July 2009 Archives

I'm slowly swimming through the finishing stretch of this internship and the stifling humidity and tropical storms that are accompanying it. This week has been particularly agonizing so far, maybe because I'm still missing that mad rush of Boosh-related excitement. Also, my birthday was kind of a let-down. I'm immensely grateful to the friends and family who sent me their fantastic, thoughtful gifts, cards, phone calls, and texts, and to April, who bought me a lovely dinner and kept me company. However, it's kind of disheartening how many of my friends only remembered my birthday in the past because of its former, more prominent position on Facebook's news feed page. This year I got a weird, abbreviated mix of well-wishes, about half of which are from people I almost never speak to. Frowns.

Anyway, I'm 21 now. Today I finished off the beer Leo bought for me, so I guess I'll have to start buying my own alcohol. What a bother. It's very hot and humid, and I'd have to walk all the way across Union Square and then some to get to Trader Joe's wine shop. I might not even bother until I get back to Ann Arbor, where I can buy lots of cheap Meijer booze.

So really just about one more week of this internship to go, and then I'll finally be able to leave New York, breathe clean air, and feast my ears on some good, wholesome silence. The entire experience has left me doubting whether or not I'm suited for city life. I'd probably have to give living here some more time to know for sure. As I've been forced to repeat over and over this summer, I'm not in any position to be choosy about where I end up after college. This economy is taking no prisoners. I will have a job. AS GOD IS MY WITNESS, I SHALL HAVE A JOB.

Once again forgive the ENORMOUS TIME LAPSE between the previous entry and this one. I haven't been enormously busy, but I just haven't gotten around to blogging. I'm going to attempt to atone for this by writing a detailed account of my adventure yesterday going to see British comedy duo/troupe The Mighty Boosh perform for the first time ever in the U.S.

Through the magic of Twitter, I found out (via Rainn Wilson) early last week that the Mighty Boosh had a Twitter account for their impending arrival in America for Comic-Con to promote the release of their show on DVD. Last Friday, the Boosh tweeted that they were going to have a free New York show on Tuesday, and I basically flipped out. I had recently watched Nathan Barley (which happens to feature both Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding) and been thinking about MB, so the timing seemed really spot-on. Over the weekend, I re-watched the entire series, as well as their live show and a variety of other related content. By the time Tuesday rolled around, I was bursting with excitement.

Fellow intern Stephanie and I had bonded over "Old Gregg" quotes earlier in the summer, so I invited her to come to the show with me and she enthusiastically agreed. We skipped lunch on Tuesday and left work early, taking the B train down to the Bowery Ballroom. Doors weren't until 9:00, but there was already a fair-sized line when we got there at 5. Oh, did I mention it had been raining all day? It had been. And it continued to, on and off, while we waited. We entertained ourselves playing 20 Questions and at around 8, they handed out wristbands and let us down into the Ballroom's basement bar/corral, where we sat around for another hour. At 9 we were let upstairs into the auditorium. It was a fairly small venue, not a whole lot bigger than the Blind Pig, and we ended up near the middle of the audience, naturally behind a group of taller-than-average men.

After another hour or so of standing around, the boys finally appeared, to the ecstatic, semi-hysterical cheers of the audience (including me). They were for sure a little bit taken aback by our fervor and enthusiasm, and several times jokes were interrupted when they got distracted by crazy fan behavior. For example, Noel had to stop in the middle of his explanation of "Pelt the Rabbit in His Big White Face" to comment on the girls in the front row who were caressing his feet.

Once the audience calmed down a tiny bit, though, they got going. The gig was a combination of some of the stuff from their live show with a few songs from the TV show, including "Pies," "Eels," "Isolation," "Jean-Claude Jacquettie," "Naboolio," "Married on the Morrow," "Nanageddon," some dance instruction from Bob Fossil (followed by why he doesn't like cricket), and probably some other stuff that I've forgotten, interspersed with some special messages from The Moon.

The second half of the night consisted of the DJ-ing/dancing time that this entire event was actually advertised as. Michael Fielding and Dave Brown spun some tunes and danced around a little, but it took awhile to get the audience into it, seeing as we had waited in line for hours to see the Boosh, not to dance to Pop-Rock. The crowd thinned out a little. Noel Fielding came out a little near the end to dance and some people (mostly girls) near the front rushed the stage. He encouraged it and helped some more up to dance/take pictures with/kiss/be kissed by him, thus making a lot of nerdy hipster girls' fantasies come true. I wasn't near enough to the front/rabid enough to get in on that action (though if Julian Barratt had been up there too, I might have been).

Eventually the bouncers got kind of upset and made everyone clear out. I headed home, ate something, and essentially collapsed. Pretty awesome altogether. I hope they come back around America way again soon and do a proper show. Like, with seats and everything.