Spontaneously in Seattle (Part 1)

As 2008 unraveled and I imagined what lay ahead, I forsaw myself spending Memorial Day weekend in the Pacific Northwest. Unfortunately, as May approached, a vacation didn't seem to be in the proverbial cards. Until my employer's tech team announced plans to"to upgrade the network" and give our Internet-less staff Friday off. And Wells Fargo blessed my Visa with 2% APR till 2009. And Priceline hooked it up, hard style. So, two days before the holiday weekend, I booked a vacation package to Seattle.

Out of respect for this auspicious turn of events, I decided to leave the particulars of my journey up to chance and let the recommendations of strangers guide what I'd eat, drink, see and do over the weekend.

After checking into the Seatac Holiday Inn, I began my journey at Sharp's Roaster & Alehouse, a Chotchkie's-esque BBQ joint with a fine selection of draft beer and a gigantic, cocktail-emblazoned carnival wheel, spun by the bartenders every half hour to determine the drink special for the next 30 minutes. I sat at the bar between Debbie, a real estate agent from San Juan Island, and Emilio, a cruise ship staffer from Seattle, who recommended -- over hot, gooey cornbread, barbeque chicken and Mac & Jack's African Amber -- that I start Saturday off at the Pike Place Market and head out to Snoqualmie Falls on Sunday.

Several others had recommended Pike Place Market (Carrie's screenwriter friend, Anthony Bourdain) so I decided to make it my first stop in the city. But first, I had to fulfill a childhood dream: a visit to the location of Kurt Cobain's final moments.

Saturday morning was gorgeous, and the lady working the Avis counter just happened to hook me up with a Chrysler Sebring Convertible:


Chryst!

So I got dressed in the most obnoxiously alt rock outfit I could muster-





-and set out to Viretta Park, off of Lake Washington Boulevard, with the convertible top down and Modest Mouse on the stereo.


I found the house:





And the park:





And one of several memorial benchs:










Of course, I had to add a note of my own:






And smoke a parliament next to the tree.




Egregious badassery.


Apparently, the house has been purchased and occupied by somebody else because every now and then I'd see some shirtless dude or bikini-topped babe bounce into view above the gate as if on a trampoline. Oh -- and for a good ten minutes or so, somebody was screaming, murderously. Nice.

After paying my respects, I drove west through downtown and meandered toward Pike Place Market. I emerged from the parking garage into an indoor boardwalk full of boutiques hawking antiques, jewelery, art, vitamins, and assorted novelties. The sight of slime lured me into one of the novelty shops, and I wandered in to find a twenty-something stoner and a bearded old hippie lounging idly behind the counter. Clearly these two knew where to drink.

I asked, and they suggested, without hesitation, Nite Lite on Second and Stewart ("Opens at 3:30. $1 PBR's, 4 finger beers"), as well as the Whiskey Bar ("but I don't know if you have enough tattoos") and the Pike Pub and Brewery ("if you like fancy beer").

I noted their recommendations, thanked them and left, and proceeded down the boardwalk to a Palm and Tarot Card Reader. Unfortunately, she had already left for the day. So I continued onward through the market, shuffling my way through the thick crowd past gorgeous displays of fresh seafood, flowers, jams, chocolates, soap, jewelry and art. I bought a $6 mermaid sculpture made of ash from the 1980 Mt. St. Helens eruption (it came with an informative card about the volcano; I couldn't resist).

The smell of fried seafood was overwhelming and, at that late afternoon hour, irresistable, so I stopped by Emmett Watson's Oyster Bar for a Hale Mongoose I.P.A. and a basket of fried oysters & chips. It was one of the best meals I've ever had. The oysters were so scrumptiously succulent the taste of them will follow me to the grave.

Next: the Pike Pub, where I had the pleasure of meeting Burbank residents Rachel and Eric over a sampler of the Pub's finest (recommended: Double and Tripel Ale. Not recommended: everything else). We chatted about Belgian beer, midwestern work ethics and the myth of the Bridezilla (Rachel's a wedding photographer: check her out), and Rachel recommended some spots worth visiting back in LA (Masa for bread pudding, Lucky Baldwin's for Belgian brews.)

After the pub, I called Jimmy whilst lounging on the pier, observing this totem pole:






I then headed to the Bourdain-approved Piroshky Piroshky for a decidedly unnecessary but nevertheless delicious apple cinnamon pastry. Mmm.

After dessert, I went on a quest to find a marquee I'd spotted while looking for a place to park the Sebring:






(No further comment necessary.)

