blog.

[the young dads newsletter] july 2010

this is july’s newsletter for my band THE YOUNG DADS.  we have some very important—one might even say, epochal—shows coming up.  so it seemed like it made sense to post here.

dear young dads fans—
dios mio. preparations continue apace for our 25-show run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival (see the gobsmacking poster at the bottom of this newsletter), and also for our New York–based preview run at East To Edinburgh (thurs–sat, july 22–24, 9pm; 59E59 Theaters, 59 e. 59th st., manhattan; $12, www.59e59.org).  we’ve been working day and night.  we’ve recorded sexy new tracks to dance to.  we’ve recorded less sexy new tracks to just do normal walking to.  we’ve hired a dance coach named “jürgen” who has no last name. we’ve hired movement coaches to help us figure out how to do normal walking like real humans.  we’ve hired a second dance coach whose name is five asterisks and sometimes an ampersand.  we’ve hired an eating specialist to get jesse to stop making that grinding/scraping noise. we’ve hired a second eating specialist because this second one is just really good at eating and it seemed like we should bring him aboard.  we’ve hired a spirituality coach and now we’re less of a band and more of a for-profit church-type thing.

we’ve also written an action-packed 50-minute romp of a music-comedy show that will entertain you to within an inch of your life… and beyond. it’s literally that entertaining!  does that mean it will kill you?  frankly, we don’t know.  we are hoping our show will not kill you.

bottom line:  if you’re in new york this july, you can come see our incredible show.  and you don’t have to watch or listen to us eat afterwards!  i don’t even know why that would be an option.

* s h o w s *

july 22 - thursday - 9pm - 59E59 Theaters - 59 e 59th st - manhattan, ny - 59E59 Theaters hosts an Edinburgh Fringe Festival preview calledEast to Edinburgh (E2E). so that means the world premiere of our big show, A Perhaps-Too-Intimate Evening of Music and Hilarity with The Young Dads, is going to be in new york and not scotland.  suck on it, scotland.  you thought you were all that! but you’re not. you’re just some of that.  tickets are $12 and can be purchased online at www.59e59.org.  map: http://bit.ly/9ivd3V facebook: http://bit.ly/a9tChP

july 23 - friday - 9pm - 59E59 Theaters - 59 e 59th st - manhattan, ny - two nights in a row?!?!  believe it. we’re machines!  still $12.  map:http://bit.ly/9ivd3V facebook: http://bit.ly/a9tChP

july 24 - saturday - 9pm - 59E59 Theaters - 59 e 59th st - manhattan, ny - wait.  we’re doing three nights in a row?  that seems like a lot.  to be perfectly honest, for this one, we’re probably going to be running on fumes, so actually this is probably the show to see.  still $12.  map:http://bit.ly/9ivd3V facebook: http://bit.ly/a9tChP

* a * s o m e w h a t * a w k w a r d * o u t r e a c h * b y * j e s s e *

hi fans.  jesse here.  we’ve had quite a number of free shows during our young, heady existence as new york’s hottest young music-comedy bass-and-cajon duo.  perhaps you have come to some of them!  and we’ve enjoyed having you.  you might be big fans of us, but we’re even bigger fans of you.

well, maybe not “bigger.”  but definitely equally big fans.  in most cases.  maybe not in joel steinhaus’s case.

so now we’re playing a show with a $12 ticket, and if you’re anything like us, the notion of paying $12 for any single object whatsoever is both terrifying and absurd.  however, this show will be worth it and more.  moreover, the overhead that we’ve had to pay on the edinburgh trip has been bonkers.  we’ve poured our life savings into putting these shows on, and we’re fine with that, because they represent the best chance we may ever have to Make It Big.  but the upshot is:  there’s no better time to show some love to The Young Dads. specifically, by buying tickets to our show.  if you like us, and like what we do, and are in New York this July, come see our show.  and bring friends!  and tell all your friends about us!

jesse out.

