Butchke time

When I first strolled through the Vortex last night, I made a mental note that it was a weirder crowd than usual, mainly due to a demographic I had never seen in there before.  I am used to people with all manner of tattoos, body modification and gender confusion coming together to share burgers and brew.  Whose presence would make me stop and scratch my head?  What could possibly look out of place here?  Old Jews.  Once I went to the Laughing Skull green room it made sense.  I met self-described “Borscht Belt” comics Ira and Irving Bagel.  The Bagel Brothers.  Oy to the vey!  I was immediately offered a piece of Werther’s candy by two dudes sporting poorly spirit gummed bushy acrylic moustaches, thick black glasses, old man hats and dueling aluminum canes.  “Sweet  Jesus,” thought I.  This is going to be a long night. Our dear friend Tushar Singh started the ball rolling with an enthusiastic “Namaste!”  Did I mention the new demographic in the restaurant?  Well, they wandered to the Laughing Skull.  Tushar, though from Alabama, doesn’t look like he’s from around here.  I think the audience loved him for that and then they bonded over having experienced reverse bias.  Because he’s Indian, people immediately assume that Tushar’s smart and industrious.  I know that we are all collectively politically correct now and are supposed to blab on about how it’s wrong to profile and people should be judged on individual merit.  Whatever.  I would be thrilled if I could be lumped in to a stereotype that people associate with good things.  The Indians are focused, the Jews are good with money and community building, blacks are assumed to be athletic and vocal superstars, the Mormans are really nice…I’d take any of those prejudices.  As it is, I get lumped in with Buckhead housewives, who are categorically believed to be bad drivers who have married up.  Maybe the whole being seen as an individual might be better for me after all.  Meh.  Athens resident Luke Fields followed with true tales of what it’s really like to live without health insurance.  By now, you all know that I have a doctorate from the University of Dr. Drew.  Luke has received a similar degree, but he attended the College of Web MD, with a residency at the Center of Wikipedia.  It’s cool to be able to diagnose your own parasites, prescribe DVD box-sets and medicinal marijuana for treatment.  Clearly, he’s a really good doctor, because he looked totally healthy to me.The Bagel Brothers came out and warmed up for the headliners, comic duo Trevor Williams and Adam Newman.  The Bagel Brothers have a lot of “variety” in their act.  Think of what you would expect at one of those Catskill Mountains camps.  Shalom! It was strange to me that I never actually saw the Bagel Brothers in the same space with Trevor and Adam.  I think that something could be askew.

Trevor Williams, a UGA alum, has abandoned the South to live in NYC.  Apparently as long as you avoid the crap tourist traps, it’s a pretty okay vibe.  However, he still manages to spend enough time in his old stomping grounds to have noticed that Atlanta has gotten to be quite the foodie city.  It’s true.  I feel spoiled by all of the great places we have to dine out here.  While we are experiencing a lot of “farm to table” food trending now, the restaurant scene in New York is decidedly more uppity and pretentious.  Like pretty much all entertainment people, Trevor turned to working in a restaurant for a steady paying gig.  He had to supply a head-shot to bus tables.  Even though he describes his look as being “half retarded Jude Law”, it worked out. But he talked about the hiring process like it’s a bad thing.  I dunno.  I wouldn’t mind if Waffle House could force something like that as a part of their job application.  I mean, if you have to look at everyone while you’re eating, they should look at least as good as the bread basket.  Food for thought.  If you manage to get to one of the shows this weekend, you might want to do a warm salt-water gargle and some vocal scales before you leave the house.  There is occasion for a sing-along.  Three words: Monkey & Casio Keyboard.  Get ready to bring out your clapping hands and whoop-makers.  Adam Newman is recording a cd this weekend.  He covered a lot of material from explaining his love of haggling to score a good deal, Anne Frank…a first for a comic show, I think, dog-sitting, whether or not Snoop Dogg had a ghost writer for his memoir, working with kids while not being a molester, Jim Varney, and a fondness for truck stop employees.  Who doesn’t love them?  Adam talked a bit about past jobs like working the graveyard shift at Kroger and the really well adjusted people who shop for niche items at 3:30am.  Adam also once worked in a sandwich shop that bought their pickles in huge buckets.  On the side was a picture of warning for what NOT to use the buckets for.  His story brought up something that I spend too much time thinking about myself.  You know how you will get a plastic bag inside of something and it may say something like “This is not a toy”?  Why are there such obvious disclaimers on products and machinery?  It’s because people are dumbasses and at some point that very obviously dumb thing being warned against has been done.  And that’s how you instigate a baby funeral.  How can something so sad be funny???

But wait…there was more!  After Adam’s set, special guests were announced.  It was The Nyc Brothers; Johnny and Joey.  Guess who was hiding behind tight black t-shirts, shades and hair gel?  Yep, it was Trevor and Adam.  “Niiicce!”  Oops, was that a spoiler alert?  The Nice/Nyc Brothers are a riff on the Dog Brothers of Long Island.  They were two shvitzy shmegegi brothers featured in one of those MTV Sex in the 90s specials.  I am pretty certain they are the Godfathers of the Jersey Shore cast.  It’s nice to see that a legacy endures.

5 Songs about cannibalism that will eat at your soul

By and large, I think that most pop and rock songs are about love, playing in a band, being misunderstood or excitement over a day of the week.  Rap songs are predominantly about prosecution, pimping, money, drugs or some combination of all of the above.  Funk and soul are about dancing and making the sweet, sweet love with a foxy lady. Of course, the topics for songwriting are endless and can lean to the silly, autobiographical, serious or mundane.  Melanie Safka wrote and sang the absurd “Brand New Key” in 1971, about her roller skates.  Madonna, Ben Folds, Squeeze, XTC and any band with working biology have waxed about unplanned pregnancies.  Jimmy Buffett crooned about cheeseburgers of all things.  Tommy Tutone, Squeeze and Mike Jones all have lyrically tackled phone numbers.  However, there is one song topic that only a brave few have really dissected.  Without further ado, in no order, I give you five songs about cannibalism:

1.  “Timothy” by The Buoys:  I single-handedly tried to get this song going again during the Chilean miner crisis and excavation of 2010, but…wait for it…no one was biting.  Timothy chronicles the fate of three trapped and hungry miners.  Guess which one doesn’t make it out alive.  Of note is that Rupert Holmes was a member of The Buoys and is responsible for “Escape (The Pina Colada Song)”.   He should fry for that.

2.  “I Eat Cannibals, Part 1” by Toto Coelo:  It’s a new wave dance song about liking someone so much that you just want to eat them up.  My favorite line is “Healthy recipe, What you got is good for me”.  Forget the creepy insinuation of cooking someone in a stew pot, I am pretty sure that a restraining order could have been issued for the bad melody alone.  There was a Part 2, but it never got the airplay of Part 1.  People were full after the first one.  Really, it’s a disorder at this point.  I can’t seem to help myself with the bad puns.

3.  “I am a Cannibal” by Ke$ha” – Oh, Ke$ha…you try so hard, yet fail so miserably.  Busting a rhyme about Jeffrey Dahmer in auto-tune just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.  This song was meant to be edgy and controversial.  Instead it smacks of something that bored middle-school girls would write during study hall to kill time.  When will Ke$ha write a song that really bares her soul and shows who she is as an artist, and call it “I’m a Talentless A-hole”?

4.  “Michael” by Guadalcanal Diary:  While “Michael” never explicitly addresses eating or being eaten, it is most certainly about the idealistic Michael Rockefeller.  Yes THAT Rockefeller, who disappeared in New Guinea in 1961 and was never found.  Reports from local peoples were that he fell victim to headhunters.  I don’t really have a funny quip about that.  It’s too disturbing.  Also, both band and song are a bit obscure, so I couldn’t locate a clip.  However, if the notion of this song whets your appetite for more information (okay, there…I slid one in), check this out, then this and finally this from the In Search Of series, narrated by Mr. Spock Leonard Nimoy.

5.  “Maneater” by Hall and Oates:  I always knew that there was something dark lurking behind Oates’ mustache!  While the song may present as being about an unscrupulous hooker, I choose to believe that it isn’t about a woman hungry for attention and money at all.  The song wasn’t called “Dollar Grabber” and John Hall must have warned that “she’ll chew you up” no less that a gazillion times in the song.  I think it is what it says it is.  She’s got the hungry for men…she’s a man eater.

An honorable mention goes to…

Before there was South Park, Trey Parker’s first feature film was Cannibal! The Musical.  It’s based on the events surrounding the conviction of Alferd Packer, who allegedly had a few friends for lunch during an 1874 expedition through Colorado.  Set to campy tunes and horrific special effects.  Atlanta’s own Dad’s Garage Theatre has even staged a production based on this cult film.  Personally, I thought it was unwatchable.  I lasted about twenty minutes before I cursed Netflix and threw in the towel.

The Royal Wedding: Love American style?

I am “over the moon” about The Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton.  I can’t help that I am in a constant state of “about to wet myself”.  I already know what I am going to wear and that I will be completely jacked up on Twinnings and scones by 9am on Friday morning.  I am slightly grieved that this is such a non-event to my family, but luckily, I have Anglophile girlfriends to watch it all unroll with.  When Charles and Diana were married in 1981, I was ten and at summer camp.  My mother recorded it for me on our VCR to watch when I got home.  Alone.  It wasn’t how that should have gone down.  Right now, silver is being polished, china saucers dusted off and fruitcakes are curing in the pantries of giddy women and gay men all over the world, anticipating the parade of fairy-tale love.  It’ll be a grand affair, to be certain.  But the details are still in a cloud.

Goober-smacks like me are all lathered up over who the guests are, and what they will be wearing.  Little bits and pieces have been released about what the wedding cake will be, what refreshments will and won’t be served at the reception, how the wedding party will arrive and then later exit from Westminster Abbey.  The greatest mystery surrounds the wedding gown of Kate Middleton and who its designer is.  However, for as much as I love the Royals and want them to be what I expect…which is highbrow…I am kinda fascinated with the idea of what if Kate Middleton is one of those trashy Brits who love all things American?  What if she has been watching shows like My Big Friggin’ Wedding and CMT’s My Big Redneck Wedding from her satellite to get some ceremony ideas?  (I wonder if Nia Vardalos had the forethought to trademark “My Big _________ Wedding”.)

How validated would the American proletariat be if the bridal party were festooned in camouflage silk…

Photographer to wedding party, "Smile bigger...I can't see you!"

