"The Rally to Restore Sanity Which Nearly Made me Lose Mine" (Part 2 of 2)

Well hello and welcome to my "Part 2". I set out to write solely about my experiences for the Rally but suddenly out came all that other stuff about the evolution of my eagerness turned disillusionment leading up to this Rally. So, if it interests you, fix those pretty retinas here.

So Stewart and Colbert are throwing this Rally and Arianna Huffington is providing free buses. Awesome! I normally don't try and gravitate towards crowds like this, but it was worth it! These guys were coming together for something positive and, more importantly, funny! I was in. I knew it would be a lot of people because of the press it was getting. When Oprah mentioned it I knew it would be even crazier. What I didn't know is that, due to incredibly poor planning for the 10,000 people Arianna Huffington so graciously bussed in for free, the story I will be telling my grandchildren is a lot more embarrassing and uneventful than it ought to be.

Here's the scoop. You invite 10,000 people to meet you at Citi-Field in Queens at 4:30 a.m. for a 5:00 a.m. departure time, you should probably organize. We got to the stadium at the ass-crack o' dawn and the Huffington Post folk were all very sweet but none of them really had anything useful to say or do. We had to form our own "line" and police ourselves, which grew more and more impossible as each 7 train that arrived dumped more and more people off. Eventually our long squiggly poor-excuse of a "line" became just a mass of people. Oh yeah, and we clearly did not leave anywhere close to 5am. We stood out in the cold for hours. Our buses were all lined up waiting for us, so why were we waiting there? Well, around 6:40 or so, Ms. Arianna Huffington herself came by with her cameras and shook people's hands and evidently hand-picked people to come with her on her bus. I am pretty sure we had to wait for her to get this photo-opportunity before we could leave because soon after she was done...things started to happen. Now, once again....NO organization from the HP peeps. Just a mass exodus toward the buses. You can guess it, my friends and I...and several other hundred people who had been standing patiently since 4:30 a.m. were now the last to board buses, while folks who just arrived at 6:30 and should have MISSED it entirely got on first. Yet we remained patient and calm, all-be-it irritated and cold. Finally we board our bus, which looked like it was stolen off a movie set. Our janky bus from 1969 still had an old school scrolling destination sign on it and there was a sign in the window that said "Jimmy". Our bus driver looked like one of Tony Soprano's peons and definitely looked like a Jimmy. We were informed just before we left that his name wasn't "Jimmy", it was "Jude". We still aren't entirely sure of this "Jimmy"'s whereabouts but we have our suspicions. Now our bus stank and the heat wasn't working. I was confident it would at some point but, no, it never did. The ride was long. The bathroom nasty. Jude kept pulling off the road to go to the bathroom. We hit traffic and after a while we couldn't see any more buses on the road with us. It was after 12pm and we were still on this bus! Jude informed us that his G.P.S. just went out and he was going to have to ask for directions. We wondered if he was even supposed to be part of this whole trip to begin with, he seemed like he just stole a bus and went along for the ride. Suddenly we start seeing national monuments off in the distance, realizing we are now IN the city. We weren't supposed to be dropped off there, we were supposed to go to a stadium about 10 minutes by subway away and we were on our own to get in to the National Mall. One of the passengers uses his G.P.S. on his phone to navigate us where we need to be and Jude drops us off a few blocks from the Mall at 1:30 p.m. With an hour and half left before the mass exodus to the subway and then buses, we get as close as we can to the field. We didn't have a chance. It occurs to me that even had we arrived on time, we wouldn't have a had a chance. You would have had to be in early that morning to get a spot anywhere near the action. Sure, I have lived in NYC long enough to know you can't just show up at the start time of the movie at Bryant Park and get a spot on the lawn but I thought this was different. There had been SO MUCH MEDIA about this I sort of imagined Arianna Huffington would be interested in us actually SEEING something once she bussed us there but obviously she couldn't care less about that, let alone getting us there before the Rally began. We stand near urinals listening to the muffled sounds of, probably Jon Stewart. We can't make out anything on the screens or stage. We walk around a wee bit. We are hungry, so we go wait in line for a hot dog. Then we wait in line for the Smithsonian restrooms. We walk around for another 5 minutes before I suggest we start to head to the subway. In about 5 minutes, the millions of people at that Rally will be doing the same thing. We patiently wait for the subway for about 40 minutes only to find a new line has formed since the Rally let out and we are all filtering into the same stairwell. Once again we patiently do what's "right" while a bunch of other fools essentially cut us. But what can ya' do? Once in the subway terminal things went way faster than I had imagined and soon enough we were on a newer, less janky/smelly, sans mobster-driver bus. It was on our journey home that we found out that all the other buses were given free snacks. Yeah. Free yogurt from Stonybrook, free pistachio nuts, and free Coca-Cola. Our bus got NUTTIN'. Maybe Jude ate it all.

