Tech people ARE worse. It’s like they spend the first 30 years of their life in a profession and industry that wants to behave like they’re on the spectrum. And then, a divorce or a layoff later, they wake up suddenly and realise they they’ve barely been a human being most of their life. And then you have to deal with their awkward post-epiphany experiences, like first wild night out, first threesome / orgy, first highly annoying mdma roll. But the pre-epiphany ones are neutered children who look at you or the other adults in the room living their best lives in utter confusion.
Tech people are the pits, either pre or post epiphany, no wonder they think burning man is cool.
Agreed. This is why students need to study the arts. Otherwise you get into situations where all your techie know-how just leaves you hanging. Only the arts can show you what your values truly are.
I was living in a small Vermont town beloved by flatlanders for its quaintness, working the switchboard at its quaint and snooty hotel by day and singing at a local bar at night. My apartment was on the main street and was built into a hillside, so that if you went in the front door you had to climb the unheated stairs to reach my second-floor apartment. Tom, the guy I sang with, had a totally unrequited crush on me; he lived next door with his woman and their 2-year-old daughter. Our units shared the yard behind our building, so our back doors were cheek by jowl. One frigid post-gig January night, I bid him an equally frigid good night and trotted upstairs to my unit, which was always brutally overheated. So overheated, in fact, that I routinely slept naked. I had a cat, a scrappy little blonde tabby, and he chose that night, in the bluish hours close to dawn, to pick a fight with something in the hallway. So I ran into the hallway, scooped him up, and turned around just in time to see the door swing closed and lock behind me.
Tom was intemperate in other ways as well; he'd gotten drunk the week before and his woman had locked him out of their unit. He gotten back in by breaking a pane in the back-door window, and had repaired it with a piece of cardboard. Now, I had stayed with them for a couple of weeks while I got my place ready to move into, and they still had a box of my clothing. The oldest rattiest clothes I owned, including a pair of truly disreputable former hiking boots and a thrift shop coat from the 1940s with the shoulders ripped out that I was planning to make a pattern from.
The back stairs to their place were covered in about 2 in of ice with snow on top, and I was fully visible by that point to anyone uphill who happened to look out a window, yet I stood there for several moments barefoot before pushing in the cardboard and breaking into their place, terrified that I would wake Tom up and he would think, SHE WANTS ME!!
Blessedly, he did NOT wake up, and I was able to sneak in, grab the boots, the coat, and a wool dress (more moth holes than wool) that itched horribly as I clumped down the main street to my snooty employer to call a locksmith.
I'm actually dipping in for compliment part2: this type of booze story is so hard to pull off without sounding like an unreliable-narrator, denial-of-booze-problem but this really nailed it, seemingly effortlessly. At no point does the decision-making seem the least bit impaired, more like the product of strange, nyc nightlife circumstances, which I'm guessing it was.
Don't the best nights end with splashdown and phone loss? Ok, maybe not nowadays, since people's whole lives are on their phones and he cloud is susceptible to being held hostage by unsavory types. Bring back burn books! But I digress. Fabulous piece as always!
It needs to be known (speaking about Cintra’s painting) that THESE were not the KEE-LOCKS from Toho’s classic ‘Ghidra the Three-Headed Monster’. No no.
In a mildewed hot tub they may have LOOKED like KEE-LOCKS, but that would be a massive deception of cosmic-cataclysmic proportions.
These advanced Japanese waiters were/ARE, in fact, Pippy-Tippy Wunkyjubles from Planet Zero. From there they controlled Monster Zero (Ghidra) and they marshaled the pointlessly imported Godzilla and the even more pointlessly imported Rodan to fight the three-headed rubberdevil on their planet, only to transport all three back to earth for a final, quaking conniption fit that featured one anemic and blonde American stewardess who cried, “SHIN-Ji, HELP!”
Transfixing pathos.
How do I know all this? Because I was raised on Count Chocula. You couldn’t keep me from bouncing off the walls, as a child, but on Saturday mornings you COULD plant my ass for a Godzilla flick.
Cintra painted these villains with stunning accuracy. If she herself is from Planet Zero, you may never hear from me again, in which case, I urge you all to send your valuables to Mothra, c/o Jonathan Kieran, Infant Island, via Big Sur, Big Sur, BIG SUR.
Cintra, Magnifica, I woulda squeegeed you. But maybe it’s best that you dripped your way home. (I just KNOW ‘Godzilla Vs. Monster Zero’ was playing on the feckless late-night TV you destroyed. It’s okay. You don’t have to share the slightest hint.) Brilliant memory, lady. As usual.
The lesson I take from this is always to wear shiny black when out at night in New York. I can also see advantages to being an oil-slick puddle in disguise.
Tech people ARE worse. It’s like they spend the first 30 years of their life in a profession and industry that wants to behave like they’re on the spectrum. And then, a divorce or a layoff later, they wake up suddenly and realise they they’ve barely been a human being most of their life. And then you have to deal with their awkward post-epiphany experiences, like first wild night out, first threesome / orgy, first highly annoying mdma roll. But the pre-epiphany ones are neutered children who look at you or the other adults in the room living their best lives in utter confusion.
