Sssssssssssssssssssss-mokin!

The Smoking Gun is great. I should really check it out more. Someone pointed me to this tonight, which is an extensive list of "riders" for bands, comedians, entertainers in general. Quite eye-opening, really. Personally, I find the food that they request most interesting. Britney herself (not her band, not her people, just Britney) requires quite a list of food and drink, including both Cool Ranch and WOW! Doritos. Aren't those the ones with the stuff that makes your butt leak? I also like the fact that her band requires a large bucket of mixed KFC chicken delivered at 4pm. I'm realizing more and more that being a runner at one of these venues where these bands play would really suck.

My favorite one? Busta Rhymes. Particularly this paragraph:

"Busta prefers West Indian and African American (Soul). In other words they should receive well rounded meals with fixins! Busta's management has final approval on all caterers. There is to be no pork or beef in the food or vicinity of Busta's dressing room."

Things I like about this paragraph:

1) This professionally-drafted document refers to him simply as "Busta".
2) This professionally-drafted document uses the term "fixins".
3) Busta is referred to in the plural ("they"). He is not just one man. Busta is many men.
4) Busta apparently doesn't eat red meat or the other white meat. Who knew?

If you read on, under requirements for soundcheck Busta apparently requires 6 bottles of Moet champagne - FOR SOUNDCHECK.

The Dixies Chicks like to golf. And they're requiring someone to make a tee time for them.

I could go on and on, but that would take all the fun out of it for you. Go on, take a gander.

P.S. As you go, you realize that promoters and venues are getting all of this crap for bands, anything they want under the sun, and then passing the costs on to us, as ticket buyers. Kind of makes you feel ripped off in a way.

Man divorces wife in sleep

Just another side effect of Ambien, maybe.

I don't have a title for this post

Wedding plans continue. I've already posted about the idiosyncrasies of registering for gifts. Today, it was looking through books of poetry for potential pieces to be read during the ceremony. Notice I used the term pieces and not poems. It means I'm cultured. It's like at the symphony. Those are called pieces too. At a jazz concert, they're tunes.

Right, so we're sitting there in the poetry aisle, looking for potential good poem-type stuff to read, and I come across one that I just had to share. The title is: After Drinking All Night with a Friend, We Go Out in a Boat at Dawn to See Who Can Write the Best Poem." Great title. Makes me want to like poetry. It's by a guy named Robert Bly. Intrigued, I looked up more poems that he has written. They include "It's Hard for Some Men to Finish Sentences" and "Lullaby of the Onion." I think I love poetry.

Also, have you ever used that tooth whitening stuff, where you stick this gross piece of plastic on your teeth for half an hour and then remove it, only to find that your teeth are not any whiter, but do have the added benefit of now being covered in a thin layer of sludge, not unlike glue? Yeah, well I've experienced that for the first time recently.

Lastly, I was disappointed that Washington lost to Connecticut last night, despite the fact that I have UConn winning it all in my pool. Why? Because Washington features the usual contingent of big, muscular, athletic-looking guys, and in the middle of all of them is this little white guy with blonde, curly hair who strikes me as looking most like Harpo Marx. You can decide for yourself.

Ups and downs

Well, I didn't end up going down to try and get me a Wilco ticket. Too bad too, it looked like a really good show. And they dropped in "Casino Queen" for the STL audience. DAMN. I wanted to be there.

But on the bright side: I got a t-shirt made. It's juvenile. It's corny. And it's on sale. Plus, it netted me some cash from the College Humor/Busted Tees guys. Not bad for just coming up with a dumb idea. Thanks to Pete for the hookup on that one.

Thoughts on Sunday

-I recently saw a production of Much Ado About Nothing at Wash U, and I realized that it has been 10 years since I was in it. It was a strange realization that it's been that long. In a way, I'm not sure if it feels longer or shorter. But I liked this version.

-Registering for wedding gifts is a very funny process. Kia and I found ourselves having to pick bed linens and comforters based on color schemes for houses/apartments that we have yet to live in. We found "makers" for almost every type of food you can think of: along with the usual coffee and espresso makers, there were smores makers, ice cream makers, donut makers, and even quesadilla makers. Let me tell you, if you need a machine to make you a dang quesadilla, you're not a good person. You're just not. But after many hours of searching and booping products with our little gun, the registry is complete. Now buy us stuff.

-March Madness is in full effect. Here's the latest proof: during today's game between Bradley and Pittsburgh, the scoreboard read: Brad Pitt. I know. Madness.

-V for Vendetta: see it.

-Do I go down to The Pageant tonight and try my luck getting Wilco tix? It sold out in about a day. I have a feeling there will be lots of people like me who are hoping to get lucky and score a few tickets.

PPS

As a post-script to my ealier post (which I guess would make it a post post-script), you can't see it in the picture I included, but someone had apparently gotten up by the billboard and spray painted "Right wing scum, your time will come." Or maybe "your time has come." I can't remember. It gives one a little hope that something like that isn't being taken lightly.

