Playing Tourist

Sorry for the lack of updates, but I’ve been busy. And you’ve missed me, haven’t you? (Well, either that or forgotten me like everything that happened after 1 a.m. last night. Don’t worry; eventually someone will explain to you how you ended up in the bathtub wearing that bumble bee costume.)

I have no lofty commentary—or, if you prefer, rambling diatribes—with which to enthrall you, but I can report that Minus the Bear is perhaps best left to the CD format, where their mathy-yet-mellow guitar wizardry and lackadaisical melodies aren’t forced into trying to create energy they don’t have. They’re not a bad show altogether, but they lack the zip of a truly impressive live act.

I did, however, enjoy seeing them in an Orlando, Florida club that had been converted from a Firestone Tire depot. Somewhat oddly, the club’s decorator decided not to stick with the obvious car/tire/mechanic’s garage design motif, and, instead, decided to decorate one wall with a collage of oversized ink-drawings of O.J. Simpson’s face. I’m sure it made sense to someone, at some time.

Meanwhile, let me say that The Rapture put on a helluva show, a wild-n-crazy, booty shaking dance party for skinny white kids with black lungs showing off pirate-striped t-shirts and horror-movie haircuts. It was my first trip to DC's premiere small rock venue, the 9:30 Club, and it was excellent. What really made the show, though, was that the behind-the-stage VIP viewing area was clearly populated by band member parents, middle aged suburban folks rockin’ out to their boys’ rowdy tunes. When the band members’ parents show up at the 9:30 club, you know they’ve got to be good.

And speaking of horror movie haircuts, I managed to get down to Universal Studios for their annual display of drunken, pseudo-scary idiocy, Halloween Horror Nights. Only in America—more specifically, only in Florida—can you pay $65 to run around an over-decorated movie backlot drinking syringes full of glowing jello shots while local college theater majors and old wannabe movie extras all painted up like zombies growl semi-convincingly and threaten you with (quite real!) chainsaws. The place is done-up in splendorific Halloween luxury, all fake cobwebs and assorted spooky whatnots; someone clearly dropped a bankroll at The Party Store. The place is already a decorated-to-death movie theme park, so it's fake-everything squared: what you’ve essentially got are decorated decorations, facades over facades. The effect is pure, strung-out overkill, like mixing red bull, cotton candy, and vodka. Which they also do.

Girls scream; men act like buffoons; everyone spends scads of cash on overpriced theme park refreshments ($4 bottles of water!)—it’s an utter triumph of needless American capitalism. And I loved every bit of it.

Also, there was a two-story tall fire-breathing robot dinosaur that picked up cars and crushed them in its robo-paws. You know, in case anyone was feeling under-stimulated.