Friday night I went to
Monkeytown in Williamsburg. Still a weird place despite being so overrun with hipsters and development. I mean everywhere yo look things are changing but the main character of the area, desolate, weird, neighborhoody and more are still the same. The only difference is where there used to be an abandoned store for 3 decades there is now a boutique and no one nearby to shop there. I shouldn't really talk about it since I don't really go there but a few times a year. Anyhow, We went to Monkeytown to see a program of Chilean video art. It was better than you might imagine. As in any bunch of arty videos there were a few where I was like "What the fuck?" but there some decent pieces. One good one was a video of Chilean public transit performers. These people were on the buses and doing their thing as if they were on the train in NYC. Rapping and playing guitar. The only difference is that it's on a bus and the bus driver has to deal with the people constantly getting on and addressing the people and selling razors and shit on the bus. Really crazy. One sucky one was just a guy playing a cheesy recording of a laser sound effect while pointing a homemade laser gun at weird chilean architecture. I guess the big deal is that it's illegal to videotape the buildings? It sucked. Another was this video incorporating the Hitchcock film Vertigo. Well actually it was 90% Vertigo with some bad greenscreen work to replace th ebeautiful woman with some big lipped beast thing. It looked like a lot of work but still not enough because the piece was pretty retarded.
While we watched the videos we also ate dinner. It had some bizarre but tasty lasagna in a giant bowl. Afterwards we went to a bar called Lahla (I think.) There was some Bluegrass band from Virginia there whipping up a knee-slapping good time. Well they might have if there were more than 8 people there. the music was pretty good despite the fact that no one was really paying attention. I was too busy playing pool for the first time in years. I did really awesome for the first three games and then I sucked hardcore and basically lost the game for us. I didn't mind because Jodi was able to win that game. Something she doesn't do very often in the world of bar sports.
Saturday was whirlwind of craziness. We woke up and whipped up some cookies for Meg and Frank's 1 year birthday party / cookie exchange for their daughter, Fiona. It was a kind of neat idea for a party. I ate a ton of cookies. Hestoft made an appearance with his trademark bacon cookies. Everyone makes the same face when he emphatically says "Would you like a cookie? Be-careful, you might get a bit of BACON in there. They're bacon cookies. I made them with BACON!" The face everyone makes is one of mixed disbelief and horror. They just tasted like i think toffee or something with a hint of something heavier than butter? I thought they were pretty good actually. There was also bacon brittle. Again the bacon claim made everyone cringe and then their mouths water. Jodi even tried one.
After that party we went up to my moms house. Cousin Margarita was in town with her husband so the local Fernandez clan got together for a feast at Rosa Mexicana. It was a good time. Lots of awesome food and margaritas. I didn't get too wasted because I wasn't going to be getting any down time on Sunday.
Sunday I did my second stint writing for
Saturday Night Rewritten. My first stint went
pretty well. I was kind of expecting to slump on this one. No reason in particular. Just kind of anxious. I was told to show up at 1pm. I showed up at 12:30 and they were already doing the read from the previous nights SNL. Hooray. I showed up late. I never got into the swing of things in the idea jam. As a result I never really got assigned a sketch. Somehow as I was talking to the guy who runs it he decided I should right a sketch on a topic that was basically ruled "off-limits." I was really struggling wit the sketch because I could just tell people were going to hate it. The people who were against it kept coming by and saying "You aren't really writing that sketch are you?" and I would say "yep" and then they would boo. I kept writing anyway. It was a pretty harsh feeling. When it came time to do the read through with the actors I was totally dreading it. We ran through some other sketches first. There was one or two really good sketches and some barely so-so ones. Then the got to mine. When they announced it there was actually boo'ing . We read through it and I was pleasantly surprised. It went over really well. Like WAY better than I expected. Then immediately after I was disheartened to hear the people who didn't like it before still suggesting that it be killed. I was given some notes and re-wrote it and it passed muster and was scheduled to be in the show. I had to leave the show to come home and get a Christmas tree so I couldn't be sure to shepherd it through the final show. I don't know if the sketch made the final cut but I hope it did. You can read it for yourself
here.
Came home and bought a tree at the deli down the street. It's the first deli tree that we've bought since we moved here. We usually buy from these people from Vermont on Montague but this year we just had to make the tree buying a lightening strike. We bought one and I carried it home on my own. It wasn't even that heavy. I will post fancy xmas pictures and bitch about how Neighborhoodies has fucked me over for Xmas later.
Going to bed now. PEACE!
