Tuesday, September 29

THIS IS WHY I NEVER GO OUT

** I really didn't plan to post two music related entries back to back. But hey, sometimes things happen.

I have very little patience with the public at large, and even less if it’s after 9 p.m.


I used to go out a lot. I mean, like a lot a lot. At the time, it was fun - although I haven’t always been the most tolerant person when out and about. I don’t take too kindly to rude people cutting in line, pushing, shoving, spilling, etc… You name it, it irks me. My attitude also gets exponentially worse if the excursion in question is a concert of some sort. I swear to God, if your drunk ass steps on me or dances into me I will slap you in the back of the head. I’ve done it before and I have witnesses.


While I freely admit that I am cranky, I’m not as bad as the old dude I once sat in front of at a Sting concert who told me and my friend to sit down because he “couldn’t see the musician.”

As you can imagine, it takes something very special, plus a stick of dynamite, to get me out of the house and into a club. I can honestly think of about five bands that would have me excited about going out. Then the unthinkable happened: my favorite band was playing in Kansas City. At nine o'clock. At night. On a Thursday. Now, I know what you are thinking. No way! Not nine o’clock on a school night, a good 45 minutes away from home! But, I was willing to stretch out of my comfort zone (not to be confused with its cousin, the Danger Zone) to see The Dandy Warhols. I could go on and on as to why my love for them is so great, but I won’t. Let’s just say that I haven’t had a proper favorite band since Duran Duran in junior high, so when I fell under their spell in 2000, I was due.


With dreams of Dandy’s dancing in my head and dinner plans with friends, we made the trip into KC. Actually everything, amazingly, went according to plan and we had a lovely dinner right next to the venue and strolled over just to catch the last couple of songs of the opening band (which let’s face it, is the best way to watch an opening band). I even saw Zia McCabe in the crowd before the show and watched as some other nutty fan tackled her for a picture.

She was gracious to the crazy-lady and I shot Mark a nasty look because he’d talked me out of bringing my camera. “I could have been crazy, too,” I wailed.The club wasn’t packed, so we picked out a nice, neutral spot toward the back. I thought, “this is the smallest crowd that I’ve ever seen them in, it’s going to be awesome.” The sentence still hung over my head, like in one of those cartoon thought bubbles, when I saw Mark make a horrible face. It like he was trying to laugh and go to sleep while not breathing all at once. I asked what his damage was, to which his only reply was to cough and point to the guys in front of us. I still didn’t understand and my newly-purchased ear plugs weren’t helping our communication at all. Mark leaned over to me and yelled “you can’t smell that?” Right as I heard the word “that” I smelled it. My first reaction was to ask, “who ate a 7-Eleven microwavable burrito before the show?”


Naturally, the two dudes standing directly in front of us took the blame. When it happened again a few minutes later, Mark and I decided to escape by checking out the merch table. Finally, the Dandy’s came onstage, and we cautiously ventured back to our spots, this time upwind from the suspects. Two songs later, we were still getting pummeled by burrito farts, but I noticed that the two guys we’d pinned the crime on were gone. In the empty space where they’d been standing was a lone curly headed mop-top swaying back and forth. He looked like a short version of Shaggy in cargo shorts and Birkenstocks.


My first thought was, “wow, what’s he doing here?” I mean, I don’t really associate hippies with the Dandy’s, because if I did I wouldn’t be a fan. Also, this particular show had the highest concentration of people in glasses that I’d ever seen anywhere. Except for maybe the optometrist, but even then you’ve got a couple of people wearing contacts. It was like a hipster-Poindexter convention, so you can see why Scooby-Doo might have seemed a little out of place.


Right about then I noticed the girl next to me, oddly enough not wearing glasses. She was squealing and literally, jumping with joy. She kept flinging her hands out toward the stage, then grabbing her hair and saying, “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it.” I thought to myself, “girly calm down, it ain’t the Beatles.” But that was just the beginning. I don’t know if you’ve ever witnessed someone trying to have sex with another person from 40 feet away, but thanks to this girl, now I have. She gyrated, blew kisses, dry humped the air, flung her hair around like it was a Poison video and kept reaching out toward the stage. Maybe it’s me, but if you are clearly with your boyfriend I think that it might be a little inappropriate to try and distance-fuck the singer of a band.


As entertaining she was, I found myself paying more attention to her than the band, so I decided to move. I didn’t realize it at the time, but this put me in direct firing line of burrito boy. I seriously don’t know what he ate, but I wanted to tap him on the shoulder and suggest that he see a doctor. Eventually, Mark and I moved a good distance from Shaggy, but not before we noticed that he’d successfully crop dusted the entire area around him. No one was even standing remotely close to him, and just about everyone was in hysterics. I mean, at a certain point, it has to become funny, right?

