"BUT I DON'T HAVE A COSTUME"

Tuesday, October 31, 2006

There's no such thing as "I don't have a costume!"

Drape extension cords over your shoulders and pretend you’re a hardware store. Pin a cherry to your shirt, put a cocktail umbrella in your hair, and say that you are a mai-tai. Borrow a skateboard and be Tony Hawk. Rule of thumb: a costume is always better if you have to explain it.

Last night my landlord told me that he darkens his house and doesn't give out candy "because if somebody poisons a kid, and he had trick-or-treated at my house, I would be a suspect. I know it sounds paranoid, but..." Yes, it sounds paranoid. And this is one of those dudes who is always bitching about how "nowadays" everything sucks.

When you were a kid, people had candy at the ready for you -- so pay it back! A hurricane killed last year’s Halloween. This year's kids are hankerin' for a double dose of sugar. You all know I love you, and that it's rare for me to wish ill will upon anyone, but if you don't do your job, I hope the kids do theirs, and toilet paper your yard and break eggs in your mailbox.

And after the trick or treaters have made their rounds, here are a few fun things for you:

– Pitbull album release party at Passion Nightclub at the Hard Rock. So there is life out by the turnpike! I don’t know why anyone ventures that far from the beach, but then again I have never understood the concepts of air conditioning, sunscreen, or non-alcoholic beer.
www.myspace.com/pitbull

– Rainbow skate at Gold Coast -- weekly indie rock party on wheels. This special edition has a Goth theme.
http://www.myspace.com/rainbowsk8tuesdays

– By the Way's "Nightmare in the Park" -- with bands, art, tarot readings, and a blood bank.
http://ci.ftlaud.fl.us/events/nightmare/poster2006.pdf

-- The people at the Mental Ward have been planning some crazy stuff. I heard something about a "brain-eating contest..."
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=21518283


Enjoy!!!!

I AIN'T SAYIN' I'M A GOLD DIGGER

Monday, October 30, 2006

Now I'm usually all about the blue-collar guys: to me, motor oil, diesel fumes, or jet fuel work like Hai Karate. (You know, the cologne that comes with a manual showing how to fight the ladies off.) But every so often, a girl gets a case of what my friend Jordan calls "trophy wife envy."

So on Friday, I headed down to the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show -- Well , not the actual show. I mean, I wasn't there to check out the boats. Instead, I scored an invite to some of the yachties' private party at a mansion in Harbor Beach. There were two dozen valet parkers, a check-in table, a woman hired to hold the front door open, models walking around dressed as mermaids, a table where they were selling co-op membership for a private jet, and a stand where cooks were cooking fresh hot crepes on a griddle. Oddly, there were only two bars.

Long story short: my envy was short-lived. Sure, I met some rich international dudes. They included a guy from Britain who sells marinas and another who sells tenders. One of them was smoking a cigar. Two dudes in dress shirts cut in front of me in line to get drinks. Then I encountered a Miami-based man who sells yachts (2 a year pays his salary) and gave me a treatise on how "women age horribly between 40 and 55, while men just get better looking. I'm 55. But my girlfriend's 33." This guy introduced me to a plastic surgeon who – I shit you not – looked at my rack and said “real. If she paid for those, they ought to be a lot bigger." Classy. I bet being a trophy wife sucks.

Anyway, I'm sorry that I slacked and didn't hook y'all up with a preview of all the parties surrounding the boat show. I promise that next year, I will. Until then, let me direct you to a little bar called the Treasure Trove, on the corner of Las Olas Boulevard and A1A. It's where the crew -- first mates, captains, deckhands, divers -- hang out. Not only will these guys not cut in front of you at the bar, but they'll probably buy you a beer. If you have any trouble finding it, just follow the scent of diesel.

MC CHRIS ON THE MIC… I MEAN, HORN

Thursday, October 26


I wrote about this in the print edition of New Times, but here’s the rest of my interview with MC Chris, America’s favorite “nerdcore” rapper. He's playing the Culture Room next Wednesday.

