n'est pas

Last Weekend, Part Two

(names have been changed to protect the obvious)

For the longest time I thought the lyric was "we can gather throw-up here," when it is actually "we can gather, throw a fit." Which, when you think about it, makes a hell of a lot more sense.
My world was locked in park, ignition off in the Lenny's parking lot. I was thinking about how my car was actually just one giant dent when I saw Pea race down the sidewalk after an unidentified predator.
"Pea? You changed my name to Pea?"
"What's wrong with pea? One split and you get a delicious soup."
"It's one letter away from p-e-e."
"I almost went with Lentil."
"Lentil's better."
"I thought people might assume it's short for 'linticular' and get confused."
"Do you know anyone named Linticular?"
"I know people."
"Not with that name."
"In Antwerp. He sold me some wrestling boots and matching assymetrical bifocals."
"Europeans are a high-class bunch."
"Lentil it is."
There are several varieties of the dance (or "moves") exhibited on a dance floor of aging scensters. As they are "aging" and have seen-it-all-from-Moscow-to-Minsk, little enthusiasm is put forth with the exception of one Mister Stickfigure. Though, to be fair, he can shake it like only those in the first (linear) dimension. Anorexics and vegans try to contend but alas they are not truly "stickfigures" but are just really really skinny.
You call them heroin chic, I call them strangely absent from any number of buffets because they are being groomed to date the septagenarians they meet while picking out calcium pills a la Lara Flynn Boyle and that guy that won an Oscar for saying "go sell crazy somewhere else. we're all stocked up here." I want that line for my files, unfortunately it relates to a Helen "girls just wanna stop squinting" Hunt movie and is therefore tainted.
Personally I am guilty of the shoulder-bob-foot-shuffle, though I cannot get my shoulders and feet to synchronize. My shoulders are trained for a 2/4 punk beat and my feet just wanna pas de bouree. Some girls are well versed in the booty shake, unfortunately my shake was paralyzed when my mother informed me that it was a tool of satan. (Or a tool of my stepmother- for awhile they were neck and neck on the evil charts.) Of course some young punk turks simply display a modified "jump and run" to supplement lack of talent. Most of these cats are, ironically enough, in the rhythm section of your favorite local band.
"Does Manheim Steamroller really need a rhythm section?"
"Completely superflous. I think Gunnar Nelson just likes the way he looks holding a bass."
"Have you heard of my Manheim Steamroller cover band? We're called Deck the...um...Malls?... Poopdeck the Halls?...Manheim Cinnamonroll? Damn I wish my hypercolor shirt still worked."
My best friend through grammar and middle school had a giant poster of "Nelson" on her closet door and would loop the "After the Rain" video on her VCR. We would sneak out with winecoolers to her tennis court and hang with this kid who later became Melissa Joan Hart's ("Sabrina Explains It All") husband. On live tv, no less. He was mega-cute. Ferguson mega-cute. And if I weren't the biggest dork in the crowd I might have let him hold my hair as I vomited peach winecooler. Thank god for the influx of Nirvana the next year. Out with the rain and in with my best friend's drug addiction. After I moved it was in with her running away and stealing a car, doing time in juvenile and having a probation officer in high school. She was badass. I think she has a kid now, is playing grown-up. I wonder what that's like?
Back to our show. Prian Barris, after a brief stint in the witness protection program, magically teleported from housemusicland to durandurania and was promptly placed in charge of mobilizing the dance floor. I was alternating between Lentil at the door, Mister Stickfigure operating in 3-D, and my literary idol Van Helsing (as played by Rippy) attempting to down a vodka tonic while having blades and shit for hands.
"I'm really tired of being asked to open beers. The best I can do here is tap at it."
"Your movie isn't out yet. Give it time."
"And no, I'm not going to topiary your ficus tree. Do I look pasty? I wish I were Freddy. Everyone knows Freddy and Freddy's wrath."
"Do you really want to do the knives thing again? After 'X-Men 2: Attack of the Clones'?"
"You need to pay attention in movies."
"I pay attention to Oscar contenders."
Last year I wasn't planning on hosting an Oscar party but nonetheless my friends showed up with trays of terror-tabouli and white devil burgers (we were knee deep in new war at the time). They placed bets on nonexistant categories and insisted on calling my then-boyfriend by the wrong name. SARS about that. (Fad diseases were a constant source of entertainment- monkeypox was almost too much. I imagine that someday poetic justice will kill us with a strange Antwerpen strain of Robopox.) I want to be prepared for another impromptu awards party involving food named after democratic candidates and mind-control cults.
