That Mamapalooza Not Be Forgotten

I write this post because I think it is important that there exist an accurate description of the Mamapalooza event that took place in New York on May 15, 2016 . Ah, yes; the Ides of May. No wonder. In the future, having a record of his event may be deemed relevent (to what, I do not know). As Herodotus said (paraphrased), things that seem small in the present may seem important in the future, and vice versa. Let this serve as an honest record of an eyewitness accound. All of these things are true as I have seen them.

I should have you know I was attending Mamapalooza as a vendor. Without incriminating my (now former) employer, just understand that I was essentially trapped there. "What is Mamapalooza?" you might be asking yourself. I asked myself that as well before I left in the morning, but I didn't care enough to read the description I had received. I just assumed it would have lots of people discussing how wonderful mothers are. Some of those people would probably be interested in the eco-friendly product I would be there to sell. I didn't think I would need to know more. While observing, I managed to pick up some of the history surrounding Mamapalooza. There have been Mamapaloozas in the past; someone might have said it was the 15th annual Mamapalooza. I overheard someone else saying that it had rained torrentially for all but one of the last 6 Mamapaloozas.

I arrived by bike to a pier on the Hudson River. A cold southwesterly wind blew over the temporary bandstand in the center of the pier while some cold, fellow vendors stood off to the side. I unpacked and set up my table to the tune of an upbeat children's version of "You are my sunshine" performed by a singer-songwriter on the stage by herself. There weren't many people there, so I started listening to the music more closely. When the song ended, she  told the audience that she was a mother herself, and that her son was learning so many new words, and she was going to perform a song about that process.

The song that followed was a collection of words such as "banana," "hello," "sorry" and other things you frequently hear coming out of two year olds' mouths. I definitely heard some of the words more than once, but I can't remember them, because there weren't any actual thoughts expressed. Periodically, she would encourage everyone to sing along, and then launch into a new string of unbroken and unpredictable words. "Perhaps I'm too old to understand," I thought to myself. Her next spoken introduction talked about how sometimes it can be difficult to be a parent. To be honest, at this point, the rest of her set blurred into one large advertisement against ever having children, because she touched on themes like how difficult it was to make any time for her husband (and how when she does she's always tired), what good manners look like ("we ask please, please, please"), and in another song she addresses a newborn and attempts to convince it that it should sleep 7 hours straight and everyone might be happier. Any fears I had of fatherhood in the distant future were intensified, and I feel fairly certain that Mamapalooza has added a matter of months to the time before which I will be mentally prepared to have offspring.

When she left the stage, a rock band set up. The MC stood up and enthusiastically introduced the vendors to the audience, and really gave a great pitch about what each of us did. Unfortunately, at the time she gave it, there were maybe 15 people milling around the pier so most of the vendors just ended up waving at each other as they were called. The rock band performed afterwards, and they played some crowd pleasing rock. I didn't really listen to it to closely; mostly, I just noticed that it was pretty loud. The speakers were really cranking now, and with the cold wind and loud music, it was hard to have a conversation with anyone who approached my table. Most of the vendors were just tapping their feet to the rockband. One guy had a bunch of small beach balls which he was giving out; kids loved them. Occassionally a beach ball would get carried off by the wind, and a toddler would chase it down. This was probably around 2 pm now, and the weather wasn't getting any warmer. The band played a song by Prince to close out (I forget which).

The next band at Mamapalooza was a hip-hop duo. I think they sounded fine, but they also were singing songs accusing bitches of being gold diggers. Another vendor heard lyrics with different curses. There was almost no one in the audience, but I was rapidly losing track of the theme of the afternoon in the performances. Things were getting really bleak; throughout the day, performers and announcers were grabbing hold of every ray of sunlight and insisting that it was going to stay if not get better. It never did. I hadn't sold anything. I talked to two people. Off on the side, some soccer coaches attempted to keep toddlers interested in the soccer station they had set up to advertise their soccer camp. The toddlers weren't buying it. Some dude with a video camera was walking around fillming everything, so  I tried to look busy. The music stayed loud, then a pause, and the next band introduced themselves.

