Valentine’s Day on the Saturday Six Pack… the “Classy Vagina” episode

As last week’s drunken mess of a show was a little too male-centric, I made a concerted effort to bring more women into the studio this past Saturday. Naively, I expected that doing so would result in less bawdy, more family-friendly show. I was wrong. The show was pretty filthy. But it was also super fun. If you’d like to check out the archived recording, you can do so either by way of Soundcloud or iTunes. Or, of course, you can listen to it right here.

[If you do listen on iTunes, do me a favor and leave a review, OK? As it is, they say they’ve “not received enough ratings to display an average” and I really want to know if we’re knocking ourselves out to make a one-star program or a three-star program.]

Here, for those of you who refuse to listen, are my rough notes as to what was covered during this, our fifth episode of The Saturday Six Pack.

We started the show off by opening a few Bell’s Two Hearted Ales with local pianist Ann Dahl, a whiskey-drinking lover of honkey tonk, who, when she’s not playing host at the Mix Studio piano lounge, enjoys “going down rabbit holes” with various men she meets around Ypsilanti. Among other things, Dahl told us the best and worst places in Ypsi to pick up men. (Sidetrack and Wurst Bar topped one of those lists. Smarty Katz and Maidstone topped the other.) Dahl recounted several of her adventures, which included a date with a prominent Ann Arbor attorney who liked to have intimate relations with butternut squash. We took calls, doled out Valentine’s Day advice, and encouraged people to be happy with themselves. Here’s Ann talking about the best part of Ypsi being EMU’s ability to keep brining new, young college boys to town for her enjoyment.

At the 29-minute mark, Linda Ann Jordan, Caleb Elijah-Molejo Zweifler and Jim Cherewick, who perform together as Best Exes, came in to wish us a happy holiday and play a few lovely songs for us. We discussed what it means to be a good ex, the fleeting nature of love, and, for some reason, the career choices of Nicholas Cage. They couldn’t stay long, as they had to hustle across the street to Beezy’s, to perform at the Bleeding Heart Bonanza, but it was nice while it lasted. (The two songs they performed were “Friends” and “Cactuses.”) Oh, and we talked for quite a wile about the evolution of the local music scene in the wake of Woodruff’s having closed… Here’s Jim making some beautiful music.

One of the best things about this show, I think, was the number of calls that we had. One of the best came at the 45-minute mark, while Best Exes was still in the studio. A man called to tell us about a date he’d gone on with a dominatrix that he’d met on MySpace. After taking him to K-Mart and forcing him to buy a razor and shave, because she didn’t like his stubble, she slapped him in the face, kissed him, and grabbed his balls so tightly that he had no choice but to end the date. I don’t know if he took Jim up on the offer, but Jim asked him to come to Beezy’s for a hug. (Jim says he wants to stop by the show again in the future, so we’ll have to ask him if the guy actually came out for his hug.)

And here’s Linda, drinking beer from a dixie cup, and telling us about how, earlier in the evening, she thought she may have been mistaken for a drag queen.

Then, at the 50-minute mark, we played the most recent song by our friend Pete Larson, who is currently doing research on the transmission of livestock diseases in Kenya. It may be the first love song ever written by Pete Larson.

At the top of the second hour, I talked with Heather Steenrod from Ozone House. She was supposed to come into the studio, but, after half an hour of trying to dig her car out, she gave up and called in. We talked about homelessness within our local LGBT youth population, and what Ozone house was doing to help. She also offered two free tickets to Ozone’s upcoming February 18 wine, cheese and chocolate fundraiser at Vinology, which we awarded later in the show to Paige Briana, who I’m hoping will call in this coming weekend and tell us how it went. (Did you know that, while just one in ten kids identify as being LGBT, LGBT kids make up 40% of the homeless youth population in Washtenaw County?) Heather, before hanging up, also mentioned that she loved my wife, which led, in turn, to a number of texts, calls and tweets from folks who apparently also love my wife. (Linette, among other things, does graphic design work for Ozone House.)

Then, at 1:05, Brigid Mooney came in with Moragh Goyette, one of her favorite customers from the Wurst Bar. Moragh and I chatted for a while about kilts, swords, and the like, until finally hitting on the subject of vaginas, at which point things kind of got out of hand. Here’s Goyette asking a flushed and screaming Brigid Mooney if she’d “classed up” her vagina for Valentine’s Day. It was hilariously funny, but I felt terrible for Brigid. (We also talked about the possibility of classing up a penis with a monocle and a tiny top hat.)

If you’d just like to hear Brigid screaming, fast forward to 1:29. For what it’s worth, I talked with Brigid afterward, and she says she had a great time, and plans to return next week with another one of her favorite, funny customers from the Wurst Bar… Oh, and for what it’s worth, I was just joking when I suggested that people should send in songs they’re written about Brigid and her classy vagina.

And lots of other stuff happened… At 1:21, we called a woman named Sue in Brighton about her online dating horror stories. At 1:34, we played the song “I Love You” by Prehensile Monkeytailed Skink. At 1:37, Ann Dahl and I began the process of winding down the show, comparing notes on what had been covered and exploring the possibilities of what the show could become. At 1:48, it occurred to me that I don’t have to really be in the studio to host the show, as long as the studio phone is working. I could just call the studio on my cell phone and then go wherever I want, I said. I could walk across the street to Beezy’s and order soup while on the phone, and then I could go next door to Deja Vu to ask about their plans for this summer’s big Mellonfest event… while slurping soup. It was truly a revelation, and I can’t wait to explore the possibilities. And, at 1:58, after saying that I’d like it if someone would call in and read Fifty Shades of Grey to me, the phone rang, and a woman who, for obvious reasons, chose to remain nameless, began reading. It was truly wonderful… especially as she had an animal of some kind on the background screeching. (She said it was a bird, but I think it was a monkey.) Oh, and at some point D’Real Graham popped in to drop off a bag of gifts for me, which was really sweet.

All in all, I’d say it was a good show… We even had two visits from the guy who just calls and plays songs by the Who.

Oh, I didn’t mention it on the air, but one of my kids, as I was leaving the house to go to the show, asked if I would be “mating” with people during the program. I assured everyone in my family that I would not. (It turns out, this child of mine meant to ask if I’d be matchmaking.)

A big thank you to Brian Robb who makes sure that the station’s bills are paid, and to my AM 1700 co-worker Kate de Fuccio, who took all of the photos above.

Tune in this coming Saturday for episode six… And do leave a review on iTunes if you get a chance.