Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

gina

Gina’s Bachelorette Adventure, Pt. 4

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The fourth post in this series finds your author all of three days before Gina’s Bachelorette Party AKA All-Day Adventure and I am, let’s say, FREAKING OUT.

Gina modeling a vast collection of our stenciled icons in action on Gina's back late in the day in her bachelorette adventure (while Mikki and I spray more stencils int he background). As you can imagine, we had to spray these quickly and in highly public spaces.

Allow me to set the scene for you. It is eight or nine at night. I am on my side patio, which I like to pretend is private but really is quite in full view of anyone passing directly in front of our house.

I am wearing only my underwear. My blindingly white naked torso vibrates against the dusk like a bike reflector. I am dual-wielding two cans of spray paint against a defenseless bag of planting soil, which is wearing a plain white t-shirt. The shirt bears several iterations of the Starfleet symbol, some in black spray paint, others apparently colored in with a marker.

I swear, if photographs of this scene existed, I would totally share one.

Why this utter madness? Let’s travel back in time two days. As the guy on the ground in Philly, I was on the receiving end of the various bachelorette party supplies selected by Kelly (in Belgium) and Mikki (in Seattle). Both women are so ridiculously kitschy and crafty that it defies explanation. I received many things. A box of 30 pink t-shirts. A set of Erlenmeyer flasks and graduated cylinders. A package of vaguely phallic sidewalk chalk.

What I did not receive was spray paint for branding our t-shirts.

The t-shirt iconography had become central to our gamification concept for the party, with Gina choosing a team for every challenge. If the team defeated the challenge, they would be branded with a special stenciled badge. Think of it as “Foursquare: LIVE!”

Despite working all day in the midst of a team full of craft maniacs, I am not in the least bit crafty. I’m not even good at speculating about methods of craft. I am good at desktop publishing and subsequently printing things on high end paper. That’s about the extent of my crafting abilities. I am not great at creating things with my hands. I still have problems changing guitar strings.

Thus, the spray paint issue was very … concerning. Three days to the party seemed like the time we should be testing the spray paint, to make sure it would work. Kelly and Mikki had mentioned a few potential brands in their emails, but I couldn’t find any online that I could get shipped in three days, because spray paint can only be shipped via ground.  I started researching other spray paint, discovering that most of it needed to be sealed with heat before it set. Every time I found something that sounded like it might work (including, hilariously, “Hunters [sic] Specialties Permanent Camo”) I ordered it for the fastest shipping possible, all the while getting increasingly frustrated that I was researching spray paint at all instead of writing Gina’s instruction book.

The very highly recommended spray paint choice of Kelly and Mikki was "Montana Gold Acrylic Spray Paint," which comes in every possible color, including metallics.

Remember how I recently shared a leadership assessment that said that I have a strong future vision while focusing on data and clearing obstacles? Well, it also told me that under stress I become myopic and focus only on information overload and slaying things.

It’s not a big leap to the scene that opened this post. I had five cans of assorted spray paint and two markers lined up and had dressed a 40lb sack of dirt in one of my old t-shirts. At a loss for an icon I could quickly stencil out of a sheet of cardboard, I went back to basics: the starfleet insignia. Not wanting to get spray paint on my clothes (even clothes I’ve set aside specifically in a bin entitled, “for painting”), I elected to strip down to a pair of blue bikini briefs to conduct this exercise.

Welcome to my brain. It is a scary place.

The next morning Kelly and Mikki talked me down from my panic after I sent them not the sanest or nicest email I have ever written. They helped me figure out which local stores carried the paint they both recommended, and Kelly assured me we could visit one together when she arrived stateside. Mel coaxed me away from my desk at lunch and convinced me I would not have a panic attack from entering a craft store. I bought the recommended spray paint.

Problem: solved!

Now we had all of the necessary elements for Gina’s party, save for three: Kelly, Mikki, and the instruction book that would lay out the rules of the game and all of the various challenges.

Oh. Just that.

Tune in next time for Kelly and my madcap adventures the day before the party, how an off-hand mention of a “side-quest” turned into the most hilarious part of the event, and samples from the now legendary instruction book.