That's what happened when I went to the Rally kids. Grandma rode on a janky bus for 6 hours just to eat a hot dog and pee before turning around and coming back and watching clips of what she missed while she was there on the internet.

Am I a little irked with Arianna for treating us as props to make her look fantastic in the media while feigning interest in our participation once her free buses dropped us off late? Of course. Do I wish I could still get my hands on those pistachio nuts? It'd be cool. But do I regret going to the Rally? I don't think so. At the end of the day, this Rally was HUGE. HUUUUUUGE! A police officer in D.C. said he hasn't seen anything this big in years (other than Obama's Inauguration). It would have never been that HUGE if it weren't for all the media attention Ms. Huffington created with this free bus bullshit. Thousands of people got together FOR something. Something positive and funny. I still can't understand why some media were forbidden by their employers to cover the Rally, but regardless of that fact, people still know what happened that day and how many people came to support it. And I did too....it's not my fault the day was a huge-ass bust for me and my friends. I went. That's something I can be proud to tell my grandkids. Now I better get busy over here and start on the kid part first 'cause I'm gonna be one crazy-awesome Grandma!

"Extra Extra! Read All About It SUCKER!!!!"

If you know me you know of my obsession with "The Onion", a brilliant satirical newspaper that is often the only news source I can genuinely trust. I have often found myself obsessed with their horoscopes, but not as of late. Just in case you haven't seen this brilliant periodical, you should do yourself a favor and visit their website and enjoy their news videos. The physical newspaper itself is not only awesome, it is FREE!

Well, a few years ago after a particularly long day out on the mean streets of NYC, I had been looking for the new issue of The Onion to pick up for my subway ride home and every spot I'd come across was out of them. I am pretty sure I even went out of my way to seek it out in a few choice spots, but to no avail. I was dragging my weary bones down 8th Avenue looking for a place to rest my soul when a sort of crazy-eyed homeless guy approached me with a stack of newspapers. I figured he was selling the "Homeless Times" paper that some of these folk are peddling. Just as my auto-response "oh, no...sorry" was about to begin, my eye caught sight of the old familiar font and Today's Weather looming off to the right. This man was trying to SELL me "The Onion"! I couldn't help but laugh. This man thought I was dumb enough to pay $2.99 for "The Onion"? He even pointed out the joke price that used to be printed on it that looked legitimate but was just part of it's brilliant satire. I could NOT stop laughing! I figured this was worth the $3 for the amusement I was getting, and besides, I needed the new issue anyway. So I told him I WOULD buy one off of him, just because I thought it was hysterical of him to sell it. I walked away grinning from ear to ear only to realize, as I glanced down in jest, that I already had this issue, and it was WEEKS old. This swindler not only sold me a FREE newspaper, but he sold me an issue 3-4 weeks old! That bastard still GOT ME! At least it was actually one of my favorite issues. I know that sounds strange but I told you I was obsessed. Every single inch of that issue had cracked my shit up and mostly out loud....so at least he sold me a good one!!

This has long-since been one of my favorite NYC stories, much like the time I saw a "blind" panhandler with a walking stick walk off the subway reading his newspaper.

Well....I was hangin' out in Times Square this past week....acting like a hippie with flyers for "Hair" when this man wanders through.....




Now this is NOT the man who swindled me, but I have never seen anyone else trying this since then and that was at least 4 years ago. So I had another good laugh. I told him all about it...and he kept saying it was probably him. I knew it wasn't but I still needed some documentation. This man was very good humored about it all even though it hadn't been him originally. He mentioned that they stopped putting the fake price on the paper and he assumed it was so that people like him couldn't sell them on the streets. He also mentioned that he recently returned from being "away" for the past 4 years. By "away", he definitely meant "in jail"...which he was also, oddly, good humored about.

Surveillance Camera

There are times I really wish I had secretly installed a surveillance camera in my own room. Like the time I was startled awake by my terrified cat projecting himself off me via his back claws in my arm startled by my having accidentally kicked over of a table with a bunch of stuff on it next to my bed. Or like yesterday when I caught myself sleepily putting on two winter coats by mistake on my way out the door.

Ah sweet mystery of life...

