Siren Festival Brings Forth Much Yuppie Fruit

This past weekend was the Siren Festival at Coney Island.  It yielded much fruit, most notably a tan so un-even I thought I had Vitiligo, a hilarious text-message from a friend that read: "I'm in the VIP trying to get an energy drink. This is the lamest text I've ever sent," and lastly, a plethora of Brooklyn yuppies to hate and then some.

Yes, yes, yes.  I am often hateful toward yuppies (especially those that would otherwise not be where I am but are because we happen to like the same things which causes me to have an identitty crisis).  However, the yuppies that were at the Siren Festival just a few days ago were a rare breed.  Why? 1. They were old as fuck.  2.  They were not cool.  Not even in the slightest.  We're talking painfully uncool, here, the kind of people who used to be the kids in that movie Spellbound.  Whenever I am troubled by the people surrounding me, I make sure to ask myself why.  I followed the same practice here.  I wasn't troubled because they were chic and wealthy and at the same music festival.  I was troubled because they were frightfully dorky in a real nineties kind of way.  These were the kids from grammar school that weren't just bespectacled or un-athletic, but also unable to grasp that "Dr." was an abbreviation for "doctor" and not pronounced "Durrrrr."

My lady friend and I were dressed in bathing suits, tank tops and shorts (because it's the goddamn beach, people) but these thirty-somethings looked like they'd packed for a three day vision quest through Appalachia.  If the Siren Festival were held in the desert, maybe I'd understand the giant his and hers Columbia backpacks, but come on, I packed less for Burning Man.  Oh wait, I take that back, they probably wanted to pack a box of wet-wipes, a couple of Nalgenes and a pair of aqua socks just in case.

In the morning, she probably asked him, "Honey, do you think I should pack the aqua socks?"

He answered: "God no, you don't actually think we're going in the water, do you? I mean, it's of the Q train, not the LIRR."

She laughed, "Oh, you thought I meant to go in the WATER. I just meant in case we wanted to put our flat feet on the sand an didn't want to step on an AIDS riddled hypodermic needle! Ahahahahah, we're so happy. Put on that Islands record again so we can get amped."

While they blocked my view with their unbelievable squareness, I even felt a tinge of retroactive sadness for them. If we had been children together, I would have called the guy a real L-seven weenie. But wait. Just as the violinist and violist were about to hit that big chord in the "The Arm," I noticed that they were playing rock paper scissors (they probably call it rochambeau) along with the tempo. Oh. My. Fuck. Rock paper scissors? You're blocking my view and you're playing rock paper scissors? Any benevolence I had vanished. I thought awful and murderous thoughts. My blood boiled. And just as I lowered my sunglasses to give them a good ole fashioned "oh puhlease," the guy high-fived another guy. Wait a minute....there are more? They have friends like them?

Surely enough, they did. It turns out, they couple I had ardently disliked for literally minutes were on a double date with the couple next to us. Now this couple- this couple was a horse of a different color. Sure, the horse was still from Greenpoint, but on it's hooves were a different set of horseshoes. From the head-down, I was able to gather that these were their fashionable friends, the friends that probably introduced these yokels to music in the first place. They guy: an Obama pin, a Greenpoint pin (ahh vindication), a straw fedora, a Hawaiian shirt and Merrells. The girl: a vintage, cotton dress (the ass of which the guy kept tugging at- consequently tapping my arm every time), and high-heeled sandals. High-heeled sandals to the beach; she must read "Nylon's" quick tips for looking taller.

Now before this all seems like I hate people just because they were things poorly or wear poorly designed things that suit them, I should whittle it down to this: The first couple nearly charmed their way in to my heart, that is, before they played hand games and kissed every two seconds. But the second couple- who undoubtedly indoctrinated their lovable dweeb friends with their yupster ways- the second couple represents a larger problem: the scourge of Philistines that attend lots of fun events, yet seem to have zero fun at all of them. The whole time, these pairs were distracted by their dedication to their mates, troubled by how hot it was and ultimately uninterested in the music. Who goes to Coney Island in 100 degree weather just because the Village Voice says so? Hell, even I felt old among all the thirteen year-olds- what did these crowns feel like? By the end of the day, I had nearly forgotten these fools. I think I sweated so much I actually started to sweat out the bile in me, too. Also I got a pretzel, and that will neutralize even the biggest ring-tailed bitches. But I made sure to make a note of it, made sure not to forget it all, partly because I never want to become that and also because I jokingly said, "Man, have so much to blog about."

