I know many on the left are upset with Obama's progress and I don't blame them, for the most part, but I have to say, while I expected something like this to come out eventually, I had no idea it would be so soon. And again, I know some expected it to surface on Day Two, but, let's face it, that was never going to happen. This is certainly one place where conservatives should outright plotz over the idea of bureaucracy and red tape, because it contributes so much more time for gassing up the getaway car and getting the stories straight.
But I'm not here to talk about that; I'm more interested in briefly examining that quote. People often like to brush aside semantics, but you can sometimes tell just as much from the way someone says something as you can from what they say. While the above is, coming from a person who operated under the aegis of the Boy King, a remarkably honest statement, notice that it's still a dodge. It's still very much in keeping with the neo-con philosophy.
A true admission might have gone, "Our reasons are just and our motives are pure, but the truth is that what we are doing is illegal and morally unsound." "Unsound." You like that? How's that for a big old benefit of the doubt? (Along with all the rest of it for that matter.) And yet the placing of the self-stroking before the confessional does actually matter. Because the other way, he's basically letting himself off the hook. Not much more than assuaging his own conscience. This was (is) the neo-con language. English has no subjunctive; Neo-Con has no admissive. Or perhaps what we are witnessing here is the extremely rare "soft admissive." A confessionary tense that somehow still ends up asking you to kiss the speaker's ass.
One day I'd like to see one of these people - one of the big dogs would be great, but I may have a better chance of seeing a UFO - come out and admit the monstrous nature of what took place. Couch in it terms of how unbelievably awful some of the people you were pursuing were - that part is true after all - but do us all a favor and put that part first. Let us all know that you now realize that becoming those people you hated so much was a bad idea. A bad, bad idea.
But I have a feeling that's where the really long wait kicks in.
Regrettably, the adbots are tone deaf and subsequently quite a few of the ads we get skew conservative. (I've never taken the time to calculate a ratio, but if I had to guess, I'd say we get more rightist ads than lefitst, although that may just be my own awareness of the biases of our corporatized culture talking.) It's annoying, but generally tolerable. After all, it's not as if I didn't already know that divergent views were out there. But today I saw one that really pushed my buttons because I cannot for the life of me fathom how anyone could be be happy to be represented by such a thing.
The thing starts out by announcing that New York State is on the verge of legalizing same-sex marriage (I still can't believe Iowa beat us to it, but, I tip my hat to them nonetheless). It then fades to the next screen, which basically says, "Is that what you want?" and then urges people to contact their state senators. Now, described as such, it's not especially egregious (you know, apart from the inherent bigotry). What really pisses me off is the accompanying graphics on the second screen. We see a man and woman and their young son with their heads all scrunched together and smiling fit to split their skulls.
The implication is more than clear. "Oh, just look at how ponies-butterflies-and-rainbows happy we are! Daddy's raise at the cotton candy factory just came through, which means we can finally afford that vacation to Elfworld where we will tip all of the waiters with eskimo kisses!" (Storm clouds would now appear above.) "Oh, but how shall we relax on our vacation when we know that there are yucky people out there who are actually considering treating the homos as if they were human beings! Well, that would just make us so sad! All the flowers would wilt and the fountains would dry up and the kitties and puppies and bunnies would get the runs!!"
Admittedly, I wax hyperbolic, but with good reason. I am a pacifistic man, but this shit makes me want to punch someone. How in the fuck could anyone think it a noble thing to suggest that your happiness is contingent on someone else being demeaned? I have yet to hear an argument against marriage equality that doesn't crumble under scrutiny, but this one comes to us pre-crumbled. There is simply no sense or decency in the suggestion that people you don't know being granted rights you yourself believe to be an essential part of life will somehow impact your own enjoyment of those rights. Even, once again, putting aside the repugnant bigotry of it all, why would someone wish to cheapen something they hold so dear by insisting that the fabric of it is so delicate it can be shredded by others justly enjoying it as well. Marriage is not a pool that everyone has to swim in. That's kind of the point. It's two loving individuals building a pool of their own.
I actually began writing this before the California Supreme Court's extremely disappointing decision to uphold Proposition 8, but that decision made the post just that much more relevant. Those of us who value justice and equality may have cause to be angry at this decision, but we can get some comfort in knowing that, as with most progressive causes, time is on our side. With each successive generation, the prejudices of the past become less and less prevelant and subsequently less and less relevant. And we move closer and closer to the day when someone who would use a picture of domestic happiness as a means to deny the same to someone else will be too ashamed to even try.