Tech people are the pits, either pre or post epiphany, no wonder they think burning man is cool.
Hahahahaha Burning Man sucks
Aha, I need to add cringy post-epiphany tech bros to my story set at BM! They'd make hilarious cult members!
Agreed. This is why students need to study the arts. Otherwise you get into situations where all your techie know-how just leaves you hanging. Only the arts can show you what your values truly are.
Remind me to tell you about the time I found myself in an unheated stairwell in January, wearing nothing but a small cat.
I would love to hear about that.
I was living in a small Vermont town beloved by flatlanders for its quaintness, working the switchboard at its quaint and snooty hotel by day and singing at a local bar at night. My apartment was on the main street and was built into a hillside, so that if you went in the front door you had to climb the unheated stairs to reach my second-floor apartment. Tom, the guy I sang with, had a totally unrequited crush on me; he lived next door with his woman and their 2-year-old daughter. Our units shared the yard behind our building, so our back doors were cheek by jowl. One frigid post-gig January night, I bid him an equally frigid good night and trotted upstairs to my unit, which was always brutally overheated. So overheated, in fact, that I routinely slept naked. I had a cat, a scrappy little blonde tabby, and he chose that night, in the bluish hours close to dawn, to pick a fight with something in the hallway. So I ran into the hallway, scooped him up, and turned around just in time to see the door swing closed and lock behind me.
hahahaha oh my god. That's priceless.
Tom was intemperate in other ways as well; he'd gotten drunk the week before and his woman had locked him out of their unit. He gotten back in by breaking a pane in the back-door window, and had repaired it with a piece of cardboard. Now, I had stayed with them for a couple of weeks while I got my place ready to move into, and they still had a box of my clothing. The oldest rattiest clothes I owned, including a pair of truly disreputable former hiking boots and a thrift shop coat from the 1940s with the shoulders ripped out that I was planning to make a pattern from.
The back stairs to their place were covered in about 2 in of ice with snow on top, and I was fully visible by that point to anyone uphill who happened to look out a window, yet I stood there for several moments barefoot before pushing in the cardboard and breaking into their place, terrified that I would wake Tom up and he would think, SHE WANTS ME!!
Blessedly, he did NOT wake up, and I was able to sneak in, grab the boots, the coat, and a wool dress (more moth holes than wool) that itched horribly as I clumped down the main street to my snooty employer to call a locksmith.
Man, this killed. Actually LOL-ed me with the chastened rise from the gorgeous, turquoise, suspiciously unoccupied banquette. Like an
extremely chic Inspector Clouseau .
Making my DAY!!
I'm actually dipping in for compliment part2: this type of booze story is so hard to pull off without sounding like an unreliable-narrator, denial-of-booze-problem but this really nailed it, seemingly effortlessly. At no point does the decision-making seem the least bit impaired, more like the product of strange, nyc nightlife circumstances, which I'm guessing it was.
It was actually my eyesight that was the real problem! Thanks so much Chris. Deeply appreciate it.
Slurshing w/ no merkaba, screenless in the stars!
If you make it home while plastered without getting killed, I'd call this an absolute win.
Astrological! So dang funny. I love this. Nice to be reminded that mortifying things happen to other people, too. LOVE YOU
Don't the best nights end with splashdown and phone loss? Ok, maybe not nowadays, since people's whole lives are on their phones and he cloud is susceptible to being held hostage by unsavory types. Bring back burn books! But I digress. Fabulous piece as always!
It needs to be known (speaking about Cintra’s painting) that THESE were not the KEE-LOCKS from Toho’s classic ‘Ghidra the Three-Headed Monster’. No no.
In a mildewed hot tub they may have LOOKED like KEE-LOCKS, but that would be a massive deception of cosmic-cataclysmic proportions.
These advanced Japanese waiters were/ARE, in fact, Pippy-Tippy Wunkyjubles from Planet Zero. From there they controlled Monster Zero (Ghidra) and they marshaled the pointlessly imported Godzilla and the even more pointlessly imported Rodan to fight the three-headed rubberdevil on their planet, only to transport all three back to earth for a final, quaking conniption fit that featured one anemic and blonde American stewardess who cried, “SHIN-Ji, HELP!”
Transfixing pathos.
How do I know all this? Because I was raised on Count Chocula. You couldn’t keep me from bouncing off the walls, as a child, but on Saturday mornings you COULD plant my ass for a Godzilla flick.
Cintra painted these villains with stunning accuracy. If she herself is from Planet Zero, you may never hear from me again, in which case, I urge you all to send your valuables to Mothra, c/o Jonathan Kieran, Infant Island, via Big Sur, Big Sur, BIG SUR.
Cintra, Magnifica, I woulda squeegeed you. But maybe it’s best that you dripped your way home. (I just KNOW ‘Godzilla Vs. Monster Zero’ was playing on the feckless late-night TV you destroyed. It’s okay. You don’t have to share the slightest hint.) Brilliant memory, lady. As usual.
The lesson I take from this is always to wear shiny black when out at night in New York. I can also see advantages to being an oil-slick puddle in disguise.