Alison Rosen Is Your New Best Friend

The morning after

appletinis being poured into the bottom of what appears to be a giant tennis shoe

appletinis for your car

pequeno

The nostalgia vault runneth over

Need to read another story I wrote a long time ago? I thought so. This was from my dating column “Come Here Often,” a title which my parents hated with the hate of a million hate-filled parents. The truth is that when I thought it up, I really was envisioning someone saying it at a bar—the double entendre didn’t occur to me, I swear!—but upon reflection I suppose they had a point. Anyway, the column itself wasn’t racy. And those aren’t my lips.

Flawed Beauty

By Alison M. Rosen

Thursday, December 21, 2000 – 12:00 am

Have you ever gone out with someone who has horrible taste in the opposite sex and yet finds you attractive? It really does a number on the self-esteem.

One night, I jokingly asked my date —we’ll call him Horton—if the bruises on my legs (which I got from being clumsy, not from what you’re thinking, Mr. Pervypants) made me look sexy. “Well, see,” Horton began, “I like flawed beauty.”

I’m familiar with this notion of flawed beauty. Cindy Crawford’s mole. Jewel’s crooked Alaskan teeth. Kate Hudson’s overly wide-set eyes. Christie Brinkley’s marriage to Billy Joel. This is what men usually mean when they say they like “flawed beauty.”

“Yeah, flaws that aren’t really flaws,” said a co-worker matter-of-factly.

But Horton meant something different.

“I like girls in digital watches,” he offered one night on the phone, as I eyed with dismay my shiny, silver, clunky, bracelet-link, girly, analog watch. “I like lazy eyes. I like prosthetic limbs,” he continued. My stomach flipped in many-limbed non-digital-watch-wearing horror.

Digital watches? Lazy eyes? Prosthetic limbs? And he likes me? I’m supposed to feel good about this?

Perv Boy has been trying to backpedal ever since. “No, but I didn’t mean,” he’ll begin; or “Yeah, but you don’t understand,” he’ll try; or “But wait, what I meant was . . .” But it’s of no use. His words begin to blend together into an indecipherable buzzing drone, and all I can think about is that I feel inadequate because I have too many limbs. What I hear is this: “But wait, I’D LIKE YOU BETTER IF YOU HAD FEWER ARMS” and “No, but I didn’t mean I’D LIKE YOU BETTER IF YOU HAD A CLEVELAND EYE, YOU KNOW, ONE EYE LOOKING AT ME AND ONE EYE LOOKING AT CLEVELAND.” And “But wait, what I meant was YOU HAVE TOO MANY LIMBS.”

Not too many limbs like more than is normal, which would probably turn him on, but too many like the regular amount. Would it have been too much to ask for my mom to have had German measles?

It’s inescapable. No matter which way I look, there they are: both my arms, both my legs, all 10 fingers and 10 toes. It’s all there. My symmetry mocks me.

“Come, love, let’s frolic atop this combine,” I fully expect him to say someday, as I try in vain to stuff my arm into my shirtsleeve. “Come, dear, another bottle of cough syrup for the road?” I curse thee, right leg, keeper of balance, impediment to true love!

“But that’s not how I meant it. You don’t understand. It’s that I . . .” he begins to say—again—and again I tune out because it’s going in one normal ear and out the other normal ear. Damn these normal ears!

“That’s not flawed beauty! That’s mangled beauty!” shouted an incredulous friend when I told him the situation.

“Oh, fiddlesticks! You’re just jealous,” I told him dreamily, as I absent-mindedly scribbled, “Alison + Horton 4-ever and ever” all over my spiral notebook and then cut off my thumb.

Now that some time has passed, I’ve learned to have fun with dear Horton’s unbelievably horrible taste. It’s like a game.

“Okay, do you like it better when a girl has long or short nails?” I ask, already sure of the answer.

“Short,” he says.

“Painted or not?”

“I like short, painted nails,” he says. “But you know what I like better than short, painted nails?”

“Let me guess,” I say. “Short, painted nails that are chipped?”

“Um . . . yeah,” he says, dumbfounded. “How did you—oh, wait, because that’s what you have?”

“No,” I say as I run my fingernails along a cheese grater. “It’s just obvious.”

The other night, my roommate told me I looked like shit. “Oh, thank you, thank you!” I squealed, hugging her and quickly racing over to Horton’s house before I started looking good again.

It was all for naught, though.

“You look nice,” Horton said as I walked through the door.

“What?” I demanded.

“You look . . . um . . . nice?” he said again, beginning to twitch.