* b e h i n d * t h e * s c e n e s *

micah: so i’m thinking i might be a tri-sexual.
jesse: i’m think of changing my name to tri-ceratops.
producer: guys.  who’s holding the talking stick right now?
micah:
jesse:
producer: that’s right.  i’m holding the talking stick.  so we need to talk about the three new york shows, july 22 through 24.  i’ve put together a list of wh
jesse: whoa, whoa, whoa.  how many shows?  over how many days?
producer: three shows, three days.
micah: so that’s…
jesse: yeah, hang on.
micah:
jesse: nnnnnnnnnnn
producer: what is happening right now?
micah:
jesse: nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnngggggn
producer: jesse, do you need to be burped again?
micah:
jesse: that’s two shows per day. you booked us for two shows a day.
micah: OH MY GOD.  THAT IS WAY TOO MANY SHOWS.
producer: it’s one show per day.
jesse: OH MY GOD.  THAT IS EVEN MORE.
producer: no.  it’s less.
jesse:
micah:
producer: one is less than two.
micah:
jesse: that’s too many shows.  per day?  one?
producer: uh.   you guys are aware of how many shows we’re doing in edinburgh, right?
producer: 25 shows in 26 days?
jesse:
micah:
producer:
jesse: how many per day is that again?
producer: slightly less than one per day.
jesse: yeah!  so that’s fine.
micah: a tri-sexual is someone who tries to have sex.

daddy-style—
the young dads

p.s. emily carmichael designed this incredible poster for us and we thought you might like looking at it.

goodbye, kitty andrews

dad, leaning over: now do you remember that time we were coming back from that vet in penn hills?
me: she went right under the brake pedal!
dad: you let her out in the car, and she went right for that brake pedal. she just went right for it.
me: ha ha!
dad: and she was under there, and i was trying to brake, and she started—she started clawing my leg—
me: ha ha, h , a. oh j , jesus.
dad:
me: s sorr y.
dad: it’s okay.
me: i feel like a moron, c cr , crying like this.
dad: she was a part of your life.

for the past nine years, she wasn’t, though. that’s the heartbreaking part. she was my birthday present when i turned eight, in 1990. i had been agitating to get a cat for years, although what i had really wanted—in all honesty—was to be a cat. so suddenly there was a kitten nervously stalking the shadows in my room, and i didn’t know what do with myself. i was paralyzed. i was happy and terrified and everything that kids are when they get a gift that they’ve wanted so badly that they’ve transformed it, in their minds, to something fully abstract: a vague huge ocean of want. meanwhile, there was kitty, whom we had already begun affectionately calling “kitty.”

names brainstormed for kitty and ultimately rejected while in the meantime we addressed her consistently as “kitty”
rocket (jesse)
laser (jesse)
tiger-gun (jesse)
stinky (lena)

i chased her around with water guns and made her a home out of cardboard. i wanted to incorporate her in death-defying adventures, somehow. that desire was thwarted again and again. she was a sweet, sleepy cat, and she did not understand english or want to be harnessed to a Big Wheel.

above all, she was good-natured. “sweet” was the word everyone used. watching her stalk birds was the most pathetic thing any of us had ever seen. she had no idea what she was doing out there. when she pounced, it was in slow-motion, somehow, and it emphasized the generous flab of her hips.

i loved kitty more than most humans. she had a very sweet face. she was much, much easier to talk to than girls.

dad: growing up, we had a cat—well, i don’t want to get too graphic.
mom: oh, gross.
me: what.
dad: we had—we had a cat who developed, uh, a kitty GI disorder. like kitty crohn’s.
dad: to the point where, every day, the cat would go like this:
dad:
dad: ROWR
dad: —and dive for cover, under the nearest piece of furniture, and explosively
mom: reid, do we really have to talk about this.
dad: and my dad would go: GODDAMMIT.

and then i went off to college, and from then on, when i came home, i felt guilty about it. i had left her behind. i had been a guy in her life who petted her and said nice things to her and loved her, a lot, and then i abandoned her for another, better life. this ripped me in half, sometimes. she herself was not nearly as affected by it. i’d come home and find her sprawled out in the grass of the backyard, and her reaction was: “hi! hi there! i’m pretty sure we’ve met. uh—hang on. are you the guy who YES SCRATCH ME THERE OH GOD YES.” there was a spot behind her ear that you could scratch and she would ram her head into the palm of your hand, and that was The Thing that i did that she liked.

after fifteen years she went deaf and began going off like a car alarm at 4am every night. she was earsplittingly loud. she wasn’t in pain, either, or sad, or angry. it seemed to be her way of saying, “YO. YO, EVERYONE. I THINK IT’S 4AM. YO-O-O-O.” eventually mom would get out of bed and, muttering angrily, lock her in the basement until morning. this happened every night for a year and a half. after she mysteriously dislocated her shoulder (the circumstances will remain forever unclear), her walk became jolting and creaky, like that of the four-legged war machines from The Empire Strikes Back. also because of the shoulder injury, she had trouble licking all of herself, which led to cat dreadlocks. they were, and i say with this love, disgusting.

i tracked all this from afar, usually through check-in phone calls.