If the “something borrowed” was K-Fed’s Pimp chalice…

The chalice fit for a King

Or, what if the vows were sealed with a fist bump…

"You're my Shawty forever"

The Mountbatten-Windsors will have their choice of some pretty plush digs for setting up house.  It is reported that they will start out in his rented farmhouse in North Wales.  Yawn.  Kate and William are all about being “green” and living modestly.  This is so completely wrong.  They should be in a castle…

The kitchen here is already staffed

Flav’s Fried Chicken: tastes like failure

Winner, winner? Not so much...

I’ve got some bad news for those of you who have been planning your summer vacation around a road trip to Clinton, Iowa to eat at the flagship Flav’s Fried Chicken.  Just four months after its grand opening, FCC has turned off the fryer and closed its front door.  Moment of silence.  And as for those hundreds more Flav’s Fried Chicken restaurants that were planned as franchising opportunities?  I know, I know.  Pour a little of your forty on the ground for respect.

You might ask, “How could a fried chicken joint in an old Long John Silver’s, helmed by this smart dude in the middle of nowhere, fail?”

Yeah boyeee!

A couple of months ago there were reports that employee’s paychecks were bouncing.  Flav said it wasn’t true and that those employees were just “haters” who were more or less just jealous that Flav was there.  Or they were hatin’ on him for being fired.  Either way.  One report said there was just a glitch in the credit software, or something.   Even the system was hatin’.  But not Flav.  He was keepin’ it real.

And certainly, it wasn’t the innovative concept of fried chicken that didn’t deliver.  According to Flavor Flav, his  business partner, Nick Cimino, may have not been entirely on the ball.  Say’s Flav, “Let me be straight up with you, I went up inside there on April 2nd and I found potato salad that expired on February 28.”  Yes, he said “went up inside there”, like he was conducting a cavity search for something rancid and scored.  Eew!

Tater salad

However, Cimino claims that Flavor Flav is a fraud.  I can’t imagine how on earth he could have misrepresented himself to be anything other than this…

Business man Flavor Flav

Brass knuckle night

Aren't we adorable together?

I have a new girlfriend.  She gave me her phone number and we are totally going to do best friend stuff together like go shopping, talk about boys and swap recipes for organic face masks.  For reals.  Her name is Jen Kirkman, and you may have heard of her.  She’ll be at The Laughing Skull through the weekend, where you can go see her.  But know that she is mine.

Okay, so last night there was a girl-fight brewing in the bathroom.  Jen overheard things like killing and brass knuckles being discussed.  When that sort of thing happens you can’t not share it from the stage.  As luck would have it, all of the  brawling “ladies” were in the audience.  Hilarity ensued.

The core of the girl-fight was a dude and a messy break-up.  Jen is still kind of a newly wed, so she doesn’t have to worry about that stuff anymore.  Once you’re married you figure out that being married is really not such a b.f.d., but you now have a different vantage point about other people’s marriages.  Between Jen living in California and me living here in the South, we can talk a lot about gay marriage.  I think we both can pretty much agree that it’s harmless and not all that interesting.  What would be pretty riveting though is if gay marriage could be the gateway for some really spectacular oddball unions.  You know there would be a crazy cat lady dressing up Mr. Jingles in a kitty-cat top hat and a bow tie to walk down the aisle.  Or maybe creepy dragon-con guys would marry life-size Leeloo dolls.  The possibilities are endless.

But for now we are sticking with being married to men.  Manly men.  With guns.  And who will fight for your honor.  Jen talked about what a turn-on Ben Affleck’s character in The Town was.  I still haven’t seen it, but I am guessing it’s like in Goodfellas when Henry Hill pistol whipped the crap outta Karen’s neighbor and then gave her the gun to hide.  Meow.

When you get married, it’s like going to college and living in the dorm when you gain the freshman fifteen.  Why don’t my pants fit anymore?  Apparently when it happened to Jen, people told her it was because she was in love.  Turns out it could have also been because she thought that lapping the mall was exercise and so she could eat as much as she wanted to at the food court.   Because she’d be walking it off on the way back to the car.  Once Jen was faced with having to wear clothes with names like “Not Your Daughter’s Jeans” she knew it was time to go back to having proper meals…like cigarettes and a glass of wine for dinner.

Dinner for two

Bacon is the new black

Bacon has got to have the best publicist and marketing team ever.  Despite being an evil red meat that’s overwhelmingly fatty, loaded with salt and usually laden with a boatload of cancer inducing nitrates… the populace has gone whole hog for bacon.  That stuff is showing up everywhere!  It used to be that the only bacon inspired thing in the market place was Bac-os; the bacon flavored gravel that dieters pour on plain baked potatoes to fake themselves out.  (It works because you end up chipping or cracking your teeth trying to eat that crap.) And of course we’ve been enjoying the plays of Francis Bacon and the cinema proliferation of Kevin Bacon for years.  But they are alone no more.  Everywhere you look you can find a slice of bacon related merchandise.  But it’s not just the savory, salty deliciousness of bacon that’s getting all the attention.  No, now you can smell it, drink it and wrap yourself in it whenever the mood strikes. When you want to smell like your favorite food from the inside out, there is now Bacon cologne.  I have a mental picture in my mind of spritzing my pulse points and then stepping out get the morning paper.  Cut the camera to me being chased up and down the street by a pack of neighborhood cats and dogs to the strains of Yakety Sax.  Perfumer, John Leydon, insists and that his unisex fragrance is very wearable and that you really have to be right up on someone to catch the bacony whiff.  Just the same, I think that I’ll stick with Chanel No. 5.

Initially I was grossed out to the max over the bastardization that is bacon vodka and then I thought about how good it would be in Bloody Mary.  Mmm, bacon.  To be fair, as of press time, I haven’t actually had a bacontini or any other bacon libation.  However, one time my friend, Jackson, made Skittles vodka.  It smelled fruity and divine, but still managed to taste nothing like a rainbow and everything like rubbing alcohol.  I have to wonder if even bacon is strong enough to bust through the isopropyl wall.  If you want to make your own bacon vodka, check the “recipe” here.  Seems like a lot of work.  I have done my time with home distillery.  Remember my Boarding School Bordeaux?  Just go to your local package store and ask for Bakon Vodka to get started in screwing your liver and your cholesterol in tandem.There is no shortage of bacon-flavored candy, either.  This seems to most likely be the brainchild of Asians, who are known for creating confections that taste like seaweed, dry fish or beans.  Candy should be sweet.  Bacon candy is wrong.  Well, except for Vosage’s “Mo’s Bacon Bar”.  Chocolate and bacon should get married.

But not all bacon fans are about taste and aroma.  For many, bacon is a look.  How else could you explain using bacon bandages?  There is something a little whimsical about covering an open wound with something that looks like slimy, raw meat.

And like any fad, fashion follows.  Pot smokers, wear hemp when they can’t fire one up.  Acid-heads like staring at the trippy patterns and colors of tie-dyed anything.  Gym rats wear those low-crotch cotton genie pants and muscle shirts out to dinner.  Unless you’re Lady Gaga, and thank God you aren’t, being a bacon lover and wearing a suit of cured meat just doesn’t work.  But how do you advertise that you love pork…

Does this bra make me look fat?

Gagging on Gaga

Stefani Germanotta Lady Gag(a) rolled into town last night to do her thang.  Hot Damn had better stuff to do, like staying at home to wash her hair.  Because I’m never far from some sort of communicating device, I saw lots of pictures and was pummeled by the play by play on Facebook and Twitter.  Of course Gaga continued her ridiculous banter where she lovingly called fans “her little monsters”.  Personally, I have always understood calling someone a monster to be unflattering.  Aileen Wuornos; that’s a monster.  Ten year old girls with bad musical taste and newly minted gays?  Not really.  But, a case could be made…

Gaga fan let the cat INTO the closet

Known for her outlandish get-ups and performance art styling, Stefani’s Gaga’s look is cutting edge.  Of what, I am uncertain.  Just days ago, adorable “little monster” fan Angela Barnes really went for it when choosing an unconventional standout look to wear to Gaga’s Oklahoma City concert.  Feeling the pressure to dress to impress, Angela got very creative and reigned in the family kitty to inspire her costume.  Oh, wait.  Maybe inspire isn’t the right word choice.  No, no.  I think it’s sacrifice.  Yes, that’s it.  Twenty-year-old Angela mutilated kitty and streaked her face and a long coat in kitty’s blood.  She also put kitty’s liver in a makeup compact…presumably for freshening up her face at the show.  “Little Monster”?  Perfect.

In the past couple of weeks Stefani has been in the media a lot.  There is the video of her busting ass at a concert…

And she’s releasing a new single.  It’s called “Judas”.  Just in time for Easter.

Gag(a) also did a photo shoot and interview for The May cover of Harper’s Bazaar.  I don’t think I have ever rolled my eyes as often or as forcefully as I did when I read it.  Because I have gone there, you don’t have to.  You’re welcome.  In summary, interviewer Derek Blasberg asked about the new pointy horns that “sprouted” from her head and shoulders when she incubated and was reborn on the Grammy Awards show.

Horned cover girl 

“Well, first of all,” she says, “they’re not prosthetics. They’re my bones.”

Okay, so when did the bones appear?

“They’ve always been inside of me, but I have been waiting for the right time to reveal to the universe who I truly am.”

Did she will them to come out for this album?

“They come out when I’m inspired.”

Is she worried that this new look will inspire other people to “grow” similar bones?

“We all have these bones!” she says tersely. “They’re the light from inside of us.”

Errant bones that grow and shrink at will?  We have light inside of us?  Oh, crap.  My doctor has said nothing to me about this, but it could explain so much.

Stefani continues to yawn on nonsensically when she turns her focus to slighting pretty Hollywood types…

“I have never had plastic surgery, and there are many pop singers who have. I think that promoting insecurity in the form of plastic surgery is infinitely more harmful than an artistic expression related to body modification.”

Gaga says, "No".

“And how many models and actresses do you see on magazine covers who have brand-new faces and have had plastic surgery, while I myself have never had any plastic surgery? I am an artist, and I have the ability and the free will to choose the way the world will envision me.”

Wait one hot minute.  So, she has the right to alter her appearance through body modification, but no one else can?  What. A. Bitch.  But then she qualifies her stance on traditional celebrity culture for celebrities and barfed out this gem:

“Am I going to try and embrace Hollywood and assimilate to that culture?  I put my toe in that water, and it was a Kegel-exercise vaginal reaction where I clenched and had to retract immediately.”

In her final attempt at sounding provocative and meaningful,

“I’ve always wanted to be an adjective.”

