I went on a
journey.
I was a sojourner.
After a brief stint in a square state for such frivolities as “family” and “holidays,” I returned to Charm City. I took note of how much more it was a concrete jungle than I had first realized. One thing I had aimed to do back in June ’05 when my residence in Charm City began, was to be neighborly. I would say “hello” upon entering an elevator, and “have a good day – nigh, a great one” upon my egress. I had plans to become best friends with John the oral surgeon resident with a subscription to Netflix, and help Mr. Gray through the travails of middle-aged dating and Ravens losses. I also intended to eat a weekly dinner with Ben, the neighbor whose apartment was closest to mine. We had chatted warmly when he first moved into his place in July. He had never had Chipotle, so the idea was for us to go and have Chipotle together.
Our schedules continually did not align, but alas, the stars above our head did.
On my very last night ever in Charm City, we connected. It took us 5.5 months to make this a reality. We went out and finally got the chance to get to know each other more so than “Good morning,” or “How are classes,” and my favorite, “Turn your video game music down, or I’ll replace your contact lens solution with vinegar.”
Chipotle was great. He enjoyed it immensely. He talked of being an American were-medical student in Israel. He talked of regional ethnic-fueled knife fights and how you have to have a smile on your face when your are stapling skin taught over people’s skulls.
He is here in the midst of his medical schooling to get a masters in public health.
He talked also of an interesting culture in XBOX Live land. He said the game Halo 2 threaten to end his social and professional life. He also told of this delightful participant named “slippyslappy.”
XBOX Live is where you can play games with players all over the world. You can also get headsets and (trash) talk to them. Sometimes you are not just killing people you do not know, but are on the same team with them. Such was the case with slippyslappy.
I will present a transcript of how Ben relayed the amazing tale of slippyslappy. Keep in mind, the setting is a Chipotle, with Ben and fantasticterrific sitting at a table, and plenty of families with little girls with pig tails and guacamole on the corners of their little mouths (the veritable mouths of babes).
Ben: So slippyslappy will join the game, and start committing suicide. At first, you think he is inexperienced at handling grenades, so you forgive him if he’s on your team and laugh at him if he’s on the other team. But then, upon regeneration, he will do it immediately again. So then his teammates start yelling, “Hey, FAGGOT, STOP THAT.”
[Parents from adjacent table, in the midst of wiping guacamole off their daughter’s mouth, turn and look at fantasticterrific, the supposed perpetrator of homosexual advances]
Ben [continuing]: And slippyslappy says nothing. He just keeps doing this. And his team keeps yelling at him, “You faggot, you F%C#ING FAGGOT FAGGOT FAGGOT-KISSING FAGGOT” and keeps killing himself.
[A ruggedly handsome cowboy, fresh off a sheep herding season on Backdoor Mountain (down by D.C.) takes notice of me, and winks.]
Ben [continuing]: The other team is now making fun of slippyslappy’s team, because the deficit is now sizeable. And it is clear that if it weren’t for slippyslappy’s suicides, the lead would not be so definitive…in fact, the team with slippyslappy would be winning.
Slippyslappy says nothing. And keeps killing himself. Until four minutes remaining.
fantasticterrific: Then what?
Ben: Then he goes on a killing spree the likes that is rarely seen, even in the XBOX Live arena. He, in four minutes, will not only make up the -20 deficit, but will accumulate more kills than any one else playing the game, and of course lead his team to victory. You can [starts to laugh and escalate his voice] imagine the BIG SWINGING D*CK ON SLIPPYSLAPPY!”
[A 50 year old woman in a booth stops scratching the head of her seeing-eye dog. It is as if someone has sprayed her with a directed shot of seltzer water. Her hand falls down to her lap. The place is silent. Even the music that seemed to be everywhere in this modest east-coast Chipotle has ran away with its tail betwixt its legs. No one has to read it. Everyone knows what is stitched in yellow thread onto a purple dog collar: Slippy-Slappy.]
Luckily, after that, Ben and I leave before the manager asks us to high-tail it. On returning to the apartment building on foot, we swap New Year’s Eve plans. Mine is trite and expected. His revealed his great character, the character that will one day swear the Hippocratic oath.
“My buddies and I are going to rent four hot-tubs in this loft in Boston and have lesbian strippers fill the place from 11PM to 2AM. I’m in charge of the champagne.”
My rejoinder:
“Oh. Well,”
“Hot. I know you were going to ask it. Hot-hot. These are hot lesbians, not nasty Boulder-lesbians.”
“Ahha, I’m not sure what you mean by that. Have a safe time. It was nice finally getting to know you, my neighbor, my noble med-student warrior friend.”
I may wait with entering the “getting to know my neighbors” phase until I am old, fat, and with children living in some God-infested suburbia (Aurora, anyone?) so at least we can lie to each other about pleasantries and our progeny’s performance in swim class and the PSATs.
Now, the date of the neighbor date was December 29th. I had moved most my stuff back to the square state when I went home for the “holidays” with the “family.” I put some toothpaste in the holes in the wall, take a wet paper towel to the blinds (which I never closed, but somehow became broken…conspiracy theorist suggest that landlords have the technology to make blinds that degrade reverse exponentially in accordance to your lease-end date), throw away a lot of stuff, and then sleep on the floor. I awoke in the middle of the night shivering, and put on my parka and gloves, and then slept soundly.
I leave my apartment, flipping the bird to my 3 foot X 3 foot kitchen. The only thing I leave behind is a stain on the carpet from an ill timed opening of a liter of cola some months prior (might have been October…I think the leaves were starting to turn).
I have everything I will need for the next 10 days on my back, in my back pack. I conquered Europe in a similar fashion. The key to traveling is traveling unencumbered.
I walk down to a ritzy hotel hoping to score a taxi cab to the bus depot so that I can get on a bus and go to New York City. Before I can touch a cab door, a well dressed man accosts me and asks where I want to go, and that wherever it is I should be delivered by him and his Chrysler 300c.
“How much to go to the bus station.”
