"Free Bird"

I recently attended a concert at the Tractor Tavern in Seattle. After the behavior of the opening band and those in attendance, I decided there should be some rules. This, my concert loving friends, is what I'm calling: Sandy's guide to concert manners.

For the Performers

Lead Singers

Do not, under any circumstance, grab the microphone with two hands and close your eyes to sing... ever. Oh, and stop dressing your hands and wrists with strings, bands, henna tattoos, rings and whatever else you're using to try to mask the fact that you aren't playing an instrument. And, shut up about politics and your views on the environment. I’m at a concert to rock out, not to learn about land use and sustainability. If I wanted a political statement I’d go to a Dixie Chicks concert.

Bassists

Hang out in the back, don't move around too much. If you need to talk, then talk to the drummer. No more of this primping and prancing. We want to see you showing off like we want to see some fancy moves from the referee at a football game.

Drummers

We need you guys to start wearing sleeves, thanks. Also, The gloves; you're not bench-pressing here. How much hand protection do you need to grip a couple of sticks that are about the weight and girth of two pretzel logs?

An End to Witty Commentary

As someone in a band, you're probably surrounded by people who think you shit velvet, and those people have probably led you to believe that you're a pretty funny and smart guy. But here's the thing: you're not. Like, at all. If I wanted to see some asshole sing a song about turning off the lights and other “green” stories, I'd get drunk at the next Al Gore rally. Just remember, you're going to need those hilarious anecdotes when you're trying to woo those PBR drinking hipster girls.

So, that was simple enough. Now on to the real offenders: the throngs of people stupid enough to pay money to see these assholes in the first place.

The Concert-goers

No Yelling Out Song Requests

Bands have these things called set lists, and they are integral with lighting and... never mind, you're drunk. Just stop it.

No Band T-Shirts

Everyone knows that you're not supposed to wear the T-shirt of the band you came to see, but it's a little known fact that wearing any band T-shirt at a concert is also permissible grounds for the use of violence. We get it, you really like music and were able to find a T-shirt of an obscure band that you'd never heard of until you found the T-Shirt. Ghost Town Boxes is a favorite of yours? Really? I know, your buddies told you it's a pretty cool shirt, but why don't you save it for your yoga class tomorrow morning.



Do Not Make Out at Concerts

We're glad you and your on-again, off-again boyfriend/girlfriend rekindled your medium-rare romance for a night, but this isn't either of your parents' basements. Stand still, look at your stylish retro sneakers and remind yourself over and over again that your mother wasn't lying when she said you were the most unique little alterna-snowflake in the universe. And, speaking of you people with the retro sneakers...



Enough With the Ironic Facial Hair

See that guy? That's Tom Selleck. He is one of the few people who could rock a mustache and get away with it. You, ironic-facial-hair guy, are not. I know, the singer from that band you like looks cool with a handlebar mustache so you figure, why not? Or, maybe you think that making yourself brazenly ugly beats being just ordinarily ugly. The fact is that if you're the type of person who is wearing ironic facial hair to a rock concert, you do not need to be sabotaging your chances of getting laid any more than the gene pool already has.

Tall People

If you’re six feet tall, don’t stand in front of the 5 foot people. Seriously stretch, move your giraffe legs and stand in front of someone your own size.


Stop Taking Pictures With Your Cell Phones

You people spend $100 to go to a concert so that you can watch the entire event on a 3-inch by 2-inch, green-lit, night-vision screen. Rather than enjoying the music, you spend your time trying to determine if that speck that looks like a glow-in-the-dark amoeba swimming around in a cloudy bucket of piss is Bono or the Edge. I'm going to take a wild guess and say that you are the same people, who as parents, will spend your entire family vacations taking pictures rather than taking a vacation. You'll be too busy making your kids look like they're enjoying themselves when you say "cheese" to ever enjoy your kids.

Horror of all horrors…

I embarrassed myself at work today. It was worse than the time several years ago that I slipped, fell down the stairs, and ended up on my back at the bottom of the stairs wearing my lunch. Did I mention that there was a round of applause and a random “See you next fall!” shouted towards me? Yeah, it happened.

This is even worse than the time that my secret boyfriend at work caught me adjusting my bra and boobs.

Or when I accidentally flashed a project manager.

I was standing at a coworkers desk this afternoon. She is very nice and very pleasant, and I’m just counting my lucky stars that I wasn’t talking to my boss. Anyway, this coworker of mine made a joke and I opened my mouth and laughed. It was a hearty laugh, and as I opened my mouth, I felt something fly out. Then I caught site of a GIGANTIC loogie taking flight, it was aimed right at her.

