Club Protocol 101: Hitting on the Band's Girlfriends
So I was back in my hometown of Orlando, Florida over the Easter weekend and got to hang with my friends at The Social, a great little club in the middle of downtown for a CD release party sponsored by the Orlando Sentinel. A great local band, The Legendary JC's, were putting on a great set, and I was on my fourth beer in about an hour (this from a guy who is normally a one beer a week kind of dude). Things were great, and to make it just that extra ounce better, there's a beautiful woman standing by herself next to me, getting down to the groove and looking desparate for a dancing partner. Unfortunately, that fourth beer was having its affect on my equilibrium, causing me to white-knuckle the handrail of a staircase to remain upright. This saved me from what could have been a potentially embarrassing incident, the woman who I thought was looking lonely on the dance floor by herself was the girlfriend of one of the guys in the band. A pair of cuties during the previous set by The Supervillains were also approached on the dancefloor by a group of guys just to realize afterwards that they were with the band as well (at least it appeared that way).
There needs to be a way to identify the girlfriends/wives of the members of the band when they're at the club. Maybe t-shirts with "I'm blowing the sax player" or something. I don't know. But c'mon... You know that bands get their share of lovely ladies, they're usually the ones that look like they're having the best time, and they're off by themselves... Of course guys are going to come up to you. So all we ask is that you give us a sign, just to save us from a potentially awkward shoot-down.
I also had another bizarre night which kind of fits under this bill. It was still when I was working at Universal Studios Florida, and I was going out with one of my officemates. She picks to go to a show at the Hard Rock Live to see a similar showcase of local music. We go and she gets up right up next to the stage and just starts waving at one of the guys in the band on stage turning to me going "I know him!" The rest of the set this guy's just staring at her and kind of does his guitar solo down to her. Ends up that she picked for us to go see her ex-boyfriend's band! Plus, that ex-boyfriend also worked at the Studios but in a different department. Imagine getting to hang out backstage with your date and her ex when (1) you find out he's in a band (which is a tough act to compete with) and (2) he's been making goo-goo eyes at her for the rest of the night. It just seemed like a set-up, even though I can't pretend to know why she would do that. But, there's much to learn I guess about the ladies that one lifetime is not near enough time to figure out.
Another Britcom Adaptation -- The Office
Thursday night NBC launched their second attempt at adapting an immensely popular Britcom in two years, this time moving The Office from Slough, a small town outside of London, to Scranton, Pennsylvania. The outcome, similar to last year's Coupling, is that it's immensely difficult to meet up to the expectations of current fans while trying to gain new viewers to their Americanized version. It does appear that NBC did learn some things from their previous failure. Coupling tried to be an exact duplicate of its British counterpart; the characters had the same names, they went through the same situations, and most of the lines were directly lifted from its predecesor. This kind of lead current fans to the same reaction Hitchcock fans had to Gus Van Sant's shot-by-shot remake of Psycho: What's the point? As in what's the point of remaking a classic. In my opinion, NBC would have been better off just keeping the British version and editing it for content. But that's all in the past. The Office is composed of new characters with a new company, but still displaying the same foibles as their colleagues at Wernham Hogg. But still, wouldn't American audiences respond to a great comedy like The Office with its original characters, even though they happen to be British (haven't they already). I guess we won't have this opportunity to find out.
The characters are all decent in their roles. But there's no comparison to David Brent, played by Ricky Gervais who is also the co-creator of the series. I won't jump off the boat too early, just as I didn't for the NBC remake of Coupling, but the boss is the focus of this show. David Brent wasn't stupid, just totally self-centered. The boss in Scranton, Michael Scott (played by Steve Carell) seems like a dim nit-wit stricken with Turrets syndrome. And he's the focus of the show. But, you don't have to take my word for it, as NBC has posted this Tuesday's episode on MySpace to drum up some viewer interest. But, like last year, I encourage you to check out the original on BBC America. You won't be disappointed!
Random Thoughts
- This Week's Woman I'd Stalk If I Weren't So Lazy: Just a quick refresher for those who may be new to my blog and horrified by the prospect of a person announcing that he's willing to stalk women. First, allow me to introduce myself... My name is the Grand Owl, and I'm incredibly lazy. Thus ladies, no need to fret if you make my list. If something requires me to get out of my chair (other than going to bed), it's not worth doing. This week's "Woman I'd Stalk If I Weren't So Lazy" is MarketWatch.com's tech correspondent Bambi Francisco. That's right, her name is Bambi and she's not some buxom blonde ditz down at your local strip club. Being as beautiful as she is and with a name like Bambi, you almost have to believe that she had a tougher route to being a reporter than if her name was say Alison Jenkins or something. Then, to be a correspondent for Wall Street news site MarketWatch (formerly CBS MarketWatch, formerly MarketWatch)... I can just see some secretary coming into some industry titans office going "I have Bambi on the line for you," and he's worried that his lunchtime "massage" appointment is being cancelled. Bambi's commentaries are incredibly insightful, and covering the tech industry automatically makes her cool. Being incredibly hot is just gravy to, at least what appears to be, an incredibly bright and intelligent writer. So Bambi, since I'm not going to stalk you, feel free to start stalking me. You can reach me in care of AOwL.com (since you're probably tight with the people over at AOL, please don't rat me out to them... Not that I'm really a threat to their copyright).
- This week, the highly anticipated Sin City, co-directed by Robert Rodriguez (director of the El Mariachi series) and series creator Frank Miller, is released in theaters. This kind of leads me to wonder if we're going to have a repeat of what happened in 2002 where a comic book movie is going to eclipse and embarass the once mighty Star Wars franchise (three years ago it was Spider-Man vs. Episode II: Attack of the Clones). Lets face it Star Wars fans, the prequels suck. And while the trailer for Episode III looks promising, didn't the trailers for the first two look promising, too. There just seems like there's so much to be covered in Episode III that either its gotta be four hours long or some major plotlines are going to be left on the wayside. And, while Episode III has Wookies, it doesn't have Jessica Alba as a stripper, and really what's more important in life?
