Our Town

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Posted by Greg White at 9:21 AM | Permalink | Comments

I Think I'm Turning Japanese: My First Visit to a Chinese Restaurant
by Nancy Pierce, Our Town Staff

I was sitting on a bus heading up to Albany for an adult-themed convention minding my own business when an old, strange-looking woman appeared and asked if she could sit next to me. I turned and gasped at her appearance. She had a sort of yellowish skin, like an unripened Mexican, and beady little eyes that darted mischievously back and forth from behind narrow openings, like those slits in bunkers that they fire guns through.
Speechless, I nodded and she took her seat.

After a few moments, I cautiously tapped the ancient being on the shoulder and said, very slowly, "Excuse-me. I-am-friend. Where-you-come-from?" Rejecting the cookie I held to her mouth, she replied (in perfect English no less!), "Harriotpark. But I was born in Albany. I'm going to visit some family." She added, "Are you okay?"

Harriot Park? Well I had never been so shocked in my life! Who knew there were creatures such as this so close to our own backyards? I had to investigate further. I tapped her once more, "Ah, hello, again little one, just curious, where does your, ah, tribe hail from?" The urchin laughed. "I can tell you don't have many Asian friends. I'm Chinese." I sounded it out: "Chi-nee." She corrected me, "No, like this, chi-NEES." I extended my hand: "I'm Nancy." She put her delicate little hand in mine: "Helene." I replied, "Harl-ean?" "No, like this: Hell-EEN."

This went on for some time. At some point I fell asleep. When I awoke we were almost in Albany. I turned to my new friend, the Chi-NEAW woman named Hell-EEN. She was eating a curious mixture using two sticks. "Savage," I muttered. "What's that?" she said. Remembering my manners, I replied, "What is that you're eating? Is it magic?" She laughed again, covering her mouth. "You're kidding, right? It's lo-mein." I started: "Lo--?" before she quickly cut me off. "Look," she said in between greedy bites, "I have a few hours to kill before I have to head over to my sister's place. Why don't I take you to a great restaurant I know?" I obliged, noting conspicuously that I was in the food industry as a THREE TIME OUR TOWN AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR. She nodded quietly and I sat back down. Yep, this Chi-BEEK woman was one stoic customer.

We arrived at the restaurant, an exotic strip mall space called "Schezuan Palace." Towards the front, pretty shimmering fish swam about. In the back, more of the funny little people ran around shouting in a kitchen. I laughed. How curious these Chinchin people were!

As we were shown to our table, I asked my new friend, "Where do you people come from? I've never seen one of you before." "We're from China," she replied. "Is that like Europe?" She laughed once more, to my slight frustration before she dropped the bomb: "No, we're from China. It's in Asia, along with Korea, Japan, India, and so on." 'What's this?' I thought to myself, 'a new continent?' I like to consider myself a pretty cultured individual, having eaten at a multitude of American, Caucasian, and White restaurants, but this was almost more than I could bare! I only had the vaguest recollection of India, something about jobs, but to the other names I was a complete stranger. To think, I came for an S&M good time, and instead had an Asian -educational good time!

The next hour was filled with little dough pouches filled with bits of meat and vegetable matter, along with rice (just like the rice we eat!) and meats and sauces and noodles. I enjoyed my meal thoroughly, although I admit to having trouble with the chom-sticks, those small rounded sticks I saw Helene using on the bus.

When I asked for a fork, the little servant began laughing and chittering in a strange tongue to Helene. I demanded what was so funny. Helene told me he had just made a joke that was hard to translate, but that it was mostly complementary; something about the year of the dragon and the rays of the early morning sun. She said there weren't really any English words for what he just said. It made me think of the time I tried to barter sex in exchange for my freedom in Tijuana (for the record, they turned my offer down, but did give me my freedom).

Our meal thusly finished, the same little servant man from before (or maybe it was a different one--it's hard to tell as they all look alike) appeared (these people are always scurrying and appearing like ghosts, they never just walk up and say, "Hello!") and brought us an orange. I picked it up as though seeing an old friend after an extended vacation in a strange land. "Now this I've eaten before!" Helene started laughing. Then the host of duplicates began laughing. Next thing I knew, I was laughing too and at that moment I realized that laughter truly is the universal language.

Next week: Nancy Gets Her Grind On at the Albany Sex Expo!

