june 30 2000
the july 4 excursion, part I:
it's late, and technically it's not today, but i'm awake and pj and kay are doing their thing and a movie's on (jesus, it's tampopo. oh, no it's not, it's funeral. it's just that there's a preview for tampopo and i have a difficult time keeping my japanese movies about food and sex separate from my japanese movies about death and sex. not that they're my movies, because the only cinematic productions i have to my name are distinctly vhs and involve three candy-stripers and a raccoon. the japanese, they love their sex. and food. and, uh, death. why people would want to get blazed and watch something with subtitles is beyond me to begin with.) and i wanted to get everything down fresh like windex before the red stripe wear completely off and abscond with my raconteuring flair. i will not be silenced.
getting up here was a easy, though tripartite, process. pj and met at grand central station and took the metro north commuter rail up to dover plains, new york. metro north is what would happen if you started with a regular amtrak train, took away all government subsidy, and added a bunch of sweating men with palm pilots who are just trying to get home to westchester and ignore their children. two hours of that, plus incessant minor lurching, is best remedied with retreating into oneself with music and mountain dew (yes, yes, i know, but i'm from indiana and "it's a birthright thing, you wouldn't understand." (tm) plus it's the sole hypercaffeinated citrus ambrosia on the market today that when warmed in the sun boasts a pH value identical to healthy urine, making it a prime tool for deceiving those prying eyes down at the state department), though props go to the conductor who took it upon himself to break the monotony by making the passengers privy to his banter with the switchwoman. to wit:
him: could you throw that switch one more time for me, please?
her: i think i could do that...
him: you're a goooood woman.
her: why, thank you kindly, sir.
and so on in this fashion until we got to dover plains. we had a good hour and a half until kay would be there to pick us up, so we did the logical thing. we pitched quarters. i originally suggested pitching pennies, a la robert redford and the paperboy in the sting, but pennies just don't hold much cachet in this go-go-go buy-sell-trade control-alt-delete hippy-hippy-shake duck-duck-goose world we're livin' in. so we pitched quarters for an hour, and talked about identity politics and whatnot. you know, the ongoing debate regarding the political nature of the sexual act and essentialism versus construct. the usual. me and pj, we're keepin' it ersatz for the new millennium.
the bizarre thing was, we're standing on the steps of the train platform pitching quarters (which consists of 1) both of you tossing quarters towards the wall and then the person who got closer keeping both quarters, and 2) repeat.) and were feeling like delinquents. granted, dover plains is little more than a train platform and the three guys with tank tops and/or farmers' tans who were trying to get a pickup truck started, and we're there in a kangol and baggy pants and loud sneakers (me) and a rangy 6'4 morrissey lookalike (pj), but people were actually steering their children away from us. very odd. it was kind of the equivalent of hanging out on our dirt bikes in front of the village pantry/7-11/cumberland farms/insert regional convenience store chain here, except we were both gainfully employed productive members of society. and neither of us has that ratty little mustache that the kids in front of the 7-11 sport.
kay shows up, and we hop in and take the hour drive up through the hudson valley to williamstown, me regretting not having my camera around every turn. i was in the backseat playing the cloud game silently, the highlight of which was the snuffleupagus chasing a mango around a pine tree. clouds, man: how do they do it? also, there was a distinct overabundance of testosterone in kay's car, given the playlist of the upcoming canibus album (whose most epic track features the homeric chorus "die slow! you better die slow, nigga! die slow! just die slow!") and dj assault, a ghetto-tech dj whose cds feature chants like "let me see yo' check stub! let me see yo' bootyhole!" at one point, sarah mclachlan parachuted onto the roof of our car and began shouting angrily. thankfully, kay wasn't havin' it, and shook her off with a nice little stop-and-go.
coming in part II: some girls see the origami, some girls see the thug. my adventures with joanne.
to recap: identity politics and whatnot. let me see yo' bootyhole. thank you.
p.
and yo. my full-on venture kneejerk.net is up and running, though not nearly full. go and getcha read on. for me.
props to darkcounter.com
and sitemeter