Archive for December, 2007

31
Dec
07

Ghost of Christmas Present

By shawnster Leave a Comment
Categories: Shawn
Tags: , , , ,

After a weeklong visit from their little house on the prairie to the wet ’n’ wild West Coast, my parental units have left. And, as usual, our parting was a mix of sadness, relief, and counting the silverware.

Of course, this being the Conners, their trip was not without incident. For instance, the question “Where’s the First Aid kit?” is not what you want to hear at a Christmas Day dinner visit. But ten minutes into our arrival at my friend Kim’s, my parents’ friend Nancy had slipped on the carpeted stairs going down to the basement on a tour of the house. When I went down-stairs I found the blonde, bouffant-do’d septuagenarian surrounded by my folks and Rollie, Kim’s husband, and the one who had called for the kit. Nancy had lifted her pant leg to reveal a bloody gash in her calf.

 

Happily, most of the rest of Christmas dinner went much better. Kim, a friend of mine for long enough to have met my parents several times and nevertheless extended the kind offer to host this clown party, had prepared a feast fit for a king, and too good for the Conners. I’d helped by peeling the yams, but Kim had done all the rest—prepared turkey, stuffing, Brussels sprouts, even a home-made pumpkin pie. Dinner was delicious, although I think Rollie made more of an impression. As Kim’s fond of saying, “Everyone loves Rollie,” and it’s true—neither my parents nor Nancy could stop going on about “what a nice guy” he is.

Now, don’t get me wrong. He is a bona fide mensch, and I (seriously) couldn’t be happier for Kim—she’s got the house she always wanted, and the husband. However, and I’m sure other singles out there can relate, there’s something about exposing one’s parents to a friend’s domestic bliss that always brings up the question, spoken or unspoken, “Why aren’t you settled down with a nice partner?”

It was never directly said, but it was in the air—at Kim’s and a couple of days later, when my friend Mark (a.k.a. my former wingman) brought his live-in girlfriend out for dim sum with my parents and myself. (Again, I’ve known Mark long enough for him to have met my parents many times.) As a result of this lunch, “Why can’t you be more like Mark?” was the great unspoken question hanging in the air for the rest of the day, although my mom showed admirable restraint in not actually saying it.

In the end, though, I scored huge Mom-points by hanging out with my 11-year-old nephew Dylan* a bunch of times. Thanks to Wingy, who rents out band practice space as a sideline, we were able to go in and jam a few times —myself on guitar and Dylan on drums. The kid’s a pretty excellent rhythm ace and, with Wingy on bass and guitar, we actually pulled off a pretty good approximation of a real rock band (“the Weakest Links,” as I christened us). On our last night in the space, to please Dylan, a Nirvana/ Dave Grohl fan, we did “Smells Like Teen Spirit”. I’m no vocalist and was just sort of mumbling the words when I felt the spirit of grunge (or maybe Christmas Present) enter me and, suddenly, I began screaming the chorus (“Here we are now/Entertain us”) for all I was worth. The spit was flying and my face turned red, but it was worth the effort to hear Dylan refer to me afterwards as his “crazy uncle Shawn.” That, and what happened later that night, pretty much made my Christmas.

But that’s a story for another time.

 *My parents adopted the tike, and are raising him to like hockey and McDonald’s.

28
Dec
07

Boys: Girls = 5:1

By lenatic Leave a Comment
Categories: Lena
Tags: , , , , , ,

There is a myth out there that dating in the city (any city: NYC, Toronto, Vegas, probably even Pittsburgh for all I know) is tough. Honestly, that myth needs to go away and never come back, because it’s disheartening and inaccurate and patently untrue.  Meeting your Other Half may prove difficult–especially if you believe, as I do, that humans are created whole, not broken down the middle like those little “Best Friends” necklaces that sixth-graders wear. But dating–or, to further simplify, meeting people–is ubiquitous. The universe throws opportunities at your head all the time. It’s just a matter of A) noticing them and B) taking them.