“10 dollars.”
Knowing that cabs cost 5 dollars to get the bus station, I offer:
“Cabs cost 4 dollars. I’ll take a”
“5 dollars. I’ll take you for five.”
Deal,
suckah. Put me in that mother-loving briar patch!
At the depot, I discover how annoying Greyhound online ticket purchasing is. It is does not save you a seat. The seating is first come, first serve. I get in the ticket line, and get my boarding pass, and the beauty school drop out informs me my gate for the 10:30 NYC bus is gate 7. With my western drawl, I inquire which is gate 7, only to receive the best customer service of my life:
“The one with all the people lined up at it.”
I think she even put a hand on her hip when she said it. I told her that her nails looked nice and not overdone in terms of design or size and got in line.
I was behind a group of four girls who were entering their 30’s. They had no engagement rings and probably had read “He’s not that into you” cover to cover 5 times in a row while sobbing on the can. They kept recalling all the drunken “Really? I don’t remember that. You saved me from being stuffed into his car? What kind of car? No, it doesn’t matter – unless it was a really nice car. I love convertibles – don’t you love convertibles?” stories.
The line started to move as the 10:30 bus was boarding. I thought to myself that this group of girls actually might be my salvation as far as getting on this bus, because it looked as though the line would be consumed up to their position. I projected that the bus driver would ask if they were together, and they would say “Yes! Always!” and the overworked and underpaid bus driver would ask them to step aside, as there would be only three seats left, and I would sneak in, victorious, solely due to my unencumbered traveling philosophy (and you thought I was only talking of baggage).
Then, the leader of the pack, took a deep breath, pushed her L.A.-augmented breasts (what else would a girl want for her 28th birthday? – besides a MAN) and uttered: “If there’s like two seats left, two of us will go and two others will wait. I think Kelly and I should go if that happens (because we are more attractive than you two).”
“Oh, ah, yeah. Sounds great! Girl power! Let’s get wasted in New York!”
She must have been telepathic! She totally quashed the scenario in my head. It ended up being a moot point because the line did not get whittled down anywhere near their position. I was staying in the City of Charm for another hour and a half for the Nooner to New York.
I started reading Sparks’ The Notebook. The girls took notice and whispered amongst themselves furtively.
The line winded throughout the small and stuffy depot. In fact, it contorted so much there was a right angle bend. I was near elbow of the line, and when people stood up in anticipation of the Nooner, it became apparent that the gentlemen in the leather jacket and Mohawk styled haircut had not been in the elbow of the line at 10:30.
I decided to ignore it, because I’m a pacifist.
Okay, I’m not strictly a pacifist. I turn it on and off. Like if I am out drinking with Toby Keith, I turn it off. If the man cutting in line is as big as a three St. Bernards standing on each other and is sporting a stare that could cut through iron and chances are that I will get on the bus regardless I turn my pacifism dial to “heavy load of pacifism.”
That is how I see it. This is not how the small Frenchman behind me sees it. He tugs on my arm, and asks loud enough for everyone in the vicinity to not only know that the biggest man in all of the Charm City Bus depot has cut in line, but the second biggest man in the same structure has been implicitly ordered to do something about it.
I tell the Frenchman in perfect French – strike that. I don’t know French.
I shrugged my shoulders like a wimpy Susan Sarandon fan and murmured “I dunnknow.” With the implicit “stop trying to start a fight against the heavy-weights.”
Anyway, my worries were quickly dismissed when the Frenchman took the initiative and confronted the aggressor (a first for the French, indeed!). The Mohawk’s mouth opened, and a faint “sorry” came out and he cordially readjusted his pack and relocated to the rear of the line.
I got on the Nooner.
An Aussie sat next to me. He discovered that I was from a square state with snow and mountains, and immediately started asking me about boarding and skiing. I wanted to immediately and congruently ask him about boomerang chucking and wallaby killing, but I just decided to lie my way out of this one. So I admitted to being a boarder, going to the same school as Jeremy “My jeans are name-brand, and I want to be paid to say so” Bloom, and that I had done stunt work in a 007 film. He asked how long the runs were in my state. The only time I went down a “run” was on the bunny hill and I had so many crashes it took around 4 hours to get down. My back was against the wall, and it was only minute ten of a 4 hour bus drive.
“Well, what do you mean? How long are the runs time-wise or distance-wise?”
“Oyt. Crykie. J’Tell me, mate.”
“There’s a range, sir. Some are as short as the ones you are complaining about in other parts of the country. Others are 12 hours long.”
“No way!”
“Yes. It’s usually back country and you need to ‘coptered to the summit. Very expensive. Bloom and I did it once, but he wussed out half way and got ‘coptered out because it was an Olympic year and all.”
“Hmmm. Is he that attractive in real life, mate?”
“No.”
“No?”
“All airbrushing.”
Somewhere in Jersey, my pants starting ringing. It was my apartment complex. They confirmed that I left a spot on the carpet. I told them that with 30% certainty they were not suffering from macular degeneration, because that spot was quite apparent. They also informed me that I did not leave a deposit when I moved in. I told them they never asked. They demanded that I come in and pay the $30 dollars, or my name would be on the minds of every collections agency in the tri-state area.
“I’m in Jersey.”
“What.”
“Oh, what is it with you -? Joisy. I am in
Joy-zie.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t have a place to live in Baltimore anymore.”
“You need to send us a Cashier’s check then.”
“How ‘bout a credit card?”
“Oh, sure. Give me the number right now.”
“I cannot, because I’m in a public place…”
[I notice the Aussie eavesdropping]
“Mr. Bloom, I’m tired of this conversation. I’ll call you after New Year’s. [Discretely hang up the phone with my thumb] Oh, really? Hot-tubs? Strippers? Lesbian-strippers? The Boulder kind? Well, Jeremy, you are a lucky sonuvagun. You enjoy yourself, and I’ll try not to be too depressed. Say, you want to back-country again sometime? Your agent? What does your agent have to do with you going back-country skiing…oh, Barnett scheduled practice every day for the next year? I understand. No. No. I still think you are a brave American. Yes, any girl, even the feminist ones would be glad to date you. Okay, Jeremy. Stop crying. I gotta go. Take care. Bye.”