Conveniently, this was near the Nite Lite, and so the evening began.

The Nite Lite's decor alone warrants a stellar recommendation: faux-rock walls adorned with lime green and birds-egg blue vinyl headboards, glittery green foil under the glass bar, fake icicles on the top shelf, $1 PBR special before 7 p.m.




It was large, quirky and sleazy.

But there was nobody in there. So I moved on to the Whiskey Bar.

The Whiskey Bar was a nice little hang for the "discerning biker" (clean and tidy rockabilly chic). But hands down, the best thing about the Whiskey Bar was Denny, a 63 yr old Tulsa-born oil refinery salesman (who didn't look a day over 50), who schooled me on Canadian Club Reserve and coke, the perils of New Orleans, and life, love and new beginnings. During the early days of his sales career, Denny had traveled through and fallen in love with Seattle and resolved to move there if he ever needed a place to start over. Unfortunately, that time came in the 90's when his beloved wife, a singer, passed away. We shared several tall whiskey and cokes together, and then, after revealing that he had arrived by motorcycle, Denny abruptly left. It was probably for the best. At that point, I was ready to climb on back and ride off with him into the sunset. Instead, I moved north, to Five Point Cafe.

Outside the bar is a lovely view of the Space Needle:

Inside the bar is cheap beer, a great jukebox, and colorful clientele. Around the time I realized the top shelf was adorned with softcore porno polariods, a robust tattooed woman in a pink tank top sat down to my right and ordered an Adios Motherfucker. She asked me if there were any tattoo parlors around and I apologized, "I don't know, I'm not from around here." She then pointed to a name tattooed on her back and explained, "I've got to get this name changed to Reyes."

"You might want to wipe that out altogether," I retorted.

"Huh. Hadn't thought about that."

She told me about Mr. Reyes, and what an asshole he was, and asked me about my notebook.
She said she wrote in her journal sometimes, after her weekly meetings. She had been addicted to crack, and was celebrating her second clean month.

We talked for quite awhile and she told me her name; regrettably, I cannot remember it, and I failed to record it, having tucked away my notebook out of respect for our conversation. I tried to convince her that she didn't need Mr. Reyes, she didn't need anyone, except for "what's in here" (Mel pounds her chest), and "you've got it. You've got that fire in you. I can see it."

I hope she believed me. After she left, a couple walked in and took her place at the bar: lovely, sweet Carina (a fellow blogger) and her friend Sean.

Carina graciously shared a Djarum with me, and I mentioned my plan to visit Snoqualmie Falls. She recommended Issaquah's Tiger Mountain instead. And so begins day two...

This is Your Brain on NYC

Allegedly, exposure to the unfamiliar strengthens the brain.

When confronted with stimuli, the brain's neurons branch out and connect with one another to exchange information. If you do something repeatedly (drive the same way to work everyday, or eat the same daily lunch, for example), information travels down pre-worn pathways, and there's no need for the brain to forge new neural circuits. But when you do something you've never done before, your neurons must reach out to new, unfamiliar neurons and forge additional connections, thus increasing the processing capacity of the brain.

That said, NYC gave my brain quite a workout.

From the moment I boarded the plane to JFK, my gray matter was forced to contend with the new, strange and unfamiliar. Here are the highlights (conveniently categorized into headings and sub-headings for your browsing pleasure):


SCIENCE

The American Museum of Natural History

Let's start this off with a bang, shall we? And by bang I mean a 4.5 billion year old meteorite!

This is the Cape York meteorite, discovered in Greenland in 1894. At 34 tons, it’s the heaviest meteorite in captivity (yes, this was the term used on the accompanying text). According to earth and space explainer David Teich (a kind and patient man), it formed 4.5 BILLION years ago, when the stray bits of our solar system that failed to coalesce into planets and moons fused into meteorites. The molten material cooled at a rate of 1 degree Celsius every MILLION YEARS! At that rate, it would have taken a few billion years for this meteorite to settle into its present state.



How awesome is it to touch something 4.5 billion years old? Totally awesome. Of course, the ground we walk on (i.e. Earth) is also 4.5 billion years old; actually, all of that inorganic matter is 13 billion years old, it's just been morphing into different forms since the Big Bang (or whatever force birthed the Universe into existence). But to touch something that reached its present form 4.5 billion years ago? Yeah. Totally.Fucking.Sweet.

Other highlights:

The Spitzer Room of Human Origins

Did you know that the Khoisan people in South Africa carry the most ancient human DNA mutations? Or that modern humans are tolerant of non-human dairy products because our goat milk-drinking ancestors were the ones who survived famine? Neither did I. Till I came here.

