The Hot Club

Quiz - What is the stated capacity of the Hot Club (per a sign there)? Answer at bottom.

Someone asked when the new TVs were going to get delivered to the Hot Club. I said they were ordered from China and were coming on a slow boat. Someone else offered, "Or 2 Koreans in a rowboat." There's hope. They just got new chairs for the outside bar.

Leo and Derek visited the HC. They were a welcome sight. Leo is married now while Derek is sans female friend. I was shocked. I looked at Leo and said, "You're the stable one now? Twisted!"

Nice to see the Lovely Lisa has returned after her knee surgery. LL was originally hurt during the Pats- Denver '06 playoff game. She jumped off the couch protesting a bad call.

A guy was talking about a woman he used as a safety valve. She would take him home. All the way home. So he visited and her door was open, but she wasn't around. He fell asleep on her bed. A woman woke him. Not his 'Last Resort Option' friend. They both asked, "Who are you?" His friend had moved. "This is too weird for me", said the other.

Yor was telling us that a mentor told him, "Get a lot while you're young." Yor thought the person meant get as much sex as you can early. The mentor meant real estate. "And she had huge tracts", added Chuck D Computer.

Beer Keg said that the woman he met in Atlanta, who went all the way and then decided to get married to another guy, contacted him and told him that she was getting cold feet about getting married. BK said he told her "I'll be there next week with a foot warmer."

Photogenic said that the woman who was at the bar collecting for AIDS babies has been barred from soliciting at the Hot Club. Sean said he had a couple women show up at the Celtic Pub wanting to go thru the dumpster for bottles and cans. They were wearing rubber gloves and smelled like Urinetown. Dumpster Divers. Dumpster Divas. No!

According to Fleet Feet Pete, the shoemaker Adidas is pronounced Ah-Di-Doss. It was named for German founder Adolph Dassler. His brother Rudolph started Puma. In the '36 Olympics, Jesse Owens was one of the first name athletes to wear Adidas running shoes. Adolph Hitler was not amused. Adidas made boots for the German soldiers in WW II.

Answer to Quiz - 100 people. There will be a lot less than a handful though if the HC doesn't get one of those 42" plasma TVs that Josh promised. The Regulars are watching the Patriots at the Fish Co. And the Fish Co. owner bought all the guys a round last week.

MOVIE REVIEW - HARD CANDY ('05)

Woowee! Where do I start with this crazy movie? It entices you into its world. Then it lets you play voyeur as you watch from the sidelines wondering what's coming next.

Some parts of this are as sick as anything that I have ever seen. It struck a nerve. Several nerves. It's visceral. It's nasty. It will make you want to take a shower and to check all your body parts. This movie goes places where others have feared to tread and with good reason.

It's basically a 2-person drama, much like a play. The intensity builds like some run amok boiler ready to blow a gasket. The pressure builds and we can only wonder when it will explode.

Ellen Page and Patrick Wilson transfix you. Hold you hostage. Tease you. Provoke you. Violate you. They hold your attention like a prisoner forced to watch unutterable evils.

This is an Internet love story gone wrong. The movie taps into the dark side of all of us and visits the secret places we hide from others and even ourselves.

This movie is not for everyone. It never made it to the theatres despite its trailer being shown early this year. I even wrote the Pro Ho's Michael Janusonis and he was very dismissive of it as just more celluloid chaff. He was wrong. It's just not for every taste.

There is little blood and gore. There is no nudity. What it does have is a plot that twists and turns in some horrible grotesquerie.

The movie is not perfect and has some plot faults. But you won't soon forget it and the performances of the principals.

It's directed by David Slade. The screenplay was by Brian Nelson. It's 103 minutes. It is rated R for 'disturbing violent and aberrant sexual content involving a teen, and for language'.

This is a movie for people who like to meet others on the Internet. There are a lot of warped individuals out there, and this film is about two of them.

The Hot Club

Louisiana Steve looked up at the small Hot Club TV and asked when the HC was getting the new big plasma TVs that Josh Miller promised. Photogenic said, "When they get a flat screen TV, my daughter will be graduating college."

