By Ross Barkan
So I’m on the J train speeding toward the Jewish white mother haven known as Bedford-Stuyvesant. (For all of you not in the know, this is called irony. Bedford-Stuyvesant is a neighborhood in Brooklyn filled with minorities. Minorities tend to be people with darker skin. Therefore, they are dangerous. Ever since Moses declared America to be the land of milk and milk and all the Indians mysteriously vanished in a freak boating accident, minorities have lived happily in their own neighborhoods where they can perform all the crazy free Jazz they want and not bother old white men who play chess in the park while exchanging tirades about their gay nephews). Sorry for that aside. I’ll begin again!
So I’m on the J train speeding toward Bed-Stuy (the hip, shortened version of that neighborhood name) on Saturday, February whatever. Who can remember? I had done a lot of drugs that day. By drugs I mean candy. And by candy I mean cat sleeping pills and ecstasy. Kidding. It could’ve been eight thirty. The plan was to meet Hankdawg, J-krunk, and CraigHeed, my best friends in the whole wide world except until I find friends who are friends with more female friends so I won’t be so alone, and go see some bands play at this place called Market Hotel.
Yeah, I was going to see music played in Brooklyn. I’m not a hipster. I’m just white. Huge difference. I’ll explain later.
Mistake number one I made: bringing my copy of Uncle Tom’s Cabin on the train and reading it out aloud to glowering black people. “Now Jim, walk like old Uncle Cudjoe, when he has the rheumatism,” I sang verbatim in the best southern dialect I could summon. Let me explain. I’m taking this class called Slavery in American Literature (300 level English whoah!) and I’m required to read this book for that class. Class is awesome, mostly because Patrick Ewing somehow got mentioned the other day and anytime Patrick Ewing of the Noo Yawk Knickabockahs (almost 1994 champs!) is spoken about, I get excited. My point is, I have poor judgment. My point is, this might not be true (I mean, the Ewing thing is true). My point is…god damn, don’t dance like you got the rheumatism for your fellow strangers. And don’t explain the politics of the 1840s south to people who just don’t care. Even if you think they look like someone who would know that the Compromise of 1850 was brokered by Henry fucking Clay.
Henry Clay! Think about that one, shitdicks.
The train stopped at Myrtle Avenue. I should mention I was going to see the headliner band that night, this surf-scuzz-fuzz-junk-hilofi-beach-jingle-jangle-wave-indie-pop-thing band called Surfer Blood. Surfer Blood hails from Florida and sounds like Weezer but don’t annoy the hell out of me. In fact, I think they’re good. Better than the things you like.
On the train I heard these crackers talking about how pumped they were to see Surfer Blood. Cool, I thought, and then checked out them sweet sweater titties on this one chick who had this tight, horizontal-striped sweater that only served to show off them bangin’ tittie balls. They was good. When the train stopped at Myrtle Avenue, I followed these punks off figuring they knew the right way to go.
Good thing I didn’t follow them. Like gay drunk little lambs, they wandered onto the M train across the tracks, clearly misguided. I almost hopped that very same train. Had I done that, this article would be over.
Unfortunately for you, according to the academic standards of the State of New York, I’m intelligent so I didn’t follow them that way. Another stream of hipsters led me down the stairs, across the street, and into the night.
Market Hotel is one of those “DIY” illegal venues that all the elitist assholes are hip to these days. Unless you know the number of Market Hotel’s door (and notice the line of hipsters about 20 deep outside) you won’t find it. From the outside, it looks like any other corrugated building, a squat inconspicuous hovel thing. Coppers and uncool kids ain’t supposed to find it.
After getting past the bouncer/guard, a human car trunk, I ascended the stairs, flashed my I.D. (NOT TWENTY ONE YOU CAN’T BUY OVERPICED PABST BLUE RIBBON [oh no!]) and entered just in time for the first band, San Francisco’s own The Morning Benders.
There was this guy with dreadlocks chattin’ up this hottie, all up in her plaid-shirted, ample-breasted grill. I pined for her. She was my one and only.
Uh, Morning Blenders or whatever were fine. Sounded like Asian Vampire Weekend. I only say this because the frontman was sorta Asian looking.
Next came Sonic Youth ripoff Grooms. They played like a cyclonic butthole. Good I guess.
Beach Fossils came to the party with guitars and drums. Bunch of pretentious goobers.
Man the dreads dude really was mackin’. What a bastard.
I digress, allow me to talk about FatMountainFlapjack. He was a fellow who attended the show and stood next to me. What can I say about FatMountainFlapjack? He was roughly between the ages of 11 and 24, a behemoth of a fatboy, clad in an oversized D.A.R.E t-shirt, bandana, and retardation. Clearly he had come to see the band playing before Surfer Blood, Turbo Fruits. I like to imagine FatMountainFlapjack, standing at a strapping six feet three inches and four hundred pounds, thinks a stick of chocolate-coated gum counts as some sort of deformed “turbo fruit” and is therefore nutritious. I dunno. He liked to dance, though. Oh lord, how he liked to dance.
The Human Screaming Orca Creature that was FatMountainFlapjack bobbed, waggled, swaggered and sweated through all the sets. Many times I tried to move, yet found myself somehow next to FatMountainFlapjack, despite my evasive maneuvers. He was like a star burning bright in a tub of vanilla lard.
He never shut up.
Oh yeah, music. Surfer Blood played well, all poppy and catchy and sing-along-y. You know, like bands that are good. They’re good. I’m a specific reviewer.
One more note: in the midst of Surfer Blood making good music, HankDog and co., who never actually made it to the show due to chronological errors by a Greek sorceress, were accosted on the streets of Bedford-Stuyvesant (by a white person—take that mom!). HankDog a.k.a. Henry Schiller of the Stony Brook Press (check the staff box) was punched in the back of the head for not really interfering in an argument between a deranged man and his lover.
Fun was had by all.
There were other hot chicks I didn’t talk to. That’s my way. I’m pretty sure FatMountainFlapjack took them all home for cream sodas and sex.
The world is a serious place.
