Hold My Hair Back was supposed to be an erotic cabaret, and while there were kissing booths and a sexy mime, my mojo didn't even think about rising. I don't know what to recommend for next year--maybe demand that a few acts use plastic wrap and pickles, or forget the erotic theme altogether. The evening's best act was the impressive but sexually neutral Charles Leggett stomping out some impressive harmonica blues. But my critical opinion really isn't worth much. That the evening found me drinking abandoned, backwashed beers is a testament to my wild inability to talk intelligently about anything that happened.
My mission was to mine Hold My Hair Back for some scenester gossip reportage, but I'm afraid I didn't come up with much, despite lots of time spent stumbling around the dance floor, trying to cut in on couples who might trade gossip for a good ear- licking. My lingual exercises were for naught and my face still stings from the slap a burly board member gave me.
My date overheard the evening's best--actually, the evening's only--gossip while idling by the VIP cocktail bar. Apparently, Seattle's omnipresent theater maven and frighteningly faithful poster to the Theatre Puget Sound website is getting married. Again. "Who's the lucky lady?" someone asked. "Oh, she's always been around," replied the incorrigible romantic (whose last name rhymes with cajoling).
Other than that salacious bit, it was all me being a bit bored and trying to make up for it by, again, getting colossally drunk. I confess, I squeezed some asses without asking for permission and lingered too long at the kissing booth, suffering under the delusion that the smooch I paid a dollar for was so mutually pleasurable that my kiss-ho might cop me another gratis, or at least for 50 cents. My date finally had the good sense to distract me with a shot of tequila and a peek at her nipples. It was only the next day that I realized her teasing had been an attempt to save what meager social capital I hadn't already squandered.
All in all, I blame this hangover on Hold My Hair Back's failure to capture my sexual imagination, forcing me to distract myself with demon rum. And gin and tonic. And beer. And, of course, amaretto and Red Bull. I know what you're thinking: "This idiot talks about himself too goddamned much." Well, if you all were more interesting, I'd write about you. And I wouldn't have to stay drunk all the time.
