It's been months since Blonde has been on a podcast...so, in their third vlog, Sarah and Julie hit the road to San Francisco again and set out on a quest to find their long lost co-host. Catch up with Sandy as she takes the Brunettes backstage at Jersey Boys and shares a few of her favorite moments in show. Now, give the usher your ticket, grab a comfy seat, and as always enjoy the SHOW!!!
 

 

The 79th Annual Academy Awards are in town this weekend and with them all the pageantry, live performances, and caught-on-camera wackiness that I love so dearly. I'm a big fan of awards shows, but this one's really special. It's the Kentucky Derby of the film industry with ball gowns replacing bonnets. Broadcast around the world, the Oscars bring the most glamorous smoke and mirrors of Hollywood to millions of homes for a few hours every year.

Living in Hollywood, this pinnacle of the awards season touches my life much more personally. The Academy Awards have shut down my route to work. As much as I love watching the show on TV, I rue the street closures which force me to crawl behind angry drivers circumnavigating the production trucks and freshly-dyed carpet clotting up Hollywood's main thoroughfare. It's not a big deal, and the detour only takes me about 10 minutes longer, but it gives me a real insight into the importance of the Oscars to this little neighborhood in LA called Hollywood. And it makes me a little more invested in the show-- I'll be really annoyed if the ratings aren't sky-high this year after all the extra driving I've done!

Look for Nontourage's Oscar wrap-up in the coming weeks.

The prologue: I’d never really driven in a big city when I moved to LA, so the first year I lived here, my dainty hands developed calluses where I gripped the steering wheel for dear life. Difficult-to-read street signs, aggressive drivers, strange neighborhoods, aggressive drivers, my boat of a car, congested highways, unpredictable pedestrians, left-turn-on-red, aggressive drivers, and aggressive drivers. The stress of it all sent me into more than one anxiety attack—which didn’t help my driving one bit. I gradually calmed down, got to know my neighborhood, familiarized myself with main arteries and a few shortcuts, and joined the flow of traffic. I’m glad I got that under control. Frankly, driving in LA is a great way to sneak a peak at the city and its colorful inhabitants. I intend to share my driving tales of adventure and words of wisdom in the Blogtourage. I shall call it: Observations from my car.

There’s a rainy season in LA. It’s usually short and light, but it’s still wet.

LA is a city of transplants. One assumes that a large number of these transplants moved from somewhere with rain. Or snow. Or locusts. But some sort of inclement weather must be presupposed otherwise they wouldn’t have left (professional aspirations aside).

The unfortunate truth, however, is that Angelinos can’t drive in the rain.

Driving in to work today on a residential stretch of Hollywood Boulevard, I came across a vicious car accident involving an automobile and a Hollywood sign (a street sign labeled Hollywood). The street sign looked bent out of shape, and the fancy-pants car looked broken. No one was hurt-except the reputation of Angelinos continually damaged by impatient and dangerous drivers. I wish the scene had shocked me, but I expect to see dumb accidents when I go out in the rain here.

Some might blame rubber-neckers looking for starlets or studio execs testing the limits of their new Porche 911 GT3, but I proffer a more pedestrian explanation: It rarely rains here, so the streets are slick much longer than the initial 30 minutes allotted to careful driving elsewhere.

I offer a stern demand to impatient bad weather drivers: Chill out! Driving in the rain is the time to enjoy being in your car, moving at a slower pace and not a time to insist on arriving at your destination. Let’s be honest. You’re probably already fifteen minutes late, and you’re probably on your cellphone, so call the people you’re meeting and let them know you’ll be another five minutes. Save a street sign while you’re at it. Or a life. Or that Porche.

I don’t know what to do under locust driving-conditions. I guess “be careful” applies there as well.

Another award show has come and gone, and while Hollywood preps for the Oscars, Sarah Atwood, aka: Lowlights, joins Brunette to wrap up this year's Grammys. Thanks to friends in fun places, Sarah and Julie were able to sneak into the Staples Center to watch Justin Timberlake rehearse his Grammy performance. Impressed with what it takes to put on such a show, the girls describe what it was like to watch performers and producers prep for the live event. After comparing the simulcast to the rehearsal, both LL and Brunette review their favorite Grammy moments and congratulate the winners. So, grab your favorite makeshift mic, turn your desk lamp into a follow spot, reacquaint yourself with your inner rockstar, and as always enjoy the SHOW!!!

Check us out! We're so excited!

We just received a call from a friend who let us know that we're featured on the front page of podcasts at the iTunes store!

Woo hoo!

To subscribe to Nontourage through iTunes, click here.