Making Flippy Floppy

(Dear innocent reader: the following entry may be NSFW and not meant for the easily offended. Simmer down now.) It seems that as I've gotten older, birthdays have lost a lot of their novelty. As children, most of us got so totally pants-wettingly excited about our birthdays, they were such a big whoop. The hype starts at age one, when we weren't even old enough to know what the heck was going on, but were still sucked in by the party action, the colorful balloons, the sugary cake, and the glitz of the gift wrap. Year after year, we were spoiled on our birthdays, we got things we didn't really need that people couldn't really afford to buy us. The whole extended family, the neighbors, and all your school mates show up for your birthday when you're a kid - it's a major event. Birthday parties are for children and the elderly. Children because it's fun to watch their uninhibited glee and the elderly because we are amazed they're still alive to see another year. In between, birthdays can be kind of a drag. No one really loves the idea of turning a year older, and we are subconsciously bitter because no-one makes a big of a deal out of it as much as they did when we were kids. We feel awkward because if we want people to know our big day is coming up, we have to sort of advertise it, which makes us feel a bit like we're just fishing for gifts and attention. We set our expectations for the day too high and are inevitably let down. Every April 11, I try to make the best of it. No-one has ever thrown a surprise party for me, and they're lucky because if they did they'd be dead. I like to know about stuff ahead of time, surprises are not my thing. Still, it would be quite nice if one of my nearest and dearest would pull off some gala event for me on my birthday, but since that's yet to happen, I always plan and arrange a little gathering for myself. I decided to celebrate my big 35th last night, a few days early, since I was already planning on performing at M-n-M's open mike. I sent out invites a few weeks ago via text messages and MySpace and pretty much everyone I invited showed up except three people who I really wished would have been able to make it. One lives out of town, so he's excused, but the other two called one right after another at the very last minute to crap out and I was way bummed. So there was a little black raincloud hovering over me as I entered the bar. DJ Jason and Amber were the first ones there. Tessa was tending bar and she made me a frothy and very strong Surfer on Acid for my birthday drink. My dark cloud turned into a warm golden dawn, and after Jhanie and Sara showed up, my sun came all the way up. Seriously, you can't be in a bad mood with Jhanie around - he's hilarious, and I was so glad he showed up because I knew my birthday would be wild and memorable. Jhanie handed me a big shiny gift bag stuffed with newspaper and 1. a Van Gogh action figure, 2. a smoking ceramic monkey, 3. a roll of temporary tattoo tape that says "Rock-n-Roll", and 4. a bottle of Bawlz. Yay! Random and bizarre stuff, just what I like! Next, Colleen showed up with a giant mylar birthday balloon ten times the size of my big fat head. And speaking of big fat head, the bright yellow gift bag the balloon was attached to had a picture of a gigantic hard schlong. Yes, you can always count on the Weenis for some penis. I told her I was going to re-gift the bag with a bottle of wine in it for Grandma next Christmas. Inside the bag, the dicks continued - the card featured a well-endowed black gentleman lounging in the sun (what it said, I do not recall), a "penis pop" sucker, and a hot pink vibrating dong with bumps. It's always handy to have a friend that works in a sex shop. She was even kind enough to include some batteries (EverReady, of course) so we could fire it up right there and then. We discovered that the vibrating action made it "dance" when placed end up on a flat surface. Alex and Steve showed up and pretended to act shocked and horrified by the sight of a neon pink dancing dildo doing circles around the table. The darned thing became the hit of the party, shimmying it's way into everyones hearts despite the apparent presence of genital warts. I'm not sure what I'll do with it, but it's a real conversation piece and actually, it felt great on my stiff neck. Mark was crabby about performing his songs and told me "tonight's all yours." I only had eight songs ready to roll, and I really only wanted to do four. I was relieved when after 6 songs, I saw a newbie show up with his guitar and handed the mike over to him. I enjoyed doing my songs for everyone, but was anxious to get my birthday on as well. While I was on stage, Jessi had come and gone (she had a tattoo to give and couldn't stay) but she left behind a huge chocolate caramel cake that will haunt my fridge for a week. Also, Brett came and left right before I was done with my songs and I didn't even get to say hi. Odd duck. However, Katrina was at the table when I rejoined and she immediately handed me her phone and it was her brother, my long lost Simon Jones. I hadn't chatted with Simon in many moons, so that was a treat, and he was crazy as ever, yelling the "Happy Birthday" song in my ear at the tops of his very loud lungs. The guy that showed up after me for open mike was awesome, playing guitar and singing his own original songs which were intense and slightly demented in a Kristin Hersh sort of way. He was enormously talented and had everyone going silent to listen a couple of times. Plus, we all agreed he was a hottie - I wanted to chat him up about Flexible Records and la dee da, but he snuck out before anyone even got his name. We can only hope he makes open mike a habit. Next, everyone did exactly the thing I hate - the whole crew went up front and sang me "Happy Birthday." I'd had just enough Heineken that for a moment I got a little sentimental and felt like a kid on his birthday again, eating up the attention. Everyone left pretty early - some people had to work at 5 the next morn, some had to relieve babysitters, and some were headed up to Sunset Bowling Alley for another birthday party for some girl they kept calling "Polly Pocket." I don't know Polly Pocket, but told them to send birthday wishes to her from Patrick Pocket. When everyone was gone, I sat at the bar with Christa and chatted for quite awhile before sneaking home. I attacked Jessi's caramel cake with a mad vengeance and drifted off to Iron Chef...not such a terrible birthday after all.

