So, this is the story of my four-day saga.  The Harem, JPL and me.  And Ben (Jon's guitar player).  And some other fans who don't like us very much. And the cool, mostly Mormon, townfolk.  And a dollar store.  Oh and my pal Inga.  Hee.  Note:  I've broken the story into pieces with headings so ya all can go straight to whatever section you might be interested in.  No use wading through a bunch of crap if yer bored...

Arriving in Salt Lake City

I had to get up super-early on Friday morning to catch my plane--not my favorite thing to do--but early flights are best cause they usually run on time. The airplane ride was uneventful except for some turbulence. I arrived in Salt Lake City to rain and cold weather. Boo. As luck would have it, Yoroshiku's flight arrived 2 gates down at about the same time.  I waited for her to de-plane. I recognized her right away--I met her last summer at the Manchester NH AI show, where I waved her awesome "Beavis and Butt-head" poster from the first row so that John and Jon could see it.  Here it is. (below left)

Pretty funny, yeah?  John and Jon nearly fell off the stage laughing when they saw it.  Har.  Yoro brought the poster with her for Jon to sign. But I am getting ahead of myself.  

We checked out our rental car--which just happened to be a mini-van.  Ohhh, groovy!  Not being a Mom or into Soccer, it was the first time driving such a vehicle for moi (I drive a convertible sports car at home, thankyeewwverymuch).   We picked it up, and stowed our luggage inside.  What a ride!  Big comfy seats, lots of room to spread out--perfect for teh Harem.

Now we had to wait for the rest of our party to arrive.  My friend Inga, who used to live in New England but has since moved out west, just happened to be vacationing in Jackson Hole, and agreed to meet me in Idaho to check out the concert.  Seriously, I couldn't believe she agreed to come, except that we hadn't seen each other in ages and really wanted to catch up.  Ha ha, I assured her that the trip would be amusing on many different levels and urged her to join us.  Crazy Inga, however, had no cell phone, so we had a bit of a problem tracking her down at the airport.  We finally did connect, and the three of us sat around and chatted--waiting for the next shift--Snarkin and Schmanda who were arriving together.

Amazingly, everyone's flight was either on-time or a little bit early.  Though Schmanda called me on my cell, a little worried that she might miss her connection, it all worked out and everybody arrived.  Except, uh oh, Snarkin still had a ton of work to do (as in work for her JOB--boo) and her laptop battery had gone dead.  SORROW!!!  So, we loaded up the car and headed for the nearest Best Buy, where Snark found a cool car adapter for her laptop, and I found a radio frequency tuner for my Dell Jukebox so I could play my tunes in the car.  YAY!!!  I had play lists of JPL and AI4 all ready to go!!  Couldn't have a road trip without JPL and AI4, and the Harem  commentary sure to go with it!

Driving to Rexburg

At about 3 p.m., we finally hit the road, headed for Rexburg, with a stop in Idaho Falls along the way.  It had been pouring rain earlier, but thankfully it subsided by the afternoon, and we got a good look at the gorgeous scenery along Interstate 15 into Idaho. (below) Off in the distance, snow-capped mountains were visible nearly the whole way to Rexburg.  When I wasn't checking out the mountains, I was LMAO. Needless to say, Snarkin didn't get much work done on the way up.  She kept us chicas wicked entertained.  Example--she made up some brand new words to "Turn to Grey."

I once loved you my sweet May,
But Ryan Seacrest turned me gay
Now I hang around in June
And hope that Anwar comes around soon.

Yeah, we're 12. Now you can understand why some fans don't like us.  I nearly lost control of the car when she busted out with that.  We keed, we keed.  We also listened to an encore of Juanita Barber's incomparable "But what about the Chirrun" from AI season 2.  Wheee!

BONUS--Snarkin had a wireless internet card, so we could log on to the internet from the car!  Sweet!  We were able to read and post on the Harem as we travelled.  I did all the driving, which was fine by me--though, when I nearly drove off the road several times laughing, my car-mates may have had second thoughts.

We drove straight through to Idaho Falls and stopped to pick up supplies.  We heathens needed to stock up on liquor, and figured we wouldn't find any in the heavily-LDS Rexburg.  We also took the opportunity to load up on snacks and other supplies.  Parts of Idaho Falls were just amazing.  There were sections that literally have not changed since the 40's and 50's.  It was like being in some crazy time warp.  Whoa!! Where's our Delorean Dude!  Actually, it was pretty cool.  Idaho Falls was like a ready-made movie set.  All that was needed was the film crew.  Finally we found a Frex, a Fred Meyer store that sold groceries and liquor but didn't take Kroger cards--DANG! and we bought a ton o' crap. 