I sincerely recommend trying to find the official Mamapalooza website and finding out who the fourth performer was, because  my description will never do them justice. In brief, they were a Brooklyn based heavy metal band. The lead singer had red hair, a matching sequined tank top and fishnet stockings; she also played a flute for melodic interludes The drummer was wearing a tank top (my legs were cold; my legs never get cold). The lead singer was running around the stage singing energetically. I think some of her friends showed up, because I can't otherwise explain why there were a handful of twenty-somethings hanging out on the pier that day for this set. The music was deafening. I saw one four year old girl in the audience in a bike helmet looking confused and lost. I felt bad for her. The lead singer had jumped up onto a chair and was thrusting her pelvis at the face of someone in the next row. It might have been a dad, I don't know. I turned around, and looked again to see her flat on the ground, thrusting her hips up in the air to the beat of the music. It was terrifying. I took a picture discreetly; I worried that if she saw me taking a picture, she might mistake me for a fan and come sing at me. At some point she announced that she had time for 2, no, 3 more songs, and the audience let out a terrified gasp.

The metal act. I wasn't comfortable getting any closer to the stage without drawing her attention. Note the empty chairs. Not pictured are her face-humps of audience members. 

I cannot remember the rest of the afternoon clearly. The weather got worse. Vendors started packing up. The final band got on the stage; they were an Ecuadorian fusion band, the MC announced. They started soundchecking. The rain started falling. All the vendors made a beeline for the shelter of the elevated highway while the band announced that maybe it was over. We froze for a few minutes. I overheard the soccer coaches talking about how they had been told there were going to be 3,000 people at the event, and we had maybe seen 80. The sun came out, and the band went on. The lead singer was a mother, and they played stuff that sounded like a good Santana cover band. Not that I could actually appreciate any music at this point - I had been too overwhelmed by the previous acts of Mamapalooza to appreciate the closing act. But when it ended, all the vendors disappeared. Immediately. And the park staff was helpful, and they ferried heavy equipment up to the street.

The MC was apparently satisfied. The person working for the parks announced that Mamapalooza was one of over 200 events that would be a part of something called "Summer on the Hudson." That was it - Mamapalooza 2016 ended. If you have more information, please, please, please, comment below.

A Modest Proposal: The future of Drones

Drones are here to stay, so I've been told, so it's high time I became part of the process in determining what our drone-filled future will look like. It seems foolish to me to imagine that they will not be used for violence - law enforcement springs to mind - so I've also accepted that. But I think if they are going to be used for violence, there should be  noble final goal in mind, and I don't trust the police to do this consistently.

I would like to propose a way to use weaponized drones to curb noise pollution in cities. Picture this - explosive drones hovering 10 meters above city streets, patrolling randomly. As someone honks their horn, the drone triangulates the location of the horn and approaches it at a constant rate. When the horn stops honking, the drone returns to its hovering altitude. Perhaps it takes 5 seconds of constant honking for it to reach street level, at which point it latches onto and detonates the honking car in such a way as to only harm the driver. As a side benefit, these drones would need to be regularly serviced, and occasionally replaced, so I do believe this would have a net positive effect on job creation.

Honking to express your disapproval of another driver's actions would still be allowed, but prolonged honking long past its utility would be swifltly eradicated. Traffic jams in which everyone attempts to solve the issue by honking would become deadly games of chance in which the risk of honking far outweighs the potential benefit of... actually, there's no benefit of honking in traffic jams. Everyone hates you when you do that, and it solves nothing, so it really becomes a more exciting game of hot potato.

Perhaps this seems like an over-reaction, but I guarantee that unnecessary honking would decrease rapidly within days of this programs implementation. Of course, the drones would need to learn to recognize car alarms and sirens so that it does not hit unintended consequences, but that could be easily programmed.

Better still, as surveillance technologies such as microphones, high definition cameras, and AI that can monitor and react to situations without human oversight improve, this technology could rapidly be expanded to other behaviors that need curbing, such as smoking in public, clipping your fingernails on public transportation, or talking during movies. So please, write your mayors now, and inform them that you think this is a great idea, and with luck, our own government will implement it soon. If not, don't worry - this technology may soon be available at your local Walmart!

