Instead of waiting another two weeks to post, I may as well tonight since I guess enough “interesting” stuff has gone down. Plus, I have just enough to time to pass along the following message and still have it be “timely”:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOE “SWEETROT” SIMKO!!!
Though the birthday festivities went down yesterday, but before getting into all that…
So it was Thursday afternoon when Joe Salina asked what I had planned for Friday night. A guy from the Select Button message boards, “GcDiaz”, was rolling into town and wanted to meet up with some folks. Since Salina had a pretty favorable opinion of the guy, and… without stepping on too many toes…. wanted to show him a good time, he asked if I wanted to come along. And considering that I’ve somewhat “moved away” from the SB side of things, I was on the fence, but the next day, when my original plans hadn’t come together, I said “why the hell not” and plans were finalized. I mentioned this to Mike and he soon became interested as well. If Dave Mauro had jumped on board, that would have made it a total fort90forums hijack of a SB meet-up, but I never got the chance to get ahold of the guy.
… Course, I find out like at the very last minute that Todd was in town, and playing somewhere near NYU from Dave Roman, which I would have gone to, but, you know…
Anyhow, Salina and I met GcDiaz, real name Carlos, at the Chinatown arcade. Mike soon showed up, as well as did a friend of Salina’s, Mooney. Carlos was a totally cool cat, as was Mooney. An arcade is a cool place to hang and all, but the one in Chinatown in particular is too loud and smelly (thank God for their cranking AC, which still couldn’t control all of the funk), and since it was gonna be like an hour and half till other SBers showed up, but especially because Mike and myself didn’t feel like dealing with the place for such a period of time/were hungry/wanted to get boozed up, I led everyone to my favorite spot to eat in Chinatown, the Coluck Diner, which again, virtually no white people know about (because Time Out New York has no idea it exists… they can have their Wo Hop, thank you very much). And I’m very happy to report that everyone dug their selections, though I never did ask Mooney if his scary as hell sounding and looking “curry chicken potato spaghetti” dish (I’m seriously forgetting two more words here, seriously) was actually any good. We then went back to the arcade to see if any SBers had arrived, and waiting for another 20 minutes or so. Myself, Mike, and Mooney watched Carlos and Salina go at it on The Rumblefish 2, and then Carlos vs some random arcade rats. They totally blew him out of the water because, well, Carlos doesn’t live at an arcade (i.e. he kinda has a life), and in between rounds, when they were congratulating each other for “pwning” a “neewb”, Carlos just stood there with a half-hearted look of “congratulations” on his face, which was hilarious because, I’ve been there myself. What else can one do? It was then time to blow that joint.
So we all went up to St. Mark’s, and instead of going to Grassroots like normal, our water hole for the evening was actually the Continental. And yes, that douchebag with the Raiden hat still runs the place. And yes, because they got rid of the stage, the crowd is a whole lot lamer and milktose (again, it was just another sign of NYU total destruction of the area), but at least they still have really cheap beer. Course, like a dumbass, I didn’t notice the special the $1.50 Yuengling special and got a$5 Blue Moon instead, but I learned my mistake early on. After a few hours later, we were all pretty hammered, and Carlos was clearly a part of our little club (as evidenced by the fact that he was offended with me screaming “Enjoy your date rape!” at a gaggle of dumb NYU girls walking down the street).
Originally, I had thought about breaking away around 11 to attend the midnight screening of Troll 2 and to maybe meet-up with the Letterman research girl, but that simply didn’t happen.
The next day was Joe Simko‘s birthday festivities. What did I get the guy btw? A copy of this summer’s hottest book, the Incredible Change-Bots by Jeffery Brown, of course! Though I will admit… and we’ve all done this before people… because I was running late, I almost gave Simko a copy that I already had, which was in tip-top shape, but instead rushed to Cosmic Comics for a fresh copy. And I like the place and all, but will say is: they keep track of purchases, and for every $100 you spend, you’re supposed to get $20 in credit, and I’ve been at “thus far, you’ve spend forty-five dollars” since 2003. Oh well. For the record, I would have much rather gone to Rocketship, but it wasn’t on the way, and again, I was running late. Anyway, Simko wasn’t expecting my visit, nor Jay, his wife Melinda, his cousin Ian (who has promised to beat the shit out of one particular annoying douchebag that’s giving me some many headaches as of late, and is an offer I’m sorely tempted to take), and Bryan, who were already there. June had corralled us together for an afternoon of gallery hopping, which is what we did…
One particular place housed an entire shantytown that was inhabited by cute bear-like people that had fabric bodies and wooden appendages. Since I did have my camera handy (once again, fuck you Best Buy), June took pics for me…
At another gallery, they had these really nice dioramas, all of which depicted gruesome, yet cute, interactions between man and animal…
Here we have a nude woman being sacrificed to a bunch of alligators for some tourists. Not shown are all the cutouts of nudie, pin-up girls to the sides…
And this one is all about bears!