“and how is kitty?”
“oof.”
“hee hee.”
“she is louder than ever.”
“nnn hee hee.”
“it is like a siren going off. it is like someone is being murdered.”
“ha ha.”
“i managed to cut off some of her dreads, but she is still looking pretty sad.”
“oh no. ha ha, ha. poor kitty. ha.”

on monday, we three children and grandma got an email:

Dear Children and Barbs,

I write with the sad news that Kitty has come to the end of her long and successful run at [address redacted]. She has a very aggressive mouth cancer that has laid her very low (she has not been able to eat solid food for a couple of weeks now) and for which there is no realistic prospect of a cure. Mom and I have therefore decided to have her put down tomorrow afternoon, at 3:45. I am sure you will all be thinking of her and remembering her fatter and jollier years (which were many!).

Much love to all,
Dad/Reid

i didn’t start crying until i was on the phone with dad, and then there was a lot of crying.

jesse: i just , jus, —,
dad: oh, honey.
jesse: nted to say , . tTHank, thank you ,
jesse: f,
jesse: ,
jesse: fortakingcareofkittyallthoseyearsafterileftohjesus
dad: honey, that’s being a parent.
jesse: ; . i kn , knowbutthanks ,—
jesse: jus, just , thTha, thanks . ,
jesse: th ,
jesse: OH jesus. oh g god.

i am not an attractive cryer. i make honking noises like a goose and can’t really finish words. i was thinking of kitty’s small and bony body, ravaged by age. i found lena on gchat and told her i was going to pittsburgh to be there for the end.

Lena: really?
how much would that cost?
me: i know, it’s stupid
Lena: dad would be psyched
you were there for kitty’s beginning
me: i know
1:43 PM Lena: how much are flights?
1:44 PM me: $70 for one tomorrow morning
Lena: that’s not bad - how would you get back though?
me: probably flying
Lena: shouldn’t you get round trip
me: yeah, return is $80
1:45 PM Lena: that’s not bad
are you going to come?
me: is it stupid?
i’m crying right now
i feel like a moron
Lena: no it would be nice
the parents would be happy
kitty was a big part of your life
and eve is not going to be able to make it
me: yeah, i’ll do it
Lena: wow ncie!

i thought the most i was going to cry was that afternoon, and then the next day when it was 3pm and kitty had less than an hour to live and i went out to the back porch to do The Thing behind her ears, there was way more crying. she still liked The Thing. she wasn’t purring, but she still pushed her head into my hands. meanwhile, my face was bleary with mucus and i was repeating a noise that sounded like “HUNGK.” she had lost a lot of weight, and her little white jaw was bloated and surreal. from it dangled a congealed polyp of saliva and maybe a little blood. robins flew by, past a cat that had never given them any remote cause for fear. mom came home and i hid my face. “honey,” she said. ‘HUNNGGK,” i said, and was capable only of saying. “SNORT. HRUNNNGK.”

then we carried kitty into the car and drove her a few blocks to the vet, and she was alert and grouchy, and the vet took her into the back room, and we heard her yowling and hissing from where we were, with really awesome and heartening vigor, massively pissed off, and we knew that while it was awful, it was also funny, and we were all sort of laughing, and then after laughing i was crying even harder, trying vainly to keep it together, choking and chin-twitching and wet-faced, because honestly there is nothing sad in the same way that a dying animal, a dying pet, is sad. when a human dies, it’s obviously bigger—a bigger moment, and different. a human death is a thing we don’t understand. but a dependent animal, a housecat, dying, leaving our protection and approaching its own death with the terrible dark wordlessness of a thing without language: we don’t understand what we don’t understand about it.

they brought kitty back out, and she was grumbling and her eyes were glowing, and they asked if we needed a moment with her, and we did not (i personally could not have handled it), and they injected her with anesthetic, and guided by the vet’s hands she slumped stiffly over to one side, and then they injected her with an overdose of barbiturate, and she was a dead cat on a fur-strewn pillow.

we went home, talked, began to feel better. “she did not go quietly,” i typed to eve, who is in argentina. “why did you tell me that!!!!!!” she wrote back. much later, mom noted: “her fur is still all over everything.”

goodbye, kitty. you had a long and happy life, and i will never know what it meant to you. but i’m happy that i was there for the end.

modular origami fortress of excitement and neurosis

this is so nerdy that you may not be able to look directly at it.

basically, the indifferent weather during family vacation on block island resulted in me making several hundred tsu units, as various family members looked on in horror. then i wove them together to make this thing. it provides an excellent home for teenage mutant ninja turtles.