While channel-surfing the other day, I happened across an episode of Spongebob Squarepants. I hadn’t seen the show for a while and as I was watching it, an amusing memory surfaced.
I used to work in a video store. This was before the DVD revolution, so we trafficked mostly in tapes. After several years behind the counter, I was promoted to assistant to the owner, which was a blessing as it minimized my exposure to the clientele, leaving them primarily for the younger employees to deal with. And owing to certain factors, the demeanor of said clientele undoubtedly being one of them, we had a relatively frequent turnaround in counter staff during my tenure. Some of them came from a pretty well-known acting school around the corner – in fact, speaking of Nickelodeon, one of them went on to host a very popular show for pre-schoolers – and some of them came from the neighborhood. Lizz was one of the latter.
Most of the people who worked there over the years were, at the very least, nice. We did have some bumps in the road, including a guy who it turned out was slowly spiriting tapes out of the store for his private collection and who only returned a small portion of them when he was caught (the loss of Blood Freak hit me particularly hard) and a guy whose standard argument whenever there was a disagreement about the quality of a film was that he had a different (read: better) perspective because he had been to film school; not an invalid position, but also not an inviolable trump card either, especially coming from a guy who’d probably never even seen Blood Freak. But Lizz was something special. A whipsmart, creative, quite beautiful punk rock chick, she was pretty much what I would have custom-ordered in a fellow employee, if such a thing were possible. Actually, fuck ‘fellow employee,’ she was pretty much what I’ve always looked for in a girlfriend, and if there hadn’t been a significant enough age difference between us to kind of matter, I might have explored that possibility.
(Side note. They did screw up my order in one way: she was, improbably enough, a Republican. This was actually the second time in my life I felt affection for a punk rock chick only to find out she swung to the right, though this one was slightly easier to take, as the first one had been a bona-fidey love situation. Interestingly, both instances also resolved themselves the same way. In each case, it turned out that the impressionable young woman had basically been aping her parents’ beliefs, and a little independent thought eventually sent her 180-ing towards good old humanistic liberalism. But I digress.)
Having Lizz around the store made the place a lot easier to take, and even fun at times. Case in point: her decision one day to cast the assorted employees as characters from Spongebob. Two of her choices were remarkably a propos. The store subbing for the Krusty Krab, the owner would be Mr. Krabs, and, boy, did our boss live up to his, shall we say, rigid pecuniary attitude. Similarly, one of the other clerks had both the dour disposition and shiny be-stubbled pate of Squidward. To be fair, he wasn’t actually a miserable person at all, but when he was in complaining mode, the resemblance became far greater. Never more so than when Lizz informed him of her casting choice.
Lizz herself would take the title role, and the thought of her in that outfit was both hilarious and disconcertingly sexy. But as this reminiscence washed over me, I realized that I couldn’t remember which role I was supposed to occupy. I thought maybe Patrick – not the most becoming assignation given the limited brainpower of Spongebob’s starfish friend – but that didn’t seem right. The smallest and most evil of Bikini Bottom’s residents, Plankton, could have been fun, but I was pretty sure that wasn’t it either.
And then I remembered that she had given me a part of particularly high prestige indeed. She wanted me to be Gary, Spongebob’s pet snail. I believe she even justified it by saying that Gary tends not to say too much, but is actually the smartest one in the room, a flattering if undeserved comparison. Now while I would have gladly worn a shell on my back if it meant I could have sat in Lizz’s lap while she tickled my eyestalks, the truth of her choice probably lay within the fact that, even though she was in high school and I was pushing 30, she seemed to connect with me more than with anyone else in the store. Despite Gary’s comparatively infrequent appearances, it was a matter of the significance of the part overshadowing its size, which took a small joke meant to kill a little time during a dreary routine and turned it into a genuine moment, a pleasure both to experience and remember.
And so, Lizz, from Warped Memory Lane to wherever you are now, I hope you are happy, prosperous and well, and I say with all sincerity:
“Meow!”
New York Aberrant, March 14, 2009
While some may disdain the increase in public security cameras (and let’s not even get into the worldwide amateur film festival that has resulted from all the cell phones out there), what society at large has lost from the sense of constant scrutiny has been a gain for us here at the Aberrant in as much as we are now sometimes able to back up our stories of hiccupping reality with actual video evidence. [And I can already hear the Underwoods being fired up for letters in defense of the purely anecdotal. -Ed.]
