The moment Ice Spice got the music industryâs attention came late in the summer of 2022, when she dropped the music video for âMunch (Feelin U).â Filmed at St. James Park in the Bronx, a few blocks from the apartment Ice grew up in, the video finds her flanked by a phalanx of baddies and rapping in an smoky, unbothered monotone rasp. The one-liners she dispenses in rapid successionâcasual up-down glances and quick dismissals of lamesâfeel no less devastating than the brash lyrical gunplay of her New York drill forebearers Pop Smoke and Sheff G.
The moment Ice Spice became anointed as the next princess of rap came only a couple months later, when rapper and internet genius Lil Nas X posted a video of him dressed up as her in âMunchâ for Halloweenâcomplete with mint green bandeau top, nimbus of ginger curls, and safety orange talons.
In hindsight, Lil Nas Xâs video was nothing less than a prophecy of Ice Spiceâs incredible and nearly frictionless ride to the heart of the pop zeitgeist in 2023, which echoed his own 2019 breakout. In 2023, Ice released her debut EP; netted a bevy of top 5 singles on the Hot 100 in collaboration with Pinkpantheress, Nicki Minaj, and Taylor Swift, including one via the Barbie movie soundtrack; performed on SNL; and released a signature drink with Dunkin and signature Chia Pet. Working with RiotUSA, her secret weapon producer (and fellow SUNY Purchase dropout), Ice cracked the algorithm by blending drill and Jersey club with R&B, bubblegum pop, Gen Z Bronx girl slang (the cutting edge of linguistics), and graduate-level internet fluency.
Looking past Lil Nas X, two other stars help us triangulate the appeal of Ice Spice. The first is Pop Smoke, the slain drill prodigy whose conquest of the NYC rap scene and emergence as an international star in less than a year runs parallel to Iceâs trajectory. Pop filled a voidâhe crystalized a forward-thinking sound, embraced and validated drillâs pop potential, and became the cityâs greatest homemade crossover rap star since Nicki Minaj and Cardi B.
Ice Spice is picking up Pop Smokeâs torch as an avatar of and ambassador for outer-borough NYC culture, a rapper expertly weaving drill and pop sensibilities, a Hot 97-ready commercial artist who embodies the axiom âI didnât sell outâI bought in.â Pop and Ice were born only a few months apart, and thereâs little doubt that they would have collaborated by now if Pop were still alive.
On Sunday afternoons in the fall, when the clock strikes 1 p.m., if Iâm home, I boot up the website Buffstreams. I slog through a minefield of pop-up gambling and porn ads until I arrive safely at a bootleg stream of NFL Networkâs NFL RedZone. I have reached my destination. More than likely, I will spend the next several hours watching football on my laptop, alone, changing from RedZone to the Seahawks game when that starts. Maybe Iâll take a warm bath or bake a loaf of banana bread while I Buffstream.
Buffstreams is a MacGyverâd online cable box for the spendthrift sports fan and/or degenerate gamblerâthose unwilling or unable to shell out $60-80 a month for Fubo, Sling, or YouTube TV. Held together by duct tape and rope, it broadcasts virtually every live sporting eventâillegallyâand its ever-changing URL suffix (currently: buffstreams.is) reflects its on-the-lam-from-the-FCC status and ethos. Whether Iâm in the mood for the NFL, Monday Night Raw, or a cricket match between the Kolkata Knight Riders and the Royal Challengers Bangalore, I can turn to Buffstreams knowing thereâs about a 75 percent chance the stream will work just fine without breaking down.
I Buffstream the World Cup, the tennis and golf majors, March Madness, NBA playoffs, F1 races. There are few sweeter words in the English language than the ones I wait all week to hear at the beginning of each RedZone broadcast: âseven hours of commercial-free football start now!â
The Buffstreams chat on any given stream is full of spirited political discourse and feels very male. Though I have graduated from broke boy 20-something bachelor to married 30-something with a 401k, Buffstreams still provides me with a security blanket, a chance to slink away from my wife to my virtual man cave and float away into the amniotic online ether and beam up into the wide world of sports. When I Buffstream, I seal myself in my pod, transcending space, time, and adult male loneliness. I always feel better going into my pod than coming out of it. Lazy Sundays with Buffstreams are unfulfilling, but theyâre always comfortable.
I recently watched the unforgettable World Cup final between Argentina and France with friends at a bar in Brooklyn. I watched the match and I watched my French friend vacillate from depression to euphoria (The Mbappening) and finally to a zen acceptance of Messiâs awesomeness, just as four years earlier, I had watched the same Frenchman pierce the air with a guttural French scream when he realized that France was about to win that World Cup. Years from now, this scene at the bar will live on like a food memoryâhighlights from France-Argentina will powerfully conjure a moment, a place, a group of people, a sequence of emotions. Such is the communal nature of sports viewing.
For the last two years my favorite TV show has been People Just Do Nothing, a BBC mockumentary about a clique of man-children who run a shitty pirate radio station in West London called Kurupt FM. The Kurupt FM boys fantasize about mainstream glory yet remain stubbornly devoted to drum & bass and UK garage, commercially outdated strains of club music from the â90s and early â00s. People Just Do Nothing is a show about the slow death of big dreams, as well as the hijinks that ensue when delusions of grandeur persist.
I first learned about PDJN from the rapper Danny Brown, whose own artistic identity revolves around the fact that, against all odds, he didnât develop a sustainable rap career until his 30s. âPeople Just Do Nothing is almost like my musicâitâs so fucking funny and self-aware, but also so dark,â Brown said. âI donât shed too many tears, but [the series] finale definitely struck a chord. For it to end the way it didâwith main character MC Grindah realizing that heâs in his 30s and music is moving on without him, and heâll probably never make it in the industryâthat was something that was so close. I was pretty much like that.â
The best character in People Just Do Nothing is Chabuddy G, the relentless grifter played by Asim Chaudhry. A friend, manager, and hype man of Kurupt FM, Chabuds is not beholden to the same musical-biological clock as the groupâs narcissistic leader Grindah. He is an undocumented immigrant from Lahore who has assimilated into the rhythms of London life in flamboyant fashion, a self-styled âultrapaneerâ who is constantly concocting new hare-brained schemes big and small. Each ventureâthe Kurupt FM studio soundproof walls, the knock-off designer T-shirts (âDolce & Gabbana? Nah mate, Deepak & Gurdev.â), the asbestos-infested DIY nightclubâis doomed to fail. PDJN charts the excruciating downward trajectory of Chabuddy G. In each of the five seasons, his ponytail grows longer and his life takes a new turn for the worse. His Polish mail-order bride Aldona leaves him; he becomes homeless. But the hallmark of Chabuddy is that he never gives up, a testament to his self-delusion, desperation, and determination. He doesnât change much over the course of the show, even as his prospects grow steadily more bleak. If anything, defeat emboldens him. With nothing to lose, he courts failure with gusto.
