This dumb, surreal, drunken American life

I feel like Ira Glass from "This American Life" with this blog today, because it comes to you in two acts. And the theme is, "What the f*** is wrong with you?"

Our first act takes place in the new Dolce Nightclub (formerly Club Paris for those of you who live in a cave). I'm not reviewing it here, but giving a slice of the evening that stood out the most. However, if you would like to read my review you can check it out here.

Back to the story, so the club is blue and green now and there is no way to get into the building from the old entrance without getting pounced by the small army of security casing the joint. That said, I entered from

Church Street

into a tunnel of smoke that rivals anything at Halloween Horror Nights at Universal. Once inside, I grabbed a drink and started people watching. Turns out the old entrance wasn't off limits to everyone, the owner walked through it into the club with about four, I'm sure what he would consider, hotties. He parked them out on the dance floor and went on his merry way.

Now, I don't know if he thought no one would notice this but of course I did. What I noticed next was pretty funny. One of the girls had a dress on that went to about the bottom of her butt cheeks. There were holes on the sides of the dress making it obvious this young las forgot to put on her knickers before heading out.

Yeah, I don't think she forgot either.

Which is fine, but what she did next just made her look like a fake ass. She goes to the stage with all her buddies hops right up and sits down on said stage. Now how the dress stayed where it did amazed me. Then her friend started taking pictures of her on the stage. Her just sitting there and completely exposed to the crowd.

I just figured the owner brought them in to get people to come out to the dance floor, because let's face it, hot girls with barely any clothes on is a good draw. It's worked for strip clubs for years. But for this girl to act surprised and shocked after she took the camera from her friend to look at her photo and see her nether regions were in the shot was just stupid. Honey, you know you had no underwear on and you're sitting legs open on a stage in a dress. What did you think would be in the picture? Other folks at the bar caught this as well and were snickering along with me. Whether she noticed or not, I have no idea, but her and her friends left there dance area shortly after. I may have been standing in the former Club Paris, but all of a sudden I couldn’t get Britney Spears out of my head. Dumbass.

This brings us to Act II, karaoke last night at the Lucky Leprechaun Pub on I-Drive. As much as I know I-Drive is a family-friendly tourist trap, it still shocked me upon arrival to the pub that kids were running around inside. I’m sure the folks from

Europe

have their internal clocks way off, so the fact that it was 10 at night didn’t bother me too much.

I was sitting in the back with all of my friends talking about what song we were going to sing next when I saw the monitor in front of me state some guy and gal were about to sing “Welcome to the Jungle” by Guns N’ Roses. My inner hair-rawker got excited and turned around to face the stage.

And that was when I saw who was going to sing this song about living on the streets in a strange city. It was no guy or gal but a little boy and little girl about the ages of 9 and 6 if I had to guess. Excessive drinking has wiped their names clean from my memory bank, so let’s call them Hansel and Gretel.

“I don’t think this is what Axl Rose had in mind when he wrote this,” said one of my friends. But you couldn’t help but watch. And where the hell the parents were was anyone’s guess. Whether young Hansel was really trying to channel Axl’s rage with his up and down movements or was trying to get himself high enough to reach the top of the mic stand is anybody’s guess.

But the best was when Hansel bellowed out the lyrics like a young Peter Brady, “YOU KNOW WHERE YOU ARE…?” In which I cut him off and said, “In a bar, with a lot of drunk adults singing Guns N’ Roses children.”

Just when you think you have seen everything, there’s always something that slips in the back door.

No hero here

I was at a Maker's Mark Ambassador function with John, our Cheap Eats, Bar Bites man about town a couple of nights ago. He digs the stuff, personally, I don't think I had tried it before. There were a lot of cigar smoking, yup yups walking around but the head of the whole kit and kaboodle, Bill Samuels Jr. was a pretty down to earth sort who seemed to be sneaking some swigs from his own product. He was a funny guy who signed my hand-dipped red waxed glass that they gave away at the function for free. Would have liked to have seen the Maker's Mark drinks for free along with some food but you can't win them all. Supposedly they had a 60-second buffet before we showed up, so being fashionably late didn't really do much for me that evening.

As for the Maker's Mark? It's bourbon, all I know is at the end of my "Old Fashioned" there was an orange seed I swallowed by accident that would have displayed the product in my belly to the ambassadors in a whole new light. But I'm a professional, I took control of the situation.

