Baby, It's Cold Outside: or, winter shennanigans in NYC

Ah, my lovelies, life has returned to normal after all the holiday jibba-jabba and the ensuing travel to exotic locales (Vegas and Boston). I've slept a lot for the past week, and now things are returning to their normal, frantically-paced rhythm. This week is outright insanity, and next week looks like it will be about the same, but my birthday is coming and I am gritting my teeth and determined to stay chipper.

The city is also settling back into its usual, bat-shit insane self. I've been seeing and hearing some interesting stuff lately, which I thought I'd share with you:

1) Last Wednesday, after a panicked morning of almost-guerrilla-style-because-it-was-so-low-budget filming for pornocracy, I was on my way to work at about noon. The subways at noon on a weekday are pretty deserted, so there weren't many people on the platform at 86th Street. I walked down toward the end for some seclusion, but as I walked I heard singing from behind me. I slowed down to hear it, then turned around. Two men, one on either side of the platform, were making music together. One, who I couldn't see because he was behind a column on my side of the station, had turned on some sort of background music, I'm assuming on a boombox, and had begun singing "Easy (Like Sunday Morning)" in a slow, jazzy style. Another man, on the uptown side of the station, stood and lazily beat the snare drum he was carrying, and sang back-up vocals. It was beautiful. Even as the trains came into the station and cut them off, they kept singing. I could see the backup singer's face through the flashing windows of the train.

2) A few days later, I was once again on my way to work, around 10:30. I'd ducked into a Starbucks, which I rarely do, to grab some coffee and yogurt for breakfast. I'd just been poked with needles, drained of blood, and told to take more medicine, so I was not oh so very happy. As I was stirring some milk into my cuppa Joe, "My Girl" by the Temptations came on the store's sound system. I don't know about you, but that song has got to be one of the best songs ever recorded, in my humble opinion. It gets me dancing, or swaying, or toe-tapping most the time, and it gets me singing every time. So there I was, singing away in Starbucks, stirring my coffee. One of the baristas came over to inspect the counter and supply situation; she was singing, too. We stood side by side for a moment, singing, before she stopped and looked at me with a huge smile. "You're singing, too!" We laughed and I left for work in a better mood than I'd been for days. Music really is amazing.

3) On Friday night, I watched "Bukowski: Born Into This," probably one of the best documentaries I've ever seen in my life. I was pretty drunk and I talked through a lot of it because I was in such a good mood, but the long stretches of Bukowski reading his poems jagged into me like a fishhook. I'd read Bukowski before, and I could recognize his genius, but sometimes the brutality, the alcoholism inherent in his poetry and especially in his novels, got to me and made it difficult. But hearing him, really, for the first time. His slow, nasal but very soft, very quiet, very measured voice, the rhythm of his poems, the bare and shocking truth of it. It really got into me. I spent the remainder of the night talking about what it is that makes real art, and how Bukowski's pain was the mark of art. And how the scary thing about Bukowski was that he was such a gentle man who longed only for peace and quiet and above all for love, but could not find it on this earth and so was turned into a nasty, violent, belligerent old man—and yet how, at any moment, he could burst into a beauty so fragile, in tears or honesty, that he could lure in a butterfly to his fingertip.

4) On Friday night, I went to see my favorite singer/songwriter/poet/novelist Simone Felice. He was doing his first ever solo acoustic set of whatever songs and poems and prose he felt like performing for us, in the tiny back room of the tiny Pete's Candy Store in Brooklyn. It was... Well, you know what, I'm not even going to try to describe it. Because some things are better kept locked up inside to keep warming you up than aired out so they can lose their flavor. Like soda in a bottle. I want this to stay bubbly in me. But, suffice it to say, all my musings on art and what makes it real were there in front of me, singing away and bringing the whole room together in a way that was stunning to experience. We sang together, and I got so deeply hooked that I almost had to get up and go cry in the bathroom for the beauty of it all, but I stayed where I was and soaked it up. Afterward, I gave Simone a vial of Fairy Dust and this poem by Bukowski. It's exactly like that soda-bottle feeling. It was the first full moon of the decade.

Almost speechless...

I heard about Michael Jackson's passing last night, thankfully after I had already started drinking. I managed to gloss it over in my brain and simply not process it all night - I just couldn't. I mean, the world without Michael Jackson? I just wasn't in any way prepared to deal with it. The thought had never even crossed my mind. It was too far in the future. He was too much of an icon, a mystery, a constant weird but awesome presence.