here’s another view:

infinitely extended, the pattern would be a sort of honeycomb of spherical cavities, each adjoining 12 others; the unit, designed by charles esseltine, is being used here exclusively to create pyramids with square bases, except where OH NO HELP JOCKS HAVE ENTERED THE ROOM AND ARE PUMMELING ME

block party

i am writing this from megabus.

dad: so what you’re saying is, now it’s not just greyhound, it’s monster-bus.
me: well, megabus, but yes.
dad: mega.
me: yeah. and before megabus there were these really cheap chinatown buses that were like five dollars, or ten dollars. i forget.
dad: mega-bopper.
me:
dad: mega-… mega-butt.
me: please stop pretending to be senile.
dad: ha ha! not pretending.
mom: can you guys just get a little closer so i can get a picture
eve: OH MY GOD MOM WHAT THE HELL
dad: so these are chinese buses?
me: i don’t know about megabus. it’s a bit nicer than fung wah, but
dad: fung what?
me: fung wah. it’s a chinese name. f-u-n-g, w-a-h.
dad:
dad: funga wunga.
me: you are a tenured professor of history. you travel to non-anglophone countries on a regular basis.
mom: eve can you just scootch over a little
eve: MOM JESUS CHRIIIIIIIIIST
mom: it’s just nice to have photos.

family vacation, block island, may 2009. eve is 20, i am 26. we picked the week before tourist season, and sure enough, we saw no tourists. that was because visibility was between ten and fifteen feet for most of our stay. the island may actually have been teeming with tourists, who like us were either stumbling through the foggy undergrowth, accumulating parasites, or lying stuporously on furniture back at home, where there was directv. here are the movies that we ended up watching:

legally blonde
bridget jones’s diary
the notebook
pride & prejudice (2005; the keira knightley version)

i am not kidding. we watched all of those. the problem is, dad has been living in an estrogen-intensive household for nine years, and he’s been conditioned not only to watch exclusively movies for women, but to loudly enjoy them in ways that women find relatable. example: yelling advice to colin firth. “she’s not going to be interested in you if you don’t listen to her needs,” dad blurted, visibly frustrated. second example: attention to costume design. “will you look at that dress,” marvelled dad. “that’s what i’m talking about! dress.” so movies for women were the only category of movie we were allowed to watch while on vacation. when i tried to switch to basketball at a commercial, he became more agitated than i have ever seen him. “WE’RE GONNA MISS THE BALL,” he bellowed at me, eyeballs bulging. “JESSE. FOR CHRIST’S SAKE, IT’S THE MOST BEAUTIFUL BALL IN ALL THE LAND.”

he’s in rough shape. it was definitely good for him to log some quality guy-hours, which we periodically did: belching at each other in lieu of conversation, say, or pretending to be apes. every morning we drank a bunch of coffee and then strode around the living room yelling about politics or sports or whatever. i would say that we were wearing clothing with food stains about 80% of the time.

other than that: we read, we ate. we biked around when it was nice, which it was for a couple of days. i made a modular origami thing. i drew the lighthouse, inexpertly scanned in above. i did some casual research for a book on what i’m calling “calamity tourism,” and got an email from pakistan: “This is with reference to your visit request to Swat Serena; we regret to inform you that due to bad law and order situation in that region our Swat Serena hotel is closed till further notice.” that’s fine. i can wait. the next family vacation isn’t for a year or so.