The Wit of the Hunt

One of the differences I noticed between the West and New York is that in the west, people really like taking pictures of themselves with dead animals. In particular, with an animal that is dead because the person in the picture killed it. I saw a lot of those photographs in restaurants or rest stops (Restaurants in New York prefer to take pictures of their food, or perhaps of the owner with celebrities they are about to kill with their food, but rarely dead animals). Unless there's only one deer that has modular antlers that everyone passes around and makes slight modifications to for their trophy picture, there's a lot of hunting that goes on out west. I won't judge the hunting; I'm not for it, but I understand some people enjoy it, some people need to do it, and some people can turn live animals into jerky, which is a good thing for everybody but the animal. So, don't worry, people who take pictures of themselves with recently dead animals, I'm not judging you.

What does bother me is when people refer to hunting as matching wits with an animal. I'll judge those people. There's a lot that's wrong with saying that. To begin with, animals don't have a great sense of humor and won't appreciate witty jokes, but most people who attempt to match wits with animals are trying to accomplish their goal by shooting the animal, which no animal finds amusing regardless of whether or not it has a sense of humor.

More importantly, if you really want to match wits with an animal, you need to do something that gives the animal a level playing field. I could suggest a few games. For instance, you could stand by a river next to a bear and try swatting fish out of mid-air. Whoever gets more fish wins (I would also suggest losing, because bears are notorious sore losers). Alternatively, you could hang out with an elk until one of you gets eaten by a wolf (the winner being the one who does not get torn to pieces). Or, you could play Uno with a mountain lion. Whatever you want.

However, hiding behind camouflage structures and shooting at an animal from a half a mile away does not constitute a level playing field. If I hid behind a friend's furniture (being sure to stay downwind of the fan so as not to alert him of my presence by my scent) while he was out and then shot him as he walked into the room, I doubt he would refer to that as "matching wits" with him. "Haha! You jokester you, you out-witted me!" would probably be the last thing I would expect him to say.

So please, in the future, be honest with yourself. You're not matching wits with an animal just because you're hunting it. If you're looking for ways to describe your relationship with the animal, how about stalking? Sure. Spraying bullets at? Ok. Ambushing! All acceptable way to phrase your activity.

And whatever you do, don't get me started on people who feel the need to match wits with fish.

Uncool Near Death Experiences

So I was watching a football game with some friends earlier. There happened to be nachos (!), and we were all munching on the them, as is appropriate. At some point, I noticed that one of the girls in the group was reaching for a glass of water just beyond her reach. Fortunately, I was within arm's reach of both the glass of water and her hand, so I grabbed the glass and passed it to her. "Man, I'm so perceptive," I thought to myself. "Her boyfriend didn't even notice that she was thirsty, and I did. I'm pretty darn awesome."

While I was congratulating myself on being one of the best friends ever, the girl tried to gulp a little bit of water. I turned my attention back to the TV, but was distracted when the girl started waving her hands around and making all sorts of spastic "I can't breathe" gestures. Everyone present quickly conferred and decided that she was trying to tell us she was choking. In fairness to us, she didn't use the universal "I happen to be choking" sign*, so it wasn't a given that all of her gesturing to her throat meant that she couldn't breathe.

*I think you can buy one at most pharmacies. They're wallet sized. Right?

Fortunately, I've sat through my fair share of CPR/First Aid classes, and the only thing I ever really payed attention to was the Heimlich Maneuver*, so I actually knew what to do. I was able to dislodge the offending nacho, so I felt briefly useful, which was a really cool, novel feeling that I don't expect to experience any time again for a while. Also, the football play that happened at the time she was choking was a really important play, so there was a lot of adrenaline going on right then.
*Accusations that I felt up my beautiful partner were completely unfounded. I swear.

