It's about plankin' time!

I broke down and got meself a blog.

After many discussions with other interesting bloggers, such as my friend Raam, my interest kept growing.  Perhaps more for the reasons of solidifying my life's and thoughts' posterity than a mere thought that someone out there in The Cloud could potentially find my blabber remotely interesting.  Intently self-induced flashbacks can be more appealing than those incidental ones.

After all that, the fun events of this past weekend pushed me to document a few wedges of this pie of events.

Let me tell you a bit about all that...

It all started with my cousin Dragan coming to visit me from Louisville, KY.  He flew into LGA about 6 hours delayed (courtesy of American Airlines, but that's another story of itself).  As soon as we picked him up, we dropped J off at home and the two of us hit the town.  It started off by drinking at Fat Cat.  It ended by drinking at Fat Cat.  We drowned our airline anguish in some Allagash Tripel.  Listened to two jazz quartets, and some randoms.  Played a bit of ping-pong, drank some more Tripel.  Got wasted quickly.  On our way to get some falafel, we couldn't help but notice this mannequin in a store window, that displayed disturbingly disproportionate nipples, so a picture was in order. 

We closed the night by relaxing at Fat Cat until the buzz wore off, then finally made it back to Jersey City around 4AM.



The next day it took us a while to get up, but we started off with a long walk into Liberty State Park.  Jacinta was at work and we walked to sweat out the hangover.  G posed for some digital memories.

It's amazing what an iPhone camera can do.  So we drank a few beers and ate lunch in JC, then headed off to Williamsburg.  We were to hang out until Jacinta came out of work, and then we were all to go to some music venues.  We passed the Brooklyn Brewery.

G said I resembled a "retarded squirrel".  I told him that it's by design.  Traces of alcohol effects are notable on both of our faces, of course.
We pounded a few brews around W-burg before J came to meet us.  Then we all ate, did a shot, and headed to watch some bands in a quasi-underground venue, curated for all of us by Todd P (if you've never been to one of his parties, you are missing out).  The abandoned warehouse did not breathe well, so after a half an hour, the place smelled like humanity.  The bands rocked it, I believe Beach House was one of them.  I also believe it was the lead singer of Beach House that said "It is like performing a gig in a sauna!"
The abundance of sweat, whether from your own body or someone else's, as well as the fact that it felt like the average age was half of ours, we left the Burg and headed back into the Village.  Caught some blues acts, got more falafel and headed home to devour it.

This is where all the true trouble of this weekend begins.
Namely, on our way home, in the cab... the screen in the cab showed a bit from Jimmy Kimmel Live, where Rosario Dawson did an impromptu plank on Kimmel's desk.  My cohorts, not knowing what it was all about, required my Meme expertise to do a thorough explanation of it (*brush shoulder*).  We all started falling asleep in the cab.

After we got home and refueled with the marvels of the garbanzo bean, all of us got a good boost of energy.  Jacinta got it in her head that she wanted to plank (don't forget she just learned the term all of 20 minutes ago, that is how awesome the mindfuck effect of the cognizance of the plank is).

Instantly, without much hesitation all three of us got into our own separate mind trips of where, in the house, the best plank would be.  I thought the loveseat was a formidable opponent, J thought the combination of the two sofas gave for a more interesting spot, and G... well... G... hhhmmmm.
Now, I don't know how exactly to explain this, but G got it in his head that the perfect plank involved the actor to make effective use of their face, for the said plank, instead of another more convenient part of the upper body.  The result caused much amusement, as one may expect.  See for yourself...

 WTF?

That cannot be comfortable!

This is my attempt:

 And J's:

  

G, then, observing the potential comfort of the sofa, agreed that he should make an attempt there as well.

 

WTF WITH THE FACE AGAIN, FFS???  You look like an angry gopher, trying to dig into the couch.

 

 Epic fail.

That might just be the complete opposite of a plank.


Here is J on the bar stool:

That concluded Saturday night, actually at 6AM Sunday morning.  We woke up really late Sunday and Jacinta did not have to go to work.  We were up for more live music.  However, it was sunset before we even got ready to go.  Here is a pic (iPhone again... amazing!)

