Get it ironed-on for the Captain!

So a few days ago this showed up in my e-mail box from Captain Karl. Karl being, of course, the Captain and lead singer of WARP 11 the Star Trek Tribute band (the song playing during the opening minutes of the William Shatner roast on Comedy Central? “Everything I do, I do with William Shatner”. They were paid $17,000 for the use of that song. Or so I heard.) and friend of John who is having both a birthday and gig/CD release party tomorrow and they’re letting John sit in for a few songs. This makes John very happy.
I am not even going to go into how embarrassing it is to admit, even in cyberspace on a blog that no one reads, any association with a Star Trek tribute band. Although Star Trek Tribute Band isn't entirely accurate. More like Sex and Drugs and Rock and Star Trek Band. It is a wee bit difficult to explain. Anything I might say such as, “they’re really good for a tribute band” or “they’re really funny” or “I was a little sister for an Engineering fraternity in college and was passively exposed to a LOT of Star Trek” doesn’t make it any less geeky. It is DEEPLY geeky. Does the fact that most of the songs are about sex AND Star Trek make it less geeky? Of course not. Watching white boys jumping around and “spocking out” and doing the Mugatu? There really are no words. I can feel whatever cool I once had draining out of me each time I attend one of their shows. The hip facade I spent so much time building up during high school and college? Melts right off. All that time spent accumulating black clothing and perfecting a disinterested/bored/superior look? Wasted. "Hey Laurel, your geek is showing!" But fate made John Karl’s boss a few years ago and even though we’ve moved and time has passed John is still Ensign Merlino and he gets to sit in. And I give in (usually with the help of my very good friend BEER) and just go with it. ANYWAY, I got this e-mail.

Hello Crewmen

Here's a list of things to do for the Warp 11 CD release party this weekend.

1. Buy Captain Karl a present since it’s his birthday.
2. Find a designated driver.
3. Save money to buy new CD and a drink for Captain Karl since it's his birthday.
4. Preview 2 of the new songs on the revamped MySpace page. http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=2108938
5. Prepare your mind and your body… to Rock!

See ya Saturday… It’s gonna be a good one.

Which leads me to Karl. Karl is the “captain” of Warp 11. Karl is one of those people with endless charisma, a huge ego, and no fear. He gets up on stage, this white, geeky, slightly paunchy bald guy in his mid 30’s screaming, “give it up for the captain!” and everyone fully does. Hell, I do. I fully do. Here are a few of the lyrics:

I don’t know
Here’s the thing
I’m just the captain
I’m here to sing
I’m on a mission – I ain’t afraid
I’m just out here in space to get laid
And now I’m rappin’
Was bound to happen
Show me an alien ass
I’ll be tappin’
Balls are slappin’
Your hands are clappin’
Everybody give it up for the captain

Yeah we all give it up. And if you were there, you would too. You might feel all dirty and ashamed afterwards but you would. And I have no doubts that if Kiki (the ridiculously hot red-haired female member of the band) wasn’t his live-in girlfriend he’d be scraping the girl-geeks off with a stick after each show. Or taking them all back to his house to play naked twister. Anyway, Karl loves being Karl and, since he is also highly intelligent, witty and pretty twisted, I love Karl. Except of course, for when I don’t. I have occasionally gotten cool presents for Karl before and I can never resist an opportunity to try and pull a really COOL present out of my ass.

So my friend Michelle and I were trying to come up with an idea for a shirt to have made for Karl and so I sent him this e-mail a couple days ago titled:

What do you get for the man who has Kiki?

Hey Karl,

So Michelle and I were trying to figure out what I could have printed on a T shirt for you (there's this great place in the Haight that will totally iron-on obscenities at no extra charge) for your birthday and we kinda liked:

GIVE IT UP FOR THE
MOTHERFUCKING
CAPTAIN!
I mean it,
give it up right now
you fucking Pakleds!

or maybe:
 

My Ass is made of
the finest Corinthian Leather

or

It's my Birthday and I'll
SPOCK if I want to

or
 

Sulu sudsed me up and all I got
was a rimjob
and this stupid T-shirt

Anyway, nothing GOOD ENOUGH or worthy of YOU obviously, but it DID remind us of another conversation we had which was WHY doesn't WARP 11 sell, like, some kind of wifebeater shirt? Some stretchy tank top that GIRLS could wear? Does everything even remotely sexy have to remain ONLY in the domain of Kiki? Take Ryan's girl. She could totally rock a wife beater with a Warp 11 graphic. OOOH the art from the new album on a black wifebeater would be awesome...

Just a thought... happy birthday.

-------------------

to which he unhelpfully replied:

You really can't go wrong with any of them.

