Rockstar Giveaways from The Verb

In 2015, my friend, Charlene, and I went to see Blue Oyster Cult on the riverfront as part of the Alive @ Five summer concert series in Albany, NY. After the show, we went to the Pearl Street Pub after-party, where The American Honey Band was playing. We saw they were doing a giveaway to see the Zac Brown Band at SPAC, so we struck up a conversation with the owner. He asked us what we'd be doing on a Thursday if we weren't in Albany, and we told him we'd be singing karaoke. When he heard that, he said he was going to get us up on stage! We did not believe it until he spoke to the band during their break, and they wound up inviting my friend up to sing "Picture" by Kidd Rock and Cheryl Crow. She rocked it! 

To cap off the awesome evening, we got a call a few nights later to tell us that we had won the Zac Brown Band tickets and that we were the only people to enter!! (Guess the rest of the BOC fans didn't know that Zac Brown Band can really rock it!) We were shocked at our luck that night, but unfortunately, Charlene wasn't able to make it to the show. I took my twin instead, and it was like she doubled my luck! When we showed up to catch the bus to the show, we were surprised with a giant Hummer limo loaded with beverages for us and the Pub crew!! 

We both loved the concert, and afterward, we missed a text from the bar owner telling us to get on the bus if we wanted to go home and onto the limo if we wanted to go out. We just figured we were supposed to go back to the limo, so they wound up taking us out on the town all over Saratoga! Totally unexpected awesomeness, and we absolutely loved every second of it. We felt like such VIP's! This story could only get more amazing if I won tickets to see Zac Brown Band **again** and could surprise Charlene with a girls' trip to Boston to make up for the concert she missed!

"It was my first night training as a server at a fast-paced, trendy restaurant in Boston. It was April and unusually warm. We opened the windows, the doors, the patio and prepped for steady service. Steady was an understatement. We were slammed. I followed my trainer for the first hour until she threw me to the wolves. "We need more hands. Take the bar area." "On my own?," I asked, almost yelling over the chatter and Anderson.Paak album we constantly had pounding through the restaurant. "You'll figure it out." I got my notepad, walked over to the herd of guests (not customers, as we were told) waiting to be seated, waiting for a drink. Immediately, I was in it; taking orders, rattling off our drink specials, understating wait times, listening to Anderson.Paak tell me, "Let it be yours, let it carry you. Sweep the fear from your heart." 

An older couple ordered two martinis: gin, dry, with a twist, dirty ice on the side. They were gentle and kind and knew how to drink. More importantly, they were gracious when the bartender messed up their order...twice. I checked on them often, chatted when I could, gave them another round on the house, and moved onto the next. It was a crazy, successful, overwhelming first night. I walked home singing that song I had heard for the first time, the one that resonated with me in a meaningful way. 
I let that night be mine.

Two years went by and I was graduating college and moving on to a career, to a new life, to New York City. I approached a two-top. "I remember you," an unrecognizable woman said. "You took care of us a long time ago." A pause, then a flash: "Two martinis: gin, dry, with a twist, dirty ice on the side," I said. She introduced herself and her husband, and I told her they were like bookends to my serving stint. It was my last night working at the restaurant. I made sure their drinks were right and their night was enjoyable, sadly not realizing when they left. Counting receipts and tips at the end of the night, I came to their table. Inside the book, $100 and a note: Good luck in the big city - your friends. With a grin, I finished my shift drink, said goodbye to the bartender and walked out with a familiar song playing in the background. "Let it be yours, let it carry you. Sweep the fear from your heart. If you need it then go there. If you see what you want, then go there."

Now, I think this is considered cheating, but last year, I hosted #msnbp at the Verb. What’s this kitschy hashtag, you may ask? Well, it was My Stevie Nicks Birthday Party, of course. I hosted my two sisters and two best friends at the Hotel for balloons shaped like moons, gypsy-themed wines, and Fleetwood Mac-inspired drinking games. Don’t Stop...drinking for ten seconds. You get the picture. After a New Orleans style meal at Buttermilk and Bourbon, my merry band of thieves and I headed back to Hojoko because what’s more rumor-filled than a sake bomb? The bartenders noticed a theme with my group and played Fleetwood Mac in the bar to narrate my future hangover. If you need photographic proof of the debauchery, just ask!