D: Do you have a few minutes?
Chris: I have so many minutes for you, it’s ridiculous.

D: Where are you and what are you up to?
Chris: Right now, I’m walking through Manhattan. I got a week off in the middfe of my tour – so I can play Splinter Cell: Double Agent. That’s not the real reason, but that’s what I’ve been doing. And we just toured pretty much the whole country – but we left out the Southeast for last, cause Florida is crazy about us and we love Florida, too. And we’ll be hittin’ my old hometown, Atlanta, Georgia. We’re gonna have big party – with old friends from the Cartoon Network. We’ve done a lot of shows. I took the audience to a screening of Temple of Doom in Austin, Texas. We were at the Alamo draft house and sold out a whole big movie theatre. And Tom Morello of Audioslave – oh, hang on a second?

[to someone else]: Hot tea – with two sugars and milk.

D: You drink tea?
Chris: Yeah, it’s a little nippy in New York City.

D: Where are you? Starbucks?
Chris: Fuck, no – fuck Starbucks! So, what were we saying?

D: You were telling me that Tom Morello from Audioslave…
Chris: Tom Morello from Audioslave – he came to see in LA. We’re both from the same hometown and he went to my high school and so it’s just cool. He always talked about other people’s racism, and I was made fun of there, too… It’s cool to see someone who’s so successful. He came up to me afterward and congratulated me.

D: Do you guys fight over who’s more successful, like “I’m gonna speak at alumni weekend/!” “No, I’m going to!”
Chris: No, it was very amicable. He was wearing his Cubs hat, and I was wearing my Chicago Cubs hat….

D: So which of you is going to speak at the high school reunion?
Chris: Well, he wasn’t in my class. He’s way older than I am. Plus, I would never go to a high school reunion – I have too much to be proud of.

D: But isn’t that exactly why you should go? To rub it in?
Chris: I know, that’s what everyone else says.

D: So what were you like in high school?
Chris: I was really handsome.

D: Really handsome?
Chris: No, I had a lot of zits. I was the kid who drew all the time. I loved being in the plays. I loved making out with chicks and cruising parking lots.

D: No way – You were a drama nerd ?
Chris: Oh yeah. Big time. People who see my life now say, “You have stage presence. Well, I was in the chorus in Fiddler. Actually, I wasn’t. I was in the chorus in My Fair lady if you wanna be factual about it.

D: Where do you live now?
Chris: Williamsburg, Brooklyn. I’m the one cool guy there. Everyone there looks like a Stroke.

D: ha ha. Hey, a lot of artists get labeled and they say they hate to be labeled, but it seems like you’ve taken this “nerdcore” label and run with it.
Chris: I haven’t run with it; journalists have. I just talk about nerdy stuff sometimes because I am kind of a nerd. But not a hardcore nerd – I don’t know that much about everything.
I’m easily challenged and trumped. But I found out who my audience was, and I will throw them out like stuff that we’re both into. … I’m not part of any big posse or anything. There’s a lot of kids who make their own rap music now on their computers, and that’s really cool… I’ve been doing this for 10 years, for a long time before everyone started making rap songs and stuff.

D: So you don’t actually have an identification card that shows you’ve paid your dues and you’re actually in the nerdcore club?
When I was younger I wanted to be in a big club but now…

D: Your new album is called Dungeon Master of Ceremonies. Do you actually play D&D?
Chris: No, I don’t. When I was younger, my brothers used to play, and I would watch them play. A lot of the nerdy stuff that I reference, a lot of it is stuff that my brothers liked. I would be more into drawing maps and making characters. That was my favorite part. The more creative part. The part where you’re actually building the character and putting time in – that I didn’t really have the patience for. I couldn’t get through a game of Trivial Pursuit.