Case in point: the whimsical near-fate of baked goods deliveryman Victor Dueñas. A native New Yorker, Dueñas has been schlepping bread and assorted pastries for Brooklyn’s Dough Remy Bakery for decades. He feels completely at home behind the wheel of his truck and is made to feel likewise in the various stops around his route. It’s the in-between that preyed on his mind. Or rather two very specific parts of the in-between: fire escape ladders and metal basement doors in the sidewalk.
“It’s kinda dumb, and I wish I could say it comes from something in my childhood or something, but the truth is I don’t really know when these fears started. I vaguely remember that the fire escape thing kinda started as a notion – you know, something that just occurred to me – that just stuck, and then I couldn’t be close to one without thinking about it.”
Dueñas, 46, is a thin-haired man with a small pencil mustache. Physically, he’s of fair size, much of it muscle, but even those well-equipped to deal with the city’s human dangers are still prone to certain universal factors, such as gravity. And along the way, Dueñas found that he couldn’t pass underneath a fire escape ladder without worrying that it was going to fall suddenly and crack open his skull. Similarly, he found that passing over a metal basement door in the sidewalk also suffused him with the fear that it was going to open up beneath him, sending him plunging down metal steps or onto a concrete floor covered in the kind of grime that makes the sidewalks seem positively lickable, not that he’d care since his neck would be broken.
“It can be embarrassing,” he continues. “I mean, it’s not usually that difficult to avoid walking over one or under the other, but it does happen that it becomes unavoidable – these streets can get crowded, y’know – and if someone sees you making special pains to walk around them, well, it can lead to uncomfortable questions. Especially since I knew – or thought I knew – that it was largely irrational.”
So uncomfortable did it make him that he vowed to overcome both fears, and with a little personal strength (and a little therapy) he was successful. Which makes what happened this past Tuesday all the more ironic.
“I’m in Murray Hill, making a delivery at one of my regular stops, a Korean deli. I’ve dropped off the shipment and I’m walking out just as these two young ladies are about to walk in. So I step to the side to get outta their way. Suddenly I hear a, I don’t know, a kind of a cracking sound above me. I look up. The goddamn ladder- ‘scuse me, the ladder from the fire escape is falling right towards my head. Now everything seems to be in slow motion, although it actually happened so fast, I didn’t even have a chance to react. My brain is screaming run, but before I can even move, I realize that the ladder is falling, but it’s not getting any closer. And that’s when I notice the strange feeling beneath my feet, which, it turns out, is because there ain’t nothing there!”
Yes, indeed, both of Mr. Dueñas’s bygone fears came true at once. The ladder above him fell and the door to the basement of the deli, upon which he had unwittingly stepped, opened, simultaneously. And the timing couldn’t have been more perfect, since the fall into the basement, where he landed on some soft bags of garbage, prevented the ladder from cleaving his brainbox in twain. He emerged from the basement somewhat slimy, but unhurt.
“My ma, God bless her, thinks it’s a miracle. The funny thing is, having successfully put those fears behind me in the past, I’m disinclined to think of it as anything more than wild coincidence and dumb luck.”
And in other dumb luck news, one of the security cameras inside the deli managed to capture the entire incident through the window, lending credence to what might otherwise be dismissed as shag of the dog. Aside from Mr. Dueñas’s disappearing act, additional entertainment can be had in the reaction of the two girls for whom he stepped aside, as the startled reaction of one sends the other careening through the door and into a stand of individual-sized snack packets. Footage available exclusively at the Aberrant website for those in search of a glorious example of random order or just a good cheap laugh.
Note: The Aberrant is, for the nonce, a fictional newspaper. No such publication exists. Yet.
Note bene: Despite the spate of recent entries, this was never intended to be a political blog, not exclusively anyway, but it was intended to be updated far more regularly than it has been. I have no problem writing about politics when that’s what’s on my mind (and will prove as much in a minute), but I’m also going to try to be a bit more varied, especially as I have some new ideas, along with some old ones only scantily utilized, that I hope will turn into regular features, most of which will definitely be on the lighter side.
And now…
The Fox show 24 has recently started its seventh season, and once again the world it inhabits has been plunged into a chaotic frenzy. The producers have always managed to finesse at least a little bit of real world relevance into their fictional plots, creating a kind of parallel universe to our own (not a bad time to mention that they got the first black president into office at least seven years before we were able to, and they’ve just checked off the first female president column as well) and this time it’s based around the idea of genocidal militias in a made-up African nation.