"You were in Skull-and-Bones, right?"
"Oh yeah." Van Helsing seemed distracted by the shiny rotary saw on his thumb.
"With W?"
"Yep."
"What was he like?"
"Not much to tell, I'm afraid. He could never make it through an entire round of 'Clue' without demanding someone build him a billiard room. When we explained that we were, in fact, in a billiard room-hence the imported beer- he would pout in the corner until someone promised him an office shaped like an oval. He'd then spend the rest of the night marveling at the concept of a room without corners."
"That sounds awfully boring."
"Yeah, and that's only when he didn't go on and on about how 'Clue' made no sense because they didn't have mustard in colonial times."
(high hat)
"Sorry. For a second I thought I was Bill Mahr surrounded by mildly humorous celebrity pundits."
(high hat)
"Dammit!"
"Hey, we both know B+. Let's talk about him."
"Yes."
"Where is he?"
"You know very well he can't leave."
"Can't....or won't?"
"Used to be won't. Now it's can't. They changed the format of 24 to real time. It's literally on all day every day, though a bulk of it is just Jack Bauer watching VH1."
"So he's fallen into Keifer's evil trap of Keiferness."
"Exactly. Something must be done!"
"You're Van Helsing! You've got extension cords for veins! Instead of giving someone the finger you give them the Phillips head screwdriver! You must save him!"
"And save him I will." (WHOOSH)
The battle rages on. At the house of B+, under the watchful eye of a holographic Jesus, by the glow of a televised victory speech, good shall prevail. Or fall asleep trying.
Lenny's was Lenny's, as it is and shall be until it is eaten by a condo.
Destination Happygo St., but not before rescuing Lentil from his concrete garden.
"Your yard is Joni Mitchell's nightmare."
"We didn't really pave paradise, unless you count shards of glass and loafing backissues paradise."
"I hate Joni Mitchell."
"I hate Carly Simon."
"Stevie Nicks, too."
"Susan Sontag, too."
"The Jesus and Mary Chain, too."
(SFX: the collective sound of a thousand crickets dropping their jaws exposing the half-masticated heads of their mate)
I guess I'll have to stone myself later for not liking The Jesus and Mary Chain.
"I'm kidding. I love T-J-ampersand-M-C. Hey, look over there!"
"Where? I don't see anything."
"It was nothing, I guess."
"Hey, did you just forcefully eject The Jesus and Mary Chain out of the backseat?"
"They were getting on my nerves. Every time I tried to play a song they would add their own little fuzzy feedback and declare it their own song."
"Oh, well. I guess they'll find 110 Happygo Street on their own."
"Not without-" (surprise reveal) "THEIR COMPASS!"
"You're tricky when you're not pretending to be Mrs. Mia Wallace."
Car in park, ignition off.
"Don't be-"
"What are you doing?"
"I'm trying to draw a rhombus."
"It's not a rhombus it's a chopper."
"It's not a chopper it's a giant dent."
Some people might ask: "Hey what's an afterparty actually after?"
Still others might ask: "why is Prian Barris's face pixellated?"
Question 1: Why, after many things! Including, but not limited to- a hayride, a hell house, a hayride through a hell house, high tea, garden excursion, hell house excursion, 1852, the completion of the outer valence of an atom, complete and total destruction, Harry Potter discussion group.
Question 2: It's actually a photoshop error which occured during our conversion to OSX.
"Hey, can you play the Smiths?"
"Yeah, whatddya want to hear?"
"Do you have 'Meat Is Murder?'"
"No, I just have a best of album."
"Is 'Bigmouth' on 'Meat is Murder?'"
"I don't think so, but like I said I don't have that album."
"What else is on 'Meat is Murder?'"
"Do you have a request?"
"Yeah...um...do you have 'The Queen is Dead?'"
"No, sorry."
"I wanna hear, like, the third song on that."
"Can't really help you there."
"No but it's that one song on 'The Queen is Dead,' you know..."
"Play 'Bigmouth.' For the love of pete, just play 'Bigmouth.'" I felt I should interrupt, lest I get caught in more moronic circular logic.
Before we go any further, let me remind you that I am a bad seed in the grand tradition of Rizzo and Rhoda Morganstern. I will probably get asked to leave your intimite (albeit creepy) gathering in no uncertain terms.
And I will leave. But not without several sideways glances and/or dirty looks.
Maybe it was the cut of my jib or that anti-Vietnam protest I started in the kitchen (the food, not the war), but the night capped out under lock and key with me and the dent and the sweet sweet taste that fumes might leave in the morning air.