But I digress...I’m not sure if you needed a story that didn’t plug the hotel, so here’s a more serious story. I convinced two of my friends to go on a road trip with me around the country after graduation to figure out “the meaning of life.” Simple, right? After a meal of red wine, endless fries, and steak, we took our gout back on the road through the hills of Montana. I wish that I was making this up, it was almost too idyllic. It was that time right at dusk when the sun seems like the last warm thing in the world, the sky a sea of violet. As my friends and I made the car feel as high as the mountains, “Landslide” came on and the scene because every cliche that that song is, and I mean this in only a positive way. It was perfection. We all sat back, each with our own landslide thoughts, trying to find meaning in the mountains, wondering if we actually could handle the seasons of our lives. It was the perfect 199 seconds, perfect in its imperfection. We let Stevie guide us through the hills and before you roll your eyes, let me tell you that you had to be there. It seems silly hearing about it, but we actually took our love and took it down. It’s my most memorable Fleetwood Mac memory and thank you for listening. I’m sure whatever story you pick will be worthy of a stay at the Verb and a seat at the Mac.

My mom died of Leukemia when she was 46, and I was 23.  A few years later, I learned about the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Team in Training, an endurance sports program that raises funds for lifesaving research and patient care.  Impulsively, I signed up to run a marathon and raise $.  I had never run a race in my life; in fact, I hated running, and as I started training, I hated it even more.  Every practice run was torture, and I feared I wouldn’t even make it to race day.  One day, our coach suggested we pick a “power song” that made our feet keep moving when we wanted to quit.  I still don’t know why, but I chose the pounding beat of Kiss’s Detroit Rock City.  Sometimes I played it over and over, for miles.  And it worked.  I finished that marathon, raising thousands of dollars.  It’s my power song to this day, pushing me through more TNT fundraising races and some pretty tough times in my life as well.

As a college senior, I found Guster drummer Brian Rosenworcel’s senior thesis in the Tufts University archives in 2004. (He had written it 10 years prior.) I borrowed it to use as a writing sample since we were both focused on media as a subject matter. I must have filed it away with the rest of my college books and papers because I found it in a box of my college things several years after graduation. I wanted to return it to the school, or Brian, and I had a chance a few years ago when Guster played a concert in New York and invited fans to bring a “weird object” to the show. At the designated time, when Ryan asked audience members to bring their weird objects to the stage, I tossed Brian’s thesis paper on stage, right in front of its author. Ryan saw the paper, recognized it, and then performed an impromptu song about Brian’s thesis. I guess it’s as close as I will ever come to having my favorite band play a song about me, but I was mostly just happy to get the paper back to its rightful owner.

I've been a DMB fan for over 20 years and have so many great memories associated with their music. One memory that ranks up at the top is the time we decided last minute to fly from Chicago to Dallas to see a show. We had just seen DMB perform in Chicago about a week prior. My husband (before he was my husband) and I were out for happy hour with a bunch of co-workers and friends. We were talking about how much fun we had at the show and of course convincing everyone around the table that if they hadn't seen DMB perform, then they hadn't yet lived. As the cocktails kept coming, and we had everyone convinced they NEEDED to see DMB, we made the totally logical decision to go to their next show on the tour. Well...that show happened to be in Dallas, TX the following day. Problem was that we were in Chicago. The thing that happened next, I'll never forget. Everyone around the table decided to make it happen. There were 8 of us, and we all started calling different airlines to check on ticket prices. This was before the days of smartphones and instant access to that information. We had to work for it ;-) Within a half-hour, all 8 of us had plane tickets for the next morning to Dallas, TX. We paid waaaaaay more than any logical human would for those flights, but we were on a mission. The next morning we flew into Dallas and saw one of the most amazing DMB shows ever. The four people in our group that had never seen DMB before were instant fans, and our mission was accomplished! We've seen over 20 shows, but this one stands out as the biggest adventure. Unless, of course, we win these tickets to Boston! We love the Verb and love DMB!!!

Hello Verb Hotel:)
I am an almost 60-year-old married "grandma" living in the Berkshires.  I didn't always live in my adopted state of MA though.  I grew up in Northern California. I attended a private girl's Catholic school, & let's just say Elton John was not popular with the nuns & priests back in the 1970s.  My parents did not allow us to listen to Elton's albums either. (yes I grew up with record albums & turntables haha) I won't get into the devastating details, but suffice to say, my sister's and my home life was the stuff of nightmares.  From outward appearances, we looked like the perfect church-going, upper-middle-class, proper nuclear '70's family.  Behind closed doors was something else entirely. 

