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Hello, my name is Judas Gutenberg and this is my blaag (pronounced as you would the vomit noise "hyroop-bleuach").



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   Big Fun reunion
Saturday, May 10 1997

I've learned: If you own a house, it's best to not leave it vacant for long.

    I am ferociously well connected in this town, and no doubt I know the culprits.
    I

      was most displeased to find that seven of my CDs were stolen at the party. My gesture of good will had resulted in injury. I'd like to kick myself for being such a fool. Something makes me think I'll be getting the CDs back, though. I am ferociously well connected in this town, and no doubt I know the culprits. For now I blame the skinheads. They don't want me for an enemy.

    The known missing CDs are Nirvana's Incesticide, both Dinosaur Jr. CDs, Hüsker Dü's Candy Apple Grey, my one Dead Can Dance CD, and, most gauling, Slayer's Undisputed Attitude and Bob Mould's self-titled CD. They were all my most popular CDs, since they were on the end where they were easiest to get to. Nothing else was stolen, though all day at work I feared my CD player or my 4 track recorder had been stolen. The lesson is: I have to hide ALL MY STUFF at big parties. That should be obvious, but I'd been trying to project an image of non-materialism.

    Somehow also the front door's big window was broken. It looked like it had been slammed hard. There was puke on the front porch and the floors were covered with the usual party grunge: a mix of dirt, beer, sweat and puke.

    It was the usual hungover Saturday for me at Comet. For awhile I felt as though I had to puke. Another time I tried to take a nap. But I was too restless for that. I ended up capturing frames from the video shot last night. Now you have an idea of what some of the more recent characters look like.

    A

    fter work, I was on the front porch of the Dynashack dicussing last night's mayhem with the Ches, Andrew, Will and others. What the broken window, the violence, and theft I was thinking the party had been a complete disaster, but they all seemed rather pleased with it. In truth, it had been mostly a wonderful (if expensive) diversion. I felt better about it after seeing their unexpected satisfaction. By the way, Ben Kulo, the guy who was beaten with a padlock and chain yesterday, is pressing charges against the perpetrator. As Elizabeth later pointed out, that seemed like a good idea but one she wouldn't have considered. In our counter-cultural society, we consider crime to be just one of those bad things that happen, like car accidents and sickness. It isn't in our programming to seek compensation or revenge via the justice system.

    I ate a few sandwiches that I'd taken from the UVA dining hall yesterday.

    Her conversation was chaotic and rambling and she had an unusual interest in discussing any subject that cropped up, no matter how trivial.
    Joanna the little-known Malvern Girl came by with her two friends, Charlie and a skinny Irish lad, both of whom were in a cranky mood and largely stayed in their car. Her claim of being hungover was supported by the evidence: her conversation was chaotic and rambling and she had an unusual interest in discussing any subject that cropped up, no matter how trivial. She said she'd puked a couple times already today.

    She wanted to go to the reception for Jamie Dyer's wedding but was having touble finding the place. She'd already gone to the "Farmington Country Club" and had attended a portion of somebody else's fancy-schmancy wedding. It turns out that Jamie's wedding was at the "Farmington Hunt Club" which is an entirely different entity. Both it and the reception were already over. I would have liked to go; that was going to be a free dinner, if nothing else. A little historic background: back in the Winter of 1994-1995, when the Malvern Girls first came to Charlottesville, they hung out mostly with Jamie Dyer. He had some sort of torrid affair with Joanna. Now, though, Jamie has married the ex-wife of David Sickman, his ex-housemate. David Sickman is singer/guitarist for the Ninth, a new Charlottesville lowfi band.

    a massive contingent

    Suddenly everyone showed up:

    Matthew Hart the gregarious fun loving sociopath
    Leah, his on-again-off-again lesbian-girlfriend-now-wife
    Jessika of Malvernia, most stalked-entry of the Big Fun Glossary
    Sara Poiron with sharp elbows and much vitriol (and obsessions)
    Monster Boy the goth boy
    Bri-Bri the unassuming Malvernian punk rocker and
    Schwam the Subcontinental Indian dude (his dad owns a huge convenience store chain in the Philadelphia area)
    (they'd all spent the night in Waynesboro at Matthew's house) and

