Monks:
They Came. They Saw.
They Conquered Boston.
Monks are most often represented as devout buddhist men like the Dalai Lama, living at high altitudes in Tibet, where they never speak or have fun. Anyone who knows our household or our vices can predict that our "monks" are the exact opposite. They are rather our close crew of friends from SLC who happened to wear robes to our Halloween party one year. Here is Part One of their recent trip to Boston:
Day One: "The Don" arrived bright and early at the crack of 9:00am. This is abnormally early to be awake, but since it was a celebratory reunion, I greeted him in my pajamas like any true friend would - with shots lined up along the countertop.
This was going to be the start of an exhausting week.
After pouring a solid set of starter shots down the hatch, we energetically and enthusiastically began our trek into Boston. With a couple of 1/2 pint flasks, we hit Newbury st to check out the local talent and ended up in front of Trinity Church - which seems to be where we always accidentally end up. Low and Behold, a hot dog cart awaits our anxious stomachs and we grab the best they offer - a sausage dog covered in sauteed green peppers and onions. We take a seat on a bench and begin to enjoy our tasty snack, when the local transient population took a liking to our presence and our lunch. "That looks goooood. How much d'ja get that fo?" Their verbal disbelief that we paid $5.50 each lasted a solid 5 minutes. "How much did you pay for that stereotype perpetuating Tall Can?" $2. Trust the homeless to know where to find the best deals on booze. After we ate in front of them and bullshit about only thing we had in common - alcoholism - we hit up a BosTix office. We found that we could get some half-price BlueMan tickets, and since this was a much better idea than buying homeless people hotdogs, so we spent our money here instead.
BLUE MAN: Naturally, we were wrecked out of our gourd for the show...which ended up being a peculiarly perfect way to do it. Neither Jesse nor I had been before and sat back, dumbfoundeed in disbelief that what we were witnessing was actually real. In addition to the cult-like, perfectly sync'd audience reading from the numerous scrolling marquees, was an eerie crowd participation that seemed too surreal to be legitimate. Example: Everyone, I mean EVERYONE (even the huge, tattooed muscleheads in biker leather) had tied on ninja headbands out of white crepe paper. The only saving grace to this overwhelming feeling of being surrounded by puppets was the fact that we could only see half of the stage, so any time something was out of sight, it helped ground us back to reality.
The best part though is the end. Our shitty, last row seats proved invaluable in the grand finale where 100's of trees were shamelessly wasted. Behind us were massive rolls of paper towels, suspended by paint rollers that had been wall mounted. At the end of the show, the Blue Men start unraveling these from all over the auditorium. A flood of paper rushes toward the stage from everywhere to create a sea of white in the center of this little theatre. Now we were participating ourselves. A lumberjack's abhorrence couldn't have fueled a faster killing of trees. After we finished our rolls, the couple next to us saw how much we enjoyed it and gave us theirs. Bad Idea. It was off the roller, so we now began tearing of huge lengths and transforming them into massive paper snowballs and beaning the rows of happy families in front of us without reservation. I don't know if I have ever smiled wider or laughed harder. A snowball execution of helpless, unknowing faces. I only wish I could have heard their tears over my roaring, maniacal laughter.
