Lauren Easom

Hello, I hope everyone had a great weekend. I am writing because I must tell you all about the awesome new entertainment I found.

Starting from the beginning...my friend Bahareh from work called me yesterday (Saturday) and invited me to join her at San Francisco's North Beach Festival. The weather was absolutely beautiful here yesterday so of course a day in Washington Square Park sounded great. The event was incredibly crowded, but drinks and food were surprisingly reasonably priced and the perfect weather put everyone in a good mood so it was fun and festive.

After sitting in the sun for a bit we decided to seek a spot in the shade and went to grab some appetizers and a few beers at an outdoor cafe. Here's where we get to the best part and the very reason for this blog entry: Bahareh's boyfriend suggested we go to DoReMi Music Studio. Let me tell you, no night out is complete without a trip to a place like this!

Its a Korean Karaoke Studio in Japantown here in San Francisco. They offer absolutely nothing but karaoke - no food or drinks - and the place is rather shady. Its a dark little hallway with a row of doors on each side, and it kind of smells funny. I hesitantly peered into the tiny room we were assigned, not quite sure what to expect. What I found is a 7x7 room with a bench going all around, a coffee table in the center, a 50s tv set, a remote control, and 2 microphones. Oh yeah, and did I mention the disco ball?

You go through the book and pick out songs to sing and program them yourself, and the only ones who can hear you belting out Madonna at the top of your lungs are your friends! Plus, you don't have to sit there and listen to the wannabe American Idols who take their karaoke too seriously.

So, at the height of my withdrawals from staying up at SAE singing country music at the top of my lungs with Seth, Scooter, and Matty, I found relief in a Korean Karaoke place right here in the city. I'm not sure its even possible to describe how cool this place is, so you'll have to take my word for it.

That said, I'm still missing the good 'ol days and getting SO excited for my trip back to Missoula. I definitely want to float the river at least once or twice, and am thinking of going to Big Fork for the 4th of July. Hopefully they'll have the one-man band and people will set off fireworks in the Garden Bar. Good times...my goal this year is to remember all of them! I can't wait to get back to the Bodega, and take a trip over to the VFW to hang with some senior citizens. Oh yeah, and get some sweet potato fries and sit on the patio at the Iron Horse.

Last night I went to my first baseball game: the SF Giants vs. the SD Padres. I had amazing seats in the second row and directly behind home plate! I could see the sweat beads on Barry Bonds's face...literally. I got to see him hit #722, and then the next two batters after that hit home runs also. I ate a hot dog and garlic fries and sang Take Me Out to the Ball Game during the 7th inning stretch. I've never even watched an entire baseball game on TV, but its a whole different experience actually going to the game. For instance, on TV you can't tell that Noah Lowry is so hot!

I am not a sports fan at all, but for some reason I've managed to get great seats for every event I've been to. I went to a hockey game in Spokane for Valentine's Day a few years ago and we got to sit in the front row in some empty seats we spotted across the rink from the nosebleed section - luckily the security guard who asked us to quit pounding the glass didn't check our tickets. In January I watched a Dallas Mavericks game in a sky box with a private bar, and then last night I got to sit in the most amazing seats in the stadium to watch the #1 and #2 baseball teams in the west play each other. I almost feel guilty because there are so many actual sports fans who would be able to fully appreciate the experience... actually I don't. I've had a great time at every event I've been to and I'm not sorry. I am, however, done bragging about my awesome seats.

I'm going to another game tomorrow night, the Giants are playing the Padres again. I'm going to watch this one from the cheap seats - hopefully not too far away to check out Noah. I'm taking my "Little Sister" Natalie. I signed up to volunteer with the Big Brothers / Big Sisters program, and I just met her today. I'm so excited - she's 14 and we basically hang out once a week and do fun stuff together or work on her homework, etc. I think it will be awesome, I'll let you know how it goes!

Finally! The pictures I promised from the Pride Parade!  These are only a few of the ones I took, but for several of them you kind of had to be there to appreciate the pics!

Here is my sister, Lindsay, and I before the parade started.  We were sitting with a friendly lesbian couple who lent us this lovely boa for our picture:


The "Dykes on Bikes" is the beginning of the parade and also the largest group in the parade:


Here is a happy newlywed:


This was a cool balloon train that was advertising a party store in SF:



The Pride Celebration committee:


Here is a mobile S&M bondage exhibit - ouch!