Our favorite Italian restaurant in the Village, Malatesta, had just opened a second, "sister" joint called Malaparte.  We ordered pizza and seafood pasta there.  The overall feel of the restaurant, including the food, fell just short of its big brother.  Oh well...  We headed into the Bitter End to watch some acts.  I never thought I would say this, but I saw the best ever keytar player that night: Mr. Delmar Brown.  This cat was an entertainer in his blood.  If George Clinton, Jimi Hendrix, and James Brown had a kid, it still wouldn't have been as cool as Delmar Brown.  

Bitter End then opened the night to an open jam.  If you've never seen that open jam, it is lead by Mark Greenberg, and I highly recommend it.  Some real talent shows up there.  If there were only a way they could keep the enthusiasts (who want to use the jam band as their own backyard karaoke) off the stage, it would be even more enjoyable.  But that's just some of my own rant there. 

Back to the good stuff... after Bitter End, the planking bug bites again.  It's like an instant euphoria that engulfs you and reverts you back to an infant stage.  This time it hits us right on Bleecker Street.  Here are some captures.

I think G completely redeemed himself with this photo above.  It's just epic.  He's perfectly parallel to the stairs and the colors just came out beautifully.  Also sporting the cool new kickers acquired earlier.  I think the planking Gods wanted to give him his chance of redemption, for last night.

Another night that ends after 5AM.

Besides my cousin visiting for the weekend, it was also the last weekend our buddy Choo was in town.  He's leaving us for greener pastures (literally, bumfuck Wyoming), and we were all a little down about it.  We spent the day in Coney Island (bad choice - hotdog eating contest on 4th July).  

At night, we made another run for the city.  This time we were to conquer LES.  It became quickly evident that live gigs were not so popular on the same eve that the largest Fireworks Show is.  Struggling to find live acts, we strutted our way down to Arlene's Grocery.  It is one of my favorite places around.  Always good music, always good beer and bourbon, and never a dull moment.  We caught the butt end of some band from down south's gig.  They rocked it.  Then, much to my surprise, we got to see the Arlene's Famous Rock and Roll Karaoke.  Some of us contemplated signing up, and I am glad we didn't.  Incredible singers lined themselves up on stage one after another, singing R'n'R classics that we could all sing along.  I was appalled at the amount of talent around.  

However, towards the end of the show, that itching got my legs twitching again, and quicker than I could believe myself, I found my body propped up on top of the back rests of two bar stools.

My co-conspirators saw immediately what time it was and wasted no time in pulling their snappy phones and cameras:

Dragan agreed that it was a really good spot, and he got a better shot - immortalizing Arlene's Grocery in our memories:

The funny part was that I don't think anyone in the joint even noticed us planking in the middle of it.  

Now the interesting part begins.  We have a new recruit!  Choo is joining us in our infantile endeavors and he must be broken in.  He begins by rejecting the idea at Arlene's, but curiosity was oozing out of his eyes.  We could smell the blood.  However, a celebration of the planks was in order, so here is a nice mugshot.  Jacinta snapped it so she is not in the pic.

It almost looks like a random girl in a bikini is hanging out with us.

It didn't take anything for Choo to fall prey to the magic of the plank.  As soon as we exited the joint, we started talking him into planking a newspaper box.  Choo replies "No, I wanna plank the chair", pointing somewhere across the street.  Surely enough, there is a random office chair in the middle of Ludlow Street.  So there he went...

From that point on, our planking onslaught took charge through LES, East Village and who knows where else.  We loaded ourselves with enough bourbon, beer, and vodka-seltzer that it all became one, big, suspended blur.

Here is some of what all we could capture.

Choo?   On a TV set in the garbage?  Epic, IMHO.

 Well at least he's not using his forehead.


Double- and triple-planks! 

 An assisted plank is still a plank!  If you notice, that's pretty high for her, it is above the height of my head!

  

After this admirable feat of Dragan's to climb up to the traffic signs, two guys noticed us and one of them queries: "Are you guys planking???"  Nothing like meeting strangers over some common ground, at 2AM, while completely wasted. We talked our new friend into joining us for a good plank like that.  Here is his attempt. 

  

 

 Good job, brother.

Finally, after all this nonsense, we could not end the weekend without attempting the plank of Choo on top of my and G's heads.  That didn't work out quite well, but here is a capture of the attempt.

 

Well there it is.  It's hard to recover from all the liquor and all the bruises from planking (I am seriously too old for this shit).  

Now you know how to plank around NYC.  Let me see your planks!