The Drink Tank 55
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The Drink Tank Issue 55 Yet Another Faster than Expected Issue [email protected] It’s The Second Most Wonderful Time of were there, we saw that Shadow had a lit- tle nook of her own. You see, she’d just had the Year...Following WrestleMania Sea- surgery to repair one of her hips and she son! couldn’t walk much, so Wayne made the front door into a home for her, covered it in That’s Right, it’s the Holidays, when blankets and put water and food within easy Jew, Gentile, Muslim, and even Buddhists reach. She didn’t like it much, but when we have something to celebrate. While Christ- came, after having not seen either of us for mas songs drive me nuts ages, she was very perky. and there are all those an- On Wednesday, we noying specials interrupting went to Palm Springs. Prime Time’s Great shows, You may have read my it’s still fun to watch the issue about Half Moon Christmas hustle going on Bay, well, in many ways, all around and the fun that Palm Springs is a Desert kids have playing with toys HMB. It’s not a bad place, after they’ve unwrapped it’s kinda hot...actually them and before they’ve bro- it’s VERY hot, but they’ve ken them in half. Plus, there got a nice museum and are Holiday parties where Sonny Bono is treated like the lasses dress much like a god, so there’s one thing the one off to the right and it’s got going for it. We there’s always mistletoe to had a quick bite and took be found hanging from the a look at the Palm Springs ceiling. God Bless It! Museum of Art, which is My Holiday Season pretty nice. A lot of great started with a trip to Perris, MesoAmerican artefacts a city which was once large- and a fair modernist col- ly agriculture and is now a lection. breeding ground for planned Mom and Wayne communities and WalMart- had decided that we’d be type stores. It’s also where going to see a show on my Uncle Wednes- Wayne day. I lives with had no Shadow, idea the aging what Dog. We drove down on the the show was, other than Tuesday before Thanksgiv- it was called the Palm ing, missing almost all of Springs Follies. the traffi c that would come Now, the Ziegfeld just a day later. Once we Follies were the most awe- some spectacular in the history of New York Theatre. There were Hepburn and Bette Davis. It was quite funny songs, there was dancing, there were co- at those points. medians and trained dog acts. Well, Palm The only thing I can say was a home Springs is a city...well, village actually, filled run had to be the founder/MC. He was hi- with people of an age that would easily be larious, very Catskills 1970s. He worked a able to remember the Follies, so they have little blue (probably a 5 on a scale of Bambi their own...completely performed by those to The Aristocrats) and had the audience folks of a certain age. laughing a lot. I really thought he was the That’s right, the Follies are performed best thing I saw in Palm Springs. I shook his entirely be performers over the age of 55. hand after and told him that his sets killed. Now, I’m not against...too much, but this He said that I should come back when I’m just creeped me out. You see, most of the older. Agreed. women in the show were in the 65-75 range, The whole thing ended with a Patriotic and yeah, they can still belt a hard hitting send-off that I thought was well-done, but tune and dance a tap dance that’ll known really, it came off a little forced. Go figure. you over, but there’s the fundamental prob- After the show, which lasted, I kid you lem that they have. You see, they do a cou- not, THREE complete hours, we headed over ple of numbers in short skirts and at least to a place called Rubies, a 50s dinner with one or two in Vegas Showgirl-y outfits. I pretty decent food. I liked the Chicken Ten- should not have to say how much this dis- ders. turbed me from beginning to end. Back in Perris, Mom broke the news That’s not to say that the show isn’t that we’d not be doing Thanksgiving at the entertaining, no. It’s old-fashioned and that house, but at an Indian Casino in Temecula. left me high and dry at parts, but there were I had no objections, since there’s nothing some highlights. Like the Dog Act. There’s better than gambling and a buffet. The line nothing like a good dog act. And there was was long, but the food was good and differ- the singer Anacani, who sang some lovely ent. Latin numbers. The impressionist chick They didn’t have mashed potatoes. wasn’t half-bad, though she only really hit They had mashed sweet potatoes. There was the impressions solid when she was doing rabbit, buffalo ribs (which were amazing!), tamales, heaping piles of corn mush- es, elk, venison, and wild turkey and boar. It was a dream, and the fry bread was equally terrific. After that, I gambled. Califor- nia doesn’t allow dice games in casi- nos, and my favourite game is craps, but they do play it by using the cards Ace through 6. I won a fair amount, and then it drained away. I then went over to Blackjack and on less than ten hands, made up for all but five dollars of my losses. That was a solid. Thanksgiving ended with me heading up to LAX for LosCon. You can read about LosCon in SF/SF and Vegas Fandom Weekly, and I’ll run a review in here at some point, but let me say I dug it the most! G-G-G-Ghost!!!!! A Letter from John Purcell I saw Hello, Chris! one, and in a I just read your 54th issue - the strange place, at special 70’s ish - on efanzines.com, and a strange time. thoroughly enjoyed it. At the time you I wish I had a were born, I was one year into fandom and camera on me, rapidly getting sucked down the vortex of but alas, no. fanac. It was a blast! Yeah, I loved the 70’s I was driv- too, but that was a long time ago. Thanks ing home from for the trip down leisure suit memory lane. the video store down Agnew Rd. It was once a Ah, the one thing I love that has never part of Agnew Developmental Centre, one of returned is the leisure suit. I have photos the most haunted areas in California. I was of me as a four and five year old in one driving and I could see a person walking on and I look great. Of course, at that the road in the darkness. Even though the point, I also had straight hair. road's residential, it’s still not well-lit. I could My minor in college was Russian see the dark shape walking forward and as Studies, which included three years of I turned, my headlights shined on the spot learning the language, of which I still and when they did, no one was there. That’s remember bits and pieces. Way out of right, just gone. I looked in my rear-view and practice, I am, but that’s okay. I still the guy was still walking, though I could have a lot of dictionaries and phrase make out no visible features, just the gener- books on the shelf, and occasionally run al shape. I wash I had this story when I did into a grad student at TAMU who’s from my panel on Science and the Paranormal at Russia, the Ukraine, or some other former LosCon, but alas, it happened on the Mon- Soviet republic so I can speak what little I day after. remember. I still would love to travel to St. Petersburg, Kiev, or Odessa. Moscow would I haven’t heard from M and Jay since be fun, but I have an affinity for Ukraine; it the last email that I turned (mostly) into the just looks like a beautiful country. article in the last issue. I always worry about I took a little Russian (not to be confused those two, but sometimes I’m right. I did with Lubov who IS a little Russian) when get an email from SaBean (who we all worry I was in High School. Jay speaks it about) saying that she had a plan to go and pretty well. I wouldn’t mind making a visit them ahead of their wedding. Good for trip to Moscow myself, but with my flying her, though since they decided to get mar- fear, it’s doubtful for anytime soon. ried in California (mostly so I wouldn’t have Hmm...Sex in space... How well I remember to fly) she could have waited. howling at Jane Fonda’s zero gee striptease Why am I writing this? SaBean told at the beginning of Barbarella; every me the wonderful news, and the probably move she made should have resulted in the reason that they wanted to get married her spinning off in an opposite direction.