Watch your backs, Spinal Tap

So last Friday, late in the afternoon, I got this phone message from my buddy Fstorch. It was kind of staticky and garbled, but I understood that I was to be at a particular place by 8 or 8:30 at the latest. With my accordion. Something about the bass player not being able to make it. Oh, and I should dress like a rock star.

I called him back to try to figure out the rest of it. He said I knew enough, and he needed my help, and to please just show up. The place happened to be a certain neighborhood pub owned by a friend of mine who was turning 40 that day. I didn't much feel like going out, and I'd already been to lunch with the birthday gal to celebrate, but Hypergal had said earlier that there was something gonna happen around 9 or so that I wouldn't want to miss.

When I got off the phone, I was downtown and I saw my friend Officer S. of the Bike Patrol. He's a neighbor and a friend of the birthday girl as well. I asked him if he knew anything about what was happening later. Not much, he said, but he'd heard something about there was gonna be a Queen cover band around 9 or 9:30.

I started to worry at that point. What was that he'd said on the message about the bass player not showing up? But Ruby needed her supper and a walk, so I went home and did that. Then I stared at my closet thinking OK, rock star ... what am I gonna wear? And realizing I am old and boring and my clothes are boring and when the hell did I get so fat? And I have nothing suitable for a rock star to wear. I don't even fucking like Queen. And I really really didn't want to go out, did I mention that?

So I stuck with the big black trousers I was wearing, added a pair of clunky black Doc Marten platform-y sandals, and a strappy black tank top. I didn't think that was quite right, so I took off the tank top, put on a blue bra, and put the tank top back on. Not exactly rock star, but as I still had no clue that I was actually going to be in the band, I left it at that.

Got there just in time, and was immediately rushed across the parking lot to Fstorch's workshop by my friend M, a student in the NC School of the Arts Wig and Makeup program. She pinned up my hair and put on a hairnet and an enormous reddish-brown afro wig, and some wraparound glasses and some lipstick the same color red as my accordion.

Our drummer got a long blond wig and, bizarrely, a chicken mask; and Fstorch, on the guitar, got a Howard Stern wig and a moustache that looked kind of obviously taped on his lip. And then J., our lead singer, who was mostly playing himself channeling Freddie Mercury. I've never seen him in a shirt quite like that before though. Poor guy was nervous, and trying to commit the lyrics of 'Bohemian Rhapsody' to memory.

The whole evening got better once I realized that the actual music would be supplied by someone's iPod patched into the sound system, and that we had a competent sound guy so it was highly likely that everything would go OK. Because, see, I don't actually play the accordion. The drummer really was a drummer, though, and he made some noise. Fstorch really does play the guitar, but I'm not sure it was plugged in to anything. And our lead singer? Pure, total, genius-level ham. Freddie Mercury plays Vegas-quality schlock. A wonder to behold.

The band was called Queen Size:



Yeah, that's me in the back. Oh, and an accordion, for those who don't know, has a handy little button right under your left thumb, which when you push it causes air to go in and out without going through the reeds. As in, silently.

So we took the stage with 'Bohemian Rhapsody,' since at least one of us had rehearsed it. The crowd went wild. Sang along. Demanded another. And another. Flicked their lighters in the air. I think J. would have kept singing all night, but Fstorch took the mic and said we had to catch a plane for Branson right away, and we wanted to go out with 'Happy Birthday.'

I don't think anyone but us noticed that we were actually lipsynching to the Flaming Lips' cover of Bohemian Rhapsody (here's a video from the 2006 SXSW Festival), which made me feel a little better about the whole event.

Because as the birthday girl always says, "WHO DOESN'T LOVE QUEEN???"

I DON'T, is what I always say back. Even so, that was the most fun I've had in a long damn time.

Photo credit update: All photos on this post by Lindsay Cummings

New bike! Yay!

I bought a new bike. It was kind of an impulse purchase, but I've been thinking lately about expanding my transportation options just a bit. I had to stop riding the old bike a while back on account of hand and wrist and arm pain (which is better, thanks), and I'd pretty much given up on ever finding a bike that a) didn't hurt, and b) I could afford. But I was at lunch today and walked by a bike shop I'd never been in before and there were these bikes sitting there, in all these creamy colors. Low-slung, kind of clunky, attractive in a so-ugly-they're-cute kind of way. Absolutely not built to ride hard or go fast, but plenty sturdy enough for commuting, running to the grocery store, etc. Some models of this bike even have an automatic transmission on them, but I didn't like that so much.

The coolest thing about it is that you sit in an upright position and don't put much of any weight on your hands, and your wrists are at an angle that doesn't create pain or numbness (and yeah, there's some suspension in the front). I rode it for about an hour and a half, and it was less painful than, say, typing for an hour and a half. The angle of the seat post and its relationship to the pedals is also a cool feature. It's designed so that you can stay in the seat and put your feet on the ground solidly enough, yet still extend your legs just right for optimal pedaling efficiency.

Also very cool: the seat. Large, soft, roomy, gel-padded, and it's got its own little hydraulic spring suspension thingy. I rode it home from the store and around the neighborhood for a ride in regular pants. No problem!

I got the three-speed model, which is more versatile than I expected it to be. I found a couple of hills I had to walk up, but I'm pretty out of shape -- plus I was looking for hills that were difficult, so I could plan routes accordingly when necessary. I think the limitation was me, not the bike. Or at least, I hit my own limit before I encountered the bike's. And I can upgrade it to a seven-speed (or even 24!) at a pretty reasonable cost.

I need to get a basket for it, and maybe some kind of rack to put on the rear. I already have a nifty jangly bell and some lights.

