Monday, August 3, 2009

A night to remember. The truth about Michael Jacksons death


We settled into our seats and waited for the cocktail waitress to take our order. Tonight was going to be interesting. Rather then just the usual assortment of super hotties at our favorite topless club, a new dancer from L.A. was going to be sharing her god given talents (or surgically enhanced) and the rumor circulating in the dressing room was that Michaela was thin, pale white and super fine. A bit like Megan Fox if she was left indoors for a few weeks with only brown rice and vegetables.

At the very moment my Grey Goose greyhound in a tall glass was placed on the table, she took the stage. This was no slow dancer. She moved like a skater on ice, gliding across center stage, her movements precise. My bro, Elric Starr, looked over at me and we each cracked a smile and involuntarily leaned forward in our seats. “This girl can dance,” he muttered under his breath while not even giving me the courtesy of a glance as he was mesmerized by Michaela and the Egyptian veil covering most of her face.

Gyrating around like a teenager on ecstasy, the clothes began to fall away until she was down to a small top and some booty shorts that had the words “Bubbles” scrawled on her tiny butt. As if on cue, the music slowed and a small monkey lumbered onto the stage jumping on her back. As if trained by some perverted animal trainer, the monkey began to remove Michaela’s top, dropping it to the floor, than grabbing and throwing it to the cheering crowd.

The song switched to "Thriller", old school yes, but somehow it worked and as if by magic, Michaela jumped from the stage in a flash of light reminiscent of an old Pepsi commercial, landing into the crowd. This was one choreographed dance. She looked at us and smiled thru her veil. It was hard to visually penetrate the silk material and the black lights didn’t help any but she was unique, heavenly, distant and yet, I couldn’t grasp if she was Ebony or Ivory. “Must be a real exotic,” I thought.

Her breasts were naturals, which I personally love, but Elric favors “bolt ons” and thus was more focused on her backside. As he casually lifted a $20.00, she moon-walked in our direction as another roar erupted from the crowd. This was a night to remember! With the translucent, dark veil covering her face in shadow, she danced unlike any human on earth. In fact, it was if Michaela had been professionally trained her entire life and was now preparing for this one incredible moment. I became obsessed with her face and I wanted to rip the veil off but elected to calm down not wishing to take a beating from the burly 220 lb balding and obese bouncer a few steps away. In fact, there were 5 additional bouncers surrounding us as if Michaela had her own personal army of bodyguards and with that in mind, I decided to just chill and let the moment play out.

Michaela dropped onto Elric’s lap and the well-known grin of his opened wide like sunshine on a cloudy day. Once again, the song shifted to another old school Motown tune and I could see Elric moving to the music. For a moment, the light from center stage illuminated the veil and there was something very familiar about her nose. I couldn’t place it but for one second my mind raced, trying to piece it all together. Elric caught my glance and momentarily pulled his eyes away from her body and towards the veil. A look of panic came over him and he glanced back at me with that same expression you see on folks who just realized that the fat one they just took a hit off wasn’t the $400 ounce of purple kush they thought they just bought, but rather a stale bag of $20 Meck. As Michaela finished grinding on him, she raised herself up to move towards some guys on our right; but leaned in close to Elric’s ear and whispered in a shrill, high voice, “Order me some Jesus Juice and I'll be back.”

I almost gagged when I heard Michaela speak and it instantly dawned on me what we had just witnessed and the magnitude of the scam that had been perpetrated on the people of the world over the last few weeks. Michael Jackson hadn’t died. He had staged his death so that he could escape a life he could no longer handle but continue to do what he desired and needed. Wacko Jacko had reinvented himself as a white stripper, dancing and performing for crowds on the topless circuit in Phoenix, Arizona and had brought his beloved chimp with him.

As “I'll Be There” played in the background, Elric could barely contain the insanity of the moment. No one would believe us and despite the fact that Entourage is starting to get boring and Beyonce’s mother is the worst designer on the planet, it all paled in comparison to what we had just experienced this night. I ordered another greyhound, dropped two hits of military grade acid recently acquired from Lindsey Lohan’s “manager” and slumped deeply into my chair as the room melted away.

