House of Blues!

Cross another thing off the bucket list! The House of Blues is a fantastic place to hang out and enjoy some excellent music, especially when you know the band!

This was an event that I've been looking forward to for a long time now. I have a friend who let me know that an organization that she belongs to was going to host an art auction at the Hollywood House of Blues. So if I was interested in coming along, checking out some art and rocking out with the band....
To tell the truth, I'm not sure what the rest of her pitch was going to be. I couldn't hear her over my screams of joy. You think that I'm exaggerating? Uh, yeah. Screams of joy, I tell you.
Because the House of Blues is just one of those places that seem to come up a lot, and yet aren't something that I've ever gone too before. Disneyland. Everyone knows the name and place, and usually finds some event that gets them through the gates at least once in their lives. But how about "The Laugh Factory", "Brown Derby", "Santa Anita" or "Angels". I'd imagined that HOB would be one of those places. But not any more. Yes, I loved it and I'm going back.

The art auction was the offical reason for the visit, and I have to admit that I was happily surprised at the talent on display. Art auctions can be a mixed bag, but there's always something worth seeing or if you're an artistic vampire like me, there's always an idea worth "borrowing". I saw plenty of examples of both. There were only a few paintings that didn't have at least something I liked about them. The rest of them were amazing in a variety of ways, and displayed joy and soul with each stroke of the brush.
This was a silent auction, which was something I'm sort of familiar with. The artwork each had a tag with several lines on it. If you were interested in a piece, you put your name on a line along with your bid. Then you walked away. The next person who is interested would put their own name down, and a price higher than your own. This way you could bid on all the artwork first, go listen to the music, grab a bite to eat, etc. Throughout the evening, you could return to the gallery floor and see if anyone was trying to outbid you.

OK. Pretty easy.

So I found one piece early on, and made my bid. For the rest of the night, I was the only person bidding on that painting. What started as a way to get the ball rolling, and drive up the price of a painting so I could justify passing on the purchase, eventually turned into a winning bid. So I'm now the proud owner of a frikking huge painting. Woah. Didn't see that coming. I've got to work on my self control.

I'll post photos of it later. It's called "Inside Out Woman", but I like to think of it as "Cat Girl"