Labels: Birthday, Hot Pink Vibrating Dildo, OTV Live, Strange Happenings

Where were you, my pretties? So I played Open Mike night down at the good 'ol Lickin' Snatch last night and none of my home girls and boys showed up. What's up y'all? I even tried to bribe you with drinks! Unless you live in a far away place (that's about three of you), you're in trouble! Actually, there was a bit more of an audience than the week before, but the crowd was kind of a rough one: Tessa's little brother and all his rowdy jock friends. They came mostly to see Mark play, but they got my fey electro-pop as a bonus and I could tell it wasn't really their cup of Coors Light. They were polite and applauded, but all I got afterward was glares. Actually, my throat was sorta raw anyway, I was a bit lethargic and it wasn't my best performance so maybe I should be glad everyone who said they'd be there flaked out. So here's the deal: I'm taking next week off from it, but the week after that, on Monday April 9, I will definitely be there doing the Orange Television thing and since that's 2 days before my birthday, I think I'll make it an occasion, do invitations, basically force people to come watch me moan over synthesized beats and bloops. So mark your calendars, kids. The best thing would be for you to bring your own talent and get into it and perform something, eh? Hope to see you there. Again: My Birthday, Mik-n-Mac's, April 9, 7 PM. My London London Bridge Wanna Go Down Lately I've developed an odd fetish for Stacy London, the fabulously arch co-host of TLC's addictive "What Not to Wear." I admire her classic passive aggressiveness - she can be outright mean to her make-over victims, but she does it in such a way that they just smile and giggle. She's is ultra-sarcastic and rotten but somehow delightfully charming at the same time, a trait I've been perfecting all my life as well. She reminds me a bit of Samantha's naughty cousin Serena on Bewitched - when watching "What Not To Wear" sometimes I half expect her to sigh, roll her eyes, then wiggle her nose and a perfect new outfit would magically appear on the guest. Her chemistry with co-host Clinton Kelly adds to the distinct watchability of the program, together they make a merciless team, tearing through ugly-ass wardrobes like paper shredders and replacing them with tasteful, modern apparel. The most entertainingly vacuous TV available, and when they have one of their "What Not to Wear Marathons", you can count me out of society and find me on the couch eating Fritos, glassy-eyed. So I was thrilled this week when it was revealed that the powers that be at TLC gave Miss London her very own weekly prime time talk show called "Shut Up! It's Stacy London." If you've seen her in action, you'll know what a perfect name that is for her show ("OH! SHUT! UP!" is her typical excited response when she sees the guest in their made-over state for the first time.) The ads show her chatting and catting it up with huge megastars (not) like Lisa Rinna and Jane Krakowski, but I think as people catch on to her mega-coolness, she'll start getting some bigger names. The show debuts Friday 4/6 at 10PM. The Poor Old Frog Needs a Little Help My 17 year-old godson Nikolas is in town from Seattle, and yesterday he wanted to take me out to lunch at Senor Froggy's downtown. Seems he'd had a constant craving for the Frog for the entire five years since he's been there, and he was clamoring for a fix. He told me that he viewed Senor Froggy as a Coeur d'Alene institution along the lines of Hudson's Hamburgers, a do-not-miss place you must visit when in town. I've always been a big fan of the place up until about the last year or so. I think new owners must have taken the place over around that time, and the quality of the food and service started visibly slipping. Everything here was always very consistent and professional, but the last few times I've dined there have been less-than-remarkable. For instance, one Wednesday it occurred to me that it was "Taco Wednesday" where you get three hard or soft shell tacos for a reasonable price - it's a special the place has run every Wednesday since the beginning of time. So, I went in to order my three tacos and was told that they had canceled the special that day because there was a parade downtown earlier. Not seeing the logic right away, I questioned further and the girl rolled her eyes like I was taking away from her valuable doing nothing time and said "I dunno, just too busy I guess." I was stunned, still not quite sure what she meant, but went ahead and ordered a crisp meat burrito to go. When I got it home it was undercooked and nearly inedible. One time I went in and was way put off by the man behind the counter (who I think may be the owner) who was overly friendly to me, to the point of coming across as totally phony and patronizing, something I just can't stand. "Hey buddy! What can I get ya Big Guy? Alright, pal! Do you want sour cream with that, my friend?" Uh...don't fake like I'm your dearest companion just because I'm ordering your greasy food. And that's been another problem with the place lately. Yes, it was always greasy, but now it seems like everything is just dripping with hot translucent brown oil, from the taco meat to the mexi tots, even the chips seem greasy! Kudos to them, however, for keeping Raspberry New York Seltzer on tap all these years - I don't even think you can get it anywhere else at this point. Yesterday, Nikolas and I watched in amazement as a new hire (not even attractive) bumbled his way through our order. It was like he was looking at a cash register for the first time in his life. Meanwhile, his co-worker stood there behind the counter endlessly talking to a buddy on his cell phone about the wild party night he'd had and "Duuuuuude...I'm on, like, a half-hour of sleep..." We would order something and the new hire would frantically scan the register before saying "Kyle! Kyle! How do I put in a small mexi-tots?" and the other guy would come over acting all put out that his conversation was being interrupted. "(Sigh) Here, you just push "small", then "mexi tots." and then he'd go back to his phone. We'd order another thing. Frantic scan, then "Kyle! Kyle! How do put in a medium drink?" Repeat the process for the entire order. I wasn't sure who I wanted to throttle the most, Kyle or the nitwit behind the register. In fact, I was ready to tell him just move and ring up my own food - how hard could it be? Back in the glory days (10 years ago?) when this place was run like a tight ship by those triplet girls I went to high school with, this never would have happened! My food was deeply greasy as expected and I spent the rest of the evening with that blah feeling that comes from eating fast Mexican gut bombs. Nikolas wisely chose the vegetarian burrito and some tots, declaring it excellent and exactly how he remembered, saying what a sense of relief he felt after craving the Frog for so many years. I didn't want to rain on his parade, so I didn't mention the fact I thought the place was slowly sliding down the deep end of the service and quality spiral. The place even looks kinda ghetto lately, like they started remodeling the counter area and gave up, and they desperately need to replace the big sign outside which has been sitting mysteriously blank for several months - it's an eyesore. I hope the current owners get their act together or by the next time Nikolas comes to town for his Senor Froggy fix, the place will be gone, replaced by some trendy, upscale pan-Asian joint or something.

