I saw a great piece of scribing the other night coming home on the G train. The ad was for the mini-series Make ‘Em Laugh that PBS is currently showing. The Public Broadcasting System appreciates the hard work Charlie Chaplin put in for all of us and so should you!
Their ad campaign is a series of thank yous to the butts of numerous jokes. Some are long, (Thank you Bill, Thank you Hillary, Thank you Monica, Thank you fat people, Thank you skinny people, Thank you New Jersey, etc. etc.) and some are just three in a row.
The ad I saw went:
Thank you geeks
Thank you jocks
Thank you women with big… hair.
But someone had changed it to Thank you women with big… hair BOOBS!
Julie said she wanted to get Matt and I some real New Orleans food instead of what we thought was real New Orleans food and turned out to just be Popeye’s. Although I have been told by multiple sources that Popeye’s is in fact better in New Orleans. Maybe Zattaran’s is too. So we went to Mandina’s and I was jonesing for gumbo. I got a bowl of it, which was a meal itself! Boy howdy. I also got a roast beef po’boy and found out the original po’boy was french fries between to be pieces of french bread. Wikipedia doesn’t have that story up, but maybe the fat guy wearing twenty-seven beads is right.
We went back and rested up. This is very important. Matt and I were flying out on Fat Tuesday very early in the morning. I was planning on getting in a half night of sleep before having to head to the airport and Matt was most likely go from partying to the airport. It is, after all, Mardi Gras.
Julie, Sarah, Matt and I went downtown, drank, watched the parade and began to despise everyone around us. A couple fun costumes and hats being worn out there, which is nice to see. Lundi Gras on Monday is when a lot of people get dressed up for the parades on Fat Tuesday. We were getting no bead love for almost an hour, but started to make up for it by the end. A bunch of the floats had very B List actors. Jim Belushi, Joan Rivers, some guy from American Idol, the cast of Reno 911. Matt grabbed two beads from Lt. Dangel. We wanted to stay for Harry Conick Jr., but ended up not even bothering. Sorry Harry!
We walked down to Bourbon Street just to see what it was like. It was crazy. Obviously. Kind of annoying. More protesters than I thought. On the way there Julie went to the bathroom in a strip club she didn’t realize was a strip club until I told her after and Matt went to piss on the street and then about a trip of 80 13 year olds walked by that never seemed to end. We walked around the French Quarter for about 45 minutes talking with strangers, watching hilarious people, singing “Amazing Grace” and checking out anything weird. Julie and Sarah danced “Get it Ready, Ready” with some kids that were from 40 minutes outside the city.
Then we went to some bars on Frenchman Street. Frenchman is officially my favorite place to go in New Orleans. Great live music, great big bars, lots of people. If Bourbon Street is Times Square then Frenchman is Bedford Ave. or MacDougal Street although it seems like an unfair arguement. Truthfully I kind of like the feel of Frenchman more than Bedford or MacDougal. R Bar was fun, but packed. Sarah and Matt had been playing these great characters for over an hour. Sarah was a hick and Matt was a real Jersey goomba. Basically both playing a combination of some of their relatives. Either way they were both on and kept me blissfully entertained. It was like watching a FOX sitcom from the early nineties.
The night ended watchin live music and running into Erin Patton and her friends at dba. Let me say I’m a fan. We danced and I tried Andygater, which I tried to be generous with. I don’t know if it’s still being generous if I’m trying, but I spread some love and good cheer.
All in all I’d say that Mardi Gras was a complete success this year. If I were New Orleans I’d keep doing them. It’s like the best parade, party and tailgate all rolled into one. It’s simply what everyone is doing that week. Why wouldn’t you be there?
Total Mardi Gras Beadage: 40 +/- I’m proud of this range, but some people were making a killing out there. Walking away with 100 beads a night, easy.
JR is a photo-journalist who takes pictures of people in impoverished countries. He’s a great photographer, who’s adept at capturing emotion in his subjects faces. Altough probably a bit staged (but no art or photography isn’t) his shots of locals and local kids interacting with each other and the camera in villages and shanty-towns are beautiful.
In one of his most interesting series, he takes pictures of poor women, in Africa and Brazil, I believe, and blows up the photo to huge proportions. He then posters them to the sides of buildings, and other public structures, often with the help of the villages he’s been photographing.
Currently, his work is being featured in Marie Claire magazine, which seems hilariously ironic to me; showcasing a man who is making a statement about poverty and women’s rights in a magazine birthed out of American consumerism and vanity. Oh well, at least the message is getting out.
Yesterday we got a little high and grabbed some food at Betsy’s Pancake House. Betsy died a few years ago, but not for her pancake recipe. Foolish murderers not knowing what’s really valuable. The place was packed though, because everyone else seems to know the value of these pancakes. It took forever for anyone to take our order, but we were in no rush so we played Clambake. I got third. It was a travesty. The meal was unbelievable. The coffee was perfect, which right there is the best meal. You could give me two uncooked eggs and a rotten orange to eat, but if the coffee is perfect I’ll tip 20%. My favorite part of the meal was when Matt ordered.
