Goodbye Astroland with a hairspray adddendum.
2008-09-22/1:22 a.m.

Mikki, her friend Dan and I went to Coney Island to enjoy the last day of Astroland a few weekends ago. It was bittersweet fun. A lot of people are now out of a job I guess. I read an article about how Astroland and it's food places etc... employ nearly 350 people. So, that stinks. If I could continue buying their funnel cakes and riding their haphazard rides, I would.

Here is Dan posing by a very unappetizing drawing of a chicken. It's deformed and mustard yellow, for starters.
that chicken has a shrimp for an arm.

We all rode the Cyclone, planning on riding twice. Only Dan made good on that plan while Mikki and I were tossed around like rag dolls. My head hurt afterwards and so did my jaw. They have padded the cars more but this means more people have to ride solo now (Mikki: "Did that guy just call us fat??") but it's not padded THAT much. I would have loved to have had someone crammed in there with me. As it was I was tossed around and my inner arms were bruised for a week. The Cyclone is more for the history and the adventure (you could totally die or get a spinal injury at any turn, exciting!) than the comfort.
cyclone- 2

I rode with my bag straps wrapped around my ankle. When the ride ended I saw that a few things had fallen out of my bag so I was grabbing them and getting out when a ride operator started yelling at me to move it. Then he grabbed my bag "accidentally" dropping the contents. I grabbed my wallet and did a cursory glance as he handed my bag back... but about 10 minutes after we left it occurred to me to look for my cell phone- it was gone. BOOO! Oh well. Only a few calls were made before t-mobile shut down the line. I lost my sim card and all my numbers/old texts though. That was a bummer. Mostly it was funny since I was getting a new phone that week anyway. Coney Island is my favorite place still.

terrified!

I can't believe Dante's Inferno is gone now. I have photos of it dating back to 1998 when I first started going to Coney Island on the regular.
three headed monster

Dan reminisced about the last time he was in lovely Coney and he rode the Saturn 6 with a friend. He couldn't get his lap bar to lock and was nervously alerting the carny just before the ride began. He was helpfully informed that the bars were broken so old car seatbelts had been installed and to buckle that. Then, this metal cage that's been spray-painted florescent green took off at top speeds. So safe! He survived though, and wanted a photo to prove it.
this can't be safe.

Sad times, indeed. I can only hope that this horrible resort that is going up now will be this awesome in 40 years when my kids wanna hang out there. They need the experience of paying $1 to see the world's smallest woman and then just seeing basically a 4 foot tall woman eating an enormous candy bar (to make her look smaller by comparison). It's a right of passage, dammit!

Also, my friend Jess does lights for the stage show of Hairspray and has since it started. A few weeks ago a matinee wasn't sold out so she got Sarah and I in. We had like 5th row orchestra seats or something, it was crazy. Also, a lady in our row had boobs that were dangling very close to falling on the outside of her dress. At 2pm. On a Wednesday.

Here is a photo but feel free to click on it to see more from that day. I didn't like the musical (but I don't like many musicals) but it was fun. Ashley Parker Angel is starring in it right now. I'm serious! So is Tevin Campbell (if you're my age you'll remember him from when we were 13), who is really good by the way. The backstage tour kicked ass. I saw Kevin Spacey's old dressing room from when he did The Iceman Cometh! And we got to see a wig room!

me, on a set

The job has started and I'm super duper busy. It's awesome though. I can't believe it's the end of September already. I need to do more things.








ARCHIVES

A note I found in a drawer.
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The Extra Lens and Adultery.
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