Silver and Gold

BEST OF 2007

1. LCD Soundsystem, Sound of Silver
2. Radiohead, In Rainbows
3. Arcade Fire, Neon Bible
4. The National, Boxer
5. Spoon, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
6. Kanye West, Graduation
7. Band of Horses, Cease to Begin
8. Tegan and Sara, The Con
9. MIA, Kala
10. Beirut, The Flying Club Cup

Tree of Illumination

Today was the last as a Signature intern. I slept in and went to work at noon and received a phone call from UNC that I had just been granted $6,500 to study storytelling across the UK next summer. Then I set up the "Tree of Illumination" which is 2' tall fake tree that I covered in handmade ornaments of famous Signature associates like Ed Norton and Ethan Hawke and Chuck Mee and Parker Posey. There is also a Lois Smith star and a disco ball. It's a long kept Signature tradition. Then my boss told my to bide my time til the goodbye party so I listened to music and told everyone I loved them and finally we ate carrot cake and drank ginger ale.

This was my day. I did nothing else except eat cake and get money and set up holiday decorations. I like to think that it was perfect.

Forget About Horses, We Ride Elephants In These Here Yankee Parts

In the past few days, I've met the three most exentrique characters I've yet to encounter in New York City: a gay Asian cowboy, an "invisible elephant" researcher, and a obese hobo lady who thought I was going to kill her with an ax. I think the subtitle of this post would thus be "A Few Musings on Crazy People." Let me explain:

-1-

I made the decision a few weeks ago to purchase cowboy boots with my birthday money, probably something to do with my affinity for alt-country or whatever. I Googled, did some research, found a place with a wicked cool name - Whiskeydust - only to call and find out it had closed for business the day before. However, the nice lady on the phone recommened a place called Stylish Shoe near Washington Sqaure Park, so with my Sunday off I made it a mission to complete some serious boot shopping. The store, though you could never know by its title, was boot heaven, straight out of Back to the Future 3, and when I found myself overwhelmed with too many options, I asked for help, thinking some retired good ol' boy from a ranch would come out from behind those old timey swinging bar doors and ask, "Whataya need, partner?"

Instead, I was met with a gay Asian man listening to Rage Against The Machine. Working in a Country & Western attire store. Something was not right.

Sure, maybe you can go all Brokeback and conenct gays and cowboys, but Asians don't exactly work into that equation quite as much. And cowboys they definitely don't listen to anarchist mainstream metal. Nonetheless, the "cowboy" asked for my shoe size, price range, and color preference, gave me a quick look up and down, and returned with a box and a promise - "These will be the boots you're going to fall in love with." He pulled out, of course, the perfect boot, and after he taught me how to get them in my jeans, he went off to let me "be with the shoe." He changed the Rage Against the Machine to some satellite radio world pop station, and by that time I really had no idea what the fuck was going on with this man anymore. But as I walked around the store, it was obvious that this crazy, strange, telepathic wizard of a cowboy was doing what he needed to be doing in life, and I was in love with the boots on my feet. I tried on a few pairs just for the hell of it, but my heart was already taken, and as I gave the man my money, I knew I was where I needed to be in life myself - in the most diverse, wonderous place around where every notion of expectations can be shattered with a bit of talent and determination. It should be noted, however, that the cowboy's wall of autographed pictures of 1980s hip-hop stars really solified such an idea in my head.

-2-

On my way to get the aforementioned cowboy boots, I walked by a table full of elephant paintings. Elephants are my favorite animal, and oddly enough, I had already bought another piece of elephant artwork, of sorts, a few days earlier, so I stopped to look around. The following conversation recounts the 15 minutes I spent with the elephant artist, an unnamed man who clearly enjoys smoking meth:

Meth Man: "Sunday special, white boy! Half off! I make this shit, I price it, half-off, anything you want. $10!"

Me: "Ok, thanks."

Meth Man: "You like elephants?"

Me: "Yeah, they're my favorite animal, actually."

Meth Man: "What you know about elephants, white boy?!"

Me" Um, well, lots of things I guess. What do you know?"

Meth Man: "I know about the invisible elephant."

Me: "Oh. That's nice."

Meth Man: "You don't believe me, white boy. But you know what, I'm gonna prove it to you. You got a piece of paper?"

