I was reminded of this by a post on "Monkeys With Fezzes" (Steve's blog can link you to the site)

When I lived in NYC I played a game called Secret Finger. It is exactly what it sounds like, and I came up with it before the Seinfeld episode. Whenever someone was doing something particluarly annoying on the subway, say listening to a radio, leaning on the pole so no one could hold on or sitting with their legs so wide it took up three seats, Secret Finger came into play.

I would hold my book, bag or newspaper with only my middle finger showing, and have it facing them the whole time. This could go on for a half an hour. It was so fulfilling to be sticking my middle finger in someone annoying's face that was only two feet away, that I would be in a good mood for hours. Better than if nothing had happened. I figured if they ever asked me, "are you giving me the finger?" I could counter with, "are you hogging the entire pole?" but no one ever confronted me. I'm probably lucky to not have gotten killed.

I don't play Secret Finger in LA. I have never had the need to. Even as shitty as traffic gets, it is still not as intense as being squashed together with all of humanity in a subway car. I do yell and cuss profusely in my car. And sometimes, I use The Finger, but it is not a secret.

So i'm driving up Highland this afternoon and I finally saw the billboard that Steve told me about last week. It's for McDonald's, and it has a tie-in for a new ride at Disneyland Adventure. The new ride is "Twilight Zone" themed, and it is some sort of roller coaster/elevator drop contraption. It seems to be a haunted hotel of some sort, with an un-dead bellhop as the featured character.

I have an overall distaste for the current McDonalds ad layouts. They look like very bad first year graphic design projects. Collages done at 3am the night before using whatever magazines your roommate has lying around kind of crap. But I guess McD's is aiming at Junior High and High School students-sort of the sloppy DIY look that mirrors the current fashion and attitudes. The billboard is right down the street from Hollywood HS.

The billboard has only the uniformed, un-dead bellhop and a Big Mac on it with the tag line of "Great Taste!" or something akin to that. I immediately think the Big Mac is made of brains, because that's what undead zombies eat.

Satified Zombie graphic + Big Mac graphic = Burger is Made Out of Brains.

Ick. What were they thinking? It rivals Miss Piggy ordering the Denny's Grand Slam. Shouldn't she have the pancakes with fruit, ya bunch of cannibals, and let Kermit order the bacon?

I went to Las Vegas for the weekend, as it was Angela's bachelorette weekend. We had a great time, dressed her up like a pirate bride, drank and danced, and did our part for America. By that I mean, we spent money, visited a tourist mecca, and let a handsome uniformed Air Force Officer lick the bride-to-be on the pretense of applying a tattoo.





I flew home. The Las Vegas Airport on Sunday mornings is like evacuating from a third world country, minus the goats. I thought getting to the airport an hour and 15 minutes ahead was plenty of time. It wasn't. I give thanks to the America West guy who pulled me out of the line like a lottery winner and sent me on my way. I made my plane with plenty of time. I don't know why he picked me and I'm sure I cashed in some good karma points, but it was worth it.

B-list celeb sightings started on the way home. Randy Jackson from American Idol was sitting a few rows in front of me, and then we stood next to each other and exchanged smiles at the baggage claim. He even gets his own bags.

Sighting number two was Mike Farrell of M*A*S*H fame. He and his wife are friends with Seth in my comedy troupe Tiny Bandeleros and came to our show. We were performing as part of the 2nd Annual LA Improv Fest.

Sighting three was Horatio Sanz and a bunch of the other younger SNL cast members. They were hanging in the Improv Olympic bar at the Festival closing night party. Jenny, Brandon and I went over after our show.

A little too much weekend, and not enough sleep.

So my heart skipped a beat or two when I read "Courtney's" comment, but when I went to email her (what? an apology?) I realized it was a joke on me. Thank God! But I may pull down the posts anyway, so read 'em while you can. I don't want to make bad blood.


But then, why should I feel bad because I am calling out behavior of people 20 years ago? Why should they care? They lived their lives, they made the choices they did. If you were a bitch or a geek in High School, why should it matter now? It was 3 lifetimes ago. I hadn't thought about all this stuff in years (or else there would have been a companion piece for Angela's in the November show) but reading that "Mists" book, actually, seeing the visual of the cover for a week, made me remember it.

A memory of mine is replayed as cliche teen movie fodder all the time. Most recently in "Mean Girls." (which I thought was great.) The scene at the talent show where all the most popular girls do a dance routine in skimpy costumes to a current pop song.