But then, bam, I got up this morning, put on a black dress, and went to work. I remembered the night before. Random strangers in the park and on the street were talking about it, every single bar we passed was playing his music, most car stereos were blaring Thriller on repeat... This morning the headlines were all photos of his face, as it changed over the years from a precocious crooning child to a stressed and unhappy but still incredible man-thing.

What a strange and amazing life. I was crying by 10:30.

No words. I'm sure I'll think of them later, and they'll come out in torrents about how I wished his life could have been better, and longer, and he could have learned to live more normally and be happy. How I wish he'd ever been able to be happy. How much sympathy I've had for him over the years as sensationalism and accusations followed him around, how I watched footage of him and realized that the poor guy just never learned how to behave like a regular human being, and how sad that made me. How when I was four years old, my best friend had a poster of him on the door of her bedroom and how we used to stare at it and sigh over how dreamy he was. How before I knew his music I knew the moonwalk, and when I heard his music I went nuts. How I went out and bought History the day it came out, when I was finally old enough to buy my own music. How the song "Bad" has always just KILLED me.

Sigh. Such a frantic genius.

And on we go.

The Brooke of Eternal Youth...

Well, folks, I guess this is it. I've probably said this before, but I'm pretty certain I'm right this time around. We are fast approaching The End of All Things.

Oh, you want evidence? Well, I could easily point to several posts in the history of this blog, like perhaps the one about Nicolas Cage making a live-action Sorcerer's Apprentice film, or my personal discovery that we are already living in the Matrix (thanks, Wall-E, you little bastard), or that my dream of killing geese is coming true on a genocidal level.
Or, I could point out that we are on movie #6 of the Harry Potter series (once that #7 comes out, it'll all be over - mark my words), that whats-her-other-OTHER-face from The Hills is getting HER own reality show as well, or that Buzz Aldrin is recording a hip-hop album with Talib Kweli and Snoop Dogg (yes, he is).

But instead, I'll just point to the adorable Brooke Greenberg here.


That is a current picture of Brooke, who turned 16 in January. She has the body of an infant, the bone age of a 10 year old, the assumed mental capacity (because she doesn't speak, it's hard to tell) of a toddler, and despite the fact that she obviously does not age normally, she has no apparent disease, syndrome, or real disorder of any kind. There is nothing physically wrong with her at all (except of course that she appears to be wearing a scrunchie around her head, but I think that might have more to do with her mother). In fact, she's survived seven stomach ulcers, a brain tumor, a seizure, and a stroke, and has survived all these maladies with no lasting damage whatsoever to her system; most of her medical problems, actually, have gone away mysteriously, as if by magic.

She was put on growth hormones early in her life, which had no effect on her at all. She stayed the same height and weight as before.

Not a single doctor who has looked at her bizarre case has any clue what's going on, since there isn't anything actually WRONG with her. The closest they've come to an explanation is that her body systems seem to be aging at different rates, none of which are normal.

Her family conjectures that she might be the key to the "fountain of youth," and doctors who are examining her DNA are calling her "that golden ring" of power to the age-old mysteries of why - and, worse, HOW - we age and die.

Know what I'm gonna call her? And I mean absolutely no offense to Brooke or her family or her doctors or anyone when I say this, because it's not their fault in any way, but... I'm gonna go ahead and assume she's the AntiChrist ("He will appear to survive a fatal injury" [Rev. 13:3; 17:8]? Check. "He will have no regard for the desire of women" [Dan 11:37]? Check. "He will rise from obscurity…a 'little horn'" [Daniel 7:8]? Check. "His arrival on the world scene will be accompanied by miracles, signs and wonders" [2 Thess 2:9]? Check.)

Or if you're not into the whole Revelations thing, she might be easily labeled The End of the World. Yes, I am a-ok with labels in situations like this. Because, call her what you will, it seems unlikely that little Brooke here really has any designs on ending the world as we know it. Well, at least at this stage, unless her one and only cognizant thought is the word "Doom" on repeat (which would be interesting, because that's pretty much what goes on in my head - I'm just too much of a wimp to put it into action). Although, if that's the case and she IS a Doombeast, little Brooke would need to either develop the ability to speak or put others under the control of her Doom Brain in order to enact her evil plans. She hasn't done so yet, but she might just be biding her time until her immediate family dies so she won't have to upset or hurt them personally, since it appears they've been pretty good to her. And I suppose I shouldn't put it past her to take the world down to hell if she wants, given that she seems more than capable of performing miracles already - her brain tumor just disappeared. Poof. Gone. It would seem, to my paranoia-crazed brain, that whatever Powers of Good are trying to do her in are failing.

