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It is Saturday morning and once again I'm headed home on the 9:07, wearing the same clothes I wore last night. I take my compact out of my purse to check out my appearance and the reflection I see confirms my suspicion that I look like a girl who didn't go home last night. Ordinarily I wouldn't mind looking like this, so long as I have a good reason for it, particularly if the reason involves a guy. I have no such excuse this morning, however, so I sit silently, scrunched in my seat, trying not to draw any attention to myself. At least I'm not hungover, and that is the one thing I have working in my favor.
The train ride seems to last forever because I am left alone with my thoughts, having finished a book yesterday and having neglected to buy a magazine for the ride home. It's better this way, I think. I can reflect on the previous day's events, of the friends I saw and the shithead guy who still hasn't called. I try to remember his name but realize it's a lost cause, all of the names are beginning to blend together into an incomprehensible mass of Andys and Matthews and Georges, Pauls and Johns. I smile, thinking that if only I could find a Ringo than I would have dated all of the Beatles ... sort of. I finally recall that his name is Tom and I am somewhat amused that I am so upset that he hasn't called me even though I could barely remember his name. I begin to formulate a game plan and decide to call him later in the day. Somehow a completely unrelated thought pops into my head and I realize that today is the day of the giant tag sale. Being a sucker for tag sales and things more generally, I decide to go directly to the tag sale from the station. Do not pass Go, I think to myself and smile again, chuckling as well. This attracts the unwanted attention I so carefully tried to avoid. A middle-aged woman, sitting with what is presumably her young daughter, glares at me. It takes all of my restraint to remain quiet and keep my notoriously big mouth shut.
As my stop approaches and I gather my bag and the remains of my muffin, I see that the morally superior mother is apparently a fellow resident of my affluent suburban hometown. I fix my gaze on her and flash her a triumphant smile, as if to say, That's right, your daughter will be a tramp someday, just like me. Little does she know that although I slept with someone last night, the person I slept with was a female friend from high school, and all we did was sleep. This thought amuses me and my walk takes on a prancing quality as I head to my car. I open the door, get in, and start the ignition as quickly as possible, because despite the unusually lovely weather, the car is freezing from having been outdoors overnight. I turn the radio on, turn up the volume, and open the windows because it is warmer outside than it is in my car. My thoughts turn to the tag sale and I am filled with hope and curiosity, feelings with which I am not terribly familiar. Somehow the simple idea of the tag sale fills me with more optimism than anything else, because I never know what to expect and what I might find. Who knows what treasure may be sitting on a folding table, underneath old sets of chipped teacups and dishrags, buried beneath dirty, discarded children's toys, or next to a plastic Christmas tree? The sheer element of not knowing what to expect makes me drive quickly, find the closest parking space and sprint up the long flight of cement stairs to the sale.
When I enter the main room I am not disappointed. The tag sale is held in a local community center in a very large room that is more often used for banquets and sweet sixteen parties. The tag sale is, as always, a veritable wonderland of junk. I grab a cardboard box from underneath a table to begin collecting my dubious treasures. I spy three glass sundae cups, just the sort one might find in a cheesy retro diner. I inspect them for cracks or chips, and finding nothing wrong with them I place them gently in my box. Out of the corner of my eye I see a glass cake stand, but I do not move to the other side of the table to investigate further. And besides, it is too large to carry around--I just got here, after all! I walk to the jewelry table and begin to paw through buckets of plastic beaded necklaces, gold-plated earrings, rhinestone broaches, and other equally hideous adornments for the necks, earlobes, fingers, and wrists. I move to the adjacent table and add a few more glasses of varying shapes and sizes to the box. I nearly run over someone in my haste to reach the electronics table. I look up and realize that it is an old friend from high school, a girl named Meredith. She has not found anything and, noticing my struggle to keep my overflowing box from falling to the ground, volunteers to act a personal shopper of sorts and help me find and hold things.