Me: "Um, yeah, actually." (Reaches into bag and pulls out a scrap sheet of paper.)

Meth Man: "Here's a pen, boy. You better right this down. I'm going to tell you the name of the invisible elephant. And then you gonna go home, Google this shit, and then you gonna believe me. Ok? Ready? Ok. Here you go. Loxodanta. That's L-O-X-O-D-O-N-T-A. Loxodonta. Three words. Africana. Now I know you can spell that, white boy. And the last one. Cyclopsis. C-Y-C-L-O-T-S-I-S. Cyclopsis."

Me: "Um, do you mean Cyclotsis?"

Meth Man: "No! Cyclopsis. C-Y-C-L-O-T-S-I-S. Loxodonta Africana Cyclopsis."

Me: "Ok, I'll have to check that out. So, have you, um, seen the invisible elephant?"

Meth Man: "Hell no! That shit materializes and then dissapears right before your eyes. How could I see that? But I researched 'em. In Kenya."

Me: "Well then, that's pretty neat."

Meth Man: "Half-off, white boy! $10. I charge what I want."

Me: "Well, just let me look for a bit."

Meth Man: "Ok, but don't you tell me that you ain't got no money. All you white people say you ain't got no money. Now I know better. We the ones that don't have money. So when all you white people don't have money, I know the world's going to shit. So if you don't want something, just let me know. I made these. I know they are pretty. I know they're masterpieces. This one, see, special edition. Everybody wanna know how I do it. But I ain't going to tell ya, even if you buy it, but I'm just saying, I know it's good. They damn good. So don't tell me you ain't got no money. I know better. You ain't going to hurt my feelings, cause I know these masterpieces. So you just buy or don't, don't give me no bull crap."

So I didn't give him any crap, and now I have this artwork hanging in the bathroom:


And as you can tell from the provided link, the Loxodonta Africana Cyclopsis is just the scientific name for your common fucking African elephant. So hey, the guy at least knows his elephants, but I still feel a bit cheated.

-3-

After said boot shopping, I headed to the subway. Earlier in the day I had stopped by a costume store and bought an ax for our Halloween interpretation of the 3 little pigs and the big bad wolf - I was going to be the pig who built his house out of sticks, so naturally, I was dressing up like a lumberjack. So here I was in the subway, all shopped out with comic books and boots and an ax and all this good stuff, tired of carrying all this crap, so I just sat down on the bench in the subway station and started cramming it all in one bag. And then this woman behind me screams and starts yelling, "Boy, what you doing with that ax?" I turn around to find a large woman sprawled out on the bench behind me, a box of chicken fingers on her stomach, pointing at me as she licks honey mustard off her other hand. And so I laugh kind of apologetically and say, "Oh, it's just for Halloween, plastic, you know, not real at all. No need to worry."

That was not the right thing to say, apparently.

The chicken finger lady starts yelling at me, "Boy don't you laugh at me! I don't know what you is going to do with that ax. I don't care if it's plastic. How am I supposed to know? Don't you be laughing at me. You shouldn't be saying all this shit. You should be saying - because what you should not be saying is, 'Oh, sorry, it's Halloween, candy all this crap.' Cause what you should be saying is, cause you better not laugh at me, you should say, 'Oh, sorry ma'am, are you ok? Can I do anything for you? Cause I'm sure you have no money to buy yourself some cigarettes or a cup of coffee or food. Can I buy you a cup of coffee, cause I am so sorry I laughed at you.' Cause boy, I ain't got no money to eat. You better get me something now, boy. Get me something to eat."

And she continued this speech, even as I wandered onto the A train and she sat there munching on the giant box of chicken fingers that she kept on top of her engorged belly, calling me boy and asking me to buy her more fucking food.

-FIN-

Is This Best Buy Kosher?

My internship demands I run a lot of errands. Pick up blue prints in Union Square. Check. Buy wood glue from the corner hardware store. Check. Cart over 18 boxes of clothes from Target to the rehearsal hall and try not to run over one of those annoying little dog that are fucking everywhere. Check. Carry a tuba 10 blocks to a brass instrument consignment seller. A pain in the ass, and I felt more like street performer than an intern, but astoundingly, somehow, yes, check.