Though I write about dating/mating/relating and all things encompassed therein, I am surprisingly bad at both A and B. If a guy in a bar is talking to me, I’ll instantly assume he’s gay. If a friend says, “Lena would you like to meet my next-door neighbor, who is a cute single 30-something surgeon?” I’ll say, “No thanks, I’m busy.”

This last quirk is particularly odd because my friends invariably attempt to hook me up with cool people.  All in all, their judgement can be trusted. I am just… difficult about these things.

Case in point: the email thread below, between me and Susan, a publicist friend who I’ve known for five years but almost never see.

Are you in town? if you are come to our little get together, the guy girl ratio is like 5/1, come, meet nice boys!
xo sm

Today at 5:51pm
when is it? I am in town but car probs + work = I am quite the party-pooper. Plus I hate boys. Is this for your engagement?  lk

Today at 6:01pm
where do you live? we are just off X  bet Y and Z so if you are nearish it’s easy to train or bus it.

do you hate boys as a regular thing or just recently?
xo sm

Today at 6:03pm
oh, also yes this is for our engagement, but we do these parties weekly so we always celebrate something!
:) sm

Today at 7:22pm
First of all, congrats on your engagement. Second, yes, I always hate boys; however, I often date and/or have sexual congress with them nonetheless. Third, I will come w/an amiga. Her name is Nadia, she’s a good friend, and I’ve been trying to get her to become a publicist for years, so I’d like her to meet you. — lk

PS I write dating columns, remember? Obviously I love/hate boys!  –lk

 This thread, though short, has many things to teach the Dater in Search of More Play:

  1. Make friends with publicists…they know tons of people, and they throw parties weekly.
  2. Be hard-to-get, or even downright cranky. For some odd reason, it works.
  3. Always study the odds. For me, 5:1 male-to-female is not good, it’s downright scary. That’s why I’m bringing girlfriend reinforcements.
  4. Don’t say you hate boys in random conversation, or people may begin to wonder if you’re a lesbian. Even if you’re clearly, historically, as a matter of public record, NOT.

If there are any lonely young women out there who feel like flirting/drinking/making out with, oh, FOUR fine upstanding Southern California men this Friday evening, please let me know. Nadia drives an SUV, and there is always room for one more.

24
Dec
07

Gratuitous nudity. Thank you, Santa

By shawnster Leave a Comment
Categories: Shawn

Back to the eternal question: last Thursday, I met up with Emma for a drink. Was this a date? The word was never mentioned, and the meeting was arranged through an artful (if I do say so myself) though non-specific email. See, the last few times we’d run into each other, at social occasions, she’d followed up with notes expressing regret at not having a chance to talk because of the constraints of the social milieu. Finally I called her on her apologies and said if she wanted to get together for a more intimate chat, well, it was could be easily arranged…

We rendezvoused at the Bacchus Restaurant and Lounge (www.wedgewoodhotel.com/hotel/bacchus), a classic hotel bar in the sense that, on one hand, its decor and atmosphere make you feel you’ve stepped into the past (a dude at a piano, dark wood wainscoting) and on the other that you’re looking at the future (i.e., wine prices). The idea was to enjoy a quiet ambience but loudly chattering Christmas shoppers filled every nook and cranny. Between them and the piano man, who was stationed too close for comfort, the signal-to-noise ratio was out-of-balance, so we moved to Whine O’s (www.whineos.com). Ill-named and confusedly decorated (a painting of dogs playing poker and a faux animal skin were among the uneasy juxtapositions), the narrow, Granville Street room was slightly more conducive to conversation, at least until the DJ turned up the music.

So was it a date? I still don’t know. We did talk about relationships to a large extent, and covered such topics as how and when to stay friends with exes, and how difficult it is to find compatible prospects who also have their shit together (implying, of course, that we both do). Still, any evening that begins at a $14 per-glass-of-Merlot clip-joint and ends at a 50-cent doughnut stop (Tim Hortons) I consider a memorable one. (For the record, we stopped at the latter not for doughnuts but because I decided to finally buy a travel mug for my morning coffee, having finally resigned myself to the fact I’m probably not going to kick my caffeine habit anytime soon.)

