Week Four

You might be noticing that though my title infers stories about adolescent thespians, I have yet to meet any. I’d like to believe that it’s because they’re busy. I’d like to believe that these kids moved out here with confidence and gusto, displayed their talents to the right people, exhausted their networks and landed major roles in ad campaigns, TV shows and feature films and they’re not out by the pool! They’re busy. They’re not chilling in the gym! It’s time to get to work.

Or…

I’d like to believe that their parents have encouraged them to wait. You can and will work all your life. But you only have a few precious fleeting moments to be a ten year old, pretending to be Obi Wan, wielding a wiffle-ball bat for a light-saber and jumping off of rocks with your younger brother. I’d like to believe that these parents realized childhood is unique and the feeling of being a child, of coming home, slamming your backpack down and running as fast as you can to go play outside, is so temporary and precious that it must be protected and honored and stewarded. I’d like to believe these kids are out just being kids. I’d like to believe that is why I haven’t met any.

But who cares about all that. Let me tell you about a drunk Kazakh that sang to me in the hot tub.

ADELE: PART ONE

After work one night, I went to the Jacuzzi to read. Its like sitting in a public, florescent lit, bubble bath sans bubbles and if that doesn’t sound appealing to you I don’t know what will.

I was alone. After a while, a young man (early twenties I’d assume) walked past the Jacuzzi area. He was stumbling, slightly. He waved and started toward the hot tub.

“Cigarette?” he asked.

“I’m sorry?” my and Canada’s way of asking people to repeat themselves.

“Do you have cigarette?” he asked again in a Turkic accent, strengthened by booziness.

“No, sorry. I don’t smoke.”

“Is fine.” he walked away, all the while waving goodbye. He walked around the corner to the pool. I continued reading. About twenty minutes later, he returned from the pool area, sat down in a lounge chair and stared at me for what felt like eternity but was probably a mere 3 minutes. He was cigarette-less. To finally disengage the staring, I asked: “Were you able to find a cigarette?”

“No,” said he, “And my friends won’t let me in his house. I knock but he doesn’t answer.”

“That’s too bad,” said I. “Are they upset with you?”

“Yes, because I brought girl to his home to be having sex with her” he responded. It’s always refreshing to meet the few people in the world who still live by “honesty is the best policy”.

We talked for a few moments and I found out the following. He is from Kazakhstan, studying film at NYFA, loves Rock ‘n’ Roll and Rock’n’Roll requires drugs. He likes every drug he’s tried and while he bares that proudly, I’d venture a guess that he’s had limited access.

I made the comment, “Well, I kind of get what you’re saying. Aerosmith was  a lot better when they all did drugs.”

Let me be clear here, I don’t know anything about anything; least of all drugs or rock’n’roll or their intersection. This is an offhand comment that I one time or another heard someone actually old enough to have listened to Aerosmith say. This is something I do often. I hear things in passing that are probably semi-fictitious or exaggerated or completely false or I talk to myself which is an actual problem and probably a subconscious reason why I write so much and then I tell other people about these things and I talk about them in such a way as to indicate to others that what I am saying is real. Also I struggle with run-on sentences.

So I make this Aerosmith comment and he responds “F*** yeah bro”. Then he stood up and started circumnavigating the hot tub whilst singing me an airy, albeit passionate, rendition of “Don’t wanna Miss a thing”.

I don’t know if you’ve ever been sung to. I can assume it happens to a few of us in our lifetimes. And I don’t mean “Happy Birthday”… I mean one person, looking at you, singing to you, a song with lyrics meant for your ears and enjoyment. If you have and you’re 99.9% of people, you know that this is the absolute worst. Getting sung to is the social equivalent of thinking you may have sent a terribly inappropriate email as a “reply-all”. It’s like baring your genitals on one of those classroom projectors where you put the paper down and a camera broadcasts it onto the board. But instead it’s against your will (oh Lord, that’s grim).

So I’m getting sung to and I decide the best way out is to leave…but not so dramatically that I just leave a poor drunk kid by his lonesome without explanation. I decide trying to interject with more “getting to know you” questions is the best bet, so I try that. He decides singing the answers is preferable and I’m stuck.

Finally I say, “Well, I’m gonna head home. Very nice to meet you. And what was your name by the way?”

“Adele.” he said, not sang.

“Of course it is”and I was off.

I think it’s probably Adeel or Adill or Adell but what my response meant to him was that I was putting in a song request to accompany my exit. So, as clearly requested, Adele belted “Hello” as I left the jacuzzi area.

Adele will return.