Chaudhry met the other creators and cast of People Just Do Nothing during college through music. They conceived the show as a take on the 2004 pirate radio docu-series Tower Block Dreams, filtered throughtheir own experiences in hip hop, pirate radio, and fake garage crews. Chaudhry was known then as a battle rapper, and he operated behind the camera for the showâs early webisodes before debuting Chabuds on-screen, building out the suave persona he sometimes used to prank call brothels.
Chaudhry has notably appeared in DC superhero movies and Stephen Merchant projects, but no matter how far he goes as an actor, he will always have a hard time topping his portrayal of Chabuddy G. It is probably not a coincidence that his most iconic role draws heavily on his own life. Chaudhry has said that Chabuddy is a composite of his own dad, uncles, friends, and supremely overconfident UK comedy characters like Del Boy and Alan Partridge. Chabuddy claims to be the unofficial mayor of Hounslow, the West London melting pot from which Chaudhry hails.
The legend of Chabuddy G still grows in 2021. Earlier this year, BBC Films released People Just Do Nothing: Big In Japan, a film that picks up the threads of Kurupt FM three years after the series ended with a deeply bittersweet sense of closure and new beginnings (including the launch of an exciting new business venture for Chabuds). Chabuddy is still living out of his van when he gets wind that Kuruptâs pugnacious single âHeart Monitor Riddemâ has become an unexpected hit in Japan. And so, he jets off to Tokyo with the Kurupt boys to capitalize on this seemingly golden opportunity.
In the movie, as in the show, Chabuddy shares apocryphal biographical details from his past. For example, we learn that, in the â90s, he took over a Hounslow titty bar and saved it from certain economic death. Chabuddy exists in an alternate reality, one of his own inventionâand indeed, what a life this man has lived. Heâs like the Dos Equis Most Interesting Man in the Worldâą, but the opposite and even more interesting.
This year, the line between reality and fiction for Chabuddy G and Kurupt FM continued to blur. Chaudhry regularly posts as Chabuddy on Instagram and TikTok, dispensing questionable advice and realizing the characterâs ultimate destiny as social media personality. The musically talented cast of PJDN put out an album of wall-to-wall Kurupt FM slaps, a showcase of their slick, call-and-response-heavy take on garage that illustrates how the groupâs pronounced character flaws, more than the music itself, is the root cause of their depressing lack of success in the show. In the music videos, Chabuddy G can be found bribing used-car salesmen and bopping in the background with his black pleather jacket and Gator-skin shoes. Undoubtedly he is drenched in his âSean Paul Gaultierâ signature cologne. He even stars in his own song, âAldona,â a funky lament about his ex-wife. (âShe was so cold⊠yet so hot.â)
Late in 2019, the artist Maurizio Cattelan arrived at Art Basel Miami Beach and duct-taped a banana to a gallery wall. The fair opened, and news of the fabulous fruit quicklysweptthe globe. In Oslo, Cattelanâs viral sensation caught the eye of the Norwegian performance artist Jan Hakon Erichsen. âMy initial thought was, oh no, he ruined it for me!â Erichsen recalled. âNow I can’t use my bananas anymore.â
Erichsen hopped on Instagram and re-uploaded a video that he had originally posted the previous year, to assure his legion of 700 thousand-plus followers that his interest in bananas was authentic. In this video, which was originally inspired by Cattelan, he rigged a baseball bat as a slingshot and sent it flying into a banana that he had duct-taped to the wall of his studio. In truth, the 41-year-old artist has been destroying bananas with homemade torture devices on Instagram since he began posting to the app in late 2017. Sometimes, he turns his banana into a weapon. Other times, as with his exquisite âDolce Bananaâ turtleneck, and his old Instagram avatar, in which he wears a pair of overripe bananas as earrings, the worldâs most popular fruit becomes a fashion piece. Like Cattelanâs duct-taped banana, which satirized the prestige and pretension of Art Basel, Erichsenâs bananas are site-specific: they are native to the internet. But unlike most food posts on Instagram and social media, Erichsenâs are not designed to entertain, educate, or induce salivation (or envy). Within an ecosystem grimly premised on users’ compulsion to self-project, Erichsen, through force of creative repetition, has forged a world of his own, energized by a novel and particular set of rules, imperatives, and possibilities.
Balloons and food are the principal subjects of the GIF-length snippets that Erichsen uploads to Twitter and Instagram each day.When not terrorizing bananas, he might be stomping out a grapefruit with a hatchet duct-taped to his shoe or crushing a wheel of Pringles with his bald head. Other foodstuffs featured in Erichsenâs videos include spaghetti, taco shells, cucumbers, watermelons, and crackers; more recently heâs experimented with almonds, kiwis, and rice cakes. âWhatever surrounds me is what I use,â he said in a phone interview in February 2020. âI eat a lot of bananas. What I’m often trying to do with the objects I use is find an untapped potential in them.â
Erichsen said that he is drawn to danger and destruction as themes. His first internet performance project came in 2006, when he and a friend âpretended to be a black metal band who thrashed homemade pinatasâ on MySpace. Today, his videos often make use of his collection of over 500 knives, which he acquired in 2003 for an art school installation that invited visitors to walk below a sea of blades dangling by strings from the gallery ceiling. In one two-minute compilation that has amassed 19 million views since he posted it to Twitter two years ago, he pops balloons with a creativity and determination that brings to mind the suicide montage from Groundhog Day; his array of jury-rigged, gravity-assisted contrivances evokes the burglar defenses of Home Alone.
Balloons and Erichsenâs preferred foods share certain traits: they are ubiquitous, tactile, contain the potential for humor, and are innocent victims. However, balloons have few connotations in the context of Instagram, Erichsenâs main platform. By contrast, food lies at the heart of Instagramâs aspirational ethos. On Instagram, in a 21st-century update on the still lifes of the Dutch Golden Age, food and its mode of presentation serve as an efficient shorthand for wealth, taste, and lifestyle. As a gastronomic hub where cooking tutorials and restaurant ads appear alongside everyday peopleâs brunch adventures, Instagram encourages users to curate and compose their culinary snapshots with the care of a sous-chef plating a dish at a Michelin star bistro.
Erichsenâs work diverges sharply from mainstream internet food culture as well as the curatorial and performative nature of Instagram. And yet, by playing with the language, aesthetics, and forms that frame our social media posts and interactions, he makes videos that could not plausibly exist anywhere outside the internet.
