Saturday Night In Harvard Square

Roger Nicholson is playing his sad love songs. At about 9 p.m. I am the only one clapping. People are hot, and as usual, not very enthusiastic. WHAT IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE HERE??? WTF??? Are they all on mind-numbing anti-depressants? Man, I really do not know what happened to the JOY in this area. Maybe Harvard is a secret soul-sucking Vampire-type institution. Maybe.

But I left at about 10 to go home and deal with my psycho roommate (Is there any other kind, especially when they are male, MIT researchers, and German?). He leaves on Sunday YAYAYAY!!! His girlfriend was present (here for a visit) so no confrontation at all. He is really a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde creep. When he first moved in a few months ago, I kept dropping things whenever he was around. I knew it was my inner self warning me to get rid of him. And she was right. I managed to avoid him almost entirely for 3.5 months. When I didn't he turned into a real prick.

So on to the next psycho? I am getting reaaallllly tired of this crap.

But back to Harvard Square. So I returned after eating a cheese and olive omelette and dealing with my roommate. This time a few people actually CLAPPED for Roger. Maybe because he had the sound turned up pretty darn high. Ha ha!!! Take THAT Cambridge Arts Council Monitor, who surely left by 11 p.m.

A young-ish Italian guy near me was checking out all the women. It was actually kind of nice to see, since so many Harvard Square guys seemed positively neutered. That, or gross frat boy types who make my skin crawl.

Speaking of which, a few days ago I was walking from the Concord train station to Walden Pond. Finally got into the last stretch, walking up the hill, only 5 minutes til park property. Coming down the hill were a group of six junior frat boys. Junior as in high school jocks. Normally I ignore this type of little brat. But I was hot, sweaty and annoyed so when they looked at me, I just stared back at them defiantly.

As soon as they passed me, they all started making weird animal noises. Sounded like rutting antelopes, except I have no idea what rutting antelopes sound like. I figured it was the heat and the hormones. I never did like jocks and frat boys. No subtlety whatsoever. I went for a ride with a frat football player when I was 14 (he was 16) and I swear if I hadn't been strong enough to fight him off, things would have ended very badly. Ugh ugh ugh ugh. Not sure why I went for a drive, oh yeah. He was a neighbor from across the street. It was summer, he had a convertible, and I was bored, young and curious. Ugh ugh ugh ugh.

Back to Harvard Square. So Sam the mandolin player yelled hello to me. But I didn't want to talk with him because yesterday he might have been high and started explaining to me about the Russian mob in Harvard Square (maybe that explains Peter the robotic guitar player!) and the corrupt police and on and on. I was tired and wanted to just go home, so I finally cut him off.

A week or so ago, Sam came up, glowing and sweating, eyes dilated. "Hey, since I saw you an hour ago, I dropped acid!" I haven't heard anyone say something like that in years. I said, "Hmm... That's not too good, Sam." But he waved his arms as if to fly. "No! It's beeeyoootiful!!!" I walked on. Sam did a dance. I crossed my fingers that the police would not arrest him. Again.

But flying reminds me...on July 4th I went to Singing Beach in Manchester, and as the train approached the station, I saw three people falling out of the sky. Literally. Except they were attached to wings and had motors on their feet. Sky divers. It was pretty cool, especially since I first thought they were kites or birds, and only gradually realized these were three humans with wings and motors on their feet!

Yes I know, this is scattered. No doubt I have ADHD like my new favorite young cute soap star, Finn Wittrock, who plays Damon on AMC. I don't think any of the old-timers like his storyline. I might be the only one, but I just started to watch AMC (actually via youtube, so I can just watch his storyline) a couple of months ago, and some of the old timers have been watching for 30 years!!!

Anyway, Damon is a troubled youth who is really smart and snarky (also Finn is a very good actor) and is falling in love with his girlfriend's smart snarky lawyer Mom, sexy Liza. It is a pretty HOT storyline. I can't figure out why so many of the old-timers hate it. OK, there is a history there. It seems Liza's Mom slept with Liza's boyfriend back in the day. But I think that was a different scenario, since Liza's Mom Marian was pretty much a sex fiend. Whereas Damon and Liza actually seem to like one another.

As I've said before, I would LOVE to be a soap opera writer. Characters bury people alive, steal babies, cheat and lie and con each other incessantly. It's so GREAT!!!

OK, Harvard Square. Last vignette. So I went to buy a small ice cream at JP Licks. I don't really like ice cream that much, but when it is really hot in the summer time, I might have a small cone once or twice. This was my second visit this year.