We got back into the car, and now I had to figure out where to go, cause at Idaho Falls, we were supposed to get off the interstate onto 20? 26? Whatevia?  Here was one of the many moments where my trademark Spaciness -TM mj was on full display.  Got a map?  Er, noooo... We did figure out that we had to be on 20, miraculously found our way there, and drove the last 20 miles to Rexburg.

At last...we hit the Big Town of Rexburg! And one of our first sights was a car full of teenagers in an old Thunderbird with the top sawed off and Longhorn horns on the front. They looked right at us!  Give us a ride, boys? <giggle>.  We also passed "Bear World" on the way in.  Actually, I blinked and missed it.  I'm like "Where's Bear World?" and the chicas are like "Back there" and I'm like "Huh?"  I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it didn't seem like much.  Maybe all the bears were still sleeping.   Dang.

We found our Hotel--the Craxtree, er I mean the Cottonwood Inn, (Just a lil' joke) --and we checked in.  Right off the bat I want to say that even though I found certain details lacking at the hotel, the young folks who worked there were super.  They happily met all of our exacting Harem demands.  Our first big dilemma came when we figured out we couldn't get cots for our double-bed rooms.  Schmanda and Yoroshiku were all like "We can sleep on the floor" and I was like "Okayyyyy I'm so not sleeping on the floor" We got our rooms, and then  discovered that only $15  more would get us a bigger room with a sofa bed.  After some discussion, we changed our minds. I requested an upgrade to one of our rooms--and since we hadn't "used" it if ya know what I mean, it was all cool.   This was just the first of many trips to the front desk.  Thanks, desk-clerk dudes for being so patient!   The next big decision was who was gonna sleep where?  Inga, Schmanda and YoYo shared the big room, and Snarkin and I shared a double erm, cause we snore.

Friday Night

We finally settled into our rooms, quite exhausted.  Poor Snarkin hunkered down in the little room to get some work done.  The rest of us were not too tired to log onto the internet to read the Harem!  It turned out the "Wireless Internet" advertised was only in the lobby.  I could get a weak signal in the big room, on the first floor right off the lobby.  A bunch of things bugged me about this hotel:  The crappy internet connection, the fact that the swimming pool was in the frickin' lobby, our room keys never worked--I had to keep going out to the lobby to get them re-set.  The big room's television broke.  Argh.  I used to travel a lot, so I'm kinda fussy about this stuff.  Nevertheless, we managed to relax and some of the gals enjoyed a refreshing Smirnoff Twist - Razbury flavor! (natch). 

At one point, Schmanda remarked that coming all the way to Idaho just for a concert was probably one of the lamest things she'd ever done.  I laugh when I think about my co-worker's reactions when I told them I was travelling 1000 miles and driving 300 more to see an an American Idol 8th place finisher perform a 45 minute concert.  Hee. But ya know, we had to agree that the weekend was so much more than just the concert.  It was the concert, it was the bonding, it was seeing and experiencing something entirely new.  So far I was having a blast and not sorry I had travelled so long and so far.  And this weekend was extry-speshul because April 9, 2004 was the day the words "Hobbit Harem" were uttered for the first time on our mama board Televsion Without Pity, by the ever-groovy Schmanda.  It was our anniversary!  What better place to celebrate than in Rexburg Idaho?

Finally, time for bed. I managed to walk all the way back to my hotel room without my shoes and didn't notice until the next morning.  And I wasn't even drinking.

Saturday Morning

The next morning, we had breakfast in the lobby--grateful for the coffee provided to us non-Mormons who desperately need it to get started in the morning.    We saw a dude with a guitar strapped to his back getting himself breakfast and correctly guessed he was a member of Jon's band.  He turned out to be Sam Howard, the bass player.  Well, actually Inga strolled by and peeked at the name-tag on his guitar.  Plus, a couple of fans from Jon's Offishul Website were introducing themselves to him.  He seemed nice, but quiet.  The poor guy was staying at a hotel with a whole bunch of Jon's fans--lucky him.   Before I left the hotel, I noticed an article in the Idaho Falls Register.  I got myself a 1-Month subscription and posted the article for the kids back home.  I lurve my Harem.  This picture (left) was posted with the article.

