Movies, Mayhem, and Merch
November 3, 2002
I got out of bed, cleaned the apartment a little bit, went for breakfast, and then headed to Bedford Avenue to stop by the bookstore where my friend Jonny works. Jonny and I had been trying to make plans to hang out, but so far had only managed to play several rounds of phone tag. I figured it would be easier to stop in to see him at work, say hi, and make plans from there.
When I arrived, the store was closed, but a group of people were milling around the entrance. It seemed they were filming a movie of some sort. I found Jonny outside and we tried to have a little chat, but a PA kept calling out, "Quiet, rolling!" After a few minutes of this, I couldn't take it anymore. I said goodbye and walked to the subway.
As I was walking, a car with an elaborate camera mount and several camera operators hanging out the windows as if their high school had just won the big Homecoming game, drove by filming the street. I made a face at them as they passed, and one of the guys on the truck gave me a dirty look, no doubt frustrated by how much money my stupid face was going to cost them. Fuck ‘em. I don't want to be in their stupid movie.
I continued to the subway and took the L train into Manhattan to run a quick errand in Chinatown. Canal Street is a fucking nightmare! I don't know how to describe it other than to say it's like the entire population of China crammed onto a few blocks. I suppose China has plenty of blocks that fit that description, too, but few in the US rival the pulsing swarms of coagulated pedestrians, cars, bicycles, and scooters in Manhattan’s Chinatown. Mayhem!
A tiny Chinese girl pushed me out of her way as she tried to weasel her way through the crowd. It was like a boy band had just played the opening chord to their biggest hit, and she was trying to get to the front of the stage. But the crowd was thick as slow-drying cement, and she couldn’t get very far. I caught up to her at the crosswalk, and when the light changed, I tripped her up a little bit. Not enough to make her fall, just enough to give her an adrenaline rush. I know that it's bad karma, but if it means I get tripped in the future, I think I can handle it. Honestly, I don’t do that kind of thing when I’m driving, but sidewalk rage is real!
I need to get more sleep.
As I returned home, my landlord and his real estate agent were arriving. One by one, they greeted the people who had made appointments to see my building. A woman from across the street came to look—she had an appointment, but I don't think she was interested. She was just a nosy neighbor.
I caught her studying the handful of naked photos and paintings I have hanging on my walls. “Shocking!" she said.
I thought she must be joking, and I laughed—"Shocking?"
"Yes, shocking!" she confirmed before she huffed out.
Good riddance bitch. I didn't invite you in to judge my taste and lifestyle! In fact, I didn't invite you in at all, so go take a flying fuck at a rolling donut!
The appointments finished with just enough time for me to run down the street to meet a date. Except that Jasmin, my upstairs neighbor, told me her cats snuck into my apartment during the showings, and we spent ten minutes looking for them. Needless to say, I was late for the date.
When I arrived, the girl was standing outside in the cold because the place I had picked wasn't open yet. Oops. No biggie, we found another place nearby and had a nice chat for about two hours before I had to say goodbye.
“Let’s do this again.”
“Yes, let’s.”
I had tickets to see The (International) Noise Conspiracy at Warsaw at 8 PM.
I had planned to meet a friend, but he bailed at the last minute. If I’d known earlier, I would have invited my date.
"Who wants a ticket?" I said to a group of hipsters outside the venue.
"I do! How much?"
“Free!”
So I balanced out my karma a little. Maybe.
Once I got inside, I realized that there were four bands ahead of The (International) Noise Conspiracy. That meant they wouldn’t be going on until, like, midnight at best—a long night at a club by myself. It was general admission, so I wandered around, had some drinks, found a couple of people I recognized from my neighborhood, waved hello to the guy with the free ticket, and now and then checked out the opening acts. The other bands weren’t any good. It didn’t help that the sound at Warsaw is garbagy mush, but the bands themselves were objectively lame. One was a hardcore frat boy band. I'm surprised the coach let them stay up long enough to play. They smashed their guitars and drums and all that other tired rock and roll bullshit. I get it that everything old is new again, but really, it's time for a new schtick. Besides, what self-respecting punk rocker has that kind of disposable income?
I got stuck standing behind a square-shaped older guy with a huge festering carbuncle on the back of his knobby skull. I was so tempted to squeeze it, expecting it would honk like a clown nose, but I was too afraid that that baby spiders might hatch out of it. So I inched away from him as best as I could on the crowded floor. INC finally came on with such ferocious fury that I forgot about life for a little while. Except, I had to stick a bunched-up piece of napkin in my left ear. If it's too loud, you're too old—maybe it’s true.
The band gets a lot of mileage from their only (very attractive) female member. She’s in no way the frontwoman, but you’d never know it from their promo photos. Funny that a band with so many revolutionary-political-anti-capitalist songs falls into the same old trap of capitalizing on the pretty girl. You can't blame them. Even though the rest of the band has a cool look (in that mod Swedish fagged out fashion sense kinda way), they were simply not in the same league as she was. And another thing, for an anti-capitalist band, they sure had a lot of merchandise for sale.
