Mischeif Night, they call it. My father's birthday, it was also almost the last night of my life. I got invited to Paris Hilton's party (in my mind) but couldn't make it because I was playing at Rubulad. I was supposed to meet a lovely Irish comedian pal named Des Bishop at a bar in my neighborhood, but he was running a little late so I started walking to the Bowery Poetry Club where some other friends were waiting for me. I was carrying a guitar, a small keyboard and my Tyra show gift purse filled to the brim with my costumes and doo dads for the show, and after a few blocks I felt a little bogged down, so I hailed a taxi. I got in the taxi and did not buckle my safety belt. Odd, because I almost ALWAYS buckle up after a bad accident when I was 16 where a seatbelt truly saved my life.
A friend texted me and I was returning his text, when all of a sudden, I went flying into the divider between myself and the driver, and my huge purse full of knick knacks went flying off the seat, raining all over the cab. I hurt my back a few days ago yawning (true story) and I was already not feeling in physical tip top shape, but when I smashed into the divider, I wasn't feeling anything except adrenaline. I looked to my right and saw the eyes of the driver of an SUV who'd just ran a red light, inches from having crushed the side of the taxi cab, right where my fragile unbelted, dressed-up-like-a-pirate body would have been sitting. The driver pulled a bit forward, and started cussing in an ethnic language I'm not familiar with and beeping his horn. Traffic stopped all around us and people pulled up to see if we were OK. The SUV sped away.
I gathered up my things that were strewn all over the floor of the cab and took in how close I'd just come to being seriously permanently dead. If the driver hadn't been paying attention and hadn't swerved violently, I would have been the meat in a Ford sandwich.
He was truly freaked out for the rest of the ride, kind of hyperventilating and swearing, and yelling "Why! Why you run a red light!?" as if I had been the driver of the SUV and he was demanding I answer him why I'd done that. I tried to calm him down by going back and forth between purring, "It's OK, sir, we're OK" and sitting quietly, contemplating myself what had just happened.
As the cab slowed at my destination, I was out of that thing before it even stopped, like the family in Poltergeist as they sped away from their haunted house, wishing the nice fella a safe evening.
Inside, I was shaken but a glass of wine and my friends quickly knocked me back into the reality that I was safe and sound and continuing on with my night. As I type this I'm stopping a moment to give thanks to no one in particular, and everything around me.
Des pulled up in a sweet Mazda SUV (his parents!) and we all piled in and headed to BK to the party. The party was lots of fun, everyone in crazy super creative costume -- a ballerina who ate her own heart, Jena Friedman was a vampire who used nail polish as a blood drip down her mouth -- that's dedication to a costume!, others were just crazy looking, decked out in amazing artsy hand made or store bought gear. It was an impressive array. We partied til about 2 or so am, I did a set where I had 5 costumes and stripped each costume off to reveal another costume and do another song. I was a unicorn, a witch, a pirate, Whitney Houston and a goofy slut ball. Now that I think of it, I left my pirate hat there. Poo.
This photo is dark, but it's me on the left, Des in the middle (in my mask) and Jena on the right as a vampire. I tried to lighten it in Photoshop but it looked crappy so I just left it alone.
After the party, we picked up Reggie Watts and ran into Jen Dunlap on the street on our way to the Lucky Duck bar in Bkln. We all said hi and hugged, then followed Jen into The Levee, then were going to go on to Lucky Duck but changed our minds, got back into the car and drove to Veselka for a 4 am breakfast / cool down. Every four minutes someone came up to shake Reggie's hand. He has more friends than anyone you or I know.
Reggie Watts -- the coolest mofo in the world!
What an awesome night!
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