Object of thirteen year old sci-fi dork fantasies

I have an adjective:  fucking ridiculous.  There.

The Wonderful World of Sid & Marty Krofft: a craptacular fail

Not too long ago I was listening to the Adam Carolla podcast with guest Dana Gould.  Apparently, Dana had been working on a screenplay for Sigmund and the Sea Monsters.  Mercifully, it got canned.  I mean, bad for Dana and all that, but it’s for the greater good.  Most likely last summer’s turd blossom, the big screen adaptation of Land of the Lost, can take the lion’s share of credit for ruining the chances of Gould’s work ever seeing light.  However, hearing about that crapfest got me to thinking about an obscure footnote in Atlanta history and in my own childhood.

One of a kind in Atlantas Omni

When I was five I discovered the magic of shows like the above mentioned in addition to Dr. Shrinker, H.R. Pufnstuf, Electra Woman and Dyna Girl.  They are all “from the creative minds” of puppeteer brothers, Sid and Marty Krofft.  Having my own children now, I know all too well that kids will watch anything that’s on TV.  Five year olds have neither taste nor discrimination.  Because of that whole “lots of brothers and the one television” situation at my house, I had these beloved Krofft shows put on ice.  Those boys usurped my getting to the TV first by simply telling my mother that all of the Krofft shows were drug culture propaganda disguised as childrens programming.  Maybe so.  I was crushed.  In retrospect, it was a brilliant ploy by the brothers.  But, I was going to be getting an opportunity to expose my parents to, and thus persuade them of, the awesomeness of all that was Krofft.  I’d make them see and then they would know!

A complex map

The year of 1976 is not only notable in U.S. history as the bicentennial of our great country; it also marks the year that The Wonderful World of Sid & Marty Krofft came to Atlanta and took up residence inside of downtown’s Omni International.   It was an indoor, vertical, psychedelic theme park that was dreamed up and designed by the brothers Krofft after their great success with creating and implementing shows and rides at Six Flags Over Georgia.  I spent weeks begging, performing perfunctory chores and dutifully brown nosing until my keepers agreed to take me to my Mecca as a birthday outing.  I would have done anything and given anything up to go.

Harlequin head

It was beyond anything that I could have expected…because it sucked!  Hard! Aside from listening to Mom and Dad chant “waste of money” over and over, it was not good…and at six, even I knew it.  It started out pretty great, riding a huge, world-record-breakingly tall escalator to the top of the park and being greeted by a pair of giant clown heads…and then it fell apart.

There was no shortage of weird talking trees and character people walking around and dancing like they were at a Dead show looking for a miracle, which only gelled my mother’s belief that everyone associated with the Kroffts was “on pot or glue”.

"Clearly on drugs," according to my mother

I was most looking forward to the crystal carousel.  It was a transparent, three-story merry-go-round made of imagined beasts, crystal trees and it was going to change my life.   Yeah, it was closed for repair.  Not only was it not operating, but also there was a barrier around it, so you couldn’t even get that close to it to see all of the wonder.  “I can’t believe we paid for this; what a waste of money.”

Pinball ride...Im sure it was a metaphor...for DRUGS

Even though the carousel was a bust, at least we could go on the pinball ride that was down a level or two.  Think of a huge pinball machine and you are in an orb bouncing from side to side and against big bumpers.  That’s totally cool, right?  It’s not especially cool when that ride breaks about 15ft. into it and gets shut down and you have to crawl out of the ball and walk off of the platform.  “What a waste of money”.  Again.

A family ejecting from the pinball

We did see a “show” that at least gave my folks a chance to sit down and tag a butt or two.  That worked out okay for me.  Things were starting to look up and I was pretty sure that I’d be watching Wonderbug at home again in no time.  Not so fast.

Our next station was the bottom level of the park and I was really excited.  This was where all the H.R. Pufnstuf stuff was going to be.  It was called “The Living Island”.  It was purported to be the real meat and potatoes of the whole experience and we were saving it for last.  To get there, you got on a big freight elevator that was meant to simulate being in a mineshaft.  Did you know that my birthday is the last day of August?  That means it’s hot.  Seasonally, this is not a time when you want to get stuck on an elevator.  For about ninety minutes I got to listen to lots of grown-ups muttering my parents mantra, “Such a waste of money.  I want my money back.”  And for the duration, between the bellyaching of bitching parents and disgruntled guests, I could hear the cackle of Witchiepoo and the sounds of shipwrecked Jimmy and his flute Freddy having adventures.

They haunt my daydreams

And I was stuck in a fucking fake mineshaft.  Once we were finally freed from the elevator we were given vouchers to return to the park as an apology.  We never made it into “The Living Island”.  My parents were pissed and it was over.  They practically dislocated my shoulder jerking me out of there.  I like to daydream in my head that it would have been just like Bob Odenkirk and David Cross’ rendition that you can see here.

In a cruel twist, the brothers that came with us and ditched us the moment we got there…had a blast.

And, on a side note, and this will surprise you…The Wonderful World of Sid & Marty Krofft closed within six months of opening.  In 20/20 hindsight it was a bad idea to open a theme park with four rides that don’t operate reliably in the middle of what used to be the scariest city ever.  The space is now part of the CNN complex and all that remains is that tall-assed escalator.  People were so pissed by that debacle that next to nothing has survived.  When the doors were shut they stayed that way and eventually it was all just demo.ed and put in the trash.  Where it belonged.

Tres amis

Beckoning you to the Laughing Skull

Trey Toler and Friends are the deal for this weekend at the Laughing Skull.  Trey has been busy as shit and I’m amazed that he has time for us people.  I mean, he’s out of the closet in real life, but has been going back in the closet for The Regular Guys show.  Have you heard him on 100.5 fm rooting around in the closets and drawers of local celebrities and calling out fashion douche baggery and tackiness?  And the comedy festival is finally done.  Whew!

Tushar Singh hosted Trey and his “friends” last night and I must say…it was my favorite Tushar night.  The front row of the club was taken up by a group of guys in town for a bachelor party weekend.  Tonight was their “warm up” and Tushar ran with the theme and told us about a bachelor party that he once attended.  Well, it ended up being more of a spa day at an Asian massage parlor.   It doesn’t quite sound like the same set up as when I book a little “me” time at Spa Sydell.  I don’t know if his Mom reads reviews so I am definitely not going to write a thing about the degrees of service, being weirded out by the am talk show that plays in place of ambient Zamfir pan flute nature music, or the ATM machine that sits where the spring water keg should be.

Michael Albanese finally has clarified for me what it means when somebody “pokes” me on Facebook.  It’s means exactly what my Mr. says it does.  Michael is multi-talented and is actually in a movie that is being released in June.  Thinking ahead to what will be certain celebrity, Michael has been working on having a catch phrase.  Paris Hilton has “That’s hot!” Charlie Sheen has “Winning, duh!”  Audra Lee had “See you next time…on Kids’ Beat!”  What did he come up with?  “…And that’s how I got AIDS!”  Sounds like a winner!  Especially for Atlanta.

Joe Gallois has been getting lean in the New Year.  As a chick, I am always interested in labor stories and how people have lost weight.  This could be why I love TLC.  According to Joe, dropping the pounds is as simple as no longer obsessively playing the McDonald’s Monopoly game.  Sounds easy enough.  But Joe is being smart, not just with food choices, but as a consumer.  TV commercials that tell him that just because he has a door, he has a gym are not sucking him in.

Dave Stone is one of the Beards of Comedy and he is a fan of important movies.  Like Red Dawn.  He was affected greatly by that one, and immediately began training should there ever be an invasion in Woodstock.  This “training” mainly means that there are shit loads of canned goods buried all through his parents’ lawn.  Dave broached a subject that I wonder about as I sit in carpool line everyday.  What are people thinking with all of the customized family deals all over their cars?  I can know their monogram, who they voted for, where their kids go to school, what sports teams they play on…this has got to be catnip for molesters and creeps.  I know that we are right about this.

Nicole Chiles is hooty and great on the fly.  Earlier I realized that being poked on Facebook could be flattering, but now Nicole tells me that anal doesn’t really count as sex.  Oh, well.  But we can agree that people with new babies who also have Facebook will bore you to tears.  But at the same time, there are those Facebookers who use their status update as a platform for their neurosis and it’s their special place to beg for attention.  That drama is bad, too.  Nicole is married and had a lot of advice for the bachelor party about getting doughnut fat afterwards, the frequency of sex dipping and how acquiring home mortgages will be like getting STDs when they were single.  Because really, what’s one more?

Andy Sandford

Another Beard, Andy Sandford, dropped in tonight.  He’s done a great job with his New Year’s Resolution of “being a better person”.  It’s easy to succeed when your goals are vague.  But being a better person doesn’t mean that you have to run around treating others, as you would want to be treated.  Oh, God though.  What would that mean if it did?

Ben Owen that the gays are fighting for all of the wrong things.  Why on earth are they fussing so much so that they can be married?  Being gay is like the best thing ever for men, whose natural inclination is to stay single.  Marriage just being illegal is such an easy solution.  And what about making a huge stink to be in the military?  Really?  Why would anyone pitch a hissy to go sit in a desert across the world?

Karen Hilton

Karen Hilton is no half-ass devil worshiper.  None of them are, for that matter.  All devil worshipers are hardcore.  Now, we all know that I love language, grammar and ignoring rules about run-on sentences so it makes my heart skip with joy when people can make funny about word-smithing and usage so you can just imagine that I was thrilled when Karen talked about adding new words to the American dictionary.  “Ginormous” made it this year, but “dingleberry” (a favorite of mine, by the way) remains shut out.

Trey Toler

Trey Toler topped the night off with his thing.  Our bachelors were planning to visit some strip clubs while in town and Trey said that his first strip club was the Cleremont Lounge.   This explains much about Trey’s “lifestyle choice” and why he thinks of the uterus as just a baby house.  With prom season in full swing, Trey did address “prom babies” left in toilets.  It’s not what you’re thinking. He also waxed a bit about suicide and how selfish people are who skip down this lane.  Especially when it’s your Xanax that they’ve o.d.ed on.  Now, THAT would be a problem…how would you get more, especially while you’re having this crisis of dealing with a friend’s suicide?  I think the take away here is that you need to hide your good shit when your unstable friends drop in for a visit.

Get your goat: fun and games in Afghanistan

Holy cow! PETA and the Taliban may actually have something in common. Let me explain…

Who wants to come outside to play today?

Yesterday I was reading the Wall Street Journal and came across an article that was so strange that I thought it was surely the newspaper equivalent to a trap street. A trap street is a deliberately placed fictional roadway planted on a map or atlas that will protect the publisher from copyright violations and unauthorized reproductions by unseemly cartographers. In theory anyway.

