Wooden Angels

Christmas 09 came and went without incident, other than my two year old, pie eyed niece, Lana, using me as a daily punching bag because she loves me. At least that's the excuse she gives me for wanting to pull my hair until "all of it falls out", madly cackling all the while. A baby genius, but there is definitely hoodrat blood coursing through her tiny veins. There was no serious drama and, this year marked the first year in many when there was no Christmas craft exchange!

I used to dread Novembers. Novembers for me always meant the start of craft season. Every year my mom and her six sisters would trade crafts they made as holiday gifts, each time having to trump the last. My mother, being the clever and competitive lady she is, typically came up with grandiose ideas for her crafts and outsourced all of the actual work to other people, namely her children. My sisters and I spent many days and weeks gluing and painting our fingers to the bone. One year my sister almost died from inhaling fumes from applying varnish to hundreds of small pieces of wood in a poorly ventilated room for my mother's perpetual calendar craft.

One Christmas in particular my mom decided to craft wooden Christmas angels. I offered to go to Michael's craft store and pick up some pre-cut, unpainted angels in the hopes that she would find someone other than me to paint them. She protested, as she had already bought some ply wood and wanted her angels to be unique. She enlisted the aid of our drunken neighbor, fifty something Tommy P, who lived at home with his parents. Tommy P apparently had a basement full of tools and he agreed to cut six unique wooden angels for her, all I had to do was transport them from his home to hers upon completion.

I must admit that I was a bit apprehensive upon learning my only craft-related task that year would be to pick up the completed angels. Perhaps I would not ponder on it too much and do as I was told, and that's what I did. Days passed and it seemed as though a for reals Christmas angel was looking out for me and my further involvement in Christmas crafting was not requested.

Then it happened. At first, via a simple request, "Can you please give Tommy a ride to the VFW tonight? His license is suspended," my mom politely asked me. The VFW was a mere three mile trip, and my schedule was free, so I agreed to this small favor. A few days passed and I received a late night phone call. It was Tommy. He was at his favorite watering hole, the VFW. He drunkenly asked me to give him a ride home. Again, I agreed to give him a ride and hoped that perhaps this would be the last. Except it wasn't. I soon learned that my mother had traded my taxi services in exchange for Tommy cutting those fucking wooden angels. And so began my new, unpaid part-time job as driver to the drunks.

Weeks had passed and most of my evenings were spent giving Tommy rides to and from the bar. Friends would try to make plans with me, but I always declined. What was the point of going out when I knew that later I would be at Post 4 of the American Legion dragging Tommy to the car. I'm sure that my friends believed I was distancing myself from them. I couldn't bring myself to allow them to know what was really taking place. It was too embarrassing for me to admit that my mom sold me into slavery. Even Jack of beanstalk fame got a better deal with those magic beans.

Soon I accepted my fate and began to make friends with a few of the VFW regulars. There was "Teeny", who was "good people". He'd give his right arm to you, except he couldn't because it was already gone. Then there was "Old Roger" who wasn't very old at all, but had prematurely aged due to a serious drinking problem. Tommy, Teeny, Old Rog and I would trade war stories and reminisce about the olden days together and how their women had done them wrong. It didn't occur to my new friends that I wasn't old enough to have war stories.

More time passed and before I could stop it, I was also chauffeuring Old Roger. I once had to taxi him from the bar at 11am. He passed out in the back of his own car, leaving me to command the wheel. I had an appointment at noon, so I took his lifeless body with me. I made a sudden stop, anticipating he would be ejected from the back seat. Instead of a tiny old-looking man, three empty bottles of Wild Irish Rose slid into the front seat, causing me to laugh so hard that I had to stop the enormous late model Buick on the side of the road to catch my breath.

Eventually, my reign would end, but each holiday season reminds me of my pals up at Post 4. I sincerely hope that they have at least graduated to Boone's Farm by now.