But the point here is, I'm not necessarily pinning any active evil on Brooke herself. Would an evil entity really submit to wearing the scrunchie? Probably not. No, I'm more worried about what will happen if scientists do manage to turn that golden ring into a key and unlock the secret of eternal life. Even if scientific inquiry as a whole (which, now that I'm reading about the characteristics of the Biblical AntiChrist, seems to be a perfect fit, since modern people worship it) were to do The Right Thing with the information and keep it highly classified and away from the greedy prying eyes of the masses, that information would immediately become The Most Valuable Thing In The World and those who had it would... well... do I need to go into the details of human nature?

Let's just say I see one of several things happening, and none of them are in any way enticing. One: a few rich, rich, rich and greedy souls get their hands on the key to eternal life and implement it in themselves and a few of their buddies, eventually coming to rule the world, probably in a not-so-fun fashion for the rest of us dirt-people. Two: we all get access to it and way too many people become "immortal" or close to it and we end up overpopulating like a bunch of dumb bunnies and killng each other and everything else in our path. Three: nobody implements the immortality secret, necessarily, but somebody HAS it and that knowledge, and the desire for it, lead to World War III in which we all die horrible nuclear holocaust deaths.

In the meantime, peeps, I'd recommend really enjoying the hell out of these last two Harry Potter movies, and buying Buzz Aldrin's hip hop record.

A majestically moustachio'd musical evening...

Friday evening was a beautiful one; despite the daytime mugginess and rain, by 6:00 the sky had cleared and the sun was shining on a temperate, perfect evening. I walked up to the SummerStage at 69th on the East side to get in the long, long line for the free Josh Ritter show right after work. The line stretched for about 2 blocks' worth of park trails when I got there, and by the time they let us in to the venue I couldn't even see the end of it anymore, and that certainly makes sense. Josh Ritter and his rockin' band of folk music superstars were playing a show backed up by the New York Pops orchestra! For FREE! Outdoors! Even if you don't know his music, that sounds fun, right? And if you DO know his music you'll understand why the line was so long.
The concert was spectacularly fun, despite the odd aggressiveness of the fans at the front (I say odd because Josh Ritter is not exactly the aggressive type and it's strange to see people responding to wanting to see him that way instead of with unadulterated joy) and some really, really annoying girls who popped up right next to/in front of us at the beginning of the show and seemed to think that since they were holding a really nice camera, it would be fine for them to run around drunkenly and shout to each other while blocking people's views in order to get good photos. They annoyed me heartily until the music started, at which point I forgot what "annoyed" meant.
Ah, the joys of Josh Ritter. It's amazing how one man can smile so much and not hurt his face. And the orchestra! And he had a poet read his poem with the orchestra playing, and he played Thin Blue Flame with Hilary Hahn on violin, and he did a duet with some dude named Hanser that the crowd went BANANAS over, although I cannot for the life of me figure out who he is. It was magical. And of course, Zack Hickman, Josh's loyal and amazing bassist, was there as always with his 'million miles of moustache' - this guy's moustache is... well...

