new song

well a new old song... you've all ready listened to just PB&J thank you buttttttt

here's a recent version i did with a guy named Eric Owyoung, talented man. We collaborated and created a new pbj song. listen here:

http://www.valerilopez.com

love ya'll

airport crap

ugh. i'm at the airport again going to california and they've just added another fun thing to do for check in! not.

i'm wearing a dress.

not only do I have to take off my shoes, take out the computer, put everything in those stupid little bins to go through the big xray ride (which i don't mind doing, because i don't want to get blown up)

BUT

now

this time

I had to stand in this outerspace shuttle launcher looking device, I had no idea what it does and I hate doing stuff without being told the reason.

at least the guy working said "you might want to hold your dress down"

so i did.

i think i briefly heard someone say it's gonna shoot air at you. okay.

i get there, waiting waiting waiting, holding my dress down waiting and BLAST! BLAST!

ok i squeeked a little because I was so surprised, and it's a good thing I WAS holding my dress geeeez

when I got out I asked him what that was for?? he ignored me... on to the next lady through the normal walk through metal detector whatever thing, ignored again! I sternly shouted, "somebody tell me why I was violated with air!!"

well, i thought that and didn't actually say it but I would have!
if reality was the world in my mind.

she finally said, "bla bla bla something" wow thanks for the explanation... the lady behind me who went through unviolated enlightened me that the air blows off particles and tests them to see if there is any bomb residue and stuff like that.

well it's good thing I clean up well.

just kidding, that's horrible, sorry.

So now here I am, waiting by the pianist in the main lobby of the airport of Portland, the part right after you get through security, it's nice here. He's playing piano to pre-recorded music, I prefer JUST piano myself, but it's better than nothing i guess. Thank you Charles Suniga, from whence does your last name come?

you look like a regular eastern european guy.

Gayle Gayle songbird Gayle!

You say you like good music, do you? if yes, go here:

http://www.gayleskidmore.com

you won't be disappointed. we're touring a little tour, meeting up in santa cruz CA and playing some shows all the way up to Seattle!!!

both Gayle and I play a variety of quirky instruments so i can't wait to back her up on her songs. i just like her a lot! this will be our second little tour together!

Lauren Hurt Photography

A beautiful woman by the name of Lauren Hurt gave me an impromptu photo shoot in her living room.

I hate being in front of a camera, but she has a special way of making a person feel comfortable and loved and pretty - she made me feel more at ease than ever before:)

You should definitely check out her photos:

http://www.LaurenHurtPhotography.blogspot.com

or you can just look at the list of links on the right and click on her name! it's so simple as 123 click.

Believe me, I'm a difficult person to take photos of because I feel so squirmy and i usually look so awkward! but yeah, she's really good and you can hire her for portraits and weddings and probably any artistic thing you could think of involving photography.

btw: i made that red beanie woo

new music for you?

if you haven't yet.... meet Amy Seeley.

extraordinary songstress. is songstress a word? i don't know.
that's okay.

what i'm trying to say is go listen to her! she is captivating, even more so live.

http://www.myspace.com/amyseeleymusic

i just like her music so much i want you to enjoy it toooo:)

what

so... i have this blog and I know at least two people look at it but still sometimes I just don't know what to say on here even though there are many thoughts skipping across my mind constantly.

i'm always thinking about something. it's rare when i'm blank but it happens.

do you have one or two things that are persistently making you think of them?
or it? yet this life is so short and still fear keeps me from saying or doing what i really desire.

why am i so afraid of rejection? like last night at the airport there was an elderly man standing with a grip on his wheel chair and a cane in the seat. He was waiting for the little roller coaster thingy to bring his luggage. He had to brace himself to get a grip on that luggage, and i wanted to help him, but i was afraid he'd reject my help. Well he grabbed it with some difficulty and so i thought just ask! just ask! so when he was struggling a little to put that bag in the seat of the wheelchair I did it! I asked can i help you and without looking at me, he said, no i got it. I turned away quickly, feeling stupid and tried to pretend i never asked.

but i did. ask.

i get it, men don't like women to help them with stuff like that, which isn't bad but... i don't know. all i know is that i asked even though i was afraid.

shucks

I'm not sad anymore, if you were wondering.

and the movie is coming out! remember? my song "stay" is featured in
the indie film ALL AGES NIGHT... check it out!

http://newportbeach.bside.com/2009/films/allagesnight_newportbeach2009

check out the whole website. it's neato. i'll be there. i'm not square although i wish i was.

i'm just sad right now.