I noticed the short hair.  I liked it better long.  Yeah, like that matters.   Whatevah.  BYU-I grooming code dictates that guys' hair be trimmed above the ears, and sideburns just to the bottom of the ear.  Looks like a regulation hair cut to me!  Eh, his hair was lookin' rather gnarly in some of those red carpet photos, anyway.  The cut is a little short, but very tidy.  Should I go on some more about his hair? No? craxy  The second thing I noticed about this picture, was of course, the "Pet Sounds" T-shirt that was a gift from the Harem's very own Cheese.  Jon really, likes this t-shirt--he has mentioned this on a couple of occasions.  And of course the Elvis t-shirt Jon wore throughout the AI tour was also a Cheese Special.  AND--apparently, he wore another Harem shirt at yet another TV appearance in Rexburg (below right).  How Cool.  

The article itself? Uhhh...Jon eventually wants to be a Spanish teacher?  I was under the impression that he wanted a career in show business. My bad.

Off to tour the town.  Rexburg is a small college town. Actually, I didn't get any pictures of main street, but I wish I had.  Again, like Idaho Falls, I felt like I had stepped into the 50s.  BYU-I is affiliated with the Latter Day Saints, and as such, the school expects the students to live a very socially conservative lifestyle.  Modest clothing for women, short hair and clean-shaven faces for men.  I saw "Young Women's" and "Young Men's" housing.  This tiny town, I swear, had a bridal shop on every corner.  You get the feeling that Marriage is big business here.  Now, cut me some slack, cause I'm just a provincial, Italian-American girl who grew up and has lived in various East Coast cities.  Where I went to college, there was a bar on every corner--I don't remember no bridal shops.  Anyway, the town is about 3 blocks in each direction, and when we finished the Grand Tour in about 5 minutes, I figured the rest of the day would be boring.  Of course, I was completely wrong.

More about Rexburg and the mostly Mormon folk who live there:  OK, like I said, I've lived in various East Coast cities.  Where I live now, in certain parts of the city coughsouthbostoncough if you have to ask someone for directions, it's clear to them that you don't belong there in the first place. In other words--don't get lost if you visit Boston.   The people of Rexburg were unbelievably nice and helpful.  From the folks who worked at our hotel to the cool boys who fixed the big room's TV, from the sweet dude who helped me with my camera in the local camera shop, to the University staff who helped us with our tickets, from the students at the concert, to the waitstaff where we had dinner Saturday night--not only were they nice, they were just downright charming. See, I'm used to people in my real-life being rude, so this was different.  At first I felt a little uneasy, like Dorothy discovering she wasn't in Kansas anymore.  But once I got into the rhythm of the place, I felt more comfortable and kinda grew to like it.  I mean, I could never live there, but I don't think I'll ever forget it or the people I met.   I swear, if any Mormon missionaries stopped by my house, I'd prolly invite them in for snacks!  Hee. 

OK, so the big Town Tour was over.  What to do next?  Let's go shopping!!!

Shopping

First, we found a Dollar store called "HONKS!"  and caused a whole bunch of mayhem there.  Hee.  We found this fab glow-stick jewelry (bottom left). We each bought a pair, naturally, and wore them to the pr0m! YELLOW GETS YOU NOTICED!!!   We also bought some sheriff's badges and Groucho glasses, because we're 12 years old.  I'm gonna let Snarkin describe the next part: "We were ROARING laughing in this quiet Merman  merman is harem net-speak for mormon  dollar store. Then we started walking away to look around. I was standing with Yoro at the end of the aisle, and all of a sudden, we hear someone yell, "SHIT!!!!" I mean, really loud: "SHIT!!!" I was like, 'Oh, I know that was one of us.' It got deadly quiet in the dollar store. It was like everyone stopped what they were doing. All you could hear was the Muzak. Heh. It was krunk, realizing she left her memory stick for her digital camera home in Boston".

