the only thing worse
than bad memories
is no memories at all..
[dismemberment plan]
11.28.2003
Happy Post-Thanksgiving!
In the aftermath of Thanksgiving dinner last night, here I am, sitting in front of my computer, probably with at least 15 pounds of mushy food tenaciously clinging to my thighs and and ass.
Why is everything so mushy on Thanksgiving?
Mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, creamed corn, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie..
It must be a geriatric celebration in some way.
I've already had two more miniature sized Thanksgiving dinners for breakfast and lunch today, and a large pot of boiling turkey-mashed potato-cranberry-stuffing-green bean soup is currently on the stove, pervading the entire house with the aroma of nausea.
Wednesday night, I went to Goldenberg's birthday party at a rollerskating rink.
I had not been to a rollerskating birthday party since I was probably 8 years old.
Disco lights were spinning through the mist spraying out from smoke machines, and Ace of Base blasted out from the speakers throughout the night.
It was very mid-1990's-esque.
The cake was eventually brought out by three white trash rollerskating rink employees, all wearing the same black-and-white striped referee jerseys, all with the same terrible piercings on their faces. One of them, who was cutting the cake with an enormous butcher knife, turned around and smeared a huge glob of icing on another girl's pimply face, which immediately erupted into an all out food fight.
Everyone started screaming, "Bu-cake-ke!! Bu-cake-ke!!" in reference to the group's favorite porn genre, bukakke.
The rollerskating birthday party reminded me so much of my elementary school years, and yes, it was amazing.
Most of all, it reaffirmed my childhood aspiration to pursue a career in rollerskating, ideally as Miss Roller Derby Queen.
Tonight I got to meet Matt Sharp of Weezer/Rentals/Matt Sharp fame.
He talked between songs about how he's been told lately that he looks like a "young Bill Maher," Russell Crowe, and Gerard Depardieu (of all people) --
But the truth is, I believe his true resemblance is to Jeff Daniels, as seen in Dumb and Dumber.
Anyway, the important part is: I got to touch his butt.
Unfortunately, we got there too late to see all of Corn Mo's performance, but I think we made it for the pivotal moment in his set -- the very last 15 seconds.
Corn Mo, a large, crazy-looking man with mutton chops and Fabio-esque flowing, long, blonde hair, was on his knees, screaming, and playing an accordian.
Next, I think someone just brought in a crazy old man from the subway station.
He had written a multiple page poem about J-Lo with black magic marker on the backs of subway posters.
His best line was: "J-Lo, why do you want me to commit sodomy?"
Here he is, in all of his nutty glory:
Patrick Park (I keep having to stop myself from typing "Peter Parker" -- a.k.a. Spiderman) was next.
It was just him on an acoustic guitar, but he was incredible.
I was at the very front of the stage, in the center, staring wistfully and sighing dreamily at his inch-long, yellow fingernails.
Oh, to be scratched by one of his musical talons... It makes my knees wobble just thinking about it.
I seriously think I have a thing for boys on guitar who close their eyes when they sing.
i.e. Ben from Armor For Sleep.
It's too bad Patrick is pretty famous and well-known already. I love finding new musicians when they still only have a crappy Geocities site with all of their personal contact info up between animated gifs of flames and skulls.
You know what I'm talking about.
If I could, I would probably email Patrick saying, "Your hair is so pretty and shiny, and I love your nails. I bought one of your t-shirts and keep it under my pillow, and smell it at night when I'm lonely. You play the guitar so nicely, and I was wondering if you would please make out with me, sir. Thank you." And then he'd reply and then --
Okay sorry. Anyway.
Then.
THE POLYPHONIC SPREE.
Twenty-four members wearing white robes.
Ten chorus members.
A lead singer.
Violin. Harp. Trumpet. Trombone. Flute. Pedal Steel. Drums. Guitar. Bass. French Horn. Synthesizer. Theremin. Keyboard.
Wow.
I seriously felt like I was at some kind of cult induction, with this twenty-four-piece praise band drawing me into their crazy religion. Their happy, happy, crazy religion.
I think people have described them as an orchestral Flaming Lips before, but I feel like that's pretty much on target. It's surrealistically happy musicians, with a great overall sound, with all sorts of shit thrown in to make wonderful, wonderful music.
If you haven't heard any of their songs yet, I FIRMLY SUGGEST YOU CHECK THEM OUT. NOW.
And I got one of their setlists! With the duct tape still attached and everything.
I was standing next to this apparently die-hard fan of the Spree -- this short, chubby black dude with an afro, dressed in all denim, Elvis-style. He gave me the down-low on the Polyphonic Spree and told me about all their shows he'd been to. At the end, he gave me a heart-felt hug, and we both cried.
Okay, just kidding about the crying part.
And I got a picture with the French Horn player! I love this guy.
Check it out -- we both have the same poofy hair.
It was awesome.
You should have been there.
Especially since word on the street was that two of the Hanson brothers were there.
