2004-04-09 - 1:27 a.m.
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HAPPY 10th BIRTHDAY OF BEING DEAD, CORPSE!
How about you?
Would you do it?
I wasn't so sure at first. I mean after all, there WERE naked people there and all and I was standing in the same spot they were. Knowing full well where I was and what I was doing, it dawned on me that the only other people who stand where I was standing did it with no clothes on.
And that's when I hit the first chord. If you can call that a chord. Somewhere behind me and then right next to me and then in front of me someone was banging away on a triangle, like ding ding dinner's ready kind of triangle, ticking away the measures to a song that needed anything but a triangle as I made the amp scream and I stomped my way through grounds travelled by a corpse buried 10 years ago.
I can remember laughter. There was a lot of laughter from the beginning. I was afraid it was the guitar and I knew even if it was, it was too late. There are 4 more minutes to this song. So I just kept playing. I stood frozen for a while, unsure of my movements. I was, after all, just a guest on this stage. I normally would have been home pissing away my time in front of the television. I would have sat in a chair and read a couple hundred pages of lies and falsehoods with a catchy hook and a surprise ending. I would have played Bookworm until all I had left in me was 3 letter words and fire tiles. There would have been a million things that would have eaten up those 4 minutes and the thing that won in the end was me crashing my way through the song and having fun with it.
Sure I knew the guitar parts. Sure. About as well as I knew the person hitting the triangle - the perfect stranger I decided to help out.
There was no need for such things as friendship or mutual knowledge of existence here. There was music to play.
We had been in the streets, standing on the sidewalk the first time. The very first time. A narrow section of 11st all the way on the east, just outside of the FDR. A handful of people all talking on cellphones and then looking up from that imaginary hole in the ground their eyes fall into when they walk in NYC to see us making all this noise, people sneering at another person fucking up a Nirvana song. Just because he died doesn't mean you have to flog him any further apparently. He played the triangle like he was beating someone to death with a bat, lacing into the metal with metal over and over again at odd rhythms. Not quite what it should have been but then again, we're talking about a triangle and an electric guitar playing unplugged on the sidewalk of 11 St. in front of a burlesque house...
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Yes. Burlesque house. To all the mormons and quakers who happened to defy their teachings and have stumbled here somehow and are scratching their head at what a burlesque show is, it's as close to stripping you can get without being buckass naked on stage. Not only are you taking off clothes (there are always pasteys on the nipples or else it would be pornographic; apparrently nipples = porno but entire boob with a flower on it = art) but you are singing and/or dancing as well. And everything is tease. Oh so tease. "What, my boob? The one under this book *boobflash* PEEKA BOOO! I saw a little pastey flower!" And all with a smile. I've never seen so many people that appeared to be so happy about taking their clothes off for a room of people. Although there was a tip collection at the end of the night. I don't think getting some crumpled single that had been next to a guy's hard on as he watched you shake your ass would get a smile on my face, but then again guys also don't get hard ons when I dance, you know, seeing as I don't dance to give men hard ons or at all even**********************
...and people who have no idea about what we've come there tonight to do. In fact, even I didn't fully know and I was playing the song. But I do know one thing. No matter what happened, it would be interesting.
I hit the floor first. I had been wrestling with it behind my head for a while and I finally brought my guitar down to my knees in front of me in that "BAMNT! I just played a loud chord" kind of way. And that's when I just fell to the ground. A Rotary vibe spun out of control behind me as the Delay digitally shook the wave pattern at it's bases and slammed it against the speakers repeatedly. The crunch of distortion mixed in with the reverb too much and the whole thing went muddy, which didn't matter because by the time I had noticed it, I was rubbing my guitar face down into the floor, the strings squealing underneath through the amp. He kicked a picture of the band right in Kurt's face, then destroyed the stage with me as I made my guitar kiss the amp over and over again. The blonde wig he had on stayed put and the lab coat he had on with it didn't get destroyed, even as we rolled on the stage repeatedly, each moment longer another thing getting hit or pushed or knocked over, the entire time just god awful noise shooting out of the amp. Boners were at half staff like someone had been shot.
And it was gloious.
I imagined it as if we had taken it to the fullest, performing on a runway instead of a burlesque stage. The stripper ahead of us picking up her g-string and bikini top and dignity off of the stage as she saunters off backstage to count the sweaty singles and fives crammed in her naked face. We come out and everyone looks at each other like "Why the fuck is there a crazy kid with a triangle wearing a blonde wig and a lab coat playing with a filthy hobo looking kid with 5 days worth of facial hair and a terrible haircut? Why are they doing it where people get naked to entertain? Why Anuerysm and not another Nirvana song, preferably one that doesn't need a backing band to properly perform?" There would be a million different things that people would say to themselves in their head, but the end result would remain the same: we would get booed and then, potentially, beaten to fucking bloody stumps.
Good thing we kept it in the burlesque house.
Afterwards, he tried to get me to hang out but I had work tomorrow. He handed me 10 bucks and sent me on my way basically, thanking me profusely, even so far as to buy me a drink, a Belmo personal favorite. I gladly accepted it, shot the gin and tonic down my throat in speeded gulps - enough to make it disappear but not fast enough to make it look like I want to disappear. I thanked him again, hopped in my car with a friend I met there and got the fuck out of dodge.
So would you do it?
BMC
What did you just say? - What's he gonna say next?