On the bus I was drinking a gallon of water. This is known as “planning.” More on this later.
I finished The Notebook on the bus. This combined with the book “Pornified” keyed me into the fact that a lot of America’s relationships are houses built on sand.
We pull into the Port Authority in New York City. The smiling Aussie is off to a hostel to await New Year’s Eve with Paul Oakenfold complete with repetitive beats and strobing lights. I on the other hand, am on my way to discovering how huge the Port Authority is.
You see, when I went with my parent’s to New York City, we arrived at 5AM into the Port. We docked at low-numbered gate, and easily found our way to the street. I was left with the impression that it was a modestly sized building. Turns out, it cannot be measured in the number of St. Bernards it would hold, because the place would make the St. Bernards so agitated that they would keep eating each other, and thus an endless supply of St. Bernards would be needed. I will just leave you with the fact that it is huge, and my actress friend thought that meeting in the “food court” was a good idea, since there is not more than one food court, and no food court itself contains mini-food courts.
After some confusion and cell phone tag, I was received.
I get in the line to get a Metro Card. I was talking to my actress friend, who is tall and beautiful. The point is, I am not looking down, but rather out while in line. I feel a tug on my sleeve, and a Romanian lady asks if “she” was in line or if she cut.
“Who?”
“[pointing] She. There.”
And I look way down, and in front of me, and sure enough was this crazy haired Chinese lady who had snuck in front of me.
“Make her move! She cut! You are the biggest one in subway now! Deliver society’s justice”
The Romanian lady had a point, and it was the second time of the day that this particular logic was being applied. However, the Chinese lady turned around and looked at me, with a slightly crazed smile (empty, potentially magnanimous eyes) and I decided to let it slide. Mercy and strength and restraint and responsibility and mom and God and apple pie.
I (heart) New York.
Tall-beautiful-actress lady lives in the Upper West side right next to Central park. Her place is shared with two other girls. It small, but well done as far as hardwood floors, a fireplace, and a spiral staircase down to a dungeon with a triple bunk bed. Let me correct that: a modified bunk bed where the two mattresses are sky high, and a bunk of blankets on the ground where the more tropical of the three girls tends to burrow into quilts for warmth and solidarity with her favorite animal, the animal that represents her constitution and character: the rat.
The bathroom in the dungeon is quaint. Quaint is a polite word for small. So quaint is the dungeon bathroom that there is one inch between the front of the toilet seat and the wall. It is physically impossible for me to sit on the toilet seat. Luckily, I know how to crap standing up, and for kicks, I peed in the sink.
Some of you, in the spirit of being helpful, might suggest that I could have sat “sideways” on the toilet, with legs stretched at an angle from the traditional front of the seat. This would have required the door being open – a violation of personal privacy. And as George W. knows, I like my privacy – and upright dumping.
Others of you are probably wondering why I did not use the upstairs toilet. The upstairs toilet had problems of its own, namely, no seat. However, it was femur length away from anything else, so sitting was allowed, and I did so. Seats are merely a convenience. I remember once accidentally turning the corner in my house when I was five and seeing skinny Zach Heuscher on the can, he having forgotten to close the door. He was not using the seat, and was freckled from head-to-toe. I remember thinking distinctly that I was glad to not be freckled and that I would never have to use the toilet like an imbecile might.
Well, in New York, I contracted a nasty case of the freckles and had to sit on the toilet without a seat. Neither was that bad.
Back to the chronology. It is December 30th, I have just gotten out of the Port Authority and am in Actress-lady’s apartment. She needed to pick up a coat at UPS, because unlike my apartment complex, there is no front desk to accept packages during the day for her. This would become a common theme of my days in the City of New York.
We need to get to UPS in a hurry for they close at 9PM.
We are in a waiting room of angry people, but inconsequential story point made short, she got her package, in which contained huge coat.
We ate at the Market Diner. I ordered the double burger, envisioning something close to the Wendy’s #2 combo. What came was two physical burgers and a double order of fries. I ate it, because I am big fat dumb American.
From there, we joined up with a bunch of friends from the Square State. I will refer to them as the “Colorado Group.”
The Colorado Group is a motley crew. It involves one girl whose mom loved her so much that she landed her a room at the Hotel W in Times Square. She of course became the super friend of the friend group, and because she is overly nice (or weak?) seven people crammed themselves into the hotel room. The Colorado Group contained one engaged couple, one girl that was once engaged a year ago, and another girl that had until a day before Christmas been engaged.
This was a recipe for disaster. I pictured the following scene of the year-ago fiancée saying “doesn’t the engaged couple in our group act so cute with all the pet names and kisses for dumb reasons, such as the foam on the beer being foamy?” and the rest of the group laughing and chiming in “yeah! All right! Kucinich!” and the couple kissing solely for the reason that they were being talked about, and then silence gripping the table as week-ago fiancée was noticeably quiet...and trembling.
“Don’t mind me, guys.”
“Oh, no. Baby…don’t…”
And then year-ago fiancée would hug week-ago fiancée and everyone would start crying. Well everyone except me. I would be too intently focused on the shot glass from the car bomb not crashing into my teeth.
The point is, the potential energy for disaster was high. It was high from the beginning.
I was an unofficial advisor to the Colorado Group. I say unofficial because none of my advice was taken. I advised the group should be kept small. I advised that standing in Time Square for an extended period of time would not be “fun” or “awesome” but suck. It is the kind of event you are only glad you did the year following when you are sitting on a recliner watching it on TV, and some other naïve person says “I want to go to New York sometime” and you just chuckle, shaking your head knowingly, and sip your fat, “the cost of this cup of liquid could feed a third world child for 8 days, and I don’t care” eggnog.