Dinosaur Hall

Q. Is it an Apatosaurus or a Brontosaurus? A. An Apatosaurus, says the explanatory sign. Both names were used to describe the same species of fossilized dinosaur in the 1870s. Since Apatosaurus was used first, it's the name preferred by scientists.



ART

Museum of Modern Art


My knowledge of modern art borders on the Philistine, but I do enjoy it. Proof: a montage of blurry photographs of my favorite pieces, obnoxiously taken to serve my faulty short-term memory.



Mark Rothko, No. 16

This is the kind of thing I'd skip over in a textbook, but in person, I found it quite striking. According to MOMA, the "forms and colors are meant to arrest the viewer in a state of reflection," and I have to say – it worked. I couldn’t stop looking at it and went back to it several times. I took several pictures, but none of them captured the beauty of the colors. They elude digitization.

Ad Reinhart, Abstract Painting

Oh, Ad Reinhart. Your nihilism is hilarious.




Jackson Pollack, Full Fathom Five


Loved this for its color scheme, but mostly for its texture. Bottle caps, keys and cigarettes are buried beneath the paint, giving the piece a rollicking, “tumultuous” feel.




Jasper Johns, Flag


This is another piece I'll skip over in a textbook, but the encaustic paint (pigment mixed with wax) over newspaper created a pretty cool effect. Apparently, he was a fan of taking the ordinary and making it extraordinary. Yay for him.



Robert Rauschenberg’s “combines” were sweet. Love me some collage.




Rauchenberg, Factum I & II


Another Rauschenberg creation, proof positive of the uncertainty principle.

Duchamp, To Be Looked At... for Almost an Hour

It'll get you hiiigh.

Francis Bacon, Painting

Wicked.

Alberto Giacometti's bronze dog.

Umberto Boccioni, Unique Forms of Continuity in Space

Dali, The Little Theater

Eleven planes of glass = one surrealist piece of awesome.

Andre Masson, Battle of Fishes.

According to Masson: "Left to chance, pictorial compositions would reveal the sadism of all living creatures."

I can get behind that.

But you know what I can't get behind? Matisse.

Fuck Matisse. Fuck him and his dainty pastel dashes. He makes me feel like I have a cat (See also: Feist, white wine).

The Metropolitan Museum of Art


Turns out the Met has much more than boring old paintings. Oh yes.



It's a mind-numbingly large and labyrinthine warehouse of pillaged artifacts. Such as:

4,000 year old Celtic armbands! (Could've sworn I had a picture of this... but I can't find it. Sadness.)


And an egregious amount of Egyptian burial stuff!

Some swords!

Suits of Armor!

Behold the 1549 armor of German Emperor Ferdinand I (and his accoutrement):

Feast your eyes on these 16th century Italian spears, capable of lacerating the flesh of men in hundreds of different ways!



And old furniture!




1820 NYC Grecian Sofa.


(I was particularly taken with this couch).



TRANSPORTATION

Bear with me for a moment while I sing the praises of Delta Airlines ...


As a Southwest devotee, I was a bit hesitant to fly Delta, but my fears were completely unfounded. Not only do they have a fine selection of free snacks (biscotti, cheese crackers, salami, trail mix), but they also have TV screens in the seat backs featuring movies, TV shows, games (including interactive -- and free -- in-flight trivia) and a fucking map showing your flight trajectory, remaining flight time and all sorts of other interesting facts, like outside air temperature (-70 degrees), distance traveled, altitude, etc. Yeah, so I was into that.


And that in-flight trivia game was pretty fun: a series of 20 questions with multiple choice answers and a little "in case you were wondering..." factoid dessert. For example, say the situation was:



Q: Ridley Scott directed what 1982 film?
A: Blade Runner
In case you were wondering: Blade Runner was based on Philip K. Dick's novella "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?"


But every now and then you'd get something like:



Q: Mellow Gold was the title of whose 1994 album?
A: Beck
In case you were wondering: Beck is the man.


(For serious.)


FOOD


Well, I started out with a bran muffin. But from then on, it was all gluttonous Street Meat, baby! OH YEAH!

Hot Dogs
What's on the New York street dog? Sauerkraut, and some sort of brown, tangy mustard sauce. Tasty, but doesn't hold a candle to a Chicago Dog— I'm not even sure it stands up to the Angeleno bacon-wrapped hot dog.