Cava Wine Bar

Oh My Goodness! I had so much fun in Capitola California with Travis Oberg and Dan Miles and the boys!

Dan and i backed up Travis with some melodious harmonious vocals and I played the Melodica!!!

I had some yummy wine mmm thanks to Zach.

Travis was amazing with his beautiful blonde guitar. dan and the boys sounded so great doing an acoustic set. After we all did our regular sets, we all did a few more acoustic extras. Gosh gee golly gosh, Dan and Travis are so gifted talented and handsome.

all the single ladies all the single ladies.

Here I come California

movie movie

oh oh oh i love this movie!

1967

robert redford

jane fonda

"Barefoot in the Park"

lovelovelove it

http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi4256694553/

that's how trailers for movies used to be, so different. hmm.

my knees hurt

that's all.

poor wretched Gretchen

She got rained on, poured on, drenched tonight leaving the pub.

poor wretched Gretchen.

her heart is a current of unsettled salt and energy.

poor wretched Gretchen.

with hair as stubborn and thick as a porcupines prick, it scratches her neck and reminds her of years of bitter heartache.

poor wretched Gretchen.

eyes wide and ordinary brown, slowly searching the room, she waters her plant with coffee and chuckles at the thought of wasted caffeine.

poor wretched Gretchen.

alone and sober in thought and nearly 266 years old, she realizes she should have married that poor old soul who promised her love instead of gold.

poor wretched Gretchen.

whatever

i don't even know what to write.

i wish i had something for you but all i know right now is that it's late and my tummy hurts.
girl stuff. ew.

where's the chocolate?

Live Album... mhmm

Andrea and I recorded a LIVE album together! on feb 6 and i got the tracks this week and submitted the artwork today and we should have it ready to go in March woooo.

i was so nervous to listen, because you just never know how it'll turn out even if i did feel like things went pretty well besides during the first set of recording Andrea's mic didn't record a thing and everything was distorted for reasons I don't want to explain.

so we did a second set and most of the audience stayed with us thank God. because how boring and dumb would that be to have a live concert recording without people, without an audience?

well i guess we could have begged the band to do some clapping and cheering with us in the end no no no no no that's dumbester.

so in march yeah! we'll have copies to sell. My friend AMY did the artwork and Oh my Goodness she is just so wonderful. I gave her my ideas and it came out better than i could have imagined!

by the way, it won't stop raining.
that's okay. ugh.

i rode my bike anyway take that rain!

oh yeah, and the album is called "Green and Blue"

don't ask.

hopefully it'll be on amazon and itunes in march too amongst other digital places oh my goooooooooooooooooo

i am not hyper at all.
yes i am.

goodbye

ps thanks to all that support the arts, without you i could not have bought groceries this week.

home? yesSssSssS!Ssss!

yes, it's true.


I.

am.

home.

hello Oregon!

190

i have 190 messages in my inbox.

i wish i would do a better job at deleting the messages i don't need anymore and now... now... i guess i'm going to have to go through each message to determine if i need to delete it. ugh.

i hate crap like that but it's really just got to be done.

shapoopydo.

oh yeah, i'm in san francisco and at my friend's house, watching a cheesy Steven Segal movie with cheesy music. hah. oh the sax.

hello SLO

i'm in san luis obispo. mmmm. hi boyfriend slo

goodbye california

i'm leaving tomorrow LA and I'm NOT COMING BACK.

just kidding jk jk

i'll be back... with out a tan too

practice tonight!

oh my goooooooooooodnesssssss

we're practicing tonight for tomorrow night's live album recording

aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh


and Correen is here! she is the bestest bestest best.


the only thing is that it's RAINING. IN LA!!! and Correen just flew in from Oregon where it frikin rains all the day long time. grrrr.

new recordings! almost

ok ok ok so

last night Eric sent me some preliminary mixes of the two songs we did earlier this month, well last month!

last night when i got them i listened to them right away! and it freaked me out dude. but after listening for a half hour, then an hour, yeah just to two songs, i liked it.

it was just weird at first to hear myself with a full band, with such a high quality recording.

so here i am, at the coffee shop i frequent whenever i'm in so-cal near my mama. i usually take a photobooth photo whenever i'm here. so here i am listening... but this time i'm not in my favorite chair, that's ok.





yeah ok. i love working with Eric Owyoung he's sooooo awesome!

with these two songs we're going to get investors to finish the project whether it's an EP(short album consisting of 5-7 songs) or an LP (full album with at least 8 songs)

now.
i
will
go
take the
dog for a
hike.

i will hike the dog.

well we say i will walk the dog, why not hike?

