• Guest header drawing by Lele Barnett (I think).

"Where's Caperin’?" - Grant Brissey 8:53am

"Let me know if you want to punch my face." - Derek Erdman 9:40am

In Chicago there's a party supply store named I've Been To A Marvelous Party. That's a wonderfully awful thing to name your business, though it does conjure up exactly what you want, I guess. Last night I went to a marvelous party myself (sans Noël Coward) in the basement of the Rendezvous. This room in the basement has a name, though it’s a word that I don’t like to say or type. Most people usually admit that the words panties and moist are both terrible, and I agree, though I guess not enough to not type them out. The name of this room really isn’t all that bad; I just can’t get myself to hit the keys to make it appear and now I’ve used well over 30 other words talking about it. People named Suzie and Aja organized the party and Dancer & Prancer played (for the umpteenth time of the weekend). I can’t get over how good that band is, at one point I felt like I was on the set of Animal House, and it was the toga party and Otis Day and the Knights were playing and everybody was just so happy. It’s a totally brilliant concept to smoosh surf jams and holiday tracks, and they do it so professionally and everything is full of pure joy. This was well after somebody decided that the table I was sitting at should write today’s Caperin’, as I had a feeling that I wouldn’t be in the shape to do it. You see, my mother is going to jail next month and I’ve been drinking a lot of vodka because of it.

Last night I had a small black book that I seldom carry around and my favorite type of pen, a black Paper Mate Flair, which is felt-tipped, making it more of a marker, though it says pen on the package. The book went around the room and I was kind of worried that people would read the other parts, it’s mostly my diary and drawings of Nancy Grace.

• See, look!

I’ll do my best to type out what is legible, here’s what came back (with spelling and grammar errors included):

• Revealing handwriting evidence for embarrassment, etc.

“The other night Dancer and Prancer (dancerandprancerwebsite.com in case you were curious) were pullin’ Santa’s sleigh… And they pulled over at convenience store to pick up some road sodas (egg nog). This week was especially momentous for a few reasons. I got a new job, had an old friend in town, and consumed the following

• Everybody likes laffs & gags, no joke!

foods: 1. peanut butter mint jalapeno cheese sandwich 2. fish bacon pea soup 3. brussel sprout bacon bleu cheese 4. 4 irish car bombs 3 moscow mules. My cat ate my pea soup and I decided to write a rock opera, crashed a karaoke party, played wii boxing and went to the science fiction museum with my boyfriend and his mom (it was underwhelming. The R2D2 model was a fake). 5. I took my first shower this week. Then I reheated the coffee from yesterday. I poured the remaining “Rich & Rare” from the bottle and put on some Xmas music. I was truly thankful that there was a package of Top Ramen in the back of the cupboard. MERRY XMAS TO ME! *You know who I am. You know what you did. Bout to skeet (?) some eggnog on ya face! “DOORBUSTERS, 6AM…FUCK” SHL thought about quitting her job in retail. She always did at this time of year. But walking off the floor of the Target Greatland would not sustain her dreams

• + eventually somebody has to bring up urine.

of becoming the first woman to complete an interpretative dance to “all the single ladies” while on fire on top of the empire state building. “CLEAN UP ON AISLE 7”…”I’M ON IT.” Then, when I came to, I noticed I had pissed my pants. A problem I thought I had bested back during my pre-teen years. Now, here in my late 20s it was beginning to plague me once again. No more glasses of water before bed, especially when it follows a fifth of Jack and a bump of H. I thought it would be the best if Marilyn Monroe had said, “You can be anybody’s dream girl, all you’ve got to do is try.” Like maybe a perfume ad or something but she’s dead. Ugh. So that is kind of a bummer thing.

• Now we're cooking with elbow grease.

So I don’t understand why it costs so muck to look at naked ladies live. It makes no sense! They should pay me sometimes to get naked. They’d love it! Someone told me I looked like a young Nick Nolte once. Best compliment. Since I can’t drive anymore, I started riding my little roller skates. I feel weird sometimes with the way people stare. But they can suck a dart. My feelings don’t get hurt much anymore. Not since Sammy died. Oh Sammy. I miss your sweet shuffle, the way you smelled better than anyone in the room all the time. You little fucker. But yeah, that’s about all I can say about that, without throwing up too hard.