Labels: Birthday, Food, Mik-n-Mac's, OTV Live, Random Thoughts, Restaurant Reviews

Labels: Mik-n-Mac's, OTV Live, Strange Happenings

After 7 years of hiding in the proverbial bedroom recording studio, Orange Television (my electronic music project) made it's live debut this past Monday at open mike night at Mik-n-Mac's. It was a spontaneous decision made a few hours before the event, and ended up being much easier to pull of than I had anticipated. I just picked 4 recent tracks, brought up the Acid (music studio) files on my laptop and deleted the vocals from the mix. When I performed, I just played with the separate music tracks, tweaking the levels and mixing them in and out while singing over the top. It sounded distorted to me because I was set up in the corner and had no monitor, I could just hear myself coming from the other side of the room where the big amps were. Odd experience, but fun. Thankfully, everyone in the bar said it sounded fine and clear, no distortion. (Reminder to self - bring the headphones next week so I can hear myself better). Now I want to actually start booking some gigs in other venues - look out Spokane. Watch for the obligatory OTV double live album in the near future. I had to down a healthy few shots of Rumple Minze due to a case of classic stage fright, and I was nice and loose and ready when my time came. Q helped me set up and offered moral support and ashtrays. There were only a handful of folks present, but the reaction was good and I didn't see anyone turn white and run screaming out the door with finger in ears, so that was encouraging. Songs performed were "Talk," "Miss Puddings Dead," "Spokane Blank City," and "Thanksgiving In Chinatown." If anyone wants to join my band and play tambourine or go-go dance or something, feel free to show up next week. It gets lonely up there. Actually, the Open Mike thing at Mik-n-Mac's has been a lot of fun so far. The only thing that really seems to be missing is an audience. Monday nights are traditionally slow, so it'll be a bit of a challenge to rouse people into going out. Now that I plan on making appearances with Orange Television, I'm gonna have to do some self-promotion. If I'm going to perform, I'd like people to actually hear it, y'know? I'm hoping all the performers of recent weeks plan on making it a habit too because so far so fab: Host Mark Stephens plays acoustic guitar and has a great voice for the classic rock and originals he performs; His girlfriend, Tessa Weston, has only played guitar for 6 months, but she's already good enough to join him on a few sings; Photographer Jesse Tinsley showed up with his ukelele and performed a fine rendition of "Over The Rainbow" as well as a pornographic folk tune in Hawaiian (!!) Last week, Otis G performed some acoustic versions of his 40 Ounce J hits "Beer Run" and "Go My Way" and his lovely wife Taryn had everyone present screaming with laughter during her all-too brief comedy routine about Ethiopian food and tampons. She has promised to lengthen her set and return. If you're in the CDA area and you're reading this, come down some Monday with your accordion or flugelhorn in tow. Come sing acapella reggaeton hits, perform Shamanic chants, do a mime tribute to Don Knotts, whatever it is you do, you should come and join in the fun. I'll even stoop to bribery: show up and if you perform I'll buy you a drink. Listen: Orange Television MySpace Mark Stephens MySpace 40 Ounce J MySpace

Labels: Event Reviews, Mik-n-Mac's, OTV Live