The Kinsey Fourteen / Cuppa Golgappa
Well! Not since 2013 have I gone three years between Kinsey Sicks concerts -- although 2013 remains the record, having been four years since the previous concert at that time. I then saw them in 2015, and again in 2016 . . . but, this time it had been three years since the last time. These stretches have less to do with my inclination to see them than when they happen to come to town to perform. In any case, as indicated by my last post about seeing them (still being on LiveJournal at the time), I shall now post the traditional history of all fourteen times I have seen them, now spanning over twenty years:
#1. Oakland, CA, at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force conference, November 1999. *
#2. San Francisco, CA, at the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association Conference, September 2000.
#3. Benaroya Hall, November 2000, with Barbara.
#4. Provincetown, August 2001, with Gabriel.
#5. Meaney Hall, May 24, 2003, with Barbara. "Sicks In the City." **
#6. First time at the Triple Door, November 12, 2004, with Barbara. "I Wanna Be a Republican."
#7. Second time at the Triple Door, December 19, 2005, with Shobhit and Barbara. "Oy Vey In a Manger: Christmas Carols and Other Jewish Music."
#8. Third time at the Triple Door, December 22, 2006, with Barbara. "Oy Vey In a Manger: Christmas Carols and Other Jewish Music."
#9. Fourth time at the Triple Door, December 26, 2008, with Shobhit. "Oy Vey In a Manger: Christmas Carols and Other Jewish Music." ***
#10. Fifth time at the Triple Door, December 10, 2009, with Barbara. "Wake the Fuck Up, America! The Christmas Version."
#11. Sixth time at the Triple Door, March 24, 2013, with Laney. "America's Next Top Bachelor Housewife Celebrity Hoader Makeover Star Gone Wild."
#12. Seventh time at the Triple Door, June 15, 2015, with Shobhit. "Chicks with Schicks." ****
#13. Eighth time at thte Triple Door, July 10, 2016, with Laney. "Electile Dysfunction."
#14. Tacoma, WA, at the Rialto Theater, July 12, 2019, with Laney. "Things You Shouldn't Say!"
And as you can see, Friday's show was the first new venue I've seen them at since the first time at The Triple Door in 2004 (having seen them there eight times in a row between 2004 and 2016); and the first new city I've seen them in since I saw them in Provincetown with Gabriel in 2001. Granted, Tacoma is not exactly a far cry from Seattle, but it technically counts!
This was also, incidentally, a bittersweet occasion -- the last-ever show I will have seen with any of the original Kinsey Sicks members still in the group. It had several months ago been announced that this would be the final show with Ben Schatz as Rachel, although I spoke with her briefly after the show on Friday and she said she actually has one more show now. In Maryland. In any case, the asterisks included this time above indicate their history of turnover over the time I have been seeing their shows:
* Even at my first time seeing them perform, the original "Vaselina" (Jerry Friedman) was already replaced by the first "Trampolina," played by Chris Dilley, who I have always felt was by far the best vocal talent ever to be a part of the group. Dilley remained in the group for nearly a decade thereafter, and so I saw at least eight shows of theirs with the first Trampolina in it. To this day I miss Dilley's version of Trampolina, and I can't help but wonder if he makes more money doing other work; the Kinsey Sicks were never especially famous outside queer audiences, and afforded Dilley an established brand that he clearly has never again replicated.
** "Trixie" is the character who has had the most turnover of all the characters -- and also the most diverse representation, come to think of it. I can still remember seeing that show at Meaney Hall in 2003, the original Trixie (Maurice Kelley) replaced by a black person in the same platinum blonde wig (Kevin Kirkwood). It was only a year, however, before Trixie was then played by Jeff Manabat, who is Asian, and as of 2019 is the second-longest running performer still in the group (and will be the longest-running one as of Schatz's departure). Manabat as Trixie still wore the platinum wig at first, but then switched it to black (yet in basically the same style) to be more in line with his ethnicity.
