Today, I want to talk about sex, rock and roll, and the art of being fine, kids.
Yesterday, I attended the Ghost of the Robot/Common Rotation/Some other bands that I didn't stick around for show.
I left for 14 Below around 5:30, with B in tow, but not before the standard pretty/primping session. Good Charlotte blasting on the speakers, while I watch B pose in front of the mirror, ironing her hair. It seems like a tricky and a very involved process, but as I have been born with paper-flat hair, I've never had to worry about it.
I've decided to go nice and casual, as opposed to an earlier appearance, which involved the Super Cleavage Shirt of Doom. In theory, it looks okay: simple v neck stretch shirt with lace trimming, paired with a white shirt and my buttons and bracelets. Instead, most of the night I was worried about overspilling my shirt, the sudden miraculous cleavage and sucking in my stomach. And then, someone asked if I was dressed up as Madonna.
So...nice and comfortable this time.
While I waited for B to finish ironing her hair, I poked around in her room, looking at the various photographs of her and her sister taken over the years. In a few minutes, she's done and calls for me to help her iron the parts she can't get at. I do this and then we're in her room, deciding what she should wear.
B recently dyed her hair, and it's darker- and it makes her eyes look bigger and her skin whiter. She looks good, and she's fond of saying, "I'm all pretty now!" I remind her that she was pretty before, but she brushes it aside, scornfully saying that I have to say that, because I'm her friend.
In a sense she's right, I do say it partly because I'm her friend, and it's almost an obligation almost as much saying that the ex boyfriend is ratbastard weasel and she was too good for him, or saying that I will look after her dog on alternate Sundays. I also say it because it's true - B is not conventionally pretty, but she is vivacious and the force of her personality makes you believe in all good things. She's funny, she's kind, she's dramatic and testy, but she's there. Which adds up to a lot more than just being pretty.
And this I think is the mistake that I see me and so many other females make in the course of our lives -- that being pretty unhinges us, that it's not false modesty that makes us brush off compliments, but we've been groomed, either by our mothers or surrounding womenfolk, or the nebulous idea of Society that being beautiful is a gift and it entitles you to something, and not everyone can be beautiful. Or that there are 'guidelines' and 'specifications'. There's the scale: cute, pretty, attractive, beautiful, gorgeous, etc. And that it is one of the more important aspects to live up to: my grandmother says to me all the time, that a girl is supposed to be pretty. My mother reaffirms this mantra to me as she applies the newest skin cream to her face. A girl is supposed to be pretty.
Frankly, that's full of shit.
I don't say any of this to B, of course. I just nod and say, "I think you look fine." She pouts. "I don't want to look fine. I want to look hot. Why don't you say I look hot?"
Because I've always equated hot with beverages and the weather and in certain dicey times, soft spoken English exchange students. I never use the word hottie in association with a human being. It reminds me of frozen potato products in the freezer aisle. Because it's a quirk of mine.
I just shrug. "You look fine." I have suddenly become the noncommital, confused boyfriend in the relationship.
So instead I try to divert her by bringing her attention to me. "So, am I okay? I don't look too sweetheart of the damned?" She smiles and checks her lipgloss.
"You look good. You look hot. I'd do you."
And really, that's what having friends is for --even if they'd never follow up on it, it's always nice to hear, yes?
Hotness assured for the time being, we finally hit the open highway. Sometime around six, we end up at 14 below and hand off B's car to the valet.
Then it's off to find a place to eat and a restroom, and....get this, we walk. That's right. Briskly moving, we pound the pavement, we are pedestrians set loose in an automobile world, and we both have our cellphones out, being all very LA and yuppiesh. Or possibly budding drug dealers. I don't know.
I call L and we meet up at the Coffee Bean, striding all the way through frigid wind, because we're tough like this. Incidentally, a lot of the sidewalks down Santa Monica are under construction, so we're sidestepping traffic and yellow tape.
As we get to the CB, I see T milling about the sidewalk. It's one of those classic sitcom, slo mo cornfield moments, only I don't run across the street with flowers in my hair. I just shout instead and a hug later, and go inside to get a bottled water. (California, Santa Monica. Come ON.) L, Dare and Rebecca are waiting outside when I come out and it's exclamation over Rebe's cool boots, Dare's shade of lipstick, and the general giddiness you get over people you like and haven't seen in a while.
B's dosed up with her mandatory caffiene, and we all debate the pros and cons of walking back to 14 below, then decide against it, as Dare's wearing heels. Instead, we cram all six of us into L's car and drive back. Lot of reminsicing about the last time an x_amount of people fit into a car, with the punchline being a cute cop and well...erm, my ass.