It is shortly after we reach this agreement that I see the cake stand again, but this time I really see it. It is made of clear, uncolored glass, with a flower design etched into it that reminds me of my grandmother's plates. I pick it up gingerly, fearing that I might break it because it appears to be delicate and I my clumsiness is well-documented. I inspect the cake stand thoroughly and find that, despite a few ancient chocolate cake remnants, it is in excellent condition. Meredith and I discuss the merits of owning a cake stand. She sees no reason for me to purchase it, especially since at twelve dollars it is one of the pricier non-furniture items at the tag sale. Her rational response does not sway me. I am inexplicably attracted to this item, largely because I adore things and particularly things that others find useless and obsolete. This cake stand is not old, or particularly well-made, or even distinctive. I am in fact quite certain that I could purchase just such a cake stand at a housewares store, though it would cost a bit more. I am intrigued by this thing and begin to conjure uses for it. I could put nail polish bottles on it, or picture frames, even. It's a decorative item, not only a functional one. And someday, I will probably use it for its intended purpose, to hold cake or other baked goods.
As I say aloud that "I am only 22, what on earth do I need a cake stand for?" I see a flash of light in front of me. A photographer from a local paper is photographing Meredith and me as we discuss possible uses for the cake stand. The photographer shoots a few more frames, takes our names, and then leaves us alone to browse. I decide that I cannot live without the cake stand and Meredith places it in another cardboard box. We continue to peruse the items for sale but I begin to concentrate less on our conversation and more on the cake stand. Five minutes after deciding to carry it around I am convinced that it is a completely necessary purchase and I wonder how I have lived for 22 years without a cake stand of my own. In the next moment I realize that I sound completely obsessive and not a little insane and I am glad I have not said any of my recent thoughts out loud.
We dig through boxes of fabric scraps and old handbags, look at tables piled high with cheap flower vases and mismatched china sets and decide to check out. Two women ring up my purchases and comment on the beauty of the cake stand. I politely thank them and smile, thinking about clearing a space for it on a counter in my room. Meredith and I begin to walk down the steps toward my car and all I can think about is how glad I am that caught the early train home from the city, how lovely this morning has been and how it must bode well for the remainder of the day. I decide to abort my prior plan to go home and go back to bed in favor of washing the cake stand and my other purchases from the sale and finding places for them.
I am lost in my reverie when suddenly there is a crash from behind me and the unmistakable sound of breaking glass. I turn around and see Meredith, her hands empty, the cardboard box on the rough cement steps, and shards of glass scattered about. I look into my own box, filled with the sundae cups and some odd vases and realize that the cake stand was in Meredith's box , the same box that is now filled with broken glass on the ground. The reality of what has just happened hits me only when I hear an elderly woman click her tongue and say "Oh, now that's such a shame. How awful." Meredith is visibly distraught and offers to pay me for the value of the broken items. I decline her offer and tell her not to worry about it, it's just a bunch of junk, right? We manage to clean up the glass fairly well and I carry what's left to my car. I say good-bye to Meredith and order her not to worry as I get into my car.
I am proud of myself for putting on a good show for Meredith and concealing my disappointment about the cake stand. All of the hope and good-feeling I have possessed all morning has been annihilated and I wonder why I let myself feel optimistic about the tag sale and about the prospects for my day. Things in my life always end in the same way, with dashed hopes and dreams that shatter as quickly and easily as my cake stand. The pain is made more acute when I remember that I was photographed with the ill-fated cake stand and undoubtedly that photograph will appear in tomorrow's paper. I will then have a tangible, permanent record of my crushed hope. I will keep a copy in my wallet to remind me that things don't work out so I should abandon optimism at all costs. At least this way I won't be disappointed again.
In an act of bold and ill-advised military aggression, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld declared war on Prussia today, citing King Frederick William's recent attacks on Alsace-Lorraine.
"King Frederick William clearly has no regard for the conventions of modern warfare and statesmanship. The vicious Hun must be stopped now!" Rumsfeld said today in a surprise press conference. "This unprecipitated annexation of Alsace-Lorraine represents little more than the Hun's limited potential of understanding and civilization."
Today's announcement is another in a long line of declarations by the aging defense secretary. In February, Rumsfeld ordered naval forces into the Indian Ocean to enforce an embargo on the reputed Ceylon-Siam alliance which has been fomenting for several years and later that same month, he sent troops into Rhodesia to quell a "Hottentot uprising."