For as much as we now know about Afghanistan’s government and their social tribulations, what do you really know about them culturally aside from women wear burqas, men wear bushy mustaches and they all throw rocks? Oh, like, for instance do you know what their national sport is? It’s called buzkashi. Well, it’s not exactly polo, but it’s eerily similar. That’s not true. Yes, both games are played on horseback. In polo, the goal is to get a small white ball through a goal using a mallet. In buzkashi, the player’s objective is to pick up and then heave a decapitated goat over a goal line and into “the circle of justice” without the aid of straps. Or something akin to that. See? Similar, but not the same.

Draw that circle wide

Polo can be traced as far back as 100 B.C. in Persia. While the rules of polo have been static since the first official club was formed in 1800s, buzkashi continues to evolve a bit. A long time ago it was played on camels. The game likely began as a way to train villagers to go repossess stolen livestock from marauding neighbors. Ride in, get your goat back, wreak some havoc and go home. Buzkashi tournaments can go on for days and a goat carcass can get pretty roughed up and start falling apart. That’s no fun! Typically, games are now played with a dead calf that’s been beheaded, kneecapped, drained of its cow juices, disemboweled, soaked in water for a day and then stuffed with sand. It toughens it up and then they can play with it longer that way. Can you imagine? I can’t even go there. Women are not allowed to attend games, but really, what woman would even want to? Gag.

They should make like King David and cut the thing in two

Oh, and “winner, winner chicken dinner”? Not so much. It’s a very tenderized goat or calf stew cooked up and served to poor people living near the buzkashi field. The winning horseman gets turbans, cash and rifles. Great. Just what I’m sure the community and world at large need for him to have.

Aaw, chicks DO dig buzshaki

When the Taliban was large and in charge, buzkashi was forbidden because they felt that it was an immoral game. I don’t know about immoral, but it sounds gross as hell. And here’s where the Taliban and PETA can agree to hold hands and do a little light petting. While the Afghan Buzkashi Federation desires to apply for buzkashi to become an Olympic sport, PETA…like the Taliban… wants it banned. They’ve taken care of fox hunting in England and are working on demonizing bullfighting in Spain.

Clearly, the Taliban didn’t succeed in squashing buzkashi for good. Could PETA really be more powerful and far reaching than the Taliban? In the immortal words of 80s super-group Asia, “Only time will tell”.

I’m just clownin’

If I want to make sure that Big Daddy stays up all night, there’s only one word that I need to whisper in his ear.  This same word will make the hair stand up on his head…and he rocks the bald look.  Clowns.

Pop goes the weasel

The faintest suggestion of floppy shoes, honking red noses or water squirting lapel flowers sends Greg into spasms.  But why?  Clowns are colorful, happy and funny…well, except for sad clowns painted on velvet.  They make me weep.  I have to wonder if the late 1960s and early 1970s was a time in which the culture was so saturated in all things clown that future grown men got way turned off and then eventually freaked out by them.  There was The Bozo the Clown Show, Barbara Streisand assaulting little ears with “Send in the Clowns”, Ronald McDonald hawking fast-food, jack-in-the-box toys and clown nursery themes.  There is even a DSM-IV (that’s lingo for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for mental disorders) word for the widespread phenomenon of being terror stricken by clowns: coulrophobia.

Molesting Mexi-clown

Turns out that clowns really are creepy.  Children’s party clown, Jose Guadalupe Jimenez, was recently arrested in California for abducting a twelve year old in 2002, raping her and then molesting her in his…black passenger van.  I know, it is shocking that a van could be a crime scene.  Jimenez, whose clown name is El Tin Larin (The Voice Box), was in full garb when he nabbed his victim at a Taco Bell.  Authorities have seized his masks, costumes, shoes, puppets and balloons looking for…gulp…evidence of other diddled victims.  I could make a Bill Clinton parallel here, but I won’t stoop that low.  After all, I’m a lady.

This totally creeps me out

Criminal clowns aren’t new.  Though Pogo the Clown was certainly the most prolific real-life bad clown.   Textbook serial killer John Wayne Gacy managed to rape and murder thirty-three teenage boys in just six years, all the while dressing as alter-ego harlequin, Pogo, and contorting balloons into animals at community functions.  In a super macabre twist, Gacy made thousands of dollars painting and selling self-portraits of his Pogo persona while on death row.

It is awful

For me personally, there is a particular clown that can make my toes curl.  When I was in college, I watched It with my roommate Lisa and the two of us got completely wigged out by Pennywise the Clown.  Holy crap!  A fang-toothed, old-timey, rabid clown that lures children down sewer gutters with big, shiny balloons?  “It floats.”  Quiver.

How to book a clown

But not all scary clowns have to be fleshy and real…The Simpson’s have given me Krusty the Clown to identify with.  Krusty is disturbing because he is sort of a representation of the burnt-out, tired cynical disappointment that lurks somewhere in my soul.  Deep.  Move on, shall we?

Then there are clowns that are just, well, you be the judge…

This is their job

…dumb.

The Insane Clown Posse is a hip-hop band, I know, made up of two dorks that dress up as “wicked clowns” and bust evil rhymes about a mythological dark carnival.  I don’t know if I am more concerned that they actually have fans, or that they call the boy ones Juggalos and the girl ones Juggalettes.  Seriously?  This is like something a couple of emo twelve-year-old boys would come up with.

The joke that's not a joke

By a landslide, the weirdest clown lifestyle, outside of burying boys in your crawl space, is called Krumpin’.  Krumpers are black freestyle break-dancers who dress up in clown garb and engage in street dance offs with rival dance gangs.  I could not make this shit up.  It’s described as being dark, aggressive and mind-blowing.

Consider my mind blown.

Bill and Ted’s bogus sequel

Actor Alex Winters is probably exhausted from doing the happy dance all weekend.  Who is Alex Winters?  He is an actor/director/producer who has done loads of voice work on Ben 10 and several other animated projects, acted and sang in many Broadway stage productions, directed on Jimmy Kimmel, was in The Lost Boys…oh hell, you don’t know who I am talking about, do you?  How ‘bout this: Bill S. Preston, Esq.?  The Bill in Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure and Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey?  Ring a bell now?  Well, it has just been announced in the past few days that the Bill and Ted’s trilogy will finally be complete, as the third installment is totally going to happen.  Party on and thank God!  I may finally know what the song is that Wyld Stallyns writes and performs that transforms mankind and teaches us to “Be excellent to each other”.  For a while now, I have been sure that it was going to end up being Fergie singing “My Humps”.  (Insert sigh of relief here.)  Awesome!

I actually loved the first movie.  At the time, it was pretty clever.  Which was excellent!  The acting was…well, the biggest launch was Keanu Reeves, who will reprise his role as So. Cal. dipshit, Ted.  In interviews, Keanu has said that the movie will concentrate on Bill and Ted’s obsession with creating their Utopian society and making it happen with music.  They are going to have to do a little time travel.  I am so curious to know if they will still be breaking the time and space continuum in a phone booth.  When is the last time you saw a phone booth?  For me, it was in the parking lot of a Waffle House turned check cashing and title pawn hut on Tara Boulevard.  And of course it is somewhat problematic that George Carlin, who played their guide, Rufus, is stroking a harp while reclining on a fluffy cloud.  However, I am sure that by some CGI Tron weirdness he will be propped up and able to deliver lines Clutch Cargo style.

And there is one other, tiny thing…the script should be ready in about six weeks.  That means that Bill and Ted will be about fifty years old during filming.  I don’t think that Bill or Ted would have ever made it past thirty.  Bogus!

Skull festival

It’s April, so festival season is getting kicked up.  I’ve been to all sorts of festivals and there are usually a few common threads: crappy crafts, dirty stoners milling around outside and burrito stands.  The Laughing Skull’s Comedy Festival bucks what you know.  For one thing, it lasts more than a weekend, it’s mostly inside and you’re not ready to go home when it’s done.  In place of homemade dream-catchers and hand loomed scarves, there’s a pretty cool t-shirt designed by Trey Toler.  And who needs burritos made in a lean to shack when the Vortex is just through the hallway?

So, for the past few months the “festival” has been rolling all over the country.  Winning comics have been submitted and whittled down to 72 finalists.  Between Wednesday and Saturday night there will be a winner.  But that’s just incidental.  There are all sorts of other things going on when the funny isn’t being made…poker games, workshops with industry insiders, late night parties at the Cleremont Lounge and even a kickball game at Piedmont Park on Saturday at 3:00.  What could be better than seeing a bunch of pale comics taking it to the field?

Last night I saw the early show and the joint was jumping.  There were twelve comics who each did a few minutes of their best material.  It ran the gamut from Easy buttons, grammar, rapper street credibility, volunteerism and drugs.  Hell, there was even a Morrissey reference.  Nice.  Margaret Cho wrapped it all together at the end while the judges decided the winners of that show.  In order: Ari Shaffir, Tim Armstrong, Johnathan Pfindler, and Leo Flowers.

Winner Ari Shaffir

Googler

Do you Google?  I do.  I Google everything.  Unless you are an aspiring door-to-door encyclopedia salesman or a licensed private investigator, you love Google.  What can I make for dinner using seasoned rice vinegar?  When did Prussia fall?  Where can I buy a cat-of-nine-tails?  Can a body really be dissolved in a tub acid?  There are so many questions and I don’t so much care whether the myriad of answers available on the internet are completely accurate or not; I just need them to sound about right enough.  And volume speaks volumes to me.

Googling isn’t just useful for planning trips and tracking your ancestry, it is my go-to stalking tool.  Oh, don’t be so shocked.  Besides, stalkers aren’t sad and lonely.  They are informed and safe.  Who hasn’t been curious about their neighbor, the new teacher at school or wondered what ever happened to that special crush from fifth grade?  Back when I was dating, Al Gore hadn’t invented the internet yet.  I had to do all of my investigative journalism through old-fashioned gumshoe work.  There was *69 (which could only tell you the last number that called you), asking friends, the white pages, alumni directories, drive-bys and the occasional hide-out in the bushes if you wanted to dig deep.  Luckily, I found my fella at a college friend’s wedding, so it was pretty easy to tease apart the story of his life before the first official date.  Forewarned is forearmed.  And luckily, in his early twenties there just wasn’t time to do much more than finish school, have an internship or two and a job.  Nothing too juicy had happened yet: no kids, no dog-fight organizing, or bankruptcy.

