FlamingText

Friday Night, Riding the 44

  Fate has conspired to put me in the position of having only one stocking cap that didn't get lost last winter -- I normally lose at least one as well as a scarf every year. The reason I didn't lose this particular one is because I never wear it, and the reason I never wear it is because it's too ridiculous for me to bring myself to wear in public. It was a costume piece in a play that I was in, and it has two enormous white ears sewn on the sides, meant to resemble monkey ears. Don't ask.

  So far my limited experience with the monkey hat has been that no sooner do I put the hat on than passersby commence with the staring. Not just amused glances either, but full-on no-holds-barred slack-jawed rubbernecking.

  So although the hat is without question warm and comfortable, that comfort comes at a price. In my own twisted fashion I accept this as The Way of Things, which is why I don't just cut the ears off and wear it like a normal stocking cap. That would be altering what was never meant to be altered. Besides, you never know when monkey ears will come in handy.

  The upshot is, tonight I find myself faced with the choice of freezing my ears off or looking like an idiot. A warm idiot. Freezing is coming out ahead. Were my own stoic salt-of-the-earth forbears to witness my predicament, they might well advise that the disapproving glances of others were character-building and accuse me of the sin of pride (still holding steady at number one on the Top Seven chart for the last seven hundred years!)

  Of course, if my stoic salt-of-the-earth forbears could see me, they might also point out that I look like a damn fool.

"You call that a hat?" they might say. "Here, try one of these numbers. Nice wide black brim. Keeps the rain off."

  For my own part I tend to see it as a kind of zen exercise in selflessness; Similar to the monks being entreatied to abase themselves by accepting menial positions or walking on all fours and barking like dogs in public, all in an effort to dissolve any sense of self-importance or identification with one's reputation.

"Why is your attention drawn to these ephemeral opinions?" the masters ask. "They do not concern you. Don the monkey hat of enlightenment and know true liberation."

  But I guess that I am still a long way from being that enlightened. No matter what I may tell you when I'm feeling all cocky about what an iconoclast I am, evidently I care a great deal about what other people, even strangers, think about me. Because so far, no matter how cold the wind blows, the hat has stayed in my bag. I have known pride and pride is a cold, cold feeling.
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  I can't tell if it's an accent or a speech impediment, but I can't understand a damn thing the bus driver is saying over the speaker. He sounds like Astro, the dog on the Jetsons. Every word starts with an "r", ends with an "r", and has several more "r"s in the middle. I am happy just to be on a heated bus. After standing at the stop for a half hour in the freezing wind, I realized I was waiting at the wrong stop and had to walk six blocks to get to the right one and then wait some more.

   Now that I'm warm my mood has improved a little, but when the guy in the seat next to me, who is trying to impress the girl he's with by talking an endless blue streak, informs her that Barbarella is a movie about a female vampire, I move to another seat. Because it will be easier for me to suppress my geek impulse to correct him every time he makes a factual error (no, cows do not have four hearts) once I'm out of earshot.
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  Not much can be said about the Guitar Toss. A room full of singers and strummers, probably a few too many sensitive songs about hard living and love gone wrong but also the guy who sings an acoustic version of "You Make Me Cream In My Jeans" and the bartender who dedicates a cover of Barry Manilow's "Mandy" to his brand-new wife, the unbelievably cute blonde who is working behind the bar with him tonight-- It is an oddly sweet moment, and I have had this song stuck in my head ever since. Damnit. At one point in the evening, somebody on stage asks if anybody has a pick and there is nearly a stampede as a room full of guitarists rush to provide him with one. The only way he could've gotten a similar response is if he'd asked if anyone brought their demo.

  The real fun of the evening happens at the end, where the mike is thrown open and all the now-drunken singers (yours truly included) start playing drunken covers of dumb pop songs, drunkenly. Good times. My friend Nance gives me a ride home, sparing me another round of the monkey hat dilemma. Thanks, Nance!

Posted by flamingbanjo at December 6, 2004 09:57 AM