Don't worry, this won't turn into an "Oprah" episode.  Forbidden music and books were an oasis for me to get through those years.  Don't get me wrong, I love me some Barbra Streisand, Johnny Mathis, Cleo Lane, Andy Williams, (artists on my parent's "approved" album list) But Elton spoke to me... I could be transported to another place, a happy place when I heard him sing.  I came to the party late with Elton.  His song "Your Song" which would become my "anthem" in middle school was released when I was 9 going on 10.  The first time I heard that song, it brought me to tears. It was the first song to ever have that effect on me.  And the person who "introduced" me to and allowed me to listen to Elton was my Aunt.  An Aunt I found out when I was an adult, had to live in the closet her entire life.  She was forced to marry a man when she was a teenager, it was horrific for her, ended in divorce, and she lived alone for the rest of her life.  She deserved so much better.  I didn't know she was "gay" when I would visit her as a child, I just knew she "different" and was a respite from the abuse at home. She was kind, funny, "cool", and would let us listen to Elton John, Bread, The Carpenters and more when we were at her house.  I owe a lot to her, and she never knew it.  Because of that, I would love more than anything to win these tickets, so I could gift them to a young gay woman in my children's lives who overcame a great deal of fear of rejection, and negative judgment to "come out to the world".  She is a light.  She is a kind, soft, gentle soul.  She has the life as a lesbian in 2018, I wish my Aunt Donna had had in the '60s & '70s.  She has a love with her girlfriend my Aunt was never able to experience openly.  And in my Aunt's honor, I write to you.  

Thank you so much for the opportunity to tell my story, but more importantly, my Aunt's story.  Today, now more than ever, we need love, acceptance, and to be a beacon of light to shine out into the dark for those suffering in silence, living in fear, or shunned just for being born the way they were meant to be. 
Blessings to you all,
Dana

Back in early 2010, my friend David visited Copenhagen, Denmark, and its famous Michelin restaurant named Noma. David is a food enthusiast, by measures, which is why the thought of him spending more than half of his paycheck at this place wasn’t weird at all, to him, but it might explain why he went there by himself. Anyway, while enjoying one of his first dishes at Noma, David realized that the evening was about to become even more memorable – one of his favorite artists of all time, Bono, was there the same evening, together with a friend. While the gut reaction most likely was to walk straight up to their table – David decided to wait until the friend was left alone. While Bono visited the restroom, David walked up to the friend and kindly explained that he was a big U2 fan, and asked if it was possible for him to take a photo together with Bono. The friend appreciated David’s politeness but answered that tonight wasn’t the night. It all sounded reasonable to David, who stressed that he really understood the situation, and so he walked back to his table to finish the rest of his (unbelievably expensive) meal. Still, it was a great night after all, he had tasted the most delicious food, and seen one of his biggest idols. Yet with a bittersweet feeling though – imagining a photo of him and Bono on the wall in his apartment. Later on that evening, when David was about to leave the restaurant and he asked for the check – the waitress replied that it had already been taken care of. David got confused, but the waitress clarified that the gentlemen at the other side of the restaurant had paid his bill and that they had left him a message too. It might not be as explicit as a photo – but the very same note is still today, in 2018, hanging on David’s wall in an apartment outside of Gothenburg, Sweden. It says: “Thank you for respecting our privacy tonight, we really appreciate it. /Bono and Bruce Springsteen”.

Back in the Summer of 1999, two weeks before I met my husband, my brother and father went to see Paul Simon and Bob Dylan on tour. Coincidentally, my soon-to-be-met husband also attended the very same concert. Not only that, but they were seated in the same section! We only realized this coincidence years later, but it was one of many coincidences that we found between us. Our grandmothers and mothers have the same first names, we attended the same party but didn’t meet, we worked with the same person at two separate jobs, my father knew his uncle, and it goes on and on. But, when I think of Paul Simon (and Bob Dylan too), I think of my husband and our little coincidence and kismet. I would love to surprise my husband with Paul’s concert, almost 20 years to the date of the last time he attended (with my bro and Dad)!