My hero...Google

But  if I was dating now?  Years later, it’s a whole new gig.  You can believe that if I made a dinner date on Monday for Thursday, by Tuesday I would know everything.  And I do mean everything.  It is just about impossible to keep anything private anymore.  Maybe that’s why I blog…I can beat anyone else to the punch.  Seriously though.  As much as you think that you are keeping things close to the vest by not having a Facebook account, published phone numbers or using a fake name on your youporn.com account, you will be exposed.  Other people will post a picture of you from a college mixer with hunch-punch stains on your t-shirt, your elementary school is slowly scanning and publishing their archived yearbooks, your gold-level sponsorship of a local special interest militia group has been noted and celebrated in their on-line newsletter.  But better yet, there could be that wedding announcement in the community paper or maybe a piece in The Blotter about your “repeat offender” status.

I am actually more concerned when my search engine comes up empty than when it is full of underlined and bold-lettered text.  Why can’t I find you?  How did you scrub Google?  Some of my girlfriends have never married, or they have recently become single again.  I have watched enough Lifetime movies to know that if my friend tells me about a great guy whose parents have pre-deceased their meeting and his only brother just succumbed to cancer…well?  Stay away.  Or the dreamboat who always meets her at the restaurant and only uses cash?  Check, please!  What about the dude who works in Atlanta during the week, but has to fly out to “trade shows” every weekend.  Really?  Really?  With the miracle of Google, I am almost thinking that a gal legally assumes the risk of being Chloroformed, ball-gagged, bound and stuffed in a 55 gallon drum if she doesn’t Google any potential suitor, coworker or handyman.  Take a cue from town harlot, Kim Zolciak, and let your fingers do the research and click them keys.

Footnote:  After I wrote today’s blog, I decided to google myself.  Buried within my own feedback is an apparently well-known and lauded Black Panther activist and poet whose maiden name is just one vowel off from mine and we have the same last name, too.  FYI: I am not moonlighting in Tanzania under the nickname “Mama C”.  I just wanted to clear up that confusion.

Skylarking

Get packing!

This past Saturday, Big Daddy decided that we needed to get prepared for our upcoming family trip.  That is happening in June.  Whatever.  The first bullet on the list was luggage.  What do we have?  Who’s taking what?  What are we checking?  Carrying on?  And yadda, yaddda, yadda.  This type of minutia is beyond tedious for me, especially double-digit weeks out from departure.  Oh, well.  In marriage, we humor one another and compromise all the way to the finish line.

Who knew that the luggage inventory would make Snakebite cry instead of me?  Apparently, we are raising a new-millennium Veruca Salt.  She began weeping that she thought the cruise was only twelve days, and WTH is this business about packing for eighteen days.  And then the statement that rocked our Saturday got vomited out between gulps and gasps…, “But, I don’t want to go to Europe, again.”  Where. Have. We. Gone. Wrong?  Am I raising a “me-me-me monster” by giving kick ass opportunities, or am I just dragging my poor kids into my own wanderlust and expecting them to be thrilled at how lucky they are and how they won the parental jackpot?  Is that so hard to get on board with???

Da plane! Da plane!

In earlier blogs, I have discussed how we stuffed a juvenile militia in a ‘wagon and rolled our happy asses down to Daytona Beach.  Granted, I did get to go on some pretty great trips before I ever got a high school diploma, but I also got left home.  A lot.  My Mom and Step-dad, Carolyn and Tom to you, belonged to this group called The Skylarks, here in Atlanta.  Basically, it was like having a part-share in a Boeing-720.   It was better than any country club.  For parents.  The Skylarks flew to Mexico, the Caribbean and Bermuda at least a couple of times a month.  This group, would never be allowed today, because you just showed up and went.  Sometimes they would have “mystery” trips.  You’d call in a couple of days ahead of time and get the packing list.  It was on your descent that the captain would announce where you were landing.

My first trip out of the country was a Skylark’s trip Curacao.  The plane was like having a secret access pass to a nightclub.  Everyone knew each other and was loaded by the time we landed.  My brother, Chris, and I still talk about that trip and what we did.  Chris was allowed to “casino” and won enough money to buy some YSL cologne at the duty-free shop.  On another Skylarks trip to the Bahamas, the brothers gave me Jim Carroll’s The Basket Ball Diaries and J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye to read while they ditched me at night and went to the resort clubs.  I was almost twelve.  The one time mom checked in at our room, she was pissed.  I later majored in Literature.  Who knew that being abandoned by skirt-chasing brothers would shape my academic future and influence me into a major that makes no money.

Vacation inclusion was not the norm.  Usually, us kids were secured at my Grandparent’s house.  It wasn’t the sort of multi-generational fantasy camp that most people think about when you say “Grandparent’s house”.  We didn’t bake cookies, go to the circus or play games together.  I don’t think they really liked kids all that much.  I always felt a bit jipped when we got picked up late Sunday afternoon by a couple of giddy, sunburned parents.  While my folks were swigging margaritas and dancing in a conga line on a beach, I was white knuckling it through episodes of Lawrence Welk, back-to-back Wild Kingdom and low-sodium meals.  So, now, as a parent, I take those kids everywhere!  I think that I’m doing the right thing, but… is this one of  t h o s e  things?

Will the real Veruca Salt please stand up?

One of those things is giving your kids something that you fantasized about growing up, only to have the shit disappointed out of them once they are out of college and off the parental dole.  I think it is probably a natural instinct to want to give your kids beyond what you think you had, be it material things, “quality time”, or just showering them with opportunities.  Give them too little; they’ll resent me.  Give them too much; they’ll still resent me.  Do nothing= still resentment.  I can’t win either in any scenario.  So we’re doing what I want to do. Because, really, it’s all about me.   And they’ll learn to get through it.

Charlie Sheen: winning at marketing

Hats off

A lot of you have asked me why I haven’t had much to say about the “Charlie Sheen” buzz. Honestly, it’s been so craptastic that I haven’t been able to really get a handle on it. At first I wanted to crack hardcore on it, and even lightly addressed it here. But then it started making me feel itchy and uncomfortable. I was kinda waiting to see if he showed up with the blue lips or not. You don’t want to bust on someone only to have him or her go over the rainbow two weeks later. Ya know? It’s bad karma. Now, as a news item, I consider it “still developing”.

Just like that!

Do you remember that thing a couple of years ago when Joaquin Phoenix started acting all cracky and publicly unraveling every chance he got? Ostensibly, he was ditching his acting gig for a lucrative career in hip-hop. Meanwhile, brother-in-law and seeming enabler, Casey Affleck, was always on hand with a camera to document the down spiral and final meltdown. All of the footage was eventually compiled and edited into the documentary I’m Still Here. It turned out to be an elaborate hoax, a gimmick. Joaquin was acting. And that’s what actors do; they act.

And...Action!

My professional opinion, because I have an imaginary advanced degree in counseling from the University of Celebrity Rehab, is that Mr. Sheen suffers from sex addiction, drug abuse induced dementia and an acute case of fame whoring. The fame whoring is compounded by the people on his payroll who just want to make sure that the booger sugar keeps coming, the private jets get fueled and the nannies get paid. How much trouble is he in, really? No custody has been revoked, he hasn’t been found guilty enough for incarceration, the bills have been paid and no one has pulled a 5150 on his ass.

Charlie does have a rich history of questionable behavior; however, earning him the coveted moniker “Bad Boy, Charlie Sheen”. Um, he’s not a boy though. Dude’s almost 50. Details, people, details. There was the likelihood that he shot Kelly Preston when they dated, he was one of Heidi Fleiss’ preferred clients (it was widely rumored that he met future ex-wife Denise Richards while she was on the payroll), there were overdoses, wife beating allegations and hotel trashing with a game of “hooker in the closet”. What a hot mess. But when you have this sort of reputation it’s hard to pull a Robert Downey, Jr. and reform. So what can you do? Sheen has, of late, created an empire of t-shirts and sold-out live performances. He’s been doing podcasts, interviews and tweeting like his life depends on it. What on earth Charlie is going to do on stage remains a mystery. What I do know is that just ordering t-shirts for manufacture takes some focus and effort. Muddling through the contracts to book venues is tedious and time consuming. I suspect it’s a matter of minutes before we discover that the catchphrases “Winning…duh”, “Tigerblood” and “Sheenuis” have all been trademarked.

Duh

And last week he recorded a song with Snoop Dogg, for Christsake. This has got to be the best coordinated and meticulously marketed free-fall since the dawn of Hollywood. So there. Unless the greasy one is discovered face down in the artificial grass next to the pool by one of his meth-head live-ins next week (Denise and Brooke: Girls, keep your fingers crossed!), my official position will be that it’s a calculated ploy. He is trying.  Hard.  And seems to be winning all the way to the bank.

Fitting in a Thursday night

Where do I fit in?

Do you ever have those big existential questions that loom over you?  You know the ones about: “Who am I” or “Where do I fit it?”  Every time that I feel confident and sure-footed about the answers, something twists.  I get older, they get younger.  Last night was a pretty succinct real life illustration of what I’m talking about.

I started out at the opening party for the new Jonathan Adler retail showroom in Atlanta.  If you don’t know who he is or aren’t familiar with what he does, just give it a little time.  Jonathan started out as a pot dealer…let me explain.

Pot candles make an excellent hostess gift

He makes pots and things out of bisque clay, like vases covered in boobies, menorahs, bongs and canisters for Quaaludes.  He has branched into funky textiles, lighting, furniture and purveying his “happy chic” lifestyle.  It’s all bright, graphic and tongue-in-cheek.

The party was clogged exclusively by Atlanta’s forty-something fabulous crowd.  Do not mistake this group with the Jezebel clique.  That’s a totally different vibe.  These are largely the natives and private-school hipsters of the 1980s and late 1970s who still have it going on in a big way.  There were waiters with plates of little fluffy yummies to munch, vodka drinks, white wine and sparkling water.  All the best-dressed industry and artsy gays were mixing with swanky couples, bohemian socialites, old-school preps and Hot Damn.  It was all very glam.

But it was Thursday and that means that I had to scoot out of Jonathan’s and get myself over to The Laughing Skull Lounge to check out this week’s offerings.

Who doesn't want to look pretty for their close-up?

This month there isn’t any one host comic.  With the Comedy Festival starting next week, everyone is just pitching where needed.  Tonight Trey Toler primed the room with new uses for Crest Whitestrips.  I had actually heard about “off label” uses before, but dismissed it.  Who would need to bleach THAT to make it sparkle?  But now that Trey has clarified that a certain sector comes from the womb on a rainbow burst and has an expectation for things to just be shiny.  If Trey said it, it must be true.  He reads a lot of blogs, so he knows about these things.

