Ah, SpeedStreet. Land of the five-dollar beer, free giveaways, and more girls with those little tattoos in the small of their back than in all the pornos “Silicone Valley” has ever produced.
At two points one evening, I was walking through the crowd and reached some massive congestion. Thinking quickly, I attempted to take what the racers call the “high line,” and, thus flummoxed, decided to just make a pit stop instead.
The cause of the bottleneck? A bevy of “Bar Charlotte” girls, dressed in checkerboard-flag knee socks and wearing a halter top/shorts combo whose combined fabric matched the size of the newspaper you’re holding. The gals were affixing Bar Charlotte stickers to people’s chests, and trust me when I say you’ve never seen grown men get so happy. One fellow I passed had a sticker on his crotch, but he wasn’t fooling anybody.
Right after the traffic cleared and the girls (a couple with lower-back tattoos, natch) passed, I was tapped on the arm by a young lady who handed me a card that appeared to be from the manager of the Uptown Cabaret. There was a probably-not-real first name on the card, no last name, and the legend “free” written on the back. Knowing free admission to a strip club usually means five dollars off your regular $150 bill, I declined and gave the card to another man passing by, who must have gotten really confused.
Killing time before Three Dog Night’s scheduled performance, I took a turn at the Kannapolis Intimidators’ pitching machine challenge. For a dollar, you got to throw three balls, and if you guessed the speed of the last pitch, you won a cup and a fanny pack. Figuring both would come in handy if I changed my mind on the Uptown Cabaret thing, I fired away. First pitch? 53 miles per hour. Second pitch? 54. “Guess your speed,” the man said. “Sixty-one,” I said, feeling I could reach down for some heat to close it out. “Fifty-five,” the man said to a polite round of snickering from those gathered. “That was my knuckleball,” I told him, and left for some geezer rock.
Three Dog Night, it should be said, has had what seems like Nine Cat Lives. Owners of what author John Strausbaugh calls the “runny melting-cheese faces old British guys get from a lifetime of hoisting pints,” they did an OK job, though I’m not sure they were ever quite as good as their introduction by Magic 96’s DJ — “one of the greatest live acts ever” (yeah, back when they were alive!) — would have you believe.
By this point, I was tuckered out, but I did stop by one particular giveaway booth on the way out. No matter what, it was going to be a Three Advil Night for sure.
Last Wednesday evening, I attended The Carnival Cruise Lines Comedy Challenge at Uptown’s Comedy Zone. The premise was this: A dozen comedians were to each do a five-minute set, be judged by the patrons in attendance, and get advice from a panel of folks in the comedy business (Mark Mathis was sitting with them too). The winner got to do his act on a Carnival Cruise ship, and surely also got some lovely parting gifts.After sitting down and ordering a “blue motorcycle” — something that might be moderately funny to you if you read last week’s column — I was handed my ballot, which was emblazoned “Carnvial Comedy Challenge” at the top. Figuring it as someone’s wacky sense of humor, I let it slide.
The one constant with the comedians on stage was to begin their set with a riff on Mark Mathis, who quickly became something of the Simon Cowell of the judging staff. Some of these guys were great, and others seemed like Jeff Foxworthys-in-waiting (all jokes to follow have been paraphrased, thanks to the blue motorcycles).
My faves were Mike Spurlock (“I went camping on acid the other day. It was intense!”), the Stephen Wright-like Jeff Colella (“I had sex with a girl the other day in an “Expectant Mother’ parking space. A cop came up and tried to give us a ticket, and I told him it’d all be cool if he waited 15 minutes.”), and a guy named Josh Gogueri.
“I saw something the other day that just killed me,” Gogueri said. “Britney Spears has changed her image, and she’s just not as sexy anymore. Why’d she have to go and leave the Mickey Mouse Club?”
This article appears in Jun 2-8, 2004.