All in all, it was a fantastic evening.
On the way home, Connor and I stopped to get some pizza and we were so excited and food coma-ed that we got on the 4 and weren't paying attention and ended up, once again, at Yankee Stadium instead of 3rd Ave-149th St. No big deal, we thought, until we noticed that the downtown platform was completely packed, and I mean completely packed as in every inch of available space being taken up, with people in Yankees AND METS outfits.
This meant that a subway series game had just let out. This meant that no matter what we did when we got off the train, the environment outside would be complete insanity. Oh my.
Well, we decided to try a bus to get home rather than fight the crowd on the subway platform, and after about ten minutes of walking through crowds and yelling groups of fans and arguments and grand statements about the superiority of the Yankees (who apparently won because of a fluke missed catch, making the Mets fans particularly ready to get into fights), we managed to board the single most crowded bus I have ever been on. It was so tightly packed that a man pushing his way by me as I desperately held on to an overhead bar tapped me on the shoulder, pointed to my bag, and suggested I keep it closer to me because I might get robbed.
When we got going, I noticed that the... woman... sitting right in front of me was sporting a moustache. Like, a MOUSTACHE. I don't mean a bit of fuzz on her upper lip. I mean a long, thick, wiry-haired, dark, comb-able moustache. The kind that she probably wakes up in the morning and combs and then twiddles with over the course of the day. A very real, very serious moustache.
I was flabbergasted. I mean, I know plenty of women and see plenty of women around who have a bit of hair right there, some of whom decide to remove it and some don't. But this... this was the kind of thing you might see on a woman who's going through hormone therapy pre-getting-a-penis-operation. And perhaps she was in the process of becoming a man, although nothing else about her appearance suggested it.
When we got off the bus, I immediately started yelling "Wow! Wow! Oh my god, WOW! Did you SEE that thing? WHY wouldn't she SHAVE it? Or get electrolysis? Or WAX it? That's just... WOW!"
Connor laughed but pointed out that maybe, in our PC day and age, moustachio-ed women are the last frontier for civil rights. Maybe they're an under-represented sublcass of humanity that gets way too much flack for its natural tendency to grow facial hair.
Which made me pause. I WAS being awfully judgmental. Maybe she loves her moustache, and is proud to have it. And if that's the case, then by all means, grow those whiskers, lady, and more power to you! Way to fly in the face of societal norms and even biology. I salute you, and your moustache.

Fun on the internets!

Ah, Mondays in the city. People are either angry that it's Monday, discussing their crazy weekends with friends, or sleeping off hangovers. And the internets are abuzz with things I am just now seeing after not reading much last week because I was writing DVD reviews like mad. So, here are a few tidbits to make you laugh:


During my lunch hour today:

1) As I was walking down 55th Street after buying some coffee in Dunkin Donuts (an adventure in itself, after I'd gotten into a kind of confused staring contest with a homeless man outside who said something in gibberish to me and then refused to repeat himself, but instead just smiled at me while I blinked at him), some really loud young men decided that they should walk DIRECTLY behind me and talk very loudly. This is what they said:
Dude #1: Yeah, I'm talking about my SCROTUM.
Dude #2: Yeah, just to be clear.
Dude #1: My nutsack.
(Pause...)
Dude #1: Man, I've got to go back to that strip club.

2) Later on, as I was walking down 5th Ave, I heard two men discussing homeless people when we walked by an old babushka looking panhandler (who I later saw stuff her bills into her pocket to make it look as if she wasn't making any money... sneaky...):
Man #1: Homeless people are interesting...
Man #2: They can make a good bit of money doing that.
Man #1: I'd imagine.
Man #2: No, I mean it! There used to be this man who would ride on the 2 train with me every day. He had a skateboard and he would push himself up and down the cars on it, as if he had no legs. And people would give him a LOT of money, cause he had no legs. But then, he would get off the train every day at South Street Seaport, and STAND UP -
Man #1: Stand up?
Man #2: Yeah, he'd stand up on his LEGS and walk to his car and go home.

3) And later on still, on 56th Street as I was heading back to work, I passed a gay looking thug-type man who was saying to the girl he was with:
"That fucking ignorant fuck! That illiterate fucking fuck!
I was impressed by his use of expletives.



Meanwhile, over the weekend and in some cases last week, these things were happening on the internet:

1) David Bowie meets Tim Burton meets Colonel Sanders - in chicken form!

2) Take a good look at all three of these photos, people:
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Now, imagine little old me at a Man Man show, getting all riled up by the music and finally getting up the gumption to jump into the moshpit nearby. And immediately getting SLAMMED to the floor by a huge, sweaty, almost-naked body...
Turned out, that "most pit" wasn't a mosh pit at all. It was just that guy flinging himself around in nothing but a headband and underpants. And he flattened me.
Good times.

3) If you click on this photo:

...there's more where that came from. Jesus is WITH YOU ALWAYS and don't you forget that next time you're looking at porn online, people.

Two posts in one!

