Taya Starling

You guys. I don’t even know where to start with this past week.  It’s been amazing.  No, better than amazing.  Let me start at the beginning….

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve heard all about Madonna sucking face with Drake on stage at week one of Coachella.  Yup.  So that happened.

Game of Thrones is back! AT LAST! Did you catch the first episode?? Know what’s even more awesome? My mom sending me this clip of Jon Snow at a dinner party.  I mean when did my mom start passing pop culture to me.  She’s officially more relevant than I am.  I bow down.

We went to dinner at Faith & Flower in DTLA before the Chet Faker show Monday night and not only was the food beyond delicious, the drinks were out of this world.  It’s more than appropriate that they won Cocktail of the Year in 2014.  Bartender Michael Lay, nicknamed The Chief of Booze, created some insanely too good to be true drink he calls English Milk Punch…. after one sip we renamed it Drake’s Tears- cuz it’s just that damn good.  We were super hesitant to order it at first because most of us don’t like absinthe (really though who does?) nor anything licorice flavored but you couldn’t even taste it- all you could taste was this smooth warm loving sip like Pharrell and the Roots and Tupac all hugging you at once while harmonizing a lullaby.  Honestly, I could become a serious lush with this stuff around…. I may or may not be plotting how to dig a pipe that connects my kitchen filter directly with the jug they keep handy behind the bar.

I’m pretty sure Chet Faker is some kind of Game of Thrones mythical character.  Seriously.  I don’t understand how he does what he does and how he does it so well.  Gives me goosebumps… and I finally got to see him live this week at Club Nokia (after he cancelled on Wonderfruit Fest in Thailand and then sold out his last show in LA faster than I could type his name in) and he is worth every single goosebumps.  Here’s one of my favorite tracks off his first album.  How rad is this music video?

I finally saw Fleetwood Mac live which has been on my bucket list basically since I was born and raised on all things rock’n’roll.  Words can not describe how incredible they are live- they more than “still got it,” they are IT.  Unreal.  Here’s a clip from 1976 being just as incredible as they were at The Forum this past week.

https://youtu.be/IT1q7L4QA0A

On a higher enlightening note, I recently read an article by the amazing Jill Willard about our Four Bodies.  If you’re working on life balance, you might want to give this a read.

I can’t stop listening to TORN UP by The Black & The White.  You won’t be able to either.  Go ahead. I double dog dare you.

I also can’t stop listening to Podcasts- the “Stuff You Should Know” series is definitely getting me through some brutal LA traffic lately.  If you’re easily amused by interesting information ranging from “Why Lefties Exist” to “How Tea Works” or even “How Slinkys Work” then this series is definitely for you.  Talk about an easy way to learn more dinner table conversation topics.

The new Star Wars trailer finally dropped and nerds everywhere are rejoicing (yours truly included)

Lastly, not only did I get to go to Coachella with some of my best friends this past weekend but we got to cruise through Salvation Mountain and Joshua Tree adding to the neverending adventure (and really just prolonging the Coachella withdrawal which happens the day after the adventure ends, without fail).  It’s been beyond an epic weekend- one of the highlights was definitely seeing The Weeknd perform (because he’s amazing, obvi) especially since Kanye West came out and did a bunch of songs with him too.  UNREAL. All of this once again just reinforcing the fact that Coachella Weekend Two is pretty much the best, ever.