Kicking Out the Ritz

"I brought crackers," Kyle (pictured below) exclaimed last Wednesday night. Many times. He was leaning against the bar at Vlada and offering a slightly opened roll of Ritz crackers as if to shake my hand. Ben Andrews was with him; and they'd clearly been somewhere else before. We were there to drink Vlada's infused vodkas see Epiphany lead fill-in Misty Meaner in that week's Blonde Leading the Blonde show since Sherry Vine was away. "Your ears will be happy," Epiphany joked.

Something was in the air--and not because Kyle kept reminding me that he had crackers. The crowd was a rambunctious bunch. Epiphany was in a blissful Jack Daniel's mood, smiling widely. She'd been drinking since 4:00 p.m., she told us. "You all look so beautiful and I'm so happy to be here," Jack told us after opening with Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance," during which she had an impromptu background dancer (and foreground near the end of the number, as pictured below) from the audience.

The group participation continued when another audience member took a seat at the piano and offered to play Christina Aguilera's "Beautiful" for Epiphany to sing. His friend took the stage to feed her the lyrics (pictured below).

Soon Misty Meaner (pictured below) took the stage, giving us some Britney Spears. But we soon felt like we were in the audience of The Muppet Show.

A rather inebriated woman near the stage (who didn't need the help of the drink tickets that Epiphany and Misty were passing out) took it upon herself to channel both Statler and Waldorf, The Muppet Show hecklers (see the clip below). Even before Misty was done, the drink-sipping woman repeated almost as many times as Kyle told us he had crackers, "I could do better than that."

Kyle heckled back, of course, between Ritz bites. Jack kept telling us how good we looked and how happy she was to be there. And we tried to catch up with Epiphany. I felt like I was already drunker than what I was taking in all the fantastical mayhem.

Epiphany sang Madonna's take on "Santa Baby" and told us that Christmastime was not the only time a fat man gave her things that she wanted. She grabbed Kyle's Ritz box so it could make a cameo in the show--and so that she could kick it into the audience.

She belted through the rest of her set so energetically and I so thoroughly enjoyed my rounds of cherry-infused vodka with Baby Jane and King Ralphy (pictured below) at the bar downstairs after the show that I was spent and made my way home.