I have been a fan of this show since its inception. Even in the lesser seasons, and skirting around the stupider plot diversions, it consistently delivers some crackling espionage action, and that’s coming from someone who isn’t a particular fan of either spy stories or action movies, although that’s not even the biggest reason why I’m a somewhat unlikely adherent.
For those unaware, the show has come under fire on numerous occasions, particularly in the liberal blogosphere and from human rights groups (the latter of which shouldn’t be exclusively liberal, but it seems to work out that way) for its persistent depiction of torture as an effective tactic. To read a really terrific article about the entire subject, go here. (And I would add how satisfying it is that the case for the negative effects of such things is actually unintentionally bolstered by some of the comments of those who would deny it. Question: How do you discredit a conservative? Answer: Turn on his microphone.)
But the truth is, the show is not, as might be concluded from the torture issue, a platform for conservative philosophies. Crackling espionage action or not, I simply couldn't have stomached it this long if it were. As is mentioned in the article, one of the creator/producers is a diehard rightist (friends with the High Priest of Gas and Nazi Barbie, and he’s in good company given some of the shit that comes out of his mouth), but the writing staff is, overall, quite mixed politically. And while they do tend to stack the deck in regards to the US being the good guys (not an entirely unrealistic thing, it should be said), they haven’t been afraid to show that the mere act of sitting in the Oval Office does not suffuse you with righteousness, nor have they shied away from characters debating the wisdom of ever-troublesome interventionism and the possible motives behind same.
Nor, for that matter, have they ignored the torture issue, though the debate generally ends the same way: with the exact sort of ticking clock scenario experts tell us never happens in real life forcing whoever had a problem with it to realize the error of their ways and consent to the sort of tactics experts tell us don’t really work.
This new season even opens with the main character, Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland), appearing before a Senate Committee to answer questions about the tactics he has regularly employed. This seemed at first to be a beneficial byproduct of conversations the producers and the show’s star have had with human rights groups, particularly regarding the fact that soldiers in the field have used the same tactics they’ve seen on the show, to the consternation of their superiors. Unfortunately, and I’m a little behind in the episodes so I can’t say whether this part of the story has been further addressed at all, the hearing consists mainly of Bauer telling off the committee members and basically saying ‘non, je ne regrette rien’ (pardon my traitorous French) while the ghost of John Philip Sousa conducts some stirring patriotic music behind him. This was not, I would imagine, what a certain subsection of the audience was hoping to see, although who knows what the future may bring? Famed liberal mouthpiece and comedienne Janeane Garafalo is in the cast this time around and Human Rights Watch aired an ad during the season premiere, both of which are testament to the fact that the show’s politics are not as cut and dried as they may seem and may even be indicative of something else. I guess we’ll see.
But the truth is, the main reason I sat down and started typing this in the first place is because of a moment from hour two of this season. Jack has been swept out of the Senate hearing to assist the FBI in a matter the details of which will already be known to those who watch the show and won’t matter to those who don’t. Some of the Feds working on the case are not too crazy having him around owing to his dangerous reputation, but he endures their barely-veiled hostility. Ordered to sit inside a car and be quiet at one point, the agent watching over him turns and expresses belief that it’s wrong that Bauer has been forced before the Senate. After all, this is a man who has saved the nation at least six times (available at a DVD retailer near you). Jack looks out of the window wistfully and responds:
“It’s better that everything comes out in the open. We’ve done so many secret things over the years in the name of protecting this country, we’ve created two worlds. Ours, and the people we’ve promised to protect. They deserve to know the truth. Then they can decide how far they want to let us go.”
And so, for that one moment at least, all questions of ideological agenda become irrelevant. You can choose to decide how the public really would react if put in charge of that decision (and, of course, results may vary, for any number of reasons), but the simple fact remains that, with that statement, Jack Bauer was more honest about the fact that things such as torture, secret prisons, extraordinary rendition and the like do affect the conscience of the nation at large than the Bush administration, or indeed any of the administrations that proceeded it, have ever been.
As to the one that follows it, well, we’re off to a good start. Again, I guess we’ll see.
Once again, the holidays are gone with but a few fumes remaining. Soon, everything will go back to "normal." Which puts me in mind of the most trenchant thing I read this season. It was in an e-mail from one of the far-too-many activist lists I'm on. I wish I could remember which group it was because it really put the skeeball right in the center hole.