Young Dads International Tour of March: The Diary

Friday
4:30am: Micah wakes the two of us up for our 6am bus to Vermont. Bellowing with rage, I undertake to murder him.
4:55am: Our little drama having played itself out, I put both contact lenses in the eyeball that I think is more likely to benefit from them, grab some stuff, and hustle mutely out the door. Micah follows. Already we have forgotten many, many pertinent belongings.
5:02am: The subway is far more crowded than one would expect at 5:02am on a Friday morning. We are surrounded by poignant little groupings and interactions that underline the simultaneous fragility and dignity of the human species. A man across from us with a cane is yelling in Spanish, I think about vaginas. “¡La vagina!” he screams, pointing at us, his bounteous mustache a-quiver. “La vagina del rey.”
6am: Success! After awkwardly loping through a number of subway stations, we arrive at our bus with minutes to spare. Nine hours to Burlington!
6:04am: In case you are wondering why it would take nine hours to get to Burlington, know that the bus is making all local stops on the way. I don’t mean local stops as in, New Haven, New Britain, Springfield. I mean, local stops as in, Squirrel Avenue At Quaint Lane, Barn Next To A Lake, Some Trees Seemingly Chosen At Random, More Trees.
8:23am: Fitful sleeping.
9:30am:
Micah: So was it a conscious choice, not bringing a toothbrush?
Jesse: I mean, that’s not the worst thing that could happen.
Micah: First thing in Burlington, we go to CVS and buy toothbrushes.
Jesse: It’s actually more important to floss.
Micah: Did you bring floss?
Jesse: I did.
Micah: You brought floss, so you figured, why bring a toothbrush.
Jesse: I just figured, with floss, for a few days, you’re all set.
Micah: You were gonna go this whole trip without brushing your teeth.
Jesse, defensively: I was gonna floss.
Micah:
Jesse:
Micah: That’s disgusting.
1:10pm: Small-scale chaos when our transfer, in White River Junction, Vermont, is complicated by the age-old transportation quandary of Too Many People, Not Enough Bus. Considering that all of us came to White River Junction on buses, one would think that Greyhound would be able to accurately predict how many of us would be expecting to leave White River Junction on buses. One would, it turns out, be a fool.
1:15pm: We are the last ones to make the cut. Micah addresses the driver, a Hungarian, several minutes after a heated dispute about whether “the New York bus got the shaft.”
Micah: Thanks, man. I wasn’t giving you a hard time, I was just trying to get some informatio
Bus Driver: You were giving me hard time!
Micah, angrily: I wasn’t giving you a hard time. Look: I wasn’t giving you a goddamned hard time.
Bus Driver: You give me hard time.
Micah: WRONG, ASSHOLE. YOU’RE WRONG.
1:32pm:
Micah: I feel like if Robbie was a girl, he’d have big boobs.
Jesse:
Micah: And if Matt was a girl, he’d have like no boobs.
Jesse:
Micah: That’s why they’re such a great team.
1:47pm: Actual title of Cosmopolitan article being read by nearby girl: “Sex That Makes You Closer: Moves That Will Start a Bonfire in His Pants—and His Heart”
3:15pm: Arrival! Johnathan, our liaison at UVM, picks us up at the bus station and drives us to the Davis Center, where we’ll be performing at Brennan’s Pub, a brightly painted cavern of wide-screen televisions and burger-munching co-eds. The drinking age is strictly enforced, and all patrons are limited to two beers per visit. We had difficulty processing this.
Jesse: So after the second beer, what happens.
Johnathan: That’s it! No more beer.
Jesse: So how long until that resets.
Johnathan: Uh… I think until the next day.
Micah: I don’t understand.
Jesse: Yeah, I don’t get that part.
Johnathan: You get two beers per day, and that’s the limit.
Jesse: But where do you get the third beer.
Johnathan: Not here.
Jesse: I’m confused by what you’re saying.
Johnathan: You only get two beers here. If you want more, you can’t get them here.
Micah: Oh, I get it. You have to leave, and come back.
Johnathan: The next day, sure.
Micah: What?
Jesse: What we’re trying to say is, we don’t understand your words.
5-7pm: With a show at 8:30pm, now is an excellent time to promote. But what’s this? I seem to have forgotten my patch cable at home. Time for an exciting sidetrip to a strip mall, where two creepily smiling octogenarians have a grimy 12-footer available for only $200. Awesome.
7:23pm: Wandering the campus, instruments in tow, we locate a table of guys playing with Magic™ cards. Our catchy, well-harmonized musings on the nuances of modern dating do little to distract them from their game. Our aggressive grabbing and tongue-licking of their cards: more successful.
8:30pm: Time for the show! And the house is packed. But wait—there’s a problem with the sound. Somehow we need an entirely new P.A. system. Micah and I achieve our beer quota and good-naturedly offer help/advice. Meanwhile, the students begin filing out, blissfully unaware that hilarity is nigh. “Young Dads,” we blurt at them. “We are Young Dads.” We do not specify what, exactly, this means. Some of them begin to run.
9:35pm: At last, the sound is fixed. Roughly ten students remain. All of them are members of the Program Board.
10:30pm: End of the show. It was one of our better performances. No audience member’s genitals were complimented or insulted, and as a result, we now have ten new fans. Let me just say this: those kids had a great time. At no point did anyone point out that they had essentially paid over $50/person of university money to give themselves a private show. Ha ha!
11:11pm: After some abortive wandering around downtown Burlington, we decide against carousing, and instead we turn in early for the night. I am not allowed to tell you where that sleeping took place. I will say this: “beds” were not involved. Nor was any kind of “residence.”

