We've got questions: If the powers that be want to use sports and dancing girls to placate the ravening masses, how did they let two teams that bad get to the lamest Super Bowl ever? We're all for bread and circuses, but can't they at least be good ones? Will we ever root for an underdog again? If Chris Chandler is the Falcons' starting quarterback, what does their second stringer look like? Why do we always speak in the “royal we”? Was the Buy.com commercial with the man on all fours sniffing a dog's butt really necessary? And will John Elway shut up and retire already? Every game is his last game-he's just like The Who. We were going to stick around for the post-game “highlights,” but the only ones we could think of were the seven times an unhurried Chandler threw the ball 15 feet over his receiver's head in the end zone, and we'd seen that quite enough. We hate that guy! Oh, well. At least we didn't get domestically abused. Our homegirl Arrissia treated us to a performance of Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes at the Irvine Barclay Theatre on Saturday night. It's always good to hang out with a former English major if you want some culture kicked into your head (she's making us go to the ballet, too). And except for some terrible acting from the Judge Reinhold look-alike-we're ashamed to admit we snickered during his death throes-it was a charming evening indeed. It was quite fun watching the Communist Hellman's diatribe against capitalism in a cushy, glittering theater like the Barclay while surrounded by an even mix of old money and bearded academics. The play, which is about a horrid family of schemers who delight in nothing more than getting rich on the backs of the poor and one another, confirmed one of our most basic truths: rich people are bad! Bad rich people! Bad! We were almost forced to break up with Arrissia after the play, when she dragged our unwilling ass all the way across the border and into Diamond Bar-but, by the time we got there, the St. John's Wort had kicked in and buzz sawed away the last of the little black cloud that had been dogging us everywhere we went for the better part of a month. As we entered the parking lot of the huge, terrifying meat market of a sports bar, our usual rose-tinted glasses were back in place, and we deemed the place an “adventure.” Aside from meeting many of Arrissia's lovely pals, we got to meet some horrible snotty girls who were so loaded they could barely unlock their car door before they drove to the corner to buy cigarettes. We were talking in the parking lot to their girlfriend with low self-esteem when they all traipsed out, jerky boys in tow, to ask disingenuously for our penultimate smoke-disingenuously because they asked their self-hating friend for one first, knowing full well that she was smoking one we had given her. They deigned to make eye contact and fake a half-smile as we gave it to them. Then they decided to go buy more. When we suggested they walk to the corner instead of driving, they turned on us like little foxes. “You could drive us,” one of the pretty ones stated flatly with a half-hidden sneer and a fetching air of command. We haven't been so unsuccessfully manipulated since we stopped hanging out with sorority girls and coke whores. But we appreciated the effort.Inside the sprawling Scoreboard, the funk and disco cover songs of D'Santi had all kinds of tanned and frosted gigolos shaking their thangs. They had very nice smiles-and they asked us to dance-but we just don't have the bread to keep a man in that kind of style. Hair appointments are expensive! It was fun, though, and we danced most of the night with a 21-year-old man with really cute ears. We liked him, and we made a date for the Super Bowl, and he kept it, which always pleases us because there was a several-month period in high school when we got stood up every Friday and Saturday night, which was really bad for our budding sense of self-worth, and you can all stop laughing at us now. He's almost 22, and we think that counts for something. Speaking of self-worth, we heard an incredibly boring interview with Sugar Ray on Y-107-they're kinda dopey and can't really finish a thought-and we've decided the singer isn't an asshole; it's just that he's the poster boy for low self-esteem, and he acts snotty to mask it. All the music critics should have figured this out a long time ago: he says things like, “Hi, I'm Mark, and I pretend to sing.” Are we the only armchair psychologist working? The boy needs a hug! And no, not from us; we don't date musicians. Anymore.We caught a gig with some other musicians we wouldn't date-Ultrathin at DiPiazza's Lava Lounge-but we wouldn't object to a dance or two. Dancing in the arms of their singer is like being whirled around by Patrick Swayze: all of a sudden, we're graceful! The men don't know, but the little girls understand. Sadly, Eric took umbrage at our request that he sing “She's Like the Wind.” And the set was too short.Aside from the fantastic food-and it's so proletarian! Nothing's more than $7.95!-the Lava Lounge is a hysterical mix of '60s Flintstones flagstones, pearl-gray vinyl booths, an open fireplace for ski bunnies to gather 'round, and strings of Christmas lights missing 60 percent of their bulbs. It was a different crowd than we usually see in Long Beach: it was a whole bunch of boys who still had their baby fat (and plenty of it) and punk-rock girls who haven't yet graduated to expensive punk rockness. That'll come with age and well-paying graphic-arts jobs. Unfortunately, music editor Rich Kane followed us to this spot, too, and we will once again cede it to him for Locals Only (see page 25)-even though we were there first-seeing as how we are the bigger person. Be a bigger person with Commie Girl at Co**********@ho*****.com. Can you believe CommieGirl was already taken and we had to resort to numbers? Where are our lawyers when we need them?