Turns out the lads made a statement and went to the Fish Company for Sunday's Patriots game. No 42-inch plasma TVs in the Hot Club, no regulars.

Bags told me "Even if I didn't say that, don't print it."

We heard Hooks had his first date (of the new millennium?). Someone said he was on a $40 budget. Enough for beer, Viagra, wood for the fire and a woody.

In talking about my stint in the Air Force ('68-'72), I told Peter (of Mr. D.'s band Almond Joy) that I was against the Vietnam War and had a poster in my room showing Arlington National Cemetery. The caption read, "We are the unwilling, led by the unqualified, to do the unwanted for the ungrateful". They made me take down the poster after one day.

Peter, a steeplechase runner, used to work for Converse sneakers. Fleet Feet Pete said Larry Bird and Kevin McHale had a fresh pair of sneakers for every game. 82 games. 82 new pairs of game sneakers.

Congratulations to Britt for winning an award from the RI Hospitality and Tourism Association as one of 5 Employees of the Year. Britt, pleased to be so recognized, was given the award at the Hyatt on Goat Island in Newport. She noted it only took 17 years.

Also Happy Belated Birthday to Eben who just turned 30. Sister Brittan did a great job of decorating the HC's waterside bar with life-size blowups of Hideki Matsui, Darth Vader and other members of the Evil Empire. Eben, Brittan and dad Tom are all Yankees' fans. Wind from the deck kept blowing down the cutouts. Foot Joy said he wanted to kick a Yankee while he was down. I suggested a nail gun. Brittan had Augie use a staple gun.

Overheard at the Hot Club: "Anything that bleeds 12 months a year and doesn't die has supernatural powers."

Jesse M. wants it known that I misquoted him. He did not agree with Contraire re OJ Simpson's chase as memorable. Actually Jesse made fun of Contraire for suggesting it.

And condolences to Mike Solomon whose mom Sarah passed away last week at 72.

MORE GRAM PARSONS

After reading the 2 links from Chuck D Computer (see E-Mail), I learned this: Gram Parsons was hired by Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman of the Byrds as a jazz pianist. Parsons got the Byrds to leave LA and record Sweetheart of the Rodeo in Nashville.

Parsons spent one semester studying Theology at Harvard. You know how that turned out. He saw God a lot earlier than he should have.

Gram became friendly with Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones. The Stones allowed Parsons and the Burritos to record Wild Horses (released before the Stones' version). Mick Jagger agreed but with the provision that the song could not be released as a single.

Parsons was invited to Keith Richards' Villa Nellcôte in the South of France during the making of Exile on Main Street. It is believed that Parsons was a big influence on Honky Tonk Women and Country Honk though the Stones have never given him writing credit.

Gretchen Carpenter, Parsons' girlfriend, accompanied him to Villa Nellcôte. They fought so much that Anita Pallenberg, Richards' long-time companion, asked them to leave.

Parsons' friendship with the Stones did get the Flying Burrito Brothers a gig as the opening act at Altamount (the concert that ended the Summer of Love). The Burritos did 6 Days on the Road, which is in the movie Gimme Shelter. Parsons took the last helicopter out.

It was Chris Hillman that got Parsons to attend a performance by Emmylou Harris at a Georgetown (Wash. DC) club. After hearing her, Parsons invited her to sing on GP.

The band Parsons used for his 2 solo LPs, GP and Grievous Angel was Elvis Presley's backing band: James Burton - lead guitar, Ron Tutt- drums, Glen D. Hardin - piano and Al Perkins - pedal steel. He couldn't afford the backing band to do a road tour so he assembled a different group of musicians known as the Fallen Angels.

Emmylou Harris is given credit for getting the Fallen Angels to practice and come up with a playlist for the tour.

Parsons once played and jammed with Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers, a band managed by Phil Kaufman.

Kaufman served time with Charles Manson on Terminal Island and produced Manson's LP LIE.

Kaufman raised the money for the $700 fine (for stealing Gram's coffin) by hosting a Parsons' tribute called Kaufman's Koffin Kaper Koncert. Jonathan Richman, Dr. Demento and Bobby 'Boris' Pickett performed.