The author, by way of season's greetings, mentioned how funny it was being an anti-war, pro-peace activist at this time of year and hearing "Peace on Earth" coming out of everyone's mouth. Out of the mouths of those who, throughout the rest of the year, can't be bothered to do anything in the name of genuine peace, who seem generally unconcerned that our nation is waging war in one country and occupying another, something that should occupy all of us whether we approve of the actions or not. Even more difficult to stomach is the thought of "Peace on Earth" coming out of the mouths of those who otherwise spend their time thwarting peace at every turn. I have no doubt that the White House puts on a stunning Christmas display, or that the current occupants are the least qualifed to speak about the holiday's ostensible message.
Why, it should be asked, did so many people laugh when Dennis Kucinich suggested that this nation needs a Department of Peace just as much if not more than we need a Department of War? Isn't peace something we want? Isn't it something to be desired? Isn't it, indeed, the ultimate objective behind war?
Even most of the hawks would say yes to that; they may or may not mean it, but they'd likely say it, because what are they going to do? Admit that they really work in service of a dangerously entrenched industry that happily profits off of human misery? Admit that in their circle, perpetual war isn't only acceptable, it's desirable? You would think that those who have seen combat would know better than anyone else that it may sometimes be a necessary thing, but can't possibly be considered a good thing.
Ah, but then, most of the hawks in the current administration never saw any combat, did they? Yes, that could explain it. 'It' being the ability to act as if peace were merely a word to be trotted out at the traditional time, and then discarded again as easily as if it were embroidered on a pillow. Not to get too Charlie Brown Christmas on you, but what if people lived their lives as if peace were something important all year long? Important enough to be a major concern of our government. Important enough to warrant its own department. Is that really such a joke? Is it really that funny?
Happy New Year.
So, we learned from the shoe-throwing incident that President Not Brussell Sprout has good reflexes, but who knew he was so limber as well? You'd practically have to be a goddamn yogi to kiss your own ass so thoroughly.
Of course, before he even made this grandiosely self-serving statement, there was already plenty of evidence that not only hadn't he made things better but had likely made them worse, such as that detailed in this terrific article by Terrance Heath for the Institute for America's Future.
"It's not a matter of luck," he says. Well, then, sir, what is it exactly? Because going by your overall record, we can rule out skill and insight and acumen and wisdom and thoroughness and thoughtfulness and knowledge and strategy and somebody else please take over so I can take a breath.
But what really bugs me about that statement - and I realize this is somewhat unfair since I didn't hear how he actually said it - is that I can only imagine him saying it in that same snickering tone he always uses when he's being defensive. You know, the one with the not-so-subtle subtext of "I can't believe I have to explain this to you dummies! You're just supposed to go along with whatever I say!" Is it any wonder that Sarah Palin was so sure she was qualified to hold an office that close to the top? Look at the example being set.
The truth is that if Bush were so confident that history will vindicate him, he wouldn't be pressing so hard to create a narrative now about how successful his presidency has been. This is likely the deep-seated lack of confidence that many people point to and say, "He's not actually an idiot; he just doesn't deal well with stress." Putting aside the fact that this is not the most desirable quality for the leader of the free world, the punchline is that by this point it doesn't even really matter any more. Sure, we can continue to debate the liar/idiot question until the day when definitive proof comes out one way or the other. But none of that is going to change the state of the world post-Bush. Hopefully what we do from here on in, will.
I was listening to Ron Kuby's Air America show yesterday and a caller suggested that, now that the election has been won, perhaps it's time to lay off Sarah Palin. I understand the sentiment and think it's a decent one at heart, but I do think that it's important to remember that she is still being touted by some Republicans as the future of their party. Seeing as how she's also exactly the sort of person that many other, more sensible Republicans are sick of being associated with, I don't know that this is how things will play out (perhaps, as a friend suggested, this is the road to a genuine third party emerging; pity it's highly unlikely to be one I would vote for, but precedent is precedent). Additionally, keep in mind that it is Republicans - not Democrats, progressives, liberals, what have you - who are now loosing the dish on her like she was caught panty-less at the prom.
But I'm not even going to comment, for the time being, about the latest allegations of her ignorance, which, if true, are really quite mind-boggling. We all know that public rhetoric is often about finessing words so you can say one thing while appearing to say another, or at the very least affording yourself "plausible deniability." This is a practice that, while repugnant on its face, can, like any good con, evoke a certain reluctant admiration when done with genuine skill. But there is manipulating language, and then there's plain old misusing it, as in, "That doen't mean what you appear to think it means." In the specific case I'm thinking of, the word would be 'filter.'