It's rather amusing that two posts down, I ripped on blind people a bit:
A few weeks ago, Big Head Dave (his head has become considerably more proportional since he was first given this nickname, thankfully) came downtown to see me from Columbia University. We decided to go out near McDougal and Thompson to grab some famous $2 falafel.
Once we finished stuffing our faces at one of the tables outside, I went back to the counter to give them back the bowl.
There was this man at the counter, pretty old, reserved, quiet... and I was stuck behind him.
He didn't seem to notice when I was behind him despite my saying "excuse me" a few times, so I said -- Screw it -- and tried squeezing by. When I almost tripped over his cane, I realized, to my mortification, was that he was blind.
I almost knocked over a blind man who was standing in line to buy some falafel.
I apologized and got the hell out of there.
I was telling T. about this story the other day, and he shook his head in disgust and said something along the lines of, "Well, watch out... You might run into him again."
To which I pointed out that we're in New York, a breeding ground for masses of strangers, and even if I did run into him again, how would he know it was me?
So, I was walking to class at Bobst, and spied a man with a cane feeling his way across the sidewalk.
IT WAS THE SAME GUY.
For some reason, it felt like he stopped minutely when I walked by, sniffed the air maybe, but I could have sworn that he mouthed the words, "FUCK YOU BITCH" as I passed by with my armful of books.
Now that I think about it, Halloween in New York City was a lot like seeing Kill Bill:
A lot of hype -- people drooling and going on and on about it, admittedly a pretty good show, but overall, it was just okay.
Yeah okay sure, Kill Bill was really good, but... Ehhhh.
I'm not exactly pooping my pants over it like everyone else seems to be.
Since about a week or two before Halloween, everyone seemed to be asking everyone else if everyone else were going to see the "big parade on 6th Ave," and yes, everyone and everyone else was indeed going to go see it. Everyone. And everyone else.
So once Friday night came around, 6th Avenue got really crowded. People were everywhere, on the sidewalks, on window ledges, on the roofs, climbing up on telephone booths and bus stops, popping out of windows, clinging to streetlamps, just crowding around and being annoying and tall.
Everyone was really excited and tingly, little old ladies were tittering to each other about babies in Disney costumes, and lots of fat ugly goth girls were lurching around in frighteningly tight shiny bondage pants with their ugly, skinny, pimply boyfriends with bad facial hair.
45 minutes passed... Still no parade.
T., who was dressed as Captain America, started a conversation with some huge black guy dressed up as Ike Turner poking his head out of the apartment window above us. They got into a whole heated discussion about Captain America, US Agent, Marvel Comics, and other nerdly comic talk.
We (well, "he," but I'm his accessory, so "we") were invited up to the "party" in his apartment for a good view of the parade, where I was pretty sure there was going to be a dark room with drugs, junkies, and a bunch of dirty old guys with baseball bats waiting to crack our heads open when we got in the room so they could take advantage of us in the worst of ways (namely, in the butt) in our unconscious state. So we didn't go.
The parade finally started about an hour late, and yeah, some of the things that went by were pretty cool, but everything else was terrible.
I was promised appearances of druggies, junkies, bums, prostitutes, pimps, drag queens, and trannies (**in fact, the "Where are the QUEERS" line was actually exclaimed halfway through the parade by some angry old lady)... and instead I felt like I was at the Homecoming parade in high school or something, except this time, there were four gay European guys behind me talking really loudly about how "fantastic" and "marvelous" all of the papier mache animals were.
And getting off of 6th was pretty awful.
Everyone, predictably, started leaving at the same exact time and clogged up all of the streets. At one point, when I was being smashed from all sides by the crowd, with my face buried in some guy's red itchy sweater, I just stopped caring about the well-being of others and started pushing and squeezing and occasionally punching through all of the old people taking pictures of the freaks.
It was so worth it.
Some goofy guy wearing a wig, platform boots, striped stockings, a miniskirt made out of a Twister board, and the Twister spin thingy glued to his head got knocked over in the struggle, shrieked like a girl, and fell over like a log. I think he started crying afterwards, I'm not sure.
Whatever.
I'm just mad that I didn't get any candy.
I actually tried ringing a random doorbell down the road -- which is a pretty brave/retarded thing to do in New York -- but the fucking old lady said I was a "big kid" and wouldn't fork over anything from the huge piles of candy she had behind the door. It was like 9:00 at night, and it was pretty apparent that no more little kids were coming.
Come on, lady, what are you going to do with that ridiculously large stockpile of chocolate bars anyway?
So Halloween wasn't anything all that exciting.
Here are a few pictures to conclude this wonderful experience.
Click for maximum viewage potential!!!
That's T.. He was Captain America... which I told you already. Pay attention! Jeez.
L-R: random weirdo girl #1, super annoying random girl #2, Christian, and Bill (his coke-bottle glasses are awesome.)
This is me with the scariest guy ever, whilst standing in line outside of Spice.
Apparently, grotesquely tall, scary guys like overpriced Thai food, too.
What the hell.. Why is he so tall!? Or maybe I'm a midget?
You can't really tell, but I'm absolutely terrified in that picture.
[Peek-a-Foo]