So there you have it. At least they didn't have kids, right? Oh wait, they're probably "trying." Ewwww.

STEEL DRUMS really mean STEAL MY FUCKING DRUMS!

Now I love song covers as much as the next gal.  I love covers.  I love mash-ups.  I even love it when you go to a hotel bar and the only thing playing are dance versions of real songs.  I even buy that shit on itunes- Jenny Lewis singing but with phat, farty sounding dance beats? Yes, please!

But there is one thing I will never be able to stomach: steel drums.  Why?  Oh, I don't know, because I'm living in some Larry David-esque world in which a steel drum band practices...not just plays, but fucking practices, in my apartment building.  I see now that it is important to take a moment to explain not only the structure of my building but the lay-out.  I live in a pre-war, ex-hospital of a building  with walls made of little league snack bar napkins.  I wish I were exaggerating.  The walls are that thin (when I say that thin, I'm holding my hands really close together).  I know what all of my neighbors are doing all the time.  When  a woman fell down the stairs at 6 in the morning last month, I heard her spit out her lozenge before I heard the atomic blast of her face hitting the floor .  When the man next door dropped his contact lens this morning, I wondered whether he had dropped an anvil in the tub.  And when, just now, a six year-old screamed at her brother, "I know you not walkin away with my KitKat, Julian," I not only heard him run down the block but I heard him unwrap it when he got to the corner.  You get the idea.  But even more significant than the thinness of the walls is the actual architecture.  The building is shaped like a donut.  My chamber faces the donut hole (realtors call donut holes atriums- buyer beware!).  This layout and my placement in it is great for absolutely no reasons and terrible for countless ones.  Which brings me back to... the steel drum band.

I face the concrete donut hole, and so does the apartment in which the steel drum band resides.  They practice at least three times a week, and they practice in the evening...you know, when people have just gotten home from their job at which they deal with assholes all day.  The first time I heard them, I couldn't stop laughing.  How hilarious, I thought, a steel drum band lives in my apartment.  How comedically inspiring this could be!  This will never get old!

But alas, what happens when you listen to steel drum music for too long is quite the opposite of inspiration.  What happens, in fact, is kind of like that movie "The Awakening" with Robin Williams and Robert DeNiro.  But it's not the hopeful beginning of the movie, when the encephalitis patients start eating their own cereal and playing cards.  It's like the end of the movie, when all of the patients who have been successfully re-entering society start having seizures and violent outbursts and are ultimately relegated to becoming water-heads again.  Clearly I saw this movie at a formative age and it struck a neurotic chord with me.  But I still think the analogy makes sense: I suffered the creative version of brain swelling because I heard too much steel drum music.  Songs that I used to think of in terms of what notes to sing, I now only think of in terms of what mallet to use when hitting a large pan.

I've reached the point of no return.  I'm stuck here (at least until the lease runs out) and this steel drum collective has made it very clear they're not going anywhere, either.  So tonight, I've decided to turn over a new leaf.  The side of the leaf I was looking at before said "Take lots of pharmaceuticals and go on a juice diet."  So I threw that one away (without looking at the other side) and picked up another one and turned it over.  It says, "Steel drum bands, you can't live with 'em, you can't shoot 'em."  I think this new leaf has really got something, there.  

And lastly, I leave you with a top ten list of songs that I have heard that you probably wish you could hear on steel drums but really you don't mean that.

1. Cruisin' (Smokey Robinson or Huey Lewis and Gwyneth Paltrow)

2. Dancing Queen (Swedish band, awful musical, awful Meryl Streep vehicle)

3. One Love (not surprising but has even less melody when no one sings it)

4. Hotel California (as good as it's always been)

5. La Bamba (wasn't a plane crash bad enough? poor Richie Valenz and for that matter poor Lou Diamond Phillips- brother used to be fine)

6. Copacabana or At the Copa (her name was Lola, Barry Manilow, etc.)

7. Mamma Mia (see Dancing Queen- why do Caribbeans love Swedes so much?)

8. Just the Two of Us (this should be on one of those slow jams CDs they advertise for geriatric black couples) 

9. The Wedding March (yup- someone wanted to hear that on their special day)

10. Amazing Grace (of every time somebody you knew died fame)

and lastly, this happy video:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=-FtTaDNsyCY

enjoy!

