FRIDAY

After spending all day in a work meeting, this also being my birthday, I was definitely ready to start drinking. I met Alex and Andrew outside of their building and we walked to Andrew’s car so that he could drop it off at Alex’s. We arrived at the Green Room around 6:30 for drinks and food before the Dandy Warhols/Brian Jonestown Massacre show.

We asked the door man how hard it would be to get into the show from the Green Room. He wasn’t all that helpful. Our waitress, however, told us that if we got in line around 7:45, we would be golden.

Andrew suggested that I pace myself because it was going to be a long night. He was right, but pacing yourself on your birthday is not an easy task.

Ryan and The Kidd joined us, though they weren’t going to the show. Anton from Brian Jonestown was sitting up at the bar. I was kind of hoping that all of the Dandys would just be hanging out as well, but no such luck.

Meep arrived soon after Ryan and the Kidd. It was then that Ryan began buying shots. One Birthday Cake shot is fun. More than one is probably a bad idea, but it’s hard to say no when they are free (and, as it happens, taste like cake). Andrew was man enough to join in on the shots.

So by the time we lined up for the show, I’d had two Screwdrivers and two Birthday Cake shots. This was not so much in line with the pacing plan.

They let us Green Roomers in before the huge line outside. This is what I was hoping would happen. We made a bee-line for the right-hand bar and scored pretty much the best table in the house. This is the way for old people to watch a rock show!

We were joined a while later by Roxy. The first band was pretty mediocre but they didn’t play for very long. Plus, the drinks kept coming (along with plenty of water) so time was passing pretty quickly.

Brian Jonestown was good, but, as Meep deftly pointed out, we just weren’t that into it. It was great background music for hanging out though. We were getting silly and drawing pictures in Meep’s notebook. There is a series involving me and Eric Roberts that we found particularly amusing at the time.

When the Dandys took the stage, it started off a little stale. They were flawless, musically, but they seemed bored. However, after about 4 or 5 songs, they started to get more into it. The audience responded in kind. By the end of the set, everyone was rocking out. It was pretty exciting. If it hadn’t been completely packed with people, I might have even been compelled to dance. Derek arrived in the middle of the Dandys set and thus, the whole planned crew was assembled.

After the show, we finished our drinks and Meep made her way to the bathroom. She had been holding it for quite some time. Outside the Showbox, we checked the time and saw that we had about 30 minutes before last call. I was pretty drunk, however, and was pretty ready to go home. I would have been up for a night cap if Roxy and Meep hadn’t also wanted to go home. The boys were all heading to Queen Anne and I was not about to make my way home alone.

Us girls contemplated walking, but, in the end, laziness won out and we hailed a cab.

We apparently missed out on some power drinking at the Alibi Room and a quick visit to the ‘Vous. Bummer.

SATURDAY

No doubt about it, I was hung over. Luckily, it wasn’t the debilitating headachy kind of hangover though. This is probably because I stayed in bed till around 11. I met Meep for brunch at Charlie’s.

We briefly killed some time at Crossroads where I bought a new dress. (Guess what color it is!) I was feeling pretty gross from breakfast so I took my leave of Meep and went home to exercise.

Around 5:00, I headed down to Broadway to buy some cloves and got carded. I mention this because being carded for smokes the day after your 28th birthday feels pretty nice.

Then I headed to the NW Film Forum to meet people who were buying my 5 6:00 show tickets to Hump. The reason I had that many tickets to a show I wasn’t attending is complicated so I won’t go into it. I will say, however, that Dan Savage (who was running the door…I’m surprised he doesn’t have a P.A. to do these things) was very nice about it. Boozer, Scott and Dan Morelli bought 3 of my tickets. I introduced them and waited in line with them for the last two people to show up. They never did.

While we waited, a group of side-show type performers pimped their Hump entry by lying on broken glass and spikes and hammering nails into their eyes.