*** December 2008 was the first performance I saw with Trampolina's replacement, played by Spencer Brown, who has thus now been with the Kinsey Sicks longer than Chris Dilley was. I was genuinely bummed by the discovery that Dilley had departed, and relieved that Brown was not terrible -- still, he wasn't nearly as great a vocal talent as Dilley. (This was also the year, by the way, that I got to be the blond from the crowd that Rachel pulled onstage to sing "Where the Goys Are.")
**** And then, in 2015, Irwin Keller as "Winnie", who had at that point for 22 years been one of two original performers of The Kinsey Sicks, finally departed to pursue a path as a rabbi. I was nearly as fond of Keller as Winnie as I had been of any of the characters, and again, his replacement, Nathan Marken, was kind of slow to grow on me.
Now even Ben Schatz is departing, leaving a different take on Rachel, the most delightfully crass and depraved one of the group. Their website already includes photos of Schatz's replacement, who is strangely much, much taller. So, the next time The Kinsey Sicks comes to Seattle (or Tacoma), every one of the positions will be filled by an unoriginal performer -- the Crass Queer Menudo. I will absolutely see them again the next time they are in town, more out of curiosity than anything, but how I feel about that show will largely determine whether I will continue seeing them on into the future.
At least Schatz is planning to continue writing for the group, and I am heartened by that. And I was sure glad to get this final opportunity to seem him perform (at the age of roughly 60), and I may not even have managed that without Laney being quite interested in joining me -- this being her third time seeing them with me. She picked me up at home at 5:30 and drove me in her new(ish) van down to Tacoma, which took about ninety minutes in rush-hour traffic -- with no traffic it would have taken about half that time. She found street parking with someone else pulling out of the spot just as we drove up to it, which was super lucky, literally a block and a half away from the theatre.
And, this served as our July "Happy Hour" outing, although there was nothing like a typical "Happy Hour" to it -- no cocktails, only beer and wine; no discounts, except that you get a dollar off any new pours if you bought the souvenir sippy. And that’s precisely what we did, as you can see by the cups in our hands in the photo above; we both got a double pour of wine with the cup purchase, and then another double pour at intermission. I would not have been in any state to drive by the end of the show, but Laney said she was (and appeared to be) unaffected, so she still drove us back home.
As for the show itself, "Things You Shouldn't Say!", it was full of songs I already knew, only one of them not on any of their many CDs, all of which I have long owned -- although truth be told, they haven't released particularly worthy collections of new material in over a decade. I still buy every album of theirs that comes out, which only in recent years includes digital releases on iTunes, which I have long preferred. All that said, the show was quite pointedly very nostalgic and history-minded, with the end of the first act featuring Rachel offering an unusually serious monologue about what it was like to live as an openly gay man in San Francisco at the height of the AIDS crisis. One lady near the back of the house kept interrupting her with things like "I hear you!" -- which was weirdly an even mix of annoying and something to appreciate; it was even part of the show's script for the Kinseys to acknowledge the invaluable support of the lesbian community in those years. And then, after discussing the reprehensible treatment of people with HIV and AIDS by the U.S. government, they drew a very clear line between that bigotry and the kind currently being leveraged at immigrants. As I noted to Laney on the drive down there, this country never really fucking changes.
And then, later in the show, the one song they performed not currently on any recordings was "Privilege," really a very succinct lesson on what privilege really is and how it works.
Don't get the wrong idea, though! The rest of the show was hilarious, and both Laney and I laughed a lot. Also, when I went through the line to get a brief chat with Rachel after the show, I even mentioned this: after coming to their shows fourteen times since 1999, and taking some time to like previous performers being replaced by new ones, this current iteration of the foursome has truly never sounded better. Every single one of the non-original cast members -- Jeff Manabat as Trixie, Spencer Brown as Trampolina, and Nathan Marken as Winnie -- sound far more honed in vocal craft than when each of then first started. They blended and harmonized incredibly well. And although I cannot yet speak for the new Rachel, I can otherwise say that these guys are still absolutely worth seeing.