Gina’s Bachelorette Adventure, Pt. 3

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When I left off last week we had a video game theme, an instruction booklet introduction, and a visual concept of 8-bit goodness – all for my best friend and bandmate Gina’s highly unusual bachelorette party.

Here I am shown negotiating something – possibly our surrender – with two park rangers while our live action video game was in progress. No, I am not threatening them with a baton, that’s just a trick of perspective. Still, they seemed to find me rather intimidating. Notice how the one on the left has his hand near his utility belt, while the one on the right is making an exceedingly obvious attempt to reach for his radio receiver.

As for what we’d be actually be doing during our human video game, that was another story entirely. A story with no plot or structure. Or mini-bosses.

We had to start somewhere. Since Gina is a chemist by day, we decided she should be challenged to put her chemistry knowledge to the test. I originally wanted to her to conduct a chemistry demonstration in the middle of the street with everyday groceries, but we eventually decided that might look a bit too much like an act of terrorism during 4th of July weekend within a few blocks of The Liberty Bell.

(At the time there were legitimate questions being asked, like “Do we need a permit to do that?” and “Can you even legally buy that in Pennsylvania?” We fully anticipated losing one or more attendees to some mix of boredom, drunkenness, heatstroke, or tasing by park rangers.)

With a mind to not being detained under the Patriot Act, Kelly devised an insane chemistry challenge to fulfill our needs that we could all understand as laypeople… and, possibly as drunks, depending on how the day was going at that point. [Read more…] about Gina’s Bachelorette Adventure, Pt. 3

Gina’s Bachelorette Adventure, Pt. 2

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When I left you hanging a month ago I was planning my best friend and bandmate Gina’s bachelorette party with two of her other best friends, and we were all determined it had to be the best party in the history of all parties.

On a Rt. 36 trolley during the actual bachelorette party, as shot by Kelly's partner Gudrun. Wondering what the pins are and what our shirts say? Keep reading. (Oh, and is that Gina in the background? What is that thing she's wearing as a hat? Hmm...)

One month out from the event we were still trying to piece together dozens of ideas for an Amazing Race-style event when I had an epiphany: Gina’s party would be a video game. Here is my actual verbatim pitch to fellow BFFs-of-Gina Kelly and Mikki:

I know I am completely insane and you can say no to this, but what if the way we put a wrapper on the entire day is not that it’s Amazing Race but that it is a giant Gina-themed video game, a la her lyrics in “Fisher Price”? It wouldn’t change any specific task, but it would give us a way to theme the events. We could even make up a little “Strategy Guide” to give to her at the beginning with hints and stuff :)

Or, I am insane.

Even if I was insane, Kelly and Mikki are equally so, and they immediately bought into the idea without a moment’s pause and continued to fire off increasingly more ridiculous plans for the day, such as:

I was thinking it would be fun to get gina a labcoat for the chemistry [demonstration]…decorated and bedazzled of course.

Kelly's party favors, all based on 8-bit video game graphics. I have one of these pinned to my book bag and I still have not the slightest idea of how they were assembled or how Kelly worked out the patterns.

While I was excited that they liked my idea, I was also terrified that I now had to transform a day wandering the streets of Philadelphia with 20+ guests into a live action video game. Not just any video game, but a decidedly retro one that would click with a group of people who grew up on classic Nintendo – and, for many of them (including my co-planners), hadn’t played a video game since!

It was at this juncture that I pulled out my Nintendo and SNES and started skimming through instruction booklets.

Most old-school video games share a basic architecture. A character has to accomplish something (return home, free the princess, kill all the zombies, etc), defeating increasingly difficult challenges (monsters, puzzles, etc) along the way. Their victories yield rewards (points, items, etc) that serve to increase their sophistication (levels, powers, etc).

Gina’s journey was clear – she had to complete all of the previously disconnected Amazing Race challenges to move through the city. We were lucky to have a starting point on South Street and an end west of the city, making a sensible (if not linear) world map.

Mikki's stencils, corresponding to our various city challenges. Note the mix of incredible realism (the amazing camera, the pig silhouette, the Kanye glasses) with pixelized video game ephemera. Click through to see a larger version of her handiwork.

