Queen Narcissa

So it’s been awhile since I ranted at you all, but never fear, my feisty mouth is back to weigh in on the coffee scandal currently rocking the Inland Northwest.

So, what’s got a couple of local roaster’s — ok, perhaps one local roaster; the other remains mum on supposedly scandalous behavior — panties in a wad (omg I said panties, uh, gross)? Well, if ya read the Doma Coffee post mentioned above, you’d be up to speed in about, say, 3.28 minutes or way less. Basically, Doma threw down a gauntlet regarding some of Roast House’s branding and new website. Me, I think someone stayed up too late the night before drinking and woke up with such a hangover that no amount of yummy-licious coffee could ever put them in a good mood. Anyway, moving on…

Sticky note: I am a consumer of both Roast House coffees and Doma coffees so in no way am I siding with one party or the other. In fact, I rather need both to face my mornings. Let me tell you how excited Design Spike, Inc. was to order the Good Coffee coffee from Doma. Not only were we supporting Spokane Riverkeeper but the coffee was nom nom good. And not to be outdone, getting our hands on the Ben Valdez over at Atticus is a must do. So, you see, I am the most perfect unbiased Queen to weigh in on this most serious of all issues.

It’s damn clear that the battle lines have been drawn and as far as I can tell, what a flipping waste of time and energy. Publicly calling someone out without tons of real live evidence is kinda ridiculous in my not so humble opinion. Here you have two local roasters with environmental/sustainable leanings who, with a little cooperative competition, (Mark Simonds once told me all about “coopition” but hell if I can spell it), could be propping each other up and moving towards a goal of world coffee domination. But no, alas and alack, someone just had to get cranky. Locals who work together survive and thrive. It’s a pretty simple calculation. Really.

It’s like Interplayers calling Spokane Civic Theatre out on something or trying to publicly embarrass them. What if Main Market publicly chastised Spokane Public Market for some perceived wrong? What would any of these organizations have achieved by doing so? Pretty much nothing at all. By propping each other up, these organizations grow and become better for it. But rather than working together to raise the bar, rather than challenge Roast House to produce better coffees, Doma chose to attempt to publicly demean them. How absolutely disappointing.  

This simply has to be the biggest mistake one of my flavorite coffee roasters has pulled. Color me depressed.

One liners that kick your arse. Quotes from Duck Hunter Shoots Angel that make my day:

It’s the end of the world-thang – it’s Arma-getcha! 

Y’all excuse my brother he aint right, the wheel’s still turning but the hamster died if you know what I mean.

Confession: I never read Tuesdays with Morrie. (right now you are wondering what Tuesdays with Morrie has to do with Duck Hunter Shoots Angel. Let me google that for you. )

Confession: I’ve never seen the movie.

Confession: I’m a Spokane Civic Theatre supporter (duh!).

Confession: Mitch Albom is ok, I guess. What do I know?

Confession: I fricking love Beavers and Ducks. Rather Angels and Ducks. My bad, what I really mean is I love Duck Hunter Shoot Angel. Really really really really really really really. Love It.

Confession: I’m crushing on Mark Pleasant but what else is new. Look at that face! Just look at it.

Confession: From dark and evil uncle in Turn of Screw to loveable, dork Duwell in Duck Hunter Shoots Angel. Who knew Doug Dawson had this kind of range? Fine, everyone else but me. Whatever.

You’ve got one more weekend to see Duck Hunter Shoots Angel at Spokane Civic Theatre and you should. Not because I’m a theatre sucker. Not because I’m pimping this sh!t, yo, but because it is that good. That uplifting. That heartening. That funny. That wonderful. That almost perfect.

I say almost because the first umpteen minutes were not my flavorite. They were, well, awkward. Sandy, Michael Hynes (who, by the way is the perfect East Coast intellectual-ish journalist. Might I add uptight?), on the stage with with a cup of coffee talking to ?? (g_d? a shrink? who knows?). It was just weird.

But then, the skies opened up, the sun shined down and my heart swelled with happiness. Why?

• Sandy got schooled by Lenny - I could quote left and right what the kid threw down. Boom goes the dynamite.
• Duane and Duwell. Period. That is all you need to know. They kick A$$. They rock out with their Ad-Rock out. Highsterical. Every bit, every sentence, every everything.
• Duane/Mark is downright perfect. And the 14 year old boy in me loved that he said peter. And snake.
• Duwell is perfection in it’s most simple form. Duwell grabs my heart and holds on to it for the entire time.
• For a few minutes, I believed in angels. 