The Colorado Group, while still in Colorado, would hold trip planning sessions known as “New York Trip Happy Hour.” Instead of discussing what to pack or how much to budget for food and transportation, they came to the consensus that they should “live like rock stars” while in New York. I advised them, unofficially, that rock stars and their lives only look great in photographs and on film. The rest of the time, they are shivering in their size-too-small t-shirt and pre-torn jeans trying to find a place with warm beautiful bodies to sleep, all the while tormented by the lyrics for the next Billboard smash.
So there’s a little background on the Colorado Group.
We meet up with the Colorado Group at the Rockefeller Ice Rink. It is tiny and looks better on TV. (foreshadowing, m’ladies).
The Colorado Group abandons the line that promises to fulfill the yearnings of their childhood wishes to ice skate in a place where it matters. They abandon it to go bar hopping (as rock stars rightfully should).
Actress-lady, myself and the Colorado group go over to the Hotel W. You enter on the ground level (the ceiling, made of glass, facilitated the viewing of moving water above our heads), immediately enter an elevator to go the 7th floor. I exit the elevator, and enter a the atmosphere of a club. There are smartly dressed people holding smart looking drinks in a manner that was, well, smart. Music was blaring. Talk of Kerry and H. Clinton having a baby snaked through the air.
This is the lobby.
The gals get bar-hopping gear on and identification cards (this is 1984, after all, Big Brothers).
Actress-lady escorted us to the bar. She hurriedly explained how the Metro would get me back to her place, then kissed my cheek, said “Ciao-babe” and left. I should have left with her.
Essentially, New York men quickly latched on to the Colorado women. I was quickly pegged as “guy who was invited to prevent abductions” since I was not handsome enough to be in the friend group. So, the smooth-tongued New Yorkers try to buddy-buddy fantasticterrific in order to score even more points with the starry eyed wannabe rockers (He’s taking time to talk to my unsightly body guard! He is caring. Yes, I think I will accept the invite to a room with a view…).
This drunk businessman is buying drinks for any lady that wants one. A Colorado Group member cried out “Red Headed slut” and, apparently, it is a drink, not a moniker for the girl how gave me a scorchin’ case of freckles.
The engaged couple and several of the other girls wanted to head back to the W (the Hotel, not the President – distinction paid for by the committee for Hilary in 2008).
The girl who had been wooed by New York’s classiest, wanted to celebrate her birthday her way, and of course this meant going 16 miles out of the way to go to this bar the name of which was written in felt tip on the inside of her arm by Casey, the smooth-operating, ribbed-shirt wearing New York wolf.
I am the only dude left that can serve on abduction control. So I am roped into going to this other bar with a small group of girls just so one can have her heart broken. I do this.
Attitudes erupt, and suddenly we are going home in a taxi.
It is here, in the taxi, that Birthday Girl comments on week-ago fiancée’s situation. Birthday Girl’s mistake was not knowing her audience, more specifically, that her crammed in the backseat of a cab audience contained none other than year-ago fiancée.
The retort was brief, wickedly tart, and not malicious. It basically stated that Birthday Girl had not place to comment for she was never engaged. The beauty of this is it made Birthday Girl not only feel guilty for gossiping, but also reason something must be wrong with her since she was older and had not been engaged yet.
Happy Birthday, Wanda June.
The girl’s get dropped off at the Hotel W. I however, will not fit in a one bedroom space that has seven people in it…I will better fit in a two level studio built for one that has four people in it: Actress-lady’s pad.
I run through the 3:45 AM New York City only to discover that the Metro station is closed. Its sign tells me to go across the street.
I do so, relieved to find out that only that particular entrance was closed. I go up to the glass booth and ask the attendee a crucial question, the answer upon which will determine if I get to sleep that night.
“Does the Uptown A train come through here?”
“The … [static through speaker, intermingled with silence.]…A.”
I heard “A”. I deciphered “A.” I was home-free. I swipe my card, and enter the system.
All I see are signs that say Downtown. I do not initially panic, but instead run for a staircase thinking maybe there is another platform for the Uptowns.
I run back and forth across the field of vision of the broker-speaker-lady three times. I look like a mountain man chasing a bear, and then, after comedic beat where the bear and the mountain realize how ridiculous it is for the bear to be scared of a mere man, the chasing direction reverses. I say “mountain man,” because I have a beard and carry an axe and have a blue ox on a leash.
I finally stop, and lean against the turnstiles and the broken-speaker-lady just shakes her at me as if to say “Child.”
I pronounce loudly my question about the Uptown train.
She, without the aid of a speaker, speaks through the glass that I need to exit and cross the street.
I do just that.
Problem solved, except for the fact that I cannot find a green “M” anywhere across the street. I finally ask two New Yorkers who were talking about dumb tourists. They pointed at green globes (not “M’s”) that marked the station entrance.
I’m good to go on the Uptown, finally.
I am to call the Hawaiian roommate of Actress-lady, since Actress-lady has an audition for a maxi-pad commercial in the morning. I feel horrible, since it is now 4:30 AM. I am that guest. The guest that is a total and absolute a-hole.
I call.
I get a voice mail greeting: “Hi, I’m Hawaiian and New York is cold. Leave a message to warm me up! Mahalo!”
I’m looking at spending the night on the steps of an Upper West side apartment. Great. How’s that for traveling unencumbered.
I dial again, and she appears in her coconut bra and grass skirt. All is well.
All is well, except that my Hawaiian friend was entertaining a friend of hers for New Year’s, and because of this the living room was all shifted around to accommodate this guest’s stuff as well as the folded out hide-a-bed. Case in point, I am in a place I am not familiar in the dark, my stuff is no where to be found (thanks for putting my toiletries bag in the soot of the fireplace!) and it is 4:30AM and I have never been in control of my limbs in any way to make the moniker of “maladroit moron” undeserved.
I stumble over to the spiral staircase. The only bed open is the middle bunk, the bed above the rat nest and just below Actress-lady’s stage for role of Sleeping Beauty. The Hawaiian in her nest is whispering pointers on how to get into the modified bunk bed, since no ladder is in sight. It is just high enough to where trying to get in it quietly and undetected will be quite a chore.