Still, there isn't really a hero's acclaim that goes along with saving someone who is choking, and I understand that. At first, I was disappointed that no one patted me on the back and told me "That was awesome, man! Holy shit!" But then I thought back to when I was younger and choked on pizza in a restaurant. My dad performed the heimlich on me, which I am thankful for, but I remember immediately afterwards feeling really embarrassed. It was sort of a big deal in the restaurant at the moment, and truth be told, it was pretty awkward. I just sort of sat around at the table afterwards and tried to slip under the table where no one would notice me. That's because even though choking is dangerous, it's not a "cool" near-death experience, and I group it with a few other uncool near-death (or moderate injury) experiences that I've been in.

1) Choking: Everyone is hanging out, having a nice time, snacking away. All of a sudden, you're the idiot who doesn't know how to even eat, a function most animals with brains way smaller than yours can manage. Now someone needs to get up, stand in a pretty weird looking position, and make it look to every onlooker like your rescuer is being abusive. In actuality, you just can't swallow food right, and now, everyone around knows exactly how big of an idiot you are.

2) Nearly getting hit by a car: You're crossing a street, paying attention to something really important to you. Maybe you're wondering about something really important, like why crayons don't taste as good as they look, or maybe you're just doing your best Ray Charles impression, but you totally don't see a car coming right at you. An instant before you hitch a ride on the hood of a taxi (one of the dangers of New York), a stranger grabs you by the arm and pulls you out of harm's way. He probably has a questioning look normally reserved for people who suggest that Elvis staged the moon landing from the Hindenburg.

3) Tripping while walking: Maybe it's not near death, but it can be dangerous. You all know the feeling; you're walking smoothly, then all of a sudden, you're not. Maybe you sprain your wrist on the way down, or maybe someone grabs you to keep you from falling. Either way, it would be the equivalent of watching a bird just fall to its demise*.

*But nowhere near as touching as this video, and without the good soundtrack:

In short, for all of these events, there exists this tacit understanding that, despite something really serious having just happened, maybe it's best not to talk about it for a bit. It's not like, say, being in a plane that plummets ten thousand feet before its engines come back to life, or being in a motorcycle accident. It's just not a good story, and it reflects poorly on you.So don't worry. If I see you involved in one of these situations, I'll have the decency not to say anything about it. I expect the same from you.

Anyway, I hope all is well and that you avoid all uncool near-death experiences. If you have any others that you'd care to share, I'd love to hear them!

Subterranean Transportation Hesitations

Everyone who has been in New York City knows that the subway is a part of life in the city. I try to avoid it as often as possible for a variety of reasons, but most of all because of a phobia I've had since I was little. I really blame my dad for this phobia. Actually, I blame my dad for most of the of seemingly irrational phobias I have, which, taken together, make me demonstrably neurotic. But this one in particular, which is unfortunate, because it's really a serious issue that comes up often in city life.

The situation would always go something like this.

I'd be standing on the platform just minding my own business.

Mistake no. 1: Standing too close to the edge.

Now, there's normally a wait for the subway, so there I would be, bored and blending into the scenery. I'd grab something to read to pass the time while waiting for the train.

Mistake no. 2: Introducing a distraction.

The real issue is that, important person that I am, it's likely that I've attracted the attention of someone who really has it in for me. I don't know how, maybe I flashed money unknowingly.

Mistake no. 3: Showing off a dime. EVERYONE wants dimes.

Alternatively, I imagine some sort of time-travelling situation in which someone from the future has been sent to prevent me from doing something great. Of course, having perfected time travel, these ne'er-do-gooders think that a subway accident would be the best way to get rid of me. Anyway, this is the hooligan whose attention I have now grabbed.

A common thug, surveying the scene to make sure there are no witnesses.

So this is what it comes down to. I'm reading my paper, a train is coming. Life is good. I will soon be several stations away. Then, this happens.

Mistake no. 4: Allowing yourself to be pushed into the way of an oncoming subway. This is the most serious mistake as of yet.

And the last thing that was ever seen of me would be this.

Mistake no. 5: Not getting between the tracks and allowing the subway to roll safely overhead. And no, that is not a safety harness made out of thread.

So there you have it. I don't like taking the subway, because I'm convinced strangers want nothing more than to give me a hearty shove in the back into oncoming trains. But if you are alert like me, you can avoid this unfortunate happening by keeping your back against the wall from the moment you set foot into a subway station.