But today, today topped it all. I was left alone to set up our new $10,000 board room projector, and to my surprise, $10,000 does not buy any of the necessary cables to run said $10,000 projector, it just buys a big fat ugly $10,000 projector. So after an unsuccessful stop at RadioShack for a VGA component, I was off, per my supervisor’s recommendation, to B&H. “If they don’t have it, no one will.” I hopped down to 34^th and 10^th, only to find a McDonald’s, wait for my boss to return my “I’m lost” message, buy a Snapple, and then have my boss call and apologize for giving me the wrong directions. However, once in the doors of B&H, I knew my journey was well worth the hassle.

Once inside the establishment, I was surrounded by lots of Jews and lots of electronics. Somehow these things do not go hand in hand, but I digress. The store was big and bigger, packed with TVs and computers and cameras and lots and lots and lots of people. I was immediately reminded of Asheville's local Super Wal-Mart on tax free weekend. Seriously. Only Wal-Marts are much easier to navigate. Here, I couldn't anything, just a bunch of Jewish employees and digital junk, so when I finally asked one of the B&Hers where I could find a VGA cable, he typed something in his computer, told me to wait 3 minutes, and gave me a receipt to take the front. After I found the "front," which was actually just the middle, I paid for my receipt and was given another receipt, where I went to the actual front and waited. Here I realized there was a giant conveyor belt over my head, over everyone's head, over the whole store, and there in the back corner far, far away was a little man throwing things in bins and whisking them all around the store, like he was some crazy wizard running a Coca-Cola bottling factory. I turned in my receipt and a silent Jewish man found a bag on the wall and handed it to me and pointed to the door to leave.

B&H, quite simply put, is a crowded, disorienting Willy Wonka-esque Northern Wal-Mart run by Hasidic Jews, and I'm not sure my shopping experiences can ever be the same again.

Batman and the Big 2-0

"The lion of self-discovery is meant to kill that dragon whose every scale reads 'Thou Shalt.'"

-Joseph Campbell, American mythology professor

I'm 20. Finally. And surprisingly, I'm ok with that, even a few days in. I never thought I would be. Ever. Really. I was horrified, like there was this big double-digit beast looming over my head like an unavoidable plague, a final affirmation that I am, in the eye's of society, an adult without the drinking privileges, a number whose inherent diction vanquishes the very notion of teenagedom with a big fat "T." Being the baby all my life, I've grown accustomed to being last for everything. The last to vote, the last to get a license, the last in the alphabet if we're playing that game. So like a ticking time bomb, I've watched my friends become adults. Over and over and over, again and again and again. And I was horrified, like a ticking time bomb, my youth was just clicking away, and - BOOM! - there it was, gone. Or so I thought. Watching your friends turn 20 is actually a lot worse than turning 20 yourself. Instead of feeling, well, like I thought I would feel, I feel quite at peace with it, quite calm, quite proud to be an official 20-something.

However, a lot like creativity, a lot like New York, a lot like creative life in New York, a lot like life in general, being 20 is still a mystery to me. A beautiful, thrilling, inspiring mystery that is more a expedition into the unknown than a search for the key to it all. After a month of getting my feet on the ground, and after a rather epic 3 day jaunt of sitting on the edge of a panic attack and avoiding subways and calling in sick to work to listen to Kid A and journal and figure my shit all out, I finally feel like I live here. It's not home by any means, but it's homey, homey as in when I was sick and it was raining I could grab my umbrella and walk down to the corner CVS and love the feeling that I'm here and nowhere else. But I'm still very much figuring out this place, figuring out my place in this place, figuring out my place in this world, in this art, in my own skin. But what I've gained here so far is this new sense of being ok with that. Of not knowing what the future holds, of not knowing everything, and just letting that go and hitting the ground running with what I have. I've always held firmly that art is the process of self-discovery, which, in reality, is to know that you'll never really know yourself, but to just soak in all you can about your being and your experience and somehow placing that in the world and constantly let that evolve into something beautiful and honest for that world you live in to see and learn from. And now, suddenly, my thoughts of everything I hold in artistic value are being thrown for a loop, and that is fucking exhilarating. Because not only do I hold the notion of self-discovery, I feel it, I live it, I am it. So as I search for my creative voice, I feel like I know me, know my strengths, know my weaknesses, and I can say, "This is me." It's like I'm Batman, and I have this whole great big utility belt ready to go, and now I just get to jump around Gotham City looking for how best to use it. So I'm more open to imagination than ever before, learning about all these great things like Anne Bogart's Viewpoints and writing scenes and reading Dylan Thomas plays - things are falling into place from that.