After they started to let people in, I took my leave of Boozer, Scott and Dan and went to meet Andrew and the Smithinghams for dinner. On my way, I got a call from the person who didn’t show up. She was apparently out of town and had bequeathed her tickets to someone else. Of course, that person had no idea what I looked like so who knows if she was there. I doubt she could get in if she had been, because Dan Savage needed everyone in my party’s name on his list. Regardless, I’m still getting my money back for the tickets. I feel bad though, if my mess left empty seats, because this was definitely the most sought after show of the weekend.
We supped at Café Septieme. I had the polenta. It was delicious. On our way to the theatre, we strolled through Cal Anderson Park. Aiyana stopped about 100 yards from the swing set (which was full of children) and pulled out a pipe. It was necessary and not at all conspicuous.

And thus, I was back in line, this time for a show I was actually going to see. Andrew saw someone he knew from work, and he got in line with us. As the side-show started again, Andrew and Derek went to the liquor store for reinforcements. Aiyana couldn’t handle the horror show so she wandered off leaving me alone with Andrew’s co-worker. The two guys took turns placing a small woman on top of the fella who was laying on something sharp and dangerous. They said that she was the star of their movie. She seemed either extremely burned out for slightly retarded. I was not looking forward to seeing her naked. However, I was morbidly fascinated by the scene and took a picture.

A moment of hilarity occurred when another group of circus performer happened by on bicycles. The side-show folks shouted at them from across the street and began, I’m not kidding, a networking session. We overheard a bit of it before they crossed to the same side of the street. One of the side-show guys actually said “Are you on myspace?”

Hump was exactly what I expected. Some of the movies were hilarious, some were kind of hot, and some were revolting. I will carry the memory of what I saw with me for the rest of my life. Our short got a VERY good response. A loud cheer erupted at the end credits. As usual with our films, people were probably grateful for how much shorter it was than the other films. The limit on the movies was a merciful 8 minutes. But let me assure you that with some of them, 8 minutes still felt TOO long. Especially one which was unanimously hailed as the least sexy thing anyone had ever seen. I won’t go into detail unless you want me too. I do, however, want to share my favorite bit of dialogs from one of the films. It was a “western” themed film staring what could only be experienced female porn stars. I wasn’t as sure about the men. I also could not determine whether or not the dialogs was scripted or ad-libbed. However, what follows is a scene verbatim.

INT. SALOON. DAY.

A SEXY BARMAID stands behind the bar. TWO COWBOYS enter. They awkwardly order shots and take seats at a table.

COWBOY #1
You know how you’re, like, the fastest gun in the West?

WESTY McFASTGUN
Yeah…

COWBOY #1
Well, Limey Lenny is the fastest gun in England…and he’s flying over here right now
BARMAID
This is 1874. We don’t have airplanes.

COWBOY #1
Well then he’s taking a boat…or a train.

Needless to say, Limey Lenny was packing. And the barmaid and lady of ill-repute help them settle their dispute.

After the show, Dan Savage announced that the winner would be crowned at Havana at 11:45. This gave us about 2 hours to kill. We wandered down Pike, stopping outside the new lesbian bar, Sugar. Andrew and Aiyana REALLY wanted to go in. However, loud music was emanating from the doors. I was not yet drunk enough to be excited by loud music. Still, since everyone else wanted to go in for “one drink”, I finally conceded. I’m glad I did. It was actually kind of fun in there. I can imagine really enjoying myself there. It’s spacious and well-decorated and the dance floor looked fun. A drag queen wandered around talking to people. Andrew was especially enjoying himself because most of the clientele were lipstick lesbians.

Next, we decided to find Havana and see if we would be interested in hanging out there until the awards ceremony. We weren’t. It was packed and hot and it looked like getting a drink would be impossible. We decided to move on and come back right at show time.

We got a couple of drinks at the Satellite and then lined our stomachs with Frittes. Two more of Andrews friends met us at the Frittes shop. They weren’t done eating at 11:45, so Andrew and I took off to learn our fates. The others would meet us.

We weren’t that optimistic about being comfortable when we entered Havana again. Andrew cleverly guided us to the back of the bar. On our way, I saw the now-famously well-endowed star of “Lawnboy”. You may recall that the review of this film in The Stranger was merely the words Super Giant Cock written about 25 times. That guy must have had quite a good weekend.