Anyone for (sport of your choice)?

I'm a regular runner. Not as regular as Grandpa on metamucil, but I normally get out for a run five times a week (and you better hope Grandpa is more regular than that). I don't really compete any more (if you can even call what I did in high school 'competing'), but I run often enough and have enough of a competitive mentality about it to think of running as a sport. Makes sense, because running is a sport, and you won't find many people who disagree with that, although you may find some who view it just as exercising (someplace in the same realm as dancersize).

Athletes of a similar caliber

You won't, however, find anyone who would say that running is a game. Things like golf, or shuffleboard, those are games (Grandpa is regular on the shuffleboard court - take that how you will!). But not running.  Now, to me, these are clear distinctions. Rarely do you get activities that really cross boundaries. I ride a high horse, though. I've always thought of running as the most pure of sports, and I'll admit that I look at most sports and think "Sure, it's cool, but it's not running."

This brings me to the point of this post. Yesterday , while trotting down riverside park, I was confronted by one of the all too real dangers of living in New York City (without a trusty stunt double to face the dangers! I've been sorting through applications for this thankless position and have been unable to settle on a candidate). Now, I'd like to show you what you would have seen if you had been with me on that run, but I can't. You'll have to settle for what a camera operated by someone who doesn't know what he's doing with it (i.e. me) recorded.

Adults (?) participating in the sport (?) of kickball!

So I've determined that I've probably fallen victim to one, perhaps two, of these dangers of New York City.

1) An inability to distinguish what is and is not a sport.

2) An inability to distinguish what is and is not a grown up.

Both of these are caused by living in New York. Let's be honest, there's a space crunch. I remember one time a friend and I made a "sport" in high school that involved trying to get a bouncy ball to bounce on every step of a stoop. But is that an excuse for thinking kickball is a sport? If anything, these people should be kicked off so that area can be used for a real sport, like shuffleboard. Shoot, I've been in this city for too long.

The other option is that I simply didn't know that these people were in second grade. This is also an issue exacerbated by living in New York. Maybe young people are just looking older and older. This isn't a surprise to anyone who loves Miley Cyrus. Honestly, I think this problem is more severe in New York City because so many of those young'uns are so darn fashionable (I say this in the same way that a midget says other people are tall). I'm not judging, but darn it, how do you tell the 22 year old sluts from the 16 year old ones?

Let's just hope that these two dangers never get combined into a sport/game/exercise in which you need to guess if dating someone would end up with you in prison - I'd be horrible at that.

Pre-Trip Excitement

As everyone who has been anywhere near me (friends, coworkers, my religious twitter followers, people silly enough to sit near me on the bus) during these past two weeks knows, I'm going to visit my good friend David out in Boulder Colorado this coming weekend. Of course, I tell him I'm excited to see him, but there's more to my apparent happiness than just the prospect of seeing a great friend. I'm also hoping he'll feed me. David and I have had our differences about onions and whether or not they should be the primary (or only) ingredient in any recipe, but he's a pretty good cook, as long as you hide the onions from him in advance. And honestly, anything is better than what I have laid out to eat for the following week.

My meal options: Sugar, Mushrooms, Peanut Butter, ICBINB Light, and Lemon Juice.

Please suggest appealing combinations.

Really though, I'm looking forwards to the chance to get out of New York City for a bit. I've always found that it's good to clear my mind from time to time by rusticating myself. The city has a way of building up stress that no amount of traditional medicine can get rid of. I've found that a getting a few days outdoors always makes me a happier person. I think of it like a prozac alternative whose side effects include, but are not limited to, mild allergies, sunburn, hypothermia, and depending on how long treatment lasts, a beard.

Another good reason to look forwards to escaping travelling out of the city is that it is a dangerous place to live. On that note, I'm looking for a stunt double to help me document the dangers of the city. If you look like me and are fearless, preferably indestructible (or at the very least, lack common sense) and dedicated to warning people of the dangers, and occasionally, some of the joys, of living in New York City, talk to me. You'll recognize me because I'll be the one talking about how excited I am to be going to Colorado.