Evil Twins: A Horoscope For Everyone, and Self-Indulgent Venting and Raging For Me

Well, hell.

The sun crossed into Gemini, what, like, a week ago? Well, since Geminis are notoriously tardy, it only seems fitting that this universal horoscope be a little late. Note to the straight ladies out there: if you're a little late, girl, see a gynecologist. 'Coz you're gonna have twins.

Evil twins.

I mean it.

Gemini is the sign that rules logic and communication. So it was only logical last week that my own Gemini communicated to me that she is leaving my ass. It's been in the works for a while, but she's pulling the plug on our nearly 17-year relationship. And in typical Gemini fashion, I can't hate her. Hell, I can't even blame her. She, being a logical sort, has laid out that it will be quite painful, but I will survive. Isn't that what they tell amputees?

Okay, so on with the horoscope: when the weather's good, your mood will be restless. That's due to an overactive Mercury spinning through Gemini, the sign it rules, like a drag queen at a sequin sale. Stay cool and dry or you will get pissy.

The Moon is smack in the middle of Cancer, the sign it rules, right now, which makes us all emotional messes. Thanks, I needed that.

Venus is entering Taurus, the sign it rules as well (the planets can sometimes be bossy bitches). It's conducting an illegal search and seizure of the Pleiades. Taurus has filed an injunction, claiming that its Fourth Amendment Rights are being violated. Baby, that's not all that's being violated, trust me.

Mars is going to cross into Leo in the next week or so, and the warlike influences of the Red Planet will show up in all aspects of Leo's domain of sex and creativity. That mean's you're gonna fight with the person you're a-doin' it with. Or maybe divorce them.

On June 1st, Marilyn Monroe would have been 80, Alanis Morissette turns 32, and my future ex-wife will be 39. Happy birthday, honey! Guess what I got you? A lawyer!

Elsewhere in the Zodiac, it's a hodgepodge of crap, flim-flam and general monkeyshines. Jupiter, which governs luck, is retrograde (or negative) in Scorpio, the sign that governs death. So whatever trouble you may be in, know that you are not going to be lucky enough to escape it by passing on to the Great Beyond.

Bitter, party of one, your table is ready.

Good things will happen while the Sun is in Gemini. Marshall's is having a sale. American Idol is finally frickin' over. There's poker and $5 martinis at the Lip every Wednesday. That's one more reason to go on living right there.

So know, that if you are in a time of trial right now, you can blame the Sun careening through Gemini, heating everything up as summer approaches. It could be worse. Next month, you'll have Cancer. To contend with, I mean, the sign, not the disease.

Anyhow, here's the junk you really want to know. Lucky number: seven, duh. Things to do: control the pet population and have your animal spayed or neutered. Things not to do: whine, everybody hates that shit. Best chance for romance: with Side Show Bennie in the towel and face-cloth aisle at the Target in Hickory Hollow on June 12th, just before they close.

Don't say I didn't warn you: it's gonna be a tough month for all of us. But we will get through it, and we'll feel much better once it's all over.

Peace and love to you all,

Tom

WPM

The crowd of folks who come in week in and week out for our Music Trivia contests on Tuesdays are all good people that I love dearly. And although I play no favorites, I have enjoyed hanging out with the kids from the Junebugs team, who are built around a core of hairstylists that work at Trim on 12th Avenue South.

They always play really well. Rich, Judy, Cali, Jenny, Travis, Joi, Jason... the crew knows a lot about music. And even a pared-down version (just Travis, Jenny and Joi) were ahead until the last question. That's our bonus question where you can go all or nothing on just one answer.

So where is MacArthur Park that Donna Summer sang the disco song about? Los Ang-guh-leez, California. They said Frisco, and a visiting team called the Last of the Red Hot Mamas took the game.

Travis was a little.... how shall we say... bitter. Oh boy, he was hatin' me. And so, he said, "Just for that I'm picking your karaoke song!" His threat was revealed to be "One Week" by Barenaked Ladies, which I dutifully, but not beautifully, sang. I muddled through. It was all right.

Jenny and Travis followed up with other tongue-twisting songs, and then Joi, who is a righteous black woman, flashed us the "WPM" sign. For those who aren't in the know, "WPM" stands for "White People Music." And you know WPM when you hear it.

Not all songs by white people are WPM. Here's a small list of WPM, so you can understand what we're talking about:

"Physical" by Olivia Newton-John

"Friends In Low Places" by Garth Brooks

"Please Come To Boston" by Dave Loggins

"Nothin's Gonna Stop Us Now" by Starship

"No Rain" by Blind Melon

You get the idea. Well, we prolonged the WPM when we launched into a George Michael block. Even Rocket Ron got in on the act. What a riot. It was worth it all to hear Travis sing "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go!"

Sound like fun? Get down to the Lip!

Peace,

Tom

Bewitched

This blog has one single purpose: to sing the praises of the sweet creamy goodness that is Rachel.

For those of you who don't know, Rachel is the girlfriend of one of our bartenders, the multitalented Wendy, who, along with her band 3AM plays here every fourth Saturday of the month (for those of you keeping score at home, that means May 27th). Wendy is a force-- I mean, really. She is lovely, talented, intelligent, witty, an unbelievable singer, a helluva bartender, and just all-round great person. But what shines most about Wendy is her taste in women.

Rachel approached me the other day and told me how much she liked reading these blogs, which did my heart good. It's always nice to hear that your work is appreciated. But then, in a very unobtrusive way, Rachel obliquely tried to ascertain the reason behind what doubtless in her mind was some sort of glaring error, a lapse in judgement, an unconscious lacuna in my blog thought process. Eyes cast aside, hesitant, she finally mustered the courage to snap her head around, look me square in the eye, shake her finger in my face and scream, at the top of her lungs:

TOM!! WHY THE HELL HAVE YOU NEVER WRITTEN A BLOG ABOUT ME?!?!