When phoned for comment, retired Senator Bob Dole was unavailable, "attending a Brooklyn Dodgers game," according to wife Elizabeth.
"Civilization must be defended and our great ally France must be defended against Prussian aggression. If we do not act now, these acts of brutality could one day precipitate a Great War, ending in a petty, vindictive armistice which would only result in a more brutal war several years on. Like sawing off a mini-ball damaged leg, military action now can and will prevent greater damage down the road."
President Bush and House Speaker Dennis Hastert, who alone have the power to declare war, declined to comment on Secretary Rumsfeld's news conference. However, Vice President Cheney was spotted outside Rumsfeld's home, "dropping off Don's Social Security check and returning the Matlock video collection" he had borrowed from him.
We called him the Eyeball Kid because he was a cyclops. He didn't
mind. We all go along well enough at Enfield Middle School, and he was
no exception among the seventh graders. His eye wasn't big or
disproportioned in any way, like they show us in the movies, and he didn't
have a horn protruding from his forehead. Nothing like that. Just one
normal eye, smackbull center over the bridge of his nose. He had two
eyebrows though, and when the Eyeball Kid got angry or excited, they
would arc over his eye, giving the impression that it had hairy wings.
None of the kids really teased him about it, and he didn't seem to have
any problems with it. The only drawback for him was a poor sense of
depth perception.
Jimmie Spencer, Brian Hanshaw, the Eyeball Kid, and me ran out of the
woods as fast as we could without tripping over rocks and gnarled tree
roots. The park ranger was fat and out of breath, so we didn't have much
trouble losing him as we splashed through the Wissahickon, climbed the
hill to the back of the Taco Bell parking lot, and rode our bikes out of
there.
The park ranger didn't like kids who wasted their summer before eighth
grade experimenting with poorly rolled marijuana cigarettes.
Safely in the Kid's back yard, we rested a while until boredom set in. Mrs.
Bratton brought out some red Kool-Aid and ham sandwiches on white
bread with yellow mustard.
"Does anyone feel anything?" asked Brian.
"No," I said.
"I can't tell," said Jimmie.
"J.P.'s stuff is no good. He ripped us off," said the Eyeball Kid.
We all looked at each other in question of what to do about it. J.P. was in
high school and sold to the junior high kids who didn't know any better.
He had long greasy brown hair, shaved on the sides and back, and
always wore a black Metallica t-shirt with the sleeves torn off, displaying
his homemade India ink tattoos.
"We'll try again later," said Jimmie, "I think the ranger was just a
buzzkill. J.P.'s okay, my brother knows him."
"Whatever, let's go swimming," the Eyeball Kid said.
We agreed, as it was sticky hot on this August afternoon, 1991.
On cold January 14th, 1978, Greg and Leslie Bratton squeezed hands as
Leslie bit down and birthed their sixth child, little Josephine Bratton, who
as it happened, was born with only one eye and soon renamed Joseph.
Naturally, everyone in the delivery room was shocked. One of the nurses
fainted and cracked her head on the tiled floor. She later sat in the
nurses' lounge, relaxing on an orange padded couch, smoking a cigarette
and holding an ice pack on the swollen back of her head. She exhaled
thick clouds in front of the wall-mounted television set while Letterman
introduced the next Stupid Pet Trick.
Most of our summer was spent running from park rangers and flirting
with girls at the Flourtown Swim Club. It had a snack bar with hot dogs,
grilled cheese, sodas and candy. We spent our money on the candy,
buying Whatchamacallits, Peanut Chews, Starbursts and Skittles. The
swimmers were mostly kids and a few senior citizens. Every two hours, the
old people had thirty minutes of uninhibited Adult Swim, free from oily
hormonal adolescents. During these times, we would sneak cigarettes
under pine trees by the lower fence behind the pool, and played Truth or
Dare with girls. It was here that I saw my first budding breast, and
touched another tongue with my own.