I agree with this sign whole-heartedly - it's just good advice, no matter what your sexual orientation!

A mer-man advertising for Gold's Gym:


Every sort of ethnic group, nationality, profession, industry, you name it has an affiliation group - the Iranian lesbians and polynesian GBLT group were a couple of my favorites:


These guys had an adorable dance they would do - the crowd loved them!


A gay cowboy dancing group, the Barbary Coast Cloggers:

A float advertising a gay rodeo club:

A gay golfing club was carrying this sign.

A guy handing out condoms was wearing this shirt - I thought my Montana friends would appreciate the phrase:

Last Sunday, my roommates and I were looking for something to do, and decided to go on the San Francisco Ghost Hunting Tour.  It's a tourist thing, but we figured it might be fun to check out.

I'm not quite sure how I feel about "ghosts" or supernatural occurrences, but I definitely went into the experience with an open mind.  The key is that it was just to have fun, and I didn't really have any expectations.

Let me start by saying that the greatest part of the whole trip is the tour guide, Jim Fassbinder.  He actually has a fanny pack with "GHOST HUNT" spelled out in metal studs. (He uses it to carry his ghost hunting equipment).  I've included a picture of his costume, he really is as cool as he looks! He's been on the Travel Chanel shows about haunted places, and is an expert on the Supernatural.  Regardless, he's just damn cool.


The evening started in a beautiful historic hotel in San Francisco's Pacific Heights neighborhood called the Queen Anne. The tour began with a dimly lit (and very dramatic, I might add) introduction and stories of supernatural experiences others have had on the tour.  

Next, we heard the story of Mary Lake, who allegedly haunts room 410 of the Queen Anne hotel.  We were invited to walk around and check out the hotel and see if we could detect any "presence" of Mary Lake.

Supposedly, light variations in photos indicate a presence, as do inexplicable cold spots in a room.  I took a few photos and definitely had the light variations - but I'm not really sold on the idea that they're ghosts.  I also didn't detect any cold spots, so was feeling a little disappointed.

Upon leaving the hotel, we walked around the beautiful Pacific Heights neighborhood.  It was the perfect evening for a Ghost Hunt - very foggy, but not too cold.  Eerie, if you will.

Jim led the group around to various sites and told the stories of the ghosts that haunted them.  He is very animated and a great story teller, so despite not seeing a ghost it was entertaining.  But what happened at the mansion haunted by a ghost named Claudia sent it over the top!

As the story goes, Claudia was murdered in her own home, stabbed hundreds of times by a crazy cousin in the attic - or something.  I don't really remember.  The important part of the story is she was murdered while trying to open the door to her room (which was locked).

Jim took out a skeleton key that he claimed was the actual key from her room.  He made a dramatic (and anticlimactic) display of passing it around the crowd asking whether anyone felt anything "special" about the key.  The answer was "no" all around.  At this point I'm thinking he's going to tell some lame story about how the key is haunted too or something.  But no....

Jim invited a few volunteers to hold his hand perfectly still while he rested the key (with the flag side facing toward him) in his palm.  He had the ladies hold on very tight and the instructed us all to just wait and watch.  As we watched, the key actually turned over in his hand.  It was cool, but I figured it was a magic trick of some sort and dismissed it.

However - he wanted to prove it was real, so he asked if someone else wanted to try.  Curious, I volunteered.  He put the key in my hand and held it still and again, instructed everyone to wait and watch.  The key actually started turning! It felt like tiny pulsations of static electricity or something - I don't know.  But it turned all the way over in my hand, and I know for SURE I didn't do anything to it at all. 

Supposedly, the key is always "trying" to turn, and is more likely to work with a woman since it belonged to a woman.  Who knows? I have no idea how it worked, I just know it was really creepy and pretty cool.

If anyone comes to visit me in SF, I will be taking you on the Ghost Tour.  And that's final.

This is a picture of me and my friend/client Brad Robinson, just before we went flying in his Cessna 182 plane. The experience was INCREDIBLE, we flew around the San Francisco Bay Area and stopped for lunch in Petaluma. On the way back to the airport in Livermore, Brad let me take control of the plane! I was shocked at how peaceful it was up there – the day was perfect and we could see everything. San Francisco is a very cool city to fly over, you can really appreciate the topography and all the interesting architecture. Here are a few we took from the air...