I'm a Terrible Person

Alright, so maybe Bjork is not in the yeah yeah yeahs, but Karen O really channels her fashion sense sometimes.

So last Wednesday, September 23rd, I took my best friend, Mindsay Mohan, to see the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I like the band, but they are not a favorite. The show really was amazing though and the songs were beautiful performed live.

It was the first time I’d ever been to a concert with seats (it was at Radio City) and words cannot explain how much better it was. No fat, sweaty, smelly people pushing into you and knocking you over or anything.

We  sat in our seats around 7:15, alcohol in hand, and scoped out the place, discussing other concerts with the two gay Asian boys sitting behind us. I was watching everyone find their seats, and Mindsay and I started thinking there was something wrong with our eyes. You see, we both developed this odd stripy, patterned vision. Turns out, we were surrounded by PLAID.

Thus began our game of Plaidwatch ’09, in which we sat there giggling and shouting out “PLAID!” everytime someone walked by wearing plaid. Literally every other person was wearing something plaid. Mainly plaid shirts and skirts, but also the occasional plaid purse, shoes, hairband, belt.

Also, as a young and single woman, I love going places where there is the potential for a lot of cute young men. I never got the memo that the Yeah Yeah Yeahs had a large gay following. There were basically less than 20 straight men there, and all with their girlfriends. UGH.

Sometime during Plaidwatch ’09 the lights went down and the opening act came on stage. If they were good, I’m sure I’d have bothered to remember their name.

Did you ever feel like your ears were in a cheesegrater? Well that is what my ears felt like as I listened to the vocally monotonous and annoyingly ambient  tribal sounds of a band that appears to have been found with the mole people who dwell in the city’s underground. They had the fashion sense of a Baptist alcoholics’ recovery support group, and every song was exactly the same, aside from whatever words the crazy singer said.

It was all drums and tribal sounds, and a guttural noise coming from some woman. Their ‘profound’ lyrics included “sensual. you’re so sense. you. all.” and the gem “you make no sense” repeated over and over. I think the worst part of that band, aside from actually listening to them, was the fact that AFTER the last song, the singer walked off stage and the band kept playing some tune. One of the other women in the band took the microphone and tried to get the audience worked up for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Wait for it.

…..

….

Yup. THAT woman, who said nothing during the band’s set, COULD ACTUALLY SING. She had a BEAUTIFUL voice. I really wanted to punch her for subjecting me to the other shithead’s voice.

So now it’s time for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. The curtain comes up and the most beautiful stage is set up behind the band. Giant eyeballs suspended from the ceiling, blue and purple lights, later on giant glittered “Y” ‘s.

Karen O comes on stage in some obsure feathered cape and a box on her head. Okay, well it wasn’t REALLY a box, but it was some random mask. She danced around for a bit, changed costumes a few times, and played an amazing show. Towards the end of it, they released two giant eyeball balls into the crowd for everyone to bounce around. If one had come near me, you better know i’d have popped that shit and stuffed it in my purse.

We didn’t bring our cameras, mainly because we just didnt feel like carrying them, and also because i was afraid we had really shitty seats. The tickets I printed said in great big letters, “OBSCURED VIEW” on them. All I kept picturing was a giant support beam in my way. Turns out there was nothing at all wrong with our seats and even though we weren’t that close, it wasn’t far and we saw everything.

So if you want pictures, read someone else’s website.

http://www.brooklynvegan.com/archives/2009/09/yeah_yeahs_yeah_1.html

http://www.411mania.com/music/concerts/117223/Yeah-Yeah-Yeahs—-Radio-City-Music-Hall,-New-York-City,-NY—-09.23.09.htm

I really just wanted to write this to complain about the shitty opening band that had no business ever being on a stage.

You’re not handicapped, you’re just FAT.

One of my bosses calls this woman “Angel” and I think it might be her real name. However, my dear friend, who works in the bakery, calls her “The Bagel Bitch.”

