Welcome Olga M.
Dateline: Dec. 15, 2008
Winston’s Beach Club, Ocean Beach, CA
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By way of introduction, the Ancient of Days, chiding the too-hot/too-cold, too-soft/too-hard Goldilocksum of His day, once remarked that the crowd was reminiscent of “children sitting in the market and calling to their fellows, and saying ‘We have piped for you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned [sung the blues] for you, and you have not lamented.” I can relate, dear readers, to such sonic and situational discordance. For in the course of the 36 hours culminating in last Monday’s show, your reporter found himself (a) the preceding Sunday evening, cloth-napkin dining with the Queen of Finland [not Olga M.] - pre-recorded Sibelius in the background, of course - followed by a live performance of Handel’s Messiah; and then (b) Monday night/Tuesday morning cramming down a burrito between Waste Band sets 1 & 2 on a dark and rainy Newport Ave. under the veiled threat of the Mannequin King’s [keyboardest Bell’s] inclusion of yours truly on the “guest-list.” [Editor’s note: Stephen King may have written a book called “Guest List” if you catch my drift.] My point: each evening’s monarch called the shots. So the next logical question is: “why the Ukrainian shirt on Monday night? Finland was Sunday's royal; Monday's was the Mannequin nation. What‘s up?” Unbeknownst to me, the answer was: for Olga M., of course. “Who’s Olga M.?” My answer then would have been “beats me.” Keep reading. Turns out it was special effects night.