Netfliction

I started using Netflix last February. I'd say "tried it for the first time" but there ain't no trying the flix: you hooked from the very first one. I signed up on a Friday afternoon which was a big mistake cause I didn't get my first movie till Tuesday and those four days felt like the wait for a thousand Hannukah's.
Started off with threes like most people, and managed to keep it down, like most people. There's no 'late fee' per se but you keep that movie out there's another price you pay: "If I just stay up till 2am, I can finish off these 'Syriana' special features and get it off by Wednesday and 'Inside Man' will be here for the weekend." Lost a whole lotta sleep that way, dog, lotta sleep.
Blearn.
It can drive a real wedge between friends, too. Time was I'd walk into my local movie store and they used to be real friendly. But now I only look at the new releases just to see what to add to my queue... and leave without renting a thing. I can feel their eyes on the back a my head. And back in the high days of three I took requests from friends, but not for long: "You gonna watch 'Say Anything' with your girlfriend this weekend, motherfucker?"
This summer I made what felt like progress. I downshifted to two from three. One of the hardest things ever I did. I had a friend, Brett, who was going to downshift with me from five to four, but he couldn't do it. "I have a long holiday weekend coming up," he'd say, or "Some are for my girlfriend." I don't fault him neither. Whether you're going down from three to two or seven to six, it's still hard to give up those big Viking pasties.
What's really messed up is the government actually encourages this shit. Flix has its own mail slot at the Grand Central Station Post Office in New York City. It's OWN SLOT! Fed Ex wanted their own slot and they had to build a box, but the PO just gave the flix one of their own!
Theories, people, theories.
Now I'm resigned to my two. Four days of the week go by while I'm without movies, but I try to stay out of trouble. Sometimes Flix be fuckin' with me just to show me who's boss, too. One week they told me they were sending 'South Park' season 8, disc 1 from Tacoma, WA, and 'District B-13' from Boise, ID, just cuz!
But I'm making it. Trying to keep my ratings under 1200 by year's end. And one day, a red envelope will come in the mail, and I won't have to open it that night.
But how'd Brett make out...? Well, there's two stories, but here's the one I like to tell: his girlfriend found his hand and a pair of khakis jammed in the DVD tray. Like to think he gnawed it off to finally go get some help. There but for the grace I go.
The other story is he's fine. Not everyone is so Netflicted.

Baby Marriage

I did an improv scene with my friend Yang last Saturday in which we began discussing taking novelty pictures of babies that were dressed as if they were in a wedding party. Adult parents standing by, visible only by their feet and shins. The jilted baby moping over to the side. We didn't get around to discussing baby gowns, which is too disturbing to contemplate. Would we tape martini glasses of milk to their hands? Isn't this and all other baby dress up photos exploitative?

"Well, babies HAVE to wear SOMETHING. Why not something cute and adorable we can put on a calendar?"
Brain trauma patients have to wear something, but you don't dress them up as giraffes and put them in the coma safari calendar for the month of July.
"But the babies like it and they become little income providers! Plus you'll have something to show them when they're older aside from the same old boring pictures."
Grandma, while you were unconscious we dressed you as a ham salad and sold your image to Dak Foods. I will leave this picture with you in your casket.

We do it with animals, but Captain Whiskers didn't get an abortion at fourteen because Muffler wanted to "feel the real thing." Plus, the Captain was dead at 11 anyway.
It can be cute to countdown the days with a precious dressed-up reminder of early life, but NIMBY, dammit, NIMBY(Not in my Baby)!

And today I was looking for pictures of Dragon Park in Nashville when I found this


www.moyerpictures.com/~photos/tn/1644_1024.ts...

They have their family photos just sitting out there on the internet for any freak to put on blog! Looking through them is depressing. What do they DO in Nashville? What do I do HERE? Here's a picture of their pregnant married friends, Ben and Bronwen.

I don't have the heart to tell "Bronwen" that her name should be spelled "Barbeque Grill".
Why is Ben wearing a longsleeve under his collared short? On what campus did he learn that? There are cold pictures of new houses and themselves viewing art displays as evidence that they viewed art displays. I'm frightened and bored just looking at these. Not out as Judgey McJudge, but because they're doing what you're supposed to be DOING that out THERE, and I can't imagine it. It probably has more to do with the fact that the pictures were taken in winter. Cue "Good Charlotte" cue "Modest Mouse"!

High School Party Foul

Saturday night I went with my friend's Marcus and Starr to a party at improv classmate Jonathan Harford's pad next to the Union Square Cafe. With a lofted bed and separate closet/game room, the feeling is bright, clubhousey, and how did you come to live here? The party's theme was high school and much to his friends' credit they remembered the dress code while I found myself untucking the back of my polo shirt and turning my collar up. They had fruit roll ups(remember those from high school!? And Capri Suns? This was more a pan-school snack event) you could lick and transfer to your skin in case you hadn't been to prison.
AHH! And they had Tab in the pink can! While I had no Coke Zero onhand, I did a taste-test from memory and I think Tab's aftertaste is more diffuse and lingering, even sickly while CZ's is as sweet, but has more bite. But before I could even finish my Tab, it transformed from this



into this



and made a pass at Starr Kendall.

