Pope-a-lopa

So the Pope visited New York City this past weekend. I tried to get into the church to see him, but alas I am not Catholic and therefore did not know the secret handshake. Actually they blocked off the whole Pope-mobile route up 5th avenue, and you had to have a ticket even to stand on the street 15 deep in spectators. Again, no ticket for me, I failed the required “are you one of the faithful” question like “how big was Noah’s arc, how long did Jesus wander in the desert, what do you do with little boys, etc”. Okay, yes I am going to hell for including both a reference to our savior and child molestation in the same sentence.

Anyway, I was on the subway Saturday, and a group of religious fanatics were out in masses. A group of them were all crowded around the subway map. I guess they were in search of Christ. Ah ha ha ha. Seriously, I wonder if they FOUND Jesus! Enough, enough, I just hope they were shown the light.

OMFG

Guess what show has new episodes tonight.....may as well call it my teenage crack addiction.

Bring a spare pair of pants.

Saturday was a momentous day…the opening of Six Flags New Jersey. Not only do I get to ride roller coaster but I get to silently judge hundreds of teenage skanks. Yeah, the Jersey Girl uniform at the park was: tight tank top with bedazzled phrase like “too hot to handle” or “boobie-licious”, visible bra & strap (in contrasting color of tank top), low rise jeans that are much too tight (ie muffin top), the occasional whale tail top of the thong peaking out, and athletic sneaker although the only sports they participate in are keg stands and chewing gum. I’m not kidding about the gum chewing. I would be standing in line beside a girl and she would address her peers in a fragmented language only understood by legal retards. I honestly thought they would choke on those massive wads while on the rides (on a bright note that would make the lines shorter).

Marathon Man is an avid roller coaster fan. The teachers gang and him are the fanatics that show up on opening day and buy season passes. Then they all hype each other up the week beforehand by saying “oh man I’m going to ride El Torro like ten times on Saturday”. I don’t know if it is the excitement, adrenaline, or diet of pure sugar and funnel cakes that excite the guys so much. Unfortunately due to scheduling issues (and one very bad hangover for the math guy), only M-Man and I made the journey.

I picked up a season pass since economically it pays for itself in two visits and that I love to watch how giddy M-Man gets when the bus pulls into the parking lot. Okay the guy taking my picture was a complete fucking turd! Not only was my picture waaaaay zoomed out, but it was off center as well. The manager guy looked at it and recommended that I take it over since it was the laziest camera guy ever!

Once we entered the park, M-Man said “oh look, there isn’t a line for Kingda-Kong roller coaster”. For the record, I loooove roller coasters. The problem was that I had not been on one for two years. Now imagine how I felt while standing line for the biggest most bad ass roller coaster on the east coast. Yeah, shitting my pants! Let me describe the ride to you. Almost all roller coasters crank you up a big hill and you know it will get scary once you reach the top. Well this one, you start on a flat stretch of track and then hydraulic or pneumatic cannons shoot you forward at 128 miles per hour. Yeah, you are sitting there minding your business and then unexpectedly you are thrust forward at blazing speed. The track starts out flat and then turns 90 degrees straight up into the air! You ascend until the car has about run out of juice. At that point you are at the crest of the track and then plunge down 300+ feet straight down at 128 miles per hour. Not only are you hovering off your seat (and thinking oh my God this harness is not going to hold me in and I am going to die) but you are looking directly at the ground as it zooms in at you (and you think, okay I am not only going to die, but I am going to be pulverized into the ground). While in line, I was watching the car barely make it to the top of the 300+ foot rickety spindle tower each time. I thought “great, it will be on my turn when the damn car will not make it to the top and we will plummet down backwards and the safety harnesses were not designed for this so we will die”. I almost had a panic attack (let me off, let me off) while we were strapped in, but thankfully I was only able to freak out for 3 seconds before we blasted off. I let out blood curdling screams and actually started crying. The picture of us shows M-Man all excited with his hands up and me burying my head in the harness and balling like a baby. After we exited, my heart was racing and I could hardly walk (wobbly legs full of adrenaline). M-Man was like “oh, I guess I should have taken you on a warm up first huh”. You think!