• Unflavorable feelings.

Truffles. What? I went to Pike Place Market today to buy my little brother something “truffle-related,” which is all he asked for for Christmas. We were to the swank truffle/wine shop, picked out the $25 fancy salt/truffle/oil gift pack and tried to leave. TRIED. The dumb salesguy made me pour truffle salt on my hand and lick it off In front of him! Barf. I felt pervy and unflavorable. I gave him my $25 and left, hoping my brother appreciates his g-damn “truffle-related” gift. Ma ha. The man I met one night when the parking spots were hard to find….I think it was a wedding…a special night

• "I hate Meowie! She is the meanest!"

…now I’m honored to be a friend of this noble feller. And let’s just say it…..i like that hat baby. 2 WORDS: BACON ART. Five times with four hands. I hate Meowie! She is the meanest! But I like when she sees a bird and goes, “MEH-EH-EH-EH!” Listen…Christmas is the best because you get to see everyone you love & drink tons of stuff but we all know Jesus was Jewish. Happy Hanukkah! Or is it Chanukah? I can’t keep up with Yiddish

• In a nutshell, this idea was fair to middling.

spelling. Or English spelling for that matter. People at this party are talking about video games + “the future.” Subjects I’m not terribly interested in. hmmm…oh…the future rode hard like a red nosed fan based retail social net work sop (?). Shop on line and have one man install ones lights. I bought underwear for you. French. I love you. I lit the candels and put my elf ears on. What do you think? Were you good? The lights glow beneath the snow. So bright time melts.

• No, this was a good idea!

So many fallen soldiers. Candy cane soldiers. Merry Christmas 2010 and that’s a wrap!”

(If one person desires a dramatic reading of this, I will make an MP3 and post it here.)

OBLIG SHOW REVIEW: Hat City / Dancer & Prancer @ The Comet. Last Thursday night at the Comet totally ruled with Seattle’s #1 nice guys Hat City. This rather new band does a lot of volunteering for charity and then they play songs about the charities that they’re helping. All merch and door proceeds go to charity. They are called Hat City because they wear a lot of hats and they switch hats between songs, etc. It is really good for a city like Seattle to have a band like Hat City! After the show I saw a group of teens waiting for a bus and Hat City gave them a ride home.

• THE BEST SUB SHOP / WORLD BEST SANDWICHES is actually the best.

HOT FOOD NEWS TIP: Best Sub Shop at 5304 1st Ave S is, as far as I can tell, the best sub shop. I would literally kill for their Torpedo as I type, but only like ants and flies and stuff. It’s not open very late and the person who was making my sandwich coughed a bunch when she was doing so, but I don’t mind things like that.

• I like that it looks like marching armies of LPs about to attack one of those laser radar dishes from Godzilla movies to conquer a mattress continent. - Drew Wilson 12/20/2010

WET RECORDS TIP: Last week my column was mostly me having a nervous breakdown spazz because a lot of my things got wet. When I noticed a whole bunch of my records in water, I frantically looked on the compu-tron to see if there was a way to save them. Most well-wishers informed me that the record covers were ruined. THIS IS NOT THE CASE, YOU ARE LIARS. So here, I will explain that if you have wet records, take the plastic sleeves (hopefully you have those on them already) and paper sleeve apart from the records and throw them away. Use towels to wipe jackets and records as dry as you can, and make stacks of covers with LPs between them. Put a big flat thing on top and set them on the floor. Then I used a combination of porta-heater & Heather Sorrentino’s oscillating fan (though any could work) and for the most part I saved a lot of my wet records. Only one record dried to the cover, otherwise all of the covers are a little warpy near the bottom. Hopefully you find this if you are looking to save your records because they are really wet right now and you are frantic. I can assure you, everything is going to be okay. Later, I will tell you when there is mold in my lungs. (key words: wet records, how to save wet records, oh no my records are wet, how is babby formed)