Whoof. Busy times for Da Hearn (say it like in the old SNL Bears Fans sketch: DAAAAAA Hearn da hearn da hearn da hearn da hearn… it works best if you’re comically obese) (like me), to say the least. I’m thinking that I may want to cut back on the daily updates, go to more of a 2 or 3 days-a-week posting. The reasons for this are manifold:
- I’m busier than a one-armed paper hanger with a nasty infection in his crotch.
- It seems to me that 2 or 3 semi-well-written (I do understand my limits, after all) and moderately funny posts are an upgrade over 5 hastily slapped together 2-paragraph blurts of idiocy.
Which days of the week I plan to have containing updates is going to be largely random, but for now let’s assume that Monday, Wednesday, and Friday will be the standard update days. Which makes sense, since this week’s first update is on a Tuesday. Go figure!
The weekend summary:
Friday night: jam session with the work crew, featuring Much Blues, and Some Rock, and Several Beers. It’s worth noting that we actually sound pretty good, unless I sing, because in that case I’m having to play bass and sing at the same time, and the usual result is just devastatingly sad. Luckily, we have a guitarist who can sing as well, and he seems to have no problems playing at the same time, so we give him as much as we can.
Saturday morning: intended to get up and test out my new MIDI-to-USB doodackey (to connect my “synthesizer” to my compy; more on this later in the week), maybe do a little composing and recording, then pack for our trip to New York. What exactly happened: I slept until 11am.
Saturday afternoon: late start on the road, but still made it to the city by 4ish. My parents’ opera ended around 5, so we wandered down to meet them at the TKTS booth and see if we could snag tickets to something feisty. I picked up a small bottle of rum on the way, in case it got cold. (It did not. Perhaps because I drank all the rum.) The line was long, but mercifully fast (it stretched an entire city block, but only took about 35 minutes to get through). We got tickets to see “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels,” which were unfortunately “Obstructed View,” which I took to mean there’d be some kind of pillar in my way. The four seats were all together, though, so I wasn’t too bitter, and they were half-price, so I was exceedingly glad.
Then we went to have dinner, and found a little hole-in-the-wall sandwich-type pub, the name of which escapes me, but that’s of little import because it’s closed. Seriously. We kept trying to order things, and the waiter would tell us, “I’m sorry, we’re out of that,” and finally he revealed that Saturday night would be their last. ‘Twas a pity, says I, because the food was good. And cheap, particularly if like me you just ordered a diet coke and kept sneaking rum into it.
Finally, we stumbled next door to the theatre, where we discovered that our seats were, indeed, obstructed view, in that they were in the freaking 2nd and 3rd row of the theatre, all the way on the left. The obstruction was the left-side proscenium, so we couldn’t see anything going on in the back on the left, but I don’t recall anything happening over there. On the other hand, we were so close that I could count the stitch marks in the dancers’ knee surgery scars. (You’d think they’d wear some kind of stockings to cover that stuff up. I experienced full body shivers several times.) The show itself was riotously funny, and I highly recommend it to anyone. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen Jonathan Pryce getting dry-humped. By a dude. Good times.
After that we went back to the hotel and chillaxed for a while, did some Su Doku, and slept on a fold-out bed. I dreamt about puppies and threshing machines. (Two separate dreams, thank God.)
Sunday morning, we got up and went to St. Thomas Church for Morning Prayer and Eucharist. Very high church, totally good times. The sermon didn’t do much for me, but then, sermons rarely do.
After that we met up with my high school buddy Josh for some grub at Rue 57, featuring steak and eggs, and also sushi. Raw fish? For brunch? Yes, I am just that freakin’ crazy. Take it in, baby.
My parents departed after that, as they needed to hit up Zabar’s for coffee and chocolate croissants, so we aimlessly wandered the city with Josh, hitting up the International Center of Photography. They had a massive exhibit on Che Guevara, which made my butt clench a wee bit (I tend to be put off by hippie sentimentality), but which actually turned out to be an exhibit on the way the infamous picture of him has been used for all kinds of capitalistic things. Kooky.
There was also an exhibit entitled “The Body at Risk, which had all kinds of pictures of people with amputations and diseases and deformities. It was like rotten.com (Warning: horribly NSFW), except that it was art! I was in hog heaven.
J-Lew and Sarah were a little disappointed in the lack of pictures of puppies and flowers, so I figured I’d throw them a wee bone:
After some light shopping, we retrieved our car and headed out of town. Unfortunately, the Lincoln Tunnel was getting worked on, so traffic heading out was backed up for blocks. I said, quote, “this is teh sux0r” and headed down the West Side Highway to get out via the Holland Tunnel. This, as Jet Li might put it, was a mistake. I didn’t realize that the Holland Tunnel only has 2 lanes of outbound traffic, into which 6 lanes from 3 different directions merge. It took us 45 minutes to get out of New York, 40 of which were spent going the last 3 blocks before the Tunnel.
After that, though, the drive was a breeze, although I’m continually amazed at people’s ability to sit in the left hand lane and not notice that I’m flipping them off. Breathtaking.
