Interlude.
"It's Not the Heat - It's the Humidity"
Upper middle class 20 something’s are a notoriously wavering bunch of misfits. This is a specific group of young men and women I’m talking about here. Wealthy enough to have not paid for college, poor enough to not have a legitimate trust fund; dashing enough to appear at an occasional party of social importance, derelict enough to sometimes succumb to flatulence in public; with enough spending power to go to that new trendy bistro on corner and unload 80 dollar on dinner, putrid and vile enough to stutter and lose social footing when trying to casually insert a Shakespeare reference into a conversation about the weather and such. With pitiful five figure salaries and the sudden shock of financial independence washing over them like a consuming blanket – they can at times fall into routs of poor decision making and generally unimpressive behavior. They often do not have Perfect 10 models on their arm when hanging out at bars but act with enough cocky grittiness to confuse one into thinking that they possibly should. They drink cocktails to legitimize their swagger and join fraternities at the age of 12. They go to summer camp in the foothills of some arbitrary southern state and feel remotely like actual men years later as a result. They foiled the myth of Santa Claus in the Easter Bunny before they could walk and rarely give change to homeless people simply on principle (even if they can feel the change that they do have cutting into their tightly clenched fists in the pockets of their 2000 dollar suits (the bills for which are reflected disarmingly and unwaveringly on their credit card statements)). There are about 23 million of this type of person living in America and I happen to be one of them.
Subsets of this surprisingly vast category of citizen do, of course, exist. A particularly special and misunderstood group of gentlemen and ladies are those who subscribe to the following set of characteristics. They flocked to urban mega-spheres immediately after completing undergrad in order to shed their sense of petty, small-town worthlessness. They live in Manhattan. They drink wine, but only to sober up after a weekend of repeated rounds of boilermakers, dead hookers, and forgotten details. They work in finance in some facet and, although they can think of 150 better and more desirable sounding jobs out there, they would be startlingly miserable in each one. These captains of industry drudge through long days, often for the sole purpose of being the last man standing in the office. At around 11 or 12 pm they like to sneak into the CEO’s mega-suite of an office. There they’ll set forth ballroom dancing in their underwear, for, according to their ill-informed pea brains, this is where they shall sit one day and they therefore supposedly deserve to undergo such forms of self-congratulation. They might even sign onto his computer and amuse themselves that way. One common tactic for this fitful minority of twenty something nitwits is to change the computer screen’s background to an image of gay porn. When they are able to calm the laughter that they immediately induce through this action, usually accompanied by tears of joy, they change it back to standard issue corporate one that formally stood there. Over at the family portrait that sits on an adjacent shelf, strategically angled toward the desk, they will often begin to make out with the two dimensional smiling image of his wife. For they will supposedly one day reap such spoils. They might have been already caught in the act of this midnight ritual once or twice – and it may be costing them a small fortune to keep shut the cute, supple mouth of the Venezuelan maid. There are about 12 million of this type of person living in America and I just happen to be one of them.
A certain and more specific group of these nerdly nobodies has to live with disappointed fathers who will never forgive them for not going into the military after college. Things escalated last Christmas for these doomed souls when they lashed out at the dinner table exclaiming “the navy is for queers!” They didn’t believe this statement that they had so inappropriately uttered but, rather, sought to shock their grumpy, cardigan wearing dads. Needless to say, they all ended up doing wall-sits for the entire night seemingly waiting for the mythical fat man in a red suit that they knew would fail to appear since they were in diapers. That such a figured exists in the modern world seemed improbable then and it seemed most preposterous at this most recent Christmas disaster –as our delinquent subset of America’s quadriceps collectively burned like the dickens. There are 4 million of this unfortunate type of person living in America and I just happen to be one of them.
“So what”, you say? “Tell me something I don’t know?” Sure we’ve all seen this dime-a-dozen group flaunt about through the streets of the city and burrow into their usual haunts. I’m sure I’m not telling you anything you didn’t already know. But what about me? In this innumerable bunch, what sets me apart from the millions of boarding school drop-outs who stole money from their parents to bankroll their xanax habit at the age of 14? As they say—and by “they” I mean treacherous plebites who have bigger pit stains in August than they do savings accounts—“It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity.” It’s not the predictable Christmas-time, family table outrage that I consistently perform that allows me to feel alive and distinguishable. And it certainly is not the kicks to the ribs that I deliver to those who I suspect attended public school. It, rather, has to do with the homeless mission that I set up. Most unpredictable, eh? I’ve finally figured out a way to give back instead of take, take, taking all the time. These hand-selected and hopeless individuals are taken into my studio workshop and are offered the promise of a 7-course meal at Brasserie in exchange for a small favor: three fully transcribed copies of the Illiad in three difference Romance languages. Ha. One guy, purely by chance, and only with the help of my gracious interpretation of his scribble, almost made it past the Incantation in Portuguese a couple of weeks ago. Splendid!
