A Girl...

It'll Put Hair on Your Chest

You know, if you let Simon take advantage of you like that, you'll never hear the end of it. Pretty soon he'll be waking you up from a pleasant slumber to ask which tie he should wear with his blue shirt, and from that point ever after you will rue the day you were so eager to help with the band names.

When I picked him up from practice last night (after doing his grocery shopping and filling his car with gas because I'm awesome like that), the band still hadn't decided on a name, despite the list of forty or so suggestions Simon contributed thanks to you and everyone else he knows. I, for one, am surprised his mates didn't take to Third World Country or the Spittunes, but whatever; they can do as they'd like so long as I still get to be the merch girl at their shows and they stop calling me Yoko.

Last night was the first time I'd met the band, and the moment proved once again that there is some sort of trigger in my head that makes me blurt out the most random and stupid things when talking to people I don't know. It ususally goes: "I'd like to introduce you to my girlfriend, Leah." "Hi, Leah, nice to meet you." "Hi. I got these shoes on sale for three dollars at Mervyn's." WTF? Last night I said, "Hi. I'm looking rather beige today," which, although true (tan coat, tan pants, washed-out complexion), was also altogether lame. First impressions be damned.

Aside from working on a band name, the quartet also put together their first solid set list last night. Simon gets to sing lead on a couple of tunes, and harmony on a bunch of others. This makes me extremely proud because 1. boys who sing in bands are sexy and 2. singing makes Simon happy and he's really excited to finally have a proper public outlet for it.

On an average day, Simon sings probably even more than I do, which is an awful lot for two people who are neither opera stars nor minons of Barney. In addition, Simon also speaks in at least five different silly voices or accents each day, and sometimes, when the moon is full, the two talents combine, and I get an earful of Steve Martin doing the lounge version of "I'm in the Mood for Love" or Fat Cat Stan's falsetto version of an original composition that begins "My name is Stanley / And I'm a big boy. / And I stink a lot, it's true."

Perhaps Simon's favorite voice to do these days is the original Jean Val Jean, Colm Wilkinson, performing his hit "Who Am I?" from America's favorite French revolution musical, Les Mis. (Q: If urchin pup Gavroche is French, why does he have a cockney accent?) Simon's favorite part (and Colm's favorite part too, I'll bet) is the very end when he belts out "Two-Four-Six-Oh-One!" and pinches that final "n" sound into a little coyote yip that without proper ear protection is damaging to sensitive cochleas. Sometimes he even mimes the dramatic rending of his garments in gestures big enough so the people way up in the tippy-top balcony seats can still feel his anguish.

Yes, even though Simon is made of virile fiber (see: perma-stubble and 13-inch penis), he also knows the words to a truckload of showtunes, and he isn't afraid to sing them out, jazz hands and all. So anyway, this one time (at band camp) he was singing the reprise to "Who Am I?" which goes "One day more / Another day, another destiny. / This neverending road to Calvary..." (Calvary being, of course, the hill on which Jesus was crucified, which means that Jean Val Jean was equating himself with Jesus Val Jesus and somewhere there's probably an Official Ultra-Conservative Christian Hit List with Colm Wilkinson's name on it, right between John "More Popular than Jesus" Lennon and all of the Masters of the Universe.)

SO ANYWAY, this one time (at band camp), instead of singing "This neverending road to Calvary," we sang "This neverending road to Calgary"--Calgary being, of course, not the capital of Alberta because that's Edmonton, silly, but you knew that, didn't you? Five gold stars.

So. This neverending road to Calgary. And we thought, hey, wouldn't it be funny to take a road trip up to Canada just so that when we're a day's drive outside of the city we can say, "One day more (another day, another destiny); this neverending road to Calgary"? How hilarious! How clever! How fucking ridiculous is more like it.

As it turns out, our love of the charmingly absurd (see also: Monty Python) does not always override our good sense, and we decided against driving 1,500 miles out of our way to make a joke that only we find funny. Phew.

BUT.

That doesn't mean we're above spending $3.99 on a novelty drink just because it looks too wretched to actually be on the market for public consumption and therefore WE MUST HAVE IT.

Observe:

That's right. It's marketed as "Green Food Beverage." Think about it. Now say it with me. Green Food Beverage. Again. Green Food Beverage. Permission to shudder.

He's smiling because he's scared.

Here's a still so you can fully appreciate what he's putting into his body. (Secret ingredient: soylent green.)

It's thick enough to leave a green sludge moustache on his upper lip.

Remember what I said about the perma-stubble? I suspect this stuff puts hair where you'd rather not have it.

Something tells me the people who gave the go-ahead to produce this stuff didn't ask the internets to help them come up with a name.

p.s. I updated mine. Now you update yours.

p.p.s. Simon's birthday is on Sunday (see also: stress!).

Posted by Leah at January 20, 2006 09:12 AM