Nevertheless, I ate several from random street vendors, and was still compelled to check out Papaya Dog on 42nd street, particularly because I assumed it was in some way affiliated with Anthony Bourdain-approved Gray's Papaya. I had two dogs and a papaya drink and it was good; it would have been mind-blowing if I was drunk, but it was good. Though I have to admit I was a little suspicious of the two dogs-and-a-drink deal for $3.50. Rrruh?


Burgers
I took a long walk in cold rain to check out the co-worker endorsed Shake Shack, which was really great for the price – I had a quality, thick juicy cheeseburger and some expertly salted crinkle cut fries. I also had a strawberry shake (hey, why not) but wasn’t too impressed with that – Chick-fil-A does it better.


Pastrami
Katz serves beer and pickles. What more do you need? Oh – a pastrami sandwich perhaps? Oh yes indeed.


DRINK


Oh boy.


Let's hit this chronologically, shall we?


Wednesday

While waiting for Pete to finish hobnobbing at his NYU archivist function, I ducked into Terra Blues on Bleecker street and cozied up with some Maker's Mark during a refreshingly unpretentious solo blues acoustic set. 'Twas a nice venue: small, dark, candle-lit, intimate; yet kind of divey, with paper mache looking angel wall sculptures affixed to dark blue walls in need of a fresh coat of paint.


Once Pete found me, we headed to a mysterious bar (I neglected to record the name of it) for gin gimlets, refreshingly crisp cocktails made of gin, lime and soda (sort of like a mojito, without the mint and sugar). We then moved along to the Blue and Gold for Pabst and Magic Hat Apricot Ale. After building a nice buzz, we parted ways, and I resolved to sit on the chair-backed log in the Hudson Bar once I got back to the Hudson Hotel.

And then I went the wrong way on the subway, and got lost in Brooklyn for one hour.

Luckily -- or not -- the Hudson Bar was still open by the time I made it back at 3:00 a.m. I paid $12 for a watered down vodka soda and stared at the ceiling mural (some abstract art design that looked like a child's Crayola crayon sketch enlarged to 100x its original size) while two chubby girls in satin dresses closed down the house with a rumpshaking rendition of Beyonce's "Irreplaceable." After they finished, I was asked to take my vodka drink upstairs. Fatigued, I complied.


Thursday

On the way back to the Hudson after more academic conferencing and a sniffling, chilly walk across several dozen city blocks, I got lost on the subway. Again. I ended up by Les Halles. So what would Anthony Bourdain do? Why, he would go into Desmond's Tavern, the local Irish pub. (Seriously, it's been televised.)

I enjoyed several Smithwick's there among the local happy hour crowd, none of whom were particularly interested in speaking with me.


After that I walked to Central Park and shared my Holden Caulfield moment with some ducks on a rock in the middle of the pond. Then back to the Hudson, to check out the Library Bar. It was a chill space: black and white photographs of cows wearing various kinds of hats lined the walls, as well as books; all sorts of books, about porn stars and Tanzania and supernovae and Marilyn Monroe. Chess boards were built into the table tops and a large blue pool table anchored the center of the room. It would have been a cool place to drink alone, but my sniffles had worsened, so I packed up early.


Friday

Pete -- did we do car bombs at The Library? Yes, we did. With the sultry bartender from Montreal.

After that, we went to the 2 by 4. Two words: Exultant sleaze. Wood paneling, cheap beer, pool tables, bartenders in bikini tops dancing on the bar. What more could one ask for?

How about some Yuengling on the way home? And my botched interpretation of an improbable Body Worlds pose and the subsequent repercussion: a skinned knee and bruised cheek after faceplanting on Pete's roof. Twice.



Saturday


All right; now I was sick. But that didn't stop me from going back to the 2 by 4 after dinner, then on to the Belgian Room for Delirium on tap and Burp Castle for the Monks-on-a-bender mural before heading off to Pete's roomie's birthday fiesta at Lit.


There are two levels to Lit. The first is a Short Stop-esque bar/dance floor with a DJ spinning Vampire Weekend for a smattering of greasy haired patrons. But this isn't where you want to be. You want to go downstairs into the basement, and dance among the exposed brick and cigarette smoke (yes, you can smoke down there!) to soul, oldies, new wave and classic rock. I powered through my Dayquil induced haze and had a blast. But dancers beware: don’t set your favorite purple sweater on one of the booths. Because the staff will move it. And lose it.

In Memoriam: Purple Sweater



The last photograph of my purple sweater and me (center).