During her memorable appearance at the Vice Presidential debate, Governor Palin said how happy she was to be able to speak to the public directly without the "filter" of the media. This was, as I'm sure everyone recalls, in reference to several bad if not outright disastrous public appearances, perhaps the most noteworthy of which was her interview with Katie Couric.
Now, a filter, to put it as simply as possible, is a device through which a substance is passed when you wish to separate one or more elements of the substance from the others. (I'd cite an actual dictionary definition, but I'd worry about being accused of bias. Noah Webster would almost certainly be viewed as a radical by many modern conservatives.) Ironically, while Governor Palin complains that what she said was filtered, indeed, when we look back on what actally happened, we see that her true complaint was that they didn't filter her enough.
Bear in mind that the Saturday Night Live segment satirizing the Couric interview was taken almost verbatim from what she actually said. They allowed her to be shown as is, she came off very badly, and she wasn't happy about it. But, of course, she couldn't complain about what actually happened, so she had to pretend that things had happened differently. This scenario gives her the benefit of the doubt that she did understand what happened, she does know the meaning of the word 'filter,' and she willfully chose to misuse it. Basically we come down to the same choice we've had so many times with W for these past eight years. Liar or moron.
One thing that propels me towards the former, all recent evidence of cluelessness aside, is that I get a very palpable sense of entitlement from the Governor. It has already been established that she did abuse her power for personal reasons, even though she stated publicly that she had been exonerated (there's that whole opposite thing again), and while the rumors that she and her kin went off like contestants on Supermarket Sweep as soon as the RNC checkbook came out make them sound like rubes, her general air of superiority makes me think more of Madeleine Khan as Empress Nympho casually ticking off which guards she wants for the evening's festivities (minus the impeccable comic timing and group sex). It is not at all difficult for me to believe that she believed that it was the media's job to make her look good no matter what she said. Sucks for her that they finally figured out that it wasn't.
As I said before, this is nothing new. It did feel like this sort of thing happened in especially egregious numbers this time around but that may just have been because I was paying closer attention. Now that the whole nerve-wracking experience has turned a corner, I may go back and see if I can address some of the other glaring examples. Just for fun? You betcha. (An on that overly easy note...)
Who knew? I had reasonably begun to suspect that the fear aspect of Halloween was largely a bygone thing for me and yet another Halloween was upon us and I was undeniably freaked out. But enough about the election.
Actually, no, not enough. Not yet. In recent years, likely as a part of my overall campaign to improve my health, I have noticed that my claustrophobia has abated somewhat, making the idea of being in the midst of a large gathering of the general public much less daunting. And yet as I headed downtown for my annual visit to the Village Halloween Parade, I found a bit of the old anxiety creeping in around the edges. There are a number of things I’ve been concerned about lately, so I wouldn’t chalk it all up to politics, but this upcoming monumental event can certainly lay claim to a large percentage. True, most signs point to a happy outcome, but the fact that it may turn out to be another close one is truly sickmaking, not only because of the thought of four more years of the same malfeasance and backward thinking (possibly amplified), but because of what its says about a certain faction of those with whom I share a nationality, if not a national identity. Top it off with the fact that even a landslide Obama victory would only be a foot to the decelerator in the regressive, anti-humanist, anti-intellectual skid this country has been in for decades-
We may have actually hit enough a little while back, so let’s just say that sometimes it looks as if the Boys from Akron were even more right than they knew and move on.
With Halloween falling on a Friday this year, the ratio of costumes throughout the borough was likely to be much higher, but for a little while after leaving home to head downtown, I saw only one foursome dressed, fairly nondescriptly, the men in frightwigs and multi-colored clothes, one woman’s outfit concealed by a coat and the other in a dirty Raggedy Anne/Strawberry Shortcake number, which included one of those miniskirts that doesn’t appear to have a hope in hell of not sliding up like a steel window in a stroke booth and yet somehow stays in place, but that was about it. Happily, a young Asian couple sitting together in full-body mouse suits on the corner of 42nd turned out to be heralds of what was to come and as soon as I came in proximity of them I saw plenty of costumes walking in both directions on that avenue-street.
Of course, the throngs didn’t kick in until Madison Square, as usual, and past 23rd Street the sidewalks were swimming in people. Allowing yourself to be carried along with the flow, this is when the costume-watching begins in earnest, along with a little side game as you try to guess which people sort of look like they’re dressed up but really aren’t. This is a byproduct of Village culture where some people dress in unusual clothing all year long. (Hell, some people dress as if it’s Halloween all year long.)