Ok, the most important issue of the day today, obviously, is:

1) IT'S DAVID BOWIE'S BIRTHDAY!! He is 62 years old. As most of you probably know, I have a serious obsession with the man. I can't explain why or how it developed, but I think it has something to do with my love of the movie Labyrinth from a very early age, which introduced me to his sparkly nature, his awesomely sexy accent, and the gigantic... er... talent... that is displayed when he wears very tight pants. As I got older I started to listen to his music and realized that he does indeed rock my world in every possible way. The man has been ten years ahead of the curve musically since the late sixties, pioneered the glam rock movement, and I'm pretty sure actually is an alien living among us. He married supermodel Iman, who I think is also an alien, and their super-perfect babies will rule the earth someday, I'm sure.

He is older than my parents. But I would still say yes if he asked me to marry him, or spend the night with him, or let him eat sushi off my body, or... well... anything. That would be after I either wet myself or just made a fool of myself generally by blathering stupidly about the weather for twenty minutes or some-such, just because he had spoken to me. Yes, I may have a problem, but at least I am honest about it.

So, everyone, please go home tonight and listen to your favorite Bowie song, and lift a glass to the man that has had more influence on modern music than most of us realize, who was sexy enough to be probably the only man ever caught naked in bed with Mick Jagger, who can wear tights and sparkly eye makeup and still be sexy, and who could probably turn you into a bowl full of jelly with one piercing, two-toned look from his creepy/sexy eyes, and who, weirdly enough, has not yet made it into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. (Madonna has, and although I like Madonna, I think she should have told them she refused to accept her spot there until they put him in. Cause, I mean, she'd be nowhere without him... But that's another blog.)


2) And the second thing I want to bring up here is not quite as important to me at the moment, but will probably be a bigger eveny than Bowie's 62nd birthday in the long run. The iPod people will soon market the iBreath. A breathalyzer for your iPod. (http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-idrunk19-2008dec19,0,3073178.story)
This seems like a good idea on a very, very altruistic level. The guy who thought up the idea, Don Bassler, calls it a safety device that "may save lives." He told the LA times that "the hope is that the iPod's cool factor will take away some of the stigma of acting responsibly and using a breathalyzer," which is all well and good. But...

Well...

Let's be honest with ourselves here. Who uses iPods the most? Who are the most tech-savvy people out there? What group of people finds out about new gadgets and must have them as soon as possible? And who goes to parties and follows peer pressure to drink heavily to the point of critical intoxication? Who are generally inexperienced and naive enough to think that they can handle anything and that nothing bad can ever happen to them? The answer to all these questions is the same: image-conscious high school and college students who have lots of their parents' money to spend.

Given what we know about the implied target demographic for the iBreath, then, what is the likelihood of that demographic using this device for good instead of for getting as wasted as possible? Sure, there will undoubtedly be a few responsible honor students out there who keep the iBreath safely in their pockets or by their steering wheels, but the majority of drunken high school and college students I've known in my day would be much, MUCH more likely to sit in a circle chugging jungle juice and seeing who can blow the highest reading before passing out, vomiting, or having their stomachs pumped. (For an in-depth description of the evils of hand-held breathalyzer devices in the past, please refer to Tucker Maxx and his "Famous Sushi Pants" story: http://www.tuckermax.com/archives/entries/the_famous_sushi_pants_story.phtml)

Thank goodness others have followed the same reasoning as myself: "Laura Dean-Mooney, national president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, said she worried that young people would use the breathalyzer for drinking games." I'm not alone in my fears, then, but when was the last time that MADD actually had an effect on the youth drinking culture?

All I can say is, I'm worried, people. As if the iPod and the iPhone weren't already sinister first waves of a frightening trend away from human interaction and the use of the brain that will inevitably lead to our downfall when robots take over the world with their superior ability to follow orders unscrupulously and their inability to make errors (so what if I'm conservative about technology?), now we're all going to become DRUNKEN drooling morons who can't leave the house without being plugged in to fifteen gadgets. We're making ourselves easier targets for the robots here, people.

That is, of course, unless we allow the Bowie Alien Child to rule us all, in which case I'm sure we'll be in good hands. Judging from the formidable might of the Bowie-Iman alliance already, their offspring will probably have the necessary technology and genius, and of course the sparkles, necessary to defeat the robots.

Oh my GOD. I just re-read what I've been writing. I'll stop now.

A New Yorker? Whining? No way.

