Redeye - Big roomers and hear, say ... March 29 2006

My entire life I’ve grappled with three universal questions: Does the carpet match the drapes? Will it feel good if I stick a finger in it? And, what is my soul worth? I’m still field-testing the first two, but I finally answered the last. I won’t quote the exact amount, because it’s admittedly not as high as Young Me imagined it should be. But Old Me can say I had a lot of fun selling it, because Fri.-Sun., March 24-26, I was hired to play a part that many people might consider soulless: total privacy-invading stalkarazzi as Britney Spears and Mr. Britney Spears (aka Kevin “K-Fed” Federline) were brought to Vision by promoter Scooter Braun to celebrate K-Fed’s record release.

I can only go in to like no detail here, seeing as how the facts were optioned along with my soul. But after my weekend working for a New York celebrity lifestyle magazine, I can say this: You cannot hide. Anywhere. Go, I will find you. Do it, I will know. Don’t do it, I will find out why. Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water, because I already collect the bath water and will find the baby. You should see all this bath water ... .

Seriously, though, the weekend made me believe I have a future in espionage. Personally, I’ve never been one caught up too heavily in the zeitgeist. Sure, I root through the Internet for the occasional celebrity nip slip, but I’ve been almost run over enough times by someone famous and their entourage to not place much esteem on red carpet rigmarole. But there was admittedly something thrilling about being in Vision this time. I didn’t mind how packed out and jacked up the capacity crowd that mobbed the circular VIP area was because I was concentrating on spying stolen moments and secret hideouts.

This was beyond making good dick jokes (not hard, though, as K-Fed’s wannabe Tupac mug comes across kinda like both a dick and a joke). If I could just be the person who sees K-Fed beat Britney, who then has a miscarriage, I would be giddy! Instead, I learned some valuable insight about Atlanta producers. Still, I understand the thrill and thrall of the gossip columnist.

So when you’re reading in the grocery aisle this week about the A game, please think of me working hard to share what I heard with the herd. And don’t worry, this brother has soul to spare.

KuDuex + you

Over at the Drunken Unicorn Mon., March 27, a homecoming of sorts took place. Performing to a small but enthusiastic audience that included DJs Hazeus and Deco, plus producer Richard Devine playing on a Nintendo DS, Kudu returned to the scene it used to kick around virtuosic drum ‘n’ bass. Now more vampy than swampy, singer Sylvia Gordon pulled a little Vanity 6 mood down. It was still possible to eye Kudu’s drrrty roots in Deantoni Parks’ drum corps fills that flitted and snapped like schoolyard handclap rhymes on Ritalin. While most of the “stage banter” consisted of complaining that the keyboardist couldn’t be heard in the monitors, Kudu still brought the humidity and kept the crowd in strut like Blondie’s “Rapture,” even when moved to last on the bill. The group’s current album, Death of the Party, is anything but, so check it out.

RedEye celebrates going out and going off. Send comments to redeye@creativeloafing.com, but hand-scrawled hate mail is preferred.