Here’s a pair of pics taken with my cell phone camera for the Zedge blog, but since they’re from the same gallery, I may as well show them here; they’re pages from a children’s book featuring classic characters from assorted tales with more “true to life” advice…
And here we have even more artwork inspired by assorted children’s stories at some other space. Despite not being aimed at more adult sensibilities, they still had a quite a bit of edge to them (like all the original tales, which have gotten progressively neutered as time has passed), but most importantly, they were simply beautiful…
… BTW, for those interested, you can get a wallpaper sized version of it here. Also, the gallery was in the midst of an opening, which we effectively crashed. I had four helpings of wine, which meant that I was pretty tipsy by mid-afternoon, and for totally free! Though it would prove to be not the brightest of moves; I had them on an empty stomach, plus I was still dehydrated from the previous evening’s drinking, and what little water I had left in my system was pretty much drained by the weather, which was extremely hot and humid that day.
Oh, so it’s been Fashion Week all this past week in the city (again, I was supposed to cover it for Zedge originally, till things changed, perhaps for the better), and outside was this whole scene: models were moving from one building to another, under a covered path (there was a bridge connecting the two above), and to the sides was artificial rainfall (there were huge water trucks that supplied the H2O). We couldn’t move forward till the procession was over, but June was allowed a chance to stand at the half-way point thanks to one of the production assistants….
And here’s a pic of me with everyone else, waiting it for all to end, and of course, taking more pics for Zedge. We were drenched by the fake rain, but considering how hot it was, getting wet totally hit the spot….
… Also, it shows me wearing my Superman shirt, which I believe will be the absolute last time I’ll be doing so in public, because I’m getting really fucking sick of idiotic comments from strangers. It was bad enough to go to a comic shop wearing the thing earlier in the day (that’s just poor planning on my end), but it happened yet again at a gallery; while walking down a hall, minding my own business, some arty-farty piece of shit saw my shirt and went, “Hey, what’s up Superman?! Hehehe!!!” And you know, I don’t mind people if they see the shirt and go “hey, Superman, that’s cool.” but when they’re total jack-asses about it, but worse, make the connection that I’m the character because I have dark, short hair and wear glasses (which is also inaccurate since Superman never wears glasses as Superman, but as Clark Kent, while in disguise), plus laugh to themselves like they’re the first fucking Einstein to think of it…. it’s just gotten VERY old.
After a quick stroll through Chelsea Market, which is effectively Border Town (a la Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome) for very rich people, and gawked at $75 cookes (I kid you not), we ended up at Pizza Bar, a swanky bar/pizza place. I was kinda hopping it would be that place I heard about where you order a pizza and get a free beer, but I guess that’s somewhere else. Basically, decent gourmet pizza that’s a bit on the high side, price-wise, and attractive, yet somewhat inept, women providing the service. Guess I’m still miffed that on such a hot day, they could have the gall to give out luke warm water. Anyhow, here’s a shot of the cheeseburger pizza that I ordered, which lived up to its name…
It was delicious, but unfortunately, it also gave me a stomachache later on. Or maybe it was all the alcohol from the night before and earlier that day, which again mixed with the oppressingly hot weather, meant I was sweating like crazy and especially dehydrated. Perhaps a combination of everything? At any rate, on the way to our friend Russ’ apartment for Simko’s party, I was beginning to feel not so good. Though it wasn’t till I was on the subway when I realized that I had to go to the bathroom ASAP. And I swear to God, there is NO worse feeling than absolutely needing to go while being on a train, but also having to deal with all its bullshit, primarily when it comes to a dead halt in the middle of a tunnel for no god damn reason. Which reminds me….
BONUS SUBWAY STORY #1: So a few weeks back, on the way home from work, my stomach was about to explode and I was on the R train. It’s happened before, where I feel like I’m gonna have an accident and all I can do is pray to God that the trains just keeps moving and I am able to keep things under control till I get step foot in my bathroom. I’ve had plenty of near misses, but have always come on top. But this time, it was clear that I was not going to be so lucky. My train was motionless, between Whitehall Street and Court Street, which meant it was directly between Manhattan and Brooklyn, which also meant the train was under water. I was sweating, I was shaking, and it slowly dawned on me that I was trapped. I wouldn’t make it home. I was going to shit my pants.
I made this realization right as I noticed that there was a gaggle of cute girl sitting right in front of me, and at this point, they were also somewhat starring at me. I can only imagine the stupid faces I was making while trying to hold it in. But back to crapping myself; what other choice did I have? I can’t speak for anyone else, but when dealing with stomach problems, its like you’re in a castle, and enemy forces are trying to come in, and you and your troops are valiantly keeping the doors fortified till help arrives. The enemy comes in waves, one after another, though there are breaks. Yet the breaks become less frequent, and your troops defenses keep weakening, Eventually, something has gotta give.
