My Weekend: A Note To Lance

Lance,

Hi, it's Peter. I hope you're doing well. I'm writing you this note because you're not at work today. We were supposed to do a snazzy photo shoot for the upcoming NewYorkComicCam.com, but you're sick. I hope it's not too bad. You're going on some business trip to Europe tomorrow, no? Your recent speaking tour throughout South East Asia didn't happen, and I hope the European sojourn doesn't also go the way of smoke and ghosts.

Anyway, I was going to swing by your office to talk to you about my weekend, but since you're not here, I felt we should have this conversation via MediumAtLarge.net in front of all ten of its readers. (Hi, Lance's mom!) Realistically, I know you check this blog more often than your actual e-mail, so don't complain. In fact, I think this blog should be the channel by which we have all future conversations. (Hey, Lance, is that guy I can't mention who's connected to that thing I can't say going to come again this year? Yeah, fans are going to have that reaction I can't talk about!)

I spent Saturday at Queens Gantry Park, a little strip of green at the edge of Long Island City overlooking Manhattan's skyline. I took pictures of all of New York Comic Con's 2008 exclusive toys and apparel and am working to have them online -- hopefully -- before the day is through. The photos are, at least in my estimation, good, and considering all my complexes and neuroses, if I approve of them, they're probably honestly not crap. I went to school for this stuff, ya know.

I didn't go out to take pictures of products. No, I went out to take good, striking photographs that just happen to feature the NYCC logo on occasion. I also snuck in a copy of Werewolf By Night that was actually given to me at the first New York Comic Con and some Del Rey books to keep Ali T. Kokmen happy.

I was going to spend Sunday doing my taxes, but after you let me know you and Mrs. Show Manager weren't going to make it to a play and offered me the pair of tickets, I changed my plans and also added you to my BFF list.

Admittedly, I'm not the biggest theater goer. Honestly, I don't think I've been to a play in the three years I've lived in NYC. Don't take this as me saying I'm not cultural. I am! I just spend my time at the Angelika and Independent Film Center. In fact, I just saw In Bruges.

(What's a "Bruges"? A sleepy, tranquil, fairy tale of a town in Belgium that Colin Farrell tears the fuck up in In Bruges. Before going into the screening, I wasn't expecting much and had images of Smoking Aces and Shoot 'Em Up swirling about my head. I figured In Bruges was going to be a lot of violent nonsense with witless exchanges of sash mouth haphazardly thrown into any moment whose aural real estate wasn't occupied with automatic gunfire. In fact, In Bruges was a lot of violent nonsense with witty exchanges of sash mouth skillfully placed into every moment whose aural real estate wasn't occupied with automatic gunfire.)

Getting back to the wobbly line that is my subject, I and Miss Programming Manager took in The Slug Bearers of Kayrol Island (Or, The Friends of Dr. Rushower) not really knowing what to expect, something which should come as no shock to you as all of our e-mails prior to the show revolved around me talking about giant slugs -- while there wasn't a single slug featured in the play at all.

The Slug Bearers of Kayrol Island was some pretty powerful and fun stuff. Fusing the art of cartoonist Ben Katchor, the music of Mark Mulcahy (who did the music to The Adventures of Pete and Pete), and some real, live actors, the result was clever, surreal, triumphant, and tragic. It was pretty deck. It was pretty deck, too, that actor Bobby Steggert looked a hell of a lot like a young Dave Foley and Jody Flader looked just like a hot boss from one of my previous jobs.

The only thing that wasn't pretty deck was that our seats were right next to a fat man in a Miami Dolphins jersey and his gassy wife. My girlfriend spent the entire play with her arm around me and head on my shoulder, both of which I assumed meant your tickets were going to get me some. As she explained soon afterwards, though, she was only in that position to put as much distance as possible between herself and the gassy woman's anus.

After The Slug Bearers of Kayrol Island, we headed over to chic vegetarian hangout Zen Palate in Union Square only to find it had closed down. There was a note on the door stating that the rent jumped just too high. There are other Zen Palate locations in NYC, but it's a shame the Union Square restaurant closed. Rent everywhere in New York City is perpetually going from astronomical to incredulous. I honestly don't know how long I'll be able to stay in Long Island City. My rent's preposterous and there simply aren't any alternatives. If I look down my block, there aren't any new apartments available. There are plenty of condos, though, and there are more going up every minute. The condo across the street from me wants $450,000 for a studio. That's eight times the price of my parents' house.

We ended up going to Quantum Leap on 1st Ave. Quantum Leap, like Zen Palate, is a vegetarian joint, but it's decidedly more hippie and hipster friendly. My girlfriend got a vegan chicken and bacon sandwich. I got a veggie burger topped with avocado and onion rings. Good stuff. We also talked about me being a hipster. Apparently, I may be one. Sure, all my friends ditched work on Super Tuesday to volunteer for Obama. Sure, I give money to and am right now listening to NPR. Sure, I've got a different blazer for every day of the week. But I know shit about indie music, hookah bars, and absinthe. Wait, no, scratch that last one. I know a guy with a bottle. Wanna take a guess who?

If I am a hipster, there are a few parts of my personality I've got to correct to better fit the counter-cultural mold. I'll steal some index cards from the supply closet this afternoon and have to remember to regularly use the word "deck", which I already started experimenting with above.

This just about brings me up to today. I'm working on some website updates, some programming, some barters, and some busy work. What else? Greg wants to see the next Marvel vs. DC video, and the blog widget over on newyorkcomiccon.com has been giving me errors for the past few days. I'm looking into it, and if it remains unstable, I'll be swapping it out for something else. Fret not, though, as whatever I replace it with will still be pulling in content from MediumAtLarge.net. When can we start selling ads on the blog and pocketing the profit?

Since you've got an Xbox 360 now, you need to get yourself a few games. Wouldn't it be nice if the blog could pay for 'em? Just a thought. Let me know, too, which games you've picked up for the 360. Get Gears of War yet? If not, you should. You should also figure out some way to get CliffyB to New York Comic Con.

At this point, I think I've gone on long enough. I'll leave you with this...

It's awfully suspicious you got sick and didn't show up for work the day after you bought an Xbox.

Love,
Peter