Then, after driving back to Seattle, Laney parked in her parking spot at her apartment building, and we still felt like hanging out for a bit and so we walked over to La Cocina. I did not want any more to drink but I ordered a plate of nachos; Laney had herself a snack as well. And then I walked home, where Shobhit had been home from work for a little while and was actually already in bed sleeping. I was in bed at 12:11 that night.
So that brings us to Saturday, when Shobhit worked noon to 7:15, and I took myself to an afternoon showing of a very good movie called Wild Rose. I was going to see something else, but Laney told me on Friday night about this movie I had not yet heard much about which she was going to see with Jessica late Saturday morning. She even invited me to join them, but later had to text me, Sorry to uninvite you but Jessica says it's a mother-daughter thing. And that was fine; Shobhit wanted to do some grocery shopping before he went to work, and by the time we got back it was too late for that showtime anyway -- although I was already conscientiously avoiding it just so they wouldn't think I was trying to crash their party.
That said, I rode my bike down to the Regal Meridian for the 2:30 showing, and I got there rather early, and happened to see Laney and Jessica coming down the escalator as I was ascending them. That was a brief bit of fun; Laney told me I would need tissues, and I'm glad she said that so I grabbed a couple of napkins before going in (after sitting at one of the tables by a third-story window for a little while). I did not exactly weep at that movie, but I did have some tears I had to wipe away. I really liked that movie a lot, and both Laney and Jessica quite liked my review I posted later.
I also went to Steamworks on Saturday -- twice! It was kind of a bust the first go-round, and then I decided I'd go back after dinner when it was sure to be busier, which was still just all right but definitely better than the first visit. And in between, I came home so Shobhit and I could go out for dinner -- a place we found while headed for Hopvine on 15th Avenue, called Vacilando. We were compelled by the menu posted by the door, and looked it up on Yelp and found it had good reviews.
Well, the food was fantastic. The service, on the other hand, was terrible. So terrible, in fact, Shobhit actually posted a Yelp review (his second ever; looks like his first was in 2017, for Bellevue Nissan). Even I was annoyed by the terrible service -- which can sometimes be excused if a place is busy and understaffed, but this place was not in the slightest bit understaffed, and their young waiters spent a lot of time just standing around doing nothing (or, as Shobhit pointed out, looking at their phones). We will almost certainly never eat there again so I felt okay leaving only a 10% tip, which is something I almost never do; my default is 20%.
But, whatever. Shobhit got a point for the next Social Review out of it.
He'll get another one for yesterday too, as will Danielle and her friend Lisa, who came over for dinner last night. This was after Shobhit worked a shift yesterday from 8am to 4:30 pm, and in that time I took myself to another movie -- Halston -- which was not nearly as worthy. I had ridden my bike to Lower Queen Anne and back for that; when I got back, I had enough time to write the review and then Danielle and Lisa arrived right at about 4:30.
Shobhit had suggested he make "pani puri" with the golgappas (pronounced "goal-guppa," it's a deep fried crepe sphere you then punch a little hole out of to fill with potato, garbanzo bean, and a special spiced liquid concoction for a crunch-liquidy explosion of flavor in your mouth) he had from the Indian grocery store for dinner last night, and I suggested inviting Danielle. Danielle accepted, somewhat to my surprise given the short notice, and asked if she could bring her friend Lisa, with whom she was otherwise spending the day -- they had planned on going on a hike but never did get around to that. They did stick with the dinner plan, though.
Shobhit had made this maybe twice before, but I think this was the first time he ever did it for guests. It's more of a street food snack in India, apparently, but we made it our dinner. It basically becomes a sort of assembly-line thing: pick up the golgappa, put bits of the different filling into it in turn, make sure it's filled with much more of the liquidy part, and pop into your mouth before going back to the start of the line again. It's much more complicated than most meals (or "snacks") but it's worth the effort, it's so tasty.
Lisa had to leave by 7:15 to go pick up her kids from somewhere (Danielle's kids were both at other places, either with their dad or at some camp or something), so they were at our place for precisely two hours and forty-five minutes. It was a perfect little visit, though, quite pleasant and with good food and company. Once they left, Shobhit and I set about catching up on a few TV episodes.
[posted 12:21 pm]