Let’s go back two years, to when i worked next door in a beauty supply store. Sometimes my best friend would meet me after work and we would take the bus to the movies or something.

On one of these days, Mindsay Mohan and I were giggling at the bus stop and taking pictures of ourselves. You know the kind, the two girls’ heads together and one holding the camera up in the air. It’s hard to get anything else in the picture. It’s clear you’re taking a picture of yourselves, isn’t it?

Well. Unbeknown to us, the bagel bitch was also at the bus stop, and was convinced we were taking pictures of her. As she walked past us on the bus, she growled at us to stop taking pictures of her, and that she was going to call the police on us.

We laughed to each other for a while about that. Some crazy lady….

I guess I didn’t know just HOW crazy she was.

Would you like to know why my friend calls her “The Bagel Bitch?”

From the stories she’s told me, this crazy lady used to complain about the bagels every single morning. The store doesn’t bake the bagels there, they get delivered. So essentially, complaining about the bagels means nothing.

Her complaints alternated between saying that the bagels were “too burnt” or “too raw/uncooked.” No one else could see anything wrong with the bagels, but she insisted on loudly screaming about the bagels.

Also, she took a strong disliking to my friend, going so far as to say she was stalking her, following her around the store to put her hair in her food, and she would scream in the store that she wanted my friend kicked out, to stop following her, etc. My friend was actually told once to stay in the back room until the woman left the store.

Um, yea. My hunny has better things to do, but I don’t, since I’m blogging about you.

Supposedly the bagel bitch is schizophrenic. I’ve heard she used to walk around with a fake cell phone, one that looked like a child’s toy, and pretend to be talking to her “husband” on it. She’d claim she was calling the police when my friend was “following” her.

I’ve seen her around a lot, since i’ve always worked in the area and we both take buses. It’s time to describe The Bagel Bitch. Oh yes, it’s time. We’ve now reached the best part of this.

You see, the bagel bitch, or Angel, if you prefer, is a short woman. Her long black hair nearly reaches her knees, and sometimes when she hasn’t dyed it she has about two inches of pure gray roots. Angel has massively big tits. I’m not talking big breasts like my own, this bitch has got like double H titties. They take up most of her body. She likes platform shoes.

Let’s describe some outfits I’ve seen her in:

- head to toe orange, with FUR pants. that’s right, it looked like an orange shag carpet attacked her legs.

- a cheerleader skirt and short tube top

- head to toe white, including a fur vest and white purse with long fringe

- white leopard print leggings and a variety of shirts.

I wish I could remember more outfits, but they are always outlandish and make you want to gouge your eyes out.

Now that i work in the deli, Ive had more encounters with her. She’ll come and order land o lakes white american cheese, and she’s very specific about how she wants it cut and packed. Then she’ll get some macaroni salad, and she wants half a pound. Once, it weighed at .47. A half pound is .50, right? So…. .47 is essentially half a pound.But no, Angel insisted i make it HALF A POUND exactly, because her husband would be upset if it was not a half of a pound. I put like one piece of macaroni more in it.

My manager is the sweetest lady. She’s friendly to everyone, laid back but hard working, happy, and she likes to sing sometimes. No one dislikes my manager. it’s pretty much impossible.

Well one day Angel was at the counter and my manager was quickly wiping the glass counter with windex. As i was slicing her cheese, i hear my manager say, “good morning” as she wiped the glass near Angel. Then, I hear, “DON’T TALK TO ME” in a nassstttty growl.

Another day, my manager was helping customers on the counter so I could finish the hoagies I had to make. I feel someone watching me and i turn my head to see Angel staring at me and whispering “can you help me instead?” So I did…. not questioning why she hates my awesome manager so much.

And yet another day, my manager was covering the seafood dept, which is connected to the deli. As she was putting fish on the table, she was singing. A happy song, a beautiful voice. Everyone else enjoys when she sings. Angel, at the deli, gave her dirty looks and said to me that she should shut up and stop being so loud.

