Resolved

Photo by James BunoanHappy New Year, my crisp little snowpeas! Did you gather round the Christmas Yule log and heartily spread joy (and probably syph, knowing you!) amongst yourselves? Don't bother answering that. I don't actually care.

Well, here on the farm, we did! (Minus the syph.) And everything was merry and gay, except for the ear infection we were spreading around like it was . . . well, let's go with candy.

The week started a couple of weeks ago. Just go with me here, okay? It should have started Dec. 18, with Quiksilver's Quikmas” party (those clever kids!), featuring a live appearance by new media darlings Queens of the Stone Age. I could write reams about it—except I arrived for the party a day late, and knowing my luck, if I tried to make it up and write glowing things about the party I didn't attend and the band I didn't see, it would turn out they imploded like Axl Rose, and I would be exposed for the fraud I am. So I won't. I'm sure a lovely time was had by all.

Then there was Dec. 19. This is the night I went to the Quiksilver “Quikmas” party, quite unsuccessfully.

Which brings us to Dec. 20 and Mike Watt's big ol' benefit for a big ol' foundation at DiPiazza. I was very relieved to find a show in progress—one with much-adored John Doe singing acoustic, no less, along with Keith Morris(of the Circle Jerks) at the head of charming Midget Handjob, a pretty set by Peter Case (The Plimsouls) singing Christmas songs that sounded like The Pogues, and Tex and the Horseheads. I am assured that Tex and the Horseheads were boring; I am also assured they were boring 20 years ago, which is why I left before they started. Well, that and I was scared because I once called singer Texacala Jones “a million years old” and said she had a granny voice. Oh, look! Now I said it twice!

The audience for the fab event had trekked down from LA; they were all handsomely aging scenesters, and the women's room was full of barely middle-aged cuties who hadn't seen one another in years explaining that they'd gone blond because dyed-black hair wasn't flattering for their eye bags. But the blond softens it, you know? Indeed!

Locals making the scene included Orange County Register fun couple Lyn Montagna (fashion) and Steve Lynch (kiss-ass profiles of me); Jan from The Vandals with a surfer buddy who had just gotten over malaria (Jan claims he wasn't dry humping his date that time on the Kitsch Bar bar, but he was, Blanche, he was); video director Billy Henderson (last seen helming the video for the Long Beach Dub All-Stars, which, naturally, featured porn stars sliming all over a trailer); and our own Weekly photographer James Bunoan, looking sharp for his date with recent featuree Brandy.

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Reports from the Hawaiian Shirt Club's annual 12 Bars of Fullerton jaunt (wherein roving gangs of electricians and talent buyers terrorize the sweet community) included Knitting Factorybooker John Pantle getting kicked out of The Continental and Pantle giving massages to the Fullerton fire chief at “that shithole upscale ristorante.” More than 50 people arrived to beat their livers into liver 'n' onions, though tall drink of water Cher Greenleaf inflated the number to 70. I think she lies. She also said they had fun at Chomp, which is a sushi bar/karaoke place full of the kind of skinny sorority girls who go to the Rockin' Taco Cantina because it's owned by the owners of the Rockin' Taco Cantina. The sorority girls were not at all amused by the aging punks. Who was there? Wonderlove manager Linda Jemison and, you know, everybody else we know.

On Dec. 22, we hit The Pondfor a 4-0 slaying of the Phoenix Coyotes, and like you'd expect of a hockey team out of Phoenix, they're not very “good.”

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And on Dec. 23, we hit Alex's for New Music Mondays, since legendary local booker Steve Zepeda (once of the much-missed Foothill, where Johnny Cashand El Vez played) has left his home at the Blue Caffor the bar with no front door. Zepeda is discreet but will say he couldn't see eye-to-eye with the new partners at the Blue. We watched as a couple of butterheads put rockabilly songs into the jukebox, my boyfriend frothing at the mouth that they weren't playing The Clasha mere day after the passing of Joe Strummer. (I will not try to eulogize Strummer here as I've never been at all punk rock and would rather not be a poseur.) In the house were the same damn people at all Long Beach gigs—Chris Hanlin, Kelly O, Chris Paul Overall—and a whole bunch of teeny little kids, including a girl who shrieked as she played air hockey. She didn't know it, but she very nearly got a mouth full of Kelly O's pretty fist.

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Like Adam Sandler's “Hannukah Song,” my list of New Year's resolutions for the rest of y'all can't be held down to just one measly installment. No, year after year, the Law of Diminishing Returns and the Law of Ghostbusters IIand Analyze Thatdictate that I become less funny with each sequel. And yet, like Harold Ramis, I refuse to stop:

Kay Rackauckas: Last year, we urged husband/District Attorney Tony to “spend more time with [his] family.” It clearly didn't work, as he misplaced his wife for several months—coincidentally while grand jury subpoenas were being handed out. We think Kay should resolve to be a better wife and stay put where her husband can find her. Nazis: With excitable Jewish Defense League mainstay Irv Rubin having passed this year—and I was at an acrimonious protest once outside Anaheim's The Shack where the late suspected bomber was actually the Voice of Reason!—the way is clear for OC's Nazis to resolve to exterminate the Mud People from the earth, or at least skank to some really loud and vile music. The benefit? It would get all the Communist Mexican counterprotestors off their duffs and back on the picket/conga line. Communist Mexican counterprotestors are fun. The Reg: Isn't it about time you started blaming things on public-school teachers again? SnoopTown: Despite the City Council's best efforts, Long Beach has once again become an exciting place full of ass-kicking music and not-bad art. Better start shuttering venues! Gwen Stefani:She's superpretty, and she seems truly cool, putting out the only good face OC's got. (Really, you want Sugar Ray as our ambassador to the world?) She just won't live here anymore. Come home!Jo Ellen Allen: D-I-V-O-R-C-E. Newport Beach Representative Chris Cox: You should shill for the White House's new platitude—that the poor (those making less than $12,000 per year) are undertaxed. Maybe then they'll let you be a judge. OC Metro: You can't refuse to name me one of Orange County's Hot 25 forever. Oh, hell. You probably can. Me: Having almost entirely exhausted the ways in which to become a more perfect person, I'm pretty much left with “Write more note cards.” Which I shall. Sheriff Mike Carona: Two words . . . beefcake calendar. You know? To benefit things? Like breast cancer, or AIDS, or little poor children without teddy bears? Or OC women's libidos? The City of Anaheim: You admirably kicked scary bigot Harald Martin off your school board. Now sneak in there and get his badge and gun. The State of Wyoming: Forget Nevada; we've got a water table under Yucca Valley. Wyoming should step up to the plate as the nation's long-term repository of choice for high-level radioactive waste. OC Art Galleries: I know the national economy is—how you say?—in the shitter. But is that any excuse to have an art opening without cheese? Dave Garofalo: The disgraced former mayor of Huntington Beach is widely missed—at least at Weekly HQ. Two words . . . beefcake calendar! Make some resolutions, people! Co**********@ho*****.com.

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