So I was in the middle of waiting for the next wave, the one that would do me in. The calm before the storm. I began to wonder, where could I commit the ultimate form of self-embarrassment? In a corner of the train with no people nearby? It was near the evening rush, so pretty much every area had at least somebody. I wondered if it would be noisy. Even if it was totally silent, there would be an odor, one that would fill the train in no time flat. The plan would be to exit at the very next stop, and I guess, walk home a total mess. I wouldn’t dare inflict innocent people with my presence more than I had to. Even if that meant walking miles home with crap in my pants, unless I could find someplace where I could clean myself up, but considering how impossible it is to find a random bathroom in the city, and how I would be in Brooklyn…. These are the thoughts people think when their time is up on death row, me thinks.
But then I realized that I did know of a place to go that was on the way to home. And then the train began to move, finally. I began to refocus my energy and rally the troops, till I could get to 9th Street, where I knew there was a McDonald’s. The walk out of the subway station to the place was a real miracle mile, since it was slightly uphill, but enough to make my duck walk/waddle even more arduous. But I made it. Thank God I made it.
… Oh, so earlier that afternoon, I was reminded of the one time I tried to pick up a girl while on the train. So, time for…
BONUS SUBWAY STORY #2: I believe I’ve told this story before around here, a long whiles ago, so for the full details, people can simply do a search, but long story short: there was this insanely cute girl that was asleep on the train, and given that picking up girls on a subway is not my thing, nor should it be anyone’s thing, I figured that the best way to start any sort of dialogue would be to pass along a note. The note itself was pretty basic, with a “hi there” introduction and information about myself, as well “you are cute” and “I’d like to get to know you” sentiments. Along with my contact info, I also drew a drawing of a cat since, hey, chicks dig cats, and I can draw them fairly well, plus to cement the notion that me being an artist was not b.s. I ended things with “BTW, if you are at all creeped out by any of this, I sincerely apologize for the very least wasting your time, and feel free to destroy this note in any way you feel is most appropriate.”
I scribbled this all as quickly as possible, because I had to get this girl the note before she woke up. This also meant delivering it to her the first chance I got, which also meant exiting at the next stop, even if it wasn’t mine (I couldn’t risk her exiting the train before me). Which is exactly what I did, and believe it or not, it actually worked! The girl thought it was cute and dropped me a line. SUCCESS! Of course, we never went past the talking on the phone/emailing back and forth phase because immediately afterwards she was diagnosed with cysts on her ovaries and had to have them surgically removed, which I guess is what happened, because I never heard from her never again, the end.
… Anyway, back to yesterday, as soon as I got out of the train (of course, the R train at a certain point became the F train, which meant we ended up further away from Russ’ than originally planned, meaning I couldn’t wait to get to use his bathroom), I found a bathroom at a Ray’s Pizzeria, and all was well with the world once again. Once at Russ’, we enjoyed plenty of food and played board games. One had us all acting out famous people or random objects, sometimes in total silence, sometimes doing impressions. Doing Bob Dylan was super easy because I could talk, and simply say “Everybody must get stoned!”, but doing the opening to Leave It To Beaver was a thousand times trickier since it had to be done in silence. You guys figure out what I did to get the word “beaver” across. Also, for those curious, here’s a pic of me doing an impression of a toaster, which surprisingly worked!
Oh, and later on, Russ showed off his PlayStation 3, which was my first encounter with the machine “in the wild” and outside of press functions and at store displays. More time was spent getting the picture and sound set-up than actually seeing the games in motion. Once again, fuck HD gaming. Russ only had two games because, well, there are practically only two games out for the system (not counting all those shitty EA games you can get pretty much anywhere else). We saw him play Resistance, Fall of Man, which is that FPS in which aliens invade during WWII. It looked… okay I guess. Hardly any more impressive than anything the Xbxo 360 could provide. And the game would have been a lot cooler if they had stuck with the original plan and made Hitler a good guy; basically, in the original story for the game, because of the alien treat, Hitler put aside his hate for the Jews and buddies up with the Allied forces to help rid of the threat that threatened all humans. But yeah, the environment of some generic looking WWII FPS, but with the enemies of some generic looking alien FPS. Yay.
So once again, everyone asked what I thought would be the best system to get if they were to take the next-gen plunge, and the answer of course was the Wii, especially for those folks, as well as most folks in general; its cheaper, the games are more accessible, and therefore more fun to play, most folks don’t have high def sets, they can play all the games they liked as a kid, etc. Bear in mind that the only damn reason why I can’t recommend the 360 is the whole 30% failure rate.
Hey, I totally forgot to mention last time that I was able to check out Bio Shock last weekend at Dave Mauro’s. All I can say is… it’s really pretty! And seems like a fun game, concept wise. Though I liked my idea better, or at least what I originally thought it was, which was some FPS that took place in some ship that had sunk long ago, like the Titanic, and which was inhabited by ghosts and the such. Oh well.