In comparison, all of the other rides were not even close. Two of them felt like riding the subway. You know, bland but a lot of rattling about. I eventually worked up the courage to ride Kingda-Kong again, but it was always broken. I think it broke down 8 times that day. Really makes me feel safe about the ride. When I got home, I looked on line to see if it had any deaths associated with it. Surprisingly enough, it had a clean bill of health. The Superman ride though had some past fatalities. I guess one time in London, a really fat guy rode the ride and could not fasten his harness because of his extreme girth. The teenager put in charge of safety did not check all of them before clearing them to go. Well, the Superman ride is the one you are pulled back so that you face the ground the entire time. M-Man and I discussed and it looks like how Superman would be positioned if he was getting it doggie-style. Seriously, quite the perverted ride. Anyway, the fat guy’s harness opened up and he fell out to his death. Since then they have redesigned the safety harness and enforced the no “if you ass is this big, you cannot ride this ride” rule. Honestly they have. I saw a large woman get kicked off a ride when we were being strapped in because she exceeded the size limit. Sucks for her, but at least she isn’t dead.

Will make you cringe...and pee your pants

Wednesday night was a Cringe Reading. I went to a similar show a few months back, and I highly recommend going! People read from their tween/teenage diaries, class projects, love notes, etc. Unlike the Mortified show, Cringe is free. The only catch is that is located in middle of nowhere Brooklyn in some small bar back room. Hop on the covered wagon and head on over there, you will not regret it.

Here is a summary of the highlights:
The opening reader was a girl who was very organized. As a 15 year old, she planned out how she would live her life…in an outline format. The piece was titled “People to avoid”. It said “I. Girls with bangs greater than 6” tall. II. Gangsters, A. Guys with their underwear showing, B. Girls who like guys whose underwear is showing. III. Punks, A. Girls with more than two piercing in each ear, B. Boys who have anything pierced. Etc” I guess I should mention her “lists” were in a spiral notebook covered with DECA stickers. Yeah she loved DECA!

One girl read from her teenage diary about her rollercoaster relationship with a much older man (he was 19….gasp!). In all reality, he had dumped her, but she was utterly clueless. Her entry was like “okay Bob hasn’t called me in two weeks, I know he is trying to make me call him, but I am going to hold out because I am such a great girlfriend…..okay it has been three weeks now, I should call him and tell him I miss him but no I don’t want him to know he has the power….I have decided that if he doesn’t call me in the next week, I am going to declare an open relationship and start going out with other boys and tell him about it and then he will call me all the time, yeah, that will work”.

Another girl read the journal entry about her first kiss during summer break. “Well John and I were swimming in the [public] pool and he swam up to me and I felt he had a raging boner, I didn’t know what to do because there were kids around and I didn’t want them to see it sticking out at me underwater…well he leaned in and kissed me, and I think he came a little…I decided I don’t like John because he only wants to like open my door and kiss me and buy me ice-cream.” She later confessed that her 30 year old self is looking for a guy who will open her door, kiss her, and buy her ice-cream.

A girl explained that her senior year of high school, she was in a car accident and her wrist was severely damaged (like pins inserted and everything). Her lawyer wanted to build a case against the other driver for hitting her, he just needed to prove that her life would change forever because of the accident. He asked, “Do you play a sport like basketball or softball….oh well do you play an instrument like the violin or piano…okay maybe do you paint or draw or do SOMETHING with your hands…okay great, yes you write in a journal, so we will say you are an aspiring writer”. Yeah you can tell it was all BS but she played along with the guy and had to keep a separate journal for her wrist so that he would have some choice material for court. She then read the two recounts of her Spring Break. First the wrist journal: (read in a very depressed voice) “We just arrived in Cancun, I am not looking forward to this trip, I didn’t want to go because I won’t be able to go swimming or snorkeling or body boarding like everyone else, the tickets were nonrefundable so I decided to go anyway, I’m writing this up in the room, everyone is out having a good time and I am sitting here doing my wrist exercises, now I am at the pool sunbathing because that is all I can do, I am sad to hear about how much fun everyone else is having, I think why me why me why me, etc”. Okay you get the point it was really depressing and talked about post traumatic pain etc a lot. Now the ‘real’ journal: “oh my God, spring break was AWESOME, I totally got drunk and high every night and I almost fell into the pool with my cast on, and some hot guys we met at a bar tried to shoot a shot off my cast, and I totally made out with this one guy and had a three hour boyfriend, and then we went to the bubble club and were covered in suds and I don’t think it will affect my cast right”. I personally like the “three hour boyfriend” reference because we have all had that right!