Dear Purple Sweater,

I only knew you for three months but I felt I’d known you forever. You were a particularly soothing shade of purple. Plum, perhaps. You matched nearly everything. Even my purse. I have tried to replace you but the only retail outlet with purple sweaters in stock is H&M and the quality is far inferior to Express. We had some great times. And some bad. I’ll never forget you.

Love,
Mel

And thus concludes the boozing.

PEOPLE

I was shocked by how friendly everyone was in New York. I haven't been approached by so many strangers since... well. Ever. Strangers helped me wrangle my bags and hop onto the right subways, complimented my chic bangs (thanks, Summer), and interjected their own wry opinions into private conversations. Unexpected, truly. But refreshing.

Though nothing beats an old friend.

And now:

A GBD Salute to Peter O.

Peter is a great friend. He will drop everything to show you around town, and cheerfully agree to accompany you to cheesy tourist traps, even if you end up too hungover to visit them the next morning. He will not laugh at you when you faceplant twice on his roof, drunk. (All right, he will, but not in a mean sort of way.) He will take you to the Natural History Museum, twice, and wait patiently while you take painstaking notes on every exhibit you can get your hands on, and wait even more patiently for you to post 2% of those notes to your blog, 2 months later. He will also take pictures of you cheesing out in front of a stegosaurus.






Thank you, Peter.

Alain de Botton once asked, Why travel? When you bring your worries, your insecurities, your anxieties with you, everywhere you go? I say: to know the feel of a 4.5 billion year old meteorite. Or the taste of a Papaya Dog. Or the pain of smashing your face into shingles. Or the comfort of reconnecting with an old friend. To "expand the mind," as they say. Figuratively. Literally.

Dan Deacon @ the Echoplex

I never finished my post about my first Dan Deacon show in 2007 because I could not competently articulate how the performance affected me. There were certainly plenty of lush details to work with -- the "cheap-sounding, rainbow-hued, breakcore-tempo electronic noise," the Dayglo green skull, the zealous crowd obeying Deacon's orders to run around in circles high-fiving each other and then dash through a human tunnel of joined hands -- but I couldn't draw all of these delicious ingredients together into a Meal. As I began writing about it, I kept defaulting to Carrie's observation that "this is what people from the 80s thought 2007 would be like," and while this is a profound and valid assessment, I felt cheap citing another's interpretation while my own eluded me. So I didn't post.

But now that I've seen him again for the second time, I think I've got it.

It came to me while I was tying my shoe. His set had begun and I was dancing; dancing like I hadn't danced since 2001, and the onslaught of footwork had undone the bow on my ballet flat. I bent down to tie it and the gentleman behind me asked, "are you okay?" To which I replied, "yeah, man, I'm just tying my shoe." His question surprised me -- why wouldn't I be okay? Then, it occured to me: this was a raver asking another raver, presumably under the influence of and overwhelmed by substances, if she was going to be okay; a kind and prevalent gesture I had witnessed during my days in the rave community, a gesture I now implicitly (though not immediately) understood on account of our shared identity and communal knowledge. Though he was barely-legal scruffster in striped neon and I was a 25 yr old admin. assistant in my work clothes, I was On the Same Page with this person because there were shared experiences among us.

And this, I would say, is the best thing about a Deacon show: in a post-PLUR world, it provides a space for all ravers-at-heart to come together and share the liberating experience of dance. Regardless of who each individual audience member is/was/is going to be, the frantic beats and childlike play of the Deacon experience induces a communal Fun capable of fusing each distinct member of the audience together into one blissful organism for the duration of the set. This was rave at its best in the 90's; this is rave at its best now. And I will conclude with another astute observation from Gillogs:

"I was trying to think of the difference between raves in the late 90s and last night. I decided: shirt size."

And to that I would add, pant-leg width.

Les Savy Fav @ the El Rey

Things you missed at the Les Savy Fav show:

* Tim pulling an eager fan on stage to sing with him and then finger-fucking said fan in the mouth

* Tim jumping into the audience and howling like a wolf with several concertgoers

* Tim's account of the formation of the La Brea Tar Pits:

"On this day, millions of years ago, the La Brea Tar Pits were created by mammoths and sabre tooth tigers, who threw a party . . ." (before he was cut off by the band)

* Tim licking lighting equipment

* Tim licking audience members


Tim
(via Kathryn Yu, Pitchfork)

* Tim coming out for the encore in a Santa suit and throwing several gigantic stuffed bears into the audience

* The mosh pit tearing apart the bears like piranhas

* Getting tiny synthetic fibers from said bears in your eyes and mouth

* Me moshing in my finest Christmas sweater

Things you didn't miss at the 23rd Street Christmas Sweater Party:

* My Christmas sweater reeking of a hundred varities of B.O.