Obviously, I had lost my mind and simply failed to share with a weary world the very essence of all that is good: my dear friend, Rachel.

So now, I am making amends. I'm enclosing the little biography I wrote on her for the online reference Wikipedia to help you get to know her, and then, I will simply laud and praise her in the manner she deserves:

Rachel ____________ was born on December 5, 1437 in Scheveningen, a small town on the Dutch coast. At the age of five, little Rachel was kidnapped by a fierce witch named Esmeralda Falafel, who intended to eat the adorable young girl with a side of spaetzle and brown bread. Seeing her fate sealed, Rachel summoned her formidable wits to trick Esmeralda into believing that her vagina was actually a serious wound that needed immediate "medical" attention. By making her think that all her blood, her heart, stomach and other internal organs were bound sooner or later to fall out through her punany, Rachel advised the witch to temporarily stuff the orifice with her handy broomstick. Naturally, having SUIT (Something Up In There) distracted the erstwhile cannibalistic witch, and little Rachel was able to make her escape, and at the same time steal the collar from her familiar, a black Abyssinian cat named Shakwanda. The cat's collar was the source of all Esmeralda's power, and she never again roamed the Dutch countryside.

Having thus rendered Esmeralda's pussy useless (in more ways than one), Rachel became a powerful sorceress in her own right, but has up until this point only used her power for good, never evil. As an immortal, she continues as she has for centuries to wreak positive change on the lives of those around her. Among the acts for which she is responsible are:

1483: A miraculous snowfall in the middle of July put out a forest fire that nearly decimated the small Belgian town of Kissenmeijass.

1521: In the French outpost of La Toitte, a little boy was saved from certain death by a poison ham after Rachel showed him disgusting photographs of Meat Loaf naked, which in turn made him vomit. It is worthy of note that neither photography nor Meat Loaf had been invented yet, proving the veracity of her witchcraft.

1674: Now making her home on the Eritrean coast, Rachel cast a spell that caused local monkeys to fart little white clouds, much to the delight of area children.

1811: On a freedom campaign with Simon Bolivar in South America, Rachel caused the gun barrels of an entire Spanish army brigade to flow freely with unending streams of pulpy grape juice and pectin. Needless to say, this caused the guns to jam.

1926: Constantly reinventing herself, Rachel is known at this time as the Lady Rachel DuMarr Pinckney-Smythe, and is a fixture in London society, performing card tricks and simple acts of chicanery and passing them off as magic. However, thanks to her true sorcery, the entire world was saved from a flesh-eating bacteria present in chicle, the primary ingredient in chewing gum. She eradicated the germ.

2006: The hypnotic power of Rachel's voice is displayed, as she sings "Kerosene" at the Lipstick Lounge's karaoke night, and causes this writer to fall madly in love with her.

Trust me, Wendy, I know I can't have her. But that won't keep me from continuing to worship her at the shrine I have specially built inside my home. It is my one remaining joy in life that, from time to time, Rachel allows me to bask in her radience and absorb the splendor of her very existence.

The rest of you should come out some night and you'll see what I mean.

Peace (and undying love for the one-and-only dreamy glow in an otherwise bleak existence, Rachel),

Tom

Mary, Mary... Why You Buggin'?

Daddy's going to give a lecture to some of you little gay boys and girls that hang out at the Lip... and you know who you are...

Y'all have just got to chill out with all this damn backbiting, two-faced, lowdown, no-good, gossip-mongering that's going on when you all get together in here. Sometimes, as much as I love y'all, I want to just walk up to you, slap ya 'cross the face and say, "Zip it!"

I have this pal who comes in a lot. Let's call him/her "Mary." Mary is a nice person, generally. Human like all of us, but on average, a nice person. The other night, Mary comes in with a bunch of friends and everyone is smiling, chillin' out, having a good a time. Then, suddenly, I see Mary's face go all mischievous. I can't hear the conversation, but I can tell from the look that Mary is just dying to hurt somebody's feelings.

I was right, because Mary got up and flounced out onto the patio, alone. One by one, Mary's friends all go out to the patio as well, and soon, there's full-scale drama. Within an hour of the patio escapade, the entire crew has gone home, righteously pissed off.

I don't know who said what to whom, who started it, what it's about or why you felt you had to pick a perfectly enjoyable evening to ruin it with this crap. In short, as the musical question from Run-DMC asks, "Mary, Mary... why you buggin'?"

I just don't understand. Why would you want to stir up crap among your friends? Why intentionally create discord among people you claim are dear to you? Have you taken crazy pills? Or is your life so uninteresting that you feel a need to create emotional upheaval for other people to watch them squirm?

'Coz I gotta tell ya, Mary.... if that's the case.... that's some sick shit. Get your head examined.

Peace,

Tom

The Dangers of Owning a Chihuahua

As many of you know, the lovely ladies of the Lipstick Lounge are dog-lovers.

Recently, Christa and Jonda acquired Lily, their second teacup chihuahua, to give tiny Lola somebody to play with.

I'm always teasing them about how good little Lola's legs would taste, all roasted up and slathered in Maggie's famous hot wing sauce. Of course, I'm just teasing. I really do love dogs. And it is because I love dogs that I must warn all owners of chihuahuas out there of a potential danger. They say it happens every day. This photo illustrates the problem:












Ouch!

See ya at the Lip!

Peace,

Tom