- The Barking Aristocrat
Upper middle class 20 something’s are a notoriously wavering bunch of misfits. This is a specific group of young men and women I’m talking about here. Wealthy enough to have not paid for college, poor enough to not have a legitimate trust fund; dashing enough to appear at an occasional party of social importance, derelict enough to sometimes succumb to flatulence in public; with enough spending power to go to that new trendy bistro on corner and unload 80 dollar on dinner, putrid and vile enough to stutter and lose social footing when trying to casually insert a Shakespeare reference into a conversation about the weather and such. With pitiful five figure salaries and the sudden shock of financial independence washing over them like a consuming blanket – they can at times fall into routs of poor decision making and generally unimpressive behavior. They often do not have Perfect 10 models on their arm when hanging out at bars but act with enough cocky grittiness to confuse one into thinking that they possibly should. They drink cocktails to legitimize their swagger and join fraternities at the age of 12. They go to summer camp in the foothills of some arbitrary southern state and feel remotely like actual men years later as a result. They foiled the myth of Santa Claus in the Easter Bunny before they could walk and rarely give change to homeless people simply on principle (even if they can feel the change that they do have cutting into their tightly clenched fists in the pockets of their 2000 dollar suits (the bills for which are reflected disarmingly and unwaveringly on their credit card statements)). There are about 23 million of this type of person living in America and I happen to be one of them.
Subsets of this surprisingly vast category of citizen do, of course, exist. A particularly special and misunderstood group of gentlemen and ladies are those who subscribe to the following set of characteristics. They flocked to urban mega-spheres immediately after completing undergrad in order to shed their sense of petty, small-town worthlessness. They live in Manhattan. They drink wine, but only to sober up after a weekend of repeated rounds of boilermakers, dead hookers, and forgotten details. They work in finance in some facet and, although they can think of 150 better and more desirable sounding jobs out there, they would be startlingly miserable in each one. These captains of industry drudge through long days, often for the sole purpose of being the last man standing in the office. At around 11 or 12 pm they like to sneak into the CEO’s mega-suite of an office. There they’ll set forth ballroom dancing in their underwear, for, according to their ill-informed pea brains, this is where they shall sit one day and they therefore supposedly deserve to undergo such forms of self-congratulation. They might even sign onto his computer and amuse themselves that way. One common tactic for this fitful minority of twenty something nitwits is to change the computer screen’s background to an image of gay porn. When they are able to calm the laughter that they immediately induce through this action, usually accompanied by tears of joy, they change it back to standard issue corporate one that formally stood there. Over at the family portrait that sits on an adjacent shelf, strategically angled toward the desk, they will often begin to make out with the two dimensional smiling image of his wife. For they will supposedly one day reap such spoils. They might have been already caught in the act of this midnight ritual once or twice – and it may be costing them a small fortune to keep shut the cute, supple mouth of the Venezuelan maid. There are about 12 million of this type of person living in America and I just happen to be one of them.
A certain and more specific group of these nerdly nobodies has to live with disappointed fathers who will never forgive them for not going into the military after college. Things escalated last Christmas for these doomed souls when they lashed out at the dinner table exclaiming “the navy is for queers!” They didn’t believe this statement that they had so inappropriately uttered but, rather, sought to shock their grumpy, cardigan wearing dads. Needless to say, they all ended up doing wall-sits for the entire night seemingly waiting for the mythical fat man in a red suit that they knew would fail to appear since they were in diapers. That such a figured exists in the modern world seemed improbable then and it seemed most preposterous at this most recent Christmas disaster –as our delinquent subset of America’s quadriceps collectively burned like the dickens. There are 4 million of this unfortunate type of person living in America and I just happen to be one of them.
“So what”, you say? “Tell me something I don’t know?” Sure we’ve all seen this dime-a-dozen group flaunt about through the streets of the city and burrow into their usual haunts. I’m sure I’m not telling you anything you didn’t already know. But what about me? In this innumerable bunch, what sets me apart from the millions of boarding school drop-outs who stole money from their parents to bankroll their xanax habit at the age of 14? As they say—and by “they” I mean treacherous plebites who have bigger pit stains in August than they do savings accounts—“It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity.” It’s not the predictable Christmas-time, family table outrage that I consistently perform that allows me to feel alive and distinguishable. And it certainly is not the kicks to the ribs that I deliver to those who I suspect attended public school. It, rather, has to do with the homeless mission that I set up. Most unpredictable, eh? I’ve finally figured out a way to give back instead of take, take, taking all the time. These hand-selected and hopeless individuals are taken into my studio workshop and are offered the promise of a 7-course meal at Brasserie in exchange for a small favor: three fully transcribed copies of the Illiad in three difference Romance languages. Ha. One guy, purely by chance, and only with the help of my gracious interpretation of his scribble, almost made it past the Incantation in Portuguese a couple of weeks ago. Splendid!
- The Barking Aristocrat
posted by Max Rays at 2:06 PM
1 Comments:
Wow... he must be a regular guest writer. I'd almost say he deserves an honorary position as a founding member of FBF, but that might be pushing it.
Post a Comment
<< Home