Erichsen is not merely echoing social media conventions, but also operating in the traditions of video performance art and food art. âI’m very interested in how people use video,â he said. âThat sparks a lot of the interest in what I do. That’s also kind of what I’m investigating online. I see similarities to how performance artists that did that in the beginning, like Bruce Nauman and Chris Burden, when the camcorder artist came onto the market. They didn’t know how to use the camera, they just turned it on and started filming themselves. And nowadays, people are doing the same with the smartphones and posting it online.â
Erichsen wears many of his influences on his sleeve. The abiding sense of danger in his videos is an open tribute to Burden. He cites Ernest Wurmâs one-minute sculptures as a key influence, and he invoked Wurmâs âself-portrait as a pickleâ directly in one cucumber-smashing video in March 2018. Six weeks later, he attempted a banana plank stunt as an homage to his âlifelong obsession with Charles Rayâs âPlank Piece I-IIâ.â
The â60s produced a handful of Iconic works of food art, like Warholâs Velvet Underground & Niko album cover, Yoko Onoâs apple, and Claes Oldenburgâs larger-than-life comfort food sculptures. Since then, food art has become more referential and eager to use food as a material: like Jana Sterbakâs 1987 Vanitas, a 50-pound dress made of raw flank steak; David Wojnarowiczâs 1992 broken, stale baguette stitched together with red yarn, a reference to his more famous âStitch in Timeâ; Kara Walkerâs 2014 Marvelous Sugar Baby; and Chloe Wiseâs âdesignerâ handbags made of bread crafted out of urethane and sesame seeds.
Online, food is reduced to a visual medium, which means that various corporate interests and friends fishing for likes must go further to convince the viewer of its deliciousness. (Mukbangs, the popular Korean ASMR feasts, constitute one notable, intersensory exception.)
Erichsen does not carry this burden. His videos are bathed in fluorescent light and staged in the bland nowhere space of his unfurnished, seemingly doorless studio. His visual style, his characterâs neutral affect, his standard-issue dad fashion, and his choices of foods to destroy and wear all seem purposefully generic. He seldom acknowledges that his materials are actually edible. He is a radical anti-gourmand who divorces food not only from its most basic functions, but also from its cultural associations.
In stripping his work of reference points, Erichsen diverges from other Instagram-famous food artists. Nicole McLaughlinâs wearable âupcycledâ vests made out of microwavable popcorn packets and sugary cereals are rooted in the world of streetwear. David Henry Nobody Jr. references household brands like Hellmanâs, Chef Boyardee, and Campbellâs in grotesque self-portraits that split the difference between Arcimboldoâs 16th-century fruit portraits and Warholâs soup cans. By contrast, Erichsenâs videos suggest that he is some kind of artist-monk who knows of no world beyond his studio.
Still, Erichsenâs short, informal videos clearly demonstrate his fluency in prevailing languages and aesthetics of social media culture. He often uses social media tropes such as #OOTD fit pics, skincare routines, and weekly rituals. He said that in 2018, he became serious about posting to Instagram and changed his work habits accordingly, adapting his approach so that he could churn out 2-3 videos per day rather than toil over months-long projects. Eager to proliferate his work across social media, he made his TikTok debut by âvibing to Rick Rossâs Bustin with [his] kiwi hat.â âI donât understand TikTok at all and I intend to use that to my advantage,â he tweeted.
In some ways, Erichsenâs most kindred spirits are internet figures who use food as a means of absurdist comedy. Beginning in the early 2010s, the YouTube channel EpicMealTime presented food on an inhuman scale in videos that featured lots of liquor, yelling, calories, and a guy named Muscles Glasses. Similar displays of masculinity-infused maximalist cooking can nowbe found on TikTok. Another YouTube channel, HowToBasic, makes disturbing and violent food tutorials. The Twitter user Pangzai periodically goes viral from his home in rural China for downing disgusting mixed drinks in one gulp.
Erichsenâs indifference toward foodâs most fundamental appeal is striking and engineered for virality, but it becomes mundane as it plays out over the course of his hundreds of videos of oddball performance art. While Cattelanâs duct-taped banana struck like a lightning bolt, Erichsenâs Instagram project has come into focus over months and years. Scroll through his feed and witness a man stuck in purgatory. The boring reliability with which he uploads a new post each day is offset by the tension of not knowing what deranged stunt heâll dream up next, and the mild concern that heâll run out of ways to tinker with food, balloons, knives, and carpentry equipment.
The most tired critique of social media is that people share the most boring aspects of their lifeâthe cereal they eat for breakfast, the selfies they take when theyâre idling at work and school. Through his loose, diaristic approach to his food experiments, Erichsen has located the point where the banal loops around and meets the absurd.
Last year, Mangoprism launched a monthly series called ~Mangoprism Selects~, a round-up of my favorite new music. The series only lasted one month, but weâre rebooting it a year later with 15 of the best songs from June, plus a handful from May (!!).
There might not be July Tunes next month, but June Tunes will live forever. Look out for June Tunes III dropping next year.
TL, DR: scroll directly to the Spotify playlist embedded at the bottom of the post.
Deliciously humid, like it was recorded inside a greenhouse.
Free Nationals, Kali Uchis, & Mac Miller â âTimeâhttps://www.youtube.com/embed/fFns8chkyq8?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent
Lil Nas X â âPaniniâhttps://www.youtube.com/embed/1PrWA4C8eLw?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent
Not nearly as good as âOld Town Road,â but just as catchy. [full album review]
Mari â âSermon Sippinâhttps://www.youtube.com/embed/4ARd8BmEHNw?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent
My most illustrious rapper-friend.
Isaiah Rashad & Kenny Beats studio snippethttps://www.youtube.com/embed/xNjwxRGVacM?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent
Pusha T had an incredible month with his features on âCokewhite,â âPalmolive,â and Benny the Butcherâs â18-Wheeler.â With that in mind, letâs shine a light another good new Benny t.B song
Dreamville feat. JID, Bas, J. Cole, EARTHGANG, & Young Nudy â âDown Badâhttps://www.youtube.com/embed/ibvxfN7G6Gs?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent
88-Keys feat. Mac Miller & Sia â âThatâs Lifeâhttps://www.youtube.com/embed/4oviKWgwzE4?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent
This song really pulls on the heartstrings.
Mighty Sugarcane â âMade of Loveâhttps://w.soundcloud.com/player/?visual=true&url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F631272375&show_artwork=true&maxwidth=800&maxheight=1000&dnt=1
Instagramâs personalized ad algorithm recently delivered me Mighty Sugarcane, a jazz-fusion trio from Cyprus. Between the obscure, barely intelligible vocals cloaked in heavy reverb and the keyboardistâs Joe Zawinul-esque solos, they remind me a lot of Weather Reportâif Weather Report was doing the soundtrack to Mario Kart.
Big K.R.I.T. â âK.R.I.T. HEREâhttps://www.youtube.com/embed/rtIj3hwTax0?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent
Jai Paul â âDo You Love Her Nowâhttps://www.youtube.com/embed/VKOmW_KYcEA?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent
Cory Wong feat. Caleb Hawley â âLimited Worldâhttps://www.youtube.com/embed/9mCw36PZZeE?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent
Pop Smoke â âWelcome to the Partyâhttps://www.youtube.com/embed/usu0XY4QNB0?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent
I heard this song for the first time on laptop speakers and the beat still blew my mind.