The lone guy reader of the night brought along a projector so we could all view his graphic novel (aka comic book). He was 12 years old at the time, and boy did it show. All of the adult characters would just fly off the handle at the drop of a hat because that is how you act when you are twelve. One of the heroes read a note from his boss and it said, blah blah blah “believe some one is trying to sabotash…”. Then the character went incredible Hulk nuts and started shooting everyone because I would too if my boss could not spell sabotage. Oh, he depicted his adult hero on his day off….reading a playboy because that is what a 12-year-old would do on his day off.

The by far best reading came from a woman who grew up reading romance novels. See she liked to read, and her mother only had trashy romance novels laying around the house. The girl eventually decided to write her own (keep in mind she was only 11!). The heroine’s name was Molly-Anna because she had read Little House on the Prairie in school and was now fascinated with the wilderness like Iowa. The boy James was her love interest and he was being pursued by a slut named Rachel. Yeah the dialogue in the story was so immature and hilarious. “Oh, I thought you liked Rachel.” “No, Rachel is a bitch”. Ah ha ha ha. Well the sex scenes were really graphic, no seriously, like pinching the nipples and nibbling on the thigh graphic. I am personally impressed that a 11 year old knew that much about sex since my only education was what Stacy Hand told me during recess. Yep, she was the first one to explain what a “boner” was. Anyway, every romance novel has three key plot items: passionate sex scene, kidnapping or peril that will separate the lovers, and a foreign country. Well Molly-Anna was kidnapped off to Mexico (well close enough to exotic foreign country). In the mean time, the girl had just watched the movie ‘Stand By Me’ and now was in love with River Phoenix. Poor James just was dropped from the story unceremoniously, and she was then rescued by River Phoenix. Okay, it was hilarious in person. I mean listening to a grown woman reading the graphic sex scenes and cheesy faux romantic dialog all while blushing uncontrollably! The whole room agreed that Molly-Anna’s first time must have been the greatest sex ever written about. I wonder if she is therapy now.

Why I never answer the phone

Sounds like someone is being visited by the parents this weekend.

Actual Craig's List posting:
Three years of Playgirl Magazines for FREE FREE FREE (East Village)
Reply to: see below
Date: 2008-04-15, 7:50PM EDT

over 36 playgirl magazines MINT for free. No space. Must go this weekend. Please Call April Davids at (212) 308-5871 - (646) 840-0561 - (212) 230-1030.

Pee-Wee time

Over the weekend, I visited Weehawken Street, the smallest street in all of Manhattan. I guess it is supposed to be all historical, but frankly it was a dump. So much so, that the street was littered with signs ordering you not to urinate on the street. Gosh, didn’t know that was such a problem. Maybe the street was previously the most urinated on in the entire city, and they decided to just change it to the smallest street instead to up the appeal. Come on... WEE-hawken, you can’t tell me they were not asking for it. Plus I personally think Jersey Street in NoLita is shorter.

Quality Family Time

[NOTE: MANY MORE PICTURES TO BE ADDED ONCE MY SISTER GETS OFF HER ASS AND SENDS THEM TO ME]

After a 5 hour delayed flight, my little sister and brother-in-law flew in to visit me for a long weekend. After giving them the standard tour of historic New York City sights, we stopped by Canal street to buy fake purses, scarves, jewelry, etc. Upon our immediate arrival, we succeeded in getting into one small and fruitless backroom. I told them basically there were 50+ backrooms, so if they don’t see anything they like here, they can just try the next place. Well as we were walking, I didn’t hear the tell-tell beckoning call/whisper of GUCCI, PRADA, COACH, ROLEX. Plus all the jewelry, purses, and sunglasses out in the open were closed up or covered with hanging sheets. Now I’ve only seen this behavior once before and it was when the police were patrolling the area. Sadly we were turned away by every back room being told that they were “closed”.

