Squeak!

Perhaps you have long since grown up and stopped having marathon sex with United States Marinesin the barracks at Camp Pendletonwhile your friend tries vainly to sleep in a bunk five feet away. Well, us, too! Luckily, we got to relive our pre-our-friends-having-their-own-places teen years and be the friend in the next bunk Saturday night, leading us to many pithy exclamations like, “Aw, Jesus fuck shit goddamn it, you guys! Again?Ah, youth.It felt a bit like being the fat girl at the orgy, her sad, wide back to the madding crowd. We don't want you to be left out of this fine experience, so here is what it sounded like: “Squeak. . . . Squeak. . . . Squeak. . . . Squeak. . . . Squeak. . . . Squeak. . . . Squeak. Squeak. Squeak. Squeak. Squeaksqueaksqueaksqueaksqueaksqueaksqueaksqueaksqueaksqueak! Squeak. . . . Squeak. . . . Squeak. . . . Squeak. . . .” Just when we'd think our fearless couple had finally finished and would fall asleep for a half-hour, the bed springs would start crying out again. It's our own fault, of course. We never should have sneaked into the barracks in the first place, but our girlfriend needed a designated driver. And let us tell you something: that's the last time we stay sober. Ever. It just gets you into trouble.

Other than that, it was a pretty fun Saturday night, with a karaoke birthday party thrown by our new lovely friends Deanna and Jason in Dana Point followed by a stint at the Harbor House Cafe, where the food was middling at best but was made infinitely more palatable by the fact that complete strangers were wordlessly feeding one another from table to table. We highly recommend it.

Fortunately, we had a designated driver in the form of our dear friend Dave Wielenga for the No Doubtshow at The House of Blueson Oct. 6. But since Dave is clean and sober himself, we didn't really take advantage of it. It's not just that it's tacky to get sloshed in front of someone who doesn't, but one also gets the harrowing feeling that a sincere and caring lecture might be just around the corner. So we drank just enough to dull the vicious envy brought on by singer Gwen Stefani's bright-pink Farrah Fawcetthair. It looked really good.

We had mixed feelings about No Doubt; we went in with some pretty dismal preconceptions about their bubble-gum pop, having grown so fucking sick of “Don't Speak”that we could have pulled a Kathleen Soltysikand blown some shit up. (Kathleen Soltysik is neat, no matter what that boring FBI says.) We were only looking forward to ravening hordes of Gwen-struck adolescent girls in an anthropological kind of way. We thought it would be interesting, but only if we eavesdropped on lots of supertrite “he was all, and then I was all, and then he was like” conversations (not that we're not guilty of the same thing, but we're usually so amusing) in the restroom. We didn't want to actually have to stand too close to any of them.

But Gwen and Co. far surpassed our curmudgeonly expectations: she's buff like Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2, and we figure girls could idolize a lot worse people, like Baby Spice. Strong girls are cool. Plus, she made all the boys in the audience sing alternating choruses of “Just A Girl” and then had the girls chant, “Fuck you, I'm a girl!” You know how we like gratuitous profanity. Fuck. Say it out loud. Isn't that fun? Fuck!

But still, though we were pleasantly surprised, and though she certainly is one fit and pretty miss and the songs were fun, the aerobics moves she was doing onstage kinda bugged. And there wasn't one spontaneous moment the whole time. So that's not really very good. Oh, yeah, and Stefani is now a member of the Madonna School of Very Clipped British Accents. See? Mixed feelings!

The evening before, we were lucky enough to have a designated driver in the pretty person of Trish from Lunatic Recordswhen we passengered our way all the hell down to downtown San Diego to catch Burnin' Groove—oh, and modern-rock-chart kings Lit, for whom they were opening. But since the drive was so ungodly long, we were afraid to drink too much for fear that a two-and-a-half hour drive would turn into five hours by the time we were done making Trish pull over so we could throw up. So, really, we didn't need a designated driver that night, either. We're really going to have to work on our public drunkenness.

Hanging with Trish has its rewards, of course, aside from her general grooviness and that of her brother Jim. For starters, there was our access to Burnin' Groove, who Lunatic manages. And Burnin' Groove just keep getting cuter, don't they? Sure, drummer Steve Lynch is still dreamy, but that's mostly just habit. Now, the rest of the band are catching up in terms of sheer personal magnetism. Plus, none of them were hanging out all night with two stunning, tall brunettes. Burnin' Groove had the capacity crowd at Cane's (right on the ocean) pumping with a terrifically energized set. Did we mention it was terrific?

Lit were terrific, too, if a bit fatigued from wrapping up their tour. We have completely gotten over the KROQ Weenie Roastincident, in which singer A.Jay Popoffkept nagging the women in the crowd to show their tits. We would point out, however, that it's white pants after Memorial Day, black after Labor Day and tits-showing much later than 12:30 p.m.—after a few $8 Coors beers and maybe a bowl. We'll chalk it up to excitement at their then-new rock-star status. Here, they were very well-behaved, even gentlemanly! That's how we like our rock stars! Nice job, Lit!

After the packed show, a whole bunch of girls with big pink cartoon hearts in their eyes traveled a good 15 miles to some bowling alley, where the most extraordinary man in the most extraordinary yellow plaid golf pants was signing people's stomachs and bowling with strangers who were so happy to see him. They all thought he was in Lit, a misconception that he (and we) happily buoyed. Who but a rock star would wear such pants and jump up on the bowling-ball return when he got a strike?

Though we fell mightily in love with him, he has not called us. Also, we took off our rings to bowl and accidentally left them there, although we weren't drunk, just tired. So if you found our engagement ring that night, we'd really like it back. It's the only memento we have of that guy we were engaged to for a day once after we'd known him for a week before we came to our senses and realized it was a terrible, terrible mistake. Sentimental value, you know?

Get sentimental on Commie Girl at Co**********@ho*****.com">Co**********@ho*****.com. You know you're a romantic at heart.

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