As I was leaving, Jonathan introduced me to two of his female friends, Wynn(sp?) and Neetha(sp? Hindian?). Neetha wore a black skirt thing and shiny, leathery boots.
"I'm supposed to be goth even though it wasn't really at my high school at the time. I sort of slept through high school, but I wasn't on drugs or anything," Neetha said.
Keeping in mind that I'm not under the influence of anything except stupidity, I say:
"Well, at least you weren't in some Austrian's basement."
Wynn turns her head like she's just been slapped across the face, but other than that everything else APPEARS to remain normal amongst us. I could, however, feel the vaccuum that had been created where amiable social interaction had only moments before been. We all chat for another minute as if nothing had happened and as I leave Johnathan says,"See you Tuesday!" through a smile that looks chiseled into place.
On the walk home across the Pulaski Bridge, I considered how I knew intellectually what I'd said was wrong, but wasn't feeling it, perhaps as some sort of defense mechanism. I told Starr later what I'd said and he winced and chortled and shook his head "Oh, no you DIDN'T" while another friend said, "Ah, that wasn't so bad..." I have yet to ask Jonathan what he thought, but he's posted to this blog before so let's see what he says. And if I was beyond the pale, then I'll try to remember that it WAS only high school, and I'm a little smarter now. Little.

Train Scare

Wednesday night I was heading to dinner and improv when the 7 train lost partial power and died on the tracks near Times Square. The train was quiet; reef quiet. But no one seemed too concerned. Then the loud speaker said, "Get everyone off the train!" People took notice at that. We were in the last car so either the subway serpent would eat us first, or last. But whatever the problem, it was not immediately apparent. I imagined the worst and couldn't believe I might die on my way to perform with a stupid improv group. Then the loud speaker said to move to the first car, and for the first time ever it seemed appropriate for me to risk moving between subway cars. Very exciting. People actually held the sliding doors between cars for each other. At first. Then at about the third crossing, and facing no apparent danger, self preservation seemed to kick in, because it was everyone-hold-the-door-for-yourself. For no reason, people went from really polite, to back to normal. As I passed between one set of cars, I saw daylight locked in an alcove behind bars. It was comforting aside from the locked bars part. Could I break that lock if I had to? I also read the subway emergency instructions for the first time and found them not so helpful. I also noticed no emergency exit levers on the side doors.
The conductors we passed didn't know what had happened, but I felt like they knew something just not enough to tell us. Luckily the first car was in the station so we didn't have to walk along the tracks thus saving my shoes a burning. On the platform we headed straight for the stairs as others who must not have heard the announcement waited for service to return. I didn't repeat it. The 7 is running fine now.

SOOOO much gravitas.

I know Anthony on Java

Two nights ago shortly after ten, officer, I heard from my second floor window a "Hello!" Yelling isn't that uncommon on my street which has been zoned 'hangout' by the 'check out my ride' authorities so I ignored it, but after several insistent times I decided it was meant for our house alone so outside I went. I was greeted by a drunk-teen year old who lives up the block in one of the 'I wanna check out your ride' buildings and who spends many a night on the stoop with his friends playing gansta. Additionally, I'm pretty sure he's the one I yelled at to close the fire hydrant across the street the day I moved in two years ago. And now he had come for revenge.
"Who's that guy that lives here... short with dark hair?"
There are five others in the house not matching this description.
"He's short and he hash(drunk-tax[inebriated syntax]) a dog named 'Brooklyn'...?"
"You must mean Keekay. What about him?"
Keekay is the nickname of Enrique who is a photographer from Spain that lives on the first floor of my house and has a dog named 'Brooklyn' because that's where Keekay and the dog live now(can you just stand it?!).
"He was takin' some pictursh of me earlier and some of my friends shay he was looking at me in the wrong way-"
Keekay as it happens is gay, and like most people gets randy while drunk which I'm assuming he was. He even tried to seduce me once... I think.
"-could you ask him to delete those pictures of me from his camera because, like, my friends said he could do things with them that we don't know."
Those pictures have probably already been 'developed' in the 'penis lab'.
"And my friends are ganstas and I don't want them to have to do nothin'"
Whoa! 'Law & Order' is always on somewhere in the world.
"Like what? What are your friends going to do?"
"No, no, I'm sayin' just ask him to delete the pictures of me cause my friends say he was looking at me in the wrong way." Or the KEE-way, RAOW!
I really do sympathize with this kid's plight because who knows how many of us have unintentionally smiled for the internet while under the influence. I told him I would tell Keekay to delete said photos.
"Hey, I'm Anthony and if anyone ever, God forbid, tries to rob you just say, 'I know Anthony on Java' and when they hear that, then they'll leave you alone."
Then we peaced out.
I hope he wasn't too drunk to remember to add me to the protected roll at the next gang meeting.
A girl fresh out of college whose window was even closer to the "Hello!" than mine, and had moved into our house THAT DAY stopped me when I returned inside.
She said she had been worried but she needn't have been. Because if she like you ever find yourself on the mean streets of Greenpoint looking at the wrong end of pointy stick all you have to do is look that thug in the eyes and say "I know Anthony on Java... you know, he's white and like fourteen or something..."