The next night, Sally the film prof hosted a champagne party. It was my favourite kind of shindig—most of the men were gay, and therefore not interested in the women, most of whom were single. Unfortunately, I felt ill-suited to fully take advantage of the situation as I proved to be very allergic to Sally’s dog, Jasper, and spent half the night clearing my sinuses to the point where my frequent bathroom visits must have looked suspicious. However, I was determined to stick it out until the last drop of bubbly was consumed, and was rewarded for my stubborn-ness by the sight of some boob grabbing and a flash of completely gratuitous nudity. Thank you, S and especially T, for the thrill of the weekend.

*For those non-Canadians reading this, Tim Hortons is a chain of doughnut outlets popular in Canada (according to Wikipedia, as of July 1 the Great White North boasted of 2,733 Tim Hortons. There is also one Tim Hortons in Afghanistan, outside Kandahar).

21
Dec
07

Wingy’s ** birthday bash

By shawnster Leave a Comment
Categories: Shawn
Tags: , , , ,

Johnnie Fox’s Irish Snug is not a name to inspire confidence. But staff at the Irish-themed hole-in-the-wall treated us well the other night when we gathered to celebrate the ** [expletive deleted] birthday of Wingy. Manager Morgan went so far as to comp our grub and, in a rather delicious misunderstanding by our otherwise completely competent and helpful waitress, all of my drinks rather than his.

The birthday boy had just come from seeing a new movie, Juno, and brought along a co-worker, CH. She quietly observed the goings-on around her and, I suspect, took mental notes for her future stand-up act. Not that there was a whole lot happening, really, although Wing-y, unleashed by the attention and a few tequila shots, was soon indulging in even more hair-stroking than usual, which he augmented by planting big wet smooches on anyone who came too close. Other uncomfortable moments were provided by Dan and Sara, who dropped by just long enough to tell me about how they’d run into my ex* a month or so ago. Since I didn’t know either of them that well—Dan I’d met a couple of times through a mutual friend, Sara and I had met through this site and had gone on one chemistry-free date—I had to ask (against my better judgment) how my name had come up. “Oh,” Dan said. “We were talking about Internet dating and Sara mentioned she’d gone on a couple of dates and one of them was with this writer…” Thanks for coming, drive safely.

Later, the party moved to Republic, a dance emporium across the street from the Snug. We settled into a semi-private room overlooking busy Granville Street where two DJs spun low-key hip-hop and R ’n’ B grooves. I got into the rhythm, more or less, and shook my moneymaker. This marked my second time on a dancefloor in less than one week (the other was at my company Christmas bash last Saturday night). More spectacularly, at one point I suddenly heard loud girl voices calling my name. I had been recognized—at a packed, hip dance club, no less! Sure, it was just by a couple of ladies from the office (one of whom was there to support her DJ hubby), but I hadn’t felt so popular since that afternoon this past summer, when my yoga instructor called out my name after noticing me looking for a place to hang my towel on the nude beach.

*In my first draft I referred to her as “one of my exes.” Then I was going to change that to the more accurate “my most recent ex.” But that makes it sound as though I have a series of exes, one right after another, when in fact there is usually a period of convalescence in between. I wonder if there is a clearer solution to this problem of semantics.

19
Dec
07

cast a wider net

By lenatic Leave a Comment
Categories: Lena

“Ah well. You just need to cast a wider net,” said my friend Katie to me, on a random Friday evening as I complained about not being able to sell some bleeding-heart humanitarian story based in the Middle East.

“Ah well. You just need to cast a wider net,” said I to a brand-new acquaintance named Caren, who was bemoaning the lack of single men at a party we attended just this past Sunday.

I don’t care if you’re talking sales, media, entertainment, or who-am-I-going-to-make-out-with-this-drunken-eve. A wide net is essential.

