Prince is Like 5'2" of Pure, Hot Sex
Hooray for Memorial Day! There’s only one memorial fit for our nation’s fallen, and it’s called packing your weekend full of so much crap and booze that you feel like you never even had an extra day off. The weekend started off with a bang at a Bump happy hour. Sometimes happy hour is the best idea in the world. It is the alcoholic springboard that thrusts you into a night of drunken debauchery. Sometimes you peak too early, get pissy and snap at anyone who comes near you doesn’t promise to immediately let you take a nap. This Friday was an example of the latter. My friends and I decided we hated life and each other, and decided to go home early. On my way home, walking alone, I met a man who was carrying a blueberry muffin. We chatted on my steps about said muffin. Then, I went to bed.
The next day I decided to go to Peckville for the evening. It was sexy as ever because in the town next to my favorite little hamlet, La Festa Dei Ceri was occurring. Jessup, the neighboring town to mine, is very Italian. It’s a quaint little town with great food and crazy Italian grandmothers, none of whom are allowed to be over 5 feet tall (city ordinance). In fact, it’s the sister city to Gubbio, Italy. Every year in Jessup, they run the Race of the Saints and have the accompanying St. Ubaldo Festival. This shit is bananas. Basically, there are three teams made up of townspeople whose families have pledge allegiance to one of three saints: St. Ubaldo, St. George and St. Anthony. Everyone in town wears the color of their favorite patron Saint. I imagine the assignment of saints is something like the Sorting Hat ritual from Harry Potter.
Then, a huge statute of each of the saints is affixed to huge platform and then burly men grab the platforms and run all over town racing them to the finish at a big park. The town is built on hills, so the teams have the challenge of keeping the statues of the saints upright or they will face “the ultimate disgrace.” I have no idea what that is. To this day, to get “Ubaldo’d” at home means that you are picked up by a bunch of people and then thrown at high speed. It was a popular gym class torture. Since it’s his festival, the St. Ubaldo team has to win every year and everyone has to pretend it’s a huge surprise (city ordinance). Also, everyone gets completely hammered.
Back in the days before everyone was so damn litigation happy or before anyone had any regard for duty (I am talking TORT duty here, y’all.) to keep others safe, the race was out of control. The racers would smash into the crowds that lined the streets, mothers would throw themselves in front of their kids and everyone would break into huge rumbles about what saint was the most awesome. It’s still fun, but I no longer fear death like I used to. So, I didn’t go to it this year. Instead I hung out with my grandfather. However, two of my friends, females, got into a bar fight and one of them was dragged away in a police car in cuffs. I wish they all could be Peckville girls!
Hanging out with my grandfather was a great time, and he is holding up as well as can be expected. He told me a story about how when I was 3, someone gave me a toy truck for my birthday and I handed it back to her and told her I would much rather prefer getting books and that there was nothing that I could learn from a truck. His point was that I have always been an outspoken, pretentious little snot. After visiting mom’s and dad’s houses, I came back to Philly Sunday night.
That night I went to Silk City for a Madonna/Michael Jackson/Prince dance party. Which was? Awesome. The music consisted exclusively of the catalogues of Madonna, Michael Jackson and Prince. This included the Jackson 5. At one point during Prince’s “Baby I’m a Star,” the DJ was throwing his hands in the air (in a manner that indicated that he just don’t care) and the dance floor was going nuts and I thought I was in the movie Purple Rain. It was followed by “Pretty Young Thing,” so I pretty much lost my shit. There were several moments like this. My description would do them no justice. Of course, a highlight for me was “7” by Prince, saving me the trouble of getting wasted and screaming at the DJ to play it, like I usually do at every other bar I have ever been to.
There was one catch. Although friends of mine ended up being there, I was kind of there on a date. The date had another guy show up who was into him. And that other guy whom we shall call Ugh, kept hanging out with us, dancing with us and hovering, lurking. It was so not cool. Now the Z of last year would not have handled this well at all; he would not have shown the considerable maturity that the Z of this Sunday exemplified. I let him do what he wanted and got the best revenge: by looking great on the dance floor. Ugh shook my hand and hugged me on the way out, which was odd. I didn’t want in any way to make it look like I wanted some sort of compromise or resolution, but again, maturity got the best of me. I still ended up leaving with the guy.
So in sum: if you’re going to show up somewhere and try and steal my date for the evening, be more attractive and fun than I am, bring cooler friends than I have and be able to compose an interpretive dance to “Like a Prayer” better than I can. Good luck with that.
