rocktober: a month in review

october has been over for 12 days, and santa is now painting the pharmacies red & green, which i guess signifies the eminent force that is christmas nearing. and that's okay. i'm glad the month over and i'm glad that everything is moving forward, because there were times when i would've been okay with the world completely stopping. through the good moments that i wanted to last forever, to the moments that made me feel like my life was literally going to end, october passed and eased its way into a glowing november. an awful and costly mistake that was made countered some of the best live shows i have ever seen, an economic crash lead us to a new president and a new sense of hope, an election that brought a country to life. through everything, i moved forward and now, 12 days later, i am still here and i'm genuinely okay.

i want to thank everybody who helped me move forward. for their kind words and understanding and the undaunted courage to make me laugh when i could hardly breathe. there is no way for me to express how much it means to know that there are others in the world who refuse to judge in hope for truth, and i love you all.

anyway, here are a couple of worthwhile ways to spend a few of hours. see you there, come and say hi! bring your friends. eat, drink, enjoy great live music. remember how damned important it is to let yourself have some fun.

october 2008 as seen and documented by hannah stayner:

a photographic log of a month in review.

Halloween Satan Stomp in Laguna Beach

w/ My Pet Saddle & The Growlerrrrs

Felice Brothers @ The Troubadour

our pumpkins!

Halloween in OC

House of Blues

Happy November to you all, lovelies.

Give thanks, give love, have fun, and be happy.

victoryyyy!

i hear all the time that any transformation is based upon progress. which is true, in the end, or else where the hell are we headed? sometimes it just hurts to know that you have to wait. and that whatever you're waiting for isn't even guaranteed. an absolution that may never come. is there an end to anything, or are we always attempting to go further? is that right, or is that wrong. should we ever just settle?

i am thrilled. i am inspired not only by a man, but by my fellow americans. by the hope i saw on my television screen and heard throughout my apartment complex on the night of November 4. hope that overshadowed fear, and anger, and hate. and i am proud. i talked to my father, who was in tears, as he and all his friends recited that honest declaration of hope along with over 200,000 people on one television screen. he said, 'my vote was for you.' and that's that. thanks, dad.

proposition 8 passed on the same night that our country voted in a black man as our nation's president. victory and heartbreak. i was able to pick the leader whom i think will, eventually, bring us back to life, and yet the man who chose my name on the night i was born is not allowed to marry the one he has been with since long before. we have come so far and i can't help questioning if i should just be grateful for that or wonder when the fuck we are going to get our shit together and go further. progress. 

things are going to get shitty. a lot of people will say i told you so. but unless you are open to the fact that the world changes, you are going to get continuously let down. obama is our president, and that is so because people stood up for what they believed in and knew that they could change. if we're not together, then clearly, we've fallen apart.

why can't a campaign be something as simple as love, not war? and why can't the one person you actually want to be with be here and not there, not a million miles away? nothing is ever solved. battles are won and people regain hope but we wake up tomorrow in the same life that we shut our eyes on the night before, and we go forward. because whether or not you voted, that's the way it goes.

yes we can.

yes we did.

congratulations to everybody everywhere. 

tonight i am genuinely proud.