    Morgan Anarchy the spike-haired punk rocker who now calls the gutter home
    Toni his drunken gutter-punk friend from New Orleans and
    BN, a little dyed-and-spotted-white stub-tailed dog with a big head and studded collar. Supposedly the dog was on LSD at the time.
    (they'd just hitch hiked back from New Orleans) and

    Theresa Venesian the thin goth girl with long fingernails
    Persad the gothic outdoorsman and
    Jesse who has been back in Charlottesville since last night.
    (they just happened by).

    That 's a majority of the scenesters from the Big Fun days, and more were to come.

    That made for a lot of people in the Dynashack living room. Lucky thing Andrew and I had just moved the furniture back in. The Malvern kids had brought a case of expensive beer, and right away we all began drinking. Toni was already so drunk he had trouble walking and talking. It made for a pretty bad first impression; Sara could see me rolling my eyes as he mumbled incoherently and spilled beer all over himself. She later classed him in the group of horrible people who must be endured because of [our friendship with] Morgan Anarchy.

    We discussed how much we hated the skinheads who had wreaked so much havoc last night. We considered various plans for revenge. One of these involved us all marching to Skinhead Central "this very instant" and kicking their asses. After all, we constituted a considerable force.

    M

    organ went out onto Wertland to chat with a number of friends, including, it turns out, young Chaz, the evil thug who beat Ben Kulo with a padlock on a chain last night. Chaz is a short, skinny innocent-looking lad; at the time I hadn't made the connection, mostly because I didn't know his name. Had I made the connection, I would have acted differently towards him when I came outside with the others to loiter, break bottles, and commit other petty crimes near the Dynashack.

    We all ended up clustered around my Dodge Dart, many of us sitting on the hood, discussing our hatred for the skinheads. Chaz was interrogated during one of several passes by. Theresa was convinced that he'd overheard and reported to the skinheads our discussions about our special hatred for Eric the Huffanator Huffman, the most notorious nazi in all of Charlottesville.

    Big Fun, still there

    S

    omehow we got the idea to all drive out to Big Fun. My car was one of those providing transportation. So, beer in hand, I drove a fraction of the contingent south down scenic state route 20. We went immediately to the old yellow farm house in "the blowing fields north of Scottsville."

    As we ran from room to room in the mansion, Sara nostalgically mentioned whose room was whose to me. It was as if the mentionings stood as an algebraic symbol in place of the memories and stories to be told. Someone turned on the electricity and set the heat to 90 degrees F. It was an unusually cold night for May, so we clustered in Jessika's old room, which has always been the one most responsive to the inefficient heat pump electric temperature control system.

    Then the others arrived in Schwam's Audi. They had a story to tell. It seems that while the Audi was waiting patiently on Wertland for Jessika to accomplish some sort of task in the Dynashack (waiting endlessly for Jessika to come out of a house is a common excercise in Big Fun culture), the Huffanator strolled by. The moment the Huffanator saw Morgan Anarchy in the Audi, he flew into a blind rage and charged at the car. He spit through the window on Bri Bri (simply because he was in the way) and he kicked the car a number of times, leaving what we later termed "nazi dents" with his big black nazi boots.

    Whenever he sees an enemy he is honour-bound to kick that enemy's ass.
    T

    he Huffanator
    in actuality may not recall exactly why he still hates Morgan. Their animosity supposedly began years ago when Morgan allegedly "sucker punched" the Huffanator in a mosh pit at a Gwar concert. Now, since it seems (even to the irrational mind of the Huffanator) ridiculous to still maintain that grudge, he claims he is mad because Morgan supposedly "talks shit behind his back." The Huffanator has so many enemies to beat up in Charlottesville these days that it is not easy for him to simply walk down the street; whenever he sees an enemy he is honour-bound to kick that enemy's ass. Recently, for example, he was having a pleasant conversation with Catherine deGood when suddenly he spied Ray Snabley across the street. The Huffanator stopped the conversation instantly and attacked him. (Ray fled to Goth Central and called home to have his dad pick him up).