I had thought I would try to find the same diner the window ledge of which I had stood on the previous year and which had proved to be a decent vantage point from which to watch the proceedings, but somehow I had gotten it into my head that it had been on 10th Street and it wasn’t until I actually got to the parade route at 10th and Sixth Avenue that I realized my mistake. (The revelation was actually pleasing in a way. The previous year I had seen numerous signs of parties and festivities for the local kids along the block between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, which didn’t seem to be as strongly in evidence this year. Hopefully the wrongly chosen street meant that the same level of enthusiasm was again taking place only a block away.)
There was a window ledge outside of a health food store on this corner as well, but it was much more low to the ground and subsequently not nearly as effective as the previous year’s, and so, finding an opening in the steady flow of revelers moving onto the avenue from the street (and vice versa), I moved a bit closer to the festivities. As a result, I ended up doing quite a bit of one of the last things I generally expect when going down to the parade, which is…watching the actual parade.
One thing I expected to see and didn’t are the standard large puppets of looming skeletons and the like. There were some smaller ones, but the really big ones either didn’t make an appearance or I missed them. One of the things I didn’t expect to see too much of were sponsored floats, given the reports of sponsors pulling out in the wake of the financial crisis, so it was funny that one of the first things I did see was the Jagermeister truck. Girls dressed in dayglo outfits with matching wigs and guys dressed as the deer of the JM logo – along with one guy dressed as a JM bottle – all danced enthusiastically to an upbeat pop song, in German no less, about the patron beverage, bouncing so boisterously during the chorus, I wondered if the vehicle’s shocks could stand it, and I don’t even really know what that means. The crowd certainly enjoyed it, and it made me wonder about my friend Jason and what he might be up to. He had once had to have his stomach pumped after x-amount too many shots of that pungent liqueur.
Of course, politics did put in an appearance (although surprisingly I didn’t see one Sarah Palin costume), most visibly when a large Obama contingent went by in the parade, sporting a cutout of the big O himself. Deep down I cringed at the thought that someone might fling something at the avatar, with all of the horrifying symbolism that could embody, but all that happened was a group of young women just to the north of me began chanting his name. More amusing, if juvenile, was a wag who passed by with a Dubya mask, a toilet seat around his neck, and a sign saying ‘Sewage W. Bush, Ready to Be Flushed, January 20th 2009.’ Not the way I would choose to express myself, but, hey, it’s funny because it’s true.
More musical floats went by, including the Kostume Kult, a densely packed trailer of people who appeared to have stepped directly out of NYC’s early-‘90s rave culture. These are a good example of the kind of people who dress as if it’s Halloween all year long. The float’s MC, perched up front in a pseudo-superhero kind of get-up, microphone in hand, really got the crowd going with his patter. I’ve never been interested in the city’s club culture, but in that moment I appreciated its enthusiasm more than I would have thought possible.
It was also about this time that I looked around and realized that I had allowed myself to wander into the middle of a fair-sized group of people. Not only that, but I felt completely comfortable. Funny that I had begun the evening worrying about old fears returning and now I had apparently sloughed them off without even thinking about it.
This also turned out to be a good spot for two of my favorite sights of the evening, one large, the other far subtler. Across the avenue is the Jefferson Market building, an ecclesiastical looking structure that served as a courthouse for female prisoners until sometime in the ‘30s when it was converted into the library branch it functions as to this day. A small group of people were standing on a balcony in one of the building’s parapets and were dangling a large white spider puppet down the side that danced constantly the entire time I was there. On a smaller note, at one point I looked towards the very front of the crowd and saw a person filming the passersby with a camera held over their head with both hands. The funny part was that one hand was clutching a hunting knife – presumably a part of a costume – the blade sticking out to the side as if it were just another attachment for the camera.
I was actually paying so much attention to the parade that I hadn’t done nearly as much costume watching as usual, but I did manage to jot down notes of some of those that struck a chord. There seemed to be a surprisingly high number of pirates, Egyptians and French aristocrats this year. There was a Futurama crew amongst the marchers (actually, I can only confirm a Leela and a Zoidberg). There was a small troupe of bumblebees (also, like the mice earlier, all Asian, a propos of nothing except perhaps a consistency on the part of the evening’s representation of the animal kingdom), a pretty good homemade Power Ranger, a really good homemade Pinhead, and a woman who had single-serving cereal boxes stuck all over her torso with bloody plastic knives. One of the funniest was a guy dressed up as the late Bob “Happy Little Trees” Ross, made all the funnier by how many people probably thought he was just some random guy in a curly wig with a palette.