Three Plus Three Plus Three Equals: The Nine Symptoms of Cult Influence

Hello fair readers.
For as long as I've been a resident of Nashville, three and a half long years, I have observed a number of oddities unique to the area. Keep in mind that this is not an all inclusive list, but a miniature guide of sorts in the event that you are planning a visit, or Xenu help you, a permanent move.

First, there are the Christian rockers. They appear to be secular rockers except when they write songs they substitute "Jesus" or "lord" for "sluts" and "drugs". They are usually very rich as a result. I consider them quite harmless, but don't get too close because their frosted hair tips could make your eyes water.

Next, there is the rampant vegetable zombie head population. Vegetable zombie heads are faux serious musicians who are in shitty local bands but have the illusion of being famous. This delusion is compounded by the copious amounts of alcohol consumed each night. There is a high concentration of this species in the 5 Points area of East Nashville, but the species can also be found in other parts of town such as Midtown and West Nashville. VZHs can be dangerous, but are rarely visible during daytime hours.

Lastly, and perhaps the most serious, there appears to be a cult problem. As legend has it, a powerful cult leader sought refuge in Nashville a few years ago after being discovered and ex-communicated from his/her former homeland. We'll refer to him/her as "Koreshy" here. Koreshy is said to be a master manipulator and has many followers who will act upon any command Koreshy wills. It is rumored that Koreshy has built a secluded compound for the main Koreshy sycophants, who can be seen about town wearing expensive designer clothing, hats and very possibly walking canes.

If you happen to witness someone who appears to be affiliated with his clan, I advise that you proceed with the utmost caution. You or a loved one could be promised staggering amounts of money and other worldly goods, but trust, you or a loved one will pay dearly for such.....or so I'm told. As one report I came across detailed, "It's like that Stephen King book, "Needful Things". All of your desires will be met upon joining Koreshy's cult, but sooner or later the devil will expect to be paid."

If you are planning on a journey to Nashville, or are already in Nashville, I strongly suggest that you read and absorb the following symptoms. You must protect yourself and your loved ones from succumbing to cult influence!

The Nine Symptoms of Cult Influence*

In the same way that a doctor looks for symptoms to help detect a disease, the following symptoms warn us that a family member or friend may have come under the influence of a cult. Of course, not all of these show up in every case, but they provide a red or white flag that something may be wrong. No single symptom may be conclusive, but you should be suspicious if you see several of the following symptoms together--and remember that the more quickly cult influence is detected, the easier the rescue.

1. Personality changes: Do you find yourself saying, "He's a different person," or, "I don't know her anymore"? Destructive cults successfully replace their members' personalities with new identities and demeaning nicknames as in LJ.

2 Dramatic shifts of values or beliefs: Of course, values and beliefs change gradually over a lifetime--but psychological research has shown that beliefs and values are highly resistant to dramatic short-term change. Such radical changes require extreme situational influences such as those provided by skilled cult leaders.

3 Changes in diet or sleep patterns: Cults will often restrict the diet and sleep of members, possibly in an effort to hamper normal, rational thought processing. If your loved one begins to replace meals with smoothies, or stops eating all together, he or she might be under cult influence.

4. Refusal to attend important family events: Family members pose a strong threat to the influence of the cult. As such, many cults refuse to allow members to attend family events such as marriages, sick relatives, graduations, etc. The exception being if said event takes place on the cult leader's compound.

5. Inability to make decisions without consulting a cult leader or guru: One of the signs of dependency upon a cult leader is the loss of personal autonomy.

6 Sudden use of a new ideology to explain everything: Like a harpist playing an instrument with a single string, a cult member uses his or her new ideology to explain the entire world--even when it's wildly inappropriate.

7 Black and white, simplistic reasoning: Underneath all the complicated jargon, you'll find a cult recruit dividing his or her world into 'good' and 'bad'. The shades of grey in which we all live are usually intolerable to a cult member.

