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If the pictures aren't cutely nested on the right side of the paragraphs
with their caption overhead, then your browser can't handle cascading
style sheets. So upgrade already!
So,
I get this faintly scandalous e-invitation to the
Alamo Drafthouse, which
is running another episode of
Chemistry
101, which is basically an Austin-specific dating reality show, which
in this particular case is showcasing three folks one of whom is my
friend Rachel's friend Lisa - Hence the name "LISA GONE
WILD!!!" on the e-vite.
Lisa (left) and Rachel (right) at a 1997 party
Now Lisa's an attractive female, so I could see how she'd end
up on a reality show - although she's not really the type I go for (her
being more than just a little bi notwithstanding). Rachel, on the other
hand, is someone I've always found to be exceptionally cool, bright, and
hot, as well, but I hadn't had much opportunity to chat with her since
med school took her out of Austin. So now the chance to see her after so
long, and to meet her also-cool husband Kevin, seemed quite compelling.
So I went.
Lisa asleep at a party in 1997. Cute though.
Seems like a pretty harmless setup right? Go meet a memorable college
friend, see her friend (who probably can't even remember you - she drank
more back then, she claims) get publicly harassed, howl at the screen a
bit in the scandalous spots, and eat and drink the usual lovely things
we're used to finding at the Alamo.
Naturally, as I arrive, I recognize nobody for quite some time.
Although Ashley, a chemistry-101-ophile of some standing sitting next to
me, was fun to talk to, I was feeling a bit despondent at the idea of not
getting to visit with the main reason for coming...
They had these little Scantron sheets that make a nice extension of the
metaphor of "Chemistry 101". I wrote my order on one:
Poultrygeist chicken pesto pizza and a lemonade, yum.
Fortunately Rachel and I did somehow manage to recognize each other after
so long, and she and Kevin even left their -huge- group to come up and
visit with me for a couple of minutes. I'd sat near the front, but
moving back to join them wasn't viable - they'd packed the cinema
almost all the way across with friends :-) and sitting with them was out.
Did I mention the little quiz they give you?
But onward with the hearsay about the event. After the film of the last
trio of victims is shown, you get to watch a bunch of folks you don't know
get drafted through whatever demented mechanism, voting by volume,
divination, or other twisted way the staff might devise for find
sacrifices for the next, intimately, thoroughly filmed compete-a-date
exhibition. Can't argue with being a spectator to that, eh?
It's quite cute, really. The Scantron sheets are supposed to be
the answer form for some fourteen questions of incredibly obscure
hipness trivia about fashion, wine, designer clothing, make-up
products, foreign nation's melon production, geography, STD triage, and
other unfathomables. I have to transfer my order to a more generic
sheet of paper I hadn't initially noticed so I can apply the Scantron
to its natural mission. I feel confident my answers for #1 and #2, and
most of the rest are just... frightening. Okay, make that
"brutal" instead of "cute".
Lisa baring her ass at a party in 1997
As it turned out in real life, after this mind-warping little quiz, the
show itself was hilarious. Lisa, Russ, and Sarah (if I have her name
right) get ferried around in a Jaguar to Laser Tag, boozing, Truth Or
Dare, and other fine entertainments, while being filmed the entire time.
Russ takes the slightly-goofy-but-deliberately-hip approach (which Lisa
liked for a while, so it wasn't all that bad), while Sarah plays the
conservative reserved type, and Lisa covers her natural wild streak with
aplomb. It's funny watching a girl being cool on screen while all her
friends in the audience are screaming "slut" with enthusiasm
from the audience - right beside her.
Alcohol turns Russ more transparent, and by the end it looked more likely
that Lisa would score with Sarah than anything else, except that Sarah
had already backed away from the Truth Or Dare to strip Lisa's underwear
and nothing since then had really warmed up the scene yet.
Then we score the evil little quizzes. I get #1 and #2 right, then
totally bomb the "Which wine is not the red?"
- apparently despite four of the five answers being the correct non-reds,
I picked the one red wine. Dammit. I wonder if I'll beat a 3?
After the show, the victims (*ahem*, stars) are pulled up to the front
stage for last words, evil suggestions from the audience, and other such
closure type items. Only Lisa is actually looking sane and well adjusted
at this point, despite probably being the wildest of the three of them in
real life. Although Russ does end up kissing my left-hand companion,
Ashley, before the end, when she volunteered.
Then the third stage begins, where people are told to stand if they got
any significant number of questions right. Apparently one show was won
by getting as few as just three right, so at first people
scoring at least that are told to stand.
Uh-oh. I did manage to beat three, despite the test having been concocted
by evil fashion ninjas from the ninth dimension. Well, at least a
lot of other people are standing.
By five though, quite a lot fewer are standing, then by eight or so, it's
beginning to look sparse. By nine, there's a debate whether or not the
group can be reduced any further and still make quota.
Oh shit. I got ten right.
So, suddenly a bunch of us are on stage with the ringmaster. About four
women, the rest of us men.
Oh shit. I know I dropped chunks of pizza on myself
while eating... did I get them off?
We're forced to introduce ourselves.
Suddenly I'm reminded I'm not exactly a people person, no matter the
years I spent in theatre, no matter the concerts at the UT Performing
Arts Center with only two, or even one, other musician, no matter being
comfortably naked in front some eight hundred people (a lot of them were
naked too, I think). Instead I remember the appallingly low Interpersonal
score mentioned in the earlier post, my quiet year or two as a hermit,
and the probable existence of pizza on my trousers, no matter how tasty.
And technically I haven't brushed my hair since yesterday (about 3 hours
ago). Did I mention the ingrown whisker? Aaagh!
The guys are mostly playing the goofy/cool thing Russ started out with.
It works pretty well, the crowd seems to like them. I feel cowed. Now,
why am I up here again. No, let me rephrase that, why is the crowd
suddenly three times louder when I'm introduced?!
Pardon me while I go into shock now.
I hypothesize, that since Rachel and Kevin's whole group saw them get up
to come greet me, that I've been adopted. Either that or a lot more
people than I thought like long hair, or pizza chunks (no, I got those
off), or something. Who knows. I'm still in shock. Being
congratulated after the event has shut down by scads of folks who apparently
voted for me (apparently some of the women found my lack of
goofy refreshing), or according to a few, voted for
me twice (is that legal?) is just too inexpressibly
weird for words.
This blonde chick wants a lock of my hair?!
Oh, what the hell, why not...
Well, if it should indeed happen that I'm mysteriously voted into a
dating reality show, I can only hope to acquit myself honorably, or at
least entertainingly, because I know that without question, no matter how
horribly the actual events pan out...
...Pretty much everybody I know, will know exactly how badly it
turns out.
Or how well it turns out. Is optimism like pleading the fifth?
Did I mention some of the other inductees were cute? :-)
We shall see. ;-)
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