Somewhere during the course of the afternoon, I ended up making friends with this deaf mute guy. He spent his day circling the park and barking (yes, literally barking, he's deaf mute, remember?) at girls in bikinis to get their attention and then taking their picture with a disposable camera. He communicated with us by miming and manage to tell us that he puts all of his photos of girls in bikinis in an album and that we should all come over and look at the pictures sometime because he lives right around the corner. (I swear this is true. How could I even make something like this up?) The only thing I didn't learn was his name.
On Sunday we headed back to Thompkins Square Park to enjoy the sunshine. (From L to R: Matt Lavin aka "Buddy" from Sid & Buddy fame, Vin, me and the Tins).
Amy gave a call and it turned out she was nearby! So she stopped by for some late afternoon lounging. And what's that up there in the corner? Is that Leigh working on her "Get a load of this fugging guy!" face? Let's take a closer look shall we?
On Monday, Grant and I were bored out of our skulls. We went to K-mart to buy some towels and somehow ended up leaving with towels and a frosty 12-pack of Bud Lite cans. (WTF? I dunno, it just happened). I was like "Let's go to Tompkins Square Park and get drunk." Grant got all panicked and was like "We can't do that!" I was like, "We can't?" Grant looked taken back as he failed to come up with a good reason, and finally shrugged it off. "Ok, I guess we can. Let's go."
...NAKED MAN! Hahahaha. This old dude is always chilling there in a lil' Speedo-type thang and from certain angles (ok, most angles) it looks like he's buck naked.
Shortly after, Vin left to run some errands and Fatty laid down and got a muddy back. After sitting around shooting the shit for another 30 minutes or so, the Fatty and I decided to take a walk around and enjoy the Spring sunshine.
The best thing I've ever seen in my life was this pack of eight year-old girls from the Lower East Side who rolled up on their bikes to watch in disbelief. Their collective look of "WHAT THE FUCK ARE THESE CRACKERS DOING?" cannot even be described.
After watching them try to make sense of the situation for more than five minutes, Grant and I wandered over and tried to make things more interesting. We explained (er, ok - lied) to the girls and told them that the kids were dancing as part of a hidden camera show - they were dancing stupid on purpose in hopes that people would yell stuff at them and heckle them - but the problem was, no one had heckled them yet. We told the girls that if they started shouting insults, they'd totally get to be on MTV. We let them ponder that for a few minutes, and then slunk back to enjoy the magic that ensued. Needless to say, the Dance Revolution packed up and headed back to their NYU dorm in a fucking (embarrassed) jiffy.
Kid in the Green shirt: "Do you know what's lame? The fact that people just don't dance, man. I mean, it's like we spend our whole lives being afraid and then one day, we die. That's just so sad. Know what I'm saying?"
Token Asian Friend in Bad Hat: "I'm totally picking up what you're laying down, nigga. Why don't we all go to the park after breakfast and just dance? Just like forget everyone and dance. Let's just totally let go and take it to anotha level. I bet if we do it long enough, everyone else will join in and it will be a big ironic party! I've a boom box and a pair of track pants upstairs. What about the rest of y'all? Y'all with me?"
...a bunch of college freshmen playing a boom box and self-conciously dancing while trying really hard to pass off their insecurity as irony. (The fact that I was standing four feet from them laughing and unabashedly taking pictures probably didn't help). It only took a glance to imagine the conversation that had been held minutes earlier at an NYU dorm cafeteria table that prompted this "happening."