Picking up a copy of The Stranger on Friday I saw an event notice that caught my eye. It was for Dan Savage’s Valentine Day Bash and was sold as “a one-of-a-kind holiday catharsis” where members of the audience give Mr. Savage a tokens of failed relationships and watch as he destroys them in creative ways. On a whim I went ahead and bought a ticket. After all, I wasn’t doing anything last night, I find Dan Savage hysterical, and it was at Neumos (a venue I’ve been meaning to check out for a while now).
Needless to say I wasn’t disappointed. After making friends in the line (thank you contact juggling ball! You never fail to attract interesting people to talk with!) I walked down to the stage where a line of goggles were laid out on the edge. The stage itself was tarped and taped, with plastic sheeting giving it an odd gleam under the blue and red lights. Stacked in various corners were implements of destruction including:
From left to right, feathers for tar and feathering, a (freaking) chainsaw, a sledge hammer, a machete and hatchet, and a cooler filled with liquid nitrogen.
A blow torch was the item closest to me as I stood near the stage. I went ahead and grabbed the goggles…. just to be safe.
The first item of the night was a small piece of standard tourist crap from Japan, that the gentleman apparently just took off of his desk to give as a Christmas gift to his girlfriend. He broke up with her via text message as he was on his way to Denmark, and was upset that she didn’t want to attend his “breaking up with Seattle” party.
A few quick hits with the sledge hammer by our host took care of the wood and glass. Two staff members were nice enough to hold up a piece of plexiglass in an effort to protect us from flying shards…
And the blow torch took care of the embroidered birds flying joyfully around in a cute little circle. And, by the by, I was very close to the torch here. As in, could have been set aflame by a melting bird close. I wore the goggles, even though I doubted they would save me.
Some items got the archery treatment, provided by Asa, the bash’s resident professional archer. He was very good, often nailing items right through their heart (or faces, if the items were pictures of horrible exes).
This girl’s reminder of a failed relationship was an old t-shirt, which was tarred (is that the right tense?) and feathered and thrown into the street for taxi cabs to run over and the rain to course tearfully by. As you can see below, she was overjoyed by the idea.
The chainsaw took a little to get warmed up, and unfortunately sent out gasoline fumes that, regretfully, stirred up our host’s asthma. So its maiden voyage was also its only appearance that night.
He struggled a little to keep this copy of the Hitchhikers Guide (1st edition, with gold leaf on the edges of the pages… I may have shed a tear or two) on the designated cutting stump, but once it remained still the chainsaw made a very showy end for this piece of literature. Note the satisfied smile on Dan’s face.
Feeding photographs into the shredder… the girl who brought these in actually got a little teary-eyed as he went through all of them.
The item at right was a bit unusual… it was a list of all the things that the girl on stage had done wrong and was planning on not doing again in order to get back together with her girlfriend. Dan took the item list and blended it together with orange juice and a banana and both of them drank it.
The boy who brought this up had no idea what it really was. All he knew was that his girlfriend went off to India to find herself and decided not to come home. Instead her friend returned home with the fruit and a note saying that his girlfriend thought they should see other people. Dan froze the fruit in liquid nitrogen and then sledgehammered it into smithereens.
Storm troopers came on stage to give valentines to everyone. Their names? Tk-421 and Tk-422 (hehe).
And at the end Dan said goodbye to all of us standing amid the wreckage of a long and eventual bash. Many people were healed of their failed relationship baggage, free to move on just in time for Valentine’s Day!
Meanwhile I, not knowing if I was supposed to leave with them or not, tucked a souvenir of the night into my bag.