After the clowncar stunt is over, we wander inside the bar, after last minute pretty checking, and run into a variety of people, the least being Scoot.
Less said of S the better.
He has us swing up and out into a line through the pool area, and while we're in line, we're entertained by the tvs set up in the bar/dining area. A star wars special is on, and much mocking ensues. (Purple lightsaber, fighting in the rain, backstreet boy sith, the mullet of doom, freaksome fanboys, etc.) With the exception of B, everyone in our group has seen About a Boy instead (and you should too. It's a lovely movie.)
People watching occurs, and as with any James related event, there's always the requisite fan who's dressed like a bondage Barbie. A lot of familiar faces. I think about vinyl and the heat factor, and thank the clothing gods for denim once again. I mean, yay, leather(Pleather) and fetish wear, but when I'm in a club, where the possibility of lot of people crammed up against me, and sweat and hot lights are also working overtime, the last thing I want to be is sticking to my clothes. I remember wearing a rubber skirt to school once. I stuck to a wall.
Sartorial whines aside, the waiting was long and annoying as usual, but once we got inside, I notice that there is a definite decrease in audience. Scoot must have kept his word in some fashion, and limited ticket sales. There's actual room to move comfortably, and B and I manage to get upfront fairly easily. While it's not perfect as it does follow the golden rules of a 14 below gig with James, which are 1. Someone or someone's taller boyfriend will automatically be standing in the very spot in front of you, and she/he'll have materialized at the last minute. 2. Someone will smell like onions. 3. Someone will get astoundingly drunk near you.
A lot of bad best of the nineties muzak/alternative/noise mix later, and Ghost of the Robot is announced with lots of fanfare and smoke.
Ghost of the Robot, for those of you who don't know, is James Marsters' newly created band. I had heard he started it with a friend of his, Charlie. When they actually appeared on stage, I had to stop myself from laughing, as the lineup consists of James and Charlie, and Charlie's friends, because really, I'm not seeing where James would be hanging around a bunch of 17 year old boys on a daily basis, and not have them being relatives. They are *very* young...and I'll be surprised if one of them is 19.
The bassist and drummer for GotR were pretty good, though, and during the parts of the songs I could actually make out (yet another triumph for the soundman, I'm guessing, but the vocals were mixed really low, or that's just the range. I'm not really technical girl) they showed some promise. But to be blunt, I just wasn't that impressed - in between rock/mock star posing and strutting, James crackled, popped, howled and mewled in this caricature type fashion. I'm not sure if he believed it himself, but it was done in the classic James way, half effacing, half serious and mostly charming and dorky all at once. It was awfully noisy and the age gap between him and the rest of the band is so very apparent. It's almost like asking your dad to play drums for you and you happen to be covering Nirvana or Linkin Park, and he's all into Willie Nelson or ...Hall and Oates.
They (the younger members) all wore baseball caps sideways, so visually, it was like seeing the young beastie boys. *G*
Though during the set, one of them pulled off his baseball cap, and his hair...just..sort of erupted. It was a force to be reckoned with, really.
I kept on watching B anxiously throughout the entire set, as I had convinced her to come with me, and I wasn't sure it'd be her style of music. During the parts where James smiled and basically charmed the crowd (and talk about mock/rock star cliches, people threw bras at him.) she smiled, but when something of a musical nature took place, she looked bored. At one point, I saw her staring at her feet.
Me, I was too busy taking pictures to correctly filter music. I just thought of it as a great wall of noise, occasionally broken by bursts of melody or frenetic guitar playing and James' smile.
With practice, and tunes, and practice.....I don't know. It was their public debut and sonically, it was an achievement.
The payoff of the evening happened with the second band, Common Rotation. B wandered off after GoTR ended, suddenly attacked by claustrophobia and malaise. I found Dare and the rest of the estrogen gang, and we talked about endearingly/dorky James can be, and funny things you hear in the women's restroom, and then L points out Tom Lenk in the audience.
For the non Buffy viewers, Tom Lenk portrays Andrew, of the Geek Trio. L suggests I go up to him and ask him for a picture.
I do the walking thing okay, and then when I'm actually faced with his gray shoulder, I freeze, and scuttle back over to an amused L, who says it's perfectly okay to talk to him. I hiss, "But he looks terrified."
L: "He always looks like that."
This becomes quickly confirmed, as I go over there again, and timidly tap him on the shoulder, L following me.
I just have to state again, for the record, that I suck at stalking people, even if I'm not emotionally interested in them. I just tend to find the idea of going up to strangers and interacting with them in an immediate, psuedo friendly way, jarring and brain-freezing. Look at me, I'm all about Personal Space.
