Jessy Delfino's Blog

Holy Happy Times 

(followed by Holy Horror Show)

BESTIES was the best. Nice audience including a lesbian bachelorette party in the house, the new band Puss & Boobs rocked (though I gotta say, the sound equipment sounded like shit -- I mean, literally LIKE SHIT -- like the same sounds one makes when creating turds) my friends are all awesome, we had a little after show drink and mingle, what can I say? I have good friends and that is why I do this show every month -- to do something nice for the amazing community of performers I'm surrounded and encouraged by on a daily basis. What a crew!

So that was holy happy times. 

Holy horror show started on the walk home. 

Of course, Ludlow Street and the surrounding vicinity are almost unwalkable from Thursday to Sunday am, and honestly, they should just shut the whole area down to cars during those times. I was carrying a gigantic sign that said "BESTIES", in addition to wheeling a wheely suitcase and toting a guitar on my back. There were people everywhere, partying, and I was bobbing and weaving to make my way down the street. As I came to that yuppy shit hole Libation, there was a huge crowd of people hanging out on the street in front, so I went through the VIP entrance side *just to walk through* when I was accosted by two nerdy white people (one of them black) holding clip boards. They barked at me that I couldn't walk through there! Go around! They yelled in unison, the human version of two small twin dogs, yapping in my face. I'm just walking through! I insisted, carrying tons of stuff and not wanting to have to deal with the crowd. No! Go around! The librarian hipster looking chic tweeted at me in an attempt to look tough and important with her stupid clip board. Her and the black white guy tried to block me off. Get out of my way! I yelled at them like a crotchety old lady. If I'd had a purse, I would have swung it. A third gentleman, the only one with any sense in his head, said, Go through. Thank you! I said, stumbling past with all my gear, and maybe yelling something about the place being a yuppie hell hole. 

I laughed a bit as I walked on, thinking about the scene, and how two dorks from Ohio and perhaps New Jersey could move to NYC and get jobs where they held clip boards and respected people with expensive clothes and had lost or perhaps, never had any appreciation for the humble performer, the people who give NYC the grit the world knows and loves, the MEs of NYC, the artists, musicians and wierdos that make this city smell of urine and money. I thought on it as I walked, but quickly became distracted by the new hellish scene I stumbled upon -- a woman crying hysterically into another woman's arms, as a handcuffed man lie in a pool of blood on the sidewalk, a car parked also on the sidewalk, with 3 plain clothes officers standing over him. 

I was just drunk and amped up enough to meddle. Is everything OK over here? I asked. I live on this block. Everything is OK, they assured me. Are you officers? I persisted. One showed me their badge. I scuffled over to the other side of the street feeling extremely helpless and questioning the exorbitant amount of money I spend on rent to live in a, um, nicer neighborhood. I chatted in spanish for a minute with a super who swept the sidewalk. Hola, he said. Que pasa? I asked. No se, he replied. Es OK? I pushed on in awkward 10th grade spanish. Si, he said. There was a fight, he answered me in english, to let me know that I probably should not ever be speaking spanish out loud. Oh, I said. I don't know what happened, he continued. I nodded and then, bored of hearing no details, I quickly scurried home so I could feel the familiar warmth of safety my apartment provides from the combat zone that downtown NYC becomes on a Thursday night.