Smokin’ Singles Night With the K-Tel Hit Machine

Luv Doc Writings, The Luv Doc Recommends

MON., JULY 24, 2006

All singles events are suspect. Any person/business/organization with a hard-on for playing Yentl probably has an ulterior motive. Know it. Own it. That way, if you should find yourself holding up the wallpaper at the Red Lion Inn cocktail lounge on a Saturday night with 20 or 30 other anxious looking people sporting business casual attire and name tags done up in red sharpie, you can’t claim ignorance. Take a look around you. Is this what it’s come to? Sometimes in your desperation to get laid you only end up fucking yourself. You know better than that. You don’t have to squint to read the signs that say you’re on the road to Squaresville. They’re usually written in bold print: “Singles Night!” And if you find yourself at Cool River, sharing an awkward lunch hour across the table from a cologne-soaked salesman in a Hawaiian print shirt, pleated khaki shorts and sockless loafers, just know that the chirpy ex-stewardess who you paid to set you up with Mr. Cell-phone-on-a-belt-clip maybe doesn’t have your long-term happiness on the top of her to-do list. Maybe the whole premise is jacked. The interesting thing about you isn’t the fact that you’re single and looking to hook up. Your availability is not your defining feature as a human being. If it is, maybe you shouldn’t breed at all. The interesting thing about you is that thing you’re really interested in. It doesn’t need to be much … you don’t have to be curing cancer or saving displaced war orphans. Maybe you do needlepoint, salsa dance, or fix up old cars, or maybe you’re just really fucking nuts about live music. If it’s the latter, then you are in a healthy mental state to attend this Friday’s Smokin’ Singles Night at La Zona Rosa. Yes, Smokin’ Singles Night. Kiss of death? Maybe not. This singles night has a really kickass cover band, the K-Tel Hit Machine that features A-List performers: Trish and Darin Murphy, Johnnie Goudy, Paul English, Mike Belile, Kyle Crusham, and Benjamin Hotchkiss as well as a sensational opening act, Billy Harvey. If you’re the kind of person who can free your inner dork and totally rock out to pop and rock classics from the Seventies and Eighties, this is your show, regardless of your singularity. Plus, it’s sponsored by Lovers Lane. We may be suspect, but we’d never intentionally steer you wrong.

All American Rejects, Rooney, The Action Is

Luv Doc Writings, The Luv Doc Recommends

FRI., NOV. 25, 2005

Thanksgiving, like communism, cat bathing, and anal sex, is much better in concept than execution. The idea is great: Take some time off … reflect on all the good things that are going on in your life. Everybody has something to be thankful for, right? Even Osama bin Laden has to at least give it up for portable dialysis. It’s probably safe to say that if his glass is half full, it’s half full of bile. About the only thing that’s going to turn his frown upside-down is a roll in the heavenly hay with 72 virgins, which seems like a mess of holy hymens to bust, but we are talking about eternity … Of course, Muslims who have actually spent quality time with a real virgin know that Allah could sweeten the deal considerably by offering a couple of thousand-buck-an-hour Vegas hookers instead. The savings on laundry alone would make the decision a no-brainer for most deities, but clearly Allah is marketing to a dumber demographic: people impressed by big numbers like 72. If all goes as planned, successful terrorists will be condemned to an afterlife full of tentative, whimpering, missionary sex followed by post-coital sulking. If they’re really lucky, they might occasionally score a fumbling, half-shafted, tooth-dragging, blow-job … a sort of metaphorical maraschino cherry on their payback sundae: looks great, but mostly it’s just disappointing. Some people set themselves up for disappointment, you know? For instance: Making a relatively bland, mentally challenged, mildly narcotic bird the center of a thanksgiving feast seems a bit of slip-up, doesn’t it? Pumpkin pie? Maybe the Pilgrims were thankful, but they sure came up with a lazy, uninspired way to show it. Besides, the Pilgrims couldn’t have been the only grateful immigrants. Surely there were thankful Italians or Mexicans or Haitians somewhere down the line. Run the numbers. It’s pretty much a lock. Think about it: A more festive color scheme, better food … and the drugs? Tryptophan vs. Haitian zombie weed? Are you kidding? Still, even though turkey day in practice is a gut-bombing, couch-potatoing, carbo-coma of a holiday, you have at least one reason to be thankful: It only happens once a year. You can spend the other 364 days shaking it out of your system. A good way to get back into your swing swing is Friday’s All-American Rejects show at La Zona Rosa. Since their first and last big hit, the Rejects have taken long, creative nap and coughed up a catchy new album, Move Along. They’ll be sharing the evening with L.A.-based popsters Rooney and Austin alt-rockers The Action Is (formerly Hotwheels Jr.), so expect a healthy contingent of screaming young girls. You might even think you’ve gone to heaven, but be thankful. This is Austin. They’re probably not all virgins.