I haven’t quite figured out how she chooses who she hates and who is “following” her or who she likes. All I know is the bitch is crazy, and I’ve never seen anyone else dress like that.

I do have a picture somewhere, i’ll upload it later.

I’ve been meaning to write little character blurbs about all the regular shoppers.

My motivation for finally doing this is that I think maybe Tony died. I haven’t seen him in about four days.

Four days is nothing for normal people. But Tony, four days not at the grocery store means he probably died or got really sick. The man is perhaps in his seventies, wears a pair of big glasses, usually dressed in a button down shirt tucked into his pants. In the winter he wears this brown hat with a brim. In the summer he is just bald.

Sometimes, I start work at 7am. At 6:50am as I am sitting outside with my coffee and cigarette, I will see Tony walking into the store.

At 12:30, perhaps I’ll be taking my first 15 minute break. I will see Tony walking around the store.

At 2:30, perhaps I’m on lunch. He will be around… somewhere.

The man comes to the store literally four times a day.  Once he came to the deli counter at like 7:55. I was busy setting up and I wondered aloud, “is it 8 o’clock?”

“You still have two minutes,” he answered me.  So I said okay, and slowly went back to what I was doing… slowly cleaning the salad bowl, filling the coleslaw…. slowly walking back to the counter. Oddly enough, he is the only person I can get away treating like that. He just stood there and waited patiently for eight o’clock. Any other customer would yell out “aren’t you open?” or “it’s ALMOST eight… can’t you just get me something?”

No. I cannot. It isn’t 8, I ain’t open.

Anyway, Tony likes to spend hours in the store, studying packaging and prices, determined to find everything that is mislabeled and wrongly priced, so that he can take it to customer service and get it for that price.

Tony likes to return things a lot. He buys with a credit card or debit card or something, and then returns it, gets cash from it, and buys lotto tickets with it. I don’t know why he didnt just go to the atm, take out cash and buy the lotto tickets to begin with. But that’s what he does.

Last week, before he disappeared, Tony got into a mini fight with one of the early morning cashiers. She was screaming at him because she caught him going through the new newspapers and stealing all of the coupons out of them.

But, that’s Tony. Looking to save money with coupons, so he can buy lotto tickets, and have gas money to drive to the grocery store four times a day.

People need hobbies.

Finally uploaded my 20 second videos of Sean describing his dream to me.

I was going to keep this site private, cutting out faces, etc. But really, why bother?

Enjoy.

But, Ms. Yale, at least you’re smart enough to know that already…. hopefully.

there he goes with the when I bend over my ass looks like a heart thing again.

God at least get some new lines.

Did you ever see someone in a store buying condoms and think to yourself, “Really? YOU’RE getting laid, and I’M not????”

Also, what is this embedded human need to buy buffer items when purchasing things like condoms, tampons, lube, laxatives, etc?

All those things pertain to basic human needs. Everyone uses them. Why are people so embarrassed to buy them?

Today I saw this not really attractive guy in Walgreens buying a big pack of Ultra Sensitive condoms, and a pack of regular ones. He was also buying a two pack of small lightbulbs, and a box of Oreo cookies.

I thought to myself firstly, “REALLLY???? Someone wants to fuck YOU?”

Then I thought, “Hey how come I’m not getting laid?”

And then I ended with, “There’s no way he really wanted those Oreos. Must be a buffer item.”

I used to work in a beauty supply store, which I should really start writing about. But in any case, when we got a new manager there, she decided to start this “bag check” everyday. Everyone’s purses and plastic bags had to be checked to make sure we weren’t stealing anything. And if we carried makeup from our job, we had to keep a receipt with it. We even had to check her own bag.

So, since I’m an asshole, whenever I worked early and knew she’d be checking my bag when I left, I’d use my lunch break to run to Rite Aid and buy Magnum condoms, or vibrating condoms, and and sometimes pads or lube. Just to make her uncomfortable.  She’d make these faces when she saw them, and once was like, “hey…. everybody’s got needs…” It was mainly awkward, which I LIVE FOR.

