Yet another national holiday that I am spending at work. Anyway, the weekend was occupied by a visit from college friend Nicole, who took the train up from DC on Friday afternoon. So after work I rode up to Penn Station to collect her at the Amtrak terminal. I don't think I'd seen her in about a year and a half. She looked about the same. About 5'3", topping off at 97 pounds. Skinny, skinny girl. Anyway, we hopped on the A train back to Brooklyn, dropped off her stuff at my apartment, and had a big meal at the "finer diner" Dizzy's down the street. Nicole is now a 2nd Lieutenant in the United States Army. In the medical core. That is strange. Nicole and I used to be pretty close back in college, until, around sophomore year I "became mean." I'm not sure that I did, but I certainly cared less. But it was nice to have her visit. If nothing else, it broke up the monotony of the last few weekends. Anyway, after dinner, we hung out for a while, then went down to the 5th Ave. bars with Dylan. Great Lakes had an annoying band playing, so we sat around the Gate on 3rd st. for a while. We had a pitcher of beer, then figured it was safe to return to the Lakes.My two remaining friends in the DC area, Nicole and Jen, are both morning people. This is rough to take. All week long, I look forward to the weekend, particularly because I can sleep in very late. Of course, Nicole wanted to take advantage of her time in New York, so we had to get up early and do stuff. The first chore was to go get the delicious bagel I'd promised her. It annoyed me all weekend how she pronounced the word "bag-el" with a soft "a." Midwesterners. So we sat around leisurely for about 20 minutes, watching "The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island." The Globetrotters had to beat a team of robots called "The New Invincibles." I thought that'd be a good band name. Then we headed off for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Nicole had told me in advance she wanted to go to a Museum, so I scouted the magazines for something fairly interesting. Actually, I wanted something fairly familiar and digestible. So I figured the Surrealism show at the Met would be just fine. It contained many pieces I'd seen at the Giacometti exhibit at MOMA in December, and a lot of Dali and Miro paintings I'd had to study in high school. All in all, it was enjoyable. What I did like about going to the museum with Nicole was that she said she can only really stand being in museums for about an hour and a half. I am pretty much the same way. Most of the time. There was also an exhibit featuring the art of Easter Island that I would've liked to have seen, and a photography exhibit, but we didn't have time. So we rode the bus down the street and took the subway back to Brooklyn, and headed for the Brooklyn Museum of Art.
The reason for the second museum trip was actually to see a performance by Luna, who were playing two free shows as part of the New York Metropolitan Music Festival. They'd also sponsored the bad band at Great Lakes the night before. The setting for the show was a little bizarre. It was in the seated auditorium, and they played on a huge, lacquered wood stage. It looked like the set of a 60's or 70's variety show. I thought the Doors wouldn't have looked out of place, with the smoke and lights behind them, a la their Ed Sullivan show performance. Or maybe the band from "That Thing You Do!" I really don't like seated shows all that much. Everyone's quiet, no one's moving, and it's sort of high school assembly-ish. Plus, the sound was pretty low, and the acoustics weren't the best. But all in all, it was enjoyable. They always put on a good live show. Matt, Jed, and Dylan were supposed to join us, but showed up too late to get in. So we met them at home, and ordered a pizza from Domino's. Believe the hype: Those Cinnasticks are worth every penny.
On the schedule for Saturday night was a lesbian house warming party. Or a house warming at a lesbian house. Or something like it. Anyway, it was at the home of Caryn's friend Kira in Prospect Heights right near the Brooklyn Museum. So after Caryn arrived, Jed, Nicole, Dylan, and I accompanied her over. We took the bus most of the way. I like the bus. Immediately upon our arrival, we began to feel uncomfortable. At first it was of the just showing up at a party of strangers kind of uncomfortable, but after a while I'm fairly sure there was a concerted effort to make us feel uncomfortable. Things didn't start to warm up for us until someone started playing the drum set that was in the living room. After this white girl wearing a tie asked Dylan for the drum kit stool, in a rude "get you and your penis get off the stool" kind of way, she enthralled the crowd with her drum playing. We were not impressed. I'm fairly sure if I were transported into Matt's mind, I would have heard a deafening chorus of "Men do it better! Men do it better!" Or something to that effect. So then the group of black lesbians, who were much friendlier to us than their white counterparts, started playing the drums too. They weren't very good either, but were at least having fun and not showing off. I had kind of been itching to play the drums, but knew I would sound much better than anyone who had played, so I was kind of nervous. I was already feeling bad enough for being a straight male, and I'd shown up in a posse of straight white males, so I didn't want to do anything else to further alienate us from the group at the party. But I couldn't help myself, and stepped up to the drums, and everyone was thoroughly impressed. So Matt played after me, and didn't hold back as I did, and sounded awesome. After listening to a lot of old tapes of us playing, I'm more and more impressed with the job he did behind the drums. Anyway, while I was playing I got the same stiffness in my lower spine that I always get when I'm at the center of attention in a room full of people. I hate being in that position. I don't like being under that kind of scrutiny. I like attention, but in small, personable doses. Matt has no such problems.