So I am walking home very briskly in the entirely too brisk wintery winds this evening when I find myself walking behind a man who I couldn't seem to walk quickly enough to get around without cutting him off in a strange manor. So I am quickly walking behind him, trying to get out of the cold a.s.a.p. Gaining an uncomfortable distance just behind this man, I worried he might think I was some sort of threat to him, but he never turned around or seemed to notice. All of a sudden I hear the sounds of buttocks clapping against one another and I realize this man is farting...farting in my face. Farting in my face in the cold. The blistering winds blew up into my nostrils and I quickly breathed out so as not to allow the uninvited fumes. I stepped back, my jaw dropped and I turned my head to avoid further inhallation. Who is this man that just farted in my face and why did he care not to notice who was around him? I slowed my pace and watched as he slowed and pulled out his keys and turned to go inside my building. This man is my neighbor!??!! I held back, not wanting any awkward "Yes, I am immediately behind you as I was seconds ago when you farted in my face." moments. I shivered around the corner, hoping he'd quit looking at the mail and just go in so that I might. His physique looked eerily like that of my landlords and I giggled in shock at how things turned out. I ended up giving him a few seconds then rounded the corner, had our awkward hellos (which are always that way, even sans gas), and went inside. WHY did this happen? Seriously. It is so absurd and would be absurd enough had it been a complete stranger, why'd it have to be my landlord? What purpose does this serve in my world other than to crack me up and remind me to not take life too seriously? I spend nearly every second of my world trying to figure everything out and analyzing things into the ground until I want to smack myself...and then think about all the repercussions....and never get around to smacking myself! So if you too have this problem, may someone you barely know let a big one out in front of you on your way home tonight.

A Mexican Man and his teeth....

So I was heading out of my house yesterday...VERY early evening hours...trying to get some errands done before the Halloweeners were out and about. I walk down the end of my street and see one of the strangest things. In one of the little driveways on my quiet little street, I see a mexican man passed out flat on his back, in between his legs is his cellphone which appears to have lost it's battery. So I start to worry...is this man drunk? Did this man get mugged? Is he alive? I see his beer gut moving which means that yes, he is still breathing. He doesn't look distressed. He looks like he is having a sweet sleep there on the sidewalk. I am just baffled. This wouldn't stun me so much in midtown, or even where I used to live, in Sunset Park, Brooklyn where I know there were plenty of drunk mexicans, but here it was, like 4:30 or 5pm on a Tuesday Halloween afternoon, and nothing close to this ever happens on my street in Astoria. But the BEST part of this was, as I was still trying to process what might have happened, I noticed something else. This man's dentures from his top row of teeth were lying a few feet from his...feet. The man lost his teeth. Now I definitely thought there had to have been fowl play. But the sweet smile on the sleeping Mexican's face said otherwise. All sorts of images flooded my mind as I imagined him tripping to his sidewalk bed dropping his teeth and phone along the way...or I saw him wobbling sideways up the sidewalk with his drunk mouth agape, no longer able to control the position of his jaw, or the placement of his fake teeth...perhaps that is when they slid out, and he grabbed his phone to tell his friend how drunk he was and passed the fuck out. All I know is that a mexican man and his teeth were on the sidewalk on my street at 5pm on a Tuesday. Luckily he was gone when I returned home a few hours later. His teeth were gone too.

Oh...the crazies!