OCtober 26, 1947

Meet Jo jo(josephine) and Norm(norman).

I'm so happy I love you so much let's stay in each others arms until forever and ever.

nice fairytale.

but... without that hope of the possibility of loving someone your whole life, it could never happen. I'm sure no one marries someone planning the divorce.

This is a picture of my lopez grandparents taken on October 26, 1947. They look so happy. They look like they could conquer the world together. or at least the heating bills.
my dad was born a few years later.

my cousin and great friend is getting married tomorrow, i'm her maid of honor and i really do feel honored to have her friendship. you know we didn't have to be friends. we could have ended up just cousins.

well this ceremony has got me thinking about love and life. i really am enjoying being single but i've noticed i've been wanting someone to share my adventures with and laugh at weird thoughts i have and someone to stare at and someone... the ideas go on.

How do you love one person with your whole being for your whole life? that can be a long time and i can hardly plan a couple weeks in advance.

love is selfless, love is an action, it's a choice to love someone, to do what's best for them, to make them happy before satisfying yourself, it doesn't keep count of how many times you get hurt.

could you imagine if two people did everything for the other unselfishly always seeking the needs of the other?

My grandma jo jo and grandpa norm divorced many years ago. and looking at this picture... i don't think they ever imagined what that divorce would be like. looking at this picture i see newly weds in love and so happy to start a life together.

i think someday... i'd like to commit my love to someone - if i have to be honest.

sometimes i think i don't ever want to get married because it's too hard, too
much work, but... i think it could be a great adventure and i have lots of hope that we'd last and fall in love over and over.

you have to have hope.

oh my goodness it's been so long

wow i haven't talked to you in a long time.

i know and i said i would keep you updated, ugh. why am i so bad at updating and communication? well i think i'm pretty swell at communication, most of the time.

the tour went pretty well, i had a lot of fun. I met a nice man from Spain (in san francisco) who wrote me a very poetic and sweet letter. thank you to you. Gayle, Soyu and I slept in many different places, some nice and clean and some well let's face it, man homes. meaning, kinda dirty. but that's okay! I was very thankful they opened their hearts to us, otherwise we would have been horribly cramped in the van that was fullllll of instruments!

OH!
we drove by the golden gate bridge, near it and went on a dock and we had the best view for picture taking. it was the first time Soyu had seen it in real life.
well...
this guy was fishing and caught a starfish. yes a starfish. how? i don't know! BUT! he threw it back in the water, a few seconds later UP pops a sea lion. yes a SEA LION! with the starfish in his mouth and he swallowed it. YES he swallowed!

it was the awesomest thing.

later that night we went out for sushi with my good friend Marifel. She was my roommate in florence, Italy. It was so good to hang out with that cute little filipino gal. then she treated us all to crepes. mmm. well that's how you spell filipino in italian gimme a break.

sitting in a coffee shop... pondering.

i'm in santa cruz at the Abbey.

i feel sick.

throat caving in.

the boogies.

i just want to crawl up on a comfy couch and sleep.

stomp day!

i think these are my last two videos for now...

just so you know, stomp day was so SO SOOO fun and my feet won ha:) but then we went on to tap on this large hollow triangle box thing and another hollow box to get the sound we were looking for

and you know what!?! on just PB&J thank you, we recorded clapping, mine andrea's and TJ's hands, and recorded keys! like car keys yeah. and TJ slapping his legs. it was SO fun!

i'm watching the news right now, and some "fans" of a football team were so pissed their team lost they beat up a porsche. geez what did that car ever do to them. jerks.






love valeri

american idol?

so did anybody see american idol tonight?

i did.

now, really, i don't watch television but i'm with a good friend, my friend Flower, she and her hubby have a sweet screen whoa. so do Eric and his Tam, anyway! stay on track

the last guy to "try out" was almost blind and he plays the piano so beautifully and i really want to see him perform with his instrument. it is weird when you're a singer/songwriter and used to performing your song while playing an instrument and then... no you can only sing,
and a cappella!

yikes.

that scares me, but it's a good thrilling scare.

i sing the national anthem sometimes, that gives me birds in my stomach goodness. but it's exciting cause it's way out of my comfort zone.

the end.