Saturday
4:10am: Furtive yet sanitary peeing.
9:34am: Rise and shine! With the stealth of groggy, achy pumas, we sneak out of an office building. Sporting enormous unwieldy bags, we make our way into a tiny, crowded diner, critically injuring some of the waitstaff. Micah has eggs, and I am looking pleased. Cuz we’re ’bout to run a list of INTERNATIONAL CURRENCIES.
10:45am: Busking on a cobblestone street. We will go on to make a bundle of money, mostly from 30s-ish men taking their toddler children out for a walk. In other words: young dads. Thanks for the support, guys! We live the dream so you don’t have to.
11:58am:
Policeman: Hey guys. Can I see a permit?
Micah: Ummm
Jesse: Sorry, we don’t have a permit. We can pack up and get out of here, if y
Policeman, peering into cajón case: How much you guys make?
Jesse: Huh?
Micah: I—I don’t, um, know.
Policeman: Because the fine for playing without a permit is $50.
Jesse: Guh.
Micah, clutching a thick wad of dollars: I think we have—I think we have three dollars.
Policeman: Maybe we can come to some kind of understanding.
Jesse:
Micah:
Policeman:
Jesse:
Micah: Oops! I dropped some of these dollars… on the ground.
Policeman:
Jesse: Well, they’re no good to us anymore.
Micah: Yup!
Jesse: So long, dollars.
Policeman: I’m gonna let you guys off this time, but you have to apply for a permit.
Micah:
Jesse:
Policeman: You guys sounded good.
Micah: Look: what the hell.
Jesse: Do you want a goddamned bribe or not.
2:40pm: Montreal comes into view.
Jesse: Okay, when we kick it off tonight, I’m gonna yell, Hello, Columbus, Ohio!
Micah:
Jesse: No, no, no: Mexico City.
Micah:
Jesse: Good evening, Mexico City!!
Micah:
Jesse: Then I’ll be all like: oh, sorry, I just took a hit of ketamine fifteen minutes ago.
Micah:
Jesse: As in: Special K.
Micah:
Jesse: And then I’m like, I’m totally peaking right now.
Micah: You have to either brush your teeth, or not talk near my face.
3:52pm: We arrive at Micah’s brother Daniel’s apartment, the cheerfully squalid home of six McGill students. Forests of beer bottles crowd the floors and all other surfaces. Two roommates are playing beer pong on a giant homemade construction of glass and beer caps. Another is absent-mindedly snacking from a bowl containing ancient slices of carrot and celery, awash in oily brown film. This is the Ground Zero of the Young Dads’ Canadian fandom. We are received as celebrities. Heroes, even.
6:48pm: Sound check at The Yellow Door, Canada’s oldest functioning coffeehouse. Essentially it is the medium-sized basement of a house on an all-residential street. There are doilies. The sound guy is an old, prickly hippie. He loudly admires my amp, and it is unclear if he is being ironic. Perhaps he himself does not know.
7:34pm:
Micah: We have to push the stickers, during the show. We have to promote the stickers.
Jesse: I think I’m going to do the Japanese voice, like: Ohhhhhh.
Micah: Maybe if we say they’re on sale.
Jesse: Hey: I want you to talk about how we have this huge fan base in Japan,
Micah: Because we’re changing our name.
Jesse: of like retired samurai men, and then I can be like, we’re sending out a message, and then you can just say whatever, and I’m like
Micah: We’re changing our name to Greenland. That’s a hilarious name!
Jesse: I’m like, ohhhhhhhh.
Micah: Maybe we really should change our name.
Jesse: That’s trife.
Micah: What?
Jesse: That’s trife. Trifling.
Micah: No one says that.
Jesse: What? Everyone says that.
Micah: You’re a moron.
Jesse: Ohhhhhhhhhh.
Micah:
Jesse: Hai hashi-masu MAKU-DAS.
Micah: YES.
8:45pm: A packed house! Daniel has promoted the living hell out of this show. The emcee, Holly, introduces us as Jesse and “Meeka,” which is funny because that’s a girl’s name. Then I have to tune. Somehow this takes an incredibly long time.
8:52pm:
Jesse: Hello Mexico City!!!
Scattered tittering. Much of the audience is stony-faced.
Jesse: Oops, my bad. I just had some Special K! And now I’m peaking.
Less laughter than before.
Micah: They think you mean the cereal.
Jesse: The drug, not the cereal.
No one is laughing.
Jesse: Takin’ a little trip down the K-hole.
An uneasy silence.
9:12pm:
Micah: Thank you, thank you. So, we’re selling these stickers for a dollar apiece. They’re on sale!
Jesse: Normally they cost four easy payments of $9.99.
Micah: We’re changing our name to Greenland.
Jesse: I’m just gonna translate that, for all of our samurai Japanese fans out there: OHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.
Audience:
Jesse: HAI-MASHU-DAS. TOYOTA, HONDA. OHHH.
Micah: Ha ha!
Jesse: We call that one the Racist Bassist.
Applause.
10:32pm: Heavy drinking. Enthusiasm from all audience members surveyed. We decide to stop selling the stickers and just give them out for free, because they’re stickers. Why were we trying to get people to pay money for stickers? It is a question without an answer.
10:45pm:
Micah: The thing about Beatbox And a Bird is, we don’t think it’s that funny.
Jesse: Yeah. It’s our most popular thing, and we don’t know why.
Micah: We actually think it’s the stupidest thing we’ve ever come up with.
Jesse: It’s just Micah beatboxing, and me making bird sounds.
Micah: Ugh. I hate it.
Jesse: We came up with it, and we were like, that’s so stupid, we have to try it, but it’s not gonna work. But it did.
Micah: People laugh at it, more than they laugh at anything else that we do, but it’s not funny.
11:34pm: We venture into the night.