There are many times in life that reality is just so kooky that no writer could possibly invent the characters that I encounter on my various jobs here in NYC. Working at the Compusa on 5th Avenue (promoting AOL) has always been what I will refer to as an adventure, so as to cleverly conceal some of my bitter sweet feelings for it. Located in the heart of midtown, entirely too close to the Empire State building, you encounter one of 2 types of people here...the foreign folk, and the crazies. There are a lot of both in midtown, where they walk in all directions at once, none aware that there are hundreds of other human beings anywhere near them..changing their already indirect directions instantly running into you, stepping on you, keeping you contstantly on guard to dodge them, or stand your ground and run into them. Just the foreign folks, the crazies, and me. Perhaps it is best that these folks just bump into you and keep moving, for when they stop, and talk to you...you enter a world that not just anyone can handle. I talk to these people. I listen to them. Not generally on the street, but while working my various jobs. It took me a while to realize that while there shouldn't be any harm in this, they can often drain the life out of you at the same time as they tickle your brain when you realize that this is a real person standing in front of you, talking nonsense. When you stand in one place in a retail store every day or every weekend, these crazies always know where to find you again. I have met so many but right now all I can recall is yesterday. I met a filthy looking lady yesterday here at the store. She was very sweet. She was missing her two front teeth which were framed by the bright red lipstick smeared around her mouth. She had a tragically uneven skin tone, made moreso by the streaks of concealer or foundation strewn about her face. Her eyeliner appeared to have been applied heavily before her head had, perhaps, been held under water for a spell. Her hair seemed plastered to her head, with a slight frizz, and coated in some sort of glycerine-like liquid that was at some point dripping down her temples, but whose thickness had stopped it on it's way . Too thick to be sweat I wondered if she had applied glue? The topping on the cake is a toss up between the swirls of red lipstick that had somehow been spread faintly around her entire face and the numerous whiskers on her chin. She was a sight to behold. I approached her in my section without realizing all of her uniqueness, but once we began, I was involved...and had little way out. So we chatted. I learned she was an actress and she showed me her headshot and resume, a postcard sized copy of a picture she said had been taken on a cellphone, of her standing on a NY city street in front of a subway station, looking like a homeless person with bright red lipstick on. On the back was her resume, which boasted film/tv/commercial credits that my resume can't hold a candle to. Some credits were scribbled in and all was on the back of this postcard/cellphone picture. I offered to take her picture here (one of the parts of the area I am to get people to interact with). She seemed as though I caught her off-guard and she wasn't necessarily at her best, but we gave it a go. She saw the first shot and whipped out her makeup bag saying she needed to touch up her face. The first thing she grabbed was her tube of whore-red lipstick, which she not-so-expertly applied without a mirror. Instantly it began to bleed out into the lines and sweat on her face, on a path towards joining the rest of the "lipstick party" already in full swing on her forehead, cheeks and chin. Then she grabbed her foundation and swiped her finger in it and proceeded to draw lines around her face, poorly attempting at blending it while asking "do I look alright?". I can't answer that! Lying is physically painful to me. I couldn't even begin to point out all of the things that would have required fixing. The most helpful thing I could have offered would be a sponge and a bucket, but this was not an option. She was now looking in a mirror, and if she couldn't tell that she didn't look okay by seeing what I was seeing, what was the point in trying to fix it? Lastly she took out the eyeliner observing in the mirror as she rubbed the dull pencil around both eyes. "do I look alright?" she asked again, smoothing back her glue-y hair and smiling her no-front-teeth smile. "yes, yes you do." I said, pinching back my amusement and wincing at the pain for the untruth. She wasn't ever pleased with her photo, yet she had plans to go to kinkos to copy it and use it for her acting work. A few minutes later when she sat down at the public free internet computers we have here, I cringed as I watched her dirty hands smearing the left over brown foundation all over the keys and mouse. I couldn't wait until she left to wipe it down, but these computers are very popular and I never had a chance...several people cleaned it off with their own hands. Ew. Ew.

...for your baby's daddy

Walking in the West Village last night with a man friend of mine, a guy who was selling balloons and such said "Want to buy a balloon....for your baby's daddy?". This perplexed me for a moment, as there was no baby...nor do I appear to be pregnant...and I totally forgot it was Father's Day...but regardless of all of that, it cracked my shit up.

More Midget Michael Jackson Man!!!!

If you don't know who the Midget Michael Jackson Man is, please check out an earlier post in this blog about him. He is a man of the dwarf persuasion who dances to Michael Jackson hits in the subways of NYC.

I caught the lil' guy warming up his legs this morning...a little hopscotch action, sort of..in one place...very briskly...boy those tiny limbs move fast! A good midget subway performer knows to stretch well before a long day of moonwalking less his puny ligaments tear where they meet his teensy hip sockets.

Once again, while the man does a mean tiny crotch grab, I still marvel more at this early Saturday morning ritual I am sometimes lucky enough to catch.

Midget Michael Jackson Man...

You know that midget Michael Jackson impersonator in the subways in NYC? Well I witnessed him stretching his tiny limbs this morning. I watched him whip those wee little arms around and back and forth like a small sparrow fallen out of the nest, desperately continuing to try to fly though his feet remain firmly on the ground. He was facing the dark smelly corner of the subway tunnel, warming up his mini ligaments and tendons for a Saturday of girations to "Billie Jean" as people stop to gawk. Is it sad that I found this early morning warmup preparation ritual far more entertaining? I will never get that video clip out of my mind.

Huge Snow "man-part"

Today has been a good day. I got to sleep in, with my sweetie...but I didn't sleep all damn day...

My roommates and I all bundled up to go outside and play in the snow!!! It was a little rougher than I am used to (I am such a girly girl...aka..."wuss"). We built a snowman on our front balcony...by hoisting up additional snow in a huge pasta pot with yarn...then, eventually we did the same thing from the roof to the balcony. I must admit, it was a little daunting and I totally felt like giving up when our snowman looked a bit like a pointy mountain blob...and I was cold and cranky....but somehow things started to take shape. Then we got out the "tools". Very quickly we began sculpting him into the unfortunate shape of a penis...TOTALLY unintentionally....but couldn't help cracking up wondering how many people looked out their windows seeing two chicks molding a huge snow "man-part" on their balcony. We were mortified when someone walked by and gave us a thumbs-up, we aren't sure if he could see the obvious dirtiness or not. Well...eventually we got ourselves a good lookin' snowman...complete with fig newton eyes, a carrot nose, and pink wafer buttons....

We took a trip to Dunkin Donuts to get Dunkaccinos...mmmm...

I took a longass hot shower...

....and now Kira is making grilled cheeze and tomato soup....

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!