Heh, yeah.  I yelled SHIT in the middle of the Merman dollar store.  Way to go Heathen!   Anyway, I was really, really pissed at myself, and dashed off to the Walmart next door to buy a memory stick.  I got there, bought one I thought would work, and then figured out it was the wrong type.  At this point I'm really pissed and commenced pouting oh, and you really want to be around for that.  As I left the store, I ran into the crew just coming back from HONKS!  loaded down with all kinds of dollar crap.  After causing a complete scene at the dollar store, we decided Walmart was next. Except I'd had enough, and left to pout some more in the car. Too bad--cause what happened next at the Walmart sounded pretty hilarious.

Again, I'll let Snarkin tell the story "So we got to Wal-Mart and went to the craft section to buy some sticks to tape some obnoxious signs on (like, 'Ben RULZ, Jon DROOLZ!'). Well, as we were walking through the craft section, I noticed some wooden letters on a shelf. I found a J, P, and L and spelled out J-P-L on the shelf. Then I saw a wooden star, so I put that there as well. Inga tried to take a picture of it, but it didn't come out too great. Someone said, 'It would be better if we put it on the floor!' Well. We h33th3nized the floor of Wal-Mart, y'all!"

And here it is (right).  BWAG!!!  They couldn't find a Z so they used a sideways N.  Of course, If I hadn't been such a Pissy Little Diva, I coulda been in on the fun.  Oh well.  In the meantime, I used my cell phone browser to find a photo shop in town.  The chicas came back to the car and our next stop was the photo store to find a memory stick for my camera.  No stick.  DAMN.  The dude at the store was so nice--apparently the memory type for my 2 year old camera is already obsolete and nobody sells it.  Huh?  I was disappointed, but not completely defeated--I bought a couple of throw-away instamatic cameras to use instead.

By now, it's 1 PM, and we are already late for "The Fan Lunch."

Teh Lunch

Earlier, we read over on the Offishul JPLm Forums that a bunch of the Offishul Fans (these are fans who run and post at Jon's Offishul Site) would be meeting in a restaurant for lunch.  Everyone was supposedly welcome.  Hmmm, even the Hairy Harlots? "clever"ahem nickname penned for haremites--by teh offishul webmistress, no less ;).  Anyhoo, without going into major detail, and anybody reading this prolly knows the story anyway--there's a history of, uhhm, tension between teh Harem and the Offishul Boards.  It all started with a picture we posted that we shouldn't have posted.  Ok?  We admitted we were wrong? Sheesh?  Anyway, the continuing tension at this point has much to do with differing sensibilities between the groups.  They are earnest and devoted to JPL.  We are irreverent.  And although we dig JPL, we don't necessarily worship at the altar of the Golden Banana.  Anyway, we decided to show up at this lunch hoping to meet a brave Haremite, Xanthisma, who also hangs with the Offishul Fans.  Such a brave chica! We arrived, parked and walked in.  Me, I kept quiet.  Snarkin entered and yelled "Is Xanithsma here?" well, snark used her real name of course A bunch of people turned around and glared at us--none of them Xan.  We decided to leave.  But, not before Snarkin' yelled "HAREM RUUUUUUULEZ" on her way out.  Back in the car, I was still not sure what just happened.  Somebody inside waved at us to come in. Schmanda offered to go in and check it out.  She did, and came back out with Xan.  YAY!  We got out of the car, hugged Xan and took a few pictures. Then, we decided to go in. What the hell, eh?

The five of us went inside and got in line for some food.  I said hi and introduced myself to Betts.  She's one of the administrators at the Offishul Forums.  As such, I'd had some conversations with her, but hadn't actually met her.  Ok, so it was really weird at first, but then in a little bit it was OK.  Really, there are some fine folks over there who I finally met face to face.  It's all different when you're face to face.  I think at this point  most everyone made an attempt at civility.  Inga cracked me up, cause she had no idea what was going on. We kinda had to explain it to her.  She found it all very strange.  Schmanda held up a sign for me to read that said "Can Y'all Wait Til Later to Shoot Me?" (left).  Nah, we weren't mad.  We had a nice chat with Xan and her cool family and I had one of the BEST Italian Grinders I've evah had. Seriously.  An Offishul Fan handed out pens yes pens that said "Jon Peter Lewis I Bought the Pen"  Ohhh, I'll make sure to show my friends back home!  You know--cause the photos and autographs won't be enough proof to show that I'm completely retarded!   Joking around with some of the Offishul Fans--Snarkin, Yoroshiku and I started snapping our fingers and singing "When you're a Jet you're a Jet all the way...".  We laughed and said we envisioned a big West Side Story-style throw-down at the big Pr0m.  Har.  An Official Fan whispered something to her friend.  It turned out to be "We could take them."  