Polo G â âDeep Woundsâhttps://www.youtube.com/embed/GIDTSzFSexM?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent
âHuman life is but a series of footnotes to a vast obscure unfinished masterpieceâ â Nabokov
Untold years ago, kids from the neighborhood would come together at Parks Department Field #2 to play ball. In those simpler times they were titans of the sandlot, kings and queens of their domain. They have long since dispersed into the wind like dust after a headfirst slide into second.
We tracked down 30+ original Backyard Baseball superstars and announcers to learn what has become of them since the old glory days. Here are their stories.
Ricky Johnson: International porn star. Porn alias: Richard Johnson. Came up as understudy to Brian Pumper before ascending to porn stardom with iconic role in Mr. Hands biopic. 7x AVN Winner.
Sidney Webber: Accidentally gets pregnant while studying abroad and gives birth to a half-Brazilian child named Gustavo. Sells illustrated kidsâ cookbooks at town mall kiosk in Redmond, WA.
Ashley Webber: Moves to LA after high school with big dreams, initially toils as waitress. Hires the Kardashianâs go-to butt implant specialist and rebrands herself as Instagram model/belfie virtuoso/spokes-ass for Flat Tummy Tea. Attempted foray into rap derailed after she runs over Lil Pumpâs dog with her G-Wagon while leaving her mixtape release party and Pump serves her a career-ending diss track.
Marky Dubois: Roadie for Willie Nelson, later switches to roadie for Imagine Dragons, who let him in to the band as the tambourine man. Band lands residency in Vegas, where he immediately becomes addicted to benzos. Hits rock bottom, scrapes himself off the floor, now makes a living playing tambourine along to the hottest pop songs on the Las Vegas strip.
Lisa Crockett: Elopes with Jorge Garcia during her Rumspringa. Bel-Air-based tantric sex swami, works to repair rich marriages on the fritz.
Ernie Steele: Barber for the stars. Notable clients: Steve Buscemi, Jax from Vanderpump Rules, Halsey, James van der Beek, and Stedman Graham. On a mission to bring back the Friar Tuck.
Kenny Kawaguchi: Made a fortune in buckwheat futures, then lost it all in a Ponzi scheme run by Vinnie the Gooch. (They still havenât caught him.)
Vicki Kawaguchi: Vegas nightclub promoter who books Imagine Dragons through her old buddy Marky Dubois. Has seven cats at home: Sylvia, Meowiscal, Paulina, Mr. Clanky, Poncho, Dick Cheney, and Tits McGee. Dick Cheney is the most photogenic of the bunch. Earns six figures a year on the side as a pet influencer using the Instagram handle @dickcheneythecat.
Billy Jean Blackwood: Returns to her Cajun roots, becomes Mardi Gras queen, and starts a crawfish diner: Billy Jeanâs Bayou Boil and Broil. The business fails after one year. In need of some quick cash, she starts a cock-fighting ring on her uncleâs farm, eventually serving a six-year prison sentence. Still lives in Shreveport, LA. Falls into deep depression after Kickstarter campaign to re-open her diner falls $24 short of goal.
Mikey Thomas: Successful D-3 college baseball career; slugs 24 home runs and voted conference Player of the Year during senior year at Randolph-Macon. Career in politics culminates with successful bid for mayor of Yuma, AZ. Makes national headlines when Yuma becomes first American city to legalize bestiality.
Jorge Garcia: Decades of marital bliss with high school sweetheart Lisa Crockett. Best-selling erotica author. His novel âThe Land Of Milk and Honeyâ spends 34 weeks at the top of the New York Times chart and gets adapted into a film starring Nicolas Cage and Meryl Streep. Garcia brings on his old battery-mate Richard Johnson as love scene consultant.
Gretchen Hasselhoff: Barista at Bondi Beach cafe for years, returns stateside and scores a gig doing makeup for Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
Angela Delvecchio: Returns to the family business in South CarolinaâMarlboro Meatsâand expands the hot dog empire nationally. Becomes largest owner of hogs in North America. Partners with the MLB to be the sole purveyor of all-pork wieners in American baseball stadiums.
Tony Delvecchio: Has a falling out with his sister Angela and is fired from Marlboro Meats. Takes his passion for foods to the high seas and moves to Japan, where he becomes a high-end tuna fisherman supplying yellowtail tuna to Tokyoâs top sushi restaurants. Hunts via GPS and drone and locates a 950-lb tuna in the deep Pacific. While tracking it down, gets caught up in a typhoon which sinks his boat, âMrs. Butterworthâ. Perishes at the age of 28 doing what he loved.
Keisha Phillips: Pioneers cricket-based protein bars and dog food. Purchases 40-acre plot outside of Peoria, Illinois to produce crickets to meet skyrocketing demand. Establishes a partnership with Angela Delvecchio and Marlboro Meats to offer the first cricket-based hot dog.
Reese Worthington: Develops yips while playing second base for high school JV team, hangs up his cleats after he he puts his manager in a coma during routine throw to first. Devastated, but eventually rediscovers passion for performance and fitness in college. Drag brunch superstar by day, cage dancer by night. J.K. Simmonsâs personal trainer.
Maria Luna: Becomes obsessed with Seth Rogen while marine biology Ph.D candidate at UC Santa Barbara. Stalks Rogen for months until he files a restraining order. Moves to the Galapagos to study blue-footed boobies. Runs the massively popular Twitter account @SethRogenDaily.
Stephanie Morgan: Early advocate of crypto, developed a blockchain marketplace which she sold to Marc Cuban. Now lives on a ranch two hours west of Austin where she raises prize-winning peacocks, ostriches, and other flightless birds.
Luanne Lui: Moves to Vancouver, gets involved in competitive lumberjacking with a specialty in log rolling. Takes home the lumberjack triple crown by winning first place in the Vancouver Chop, Oslo Sweepstakes, and Quebec City Challenge. Loses her left arm below the elbow in a chainsaw accident in Bangor, ME, and is forced to retire in her prime.
Annie Frazier Dedicates her life to environmental activism following the death of her childhood best friend, her pet turtle Gladys. Moves to Everglades and adopts 250 gopher tortoises to save them from extinction.
Dmitri Petrovich: Flips his burgeoning My Little Pony passion into full-fledged career by becoming Director of BronyCon in Baltimore. After successful 15-year reign as the head honcho of BronyCon, retires from the Brony business and moves to Yuma, Arizona after childhood Dungeons and Dragons comrade Mikey Thomas is elected town mayor and legalizes bestiality.
Jocinda Smith: Four-year lacrosse all-American at Harvey Mudd. Flips PA gig on Ellen into full-time job as Howie Mandelâs personal assistant. Soon becomes disillusioned with the entertainment industry. Offered job as Bernie Brewer on the spot after Secretariat-like performance in the Milwaukee sausage race.
Sally Dobbs: Innovates on the familyâs mortuary business and develops a spin-off called âDoggies Remembered,â an animal crematorium that fuses ashes of dearly departed pups with precious gems. Featured in Mortician Weeklyâs â30 under 30â issue.