We also had the obligatory Talent Show, and about halfway through the show was a big dance number with 25 of "those girls" dancing to "Freaks Come out at Night." These girls were not all dancers, but dammit, the number was a tribute to their friendship and status! The same kind of tribute that makes brides in their early 20's insist that they need 11 bridesmaids. Honey, just pick your sister and your college roommate. Everyone will get over it.

Clearly, people are much the same where ever you go, or we wouldn't be able to identify so much with archtype characters in movies, tv and books. A current fave of mine right now is "The Office" on BBC America. The boss is supposed to make you cringe. Gareth is supposed to remind you of that annoying guy at work. It's good writing.

I was cast as the nice girl/geek. Courtney was cast as the popular girl who dated the jock. but I bet if we watch the third episode, we find out that she has a secret drinking problem, and her parents are getting a divorce.

(that is just a guess BTW, following the cliche lines. If this is actually true about what was going on in HS, then it just proves my point)

On sort of a related note, I went and saw "Saved" yesterday. Hi-larious!

Robyn

We had a very interesting weekend...Saturday night we had dinner at the HellFire Club West which is a S&M Dungeon. No joke.

My friend Simone Williams, who has a custom corsetry company called Exquisite Restraint (www.exquisiterestraint.com) had been invited to check it out but she didin't want to go by herself. Steve then decided he could write an article about it for work, and my comedy friend Lena was working that night as a bartender, so off we went.

It is in a very non-descript warehouse next to LAX, snuggled up to the 405. Once inside, it is all red and black, and very dramatically lit. There was a main room with cocktail tables, a bar, and a stage at one end. Off the main room were smaller rooms each with a couple of dining tables set up and various equiptment. Massage-style tables,trapezes hanging from the ceiling, cages, stocks and plenty of mirrors. The wait staff were all dressed as dominatrixes, and even though I only saw them serving food and drinks, I'm sure they could all "walk the walk" as well. There was a Mistress on Duty for our room, and she was kept very busy throughout out our meal. The food was great! I was expecting "banquet chicken" but they have a chef from The St. Regis cooking, and it showed. There was an old guy being whipped right behind me all through dinner. Steve interviewed him later, and he was in from Colorado for his twice yearly trip. He pays cash, because he doesn't want his wife to know.

The customers were mostly single middle-aged men. They all looked like they could be the Computer Guy at work. Quiet, loner guys who want a little something extra. The other people were groups of dumpy, middle-aged folks and a smattering of young, punky hipsters. I'd say the average age was 42. (except for the punky hipsters) This was only the second night of this event, so I am guessing the PR machine has not fully swung into effect. I was expecting more hipsters, and there were none of the Ren-Faire people at all. That was surprising.


We wore "civilian" cocktail clothes, and I had one of Simone's corsets on over a long skirt. She was there to make sales after all! The owner John (who's day job is catering, which explains the quality of the food) gave us a VIP tour of the joint. You could also experience a classroom, complete with little desks, lockers and neon lighting, or a jail cell. All of this other stuff can be had for $160/hour and we saw no sex whatsoever. We also left early. Simone and Steve noticed a naked lady as we were leaving, but I was still playing fashion police with all of those dumpy middle aged white folks, so I didn't notice. (the dumpy middle aged black folks were all dressed appropriately. Please see my review of Prince from last week. Why has no one taught white people how to dress up?)

The worst offender of the evening...dumpy potato shaped woman, with long hippie lady blond hair, and an oversized, faded lavender t-shirt tucked into a yellow flowered dirndl skirt. I was so agast, I didn't even notice her shoes. (this really was the most shocking sight of the evening-I expected women dressed in fishnets and electrical tape, but this???)

Dumpy shape is fine (she embraces the Goddess within!) long hippie hair is a statement all its own (more Goddess) but she was with friends. Didn't anybody tell her where they were going for dinner? How about her Black Dirndl skirt? For God's sake, she needs "Fashion Emergency!"

We also saw a bull-whip show. A well-suited gentleman (think Peter Sellars in Lolita) showed his stuff. It was as if we were on a cruise ship, a Cruise Ship of the Damned.

All in all, a very entertaining evening. Simone passed out many business cards and Steve got another article. It is the interesting, eclectic events like this that make living in a big city tolerable. I don't feel the need to embrace the "lifestyle," but it was interesting to observe.

I also went to a Vintage Paper Show at the historic Elks Club in Pasedena with Carla, schmoozed it up at the Local 705 Job Fair with Lisa and Carol, and did a comedy gig at Martini Blues in Huntington Beach down behind the Orange Curtain. Don't believe the hype you see on "The O.C."