In an attempt to stick to the ideals behind this blog (namely getting some of my bitching out in a productive and thoughtful way), and to lend it an air of authentic New York-ness, I shall commence complaining about people in the city.... now:

1) I was slightly disappointed in Halloween this year, as I am every year, by people's lack of excitement about the possibilities of the holiday, but all around I think it was a good Halloween. I'm almost always disappointed by reality, because versions of events in my head are generally much more interesting, layered, full of mystery, and overall more sparkly than they are in real life. Halloween bothers me sometimes because I see no reason why there shouldn't be all-out dancing in the strets, sparkles and confetti falling from the sky, and ghosts haunting every dark corner everywhere. But I can't really blame the holiday or people's lack of enthusiasm, because honestly, Halloween in New York is pretty close to an orgy of insanity. I just tend to miss out on the good stuff. This year it was my shoes that ruined the potential fabulousness, as I've mentioned before.

But this year I was disappointed by another phenomenon, which is where the bitching about New York life will really begin. On my way home on the 4 train at about 3:00 am (I think?), surrounded by half the cast of Alice In Wonderland (who were, sadly, not nearly as cool as I wished they were), the shoes on my feet cut off blood circulation to my head and I almost passed out. We had to get off the train so I could sit down, then catch the next one. When we got onto the next train, we were greeted by a boisterous crowd of about six or seven guys who immediately started making fun of Connor's costume. He was Roger Rabbit, and they started singing "Little Bunny Foo Foo" loudly and obnoxiously. Ugh. At 3:00 am with my feet killing me, this was the last thing I wanted to deal with. I glared at them for a while, then eventually stopped because they had moved on to somebody else to make fun of.

This "somebody else" was a guy who was in a costume or bizarre outfit of some sort that consisted of a vest and extremely short green shorts. I don't know what he was supposed to be or if it was even a costume, but kudos to him for not having frozen to death before he got on the train. Anyway, the group of annoying guys began loudly calling Green Shorts Guy a faggot, then proceeded to make their way slowly through the car toward him, asking onlookers if they liked faggots. Of course most people just ignored them, and I'm not even sure that Green Shorts Guy realized they were talking about him because he seemed oblivious, but eventually an onlooker said something to the trash-talkers. I didn't hear what he said, but within seconds, the entire group of them had surrounded the speaker-upper in a wall of thick leather and puffy down jackets. I really thought they were going to start beating him up.

I had been in a reverie most of this time and only tuned in when I noticed the wall of intimidation building up midway down the car. When I asked Connor what had happened, he told me they were ganging up on someone who had said something to them when they were being hateful toward homosexuals based solely on a man in short shorts who may or may not have been homosexual himself. I found myself passionately and furiously yelling:
"Are you serious? Are people still doing that? How stupid can you be?!" In retrospect, I shouldn't have yelled it that loudly, but luckily the intimidating guys were all too busy saying who-knows-what to the man who had stood up for freedom of sexuality to bother with my outburst. And, thankfully, the situation eventually diffused itself - I'm not sure how, but the guys started laughing and saying they were just having a good time. Then they sat down and started talking very loudly about how much heterosexual sex they have all the time, and so on and so forth.

Holy leaping Christ on a cross, what a load of horse shit. Now, I realize that in many ways my views on the world are not the same as other people's, and after all it's differences of opinion that keep the world as interesting a place as it is. But I simply cannot get over the optimistic idea that at the end of the year of our Lord 2008, in America, where equal legal rights have been granted to minorities and women, and where homosexuals may not have perfectly equal rights but are nonetheless a firmly established and culturally enriching part of our society, people should not think it's ok to be so... what's the word?... mind-boggling-ly moronic. I mean, how on earth does one manage to live in New York City and hold any type of prejudice against anybody? Particularly on Halloween, at 3 in the morning, in a subway car filled with people dressed as cartoon characters, ironic stereotypes, ridiculous celebrities, inanimate objects, and animals, how can one possibly take oneself and one's own insecurities so seriously that it would seem acceptable to physically intimidate someone for being an advocate of freedom of sexual preference or expression?

How is it possible that in this day and age, after so much work has been done by so many for so long to bring the idea of equality and acceptance and freedom to the masses, that people can be so absurdly closed-minded? How can people look upon each other at this moment in time and be bothered to discriminate, with the world economy breaking down around their ears, the natural world screeching full-tilt into disaster, and wars raging all around us? It scrambles my brains to think of it. Particularly this group of young men, who were mostly minorities and who were on a train to the Bronx, whose lives have probably all been affected in some way by the lingering traces of racism and prejudice, seemed to have no basis upon which to build a case for continuing the wholly idiotic attitude of intolerance.

