A benefit and a night with Kalai

On Saturday Rich and I went to a party at his boss' house. Every year they have a pool opening party on the weekend of their anniversary. This year they decided to do it a little different. Brian Cardall (the guy who was killed by police men with tasers) was a relative of Alex (Dick's boss) so they had a benefit for his wife Anna, who has a two year old daughter and a baby due in September. I kept thinking we really can't afford to be donating money on our strict budget, but then I'd think of how tough it would be to be suddenly left alone to raise two kids. So, we went in our swimming suits all ready to hit the pool to celebrate summer. Not 10 minutes after we got there, it started to rain. And about 10 minutes later, it started to POUR! It got crazy cold and we all had to gather in their breezeway (between the house and the garage) and huddle and talk and occasionally dash out to the taco stand that they'd rented to get a yummy, authentic taco.
At 9:00, Kalai showed up with his gear and luckily it had just stopped raining! What luck- but it was still super chilly. Anyhow, I'd heard of this guy but never heard his music. He was pretty cool- kind of a laid back Jack Johnson-y reggae type. His wiki page describes him as urban vintage. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalai) He was born in Hawaii and raised in Alaska and was a pretty funny dude. He spent probably 5 to 10 minutes tuning his guitar between songs and entertained us with comedy. It was pretty awesome being up close and kind of personal with him.
At 11:30, after I'd been wondering what the neighbors were thinking, the cops showed up to break up the party. I think they were surprised that is wasn't just the stereo at a raging party and they commented on how good he sounded. But still, they had to do their job and Kalai was "broken up by the volume brigade" as he said.
We would've loved to have stayed and hung out with this guy but I was exhausted and freezing (because it was supposed to be summer so I was wearing shorts and a T) and we had to get up to do our yard sale super early so we took off. But it was a pretty cool evening with a pretty cool guy. You should check him out-