So there we all are in good seats at the Pond for June 22's Daniel's Furniture Fight Night, and the pudgy, bloated, unhaired man in front of us keeps booming out, every minute or so, “C'mon, Seabass!” I inquire, and he offers that it's something out of Dumb N Dumber. I am not surprised.
Avila beats Juarez by unanimous decision, and “Oye Como Va” plays. Avila and Juarez pat each other on the back, leaning into each other; what is this, Nice Time or a fucking boxing match? Come on, you pussies! Call me crazy, but when I go to a boxing match, I like to see people beating the fuck out of each other, not a bunch of lovey-dovey girlie men being sportsmanlike.
The ring-card girls wear stripper shoes; one, Amy, is like 40. She's not so much a ring-card girl as a ring-card lady, and her stripper shoes don't have platforms. Instead, they are very high red pumps. I once saw a bunch of girls from Captain Creem tear another stripper to pieces for wearing shoes so obviously 1980s. Of course, the Captain Creem stripper was also wearing neon, and her top didn't match her bottoms. I think she must have been from Riverside. A young woman walks up the aisle by our seats and gets hooted at like she's hurrying past Hurricane's on Huntington Beach's Main Street. The guy in front of me doesn't get to see her and has to crane around after she's almost all the way up the steps. Poor guy! See-ass!
When Sebastian Valdez enters the ring to the strains of “No More Mr. Nice Guy,” the light crowd goes nuts, sort of. But his opponent, Fernando “Nano” Rodriguez, is googly eyed from the first punch. If I were the ref, I would have stopped the match in the first round. And it's a good thing I'm not! Nano rallies valiantly, leading with his face right into Valdez's fist, and the blows to the head seem to warm him up. Not enough, of course, but at least no one's hugging.
The ring-card girls, who apparently work for Budweiser, come back, and the announcer asks, “Is anybody . . . thirsty?” I think I might throw up. It would seem I don't like ring-card girls. I'm going to have to work on this; maybe they're very nice! And it's not their fault if they're 6 feet tall and have waist-length hair (except Amy, who's got a Princess Di poofy thing on her head) and big, hard implants, is it?
But what's this? A very mannish woman in blue sateen trunks is entering the ring to Aretha's “Respect.” The men all laugh. The guy in front of us voices everyone's question: “Is that a dude?” I shout louder for her—her name is Patricia—because I know such a dykey lady will never get the crowd's love. Damn them! She has very bad posture. And here comes Mikee “The Total Package” Stafford. She's a woman, baby! She bounds into the ring to Blondie's “One Way or Another” (she's gonna get ya, get ya, get ya, get ya) and jumps up on the ropes on each side, arms already raised in triumph. She is the total package. She is blond. She is tan. She has big tits. She likes men. The men like her right back.
And within 36 seconds, poor hangdog Patricia has received such a fast, furious pounding from “The Total Package” that the ref calls the bout. Patricia is leaking blood all over the place. But you know what they say! Never trust anything that bleeds for five days and doesn't die! Hyuk! Hyuk!
By the end of the match, Puffy in front of me has clevered it up. “Cmon, Tuna!” he shouts like a foghorn. When pressed, he denies having said it and then changes his mind, as Droopy-like as poor, dykey, bloodied Patricia. A mere slip of the tongue. “I meant 'Seabass,'” he says. That's what I thought.
Despite the fact that the surprise Weezer show at Long Beach's Lava Lounge on June 21 seemed to have a 7:1 boy-girl ratio, there were neither Bud Girls nor unsightly testosterone leakages—although the pipsqueaks behind the police tape in the back of the room did need a little bit of an attitude adjustment. Ever helpful, I tried to get them to see how lucky they were to be in a bar at all and to see Weezer from 20 feet instead of 60 rows. Also, the owners ensured there was room to breathe and walk, rather than loading us into the club like illeged Chinese immigrants in a Dutch long-haul. Mostly, the tots just glared. When I was 17, we had to sneak in or blow someone. Just kidding, Mom! No, really! I'm just kidding! The entirely un-Wednesdayish June 21 show opened with LBC chick magnets Mention (Handsome, Handsome Erik wearing glasses just like Buddy Holly—hey! Just like the song! —to Weezer things up a bit and perhaps divert attention away from his handsome, handsome mug) and the entirely too great Other Star People, starring the hair-thrashing Precious, formerly of seminal (ovular?) chick-rockers L7. Both bands were fantastic, though Mention played a bizarre set that seemed designed to perplex the little kids with the fusion-ness of it all rather than to convert them to “Larry“-shimmying fans. They were probably under the influence of the devil's weed when they were deciding what to play. Other Star People sneered real good and delivered their happy, poppy snarls in gems like “Shut Up and Show Me” and “The Half of You I Love.” Some people hated them. Morons.
The Lava Lounge has very quickly become the place to play: Dave Vanian of the Damned plays in the bitty little room on Friday.
Feeling swanky? Try Bakersfield-meets-The Vault at LBC's Prospector Steakhouse for Swanky Tuesdays. Organizers Cayt (pretty cousin of Burnin' Groove's pretty Darren Carlson), Michael and Wayde man the packed bar, which is separate from the teeny dance floor so all kinds of artsy types (all in Buddy Holly glasses, but, oddly, neither pretentious nor annoying) can mingle drunkenly and even . . . network, according to the ad in the happy-news Suburbia. Drinks are strong and as cheap as ever, and the girls at the bar look young and naive and easily conned. Where's your smoking jacket?
Co**********@ho*****.com. Win an all-expenses-paid date with Commie Girl! To enter, send an essay explaining why, exactly, you should be graced with a date with the Girl. Men and women (but remember, ladies: try as she might, she's just not a lesbian) over 18 only. Entries must be received by Aug. 1. Mail them to Commie Girl, c/o OC Weekly, P.O. Box 10788, Costa Mesa, CA 92627. Remember: spelling counts!