• It's important to note that cult members often attire themselves after the cult leader, e.g., wearing all black, dressing old-timey, wearing clown makeup.

8. New vocabulary: Is the person suddenly using complex jargon to obscure irrational or simplistic thinking?

9 Insistence that you do what they are doing: Recruitment is one of the first duties a new cult member is given. It consolidates the recruits beliefs while it inflates the cult's ranks.

*source: http://www.workingpsychology.com/

I sincerely hope that this guide has been or will be helpful to you, my readers.

Love,
Blue Velvet

Paul Bunyan and The Blue Ox (not a Babe) feat: Coot Dog and Friends

As shocking as it may seem, I have never been in a bar fight-- except for once and it was with a drunk guy named Wendell, who elbowed me and falsely referred to me as being "broad". In retaliation, I totes kicked his ass and, according to mutual friends, he believes it was a dream so he never pressed charges.....hence, it doesn't count. Yet I have been involved in two separate near-violent confrontations that were a result of games of pool gone terribly awry. The first involving some Lowe's loving shims and the next involving a night in Marin County California, of which I will detail here. The irony being that those were the only two instances I've ever actually played pool in a bar.

The three of us arrived at the San Rafael Pub expecting to enjoy a quiet evening of binge drinking. It was early and we were the only females to grace the establishment. We found our way to the back room of the bar where we discovered a pool table. We began to play, half-hearted and off the books. Soon the bar began to fill and some male patrons challenged us to a game. We accepted their offer and, surprisingly, won.

Our win inspired us to continue to play. We had to work off our tequila shots and beers somehow. Trippette and I worried, though, that perhaps we might lose the table as we spied the tiny bar bustling with whitecaps and trixies. We recounted an old maneuver that we invented during our stint as "Pool Table Girls" at an embarrassing neo-country bar where, in our teens, we were employed. (Don't hate, we made a fuck load of cash. Yes, we were required to wear slutty cowgirl costumes.) We would fill the chalkboard with phony names to scare off potential players and/or to use said names as our own and continue to play all night. Years later we would use the same scam at lesbian karaoke. Note: When this task was performed while we were on duty at the neo-country bar we would sell the phony names to customers as a means to line jump for the pool table. Eventually we were caught by our bosses and quickly fired, but we had a good run.

First, we scribbled all three of our real names. Next came the phony names. At the time, three or four or five drinks in, the names sounded foolproof. In retrospect we should have known that nobody would fall for "D. Vader" or "Coot Dog" and, of course, "Coot Dog and Friends"--who was apparently a different person when his/her friends were in tow--as people in the room waiting in line for the lone table. For a hot minute the plan was working and the three of us, Trippette, Little Sister and I, were running the table.

As drunkards often do, we began to get sloppy. We quit using the cues and were hitting the balls directly with the sticks. Eventually we stopped using the sticks and were stuffing the balls into the pockets with our bare hands, giggling all the while. Surely someone would notice that we were making a mockery of the game. Unfortunately that someone was a dead ringer for Paul Bunyan, who happened to have his Blue Ox along side of him.

The two overgrown specimens walked in tandem towards the chalkboard. Out of amazement at their seven feet and six feet tall respective heights, we parted and allowed them to pass through, yet the act went unnoticed. Without speaking a word, Paul erased "D. Vader" with one of his enormous, callused paws. The Blue Ox, donning an appropriate blue peacoat, took care of "Coot Dog" and "Coot Dog and Friends" and didn't skip a beat slapping her four quarters onto the table. Their collective mass haunted the entire room.

It was then that a liquor filled Little Sister morphed into a tiny pit bull terrier, with emphasis on the terrier. "Hey bitch! You just erased my name!" Little Sister barked at the blue giant hovering nearly a foot above her.

"Who the fuck are you?" The Blue Ox snapped.

"I'm fucking Coot Dog and these are my friends." She lied, knowing that we plagiarized the name from the marquis on the bar next door.