Poor, poor Paul Gallois, at age thirty, he still can’t seem to pick out his own clothes.  That might be why he kinda looks like he’s got his own militia OTP.  It’s not a look that is conducive to being able to actually use a whole box of condoms before they expire, especially with foxy black chicks.  But Paul is well aware of his exploits looking more like hate crimes than just a simple man trying to get a little lovin’.

Renaissance gal Emily Fleming

New-to-the Skull Emily Fleming came in from Tennessee.  She is young, adorable, energetic and has a sort of stoner goofability about her…except that I am certain that she was completely sober.   Emily is a creative sort; she makes jewelry, designs jeans for specific body types, can do dead on impressions and brings visual aids!  I love a visual aid.  She’s a cool chick who felt comfortable enough to share her religious beliefs with us.  She had a good point about people needing to experience bouts of extreme atheism and unwavering faith before they are able to reconcile themselves to a God-like figure they can believe in and be respectful of.  God, like a kick-ass pair of jeans, is not a one-size-fits-all.  He can take on many forms…like a Kittycorn…

Thou shalt meow!

Headliner Sean Patton is recording a new comedy CD at the Laughing Skull this weekend.  Do you know what that means for you?  It means he’s got his thing totally fleshed out and it is ready to go, that’s what.  This CD is going to need to be run through Tipper Gore’s PMRC, because dude loves to say “FUCK!”

Sean Patton and Hot Damn

Sean currently lives in NYC and we all know what kind of homeless crazy just walks around up there.  It’s pretty much the same kind we have here at the downtown bus station, but more.  Sean’s had to develop a line of demarcation to figure out what kind of bat-shit nut can benefit from his $1 to spare and who will just do something weird with it.  It ran off on an interesting tangent where I began wondering what my own psychotic split with reality would look like should it ever come to pass that I’m out on the street.  Luckily, it’s just a thing to muse about, like having a county jail cavity search.  Except, that thanks to Sean I have a pretty good idea of exactly how that goes down.  Growing up misunderstood in a safe, white upper-middle class neighborhood with supportive parents can really give you a case of the teen angst and rage.  The best way to deal with this is probably to take up Mom and Dad’s offer to send you to a great liberal arts college and narrow your focus to application essays and not spend your creative energy taking a stand against The Man with a rousing nine innings of Mailbox Baseball.  Turns out that is a criminal, arrestable offense.  And sometimes, when you are funny, hilarious things just come out of your mouth.  Word to the wise: shut your mouth when the deputy wants to know if you have a gun stuffed up your butt.  Just hold still and be quite.  Listening to Sean talk about having an inner-loser voice, hanging out with friends who are professional potheads, getting your heart macerated in messy breakups, and pregnancy scares made me think that maybe I’m glad to have moved on and be able to look back and laugh at my twenties and be glad that those years are someone else’s problem now.

Speak up!

The night ended with sitting in the Skull’s green room, that is red, stuffed full of really young people and recording a pod-cast.  We talked a lot about music, middle-school zero tolerance policies that did not exist when I was in sixth grade…or even in college, award shows, parents and Jesus! did I feel old.  It was such a flip-flop to start out tonight with one group who is well underway and end with another that’s just starting to stretch.  I am somewhere solidly in the middle.  Too old to be hip or care about bleaching my b-hole, too young to be hiring a caterer or decorating a lake house.

Wrastlin’

This weekend the WWE is bringing WrestleMania to Atlanta.  It’s been a while since we’ve bounced against the ropes in this town.  In fact, it was Black Saturday in 1984 when we saw our last good elbow drop.  There are all sorts of events tied together in this spectacular…there’s a charity golf tournament, a fan “experience” and even an auction of wrestler art at our Fabulous Fox. That last one kinda threw me, too.  There is going to be a new round of wrestlers inducted into the Hall of Fame with Abdullah the Butcher making the cut. 

Hall of Famer Abdullah the Butcher

Abdullah “The Madman from Sudan” the Butcher, who was really from Canada, was a regular with the GCW here back in the day. Grandma Hot Damn can get a little wistful thinking back on the glory days of Georgia Championship Wrestling.  That was before the state of Ohio conspired to take over our city and when wrestling was pronounced “wrastlin’”.  If you have a spare couple of hours to listen to someone giddily detail an era, ask any Southern man of a certain age about Mr. Wrestler II, Midnight Express, Tony Atlas,  or Ole Anderson.

My brothers loved to watch GCW on Ted Turner’s WTBS Superstation when we were kids.  Because it was the 1970s and we had one tv for kids, I also watched a lot of wrestling.  I got just as excited as my brothers did when we saw and met “The American Dream” Dusty Rhodes, who kindly autographed every piece of paper we could dig out of my mother’s purse, while we were at a gate at the old Atlanta airport.  He had on light blue boot cut jeans, a tan leather jacket and stacked boots.  And of course, his hair was the color of maize.  He was larger than life, but not as large as he is now.

Champion Dusty Rhodes

You can’t talk about Dusty without having a conversation about “Nature Boy” Ric Flair.  Flair, later part of the evil Four Horsemen, dressed like a pimp from south Florida.  His bottle blonde locks were perfectly zipped and feathered, he always had on Foster Grants tuned to “sun”, some sort of suit and big gold jewelry, when he wasn’t in one of his fancy, custom robes.  For the Nature Boy though, it wasn’t just about looks, because “Whooooo!!!  To be The Man, you gotta beat The Man!!!”  Nature Boy was not modest.

Limousine ridin', jet flyin', kiss stealin', wheelin' dealin' son of a gun Ric Flair

I don’t know what the deal was with wrestlers and the peroxide, but “Wildfire” Tommy Rich must have gone to the same hair stylist as Ric and Dusty.  I like to think of them on an off day meeting up at the salon for a little process and trim then going out for a light lunch together afterward.

Breck model Tommy Rich

As a special treat, a love gift really, my mom took us to the GCW live taping a time or two.  Okay, I had to go because I wasn’t old enough to stay at home alone.  I don’t really know that this was the best place to take a child.  Forget what was going on in the ring with figure four leg locks, sleeper holds, bleeding, superplexes, and atomic drops.  The real action was the sideshow outside of the ring.  To this day, I am unsure whether the audience really thought the wrestling was real, but they sure were enthusiastic.  Fights regularly broke out ringside, with people attacking one another with metal folding chairs, shoes and belt buckles.  One time a guy next to us bawled my mom out for chuckling at the on stage antics.  Then there were certain wrestlers who were allegedly so hated that they needed police escort through the room to protect them from being pelted with cans of Billy Beer.  And an unforgettable sight was manager Jimmy Cornette, with his ever-present tennis racquet, getting into vein-popping shouting confrontations with the wrestlers, the refs, crowd members, girlfriends…whoever was within earshot.  And yet, Jimmy’s character was so upper-crust that we were supposed to believe that he only abandoned the clay courts at PDC for these matches.

This weekend’s WrestleMania is sparing no expense in making an impact in the town from which it sprouted.  It’s going to be hosted by The Rock, and Snooki is going to be here doing something for it, too.  What in the hell has happened to professional wrestling?  It’s not classy like it was in 1981, as seen here.

Play sexy

Everyone is in a tizzy over Abercrombie & Fitch’s new bikini for young girls.  It’s called the Ashley and the smallest size is for eight-year-old girls.  The big gripe isn’t so much that it’s on the skimpy side of things, but that the top has push up pads in it, so that young girls don’t feel self conscious about their chesticles.  It can really cause a lot of anxiety for a girl to not be able to fill out her swimsuit.  Especially in the second grade when she isn’t yet confident enough to tell her playmates at the sandcastle to “Suck it!”.  Really, I don’t see what the BFD is.  Parents buy baseball inspired outfits for their young boys that say “L’il Slugger” on the front, anticipating growing an NBL pitcher.  Daughters twirl in ballerina inspired dresses, dreaming of one day being a principle dancer of a famous ballet company.  Maybe the aspirations that some parents assign their daughters are a little less lofty and a bit more…pedestrian.  Now, doesn’t that bikini top start to make sense?  Because,  let’s make no mistake…eight year-olds aren’t driving themselves to the mall and throwing down the plastic for some new swimsuits to train in.  Mawma and Diddy need to get that money-maker out there early if they want their little precious to be successful in dancing, acting on an “unscripted set”, landing a pro-ball player in lieu of college or where ever she sets her sights.

There is a lot more to it than an A&F bikini to usher little girls along the twisted path of sexual dysmorphia and daddy issues that will lead to an early start on a fruitful career at Tattletales.  I’m not even going to talk about lucite shoes, degrading rap lyrics or Club Disney shows.  I’m a talk about toys.  For decades, feminists have ranted and raved about the unrealistic body image that Barbie dolls presented to young girls.   Mattel mitigated that by giving Barbie her choice in profession, ethnic friends and recently letting her divorce that eunuch husband of hers, Ken.  He was boring.  In more recent years, the Bratz dolls upped the ante by being soft and plush…a perfect snuggly slut baby doll for toddlers.  But just like Hollywood can’t come up with many new ideas, toy makers are now looking to the vamp up past victories for today’s market place.

Strawberry Shortcake works as a stage name

Strawberry Shortcake first came on the scene in the early 1980s.  Her acrylic hair was actually infused with the scent of fresh, wholesome strawberries.  Her friends Blueberry Muffin and Lemon Meringue smelled just as sweet.  What do you think their new-millennium effigies smells like?  I’m betting it’s a combination of cigarette smoke, stale beer and motor-court bedsheets.

Brushes teeth with a bottle Jack

Rainbow Brite now looks like an anime Ke$ha getting ready to dose up with some ecstasy and hit a rave.  I’ll bet she pays at the door with all $1 bills then grinds her jaw all night while giving Starlite the Catherine the Great “come hither” eye.  Shudder.

Dora the Explorer has been to see Dr. 90210 and also made friends with celebrity hair weaver, Ken Paves.  Dora has lost her pudge, injected a little Restylane in her lips, gotten Kardashian extensions and is just shy a pair of leggings and a trapeze top of the pole.  Last year, Nickelodeon teased audiences with her makeover by releasing a silhouette of Dora, before the “big reveal”.

Looks like a mudflap

Just like on Fox’s The Swan.  I wonder if Dora can say “Love you long time” in Spanish.