One thing that Dylan mentioned later that I hadn't really thought about was that the party was our first real interaction with non-upper middle class lesbians. The only kind of lesbians we ever encounter are of the kind of Oberlin College, collegiate type really, and for some reason it never really occurred to us to ever think about lower class lesbians. Caryn tells me there are all sorts of class issues in the lesbian community. Anyway, the party was definitely interesting. After watching this cute Asian girl make out with a not-so-attractive girl for about a while, we left. Jed, Dylan, and Matt went down to Matt's to play video games, and Nicole and I returned home. Though we did stop off to get various cheeses to eat. Nicole was kind enough to buy me a lot of food during her visit. She may visit anytime.
Sunday morning, I was treated to yet another annoying morning person habit: Booking early trains out of the city. I actually had to get up earlier than I do for work. Still, she did offer to buy me breakfast, though I declined. There's only so much someone can buy me before I start to feel like a bum. And that amount is about the sum of a large meat loaf dinner, a beer, and a bagel. Anyway, I fell in and out of sleep all the way home from Penn St., got home, took my pants off, had some toast, and plopped down back in bed. I'd debated whether or not I should stay up and enjoy the extra waking time, but in the end I figured it was only 11:30, and I usually sleep till one, so I could sleep an hour and still be ahead. Plus I was already showered and fed, so I'd save that time too. So after ten minutes, I was reveling into the enjoyment of having my bed to myself again, and fell into a quiet slumber. About thirty seconds later the phone rang. I thought it was one of Jed's creditors, who cannot seem to go more than three hours without calling, no matter what, so I didn't answer it. then the cell phone rang. Rodzilla. Wanted to go see a movie. Fine I says. What time? I knew what she'd say: "Right now." So I said, "how 'bout around 4 instead?" in the hopes that maybe she'd meet me halfway for a two o'clock show. So we agreed upon the one o'clock, and I tried to sleep for half an hour. After three minutes, I said fuck it and got out of bed, grudgingly put my pants on, and cleaned the kitchen a bit. Then off to the movie.
The movie we saw was Gosford Park. I've seen three of the movies nominated for Best Picture now (Moulin Rouge and Lord of the Rings being the others), and while I've enjoyed all three, none of them seem Oscar worthy. Which leads me to the unsettling conclusion that the dreadful looking A Beautiful Mind will win. Two things bug me about this movie: first, I hate things "based" on true stories. They take one angle, supe it up with an inspirational soundtrack, steamy looks, and over the top acting, and just try to show you the best parts. Or whatever fits the director's idealized versions of the subject. Second, I really hate the poster. It says "Russell Crowe" above the title, which is fine, but then, tucked under "A Beautiful Mind," in smaller letters than Russell Crowe's name, is "Ed Harris." It looks really weird. Was this really necessary? They should at least have had two names under there. Did someone think that if I didn't want to see this movie, I'd suddenly see Ed Harris' postscript marquee mention and that'd push me over the top? It looks really dumb, and it makes me want to see the movie even less. Anyway, back to Gosford Park. It was definitely entertaining, but I don't know if I'd call it a great film. All the characters were pretty engaging, but at times it was tough to keep track of all the characters. But I did like the split between the house guests and the servants. I'd recommend it to someone, but I probably wouldn't want to sit through it again.
Pictures to prove it:
Me and Nicole in front of the Met.
A faraway shot of Luna at the Brooklyn Museum of Art
A shot of a woman on the 2 train, proving that there's no such thing as too much cake.