Cancellations, Mega Rap at Midtown and Axl Rose spoils perfectly good bets

Many of you already spotted this in the print edition of the Source, but we thought we'd further spread the news here that the LNYX and Jamie Janover show slated for tonight at the Silver Moon has been cancelled. Word is that Janover has an ill family member and was forced to cancel the remainder of his West Coast tour in order to be with his family. While the cancellation is a bummer, we wish Janover and family all the best...and have our fingers crossed for a re-scheduling, which the promoter says is a possibility.

Great American Taxi: Maybe Next Time

Another cancellation that came across my desk this morning was that of the Great American Taxi show, scheduled for Nov. 7 at the Annex. We were pumped to get the announcement that Taxi, fronted by Leftover Salmon front man Vince Hermann, was returning to Bend, but just as soon as it was announced, the band cancelled its show. The last time the Taxi came through, they played a killer electrified Americana show for Summer Sundays at the Les Schwab Amphitheater. But just like the Lynx/Janover show - a rescheduling could happen.

Young Buck at Midtown

In a non-cancellation piece of news, we caught word yesterday that Ocean Records, the hip-hop only record store up in Redmond is getting into the concert production business and is debuting with an early-December show by Young Buck. The former G-Unit rapper and 50 Cent associate is slated to appear at the Midtown Ballroom on December 2. The show is touted as a "Hip-Hop Show & Comedy Jam," with comedian Ralph Porter also on the bill. Comedy and hip-hop, a perfect match: You'll laugh, you'l cry, you'll put your hands in the air like you just don't care. Word.

Chinese Democracy Ruins My Week, and Possibly My Life

This week, Axl Rose and his nearly mythical Guns N' Roses announced that the band will be releasing its album Chinese Democracy on November 23 - after almost a decade of telling fans the record was in the works. While GNR enthusiasts are either jubilantly tearing through their closets looking for those acid-washed jeans from the peak of their GNR days or in the hospital after suffering massive cardiac arrest upon the announcement, I find myself in a different predicament.

You see, I've been using the phrase "When Guns N' Roses finally release Chinese Democracy" in place of the common adage "when pigs fly" for about nine years now. For example, I told my friend who finds himself serially involved in serious relationships, all of which end after precisely seven months, that he'd "get married when Guns N' Roses finally release Chinese Democracy." I suppose a wedding invitation is in the mail.

I've used the incompletion of Chinese Democracy to predict the unlikely chances of other events like Ticketmaster easing up on service charges, Fox News embracing journalistic ethics, the Seattle Mariners playing in a World Series and well, actual Chinese democracy. So, there could be some upsides to Axl Rose's seeming interruption of the space-time continuum.

But there are also some downsides to the release of this fabled album, at least from my perspective, and that's been the countless definitive and half-drunken bets I've made with everyone from siblings to barroom strangers that Chinese Democracy was not a real album, but rather akin to other never-to-be-seen things like the Fountain of Youth, Santa Claus or Dick Cheney's smile. A rough estimate would say that I owe the following to an array of strangers and close friends and relatives due to the bets I've made over the past nine years: an estimated $3,000 in straight cash, my entire baseball card collection (including my Edgar Martinez rookie card) two since-disposed of bottles of real absinthe, a pair of twice-worn roller blades, and a yet-to-be calculated amount of bar tab reimbursements.

But hey, if corporate giveaways are any barometer of reliable betting strategy, the people at Dr. Pepper make me feel a bit better. The company promised a Dr. Pepper to everyone in the US (former GNR guitarists Slash and Buckethead begrudgingly excluded) if the album was ever released. And believe it or not, the soft drink company is making good on its audacious bet and is offering coupons via its website on the release date of the record.

While I await my free soda, I will sit hoping that some magnificent act of God keeps the album from dropping on November 23 - or else I'm going to need to go into Axl-Rose-like hiding.