Posted by Greg White at 8:37 AM | Permalink | Comments

Staney Tucci Middle School’s Back to School Dance was cut short Friday when Daniel K. Benson, better known as ‘DJ Dan’, spontaneously detonated a newfound gloomy philosophic outlook upon unsuspecting young dance-goers.

At approximately 8:40 P.M., Benson, who had “generally been acting goofy all night”, voluntarily left the building after a series of inappropriate comments and actions culminated in an outburst that was luckily suspended by the parents and teachers chaperoning the event. Following the incident, senior chaperone and vice-principal Doug Hastings decided to end the event an hour and twenty minutes early, ensuring students the next seasonal dance would run until 11 o’clock. As of press time, a permanent replacement DJ has not been named.

The usually laconic 26-year old had, up to that point, upheld a successful three-year relationship with Stanley Tucci. Children enjoyed his up-to-date catalog and admired his Hobbs tattoo, and parents and teachers enjoyed his penchant for wrapping things up before ten and honoring requests for radio-edits. But what was supposed to be an evening of innocent dancing and bubblegum pop turned into anything but when Benson began spewing unprovoked utterances about “nothingness” and “bad faith”, ultimately dismissing the existence of any higher power whatsoever in front of the 120 students in attendance.

Ironically enough, the night started on a whimsical note, when jocular Spanish teacher Senor Farphony was dragged onto the dance floor by fifth-grader Max Weeber. As the Lou Bega classic, “Mambo #5” started up, Farphony turned the joke on Weeber and started an incredulously inaccurate Macarena dance to the comic delight of all onlookers. Recalls Weeber’s mother Patricia, PTA treasurer who handled the admissions table: “The second Mr.[sic] Farphony stepped onto the floor, Marge Gruber and I turned to each other simultaneously and just shook our heads. This was going to be one of those nights!”

Things took a strange turn when an increasingly dour Benson instructed the audience to find a partner for the first slow-dance of the night. Witnesses reported hearing some kind of mumbling about “mine as well asking your dance partner to marry you”, followed by something to the effect of, “you can scour the earth and find no one who understands you”, followed still by incoherent utterances that sounded like German. Perhaps occupied by the looks of their blushing partners at Benson’s mention of marriage, most of the children seemed oblivious.

Astute, and some bilingual, the chaperones kept a cautious eye on the increasingly surly DJ, but kept to the perimeter of the gymnasium, hoping Benson was just blowing off a little steam. “We didn’t want to spoil the happy mood or ruin anyone’s great time,” said Hastings.

Then, in the middle of Kelly Clarkson’s “Since U Been Gone” marking the energetic high point of the evening, the students’ screaming sing-along met silence as the music abruptly cut out. Walking out from behind the DJ booth, a desperate Benson directed his confusion at the children still frozen in dance. Strutting drudgingly across the baseline, he came across sixth-grader Michelle Burns, confused herself as to why Ms. Clarkson had stopped singing.

“It was terrible,” chaperone and 8^th grade science teacher Greta Nichols lamented. “He smiled right at that crying girl and said, ‘God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.’”

A pin could be heard hitting the sneaker-scuffed basketball court as Benson continued, now maniacal: “Don’t any of you get it? It’s completely meaningless!” As Hastings and parent-chaperone Ken Doolittle signaled to each other and slowly began approaching him, witnesses say Benson “already looked defeated”, sitting down on the ground to aimlessly examine pieces of fallen red streamer as Doolittle calmly apprehended him.

Benson rejected Doolittle’s assistance and sluggishly escorted himself out of the gymnasium. Frightened children and relieved parents and teachers watched in still silence as he passed through the double-doors, grabbing a handful of black pepper Doritos from the snack table, crushing them into crumbs and vacantly letting them fall from his fist onto the linoleum tile.

Benson had apparently recently enrolled in two introductory philosophy classes at nearby Hampton County Community College after dropping out of SUNY Cortland six years ago. A friend and Hampton classmate reached for comment that asked he remain anonymous noted that while he would often see Benson carry around and feverishly mark up copies of Being and Nothingness and The Gay Science, by his suspicions, the budding philosopher was just, “wikipedia-ing sh*t”.

As the scene ended at around a quarter to nine, parents and teachers agreed that the children call their parents to tell them the dance would end early.

When school commenced the following Monday, it was announced that Benson would be officially relieved of his unofficial title as the ‘DJ of Stanley Tucci Middle School’. No replacement has been named.

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