There it is, my most scattered brained review of Duck Hunter Shoots Angel at Spokane Civic Theatre. If it matters, my feet never shuffled once and my ADD never, ever, ever kicked in and I never glanced to see how much longer till the performance ended. In fact, I think I could go right back and watch this over and over again.

Ok really, I was looking up, but it sounded good, right?

Last night’s performance of In the Heights (Best of Broadway Spokane) was undoubtedly among my flavorites. This thing had FLAVOR! Latina flavor. Hot, lyrical, rhyming flavor (is this where I’m supposed to say ‘flava” rather than flavor? I get so confused trying to be cool). Suffice it to say, I have a thing for tall, dark, skinny (or is it more proper to say thin?) men…so, of course, I have nothing but bueno to say about Usnavi…

Note: I’d use the cast and crew names, but somewhere between Darnell, my car, Atticus, the coffee stop, and the Design Spike office, I lost the program guide. Stop judging.

and his rhymin & stealin (whoa, hang on there…got off on a Beastie Boys track. Pardon me.) - well, hell, he made the show. There, I said it. I cussed. hehehe.

The stand outs for me (besides tall, dark and delicious) were Nina - oi, that voice. Let me repeat that. That voice. Talk about mad skills. From Breathe forward, I was sold on her. And the other stand out was Abuela Claudia and Paciencia Y Fe. Ball park, ball, knocked it out!

For those of you know me, you know my childhood was spent in a few barrios in Texas and Coney Island in Brooklyn (with a whole bunch of stuff in between). For a long time, I thought was gonna have a quinceanera only to be told by my mother that at best, I could look forward to Bat Mitzvah. As a result of the aforementioned, you know I totally identified with Vanessa (yikes) in It Won’t Be Long Now…the whole elevated train thing. And people sitting on their stoops, the corner store, the flavor and feel and the sounds. Kinda makes me miss the old hoods. And I digress, again!

Let me break it down quick and easy.

• Only one ADD attack during the second half shortly after half time. Something got slow somewhere. I mentally took to wandering. This means the production was well done, over all.
• I totally dig normal women on the stage. Cory totally dug Vanessa’s long legs but her voice, eh, not his thing.
• I want piragua. Now. It’s hot in my office.
• Benny’s dispatching was my favorite Benny part. 
• No Me Diga was suwheet. Really sweet. 
• I want a Carnival on my street. Please?
• Oh, and yes, some of the dialogue seemed halted. Not sure if it was intentional or not, and I just didn’t understand that.
• I do NOT get why Vanessa brings champagne but then tries to get Usnavi to hold off from opening it. Um, it’s hot in here. Open the d@mn bottle.

Some in our crew loved it, a few not so much. Some were meh. Some zoned out. Some cried, some leaked. Either way, I’m thankful I had the opportunity to see In the Heights. It may not be Fiddler on the Roof, but then again, I’m Jewish. What can I say? (Wow, I say that a lot, no?). For all of my blathering, I really enjoyed looking down on “In the Heights”

Yeah, I’m a streetlight, chillin’ in the heat!
I illuminate the stories of the people in the street
Some have happy endings, some are bittersweet
But I know them all and that’s what makes my life complete

Have you seen In the Heights? Will you?

Strikes me that all or some, if you’re anti-social (there’s a pun in there, I swear), of the attendees going to tonight’s Tweet Seat event for WestCoast Entertainment’s Best of Broadway showing of In the Heights might want to follow each other on Twitter (that is a lot of words for one sentence. I think I’m exhausted.). And now back to keeping the #WCEbob & @WCEBroadway peops connected 

So Tweet Seat peops, here’s your roll call (and don’t forget to follow hashtag #WCEbob tonight)

• 1nTheDepths
• JamieMorganCDA
• TheMikeEllis
• Sean_Smitham
• DiBrubaker
• RdMustardDesign
• MindSchool
• TinyTall
• Chuck_Ethridge
• CEthridge
• BarbChamberlain
• Teecer
• SherryRose
• SpokaneMac
• Jenna_Carrol
• KickAshford
• AllyShoshana
• WCEBroadway

And don’t forget to post to WestCoast’s Facebook page, por favor. See ya later.

Oh, and Mike Ellis, can’t wait to see what you’re wearing tonight.