2002-03-02 - 8:49 a.m.
Gallery night.
Where do I begin?
Every first Friday of the month, the little art galleries in the city open their doors for people to come down and peruse the paintings. It brings a mixed crowd of artists, rich peoples, college students, drunkards (because many galleries make available free wine and beer), and the like. Last night Tom, Ellie and I (or at least Tom and I since Ellie don’t drink) fell in the drunkard category. It was one of the better times I’ve had in a while.
First, I was happy of how I dealt with the Ellie (the artist formerly known as “the Flirting Crush Girl?”, before having her name legally changed to “Can we just be Friends?”) situation. She sees me as a friend and that’s how I treated her. For example, she proposed that we all head over to the other side of the city to see a band after the gallery walk. I didn’t really feel like doing that. So I told her that. Previously, in my crush haze, I would’ve gone with her, just so I could be in her presence for a few more hours. Sounds stupid but it was a big step for me to, as Tom put it, “Be yourself and do what you want to do.”.
So we headed down. I started the night off right by picking up some new music at my favorite record store (Yes I still use the term “record store”.). I got the UNKLE cd which contains some really cool music that I heard in the “Dark Days” documentary. I picked up an Alkaline Trio cd because they are one of ann-frank’s favs and I like all the other stuff she lists. I wasn’t sure which one to get, so I got the one with the most appealing cover – a picture of a cassette tape. Lastly, I couldn’t resist getting this Lee “Scratch” Perry album – Perry Meets Bullwackie in Satan’s Dub. The title just got me.
Beyond that, it seemed like one little funny event after another. The whole First Friday thing just becomes a sort of 4 block street party (except all the traffic. They really should close some of the streets off. We gallery hopped all over, sampling the art and beer/wine at each place. Perhaps “you just had to be there” but, here are some random highlights for me....
- Some sorority girls were singing choral versions of Guns n Roses, Pat Benetar, Cyndi Lauper, etc. complete with beat box.
- Had one of the best Guinness’s I’ve had in a while. Wasn’t watered down.
- “Two Beer Tommy” as he was calling himself was on a roll, talking to everyone. He bummed a lollipop off some girl named Sarah from Baltimore.
He yelled at some guy, “You got that shirt at Old Navy. I saw it in the $3.00 rack!”. It actually sparked a conversation with him and he seemed very cool. He looked like the main guy in “Chasing Amy”. His name was Ed but Tom kept calling him Tod for some reason.
Everytime we passed this one gallery he had to tell me to “Look at the artist’s shooeesss! They are soooo longggg!”. (The guy did have these long black dress shoes which were quite posh, but I don’t know why Tom was so fascinated by them.)
- We entered this cellular phone store, which had stuck a few photos on the wall to suck people in. They also actually had good booze though, so we played their game and went in. Tom ended up “liberating” this fake plastic phone, which he was carrying around all night pretending to talk into.
- My favorite pieces of the night were 1. A lighted lamb legs lamp. 2. This giant statue based on a Gwar contume 3.“Pickled George and Wine” (a full wine bottle with a jar on top of it painted to look like a face.) 4. A sculpture of a skinny naked man . 5. A collage made up of the windows from envelopes and diary pages torn out of some little notebook
- This little shop, G-Mart, which sells an assortment of campy 50’s looking drinking glasses, T-shirt with obscene slogans written on them, and cool sneaker had karaoke in the front window. Tommy and I did “Rock Lobster” with him taking the lead and me singing the high background part (“Ahhh.. Lobster”). During the guitar solo parts I was urging people to buy the highball glasses and other items, so at the end the shop owner told me I could have anything for 25% off. So I took my own advice and purchased a dandy highball glass with a half nude Wonderwoman looking woman on it.
- Sang along with a couple of street performer. First a doo-wop type song where we kept saying “Gorilla”. I’m not sure what was going on there. The guy was telling us that they feed gorilla meet to prisoners or something. Then I performed hand clapping, notebook banging percussion along a fellow playing Pogues tunes.
All in all it was a rare socializing type night for me. It was very much needed. At the end of the night, I was by far in the better shape of Tom and I (Ellie had left with some friend she met up with to go see the band.), so it was one of those rare occassions where I had to be the responsible ones and make sure we got on the correct train etc.
I was sooo hungry the whole ride home and Tom kept saying “I’ll make you some tater tots, don’t worry.”. Poor guy. He was head spinningly trashed, only able to keep one eye open and struggling to stay awake. A great friend, he kept his word though. He put some tater tots in the oven then promptly passed out... (Fear not, I did remember to turn the oven off before I left.)
