Thursday, March 24, 2011

Google goes Gaga, Gregarious Googlers get Grumpy

Tuesday afternoon an email pops up in my inbox from Marissa Mayer. If you're not sure who that is, suffice to say that she's a fairly big deal here around the Googleplex, and emails from her are usually about pretty important stuff.

The subject line was fairly intriguing though- Google goes Gaga. For some reason my mind started going a hundred different directions at once trying to guess what this was about, and not once did it actually think Lady Gaga. At first I thought it might have been some strange new Googley thing we are doing with toddlers (hey, we just apparently launched google.com/weddings so anything's possible at this point!). But nope. This was of course about none other than Lady Gaga, and she was coming into work the next day for an interview.

Now I'm not really the biggest Lady Gaga fan, and I can't recall ever actually making her music play on my own will; it's usually dumped on me by things beyond my control- radio waves, a DJ, or when my Outkast Pandora station decides to add some variety (aka be stupid). I will say though that when I stumble onto a dance floor and I've had a few beers, I can definitely smile and enjoyably soak Gaga all up. Not that I know any actual song names or anything, but if I did, then let's just say that Just Dance, Bad Romance, Poker Face, Telephone, oh and her new single Born This Way are all tolerably tolerable :-)

So needless to say I was pretty excited about that email from Marissa. I had a grand plan too. Inspired by Mother Monster's meat dress a while back, I decided that it would be a great idea to make a beef jerky fedora, somehow squirm my way into a photo op with her, and perhaps propose at the same time. See, Google has all these little snack kitchens all over campus, many of which have actual packets of beef jerky to grab. I was so steadfast in my plan that when I left for work on the morning Gaga was supposed to arrive, I made sure to pack a needle and thread so I'd be able to stitch together my beef jerky fedora with haste. I'd even show up an hour before she was supposed to go on and bring my laptop, fix some Blogger stuff while I wait. No problem, right?

Wrong! So fucking wrong! I show up to the building where Gaga will be speaking, and the scene is unbelievable- I think clusterfuck is the right word in this case. All entrances to the stage area are closed off except for one pair of doors, and there is a seething mass of hundreds and hundreds of ravenous Google-Gaga-ophiles waiting to bum rush the scene. All I could think of was The Who's 1979 tragedy. And all of a sudden I was pretty pessimistic about my photo-op-with-gaga-wearing-beef-jerky-fedora plan.

I decided as a backup plan to instead just try and lock down a decent viewing spot, and forget the photo op. On the plus side though, at least I'd spare myself the embarrassment of sewing pieces of dried beef to a hat in a large group of people. Not that I haven't one weirder things with meat, but, you know, that was back in college when I lived with a bunch of insane performance artists. Long story...

So I grab a spot in for lack of a better word, the 'balcony' on the second level. At least no one is in front of me this time. Sure enough though, within a few minutes the mass of people made its way up to my area, and they were packed in at least four rows deep up there. It was uncomfortable (well at least for the people behind me who were packed together, I was having a blast on my rail.) And you'd be surprised at how pissy Googlers can get when they can't get a great view of modern pop divas. I had to restrain myself from choking this one guy behind me who was constantly complaining about the people on the rail blocking his view (aka me.) Here is a photo I took from my nosebleed seat:


Finally, Gaga is announced and she walks onto the stage to an exploding audience, wearing these impossiblly tall boots and a short skirt that definitely gets my seal of approval. The interview gets started, and for the next hour all of us sardines had the pleasure (it was actually a pleasure) of listening to her speak openly and candidly about all kinds of stuff. The whole things was recorded, so rather than babble about it forever, I'll just let her speak for herself:


I thought it was a great interview, and left with much more respect for her than I entered. It's very clear from listening to her talk that she really is a musician at heart, which of course gets mad respect from me (remember, back in the day I used to be a very cool musician, not anymore.) At the end of the day she is just a 25 year-old chick (yes, the fact that she is younger than me does make me depressed) who is trying to figure shit out, have a good time, and just so happens to rule the pop world. And maybe the rest of the world too, tbd. BTW, her new video for Born This Way, is fucking insane, and I kind of like it:



She's cool in my book. And Gaga if you ever read this, my band would totally open for you guys. Just sayin'.

3 comments:

Annah said...

So you're not a fan... But you referred to her as Mother Monster? Ay Brettie. LMAO

You're a lyin' piece of beef jerkie.

Also, did Future Dog break up or something? :( I had hopes of one day seeing you perform. Le sigh.

Psycho Babbling Basher said...

I am sorry but I totally disagree with you.
She WAS a musician when she was called her real name out of New York University: Stefani Germanotta
http://psychobabblingbasher2.blogspot.com/2011/02/lady-gaga-wtf.html

And this is her music when she didn't have baby horns gestating from some infantile egg like a succubus:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NM51qOpwcIM

Maple Seawright said...

Sounds fun! I haven't really gotten into Lady Gaga either...except for the first 30secs of Love Game, lol.