 Take Caren. Looking at one guy–ONE guy–who’d just walked in the door of this party. Practically salivating over  his scruffed-out, saggy-seat, detention center sexpot allure, she shiftily informed me that he had a fiance (“Not a girlfriend. A fiance. Just my luck.”) before he ever even set foot in the living room.

(Perhaps I should be ashamed to admit this, but my immediate response was, “Yes, but does he have a job?”)

Whether you give a damn about the employment status of your prospective Sunday night screws or not, one thing is for darn sure: You can’t be too choosy if you’re scouting them at a house party with only 25 guests. Hence my credo: cast a wider net. Fifty people is nothing. A hundred is hardly worth slapping on your Maybelline mascara and powder bronzer for–although an open bar and easy parking might sway me on this.

If you really want options, you must go where the tide of humanity is endless, ever-changing, and charged with the current of cheap desire. I don’t really care where, beyond that. It could be a party. Could be a bar. Could be the produce section of Whole Foods at 3PM on a Sunday. All we’re really looking for here, people, is the CONNECTION POTENTIAL.

As you may have guessed, I’ve been doing a fair bit of business writing today. Interfacing, interacting, interviewing lots of corporate types, including a couple “uber-networkers” who have these crazy Rolodexes with, like, 20,000 people in them.

I bet they never have a problem getting a date.

Anyway, back to the matter at hand: Caren, charming little Southern girl, blue jeans and a bandanna-type headscarf thingie, no makeup, big-city jadedness and small-town optimism warring in her eyes.

“He is SO fine,” she said, avidly eye-stalking the scruffy (probably unemployed) affianced man as he slouched through our peripheral vision.

I didn’t know what to say.

In any larger gathering, there’d be a dozen of him. In any public venue, there’d be a thousand. She didn’t know him. Had never talked to him. Her standards–and I don’t mean to disparage here–were single-faceted and fairly low. Yet, trapped in the netherworld of the small, just-friends house party, he had become an Unattainable Symbol of Ultimate Desire.

This is why, when I go to small-ish house parties or dinner parties or whatever, I quite literally disassociate the girl-on-the-prowl side of me. Sure, maybe she exists in some parallel universe, but in this moment, she is gone. Exorcised. If she were around, she’d just make everyone uncomfortable.

 So when Caren stares desperately at the scrawny hipster/convict-looking man, as though the sheer force of her desire might compel him to hurl his wedding ring into the honking drunken Hollywood Boulevard traffic, I shake her by the wrist.

“Hermosa Beach. Next weekend. Bring Skye with you,” I tell her.

“Hermosa? I love Hermosa,” she says vaguely. “I always have fun there.”

“Enough of this land-locked Hollywood nonsense,” I tell her sternly. “You, missy, need to expand your horizons.”

When she arrives at the beach, I intend to give her a very big, very sticky (figurative, of course) net–and show her how to use it.

17
Dec
07

When a date is not a date

By shawnster Leave a Comment
Categories: Shawn
Tags: , , ,

img_5696.jpgWhen is a date not a date? Regular readers of this blog, both of you, will recall that part of my mandate for six months is to go against my natural instincts and not pursue. Hand-in-hand with this policy is the idea to avoid dating, or at least traditional dating scenarios. Naturally, some slips are unavoidable. So when I called Lucinda, the paralegal I’d met at last week’s Beyond restaurant anniversary party, I rationalized that, though I was breaking with my policy of non-pursuit, I wasn’t asking her out on a date, i.e. a dinner and a movie. I was just asking her come along to a social event, the opening of a new restaurant called Yew in the Four Seasons Hotel. Besides, we’d only spent one drunken evening in each other’s company at a couple of bars—I didn’t even know if I liked her.   

