I'm Proud of You.

So this weekend was the very first New Jersey Burlesque Festival. As I was driving home after the 2nd night, my brain was totally buzzing with feelings and emotions (and also the caffeine from the 5 hour energy).

I'm dedicating this post to my friend Khon.

I met him when I was 20 years old, and performing in Rocky Horror. He was in the audience with a girl I also became friends with and I crashed into him (or did I step on his foot?) while I was running around and I apologized all damn night to him until I left. His friend ended up joining the cast, so I ended up becoming friends with her and later befriending him. She went away for a bunch of months and Khon and I ended up talking more and more online then one random Saturday we hung out one on one for the first time and saw the uplifting film "Black Snake Moan". From then on we were best buddies. We hung out constantly, watched awesome movies, and did awesome stuff.

The month before I turned 21 I ventured into the world of Burlesque with the girl I mentioned before. It seemed like an awesome crazy thing to do so why not? Khon was there, he did tech for the show with my oddball ex boyfriend and it was a good time (He had to keep me from killing my ex that night. That was fun). As my curiosity in performing burlesque grew, Khon was always there. He was always helping me find and/or edit my songs, helping me find costuming, driving or riding with me to my shows so I wouldn't have to go alone, and videoing all of my acts. We started making more friends within the burlesque scene, and then bringing more people into the scene eventually as well.

A couple of years later Khon started getting the producing bug. He came to me in 2010 saying "Hey, I wanna try and put a troupe together. Wanna do it?" (in so many words) I was on board immediately. We got our friends together and started booking a few shows under the name of Ink & Paint Club Burlesque. Eventually our troupe grew and our shows were getting more awesome every time. In 2011 Khon mentioned that he wanted to have a huge showcase featuring all kinds of different performers local and non local. It sounded super awesome. So then the New Jersey Burlesque Showcase was born at Roxy & Dukes Roadhouse in Dunellen, NJ. The first show was standing room only, and it was a huge hit.

Here and there over the next couple of years he'd say "Oh man I wanna produce like a huge festival in NJ. We don't have a festival like other states." We'd always talk about it in a "some day at some point" way.

This past January Ink & Paint had a meeting and he announced he was trying to make the big festival happen this year. All of us were excited because that's a huge deal but we wanted to see what happened before anything was set.

This past weekend the festival happened. All of the years of "That would be really cool" and "I wish this could happen" actually happened. Performers from all over came out to do this amazing festival. I headlined on the first night with Hazel Honeysuckle, and I&P nailed a group act that was thrown around here and there for the last few years as well. Khon did it. He produced a big ass amazing show jam packed with burlesque, sideshow, comedy, and magic. Both nights were completely packed and standing room only at the legendary New Jersey venue, Asbury Lanes in Asbury Park, NJ on a gorgeous summer weekend in August.

We went from two goofy goofs seeing a mildly uncomfortable movie, to best friends. We've had our ups and downs. We drive each other absolutely fucking crazy some times. But god damn it, Khon. I'm fucking proud of you. You did it. High fives and hugs for 5ever.

Thank you for always pushing me to keep going. Thank you for driving me and riding with me to shows. Thank you for letting me headline the biggest deal ever. Thank you for all of the times you've pulled over to a McDonald's (or whatever fast food was available) when I was cranky and hungry. Thank you for putting up with my shit for all these damn years. Thank you for being my rock.

You're fucking awesome.