“Nice?” I thundered. “Nice! That bitch—she told me I looked like shit!”

Horton stared at me like I was crazy. Of course, for him, that was a turn-on.

I think I’m going to have to call it off, though. I just don’t have the time. You think it’s easy to look this bad?

More from the nostalgia vault?

Okay, only because you are begging (note: you aren’t begging). This one’s from the footnote period and for that I’m still sorry.

Thursday, November 2, 2000 – 12:00 am

The Cramps
Galaxy Concert Theatre
Friday, Oct. 27

It was a Goth meat market at the Galaxy on the night the Cramps played this sold-out show. It was impossible to squish your way past any group of people without feeling their unwelcome, eyeliner-rimmed glances. I hate sold-out shows. They’re great for the band, but they suck for the audience. And then I begin to hate everyone. Such as the drunk, PVC-wearing, Goth Bettie Page girl, who really, really, really wanted to talk to the guy seated at the table to my left and who communicated her burning need to talk to him by climbing over me and punching him. And then there was the guy that my roommate and I call—in all seriousness—Civilization Guy because two weekends ago he approached a friend of ours and used this suave1 pickup line: “Civilization—do you think it’s on the ascent or the decline?”2 Actually, Civilization Guy was more fun to watch than the Cramps because of the way he turned the White Man Shuffle into an aerobic activity. Kudos to Civilization Guy! But just when I’d start really getting into his small-windmills-plus-jerky-arrhythmic-leg-lifts, the icky Bettie Page girl would climb over me, and I would be yanked right out of the moment.

“Hey, who’s the sexy old blond?” Rebecca Schoenkopf, a.k.a. Commie Girl, asked me, nodding toward the stage. I told her it was Wally George, but I was lying. The Sexy Old Blond was really the Cramps’ bass player, who wasn’t sexy and whose wig was more pink than blond and who danced around the stage like a flower—if a flower could dance. Each Cramps member has a specific way of moving. Wally George dances like a flower. Guitar player Poison Ivy, who was wearing this bitty little dress that just barely grazed the top of her white, frilly underpants (which appeared to be stuffed with something), stalks the stage in a slow, sultry, deliberate way, which is probably all she can do in those high-heeled boots. And she glares at everyone in this way that is incredibly sexy and very cool and makes me wonder whether in the early days of the Cramps she had to deal with a bunch of well-wishers telling her she should smile and move around more and try to look like she’s having fun up there.3 Snarly singer Lux Interior struts from the back of the stage to the front and then back and then front again. Sometimes he lunges forward, and sometimes he deep-throats the microphone. Also, he throws the microphone stand forward but holds on to the cord, and sometimes he wraps the cord around his neck. He was wearing some kind of non-breathing, shiny, rubbery outfit, in case you’re wondering. As for the drummer, I don’t know; I couldn’t see him.

They opened with “Cramp Stomp” and then tore through a fairly long set of slow, snarly, inspired, groovy, bluesy hits with little patter in between songs. And despite the slow snarliness of it all, there was still a gaggle o’ dickheads in the crowd who moshed. Every now and then, they’d lift one of their own into the air and then pass the human offering forward, where he’d fall, eventually, into the arms of the security guards, who would toss him to the side, where he’d pick himself up, do a lap, and then run back into the pit. All hell briefly broke loose around 10:50 p.m., when the security guards were busy restraining someone. That diversion opened a space for a woman to run onstage and do some kind of menacing wavy arm thing in the direction of a nonplused Ivy. This went on for about three seconds before she was ambushed and carried offstage and more security guards were dispatched.

This was around the time Civilization Guy really began feelin’ it, though, so I couldn’t really tell you what happened onstage next. (Alison M. Rosen)

1. Pronounced “sua-VAY.”

2. She said ascent. I would say the same thing, although I’m a pessimist. Go figure.

3. Because I play in a band and people tell me that all the time, except for the people who say I remind them of Poison Ivy. I like them. I hate everyone else. Did I mention that sold-out shows make me hate everyone?