I've been here, at Panera for about five hours!
editing, emailing, working on stuff. stuff.

stuff. and more stuff.

get me out of here!

toy piano day with Andrea

I didn't have time to edit anything so i'll be posting some more videos from the recording sessions.

I had such a good time, thanks for coming all the way from sunland to san diego andrea!



these videos may seem like we're having so much fun but we worked some long days and Eric spends hours in that room torturing himself editing and all that:) he's awesome. someday i'll do that too.

i hope.

last day

today was the last day i'll be in Eric's studio for a while. i don't know how long.

geesh!

and the part i'm sad about, is not that i won't be recording for a long time but that i'll not see the owyoungs for awhile, but maybe that's good. maybe we needed a break from each other.

that's ok.

breaks are good. refresh the mind.

i'm so tired right now, i'll have some videos to show you soon of the last couple days.

loveval

steel lap guitar dayyyyy

thanks for coming up Greg and doing some steel lap guitar... here's a little summary.



also, tonight i did some vocals for skylightblue... mmmm i'm falling in love with that song. TJ, your drumming makes me happy. washy wahsy.

guitars day ME

Oh my goodness. i spent too much time on skylightblue uh.

pb&j was fun though. i can play that song one arm tied behind my back. yeah for real.

i don't really like being on camera but then i realized the whole video is just on me, always. i'll have to change that tomorrow. or today, whatever, it's 2am right now. here i go again.

sleeping late.

i had a good night, i saw Gayle Skidmore perform for the first time tonight, she is amazing. whoa.
and i get to tour with her hah take that jack.

recording is well, it'll be over before i know it. sad. i like eric. and his wife Tamra is the best wife ever, well one of them. oh yeah i forgot i wanted to show you some of her art. aah. ok well before i leave i will.

she also is a great cook. geez. what a way to record. a mile away from the beach. with a great guy like eric. yummy dinners with his wife, it's like family away from family. i love them.

bass day yay

'ello.

today was another day of listening. but it was fun. i did end up doing a little guitar at the end but i'll finish tomorrow morning. Eric works really hard, he was in the studio working from like 9am to 8pm, editing and laying down bass on "SkyLightBlue". Rick worked "just PB&J thank you"... and then i did some sassy guitaring.

I'll do vocals in two days. So i'm making sure I sleep enough and i'm not eating sugar. Well I haven't been so keen on not eating sugar because Tamra made the best sugar cookies! and i don't even like sugar cookies but these are amazing. she is awesome. oh you know what, i think i'll interview her a little and show ya'll her art. She's very talented. I'll show you a beautiful charcoal piece she has of an old black man with white hair. it's beautiful.

so here's a little vid for bass day.

drums day okay

drums we recorded today with tj... even though i'm not playing them i have to hear every second of it! i wish i could play drums. well i can, i just know it. someday.

so just look at this i guess. but don't if you can't look at me too long, it's just a silly video i quickly put together for, for... well, not much reason at all.

music music music

I am now in the studio. So i'm changing my title. Just for a week though.

I'll update more later, gotta work.

love valeri

american dream

well, i've had a slice of american dream pizza 3 times this week. mmm, i will miss you while i'm vagabonding in california.

but even more, i'll miss you Oregon, you Corvallis, you friends and Dox.
you fresh smelly good fresh air.

you too 123 yr old piano o'mine.

but i'll be back. i will i promise just please smile once for me as i go.
California i'm coming and i still love you but not as much as Oregon. things change. i change. it's okay, you have a special place behind my sternum.

(that's the bone protecting your heart in case you think i'm talking crudely) ok.

in case you were wondering this is what i'm doing so hopefully i won't have to tell this a million times over again.

1. recording in san diego with Eric of FOF
2. touring up to san fran and back to LA
(working at hume at the end of it)
3. being an old maid of honour in a wedding of a dear friend. i love you jenny!
4. doing a benefit concert: sonora CA
5. recording live CD .. hacienda heights CA
6. playing a show or two
7. returning to Oregon (a bit after mid feb)

ok so there. . .

happy new year

i hope.

whatever.