Kitty Power

Measure By Measure, Drop By Drop

Man Man - Tear of Octopus (Adam Sparkles Remix)

I've been trying to figure out for the past 2 days exactly where I got that song from and why it's been unloved and unlistened to all this time. It's exactly the type of stuff I would've been loving all along: Man Man chopped up and gone borderline electro. Thank you, sir, may I have another? It fits the general wackiness of the weekend misadventures lately. It’s all been fun if occasionally borderline absurd.

Last Friday, neighbor-friend Lirio and I were off to Dumbo to do up some open bar action. I’ve resorted back to mostly not thinking much about that neighborhood at all since a) it’s shit inconvenient to get there from where I live b) my only connection to the place was the boy and…yeah. I was actively dreading the chance of running into him since we had to walk right past where he works and the place was about two blocks from his studio, but no dice luckily. The gallery has this sign outside that really pisses me off: New Tribeca. Come again? Dumbo really is bad enough. (“Hey, let’s name our ‘new’ neighborhood after this acronym that’s also a cartoon elephant! Awesome!”) But to then try to rename it after another fake neighborhood name where the new one would just be actively retarded? Oh hell no. Does anyone see any triangles or a Canal St in Dumbo? Yeah, I don’t think so. Stop smoking crack. And then in the gallery, the open bar consisted of vodka and Mountain Dew. Do you know how nasty that is? Plenty disgusting, let me tell you. That didn’t stop us from drinking, erm, 4, but it was really gross. If it wasn’t free and all, we would’ve had a real problem!

From there, we went a block over to this bar to drink hot cider with rum and pal around with the locals. I really like that bar because it looks so sleek and borderline fancy, but really is a cheap neighborhood joint. We watched the bartender literally throw this drunk dude into the street on his ass and got chatted up all over the place by the randoms. I ended up in this absurd debate with a guy from Manchester about who got the worst end of the stick: the working class in Britain or poor black people in America, but I really just wanted to ask him if he was perhaps Jimi Goodwin from Doves having set up shop in Brooklyn. Or at least related. The resemblance was kinda uncanny really.

The next day, I persuaded Alafairnadia to roll with me to this random art show/magazine party in someone’s apartment about 4 blocks from us. I figured it’d be good for a time killer and boy was I right! Everyone in the place was about 19 and most were totally socially retarded. Any slight feeling I’ve ever had of missing college house parties were totally erased by it. There was a makeshift bar in the kitchen with $3 40s or $5 unlimited rum drinks. The “bartender” actually had a measure to make the drinks with and she, by that point, was so trashed that she could barely get the liquid in the damned thing. Not to mention the annoyed looks of romantic rivalry passing through and the total absence of game anywhere. It was like a painful episode of “This Was Your Life.” Such a bad scene. And the “art” sucked.

This Friday was some sort of photo book show in Williamsburg with Lirio. [Oh, look at me, I’m such a hipster! All I do is go to art parties! No, not quite. I’m just a freeloading lush. I don’t know shit about anything except which liquor sponsors mean fun mixed drinks and real(ish) bartenders (and that would be Bacardi. Viva their marketing team!).] The place was a madhouse since everyone had traipsed through the fucking treacherous streets to just get there, so goddammit, we were gonna double fist those drinks if we wanted! All was cool until this aggro bootleg Mr. T asshole went nuclear when Lirio noted that he was practically knocking her over. Major prick. Then we met some randoms and I planted the seeds to bring back some old high school slang.

And then we leave and here’s where it just gets strange. We’re strolling down the main drag and we see this guy and a girl about to cross us carrying a Christmas tree. The guy is Ian Battles and I’m all “hey! You! What’s the deal with the Battles bag?” And he’s looking me like I’m retarded (which is the only way to play that) before he goes, “oh yeah, I met you at the Bowery show.” He blah blahs something about bags soon and I’m all “yeah whatever.” Maybe some time before the apocalypse, guys! So, I turn to the girl and I’m like “you’re [his gf], right? I’m friends with [the boy].” And she’s all “cool!” (The boy and she are friends.) We all stand around and shoot the shit for another minute and then it’s back to walking through the cold. The two of us were off to town to dance and I got home about 4am, scarfed down some leftover BBQ chicken, and was out like a light.

Saturday night was the party I adore so much. I met up with Alafairnadia after retrieving her from a few wrong turns en route. Fun dance night for sure, but I’m really not into the whole “woo! We’re dancing like we’re extras in Animal House to the old soul 45s” thing. Nothing I can actually do about it though. Two of the bands were interesting: this group of dudes that looked like professors who were finally playing their Sonic Youth-inspired songs somewhere besides the faculty lounge and this group with an amazing kick ass bass playing chick that really has inspired one of my new year’s resolutions to be take the fucking bass out the closet already and figure something out. I’ve had that thing since ’97 and I think I know how to play it less and less as the years pass. I almost ripped this girl limb from limb in my first try at the coat check line when she dumped all this fake snow in my hair -- and I'm still picking little hidden pieces out two days later. Grr. But, heaven is splitting a plate of pasta around 4am. The randomness for that night was running into one of the dudes from the Dumbo bar. Small world. For reference, I’m ridiculously vain and flattery really does get you everywhere. Well that and the right frame of mind natch.

Posted by Candicissima at December 12, 2005 01:23 AM