Mar 26, 2004

"I'm not gettin' on det ting..."

is what the Jamaican woman with an army of luggage said as we the dozen or so Fung Wah victims approached the ruined stretch of street where the bus usually docks and were met by that most dreaded of sights to any Fung Wah traveller:

The short bus.

The last time I rode the Fung Wah short bus, I feared for my life. This ride was no exception. Rather than having repaired the shocks, they seemed to have installed some sort of mechanism which would amplify any irregularities in the road in order to shake the cabin violently and prompt the driver to further increase his already ludicrous speed. On top of that, I was surrounded by college kids who seemed to be in the process of falling in love, or at least preparing for some heavy petting. I felt nearly obliged to provide a ziploc bag full of Trojans and a lecture on VD.

The KGB reading was like nothing I've ever experienced. Within moments of them opening up the bar, people began to pour in. Well groomed, well dressed New Yorkers, and the place began to fill up to fire-hazard mass-grave proportions. I could only assume this stampede of New Yorker readers were there to see the featured reader, a certain Former Poet Laureate who goes by the name of "Billy." To avoid any google-related conflict, said reader will be referred to hereafter as the FPL.

Having obtained a beer on the house (they actually give free beers to readers, or rather 3 free beers, as after that they started to charge me; though the charging seemed to take place after I read) I put my bag down by the podium and attempted to manhandle my way through the crowd to get to the hallway and some air and to find GM. Upon reaching the other side of the room (and finding GM), I realized that there was no possible way I was going to be able to re-enter, as the crowd had now spilled out into the hall. I wasn't enormously worried, as the first reader was to be the FPL, which I guess was an effort to clear out the folks who were there only to see him out so some of the other readers could enter the building. From where I stood (in the hall) all that could be made out was the FPL's narcotic drone (something akin to the Guidance Counselor from South Park) and occasional bursts of laughter as the throngs guffawed at his "dumb as a post"="accessible" antics.

Only a handful of folks actually left immediately following the FPL, but I was able to squeeze into the room to hear the rest of us "regular people," who had been allotted slots of 7 minutes, as opposed to the FPL's, um, I dunno, six hours or something like that? Upon squeezing into the room I realized that the amorous kids from the bus were there! I forgot to check their faces when I, the weird dude who didn't say anything to them during the whole 4 hour bus ride, approached the podium.

The remainder of the readings, of varied styles and characters were just fine, and I was glad that we had gotten the FPL out of the way early. I was definitely the youngest reader and felt slightly out of place on that basis, but the crowd at least did not groan or throw things, and one lone person actually clapped at the end of one of the poems. Though after the reading I was approached by a wildeyed young man who said that he wished that I could have explained to him what my poems meant before I read them, as the majority of the other readers had done. I'm have to admit that addled by the crowd, lubricated by my free beers and just plain unprepared to deal with such a question, I slipped immediately into Arrogant Bastard mode and said "I don't believe in meaning." For some reason this reaction caused said young man to launch into a rote recitation of apparently his own poem. Which wasn't altogether bad, I might add. "I like that." I said. "Know what I mean?" "Yeah, gotcha..." and somehow managed to disenage myself and move back into the now sweaty and drunk throng.

It was good to leave the chaos of the reading for the relative serenity of GM's place where R the cat somehow managed to jump *delicately* onto my head. If people were like cats, life would be like one of those Hong Kong action films where people perform not altogether impossible, but highly unlikely feats. I haven't had a pet in a long time and I think I sort of miss it. Though given my lunatic schedule and general flakiness, I don't think I could provide a very good life for another organism. I can kill airferns. Maybe a pet zombie...





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