Date: Sat, 1 Nov 1997 23:22:30 -0500 (EST) From: Joao de Souza Reply-To: MA-MODS@montagar.com To: MA-MODSquad Subject: MA-MODS Halloween I got out of work at 6:25. Just about enough time to purchase a few supplies, go home, get changed (no time to shower - bleargh!) and run downstairs to meet Jennifer and Richard. We were supposed to meet in front of my building between 7:00 and 7:15. A car pulled -up, and I could see a young Asian guy driving, with a blond hooker in the passenger seat. I though "Rich is _really_ into the New York spirit". Turns out that the blond was Jen with a wig, in an early 1970's pre-disco dancer outfit. She had just seen Austin Powers a couple of days earlier, and got the idea from the movie. The drive out of the city was a hassle. The halloween parade caused a lot of stop-n-go traffic. Once out of the city, we did okay. Luckily, I had a printout of Erica's instructions, so we didn't get lost. On the way, Jennifer told me the story of how Rich caused severe head trauma to a white belt student at her Italian Jiu-Jitsu dojo, earlier in the day. For those of you not familiar with IJJ, it is a Brooklyn martial art, which involves a lot of verbal abuse, and gunplay. (de Niro mode = ON - "are you talking to me? No, I said, are _you_ talking to me? You gotta be taking to me. Ain't no one else here! .. BANG!" - de Niro mode = OFF) When we arrived, Erica greeted us all with open arms (literally). After the hugs, and the laughs at Jen's expense, we went in and met with Don, His wife Deana, Erica's wife Pattie (is this PC?), Matthew (Erica's student), and a bunch of other people. Sorry if I can't be more specific, but I have a very hard time remembering people's names, which is quite ironic coming from me. I proceeded to remove the contents off my bag: eight pints of Guinness Draught, one stuffed plush ringtail lemur, one tall cat-in-the-hat hat, and the obligatory can of SPAM. People started passing the lemur around, and we all dully rejected the SPAM. Don and I took the Guinness into the kitchen, and started consuming large quantities of the black gold, all the while Rich looked at us as if we were from another planet. For Rich's credit, he did drink a glass. Faster than one can say "anti-social behavior", the RMAM crowd gathered in the kitchen, while the commoners stayed in the living room. Erica provided us all with our in-crowd supplies: Plastic monster-faced rings, plastic Ninja stars (with suction cups and all), and obligatory alien-head lollypops. Turns out the rings were too small to fit anyone's fingers, but Don provided us his supper-doopper camping knife, which we used to cut a gap on the hoop, so the ring could fit. I demonstrated my amazing knife handling skills by almost stabbing myself while trying to cut a little plastic ring. Don showed us his sword and, while Rich and I were drooling over it, Erica showed us hers. The phrase "... _I'll_ show you a sword ..." popped into my mind. These were two very different weapons. Don's katana is a beautifully crafted "get the heck out of my way or I'll cut you in half" sword. Erica's blade is a fine work of art, and we were all surprised by its flexibility. Considering I have nearly zero experience with blades and weapons in general, plus the fact that I'm a klutz, I only held them for a very short time, before passing them around to a more qualified handler. Don was surprised to see how extremely self-conscious I was when holding a sword. I find them fascinating, but I know my limitations. We decided to get a picture of Don and Erica holding their respective swords at each other. While Rich and Erica were instructing Don on the precise position for holding his weapon ("... you gotta move your right pinky three millimeters to the south"), I used my infinite wisdom to say the words: "Guys! Guys! Who cares?" Don and Erica started laughing, and I shot the picture. Jennifer posed for a picture with her blond hooker outfit, holding the can of Spam, sorta like those women in the 1960's ads. Not to be outdone, Don, Richard and myself, took turns with the blond wig and the Spam. While this is going on, I hear some laughter coming from the living room. Some wacky friend of Erica's showed-up, wearing a Gi and a mask, and he was posing for pictures. So I shot one. I was surprised to see that, every time I looked in the living room, a different person was holding on to the lemur. The tall hat wasn't nearly as popular. We goofed around in the kitchen for a while longer. For everyone's disappointment, Jen changed into a less provocative outfit. She looked particularly good as a cheap bubbly blond hooker :) . We moved into the living room for the main attraction. Rich took control of the TV and VCR, and proceeded to explain to us what it was we were about to experience, plus some Japanese culture 101. While we were getting ready to watch the tapes, Rich decided to pose for another disturbing picture, with me as the victim this time around. The first tape was all Ranma. I had never seen that series, and was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. It was VERY funny. We were all enjoying it quite a lot, and cracking jokes throughout the whole thing. Don was particularly fascinated by the phrase "school of indiscriminate grapling". I was also surprised by the fact that the two main characters in the movie had Portuguese names. I guess the Portuguese semi-colonization of Japan, many centuries ago, had more influence in Japanese culture than I previously imagined. Deana proved that she is a true Malamute owner when, upon seeing the scene of the giant panda in the house, her only words were "can you imagine how much fur this thing must leave behind?". Most of the crowd, including the Wagners, left sometime between Ranma and the Japanese-animations-set-to-music videos. This left Erica, Pattie, Jennifer, Richard and myself behind. During the videos, Erica started reading Jen's cards, and followed by reading Rich's. Pattie went to bed, and we started watching another Japanese animation, this one serious, with a few disturbing scenes. During the whole thing, Erica and I were doing our best impression of Mystery Science Theater 3000, cracking jokes the whole time. Jen started to cry when the main female character died, but I handed her the lemur, which made her feel better. Erica was giving Richard a back and neck massage, and finding interesting little things about the young man's body ("you have a strangely shaped collarbone" and so on). I took over the comfy chair. Next on Rich's agenda, was the x-rated animations. He was very embarrassed about putting it on, and quite self-conscious about what we would think of him, but we convinced him to. It was very graphic, very disturbing, and extremely funny! We were laughing quite a lot, and Richard kept saying "You must have lost all respect towards me by now". Don't worry mate. We didn't. I was trying to stay awake but, the fact that it had been a very long day, plus the many pints of Guinness I drank (with the traditional two visits to the little boys' room for each pint), combined with the fact that I was sitting on the comfy chair, proved too much for me. I was drifting in and out of consciousness, just like during the meetings at work. After the animation, much to my surprise, Erica and Jennifer were actually discussing the plot! We left Erica's at about 3:30 or so. Surprisingly enough, we didn't get lost on the way back either. We were all very tired, and I was trying to stay awake, while attempting to maintain some small talk with Richard, so he wouldn't fall asleep at the wheel. Most of what I was saying was plain gibberish, but that is mostly what I usually say anyway. Jen was quiet in the back seat. My favorite line of the whole evening was during the drive back. I mentioned to Richard how a lot of people have a hard time understanding what I'm saying due to my accent, and he responded with: "I would be willing to give-up a little comprehension for the babe-magnet factor of a foreign accent". It shed a whole new light on my communication problems :) There was a little conflict over the climate controls. Being Brazilian, I was trying to turn the car into a tropical rainforest. Richard is a penguin in disguise, and had the A/C on at full blast, while the temperature outside was in the upper 40's. Well, thanks to Erica and Pattie for being the perfect hostesses, to Richard for the drive and the videos, to Jennifer for the outfit :) , and to everyone else for the great company and the good time. Phew, this was long Later, -- Joao "do not expose to cold water" de Souza