Ever had one of those moments when you think to yourself, “Please, God, if you are merciful you will strike me dead right now”? Well, this was one of those moments. It was as if I was watching a movie in slow motion and the loogie hurdling through the air was travelling at a snail’s pace. Suddenly, it landed in the middle of her desk. Right on a pile of notes that she had stacked. Meanwhile, my poor coworker had a look that can only be described as horrified delight. She burst out laughing.

“OH MY GOD! I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO sorry!!” I said as I felt the blood rush to my face and my cheeks felt like they would burst into flames.

Do you know how freaking hard it is to clean a loogie off of paper?? It’s really freaking difficult.

Wax on, Wax off

If you are male, I implore you to click away. Please go. This is not the post for you. I will be discussing delicate areas you do not want to know about. You have been warned.

For the past four years or so, I have worn a skirtini for my poolside ensemble. (I’m sure you can imagine my dismay when I realized a skirtini is a bathing suit, not a drink.) That little skirt hides quite a bit: the fat hiding on my thighs, and butt, and, yes, the fact that I don’t like to shave north of my knees. I don’t like to shave, period. This year,though, I figured I would go for the bikini wax. You know, as a treat to myself. Or a blog post at the very least.

“Hello, Becky. My name is Sandy. I’ve never done this before. I’m a little nervous and embarrassed about what’s going on down there. You’ll have to tell me what I need to do.”

Innocuous enough, I suppose, but it was the beginning of what may be the most uncomfortable 20 minutes I’ve ever had.

“Don’t worry about it. It’ll be fine,” Becky breezed. “Just put on these disposable panties and I’ll be right back.”

She handed me a plastic package with the same dimensions of a tampon. Because I am really a 12-year-old boy, I squeezed all the air from one end of the package to the other until I heard a satisfying *pop* then tried to find the hole so I could liberate my transitional panties. I could not find the hole.

I tried to use my fingernails to make another hole. No luck.

Finally, worried that I was taking entirely too long to separate the panties from their plastic confines, I used my teeth to tear open the package–because I was in a spa and I’m klassy like that.

What I was left with was a piece of elastic and two pieces of tissue paper that were each the width of three of my fingers. It reminded me of the time we went to Zumanity in Las Vegas and we saw two 350lb women in see-through body stockings handing out chocolate-covered strawberries. Why? Because I was pretty sure I was going to look just as good in this flimsy excuse of a g-string as those women in Vegas did. Even though no one would see me but Becky, I was mortified. It just ain’t fittin, it just ain’t fittin! (Props to you if you can name the movie, the character, and the situation.)

Becky finally reappeared and asked what we were doing. I just wanted the traditional bikini wax–no lightning bolts, landing strips, or countries for me, thanks.

So she got to work. Or tried to. She had to stop, get the scissors, and trim. Y’all. I told you I hate to shave. It had been at least two years since I had ventured into this territory. I was mortified for the second time in five minutes. This was going very well, indeed.

Becky was finally able to find some skin on which to paste the warm wax. She suggested I pull the skin taught around it so it would be easier (less painful?) for her to pull off.

First strip! Ugh. Similar to having the brows waxed. Not the worst thing I’ve ever encountered.

Second strip! Hey. I thought you just did that part. At least it didn’t really hurt this time.

Third strip! Holy hell! What the fuck are you doing to me? Is that blood? Is this payback for having to trim before you scar me for life? Please, for the love of Pete, stop!

In her sweetest voice, Becky asked, “Are you still doing OK?”

“Thank you, sir!” I choked out. “May I have another?”

She complied.

I had my first bikini wax and possibly my last. For the next two years, anyway.

Poop

I want someone to invent a toilet with a scale in it that will weigh my poop before I flush and send it out to sea.


It would also be sweet if it was programmed to play song clips related to the weight of your submission. For example, let's say you dropped off ten pounds of kids at the pool (I blame the Thai food) . . . the digital scale would register a whopping ten pounds and then the built-in iPod would play a short clip from Rod Stewart's Young Turks, "Patti gave birth to a ten pound baby boy, yeah!"


That would be awesome.

No shit Sherlock

You know what would make this film even hotter? If it was filmed in my bedroom and I was in it. Okay, so that might not be so hot for you – but it would TOTALLY work out for me.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go and take a cold shower to wash away the dirty, depraved thoughts of the Jude Law and Robert Downey Jr. sword fight for my (dis)honor.