Okay, so Tom Lenk has this cute befuddled!startled gerbil expression and he's not much taller than me, and he's very kind and gracious, when L told him what we wanted. The flash went off, I'm sure I blinked, but I got my picture with Tom Lenk.
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!
Thank you agaaaaain, you wily vixen
Tom Lenk is there of course to see Common Rotation (and maybe to see James too, but I only saw him when the crowd dispersed for CR.) Dare and I try to track him so she can get a picture with him this time, and for the next five minutes, we amuse ourselves with a "where's tom?" game in which we spot him repeatedly through out the area, on his cellphone, with his friends, later going to the bar. He walks past us at one point, and Dare and I just look at each other and start to laugh. "This is like a sitcom./He Just Walked PAST US!"
Dare does get her picture with him later, but now on to the ROCK AND ROLL part of this post, which I foretold.
Okay, so you know how the big rock and roll review cliche is how that the crowd is always throbbing, beating, or pumping (good lord, I've just now realized how imminent porn is in everything.) like a heart? Well, there's nothing new here, cos I can't really review things except to gush about stuff I like. So, the crowd was like a beating heart on the verge of a heart attack, because once Adam, Eric, and the CR crew got on stage, the energy and fun quota just increased 110%. These guys are fantastic, and Adam is amazingly charismatic onstage. He worked it, man. Tuneful, fun, and rock and roll -- Common Rotation got the crowd dancing and singing along and two new fans were born. (me and B got cds afterwards).
Adam is definitely more attractive in person than he is portrayed on screen, but then there's the entire personality thing -- he's just charming and his facial expressions, whoaaa. Yes. Definitely quirky charm.
Don't ask me about the chest lawn though.
Afterwards, quoting KISS ("I want to rock and roll....allllllll night") badly, I had to say goodbye to the girls, as B was tired and we had promised M that we'd see her after the gig.
I eventually got home at 1 in the morning. Before I turned off the light in the bathroom, I had to look -- and you know what? I'd date me.
Pictures tomorrow, hopefully -- I had to reload my camera halfway through GoTR's set, and it stuck on me three times, so I don't know if they came out. I'm hoping though....dropped them off today.
This post was sponsored in part by Common Rotation's cd, Moby's 18, the letter S, and fueled by Honey Bunches of Oats, with strawberries. The beauty part was inspired by this excellent post...she puts it better than i could...
Yesterday, I attended the Ghost of the Robot/Common Rotation/Some other bands that I didn't stick around for show.
I left for 14 Below around 5:30, with B in tow, but not before the standard pretty/primping session. Good Charlotte blasting on the speakers, while I watch B pose in front of the mirror, ironing her hair. It seems like a tricky and a very involved process, but as I have been born with paper-flat hair, I've never had to worry about it.
I've decided to go nice and casual, as opposed to an earlier appearance, which involved the Super Cleavage Shirt of Doom. In theory, it looks okay: simple v neck stretch shirt with lace trimming, paired with a white shirt and my buttons and bracelets. Instead, most of the night I was worried about overspilling my shirt, the sudden miraculous cleavage and sucking in my stomach. And then, someone asked if I was dressed up as Madonna.
So...nice and comfortable this time.
While I waited for B to finish ironing her hair, I poked around in her room, looking at the various photographs of her and her sister taken over the years. In a few minutes, she's done and calls for me to help her iron the parts she can't get at. I do this and then we're in her room, deciding what she should wear.
B recently dyed her hair, and it's darker- and it makes her eyes look bigger and her skin whiter. She looks good, and she's fond of saying, "I'm all pretty now!" I remind her that she was pretty before, but she brushes it aside, scornfully saying that I have to say that, because I'm her friend.
In a sense she's right, I do say it partly because I'm her friend, and it's almost an obligation almost as much saying that the ex boyfriend is ratbastard weasel and she was too good for him, or saying that I will look after her dog on alternate Sundays. I also say it because it's true - B is not conventionally pretty, but she is vivacious and the force of her personality makes you believe in all good things. She's funny, she's kind, she's dramatic and testy, but she's there. Which adds up to a lot more than just being pretty.
And this I think is the mistake that I see me and so many other females make in the course of our lives -- that being pretty unhinges us, that it's not false modesty that makes us brush off compliments, but we've been groomed, either by our mothers or surrounding womenfolk, or the nebulous idea of Society that being beautiful is a gift and it entitles you to something, and not everyone can be beautiful. Or that there are 'guidelines' and 'specifications'. There's the scale: cute, pretty, attractive, beautiful, gorgeous, etc. And that it is one of the more important aspects to live up to: my grandmother says to me all the time, that a girl is supposed to be pretty. My mother reaffirms this mantra to me as she applies the newest skin cream to her face. A girl is supposed to be pretty.
