@iMissTempe No. 79: Kitchen bitchin' (http://tr.im/Qb4x)
I feel like I haven’t posted anything here in a while…
...so rather than waiting until some transcendental thought hits me or I feel the need to write about something I have file photos of, I will simply say: Free food is awesome, and free food with good friends is even better.
OK, and actually this post will have a photo with it. In searching for photos of last year's free-pancakes-at-IHOP outing, all I could find were pictures of the IHOP in West Hollywood (the site of a story or two) and of making pancakes in South LA... oh, and this one:
Notice that in the top right corner, someone has spelled IHOPANON, which some of us here in the desert may have to join soon.
Also, click on the photo to go to the Flickr photo page, where you can mouse over words like FIERCERS for explanations of how they are totally legit words.
Early Halloween lives on!
As you may or may not already know, last year, I started celebrating Early Halloween on Feb. 14 because, you know, it's not like there are any other major observances on that day.
Well, truth be told, I was also pretty angsty about being single and took great joy in repurposing Valentine's Day. This year? I'm not quite as angsty and I also didn't have a truly killer costume idea, so the future of Early Halloween was looking dim.
I had thought about being a Jersey Shore cast member, but that would've required me to keep my hair all long and gross-looking so that I could attempt some sort of a blowout. And when I began to realize just how many friends from Arizona I was likely to run into in Las Vegas this weekend, I decided that a haircut was definitely in order because appearing somewhat presentable on Saturday was more important than being able to maybe pull off a the guido look on Sunday.
So when I set out for Vegas, I didn't really bring many costume-able items, and on Sunday morning I just put on a T-shirt and jeans for the day's Strip-based activities. But later that day, we unexpectedly stumbled across the best costume imaginable, so Early Halloween was back on.
Now, without further ado, here is...
the story of my Early Halloween '10 costume
Let's flash back to the first time I ever went to Las Vegas, which was on my youth group's way to and from SSP '04.
Before we left, my friend John kept telling us that he was really excited about stopping in Las Vegas because people on the streets handed out free Pokémon cards there. I thought that seemed pretty unlikely since a) Pokémon were not that cool anymore by the summer of '04 and b) unless there was some sort of Pokémon convention there, why would people hand out free cards?
On the way up to the Duck Valley reservation on the Nevada-Idaho border, we stayed at University United Methodist Church in Vegas, which coincidentally is also where I spent a lot of this past weekend at the Relevance X conference. University UMC isn't all that far away from the Strip, but we stayed close by the church on our way to SSP. And John's tales of free Pokémon cards remained the stuff of legend.
On the way back, however, our adult leaders gave in to our never-ending requests to see the Strip. One night, they agreed to drive us down Las Vegas Boulevard in the church van on a magical journey, during which my face was literally pressed up against the window as I was awed by the "sparkly, sparkly" outside.
At one point on our trip, while we were stopped in traffic, I looked down to the sidewalk and saw a bunch of those little cards advertising the services of various female escorts.
I said something along the lines of, "Hey, look at all those stripper business cards on the ground!"
"Yeah, see? Pokémon cards!" John replied.
Well — much to the adults' chagrin, I'm sure — Pokémon cards became one of the hallmarks of our SSP trip. We even made our own out of our placemats from a buffet where we ate:
And ever since then, whenever I've visited Vegas, I've generally had some fun with the guys who stand along the Strip, snapping the cards at passers-by in an attempt to pass out a handful of the ladies.
I've collected enough to snap them back at the guys, and I've asked them a whole host of questions (sometimes in my comically basic Spanish when they say they don't know English) including if they have any cards depicting dudes. One time, I even used the cards to create a display that came to be known as the Skank Bank.
This weekend's Vegas trip was no exception. After Relevance X wrapped up Saturday night, I headed out to the Strip with the Tempe First young adult group and ended up collecting 189 escort cards, which I eventually just had the card-snappers drop in a CVS bag as I asked, "Trick-or-treat?"
At the time, I didn't even realize how perfect it was that I was trick-or-treating on the strip on the eve of Early Halloween. But the next day, as Chris, Amanda and I were strolling past the Citta Delle Luci shop in Planet Hollywood's Miracle Mile, Chris noticed that they were selling shirts that looked just like those worn by the ubiquitous card-snappers. Amanda suggested that I throw one on for a quick photo-op, but I decided that instead, I'd actually buy the shirt and use it for my early Halloween costume.
Since my trick-or-treating bag was far away, sitting in the trunk of my car, we quickly went about collecting some more cards as we went to meet up with the rest of the crew. Then, I put on my new shirt and almost immediately met some girls who clearly needed some GIRLS DIRECT TO THEIR ROOM IN 20 MINUTES:
See more photos from Early Halloween
Then, once we hit the Strip, there was a card-snapper who offered to sell me another shirt for $20, but I told him that one was all I really needed.