Ronny Dobbs: Big Pharma whistleblower. Dies in mysterious spelunking accident days before heâs set to testify against Cialis as a part of a Congressional investigation. Foul play suspected.
Sunny Day: Earns degree in broadcast journalism and covers bobsled, luge, and skeleton for NBC at Winter Olympics. Resigns in disgrace after an internet sleuth discovers her secret life as anti-vaxxer and flat-Earther who spends her free time railing against âsphere-cucksâ in private Facebook groups.
Vinnie the Gooch: Flees the country after his massive Ponzi scheme discovered. Rumor has it he resides in a Cuban villa with Tupac and Assata Shakur. Mojito alchemist, engineer for Tupacâs bedroom studio sessions.
Barry Dejay: Broadway flameout. Bingo commentator in Akron, Ohio, Steve Kerrâs voice coach. Joins Nation of Islam during mid-life crisis and changes name to Bartholomew 14X.
Chuck Downfield: Successful day trader who frequently goes viral for his homemade Rube Goldberg machines. Chronic inability to convince a girl to date him despite his wealth, internet fame, and large penis leads him to strike up a romantic long-distance relationship with an incarcerated drug mule and ultimately star on the reality show âLove after Lockup.â
Achmed Khan: Elementary school music teacher who serves as the third in an open relationship with the mayor of Burlington, Vermont and her husband. Questions about provenance of the mayorâs child lead to special episode of Maury in which Achmed is declared the biological father. Currently penning a memoir detailing the seven-year relationship with the help of his ghostwriter, Jorge Garcia.
Amir Khan: Moves to Pittsburgh to pursue career in the sausage industry. Quickly abandons dreams after he falls in love with the heiress of the Heinz family. Now lives on an estate in Pennsylvania and spends his weekends in Iceland.
Pete Wheeler: While hiking the Appalachian Trail, meets the love of his life, moves to Cheyenne, WY, and becomes a renowned small-town tattoo artist known throughout Wyoming for his anime-inspired tattoos. Husband serves as Cheyenne comptroller and city councilman.
Kimmy Eckman: Suffers a suplex-induced spinal injury during backyard wrestling match. Remains avid professional wrestling fan despite being confined to a wheelchair, hosts the sportâs most popular podcast.
Buckle up, ladies and germs. Mangoprism, a blog that is dormant yet majesticâthe Mt. Rainier of blogsâis launching a monthly list of kick-ass songs called Mangoprism Selects. It is like McDonald’s Chicken Selects, but worse. But still good though.
How long will Mangoprism Selects last? Only time will tell. (Not long.)
Please enjoy the first installment below: June Tunes.
The Carters – “Apeshit”
The official song of summer 2018. Migos ad-libs: just incredible. Pharrellâyou’re crazy for this one! When Beyonce demanded Vitamin D, I felt that.
Freddie Gibbs – “Automatic”
The best song from the most savage mixtape of 2018.
Rico Nasty – “Pressing Me”
The best song from the second-most savage mixtape of 2018.
Nao – “Another Lifetime”
Here is a pitch I sent to a couple publications that got rejected/ignored. It is pretty goodâor so I thoughtâand 45% of the reason why Mangoprism Selects is now a thing:
While Nao’s last release “Nostalgia” recalled the sugary synthetic bursts of Whitney Houston’s upbeat love songs, “Another Lifetime” recalls the roiling synthetic swells of her 2016 album For All We Know, in which she forged her signature soundâan inventive fusion of funk and R&B that shaped ballads like roller coasters and took flight on the wings of her sweet falsetto.
“Another Lifetime” begins with Nao’s voice layered over vocoder as she bids a fond farewell to her ex in the fallout of their breakup. Regret, melancholy, and a faint but persistent hope give the song its color; the chance that they may reconnect in another lifetime affirms their love in this one. She repeats the affirmation: “I swear I won’t run / In another life, I’ll keep us bounded.”
In the song’s music video, Nao wanders the streets at dawn, ghost-like while the world sleeps. It is a tableau that recalls Maggie Nelson in The Red Parts: “To be alone in public, wandering at night, or lying close to the earth, anonymous, invisible, floating […] to make your claim on public space even as you feel yourself disappearing into its largesse, into its sublimity.”
This joint came out in May and is technically ineligible for June Tunes. But I didn’t heard it until June, and it is great.
Lawrence – “Try”
Immaculate. Sounds like a Brasstracks/Nico Segal production, but is not. Would have fit in perfectly on Coloring Book. If it had been on Coloring Book, it would have been a massive hit. But it wasn’t, so it won’t.
Jonah Nillson – “Coffee Break”
Mangoprism is home to one of the most prominent Dirty Loops stans on the planetâme, Danny Schwartz.
Dirty Loops broke up last year. Here’s an epitaph: they were a band of unbelievable skill and questionable taste. After they disbanded, their lead singer and keyboardist Jonah Nillson signed to Quincy Jones. A couple weeks ago, he released his debut single, “Coffee Break,” in which raps about coffee dates and drums on the lid of his mug with two little spoons.
Tiffany Haddish: 2017 Mangoprism Person of the Year
2017 was a nightmarish year (thanks to our dipshit president and his army of goons) made bearable in part by a few modern goddesses who emerged as paragons of authenticity and stars in their respective fields. We witnessed the rise of R&B darling SZA; free-spirited ratchet queen Cardi B; and Tiffany Haddish, who stole every other scene in the box office smash Girls Trip ($139 million) and became the first black female comedian to host SNL.
Among these three, the Mangoprism POTY panel is most enamored of Tiffany Haddish. She is just delightful. In Girls Trip, she plays Dina, an agent of chaos whose belligerence, shamelessness, and fierce loyalty transforms a good old-fashioned ladies weekend at Essence Fest in New Orleans into an absinthe-fueled shitshow of epic proportions. Haddish describes Dina as a âblack female Zach Galifianakisâ; she is Alan turned loose in the French Quarter.
Paul Thomas Anderson wants to work with Haddish, and itâs not hard to see why. In Girls Trip, she exudes a Daniel Day-Lewis-esque charisma that is nearly unbearable to behold, as if the viewer is looking directly into the sun. What makes Dina such a great character is that she is positioned squarely in the center of Haddishâs thespian wheelhouse. Dina is little more than an exaggerated version of Haddish, who kicks off each TV interview by hitting a vigorous Nae Nae. Her uninhibited, high-octane personality inevitably charms each of her interviewers, all except Ellen DeGeneres, who just seemed confused. (Incidentally, it was DeGeneres who nearly murdered the Nae Nae by teaching it to Hillary Clinton.)
What makes Haddishâs glow up so satisfying is that the vast majority of her life has been defined by struggle. When she was nine, her mother developed schizophrenia. At age 11, she entered the foster care system. She started doing stand-up at age 15, and sheâs been trying to make it as a comedian ever since.