I guess the first indication of incompatibility came a few minutes into the event. I noted, in what I thought was a light-hearted manner, that another partygoer was wearing a dress with a similar colour scheme (black-and-white) to Lucinda’s. “No, she isn’t,” she snapped.  Perhaps, without meaning to, I’d hit a nerve. However, a little while later we’re standing at the bar and she’s talking to my friend Emma, whom I’ve just introduced. Suddenly Lucinda sees someone she knows and, in the midst of her conversation with Emma, turns around to talk to the new, more exciting (to her mind) person. My favourite moment of doom came a little bit later, when I asked to see the pictures  on her camera Lucinda had just been showing to someone else. It turns out she’d been showing them shots of her parents’ house, a ritzy, wedding cake-like domicile, after some Hollywood set designers had made it over to look like a fairytale castle for a movie. I said, again in what I thought was a convivial if not flirtatious manner, “When am I going to get invited over there for dinner?” “Never,” she said. 

The other shoe dropped with a decisive thud a few minutes later, when a friend of mine told me she’d asked Lucinda if she and I were on a date. The dear girl had replied “No”—or, perhaps, “Never!” I have to admit, for all my hemming-and-hawing, it’s one thing to decide for yourself that you’re not on a date, and another to hear your date doesn’t consider it a date either. Wah-wah.

img_5708.jpg Left: Two happy foodies at Yew.

 The Yew opening itself was fun-ish, though filled with a number of sharply-dressed lawyer types. I felt underdressed, which didn’t do a lot for my social confidence, but I drowned my anxiety with food and drink. The West Coast-style grub included an oyster, mac-and-cheese, and chorizo-and-scallop-skewer stations, and the libations included abundant helpings of bubbly and specialty cocktails like the ginger-y Navan Spice. The space itself is ultra-modern—features include the usual open kitchen, as well as a separate glassed-in room serving as wine cellar and semi-private dining area—and, as someone pointed out, very Vegas-y. A tree motif serves as a not wholly convincing tie-in to nature and with the space’s previous incarnation as a garden terrace lounge. For eye-candy and photo-ops, a girl dressed as a mermaid reclined on a table and greeted folks as they entered. Inside, a number of towering models in deep-red, almost scarlet, dresses mingled with us mere mortals.  

In conclusion, I would have to say my “non-date” has done nothing to deter me from my course of non-pursuit. Although, with New Year’s Eve breathing down my neck, my attitude on this could change any second. Or by the next blog.

12
Dec
07

sinister magic messes with my saturday night

By lenatic Leave a Comment
Categories: Lena
Tags: , , , , , ,

On Saturday night my friend Wendy was enchanted. At least, that’s my best explanation for what occurred. I didn’t actually see the enchantment taking place, but I was there for the fallout, and it was exhausting.

You know in the fairy tales where an evil witch casts a spell on someone and makes them unable to recognize their heart’s desire? Yeah, well that was Wendy.  Pissed off, confused, and questing throughout the entire kingdom in vain.

Even before the night officially started, there were hints that something was amiss. We had planned to go to a party, but en route, my girlfriend Nadia received several frantic calls from Wendy, who was already there. She was ready to leave, pronto, stat, the second we arrived.  We wondered what could be so terrible. It was only 11PM–shouldn’t people just be rolling in?

The second we got there, an effusive blond man in a Santa suit hugged us and pointed out where the drinks were. Meanwhile, several perfectly decent-looking people hung about chatting and dancing to old-school hip-hop. It wasn’t very terrible. Nor was the next room–indeed, it proved to be well stocked with liquor and crunchy snacks and attractive, friendly folk. I was curious to see what the patio might hold, but I never made it out there, because Wendy herself came rushing up, wearing a cream-colored sweater dress and a fierce frown.

“We’re getting out of here,” she said. “There are no guys at this party at all.”

Inadvertently I glanced up at the four 6-foot South Bay jock types who had overheard her. They looked away politely.

Then I turned back to find an olive-skinned, buffed-out, tattooed man hanging on Wendy like a puppy dog. 

“This is Miko. We work together,” she explained, before disappearing in a poof of unhappy smoke. I decided to finish my drink and chat with the jocks, but didn’t get to because within seconds Nadia began dragging me to the door.

“We’re going to 304,” she told me.

“Ehh?” said I.