And nicely enough, all this started happening the week of my birthday. I was in the rain in New York City and I said to myself, "I'm glad I'm here and nowhere else." I got into Advanced Fiction Writing. I learned I was going to assistant direct a show. I finished up a grant on storytelling. People are telling me I'm really good at what I do. So all in all, I feel affirmed in why I'm here. NYC is fueling me, encouraging me, inspiring me, telling me that I can and should be doing what I want to do. So being 20, for me, is throwing caution to the wind, entering a new world of self-discovery with the maturity of a young adult who is still searching for what that title actually means. And I kind of like that.

Democracy at Its Best

9/17/07:

Me, wanting to know the answer to this question.

9/18/07:

Me, on assignment from my intern supervisor to buy new trash bins, learning that recycling is required by law in NYC and punishable if not practiced.

9/19/07:

Me, sending out e-mails to St. George leaders, notifying those in charge of the law.

9/20/07 - 10-11/07:

Me, waiting for recycling bins, continuing to contact residence building officials, threatening to notify police about said law breaking for $500+ fines, waiting more.

10/12/07:

Me, claiming victory as an early birthday present.

Big City Boy

First week in New York. I find the city beautiful and overwhelming in the most positive of ways, breathtaking both in its potential and anonymity. Brooklyn Heights and the St. George will be home for the next 3.5 months. If you stick your head out our window you can see the Brooklyn Bridge, and it's a 5 minute walk to the pier underneath it that looks onto the Financial District. We live on the corner of Henry and Pineapple, which is part of a family of other fun fruit-named streets such as Cranberry and Orange, with Love Lane like the honorary uncle that's the really just the best friend of somebody's dad, just like Full House. It's very neighborhoody and quiet here, with a grocery store across the street and the subway stop, a corner deli, a movie theatre, a video store, a convenience store, a CVS, a farmer's market, the public library, and a park all within a block's radius. The Brooklyn Promenade runs along the back of our building, jammed between us and the East River. I've been jogging a lot there, and today I found a set of Batman-style Russian stacking dolls at a "flea market" I stumbled upon a few blocks down. It was more a yard sale than anything, but since they don't have yards here I guess they can't call them that. We have a Zion German Evangelical Lutheran Church up the street, whatever the fuck that is. I hear rumor that black squirrels exist but I have yet to find them. However, the pigeons are equally as entertaining and might prove themselves a worthy adversary to their rodent counterparts back in Chapel Hill. Organic in Brooklyn isn't just food, it's dry cleaners and hair cuts and more, and it's everywhere. Shopping here is wonderful since there's no sales tax on clothes and all the department stores play indie rock. The downside is that people fucking love their Sacajawea dollars and that's what you're getting as change, so get used to it. I went looking for a pair of nice shoes the other day and found 3 Payless stores on the same street and asked my friend Julia if that was common and she said no, so that must be some strange Brooklyn anomaly.