She called her Geo Metro hatchback home. She called the Church of Scientology home. No one has turned lemons into lemonade quite as artfully as Tiffany Haddish. OBSERVE:
1. She developed a lucrative side hustle as an âenergy producerâ at bar mitzvahsâa hype woman stirring up a ruckus on the dance floor. She started pimping out her male friends to sexually frustrated Jewish women after one lady showed Haddish her romance novels. âShe had one that was like a slave thing or whatever,â Haddish recalled in her memoir The Last Black Unicorn. âIt was a big, strapping black guy on the cover, holding this passed-out white woman.â
She performed at over 500 bar mitzvahs over 11 years.
2. Haddish pooped in her boyfriendâs brand new Jordans after discovering that he had cheated on her, but not before she âate a gang of corn so he knew it was human shit.â She then contacted the stripper with whom her boyfriend had cheated and agreed to manage her adult film career. So she hit up Brian Pumper, who used to hang out at the Slauson Swap Meet recruiting talent, and the rest was history.
3. She dated Roscoe, a disabled baggage handler at LAX, in what may be the greatest romantic saga in American history. It’s the Hunchback of Notre Dame meets Jim and Pam. The only thing more amazing than the story itself is Haddish’s storytelling ability. Please watch:
Congratulations, Tiffany. You are the 2017 Mangoprism Person of the Year!!!!! You’re my hero.
Runners-up: SZA, Cardi B, Barack Obama, Offset, Dylan Maxwell, Desus and Mero, Maggi and Hinrika from Trapped
Marshawn Lynch, Trillionaire: 2014 Mangoprism Person of the Year
HENDERSON, NV - MAY 05: National Football League player Marshawn Lynch poses in front of his 2013 Lamborghini Aventador Roadster, equipped with Monster Sound, at Findlay Customs on May 5, 2014 in Henderson, Nevada. (Photo by Gabe Ginsberg/Getty Images for Monster Products)
In this life we all yearn to be trill, in one way or another. Trill = true + real. Or is it truereal? Or realtrue?
The equation is in a constant state of flux. The two variables are never arranged the same way twice.
If you do not believe trillness to exist, well maybe you are right. You should stop reading now. But if you, like me, are a believer, you know that trillness is a rare and beautiful and sacred thing indeed.
***
When Marshawn Lynch steps onto the football field, he seems to activate a sixth gear that renders him an Ice Road Truckers combo truck experiencing brake failure with its driver asleep at the wheel. Linebackers play the Seattle Seahawks and suffer nightmares for days after. Always he comes for them, a football tucked under one arm and dreads flying in his wake, demented laughter reverberating in the empty black void of his visor. He is the boogie monster, he is the Babadook. He is Beast Mode.
***
Marshawn had an excellent season in 2014. He rushed for 1,306 yards and was elected to his 4th consecutive Pro Bowl. According to Football Outsiders he provided more value per play than any running back in the league.
More noteworthy than Marshawnâs on-field performance in 2014 were his off the field hijinks. He has always been known in the NFL as a funky dude who marches to the beat of his own drum. But the Seahawksâ historic thrashing of Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XLVIII in February vaulted Marshawn to new levels of fame and fortune. The twin spotlights of the sports media and social media shined on him brighter than ever, revealing much about his character and causing him to react to this new level scrutiny in unexpected ways.
What we learned about Marshawn Lynch in 2014 is this: Marshawn Lynch is candor incarnate. Caprice incarnate. Sprayable bullshit-repellent incarnate. He lives without pretense to the point that Marshawn the running back is nothing more than the pure, uncut athletic and artistic imprint of Marshawn the person. Beast Mode is not merely Marshawn when Marshawn activates his sixth gear — Beast Mode and Marshawn are one and the same.
In other words, 2014 was the year in which the complete and utter trillness of Marshawn Lynch made itself known. Super Bowl XLVIII was the catalyst his dormant trillness needed to erupt.
We live blind in a self-imposed fog and it can be hard to see and know that which is true and real. Trill transcends. Trill lifts the fog. Trill hits the target no one else sees. Marshawn is Picasso. Basquiat. Nic Cage.
Marshawn is Dave Bowman the Starchild and the rest of us are a bunch of cholos watching 2001 A Space Odyssey and eating chips. We cannot experience the Starchildâs trillness firsthand but, suddenly, we can conceive a way of life we didnât previously know existed or could exist.
***
In 2014 Marshawn became the worldâs first trillionaire, 1000x richer than any billionaire. His philanthropy is invaluable to our society whether he knows it or not. By keeping it trill, Marshawn is a great beacon of hope for humanity.
He is the lamp in the lighthouse. He shows the way. He waits just beyond the event horizon. Go to the light and discover the true meaning of freedom. The light is inside you. Go to the light.
TOP 10 TRILL MARSHAWN LYNCH MOMENTS OF 2014
10. Marshawn Procures Bottle of Fireball During Super Bowl Parade
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joNtKn8NMNA
The surest sign that Marshawn is an introvert is that he is always cloaking his face in every available accessory and article of clothing.
For the Seahawks Super Bowl parade he put together the snappy ensemble of a face warmer and a hoodie and a massive cigar tucked into his beanie. True to his Bay Area hyphy roots, he is riding on the hood of the duck boat, when all of the sudden – gasp! – he spots a fan five rows back holding a bottle of Fireball. His face warmer renders him mute but through sheer desperation he makes clear his message to the Seahawks faithful: Iâm finna get fucked up.
9. Marshawn Leaps Into Pool of Slime
Marshawn was nominated for the Nickelodeon Kids Sports Choice Awards âClutch Player of the Yearâ and somehow lost to Carmelo Anthony. Which only tells us something we already knew: kids are idiots.
The night before he willingly leapt into a pool of slime, Marshawn chose to remain in his seat rather than join his teammates on stage when the Seahawks won ESPY for Team of the Year, nicely mirroring his absence from the Seahawksâ post-Super Bowl visit to the White House in May.
Marshawn whipped out his trusty stanchions and velvet rope to cordon off his crispy white Lamborghini Aventador, which he parked on the street during a shoot for a biographical movie about his experience growing up in Oakland called âFamily First’. Seriously canât wait for that movie to come out.
After the Super Bowl, Marshawn puts âReady 2 Ride (Livewire Remix)â by Oakland rapper Philthy Rich on the locker room speaker system and proceeds to gig. A flock of media personnel quickly surrounds him with cameras as Philthy Rich affiliate Stevie Joe raps, âMiddle finger to the crackers.â
Clearly, the Seahawks stadium music guy watched this video, which singlehandedly brought sagging back, and added âReady 2 Rideâ to the 2014 playlist. Here Steven Hauschka is lucky/unlucky enough to be seated next to Marshawn when it comes on the loudspeaker during the Seahawksâ Week 10 game against the Giants.
5. Marshawn Goes To War With NFL Reporters
Marshawnâs dysfunctional relationship with NFL reporters came to a head when NFL fined him $100 grand for blowing off the media after the Seahawks Week 11 loss to the the Chiefs. Thus began a battle of wills that continues to rage in 2015. After the Seahawks Week 12 win over the Cardinals, Marshawn answered each reporterâs question with a simple, passive-aggressive âyeah.â In Week 16, it was âthank you for asking.â
“Football’s just always been hella fun to me, not expressing myself in the media. I don’t do it to get attention; I just do it cause I love that (expletive).”
