You Arrogant Bastard

COC/SFT2K3 Vol. 2: Hooray for Harlem

Well I guess my plan to produce a day-by-day play-by-play of my stay-train-stay Skullfuck tour was foolish like the dog. How am I going to update this blog frequently- while out of town, at that- if I can't make videotape copies that were ordered eight months ago? Anyway. I'll do a day's summary here in a brief, easy to chew entry. It'll be the taquito of weblog entries.

I left NYU with good impressions... I certainly wouldn't mind treading the squeaky wooden floors of their film school for the next four years. Fuck the naysayers who complain about the lack of a campus. It's school, not summer camp. Plus there's Washington Square Park, and that city block has more culture than 10,000 Palo Altos. Of course, by culture, I mean bisexuals. I trained it up to Harlem to check out the haughtier of my two NYC destinations. Fortunately I wasn't the only one carrying two bags, so I didn't get all those "He's the only one carrying two bags!" looks. When I was waiting for the train, two undercover cops were accosting any foreigners in the station; they would literally push them up against the wall and demand ID. Thats the price we pay for a terrorism-free nation, I suppose.

Anyway, I got up to the Columbia campus, where your Alex Baumel was waiting for me. I hung around with his crew, grabbed some dinner at his posh dining hall (motherfucking wood paneling), sat around in his dorm room. Things didn't really pick up for a while... he hit on a British girl, I watched. He made some suave hand motion, I watched and tried to remember it. He turned on the TV, I sat down. At least they still watch the Simpsons at college. I figured they would listen to it on some huge gothic radio, or something like that. Or just read the scripts in the form of some huge dusty tome. You know the channel number assignments in New York are almost identical to the DC ones? It felt like home, except for the really shitty room I was in. Student lounge my ass. Two couches (cushions unremovable) and a TV stand. Where was the squash court? Where was the gothic computer lab? Or the huge pipe organ? I'm not sure whether I expected a college or a big haunted house. I wish it was haunted though, shit. Any haunted college would get my 40,000 in an instant. Everybody would get flashlights and a notepad. The classes could be like "Finding Ghosts 101" or "Introduction to Opening Creaky Doors" or "Seeing a live fruit bat and shitting myself."

At any rate, the cushions were unremovable. That's what really matters. But even though Baumel had completely forgotten I was coming up, he managed to scrounge up an air mattress from his friend. Good thing he had friends, Lichman. I couldn't count on the ambiguous roommate this time, he had a single room. I kind of hope I don't wind up in a single room next year. I've really gotta kick this habit. Nothing collapses a tent like men walking around near it, if you know what I mean. The room was small but comfortable. I had this great idea of putting up a big DC flag on the wall- something about this town makes me love to be from there when I am somewhere else. One day later I would find out I was not the first person to think of that. Fucking Yalies. Bested again. But I think I'll quote Zack De La Rocha on my DC flag in big block letters, "Riot: motherfucking DC!" Hell of a show that was. Well, I spent the rest of the night watching the Yankees/Red Sox game (which gives you an idea of how late I am in posting this entry) with Alex and his stoned-out RA, and the heads that would drop in and out to say clever things like "This game reminds me of [intelligent phrase]," or "I'll see you in the quad." I thought they were coming onto me but it turns out they were talking to Alex. Also, the quad is an outdoor field, so you could imagine how heartbroken I was. We slipped out after the game to pick up some bagels and legendary three dollar hyperslice pizza. The pizza, for its size, was remarkably crispy, and you already heard me talk about the bagels. Ran into an interesting homeless guy--- my theories have been made clear, but this is just more evidence, the more refined the area, the more refined the hobo. He was a crazy fucker though. Asked us for "food." We call it crack in DC.

Again, I'll have to say, fuck the naysayers. If I can spend my weekends on U Street, I can spend my year on the outskirts of Harlem. Though I was disappointed not to see any of the intense rich-kid drug consumption of lore, I enjoyed myself. There was an Indian guy and a guy with a yellow shirt, it was all good. I slept well on my air-bed. Man, technology is great. That unabomber didn't know what he was missing. In the morning I toured, which was good. Probably the best tour I would take all week. A frail jew led it, so I felt like I was in control. Subterranean health facility and gym? See you in the fall.

As I trained it out of that big city towards the craggy mountaintops of New Haven CT, I couldn't help but gaze in astonishment at the splendor of New York and wonder what it would look like if a nuclear bomb went off in that motherfucker. Shit would go down, Roy. Shit would go down.