304 turned out to be a lame Manhattan Beach dance club with cheesy lighting, crap music and TONS of people squashed in wall-to-wall. There, we embarked on an insane wild goose chase all around the room, bumping into strangers and splashing drinks everywhere. It ended with the same verdict: there were no guys there. Zero. The options were hideous, disgusting, pathetic.

“Wendy just wants to find a cute guy to make out with,” Nadia explained to me.

This confused me because in 304, just like in all Manhattan Beach bars, you could literally throw an ice cube and hit a cute guy.  I’m not saying that they were take-home-to-mama material, but they were definitely kissable. And a few were more than down to kiss Wendy. Only she couldn’t see it. Seriously, it was like she had selective blindness.

Soon enough, we were all squashed into a two-door Honda hatchback, en route to the Hermosa Pier at 1:30 AM. (California stops serving alcohol at 2AM). Then came a sorry walkabout to find a bar that would let us in after last call. With help from two random dudes who took pity on us, we managed to actually find one. There, I lost track of Wendy. On purpose. I needed to rest.

Soon, though, we were politely forced back onto the street, where lo and behold, there was our girl, talking to a crew of the skinniest, gawkiest, spottiest-looking boys imaginable. They wore checkered shirts, and looked to be about 19 years old.

She was thrilled. I mean, glowing. Swiftly, a plan formed. We would all go over to their house and play Nintendo Wii. This sounded only slightly better than a root canal to me, so I said I’d get a ride home with the guys who’d gotten us into the bar.

“Nooo!” Nadia howled like a wolf. “You came with us, you’ll leave with us.”

I can respect that kind of stick-together female attitude. It’s enough to make me hang out in a share-rental in Redondo playing video games with strangers. For about 20 minutes.

Yet ironically, when the popular vote overwhelmingly ruled “home, Advil, sleep, NOW,” there was one dissident voice. You know whose it was. And Nadia did NOT stop her. She didn’t even try.

I guess there’s no point in reasoning with someone who’s under an enchantment. To her, cute guys are invisible, teenagers look like princes, and no one in LA County is worth kissing.

I need a counter-spell, and I need it before next Friday night.

10
Dec
07

One step Beyond

By shawnster 1 Comment
Categories: Shawn
Tags: , , , ,

To call or not to call? That was the question facing both Wingy and I Friday, following the one-year-anniversary of Beyond (www.beyondrestaurant.com) the night before. A restaurant/lounge in the Century Plaza Hotel, Beyond is near but not quite in the centre of downtown, and features creative takes on the standard fish, meat and vegetarian dishes (truffle honey for the salmon, English minted peas with the pork, a tofu schnitzel). The owners certainly know how to treat their guests–bubbly on arrival, an open bar, a steady flow of hors d’oeuvres, and plenty of wine meant I’d have to be dragged out of there.  

So yes, I pretty much did shut down the place. By then Wingy had arrived following another Christmas party and set his sights on an exotic-looking fashionista, Tabitha. Her friend and protector Abby hovered around them, telling both the wingman and I that he was scaring his object of desire (apparently, she was just out of a relationship). But Wingy likes a challenge, and later said he saw the whole thing as an experiment because he was doing the exact opposite, expressing interest, of what he usually does. Meanwhile, I was also trying not to do what I usually do, which is express interest, while getting to know someone named Lucinda.  

After awhile, realizing we were practically the last ones left, we headed downtown, where we parted ways–Wingy off into the night with Tabitha and Abby, and myself and Lucinda to the retro-futuristic upscale lounge in the Opus Hotel (www.opushotel.com/opus.html), a favourite haunt of visiting rock stars (I once saw Michael Stipe give a shout-out to the hotel’s staff in the middle of an REM concert). We arrived sometime around midnight, and a party for Canadian TV personality George Strombolopoulos was winding down. Lucinda and I sat with April, a local clothing-store owner who’d also been at Beyond, and her husband Herschel, a shortish, round character with a wispy goatee and wearing a pork-pie hat. He might not look like a lady-killer, said April, but Herschel does really well with women. “His last girlfriend before me looked like Bo Derek,” said April, a raven-haired, somewhat Goth-looking girl. “In fact, all his exes look like Bo Derek.” (For those of you who haven’t seen the Dudley Moore comedy 10, www.imdb.com/title/tt0078721, Bo Derek was the ne plus ultra of cornrowed blonde Amazonian sex goddesses for a brief moment in the late ’70s.)   