The timing was impeccable. He saw a guy sitting alone at a big table and motioned a request for us to sit down, thinking that we would be sharing with strangers. When we sat down, we noticed a paid bill on the table. The guy began putting on his coat. “Are you out of here?” asked Andrew? The guy nodded. We had the whole back booth to ourselves! Not only that, but our very own waitress took our drink orders. I believe this is what they call Big Time Pimpin’. “Maybe we do have a shot at this thing,” mused Andrew.

The others arrived just as Dan took the stage to announce the winners. After he announced third place (“Lawnboy”), we knew we didn’t place. It was ok though, because he winners really were the three best films of the lot. We were just happy that we were as well-received as we were for the amount of time and effort that we put into the thing.

After the announcements, we were ready to take off. We got our bill and convened outside. Andrew noticed Dan Savage standing around and wanted to go ask him just how close we DID come to winning. I didn’t see any harm in this and went with him.

Dan was being monopolized by some guy who was clearly boring the tits off of him. When he saw us, he turned to us with a big smile as if to say “Why hello there, strangers. PLEASE interrupt this conversation.” We introduced ourselves and he told us that he really liked our film. He said he was impressed at how it turned out, having been shot on a digital still camera. We agreed. Then Andrew asked him how close we were to placing. Dan leaned into Andrew’s ear and whispered the answer. WE WERE TWO VOTES AWAY FROM THIRD PLACE!!! That made us very giddy, but also slightly disappointed because if those two people who I’d promised my tickets to had actually showed up and voted, we might have been $250 richer. Regardless, it was exciting to have come that close. Dan shook our hands and said that he hoped we would submit something else for next year.

We then wandered off, leaving him at the mercy of the annoying person who was waiting in the wings the whole time we were there.

Andrew had decided early in the evening that his wish was for me to go to the Vogue before he leaves. He couldn’t believe that I had never been there. The REASON I had never been there was because, despite my affinity for black clothing and the music of the Cure, I had little desire to hang out with a bunch of Tim Burton devotees. However, Andrew assure me that the music they spin on Saturday nights is right up my alley. Aiyana and Derek confirmed. So we headed over there.

It was a $5 cover, but it ended up being worth it. I felt as if they had commandeered my i-tunes. The Cure, The Smiths, Joy Division, Bowie, and several 80’s classics brought all of us to the dance floor. It was fantastic.

After closing the place out, I accepted an offer for a ride home (even though it probably would have taken the same amount of time to walk). On our way to Andrew’s car, we passed a white Hummer. We all expressed our disdain for the vehicle, but Derek went a step further, kicking the front tire and then looking around for a way to deflate it. He tugged on the valve on the tire and a hissing sound emanated from it. Given that the tire was GINORMOUS, it could take hours for any significant deflation to occur. The rest of us, of course, appreciated the sentiment, but this was after last call, and the undoubtedly testosterone-filled gentlemen who owned the vehicle would most likely be back at any moment.

Aiyana, being the only sober one in the bunch, shouted that she would drive back to pick up Derek if he wasn’t already beaten to a bloody pulp. Andrew and I followed her. As we drove back to the scene, we saw several giant men getting into their phallus. Derek stood, unharmed, two car lengths away. He got into the car and told us that luckily, he was alert, because he missed getting caught by mere moments. Those guys would NOT have seen Derek’s point of view at all.

SUNDAY

My morning was spent finishing the complete series of Undeclared and reading Transmetropolitan. In the afternoon, Brugos came by, fresh from his 27 hours of traveling. He now knows all about phone cards.

We picked up some Thai food from the Thai Nazi and ate it at Volunteer Park. Later, Brugos slept through some of Cecil B. Demented.

PS: Andrew is going to put our Hump entry onto YouTube sometime this week! I will post the link.

NEXT WEEKEND We hype the crap out of GadZook Films!

September 11, 2006
Categories: Dear Diary, Filmpinions . Tags: gigs, weekend recap . Author: Baxter . Comments: Leave a comment