Waitress: Sorry that took so long.
Matt: Well, we have a lot of questions.
(Waitress groans and takes a seat)
Matt: The pecan pancakes-
Waitress: Pe-can? It’s pe-kahn. Y’all ain’t from here, are you?
Erin: We are.
(Points to me and Matt)
Erin: They’re not.
Waitress: Where you from?
Matt: New Jersey. I’m sorry.
Waitress: Don’t be sorry.
Matt: The pecan pancakes, does that have sugar and cinnamon on top?
Waitress: No, there’s cinnamon in the batter.
Matt: Okay. What are Old Fashioned pancakes?
Waitress: It’s a stack of good sized pancakes.
Matt: Okay, I’ll have pigs in a blanket.
He put her through the ringer.
We went uptown to meet up with Zachary Sims, Neal Stastny, the Henehans and some other Mardi Gras enthusiasts. We danced, we ate roasted pig, we drank beer and champagne and we tried to catch beads, somewhat in vain on this night. Although! The first float had none other than Val Kilmer on it throwing doubloons with his face imprinted on it. I made a sweet snag of one so I now have in my possession a purple coin with the real Batman’s face imprinted on it.
The parade was sweet, hearing Cassidy yell into his megaphone is priceless. We all got festively liquored up and Julie and I walked around the parade a bunch, which was cool, but we did miss some sort of throw-your-beads-at-the-kong-family float at the end. I’ll get you next time! KOOOONG!
I’m not sure how many people were here at Julie and Erin’s last night, but there were two handles of vodka, a handle of Captain Morgan, a handle of whiskey, two other handles of dark rum, a bottle of tequila, two cases of PBR, a case of Abita Amber, a 24 of Miller High Life, a six pack of Anchor Steam, a six pack of Czechvar, a bunch of other beer, a few bottles of wine, five small bottles of champagne and other alcoholic beverages here and there. All that’s left is some margarita mix and mudslides.
Two different people brought feasts of Popeye’s, plus Erin’s family owns a catering business so they brought loads of meatballs, jambalaya and shrimp with pasta. It almost made me cry, but that was just some food leaking out of my eyes.
All the floats were crazy. Three times as big as any float on Friday. The theme had something to do with dreams or dreaming or dreamland or something. Kid Rock was on one of the first floats. That’s right, I saw Kid “Warrior” Rock in person which now qualifies me to live in a trailer and shoot rats with my handgun. Their house is right at the beginning of the parade route and they turn left at the house so all the marching bands perform right in front of the house. Cassidy kept the spirit of Mardi Gras going at all times with his megaphone, everyone and their mother were trying to catch beads and pretty early on I was reaching for some beads and fell off the porch right into a trash can. As I fell Julie’s aunt said a prayer for me. She rolled her eyes every time she saw me after and rightfully so. I did fall into a trash can.
Endymion: The Party was killer. Their theme was White Trash in honor of Kid “Loyalty” Rock. People kept drunkenly complimenting Julie and Erin on their success. I think they even made some cash and no one seemed to puke in a place where they shouldn’t. Although someone made out with someone else’s husband, which ended up with a few college students and comics taking care of a four-year-old we didn’t know the name of. He is very artistic! I gotta say, for a four-year-old he took some interesting photos with Julie’s digital camera. I did try and brainwash him a bit. He kept trying to get on the bed and I wouldn’t let him, saying: “See what I’m doing here? I’m The Man and I’m ‘keeping you down.’ It’s symbolic.” “Y’know who killed JFK? George Bush!” “The government is lying to you!”
I got some awesome beads that have Mardi Gras rubber ducks, but the best beads I think went to Mike. They had foam baseballs on them! BASEBALLS! Matthew Maragno grabbed everything. Kyle, from Seattle, did as well. Those two looked like living Mardi Gras beads, which would’ve been the sweetest beads ever! I would have fought tooth and nail or dove into two trash cans for living beads.
I went to the Guggenheim’s The Third Mind (a term invented by William S. Borroughs, a member of the Beats, who, could we consider to be an old New Transcendentalist?) exhibition on Friday. It was a great show, focusing on East-meets-West art in the 20th century. At the exhibit, there was a generous amount of mention of the Transcendentalists, specifically Henry D. Thoreau, for the similarities between The Movement, and Zen Buddhism. Both focus on transcendence through self reflection, especially through an understanding of nature.
My favorite pieces –
The Sound of Ice Melting: two large blocks of ice are amplified by 8 surrounding microphones, discussing a common theme of ‘when you think there is nothingness, you are usually wrong.’
