LA Weekly

Comedy Meltdown 2: Electric Boogaloo
Meltdown Comics, January 25th

Who needs too-tightly packed tables and a two drink minimum, especially if there’s an option to pick up a Buffy The Vampire Slayer omnibus and a maquette of Sub-Mariner before the show? Arguably LA’s best recurring comedy show in town is tucked away in the back of Meltdown Comics on Sunset once a month, a free Friday night lineup in the store’s gallery featuring top-notch talent riffing large under the harsh glare of a bank of fluorescents instead of the usual spotlight. (Which might not help when it gets a little chilly in that back room, particularly on stormy January nights, but the open bar warms things up a bit. Yeah, I know… free and an open bar. Dude!) (Above right: Blaine Capatch)

Booker Linda Pine secures ace talent, which for the event’s sophomore outing on Friday night was emceed by lightning-quick Blaine Capatch; after his own set, including a terrific bit on deep and abiding loathing of personalized license plates (So "U2POOH" is definitely expressing one’s love of the Disney bear, right? And not a scatological request), Capatch managed to work some terrific improv into the night’s ongoing trivia contest with properly geektastic questions including which Batman villain was a zoologist (Man-Bat) and which band originally owned the rights to A Clockwork Orange (that’d be the Rolling Stones – and I got that one right, dammit, only I didn’t speak up loud enough to be heard over the peanut gallery in the first row… more on them later.

(Above: Jonah Ray)

Next up, Jonah Ray, Tecate in hand, singing the praises of internet downloads and laying into Lars Ulrich something good; and a grousing Mark Voyce scoffing sarcastically at how far he’s come to get to the back room of a comics store.

(Above: Mark Voyce)

Read on...

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Time to play catch up kiddies.
The holidays are behind us, and so far, the ‘08 social calendar is proving to be more jammed-packed -and jammin’- than ever.
But first, in case you didnt' see it, see our look back here. Oh, and here's a little something on what our backs actually looked like.

Winter brings with it a desire for nesting, not nightlife. And though we could easily hole up at home every night and let our brain shrivel away while watching Rock of Love 2, The Bad Girls Club and American Idol, we've got a DVR for that. Damn writer's strike.

Check out this week’s Nightranger for reports from The Room and the new Zero One Gallery, which by the way is hosting a sure to be rockin' old school hip-hop happening this Sat.

And while we're giving you some reasons to get outta the house, here's some other Style Council-approved stuff to do this wet and wild weekend (drive carefully!):
1. Pump it with the pretty young things at PYT at Jimmy’s Lounge (Fri.)
2. Roll into the long-running skate discorama Space is the Place at World on Wheels (Sat.),
3. End the weekend with the sweet sounds of DJ AM at Banana Split Sundays at LAX, which will welcome Shiny Toy Guns' Jeremy Dawson on the decks this week. Yeah, that's him with the hair (below).

Speaking of hair (brained), now that Paris Hilton has declared B.S.S. her new (even though it’s not new) favorite club, expect to see a fresh swarm of sequined sluts mixing it up with the messy tressed regulars.

She's moved on to whiter pastures (Sundance) but a couple of weeks ago, the tart-fart took the mike, started bagging on the Hollywood velvet roper dopers she usually hangs with and declared the hipster crowd hotter. She also said she wanted to fuck everyone in the room. No word on if she actually followed through.

We’re all for unity in clubland, but this is going a bit too far even for her.

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After the beautiful, yet co-dependent energy suck that was my five-year relationship with a Swedish painter, I am happily unattached. And while single’s done wonders for my career, my self-esteem and my complexion, it’s left my libido in a lurch. Consequently, I’ve taken a slew of imaginary lovers to spice up my non-existent sex life. What follows is an abridged list of pretend boyfriends who dazzle those lurid and lusty crannies of my mind:

Jason Schwartzman: If I’m to be perfectly honest, I’m actually in love with Max Fischer, the high school student Schwartzman played to dorked-out perfection in Rushmore. But, to be in love with a fictional character is ridiculous. To be in love with a movie star is far more rational. Plus, he just came out with a record, and it totally doesn’t suck. Ours is not so much a carnal affair driven by animal lust, as it is a creative collaboration, garnished with impromptu adventures and great sex. I am his muse – inspiring magical melodies and brilliant lyrics, and he is mine, insinuating his nuanced quirk into my various works of literary genius. I illustrate his album covers and animate his videos. We condition each other’s hair. He whisks me off to Cannes. I take him to Burning Man. We win Academy Awards, and dedicate them to each other.