-Mrs. God

TO DEAN CAIN...IF YOU GOOGLE YOURSELF

Last week, I was sitting eating a bowl of Chocolate Chex (God's food!) and a Kathy Griffin special happened to be on television.  Okay...saying "Kathy Griffin accidentally came on the television" is the equivalent of saying "I slept with  your Dad by accident."  But bear with me.  First of all, I was at a friend's house and had no command of the clicker.  Secondly, he happens to enjoy Kathy for her alleged storytelling skills.  Although I can't explain his love of a woman whom I find both unfunny and visually terrifying, I will say that I found myself relating to some of her little anecdotes.

STOP THE PRESSES! Mrs. God relates to Kathy Griffin?!?  Okay, no.  I don't relate to her.  I don't relate to her comedic sensibilities, I don't know what it's like to be on the E list or whatever, and I don't know what it's like to have an overflowing fan base of thirty-something gay men.  But I did find myself relating to her stories about her disdain for people.  It got me thinking, why do love hating on folks so much?

Of course, this led to a downward introspective spiral in which I actually discovered the word "HATER" encoded in the fibers of my being.  So I decided to fight my instincts, look deeply into my soul, and find the good.  To kick off my find the good party, I re-read The Giver, ate some childhood comfort foods ( huevos con weenie) and watched my favorite show from childhood: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman."  And all that seemed to do it.  I was tele-ported back to an age of purity, when all I cared about was winning softball games, writing the next great American novel, and getting a convincing pair of knock-off jinkos.

In that deliriously giddy mode, I wrote the following.  It is an open letter to the apple of my childhood eye, Dean Cain. 

***

Dear Dean,

I've been in love with you since I was five years old.  You are the perfect man!  I mean, you're Superman.  Okay, okay, I know you're not really Superman.  Even when I watched the show, I knew you weren't Superman.   But I didn't care, because you brought me hope for the future- a future in which someone could save even me.

There was this one episode, when Clark (you) got shot and had to pretend to be dead.  But when you came back to the Daily Planet alive you said that Superman (you) had found you (Clark) in the gutter, frozen your tissue and brought you back to life.  I mean, we all knew  you were lying but it still seemed pretty plausible.  Then there was another episode when Lex Luthor's son found out you were Superman and he told you bring him the dead body of Lois Lane, so Superman (you) froze Lois to death, kicked some ass, then used your heat vision to revive her.  Same basic idea as that first time- but really great.  Then there was this other episode toward the end of the series when you froze her again, and even though it was kind of tired at that point, I still liked it.  I thought, If I could only get frozen for a few months, years even, I could get revived in the future, when they'd have the technology to cure me.  Obviously I didn't have any access to superbreath, so I got creative.  To make a long story short, they found me in the meat locker at the Steak and Shake (my Dad owned a franchise) trying to freeze myself.

After that whole hoopla, I decided to get real and write a letter to the Make-A-Wish Foundation.  I had my sister, Christy, help me with the big words.  They rejected me.  I guess there are all these rules, like your disease has to be fatal, and you have to get a doctor's note to verify it.  But at that point, the health department found out I'd coughed on the burger patties for about 80 minutes so we lost the Steak and Shake and couldn't afford the family doctor anymore.  Me and Christy put a little white coat on and glasses on Peanut and took a picture, but a Basset Hound can't sign any official forms, no matter how wise he looks.  Plus, they don't grant wishes to people who have family members involved in other wish-granting organizations, so the fact that my cousin Bryan was working as the Genie from Aladdin at Disneyworld didn't help.

But all those  years, I still dreamed of you scooping me up, flying me around Metropolis, taking me to ball games with Jimmy and Perry.  And it wasn't just that you were Super, you were a sensitive 1990s new man, a man that even Christy liked- and let me tell you she was still pretty raw about her split with Derek.

Anyway, I'm a lot older now (ahem legal), so if you find this letter somewhere on the Internet, maybe you can find it in your heart to make a big girl's dream come true...

love,

Mrs. God

***

 Dean, if you Google yourself, and if you're reading this....I'm still feelin your shit, okay?  And everyone else? The below link is a little treat for you.  I don't want to ruin the surprise, but I will say that it's the stuff that 90s dreams are made of.  The "I'm so Excited, I'm so scared" SBTB episode ain't got shit on this:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=1xKNskrODCU

Have a good one!