   AS IF   

Some of the Offishul Fans got up to hurry to an "appointment".  Turned out to be a photo shoot with Jon.  Offishul indeed.  The others left, but we stuck around to talk to a really cool fan who had travelled to Rexburg with her daughters for the concert.  The older daughter wrinkled her nose when she found out who we were.   She thinks the Harem is awful.  She takes our sarcasm and snark as dislike for Jon.  I tried to explain.  Her Mom, a lurker, gets it.  "Not everyone's cup of tea, teh Harem," I finally say.  Me and mom exchanged cell phone numbers for later, and lunch is over.  In the meanwhile, I called Enjolras with the first of many updates I'd promised her.  She was supposed to be with us, but had travelled back to the midwest to visit her family instead.  She didn't know what she was missing!  So, I had to tell her.

Teh Rehearsal

We still had some time to kill, so we decided to swing by the Hart auditorium, just to figure out its location and maybe pick up our tickets if the Box Office was open.  Now a word about my extraordinary navigational skills.   Erm, thank God for Schmanda, cause if it weren't for her extraordinary navigational skills, I'd probably still be driving around and around Rexburg, completely confused.  Ok, this is going to sound silly, but I come from hilly terrain designed with no rhyme or reason.  Somehow, I can make my way around a place with distinctive landmarks.  Rexburg is totally flat and square.  Everything looked the same to me,  no matter where I was.  I kept turning left when I should've turned right, or just yelped "HELP!  Where should I go?" at every intersection.  After many directional interventions by Schmandy we finally found the Hart, parked, and went searching for the Ticket Office.  Some nice students gave us directions.  The office turned out to be closed.  But HARK! What is that I hear?  Music! It sounded like the band was rehearsing in the auditorium.  We tried to open some doors--locked.  Hmmm.  We went in search of a ladies room, and after we found it, we thought we'd wander around a little.  "Wow! Stairs!", cried Yoroshiku, "Wonder where these go?" <whistling>  At the top of the stairs, we found an open door that led to a little glassed-in room.  From there we could see the guys on stage rehearsing.  Cool!  Heh, we prolly weren't supposed to be there, but, we be Heathen Harlotz--ya can't expect us to totally behave can you? . 

Unfortunately, somewhere between the ladies room and the rehearsal room, we lost Schmanda.  Snarkin went back downstairs to look for her, happy for an excuse to leave cause I think she felt a little uncomfortable possibly being somewhere she wasn't supposed to be.  Me?  I probably would have LMAO if we had been caught. Yeah, I'm 12.  In the meantime, Yoro, Inga and I watched the rehearsal.  I was psyched cause I thought it sounded really good.  Honestly?  I'd heard they didn't have much rehearsal time, so I half-way expected them to suck.  But what I heard at rehearsal made me way excited for the show.  After a little while, and still no Schmanda, I rang her on my cell and ordered her to GET UP HEAH!!  Yoro went to fetch her.  In the meantime, we took pictures.  Here's a nice one (right). The band was rehearsing the intrumentals. It was hard to tell from so far away, but Jon didn't appear to be around.  We found out later that he was saving his voice for the performance--he wasn't rehearsing at that point.  Schmanda finally arrived.  Snarkin is waiting for us in the lobby.  I don't want to leave, cause I'm really digging the music, but eventually we do, cause it's time to get ready for the BIG PR0M!  As we left, they're practicing Prince's "I Wanna Be Your Lover" and I was all like  and .

Back at the hotel, we scramble to shower and get dressed. I hadn't worn a dress in about 2 years.  Seriously.  The chicas were all freaked out about the dress code.  We worried we might commit some sort of Morman Faux Pas.  As it turned out, we needn't have worried as I'll explain in a bit.  Snarkin made a cool fan poster for Ben.  Yoroshiku brought her "Beavis and Butthead" poster that also happened to have "Your Harem Is in The House" on the other side.  That was our poster during the AI tour.  We tried to show up at as many venues as possible bearing that Harem greeting.  Yep, I was all over frickin' New England with that poster.  I gone damb CraXy last summer, I swear.     After we got all purtied up, we were off.

On to Part 2...

Part 2 - Concert and Meet and Greet