Dr. D is a holistic M.D. who I’ve been seeing professionally for years. He has a lisp and an attitude problem, and is prone to impassioned monologues about evil pharmaceutical warlords, right-wing conspiracies, and processed Republican mind control food.

“I have a crush on Dr. D,” I confided to one of the nurses in his office.

“Who doesn’t?” she replied.

Admittedly, my Dr. D fantasies rely heavily on the idea of free B-12 shots, colon hydrotherapy and medicinal marijuana. But, Dr. D maintains a strict diet of vegan food and Asian women. Last year, Dr. D had a freak surfing accident, slipped into a coma and underwent a series of brain operations. Now, his skull is all dented on one side with jagged, broken edges jutting out over his right eyebrow. It’s like, the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen. I realize, what with my round eyes and my curly pubes, I have no chance with Dr. D. But, with every relationship, and even with every crush, we weed out what qualities we don’t want in a partner, as we hone in on the ones we do. It’s not a requirement, per se, but “dented skull” has suddenly become my “type.”

Jeremy Piven: I’m not really sure why on this one. I see him all the time – at the market, at Urth Café, always with an exotic anorexic beauty dangling from the edge of his trademark smirk. On a base level, I like the way he inhabits his body, but he’s balding and arrogant, and he tucks his too tight t-shirts into his too tight ugly designer jeans. My writing partner, Nina, has distilled the otherwise inexplicable attraction into a three-fold tier: “He’s Jewish, he’s successful and he’s kind of an asshole.”

Ugly Pants: Over the holidays, I sat a 10-day silent meditation retreat up north – no speaking, no reading, no writing, no eye contact, no food after 11 am. It sounded like way more fun than Christmas crap, or New Year’s let down, and it was. It was also super boring. Between hour-long bouts of observing the sensations on the triangular area just below my nose, I found myself fantasizing about “Ugly Pants,” the dishy guy with the face scruff, the cute ass and the stupid stripes going down his otherwise beautiful, nylon-draped legs, who sat across the aisle from me in the mediation hall. I spent my sparse moments of “downtime” crafting elaborate midnight missions, each more intricate then the next, wholly dependent upon a covert communication system which included carefully placed pine cones, telling rock formations, and subtle hand gestures. The objective was the only constant: to meet behind the meditation hall and make-out ‘til dawn. Turns out our relationship, imaginary though it may have been, was wholly dependent upon the silence. On day eleven, Ugly Pants revealed himself to be a Pisces, strike one, metrosexual, strike two, and inarticulate – total deal breaker.

Curtis is twenty-five, neurotic and gorgeous. I see him and his model-perfect body nearly every day at my neighborhood overpriced hippie health food market. Not only is he beautiful and sweet, but he’s a fellow optimal health geek. My roommate took me to the store for my birthday and told me to pick out one of the herb-infused, raw chocolate bars I’d been waxing nerd about for months. I was clutching one in my hand when I ran into Curtis in the produce section.

“You’re getting one of those?!” he enthused, and effectively wormed his way from my uterus to my heart, because he totally got the excitement of the $25-dollar chocolate bar, infused with Chinese tonic herbs, superfoods and magic.

Thom Yorke’s suffering makes for the most stunning music I’ve ever heard. I worship him and all his melodious misery. Plus, he has one droopy eye, which isn’t quite as cool as a dented skull, but it’s in the ballpark. Between my laptop, my iPod and my car, I’ve got Radiohead’s In Rainbows on a continuous loop and, for the moment, Thom Yorke’s epic unhappiness is the best sex I’m having. Every song is about me. Except the ones about institutional collapse and apocalypse - and the one where he asks his lover to stop interrupting him when he wants to talk. I’ve taken to speaking to my iPod while the record plays.

“Thom,” I soothe to the inanimate object of my affection, “there’s no need to be this unhappy. I’m a really good listener.”

Dr. Fischbein, my gynecologist, told me it’s easy to check my uterus because I’m so thin. Obviously, I love him. Plus, he’s the only man who touches my vagina and doesn’t disappoint me.

The End.

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