Sammies for the Masses!
Go Go’ers, it’s the big Cheesus weekend so contemplate, if you will, the many kinds of cheese. There’s Greek cheese, grated cheese, government cheese, and Cheez-Whiz.
- And assuming you’ve already bought your Easter chapeau, your calendar is probably clear to attend the 2nd 8th Annual Grilled Cheese Invitational. The seven-hour, downtown sammie-ganza starts at 11:00 a.m. — perfect timing for your Breakfast of Champions, your mid-afternoon munch, and your cocktail hour canapes.
Tix are $15 and include a bottle of water (That toasted bread can be murder on the roof of the mouth….) and coupons to trade in for free samples of Boulder Canyon Potato Chips, Izze Sparking Beverages, Kruegermann Pickles and more, including Grilled Cheese from sponsor Tillamook. Don’t fill up on snacks, though; there are over 30,000 grilled cheese sandwiches to savor this year.
Go Go’ers, you might need another bottle of water.
And to answer the questions you dare not ask, there WILL be cheese calling, cheese poetry, and prizes for cheesy costumes. (You’ve always wanted to roll out your sartorial rendition of a plaque-hardened artery.)
New to the invitational this year: the “Love American Style” category, which the GCI describes as ”White Bread, Orange Cheese and Butter – no other flavors or ingredients”.
In other words: your first childhood love.
After slumming it in sneaks and shorts all day, glam up and take the Gold Line to Eastside LUV Wine Bar y Queso. You can (usually) get queso with a bottle of wine but the real reason you’re at this El Serenata de Garibaldi-adjacent, el borracho-themed club is for midnight cheesecake…of the jiggly kind.
Shakes it like a Polaroid....
Get there early-ish to park your car on the street and your butt in the club with its upscale Chicano art and its homeboy-homage decor. (NOTE: Gold Line service ends, inexplicably, before the 2:00 a.m. witching hour so if you Metro in, you’ll either have to T.A.C.O. (Take a Cab Out)…or leave the party early.)
Eastside LUV’s official line is that coats and ties on gents + dresses and heels on dames = front of the line and in free but the space is tiny so no guarantees, querida.
Tonight’s burlesque queen on the bar (yes, really…ON the bar) is Carolina Cerisola and if you haven’t seen this diva of the divine hips…let’s just say the girl delivers jaw-dropping bump ‘n grind.
Even though Ms. Go Go knows that really, you’re there for the queso.
Nobody celebrates cheesy like Charles Phoenix but don’t wait to buy tix to the King of Kitsch’s upcoming Retro Knott’s Berry Farm Slide Show celebrating the history of America’s first theme park with Knott’s Preserved co-author Eric Lynxwiler. The May 15, 5:00 p.m. show may seem ages away but the first show has already sold out so snap up your $65 ticket, which includes a day pass to the original Pan-for-Gold park and the opportunity to eat the kind of fried-chicken dinner that Cordelia Knott started serving in 1934, back when grease equaled love.
So many dance hall girls, so little time.
Can’t make Phoenix’s May festivities? You can catch the heritage humorist in a stand-alone Big Retro Slide Show on Saturday, June 4th at the National Hot Rod Museum at Fairplex in Pomona.
Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines.
Ready? U Know U Want 2 Go Go….