The Eyeball Kid and Jimmie were making out with Charlotte Henderson
and Becky Stewart when Brian and I ducked under the pine needles to
lean against the fence and share a Marlboro. Jimmie was a wise-ass, a
cute and freckled Irish kid that girls didn't necessarily like, but always
acquiesced and made out with him. Brian was tall and gawky, his feet
were too big, he had pimples, and by that summer more facial hair than
some men. Girls didn't like him so much. I was short, wore glasses and
braces, and had legs almost as hairy as Brian's. I handled the girls just
as poorly as he did. Only in forced group activities like Truth or Dare and
Spin the Bottle did the two of us ever have any fun. The Eyeball Kid was a
natural. Just as many girls went for him as they did Jimmie, except he
didn't have to con them. Among the popular and cutest girls, led by Becky
Stewart, he was considered a prize catch.
Greg and Leslie Bratton were, of course, upset. The doctors reassured
them that their child was fine. His vision was intact, and he didn't seem
to have any other physical defects. They said he would need loving and
caring parents if he was to live a normal life. Greg and Leslie, good
Christian people, vowed to love little Joseph just like their other
children.
He would have a good life. They would raise him no different than Jane,
Jarred, Jill, June and Frank. Little Joseph was never made to feel
abnormal or different in any way. If anything, his parents were firmer with
him so he wouldn't feel pampered, and the other children wouldn't protest
them playing favorites. They explained to him that he didn't need two eyes
when one was better. He was a happy child.
"I don't have a light," Brian said.
"Either do I. Ask Jimmie."
"Jimmie, you got a light?"
Jimmie was busy inhaling Charlotte Henderson's face. He waved us
away with one hand, the other octopussed up her shirt. Charlotte let out a
muffled squeal. They pressed against the cyclone fence. We shook our
heads and crinkled our noses.
"Ask the Kid," I said.
"E.K., you got a light?"
The Eyeball Kid stopped talking to Becky Stewart and looked over at us
with his one, penetrating eye, its hairy-wing eyebrows poised for flight.
He said something to her, turned to us, stood up from the base of a pine tree,
and walked over. He produced a lighter and lit the Marlboro for us. He
then lit one of his own.
"You guys know how Becky always rides that horse of hers?"
"Yeah," we said.
"Her dad sold it to the barn where she rides."
"So?" Brian said.
"So, she said that made her really sad, and she would do anything to get
Wally back."
"Who's Wally?" I asked.
"The horse, dumbass. She said if she got to see her horse just one
more time, she would be much happier."
"So what?" I said.
"So, she said if she wasn't in a bad mood, she's be much friendlier."
"Third base?" said Brian.
"That's what I'm thinking."
"Well, what are you gonna do?" I said.
"Steal the stupid horse."
The Eyeball Kid's parents were instructed to watch him carefully for any
sings of mental retardation during his formative years. He spoke his first
word at fourteen months, March 23rd, 1979, suddenly blurting out
"facetious" while stacking some blocks on Greg and Leslie's maroon
shag living room carpet. He didn't seem retarded. His next words were
"gregarious" and "cauliflower." "Momma" and "Dada" weren't uttered until
a few weeks later, and by that time, the Kid was forming sentences.
He was faster at long division than anyone in the third grade, and when it
came to the multiplication tables, he knew up to fourteen times fourteen
by heart. He wasn't a nerd, though the teachers all loved him as a
student. He didn't whine, and he was good in gym class. He could
out-run all but one other boy, who had longer legs. He wasn't as good at
baseball or football, because of his poor depth perception, but he was a
whiz on the track team and went district for junior high wrestling in
seventh grade. The coach said by eighth, he might make State.
I was munching on a juicy lemon Starburst by the snack bar. Adult Swim
was over, and the other three were already racing under water. It was
nearing dinner time, and most of the old ladies had removed their bathing
caps and aimed for their cars. I leaned against the snack bar counter and
laid my elbow in a squirt of mustard. I was wiping it on the wall when
Becky Stewart and Charlotte Henderson bought two grilled cheese
sandwiches. They laughed at my yellow elbow and came over.
"Do you know how sweet your friend is?" Becky said.
"Who, the Eyeball Kid?"
"Joseph is the nicest person. He said he wouldn't rest until I got my
horse back."
"Aawww," said Charlotte.
