Heatwaves

Today is the first day that I worried about attempting to put my AC Unit into my bedroom window and having it fall on someone on the street below, which means it is officially summer. This will be my fifth full summer in the city. And I honestly think it's the best season to be around here.

Spring is great and everyone always says its the best time of year, but it also is a little undeserving of the love. It's like you've been in captivity for months by the cold mistress Winter, and then this fresh, warm, hopeful lady Spring lets you free. Yeah, you're gonna probably love Spring just for being the one to let you out of the icy frozen depths of Winter. But it's a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately kind of love.  After the honeymoon period, you realize Spring is always raining and every once in a while reveals glimpses of the Winter you escaped from. The love with Spring doesn't last forever. At least for me. 

Summer though. Oh man, Summer is where it's at. There are so many great things about Summer that I'm only gonna go through a couple of them.

First off, all the unseemly rich motherfuckers in the city clear the fuck out to their respective summer towns to frolic in their little mini valhallas. I like this because my ideal vision of bars and restaurants are ones where I never have to wait for a drink or a table. Lines are something I don't cotton to. Especially when whatever I am about to not wait for is not free.

Secondly, Summer heat also gets in people's brains and makes them a little crazier, and more entertaining. People are just wilin' in the summer. You'll see a lot more disrespect for laws, for dress codes, for whatever societal conventions don't fit in with whatever they're about to do. It's funny. I basically am sweating for three months straight in the summer I have stopped giving a shit a long time ago that I have weird large wet areas on my shirts and my face looks like its trying to rid itself of some fatal toxin in its epidermis. If you care about that then, well, good luck leaving your place or ever dreaming of entering into the jungle subway.

(I have to laugh at the ridiculousness of people saying in mid summer that they can't wait until it's Winter again. I will take wilting from the heat over shivering in the cold every moment for the rest of time. I mean if the sun is too hot, take off your shirt and put on a goddamn sombrero. It's not that complicated.)

Thirdly, drunken ocean swimming. There are few things better than gettin tipsy and then running full steam into the ocean, only for it to tumble your ass end over end until you don't even know which way is up or down. NYC to outsiders is just a bustling, dirty nightmare with nature to escape to. But if you look at a map, NYC is basically sticking out into the Atlantic. You can get to the Rockaways in 30 minutes. And once there, it is Beach Thunderdome. The gay beach there has its level of fabulous set so high that you don't know how it doesn't topple over at any moment, teetering between the edges of delirium and insanity. I have witnessed a man covered in large colorful feathers with multiple birds perched on his shoulders. I can't stress how amazing people-watching that section of the beach is. And outside of that everyone else seemingly does whatever the hell they want as well. Ain't no one hassling you as far as I have seen. I can't wait to get out there just thinking about it.

So right now, I'm sweating, sitting on my couch writing this. And even though it will probably seem like the air is heavier and hotter than sitting in a steam room most of the time this summer, I'm still looking forward to it. Sometimes you just have to embrace the whole idea of getting nasty. I kinda want to call the fire department and request they pop the fire hydrant in front of my building right now.

Nat Grid - You're Something Else

National Grid called me a little bit ago. I pick up because a couple months ago we had our gas turned off for like five days and my roommates (cough cough warm water needer Steph cough) were not amused by the lack of hot water and heating in late February. As soon as I answer the phone I am blasted by an automated on-hold lady, who tricks me into saying hello twice because I thought, you know, they called me, I assume someone wanted to tell me something important and I would be talking to someone right.

Nah, that ain't how they roll. Automated lady tells me over and over again on a 15 second loop to remain on the line for about five minutes. Then the National Grid Rep finally deigns to talk to me.

Nat Grid Rep: Hello Sir, we're calling to tell you that you have an overdue gas bill.

Me (having already pulled up my last email from Nat Grid from a couple weeks ago): Yeah, that's funny though, because I'm signed up for the DirectPay option, where, you know, I don't have to pay over the phone.

Nat Grid Rep: Yeah, I can see you are signed up for that, but it hasn't gone into effect yet. So you can pay your past due balance or your total balance right now over the phone via check.

Me: Sure, whatever. So you need my routing number and account number right?

Nat Grid Rep: Ummm, yeah, just a sec. Things are a little wonky here. Since you enrolled in the DirectPay program you can't actually pay via check over the phone.

Me: Okay. So credit card then?

Nat Grid Rep: Yeahhhhhh, credit card or debit card. There is a fee we charge for this sort of payment though.

Me: How much?

Nat Grid Rep: (Mumbles something) Twenty Five.

Me: HOW MUCH DID YOU JUST SAY?!?!?

Nat Grid Rep: Sorry, $2.25.

Me: Okay. So let me get this straight. I enrolled in your DirectPay program at the beginning of the month. It hasn't taken effect yet, so I need to pay over the phone. But I have to pay a fee to pay over the phone. Because your DirectPay system is moving too slow processing my account or whatever? Is this happening right now?

Nat Grid Rep (short laugh): Yeah, if I was in your position I would be asking the same questions. I'm sorry about this.

Me: It's not your fault. It's Nat Grid's DirectPay processors.

Nat Grid Rep: Yeah. Well on your account here there hasn't been any stop order put on so you could just wait until the next billing cycle and DirectPay should be in effect by then.

Me (laughing): Then why are we talking right now? You guys will call or email if you're about to cut off my gas right?

Nat Grid Rep (laughing): Yeah. We send a notice via email.

Me (laughing): Well, good talk then. I'll see you out there.

Nat Grid Rep (laughing): Yeah, it's been fun. Have a nice day.

Me (laughing): You too.
 

Staring Into The Sun

I've seen multiple people write things about them trying the Bud Light Lime Presents Straw-ber-Rita. So I figured I'd put my two cents in since I've had a couple of these bad boys recently.