I don’t think I made our chances of getting into a room any easier when I approached a small Asian store keeper and said “purses….”. She replied in a hushed whisper “what looking for”. I blurted out “COOCHIE” which was supposed to be Coach or Gucci! She gave me a confused look and motioned to move on.

Well we paraded up and down Canal street for an hour desperately looking for any open backroom because we had a list of items to get for back home. Finally Aaron (who is a good foot taller than the crowd) spots a small Asian woman poke out a back door and beckon some customers. He points and said “Tiff look”. As we all turn to start towards the door, a burly man in a cap standing next to Aaron turns to him and says “thanks” before pushing us all aside and barreling towards the woman yelling “POLICE!”. We watch in horror (okay amusement) as the woman tries to flee back behind the door and lets out this squeaky ‘ahhh’ scream while the policeman slams her against the wall and searches her. The shock is written all over Aaron & Tiff’s faces and he says “I think I just busted them”. Yep, if the policeman thanks you, you probably helped them out. The rest of the day we noticed the out of place men with earpieces peaking out from under their stocking caps milling with the crowds. We even passed the center of operations van which was open and full of electronic equipment, radios, and more plain clothes policemen.

The next day we went to the Broadway play Legally Blonde. Okay sometimes the movie does not translate directly to the stage. Case in point, it was sooooo much dirtier/racy than the cute and cheesy movie. Seriously, they jiggled each other’s boobs, pledged their love over holding one’s hair back while the other pukes, and even had a song entitled “Gay or European”. Hilarious I swear but soooo not appropriate for children and guess what, the theatre was full of them! I had on girl behind me who obviously owned the original score CD and played it more often than Hannah Montana or some other tween shit and memorized the whole fucking thing! Seriously, she would sing along (even for the boy parts) in a wispy airy high pitched little girl voice that melted my eardrums. I kept looking over my shoulder at her in an effort to quiet her down or at least shun her for repeating some non age appropriate premarital sex lyric. One time I caught her mother’s eye and then put my finger to my lips as if to silently say “put a muzzle on that underage bitch, I paid good money and want to hear real performers sing, not your trampy little eleven-year-old, sheesh…oh and Santa Claus isn’t real”. It got so bad that during intermission, I gave the usher my ticket and asked her to have security tell the girl to shut the hell up. Kids suck balls.

Tiff forced Aaron (according to him) to watch all of the Sex in the City seasons, so their hours and hours of dedication were rewarded with the official tour. Granted Aaron was one of the few males who actually was not dragged onto the tour. One of the stops involved seeing “Carrie’s stoop” which is basically down in the West Village even though the show depicted it on the upper east side. I had been on the tour once before, and the guide let us take pictures actually sitting on the steps as long as we did it one at a time and quickly. Well the tour guide this time was a real hard case and only let us walk single file along the opposite side of the street. You could see how the level of naughtiness progressed as you got towards the end of the line. The first few took pictures of the stairs from afar, the next took pictures of them with the stairs in the far background, the next took a step back, the next stood in the middle of the street, and finally the last (us since I knew it would be okay) actually ran across the street and sat down on the steps. By that time the majority of the group was down the block and around the corner. The few girls dragging in the back saw that we were able to actually sit on the steps and were like, oh hell I why not. Well while we were walking back to the bus, the tour guide whipped around the corner, ran by us, and started shouting at the girls for sitting on the steps which is a clear violation of a public sidewalk. Oh well, I don’t feel too bad about getting them on the bad side of the tour guide since they were able to take home pictures that were better than 90% of the rest of the group.