With that they left me, so I went to the cement edge of the pool and looked
for a good place to cannonball. Brian swam over and hoisted himself
halfway out of the water, perched on his extended arms.
"We're gonna smoke another joint then eat dinner at the Kid's."
The Eyeball Kid and Jimmie silently slipped behind him. I saw but didn't
let on. Quickly, the Kid grabbed Brian's swimming trunks and yanked
them down. As he did this, I stepped on Brian's hands, halting his
escape. Jimmie smacked his ass rosy red. The life guard blew his
whistle, so we released Brian and left for the woods behind Taco Bell.
The following morning around ten o'clock, Brian, Jimmie and I met and
rode our bikes to the Eyeball Kid's house. His mother opened the door
and let us in. We went to his room and found him in bed with his face
wrapped in gauze, bandaged. His eye was at half-mast and foggy. He
didn't look well. The sun streaked across his bed, and I thought he might
be dying.
"What the hell happened?" Jimmie said.
The Eyeball Kid shook his head groggily, slowly folded back his sheet
and sat up.
"Wally bit my nose off."
"Who's Wally?" Jimmie said.
"A horse," I said.
"How'd that happen?" asked Brian.
"I was trying to steal it for Becky Stewart."
"But how'd it bite your nose off?" he asked.
"Poor depth perception," the Kid said.
"Oh. Whoa."
His mother came in and asked us to leave, Joseph was in pain and
needed his rest. We told him sorry, feel better, and left the house in
amazement. We rode our bikes to the pool. We didn't see the Kid for the
last two weeks of summer, but word of what had happened spread fast.
Some were shocked. Some thought it funny. I wasn't sure how I felt.
In the first grade, Jimmie still wet his pants, and Brian ate paste
regularly. I puked Apple Jacks on a substitute teacher more than once. We saw the new kid at recess, standing by the swings. He only had one eye. A few
boys and girls had already flocked around him. We went over and asked
why he only had one eye. "One's all I need." After school that day, we
went to his house to watch cartoons and have a pillow fight. In the second
grade, a fat kid named Francis teased him about his eye, and pushed the
Kid around. He didn't back down, and actually beat the fat kid, who
stopped bullying anyone for the rest of that year. We cheered for the
Eyeball Kid.
That September in eighth grade, after an especially humid August, the
Kid showed up at school with a prosthetic nose. He showed us how the
doctors implanted metal buttons on his face and how the nose snapped
on and off. It was made of pale, tan rubber. Wally had left him with a
gaping nasal cavity.
Girls began to giggle when they passed him in the hallways. Boys
neighed like horses in the cafeteria, wrote "freak" and "Mr. Ed" on his
locker. Once, Jimmie and Brian neighed.
The Eyeball Kid sat at an empty cafeteria table one day. I looked at him
from where I sat with Jimmie, Brian, Charlotte Henderson, Becky Stewart
and some other kids. He was looking at me. I looked down at my fish
sticks and orange Jell-O cubes.
In high school, Jimmie and I smoked in the parking lot with different
groups and Brian joined the basketball team. No one talked to the
Eyeball Kid, even the AV nerds. After tenth grade he stopped coming to
school. I didn't notice his absence for a while, but when I asked around,
the fat kid, Francis, told me he'd dropped out and joined a circus. Brian,
Jimmie and I graduated, went to different colleges, found different jobs,
and eventually we all moved back to the old neighborhood to raise
families. We get together for holidays and our kids' birthdays.
Sometimes, I see the Kid's mother at the supermarket, her cart full of red
Kool-Aid, white bread and yellow mustard.
The general reaction upon hearing that the Residents were coming February 13th to the State Theatre in Falls Church, Virginia: "Holy shit, THE Residents? At the State Theatre? In Falls Church? For real? Why?" You see, the State Theatre is typically a venue for worn out nostalgia acts like the Jefferson Starship, 50s sock hop revues, and one-hit wonders from the 60s. Not legitimately cool cult favorites like the Residents. My friends and I felt somewhat blessed through our general bewilderment that the Residents were making Falls Church the home of their DC-area concert stop. I was a relatively new and uneducated Residents fan, but what I knew and had heard I liked, and I really wanted to see them.
