Bounce Castles and Bratwurst

The July event our family looks forward to ever year is a party held in Connecticut by Evil Jesus, the guitar player for PrematureStrangulation. Premature Strangulation hasn’t played since their record breaking* world tour in 2015, but this annual gathering predates the concert series that served as a featured element.

After making a modest batch of Double Satanic Deviled Eggs and packing our children and other necessary accoutrements, we set out to make the journey from Queens to Killingworth. Despite typical heavy I-95 traffic, one children’s bathroom emergency and monsoon-like rains on I-91, we made pretty good time.

The Double Satanic Deviled Eggs were a hit, and others inspired by their long-standing success brought their own delicious but less Satanic versions.

It was a family-friendly event where children were so well occupied that attempts to check on them were met with a mix of perturbation and disgust. Older girls were magnets for young children and were incredibly gracious in minding toddlers. There was even a piñata that yielded great treats for the gathered children, and it was miraculous that no one was rendered unconscious with multiple youths swinging aggressively to break open the treat.

There was plentiful food and drink, but the real attraction is catching up with old friends. Our host, Evil Jesus, has known some of us since high school and others from college. Like his mother’s house was when we were in high school, his home is a center of an expansive social scene, a community. The guests at the party included includes Republicans, Democrats, Christians, atheists, lawyers, housewives, and other derivations of the human condition.

I met a young man who did extensive work in North Korea working to help reunite people with families in South Korea and has a grandmother north of the DMZ who has not seen family for decades. I learned another good high school friend is pursuing his dream of being a radio DJ, and heard about our host family’s recent trip to Paris.  

The members of Premature Strangulation were not all there. The band has as many as nine members at any one time, like a more intoxicated and less-well-rehearsed Allman Brothers. Those members who were present discussed the possibility of getting together to play songs again. Maybe next year will be the reunion world tour that their adoring public is waiting for**.

The drive back was along less-crowded highways and under a clouded sky. Buzzing as best one can on diet Pepsi and Five Hour Energy, I was the only one awake for part of the drive. A slender golden moon haunted the night sky with a sense of beauty and adventure yet to come. Fireworks silently illuminated the sky from the far side of the highway.

Evil Jesus did it again. Another great gathering is in the books, and it produced good memories and good times, and a true sense of community. The human race needs more of this.  

Thank you.

*largest concert attendance by a cover band in Killingworth Connecticut in the first-half of July on a non-leap year, according to the Evil Jesus Research Institute for Beer and Cynicism

**adoring public may be limited to sympathetic spouses, children, and pets

Battle of the Queens Night Markets

Not too long ago, Friday nights were when I wanted to rage in abominable weekend warrior style and get home in the early hours of dawn after partying harder than Robert Downey Jr. with a 40-pound crack rock. Not so anymore. I’ve become mellowed with age and exhausted by child wrangling and by Friday evening I want nothing more than to sit at home and try to catch up on sleep.

So this past Friday I was reluctant to leave home with our brood to attend Flushing Night Out that was held on the campus of Flushing High School, not far from where we live. I did not want to deal with a large crowd and trying to supervise two active toddlers amid a mob of festivalgoers. But my wife insisted we go support this thing.

The five of us plus my mother-in-law took a bus less than a mile to the corner of Northern Boulevard and Union Street.

Flushing High School is the oldest high school in the city and unlike most city high schools, it sits on a large piece of land that has a nice lawn. That’s where the Flushing Night Out was held.

The event was well attended but not horribly crowded, a welcome relief. It was an overwhelmingly Asian crowd, which was no surprise since it was Flushing, and it was largely Flushing High School students and people active in community events. The mobs of ill-mannered drunks, arrogant thugs, and hipster abominations I feared never materialized, and while the DJ music that was there was aimed at a younger audience and therefore pretty shitty, it wasn’t hard to get away from it. Things sounded much better once the live music started.

The food offerings were impressive and things are usually $5 or less. I had some excellent classic mac and cheese as well as fried mac and cheese from House of Mac, ate a tasty scallion pancake from Seoul Pancake, a seafood and pasta mix that had an Asian name I can’t remember from Teinei Ya and an amazing banana-flavored homemade pastry from Jai NYC Eats. The food booth that caught my attention the easiest was Karl’sBalls. Karl’s balls are delicious octopus balls. Meticulously tended to by the chef, the balls lived up to the hype. I can’t wait to have Karl’s Balls in my mouth again.

There was a $1 dollar All You Can Craft table that allowed us to keep our small children occupied and allowed them to leave with some hand-made jewelry. They also enjoyed painting their own and their grandmother’s arms with paint. Helpful volunteers were incredibly good-natured and patient with rambunctious toddlers who wielded paint brushes like machetes.  Not far away, a vendor used a real machete to slice coconuts for special drinks.

There were also a lot of different vendors selling various inexpensive crafts. There was some seating available and space for people to bring picnic blankets. It was an all-around pleasant evening.

Flushing Night Out will be held several more Fridays this summer: July 29, August 12 and August 26. They run from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. It is a good way to experience Flushing and family friendly too. It’s organized by the Greater Flushing Chamber of Commerce.

There is also a QueensInternational Night Market that is held in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, on Saturdays. Our family tried to go there once but we drove and there was no parking available. My wife got out and walked through and found that the lines were incredibly long because there were not enough vendors. However, it has improved and my mother-in-law attended a more recent night market there and reported that there were many more vendors and that the crowd situation has improved.

The Brooklyn Night Bazaar was very popular and featured a lot of food vendors, beer, and music. It closed though it appears to be on its way back as its web site says it will be revived thisSeptember. Queens doesn’t need to duplicate Brooklyn to prove its worth, but these night markets can be a lot of fun if done right, and the Queens night markets are proving to be successful.

Queens has the most to offer of any borough in the city as far as food and different crafts. If something exists in the world, you can bet someone in Queens can cook it, get it for you, or show you how to make it. Night markets like Flushing Night Out are a good way to discover new foods, restaurants, or other fun things that may already be close by.