Marshawnâs commitment to his principles is admirable but also makes him look like a bit of an asshat. He trolls reporters because they are an extension of the NFL apparatus, a.k.a. The Man. Reporters ostensibly serve as intermediaries that give fans access to the players. By subverting the good intentions of NFL reporters, Marshawn actually gives fans more access into the mind of Marshawn than reporters could ever hope to provide under normal circumstances. The model is broken — or rather, he is breaking the model.
In November, Marshawn joined a Seahawks convoy to Marysville-Pilchuck High School to show support after a school shooting. Riding in a Mercedes van along with Seahawks WR Ricardo Lockette, Marshawn pulled into a gas station âplaying music super loudâ and found a wallet lying on the ground belonging to a man (who’s last name, coincidentally, was Lynch). Marshawn and Lockette drove to the address listed on the walletâs ID and no one was home, so they knocked on a few doors and ended up giving it to his neighbor. The neighbor recognized Marshawn but he declined to give her his name, identifying himself simply as âthe dude trying to get the dude back his wallet.â The dude abides.
3. Marshawn Retweets Hennessy
99% of Marshawn’s tweets are retweets of his fans and reputable brands such as Hennessy. He pretty much never tweets anything himself unless it involves LilBoosie.
2. Marshawn Talks to Deion Sanders
Marshawn is just standing there in front of a huge throng of media and not talking. It's kind of amazing pic.twitter.com/yoLjxcWxRA
Penciled in for a 60-minute session at Super Bowl media day, Marshawn gives reporters six minutes of his time and then dips.
But before Marshawn can make his escape from the Prudential Center, Deion Sanders corners him for a NFL Network exclusive interview. With Deion posting up on him like he would a busty sorority sister at the 40/40 Club, Marshawn delivers to the world his definitive life manifesto. He describes to Deion his preferred state of being: âLaid back, kicked back, minding my business.â His belief system is evident not only in what he says but in the way he says it. He does not want to be there, but he gives Deion two minutes because Deion was once a player in the NFL.
Marshawn once again shields himself from bad ju-ju by wearing a hood and sunglasses. Even his beard seems to serve as a sort of defensive mechanism. He must use words to explain that he is not a man of words. He tells Deion: âIâm just âbout that action, boss.â Ironically, his economical manner of speech makes him a man of words after all. He is cogent and lyrical, as if speaking in 2 Chainz hooks. Indeed, someone later remixed the interview into a song. SPOILER: itâs a banger.
In Week 16, Marshawn busted a 79-yard touchdown run against the Cardinals that was immediately hailed as the run of the year. For one play, Marshawn fully harnessed his otherworldly combination of strength and balance and wreaked havoc on the Cardinals defense, as if to prove that the original BeastQuake, his epic 67-yard touchdown run that sealed the Seahawksâ 2011 playoff win over the Saints, was no fluke.
On both occasions, Marshawn stamped an exclamation point on the end of the run by flying backward into the end zone with his hand on his junk, a departure from his standard TD celebration of gentlemanly shaking his teammatesâ hands – the polar opposite of hand on the junk. Whether the hand on the junk indicated self-awareness or instinct, it flowed naturally from the run itself. It was audacious, it was bodacious, it was quintessential Marshawn Lynch, who lives his life the same way he runs the football. Get off me, childâs play.
You used to think people who ride motorcycles were idiots. You are now mounted atop your own motorcycle, gunning it through the Thai countryside, and you realize these people are in fact geniuses. From inside a car the road is a rendering, a hologram. From atop a motorcycle the road is densely compacted earth, the road is the truth. The proof is in the pudding. Your problems are immaterial, time is immaterial, you are in the heat of the moment. The world is reduced to its essential elements. Periodically a pick-up trucks roars by in need of a racing stripe so you reach over and press the back of your fingers against the warm metallic side of the great beast as it goes, the rhinoceros to your oxpecker, letting the dust accumulate under your nails.
Yours is not really a motorcycle, rather a stylishly painted 110cc scooter with a wire basket mounted in the front, presumably intended to hold your burlap sack of baguettes. No matter. This is your first rodeo, and your horsepower is sufficient. Your cup runneth over. The kitty purrs, the kitty roars. Bugs kamikaze dive into your eyes and activate your tear ducts. You don sunglasses. You are Peter Fonda in Easy Rider with a bag of cocaine stashed in the gas tank, and al-Hamajj is Dennis Hopper. You bang your head to Steppenwolf.
To the canyon. To the waterfall. Wherever the almighty road goes. The bike is an extension of your body, an agent of your will. You are a master tactician so you draft behind al-Hamajj and wait for the straightaway to materialize. BOOM. You grip the accelerator and crank it into hyperdrive and al-Hamajj is but a speck in the rear-view mirror.
This excursion to Southeast Asia is financially unwise, but here you are. You are 23 years old and the years are already slipping away. Driftwood. Friends post pictures of themselves traveling the world to Facebook and you are consumed with the muted anguish of FOMO, of regret. Facebook stokes the fires of restlessness in your soul and you feel a powerful urge to SEE THE WORLD. Facebook turns life into a competition â a competition you refuse to lose.
Al-Hamajj is immune to the crippling FOMO that torments us all in this age of Facebook. Back in elementary school the coolest kid was Jack. At lunch Jack sat at one end of a long table. Your popularity was a function of how close you sat to Jack. Al-Hamajj always sat next to Jack or very close. You sat three people away on a good day. Al-Hamajjâs popularity waned steadily after elementary school and all the way through college. Not that he became less well-liked, or became depressed per se, but rather more inward-facing.
A former jazz piano prodigy, al-Hamajj ceased to give a shit about piano around tenth grade. You wish he had continued to give a shit. A few days ago he told you, not in so many words, that though he was never as technically proficient or disciplined as some, Jah had endowed him with a rare style of down-home bluesy face-melting that no one on Earth could duplicate. People would come to see him and his jazz band perform and, not knowing better, set their expectations to âtepid.â And he would play, inevitably melting face as only al-Hamajj could, and the crowd would respond with all sorts of involuntary noises, hupps and whoops and profanities and foot stomps and hollers, a symphony in its own right. Jazz, the sound of surprise. Defying these peopleâs expectations, al-Hamajj said, gave him an enormous thrill, until one day the thrill wasnât there anymore. Now he makes beats, and his hi-hat game is strong. Boy wonder, Boi-1da.
Son of a swaggering Japanese father and a gorgeous Chinese mother, al-Hamajj has become quite the handsome, atavistic sumbitch. You are unsure if he is a monk or just lazy. Either way, you are certain he draws from a deep well of wisdom. His insecurities and neuroses are the foam atop a tankard of tranquility. Unmoored from certain trappings of modern society, al-Hamajj is committed to a lifelong quest to know himself, to know his body, to become a man. As ever, the quest continues. For al-Hamajj each day is a Will Shortz crossword puzzle, a wordless koan. Al-Hamajj is trying to tell you something.