Some mandatory background on the Residents, those of you who know everything can skip to the next paragraph. There are pages and pages of mythology and rumor surrounding the Residents, but I’m going to keep it really simple here: The Residents were formed in the late 60s, they have made a whole bunch of groundbreaking, experimental records and short films, yet have remained completely anonymous the whole time. Your dad could be in the Residents and you probably wouldn’t know. They have a devoted underground following. They wear funny costumes: 3 tuxedo- and top hat-wearing eyeballs named Mr. Blue, Mr. Green, and Mr. Brown, named according to iris color, and the skull-headed Mr. Skull who growls a lot. The title of this review came from the first distinguishable sentence he sang that evening. For more info, go to www.Residents.com.
And now back to the show. The crowd that evening would be best described using a friend’s assessment of the folks at a Wilco show: "There are a lot of horn-rimmed glasses and masters degrees here." I was surprised by the age diversity of the crowd, I’d say most people were in their early-to-mid 30s, and there were some major long-term Residents devotees. The evening began with Mr. Blue coming out, opening the Residents new DVD, Icky Flix, a remastered compilation of all their music video experiments (some of which are in the permanent collection at the Museum of Modern Art), and pretending to put it in a player. There was a large movie screen above the stage, and the Icky Flix video menu soon popped up. Throughout the evening, the Residents would take song requests from the audience (including the mandatory dumbass yelling "Free Bird!"), ignore them, pick a different video, and then play along to it, ultimately covering most of the disc. For lack of better adjectives, it was pretty damn cool.
The set consisted of translucent screens (slightly obscuring the opaque-masked Residents) surrounded by chasing rope lights, as well as swirling overhead light effects in changing colors, and lots and lots of blacklights. It reminded me of a high school friend’s basement make-out room, minus the Alice in Chains music in the background. There were four Residents, Mr. Skull (bedecked in a halo of 10 light-up bug antenna balls) in as fine a voice as ever, plus a female vocalist, Molly Harvey, who lent an interesting slant to their cover of James Brown's "It's a Man's Man's World." And her outfit, which consisted of a fluorescent pink wig and a sequined dress with a slit that started and never really stopped, undoubtedly facilitated some much-needed wood to the throngs of software manual writers in attendance.
Going to a Residents show is like visiting the quadruplet love children of an improbable union between Captain Beefheart, Laurie Anderson, and Fred Astaire. You're never quite sure what's going on, but it's got style and you like it. If you were a big eyeball or your head was a black skull, you'd wear a tux too, admit it.
But I digress. Playing largely new versions of old songs along to your music videos is no easy task, especially if you make the kind of music and short films the Residents do. They played material spanning a 30+ year career, and it became hard to judge the songs separately from the visual images. There were videos with such diverse subject matter as babies, red jell-o, and men in newspaper suits. "One Minute Movies" consisted of four one-minute songs sandwiched together and combined with four terrifically surreal videos. Other films flashed phrases like "sperm snot" and various things you definitely don't want coming out of your nose. Bad Day on the Midway, looking like the video for Dire Straits "Money for Nothing" gone terribly wrong, was an entertaining example of the Residents’ early CD-ROM animation experiments. There was also a cover of Renaldo and the Loaf’s (a British duo of similar sound to the Residents) late-70s song and video, "Songs for Swinging Larvae." One of the highlights was a first-rate fusion of "Third Reich and Roll" with "We Are the World."
I had the weirdest dreams that night. Overall, the show proved to be the perfect multimedia mix of live performing and video art. The Residents’ performance enhanced the visual images, the visuals enhanced the Residents’ performance, neither overwhelmed the other. A reviewer once wrote that surrealist filmmakers like David Lynch could learn a lot from the Residents. I’d have to agree after that evening. I’m far from being a Residents purist, able to thoroughly dissect every song, but I usually know when something’s good, and this was good. It was performance art done right, the rare triumph of art school that challenges the audience and pushes boundaries without starting to reek of bullshit. Encase these tuxedoed guys in plexiglass, ship 'em off to the Guggenheim, and invite Rudy Giuliani to the opening. Viva los Residents!