New Deal With It ROAD BLOG 2.0: COCKTAILS, A WOO-OO

I hate driving in New York even more than I hate driving in Boston, which is a considerable feat. Keep in mind, I let my license lap for nearly a year in order to force my then employers to hire someone else to do deliveries for them.

That's right, I voluntarily sent myself through the process of dealing with the MA RMV to get my license reinstated just so I didn't have to drive a windowless van with a cartoon on the side around a city that's absolutely crosshatched with elementary schools.

This is why, having woken up in Wallingford, Connecticut, Bobby took the wheel (one of the many ways he is like Jesus) and we began one of the shorter jaunts of our tour.

One of the main reasons I hate driving in both cities is parking. 

We were scheduled to perform a show at Beauty Bar in Brooklyn, and were staying at my friend JBob's place a few blocks away. I had asked about parking, and he said there was plenty of street parking but, lo, it was New Year's Eve Eve and the city was jammed with cars. Unable to find a place near the venue, we found a place near the Brooklyn Public Library, grabbed a couple of books, and I typed up a blog entry and did some venue research.

We got to the venue around 5ish, and had some delicious pig-based products at a place called Pork Slope, where I had an Apple Orchard Punch which was incredibly delicious but which I knew would be unbubbled in comparison with the drinks Eliel made at Beauty Bar.

As part of this tour Dr. Bobby decided he would not repeat any poems. Because most of what I've written recently is short and on similar topics, I decided it would be better for me if, instead of not repeating anything, I debuted at least one new piece that didn't suck (subjectively) at each show.  So Bobby and I wrote new shit, and decided to open our show with it.

The thing is, we both went WEIRD on our new pieces. Mine, about an artist in Harvard Square who can sketch your closest friends' opinions of you in portrait form, and Bobby's about dead people leaving things at his bar. Also, the venue we performed at is awesome but not actually a poetry venue. Eliel set the perfect tone by announcing "We don't, uh, usually do poetry, but my friends are in from out of town. Either you're here for poetry, or you're in for a nice surprise, or it's about to get really awkward for you."

Josiah had followed us from Wallingford and brought his fiance, Han with him. Bobby had invited an Emerson friend who invited two other Emerson friends, and thus we had an audience of five very excited people who knew us. Also, one very excited guy who didn't know us but knew about the poetry. There was also a couple who seemed into it, and a friend of Eliel's. Apart from them, we emptied the bar pretty quickly.

It's a healthy reminder that very few people like surprise poetry shows. There was a couple of women up front who laughed at all the funny references in our first three poems but still walked out. So we kept a short, odd set and then drank a large volume of alcohol. And we made friends. Not just with the Alan, the guy we didn't know but who had come for poetry, but with a guy named Marcus who didn't see our show at all but had walked in looking to talk to someone about comics. Someone, I should add, who is a normal human being with similar opinions on comics  and comic related show as I have, which is an anomaly in my life. At no point was I bored, offended, or afraid for my life. 

We drank many things. I believe Bobby had enough side cars that he, legally, had to take out an insurance policy, and Eliel kept making me nameless delicious drinks. This was going to be less a walk, and more a stumble back to JBob's place, We'd also been gifted a spliff by a new friend, which we were in the midst of smoking when a guy dressed disproportionately better than us asked "Can I have a hit off that?"

And the ever polite Dr. Bobby let him take several while we talked about the difference between Cambridge and Brooklyn (which either of us can remember). Then we stumbled to the car, decided to order a pizza but ultimately fell into a deep coma before we could accomplish anything more than pointing in the direction of the bedroom.