GoogaMooga, you tease! The beginning of our relationship held so much promise. You debuted with The Darkness, a magnificent treat that so many of your suitors couldn’t get off work early enough to see, a guitar shredder clad in David Lee Roth’s best zebra-striped jumpsuit doing handstands on the drum riser and wailing
falsetto. You wooed me with Mac and Cheese from Beecher’s Handmade Cheese, so creamy and dense, the word succulent comes to mind. And even if Wayne Coyne’s voice was ragged, the La Mamasita Arepa from Caracas Rockaway was crisp, chewy, oily-as-hell, and stuffed with grilled mushrooms and plantains and cheese. It’s true that the mushrooms got lost a bit in the jumble of tastes, but it was yummy all the same. I washed it down with a strange and tasty Chery and Basil soda from Brooklyn Soda Works and then watched Karen O leap and yawp across the stage like a maniac, all dressed in a collision of Liberace and Michael Jackson, grungy blues riffs turned into dance music and Brooklyn jumping about happily.
But, oh, you Jezebel. I held out for the Northern Spy Food Co’s Egg Beggley Jr.—fried eggs, kale, potato hash, and Chimichurri with pickled peppers and onions on a bun—because I was going to make it breakfast on Sunday. I was going to get some of that whiskey bread you advertised and maybe a brownie parfait. A friend told me that your pork belly tacos were fatty, super creamy, and although in need of some more citric acid still “the real deal.” After all, you told me you’d see me “rain or shine.” You even sent me an email at 11:30 Sunday morning telling me that more tickets were available and I should come in spite of the rain.
But then when I showed up 90 minutes later, you pretended not to know me. You pretended to not exist! You posted a man named Craig outside your entrance to turn me and all of your other suitors away!! None of us could. I know because I watched Craig tell about fifty people that you were closing shop until he finally started laughing and said, “You guys look like I just told you I’d killed a family member.”
Craig whispered conspiratorially to me that he was soon bound for Coyote Ugly. He hasn’t had a drink in six years, but got ginger ale and waited for the ladies to get their Rainy Sunday Booze Haze on.
Me? Well, I wandered through the rain, fighting frustration, anger, disbelief, betrayal. I ended up at a Greek place in Park Slope, Okeanos, and she made me a frittata of dill, leeks, scallions, and Greek yogurt. I sat in the window and watched the others you had turned away wander down 7th Avenue, shaking their head in befuddlement.