Things that happen at night
Hot chicks dressed as bunnies and the rest of this week's nightlife gossip.
Shot on scene
Bunny Anissa Astillero is one of the so-called Champagne Bunnies behind Vanity Sundays, a weekly night featuring music by bands like War Stories and DJs who spin nothin’ but rock ’n’ roll. Sangria and champagne specials, the occasional sensual-gift party and an abnormally good-looking crowd comprising a who’s-who from the salon industry round out the event. Anissa and her long-eared cohorts can be found bouncing from table to table at The Office, 3936 30th St. in North Park, every Sunday night.
The Enrique Experience
The brass stripper pole was perfectly polished, and the silver-flecked granite shone as a packed house waited in the Dom Pérignon of titty bars, Larry Flynt’s Hustler Club (3334 Midway Drive) for a personal appearance by porn star Tera Patrick. Moments before the show—accompanied by her two Chihuahuas, Chopper and Mr. Big Time, and hus band Evan Seinfeld—Patrick nattered with CityBeat about who’s on her Christmas shit list and what’s the most realistic polymer rendering of her vagina. Read on:
Enrique: What’s the biggest misconception that comes with being an adult-film star?
Patrick: We’re not all sexually abused runaways for one; I’m a married entrepreneur. In a world where women typically are objectified and exploited, I head my own company and call the shots. If anything, I preach empowerment over exploitation.
Enrique: In a crossover move, you’re the latest downloadable character in the Saints Row 2 videogame. What other projects are you working on?
Patrick: I’m releasing two films per month, working on my Mistress Couture lingerie line, writing a book, DJing at TAO Las Vegas and developing my own burlesque show.
Enrique: So, no plans to retire? Wikipedia says you’re hanging up your heels in ’09 and they’re never wrong.
Patrick: Um, yeah, they also say that I’m Jewish and fluent in Hungarian.
Enrique: Your Futurotic Pussy & Ass toy retails for $311.99, yet your Ultimate Love Doll goes for $386.99. How do you explain the price difference?
Patrick: [Laughs] Doesn’t make a lot of sense, right? I’d suggest my new Fleshlight [self-pleasure sleeve] as a good stocking stuffer; it’s so good my husband takes it on the road and says that it’s the next best thing to being there.
Enrique: Have you been naughty or nice?
Patrick: I try to find a good balance, but it’s always more fun to be naughty.
Enrique: Who would you give coal to this year?
Patrick: Sarah Palin, for being an uptight cunt! Anyone who shoots Bambi out of a helicopter shouldn’t be guiding our children.
With those sage words, the sleeve-tattooed vixen took the stage to Marilyn Manson’s “User Friendly” and showered her fans with suggestively worked-over posters, licked DVDs and crotch-caressed glossy 8-by-10s. Tera Patrick in 2012!
—Enrique Limón
Locals Only
The recently opened Sushi, A Center for the Urban Arts is launching a new series of monthly concerts called the Fresh Sound Music Series. The shows and post-concert discussions are scheduled for the second Tuesday of every month and will focus on “cutting-edge music by highly respected musicians and present new and experimental, contemporary classical, electronic, computer-generated and improvised music with video and other multidisciplinary components.” The shows will also have a “pay what you can” admission price with the first one scheduled for Jan. 13 with Nels and Alex Cline of Wilco performing.
Starting Friday, Dec. 26, at Crash Encore’s show at The Casbah, fans of the indie rockers will be able to sign up to receive the band’s sophomore album, Volume II, for free via download. Fans will also be able to give feedback on the tracks and vote for their favorites through Crash Encore’s website.
Also releasing his music via free download is troubadour James Musselman, who works under the name Longsleeves. He has released three new EPs of varying styles of music through his MySpace page and the Sixty Years War Recordings website.
Singer and scenester May*Star (real name: May Jacob) will relaunch her famous club night, Fashion Whore, on New Year’s Eve. The event, which features DJs and fashion shows, is returning to where it originally started, The Ruby Room (formerly the San Diego Sports Club), and will continue, starting in February 2009, on every first Saturday of the month.
In “another one bites the dust” news, much to fans surprise, Wendy Darling played their final San Diego show at Beauty Bar this past Saturday before a planned move to San Francisco. Via e-mail, bassist Jon Freeman said, “Basically San Francisco is awesome and we just want [to] experience new stuff.” Guitarist Nate Heller adds, “I think the scene up there will suit us well.”
—Seth Combs
Missed the boat?
The Boat House is one of those underground things that, once you find it, you’re like, “I can’t believe I’ve been missing this.” Once you’re there, you’ll say, “I can’t believe this actually exists in San Diego.” And when you leave, you’ll turn to the cute stranger next to you and whisper, “I’ll definitely be back.”
The house-turned-underground-live-music-venue certainly isn’t the first or last of its kind, but it’s notable because promoter extraordinaire Jackson Milgaten, aka “Action Jackson”—who’s in bands such as The Vision of a Dying World, The Paddle Boat and Cuckoo Chaos and books good shows at mainstream venues—is at the helm.
Before last Thursday night’s show at The Boat House, the main source of entertainment in the tiny living room was a video of a burning fire in a fireplace left looping on the television screen. The snail crawling up the fish tank was pretty cool, too, but as soon as the music started, all eyes and ears were on the bands.
The crowd of 20 or so striped-shirt and skinny-jeans-wearing 20-somethings actually shut up, sat in a tight semi-circle around the band and listened while openers Golden Red got things going. By the time The Paddle Boat took the makeshift stage (a segment of the carpeted floor sectioned off by Christmas lights), the room was so packed that strangers were forced to sit uncomfortably close to one another, invading each other’s personal space so as not to be one of the five poor bastards stuck outside in the cold, listening through a cracked window. With Milgaten on bass, Jeremy Scott (also in The Vision of a Dying World) on guitar and Jane Weibel on clarinet, the three charmed the crowd with nice vocal harmonies led by Scott (who writes most of the songs), the whimsical and nostalgia-inducing sounds of the clarinet, the lulling meandering bass line and a few strums of the guitar.
Closer Peter and the Wolf, a solo project by Austin, Texas, musician Red Hunter, was a bit of a disappointment. While excellent recorded, the guys’ live shows, whether in a living room or an amphitheater, are a bit of a gamble.
—Kinsee Morlan
The Paddle Boat play at The Boat House again on Jan. 2.