I want to just grab a post and swing myself and up and over, and was about to do so, when I remember that this apartment of girls did not have toilet seat on one of the toilets, so it seemed logical to assume that the bed frame would not be mounted to the wall, so my plan of brute forcing my way up would have resulted in me pulling the whole frame over, and the death of three aspiring citizens: Actress-lady, being catapulted into the ceiling, ricocheting into the opposite wall, Hawaiian-rat-nest lady as my frame slides on socks on hardwood slamming into her throat, and fantasticterrific, crushed to death by a mahogany bunk bed frame.
So, instead of brute forcing it, I reach for the side of the bed closest to the wall, and with one-arm slowly ratchet myself up onto the bed. It took such muscle control that every vertebra in my back popped, and consequently, woke up everyone in the apartment. So much for my efforts.
Timeline check: 4:45AM December 31st. I do not want to oversleep. I need to meet the Colorado Group to stake out a spot in Time Square for the festivities starting at 1:30PM. I decide I am going to set the alarm on my cell phone, and then hold onto my cell phone like a GI-Joe holds onto his gun no matter how hard he is tumbling down a mountain, just so a phone call or the alarm will be sure to wake me up so that I do not miss out on the main reason I am making this outrageous 10 day trip.
I fall asleep, thankful to God above for a place to sleep.
I wake up maybe an hour later, just because I’m in a new place. I tighten my fist around the only thing that promises security: my cell phone. My fist closes all the way. I have lost my cell phone. I grope in the dark quietly for it, and then I turn to roll over and search between the mattress and the wall and smack my fat face against the bed board that is above me. I heard an audible “hmph, This Maxi-Pad is the coolest! Thanks, Always!” from my audition tormented friend above, and a slight nibbling of pineapple from the rat below.
I fall asleep again, hoping the vibrations of the phone would save me from oversleeping.
I wake up. Light is fighting its way through the spiral staircase, and the dungeon is as lit as it will ever be. It could be 6AM, it could be 4PM. This is how Trace Adkins prefers to keep his dungeons, but that is a whole other story.
I spiral my way upstairs, and the place is devoid of people. The hide-a-bed is hidden. The front door lock starts to move and I stand shirtless in the middle of the living room.
The Hawaiian comes in, her head turned out talking to a new guest in tow, and then her head turns to the living room, and she screams, having forgot that a bearded man a welcomed guest of her roommate’s. Or maybe she was screaming at my six-pack abs. I’m not sure.
The new guest was not the one that had stayed the night last night. She was softer, and had a voice of a hippy. If you have read Ayn Rand’s The Fountain Head, she would be Catherine, the almost Mrs. Keating.
We will call her Dynah.
Dynah learns of my intentions to go to Time Square. She is quick to offer her expert opinion, which is nothing but hear-say. She pleads me not to go, offering many “I heard this” and “I heard that” statements.
“I heard people wear adult diapers.”
“I heard people get peed on.”
“I heard it can get cold.”
“I heard Dick Clark runs on sand and cannot be killed, even by Sky Captain.”
I smile at her. I go to hug her, but then remember I am shirtless, so I grab a blanket and wrap her up in it. I rock her slowly back and forth, quietly explain that it will take so much more than hear-say to prevent me from stopping the gears of the world and riding that opulent chandelier all the way down to the orgiastic explosion known as 2006.
I spend some time on a seat-less toilet because I was tired of the upright #2 special. I shower up, and don my UnderArmour suit. I scarf up. I hat up. I glove up. I coat up. I granola bar up. I 16 oz. water bottle up.
I cowboy up.
12:30PM December 31st. The W Hotel. We have less than 12 hours until the world of 2005 ending and the world of 2006 being born unto a people that do not want it.
The plan that was formed the night before was to meet at the corner of Broadway and 49th at 1:30PM. I had arrived an hour early, not because I am that good, but because I underestimated how easy it would be to find Times Square in the daytime.
1:30PM might seem like a rather arbitrary time, but it was selected because the Colorado Group had heard that Times Square was barricaded off at 2PM to traffic and pedestrian flows.
Having arrived early, I decided to go up to the hotel room at the W, and did so. The room displayed quite the range of activity. One girl, who was a member of the Colorado Group but loathed going to see the Ball Drop decided to lamprey onto the free room and see a love interest in New York. This girl was asleep like a rock in the bed. The rest of the Colorado Group was up and about – a little nervous, a little excited. The Birthday girl from the bar scene had gone to get a massage (and had it charged to the room. Happy Birthday, Wanda June, INDEED.)
At 1:30 we popped out onto the street, and moved closer to the ball. There were fence/barricade sections lining the sidewalks, serving as a barrier between the street and sidewalk. Some people had already started to accumulate by these barriers. Some had cute foldable chairs. When I saw this, I was humbled. Here, I thought my drinking the gallon of water the day before on the bus to stretch my bladder, drinking only 16 oz of water in miniscule sips throughout New Year’s Eve, having granola bars and an UnderArmour suit was all I needed.
Chairs.
Sitting.
The founding fathers nearly wrote it into the constitution: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Seating.
Part of the Colorado Group (from here forth: CG) became disdained early on (really early on) and went back to the W. Myself and two of the braver of the CG sat against a building, and watched the foot traffic. The plan was to wait until traffic was barricaded off, so the streets would then be empty and then be there for the bum rush to get primetime position in the street between two stages (which were set up in the wide medians of Times Square) and a very unobstructed view of the Ball.
While waiting, an Ecuadorian came up to us and handed a video camera. We filmed him, alone, standing in front of the lights and advertisements that make up Times Square. He did not do or say much. He just stood still for a minute.
Then he came back to us, reclaimed the camera, said something in Spanish, and waved at us while filming us. So we waved back like the drunken cowboys that we Americans are, and that continued for two minutes. I know that some family somewhere in the world is rolling their eyes at this guy’s video, which captured all these randos waving and grinning like idiots.