We spent our first few days here getting the whole tourist thing out of our system so we could start feeling less like visitors and more like residents. Times Square is incredible in its American Dream-like dichotomy, a hub of endless opportunity and subsequent draining excess. Central Park is like an urban paradise. The Toys 'R' Us has a giant robotic T-Rex that is impressive in scale but not quite entertaining enough to make up for the severe lack of Batman representation. "Les Misérables" was an awful choice for a first Broadway show, but it was epic and grand and kind of made up for it's shittiness in a girth of expensive gadgets. The $18 view from the Empire State Building is stunning, as is the one from the Brooklyn Bridge, though the latter is free and less crowded and doesn't sell rubber Statue of Liberties. The Macy's is huge and overwhelming and when I went to buy a wallet I was assaulted by men trying to give me cologne samples and I really don't think I'll be going back. Ryan and I bought tickets to the U.S. Open off of Craig's List for $25 and picked them up from a "candy store" in a Queens barrio. It was in actuality a liquor store, but the seats were great and watching Venus Williams and Justine Henin throwdown was an absolute highlight. The courts are in Queens, close to an apartment Ryan's boss gave him the keys to for the semester. We went Wednesday and I cooked for everyone and we met the nun upstairs and drank wine and baked brownies and tried unsuccessfully to hookah. But despite all the heavy adventuring, I have yet to run into any of the Big Bad Wolf ideas that the South often mythicizes Manhattan to embody. Sure, there's lots of people, and the service workers could give a fuck about you, and, yes, they don't make crazy like they do in the New York streets, but overall the people are just people. They ask you how you are, they open the door, they tell which side of the subway to get out on. Even so, I'm glad I'm a Brooklyn boy, and I find the idea of waking up on our little neighborhood block and getting a coffee and walking to the park to buy homemade donuts and reading a book at the Barnes and Noble afterwards and just making a whole morning out of it quite thrilling, though I have yet to find a decent record store in all this cultural goodiness. Hopefully I'll be finding a guitar teacher soon and beginning work on my play, and my goals for the semester will be underway. Overall, though, it's been quite a good run of things, and tomorrow I start my internship and apparently get to meet Edward Albee. It's a bit overwhelming in the way that I would imagine it would be if you went to film school and on your first day you find out Steven Spielberg is coming to visit and all you can talk about is how much you love Reese's Pieces cause you're so afraid you're going to just nervously pee right there all over him and you both. However, I plan to beat the Albee butterflies by wearing my new Nike Dunks, cause they're fucking sweet and comfy as hell.

One Day Everything You Love Will Die

"Why do people have to die?"
"To make life important."

I forgot how much I love Six Feet Under. I've been watching a lot of it lately on bootleg DVDs, considering I'm stuck on my friends' couch and they don't have cable and I've got lots of my time on my hands before my NYC departure in two weeks. I remember my parents didn't get HBO until I was in high school, so the first night we had it I decided to curl up on the couch by myself and watch nothing but hours of it so I could see if its programing was all the life-changing, creative masterpiece bullshit it was always advertised to be. Luckily, I found myself at the very begining of a SFU mini-marathon, and the tale of disfunctionality that was the Fisher & Sons Funeral Home became the cornerstone of my television investment for the next five years. SFU has this unexplainable, quirky addictiveness that hooks you in from the first episode and doesn't let go until you've seen the whole fucking Fisher family die, quite literally, and somehow that same invigorating lightening has struck again. The brilliance is still there, the acting impeccable and the writing layered with an offbeat imagination that somehow hides a firm, brutal honesty on the importance of life and the meaning of death behind layers of dead bodies and musical numbers and explicit sexuality. As a result, I'm only more hungry for the creativity that awaits in the world of brave, professional New York theatre. Well, there's that, and also the fact that I'm dreaming constantly about death and my parents' divorce and my teeth falling out. Death not so much in the morbid sense, but in the dream within a dream type way where a space ship falls on my house or Matthew Fox from Lost sets out on a mission of mass extermination across the UNC campus. The divorce is, well, divorce. But the teeth, that's the weird part. I've always had dreams where my teeth fall out, but in these, I pull my own teeth out. And my father is usually watching, or my cousin is drowning in a pool, or I'm smoking goo with aliens and I punch my teeth out to impress their extraterrestrial ways. When I tried to Google the meaning the only thing that came up was the idea that Freud describes dreams about teeth falling out as unconscious manifestations of guilt about masturbation. On the "fuck no" flip side of the equation, I'm sure it just has something to do with anxiety or stress or a big change or something clinical like that.

I blame this all on you, Claire Fisher. Damn you and your pretty face and your fucked up family.

The No Talent Show

Take a step back and ask, what is your lived experience?

"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."

-Theodore Roosevelt,
via Wilderness Wisdom

This is Carolina United, this will always be Carolina United, and this is the hope for a Carolina United. This experience will remain one of passion, grace, sacrifice, knowledge, depth, inspiration, and unabashed honesty for as long as I hope to keep fighting the good fight. Goodnight United, goodnight.