So Steve expressed some concern that the people in yesterday's blog might not be happy with what I said, should they come across it. A valid concern, but I think both Courtney and Kristen would have to admit they were pretty bitchy growing up.

So I googled them...

And nothing!

That was the real shocker. In this day and age, i would have thought there would have been something. I'm sure they are both married, but some newspaper article or something! I know Kristen still lives in Southington. Her brother-in-law is Rob Dibble (played major league ball in the early 90's, but went nutty. I think he works for ESPN now) and having a local celeb in the family gives them all a little hometown cache. I heard she is "snotty at church."

Courtney- I have no idea. Amybe i will check out the lame Classmates.com and see.

I have a two-woman comedy show called "Two Non Blondes" with Angela Allen, and we do a piece that is excerpts from Angela's eighth grade diary. I have wanted to explore my own high school experiences, as there may be "comedy gold" in the rolling hills of Southington circa 1986.

I'm using my time off to catch up on my life, which includes books. I just finished devouring "The Mists of Avalon" which I enjoyed very much. It struck me as sort of "The Hobbit" meets "The Red Tent," Arthurian legend from the women's point of view. I couldn't put it down, and finished off in less than a week. I purchased it at Odessey Books, a great used bookstore here in NoHo, with credit I had for selling books earlier this year.

That being said, what TMOA really reminded me is an old school classmate named Elisabeth Simone. I went all through elementary school and high school with her. I think she ended up going to the other junior high-her family moved across town or something. She was annoying, but very smart and sassy, I liked her well enough. We were friends in elementary school, and civil to each other in high school. Really, all you could ask. I preferred her over say, Courtney Kittridge or Kristen Abate (two first class bitches) but I never saw her again after graduation.

Elisabeth was a sci-fi geek who played flute in band, took fencing lessons from the art teacher, and walked on her tip-toes. She was also very attractive in an exotic sort of way, beautiful blue eyes with olive skin. This probably saved her from the ridicule her best friend, Jill Kelley, endured. Jill was more of the stubby, pizza faced variety of geek, and suffered for it. Elisabeth's mom was from NYC and instilled a sense of "chutzpah" that enabled her to rise above our plebeian, little town of Southington. The kind of town where people didn't even know the word "chutzpah," but knew that Elisabeth struck them as a bit of a smarty pants.

Our lockers were right near each other. Every day for three years I had to see the cover of the book, "The Mists of Avalon" as her locker art. She had painstakingly hand drawn it. She also was a gifted visual artist, but in a controlled, fantasy/unicorn sort of way. By the end of high school, I was so over her (and frankly, everyone else) that I refused to read the book. Over the years, people raved over it. "You would love it!" but I just couldn't. SHE liked it. And She was annoying! If I read that book, I am just one step closer to Her!

I have no idea why this was such an issue. As I think back, she was actually a very interesting person. What if she had gone to my junior high? Would we have stayed friends? Bu she really was some kind of social pariah, so there must be something I am missing or forgetting. I traveled in the smart kid/band/theater/geek/yearbook crowd, but there was 200 of us in that subsection. By senior year, even those distinctions had faded, and everyone in our grade mostly got along.

I think it was that she was overly competitive. She had to be the best at whatever she was doing, even if no one else knew there was a contest. Like Reese Witherspoon in “Election.” Another annoying detail, she insisted everyone pronounce her name "Elisssabeth." She claimed it was the German pronounciation, with sort of a lisp on the "s." But I remember when she moved to Southington, and her name was Elizabeth Walker, and was pronounced as such. She ended up graduating in the top five, but alas, not number one. That was Henry Cenci. Elisabeth went off to U of Penn, and I never saw her again. I did bump into Jill Kelley a year or two later, who went off to Yale, and I think she said they didn’t really keep in touch.

So, of course, I Googled her.

Elisabeth Simone is now Elisabeth Simone-Freilicher DVM, specializing in Aviary Medicine. Her husband, who went to UPenn, is a lawyer, a few years older, and they live in NYC on Staten Island. I imagine she is still competitve and annoying. Who else would marry a lawyer and like it? I hope she is happy, has a interesting range of hobbies and that she is still very pretty. I wonder if she has kids? I bet she hated Southington, and couldn’t wait to get out.

Classmates.com is pretty much a waste of time, and so is the Southington HS alumni website. That hasn't been updated since 1999.

I should google more of my old classmates...