Hope Magic Milan has condoms in her purse

Not all little girls want to spend time with dolls, though.  They can be a little creepy at night when the full moon is shining through your bedroom window.  What is a parent to do if they want their daughter to have appropriate toys to model and role-play being flirty with???  Thank heavens for the toymaker Playmate (seriously) and their contribution of a line of fashionista whorses.  They are called Struts.  Rhymes with sluts.  Pictured here is Magic Milan.  She is wearing high-heeled horseshoes, dangly earrings and what appears to be a purple and black lace bustier.  Damn, that’s one hot filly!

Trollz...with a z

Even Troll dolls have been retooled.  Now they are called Trollz, because substituting a z for an s is kewl.  But these little figures have a powerful messsage for today’s wallflower little girls: just because you’re a troll, doesn’t mean you can’t be sexy.  Miley Cyrus has built an empire on that premise.  Oops, did I type that out loud?

Piercing high

This is a stick-up

My daughter, you know her as Snakebite, waited until she was thirteen to get her ears pierced.  The day we went to Merle Norman last December to pay a woman to shoot her in the ear lobes with an earring pistol was fraught with trepidation and second-guessing.  By the age of eleven almost all of her friends and classmates were wearing dangly plastic ice-cream cones and the like or super sparkly fishhook earrings.   Her similarly aged cousins would swoon just passing by Claire’s at the mall.  For the uninitiated, Claire’s is a chain of “accessory boutiques” that targets the notoriously sophisticated, stylish, and discriminating 7-12 demographic.  Think Noah Cyrus.  Their specialty is Cadmium laden baubles for junior wanna-be-hookers.  It all looks like the crap that you would “pay for” with skee ball tickets at a boardwalk arcade.  It’s catnip for little girls, but not mine.

Tween Mecca

Why all the anxiety surrounding what boils down to body mutilation?  Seven years ago, Snakebite’s bff in pre-first got her ears pierced and one of them got infected.  Long after the friend’s crusty ear lobe healed, Margaret remained scarred.  But teenage peer awareness is pretty powerful stuff though and can, like, lead you into doing stuff outside of your comfort zone.

The instigator

Margret has been thrilled with her bedazzled ears.  And the child who literally can’t remember if she’s eaten lunch or whether she’s ever broken anything, has really stayed on top of caring for her newly pierced ear lobes.  She always seems to be swabbing with an alcohol soaked Q-tip and turning the posts.  And when she switched over to her special, fancy earrings two weeks ago she made sure to tighten the backs so that she wouldn’t lose one.  There’s good news and bad news here.  The good news is that Snakebite has been so fastidious that she has managed to stave off the infection that should have alerted us that her ear lobes had swallowed the earring backs.  Yeah, the securing of the earring backs surpassed being an act of responsibility and veered off towards pathological tightening and resulted in them getting embedded.  In both ears.  Double friggin’ yikes!

Since ear lobes don’t have a mini-uterus in them to contract and push big things out of their little pierce holes, they have to be cut to make way…like an episiotomy.  For your ears.  Gross!  This revelation was not handled with grace and calm.  It was received with a lot of “Blaaah, why me?  This is the worst day ever!  Blaaah!”  More than anything else, she was worried and totally worked up over getting shots.  The kind doctor decided to give her an oxycodone to address future pain and help her chill.  Because we aren’t hillbillies, I’d never seen my teen on oxy before.  We don’t roll that way.  Aside from the initial bitchiness, and a brief episode of nodding off, it was hilarious.

I learned a lot about Snakebite’s hopes and dreams.  I found out that she is really looking forward to going to Daytona Beach this summer so that she can get a bucket of water from the ocean, evaporate it on our deck and make her own sea salt.  Which reminds her that she would like to go float in the Dead Sea because it’s the saltiest and so you are super buoyant there.  Oh, and banana popsicles and banana pudding are, like the best.  She likes opals.  She likes moonstones.  She likes opals AND moonstones!  Did you know that people in Africa wear lip-disks?  She would never do that.  And she never wants for us to take a family trip to Djibouti because it has a weird name.

After we left the hospital, I took her to Menchie’s for some froyo.  She got a huge tub of cake batter flavored yogurt, added cookie dough, sprinkles, about four other toppings and buried it under liquidy marshmallow squirts.  And for the first time ever, she offered to share her yogurt with me because she said it was such awesomeness and I had to try it.  I politely declined, because like I said: we are not hillbillies.  Or Lohans.  Mothers and daughters do not need to eat stoner food together while one is flying high on the good shit.

Hardest woking thinker

Hot Damn and Steve" Don't Call Him Ginge" Hofstetter

After a “situation” with our family dog that involved a trip to the 24-hour emergency vet clinic and an $73 “situation” at the gas pump, I was running so late last night that I practically skid sideways into the Laughing Skull Lounge just as headliner Steve Hofstetter was staring up.  Sadly I missed all of the openers, including Tushar Singh’s last Thursday as resident comic.  Sad face.

Honestly, I am a little out of it.  There are things that I don’t know anymore or at all.  I don’t know how to Skype, and frankly, the whole idea gives me the heebie-jeebies.  I don’t know why straight men pay more than $30 for jeans.  I turn into Mr. Magoo every time I try to figure out “the Twitter” and I don’t understand the allure of anything auto-tuned.  And when I looked at the Skull calendar, I chalked up a new one: I didn’t know who Steve Hofstetter was.  I did a little Google-stalking and found descriptions of “the thinking man’s comic” and “the hardest working man in show-business”.  My first thought was, “oh crap, he’s everybody else.”

I arrived just in time to hear the tail end of Steve waxing about abortions.  That’s kinda gutsy here in the South, where that seems to still be a pretty divisive topic.  I like gutsy.  Once I sat down, waaay in the back, I realized that the room was stuffed with young people.  Like, sold out on a Saturday night stuffed.  But it was Thursday.  And by young…like 20s.  Turns out that I didn’t know Steve because I am old-as-shit.  He hits the late night shows and the college circuit hard.  He’s like an early Dave Mathews of comedy.  But all that touring means that he’s traveling constantly.  It seems like it would be glamorous for about five minutes, until you remember all of the jack-wagons working at the airport to protect us.  I kinda wish that he could moonlight a little bit for the TSA and help them implement a logical test for ferreting out dangerous from thirsty that doesn’t involve getting groped.

As Steve continued his set, flawlessly transitioning from weather, to the merits of ghettos versus trailer parks, to going to Walmart to feel superior and attractive, on to mitigating bad tattoo decisions, and tackling real issues that face the homeless (how are they going to open all of those canned goods we keep giving them?), to getting the most out of your local tax revenue, then why gullible girls should be finished by the vampires they swoon over…well, it occurred to me that Steve is a “thinking man” with some very well thought out, but cloyingly simple solutions to issues both mundane and broad.  By the end, Steve broke it all down in a way that was so startling and clear, I can’t believe it never occurred to me before.  Education is the answer.  Teach smart people to kill dumb people.  Duh!

Wrapping up his set, Steve solicits questions from the audience.  Tushar and I agreed that this is a pretty ballsy way to finish.  It’s like an open invitation to hecklers.  The person who has the best, most provocative question that he can get a good riff off of wins a prize.  I asked what the worst song ever is.  Rebecca Black’s Friday shot out of his mouth.  I didn’t win, though.  I’m not going to tell you what did.  You’ve got to come up with your own question you want answered and take it on down to the Skull this weekend.

Sour puss

Oh, spring time…you minx!  You…with your blossoms and blooms, your warm sunshine, sprigs of green grass and patio dining.  Your chirping birds, outdoor festivals, and open windows feed my soul.  The things to love and glory in during the late days of March and early days of April are many.  But every action has an opposite and equal reaction, or something like that.  For every morning without an overcoat, there is a dude with flabby man-boobs thinking it’s okay to jog shirtless around the park.  For every whiff of the white clematis vine over my garage doors, there is a pint of pollen being dumped in my face holes.  And for every missing Christmas tree lot there is a god forsaken lemonade stand.  I may just be the Grinch of spring.

When I was a kid all I wanted to do on a pretty day was have a lemonade stand.  My mother put the ixnay on it almost every time.  My kids want to have a lemonade stand, too, and I continue the family tradition of not letting them participate in that kind of messed up economic system.  In what universe does it make sense to pour Gatorade into Solo cups and charge $.25 for it???  Maybe this is the sort of thing that Venezuelan nut-job Cesar Chavez was talking about earlier this week when he said that capitalism destroyed life on Mars.  After supplies for sign making, the pain-in-the-ass cost of sticky lemonade getting spilled all over my kitchen counters and floor, and about $10 at Publix for cups and concentrate…well you do the math, genius.  But you know what’s worse than my own kids wanting to just give it away?  Other kids’ lemonade stands, that’s what.

Hall had a baseball game last Saturday and at the corner just before the driveway to the ball field was a gaggle of about 5 or 6 kids with a lemonade stand.  I think they wanted something crazy like $.50 for a cup of warm, diluted Crystal Light.  Because there was a stop sign, I had to stop and they all started coming at me like a bunch of hobos with squirt bottles and rags at the North Avenue exit.  My first instinct was to lock my doors and grab the mace.  You know what though?  I wasn’t going to be intimidated, plus no one’s Mom was there to give me a disapproving glare.  I didn’t buy their lemonade.  I had a big water bottle with me already (because I live in Georgia and prepare for hot days in the car) and was just fine.  To show that there were no hard feelings I shot them my best smile and a wave.  They jumped up and down, then started yelling at me like a pack of jackals and giving me the fist in the air.  All I could think was, “Oh, how adorable.  What a bunch of little a-holes.”  How is that for a warm spring afternoon at the ball field?  It’s the stuff of Norman Rockwell’s Saturday Evening Post.

Get yur freak on

There are certain natural events that catapult cities and regions into a state of preparation and then scampering for cover.  Most recently, we saw our west coast evacuate populations to higher grounds in anticipation of tsunami waves riffing off of the earthquake in Japan.  Or, closer to home, around late August our friends in the Carolinas and the Gulf region batten down the hatches and juice up their generators whenever tropical storms begin swirling into cyclones off the coast.  But these precaution-inducing events aren’t always of the “force majeur” variety.  Since the early 1990s there is an event that sends land-locked Atlantans into absolute hysteria.  People either run for the hills, or hit the grocery store and Home Depot like there’s snow flurries to stay at home to defend their land, or at the very least, get some projects done around the house.