I'm sure the argument could be made that they were just drunk guys hopped up on testosterone, a group of weak-minded individuals looking to pick on a more weak-bodied or weakly-represented individual to make themselves feel more like men. Sure. But that's no excuse and it's hardly an explanation. I have no way to wrap this up neatly, nor an argument to make, or even a suggestion to offer. I know the chorus: it's just human nature. The strong preying upon the weak. Fear of the unknown. Yadda yadda yadda. But understanding those arguments doesn't make them ok or make me ok with them. And neither does my anger about it. Education is the only route, I suppose, but who has the time to deal with raging dickheads?

2) Or, for that matter, who has the time to deal with vapid, hair-tossing, fake-ID wielding, drunk teenagers? NOBODY! And yet I, with all my temper issues and intense need for personal space, seem to be a magnet for them. Last night I went to see the Felice Brothers (http://www.myspace.com/thefelicebrothers) with a group of friends. The Felice Brothers are like hillbilly Catskill Mountain gospel music on hard-rock and they are f-ing AMAZING live, and you should go see them. They attract down-to-earth and beard-wearing crowds, at least to the degree than any New York City crowd can be down-to-earth or beardy. A very laid-back group ready and willing to have a fun time without stepping on anyone's toes. During the opening band, Deer Tick (who, by the way, I also recommend strongly), as I did my best to stand patiently behind some much-taller people who had no business being near the front, I suddenly found myself being pushed aside by the furious dancing of a girl on my left.

I swear I DID try to be polite for a minute or two. But about the third time I was hit in the face by her hair, I turned and glared at her. And there I was, face to face with an 18 year old girl wearing an outfit far too skimpy for a somewhat-outdoor concert in early November, drinking a beer and texting madly while the young man with her stared longingly at her profile. I almost vomited. But things were just getting started.

Keep in mind that the crowd at this show was very calm and pretty evenly spaced. There wasn't a whole lot of room to move around, but there was enough that being able to dance a bit or hold a conversation with your friends certainly didn't require you to bother the people around you at all. Not so for this girl. I have a feeling that when the bands were performing, she was actually very confused as to why people were looking at the stage and not at her. I'm not kidding.

She was dancing unecessarily energetically and provocatively, and literally flipping her hair every few seconds, hitting me with her elbows, legs, hands, and hair, texting almost constantly, and having one of the most inane conversations I have literally ever heard with the boy she was with. As she drained a beer I heard him ask, with stars in his eyes, if she had a fake ID. Her verbatim answer? "Yeah, a really good one. And I smoke pot, too!" Then she went back to flipping her hair at me and gyrating in a wholly inappropriate manner for mountain church music.

Like, OMG, that's tots groundbreaking! A fake ID and illegal drug use? Why, in the history of all "bad" things ever done, this girl was obviously setting new records. And ohmigod she was like so totally hot, too! Obviously like everyone wanted her.

Thank goodness she eventually moved away, since I was very, very, very close to punching her in the head or telling her male friend that if he didn't get her out of the reach of my hand, imminent doom was upon both of them. My friends made mild fun of me for being so angry about this girl's presence, which makes sense since I am very easily angered by lame people, particularly if they are in my personal bubble for no reason. This was around 10:45 pm. By midnight and a few songs into the Felice Brothers' set, I had mostly forgotten about Stupid Girl.

But then, suddenly, about 2/3 of the way through their set, she appeared once again, right beside me. And within a matter of seconds her hair was being flipped in my face again. And she was dancing again, hitting me with all manner of body appendages. I was livid. After the fast song at hand was over, she turned around to the guy behind her and threw her arms around his neck, declaring loudly (to the crowd, I think, and not to him) that she would never kiss him at this point. As a slow song started and I turned back to the music, I actually heard these words come out of her mouth - I am not making this up: "You love me, don't you? You're in love with me... You're really lucky, you know, that you're here with me."

. . .

Yeah, she said that. She said that. I have no words with which to follow that. I can't even really complain. It's just. Well. There it is. New York City, ladies and gents.