Now, you’ll notice that I’m not saying much about the controversial yet all-important slut factor. This is not because there wasn’t plenty of skin on display, but more because a) as already stated I spent far more time than usual watching the parade and b) this being Friday, I knew there would probably be plenty of costumed lovelies buzzing around outside the bars to ogle discreetly on the way back uptown. In fact, there came a point when I realized that if I was to make it to the place I needed to be by 10 o’clock, I had to pull myself away and start trekking back up. Now, somehow my mind, despite having all the requisite pieces handy, had failed to put the puzzle together. I had left the parade in plenty of time to reach my destination, if, that is, the holiday crowd had thinned out beyond the Village as it would normally have done. But while I had anticipated lots of Friday night revelers in costume, I had somehow failed to take into consideration how much of an obstacle these extra people on the street would be to my progress. By the time I was halfway there, I realized time was fleeting and it was too late to jump on the subway as well. Subsequently many blocks were covered at a run and the costumed lovelies (and, yes, they were in abundance) ended up being largely a blur, a glimpse of stocking here, a flash of cleavage there, painted lips, giant lashes, the odd garter strap and skirt hem. Between my frantic pace, my serpentine moves and my eyes’ insistence on girl-watching at peril to the rest of my body, it’s really a small miracle that I didn’t go ass-over-teakettle at any point. But I didn’t, and what’s more I made it to my destination only a few minutes late. A part of me wished I had been able to stay longer at the parade, and yet the bittersweetness made me appreciate it all the more. Next year hopefully my plans will be more solid.
And so I toss into the stew of the internet this rambling post about what is supposed to be the scariest day of the year on what could be, midnight having passed, the actual scariest day of the year, or at least the most nerve-wracking. As of this moment, I don’t know what is going to happen to the country, but I’m not even going to focus on that right now. Better to plan revamped efforts to make friends with someone who lives on the parade route. Or someone who knows someone who lives on the parade route. Or someone who knows someone who knows someone who lives on the parade route. But not someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows someone who lives on the parade route, because, you know, that would just be crashing.
Primo Vantage Point in ’09!
Until next year…
Man, sometimes you just get lucky.
I had planned to go down to Generation Records, but then didn't sleep well the night before, so I thought I'd put it off. Then, on second thought, I figured it was nice out and I could go to the Union Square Market while I was at it, so I hauled myself down there.
Then I decided to forego going downstairs to the used section in the basement since their punk/hardcore section usually only has new bands I've never heard of instead of the classic stuff I prefer. But while I'm going through the new racks on the ground floor, I can hear some "punk" guy talking up the "punk" girl working behind the counter, lame talk about his band that she's lapping up, all prelude, no doubt, to some "punk" sex. I don't really have a problem with any of this, aside from vague annoyance at being so aware of the flirtations of others, until she comes out from behind the counter and they start flipping through the Poison Idea CDs, and saying , ew, they're so disgusting, such fat pigs, etc. Never mind that they're one of the all-time greats. Anyway, I couldn't listen to any more of that shit, so I retreated to the basement not expecting much, and, lo and behold, not too long after diving in, a used copy of Sounds of Nature by Christ on Parade surfaces. An album I've been dying to hear by the band that recorded one of my top five favorites.
So, thank you, lame faux-punks. Your annoying flirtation brought us together.
Also purchased in the same visit:
Survival of the Fattest- No, not a new Poison Idea album, but a compilation of bands from NOFX's Fat Wreck Chords label.
Old Tyme Lemonade- A compilation of punk/hardcore bands from Rhode Island, specifically Providence and Olneyville. Who knew RI had such a vibrant scene? I know that Providence is (or used to be, I don't know its current status) home to The Living Room, one of New England's coolest clubs, but I didn't realize that it had produced so many underground bands itself. (Having now listened to some of it, it appears to be predominantly geared towards lo-fi experimental noise. Somehow that makes a bit more sense.)
The Freak Accident- Purchased solely for the fact that a) it was a buck, and b) it was released by Alternative Tentacles, this actually turned out to be a side project by Ralph Spight, guitarist/vocalist for the great-yet-underrated Victim's Family. Like I said, sometimes you just get lucky.
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