons. I remember when I used to look forward to Sunday Night Programs just every week back in the day, whether its was a new episodes of King of the Hill, The Simpsons, and The Worlds Funniest with James Brown (who was on NFL on Fox that time). If they were on repeats, I'd be watching some Sunday Night movie that ABC would usually air. I watched some TV last night just from spending most of last week by coming across some old ass episodes of Futurama. Shit, I used to be INTO that show, especially during the first season when it was on Fox back in early 1999. I would be drawing Fry and Bart Simpson in 5th Grade every day, but I wish I hadn't stop. If I was still into it, then I would've gone to a couple of Comic-Cons in San Diego since Matt Groening (creator of The Simpsons and Futurama) is there all the time, as well as the Futurama voice-cast doing table readings at one of the panel discussions. 

Now that shit is so hard to get into, and I always hear that their website servers always get clogged up with traffic on the day the tickets are sold. Not into Comic-Con that much now, but hopefully next year, they have enough bandwidth and tickets so that everyone, including those who have been trying to attend for the past several years, should be fortunate enough to obtain the tickets. As an alternative, the San Diego Comic Con staff should pull what Coachella did and have two separate weekends of the event, but to have each attendee go for one weekend so that it would be fair to other seeking attendees. It will still sell out if that happened. Fuck, they should have Comic-Con on a cruise now that Coachella is going to do the same next month, but I think that probably won't take place due to some attendees with a chance of sea sickness or if some character dressed in a costume gets tossed overboard into the sea by trying to fix the zipper. Speaking of conventions, I can't wait for the LA Auto Show at the end of this month. I also spent the weekend walking to my homegirl Nicole Stetter's house from my pops house just to catch up on stuff for a bit cause she and her kids had to step out. Great seeing her and her family again. 

Anyway, that it for now on this post. Thanks for your time reading this. 

TWO YEARS ON TWITTER

Exactly, two years ago, I opened a Twitter account.

I created it because earlier that day, my original Facebook account was suspended and that was my main outlet aside from the dilapidating Myspace to express my thoughts. Plus my iWeb page was already expired that time. So I had no choice but to join Twitter. See back then, Twitter wasnt as hyped and crazy as it is now. No businesses had it, only a limited amount of celebrities had one, and it was hardly ever mentioned on the news until that day.

Then Elect-President Barack Obama got sworn in as President of the United States and CNN mentioned on how you can follow his updates on Twitter during the telecast of his swearing in, which I thought it was either him or someone from the Secret Service writing his Twitter profile. I started to like it and went wild on Twitter for a few months despite that no one I knew joined the site or even signed up for it. I met some people over through that site, including this one kid who literally worships Kim Kardashian. I managed to meet him in person and I took him to see his favorite celebrity. After that, the site turned into a you heard it first source where breaking news and deaths, both real and fake, are being mention and raved about on that site.

I had thoughts of deleting the account a few months after I re-joined Facebook, but I decided to keep it to say some observations or some shit thats on my mind in under 140 characters. Its pretty useful if you have a Blackberry or a iPhone or any smartphone device so that you can keep viewers informed wherever you are.

By the way, there hasnt been any decent news or current events today other than those mental cases who went postal at different High Schools blowing off other students and law enforcement civilians. The only news from today thats worth useful to a fifth grader for his or her Current Event assignment is Jesse James being engaged to Hollywood Tattoo artist Kat Von D. Yeah, I didnt want to bring that up, but why would people be interested to being informed about a guy who cheated on the ever talented Sandra Bullock over a Tattoo artist? Whatever, Hollywood is know for its weirdness, and I live 15 miles from there in the San Fernando Valley.

Midnight Love

I'm sure the President and the First lady must've watched the late night Slow Jams-genre music video block on BET back when they were going steady (or dating) in the 1990's.

By the way, Christmas Day is next Saturday, one week from now. Shit, I remember when it would take forever for that day to come. Plus, December 25, from what I know, is gonna be the only time the Lakers will play a home game on a Saturday, against the overhyped Miami Heat, which is usually reserved for the Clippers.

(Photo credited to Pete Souza, Official White House Photographer)

C.H.i.K.S.

Barack stays ballin' on his second half of his term. 48 more states to go (excluding Alaska since they have no highways)

From G's to Class

Two Thousand Four

Two Thousand Ten

The current President of the United States was heavily influenced.

Destination 9/9/09

4 deaths in one week is just too fucking insane.

That's one of the reasons on why I haven't been on here for two weeks. Well, that and some financial matters I had to deal with. But yeah, this "Final Destination" type shit has really made me gather my thoughts for a while because I don't wanna turn this page into some obituarty. Speaking of Final Destination, they released the 4th part of the movie without the Part 4 at the end of the title. The movie is called "The Final Destination" You know just like how they did it with Fast and Furious without "the" in the beginning of the title. I know, hollywood is is running out of ideas. I really don't wanna say it like that as a former filmmaker during high school, but with all the films that came out this past year, the opion just became a fact.