Tibetan Prayer Bells: They lay a track around the spiraling museum rotunda, upon which they would periodically send down a shuttle that rang Tibetan Prayer Bells as it way its way to the bottom. It sounded nice, everyone would gather around to watch, filling the atrium with heads. I’ve recently been interested in Tibetan prayer, because it is passive, rather than active – the wind blows the prayer flags, the bells sound by movement, a prayer wheel is also spun by the wind, all activities which please the gods mechanically, without direct involvement from the one praying. This Guggenheim piece was extra interesting, because it was a mechanical device, an added extra level of artifice, even more east-west, with the addition of technology to passive prayer,
Unfortunately, the exhibition closes in the next few days, so you have to take my word on it.
Matt Maragno and I are the last two survivors of a complicated voyage that has been in the plans for months. At times there were six journeymen, the team was strong with four, but in the end only two of us made it.
Last night we went to the parades. Ah, the parades, the parades! What a wonderful word. I always imagined Mardi Gras was great and fun and it is. I can’t explain why Mardi is great, but Mardi Gras simply fills me with joy. When you’re in New Orleans you’re at Mardi Gras. It’s what everyone is doing this week. We’re watching the news and every story is about it.
The parades are fun and amazing. For some reason I want those beads. I don’t know what it is, but they’re like points that you were involved. The more unique the beads the more interesting the story or float you got in from. I want them. I don’t have too many. Only about six. I traded a kid my light-up squishy Krewe D’Etat gargoyle for a squishy skull that says Krewe D’Etat that doesn’t light up, because I’m a nice guy. You remember that. I’m collecting Beads and Karma.
And you want the beads because they’re thrown from the floats. The floats are huge and colorful and satirical. They all have some sort of message. Mostly about scandals.
I’m told that throwing change at flambeaus is racist, which is too bad since they’re really cool. Just guys walking around carrying fire. That’s just cool. You’re supposed to throw change to them. They just did a report on them on the news. There’s a new generation of flambeaus coming. One dude just wants to be in the parade and he likes to wear shades.
I have to take part in Endymion. People have been waiting outside for 48 hours and I am staying right on the parade route.
I woke up at 3:45 am to make a flight at 6:27 am that left out of Newark, NJ. I don’t live in Newark. I don’t live in New Jersey either. There are two major airports in New York City, but they are expensive!
Now I am in New Orleans, LA. And it is Mardi Gras. Oh, what’s that? What did you just say out loud? “Damn.” Oh yeah, sorry you couldn’t make it. Next year, right? The first New Orleans thing I saw was a painting of a saxophone player leaning against a lamp post and lazily playing what must be the most brilliant jazz the world has ever heard. But I couldn’t find a picture online so here’s the second New Orleans thing I saw: The Zephyrs stadium.
I’ll be here until Tuesday when I go back to the cold (I left immediately after I showered and my hair froze) dystopia that is New York City so I’ll keep throwing out updates on the debauchery and craziness that goes on here. I hear it’s a good time. We’ll see, New Orleans, we’ll see.
Our favorite street artist, Poster Boy, was arrested last month.
If you don’t know who he is, Poster Boy is New York subway artist, who’s work appears seemingly at random in Metro stations all over the city. With a razor blade has his only tool, Poster Boy slices art out of all those awful ads that get in your face everyday on your way to work (for a quick introduction to him, take a look at the video below). We’ve mentioned subway vandalism and scratchitti a few times before, but Poster Boy is our favorite criminal/artist, and certainly the most known. He’s been written about in New York Magazine, the Guardian, and his arrest has been covered by the Times. Every time I take a train in this city, I covet a chance to see a new work in person, on the platform, where I’m forced to study the same oversized faces and beguiling slogans daily.
I learned of his arrest when I passed a box for the New York Press, a magazine I’d never seen before, and saw in red comicbook lettering, over a neon green background, the headline “Who is Poster Boy?” I grabbed the paper, the display copy since the box was empty, and opened to the article. Poster Boy, real(?) name Henry Matyjewicz, was arrested last month at a soho gallery, where they were displaying a new work he’d done with Aakash Nihalani (the guy who makes those tape-cubes on the sidewalk). It was a completely legal piece of art, but the show opening advertised a live appearance by the outlaw, and so some plainclothesman showed up and busted him (apparently he was nabbed because he was bragging to some girl that he was Poster Boy, when he probably should have kept his mouth shut; but can you blame him?).
There’s an interview with Henry Matyjewicz, not Poster Boy, in the paper. It’s pretty interesting. For possible legal reasons, but hopefully more artistic and ironic reasons, Matyjewicz separates himself from Poster Boy, referring to him as if it were a different person. He talks as if Poster Boy is more than a person, and instead a movement, that he, Matyjewiscz, sometimes agrees with, and sometimes doesn’t. He even says that sometimes he wishes he could be more like Poster Boy. It’s an interesting interview, not great, but still worth checking out. I’m not sure the writer’s intentions, and he sometimes makes Matyjewicz sound like an idiot, but you can find the article here.
As a final note, the piece Poster Boy was showing at the gallery the night we was arrested, the piece above the article, ironically features a cut-out from Medea Goes to Jail.