Bjork @ Nokia Theatre

The inside of the Nokia Theatre looked like the lovechild of the Staples Center and the El Rey.


via


But the theater was the perfect size for Bjork: Large enough for spectacle, small enough for intimacy.

The evening started with a bottle of red, a bag of gummi bears, and me yelling "Bring it, hipsters! Wow me with your math rock!" at opening band Ratatat. They brought it . . . in a very mild, underwhelming way.

Bjork, however, was out to kill me. After the flags were raised and her brass section marched out on stage and played a lovely little intro, out she came, in a shimmery golden butterfly dress. She started the set with two intensely emotional songs from Homogenic:

"Immature" (featuring some of the most precise lyrics ever written):

How could I be so immature
To think he would replace
The missing elements of me?
How extremely lazy of me

And then the terrifically heartbreaking "Unravel:"

While you are away
My heart comes undone
Slowly unravels
In a ball of yarn
The devil collects it
With a grin
Our love
In a ball of yarn
He'll never return it
So when you come back
We'll have to make new love

Whew.

She didn't stop there -- she stepped it up with "Unison," "Joga," "Hunter" (during which she suddenly shot streamers out of her fingertips, no lie), the "Pleasure is All Mine" and "Pagan Poetry" until I was completely distraught with emotion; vulnerable like a wounded animal, even. And then, at my weakest moment, she assaulted me with a pyrotechnics-infused performance of "Earth Intruders."

And an "Army of Me" full of green lasers. And an "Innocence" full of confetti. And a delightfully creepy "Cover Me" segue into a technicolor "Wanderlust."

And then - "Hyperballad." My favorite song. If you haven't heard it, it's Bjork singing very sweetly about throwing things (car parts, bottles and cutlery; even herself) off of a cliff, before rising into an exhilarating chorus of:

I go through all this/before you wake up/so i can be happier/to be safe up here with you

And then, at the end, the song breaks into an electrifying house mix. The entire audience danced like it was 1998.

She closed the set with an explosive "Pluto" and came back for an encore of "Oceania" and "Declare Independence." The lights stayed low after she walked off the stage and I think we could have gotten a second encore if we'd asked for it, but we humans typically don't ask for what we don't expect.

Bjork, the greatest human of all time.

It was the best show of 2007. Maybe the best show I've ever seen, eva.

I've maxed my Vegas quota for the year but if you haven't, you should catch her at the Pearl, tomorrow. Get in the car and go.

Seinfeld and Joel: Genius Squared

There's always a good reason to go to Vegas; this time, it was Billy Joel at the MGM Grand. Luckily for us, there was also a Comedy Festival at Caesars Palace, and we kicked the weekend off by scoring standby tickets to see Jerry Seinfeld at the Colosseum.



Seinfeld was relentless. My eyes were watering from beginning to end. His stand up did not deviate far from "what's the deal with yadda yadda yadda;" yet every joke seemed fresh and mind-blowingly hilarious. Amazing, considering he's been running with the same schtick for 20+ years. He had some really great bits about going out, and doing nothing, and . . . oh, you get the idea. The content was predictable; the execution was extraordinary.

The opening comic, Mario Joyner, was really great, too. He's one of those "that's so TRUE!" comics, but his delivery was impeccable. My favorite was his bit about Home Depot and how any idiot can buy a nail gun (he said they might as well rename it "You're on Your Own.")Yeah, okay, you probably had to be there, but I found it especially hilarious given the impending move and my own visits to the HD. When he mentioned the DIY check out and the pigeons in the store, I realized, "hey, this guy goes to the same Home Depot I do!" No, really. The guy lives in Santa Monica and I suspect he's going to the HD on Wilshire and Union. The same HD I will be visiting today. To buy more painters' tape and brushes. *sigh*

Billy Joel


"Don't Take Any Shit From Anybody!"

Wow. What can I say. I'm pretty sure we were the youngest people there who had voluntarily bought tickets (there were a couple of preteens with their parents, and I couldn't help but think "do you know what you're about to see, you ungrateful little brats?") The show was amazing. Not only is Joel an immensely talented musician and, like, totally awesome, but he's also an exceptional showman. He played bits of Sinatra and Elvis in between his own songs. He cracked jokes about car insurance and Elton John. And he brought one of his guitar techs -- his roadie of 25 years -- onstage for his so-called "American Idol moment." Joel explained that his roadie was a really good guy and just wanted to do a religious song for us all, and invited us to be Simon Cowell or Paula Abdul (the latter of which elicited an enthusiastic "yeah!" from me). Then, "Chainsaw," a hefty roadie dressed in stage crew black, bounded onto the stage and gave us his best Bon Scott impression while the band (and Billy) tore through "Highway to Hell."