Grassy Creek

it sang to them
to these fawns of the whistling machines
spoke in tongues of knots
of callouses and caves
they perked their ears to the sound
so silent and stunning
a melody of mammoth
a groove of gargantuan
not wanting, not needing
yet still they danced
heaving in the overgrowth of the disco
a rural regime
the moonshine militia
marching and carving into the boom boom beckoning
of the bang bang beat
they climbed up to it, onto it, into it
so desperate to be part
this swallowing sound, the sweetly suffocating
they burrowed past mothers
past fathers, past martyrs
to the thundering thumps of the heart
and they only lived to listen
and they sang the song of the hills

New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down

I don't head out to NYC for another 6 weeks. Still, I already have tickets for The Daily Show, Spoon, LCD Soundsystem, and Arcade Fire. The last two are performing together on a Saturday afternoon on an island that is an old abandoned train station.

My oh my, what a wonderful adventure this will be.

Ah! My Arm!!!

Last week my friend Tony and I watched the Ecuadorian edition of Man vs. Wild. Not only was it the most depressing episode of the show I've seen - Bear finds shelter, Bear build ladder to reach shelter, Bear watches ladder shatter as it drops into Amazon, Bear has no shelter, Bear gets rained on, Bear can't find food in rain, Bear stuffs shirt with grass to stay warm, Bear stays up all night getting rained on while wearing shirt full of grass, Bear travels down actual Amazon on log, Bear whittles bow and arrow, Bear finds burrow, Bear scares animal out of burrow, Bear readies bow to kill said animal, Bear breaks bow while hunting animal, Bear watches as animal escapes, Bear has cut hand from bow disaster, Bear again has no food, etc - but more importantly, Tony made a profound, prophetic, downright stunning observation on the state of American culture as we watched Discovery Channel promo its summer celebration of fear for the 12th time that night:

"Dude, we as humans devote an entire week of our lives to sharks. That's fucking ridiculous."

Ridiculous indeed, Mr. Strowd, ridiculous indeed. It's such a simple statement, but with an eye of scrutiny and a body teetering on the age of sobriety, this became the very definition of American excess. I don't think my parents were sitting on their couch back in the '80s contemplating the future implications of cable TV, but rather complacently happy just watching low budget Bananarama videos and drinking wine coolers and calling it a night. Now, we're a society full of movie marathons and Big Gulps and oversized condoms that are sold in oversized bundles for the real men out in the world.

But from an alternative perspective, perhaps this is the singular statement that exemplifies just how great America is. I mean, sharks are pretty sweet, and so is TV, and the combo of the two is pretty much a rarity among the rest of Earth's inhabitants. But I think squirrels are pretty fucking sweet too, so until I see Suburban Rodent Mania Month on Animal Planet, I'll take Bear and the rest of Discovery can shove it.

The Race Begins

"It is a travesty that Osama bin Laden remains at large nearly six years after the 9/11 attacks and appears to have found new sanctuary to operate freely in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border regions. The Bush administration and most congressional Republicans would rather stubbornly stick with a flawed strategy and fight a war that senior military leaders say cannot be won militarily, than adapt to fighting the enemy who attacked us six years ago."

-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid

If there was ever a comment that expressed my views of the current political sphere so simply this would be it. America is in its 11th hour, and if the change we need to happen is going to happen it must be now. I've found myself becoming increasingly more aware and more responsible for the future of our country this summer, and I have made a commitment to get my feet out on the campaign trail in January in support of someone who can readdress the problems we have neglected both abroad and domestically because of an administration trapped within a singular objective.

YouTube debate, I'm all yours.

42 Democracy

I present my Fourth of July...

Field day games are not directly associated with patriotism, yet something in their tender aggression seems to be the very embodiment of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Life comes from the youthful invigoration of oversimplified lawn games, as relays and hula hoops transport participants back to the days of kindergarten simplicity. Liberty is represented by the freedom of getting messy from a round of tug of war and not worrying about showering afterwards. And as for happiness, nothing screams joy quite like a water balloon colliding with your heat-worn face.