Sunday
1:01am: We make land at Frappé, a boisterous little club on the rue St Laurent. A mixed crowd is lurching to and fro across the dance floor. Many of them are undulating to the music, some suggestively, some abstractly.
1:35am: Gripping my ankles firmly, I am doing the Robot-Waddle around the perimeter of the dance floor.
2:01am: Micah squats next to a group of women and peers hostilely into the middle distance. They are attempting to ignore him. He remains there for ten minutes, saying nothing.
2:12am: I am doing a dance where you pretend that instead of legs, your body is supported by an inflexible metal tripod.
2:18am: Micah is doing the Pelvis Presley.
2:25am: Micah and I have pulled two chairs onto the dance floor and are simulating the sex act with them.
2:26am: Five chairs.
2:28am: Seven chairs, and my thighs are hurting. We are basically lifting seven chairs up off the ground and painfully bobbing up and down.
2:36am:
Girl: YOU GUYS AREN’T GONNA GET LAID IF YOU KEEP DANCING LIKE THAT.
Micah: WHAT?
Girl: NO ONE WILL TALK TO YOU IF YOU KEEP DANCING LIKE THAT.
Micah: DANCING LIKE WHAT.
Girl: DANCING LIKE A RETARD.
Jesse: YOU KNOW YURY?
Girl:
Jesse: YURY TELL US, DANCE! HERE DANCE.
Girl: I DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE TRYING TO DO WITH THAT ACCENT, BUT IT’S NOT WORKING.
Jesse: YURY TELL US, HERE TO DANCE.
3:30am: A hearty meal of poutine, a Quebecois specialty of french fries, cheese curds, gravy, and bile. Delicious!
1:11pm: Dear Christ, the pain.
4:30pm: An afternoon of college basketball and feeble moaning draws to a close, as one of our fans drives us to the bus station.
4:45pm: Ha ha! Um, we seem to have forgotten our tickets. Somehow, there is no way of printing them up at the station itself. We will be taking the 9pm bus, it seems.
5:12pm: A triumphant return to Daniel’s apartment.
6:45pm: A meal of Thai food leads somehow to tears.
7:45pm: Return to the bus station! We are near the front of the line.
9:30pm: Departure.

Monday
4:30am: Arrival.
4:42am:
Micah: Can I just crash at your place for a few hours? Before work.
Jesse: Yeah, that’s
Micah: PLEASE NO OUT-LOUD TALKING WITH YOUR MOUTH.

tonsillitis

for me, the tonsils used to be one of the body’s cute little punchlines, a frankly vast group (uvula, spleen, frenulum, etc.).  recently, however, they turned on me, and now i don’t know where we stand.  the picture here is not of my tonsils; i tried to photograph them for a good twenty minutes and then gave up.  i will say only that mine look worse than those.  last night katherine’s med-school roommates examined them with a combination of horror and joy, and were visibly disappointed when i said that it was time for me to go to sleep. today, a kindly puerto rican doctor* peered at them for a solid 0.4 seconds before telling me that i needed antibiotics, STAT.

it’s been a rough few days. i can’t really eat, or talk, or hear, and things down old throat lane are on the painful side. if i haven’t been in touch with you, i’m really sorry—every time i try to check and respond to email, something goes wrong and pretty soon i am asleep and copiously drooling blood and lymph.  attempting to talk on the phone is an enterprise so absurd as to rival beckett.