It starts to sleet.
And rain.
And snow.
Chairs would have been nice. An umbrella would have been gold.
We noticed some people, some of the fellow loiterers, were moving to the street side of the barricade, even though traffic was still whizzing by. Our eyes got green with the envy of the greener grass on the other side of the barricade…these people were smart. They were going to lead the bum rush! Our collective of three moved to the other side of the barricade, and took care to stay on the skinny curb, just out of reach of the mirrors of huge trucks. Some auto drivers would stop and ask us how long we had been there, and we answered from our teeth-chattering huddle, “Three hours,” and they laughed at us.
It was at this point that the dissidents of the CG came and joined us. Slowly, traffic was pinched off, and then we saw a giant flatbed truck with wooden barricades marked NYPD go by, and we knew it, the bum rush to glory and 2006, was near.
There was a noticeable absence of sound when we looked both ways and ascertained that traffic no longer existed in Time Square. I lead the charge fantastically terrific out into the street. The CG was behind me, and soon, all the other street side barricaders joined us.
The girls were squealing, noting the great positioning to the two stages, and the splendid view of the Ball. It was too good to be true.
And it was.
The NYPD, part of a collective of 10,000 beautiful, strong jawed men (and some ladies) started going over to the barricades and pulling them into the street. At first we were as dumbfounded as cattle coming through the chute to get castrated and branded. Then we noticed that they were not pulling the barricades out into the street, but rather pulling out sides of pre-made pens, or containment areas. So, essentially, the pens were made the night before, but collapsed into a straight line on the sidewalk. One of the NYPD’s yelled at a lower rank officer, “Who let these people in the street? We have a stampede here.”
My stomach tightened. I saw the thick crowd on the sidewalk side of the pens, and realized that they were in line, and we essentially stepped out of line. Cops quickly came by and told us we had to go all the way to 8th and Broadway to re-check in. We were herded to the intersection, where 3 other street’s worth of misfits/bum rushers were accumulating.
Cops kept telling us to go to the check point, which was disheartening because the reason we had waited for so long in Time Square was to avoid going to the check point and to secure amazing spots. Now it seemed one bad decision was putting the ball drop in jeopardy. I had resigned that we were going to be in the equivalent of Jersey and need telescopes to even discern a lit ball dropping through the night, burning off a year in its trajectory.
The CG and I linked arms, and I started snaking the way to the check point, and then noticed that the sidewalks were not fully enclosed with fence/barricade sections. So, I flipped a 180 and reasoned we would just wait with the sidewalk mass and pretend we had never stepped out of line, and eventually the pen entrances would be opened and we would be set.
So, that’s the plan we executed.
Not even 30 seconds into waiting in the sidewalk side mass, we see the intersection mass of misfits/bum rushers start funneling into the pen. What the cop told us about the check point was total and utter malarkey. I snaked us out of the sidewalk mass and back into the funneling intersection mass.
Now, this was the tightest part of the night. People were kind of pushy, and cops were yelling for us to enter one at a time, with our coats open. But keep in mind, this crowd is made up of the entrepreneurs and risk takers and bum rushers. They, as a rule, do not listen well, especially to blue-eyed cochinos (their words, not mine, Jeanketeers!).
I was close to a legitimate entrance, with my coat splayed wide open and my UnderArmour suit exposed. Then a Che Guevara bum rush happened. The cops let them go, but immediately the third biggest cop in the world swung out his arm and placed a thick ham of a hand on my stomach, which was exposed due to the coat being open. He was holding back the whole crowd through my being, through my stomach. It was strangely comforting (much like a dog must feel when its stomach is getting rubbed) and alarming (no one touches the six pack but my family care practitioner and my sumo wrestling coach).
However, the cops see that I am, in fact, not trying to sneak in an AK-47 or a canister of mustard gas, so they let me in, but confiscated two Luna bars, joking that they were for girls and then twisting my nipple (the UnderArmour prevented too much bleeding).
Frickin’ cops!
Anyhow, the whole CG is in a legitimate containment area. Albeit, we are away from the two original stages, we are near a stage and about two blocks closer to the Ball than we would have been. We choose to be as close to the median-side barricade as possible, since the street was sloped, and the other side had rain gutters and potholes filled with sleet/snow/rain juice.
In retrospect, if I may, it makes perfect sense that there would be containment areas and defined, wide paths that separate the proletariat from the celebrities on the stage. It is for protection and control, and allowed media and law enforcement to move quickly up down and Times Square.
We are set. It is about 5:30PM New Year’s Eve. A cop comes up to us, and actually says,
“Move all the way to the front of the pen, or we won’t drop the Ball.”
If the CG has learned anything at this point, it is that positioning is only because of dumb-luck and persistence, and you only listen to the cops for a second or two. So we shuffle a few steps to appease him, and then stay put. We take note of our surroundings, and we are outside the Total Request Live (MTv) booth. We are standing where on warm summer days scantily clad screaming girls would have, hoping to get to say four exasperated words pertaining to their love of some flash in the pan band, and then screaming as if a genie had just told them they would never gain another pound so long as they live.
The people on the elevated median stage were fun to watch. It was way before any actual filming would take place, so some were still in hair rollers and/or sloppily dressed. One striking young man, looking poised with his umbrella, responded to someone in the crowd. He was nice and personable, and seemed to care that we existed and were cold. We ascertained he is the new TRL VJ guy. My generation would call him the new Carson Daly, but that is a harsh moniker. No one should be related to Carson Daly unless they have done something horrible, such as eating the Virgin Mary Grilled Cheese (incidentally, Carson Daly is accused of nibbling a corner of it).