D: So you’re not really a nerd! You just stole all the nerdy ideas from your brothers!
Chris: Well, I am kind of a nerd. I like Star Wars. I almost cried when I read the last Harry Potter book. I like Lost a lot. I read comic books voluntarily. There’s nerdy stuff that I do, I just – I’m not an all-encompassing nerd. I don’t really know everything about a computer or about Dr. Who or about Star Trek. I think being a nerd is all about picking up stuff that you like and focusing on it.

D: I read an interview with you where you came out saying that you loved the show Everybody Loves Raymond. I though that was more edgy and gutsy and nerdy than saying you love Star Wars. Cause in reality, everybody doesn’t really love Raymond, but everybody does love Star Wars.
Chris: I’d rather be surprising. If I was too nerdy, then really it would be really boring. You can’t please everybody all the time. I made a lot of nerd references on the new album, but some people were like, ‘It’s not nerdy at all.’ So, you know. What can do? I just try not to force it in any one direction. Just try to be the free-flowing piece that it is.

D: I like the skit where you have the agent telling you that you have to write more songs about Star Wars characters in vehicles [because of Chris’s first hit, “Fett’s Vette.”]
Chris: Yeah, he says I need to write more.

D: I was also looking you up on Wikipedia –
Chris: Not very factual.

D: No?
Chris: I guess it is.

D: It’s weird, the trivia that people post there: “He appeared at GameSpot's "After Hours" gaming event on October 14.”
Chris: I did.

D: Do you have to compete in stuff like that to keep your street cred as a nerd?
Chris: I like doing events like that whenever possible. It breaks up the monotony of going to shows and bars and venues all the time. I like doing signings at comic book stores and taking the audience to the movies. Or taking everybody to GameWorks. Sometimes I’ll go to a house party after a show – if I’ve, you know, if I’ve been drugged.

D: Will it be advertised beforehand, like Buy a concert ticket and then come with MC Chris to a free movie?
Chris: With temple of doom, it was. But like in Minneapolis,, I took everyone to GameWorks and then went to house party afterwards and nobody knew about that. But it was such a fun show. Sometimes you just don’t want the show to end.

D: But it’s not like you announce onstage, “Hey, everybody, let’s meet up over at Gameworks.”
Chris: No, but until I get in the van and drive away, people kind of hanging out. They want to see where I go and what happens. There are always people who wantto hang out with me after the show and discuss politics.

D: Are you getting ready for Halloween? Do have a costume going?
Chris: I do not have a Halloween costume going. Maybe I should look into that. That’s a good idea. We’re doing a show in Delaware, I think. That should be a hoot. I think my next album’s going to be Halloween flavored. So I’m excited.

D: What’s your favorite candy?
Chris: I like bottlecaps. I like Razzles, cause it starts out a candy and turns into a gum.

D: How many people do you bring with you on tour? Whos’s in your entourage?
Chris: I do not have an entouarge – I can’t afford a Turtle. But I have a DJ and a roadie – and they do all the work, pretty much. They basically pour money into the back of the van and I sleep on it.

D: Still a van? You don’t have a big old tricked-out tour bus?
Chris: No, we do not waste money. We’re an independent act. We’re not signed to a label so we don’t have any big ducats – big ducats coming in. So we’re very cheap.

D: After a show, do you trash hotel rooms and stuff, or like, play Cranium?
Chris: Never – I never trash hotel rooms. In fact., I clean it up before the maids come in. To make sure I’m not forgetting anything. And what am I always forgetting? My phone charger.

D: Do you have a merch table? I was at Guns n Roses last night and I was outraged that they were selling denim jackets – for $150.
Chris: We don’t do nothing like that. We have t-shirts and pins hoodies – nothing more than $30. But I will take advantage of my fans – as soon as I figure out the best way to do it.