Elric ran out into the alley looking to buy a twenty sack of anything and glanced skyward as a comet slowly sailed across the horizon. The back door of the club opened and a golden casket was wheeled into a waiting hearse. As his legs gave out and Elric slumped to the driveway, the hearse moved slowly away and through the darkened windows, he could see the door of the casket slowly lift as a hand with a white glove pushed it upward. “Oh God” he said to no one in particular, “Hunter S. Thompson has nothing on me now.”

To read more of Veruca Salt's columns visit

http://www.examiner.com/x-12558-Phoenix-All-Things-Hipster-Examiner

Monday, July 27, 2009

“Main Man Ray” destroys meal at downtown eatery Arrabbiata


You know that saying about making choices in life? Like if you're faced with the dilemma of dating Siamese twins and you can’t recall which one you hooked up with the last time? Either way you lose and it was that kind of dilemma I faced the other evening at the restaurant Arrabbiata with their food server "Main Man Ray" (I 'm using the moniker from Rain Man to be kind). I was told the food and service are quite wonderful at this small Downtown Phoenix eatery but this was an experience that calls to mind the painful and surreal, as if having to listen to Ashton Kutcher try and sell me a digital camera while begging me to follow him on Twitter.

You see my "Main Man Ray" isn’t an idiot savant or autistic, in fact he's not even an idiot. No, my "Main Man Ray actually is quite good. Quite good at being the worst food server since Jack Nicholson’s waitress in that old classic “Five Easy Pieces.”

Upon arrival at Arrabbiata and being unable to locate the hostess, my date and I fought our way through the empty restaurant to a barely clean metal table encrusted with the dying remnants of botulism. Dusting off the menu, I asked for bottled water (still as opposed to sparkling) as we perused the offerings. After beating a large fly away from our table, we decided to play it safe and split an appetizer, settling on the Lower Napa Valley Windmill Farm’s vine ripened tomatoes drizzled with sublime virgin olive oil on top of semi soft Burnetts Dairy Coop mozzarella and carefully aged and balanced (on the side) balsamic vinegar of Modena. (Who thinks up the descriptions of this stuff?)

Five minutes had now passed and I was getting pretty damn thirsty, still no bottled water and to make matters worse, I couldn’t find my "Main Man Ray" anywhere. Seven minutes later, no agua, no "Main Man Ray" and my eyes could no longer tear. At about the ten minute mark, my girl was fading due to dehydration, my throat began to slowly contract due to lack of bodily fluids and I thought that heroin would be legalized before he surfaced again. At minute thirteen, we realized something was up as we heard the toilet flush for the second time with the sound of swirling water bouncing off porcelain echoing loudly into the empty dining room. At that very moment, my "Main Man Ray" came walking out of the men’s bathroom tucking his shirt into his pants. We looked at each other with both fear and disgust, as it was quite obvious that Ray had just pinched a loaf or as they say in prison; dropped the Cosby Kids off at the pool.

We watched in horror, (traditionally reserved for Wednesday nights when we see larvae consume zebra flesh recently felled by packs of hyenas on the National Geographic Channel) as he brought a plate over to our table. But thank God, instead of what we ordered three weeks earlier, he incorrectly delivered a plate of mixed Italian meats, cheeses and vegetables, which unfortunately looked like one of the Cosby kids he had recently deposited in the pool. As we slid our chairs back and got up to remove ourselves from this nightmare, the manager, some tool with an Ed Hardy dress shirt (an oxymoron I know) momentarily glanced our way, but ultimately must have concluded that whatever was going on in our station was standard fare and thus didn’t rise to the level of a Homeland Security Defcon 4 alert requiring his immediate attention. As my "Main Man Ray" opened his pie hole in confusion and a bit of drool began to form in the corner of his mouth, we thanked our lucky stars that we had not ingested any food, that my "Main Man Ray" was a kind, but benign moron and though I know he wanted to speak, I am certain the only words he could utter were, "Kmart Sucks."

“No Ray, you suck and so does Arrabbiata”.

We tossed a penny onto the table and exited stage left.

To read more of Veruca Salt's columns visit the following link:

http://www.examiner.com/x-12558-Phoenix-All-Things-Hipster-Examiner