Joshua Radin

This dream keeps recurring...and it RULES.

It's a girls' weekend in Minneapolis...we had just gone to a Joshua Radin concert at the Pantages Theater.  

We are now at The Local (where else?)...and it's characteristically crowded.

It's about 12:30am, and "Big Gingers" are flowing like the River Shannon itself.

All of a sudden JR (I feel I can now call him that) and his band show up!! Get out!!

...including that big, boorish Norwegian drummer, but sans Schuyler Fisk
(they're still on the outs).

He's here to play a top secret set! Lucky us!

JR sets out this little "request" bowl.

I throw in "They Bring Me to You" (me and the hubb's favorite) and another rare, yet personal fave, "Sky."

After a few numbers, JR then does the unthinkable.

"I have a request here from my friend Bri.  She wants to hear a little tune called 'Sky', but I think if she wants to hear it, she's just going to have to sing it with me."

I nearly gag on my Jameson in horror.

What fresh hell is this?!?

The crowd cheers. (What a bunch of assholes.)

Damn you, Schuyler Fisk!  If you wouldn't have been such a sloot, JR wouldn't have to be coercing audience members to sing all his sappy ass love songs with him!!

(I have immediate visions of dumping pig blood on her (ala her mother in "Carrie") and vow to never listen to their duets again.)

I am, by no means, a good singer in real life.  I don't even hum in front of others. 
Regardless, he leaves me no time for a polite declination, and begins strumming away on his vibrating chick magnet...

Shit. There is no chance in hell of backing out gracefully now.

So down the gullet goes another shot of Jame-o.

Public embarrassment be damned!

After telling my girls to video what's about to go down (and send it to Alex because he will geek out in disbelief), I take the stage.

I am horrified to realize that JR is even shorter than he looks from afar.

We're talking David the Gnome, certified Little, s-h-o-r-t.

I frantically whip off my heels to avoid looking like Khloe Kardashian next to this cute little midge (because apparently I'm not vertically challenged in my dreams).  Before it's my turn to sing, I shout something witty, yet rock'n'roll-like, into a hot mic -

"Get ready for your ears to bleed, Minneapolis!!"

To my own surprise, I then proceed to rock the socks off of those lady vocals.  Even better than Ingrid.  Just harmonizing and wailing away like it's nobody's business.  The crowd's hootin' and hollerin' to beat the band.

Despite my real world inadequacies, in my dream world, I am so freaking awesome. I get to sing "They Bring Me To You", and the next thing you know, I'm signing autographs for bar patrons, I get asked to go on tour, and JR and I become bff's.
People are like, Schuyler who?  And songs like "Breezy" and "Sweet Ass" are subsequently written in my honor.

I usually wake up when things start getting weird on tour. (As in, when I start wearing droopy-Bob-Marley-knit hats and stop shaving/showering.).  However, I will sheepishly admit that for a few days following this dream, I always listen to Joshua Radin on the commute to work.  Namely, I listen to "Sky" on repeat and reenact the wailing.  (Carpoolers must think I'm nuts.)

~ images via Music Remedy, flikr, last.fm, oddfilms ~