At least, that’s what my roommates proclaimed, as our Stratford Hills apartment spent the nation’s 231^st birthday putting that theory to the test. Subsequently, 42D’s Fourth of July Field Day Kegger Barbecue Blowout Bash was centered on the idea of kiddy games. The aim was to make our forefathers proud, ensuring guests rekindled not only their pride in the stars and stripes but also in a simpler time of adolescent freedom by replicating the spectacle of primary school field day. Admittedly, the small plastic cups in hand at our event weren’t exactly as virginal as watered-down juice, but otherwise, the premise was exactly the same as it was 10 years ago.

The journey began at Party City, a consumer haven that profits off the business of patriotism and other flavor of the holiday season concepts. After the purchase of color-appropriate dinnerware, 1,740 feet of crepe paper and a scale model of Lady Liberty, we were off to design the proper balance between America and fun time. As the feat was nearly complete, our neighbors, a retired couple from Florida, broke their usual quiet and commented on the lovely job we did covering our ceiling in red, white and blue streamers. Clearly, we couldn’t have been more in tune with the American spirit, and we were proud of it – paying tribute to our compliments, we affectionately bestowed our apartment with the pet name of “42 Democracy.”

Yet the true party was not within the walls of our little Chapel Hill legislature, but rather outside them. Game referees sported red, white and blue leis and branded an officiating stick found earlier in the woods, while the participants arrived in the suggested attire of old shirts and well-worn bathing suits. Predictably, most clothing was soiled by the end of the first game of the afternoon – the egg run relay, a balancing act between spoon and hard shell that usually ended in disaster. Though I failed to claim a victory in the relay, my eye was on the prize all afternoon; for three straight tournaments in my earlier years of public education, I was a repeat winner as the jump rope contest king, and I was looking to keep my streak alive somehow.

As games such as the shoe kick and the sponge bucket relay came to an end, others claimed the title I so badly wanted. But finally, with the water balloon toss, my partner and I inherited a superhuman ability to catch flying liquid-infused latex and took the title of first place. Yet no matter who won, all of our American soldiers did their best to win the prize and make their country proud with victory. The favorite battle of the day went to the mummy wrap, a toilet paper body-wrapping game that resulted in such self-described fashions as haute couture and bohemian chic. And though only one winner could be crowned, the lawns of Stratford Hills were a market place of ideas alive with the creativity and freedom George and company so highly valued. But ultimately, the reward for all was the American tradition of gluttony and excess in the form of a generous cookout complete with hot dogs, Gumby’s pizza and homemade apple pie.

Finally, after all the balloons were burst and all the bellies were full, guests moved inside for the official awards ceremony. All received certificates of excellence in exchange for their efforts, but winners claimed Dollar Tree prizes for their victories. Julia Yarwood, the winner of the egg run relay, received a bottle of roach killer. Tony Strowd, winner of the three-legged race, claimed a NASCAR paint by numbers, and Kate Finneran, captain of the winning sponge bucket relay team, won a giant inflatable alligator pool toy, which she quickly named Carlos. But all in all, it was here that the true colors of our nation finally flew high. For no matter what we establish as our goals – a yacht for the Mediterranean, a college fund for the kids or a cheap field day prize – the American dreams lives on. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness persists, even when the bombs are water balloons and the soldiers are in Tar Heel territory.

It was a happy birthday, indeed, but an even happier occasion for those at 42 Democracy.

*It should be noted that this was written while still in "party mode" on the night it was completed for my features writing class. I made an A on it. It was the highest grade in the class. So suck on that, JOMC 227.

Dumpster Diving

I just found a Hoover vacuum by the dumpster and it's free and clean and in working order and our fucking carpet is disgusting and this just made me day.

The Simple Beige Beauty

For my father...

At 975 square feet, the simple beige beauty at 17 Oak Hill Road is the antithesis of modernity. While most have hardwood floors installed by home improvement chains or an underpaid immigrant, this one can claim its original oak boards; when most have a sliver of grass regulated by neighborhood inspections, this one wears a well-tilled vegetable garden; and when most have garages with faulty mechanized doors, this has a freestanding double carport made off the American Dream. Indeed, little has changed since its construction 53 years ago, and in an age where millionaire retirement homes serve as the tasty, rewarding marshmallows of the real estate cereal box, the house at Oak Hill is the simple, untouched piece of oat at the bottom of the bowl molded by the surrounding Blue Ridge Mountains.

