Photo by Jack GouldLong Beach rock stars are the discriminating mother's baby sitter of choice: just give them some beer and some porn, and they will frolic with your darling child till you or the cows come home, whichever comes first. It's the joyfully arrested adolescence that gets the singer/substitute teachers reading “The Three Little Farts” instead of “The Three Little Pigs”-hilarious!-until your kid is begging you to go out on the town. Guilt-free child abandonment! Plus, they work cheap. On Sunday, had I chosen to fish around in the diminutive rock star's pants, I could have gotten my $20 back. Oddly, I declined.
The reason I had to get out of the house was the Sunday night premiere (packed like a Denny's at 1:45 a.m.) of Schwak, the OC-set story of five teens trying desperately to get someone to buy them beer. I know a certain Long Beach singer/substitute teacher who probably would have done it for them.
The premiere, at Captain Blood's Village Theater in Orange, was a mixture of strangely terrible/strangely compelling video. But the after-party at Quan's Chinese Restaurant across the street was a thing of beauty, as (a) the kid who played the class nerd, Marty, strutted in with cool-guy hair, smacking his gum insouciantly and wearing silver sunglasses at night and (b) the kid who played the punk rocker, Steve, tried to convince two little blond girlfriends they could enter the bar. “Just walk in real nonchalant,” he told them. Nobody would mind! Meanwhile, in an homage to underage drinking, former Foothill bartender Smilin' Rick Sieloff played quarters with Costa Mesa singer (and bean-spiller in this very paper on Sugar Ray front man Mark McGrath's beyond-odious rock-star antics) George Fryer and his cool artist-chick wife, Barbara. Barbara is a mean quarters player; I suspect George left quite drunk.
I've got a dreadful new crush on singer/actor/man of mystery John Doe. Why I do this to myself is as much a mystery as why scary OC politico/dismantler of bilingual education Gloria Matta Tuchman does that to her hair. Why rock stars? Isn't there a nice dentist out there for me somewhere?
Did you know John Doe was in the greatest flick of all time, the Patrick Swayze punch-'em-up Roadhouse? No? Doe probably wishes it had stayed that way. Sorry, John Doe!
I caught Doe and Exene at the Galaxy Saturday, in their X side project, The Knitters (in which my personal friend and fan Dave Alvin replaces Billy Zoom-which is fine by me because as far as I know, Zoom is neither my fan nor my personal friend-and also, Johnny Ray is in there). In the audience were local megacelebs like the grizzled (and seven weeks sober/very twitchy) Chris Gaffney and the fetchingly dimpled Dickie Ziggen. Also running around looking hot was Mary Zerkey, the proto girl pro skater (she was the first girl to do a handstand on her skateboard, back in 1975) and the longtime girlfriend of my personal friend, Dave Alvin. Dave Alvin shredded.
While the Knitters can be underwhelming before a festival crowd (like the one at the Hootenanny), in a club atmosphere they are as soothing as whiskey on an aching tooth. Exene may look like a tinfoil-helmet-wearing bag lady, but she sounds fantastic, like a yowling kitten-just as she did 20 years ago. And their true, old-time Bakersfield country is a thousand times better than the kind of cowpunk served up by the likes of Hank Williams III, who is trying to fix something (his late grandfather's songs) that wasn't broke until he got there.
I didn't expect to enjoy myself so greatly at the Orange County Museum of Art's Friday night opening for the “Wells Fargo Pacific Craft Show.” But two of my very favorite people-museum marketing director Brian Langston and his pert wife, Elizabeth-were there tying one on, and they told me the secret free-booze password: “Moonshine,” which was only to be uttered in a dramatic stage whisper that just got funnier as the night wore on. I'm sure Fred the Cute Bartender, who was graying in the sexy, distinguished way usually reserved for television stars, thought so too. The show? Well-crafted and often reasonably priced. The food? As good as Mark's always is. The drinks? Drunk.
From there, since everyone else had already left, a hardy group of us headed for the Langstons' entirely too charming home in an unincorporated part of the county next to Tustin. The cabal, including Reg critics Daniella Walsh and Richard Chang and the OC Metro's indefatigable mooch Kedric Francis, conversed sparklingly (well, that was mostly me and the Langstons' utterly bitchen teenage daughter, Justine) until it was time to stop or pass out. If you ever get the chance, do take Elizabeth up on her offer of the guest room: the Langstons will cook you breakfast and lunch. And if you're Kedric Francis and refuse to leave ever, they will cook you dinner as well.
Hey, John Doe or a nice dentist! Commie Girl can be reached at Co**********@ho*****.com.