Frankly, that's full of shit.
I don't say any of this to B, of course. I just nod and say, "I think you look fine." She pouts. "I don't want to look fine. I want to look hot. Why don't you say I look hot?"
Because I've always equated hot with beverages and the weather and in certain dicey times, soft spoken English exchange students. I never use the word hottie in association with a human being. It reminds me of frozen potato products in the freezer aisle. Because it's a quirk of mine.
I just shrug. "You look fine." I have suddenly become the noncommital, confused boyfriend in the relationship.
So instead I try to divert her by bringing her attention to me. "So, am I okay? I don't look too sweetheart of the damned?" She smiles and checks her lipgloss.
"You look good. You look hot. I'd do you."
And really, that's what having friends is for --even if they'd never follow up on it, it's always nice to hear, yes?
Hotness assured for the time being, we finally hit the open highway. Sometime around six, we end up at 14 below and hand off B's car to the valet.
Then it's off to find a place to eat and a restroom, and....get this, we walk. That's right. Briskly moving, we pound the pavement, we are pedestrians set loose in an automobile world, and we both have our cellphones out, being all very LA and yuppiesh. Or possibly budding drug dealers. I don't know.
I call L and we meet up at the Coffee Bean, striding all the way through frigid wind, because we're tough like this. Incidentally, a lot of the sidewalks down Santa Monica are under construction, so we're sidestepping traffic and yellow tape.
As we get to the CB, I see T milling about the sidewalk. It's one of those classic sitcom, slo mo cornfield moments, only I don't run across the street with flowers in my hair. I just shout instead and a hug later, and go inside to get a bottled water. (California, Santa Monica. Come ON.) L, Dare and Rebecca are waiting outside when I come out and it's exclamation over Rebe's cool boots, Dare's shade of lipstick, and the general giddiness you get over people you like and haven't seen in a while.
B's dosed up with her mandatory caffiene, and we all debate the pros and cons of walking back to 14 below, then decide against it, as Dare's wearing heels. Instead, we cram all six of us into L's car and drive back. Lot of reminsicing about the last time an x_amount of people fit into a car, with the punchline being a cute cop and well...erm, my ass.
After the clowncar stunt is over, we wander inside the bar, after last minute pretty checking, and run into a variety of people, the least being Scoot.
Less said of S the better.
He has us swing up and out into a line through the pool area, and while we're in line, we're entertained by the tvs set up in the bar/dining area. A star wars special is on, and much mocking ensues. (Purple lightsaber, fighting in the rain, backstreet boy sith, the mullet of doom, freaksome fanboys, etc.) With the exception of B, everyone in our group has seen About a Boy instead (and you should too. It's a lovely movie.)
People watching occurs, and as with any James related event, there's always the requisite fan who's dressed like a bondage Barbie. A lot of familiar faces. I think about vinyl and the heat factor, and thank the clothing gods for denim once again. I mean, yay, leather(Pleather) and fetish wear, but when I'm in a club, where the possibility of lot of people crammed up against me, and sweat and hot lights are also working overtime, the last thing I want to be is sticking to my clothes. I remember wearing a rubber skirt to school once. I stuck to a wall.
Sartorial whines aside, the waiting was long and annoying as usual, but once we got inside, I notice that there is a definite decrease in audience. Scoot must have kept his word in some fashion, and limited ticket sales. There's actual room to move comfortably, and B and I manage to get upfront fairly easily. While it's not perfect as it does follow the golden rules of a 14 below gig with James, which are 1. Someone or someone's taller boyfriend will automatically be standing in the very spot in front of you, and she/he'll have materialized at the last minute. 2. Someone will smell like onions. 3. Someone will get astoundingly drunk near you.
A lot of bad best of the nineties muzak/alternative/noise mix later, and Ghost of the Robot is announced with lots of fanfare and smoke.
Ghost of the Robot, for those of you who don't know, is James Marsters' newly created band. I had heard he started it with a friend of his, Charlie. When they actually appeared on stage, I had to stop myself from laughing, as the lineup consists of James and Charlie, and Charlie's friends, because really, I'm not seeing where James would be hanging around a bunch of 17 year old boys on a daily basis, and not have them being relatives. They are *very* young...and I'll be surprised if one of them is 19.
