It has been, without a doubt, one of the bleakest, drags of a January I've experienced here in New York, but don't let yourself think I haven't been trying!
Skater Bob & I knew this challenge awaited us. That's why we chose the Starbucks on Astor Place to be our Union Square substitute this winter. There's only so many different things a person can do in weather this cold, and Bob & I are trying each and every one of them.
After browsing through the vast accumulation of videos we've shot just last month, I decided, what better way to illustrate our winter in NYC than through the magic of video and song.
This is Ms. Table&2Chairs. She always takes up a table and two chairs and she won't let anyone use her footrest chair to sit on no matter how many people ask or how busy it is with no chairs available for anybody else.
Don't believe me? Go ahead, go up to her when there's no where to sit and ask her if you can take the chair. She'll say no, and make up some lie about how she's saving it for someone, but someone never shows.
Ms. Table&2Chairs. She's a cunt like that.
Juggles
Video by Normal Bob
It was probably 5 years ago, on the very first page of Amazing Strangers, when I first shot Juggles in his leotard with the huge neck hole and choiceless white mouse!
The mouse has long since passed on to mouse heaven, and the leotard's retired, but Juggles is back, and just like us he calls Starbucks home while it's winter at Union Square.
Chatterbox Video by Skater Bob
Chatterbox never sits down. All Chatterbox does is walk around from table to table eves dropping on whatever topic people are talking about so he can jump in a totally dominate the atmosphere with his chatter until you can't take it anymore and are forced to leave the premises. When you leave that's when he knows he's done his job and done it well.
Seriously? He's King? And we're all expected to just sit and watch this roll by, read those words to ourselves and keep from throwing eggs at it? That's what he expects?
Is this what it's come to, and no ones embarrassed? No ones saying "Um, Sean, when you go around telling everyone how big your dick is it's a very strong indication that you've got a smaller than average dick, because that's our nature to do such things, when you're in 7th Grade! You know that, right?"
One of the few appeals of winter for me is the thrill of seeing ugly women in gargantuan fur coats on their way to either Stomp or Blue Man Group.
I've always said, you can really tell a lot about a person by the winter coat they choose to wear. And this one says: "By wearing the beautiful hair of something else the debt caused by my own hair will be paid!"
Listen. It's cold. We got it. That doesn't give you license to call a sleeping bag a overcoat. Just because it keeps you warm on a 12 degree day doesn't make it right. Wearing a quilt around is warm too, that's why the homeless do it!
Now I've featured some pretty god-awful coats in my time here in Amazing Strangers. I remember the Ukrainian Whigger from years back, and the Japanese Teddy-pelt Trench coat right here in this very Starbucks! And there's no forgetting about the Retarded Mink Twins. But I swear to you, none of those top this oversized bathrobe hoodie Spajama (street pajamas) with af hope to pass it off as part of some Netherlands New Wave Gap ensemble? It honestly looks like it was specifically designed to be warn by bag ladies!
Remember a couple pictures ago when I said that those sleeping bag coats were the ugliest coats ever? Is there any forgiveness for such a perverse miscalculation?
