The Birthday of the Damned: Part II: Second Blood: Hunters: Zero: First Blood.

Confusing Metroid parody aside, let me know expound upon what was actually the day I used to age by one year. Can you believe that? That we expect to put off aging for the entire year, if we pay for it, all at once, on the date we were born (supposedly!)?! Is that not pathetic? We're so afraid of aging--of growing brittle and helpless--that we invent just one day when all of the sudden we finally turn one year older, and now we're [insert your old ass' age here--24 for me]. Anyway, let's return to our blog (ew!), already in progress.



The next day I was woken by my parents, letting me know they were on their way up, and that I should be up and ready for their present (can I be loved too much? I don't know!). So I slept a little longer, then shuffled to the front door, and welcomed them in, asking them to excuse the dinosaur themed "volcano of spode", streamers, wall hangings, banners, and balloons. And Ryan, asleep on the couch, guitar still in hand from the sing-along the night before. I shoved aside the semi-empty keg cups and roaches (thank you "Big Joint" and Brianna!) so they could set down the cake they had bought me, next to the dinosaur cake Erin had made(!), and after some brunch, we drove out to Redmond. My mom had bought me tickets to Cirque de Soleil!

Can I tell you how bizarre this show is? Nevermind that I was tired and still drunk, nevermind that a king-sized tent full of people crowded around it like we were in the Colosseum. Nevermind how strange, in principle, the very idea of the circus is. The Cirque is insane! The dreamlike music (all live), the brilliantly creative costumes, the mechanics of the stage (and lights, and said costumes), the themes that floated, ghost-like, throughout the show, and the epic movements! The flipping, swinging, spinning, sliding, and all out flying of these performers, and characters, is fucking astounding! These people are all out super heroes, and they are here to show you what you have been missing, as the owner of a human body. They're like the nerdy kid who shows you all the feature on your cellphone you had no idea existed. "You mean I have the ability to hang from a hulahoop with my neck?! Just cause I was born with this thing? Well shit why am I sitting on my ass?!" Indeed, many little kids, after the show, taught themselves summersaults and cartwheels in the park.

The show was nuts. The presentation is a huge part of it, and they show such restraint, not flipping themselves all over the sky in the first piece. No, they certainly build slowly, then end with an "OH SHIT BITCH, THESE PEOPLE ARE GODS!!!!" performance that made me feel inadiquate "oooing" and "ahhing" like a rube. And in some ways, it's these most impressive moments that stick with me, least. I was most drawn in at the very beginning, when the house lights were up, and these stange creatures began slowly trickling out from the bamboo forest, upstage, and simply populated our conciousness. They didn't do much... they just moved the way strange creatures move. ...They were all rich colors, and odd shapes, and often vaguely animal, exactly the way children's theatre isn't. This was like magic. Dark forest magic. It was hallucinagenic.

I was taken into a world the way filmmakers wish they could transport an audience. ...This was showmanship at it's finest.

The show ends, we file out like amazed sheep, and head back to my home. Have a backyard picnic. When my parents visit my house, I feel like they can be certain I've failed. Like they've been holding out the jury for a few years, see how I subsist "without" them (who here doesn't still call their parents and ask for money? Can anyone honestly say they are ever truly independant?). Anyway, I love them and am always very happy to see them, but when I invite them over, it's always some shit:
"Oh, we can't we're busy working."
"Oh, no sorry, we're afraid of the freeway."
"Whoops, our mistake, this is a bad weekend. We're busy... letting rubber ducks go in a river." That's no joke, they say these things--it's fucked. Anyway, it was a miracle getting them up here, to Seattle, to see my place. And they felt obligatorily uncomfortbale upon seeing my home. Keep in mind, there had been a party on the premises, and much a trash about nothing. Nothing sober, that is, and now that it was 24 hours later (six months of filming for that bastard Kiefer Sutherland!), things still looked bad. The house looked like something out of Daifur (too soon?), so the 'rents weren't too thrilled to have to pretend to be glad to be there. Still, they gave me their off-beat presents, pretending the Cirque wasn't enough. I opened each present, trhilled at each discovery (have I mentioned my parents are awesome?), and it was then, that we took a stroll down memory lane.

Some time ago, my sister reminded me of the two surviving beta tapes from our childhood, and that I had agreed (many years ago) to convert them to VHS. Well, of course, I didn't, and for years, the whole Boschert/Zielsdorf clan had forgotten, that through a hundred moves and conjuncted yard sales, that these two tapes still existed, and so like a just-discovered Beatles song, I fished the suckers out of a crate, and got them converted to DVD. These DVD's had arrived a day ro two before I was 24, so my mom and dad and girlfriend and I sat down to watch these non-memories.