Funplex Video, the Prologue

"The World’s Greatest Party Band" also known as the "Tacky Little Dance Band from Athens" also known as the B-52s has been my favorite band for 30 years now (if you're someone who believes that a band name is plural, I get that and respect that but... sorry...), pretty much since their humble beginning, playing in basements and at friends’ parties and shopping at thrift stores in order to keep life interesting.

Close to 10 years ago I was lucky enough to win a raffle to have dinner with the band in Athens and since then it has been a whirlwind experience reaching far beyond the typical "get a ticket through Ticketmaster, watch a concert and go home" fan experience. I feel extremely grateful for this. From that dinner I met Liesl and Mats among others, 2 people responsible for the B-52s’ websites, fan clubs, fund raisers and all sorts of other cool stuff, including letting me tag along to after-show meet-and-greets and all TONS of other great experiences with the band. I traveled to NYC on Halloween 2007 to go to a show with Liesl and a new friend Paul, and it's these 2 great pals who turned me on to the e-mail circulating asking for volunteers to be extras in the Funplex video.

I read the e-mail Wednesday morning February 27th:

We are looking to cast a few volunteers to participate in the B-52's Funplex video shoot this Friday, in Los Angeles. Anyone who is interested in participating should email their name, phone number, gender, age, and a photo to: funplexvideo@gmail.com. We are casting about 25 people, on a first-come first-served basis.

If you are chosen you will be contacted by the production company by the end of the day on Wednesday with details about the location, time, and what to wear. If you do not hear back from the production company it unfortunately means that we won't be able to use you as we will have filled all the available slots. Participants must be over 18.

We're at the mall on a diet pill!

I quickly sorted through my few pictures at work to find one that still might work and chose this one since it clearly shows I’m a fan and pretty much still looks like me.

I figured they would contact us by phone, so I put my phone on vibrate and put it in my pocket so there was no way I could miss the call and waited…

At about 4 o’clock I e-mailed Liesl and Paul, "Well it’s 4 o-clock and still no word, doesn’t look good =|" Their responses were great! From Liesl, "What? You should tell them you’re a FOK (friend of Kate) and she’d want you there!" and from Paul, "There’s nobody more perfect for that video!" Good buds. So I took Liesl’s advice, I mean how could it hurt sending another e-mail, dropping a name. It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity, maybe they’d reconsider!

So I sent another one, "I’m sending a second plea to be an extra in the video, I believe Kate considers me a friend and I think she would want me to have this opportunity!" and I pushed it even further by sending this picture from several years ago. It was taken backstage after a show here in San Diego. If you don’t get it, they have a song "Strobe Light" and Fred shrieks, "then I’m gonna kiss your PINEAPPLE!!!" I’m sure it’s a G-rated comment. He’s a big FRUIT fan. LOL!

Well the day went on, I stayed at work very late doing homework, and by midnight no phone call and no e-mail. Sigh. Oh well!

That night also happened to be the night our company installed a huge release that we had been working on for over 2 years. A very big deal. We installed it late at night and then Thursday morning as people began using it, we held our breath to see how many fires we would have to put out as they all went through the upgrade process. Our business deals with data gathering for major manufacturers, and if data is lost or productivity is held up for any reason, it’s a bad thing.

I got to work Thursday morning and went straight to my boss’ office to see how things were going. There was 1 pretty bad thing that I might have had to investigate, but several people were involved and looking at it, so I wasn’t needed yet. I logged into my PC, opened Outlook and watched as the new e-mails plopped into my in-box.

Wait. Hold On.

From: Funplex
Subject: B-52’S!!!

OMG!!! Evelyn Wood speed reading had nothing on me that morning:

Hello everyone!  Sorry for the late response.  The production team is so excited that you'd like to come be an extra in the video!  We'll be getting back to you later in the day with call times, wardrobe instructions and directions to the shoot, but we're still collecting all the info that we'd need to pass along to you.  We can tell you that we'll need your help sometime in the morning, most likely from 10AM - 1:30ish so if you're still available, let us know and we'll touch base with you later in the day.  Thanks, all!

-The Production Team

Received Thursday morning at 9:52.

I took a couple quick breaths, re-read it once, and SHRIEKED for the ENTIRE office to hear,

"I CAN’T BE HERE TOMORROW!!!"

Fortunately it’s a very relaxed atmosphere here and they already knew that I was waiting to hear about being in the video. I immediately called Liesl, who was just as excited for me as I was for myself and I got the news out to others and she did too.

I really couldn’t believe it! I honestly was more excited than I ever remember being, about the same feeling as when I heard my name called at the raffle for the dinner with the band. I was close to hyperventilating for about an hour, and my hands were constantly shaking. I knew there was no guarantee I’d be in the final edit, or even that the band would be on location with today’s amazing editing capabilities, but even with all that it was so exciting!

And just about that time my boss came in asking me to start looking at the critical issue in the field. Great. At least in hind-sight, it allowed me to get my mind off the video just a little bit and focus on something else to get me through the day. It was a crazy day, tons of e-mails and conversations about the problem and many misunderstandings since it was in an area we had inherited and weren’t very familiar with.

During all this stress, in the back of my mind was also, "Yikes, first I have school tonight, I have to stop working at about 4:15 to make sure I can get my assignment together to turn in at the start of class. Then we’ll be in class until at least 9:00, I want to leave tomorrow at 5 AM to play it safe with traffic, and I have nothing at all I can wear. When the hell am I going to go shopping???"

Fortunately my boss clued me in that Walmart is open 24 hours. WHEW!!! I called the local one to make sure, then knew I had a plan. It would be perfect. The song Funplex is about a shopping mall, and the Bs are all about funky, thrift store stuff. I think warming up my shopping vibe and doing it at Walmart would be poetic!

Miraculously I found the problem in the software at 3:45. I couldn’t believe it. This day was turning out to be a sweet one! School let out a bit early, 8:30, and I was off to shop. I think I was pretty lucky – walking into a relatively small selection of clothes and finding pants and a top that not only fit but look OK didn’t sound very likely. Simple black pants, a blouse that’s pretty contemporary with a fun geometric pattern, matching necklace and funky dangly earrings and I was set! What a relief.

I headed home with almost all of the crises of the day behind me. Last thing was to prepare for the next day, of course, but I also had to set up my new memory foam mattress that I had just unpacked that morning. I was only going to get about 4 hours of sleep that night, but hopefully they would be good ones! At 12:30 I set the alarm for 4:30, hopped in bed and surprisingly fell asleep immediately and didn’t budge until the alarm went off. I came to quite confused. Why is the alarm going off? Why is it dark? OH! That’s right! I’m going to be an extra in the B-52s’ Funplex video today! Sweeeeeeet.