This day has definitely been the most fun. The gig was incredible, but today was great overall.
To give you some perspective, it started with Tom recounting a story about how, while trying to get to sleep last night, he ended up in this half-awake half-asleep hallucination where he spent thirty minutes unravelling a wristband he was wearing, and when he finally completed the task he declared triumphantly, “I’ve done it! I’ve discovered the meaning of life!” – and then he just fell back to sleep again.
We didn’t plan it to be one, but today ended up as a YouTube gathering, just cos we kept inviting more and more people. In the end there were ten of us (including – most notably – meekakitty, who was lovely and who I had never met before). While waiting for some of our party to arrive at Grand Central Station (which I got excited about cos I recognised it from the pilot of Gossip Girl: what a loser), a homeless guy walked up to us asking for two bucks. He said he was sick and wanted a pint. Tom said, “what, a pint of medicine?” The guy said his name was Timmy and he wanted to share the pint with his brother Jimmy. I gave him a buck. He took my hand to shake it and then held it there, looking at me with his soulless eyes, and saying:
“I’m an alcoholic.”
And then he just held my gaze.
What the fuck was I supposed to do? I’d just given him money for alcohol!
Fortunately the dilemma was interrupted by further surrealism, cos the guy started saying he was friends with Eminem and did we want to hear him rap?!
So he just started rapping, right there, in front of us. There was nothing we could do.
That evening we arranged to have dinner with Maureen Johnson at a Chinese restaurant, and on the way we passed a tattoo place. Ed suggested we all get tattoos. Tom sparked the following ad-lib:
“Yeah, you should do it. Get an eagle. Across your entire back. No – TWO eagles. Two eagles KISSING. OH, and then underneath the two eagles kissing, it could say ‘equal opportunities’. NO – ‘EAGLE OPPORTUNITIES’!”
(I realise this blog is mostly ‘I have a friend called Tom what is funny’.)
The day ended with Michael Aranda losing one of the lenses of his sunglasses into the koi pond at the Chinese restaurant. The final scene had Aranda standing to the side of the pond, looking fretful, while a worried restaurant worker tried to fish the lens out of the pond with a pair of chopsticks.
You can’t make this stuff up.
x