Yet for some, the nostalgic charm at 17 Oak Hill makes it synonymous with a time of innocence when sit-ins and protests seemed to provide no room for it. Here marks the conquests of G.I. Joe and Johnny West, the collisions of Hot Wheels and the corrals of “Bonanza.” Here also holds the bright images of man conquesting moon, of JFK waving for the last time and of The Beatles crossing the Atlantic, some even broadcast on a talk-of-the-town color television. “That’s where I watched the Mets win the 1969 World Series,” my father said, with a scoff.

“And everyone thought they were so bad.”

My father and his parents moved there in October 1960, and they left for a parallel road, Monte Vista Circle, in 1972. He wished they’d never left. In later years, trips to see his parents would serve as opportunities to appraise his childhood home, and occasionally his looks to the side for a realtor sign would escalate into full-blown safaris with the arresting turn of a steering wheel.

It wasn’t until June 2007 that one of Dad’s expeditions ended victoriously with a wild beast pierced on the end of his spear. When he first saw the words “For Sale,” he asked himself how he would react, afraid that he might cry in a dramatic Hollywood entrance, his rigid posture reduced to a timid hunch. Instead, he could only laugh, remembering the disproportions of childhood memories. Looking at his bedroom and clearly in denial, he chuckled at their tiny dimensions, “Did I actually live here?”

When Lana Elingburd first met my father, their connection was immediate. She was an Indian swami and he her reincarnated soul, the presence of energy not entirely explained by five senses. Multiple sclerosis blackmailed the woman into finding a new owner, and his interest was nothing short of divine intervention. “I want you to have this house,” she said. “There are houses, and there are homes. And this is a home.” Dad wore a hole through his cell phone and had the deal finalized by the end of the week.

The 46-year-old’s year has been riddled with divorce and the loss of his mother, and his hair is longer than it was since the funeral. He talks suddenly of getting a dog, and maybe even a tattoo of something Irish, but instead the materialization of this hidden realty drema seemed to give the OK to move ahead without collars or needles.

Now, like an eager boy showing off his newest toy, Dad points to an old path where he often walked Mr. Blue – a mutt by most standards, but to the family half Old English Sheepdog based on the feel of his shaggy hair. There’s a nod to his place of conception, a deteriorating garage apartment not fit by today’s standards. A point for the house that never gave Halloween candy. And one last acknowledgment for the field that provided the learning curve of baseball, the thrill of sleigh rides, the gift of a first bike ride. Next month it will be the place of romps with his newest bike, a Harley Davidson Road King. He plans to cover the halls in old photos of his childhood, such as the 1965 classic with the cowboy costume, and gathering from antiques stores is an invigorating new hobby. A sea trunk is his latest and greatest find.

Dad’s smile has grown from a forced acknowledgment into a beaming piece of watermelon with teeth for seeds. Some would say he has fallen prey to the middle-aged man’s Achilles’ heel – the midlife crisis. Others say he is evolving, making strides to a new and improved Mr. Wright. But perhaps the man is just trying to win something back, a retired sportsman out to prove he can reclaim his glory days against all odds. Perhaps he is regressing, back to a time of innocence. Back to a time when there were no obligations, no failed marriages, no deceased parents, simply a boy, his dog and his bike.

Magical Maze of Melody and Madness

A year ago today, I was surrounded by people like this:

Happy anniversary, Bonnaroo.

3rd Grade Friday Fun

My Peoples of Africa professor made this for our class so we can study countries and their capitals for tomorrow's map quiz. I find it both sweetly and pathetically reminiscent of "The Oregon Trail." If I'm lucky, maybe I'll get to ford a river.

Ol' Dick Adams

"Promise that'll you get on that goddamn Cash Cab."

"Sneak into Ryan Adams' apartment. I want a dirty fork and a T-shirt."

-Cat Chakales,
at a Waffle House, on her NYC hopes

Sophomore Slump

It has only recently hit me that I am half-way done with college. I feel like I should go sit in a room and drink and think about how my Tar Heel time is only slipping away from here. But nope, I refuse. I'll be spending the entire summer here in Chapel Hill, and with all my friends still around in some capacity, I've got another three months before feeling like we've passed the peak. At least I got to celebrate the end of my fourth semester like this: