Idiotarod: Caravan of the Absurd
Santacon 2004: Disorderly Santas
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Caravan of the Absurd
By Jonny America (www.greenedragon.org)
We
hadn't learned from last year…
Some of my Greene Dragon teammates were hungover again, others smoked cigarettes while stretching their legs. I checked in at the registration desk on Fulton Ferry Pier in Brooklyn at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge; doubtful we'd beat our previous finish of second-to-last. One of our nemeses approached me, a member of the Deadly Ruthless Ninja Killas (DRNK). She wore a sleek black uniform and matching black hood.
"We're going to do better this year. Last time there were some problems but we had one motivation... We, at least, had to beat Greene Dragon --- and we did."
I
slunk back to our cart. More teams had arrived for the two-thirty start time for
this race inspired by the legendary Alaskan Iditarod, the legendary long-distance
dogsled race across the icy Yukon. Here in NYC, things were pretty much the same
except the sleds were replaced by shopping carts and costumed humans replaced
the dogs.
We pushed towards the starting line, past Team Ghostbusters, C.O.B.R.A., butchers with bloody aprons warning 'Here's the Beef', and the luscious ladies of Team Make-Out with their rolling kiosk of girlie porn. We weaved to the front and adjusted our ropes for the race. We had strapped a cardboard horse head from our recent 'Paula Revere's Ride' onto the front of the cart and threw on a cloth stars and stripes saddle. Paula Revere herself turned to me and said, "
Now, Jonny, we have two goals for the race - to fuck with [arch-rival] Billionaires for Bush, and not to come in second-to-last."
We had learned from last
year that the sprint to the Brooklyn Bridge determined the entire race. The stairs
going up were a bottleneck and if you didn't get there first, you'd lose valuable
minutes twiddling your tri-cornered hat. Without any warning, the gun went off
and we shot up that steep incline towards the bridge.
We sprinted uphill, yanking the cart and sucking cold air. We dodged one group
that spewed acrid smoke-bomb exhaust while throwing bowlfulls of marbles under
other carts and the Butchers hurling frozen beef patties. We vied for the sidewalk
and finally made the stairs. Looking around, I realized that the musher and I
were the only ones there.
"What happened to everybody?"
"Weak links," he said.
We dragged the cart through the rowdy crowd and onto the bridge while snowballs rained down from above. "Black Label Kids!" the musher yelled. They rammed us into the wall and punched our horse head right off the cart. The head was dragging as we pulled aside to fix it.
At that moment, my stomach and lungs had yet to catch up with my body. We'd started off too quickly and I doubled over as my belly tried to send the morning's ham and egg omelet back up. Our musher pressed on without me.
I
eventually regained my breath and noticed what a crisp blue day it was out over
the bridge. As the race hustled by me I took in the beauty. I watched the sun
reflecting off the water and the skyscrapers across the river. A couple of guys
stepped in my way. One had a reflective traffic bucket over his head, the other,
a Sponge Bob doll with an Elian Gonzalez mask on its face.
"What team are you guys?" I asked.
"How are we 'sposed to know?" said the reflective bucket. "This is the culture of the absurd."
An entire caravan of the absurd passed by me - 'Team Roadkill' and their cart of bloody animal parts, Vikings, mimes, 'Muff Divers', "Team Short Bus' and 'Short Jewish Bitches in Candyland'.
I eventually made it off the bridge,
where people were handing out flyers with directions to a "new" checkpoint…
In this race, sabotage wasn't just tolerated, it was rewarded. At that moment,
my musher pulled up from behind me, although he should have been miles ahead.
"Did you get fooled by the fake checkpoint?" I asked.
"No, uh, I got stopped at the light after the bridge." He replied quietly.
We pushed by City Hall, where the Post-Apocalyptic Pirate Posse leapt onto a trash heap and hurtled garbage bags in our path. Plowing through them, we moved on to the first checkpoint. At Patriot Bar, where we reunited with the rest of our crew, then bribed the judges with shots of tequila to decrease our official time.
The Billionaires for Bush had pulled in with their oil well rig shopping cart. They were wearing jewelry and Exxon hard hats but despite their wealth, they were still lagging behind.
"What?
No sweatshop laborers?" we taunted. "You may have won the election,
but who's ahead now? Go back to the Caymans where you belong."
Having accomplished mission number one, we moved on to number two. At first we couldn't pull off the sidewalk, as someone had zip-tied our cart to the subway entrance. Once freed, we whipped by other carts, storming through the hectic back streets of Chinatown. We cut across red lights and onto sidewalks, turning chins as spectators marveled at a bunch of patriots pushing a horse-like shopping cart through town. One woman asked if it was the American Revolution again.
"It's time we had another one," she said.
I
pondered this all the way to the next checkpoint. If every action had an equal
but opposite reaction, we were seeing it right there, in the streets of Manhattan.
The more this administration, fundamentalists, and corporations pressed in on
us, the more we'd squeeze out the other side, building ourselves an alternative
existence. You could see it materializing in this perverse celebration of freedom,
this caravan of the absurd.
Fighting through an attack by an abominable snowman and the 'Roadkill Warrior' (a guy with a bloody dog on a stick), we rounded the corner toward the finish line. Four teams came in immediately behind us, but, right in front of us were the Deadly Ruthless Ninja Killas.
"Well," one taunted. "At least we beat Greene Dragon."
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Editors Note:
This
year's Idiotarod was huge. With 74 cart teams each having a minimum of 5
people (a musher and four "dogs" tethered to the front), this 2nd annual
event grew markedly from last year. The race ran fromBrooklyn over the Brooklyn
Bridge past City Hall, through Chinatown, the Lower East side and, ultimately,
the East Village's Tompkins Square Park where the shopping carts were piled high
as a monument to that idiotic day.