The bottomless nostalgia vault

Okay so I went through this very obnoxious phase where I peppered my prose with footnotes. I apologize in advance. Anyway, I found another OC tale involving Clowny Hands and Toilet Duck, though they aren’t referred to as such in this one:

Thursday, November 9, 2000 – 12:00 am

Slippers

Bamboo Terrace, Costa Mesa
Friday, Nov. 3

“C’mon! They’re the most talentedest¹ musicians I know!” said my friend, who knows a lot of musicians and who records bands at his recording studio and who recorded Slippers. He was trying to cajole me into going to see them play at 7:30 p.m. on Friday night. Now, look: I’m just as much a sucker for talentedest bands as the next ravishingly beautiful music critic, but 7:30 p.m.? That’s nap time! That’s get-ready-for-Friday-night time! That’s oh-God-I-hope-he-calls-me time!² That’s take-a-leisurely-shower-and-apply-makeup-time!³ That’s check-my-e-mail-and-avoid-phone-calls- from-my-mom- who’s-going-to-make-me-feel-guilty-for -not-coming-over-for-dinner time! Hey, that’s dinnertime!

“That early? Why are they playing that early?” asked my roommate, busily flipping back and forth between Jeopardy and Friends.

“It’s like a dinner thing,” said my friend.

“Oh,” said we.

And so it was that all three of us went to a Chinese restaurant called Bamboo Terrace to see Slippers, who were not only very talented but also, one might infer from their generally contented appearance and heavy lids, very stoned.

“We are Slippers from Long Beach,” announced the guitar player, whose beard rivals both Jeremy from Lit and all three members of ZZ Top.⁴ The five Slippers (guitar, bass, drums, congas and keyboard) wear shiny, satiny, Chinese pajama-looking outfits. “They are wearing authentic Chinese courtship suits,” said my roommate, but I’m pretty sure she pulled that out of her ass. Plus, she’s never been squired by an authentic Chinese man.

Slippers play progressive jazz that’s very noir-ish and atmospheric and moody and full of dynamics and vaguely Eastern-influenced. I’d almost say it’s experimental, but that makes it sound like there are big huge yawning gaps of sound involving nothing more than a rainstick or didjeridu or, even worse, someone rubbing a pick against a guitar string to make that squeaking sound or tapping their guitar pickups or doing weird things with rubber hosing. Slippers don’t even have a rainstick or didjeridu! Plus, they’re more frenetic than that, but in a mellow way. “They’re very yang,” said the aforementioned roommate. Yang, indeed!

The incredible drummer played with bundlesticks, which is always cool, and the incredible keyboard player, at one point, played this keyboard thing you blow into.

“By God, he’s taking bong rips onstage!” I proclaimed to my friends, but I was mostly just crapping around to distract myself from the Happy Hibachi Couple seated behind us, who were furiously making out only inches from their flaming tabletop grill. Then I suggested it might be funny if my friend lit his cigarette on their hibachi, but that’s just because I would appreciate it if no one was in love around me and it’s not like he did it, anyway.

Sometimes, apparently, Slippers have vocals; not tonight. They were entirely instrumental save for the “Woo!” that kept emanating from the stage. I never did figure out who was wooing. Also, their latest CD consists of two songs, one of which is about 20 minutes long and has 15 or so parts. They played this song, but I think they only included about 13 of the parts.

“Since when do you have all this noise?” a little old lady asked the restaurant’s owner at one point. From the back, the little old lady looked frighteningly like my grandmother, but I think my grandma would have liked Slippers. Which is not to say they’re grandma music because they’re not, but rather that they possess amazing, incredible, exhilarating talent, which is something with multigenerational appeal.

Even if the Happy Hibachi Couple didn’t seem to notice. (Alison M. Rosen)

1. Yes, he actually said, “talentedest.” Just like that: talentedest.

2. Now, see, that horrible book The Rules says you should never accept a weekend date after Wednesday, but it also says you should never stay on the phone with a guy for longer than 10 minutes and, to that end, you should keep an egg timer by the phone, to which I respond: Isn’t an egg timer only good for three minutes, and also, what the hell good is a guy who’s all hot for me if I don’t even know whether I like him because I never talk to him for long enough to find out because I’m always getting off the phone?

3. I’m high-maintenance, okay?

4. ZZ Top make me physically ill. Yes, their earlier stuff is good but when I think of them, all I think about is THAT HORRIBLE SLEEPING BAG SONG. I HATE THAT SONG!

More from the nostalgia vault

I had a long talk with Toilet Duck on the phone last night and I told him that I’d been thinking about our OC adventures and posted about the night he lamented the limitations of my gender vis a vis showing me his crap. He was kind of surprised that I’d chosen that particular night to commemorate, but then he told me that he thought “blog” should be a euphemism for crap, and I was taken with the imminent sense of his argument. Anyway, I wanted to post a few more adventures but now I’m having trouble finding ones which specifically involved him—though I know there are tons—so instead I’m putting up this one. It was about a week after 9/11, hence the flag pursuit.