Monday was a “only in New York” day. We started off by signing up for Letterman tickets. I guess we were interviewed (although it was brief) and Aaron aced it, so we got tickets. We ended up sitting front row in the left part of the audience. Dave came out and asked everyone about getting a tick disease and a woman in the audience said she also had it. I think she stole the show when Dave asked “well what did the doctor tell you when you visited him?” and she said “menopause”. Seriously, the rest of the show, Dave kept bringing up menopause. One of the guests was Demi Moore and she is decidedly crazy. Yep, I was there when she talked about the leaches. Totally crazy! You could tell Dave thought it was all nonsense and asked her if there was actual proof that the leaches provided some kind of benefit you. She was all “well they do blood tests, oh yeah the test show that your blood is cleansed, oh well the leaches release this enzyme that thins your blood so it totally makes it better, yeah the enzyme”. Okay does anyone else immediately think ASPIRIN! Later the Counting Crows sang a song and I swear the lead singer was tripping on acid. He kept moving around and feeling his body like it was all electric or something. Ah well, I still like the band regardless.

Afterwards we headed up to the upper east side to watch an episode of Gossip Girl being filmed. Yeah, there is a website that tells you where all the shows are filming in NYC. We rounded the corner and saw the lights and equipment up and got all excited. Well we failed to register that the actress ‘Jenny’ brushed right by us. Yeah she walked by and Tiff and I paused and started giggling. Aaron asked what was up and lamented “Jenny…really! She is my favorite! Tiff why didn’t you tell me”. We stood on the opposite side of the street and watched them film a whole herd of extras entering the building and passing by a heated conversation between ‘Nate’ and ‘Vanessa’. We suspect that the two are trying to break up ‘Dan’ and ‘Sabrina’. Don’t you love teenage soap operas! The next scene was of exiting the building, so they were shooting right at us! Yeah, we were totally in the background of the camera shot. Aaron whipped out his phone and pretended to talk (I guess that is his way of acting) while Tiff and I just gap mouthed stared like proper tourists. Yeah, it didn’t fool anyone, and they asked us to move out of camera. What, you want it to be real right!

That night we went to a Knicks game at the Madison Square Garden. I’ve always wanted to go and see a really horrible team play. Too bad I couldn’t wait two more days until the Knicks played the Heat. Talk about a pillow fight. The only interesting part was the half time show where circus performers bounced around with giant inflatable tubes jammed in their crotches.

Lacking faith in the next generation

Overhead in New York...
Angry woman to friend: I have a contention with the way people pronounce my daughter's name. I did not name my daughter 'Lady Nasty'! I named my baby girl 'La Dynasty.'

Actually I think she goes to the school M-Man teaches at. Also, he sent me this email yesterday:
I was covering this class where a student playfully drop kicked another student and screamed out "THIS IS SPARTA" which was hilarious.

Don't you want to be a public school teacher in Harlem too! Think of the material it generates!

Easter Bonnet Parade

Here are some pictures from the NYC Easter Bonnet Parade down 5th avenue. Basically it was an excuse for people to meander down the middle of a major street and wear the most ridiculous hats possible.

They're heeerrrrreee

I head over Marathon-Man’s place for date night. Upon entering his apartment, I find the place in complete disarray. He explained that he left his window open while he was at work because it was such a nice day outside. Well the damn pigeons figured out how to get around the metal grate in place designed to keep said pest out. When M-Man came home, he found that the pigeons have made themselves at home and shit all over his computer, dishes, and bedspread. In fact, the little fuckers were just hanging out on the bed when he walked in and gave him a look like “oh, you again, (sigh)”. He eventually was able to chase them out of his apartment but not before they fully shit bombed all over the place.