CLASH OF THE TITUSES

Thursday, October 26, 2006

I never watched the TV show Titus. I think it was something about Titus’s appearance – he’s kind of a weird-looking blond dude. (I get kind of creeped out by grown men who are blond, the way some people get scared of clowns.) Or maybe it was because the only TV I really ever watch is MTV. But I started to like Christopher Titus when I saw him on an episode of Cribs (I think it was Cribs). He was all about showing off his blond wife and his kid. He seemed like such a family dude. From then on, every time I came across him in a magazine, I noticed that he was pictured with his wife (or his cars; he had a lot of cars). So when he called today, and the first thing out of his mouth was that he is getting a divorce, I was kind of bummed for humanity.

I liked Titus a lot more after I talked to him. And I liked him even more when I discovered he had roles on 21 Jump Street and Killer Klowns from Outer Space. He’s like, practically a legend. I didn’t tape the interview and homeboy speaks really fast, but here are some excerpts from our interview:

D: So what are you doing right now?
Titus: Driving to Vegas, then catching a flight to Calgary to do a movie. It’s a movie I’m doing in 3-D. The director called to see if I wanted to play the dad of this girl. It’s a horror movie, which is weird because I’m not in the horror genre. He’s cool – he’d ask if I had any input, he said ‘We’ll put it in.” So I was coming up with all this funny stuff, but he put the kibosh on that. He’s like, “Noooo, what are you doing?!” He’s got all these horrific ideas; it’s like Scarface; it’s awesome. It’s supposed to be big.

D: What else you got going on?
Titus: I’m working on a deal with NBC. A new show, sitcom. But there’s no green light yet.

D: What’s it about?
Titus: Well, I’m in the middle of divorce –

D: No way! I’m so sorry to hear that!
Titus: I know, does that suck or what?

D: But I saw you on Cribs or some reality show –
Titus: I know, I know. But my wife got new boobs, new eyes, they rebuilt her from the ground up. I guess he was getting ready for someone else.

D: Dayum!
Titus: So my new [standup] show is called the “5th Annual End of the World Tour.” And next I’m working on this show called Forever Divorced. I’ll tell the whole story, the whole nightmare.

D: If you don’t mind me asking, what happened?
Titus: She cheating on me with a 60-year-old man. But he had10 million dollars.

D: Damn.
Titus: Yeah, but she’s crazy in bed – this guy’s gonna break a hip.

D: Don’t you guys have kids, too? I’m so sad.
Titus: Yes, I have a daughter and a son – a 2- and a 5-year-old. But in court, she lied – said that I beat her and beat the kids… we’re in a fight for custody. This is the biggest fight I’ve ever been in in my life…. I was away for seven months on my End of the World tour. I was [selling out], getting standing ovations every night. So I asked God [to give me some experiences so I could have more material and top this success]. But tell everyone to be a little more specific when you ask God for something. Or he might give you a nightmare! Write about that – you’ve got to specify that you want something good to happen – don’t give him a blank slate!

D: I like how take all this really negative, insane stuff and turn it into just a funny story – like you did in Titus, making fun of your dysfunctional family.
Titus: I’ve done that my whole career. Like, with Norman Rockwell is Bleeding, and now with the Fifth Annual end of the World Tour. My child was born16 days before 9/11. They’ve only grown up knowing war… My daughter learns her colors from the terror alert rainbow. She thinks Winnie-the-Pooh is a medium threat…

D: Having used your family for material, are you hyper-conscious of everything you say and do with your kids? I mean, what if they grow up and make fun of you?
Titus: I hope they do, then I’ll have a new show….

[conversation somehow turns to divorce]
We had such a great relationship, [but then things started going wrong]. There was money missing… [she messed around while I was on the road]. [Some of it’s] not funny – I’m still a little close to it. But here’s the point – since this happened, I met [and started dating] the best woman in world. It’s almost like I dropped an anchor. Like God said, “I’ll give you everything you want, but you’ve gotta get rid of this bitch.” If she… some really heinous things happened and are still happening.

D: So let’s talk about some of the happier things you’ve got going on.
Titus: That movie, the show, a family movie. My comedy special was picked up by Comedy Central.