We had red wife beaters with the logo but stopped selling them a long time ago. Where were you?

K

--------------------
Where was I when they were selling red wife beaters? Living in Petaluma in blissful ignorance of the existence of Star Trek Tribute bands in general and of KARL in particular. This didn’t help ME any with the what to put on the shirt problem so I got Karl’s damn cell number from John and CALLED him and he was like, "well it isn't really exciting if I already know what the shirt is going to SAY so you should come up with something ELSE new and witty" and I was like, "GRRRRRR fuckdammit." So I called John back and was like, "okay so yeah so I told him I would make him a shirt but now he's telling me it won't be any fun unless I make up something funny he hasn't SEEN yet. Do I have to do it?" And my husband, who usually thinks my need to do fabulous and cool things for people on their birthdays is ridculous said, in short, "YES."

So I gave a big heaving sigh, swore a lot and then went online, started reading old Warp 11 lyrics and then got on Wikifuckingpedia to remind myself of what all the Star Trek drinks were called and then I sort of extrapolated on the first witty t-shirt saying on the list. So then I called John back and read it to him and HE said I "should make it CLEAN" and I was like "WHY? They use the word FUCK in every song they sing?!"  They have albums titled Suck My Spock and Boldly Go Down On Me. I’ve seen them sing “Set your phase for fuck” in front of 10 year olds. Clean? Right. So then I e-mailed Karl THIS:

John says that I shouldn't put any dirty words on your shirt so that you can wear it in public...  so maybe I'll just go with something about how you're as cute as a hairless cat or something...   maybe a nice iron on of that graphic of that kitten dangling from a tree that says "HANG IN THERE!"

And then I took my ass down to the Haight to order this (of which I was very proud... a full-on rant contained on a shirt):

(front of shirt)
  GIVE IT UP FOR THE
MOTHERFUCKING
CAPTAIN!

Seriously, give it up!
Where are my gifts? My tributes?
My pack of writhing Orion slave girls?
What the fuck kind of birthday is this?

(back of shirt)
 I mean SERIOUSLY
every time we fucking perform
I give you ALL the gift of KARL and then
on my actual birthday you buy me a BEER?
That’s all I get? Not even a glass of Romulan Ale,
 a cup of Iw Hiq or some Tranya?

You fucking Pakleds…

But it turned out that would cost $302 (I really don't like Karl THAT much and I'm pretty sure John doesn't either) and they actually didn't have enough of any one kind of letter to spell all that out SO I trimmed it down a bit... and even trimmed they said it was going to be "EPIC" and the longest and funniest shirt they've ever done... when I pick the shirt up I may make them sign something to that effect...they're probably still cutting out letters as I type this... this is what the FINAL $159 shirt will be:
 

(front of shirt)
 GIVE IT UP FOR THE
MOTHERFUCKING
CAPTAIN!

(back of shirt)
Seriously, give it up!
Where are my gifts? My tributes?
My pack of writhing Orion slave girls?
Not even a glass of Romulan Ale?
What the fuck kind of birthday is this?

You fucking Pakleds…

And tomorrow we will give it to Karl before the gig and he will like it and wear it or I swear to GOD I will FEED it to him. Because that’s the kind of friend I am!

----------

So the shirt was a hit. It was iffy there for a moment when I handed the bag to Karl and he said, “you didn’t even wrap it” and I started to snarl and lunge for his neck but John held me back long enough for Karl to READ the shirt, make a gleeful noise, yank his own shirt off and pull my shirt on. Which made me happy. So he spent the afternoon wearing it and showing it off and having other people read it and laugh and that totally made it worth it to me. If later that night my shirt died in a tragic accident when someone used it to put out a fire when the flaming jello shots went horribly awry: that’s fine. It served its purpose.

And as a bonus I got a little shout out for my ego when, during MONTALBAN, in the place where he usually either yells out, "Smiles everyone, smiles!" or "rich Corinthian leather" he yelled out, "my ass feels like rich Corinthian leather" and it was nice to know one of my alternate t-shirt suggestions was funny enough for Karl to plagiarize it.

But I know you have to be wondering, as I know some of my friends were, was John mad I spent $159 on a T-shirt? And the answer is: NOPE. John only would have been upset with me if, after I’d spent all this time and effort and money I had then been disappointed in Karl’s reaction. I have this bad habit of expecting people to get as excited about things as I am. Once I explained that, no, I didn’t expect it to be Karl’s FAVORITE present or anything I just expected him to think it was cool and funny, we were cool. Although he did admit that the $302 would indeed have been too much. But I already knew that. Which is how we’ve managed to stay happily married for 11 years.

- Related Link: http://www.warp11.com/