When Wingy and I finally talked the next day we both asked the other’s advice—do we call? For me, the night ended with a cab ride home, a phone number and a not-quite kiss, which didn’t add up to a whole lot of encouragement. Besides which, I’m trying not to pursue. Whereas he wasn’t sure he was even interested enough to continue pursuing—it had simply been the thrill of the chase. 

08
Dec
07

Rainy retail daze

By lenatic Leave a Comment
Categories: Lena
Tags: , , , , ,

It is pouring down rain in LA, and I am thinking nostalgically of Cabo. Oh wait, it poured for a day there too. Okay, I am thinking nostalgically of August.

Apparently some people are out in the swirling mix of holiday parties, but I just can’t bear it, considering the horrible weather and sketched-out freeway conditions I’d have to brave in order to reach any such party. Actually, the annual Hermosa Christmas Tree lighting was tonight in my ‘hood, and I could have gone to that, but…um, water + electricity + Not a Good Thing.

Actually I am somewhat over-exaggerating the hermit situation. I went hot-tubbing at a friend’s house on Sunday evening, out to a press event at the Chamberlain (cute little property, v. tucked away, nice rooftop) on Monday, and then to a champagne tasting on Tuesday at Il Moro in West LA. I was an hour late to the event because I sat in jam-packed traffic two miles away from my exit for 30 minutes. Truthfully, the kind of situation that makes you want to stay tucked in the South Bay.

However, I think I may venture out tomorrow…my friend Nadia wants me to go on an Xmas-themed pub crawl (what does that mean? Dress like an elf and only drink spiked eggnog?). And I have recently–and intriguingly–learned that Kevin Bronson, my editor at the Times Calendar, DJs at Spaceland from time to time, including tonight. Kevin writes an outstanding music blog. He’s been covering buzz bands here in the city for years, and I can only imagine what his DJ sets are like. I would totally go. If I had a driver. Or a teleporter.

Elsewhere in the city, Paperfish and Yamato (two fancy-pants restaurants) opened on the West Side, right on the heels of Hidden, which wasn’t hidden at all, but actually impossible to miss. Seriously, you could hear it from a half-mile away. Citizens of Humanity, Lisa Kline and the Fashion Co-op are throwing sample sales, and there are more pop-up shops around town this weekend than I can possibly count. Tis the season to spend money.

 Or, alternatively, to run away to Hawaii or Costa Rica for a few weeks and avoid the holiday storms altogether.

05
Dec
07

Redemption song

By shawnster Leave a Comment
Categories: Shawn
Tags: , , ,

img_5643.jpg Look! girls.

 

Well, after squandering what little masculinity I had left by venturing out to the Spice Girls concert with three other guys, I partially redeemed myself Monday night. Wingy and I had four gorgeous ladies accompany us to—well, I’d like to say an AC/DC or Avenged Sevenfold show but in actual fact it was Tori Amos. So sue me…

 

 img_5645.jpg Again, pictured with Wingy.

Anyway, you can see them in the picture. See? Take a closer look. Yes, that’s right, girls! So there.

 img_5646.jpgThe concert itself was okay. Amos played a few too many piano ballads for my taste and she seemed to waste her band, which seemed like it was ready to rock. The audience, an arty one, ate it up, though. Afterwards, we went for a post-show drink, our numbers dwindled down to four; Wingy insisted on ordering spicier and spicier Caesars, and one of our party told me all about her broken-down marriage. At 26! What the hell’s going on with the world? No wonder she wanted to go to a Tori Amos concert.

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