Later, we were watching a movie and I swear I heard the flapping of bird wings. I looked around and didn’t see anything so I marked that one down for good sound effects. Well, I continued to hear the clacking of little clawed feet walking around. At first I thought it was just the pigeons paroling outside the windows because they are stalking us, but the more I listened, I swear it was coming from inside the apartment. Well I started to get anxious because I was trapped in the fear of “are they or aren’t they in the apartment” feeling. You know, like that scene in Aliens where they have that glowing beeping hand held device that tells them how many meters the Aliens are away and then they say “8 meters, that is impossible, that is inside the room” and then they look above the ceiling and they attack! Okay, so you get the picture. Well I am sitting there on edge when all of a sudden a pigeon burst forth from the bathroom and flew at the window. You would have thought it attacked me personally based on the high pitched scream I let out. Next thing I know, M-Man is running after it wielding a pillow. Ah ha ha ha.

Riding Evan into the far east sunset.

To quote John Denver “well my bags are packed, I’m ready to go…I’m leaving on a Jet plane”. Okay I am not leaving NYC yet, my friend Evan is. He is moving over to Hong Kong for work. I guess if you were to translate the song into Chinese it would sound like “teriyaki chicken Gucci purse”. Seriously that is all I hear when I visit Chinatown.

Anyway, his awesomeness will be missed. Of course someone of his great character couldn’t be satisfied with one going away party, so we threw two! The first was at a local tourist trap bar called “Johnny Utah’s”. Basically it had a mechanical bull and overly pretentious wait staff. I think it is located next to a TGI-Friday’s if that gives you any indication of the cliental.

To make the occasion, Gabby, Dana, and I created t-shirts that said “save a horse, ride EVAN”. Granted, Gabby is the only one who would actually “ride” Evan, but hey it was funny. The theme was cowboy meets white trash, or basically the entire state of Oklahoma. So everyone was adorned in wife-beater tanks, visible bra straps, belt buckles that got TV reception, candy cigarettes, and cowboy hats.

Marathon Man and some of his teacher friends stopped by for some fun. Steve, the 6’-5” gospel singer music teacher in cornrows, wanted to ride the bull. Well he had to be over a foot taller than all the other people in line, oh and the only black guy in the bar. The poor guy was so tall for the bull that all of my pictures involve his long legs swinging madly in the air. There was one person who did simultaneously captivate and disgust the crowd…like watching a car accident. A girl on the chubby side wearing a short skank ass ho dress hopped on the bull. Now first of all, why would you wear a short dress on a machine built to toss you off? Anyway, the bull operator knew full well what he was doing and continually rocked her back and forth on the thing so that she would slump forward and expose her GIANT WHITE ASS! Yeah, the idiot was wearing a thong! Now it makes me wonder if they sanitized the bull afterwards since her junk was rubbing all over it. Anyway, the crowd would roar each time she tipped into the air and half heartily try to pull her dress down. Eventually (after everyone had voided their stomachs on the floor) she was bucked from the bull in a glorious fashion that lodged her dress up around her midsection. I at first thought the girl was drunk because hey how else could you explain it, but I later saw her diet coke drinking sober ass at a nearby table.

Now getting mooned would normally top out my night, but the real joy came when I witnessed bad white guy dancing firsthand. Oh yeah! M-Man was very intoxicated and decided to be my own private dancer. I got the grind on your leg, sway side to side, and even bite the lower lip white man overbite move. It was far more hilarious in person than I could ever describe. I am a very lucky cowgirl.

The next week, we had Evan’s final going away party. He figured he needed to get in an All-American activity before moving to China, so we went karaoke singing. We all had our fun singing between skill levels of bad and worse. I personally fall into the category of being asked to leave the choir in school. The teacher even suggested that I would be better suited in another class elective like woodshop (not kidding, he really did say that). Well the one person in the party who could carry a tune was Evan’s roommate. He then started to play remote Nazi and refused to share with the others. Seriously, he would skip everyone else’s song requests until he got to another one he programmed in. It was like “Every rose has its thorn….SKIP, Material Girl….SKIP, Downtown…SKIP…you ASSHOLE!”. Yeah he kept saying, “oh I think there is a glitch in the system and it keeps putting in these random songs”. Or maybe it is that you are a douche bag and are hurting people’s feelings by calling their song requests accidents because you feel there is no way in the world someone would even conceivably want to sing Karma Chameleon! Ass-hat! Eventually Gabby and I started hiding the remote from him and letting other people sing horribly.