Yeah, it was awesome.

After closing the set with a rollicking "You May Be Right," Joel came back for an encore of "Scenes From an Italian Restaurant," "Only the Good Die Young," and "Piano Man." Then, he bid adieu with a "Good Luck!" and a hearty "Don't take any shit from anybody!"

These two events comprised the bulk of the trip, though we did make it over to Fremont Street on Saturday afternoon, with brief stops at the Golden Nugget (to check out their aquarium-penetrating water slide) and the Girls of Glitter Gulch (where the ladies did their best Britney to "Gimme More").

If you'd like to know more about my half-dozen other pilgrimages to the Holy Land, check out my Vegas Retrospective.

SoCal Halloween Maze Review

Stencils of the world, unite!

Though I've slacked on the Halloween-themed blogging, I did make it to Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Hollywood and Halloween Haunt at Knott's Berry Farm. Here's a quick recap:

Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Hollywood
Five mazes, including the tram tour through the backlot, which wasn't as satisfying as last year -- you could still walk through the Bates motel and the flaming War of the Worlds plane wreckage, but there weren't as many zombies lurking about. The other mazes improved, however. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre maze was extremely detailed and, overall, the scariest, but there were some truly frightening moments in the Nightmare on Elm Street maze (one of the scare actors scared me so badly I fell backwards into the person behind me. Frankly, I'm surprised I didn't end up here). Overall, very quality experience. I was assaulted by chainsaws (sans chains) twice. What did it feel like? It tickles.

Halloween Haunt at Knott's Berry Farm
Though the TGI Friday's pre-game did not disappoint, the mazes did. Perhaps they're understaffed on Sunday nights because there was a noticable decrease in scare actors, in both the mazes and the scare zones. The new mazes were underwhelming (Killer Klown Kollege, Doll Factory) -- even, dare I say, dull. My favorite maze from past years, the Asylum, was structured differently and missing the scariest part of all -- the smoke-filled infirmary ward. The best mazes were (surprisingly) Beowulf and Pyromaniax (the log ride -- the premise was "disaster at the moonshine factory." Very disturbing.) I did notice that there were more animatronics this year -- at the expense of staff, maybe? Are all the good scare actors going to Universal? Next year I'll have to step up...

The Tao of Kanye

Wisdom from Kanye West's Graduation:





"Look at the valedictorian, scared of the future/Scared to face the world, complacent career student/Some people graduate, but we still stupid."

-- Good Morning

"You can still be who you wish you is/It ain't happen yet/And that's what where the tuition is"

- I Wonder

"I was splurging' on trizz/But when I get my card back activated/I'm back to Vegas/ cause I always had a passion for flashing' before I had it"

-- The Good Life

"And you can live through anything/if Magic made it"

-- Can't Tell Me Nothing


"Now everybody got the game figured out all wrong/I guess you never know what you got till it's gone/I guess that's why I'm here and I cant come back home/And if you don't know by now/I'm talking bout Chi town."

-- Homecoming

"So if the devil wear Prada/Adam Eve wear Nada/I'm in between, but way more fresher."

-- Can't Tell me Nothing

"Lauryn Hill say her heart was in Zion/I wish her heart still was in rhymin."

-- Champion

"People talk so much shit about me at barbershops/they forget to get they hair cut."

-- Everything I Am

UPDATE: The Tao of Kanye coming to a bookstore near you!

GBD's Exclusive 25th Birthday Bonanza

Both of my roommates turned 25 last weekend, and I was faced with the challenge of making two VIPs in my life feel very special, instead of that-much-closer-to-30.

It was a daunting task, but a task accomplished by delighting them with the most exclusive clubs in Los Angeles!

Because what eases the transition into your late 20s better than partying in places inaccessible to the general public?

So, without further ado . . .

Les Deux

After watching a herd of paparazzi sprint toward its general direction, I expected the worst from Les Deux, but it turned out to be quite enjoyable.

It wasn't a stuffy, minimalistic dance club like I'd expected but a small, Victorian house with one large first-floor lounge, a roomy second-floor VIP balcony, and a large cobblestone courtyard lined with chocolate-leather booths. The DJ spun a nice mix of Top 40 and 80s dance music underneath a projection of Baz Luhrmann's Romeo and Juliet.