I drafted an intro to Gina’s game booklet as a sort of proof of concept of merging 80s video game hyperbole with our shared pithy sense of humor:

Gina F____: Chemist By Day, Rock Star By Night – The Almost Married Edition! is an epic adventure that will take our hero, Gina, on a journey from one end of Philadelphia to the other to transform her from Chemist By Day, Rock Star by Night to Chemist By Day, Rock Star By Night, And Also Bride!

In GF:CBDRSBN-TAME!, Gina will visit key locations of power to defeat challenges, level up, and energize her POWERFUL BRIDE POWERS. Along the way, complete special tasks on the TABLE OF PERIODIC ELEMENTS OF GINA & WES board to complete her special WESLEY QUEST.

Gina won’t be able to defeat GF:CBDRSBN-TAME! alone – she will be abetted by friends and buoyed by special power-ups during her journey.

Powers? What powers?!?

This is where my cohorts saved me from writing our event to death with their amazing creativity. While trying to dream up rewards, Kelly thought of making a grab bag of pixelated party favors. Meanwhile, after hearing Kelly’s idea for the favors, Mikki began to design a series of elaborate stencils. The idea was that each one was based on one of our challenges, and could be sprayed onto the shirts we planned to give to all the guests.

With a cohesive visual interpretation to tie the video game concept together, the layout of our game was suddenly much clearer. Now I simply had to figure out how Gina could play this game along with twenty of her closest friends.

Tune in next time to hear about my concept of gameplay as our preparations became increasingly frantic with less than two weeks until Gina would take the controls of her own personal video game!

sing

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“Do you want to sing?”

Is my answer ever not “yes”?

I’ve heard people say that your willingness to sing has a reciprocal relationship to how good you are, and that the best singers will be the first to gracefully retire from the room when the topic is broached.

On that I call bullshit, and not just because it implies that I am a crap singer.

If you love to sing, you love to sing. Gina sings her way through life. E is singing beneath her breath at all times. Whether it was yowling teen in my high school hallways or increasingly lithe rocker of today, I sing on any occasion, so why would I decline to open my mouth and emit a joyous noise when someone specifically wants to hear it?

.

“Do you want to sing?”

I fielded that query at two o’clock on Saturday, and my relative skill as a vocalist aside it was a rare moment when I clearly did not want to sing.

I was in weekend bum mode, unshaven and in a t-shirt from my drawer of t-shirts that are explicitly set aside to never be seen outside of the house. The night before Gina and I had one of our longest rehearsals ever in that very living room with our new aider and abettor Jake, and we sang our voices right down to the quick until at the end my harmony on “Real End” was a mere squeak.

No, I did not want to sing.

This askance came from our little brother – not mine, actually, but E’s, except he is for all intents mine, for half his life and a third of mine. He was in our living room, moving out the next day, with his friend in tow, her first time in our grown up kids house, and if I was going to be in unimpressive weekend bum mode for her instead of lounging around the living room in rock star mode wearing nothing but sunglasses and vinyl pants drinking champagne from the bottle at least I could do some singing.

(Please note that the reality is more often than not me lounging around in low-rise jeans and drinking lemonade from a tumbler, but let’s not disabuse anyone of their glamorous illusions of your author.)

Of course I said yes. Is my answer ever not “yes”?

I said yes and hollered out Weezer and Lady Gaga and sang harmony on Maroon 5 until I was singing on fumes, and I know enough about myself to know when graceful retirement is the best option, so I finally excused myself from the room to wallow in the air conditioning upstairs.

.

“Do you want to sing?”

The night before E and I moved in together I wrote a song rather than pack – a song with the line, “I’m a little bit sick and tired of getting put on display,” though afterwards I quickly counter the sentiment by confessing, “I guess I shouldn’t have listed that skill on my resume.”

It’s funny how little that describes my relationship to E – we’re never putting on a show for each other’s benefit. If anything, we are the show. The line was never meant to describe us – it was more about being thrust onto the stage in every social and occupational situation because I’m the only person in a room who’s both a consummate professional and a professional ham (a skillset shared entirely by Gina – but I digress, that’s another post entirely).