First off, the can is art. Like, Louvre-quality Can work. It is basically a siren singing just beyond the rocks to come dock your boat on this beach made of a giant buoyant Stawberry and sup on the nectar of the gods. Only in this case when the siren song shipwrecks you...it's in a good way. Who needs a boat when looking at this Can makes you soar up into the stars? So yeah, I like the can.

On to the actual drink though. Once you open the tab you get a good whiff of one of the most alluring scents known in this astral plane. It smells like a mix of freedom and jasmine. If you haven't put on deodorant you could pour this drink out, rub it on your armpits, and then never have a B.O. problem again. I've started using it as my body wash and shampoo in the shower.

Some people may want to pour this god-like substance into a glass as the Can so provocatively shows. I prefer to drink it straight out of the can for fear that glass ware may shatter under the immense pressure of holding such a glorious substance. And once you actually swallow those first couple ounces of Straw-ber-Rita, well, it is special. I personally was transported to a different place and time altogether. It was like I had boarded a spaceship bound for the year 1978 and I was smack dab in the middle of the disco. This drink "rang my bell" so to speak. It tastes smart. It tastes like winning the lottery and buying a fleet of speed boats and then ramping one into the air and wrecking it into a gold plated helicopter. It tastes like America at its finest. Ice cold, sugary, delicious, and drunken.

All these people outchea that are hatin on the Strawb's need to be e z. Nahmean.

My fellow Straw-ber-Rita-er, Andy Vadas, had this to say, "Straw-ber-Ritas bring you to the top and whisk you away on a fruity dream."

Certain Facts Show In The Muck

I've been to three muddy concerts in my life. The first was a hip hop (Up In Smoke Tour?) concert with Jay Z, Snoop, 50 Cent, and others in Cincinnati. It down-poured the whole concert, and the security tasked with guarding the pavilion were overrun by people not fucking around about getting out of the rain while still getting to see the show. It was packed and everyone was a tad reluctant about losing their precious toehold on the couple inches of breathing room they had. Lots of slow territorial expansion through the repositioning of your feet that no one ever openly acknowledges at concerts but is a driving force behind people that are too stoned kind of losing their shit about how uncomfortable they are. Also, I think Jay Z had a bunch of sandbags on stage for some sort of military theme, or maybe he was worried and very prepared about flooding from the Ohio River?!? I can't remember exactly, because I was really really stoned (High school! What up!).

The second muddy concert I went to was at All Points West (or East?) right outside NYC. That one only got muddy for me and my friend because we unknowingly set up shop in what would become the mosh pit area once Tool came on stage. Of the three muddy concerts this one pissed me off the most because Tool was awesome but I just wanted to hear them obliterate everything in their path without having to fend off violent fast moving human projectiles every couple moments. You may be saying, why the hell didn't you just leave the mosh pit? Well, that was the simple answer, but the people behind us were not too keen on having their buffer zone removed from the mayhem. So when we tried to leave we encountered a Spartan-like phalanx of concert-goers that could not be breached without one of those mega-drills Cartman uses to get to the stage in the hippy episode of South Park. A brief side note of this concert - This was one of my more ambitious booze smuggling forays ever. 10 airplane bottles of Beam in my socks, all of which was confiscated while I said, "Well, you caught me" while chuckling with the guards, who were filling out forms so that they could keep the contraband. Don't worry about that though, booze was for sale inside.

The third muddy concert was this past weekend at Jazzfest in Norleans. My friends and I went to see Fleetwood Mac, because duh, Fleetwood Mac. And our hosts' friends already had a spot set up at the tent they were playing at. To get to that spot though, you had to traverse what could be accurately called a deep mud thoroughfare. On the way in to the spot there was a little room on the outside of the thoroughfare to move along it. So I was mostly unscathed by the time we got to where the group was posted up. The concert was great. The people watching involving the mud thoroughfare was very funny. There is something life-affirming about watching someone slip and fall in a bunch of mud while not spilling their beer. But then near the end, we wanted to go see some of Frank Ocean's show, so I had to abandon the relative safety of simply staying in one spot. And I knew, and remarked to a friend, that all those laughs I got from other people struggling to stay upright was going to come back on me as soon as I ventured out into the muck. At the start of the concert their had been a path you could take where you could avoid a lot of the deep mud, but that path had been swallowed up by the growing crowd. So when I wanted to get out, I was in a 10 inch ocean of brown suction. Things did not go great. I didn't go down per se but I did have to put a hand down to steady myself against a much worse fall. And when I finally did somehow get to pavement my entire lower legs and right hand were covered in some smelly thick sludge.

This is all to get to a point about New Orleans though. After that happened, my psyche didn't break into pieces. I didn't have to leave immediately. I brushed myself off the best I could and went about the day of having fun. I didn't see a single person at Jazzfest who gave a rats ass about whether they had gotten muddy or not. Everyone was just having a good time and not worrying about something trivial like how much of this mud is actually horsehit considering that this area is usually a horse track and there are stables right there, and it sure smells like horseshit. Nope, those thoughts got pushed aside. I don't think I even washed my hands before eating a bunch of crawfish right after we left the fairgrounds (Where you at e coli, I ain't scared?). New Orleans puts you in a state of mind that makes you feel like nothing should bother the goal of having fun. Laws and Police? Non existent as far as I could tell. People giving a fuck about what you're doing? Nope. Judgement from establishments? Only when you haven't bought a drink and it's 5AM and you are slowly drinking a cocktail brought in from another joint and talking coherently is something suckers do. Still though, not that much judgement even in that much circumstance. Just a blunt reminder that if I was about to go to sleep that I would have to take it somewhere else.

New Orleans is like a place someone made up in a story about how a town should be when you want to have a good time.