Beside the CG on the median-side barricade were a batch of very attractive 17-20 year olds. The cops loved these girls. I never really heard the verbal exchanges, but from time to time up to 10 NYPDs would be surrounding the girls, talking with one in particular. She did not look like any one “famous,” or the sister of anyone famous (even though, being a sister does not guarantee anything…just ask Ashlee Simpson or Heather Duff or the sister of the Norte Dame quarterback that was dating the Ohio State linebacker named “Hawk”, who purportedly tackled the quarterback for a huge loss, stood above the ND quarterback and yelled “I sacked you worse than I sacked your sister, last night, in your bed, while she was wearing your jersey, as per my request, d*ckweed”)
However, the cops kept bringing camera men and reporters with microphones to the gaggle of beauties. I heard something reasoned as “These gals drove all day from Shnecadty. Ask them a question.”
What the heck? We’re from Colorado? Is it the beard, officer? Or am I too dangerous as a world class blogger to be put into mainstream media, you piece of mindless badge-garbage!
Digression over.
6PM. Oh gosh. It starts to set in. The hardest part is just coming. We have 6 hours of waiting. Our hopes were that the rumors of live entertainment starting at 6PM were true. And at 6PM, the voice of an angel came on the broadcast system.
The voice said, “Hello, New York.”
And the voice belonged to Regis Philbin.
He stated that we were going to sing “New York, New York” to warm up so that we would be ready to do it after the Ball drop. He said the lyrics would come up on the screen. The music started, and Regis warbled. He could be seen on the Panasonic screen, looking rather “casual” in a sweatshirt and jeans. No lyrics appeared, so the crowd sort of mumbled the lyrics from memory of once hearing the song on a Sinatra mix CD that was left in their cubicle by the coworker that was being supplanted due to a wage war at Johns Hopkins.
“Did no lyrics show up?”
“No, Regis!” answered the crowd.
“That’s what I thought. It was awfully quiet out there. Maybe if my producer was competent…he’s from Hollywood. Don’t hire him.”
His mic was still near his mouth. All of Times Square is finding out what a jerk Regis can be. The following is what he said within a ten minute span, for all of New York to hear:
“I can’t read the cue- HEY. When you hold it like that- THE CUE cards. Yes. I can’t see it like that.”
“Do you have the cd that receives the feed. THE FEED. CD. Receives? THE FEED.”
“I’ll need to earn my only kiss of the year. [to his wife] Your delivery on your lines is horrible.”
Music would play on the speakers, good music, music to keep us warm. The crowds were not thick at all at this point. From time to time, an announcer would interrupt the music and tell us that were privileged to hear a particular band rehearse. Puddle of Mudd played first, and they were lame. They played the song where he states how he “likes the way you smack my @$$.” Everyone just laughed at him.
Essentially, the feeling of the experience was that we showed up to a recording of a television show 6 hours too early. Various musical groups did rehearsals, only playing parts of songs at times. To pass the time, the CG group played “travel games” where you ask weird questions in an attempt to try and get to know each other. I was entertained by watching the cops and beautiful girls interact, and more and more camera people and interviewers talk to this girl in particular. They were the pretty, popular group. Tina Fey might have penned them the “Plastics”.
Goodie bags were handed out. They contained crazy Dr. Seuss top hats that were green and yellow and touted Chevy’s (An American Revolution) emblem. Coca-Cola handed out mittens which I appreciated, not because I needed them. No, I wore thick huge gloves. My counterparts in the CG did not wear sturdy gloves, and instead were taking turns sticking their freezing hands on my neck underneath my scarf. Talk about a brain freeze – all the blood going up to my head was at least ten degrees cooler than it should have been. The coolest “goodie” was a metro card charged for four dollars paid by Phillips. A lot of people used mass transit to get home, so that was very thoughtful of you, Phillips. I’ll be sure to invite you to the baby shower.
Korbel, the makers of champagne, handed out these long balloons that had their namesake on them. I forcefully and repetitively thrusted mine toward the TRL booth, where a party was in progress. I caught the attention of a girl out of my league. I can die as the happiest AGO man to have ever lived.
I get a call from the Hawaiian. She wants to know if Dynah’s cautions were materializing. I told her that I could not hear her over the sound of adult diapers exploding. I yelled at her that people were wearing adult diapers over their heads to prevent from taking shrapnel from exploding adult diaper bombs. I told her that the streets were running with excrement, and it was going to be a miracle if I escaped without contracting some type of disease. I think she hung up after the fourth time I said adult diaper.
So everything is fine. I think we have 3 or so hours to go at this point. Everything is fine, people are fine. Around 9PM, it is noticeably starting to get more crowded. One snake of people actually pushed past us in order to get near the aforementioned gaggle of beautiful people. These people, these people that are in flux, are just as beautiful as the ones they were joining. The girls barely wore enough to not be arrested (how they stayed warm, only the Lord knows) and the gentlemen looked rather streamlined in their jean jackets and British racing caps. The snake of people was a little too pushy for those who think they can stand in crowds and never be touched (these people usually attend Social D concerts but haven’t bought a single album on CD and vote Democratic because they do not believe in blindly stirring up trouble, but yet, will shove anyone who bumps into them towards the mosh pit, causing more destruction and chaos than what was originally there), but I did not mind the snake of people. As I stated, it was 9PM, and time was rolling forward with a purpose.
Everything was fine.
Then everything smelled like mint.
Barry.
Frickin’ Barry.
This guy was part of the snake of beautiful people. With his ice cold blue eyes and two day stubble look (that looked good), no one could ever hurt him. He whispered to British racing cap man that he was going to go find “Sarah”, and then he moved to step by me and I moved into my circle as an act of indifferent deference (if such a thing exists). I did the same thing when he came back with the girl that he had fished out of the crowd. He apparently was brining a lost sheep back to the herd. I moved into my circle of companions to clear a way for him and his lady. The following conversation ensued:
“G@ddam&. What part of the country are you from?”
“A square state.”
“Oh. You have different terrain out there. [motions with his hands “mountains”] We’re more [motions with his hands “flatness”]”
“What’s your name?”
“fantasticterrific. Yours?”
“Barry. Barry from Pennsylvania”
“Nice to meet you.”
“G@ddam&. [turns to CG members] You gotta make friends with a big man like this. He’s a pillar of the Times Square.”
