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# 1: Taking it to the Street (Festival)
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By Maura Madden
So I went to the San Gennaro Festival tonight. So crowded, oh my God. Why do people come to these things? Do they not get enough of crowds and strange smells on the subway? No, apparently not. And neither do my mom and I. My mom and I come out to the 75th Annual San Gennaro Festival to "show our support" for the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Booya! We are showing our support because we thought we would be the only people brave enough to show up at this clear target for terrorism, the street festival in Little Italy. We are showing our support, but not buying sausages. We are showing our support, but we are not having our picture taken in the big chair eating the big ice cream cone. A guy passing by says to his friend, "I don't get it. What's with the big chair?" And I think to myself, "You, sir, are so totally on my wavelength." My mom and I are showing our support, but not for the big-chair-photo-booth-lady. We are showing our support, but we are also not going to play "Drown the Clown", because the clown will berate you and decimate any shred of dignity you ever had within your pathetic little body if you attempt to try to drown him with your mighty swerve ball. And also, we definitely do not have a mighty swerve ball. No, we will not even look at the clown, for we fear that even the slightest amount of eye contact will trigger his vicious and sick ridicules. "Hey, Wall Street boy. Yeah, you! I bet you work at the stock market every day and your name is Ira." Oh, wow. In the mouth of a "Drown the Clown" clown, even the name Ira takes on a new and horrifying meaning. I never thought about what a terrible name Ira was until the "Drown the Clown" clown said the name aloud. I shudder to think of what he would say if he got a good look at me.
So my mother and I will not try to drown this clown, no siree, even though we could do some serious damage out there with our swerve balls. Yup, we could easily demolish each one of these fierce street festival competitors and leave them weeping into their funnel cakes, but instead, we pass by the shoot-the-hell-out-of-this-target-with-a-watergun game and pause for a moment to simply watch the action. The winner of this particular round is a chubby thuggish 11 year old sporting an oversized Giambi jersey and rocking two cubic zirconia studs, his porcupine-gelled blonde hair framing his squishy face from the top only. You can tell by the way that he confidently picks his prize Patriotic Bear, an enormous red-white-and-blue bear sporting a wilting bow, that this kid has won this game before. But we move on to other things, knowing our time is better spent elsewhere. My mother and I are more interested in checking out the wares that the vendors have to offer, the Pina Colada glasses with Italian flags on them, and the tee-shirts that say "How You Doin'?" I think my mother secretly wants one of these tee-shirts, because she keeps pointing them out.
We have our dinner at a not-so-crowded restaurant and then venture back out into the madness. Sure, it's an hour later, but it is still going strong, baby. We decide to take a side street to get to our destination, but pass a crowd of people mobbing someone in the street. Upon closer inspection, we discover the source of the crowd. It's not exactly a heartthrob/writhing-girl-mob scene, more like an oldies-station-DJ/old-people-who-are-slighty-excited-to-see-what-he-looks-like-in-person scene. It's Cousin Brucie, from WCBS FM. And in person, Cousin Brucie looks like a leathery Ken doll. And I wouldn't be surprised if his genitals were just a molded mound beneath his pants.
Observing the scene from across the street is a man who has crafted a chair out of papers. This man is not homeless, from what I can tell, it just seems like he's interested in watching the street fair from the comfort of this particular wall. He is wearing oval Supernerd eyeglasses, a neck roll made of a paper bag, and he has a look of bland astonishment on his face. He's already seen the oldies DJ in person, and it isn't even 9:30. And I think he can't help but wonder, "What could top that?"
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