receptionist: GOOD DAY BUENAS TARDES
me: i’d like. to… m
receptionist: HELLO?
me: an abboinment. eeennh
receptionist: YOU HAVE INSURANCE?
me: yeah but it’s buh. it’s total bullshish insh—. bullshih.
receptionist: HELLOOO YOU HAVE INSURANCE.
me: eeenhno.
receptionist: YOU WANT A PRIWATE WISIT.
me: yeah, pri; prive.
receptionist: YES?
me, asleep, drooling blood and lymph: SNOOORRT.
me: SNOORRRRRRRRRRRTT.

a side effect of tonsillitis is snoring.

also: the young dads, this friday night, sidewalk cafe, 7:30pm. be there or be not-in-the-presence-of-someone-with-non-infectious-because-he-is-taking-antibiotics tonsillitis, a.k.a., a tool.

*who also announced happily that i had “the blood pressure of a baby,” which is far more useful to me than the actual data of my blood pressure. blood pressure = 100 over 65: whatever. blood pressure = baby: RED ALERT. i remember my infancy. it was in brazil, and there were giant flesh-eating ants. i guess i need to relax more.

costa rica ii: blurry photos of animals

[part one]
[also, thanks to everyone who came out to the show last night]

it begins. look: this is a sloth. okay? you are looking at a sloth right now. it was far away, and i had to use “digital zoom,” which is a filter olympus designed to make it look like you took a picture while running, and drunk.

i photographed this squirrel monkey many, many times. this was the best picture that resulted. god help us all.

the second-best way to catch crabs? wait patiently outside their holes, then close off said holes when they have ventured too far away from them. the best way to catch crabs? from yo mama. snap!

napping in the sun, we were awoken by shouts of dismay as an iguana scurried into a nearby encampment of sunbathers and then froze there for twenty minutes while people milled about, first terrified, then bored. we can really only construe its actions as a desperate cry for attention. what are you running from, iguana? your life is superb. you live in a national park, and you look like a dinosaur. when i was nine, those were my only two ambitions in life.

it looked sort of like a big guinea pig. i don’t even know what you would call it. that’s its ear above the triangle of branches.

and here are some raccoons. after all the exotic birds and monkeys and lizards, it was a shock and a pleasure to see the quotidian north american raccoon bumbling around costa rica. i felt a deep kinship with them. it was like: you’re a long way from home, friend. how did you even get here? i smuggled you in my luggage, that’s how. i don’t even remember why! but i did.

a butterfly landed on katherine’s hand, which at first was a lovely thing to have happened. but then she started shouting, “I AM THE PRETTIEST PIXIE,” and claiming that she lived in a palace made of rainbows and starlight. when the dust cleared, there was a crumpled iridescent object protruding from her mouth. i’m not really sure how we move on from that.

as we dined in a lovely outdoor thai/indonesian restaurant in the town of dominical, this friendly cat walked right up to us, leaped into my lap, made itself comfortable, and cheerfully commenced lacerating my groin and junk with its claws. for this behavior, the cat was rewarded with roughly a quarter of katherine’s dinner, which was curry, which the cat ate with great enjoyment. cats! if only all of them were spayed.

you can get really, really close to a hummingbird without scaring it. the same, alas, is not true for giant spider-killing wasps. (FORESHADOWING FORESHADOWING FORESHADOWING)

some photos of monteverde, a crowded mountain town near a number of cloud forest reserves and the home of ziplining, which we politely declined to do, several hundred times. we did, however, see frogs. we also saw insects, although not at world of insects, above. instead, we went on a hike up a mountain, which is where we came across this thing:

holy jesus god. here, a wasp is lugging around the immobilized body of a freaking tarantula. i mean, christ. wasp versus tarantula. this is not the kind of nature encounter one sees promoted by the costa rica tourism board. it was like we had stumbled into mini-mordor.

katherine felt sorry for the tarantula, and once we had stopped dry-heaving from the sheer awfulness of it all, she went over to try to save it. her shadow fell over the two creatures. the wasp stopped. its stinger coiled and became visibly heavy with poison. faintly, we heard it hissing. “bring it on,” it hissed.

that was when we started running.

the top of the mountain had a few TV towers and was shrouded in cloud, and i ran around like an idiot and took a bunch of pictures. some of them look vaguely like stills from star wars. this is one of them. it was awesome up there.

the way back down was superb as well. i have a bunch of pictures like this, and some are nice but none do justice to what we saw. the hills, the forest, the distant bay—they had this lovely lulling effect that was exactly what we had been looking for, an escape from the urban winter, a lush rolling panorama almost aching with its own vital beauty. we stood atop a rock, and gazed, and were quiet.

that was when the wasps attacked.