I’ve gone through phases with my wardrobe. I went through the ‘i’m fat and only wear baggy clothes’ phase. I went through the ‘i really like this skirt and im going to buy it but never wear it cause i feel too ugly in it’ phase. Now i’m going through the ‘i’ve lost some weight and i’ll be damned if all these clothes are going to go to waste’ phase.

So yesterday I was out of clean pants and decided to wear a skirt i had bought years ago but never really wore, because I’m too self conscious.  It’s a bit big on me now, but I still like it, so I rolled it up a little bit until it fit.

I can’t wear skirts and dresses at the deli, so I put a pair of black leggings on underneath to meet the dress code. I can’t wear flats or open toed shoes at work, so I wore a pair of sneakers. I also wore my studded belt that’s now two sizes too big for me and hangs on my hips uselessly, but cute. I paired it with my royal blue Tokidoki t-shirt, since i’m obsessed with TK.

Nothing about my outfit is ‘gothic.’

I did not wake up saying “im a goth. im gonna dress gothy.”

I dressed in a skirt that I love that happens to be black with ruffles on it. Everything else was normal clothes I wear everday.

But for some reason, about 10 people needed to comment on it. I got:

- it must be halloween, cause you’re dressed like a ballerina

- a gothic ballerina

- you’re always dressing so gothic

- takes a lot of courage/balls to dress how you feel.

- it shows you’re a bold, outgoing person

- you really are a gothic princess

ETC.

Mostly people just laughed. I don’t get why though, it was just a skirt. I often get randomly called a Goth by people I work with though. I don’t think there’s anything at all odd about the way i dress. I usually just wear a band tshirt (mainly Alkaline Trio) and black jeans. My hair is blue or purple etc. But it’s just clothes. I’m not trying to be anything.

This is the wikipedia definition of Gothic Fashion. As much as I admire and adore Gothic and Punk fashion, I do not set out to copy or embrace it. I simply buy what I like, and I’m tired of being labeled by ignorant people.

Gothic fashion is a clothing style worn by members of the Goth subculture; a dark, sometimes morbid, eroticized fashion and style of dress.^[1] Typical Gothic fashion includes black dyed and crimped hair, bright lips and black clothes.^[1] Both male and female goths sometimes wear dark eyeliner and dark fingernails. Styles are often borrowed from the Punks, Victorians and Elizabethans. BDSM imagery and paraphernalia are also common.^[1] Some haute couture designers, particularly Alexander McQueen and John Galliano, have been associated with the goth aesthetic.

Cintra Wilson declares that “The origins of contemporary goth style are found in the Victorian cult of mourning.”^[2] Valerie Steele is an expert in the history of the style.^[2]

Goth fashion can be recognized by its stark black clothing (or hair or makeup),^[1] The style initially emerged alongside the early 1980s Gothic rock scene. Simon Reynolds identifies the usual appearance of

Reynolds also notes “fishnet stockings, black leather thigh boots, [and] witchy eye make-up.”^[4]

Ted Polhemus described goth fashion as a

“

profusion of black velvets, lace, fishnets and leather tinged with scarlet or purple, accessorized with tightly laced corsets, gloves, precarious stilettos and silver jewelry depicting religious or occult themes.[5]

”

Researcher Maxim W. Furek noted,

“

Goth is a revolt against the slick fashions of the 1970’s disco era and a protest against the colorful pastels and extravagance of the 1980’s. Black hair, dark clothing and pale complexions provide the basic look of the Goth Dresser. One can paradoxically argue that the Goth look is one of deliberate overstatement as just a casual look at the heavy emphasis on dark flowing capes, ruffled cuffs, pale makeup and dyed hair demonstrate a modern- day version of late Victorian excess.[6]

”

Goth fashion is sometimes confused with heavy metal fashion.