The atmosphere was relaxed and chill, and the bartender gave us two-for-one Patron shots. After all, how can you resist these faces:


Les Douche.

We talked our way up to the VIP room, which was occupied by a group of disability insurance salesmen from Boston and a couple of Marines. One of the Marines was the PR Director for the Marine Corp - the person responsible for convincing journalists to come to Iraq and write about all of the good and reprehensible things going on there. She was revealing all sorts of fascinating things about Iraq that I was trying very hard to retain but promptly forgot a few moments (and sips of vodka soda) later. I think she described Iraq as "four times worse than Tijuana" but that, of course, sounded absurd in the morning. At any rate, after admitting, "we never should have gone in there in the first place, but since we did . . ." she shifted to more Les Deux-appropriate topics such as her childhood aspirations (acting) and the brand of my dress (Free People). She was a fascinating person, and I wish I was sober enough to remember our conversation (yay, America). Her male companion gave me a flashing Pentagon keychain.

After we left, we bought two of the best bacon-wrapped hot dogs EVAH! I think they were actually bacon-wrapped spicy sausages, not hot dogs, which brought the experience to a whole new level. The sausages were wrapped in toasty, grease-soaked buns and topped with veritable mounds of onions, peppers, mustard and ketchup. As Sarah and I devoured them under a nearby awning, men kept approaching us and asking us where we were from. No one believed us when we said "LA." (Dunno why, I mean, wtf, right?)

The Magic Castle

On Friday night, Sarah and I got all dolled up and went to The Magic Castle, the private members-only magician's club on Franklin and Hollywood.

It was just as awesome as you might imagine. I won't spoil the mystery for you, but let me just say that the place has five bars full of aging magicians eager to perform tricks and buy drinks for pretty ladies.

We weren't allowed to take pictures, so think of a Hogwarts full of strange uncles.


Club 33

I thought Disneyland's Club 33 was a nightclub. It's not. It's a very expensive French restaurant with antique furniture, crimson walls and gold-embroidered drapes. It's like eating inside of a Louis Vutton bag. Seth and I got the five course Prix Fixe menu - quite tasty. The toilets are rather peculiar:


"I've got the guts to die. What I want to know is, have you got the guts to live?"

Once inside, you travel to the dining area via elevator:



Pretty cool, huh?

Pirates of the Caribbean is even better after five glasses of wine.

But do not go on the Finding Nemo submarines until you've completely sobered up.

(Or ever, if you're afraid of being submerged in water, like I am.)


**

Now, you might be wondering how you can befriend someone like me; someone who has the know-how to get you into these wonderfully exclusive Southern Californian establishments.

(Lots and lots of cash.)

No, seriously, the truth is that I owe it all to Sarah, Becky and Barb G. Thanks, ladies.

BioShock

Yeah, it's pretty awesome.

It's like an underwater, art deco Resident Evil. And it really made me nostalgic for the Queen Mary.

I was a little hesistant to pick it up at first because I'm terrible at shooters. (I can never keep track of where I'm going, or what I'm pointing at. Truth is, I'm just really uncoordinated. I can't whistle, nor snap. So moving my virtual head with one toggle switch and my virtual legs with another is a little much to ask. To me, it's like rubbing your belly and patting your head at the same time. Which I can pull off, if I think about it hard enough, but I gotta admit, it's pretty jerky.)

Luckily, BioShock is civil enough to offer an easy mode for those who are "new to shooters."

How euphemistic.

And fortunate, because I'd hate to miss out on this game for lack of skill. It's creepy - not just in a "Surprise! A genetically mutated psychopath!" sort of way, but in an unsettling, morally ambiguous sort of way. It's cerebral - the story draws on both Ayn Rand and George Orwell to tell the tale of a laissez-faire capitalist utopia gone wrong. It's gorgeous - breathtaking, really. And it's really fucking fun.

Toe Jam and Earl: There's no place like Funkotron

This evening, on the 25th level of Planet Earth, Toe Jam found the 10th piece to his spaceship and sailed home to Planet Funkotron . . .

. . . where the grass is fuchsia, the streets are paved in gold, and the doormats say "yo."

This is only the second time I've beaten Toe Jam and Earl, the quirky Sega game about two funk-loving aliens who must piece their spaceship back together after crash-landing on Earth.

I was inspired by this weekend's viewing of King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters to commemorate the moment with digital photography:



You can move your character through Planet Funkotron after you beat the game.


The homecoming parade.


Toe Jam and Earl, reunited with their families.

Ain't that a happy ending?