The Blue Ox grinned and when she turned her massive frame to snub Little Sister, she ended up knocking the 85 pound girl to the floor. My big sister instincts pulsed through my veins, along with a little bit of blood and a lot of liquor. I grabbed a pool cue, the biggest one I could find, off of the rack and charged towards the blue giant, who was making her way back to her beloved Paul.

"Hey cunt!" I screamed as I prodded her back fat with the stick, "You just knocked over my sister!" I tried to mask my trembling hands. I could feel Trippette's hands on my shirt, pulling me in the opposite direction.

The Blue Ox turned in my direction, "What the fuck are you going to do about it?"

"I'm going to beat you the fuck down! That's what I'm going to do, fat ass!" I sassed, pointing the pool cue in her potato face, secretly hoping that someone would stop the bloodbath before it started. I casually allowed Trippette to continue to tug me in the opposite direction, while continuing to hiss curses at The Blue Ox. Soon the three of us had escaped danger and were safely on the sidewalk in front of the bar.

To save face, I devised a plan. Although merely the three of us were on the street, I whispered intently, "Let's wait here."

Trippette seemed confused, "Why?"

Knowing they wouldn't dare go along with my plan I looked around and quietly said, "Let's, jump them!" The "jump" part was mimed with American sign language.

Trippette and Little Sister rolled their eyes. "Can't we just go home and have a dance party instead?"

"I guess." I sighed and we walked off into the night.

Nashville Scene Year End Music Poll

Well the Scene has giveth and has taken away. I was sent a list of questions to answer for their year end music poll and due to a bunch of silly reasons, none of which have anything to do with the content, they aren't going to print my responses. I didn't want anyone to miss out on the laugh fest, so I decided to post them here. Enjoy.

What was your favorite discovery this year?

That the BP in Five Points is a local celebrity hot spot! Once while picking up some late night snacks, I hit the dreamy trifecta: Ricky Young, Jeremy Lister and Will Holland were all in the store at the same time! I looked up the meaning in my dream interpretation book and it wasn't in there.....most probably because it was real and not a dream.

Best music story of the year?

That story about Third Man Records hiring fake homeless people to greet guests at their grand opening when there were real homeless people 100 yards away. That wasn't a story? Well it should have been.

What trend would you like to see left behind in 2009?

Books about sparkly vampires, movies based on books about sparkly vampires and soundtracks for movies based on books about sparkly vampires.....and fedoras.

What trend from this decade would you like to see left behind?

All of the space age alien music....it scares me! I'm from earth, damn it!

What was the most pleasant surprise of 2009?

The Scene's swimsuit edition, especially the page with singer/songwriter/waitress at 3 Crow Bar Jacob Jones in a bikini. Tres steamy!!!

How do you expect the local rock scene to be affected by the recent success of non-country acts like Paramore and Kings of Leon?

What is a Paramore?

Who deserves more coverage than they got in 2009?

I'd like to request that some of the females who lurk in East Nashville's Five Points area at night wear longer dresses and skirts and forego the daisy dukes. You clearly don't know who you are, but you definitely deserve more coverage!

Best show of 2009?

The show of hands at the 5 Spot on Monday night when asked, "Who has herpes?".

Most fervent local show attendee?

By "most fervent local show attendee" do you really mean "best alcoholic"? Tough call.

Hardest working local musician?

Jacob Jones and Reno Bo. Not only are they handsome, but they are diligent multi-taskers who invented the Monday night drunk fest over at the 5 Spot and that Electric Western brand that sends me emails reminding me to get drunk. They are also nice.

Favorite local blog and/or radio show/podcast?

Of course "Sorry For Partyin'", the blog I write, is the the best blog in the world to the nth power. I also enjoy "The Chris Crofton Show" podcast, but I wish it were called "The Greg Crofton Show" because having "Chris Crofton" in the title of anything is more played out than bands with animal names.

What did we forget to ask you?

What I'm wearing: Nothing
Am I hot? Indeed