How I Spent Labor Day Weekend: A Multiple Choice Quiz

Well, it was a long, hot 3 days. I will now report on my activities, only to make it less boring I'll let you guess which scenario actually took place.

1. Blind Date
a. I had a blind date.
b. I didn't have a blind date.
c. Other.
(answer c; I had one but she flaked on me.)

2. Swimming pool
a. I swam in the cool refreshing waters of my apartment's pool
b. I did not swim in the cool refreshing waters of my apartment's pool.
(answer b; just didn't get around to it, even after spending half a day outdoors at a birthday party in Agoura. The temperature ranged from 95 degrees to 112 degrees. As a matter of fact, the temperature in Las Vegas this weekend trailed ours by 5 degrees.)

3. Met a girl
a. Hung out with a bright-blue-haired Russian girl named Natasha at a karaoke bar in Studio City; she told me she was a mail order bride who had been abandoned by her patron and if I married her she would give me "good DJs."
b. No, that's ridiculous.
(answer a; but I'm pretty sure she was just an actress working on a character. Either way quite charming.)

4. Vision correction
a. Spent several hours looking for a hobo who would sell me his eyes.
b. Spent several hours at Lenscrafters getting contact lenses and new glasses.
(answer b; I actually had an agreement in principal with a local hobo but the deal fell through because I couldn't find a competent doctor to perform the surgery.)

Thanks for playing!

Anecdote Redux: Fox Journalist Sex Tips

Before I start, let's savor that title. Almost senseless! At least it is without context.

It was a weeknight at Paoli's restaurant/karaoke bar in Summer of 2005. I was a regular visitor there on Wednesday nights, deliberately staying up late in an effort to reset my internal clock for the theatre manager gig. Monday and Tuesday, normal business hours; Thurs-Sat, late late nights. Plus it was an excuse to get out among people, something I have to force myself to do. I had recently learned that I suffer from Social Anxiety Disorder. If you can't make money selling pills for it, you may know it as "shyness." I don't take the pills but I'm glad it's a disorder. Sorry, tangent.

Anyway, I knew all the regulars there but that night it was crowded and there were a lot of new faces. Once of them stood out - a guy with a perfect tan, well-proportioned, white shirt, tie and slacks, great hair -- he looked a lot like 70s singer and talk-show host John Davidson. Still it's Los Angeles so you run into people who look like they belong on TV all the time. And he wasn't singing, just drinking. Plenty.

I had just sung something. I don't remember what, so let's say it was LEVON by Elton John. A pretty (and pretty drunk) woman had complimented me at some length with plenty of hair-flipping and arm touching. I returned to my seat, which happened to be across from the meta-Davidson, and he leaned over and said, "She's into you."

"Yeah," I chuckled, "it's a shame I'm married."

"You probably could have gotten her to go home with you."

Clearly the matrimony thing has gone by him. Having discarded that element from the conversation, which seemed interesting, I decided to follow my improv training and accept the offer. "Well, sure, that's easy for a guy who looks like you to say."

"No man, you're just not putting yourself out there right. For one thing, you gotta lose the glasses."

I told him I had contacts, but I liked the glasses because they make me look smart. He said women aren't looking for that. He said women want strong, decisive men. "When you talk to them, whatever you're saying you have to sound like you mean it." He also recommended less casual attire because suits are trustworthy.

Finally I said, "what do you do for a living, anyway?" He said he was a TV journalist for a Fox station in Arizona. He was in town all week for the Reagan funeral ceremony. It's then that I realized that he wasn't forcing romantic advice on me at all - he was teaching me how to seduce your way into a sexy anchor's chair.

I never saw the guy again - I checked out the station's website but they don't feature the field reporters. And I left early so I don't know how he fared romantically; or for that matter if he managed to sign a contract. But I treasure the whole incident because among other things, it demonstrates that Fox would spend enough to send local guys to Regan's funeral instead of just using pool coverage.

He's right though, I should wear contacts.

More On BYOR

Skot (BTW enough with the Anonymous! Just register for god's sake!) commented on yesterday's Karaoke bar piece. Interesting. Three things occur to me.

1. Oh great, I'm back to where I was in the 90's -- writing a blog that reveals too much about me! Actually the problem then was I was revealing too much about everybody else, and I paid dearly for it. Truth is, I'm not really terrific at self-expression and blogging may be the only vehicle anyone will ever have to know what I really think - "anyone" includes me.
2. The post would make a great prequel to EYES WIDE SHUT, n'est pas? That too was about the fear of things happening. It's a movie about sex, only no one actually HAS ANY. I think even the background people at the party were only dancing. I wonder if we can bring Spielberg in on this one too?
3. Fear is indeed the mind-killer.

I should probably be embarrassed by the mere fact that I'm a Karaoke geek (take mime lessons while you're at it, dude!) but to make it worse I pride myself on my wide internal catalog of songs, and yet I know almost nothing past 1993. To me, Radiohead is still cutting-edge. EARLY Radiohead. Fortunately most of the crowd at Paoli's at least LOOKS older than me. Oh hell, they are.

One other thing - I scoured my archives and the post about the TV journalist full o'booze is probably gone forever, because it predates my LiveJournal effort by a couple months. I'll try to remember the best details and post it again, because as I grow old it will be one of my most treasured and reliable anecdotes.

BYOR

Last night I went out to a Karaoke bar called Paoli's near my place. I do this about once a week, to mine my extensive knowledge of pop songs and show off my surprisingly good singing voice. It's odd too, because its a bar. I don't drink, and being married I'm not there to pick up chicks. It's an evening of counter-intuitive fun.

Even though I don't drink, I must admit that I have all kinds of fun watching other people get drunk. Maybe it's nostalgia for my dad, who drank himself to death the year that Star Wars came out. Maybe it's the smug feeling of superiority. Whatever, I love being around drunk folks. And last night, my ideal drunk person came out. She was beautiful, she had enormous breasts, disproportionately large lips, she dressed cheap and craved attention. The way she was acting you'd think someone had slipped her a roofie, but clearly she had brought her own roofies. She talked me into singing a couple of duets with her, allowed me to cop a feel (and my god, they are genuine!) and even invited me back to her place! Along with about 5 other guys, including the long-suffering boyfriend who brought her.

The other 4 went.

It's amazing that my lovely wife lets me go out to bars like this alone, but she knows how truly harmless a guy I am. I'm only there to sing, and to observe, and occasionally argue with Allen, the British guy with the C. Everett Koop beard and the Buddy Holly fetish, about who is the most attractive girl in the place. I swear, Karaoke is the best hobby ever.

I think somewhere on the Livejournal version of this blog is another account of the time I met a sloshed TV news reporter at Paoli's and he kept giving me advice on how to get chicks. If I find it I'll link to it here.