Oh, and the color? Is a very dreamy pale, greenish, off-white.

Crime & punishment in black and white

So the other day, the day of the Jena 6 protest, I didn't join in on all the posting about it, but I did wear black to work. Of course, no one asked me about it, because I almost always wear black. So, yeah, it was kind of lame in the 'show support for this issue' department, but I have had (and overheard) several interesting conversations about the whole thing. I'm really tired, I gotta tell you, of hearing white people wondering why this isn't being treated like a black on white hate crime. It just ain't one, so get over it.

On the other hand, I was quite happy to get on an elevator the other day in time to hear this middle-aged white guy with the facial hair of a Civil War re-enactor and the clothes of a biker -- the kind of guy who, around here, you're not surprised at all when you look at the pins on his leather vest and at least one of them has a Confederate flag theme -- anyway, he was saying to a group of worried-looking grandmotherly types, "I don't care, it's not funny. it's not 'just a joke.' You don't put nooses in trees." And so on.

And then other conversations about how surprised white people are that this kind of thing (i.e., the nooses) could possibly still happen. I haven't spoken to any black people who are even remotely surprised that it happened, only surprised that it got as much media attention as it did. With protests! And Rock Stars!

And then the story I heard somewhere about how, in Jena, while tensions were rising, a young white man had brandished a gun at a young black man entering a convenience store. There was a scuffle, and the black man took the gun, someone called the cops, and everybody waited for them to arrive. Whereupon the black man was arrested for stealing a firearm.

Which -- a little more clearly than the Jena 6 case itself, I think -- raises the obvious question "since when is it a crime to defend yourself?"

Which got me thinking I'd heard something about another case like this lately, in which some young women were harrassed by a man, then attacked by him and they ended up charged with assault on account of they fought back.

And behold: the New Jersey 7! [Well, there were 7; only 4 are still incarcerated.] The young women are lesbians, and African-American. The man (also African-American) started saying some of the usual, "hey baby, I want some of that" kind of shit as they passed, and the initial response from the women was along the lines of "no thanks, we're lesbians." Polite, friendly, hostile -- doesn't matter. But so the guy grabbed one of the women -- it was all caught on a security camera in a nearby store -- and her friends tried to help her. The guy spat on them, tossed a lit cigarette in someone's face, pulled out large clumps of hair, and got one of them in a chokehold. Another of the women took a cheap little steak knife out of her purse and attempted to hurt his arm to get him to stop.

There's no indication on the video that she succeeded, and no forensic testing was ever done on her knife. A couple of men stopped by and intervened; one of them apparently had a knife as well. And yeah, the harasser guy did get stabbed, and the gals all got arrested. Three of them I think served 10 months; four of them are definitely still in jail -- one of them was sentenced to eleven years. The men shown on the videotape were never even identified, let alone questioned or charged with anything.

Maybe you're wondering why you haven't heard about this before -- the information is out there: Brownfemipower, for one, has a round-up of posts from around the blogosphere. There are lots more mentions of it, but that's a good place to start to start. Most of the news articles about it (this happened in the summer of 2006) seem to have been taken down, but it wasn't covered with a great deal of vigor, mainstream media-wise.

But then I got to wondering whether this was one of the cases that got old Bill O'Reilly's knickers in a twist about the roving gangs of armed lesbians assaulting innocent men and attaching women and forcing them to go queer. Which, yeah, it was.

I mean, WTF? How many times have you or someone you know recounted a story about being harrassed on the street only to have some guy say "you shoulda kicked him in the nuts," or some such. Basically saying, "you don't have to take that shit, fight back!" But if you're successful, you're the one who's gonna get nailed -- that's the message I'm getting here. And if you fail? Well, chances are you're the one who's gonna get hurt. Or killed. But at least you'll be seen as the victim, not the perpetrator. Ask Sakia Gunn. Or Matthew Shepard.

[Note, this was re-posted (twice, now) to fix links and fix typos, etc. I posted the wrong draft, before.]

Frequently Asked Questions

There are a few questions Ruby is tired of hearing:

• Who's an orange dog?
• What's that in your mouth?
• Was it you who ripped that up?
• Will you stop that already?
• Where on earth did you find that?
• Can you reach things on the countertop?
  
• Why are you barking?
• Are you really going to eat that?
  
• Is it tinkle time?
• How'd you get your ears to do that?
• Why are you licking my panties?
• Did you put all your toys under the couch again?
• Why?

If she every provides any answers to these questions, I'll of course post them here.

Resistance is futile

You want to give me a snack, don't you. Because I am cute. Because I am looking up at you and I have such adorable white teeth. Or maybe you'd like to take me for a ride? I love car rides. Or how about if you throw the bouncy toy? You know you want to. C'mon, just one more time.

This just in

Casual sex only rewarding for first few decades.

"Researchers found that those who regularly achieved mind-blowing orgasms without the expectation of commitment often experienced mild feelings of loneliness and a passing regret after as little as three decades of pure physical bliss free of emotional complication."

from the Onion, naturally.

Spiders spin giant web; entomologists stumped

I like spiders. One of the things I like best about them is their generally solitary nature.

But there's this enormous web at a park in Texas right now that entomologists speculate was probably built by a lot of spiders -- likely of more than one species -- working together. Including some spiders who don't normally do that kind of thing.

The structure is the size of two football fields, apparently. And it's made a serious dent in the local mosquito population, which of course is all to the good.

There are some tropical species of social spiders that will build communal nests, and this ginormous mega-web phenomenon has been documented before, most recently I guess in 2002 in Canada, where one of the park rangers observed that "...the web showed great tensile strength – enough to put a handful of coins on it without them falling through."

The BBC article about it has a video.