the timboucher experience

Okay! So I promised, and here it is: a thorough recounting of my adventures of the last 24 hours. Are you ready? You better be!

4:00ish - it begins

Sitting in our office, minding our own business, all of a sudden, our computers blink out, along with all the lights in the motorcycle shop. At first, we just think it’s our store, and thats it. We wait for it to come back on minutes later. Five minutes pass. Nothing happens. Aron tries to use his cell phone, only to find out its dead. I try mine, with the same results. We start theorizing about how maybe we were hit with an electromagnetic pulse.

4:30 - we find out the extent of it

Eventually, we wander downstairs to see whats going on, and all the Israelis are still working, like nothing happened. Figures. Anyway, we eventually hear that Brooklyn and Queens are down, and the only people with phone service are on that Nextel national walkie talkie shit. Then we get a battery powered radio hooked up, and start hearing all this shit about Canada and all the way to Michigan and crap being down, and we’re all like “Holy shit!” and stuff like that.

5:00 - I take to the streets

So, of course, the subways aren’t running. Cause of all that electricity crap, you know. I’m just happy that I didn’t get stuck on one of them or like in some elevator someplace in some big super big skyscraper type crap. Anyway, people are just pouring over the streets. NYC has coughed up all its people from all its buildings. No one is really freaking out or anything though. It all still seems pretty ordinary. Except there are like ten times as many people out.

6:15-ish - free ice cream

So yeah, my walk down to the Williamsburg bridge is a super long one. I work at 38th and 10th, and the bridge is on Delancey, which is like, god, I don’t know - damn far! Let’s just say that. Under normal circumstances, it takes me 2 hours and like 45 minutes to walk from work all the way home. Last night it took me a lot longer, but I’m getting ahead of myself. I was walking, and I was like, somewhere, and I started seeing all these people eating all these little things of ice cream. And I was like, what the hell is the deal? And then I find these people with a huge clear trash bag full of little ice cream packages. And they were giving them out free! And it made my damn day! I got a little thing of Haagen-Daz caramel and vanilla. And they even had spoons

Uh, later

Yeah, I don’t know, so eventually I got over to Broadway and was making my way downtown and crap, and before I knew it, I was at the Brooklyn Bridge, which is a whole TWO BRIDGES too far south. I was so pissed, cause, I don’t know. Thats a really long way to overshoot by. I was just so caught up in all the crowds and crap, that I totally missed my turnoff and had to backtrack. Finally, I get back to Delancey, and they have half the bridge shut down, and people are just STREAMING en masse over the bridge. It was amazing, just a sea of people walking in what should have been traffic lanes. The walk over the bridge is a really long one too, let me tell you. I was really glad that I wasn’t (1) some old person fainting from the heat (2) some woman wearing high heels (3) carrying anything heavy (4) some little kid. But I was sure as hell (5) sweaty as all get out. And so was everyone else. Usually, it seems like I’m the only person in the city who’s sweating, but not during the mass exodus.

8:30 - I get home

So I finally get home after like three and a half hours after I leave work, and take myself a good old shower, and sleep on the couch for a few hours. Not really sleep, more like that in between hazy hot phase. Eventually, I take all that non-stop party action over to my bed, figuring that tonight’s not going to get any better and crap. Later on Drew comes home, all hepped up on blackout, wanting to go out and get crazy. I decide to go along with him, cause, shit, who knows: Its a black-out and the whole city is in some weird mode where everything is different and everyone is acting all strange. It’s great. It was like the whole city was having a party. Hehe. Anyway…

11:00 - driving, and uh, things start to get crazy

So, there we go, driving around, and everythings just ape-shit. Everyone is just out and drinking and having a goddamn great time, all over everywhere we go. We drive up to Williamsburg proper, and we see the straight-up craziest thing I’ve ever seen: there was this HUGE spontaneous parade of people my age, and at the head of it is like 6 people playing brass instruments, like trombones, and trumpets, and saxophones, and they are just going wild playing all this dixie-land style music. And all these people are playing drums, and banging pots and pans with spoons, and just anything they can find. And they are just marching around the streets in the dark, having obviously the funnest time ever.

Of course, we park the truck, and jump out to join the festivities. We jump into the parade, and everyone is like dancing, and drumming, and chanting, and its just incredible. Eventually, the parade makes its way down to the shore at the East River, and there is just this huge amount of people dancing and going crazy in the dark. And there are even cops down there jamming, and like bopping around, and flashing their lights and laughing and stuff. It ruled. Everybody hung out down there for maybe like 20 minutes, and then we started making our way back up into civilization. Every ten feet or so, somebody shoots off a firecracker, and more and more people are coming out and joining us, and yelling, and we are just taking over ENTIRE streets, and blocking traffic, and yelling and hooting and hollering.

At one point, some guy in front of me steps on my 3 year old Walmart flip flops, snapping it off my foot. I was all like “Maaaaaaan, you broke my flip-flops, duuuuuuuude!” It was hilarious, and he just looked at me, cause I was all talking in this stoned out hippie voice. Anyway, then some other guy comes up behind me, and is like “Same thing happened to me man, its cool.” And I look down and he’s got no sandals, so yeah, I pick my broken one up, take my good one off, and do the only logical thing. I press them into service as a set of make-shift drums, which turn out to be quite loud.

Dancing at the Stinger

All of a sudden, we’re walking by this one bar, “The Stinger”, and all of a sudden, the entire parade veers off into this bar. So we jump in, of course. Why wouldn’t we. And inside the bar is just the best vibe in the world. The guys (and girl) playing trombone and stuff, get up onstage, and some guy takes the helm at this big drumset, and everyone just starts going loco. We get a few beers, and before we know it, everyone in the place is dancing, and like we are like up on these tables and stuff, and its so hot in there, and everyone’s going CRAAAAZY!!!! Including us. THEN! THEN! THEN! The bar tender starts spraying everybody with the bar hose, and everyones just like sweaty and dancing, and soaked from the bar hose, and dancing on tables, and there is all this furious music going on, and like, I’m completely barefoot on this disgusting bar floor, and just having the time of my life.

I don’t know, it seemed like we probably danced for like 2 hours straight, and that was the sweatiest I had ever been in my whole life. When we went outside, my shirt was COMPLETELY SOAKED. It was amazing. Then, we go out, and drive around, and I sit out the window, just yelling at every group of people we pass, and everyone we see yells back at us, and it’s just awesome. That was seriously the best night I have EVER had in Brooklyn. Everything was just completely turned upside down, and everywhere you went, there was just this amazing vibe of everyone being so cool. It really blew my mind. I wish it was like that here all the time, because it was the shit. I want to find a city where people are like that all the time. This city of dreams must exist someplace, and I vow to find it.

Hehe. Yeah, power came back to our neighborhood around like 3:30pm or something. We were out and about, walking around, seeing what we could see. Soaking up the vibe. As power came back, people would send up cheers, and then we would move onto the next neighborhood, where the same thing would happen all over again, when they got power. Man o man. Time of my life, I’ll tell you what. And throughout all of it, everyone is just so sweaty and its nuts. Shit, I feel like there are a million other smaller stories I could tell. Things I saw, things people did, but I will be here all night telling all about the shit that happened. But I’ll catch y’all later! Hit me back! You should be jealous! Very very jealous! That was one of the funnest nights of my whole life!

• The blackout - still bringing people together days later
• New York Occult Stores
• Just what you need to pack away all your severed bodyparts!
• Farmer’s Almanac Long-Range Forecasts
• Moetry in potion