Friday links

Check out these auctioneers! And livestock auctioneers, no less.

http://www.lmaweb.com/wlacpast.html

And here's another chance for Red Sox fans to relive one of the most painful moments in Sox history. Maybe it's repayment for the documentation of one of the most thrilling moments in Sox history (i.e., "Fever Pitch")

http://www.game6film.com/

This is where I live (Part deux)

I previously posted about the lighter side of life in the midwest, as described by The Onion.

This is far less light-hearted, and more on the...how shall we put it...offensive side.

It's probably hard for you to read this sign. It's a billboard right next to the highway here in St. Louis. And when I first read it, I thought it was a joke.

Pictured is a happy-looking guy. It reads: "I Questioned Homosexuality. Change is possible. Discover How."

It then lists a website you can go to if you find yourself in this predicament and want to find out how you can change yourself.

It caught my eye as I was driving by and had to go back for a second look. I couldn't believe that such things existed. I was floored. I still am.

World Baseball Classic

Wait a minute -- we lost to Canadia in baseball??

B-I-N-G-O

I'm not much for Mardi Gras. In general, I just can't get into it. Apparently, St. Louis has a pretty big one, but I've never gone. It just sounds like a lot of slogging through big, sticky, obnoxious crowds. Sort of like New Year's except less fun. Sort of like a combination of New Year's and Fourth of July, with a dash of St. Patrick's Day. Anyway, I've never tried to go and don't really see myself doing so.

Which makes it even funnier what happened Monday. The evening started out with me, Kia, Kelly, and Julian going to this Greek restaurant in our neighborhood. It's good food, but Kia had an alterior (ulterior? allteeereeeeor?) motive -- to get a recipe for a potential wedding dish. Well, the waitress wouldn't spill the beans, as it were, with regard to the recipe, but she did give Kia the basic gist. So this eggplant and spinach rice dish may be part of the menu in June.

Next, we went to have ice cream, and Tal and Rachel met us. Kia discovered that chocolate raspberry ice cream is not so good with Twix in it. At that point, it seemed like things were wrapping up for the night when Julian suggested we go to BINGO at a gay bar. Now, if there's one thing I love, it's gay BINGO. And if there's one thing I love more than that, it's gay BINGO where the letters are read by a drag queen. Yes indeed, what better way to spend Mardi Gras eve?

Off we went. Getting off the highway, I can't say any of us were real thrilled by the surroundings. But we took Julian's word, got out of the car, and walked in. As we walked in the door, we received a big book of BINGO sheets and a welcome from the BINGO caller. We found a table in the back and settled in, big markers in hand ready to mark off the letters as they were called.

I especially enjoyed the way the caller enunciated each letter-number pair. "B-Niiiiine......Beeeeee-Niiiiiiiiiine". He also found numerous opportunities to make sexual innuendoes and make cracks about people he knew in the audience. The first game we were there for required one to get all of the squares around the edge of their card filled to win. No luck, none of us managed to win that one. At this point there was a break, people started milling around, and old Wham! videos came on the TV screens. Kia noticed a sign on the restroom door indicating that if more than one person were caught together inside, they would be asked to leave the bar.

After the break, Tal won a game, for which he was given a chance to pick out Mardi Gras beads of his choice. He chose ones with rubber chickens on them. Classy.

The next game was a birthday cake game - get the squares all the way across on the top, middle, and bottom. This my game. I was in the zone. And indeed, I was doing well. But well enough to win? Only time would tell. Well, I'll ruin the suspense for you. I did indeed win. Being from the same table as Tal, who had just won, people maybe started to wonder. I started to wonder myself. Given the fact that Tal and I were probably the only two straight guys in the bar, what are the chances that we'd both win? Anyway, I proudly made my way to the front, to meet the drag queen in person, and he/she kindly checked my numbers, then told me I could pick out beads of my choice. I saw a number of options, but eventually took the ones with big plastic monkeys on them. They're classic. I'm disappointed that we're having problems getting pictures off of the camera, because this would be a great time for a visual. Anyway, I took them with pride, and was given a Mardi Gras poster on top of it. Not a bad set of loot from a free BINGO game.

I felt bad that we chose to leave right after that. It was sort of like we had gotten what we wanted and were now going home. Perhaps we'll go back.

Oh, so to tie it up with the part at the beginning about not liking Mardi Gras - it's ironic that I won Mardi Grad beads.

This is where I live

I love The Onion for many things. In particular, I enjoy the little map with fictional news blurbs from various parts of the country. A snippet from one this week that featured St. Louis:

FLORRISANT, MO—Planners of an abortion-clinic bombing were forced to postpone due to a scheduling conflict with the Blue-Collar Comedy Tour at the Savvis Center in nearby St. Louis.

Get 'er DONE!