D: This might be a weird question, but does it ever feel weird to be a grown man who is blond? There’s just not that many of you.
Titus: My new girlfriend has brown hair, so I defer to her. [In bimbo voice:] I don’t understand! Ask her!

D: Do blondes have more fun?
Titus: Yeah, except when their wives divorce them.

D: Tell me about the standup you do.
Titus: [I’ve been lucky] in my life – I’ve got a TV show, I got to rip on my family for years. I’ve got all these opportunites, but when you get onstage – comedy is the last bastion of free speech in America … The show I’m doing now – It’s being turned into a film in January, and the second I film something, I stop doing it – But I really going after everything that has happened [since Bush has been President]. This has been the toughest presidency since Lincoln [because of the challenges and world events]. I open the paper every day and go “Dammit.” You know that saying that great hardship requires great leadership – but in this case…

I’ve been doing standup since I was 18. The new show is a bit like, “I’m whitey and I apologize… just about everything that’s going on… How your first kid is amazing, like your first car – you can’t believe you have it , but you know you’re gonna put dents in it… [I talk about what’s going on] in the world. [I’m going to go to Iraq to entertain soldiers]… I’ve gone to Europe to meet the troops. [I think a lot of people have] kind of lost the fact that there’s a war going on.

D: I know. I mean, I was at a Guns N’ Roses concert last night; then the next morning I read the paper and see oh yeah, people are dying over there.
Titus: You saw Guns N Roses last night? How was it?

D: Awesome.
Titus: Was Axl late?

D: Of course. That’s rock n’ roll.
Titus: Yeah, but Axl brings it to another level. He’ll have a show scheduled for Tuesday and he’ll show up Thursday… he must not have a watch. He must be an alien from another planet, where they just don’t have time.

D: Oh, I wanted to ask you about joking about Bush – are the Bush jokes played out? Isn’t he an easy target, like Michael Jackson?
Titus: You mean like making fun of a retarded kid? Except the retarded kid is running the country! It’s like, “Oh, the retarded kid, he seems sweet – let’s let him run the most powerful country on Earth! Michael Jackson has no power … The torture chambers – did we really [imprison guys for torturing the enemy]? The enemy is cutting people’s heads off with a hacksaw and video taping it and sending it home and calling it justice – but we call it “torture” on our side. If we put underwear on some guy’s head, strip him naked, stick an egg between his butt cheeks and make him do jumping jacks… If it can’t get you into frat at Chico State University, it’s not torture. That big pyramid of naked guys, they’re just pledging. Remember Lynndie England? I used to date chicks like her.

D: So where are you on your way to now?
Titus: I gotta make that 5:00 flight to Vegas to get to Calagry… then I gotta do a show in Pittsburgh, then I need to meet my lawyer, then Tuesday I film another movie.

D: Are you excited to come to Florida? Any ties here?
Titus: I looove that Hard Rock Hotel . And I love Florida audiences. But you have hurricane season.

D: Yeah, and last year was bad, and Katrina, but usually – what you don’t see on TV is that, like one person dies, and everybody else, just their fence blows down, and we get a day off work, get a bottle of rum and have hurricane parties.
Titus:Wow. In California, we don’t have earthquake festivals…

D: Do you still own a bunch of hot rods?
Titus: Until the divorce made me sell them all. But I’m going to start writing for another car magazine, and get some cool new cars. A divorce is like taking a big eraser and erasing everything you’ve ever done. But it’s better it happens now than 20 years from now.

D: How old are you now?
Titus: 42. But my girlfriend’s 29.

D: Oh my god! That’s such a cliché!
Titus: I can’t believe you called me a cliché!

D: Please. Like the old dude and the hot young chick – like Harrison Ford or Woody Allen; like Shrek getting Princess Fiona!
Titus: I can’t believe you called me Shrek! Post-potion or pre-potion?