My first year back in Atlanta after college was 1993 and I was living on Peachtree Street.  On a Thursday night in April my friend Katie called to say there was a group heading to the mountains to escape “Freaknik”.  I had no idea what she was talking about and dismissed the hype that I was spewing out of her mouth.  After all, I was living in a city “too busy to hate” and I had a lot of stuff to get done.  So what if there were going to be some extra folk in town for the weekend?  I would be staying in place and taking my chances.  I WAS SO UNPREPARED!!!  It began with driving home from work on Friday and the bass thump that shook everything on my bookshelves didn’t stop until about 11pm Sunday night.  No lie.  The next year was just as hectic, the year after that I feared for my life at the gas station when I was verbally assaulted by a group of women.  Because I was a white chick pumping my own gas.  It made no sense.  And from stories that I heard from other friends, I didn’t see all that much.  A friend’s sister couldn’t get her baby to the emergency room because of abandoned cars on the street and people dancing.  My friend Chris got in a fist fight after he was dragged out of his car.  If you weren’t part of the Freaknik, you were in for a problem.

Just chillin' in the middle of the road

For those who don’t know what Freaknik is, here’s a primer.  It started as “Black College Spring Break” in the 1980s.  It was a sweet little picnic hosted by Atlanta University on the third weekend in April.  By the 1990s, unbeknownst to me…living out of town, it snowballed into what can only be called a cultural cluster-fuck.  Think back on “white” Spring Breaks spent at the beach…the cruising, the redneck locals who weren’t on any kind of college break, but were there anyway, the hunch punch parties, wet-t-shirt contests, all the people passed out on the beach.  Oh, I cringe.  It was beyond trashy.  Now, transfer that scene times three, paint it dark and add a healthy dose of hoopty cars,

And for all of the work done on these cars, none of them seemed to have mufflers

pimped out whips, the dawn of cam-corders, no beach for people to congregate or pass out on,

Behold...the beachless bathing beauties of Freaknik

Atlantans trying to get home from work and the only good strip for cruising being I-75.  Oh and gratuitous, public sexy time.  You know what I mean by sexy time.  It is so legendary that T-Pain produced Freaknik: The Musical for Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim.

I guess he flew in and didn't have a car

It must have been around 1999 when it finally fazizzled.  The city got involved and tried to inject positive, uplifting events and even went so far as to introduce a job fair into the mix.  A job fair?  For Spring Break?  Permits were issued.  It had the same effect as having your mother chaperone you and your friends to a Minor Threat show.  Um, not cool.  It moved to Daytona Beach and the local Volusia County government poured water on it and it died.

Must have t-shirt or 2011?

But…it’s almost April and that means that there are rumblings and suggestions that Freaknik is coming back.  A revival. Everything old can be new again.  Oh, Lawd! It has a new spelling, Freaknic, and there is buzz on Facebook and Twitter that it’s totally going to happen.   There’s even a website.  This happened last year, too.  Not much happened.  Atlanta City Officials are telling us to remain calm, however.  Freaknik/Freaknic organizers have not filed with the city for special event permits within the 30-day advance period, so we are safe.  ‘Cause everybody knows that mayhem, mellay and misdirection always asks permission first.  Whew!

WTF Marc Maron

Kiss me, Im Irish!

Without too much detail, St. Patrick’s Day 1993 was responsible for #2 of my all-time Top 5 Hangovers.  It culminated with a trip to a maxillofacial dentist to unhinge my jaw that locked up after 12 hours of violently expelling green lager.  Ever since, I do not go out on March 17.  Ever.  But the headliner at the Laughing Skull Lounge this week is Marc Maron.  I had no choice.  It had to be done.

If I had to go out , then I kiss the feet of God for putting me at the Skull last night; a place that doesn’t give a rat’s ass about pandering to St. Patrick’s Day.  True, that when I walked through the Vortex I saw some ghetto leprechauns with gold teef and a smattering of acrylic Kelly green wigs, but I was spared the rank smell of corned beef, boiled cabbage, scotch eggs (it’s too gross to go into…but it’s for eating.  By humans.) and stale beer.

Must speak Hindi

Continuing his hosting duties, Tushar Singh, proved that things aren’t always what they seem and that everything just sounds funny when it’s said in an Apu Kwik-E-Mart voice.  During a week when there is a lot of international trouble brewing, Tushar is an optimist about impending threats here in the U.S.  There won’t ever be another 9/11; surely they’ll pick another date.  See, isn’t that the glass being half full?

Mike Kaiser kick-started the shamrock clad evening by admitting that he is an 1800s era racist when it comes to the Irish.  It’s an odd, sticky little historical uh-oh that has been swept under the rug.  It makes me wonder if one day we’ll be celebrating MLK day by wearing Afros with Nehru jackets and swilling malt liquor.  I hope not.  I guess that you could say that Mike is something of a history buff, and so a good bit of his comedy centers on referencing world events both past and present.  We discussed the Bible, the presidency of Warren G. Harding, the repeal of “Don’t ask, don’t tell” and what it means, President Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize and the ironic places abstinence rings can end up in.

Since she was the blackest person living in Peachtree City, Margaret Cho has moved ITP and is stopping in left and right.  How lucky are we?  Now that she’s all citified, she’s looking for a boyfriend.  This past week she was at Smith’s Olde Bar and met a dude who made her “cockblind” to her friends.  You know how it is when you go out with your girlfriends and one of your girls meets a guy and suddenly mentally dumps you all.  She gets tunnel vision for one thing.  But once the spell was broken, Margaret has been able to snap back into reality and keep up with current events.  She’s disgusted that during the disaster looming over Japan, the top Google trends have been Charlie Sheen’s crack up and Snookie news.  Of course, it’s an inner conflict, because while the Japan situation is undoubtedly deserving of total focus, she hates herself for still needing to know what Snookie’s done now.

WTF is Hot Damn doing with Marc Maron?

Oh, Marc Maron.  What a breath of fresh, self-loathing, hypercritical, provocative air you are!  He’s not insensitive; he’s ignorant.  He won’t talk to you like you’re stupid; he’ll talk to you like you’re foreign.   He’s nervous, not a racist.  However, if you don’t know, Marc Maron currently has the top comedy podcast in the country.  It’s called WTF, and you can check it out here.  His podcasts are very conversational and so is his stand-up show.  It’s not jokes, per se, but just chatting.  It’s like sitting in a really big living room listening to a party guest telling stories about himself and places he’s been.  But, really odd, self-deprecating stories that rationalize his neurosis.

Garden of Eden...with penguin

Recently, Marc visited the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky.  He went for all of the wrong reasons: to mock.  It turns out that the agenda is to simply close about a 350 million year gap, where people had dinosaurs for pets.  That’s all.  I am thinking it must be the foundation idea of the Flintstones.  Marc says that the museum was actually quite well done and had lots of really great exhibits, like the Old Testament one with swarthy, overtly Jewish animatronic prophets Moses, Abraham and Isaiah who collectively looked like Sid Cesar, Gabe Kaplan and Richard Lewis.  Then directly across the hallway was the New Testament one with the Apostle Paul, looking very WASPy.  No agenda at the museum.  There was also a wonderful diorama of the Garden of Eden complete with a taxidermied bear, a penguin and a dinosaur munching a pineapple.  Of course, that makes total sense.

Lot’s of things must make sense and seem more clear to Marc these days.  A while back, he ditched doing booze and drugs.  All of his demons were just exhausted from the lifestyle.  Now he texts and drives for kicks.  At least if he dies engaging in this risky, forbidden behavior he’ll leave some last words for his legacy.  Something else Marc isn’t into is celebrating is the porn industry.  As a woman, that makes me happy.  However, Marc does rationalize behavior and if he was to accidentally stumble on a free site or find some wayward magazine pages left by a porn troll at an underpass then it would probably be okay.

In an attempt to uplift him after his divorce gave him a case of the sads, Marc’s doctor hooked him up with some Viagra.  Despite his wiener being in control, and needing to even like its target, he’s found love once more.  Then his heart hand shooed her away.  But she’s coming back into his life again, though this time he’s not going to give her the keys to the locks that he had changed to keep her out in the first place.

Waxing celebrity

Sculpting in wax has been around since the Medieval times.  Way back then, it was creating a cool dimensional and flesh colored effigy of old world celebrities.  Think of it as chain maille CGI.  Without our modern transportation and photo-mats, this was most likely the only way the masses could ever catch a glimpse of what sort of calf Charlemagne cut.  It was an elevated and niche art form.   Even Leonardo da Vinci practiced in the medium from time to time.  I don’t know exactly when it’s integrity fell, but it’s now on par with velvet Elvis portraits and sad clown art.

Justin Bieber has just been “done” in wax recently.  What do you think?

Giving himself a reach-around

In 2005, Paris Hilton was in a movie called House of Wax.

Frozen in time

The gist of the movie revolves around a wax museum in an abandoned town that has especially life-like wax replications.  Spoiler alert: they look so real because they are cast from people who used to be, gasp, alive!!!  Aaag!  As novel as this story-line is, it wouldn’t work if the wax figures weren’t convincing.  Do you think Paris could have mustered tears and fright if she had bumped into the wax likeness of, say…

Why is she posed as a Ninja?

Drew Barrymore?  What about…

Clammy b-baller

Zac Efron?  Oh, those dreamy eyebrows.  Or maybe…

Smyrna's own

Julia Roberts?  I doubt that Paris would even recognize her old cohort…

Fellow ex-con

Lindsay Lohan.

These figures almost always  look like pallid corpses.  The “artist” pretty much takes a characteristic and just runs with it, like the character artists that drew your cartoon picture next to the log flumes at Six Flags in 1978…

From Madame Tussaud's in Vegas

Going by the hair and purple necklace, I think this is Liz Taylor.  In drag.

I had a bad dream

Well, it’s blackish and in a suit and that’s about all this thing has to do with Martin Luther King, Jr.  Where is the likeness?

Think it would "burn like a candle in the wind"?

Is this a fabulous, disco Friar or Elton John?  Take away the zany, trademark glasses and what are you left with?

Just frightening

Poor Sarah Jessica Parker.  Grab a feed sack and cue the whinny sound effect.

Yo!

Sylvester Stallone’s wax figure looks like it may actually be decaying.

East of Never

It took me a minute to be certain that this one is of James Dean.  It could also be Martin Sheen.

The Hollywood Wax Museum had a big historic auction in May 2009 to clean out their coffers and make way for new statues of Ke$hit and Dane Cook.  But look at what got sold…

Sold!

Couldn’t you just die?  Think of all of the good times that could be had with a wax figure of Granny Clampett.  I would have loved to have bought this, just to drive it around strapped to a chair in the back of my pick-up truck.  Luckily, she is wearing a shawl, ’cause to avoid melting she could only go out on the cold days.