Just as we’d let down our olfactory guard, the band started playing my favorite song. I guess Shaggy had quietly moved closer to us, because just as I got excited and began to sing along, I stopped dead in my tracks. I’d waited two hours and spent $20 to have this douche fart on my beloved song. I was super-pissed, but laughing anyway, when I thought about the wise words of an old friend, “don’t smile, or it will get on your teeth,” and I covered my mouth.
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Tuesday, September 15

OH FOR F@$K'S SAKE! PHISH EDITION

It’s a well known fact that I hate hippies. I hate their clothes (seriously I don’t want to see your side boob) and their smells (this includes the BO, Nag Champa and that stinkweed, Patchouli). But most of all, I hate their music. I would rather have pins in my eyes than listen to the Grateful Dead or Widespread or The String Cheese Incident or any other jam bands. However, the worst offender I can think of is Phish. I really, really hate that fucking band. And no, I’m not passing judgment based on their fan base, although I could, ‘cause it’s easy.

Thanks to an ex-boyfriend of mine, I’ve put in my time with Phish. I even went to a show – and blacked out. I will admit, not my finest moment.

Now, some might argue that despite my feelings, they are a good band. Oh, I don’t disagree that the members of the band are good musicians. They seem to be perfectly capable of handling instruments in a professional way. It’s just that I don’t like the sound they make when they play together. A friend of mine once summed up jam bands by saying that whenever a song hits the 2:50 mark, he starts thinking to himself “let’s bring this on home fellas."

Maybe it’s the ADD, but after awhile “the jam” starts to wear on my nerves, even if it’s my favorite band. Recently when I saw The Dandy Warhols, they started some trippy jam and I turned to my husband and said, “This needs to end soon, or I’m going to the bathroom or something until their done.” I don’t care how much you like to play the bongos, do that shit on your own time.

But sometimes, due to circumstances beyond my control, I get trapped into listening to filthy hippie music. This was the case the other night when we ventured into my favorite pizza place. Everything started out normal enough. I ordered more pizza than I could eat and somehow Piper wound up with ice cream. When we first walked in, we were lulled into a false sense of security by the CD player that was set on shuffle. It just as we sat down to eat when it happened. The Phish kicked in.

At first, it was funny. Mark sat there with a tortured look on his face and Piper started to dance. I confess, I encouraged Piper thinking it was one of the most amusing things I’d seen in awhile. I mean a two-year old doing a shimmy to Chalk Dust Torture is pretty freaking funny, right? Mark looked at me and said, “don’t encourage her,” and then leaned over to Piper and told her “this is the worst kind of music in the whole world.” At that moment, I got a glimpse 11 years into the future when she ignored him and just kept dancing.

But the funny didn’t last. No sooner did that song end, when another Phish song started up. I looked over at Mark and said “another one?” He glared back at me and through gritted teeth informed me “it’s an entire CD.” Oh God, we’d just started to eat. The Phish CD had just started to play. That meant we were going to have to listen to this crap throughout dinner. It finally got to the point where every new song that started sent me into fits of laughter. However, I guess since they were the ones that put the CD on, the staff didn’t find it at all humorous and kept shooting us the stink-eye.

Unbeknownst to me it was about to get worse, or better depending on how you look at it. A dread-locked guy strolled in from the back door and spent about 10 minutes bullshitting with one of the cooks. While talking he decided to freestyle to the Phish with the patented doggie paddle dance. Then defying all logic, he added a Michael Jackson spin. It was awesome, but it did nothing for my case of the giggles. After the private dancer dude received his free bread sticks, he moved his picnic to the front counter to hit on the cashier and block the path of customers to the soda machine. Fear not, for while his amour took orders, he continued his doggie-paddled-spin while eating a smoking hot bread stick. Now that’s what I call multi-talented.
At the same time, there was a guy who looked like one of those sketches of the Zodiac killer waiting in line with his Mom. Buzzed hair, glasses with thick black frames and womanly hips that spilled out of his Dockers. As if the situation wasn’t weird already, I saw him adjust his junk (holding onto it just a little too long) and lightly squat down over and over.

I assumed that he was mentally challenged until I realized that he was trying to dance. This went on for a couple of minutes: adjust, squat, adjust, squat. It was about this time that the dread locked bread stick eater started up his routine again, except he’d added some gun slinging finger pointing in there. Doggie paddle, adjust, spin, squat, gun fingers - It was like the most surreal ballet ever with the dancers keeping in perfect time.

We decided that between the twirling and crotch grabbing, it was time to make our break for it and leave. Although we were glad to finally get away from the music, I have to say that I think that it’s the first time in my life that I really appreciated Phish.

** Last week Mark and I went to lunch (not at above pizza place), and as we were getting our drinks, he stopped cold and looked at me and said "oh no, not again." I didn't understand what he was trying to tell me until he snapped "LISTEN!" And damned if it wasn't Phish. Again, throughout the entire lunch, Phish. Phuck.
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Friday, September 11

OH FOR F@$K'S SAKE! EXCUSES EDITION

I just wanted to take a minute and say sorry to the five of you that read this. It's been way too long since my last post, but things got crazy. My kid had the chicken pox and I just got over a five day bout of the flu (as it turns out since I never went into "respiratory distress" it was not the swine flu. Although I was a little disappointed because I really like saying "you swine!" in my Inspector Clouseau voice).