Bro and I both have that skill on our resume, and it’s become a big part of our relationship to each other. I brag to people about how he got upgraded from sometimes extra to general ensemble understudy at the oldest theatre in the country. He brags to his friends about living in my recording studio. I show my friends how he can hit Freddy Mercury’s soprano A in “Under Pressure.” He shows his friends how I can sing “Love Game” with no hint of hipster irony.

Is this what siblings do – a constant gladiatorial battle that is half one-upmanship and half hero worship? I have no frame of reference, having promised at an early age to smother any suddenly appearing siblings in the cradle.

(I was an intense child.)

So I sang, because it’s on my resume, because it’s what I do. Bro sang too, and just like with E or Gina we weren’t putting a spectacle on for each other – we were simply being the spectacle that is us.

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“Do you want to sing?”

Yesterday bro moved out, bound for yet another theatre production and then his first apartment.

We never hug, not out of some unspoken bro code but because neither of us ever seem to have the urge to hug the other one when instead we can whoop and sing in harmony, but he gave me a hug before he got in the car and drove away to be the spectacle in some other show while I go on starring in my own.

I will not deny the presence of a tear in my eye as I returned to our suddenly quiet house and opened my mouth.

In the list of things E, bro, and Gina and I all have in common, at the top of that list is that even on our worst day our answer is secretly: “yes.”

Gina’s Bachelorette Adventure, Pt. 1

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This weekend was Gina’s (she of Arcati Crisis, high school, and many madcap adventures in between) bachelorette party.

In 2008, my bachelor party (planned by Gina and four of my other closest friends) was an 80s Prom entitled “Like a Virgin.” It came complete with DJ, decorations, catering, and friends dressed in period fashions – with hair to match. Plus, the DJ was actually a karaoke emcee, and all of the 80s tunes were sung by my friends and I.

Now, I am more than a little competitive. Not in the playing sports, head-to-head, high score kinda of way. I could care less, but not by much.

No, my style of competitive is “anything you can do I can do better.” Like, my blog is the longest running in Philadelphia, or I have the most expansive guide to collecting X-Men on the internet, or when Bruno Mars tracks came out for Rock Band 3 I wouldn’t let bro go to bed until we had 100% and were ranked in the top 30 internationally of all harmony vocalists.

Thus, when I was charged with planning Gina’s bachelorette party along with her best friends Kelly (a chemist in Belgium) and Mikki (an architecht & non-profit organizer in Seattle), I had something to prove. I had to conceive of the most memorable, most epic, and most fitting Bachelorette Adventure possible without actually having Gina go on tour with Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young.

My first impulse was to plan something with music and the 80s, but… surprise! Gina had already won the “Best Party Ever” designation in that category.

As Kelly, Mikki, and I talked about it over the course of several months, we kept coming back to a “this is your life” tour through Philadelphia landmarks. It was a cool idea, but didn’t sound fun. There’s your house! There’s your high school! Isn’t this awesome!?

No.

We kept talking. What if it was a City Chase version, with special clues and teams racing the city? Cooler, but not the best format for celebrating around a single person. But, what if each location held a special challenge for the team – half Amazing Race, half Double Dare?

Now we were getting somewhere. We picked some locations and made up a few challenges. It was sounding somewhat entertaining, but not EPIC. It was lacking a grand scale and a clear theme, other than walking around Philly for eight hours.

Then, I had a not-rare-but-not-nearly-common-enough stroke of mad genius while idly humming one of Gina’s Arcati Crisis songs, “Fisher Price,” which goes a bit like this…

There comes a time when you realize
That you don’t get anymore chances
There’s no extra lives
You don’t get big from a magic mushroom
And you don’t find coins in an underground room.

My epiphany? Gina’s Bachelorette Adventure would be a video game. A real life video game that was part Super Mario Brothers, part Grand Theft Auto, and part live-action role playing game – all with Gina’s favorite parts of Philadelphia as its world map.

It sounded suitably epic, but would it make any sense to Kelly and Mikki… or to Gina and the 20 friends she asked us to invite?

Tune in for the next installment to hear how our motley trio planned to turn Philadelphia into a massive game board, and how having crafty and artist co-conspirators elevated my insanity to a whole new level.

http://arcaticrisis.bandcamp.com/track/fisher-price