Barry disappeared. The smell of mint dissipated eventually. Then, as craftily as he left us, the smell of mint preceded his sighting. I looked left to try to find him, as the stench of peppermint was strong on the left, but it must have been the wind because I felt a hand on my right shoulder, and turned to be met by the most piercing and simultaneously dulled blue eyes I have ever seen.
A member of the CG made the mistake of trying to speak to Barry first.
“How’s it going, Barry?”
He just stared at her. He turned to me:
“How does she know my name, fantasticterrific?”
“She eavesdropped on our conversation from before, Barry. Ignore her, Barry. Barry, look at me. How are things going?”
“Oh, people hating me from all sides.”
“What about ‘cup of kindness yet,’ Barry.”
“Not here. Nope. Must be in the bars.”
The smell of mint again left us, and took Barry with it.
The CG group was a friendly one, and met John from Charm City. And of course it was assumed that we knew each other, since everyone in Charm City knows each other. He was a nice chap, regardless.
There was a Time Square proceedings host that reminded me of some slicked up version of the porn star Ron Jeremy. He was lame. His celebrity guests were lame. He would lead a countdown to the countdown. For instance, from 9:59:30 PM we would count down 30, 29, 28… down to 10PM, which would be the 2 hours to go mark. The part that enraged me was that around 11 of this countdown to the countdown, the powers that be would play a track over the PA system of a crowd counting. It was so blaring and crisp that it drowned out the real participants. It totally took the wind out of my sails. I made note that if this counting track was played during the real countdown, I would grab the nearest cop and kiss him. Hard.
Then, the beautiful people are talking with a guy who is standing in the “no-man” zone, the stretch of street between the median stage and the barricade. At first, his spiky haired head is kind of shaking side to side, not looking to interested, but the personification of teen beauty is enthusiastically asking something of him, and very quickly he nods “yes”, points to a bunch of them, and they leave their position in the crowd and disappear for a while. Then reappear in the “no-man” zone. They are escorted to the other side of the stage by various men in military dress. My only thought is that they (the girls) were enlisted to kiss the enlisted (the soldiers) in some hackneyed pre-filmed kissing bonanza to be shown on TV during the singing of Auld Lang Syne. They promptly returned to their original roost after 10 minutes on the dark side of the stage.
Then, the band OK GO performed on top of a skyscraper. Flippin’ amazing. The front man was so charismatic and looked so crisp in his suit. I declared him the next Jagger. The next Mick. I know, blasphemy, especially with the big Rolling Stones concert happening during the Superbowl XL this February.
After two incredible songs, the lead singer yells into the abyss, “New York, do you want to see four grown men break out in choreographed dance?”
Crickets.
“New York, do you want to see four grown men break out in choreographed dance?”
Eruption.
So, they have playing their “Million ways to be cruel” song while dancing this dance/fight scene. It was tongue in cheek, which made it all the more indie-rock chic. Blew my mind. Super awesome. OK GO is definitely a band of which I am going to listen and follow and possibly be ashamed of liking them when I am meeting my fiancée’s friends from Princeton in four years.
The last hour flew. I mean, from 11PM to midnight was a blur. By that time, time meant nothing. It was so inevitable and unstoppable that I found myself looking at the clock and seeing 11:55 PM and the seconds ticking and I thought “Oh, auh, well, I guess this is going to happen. I suppose I should, um, get my camera and cell phone, ready? It is going to happen right? Okay.”
The focus.
The energy.
The counting of 750,000 people in such a tight spot looking at the same descending ball, which had been hovering in its position since 6PM, was incredible. No voice over counting track was played, so the cops were safe from me. The ball could not be stopped. It was fueled by our 10’s, 9’s and 8’s. The ball propelled its way down to the unlit sign leaving in its wake a year that had seen more victories and triumphs and heart ache than any other year of my life. The Ball slammed into a lit, blinking “2006” as everyone shouted “One!” and pandemonium broke loose.
Everyone was on cell phones. Nothing could be heard by anyone who received a call. The only hope was that it would be received a piece of memorabilia. Loud, shrieking Asian girls screaming “I can’t believe it, I can’t believe it.”
I high fived the gentlemen in the CG group. Hard. I frickin’ meant it.
Hugged all the girls.
We sang Auld Lang Syne.
We sang “New York, New York” and even though Regis messed up the lyrics, he could not take away the incredible sense of community. Singing “New York, New York” while on 44th and 7th, with the confetti flying was incredible.
However, I truly feel that the event is sugarcoated and intended for the TV audience. While waiting we had no clue or announcements of what group was performing where. On TV, the camera is constantly bouncing from cheering group to cheering group, and they are cheering only because they are gluttons for being on TV. If the lights and the cameras were not on them, they definitely were not cheering, but sedentary and cold. I will reiterate the sentiment that it was like we showed up for a TV production 6 hours too early, and got to see all the ugly rehearsals and sound checks.
We were allowed to stay in Time Square until 12:30 AM, January 1st, 2006. Then the cops came and took off the front of the pen and said “Scram.” We moved down 44th and we all held hands so that we would not lose one another. I saw liquid snaking down the sidewalk, seeking to go with gravity down to the street. I stepped over it and looked to the right and saw a guy facing the corner of an alleyway, with a girl standing facing me, her back to the man. He evidently did not drink a gallon of water the day before, and only 16 oz. during New Year’s Eve.
We made it to the W. We met up with Actress-Lady, the Hawaiian, Cat, and Dynah. The excitement wanes, and tired and hunger set in. I went to the street and ordered 24 dollars worth of chicken kabobs and hot dogs and diet cokes at a street vendor. I devoured a hot dog and moved over to another vendor and ordered another hot dog. Extravagance is required at times like these.
Many decide to stay in and sleep. It was my plan to stay up.
I will see the Ball drop again, but next time I will just show up at 10:30PM or so, like all the street smart New Yorkers do.
This is just the first installment in describing my big huge long journey bridging the years 2005 and 2006. Come back and find out how the trip continued soon. I promise the next installments will be much shorter. Thanks.