Minutes later, we had identified a heavily-trafficked corner where there were a couple real card-snappers who I could snap alongside of. At first, we set up some posed photos just in case the guys took offense to me trying to hand out stripper cards to real passers-by:
That guy in the blue shirt tried to get in on the action, giving Amanda a few of his cards as well. But instead of running me off, he actually was quite happy to augment my stack of escort cards with some of his own. I'm guessing he saw my enthusiasm for my Early Halloween costume as an opportunity to unload some cards and come closer to meeting some sort of quota.
He also tried to get the other guy at that corner to give me some of his cards, but the second guy was wary of the idea. A minute or so later, though, he tried to give me a whole big, rubberbanded stack that was probably a good 500 cards.
Anyway, after I peddled some ladies' services to a couple of the ladies from our group, the light turned green, the crosswalk signal turned to the walking man, and a whole bunch of people I didn't know came our way.
That's when I really got to work, as you can see in this video:
See more photos from Early Halloween
The woman in the car was hilarious, btw. In addition to asking for my escort cards, she said she was going to snap some back at me. Then the guy in the blue shirt came up and tried to get in on the action, but she shut him down, saying, "Ew! Your cards are nasty!"
And I love how some passers-by said my girlfriend would probably be pissed about this little adventure. Although I haven't asked Justine if she would've approved, I'm guessing she'll get a kick out of it.
Speaking of girl (space) friends, my thanks go out to Amanda and Jill for taking some cards for the team. Also, thanks to Dan, who shot the video as well as some stills and can be heard cracking up at the girlfriend comment, and Chris, who helped me collect cards and also took photos. All y'all made it an Early Halloween for the ages.
Oh, and I should also mention that I got a ton of strange looks as I walked around Vegas with my shirt on... as well as when I wore it to Toucans last night. (I just couldn't resist the irony of wearing a "GIRLS DIRECT" shirt to a bar where about 90 percent of the clientele has no interest in women.)
And my card-snapping self will be making one more Early Halloween appearance at the Ace tonight for Sissy Bingo.
Random fact: I ended up making it back to Palm Springs with 425 escort cards. The Skank Bank has become a veritable Tramp Treasury, my friends.
You are tearing me apart, Savannah!
When I first saw the trailer for Dear John, I knew I had to see it.
I wanted to see Dear John not because it was adapted from a Nicky Sparks book or because it was about true love or anything like that. No, my friends. I wanted to see this movie for the sole reason that it looked like it included some significant screen time for a shirtless Channing Tatum.
In that respect, Dear John certainly didn't disappoint. But in almost every other way, this movie was so bad.
Stacy and I saw it tonight, and right from the get-go, we couldn't help but snicker at the awkward pacing and repetitive dialogue. Soon, I was interjecting lines from The Room whenever they seemed appropriate, which was surprisingly often.
In fact, by mid-movie, I had become convinced that Dear John was on par with The Room in the epic fail department. It even lent itself to such commentary as "Because you're a woman!"
And just as I was starting to get into the plot and wondering whether there was more to this movie than just the unintentional comedy of it all, someone up and gets cancer randomly! SRSLY.
remake! remake!
Now that I've seen Dear John, there's nothing I want more in the cinematic world than for Tommy Wiseau to cast himself and his The Room co-stars in a Dear John remake.
Tommy would play John, of course, so that he could show off his nice pecs in all the surfing (but not) scenes.
Juliette Danielle, aka Lisa, would play the female lead, and I can think of a perfect place in the script, right before the cancer revelation, for John to yell, "You are tearing me apart, Savannah!"
The beard-growing skills Greg Sestero showed while playing Mark in The Room clearly qualify him for the role of Tim, who for the purposes of our remake might as well be John's best friend.
Then my friend and fellow State Press alum Phil Haldiman, aka Denny, should probably play Alan, whom the other characters seem to say "O hai" to quite often.
And I guess that leaves Carolyn Minnott, who played Claudette in The Room, to be John's dad. I suppose Tommy could tweak the script to have the character be John's mom, but I feel like Minnott could really stretch herself as an actress by playing the male role.
In any case, I do expect Tommy to write in a little confrontation between Mr./Mrs. Tryee and Savannah that ends with the former saying, "If you think I'm autistic today, wait till you see me tomorrow!"
