Adios Frida & Diego, Pt.1

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Adult Swim Fun House

If someone offered you FREE BEER AND TACOS and a FREE T-SHIRT if you stood in line for an hour and then made your way through this crazy and creepy INFLATABLE FUN HOUSE, you would do it, right? That's exactly what the fine folks at ADULT SWIM did when they brought their ADULT SWIM FUN HOUSE here to Athens, GA, last weekend (on 4-20, of course) and parked it at the end of Washington Street, right in front of the 40 Watt club. A couple of years ago, they premiered their ADULT SWIM BLOCK PARTY in Athens and this year they came back to test run the fun house that they would be taking to the SAN DIEGO COMIC-CON this July...



The fun house was set to open at noon - by the time we got downtown, it was almost 1PM and they still had not let anyone through. The line stretched down the street and as everybody waited in line, workers wearing dark MONK ROBES passed out hold harmless forms for everyone to fill out. We took a quick walk around the INFLATABLE CASTLE and then decided to come back later that afternoon after running some errands...











When we returned later in the day, the line was still long, but the mood was much more festive with the free beer and taco party going full-steam. We got in line and slowly made our way towards the fun house...















The first room we went into had these ALIEN-LIKE OCTOPI all over the walls...they were Alien-inspired versions of the SQUIDBILLIES, one of the animated shows on Adult Swim. I foolishly shoved my hand into the mouth of one of the monsters and found out, to my chagrin, that it was filled with SLIME...





In another room, we came across a mysterious person in a monks robe, sitting in a living room, watching an ADULT BABY SLEEPING IN A CRIB on television. Turns out that you could actually crawl INTO THE TELEVISION if you wanted to...we opted not to, and decided to exit through the kitchen instead...















We found the TICKET ROOM, which was encased in clear plexiglass. In the middle of the ticket room was this machine that blew all these tiny tickets around the inside of this box. You were supposed to stick your hand in the box and try to catch as many tickets as you can. Each ticket could be traded for either a FREE BEER or a FREE TACO. Lucky for us, Missy has small hands - she was able to stick her whole hand in the box and grab a whole mess of tickets. At the end of the night, we had way more tickets than we needed so Missy started to give them out to strangers, like she was some sort of magical TICKET FAIRY...





In a hellish red-lit room sat a CREEPY SANTA CLAUS with a hooded figure sitting by his side. He invited people to come sit on his lap. Another room had a flashing black light in it that cause the patterns on the walls to move like pixels in a video game...







We ran into one of the CHILDRENS HOSPITAL CLOWNS (correction: DR. ROCKZO from METALACOLYPSE) who was escorting people through this exit that forced you to crawl out from between these two HUGE INFLATABLE LEGS and then on to a GURNEY, as if you were just newly born. Having already crawled through a GIANT VAGINA several weeks ago at the BULLDOG INN ART SHOW, we decided to turn back and try a different exit:



We found the exit that had the GIANT INFLATABLE SLIDE, but first we had to make it through a gauntlet of WACKY WAVING INFLATABLE ARM FLAILING TUBE MEN before climbing a rope to the top of the slide...











The exit between the legs - if you exited this way, you got a BIRTH CERTIFICATE to commemorate the occasion:



Another exit forced you into a CAGE where you were forced to sing Karaoke before they would let you out:



After we made it through the fun house, we queued up in three more lines - one for the free t-shirts, one for the free beer (we didn't drink, but traded our tickets for souvenir plastic cups and coasters), and one for free tacos, which were kindly provided by the YUMBII truck, one of our favorite food trucks from Atlanta. All in all, it was a truly awesome night. Adult Swim is doing a great job promoting their brand of entertainment, and we can't wait for the next time they roll into Athens to test out one of their crazy ideas...cheers to them!

This American Live

(IRA GLASS, host of THIS AMERICAN LIFE)

This past Thursday, Missy and I headed out to the DISCOVERY MILLS MALL in Lawrenceville, Georgia to watch a live broadcast of the popular NPR radio show THIS AMERICAN LIFE. The show happened live on stage in NYC and was broadcast to certain movie theaters all over the United States, Canada, and Australia. The closest theater that was hosting the event in our area was the AMC Theater at the Discover Mills Mall, an hour away from where we live, on the periphery of Atlanta.

We thought we might have to get dinner at the food court, but ended up at this Greek restaurant inside the mall called ATHENS KOUZZINA. We got spanikopita, cheese-stuffed ravioli, and angel hair pasta...but the best thing was this appetizer that was a CHEESE FLAMBE, served with pita bread. The waitress poured some rum over the cheese and then SET IT ON FIRE, yelling "OPA!" as the flames shot up from the dish. We asked her if any of the servers ever got burned and she regaled us with stories of over-eager servers using waaaay too much alcohol for fuel (usually, the waiters who would try to show off), setting off impressive fireballs that would singe off eyebrows and catch hairdos on fire...









After dinner, we barely had enough time to check out the SANRIO STORE, to get our HELLO KITTY fix. We rushed to the theater so that we could get our picks for seats. They warmed the packed audience up with a vintage SUPERMAN cartoon reel, straight out of the 40's. Superman had to save Lois Lane, after she crawled inside of this flying bank-robbing robot...













The live VISUAL version of This American Life was a lot of fun. There was animation, several story tellers, comedians, a short film, and evan a modern interpretive dance troupe. It was pretty much a variety show. One of the highlights of the night (among many) was the band OK GO. The band created an app that show goers could download onto their smart phones, that would allow them to "interact" with the band's live performance. Essentially, the app turned your phone into a THREE-NOTE KEYBOARD, allowing the audience to play along with the band, via a scrolling prompter on the screen, kinda like the ROCKBAND video game. The colored bars corresponded to the color of the buttons you downloaded on the app - Missy ended up with yellow buttons, so she followed the cues that came up on the yellow bar. The app made BELL sounds and the band performed a couple of songs using HAND BELLS as accompaniment...













Other favorite highlights of the night included comedienne TIG NOTARO's crazy story about singer TAYLOR DAYNE and author/humorist DAVID SEDARIS, who came out with CLOWN MAKE-UP on, for the benefit of the live studio audiences. Overall, it was one of the best nights at a movie theater in a long time and we can't wait to see if they will do another special live broadcast next year...