Al-Hamajj is more daring than you. He heads up out of the valley, up where the road becomes a rugged Lombard Street from hell. It means certain death and you yell for al-Hamajj to stop but he is out of earshot, oblivious to your concerns with a mind only for the mountain. He does not look back. You pull over and wait for al-Hamajj to return and stew in anger and abandonment. Forty minutes later he returns and says he was worried you had died, and you canât stay mad at him forever. On the descent back into the valley, you and al-Hamajj exchange the lead, back and forth like two dragonflies circling each other above the lilypads, a vaguely homoerotic dance. At the crest of one hill, about a kilometer out of town, a pretty young thang wearing mirrored Aviators and bare arms walks along the side of the road. Al-Hamajj comes to a stop beside her. He flashes his most winsome smile and pats the seat behind him. âWant a ride?â he asks. âNo,â she says.
The mid-afternoon rain drives you and al-Hamajj inside for a nap. Freshened, you stroll down to main street for dinner, where food vendors are packed like sardines on either sidewalk for half a mile. Tone-deaf buskers play the System of A Down songbook. You are not particularly hungry. You are Thai hungry â you could eat â and you opt for what Louie CK would call a BANG BANG, papaya salad and a bundle of meat sticks followed by a hefty bowl of Khao Soi. Al-Hamajj is more judicious than you in his choices, for financial and spiritual and health reasons. He truly subscribes to the âyou are what you eatâ mantra. When you and al-Hamajj and the squad roll to Wendyâs at 2am, heâll decline to put in an order and instead bust out a canister of mixed nuts.
You arrange with Johannes, your swashbuckling Swedish friend from the hostel in Bangkok, to meet up at the one stoplight in town. You are anticipating a big night as Johannes claims to be rolling with a crew of Europeans.
Al-Hamajj doesnât want to go out. He requires two hours between activities to reset the juices. He adheres to this policy with a religious zeal. âItâs fucking crucial,â he explains. Al-Hamajjâs immunity to FOMO makes him the opposite of activity-oriented. He is going to stay in and get eleven hours of sleep. Only through a half hour of filibuster, subterfuge, and ruthless indictment of his character do you ultimately succeed in dragging al-Hamajj from of bed and out into the warm black night.
En route to the rendezvous with Johannes you engage Al-Hamajj in a ferocious debate. You posit that Eminem is the best rapper of all time and stubbornly dismiss all of al-Hamajjâs attempts to debunk your theory. In reality you are infuriated by his obsession with the mediocre Los Angeles rapper Dom Kennedy. You are two weeks into the trip and al-Hamajj has yet to go ten minutes without reciting the same dumb Dom lyric in Domâs signature monotone sneer. Damn it feel good to say I did my thing out here. âDom just speaks to me,â al-Hamajj will say.
Your argument ends in a bitter stalemate. You spot Johannes on the street corner wearing a âFull Moon Partyâ tank and cradling a large bottle of Heineken and you go to greet him. Johannes is 20 years old and in the midst of the original bildungsroman, eight months spent dicking around in Asia. A happy-go-lucky young buck who will strike up a conversation with just about anyone, he has indeed amassed a sizable crew of Europeans, who are chummy and of varying nationality.
You and al-Hamajj are assimilated into the crew for the evening and dubbed, respectively, âAmerica.â You roll with the crew to buy sky lanterns. You head down to the riverside and set the lanterns free. You crave beer. Some lanterns make it into the stratosphere and some escape Earthâs orbit. Others die quick and set the Thai forest aflame.
You and the crew sit around a large outdoor firepit in the back of a bar. A Thai-Rasta version of Lloyd from Entourage tends to the flames. The crew is fast taking on newcomers. Ten deep, twelve deep, twenty deep. It splinters into sects, as crews are wont to do. You run into a French girl with whom you shared a taxi in Chiang Mai. The buckets come out. Maelstroms of Sprite and liquor bound together by voodoo magik. You chat up some Swiss guy about Wawrinka. Forty-five minutes later you talk to his brother about Wawrinka.
The buckets are a force of nature. Being a lightweight, al-Hamajj is particularly susceptible to their power. You know exactly how inebriated al-Hamajj is at any given moment because his BAC is a function of the rate at which he kisses you on the head and refers to you as âmy nigga.â Tonight, he goes from 0 to 60 in the blink of an eye. You talk to a Brit named Marco (you love Brits) while al-Hamajj spits atrocious game at an Australian member of the crew. She thinks heâs hysterical. You and al-Hamajj take to the dance floor. Collectively, your dance repertoire comprises of the Shmoney dance, the Bernie, and a little move you picked up from Richard Sherman called the Grave Digger. You and al-Hamajj intrigue and delight the ladies of the crew as you Shmoney and Bernie and Dig Graves into oblivion.
You are unsure how much time you have accrued on the dance floor but the bar is closing now. So are the other ten bars on this street. White people abound. You join the army of wildebeests and migrate across the river to a large open-air late night party palace called Donât Cry. It is packed with merry goers. Your buzz is progressing nicely. You later learn that many of the people here are on hallucinogens.
You talk to a guy from San Francisco about his silent meditation retreat. He is a chill bro but you realize you are probably talking to too many males this evening. You repeatedly call attention to the very attractive girl sitting ten feet to his 7 oâclock. As it turns out, she and chill San Francisco bro attended the aforementioned silent meditation retreat together. He calls her over and tells her you think sheâs hot. Unblinking, she puts her face a couple inches from your face. Are you gay? she asks you. You reflexively tell her, no, I am not gay â a devastating mental error. You should have said, YES, I am gay and proceeded to kiss her then and there. As usual, a window of opportunity materializes and you shut it with AUTHORITY. She gives you one last lookover and storms across the bar, and there is nothing to do now but sip beer with chill SF bro and watch her from afar.
Meanwhile, the liquor has utterly consumed al-Hamajj. A food vendor slangs calories across the street. You buy al-Hamajj a stick of chicken to quell his frenzied donkey brain and he eats the whole thing in one bite. Not satisfied yet, he hops up onto the back of a police car and proceeds to Shmoney furiously. You coax him down and back inside the bar. He passes out in the corner. Then he is up and he is everywhere, no longer flesh but a laughing, loving, spitting, farting neutron star of pure energy. He is the hero of the party. He is the villain of the party. Yo soy fiesta.
Your grandpa suffered a stroke two days ago. He is in critical condition and you doubt you will ever see him again. You last saw him in August, at your cousinâs wedding in Colorado. You talked about college football, the Revolutionary War, your post-college adjustment to the real world, and such. The adjustment continues. Indeed you are in Thailand now, and you felt little when you received the news of his stroke. Youâve tried to process it, or have you. You are numb in your bubble on the other side of the planet.