Don't You Forget About Him....

John Hughes, the guy who helped get me through my craptacular teen years in one piece, has passed away. Another in a recent string of celebs who have died relatively young, Hughes died of a heart attack while walking in Manhattan today. He was only 59.

In honor of the man's work, here are my Top 10 John Hughes Films:(All films listed were written by Hughes; the ones he also directed are marked with an asterisk.)

10.Home Alone - I like to pretend that Macauley Culkin never grew up, and that he's still that little lost boy who learned about aftershave the hard way.

9. Mr. Mom - A friend and I saw this in the theater soon after I had developed a crush on Michael Keaton. I actually remember writing in my diary later that evening that I wanted to marry him.

8. Pretty in Pink - It's got a great soundtrack. James Spader is a wonderful bastard, as always. And, hey, the Dice Man makes an appearance! There are a lot of good pieces here, but they just don't all fit together the way they should. The main problem is that I can NEVER buy the Andie/Blaine pairing. He's such a little wussy boy. But that doesn't mean that I think Andie should pick Duckie, either. She wouldn't want to jeopardize that friendship. Besides, he's kind of a spaz. No, Andie totally should've given up on high school boys and hooked up with an indie rock dude.

7. National Lampoon's Vacation - Someone recently told me that they didn't think this movie was funny. I can't remember who that was. I probably cut him or her out of my life after that because, let's face it, he or she was probably a communist. I mean, seriously. Who doesn't think this is funny?

6. Some Kind of Wonderful - Even though this is kind of a rip-off of Pretty in Pink (with a more satisfying ending), it ranks higher on my list for many reasons - most of which are unknown to me. But the ones I do know are:

Eric Stoltz is adorable

Craig Sheffer is almost as good at being a dick as James Spader...or even ZABKA (hallowed be thy name)

5. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation - Yep, I like the Griswolds' Christmas story better than the original one. SQUIRREL!!!!! cracks me up every time.

4. Weird Science* - I know a lot of people think it's stupid, but those people should be forced to eat a greasy pork sandwich served in a dirty ashtray. Come on, it's not supposed to be deep. It's just supposed to be silly fun, and it succeeds. Plus, it put Robert Downey, Jr. on the map, who went on to be a huge movie star. And it gave us Bill Paxton, who also went on to movie stardom despite the fact that his role as Chet is still the best one he's ever had.

3. The Breakfast Club* - Back in the day, I probably would have put TBC as my favorite Hughes film, but the older I get, the more I cringe at certain parts. It still may be the model against which all other teen movies are measured, but it really could have been improved by cutting back the angst just a tad. Because really, I can't help but laugh every time Ally Sheedy earnestly proclaims that, "When you grow up, your heart DIES." Come on. I didn't even believe that when I was a teenager.

2. Sixteen Candles* - Yes, everything about this movie is hilarious: from the simple but brilliant premise to Grandpa Howard asking the Donger, "Where is my automobile?" But when thinking about John Hughes's impact in the film industry and in the lives of teenagers, it's really quite special to watch this movie now and realize that a good part of why these characters seem so real is because their portrayers look real. Anthony Michael Hall looked like a real geek. They didn't just grab some guy who looked like Brad Pitt and slap glasses on him. And Molly Ringwald became a star because girls everywhere could relate to her. She was normal. She could have been any girl in any one of our high schools. How many of us can say our classrooms were filled with people who looked like Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens? Not many, I'm sure. So, why do the teen stars of today have to be so perfect? There's a sad realization here: if Molly Ringwald were just starting out now, she could never be a star. There's a good chance she wouldn't even get an audition.

1. Ferris Bueller's Day Off* - Ferris Bueller is my hero. Plain and simple.

Here's an old trailer with a peek at some obviously cut scenes.

Death, you have gone too far!

When will our pop cultural icons stop dying??? This is getting ridiculous.Master infomercial pitchman and Pittsburgh native Billy Mays died on Sunday. Like Michael Jackson, he was only 50 years old.

Apparently Billy complained that he didn't feel well before going to bed on Saturday evening and, earlier that day, he was hit in the head by some baggage during a rough landing on a Saturday flight to Tampa. Whether or not that played a role in his passing hasn't been determined yet.

Rest in peace, Billy. I'm sure you'll be a very popular guy up in Heaven. Someone has to keep all of those white robes looking shiny and new. Now they won't just be clean - they'll be Oxi-Clean.