While in California recently I actually referred to this particular night a couple times because it’s seared into my memory and tangentially involves the aforementioned friend. He called me as I was on my way out the door to go to this show with other friends—which was rare for me/us. I rushed him off the phone in this haughty kind of “I have other friends and other plans la la la,” kind of way. Anyway, when I got back from the show he showed up at my apartment, or maybe called first, but anyway it turned out that it had been his birthday and I’d completely forgotten in my rush to assert my independence. I felt like an asshole. Then again, whatever Molly Ringwald in 16 Candles.

Hair Band Moments

By Alison M. Rosen

Thursday, September 20, 2001 – 12:00 am

The Donnas
The Glass House
Saturday, Sept. 15

It’s damn near impossible to find a flag these days. I know because I’ve watched my roommate sit on the phone for hours trying to locate a store that isn’t sold out. Unable to turn a blind eye to her frustrated patriotism, I suggested that in lieu of a real flag, she just fly a pair of American Flag boxers out her window. But it’s not as if she has a pair of those lying around (or so she claims). Then I suggested she paint her nails red, white and blue. She went for it, resulting in a little something I like to call “clowny hands.” Unfortunately, when she tries to give someone the finger (perhaps for, say, calling her “clowny hands”), they just start laughing. It’s not all clowny hands and ridicule, though; an eight-year-old asked her if she was a rock star.

But that’s all beside the point. The point is that it’s impossible to find a flag unless you’re the Donnas, whose stage show at the Glass House on Saturday was simply bursting with flags, if by bursting you mean four. There was a big-ass flag affixed to the curtain behind the bass player. There was a flag stuffed into the drummer’s drum set, and there were another two flags stuck to the guitarist’s amp head. Singer Brett Anderson, a.k.a. Donna A (note to self: Or should it be vice versa?), was flagless, unless one of the flags on the amp belonged to her. Is that how it works? Is it like one flag per person? Because I’ll have you know that if you’re hoarding flags, I think Clowny Hands would like to have a word with you.

“Hey, we just wanted to take a second to say we’re really sorry about all the tragedies that have been happening, and if you have anything to donate, we have a Red Cross box next to our merch table,” said the singer before going into “Rock & Roll Machine.”

The Donnas, who played a few songs from their new album, The Donnas Turn 21, but spent more time on songs from their previous albums Get Skintight and American Teenage Rock ’N’ Roll Machine, have come a long way. There was a time when they all wore matching T-shirts and barely moved around onstage. Now they all wear different clothes and move around a lot! And the guitarist, bass player and drummer all whip their hair around really well in this way that might be an unconscious nod to hair metal bands. Or maybe it’s conscious; they talk openly of their love for Poison and Kiss and Mötley Crüe.

Other hair band moments? The guitar player’s constant pouty snarl and the way the bass player would ask the audience in this odd squealing voice, “Can you feel it? Yeahhhh?” and then make this weird yelping noise. It didn’t go over too well. The audience looked kind of confused or uncomfortable, and the band themselves seemed to wish they could get back to having the singer, the elected spokesperson for the band, do all the talking. It wasn’t a big deal, though, just a few split seconds of awkwardness. As for the guitarist’s pout, she can do whatever the hell she wants because she’s one of the best female guitar players I’ve seen; she effortlessly shreds™ and rips ™.

Not that the assholes in the pit would have noticed. Before we went into the club, the owner said to me, “Hey, be careful in there.” I thought he was kidding. I had no idea I was moments away from almost taking an adolescent elbow in the side. It was like watching a bunch of human ninja throwing stars. To come within six feet of one of them would be to take your life in your hands. The scary thing is that you wouldn’t know ahead of time what your downfall would be. It could be an elbow. It could be a foot. It could be a knee. It could be a fist. You wouldn’t see it until it happened. All you’d see is a blur of limbs and some sort of funky streetwear. Oh, the terror!

“Hey, if you include me in this story, can my name be Lola?” asked my friend, uh, Lola, as we stood in the back of the club in an effort to both watch the guitar player and avoid the pitting buttmunches. Pretty soon, a few more friends reinvented themselves (including Clowny Hands), and before long, I was hanging out with Lola, Jonzy and Preston, concert veterans one and all.

When the Donnas played their last song and walked offstage and the lights didn’t come up, we knew they weren’t really finished. Before long, the bass player and drummer took the stage again and began playing this funky cowbell-drenched jam thing. I like a smidge of funk from time to time, I must say.