Kostume Kult's Post-Apocalyptic Pirate Posse's War Wagon came in 60th out of 74 carts and got a "You could'a won" [Best in Show] from the Judges who then awarded that prize to another pirate krewe (arghhhh). Some guys dressed as secret service agents, presumably steroid-popping jocks, came in first. My personal favorite was 'Team Short Bus' who, when passing us on the Brooklyn Bridge, scoffed "Ah-hahhhh… You were just passed by retards!"
For more, check out www.PrecisionAccidents.com and pics in the Gallery's Special Events section.
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Santa had come early this year and he'd made one hell of an arrival at New York's Triple 8 Palace in Chinatown.
Two
hundred tables were in disarray, several chairs turned over, and Saturday-morning
customers ate their dim sum, spooked and alert. The maitre'd caught me right at
the escalator entrance, crossing his arms like I'd missed a field goal.
'No, Santa. No mo' Santas. Too many already. You go away and we see you next year."
A late arrival, I asked around and followed the Santas trail across the street, around the corner, and… shit, into the F-train subway. The Santa hotline hadn't been updated and I waited outside the Triple 8 for straggler Santas. Latecomers passed around the usual holiday greetings.
'Morning, Santa. Pretty good weather, hey Santa? You bring a bottle of Christmas cheer, Santa? Santa, how's the hangover?"
Via
his cell phone, Santa located the Santas in Midtown, singing XXXmas carols on
the steps of the Public Library. Arriving late, we had to follow salacious reports
of them crossing through Times Square, over to a park in Hells Kitchen.
Santa was out in full force, hundreds of him. There were Santas riding swings, Santas on slides, Santas playing freeze tag, Santas showing utter disregard for the city's open-container policy.
Not all Santas had packed in their liquor so we wandered into the Irish Rogue to fill up our jolly selves. The North Pole riff-raff had come down for the occasion -- Elvis Santas, pirate Santas, baby Santas, Genghis Klaus, the Jolly Lama, an assortment of elves, a foam-rubber Christmas tree, and the staple of any good 'festivus' -- the Hanukah Chicken.
Santas crowded
into the Rogue and the bar next door and they spilled out into the street. They
kept coming from all directions, stopping cars, manning an impromptu checkpoint
to see who'd been naughty and nice. Santa jumped on the back of truck beds and
mooned tour busses. But soon Santa grew antsy and it was time to move on. 
Santa's adoring public bombarded him with questions along the way. 'What's this all about? Who's paying you? Is this political or something?" Santa could've told them this was the annual Santacon, a ten-year celebration loosely sponsored by the SF based Cacophony Society. He could've said that once a year Santas run amuck through city streets across the globe in search of adventure, merriment, and yes, beer. One Santa snapped at a nosey tourist- "It's Christmas g'dman it. What… Are you Jewish!???…" The other Santas stayed mum. Santa likes being mysterious.
With a recently modernized workforce, Santa's displaced labor wasn't happy with the new advancements. A herd of angry reindeer met him at Times Square chanting, "Santa rides a sleigh, not the MTA" and holding up angry placards, 'Stick it up your chimney!" But Santa had work to do. He broke through the picket line and took the train up to 86th St.
Santa
wandered into Central Park and several hundred of him traipsed three-by-three
over the park's green pathways on that crisp afternoon. One Santa chased joggers
with leather reigns, yelling "On Dasher, on Blitzen." Others hollered "Santas
united will never be defeated," drinking from flasks and readying themselves for
a reindeer game of tug-o-war.
Next santa headed toward a west side bar, grazing on pizza and hot dogs along the way. The evening had settled in and, at a liquor store, the Santas made for quite a site, dozens waiting in the lit window to purchase wine, beer, Jim and Jack. But Santa made a site no matter what he did - Santas in subways, Santas buying roasted peanuts, Santas at the christian bookstore, Santa relieving himself in public.
Outside the liquor store, a gray haired Jewess stood bedazzled on her stoop, "Oh my," she said. "It's everything I every dreamed of. I'm an actress so I love to see theater on the hoof." I wasn't sure how literally she meant it.
Santa
hit the subway towards the last appearance amongst the tourists. With its skating
rink and much-hoopla'd Christmas tree, Rockefeller Plaza offered the perfect photo
op. Santa was sardined in the holiday mob and he made merry with the kids, handing
out peppermint candies, blinky baubles and lumps of coal wrapped in porn.
One tourist asked if we were naughty or nice and a nearby Santa answered, "A few are nice, all are naughty, most are drunk".
As long Christmas Eves had trained Santa to deal with late nights, Santa went to an underground dance club and there were stripping Santas, smooching Santas and even stage-diving Santas. Santa was getting a little bit randy, a little bit seedy.
Somewhere in this haze,
I met up with Santa Eddy. He introduced me to his twin brother, Santa Rich, who'd
been gifted a suit for his first Santacon. "Man, the whole day's blown my mind.
I can't believe the stuff I've seen. This suit's really just a license to be naughty."
And maybe that's what Santacon was all about -- donning the red and white fuzz gives you permission to explore, misbehave and seek out lurid adventures to share. For one day only, hundreds of Santas romp and play for no good reason whatsoever, throwing a curve ball into the gears of the reality machine.
Santa was naughty again this year and he stayed out way too long. He was a bit foggy. It was time to go home and Santa left the nightclub merry in his belly, but a little maudlin up above, for just like Christmas, Santacon comes only once a year.
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More photos in the Gallery's Christmas section
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