And after one $9 drink that John spotted for me and the group that was with us, I took off to the Guitar Hero Challenge at Peacock Room. Yeah, I was on a mission that night. I still suck at Guitar Hero, but what sucked even more was the sad turnout for the event. I've seen you people with this game, and it's a level of sad dedication I feel Sally Struthers should be doing infomercials about.

So where were you that night? There were maybe six or seven of us back there, and a case of PBR for the winner, but the competition never really took off. It was just people playing, there wasn't really enough people for a competition.

  But you can redeem yourself, not only is Peacock hosting this event every other Wednesday, but tonight there is a big Guitar Hero competition at The Lodge. The Family Values Guitar Hero Competition takes place from 10 p.m. - midnight tonight and whoever is named the victor gets a chance to hang out with Korn backstage on Sunday's Family Value Tour at the TD Waterhouse Centre and play Guitar Hero head to head against Jonathan Davis himself. Not a bad prize, now maybe some of your lazy asses will drop the video game, get off the couch and head out to the Lodge tonight to pick up the video game again.

A junkbox that's not so junky

So our resident karaoke king Tod Caviness and his ladyfriend Nikki were out on the town the other night. Well, maybe "out on the town" is a bit over the top. Actually it's a lot over the top. They were grabbing a beer at Kiwi's off of 436 in Altamonte Springs. And although we're talking strip mall bar hopping here, Tod and Nikki were still surprised on how empty the bar was on a Saturday night.

Especially after the discovery Tod made at Kiwi's and shared with the group a couple of days later. Turns out Kiwi's has a digital jukebox that actually has all of the songs to choose from each album it displays!

Now, for those of you lost, there has been a trend for bars in town to be getting rid of their beautiful old jukeboxes and replacing them with those touchscreen types or as Casey calls them "junkboxes." The largest offender of this is Copper Rocket Pub that had one of the best jukeboxes in town.

But the big problem with all of this is just because the junkbox has an album on it, you never get all the songs on that album, only select ones. I don't know if the bar has to pay per song or what, but it's bullshit at the end of the day. That is until Kiwi's decided to give the customer what they want, all the damn songs on an album to choose from.

What a concept: Keep the customer happy. Is it really that hard if your depending on a machine to do it? At least there's one place in town that gets it.

Free food, free beer, free cupcakes!

It's true, you can have free food, free beer and free cupcakes at Redlight Redlight tonight all for $5 at the door. What are the freebies for? Who cares, it's free!

But if you must know, this wonderful bar in Winter Park is celebrating its two-year anniversary tonight. And not only will you be stuffing your hole with free goodies and beer, some bands will actually take time out from their own eating to entertain you as well including John Ralston, Summer Blankets and The Dark Romantics. Party starts at 7 p.m.

Dark Science

It seems like everyone is getting their paws into the local music cookie jar, and we like that a lot. Most recently, the Orlando Science Center has partnered up with WPRK for what they call "Dark Science." Maybe its close vicinity to the old Will's Pub may have rubbed off and they miss hearing the music coming out of the bar. Or they're just trying to attract a different demographic. Either way, doesn't matter. What they're doing for the month of June is cool.

Every Saturday night the new "Dark Science" night will feature live local music, here's the schedule:

June 2: DODGER and MUMPSY

June 9th - HAPPY VALLEY

June 16th - SNAILS IN FOLKLORE and MARS IS THE TYRANT

June 23rd - KINGSBURY

June 30th - YIP-YIP

Bands are included for the regular OSC evening admission of $9.95 and free for members.

Yeah, I'm a genius!

So thank you to those of you alerting me to the photo issue in yesterday's blog. It's fixed now and since the people who guessed correctly, or let me know what a dumbass I am, are all ineligible, the contest is still on.

I'm telling you it's this past weekend that has made my mind into this luke warm lump of mush that it is. Although, in my FMF travels in downtown Orlando, I did get a chance to swing by Suite B, and enjoy the space as an intimate music venue and I have to say I like it a lot. It's no Bodhisattva reincarnate, anyone that has been by Suite B knows it carries a way different vibe. However, I did dig it as a music venue and I think they should embrace that facet of the club a bit more.

Speaking of live music, tonight The Dark Romantics and Band Marino, will be playing at The Social with national act Lovedrug. I just discovered The Dark Romantics this past weekend at the festival and I enjoyed what I heard and saw, and Band Marino is Band Marino, enough said. Just for those two acts alone it's worth the $10 cover.

Anyone needing an accordionist can contact Jimmy Bubaloni.