Drinking the Kool-Aid

When I was in high school, I went on a couple of trips to Ukraine to teach English. Or really, I went to snobbishly turn my nose up at their consumption of mayonnaise pizza and volunteer to be the trip "photographer" in order to avoid playing the team-building games.

Before these trips, I always stocked up on packets of Kool-Aid Pink Lemonade mix and Equal to fill up my water bottles and swallowed a lot of Pepto to protect my stress-addled stomach against any foreign entities in the water supply.

"You know, we don't even drink the water," I was later told by a Ukrainian native, mid-swig of my pink liquid.

THAT CAN'T BE GOOD.

My immediate thought: Chernobyl, of course! I fully cop to hypochondriacal tendencies, but you skeptics have to admit, picking up some radioactive elements over there is not totally out of the realm of possibility. So the radon, the fallout, it's still in me, six years later, for better or for worse, and there's nothing I can do about it.

I have been in New York for 11 months officially. My year comes up on September 21. And although I am far from a native Manhattanite, this city is in me, and I'm stuck with it, the New York essence if you will (and you will), forever.

The smells- decaying carcass (the 4, 5 at 59th St., I'm looking at you), chlorine (5th Ave. by Bendel's), or the much needed whiff of fragrant flowers outside a local neighborhood deli. The scars from pounding the pavement in unreliable shoes. The marks from mysterious bug bites. The extra girth from this, this, and sure, ok, this. New York is with me. I drank the Kool-Aid.

And I unabashedly feel like this:

I'll be headed down south in a few days for a long weekend catch up with my dear college friends. As delighted as I am for the trip, I know I will be racked with the nagging idea that I am Definitely Missing Out. 'What's going on up there?' 'What am I missing?'

Last time I visited, my friend embraced me and said, "I feel like I'm hugging a celebrity!" (And that was before this). Now I fear they are going to admonish me for my increased profanity slips and for hipchecking the undergrad in Kroger who was blocking my view of the peach Andre.

Almost Famous

she's such a charmer, oh no.

Today, a rather fashionable colleague of mine asked me where I was from while we waited at the same elevator bank. I told her; no surprise there. "Oh- accent?" I asked.  "No," she said, "you dress like a southerner." 

I certainly didn't have a Confederate flag backpack nor was I wearing a tattered Dollywood tee. How does a southerner dress anyway? Was it my coat? My shoes? I hadn't questioned my sartorial choices since well, last Thursday when I switched my floral flats out with my Chuck Taylors for the Kings of Leon (here on out, referred to as KoL) concert at Madison Square Garden to fit in with the effortless hipsters (oxymoron, right?).

While my friends imbibed $8.75 beer after $8.75 beer at the venue, I bebopped to the carefully honed riffs and Caleb Followill's (the lead singer) nonsensical growling with no buzz under my belt. I'm not saying some alcohol would have improved their muted, not in volume, performance, but maybe I would have enjoyed the concert more had, save the 2 taller individuals blocking my floor seat view, the Kings themselves had succumbed to the rip-roaring snarling and rabid hollering brought on by many an illicit substance. (The audience caught them sober or at least convincingly so; it's like a lunar eclipse or finding Cadbury eggs stateside after Easter, so rare is this). Madison Square Garden, as Caleb reminded us, performing there, well, it's a Big Deal, and the boys' anxiety inhibited what could have been an exceedingly stellar performance. I'm no enabler, but I wasn't swayed enough by the collective experience of hearing some of my most favorite songs with their eager fanbase. 

The 4 kings- 3 brothers, 1 cousin- have written their own backwoods mythology: sons of a preacher man, born in Tennessee, they leave the Pentecostal church once their father is defrocked for drinking, and now they pop bottles and date models.  Their story is gritty, intriguing, and beckons for a second listen, much like their product, indecipherable wailing against women, booze, et al. I've referred to their schtick, their reputation if you will, as a sailors on leave act: Every week is Fleet Week! And for all their devil-may-care bravado in tight pants, perhaps for all their excessive debaucheries, they really are rebelling against their ascetic past. But they're at their best when they're indulging in degeneracy, on-stage at least.

From the tiny towns of Tennessee to cosmopolitan European centers, the group is touring on the heels of their fourth album, struggling to gain a foothold over the American audience. This concert was a major make-it-or-break-it moment. Yes, MSG was filled to max capacity, and the casual fans who scalped tickets last minute are more fervent admirers now, but I would much prefer the snarling, sputtering group in a smaller venue where the boys can let loose and offer more commentary than "Thank you so much" six-times over.

Live: Kings of Leon Do MSG, to Their/Our Amazement [Time Out New York]

Please Join Us for Naptime & Mudpies Following the Ceremony

I recently made a lengthy drive during my time home. 8 hours. Twice. Desperate to find any interesting music, I scanned the radio, hardly able to find anything besides the perils of dastardly women and too much booze in the form of plucking country songs and conservative talk radio: "And on the 3rd day, God created the Remington-bolt action rifle so that Man could fight the dinosaurs and the homosexuals". It was very clear- this isn't New York.

There are several key differences between my home region and up here. The soundtrack of my daily transportation (on the subway, not in a car) is usually for the sole purpose of zoning out on the commute or instead, drowning out the homeless man accusing me of sexual impropriety.  But namely: I'm nearly 24 and not married, and up here, that is no anomaly. 'You're 30? Well, if you ever feel like getting around to it, I suppose...' (To my married friends, loveyoumeanit) But check out these precocious kiddos:

"Two German children- aged five and six- have been stopped by police from eloping to Africa to tie the knot in the sun, reports say. The budding love-birds, identified as Mika and Anna-Lena, packed bathing costumes, sunglasses and a lilo and headed for the airport."

Crisis averted: the kids drew the attention of police at the train station en route to the airport.

"Officers persuaded the children they would not get far without tickets and money, but consoled them with a free tour of the police station..."

I later recounted this anecdote to a friend from Georgia. Her response? "Dang. Those Southern Baptists don't have anything on them." (She's Methodist, bless her heart.)

Child Elopers' Africa Plan Foiled -BBC NEWS