You might not think that on of Sandy’s best girlfriends is Jackie Frasier-Lyde, championship boxer and daughter of Joe Frasier. But you’d be wrong. She’s here right now in the office, and she just told me I am a gift from God. Holla! And she brought some girlfriends. We’re all sitting around like the Women of Brewser Place, hanging out and telling stories about the good old days. I am the only white boy there, but by now, I think Sandy just accepts me as a Black woman.
The next day I decided to go to Peckville for the evening. It was sexy as ever because in the town next to my favorite little hamlet, La Festa Dei Ceri was occurring. Jessup, the neighboring town to mine, is very Italian. It’s a quaint little town with great food and crazy Italian grandmothers, none of whom are allowed to be over 5 feet tall (city ordinance). In fact, it’s the sister city to Gubbio, Italy. Every year in Jessup, they run the Race of the Saints and have the accompanying St. Ubaldo Festival. This shit is bananas. Basically, there are three teams made up of townspeople whose families have pledge allegiance to one of three saints: St. Ubaldo, St. George and St. Anthony. Everyone in town wears the color of their favorite patron Saint. I imagine the assignment of saints is something like the Sorting Hat ritual from Harry Potter.
Then, a huge statute of each of the saints is affixed to huge platform and then burly men grab the platforms and run all over town racing them to the finish at a big park. The town is built on hills, so the teams have the challenge of keeping the statues of the saints upright or they will face “the ultimate disgrace.” I have no idea what that is. To this day, to get “Ubaldo’d” at home means that you are picked up by a bunch of people and then thrown at high speed. It was a popular gym class torture. Since it’s his festival, the St. Ubaldo team has to win every year and everyone has to pretend it’s a huge surprise (city ordinance). Also, everyone gets completely hammered.
Back in the days before everyone was so damn litigation happy or before anyone had any regard for duty (I am talking TORT duty here, y’all.) to keep others safe, the race was out of control. The racers would smash into the crowds that lined the streets, mothers would throw themselves in front of their kids and everyone would break into huge rumbles about what saint was the most awesome. It’s still fun, but I no longer fear death like I used to. So, I didn’t go to it this year. Instead I hung out with my grandfather. However, two of my friends, females, got into a bar fight and one of them was dragged away in a police car in cuffs. I wish they all could be Peckville girls!
Hanging out with my grandfather was a great time, and he is holding up as well as can be expected. He told me a story about how when I was 3, someone gave me a toy truck for my birthday and I handed it back to her and told her I would much rather prefer getting books and that there was nothing that I could learn from a truck. His point was that I have always been an outspoken, pretentious little snot. After visiting mom’s and dad’s houses, I came back to Philly Sunday night.
That night I went to Silk City for a Madonna/Michael Jackson/Prince dance party. Which was? Awesome. The music consisted exclusively of the catalogues of Madonna, Michael Jackson and Prince. This included the Jackson 5. At one point during Prince’s “Baby I’m a Star,” the DJ was throwing his hands in the air (in a manner that indicated that he just don’t care) and the dance floor was going nuts and I thought I was in the movie Purple Rain. It was followed by “Pretty Young Thing,” so I pretty much lost my shit. There were several moments like this. My description would do them no justice. Of course, a highlight for me was “7” by Prince, saving me the trouble of getting wasted and screaming at the DJ to play it, like I usually do at every other bar I have ever been to.
There was one catch. Although friends of mine ended up being there, I was kind of there on a date. The date had another guy show up who was into him. And that other guy whom we shall call Ugh, kept hanging out with us, dancing with us and hovering, lurking. It was so not cool. Now the Z of last year would not have handled this well at all; he would not have shown the considerable maturity that the Z of this Sunday exemplified. I let him do what he wanted and got the best revenge: by looking great on the dance floor. Ugh shook my hand and hugged me on the way out, which was odd. I didn’t want in any way to make it look like I wanted some sort of compromise or resolution, but again, maturity got the best of me. I still ended up leaving with the guy.
So in sum: if you’re going to show up somewhere and try and steal my date for the evening, be more attractive and fun than I am, bring cooler friends than I have and be able to compose an interpretive dance to “Like a Prayer” better than I can. Good luck with that.
You might not think that on of Sandy’s best girlfriends is Jackie Frasier-Lyde, championship boxer and daughter of Joe Frasier. But you’d be wrong. She’s here right now in the office, and she just told me I am a gift from God. Holla! And she brought some girlfriends. We’re all sitting around like the Women of Brewser Place, hanging out and telling stories about the good old days. I am the only white boy there, but by now, I think Sandy just accepts me as a Black woman.
posted by ZRW @ 11:16 AM
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