Yes, like I said, 4 people that I known and who I think are inportant have passed away in a one week span. 2 of them are famous and the other two were from my church. I don't wanna talk about the people from my church, so that I can respect their families privacy. But the two other people that passed away were Senator Edward "Ted" Kennedy and Adam "DJ AM" Goldstein, a club DJ whos known for his infamous,ungodly collection of sneakers, was engaged to Nicole Ritchie for a brief time, and he survived a serious plane crash.

Now that I got that out the way, we are already in the month of September, the ninth month of the calendar year, the ninth day of the month, and the ninth year of the decade as well as the century. Today was the official start of the school year for the Los Angeles public schools. My brother is in his senoir year and one of my sisters just started the 10th grade. To me, it feels like they were both just in middle school last year but now they already have high school experience. Just yesterday, the President of the United States did a video message directed to students at all the schools in this country telling them to stay focused and that giving up is not an excuse for failure. Prior to that, all the critics and pundits acted as if they know what he already was going to say, and that Barack would be treating the students as if he was speaking at all the schools during the regime of the Soviet Union in the 20th century. But he left out anything that had to do with politics out of his speech. Hell, they're were some kids who were motivated from his speech, saying that this was something that they never saw the past Presidents of the United States do every September. I wish my siblings, as well as those who just started their Freshman year and those who are in their last year in school a very sucessful year. Either way its a challenging destination that will last up to June 2010 or June 2013 for current ninth graders or June 2021 for those starting Kindergarten.

Oh yeah as for my labor day, it was bullshit. I got cited at the Universal City Red Line parking lot for having expired tags. Now I just took care of my registration before the month ended. I talked to the Sherrifs that were nearby patroling the area about it and they said that I still need the sticker, because I though they mail the sticker. So I went to the Department of Motor Vehicles the next day and waited two hours for them to call my number and had got the sticker which took 8 seconds. That's living in California for you.

Straight Edge my black-ass

Aw shit....

For the past 4 and a half days I was up in the Antelope Valley without access to the internet, although I admit, I did swing by the Best Buy in Palmdale to check my Myspace but that doesn't count and I was on borrowed time. When I got home yesterday morning, first thing I did was I went to the upstairs computer in my house, checked CNN.com as always and I saw this....

immediately I was like "WHAT THE HELL?!?! WE'RE GONNA DEAL WITH HIM DOING THIS TYPE OF SHIT FOR 3 MORE YEARS?" I mean the guy has a young looking wife in Michelle Obama and two girls in Sasha and Malia for crying out loud. Plus he's a MAJOR influence to young African-American  males out there who have never had a father or a male figure in their lives. Next thing is that he'll be investigated for having a collection of belts up at Camp David (black people know what I meant). If he were to do this "White House Beer Summit" he really didn't need the damn press to do this. He shoud've done it on Air Force One so that he can have his own "Mile High Summit". If this was an exclusive shot, then that paparazzo or photographer would've made a sick fortune if he sold that print to People or a Scandanavian tabloid publishing group.

I mean really, this is very unncessary. First he fucked up at the inaguration with the pastor having to swore him in again inside the White House the following week. Next, he goes out on dates with Michelle to public theaters in New York. I mean, looked what happened with Abraham Lincoln at the Ford Theatre back in 1865, and they have a Theater inside the White House. Then he swatted a fly on live TV which pissed off the People for the Ethical Treatmeant of Animals or PeTA for short. But they didn't put too much heat on Barack cause he's the President. To make things more ludacris and dangerous, Vice-President  Joe Biden was involved in this summit. According to the constitution, the rules states that the President and Vice President cannot be in the same area at the same time unless if it were the State of the Union, at a funeral for a death of a former President, or if they're indoors at some secret undisclosed location inside the White House, cause anything can happen. I don't like to freak y'all out, but there are sneaky people in this place and they are very patient.

One last thing I have to say is that I hope every black church, or just EVERY church for that matter, better pray to have God stay by his side so that he can make positive and adequate decisions in the next three years. The White House is a fish bowl and every country, including Russia and his native country of Kenya, is watching every next motive he does. Yes it's his first year as the leader of the free word and yes he's made some rookie mistakes since January, but just like he "changed" America, he needs to change his old motives by eliminating the Alcohol, otherwise strip clubs and theme parks would be selling Bud Lights and Dos Equis, and he should pull in a lot of weight to get this country back on track without any distractions. I mean come on, "beer summits"? It's August right now. It's summer. Save that for a trip to Boston's Cheers bar in October or St. Patricks Day.