New York Part 5: We're All Really Confused

Let me take a second to express even more gratitude to Alex and Meggo for helping me out this weekend. They were taking as much of a chance as I was, because who even knows how accurate these words on this site are to what I'm actually like. Even I don't know what I'm like. A lot of the time I was quiet, but a lot of that was because those two girls, no joke, have such a bond that when they get going all you can really do is watch. And here I am a spectator in their city.

But they kept saying, thank God, we were worried you'd be weird or something. So my main concern was whether I would live up to the hype. I told Alex I was trying to be the "best version" of myself, which is different from lying, because it's me, just minus whatever I don't wanna be. They asked if they should call me Scott now, but to them I'm Scotto.

After "brunch" -- really just lunch because the restaurant's brunch menu was only Sundays -- Alex had to split for a hair appointment and Meg and I went to Coney island. When I first started talking to her about "So what can I do when I'm down there?" She listed a lot of things, all of which interested me, but having to pick and choose I put Coney on top of my list. I was worried it was just some lame attraction that New Yorkers don't really care about, but everyone I talked to was really enthused that we went.

It reminded me of the CNE (Canadian National Exhibition, or the Ex,) because it has that old school midway atmosphere. I haven't been to the Ex in years because they charge wicked fucking admission, whereas Coney, you just load up a card with credits, and the credits needed per ride varies. And the Ferris Wheel takes cash. The other thing about the Ex is that it's only open for about two weeks at the end of August, meaning it's constantly full, and its mere existence is a reminder that summer is ending. The fact that it was September meant I could pay for a ride on the Cyclone and be seated in the span of minutes.

On the Ferris Wheel I mentioned my favourite book was about a serial killer in the Chicago World's Fair, which was where they built the first Ferris Wheel. They invented it to be the American equivalent of the Eiffel Tower, which has been the symbol of the recent Paris World's Fair. Imagine being the fist person to get on this fucking giant wheel. And Chicago's windy as hell, of course, so everyone's like "Is this thing gonna blow over and kill everyone or what?" But it turns out the designer, George Ferris, was not an idiot. I realize saying shit like that makes me sound like Ted from How I Met Your Mother, but that's how I am. Look, these posts are climbing up towards 6,000 words. I'm a wordy guy. I'm also interested in the way things come back and overlap. The next day when I was on my way to the bus, I passed by the Flatiron building, which was designed by Daniel Burnham, who designed the Chicago World Fair's White City.

Learning can be fun!

As we left, we passed by all the boardwalk games. Carnies kept offering to let me have a turn failing at their games. "Win or lose, the lady gets a prize!" I turned to her, and said, mock-enthusiastically, "Hear that? Win or lose!" "Well that's good," she replied, "Because with those things, you'll always lose." I think maybe the real prize was knowing she wasn't hosting a dude that would throw money away on rigged games to win shitty stuffed animals. Ever see Adventureland? "Nobody wins a giant-ass panda." The hat is glued on.

Coney was fun, but I might've thought twice if I knew getting back was gonna be an ordeal. I'm used to very basic public transit (like I said: the green line, the yellow line.) New York's is intricate, and apparently governed by insane troll logic when it comes to service changes. So although we could get a subway out there, we had to take a bus back. It uh... was not fun. It might've been a good time to get back to talking like people, but I think we were both pretty low energy. You spend a whole weekend with people, it happens. We eventually got back to Brooklyn and napped. Well, she napped, I read Cracked and ate leftovers from my backpack.
Then there was this party. The one I'd been coached on how to lie for. We stopped off for beer and headed up to this random neighborhood that looked vaguely like many I'd known in Toronto, with the downstairs and upstairs houses. We wait outside for a while, and I laugh to myself. "They do know I'm coming right?" Yes.

So we get in and everyone takes turns greeting this random Canadian dude Meg is pulling around. Typical responses included: "Toronto? I've been to Montreal" and "Toronto? It's very clean up there." One guy had been to Kingston of all places, on a camping trip. And some place so small I'd never even heard of it. "What have you done so far? How do you like New York?" etc etc. You worry about hostile or at best indifferent locals, but they were pretty enthused. Maybe because I had Meggo's approval. For a while I melted in the background drinking quietly, getting a feel for the atmosphere. There was some talk of politics, which I opted not to join in, because when you're in a foreign land the last thing you wanna do is argue with the locals about their politicians. Although at one point during the conversation, a girl turned to me and asked "What do you guys all think of us up there?" I smiled and answered cryptically, "We're all... very confused by you." That got a laugh: I think they got it.

I didn't mind fielding questions about my home and native land, as best I could. Over Lunch they asked "Hey, you've got free health care, right? What's that like?" I showed them my Health Card. "Haha, it's like a credit card for the doctor! Nice picture, too." Also, "So do you speak French?" French up here is like Spanish down there. You have to learn it from grade 4 to 9, then it's optional. I read it better than I speak it. There are French Immersion schools where classes are mostly taught in French.

There was talk of accents. Someone said the way I said "About" was very Canadian, which isn't quite true. The stereotypical Canadian accent pronounces it more like "A-boat," which I don't do as broadly as some people I know, especially from Northern areas. I do say "Sore-y" instead of "Sar-ry," though, for "Sorry." By the end of the night, I was explaining how I sometimes throw on a British accent at work to fuck with people. Another guy did his Liverpool, I did my generic. They challenged me to do Brooklyn. It needs work. One person, I noted, had a very mild, nondescript accent. Sorta midwestern amidst the sea of Brooklyners.

If I were writing comedy, or like a heartwarming sitcom, the whole scheme of lying would have been blown when I left a thread hanging and her friends pulled it apart, only to reveal the truth, with them being accepting after all and everyone learning a lesson about trusting each other. That wasn't likely to happen. The lie went off more or less without a hitch, except one guy who pressed for a bit more details. My plan was to deflect by saying I really didn't know the whole story, just that my mom went back a ways with Meg's, and that came into play when I decided I wanted to visit. It's flimsy, but I tried to sell it, then change the subject. Fortunately, by this point, I was quite inebriated and ready to go from quiet Canadian dude to preachy music geek, making declarations about certain bands' underrated catalogues... post-Pinkerton Weezer as my leading example. I don't know why, I don't tend to get so fixated on it in my normal life, but here was a chance to declare my overall reviewing philosophy. I talked long and loud about music with this one guy but aside from the Weezer thing I can't remember at all what was said. There was this other girl in on the conversation, and you know me, always eager to chat up the girls. I even passed up an opportunity to go inside with the ones who brought me to keep going, until inevitably the word "boyfriend" came up and I got dismayed. That's me. For whatever reason, I ended up talking with some other girl at the end of the night about sports. I don't really give a shit about sports, but when you're out of town, you find yourself calling up every scrap of available conversation. I like to go to parties where I only know one or two people. Like I said, any random thing could happen.

Beer after beer led us to the end of the night. A game of flip cup happened. The girls were really excited, and I was drafted despite being a rookie. I picked it up quickly. It's not rocket surgery. There was dancing and the girl whose birthday it was put on a playlist of Britney Spears and Black Eyed Peas, and I told the girls "If you're curious what my job is like, it's a 6-hour loop of this music." They expressed sympathy. It was an exaggeration, but it used to feel like that.
It was just so weird and cool that I happened to end up in New York City at this random-ass party like so many I've ever been to before. I guess they're not really used to backyards in Brooklyn, so they were weirded out by the constant sound of crickets. The night ended with me chucking a twenty at a cabbie and collapsing again on the air mattress, not bothering to correctly set the fixed sheet. Fixed sheets suck.

Keep on rockin'
-Scotto