The bassist and drummer for GotR were pretty good, though, and during the parts of the songs I could actually make out (yet another triumph for the soundman, I'm guessing, but the vocals were mixed really low, or that's just the range. I'm not really technical girl) they showed some promise. But to be blunt, I just wasn't that impressed - in between rock/mock star posing and strutting, James crackled, popped, howled and mewled in this caricature type fashion. I'm not sure if he believed it himself, but it was done in the classic James way, half effacing, half serious and mostly charming and dorky all at once. It was awfully noisy and the age gap between him and the rest of the band is so very apparent. It's almost like asking your dad to play drums for you and you happen to be covering Nirvana or Linkin Park, and he's all into Willie Nelson or ...Hall and Oates.
They (the younger members) all wore baseball caps sideways, so visually, it was like seeing the young beastie boys. *G*
Though during the set, one of them pulled off his baseball cap, and his hair...just..sort of erupted. It was a force to be reckoned with, really.
I kept on watching B anxiously throughout the entire set, as I had convinced her to come with me, and I wasn't sure it'd be her style of music. During the parts where James smiled and basically charmed the crowd (and talk about mock/rock star cliches, people threw bras at him.) she smiled, but when something of a musical nature took place, she looked bored. At one point, I saw her staring at her feet.
Me, I was too busy taking pictures to correctly filter music. I just thought of it as a great wall of noise, occasionally broken by bursts of melody or frenetic guitar playing and James' smile.
With practice, and tunes, and practice.....I don't know. It was their public debut and sonically, it was an achievement.
The payoff of the evening happened with the second band, Common Rotation. B wandered off after GoTR ended, suddenly attacked by claustrophobia and malaise. I found Dare and the rest of the estrogen gang, and we talked about endearingly/dorky James can be, and funny things you hear in the women's restroom, and then L points out Tom Lenk in the audience.
For the non Buffy viewers, Tom Lenk portrays Andrew, of the Geek Trio. L suggests I go up to him and ask him for a picture.
I do the walking thing okay, and then when I'm actually faced with his gray shoulder, I freeze, and scuttle back over to an amused L, who says it's perfectly okay to talk to him. I hiss, "But he looks terrified."
L: "He always looks like that."
This becomes quickly confirmed, as I go over there again, and timidly tap him on the shoulder, L following me.
I just have to state again, for the record, that I suck at stalking people, even if I'm not emotionally interested in them. I just tend to find the idea of going up to strangers and interacting with them in an immediate, psuedo friendly way, jarring and brain-freezing. Look at me, I'm all about Personal Space.
Okay, so Tom Lenk has this cute befuddled!startled gerbil expression and he's not much taller than me, and he's very kind and gracious, when L told him what we wanted. The flash went off, I'm sure I blinked, but I got my picture with Tom Lenk.
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!
Thank you agaaaaain, you wily vixen
Tom Lenk is there of course to see Common Rotation (and maybe to see James too, but I only saw him when the crowd dispersed for CR.) Dare and I try to track him so she can get a picture with him this time, and for the next five minutes, we amuse ourselves with a "where's tom?" game in which we spot him repeatedly through out the area, on his cellphone, with his friends, later going to the bar. He walks past us at one point, and Dare and I just look at each other and start to laugh. "This is like a sitcom./He Just Walked PAST US!"
Dare does get her picture with him later, but now on to the ROCK AND ROLL part of this post, which I foretold.
Okay, so you know how the big rock and roll review cliche is how that the crowd is always throbbing, beating, or pumping (good lord, I've just now realized how imminent porn is in everything.) like a heart? Well, there's nothing new here, cos I can't really review things except to gush about stuff I like. So, the crowd was like a beating heart on the verge of a heart attack, because once Adam, Eric, and the CR crew got on stage, the energy and fun quota just increased 110%. These guys are fantastic, and Adam is amazingly charismatic onstage. He worked it, man. Tuneful, fun, and rock and roll -- Common Rotation got the crowd dancing and singing along and two new fans were born. (me and B got cds afterwards).
Adam is definitely more attractive in person than he is portrayed on screen, but then there's the entire personality thing -- he's just charming and his facial expressions, whoaaa. Yes. Definitely quirky charm.
Don't ask me about the chest lawn though.
Afterwards, quoting KISS ("I want to rock and roll....allllllll night") badly, I had to say goodbye to the girls, as B was tired and we had promised M that we'd see her after the gig.
I eventually got home at 1 in the morning. Before I turned off the light in the bathroom, I had to look -- and you know what? I'd date me.
Pictures tomorrow, hopefully -- I had to reload my camera halfway through GoTR's set, and it stuck on me three times, so I don't know if they came out. I'm hoping though....dropped them off today.
This post was sponsored in part by Common Rotation's cd, Moby's 18, the letter S, and fueled by Honey Bunches of Oats, with strawberries. The beauty part was inspired by this excellent post...she puts it better than i could...
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