Heading to the Yacht Rock screening/Ambrosia 40th anniversary show at the Bell House last night, I might've been overly impressed by the showman component of our limo driver's game. “He's playing the tambourine, and blowing a party whistle.”
Adam was less enthusiastic. “And...driving”, he said, unconvinced the guy had that part of the job descrip down. He didn't: after taking us to the wrong 7th Street (Williamsburg), he said, “We're going to hit the BQE and head straight for Gowanus. That's near Bensonhurst or some shit. I don't believe in GPS.”
When we finally stepped out of our rented class-wagon, some guy in a mildly loud buttondown walked up and told us how glad he was that somebody'd decided to dress yacht-y. There's detached irony and participatory irony. This crowd was in the former camp, but the captain's hats, fake mustaches, boat shoes, pink shirts, tight white pants, and oversized pink sunglasses moved most of us into the latter category. I've got a real mustache, just like my dad had in the 70s. Only in moments of weakness do I consider mine ironic.
I spent half the show talking to a Montreal expat in a WWE t-shirt, featuring some wrestler with a 90s-style flavor-savor under his lip. She had no idea who the guy was – she'd bought the shirt in India. I would've said, “You should've gone with The Great Khali,” but she wouldn't have known who that was either. She also didn't know who Ambrosia was, and didn't have a clue what this Yacht Rock thing was all about. She was very into Lars von Trier. I've only seen one movie – Dancer in the Dark – and thought it was pretty good, until it turned into a steaming pile of shit. She joked that me not having seen Antichrist – which apparently includes a scene where Charlotte Gainsbourg cuts off her own clitoris (empowerment? misogyny? whatever, as long as it's not intended as a critique of American character. eat my dick, Lars von Trier.) – meant we couldn't hang out. I told her I could still converse on the meaning of cutting off your own clitoris. Fortunately she didn't take me up on that.
She wanted to hit Sunny's, out in Red Hook. We tried four cabs. All four pretended not to know where Red Hook was, then blamed us for not being able to give them directions. That's like a surgeon refusing to admit he knows where your spleen is, then blaming you for not guiding his hand. The fifth cabbie, we just told to head down Van Brunt, and figured we'd run into it. We did. (eat my dick, cabbies.)
There were some old guitarists playing in back – two men and a woman. They'd been doing a folk jam there for seven years. One of the men had a terrible voice. The other couldn't remember the words to very many songs (“Lay lady lay” was about all he recalled of “Lay Lady Lay”). I got the feeling the woman remembered a lot of words, but was too deep into a timid life to take on lead vocals. They offered us pretzels.
We took a gypsy cab back to her place in Bed-Stuy and hung out a while. She was a photographer, and had put together an intentionally kookie book of repeated photographs designed to teach kids math-based counting strategies – for instance, four rows of the same smiley guy in a speedo, and you're supposed to figure the quickest way to count how many times he appears without a satchel over his shoulder.
I made to leave around 4am. We joked about how dodgy Bed-Stuy was. As I walked out to the street, she cautioned “Don't get raped!”
I did not get raped. However, the Popeye's across from the C train was down to 2 1/2 chicken strips. I'm no math genius, but I know it takes three to make a combo meal, and five to blow my party whistle.