Also, let's not forget that I am lazy at times, but I've mentioned that so you shouldn't be all that surprised. Anyway, I have a new post and a couple of more on the way. One is about farting, so you should be looking forward to it.
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I HATE NATURE

Everyone knows by now that I am not a fan of the place people call “outside.” It’s too big, and there aren’t enough walls. Truth be told my very favorite thing to do is waste a perfectly good day sitting on the couch watching Lifetime,Television for Women. Before you judge, I challenge you to watch the entire Betty Broderick saga (A Woman Scorned and Betty Broderick: Her Final Fury), and then tell me if it wasn’t the most entertaining four hours of your life. However, since Piper came into my life, she’s really cut into my couch/Lifetime time.

Piper loves to take walks. Piper likes to climb stuff and pick up icky things. She likes to chase bugs and jump in puddles - the kinds of things that I really, really hate. But, I figure that escorting her into the yard occasionally is much more cost effective than say, all of the therapy she will need later in life because Mom wouldn’t let her out of the house or physical ailments due to Vitamin D deficiency.

So, when a beautiful sunny Saturday dawns, I usually curse a little and then force my dead ass up and out of the house. Between the slowness with which I move in the hot sun, my huge sunglasses and my coffee cup, I am pretty sure that our neighbors think that either a) I have a drinking problem, or b) I am part Nosferatu. 

As usual, I digress. Normally on these nice days when Piper wants to escape the confines of the house, we go and visit the horses next door. It’s a pretty safe bet that she’ll want to go and I don’t have to walk far, so everyone’s happy. Our neighbors that own the horses are super sweet people who have a ton of grand kids and apparently don’t mind when we come barging into their barn, which is a huge plus. Actually, Piper usually enters the barn first followed by me yelling “Piper don’t go in there!” You know once, in desperation, I had her hearing checked and unfortunately, everything is OK. It seems that the kid takes after her Great-grandmother Margaret and has what I like to call “selective hearing.” Piper can’t hear things like “don’t run in the house,” but she’ll stop dead in her tracks for “would you like a cookie?”

So while Piper demonstrated her stubbornness, I dodged the horse poo and barn swallows that inhabit the place. The weird thing is, once in the barn she ignores the horses and heads straight for the cats. I have to admit, they're cute and much nicer than the fat, lazy a-hole cat that actually lives with us. Plus, I have to give those cats credit, they don’t claw her eyes out while she’s “petting” them. If there is one thing that I’ve tried to instill in my child it’s this: claws beat skin every time.

The last Saturday that we visited the barn, I spent the usual 10 minutes chasing after Piper and saving her life from gigantic animals that are about 200 times her size. I mean, horses don’t really take kindly to loud noises, like screams of “mommy horse!” from a little girl. As I got wrapped up in conversation with our neighbor, who was busy trying to pawn all of her tomatoes off on me (who can eat that many tomatoes – really?), I caught a flash of Piper heading around a corner. Soon she was out of eyesight. Now, I leave her to her own devices in the house a lot, but in no way am I comfortable doing so in a strange place inhabited by strange animals of all shapes and sizes (in addition to the horses and cats, they have a goat and an awesome farm dog name Charlie. I love that dog, and no, it’s not just because when I see him I get to say “good morning, Charlie.” OK maybe just a little). I tried to excuse myself from the conversation, but like many senior citizens, she didn’t really take the hint and kept talking. Finally I just said “I need to go and find my kid.”

I was too late.

Apparently the kitty she was petting tried to escape the love and headed into the pasture. Piper decided to follow by crawling under the gate. Technically, it was big enough for her to fit under, but in her lack of experience, she made a huge mistake. Instead of pulling herself through the gate head first, she’d decided to go at it feet first on her belly, pushing herself. Well that might have been OK, but for some unknown reason the child had her mouth open when she did this. I got to her just in time to see her standing there with a mouth full of dirt. I mean, it was a huge clump in her mouth and all over her teeth. Then the thought dawned on me. This is a barn. There are horses. That’s not just diiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiirrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrttttttttttttttt!

I couldn’t get to her fast enough. I couldn’t use my shirt to wipe her mouth out fast enough. She kept saying “icky, icky,” and all I could think was “no, it’s shitty, shitty.” I finally cleaned her up well enough to leave and by that time she was more than ready to go home and wash her mouth out. Then, as we said goodbye and made our way out of the barn, a bird shit on my head. I’m never leaving the house again.

In the days following this post the following has happened: I killed three funky centipede-type bugs in the house. I knocked down the largest spider web that I've ever seen because Piper ventured into the yard only to come back screaming, "the spider is coming, the spider is coming," yeah he was THAT big. Oh, and then there was the garden snake in my mud room. For real.
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