Hash # 1,039, February 22, 2004

Hares:  Yello Smello & C*ckstar

Start::  Subway Inn, 60^th (b/w Lexington & Third)

On-In:  Plug Uglies, (Third Ave b/ w 20^th & 21st)

Scribe: Sarah Down Under

 

 

“Dave Hardy said he’d boycott a theme hash himself”

                                                                 (With apologies to Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway)

 

Hardy NEVER attends “theme hashes”, so I was assured of a literary opening line for this re-hash even before the “Mardi Gras” extravaganza began.  That was until Hardy breezed into the fuggy confines of the Subway Inn, f*cking the best laid plans…totally up…then up further, as he accepted Carnivale beads.  Dog Face only contributed to the gathering chaos by accepting his beads without protest, and Walkabout actually volunteered to wear a pink bobbed wig. 

 

[But in retrospect, it was all rather apt.  Indulge me, if you will, as I deliver a Cliff’s Notes version of the significance of “Mardi Gras”. For all of those Sunday worshippers, the term is perverted version of the French Mardi Gros – in non-Frog, literally “Fat Tuesday”.  It is the period of time between the Twelfth Night (c’mon, you CAN do this.  Follow along) after Xmas and the beginning of Lent on Ash Wednesday, the day following “Fat Tuesday.”  Basically, for those who lean more toward the Romish aspect of Sunday Worshipping, Mardi Gras is the “Last Hurrah” before attempted purging of sins etc.  It is the end of Carnivale, the “farewell to flesh”, the “feast of fools” before the serious donning of hair shirts.  It’s an, anarchic “farewell to fun” for Catholics (and perhaps Protestants…but I’m a lapsed one of the latter).  So it made a lot of sense that C*ckstar and Smello, nice Jewish lasses, were the hares for the trail.  Chaos & misrule on a hash?  As rare as a French surrender!] 

 

Perhaps dazzled by the beads Smello and C*ckstar were distributing, and Jon preparing to hash in naught but a towel, shower cap, and rubber duckie, I foolishly changed into an itchy, supremely tacky French Maid outfit.  The hares assured me that the Diva of costuming, Head up Ass, then Mean Jean, and Wet Connection would join me in this random idiocy. Their persuasive power was enhanced by their costumes:  C*ckstar in a spray-on cream negligee with a “stop” sign over her frontal lower bits” and Smello in full over-the top hash regalia – as “Virgin & Visitor”, respectively.   Hell, if Fireman Bob showed up in vintage “Hammer-Time-80’s” Pink Parachute Pants, Roy the Younger had returned in his garish “Queen” t-shirt and Ed Lunch was wearing something resembling a “Cat Woman with Tail from the Far Reaches of Hell” outfit, it couldn’t be THAT bad, no?

 

No.  It should have been obvious that logic had gone AWOL the second Hardy appeared.  As if to underscore this fact, a large group of stunningly young, and jealousy-inducing good-looking virgins of both sexes made their entrance.  “Friends of Devo,” they proclaimed.  The Surreal Factor kicked with a vengeance, and really sunk the boot in when Mean Jean arrived with just a mask, Wet Connection with a mask and feather boa, and HUA…with nothing.   “I went to buy my costume on the way, but they’d run out” he explained, before sadly turning away and weeping.  HUA, un-costumed.  It seemed the natural order of things had truly been reversed on this day of disorder. 

 

And so, to the start: A massive pile of hash bags grew as C*ckstar sequestered the Virgins & Visitors for a chalk-talk.   Traffic all but halted as drivers rubber-necked at our beads and random costumes.  Alice “4-Wheel-Drive” was a late arrival in a bright outfit that seemed a hybrid hibiscus/neon sign, in stark contrast to Steamer Baldwin’s regular hashing duds. 