“This song’s called ‘40 Boys in 40 Nights,’” the singer announced. Then Lola, Jonzy, Preston and I began talking about our own touring ratios, none of which has been quite so, well, robust. Go, Donnas, with the robust tour ratios! Now give a flag to Clowny Hands.

Captain Indigestion (nostalgia edition)

I’ve been feeling kind of nostalgic for Orange County lately, which is a problem about which I could say more, but I was sitting here thinking about an old friend of mine and all the adventures we used to have, many of which I wrote about in the OC Weekly, and something made me remember the night we nearly missed our plans because, well, you’ll see. Anyway, I went back to see if I could find the column. I found it. Hooray! (for you, of course)

This was from 2001 I think:

CAPTAIN INDIGESTION!

Goldenboy
Din Din at the Bamboo Terrace
Saturday, Feb. 24

Saturday night was heap-loads of fun! It got off to a rousing start when, instead of going out and having a good time as was the original plan, I instead sat around my friend’s house while he repeatedly emptied, into the toilet, the contents of a nutritious meal that didn’t agree with him. Correction—nutritious meals. I don’t know how many he ate, but based on the lengthy duration of his bathroom furlough, it had to have been more than just dinner that was starring, for a limited time, in his toilet. “You know what I wish?” he queried through the bathroom door. “I wish you were a guy because then I could show you what just came out of me!”

“Darn!” I yelled back, gagging. And that, if you must know, is why we were late arriving at Bamboo Terrace, having missed Lo-Fi Champion, who were dressed as Jehovah’s Witnesses. I mean, they weren’t really, but I defy you to tell the difference between the band members, who looked jaunty in white shirts and narrow blue ties, and Soldiers of Christ, who also look jaunty in white shirts and narrow blue ties.

My Weak-Stomached Pal (who has forbidden me to use his name, which is weird to me since he was more than ready to show me the contents of his colon; whence springs this sudden coyness?) and I got there in time to see an entire set by Goldenboy. The three-piece Diamond Bar band features the excellent Shon Sullivan (nicknamed “Goldenboy”), who plays cello, guitar and piano in Elliot Smith’s touring band, on vocals, guitar and keys. Before he got the Smith gig, he played in a melodic psychedelic-ish band I used to really like called Moonwash. Before that he played in melodic psych-edelic-ish band Moonwash Symphony, who performed at my college, so as far as I’m concerned, Sullivan and I go way back. We’re practically family. I think he felt the same way, after I reminded him who I was.

Goldenboy began to play one of their plaintive melodic numbers, made more soothing, plaintive and melodic by Sullivan’s gentle baritone. Actually, I’m not sure he’s a baritone, and sometimes he sings in a falsetto, but it’s all quite soft and syrupy in a good singer-songwriter way. He should do lullabies!

“They’re really soothing,” remarked Captain Indigestion. “I think I’m beginning to feel better.” At this point it gets confusing because I think I said, “Yeah, they make music for your butt,” but Captain Indigestion claims Roberto from Lo-Fi Champion said it and Roberto claims the Captain said it, which is stupid because I’m the one who said it. Regardless, I got all sorts of grief for the rest of the night from Baron Von Light-A-Match-Please for, according to him, trying to take credit for someone else’s phrase. Bite me, Toilet Boy!

Three songs in, Sullivan put down his guitar and began playing electric piano on a song called “Baby Doll,” which, at the beginning, sounds a tiny bit like the theme song from Cheers, which I actually, at the time, said, but Roberto and Toilet Duck probably want to take credit for that one, too.

At some point, Goldenboy played “Savior Pill,” a Moonwash song I remember from their album, which I used to own although I can’t find it or remember what it was called, but I was overjoyed to hear the song as, for a time, it made me forget my troubles with the Duke of Crappy Pants, so for that, I’m eternally grateful. (Alison M. Rosen)

Want to read everything I ever wrote for the OC Weekly?

You can find it all here! At least, I think you can. I didn’t really scroll through all 248 or so stories but it seemed like it’s all there. Lucky you, obsessive fans!

Costa Mesa

So I started thinking about Costa Mesa and the bands that used to play here and all the articles I wrote about them when I first started writing for the OC Weekly. Here is one, about The Women, who were great (and who were guys). It’s a little overwrought maybe, but I felt like I’d been on an odyssey with the singer.

ADDENDUM: this one’s even more overwrought, like I actually cringe at a few lines perhaps involving the words “tangle of demons” and something about things that drive you towards greatness but anyway, it feels like the bookend to the one above.