- Continue Shopping
- Your Cart is Empty
Grammys, New Tech, & The Big Aristotle
What a week! After bouncing around hotels due to Hurricane Sandy forcing thousands of tenants out of their apartments in lower Manhattan, I made an impulse decision to move.
"Where? I'll tell you where. Someplace warm. A place where the beer flows like wine. Where beautiful women instinctively flock like the salmon of Capistrano. I'm talking about a little place called..." L.A. Where substance always meets beauty. *cough*
And what better time for Curious Provisions to get some love than Grammy weekend? The stars were out, the weather was warm, and the suitcases were, (dare I say?), thumping. Fellow founders Javier & David sent me this sexy thumper to wow the ladies and impress the audio nerds.
Will.i.am kicked off the party week at the Avalon in Hollywood as host / founder for TRANS4M 2013. Originally, I thought I’d be walking into a meet-and-greet / snooty / overdressed cocktail party, since big wigs like Bill Clinton and Emmanuelle Chriqui, my dream woman, (mothereffin Sloan!) were attending, but of course, it was a concert at the Avalon – I should’ve known better. Ludacris, Alicia Keys, ThePeas, and Bobby Brown performed. Bobby murdered it – I was two stepping and sliding like never before (thought I’d say that).
Fast forward to Grammy night. Met up with Mr. Socialite himself, Danny Lee, Sam Salisbury (director of artists relations for Bandpage & RootMusic), and Nadeem Kassam (serial entrepreneur / founder of Basis & Biobeats), for a dinner at Red O on Melrose where the Tequila is older than your great grand daddy and displayed like a work of art. By the way, congrats to Nadeem & Sam for their recent success with Biobeats (an iPhone application that analyzes a user's heart rate via the phone's built-in camera flash) & Basis (a wearable health tracker which won "best of CES 2013" via cnet).
Right after dinner, we linked up with golden child DJ Fresh Direct from New York who was the special guest for Steve Aoki, Fashen, and DJ Metric at Drai’s on top of the W. Thankfully, the valet gave me the nod to park my car next to the hotel since I had a thumper in the trunk. Note to fellow thumper owners, leverage your case to get free parking, it works. Then, I walked by this:
After name-dropping to get past gatekeepers (aka bouncers), I finally walked right into Fresh Direct’s set. (some ill tunes below).
The floor was shaking, and of course, right behind me girls were lining up for champagane facials at Kirill’s table (KirillWasHere), I kid you not. Kirill, can we switch jobs bruh?
Outside, Skrillex was roaming with his oversized crew, including his 5th grade math teacher and every audio engineer he’s ever interacted with. 12th planet and I threw back a few tequila shots by the pool and hit my homegirl's table whose posse included nothing but dimes, and I’m not talking loose change.
My boy Danny Lee made it back with Poet, DJ and producer for the Peas, and chopped it up with Fresh Direct. We were all planning a studio session for the day after.
Unfortunately the timing was off because Fresh Direct’s flight back to New York but I still had to meet up with the homie before he bounced to the airport. While pulling up to the W, I ran into the same valet guys who let me park in the exact spot the night before. It looked like they were shooting some type of film, but it always looks like that in Hollywood.
We ordered some food and while lounging in the lobby when suddenly out of the corner of my eye I saw The Big Diesel, (aka The Big Cactus, aka The Big Shamrock, aka The Big Aristotle), aka Shaq lumber in. Rhetorically, I asked myself how on earth was I going to get this thumper in front of Shaqtastic, but I knew I had to make this happen. I immediately stood up and went to my car, brought out the thumper, connected the bluetooth, played Beats, Rhymes, And Life by Tribe Called Quest, and walked right in front of Shaq-fu himself. One glance down (wayyy down) and he asked what was this dope thing I was holding? 5 minutes later:
Just got myself a new thumper from @curiousprov & @cancillerharms. Vintage suitcase boombox w/ bluetooth. bit.ly/Kik0WP
— SHAQ (@SHAQ) February 12, 2013
Now, how do we get this in Kobe’s hands?
Russell Fry
Author