NYCH3 Run# 813 Hares: Pierre Soncke & Steve Yeoman

Start: W3^rd St. & 6^th Ave. On-In: The Village Idiot, 14^th & 9th

Scribe: Dave Long

Mid-January, which January 16^th could rightly claim to be, is not exactly the most exciting time of the year unless, of course, you're a grid-iron football fan in which case you spend the whole month in a state of orgasmic excitement. For the rest of us, it's a time of rueing those New Year resolutions that we never stuck to (mine was not doing any more of these writeups) and perhaps taking stock of our post-xmas finances before deciding whether or not to accept that $125M offer from the Yankees. I'll bet that nothing exciting has ever happened on any January 16^th in history; Ayn Rand wrote a play about it once, being the literary giant I am I don't recall what happens in it except someone gets murdered I think, but this is its only claim to fame that I know of. It was left to Pierre and Steve, therefore, to finally put Jan.16^th on the map. All they had to do was set a model trail and stage the perfect on-in, and bingo. As it turned out, they came pretty close.

My afternoon started by seeing a couple of dodgy looking characters, who turned out to be the hares, loading a bunch of bags into a yellow cab. After hastily undressing and throwing my bag at Steve I spun around ten times, turned into Super Runner, and set off in pursuit of the pack, who can't have got far I thought. Sure enough, I ran into Roy and a few others at the Washington Square check. The trail headed east past the dope dealers and then south to Houston, before turning back west and then south again into Soho, where we proceeded to wreck the Sunday afternoon peace of the sophisticated set. After the previous week's straight line it was nice to run a trail with plenty of twists and turns, if a little short on checks. We eventually found our way to the former West Side Highway, now Joe DiMaggio Highway (different name, same death trap). With this in mind, most people didn't bother crossing over but just headed north, figuring the trail had to cross back over somewhere, which it did. Back in the west village, the hares now decided to start laying down checks again. One of them led gratuitously back to the highway, but thinking "Bollocks to that", I tried a short cut which for once, worked. Waving on Geoffs B. and F. (the latter sporting the ultimate in matching red/black bandana and spandex tights - should have really earned him a down-down), I didn't have much time to congratulate myself before the next check. Here, I found a forlorn Danny wandering around the meat district looking for the trail, or at least I assume he was looking for the trail. In an amazing act of stupidity I found myself on the south side of 14^th St. staring straight at The Village Idiot, and if I had just crossed over I would have been on-in with a spectacular shortcut. Instead, unable to see an "On-In" mark from where I was, I turned around and went back to the check, where the pack had of course vanished. Eventually, the pack was resighted heading north on Hudson, and from here it was pretty plain sailing up 8^th Ave. and then looping around to 9^th and then south again to the on-in.

This is one of my favourite on-in locations whether dressed as a man or a woman, because of it’s space and plentiful beer supply. As an added bonus, the barmaids have tattooes (always the sign of a good bar). It’s less attractive features are the foul smelling bathrooms and the interminable drone of country and western music. On the subject of bathrooms, I love the way they have a peephole on the women’s door, so you can avoid the embarrassment of having to knock to see if anyone’s in there. The pack arrived pretty much together – good trail Pierre and Steve – and were soon tucking into the brown stuff with gusto. Baldwin gave me some stick for the failed attempt at redesigning the hareline (my budding career as a graphic designer thus coming to a sticky end), and I was then accosted by one quarter of the alleged gang-bang-gang from the previous week, strenuously denying anything obscene had in fact occurred. I have witnesses however…

Crofty and Roy looked like the result of an early human cloning experiment gone bizarrely wrong as they stood up to administer the down-downs. With their matching white shirt/black tight ensembles, they looked vaguely like a couple of “droogs” out of A Clockwork Orange. After Crofty had finished enjoying a nice game of pocket billiards, the ceremony began. Only two visitors in town, although one, Mike from Zurich H3, made up for this by hanging out late and doubtless drinking enough for about five. Continuing the bizarre theme, former AOTY Murphy then re-enacted his engagement to Kerry with stand-in Lipstick Leslie, to yet another rousing chorus of “Just Say No!”. One only hopes that he demonstrated a bit more panache on the actual day than he did here, ending up a quivering wreck on the floor (what else is new?). Meanwhile, Crazy Bob was downed for running the whole trail with a dead rabbit on his head, although it’s probably an inprovement on the sou’wester.

The hares meanwhile had one more trick up their sleeves, by ordering some completely fantasmagorical pizza from Two Boots. Truly a masterstroke, and compensation for the horror of The Blob (see 1/9 writeup). Unfortunately, Rick and Devo obviously disagreed, as they felt it necessary to down a couple of the resident goldfish for afters. While Rick’s digestive system may be used to all sorts of crap passing through it, Devo was obviously more affected. As the beer and therefore the dancing kicked in, he did a good impression of the B52’s Fred Schneider suffering a nasty case of St. Vitus Dance (yes, you can get that from eating live goldfish), while various others “got down” in an only slightly more coordinated fashion. Scary.

Try as I might I can’t find one thing to moan about on this hash. Now that really pisses me off!

On out.