    With this fresh new incident under our belt, naturally we had more things to say about the Huffanator and how he must be made to suffer. We recapped the time a year ago when a group of us (me, Morgan, Matthew Hart, Deya and Jessika) anxiously armed ourselves and awaited the arrival of the Huffanator for a promised thrashing of Matthew Hart. Matthew's affront was that he'd suppposedly been spreading the rumour that he'd kicked the Huffanator's ass during a scuffle in March of 1996.

    Toni scooped up a tip on a table and stuffed it in his pocket.
    W

    e all drove down to Scottsville and went into the Pig & Steak Too. Toni scooped up a tip on a table and stuffed it in his pocket. This infuriated Theresa (who is a waitress) and she hit him.

    We got four of the big plates of fries. My fraction of that wasn't enough to overstuff me or give me "grease dreams."

    grease dreams
    according to Matthew Hart and Leah, when someone eats lots of grease, his dreams the next time he sleeps are always bizarre. Grease is apparently a strong hallucinogen that only functions while someone sleeps.

    The waitress gave us several free lemonades, so we left a huge tip. I put it under a plate so Toni (sitting at another booth) wouldn't steal it. It seems Toni is another one of those horrible people that takes and takes but has nothing of his own to offer except his entropy and odour.

    B

    ack at Big Fun, we got increasingly drunk on the beer and nostalgia. Suddenly others arrived: Zachary and Peggy! They brought with them the not-particularly popular Wonder Boy Neek. And he had an anonymous nubile teenage maiden in tow.

    Aaron, Angela's boyfriend, also came out. As conversation, I'd mentioned to the others, especially Theresa, the weirdness with Angela in my bed last night. I made the mistake of saying it wasn't the first time. And Theresa, absolutely true to form and despite my telling her not to, instantly told Aaron. And he came up to me and wanted to talk about it. I was having a good time and didn't want to discuss the matter at all. When next I found Theresa, I expressed my disgust with the fact that she'd automatically blabbed to Aaron. To accent my point, I grabbed her beer and smashed it in the fire place.

    A dead rat was being laundered in the washing machine while a can of beans was being cooked (unopened) in the oven so as to make it explode.
    Things became increasingly disorderly. When you're trashed, don't live in a house and don't care about the owners, you tend to treat the house with no respect. Thus: a dead rat was being laundered in the washing machine while a can of beans was being cooked (unopened) in the oven so as to make it explode. Someone also made a carbon dioxide bomb out of a sealed 40 ounce malt liquor bottle containing baking soda and vinegar.

    L

    arge amounts of liquor suddenly arrived, then there was a huge fest of smashing bottles in the kitchen fire place. No one broke any windows because Jessika insisted that they not be broken.

    When I finally talked to Aaron about his girl problems, I said that what had happened was no big deal on any occasion. He said that it still sucked. On reflection, I agreed, saying, "It's the thought that counts." He thought that that cliché summed up the situation perfectly.

    We all hung out for a time around a candle in Sara Poiron's old room.

    When I was bored, I said I wanted to go back into Charlottesville. That ended the reunion. I'd been drinking straight vodka and was pretty drunk, but not in blackout. I told everyone getting into my car that they were taking their lives in their hands.

    I didn't drive very straight, but I did get the Dart back to the Dynashack on Wertland.

    On my suggestion, we all walked out to the Corner. A couple of us, in mindless drunken silliness, tossed black patio chairs into Main Street. I went up to the Orbit Billiard parlour and checked someone's ID at the door and pissed off the bouncer (that was his job, see). I also chatted with Jenfariello's friend Sam. He's a very pleasant bisexual guy.

    I was drinking from a bottle of Cognac in front of Little Johns in defiance of a rent-a-cop. Meanwhile, in an effort to shock passing Wahoos, Morgan Anarchy loudly boasted of his gutter-punk dissolution. He claimed that in New Orleans he was fond of shitting and pissing in his pants. He wasn't just boasting; Sara thinks he pissed his pants while seated in the back of my Dart on the ride to or from Scottsville.


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