the movie team

over the past three days, i have been volunteering with my friend and fellow makeup artist dina for a project wherein disadvantaged children learn how to make a movie (more explanation here). honestly, when dina emailed looking for a cohort i jumped at the chance, as for the last seven years i have been trying to sort my head around how i could possibly do some MUCH needed volunteer work in this place. around every corner in new york is an opportunity for volunteerism, from neighborhood beautification projects to working with the many disadvantaged children to homeless outreach.

for the freelancer, though, it is absolutely impossible to fill in the crucial box on all volunteer application forms which reads "days/hours of availability". however, january is s-l-o-o-w....i was not booked for work, and thus i took a chance that the days would remain free as we headed up to hawthorne cedar knolls, a westchester county residential school for students in crisis.

the students had already pow-wowed and come up with the concept for the script...i'll spare you the entire synopsis, but it involved a homeless woman (really an angel in disguise), a king and a princess, a rapper, a dancer, a basketball player, a rock star....the characters of teen dreams. most of the kids had very specific ideas for their "looks" as well, which they were more than happy to convey to us: they wanted sparkles. goatees. to look like jennifer hudson in "dream girls". lashes. gloss. i was impressed when they received their costumes (which were from goodwill, as the budget was very low). they were so gracious, so excited; quite the contrast from incredibly spoiled kids i sometimes encounter on the job, who scowl and roll their eyes when asked to wear the designer samples laid out for them by a professional stylist.

there were, of course, some moments of some frustrated kids. there were some meltdowns, some incidents reminiscent to me of my job at reed junior high and central islip HS on long island... that old familiar tune of "i like you but i have no idea how to affectively express my emotions so i am going to say things that are aggressive and kind of harsh, but i don't really mean it".

more often than not, though, there were things said to us like, "thank you for coming! you are both beautiful!" and "i feel beautiful!" and "i LOVE my makeup!". there were, better yet, a couple of young ladies with hard as nails extertiors who broke into smiles (a rare sight for the true tough girls) when they finally looked in the mirror. i would venture to say that there can be no greater reward for a makeup artist than that smile (impossible to be faked), and we were so intoxicated by the girls' satisfaction that if all goes well, dina and i will be back to beautify them all again for their prom this spring.

hot dog

this afternoon, the biscuit and i were running some errands in our neighborhood. a group of 'tweens passed us and one of them took a look at the biscuit and exclaimed,

"DID YOU SEE THAT DOG?! YO, THAT DOG WAS HOT!!"

word, son.

halloweeners

this post is dedicated to my favorite halloweener, bdub.

today bdub, dressed as disgruntled vietnam vet (as he is every day), had forgotten his stick bag at his rehearsal space...for those of you who are unfamiliar, let me dumb it down a shade: le dub's stickbag is the container in which he carries his sticks, mallets, brushes and various accoutrements that are needed for playing drums. his rehearsal space is about a fifteen minute walk from our apartment, just passed our old place.

le dub was in a hurry and running late for a rehearsal. to save time, he hopped on his skateboard and whizzed by on the streets, feeling confident, breezy, and quick like a bunny! as bdub apporached our old building, he realized that he was under attack. eggs came at him from all sides, smashing to the ground like gunfire.

however, these wayward tweens were too slow for bdub!! while we both can understand that a 35 year old man on a skateboard would be a reasonable target for these bad seeds, this matters not. what DOES matter is that le dub was too fast for 'em!

the boy's still got it!

in my fantasy world, i believe that the kids in our old neck of the 'hood saw bdub coming....and that one of those (now) tweens was a kid we used to refer to as "young man". it seemed that whenever we got ourselves into awkward predicaments, this rather chubby boy used to saunter by on his bike and stare at us, slack jawed, only to inquire, "wha happen?"

...to which an annoyed bdub would reply "what are you talking about?"
...to which young man would reply with things like "you know...with....tha one?"

bdub would then say, "young man...." and follow this address with your typical, "this doesn't concern you" or "you ask a lot of questions" or "why do you ask?".

i would like to believe that young man saw le dub coming, clenched his egg tightly and tried in vain to pelt the dub. sucker.