The guy who served me last time was there, and he was really hyped up. I realized I like him, just liked his vibe. He reminds me of someone I knew a few years ago in Montreal. He and I and the girl serving me started having a pretty incoherent conversation, and laughing a lot and no one knew quite why, and none of us were stoned! Maybe the proximity to so much sugar? Who cares? It was FUN!!!

Things I Hate (and Sometimes I Hate Just About Everything!)

I hate rich people breezily chatting about someone's post in Dubai, and then remarking that "it's a good job, but the economy there is just not as great as it once was". Lah dee dah.

I hate rich Harvard guys complaining about yet a third wedding in the Vineyard, yet ANOTHER private plane to catch, then hopping into a red convertible Porsche with a freshly cleaned Gucci suit slung over the shoulder.

I hate the creepy guy in Harvard square who does so-called puppetry whilst making strange comments in his husky unpleasant voice. Too much acid, dude, back in the day...waayyy too much. Shoulda stayed away from the Brown Dot. I'm sure everyone warned you, and you just didn't listen.

(OK yes maybe "hate" is a strong word--so this is hate in the sense of so extremely annoyed that I feel like screaming. Not hate in the way I hate the folks "in charge" who left poor old women in New Orleans to die in the streets after they intentionally destructed 9th Ward Levies during Hurricane Katrina, which was only a Category 3 storm when it hit the city, by the way.)

I hate male musicians who, without knowing a single thing about me, condescendingly chuckle when I say I might like to buy a Zoom digital recorder, informing me "That's probably out of your price range." Then I check Amazon and find it for $300, not bad. So what was really meant was "Don't fool yourself. You're a female. You just don't have those creative music genes." (i.e. penis) OK, maybe he didn't mean it quite this way, but that IS the way I heard it, and I HAVE heard derision and chuckles so many times in my life.

Chuckles and condescension from penis-people re: my screenplays, paintings, drawings, op-eds, fiction, videos, photography, musical compositions and arrangements, vocal performances, acting, poetry. EVEN my approach to participating in protests. Even during a critical mass Bike Ride.

I was calling out to folks on Newbury Street "Get out of your car, and ride your bike! It's GOOD for you, GOOD for the environment". A nasty pricky penis person rode up to me and told me to shut up. Apparently only the males in the ride were allowed to verbalize. It was then that I noticed that the other women riding were demurely silent. I ended up telling the guy to go phoque himself (a phoque is a seal, in French) at the end of the ride. But he had temporary achieved his aim--I was shocked into (temporary) silence. Useless A-hole!

Once I got into a huge fight with a guy I had been dating. It was in a bar in Montreal. He had just breezily informed me that he was there to meet another woman, not me. Big mistake. His snotty entitled cruel words and attitude resulted in me ripping his shirt and biting his hand while his friends tried, without success, to pull me off the guy. The bouncer finally came over and threatened to call the cops. I figured I had made my point and left.

I went out to the corner and called my friend Stacy, a social worker. I could feel heat and energy coursing through my whole body. It felt GREAT, but already the "not being demure and invisible" guilt was setting in. But Stacy would have none of that. She thought what I had done was GREAT!

"Imagine what would it would be like if EVERY woman who was fed up with the behavior of some guy or another had a screaming fit simultaneously," she said. "Every single street corner would be filled with screaming women, tearing shirts and biting hands and having bloody fits. It would be fantastic!"

I loved Stacy, a true friend. Haven't seen her in some time and I still love her.

But in Harvard Square, with one cop for every third person, protecting the spawn of the corporate elite, and cameras every 20 feet, the best I have done is intentionally smash into a group of frat boys who refused to give me some space on the sidewalk, and chastise a couple of drunk college brats who were mean to a homeless guy. No torn shirts, no bitten hands.

Maybe it's time to become a metal musician. Then I can scream my head off (as long as it's no more than 80 decibels in Harvard Square) and get away with it. I can also sing tunes like "Land of the Bland, Home of the Cloned" one of my originals. And maybe, just maybe, someone will finally recognize me for the genius I am. Or maybe not. No penis, no genius. Is that how it goes? Well I could always wear a "costume" if you know what I mean.

PS A couple months after the bar fight, I ran into Mr. Bitten Hand at a Salsa Club. He grinned ear to ear and asked me to dance. I didn't hate him anymore so I accepted. His friends looked on in shock as we danced a really WILD, really FUN Salsa. I guess some guys enjoy red-headed women with bad tempers. Thank goddess for that.