This could be a beautiful thing, Tommy. Don't let me down. Remake this movie.
on hipness
So I wrote this last Thursday and meant to post it Friday, but my pre-weekend plans got in the way, so now here are my much-delayed thoughts on hipness:
Part I: Coachella
Photo by Caesar Sebastian
When this year's Coachella lineup was announced last last week, I was rather impressed that I had heard of (and in some cases, straight-up heard) many of the artists who'll be playing in Indio come April.
You know, back in high school, I only had this vague idea of what Coachella was and probably knew 0.3 of the bands that played the festival... and now all these years later, I live in the Coachella Valley and kind of maybe want to go to Coachella — assuming, of course, that there are enough bands I want to see that won't be playing while I'm at work Saturday night.
Part II: KWXwhY?
This past past Saturday, I was listening to KDES (Tempe translation: KOOL) because, you know, I'm all 65 years old and whatnot. And I heard the DJ say that KDES' long-anticipated move from 104.7 FM to 98.5 FM is was coming up on Feb. 2.
That means the station that's now was on 98.5, KWXY is leaving FM forever!* I heard earlier this last week that the beautiful music station is moving to its old AM frequency, but things still won't be the same. Lots of markets have older-than-oldies on AM, but ever since forever, we here in Palm Springs have had classy old jams on the FM... along with all the cuteness of a station by senior citizens for senior citizens. This is the station that calls itself "the valley's 24/7 news source" because they have their DJs read national wire stories at all hours of the day and night. Srsly. I think I've heard more local news about Canadian cities on KWXY than I have about Coachella Valley cities. Also, some of the DJs go all out during news time and tell you that the temperature is, say, "65 KWXY degrees" before consulting "Doppler 98-5."
But even though I like to poke fun, when KWXY moves moved back into the static-y, mono world of amplitude modulation, my life is gonna get got a lot less classy... or I'll just have to get used to the much more low-fi version of Sinatra and company.
The possible silver lining to all this change on the airwaves is the hope that someone, somewhere will deem the soon-to-be-wide-open 104.7 frequency a proper place for a much-needed alternative station for the Coachella Valley.
Ah, but who am I kidding? The powers that be will probably turn 104.7 into the valley's fifth-or-sixth-ish classic rock station. Srsly. We already have two that bill themselves as classic rock stations (KMRJ and KDGL), a Jack FM (KAJR) that plays classic rock a majority of the time, a hard rock station (KCLB) that revisits the '70s and '80s way too often and a healthy helping of classic-ish rock on KDES.
Actually, since I wrote this on Thursday, I found out from my colleagues' reports in Sunday's paper that 104.7 is now licensed to Redlands, and 95.9 switched formats on Monday to what was billed as a kind-of KWXY replacement but has so far sounded like a slower and sappier version of the old Jack FM playlist.
* I can't actually guarantee that it'll be forever. What do I look like? A magician? No. I'm Ginger Jeffries, your First Alert forecaster. Duh.
Part III: Draw the Circle Wide
Speaking of local radio, I should add that KCLB does play quite a bit of new rock amid the oldies. Lately, they've been really big into Skillet's "Monster," which cracks me up to no end because I remember back in high school when:
- I was one of relatively few people in this country who had actually heard of Skillet, then an obscure Christian rock band
- Priya always used to call them Saucepan
- and I totally went to go see a Skillet show at the Celebrity Theatre in Phoenix.
When I first started getting into Christian pop and rock way back in 2001 or so, it seemed the conventional wisdom was that the Christian music scene was always a few months or years behind mainstream music. As I recall, Britney and Christina preceded the likes of Stacie Orrico. Likewise, *NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys begat Plus One.
But ever since I left the all-Christian-music-all-the-time scene in '04, I've kept hearing a whole bunch of singers, bands and groups that at one time only came on Air 1 and The Effect.
My all-time favorite band, Switchfoot, is all over the place — movie soundtracks, commercials, the radio, ESPN college football intros (and events)... and they also randomly show up in Palm Desert when I go out of town.
I've heard Skillet on the radio and on NBC football promos this past fall, and at one point back in AZ, I even heard Thousand Foot Krutch on a real rock station.
Hell, even sweet li'l Katy Hudson was resurrected as girl-kissin' Katy Perry.
All of these instances and various other "This sounds familiar" moments always make me smile and/or laugh.
Who knew that so many of my '01 jams would be tied to such '10 hipness?
I mean, none of my old Jesus jams are getting played on KWXY. The only songs from the past two decades I ever heard on 98.5 before the big switch were some Michael Bublé track and Israel Kamakawiwo'ole's 1993 Hawaiian-style cover of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and "What A Wonderful World."
But one of those old Air 1 bands, MUTEMATH is scheduled to play a Sunday set at this year's Coachella festival.
And thus, the hipness comes full circle, y'all.