D: Post.
Titus: Aw, good save.

D: Okay, one last question – I ask this of all comedians, cause you should have a good answer.
Titus: Okay, go.

D: Why did the chicken cross the road?
Titus: He was getting divorced. And he heard there was 29-year-old girl on the other side. And he wanted to be a cliché.

AXL BROUGHT IT!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

What if someone gave you a coveted, hard-to-get, front-row, VIP ticket to watch the space shuttle launch –- but with a catch: there’s a 50-50 chance the shuttle will explode on takeoff. Do you go?

If the shuttle goes off as planned, it will be one of the most spectacular sights that you have ever witnessed. But if it blows up, you could become extremely disturbed, suffer a terminal case of nightmares, and perhaps even lose the will to live.

That’s the dilemna I felt when, at the last minute, two tickets came through to see Guns N’ Roses at the BankAtlantic Center Tuesday night.

On one hand…. It’s Guns N’ Roses! Soundtrack to my life. (Picture a little eighth-grader in black clothes riding the school bus, clutching to her chest a copy of Appetitie to Destruction – on vinyl.) On the other hand… Axl’s been promising to release Chinese Democracy for ten years. Slash, Duff, Steven, and Izzy are gone; Axl’s the only original member left in the band. Most foreboding was his unfortunate choice of hairdo: Axl, cornrows are for K-Fed!

Would this be like going to see KISS – only to have them play Animalize? Would it be like watching Ozzy drool on himself? Or seeing Faster Pussycat at a craft fair? Maybe we should just stay home. The question was, “Can Axl still bring it?”

We weren’t sure that we wanted to know the answer.

But in the end, curiosity got my cat, and the vibe all the way to the BankAtlantic Center was of cautious optimism. Oh, there were doubts. The show started at on time 7:30 – not very rock n’ roll of them! Who decided to put Sebastian Bach on before Papa Roach? That is a dumb-ass person. When we got there at 8:30, Sebastian had already finished. Why wasn’t anyone wearing any slutty outfits? I overheard some woman talking about when she “used to get high.” The guys at the merch booth wanted $150 for a denim jacket that looked like it came from Wal-Mart. Are you kidding me? Had everyone lost their mojo?

Papa Roach, seemed more like a family of doodlebugs – catchy and cute, but clichéd. After them, there was an intermission. An 80 minute-long (yes, we timed it) intermission. While some people started to boo and chant “What the fuck?” I was psyched – it meant Axl would be as badass as ever. I mean, if he showed. Shit – what if he was so late because he was backstage reading about Social Security and taking Metamucil.

But everyone stopped being mad and started being awed just soon as the lights went out, and a sound like a rhinocerous fart bellowed out of the speakers, then morphed into the opening swoosh of “Welcome to the Jungle.” Axl strutted onstage in tight jeans and a black shirt, looking like the most confident man I have ever seen. He could totally kick Tommy Hilfiger’s ass! In eighth grade I hadn’t really been into that part about “feeling his serpentine,” but now I wanted to.

Axl went on to put on a totally rad – and dare I say “professional” – show. I had forgotten how many good songs they had – “Live and Let Die,” “My Michelle” (which Sebastian came out to sing on) and “Nightrain” (with the best and most underrated rock lyrics of all time: “Wake up late, honey/Put on your clothes/ and take your credit card to the liquor store”). Axl played a piano solo, and Robin Finck did a guitar wank-fest that quoted Led Zeppelin, a Bach fugue, and a noodle factory, and lasted so long that this blog was almost forced to produce a baby blog just to cover it.

But most satisfying was when Axl said, “Tommy [Stinson, formerly of the Replacemnts, now tourning with GNR] and I agree – we’re both hurting right now…. I’d really like to know what happened last night. Something about a mechanical bull.” And nothing about Metamucil.

(BTW, Props to my peeps: Thanks to Amanda Ances and Fantasma Productions for hooking me up with tickets!)