The Frank the Unicorn Show
With Luna Rex
World of Beer, Coconut Creek.
Sunday, February 13, 2010
Every pun was intended at the "Get 'Horn'y With Frank the Unicorn for Valentine's Day" event held at Coconut Creek suds haven World of Beer on Sunday night, the first out-of-studio live show for the web-based The Frank the Unicorn Show. The six-month-old program has been building a steady online listenership on Sunday nights with wacky segments like "The Week in Bacon," "What the Ladies are Reading" (a man's take on women's magazines), and "Unlikely Bad Asses" and showcasing of local live bands.
The hosts, Fritz "The Unicorn" Schaper and Josh "Beans Stein" Pearlman (they are quick to point that they are nothing but a Frank 'n' Beans duo) ponder the glory of bad b-movies, the intrigue of pop culture oddities and the peculiarity of politics for two hours every Sunday night starting at 7 p.m. They like to call their brand of nonsensical, nerdy banter "geek talk." "It's like sports radio, but without the sports," explains Schaper. On this night, the guys had a couple of popular bits from its weekly show lined up. The first being "Bean's List" where host "Beans" Pearlman comes up with a specific movie-related theme that audience members can quantify and vote on. Tonight, for example it was worst onscreen chemistry, the victor: Howard The Duck with Lea Thompson -- a bestial, interplanetary, couple who paired up in 1986 dud Howard The Duck. No argument there.
That was followed by "How Unicorn Are You," a puzzling drinking game that, no matter right or wrong answer, always resulting with the audience taking a sip of its frothy brew. People were handed cards with the letters A or B written on them, then they were asked to vote on subjects like what is worse: A. a two minute conversation with Gary Busey or B. cutting off your toe with a broken beer bottle? Or, best celebrity name for a cat: A. Steven Segato or B. John Claws Van Damme? Schaper would arbitrarily pick the right answer and the audience would have to take a chug of beer if they got the right answer, or if they got the wrong one. For the finale, they did a play-by-play -- who says there is no sports action in geek talk radio? -- of a drinking challenge, where a handful of people were chosen to chug a huge liter of hefty (9% ABV) Canadian brew Fin Du Monde for a chance to win two tickets to the Miami Comic Con. It was a close match, with one contestant succumbing to the throat-clogging effects full speed imbibing can have, regurgitating the contents of his adult beverage into a nearby thrash can.
Besides madcap drinking games and pop culture banter, the Frank the Unicorn team has been supporters of the local music scene. Tonight was no exception, as they offered up two bands for consumption -- Fort Lauderdale's the Bushwood Band and Luna Rex.
For atop Word of Beer's 15-foot high stage, and with its own burlesque trio swaying to its mystifying beat, West Palm Beach quartet Luna Rex cast quite a spell on the remaining Unicorn followers -- who were already three to four micro craft brews into a good buzz. The mid-tempo "Mangos and Time Machines" was a standout, with a deep grooving bass line that harken back to the feel good boogie of the Grateful Dead's Shakedown Street days, it was a frisky way to end the "Horny" memorable night.