 

Then the parade began, as the NYCH3 Krewe dashed across Lexington and over into the park.  Virgins giggled raucously and we came to a check near Grand Army Plaza.  From there, approximately, it was south to 57^th & Sixth, then around Rockefeller Plaza.  Tourons a plenty turned from the grace of the ice rink to point and laugh at us galumphing by.  After this are vague memories of following Pillsbury Doughboy in his “shortcut” around (as opposed to through) Grand Central, and back on to Lexington and 42^nd.  Next it was a clear trail, colourfully (and accurately – WTF?) marked by the pack, around Murray Hill.  At one point we cruised past a Firehouse, who seemed delighted by our presence, and even came out to wish us well…or cadge for beads – it was hard to tell.  Then, even better than beads (and without having to bear little more than our desire for alcohol) we arrived at a Hurricane check.  ‘Twas located in a very tiny, sweet, child-friendly, playground and manned by Crazy Bob in a “Big Pimpin’” get-up – just the ticket for a Playground Monitor.  The kiddies quickly vanished as their parents hustled them out on our arrival.  Mean Jean and I (joined by Kyle who was only DFL yet again because he missed the start) downed a quick couple of drinks, then 2 blocks later realised just how potent they were.  Our weaving fortunately only lasted a few minutes longer as we stumbled into the On-In. 

 

And what an on-in it was!  The Hash Krewe were almost the sole occupants, and Smello & C*ckstar had prepared copious quantities of home-cooked food that was steaming so enticingly at the side that Magoo, Seth, and Lunch had to be discouraged from throwing beads at it.  The bartender lacked attitude and dispensed good tap beer with a smile.  Beads were mysteriously gravitating toward certain hashers, and being lost by the most unlikely of candidates.  

 

A certain purplish-haze then slowly settled (or rather, Hurricane-reddish, thanks to the potency of Pimpmeister Bob’s check).   But this much I know, for it was scrawled into Mardi Gras Down-Down annals, and in keeping with the disorder of the occasion, I present them, nearly unexpurgated, as they were chaotically rendered:

 

Hares: C*ckstar and Smello, once.  Again for failing to have 3 checks as indicated at the start.  C*ckstar again for a “hat” offense.  (Here the notes and/or memory  fall into disarray – it may have involved some sort of tiara, or mask)

Visitors:  Head Nurse and husband, Erection Master, from Atlanta.  (They’d met on the hash when single – There IS HOPE!)

Virgins: (Curse their youthful looks and exuberance!) There were so many that Head up Ass told ‘em all to “F*ck off for now…but come back!” as he eyed the nubile females (and they were bountiful)

A tie-dyed virgin & Kiss My Rash: [They may have been the same entity, although KMR is almost a veteran hasher, and I couldn’t see, and needed beer, so confusion reigned again.]  The notes say that the Tie-Dyed one took out a 5 year-old at the Rockefeller Center, then, when r*nning with Got Wood, mowed down a tourist, blaming the poor visitor’s fall on Wood with and indignant, “I thought YOU were going to get out of their way!” [Ahhh…he must have been a virgin.  NEVER screw with a JM!  Kiss My Rash’s down-down was far more innocuous:  He mistakenly took a railed ramp up to Dunkin’ Donut’s front door as a level sidewalk]

Kyle:  Late AGAIN to start.  Ran with backpack AGAIN. Insisted that his “Stars & Stripes” mask was a “costume.”

Mean Jean:  Almost laid low (again) with her PSOAS (pronounced “so ass”) muscle and massaging her lengthy thigh slowly at the kiddie playground Hurricane check.

Pillsbury Doughboy: For his 50^th birthday.  May age never bring the kind of wisdom that suggests hashing is not sensible! 

Baboon Ass:  A regular.  A tourist offered her a MASSAGE on trail, yet she spurned that, and the trail, and in her wonderfully anarchic style, chose her own trail “fow a lawng rahn”

Myself:  Fools are given a chance to display themselves at Mardi Gras.  Apparently I came through with the Costume of Idiocy.  Got Wood had somehow appropriated my garter, and I was required to remove it from her rather firm, shapely leg (call this punishment?  PAH!)  and place it back on mine.  After a struggle with our lovely hashing sneakers, it was achieved.  Let’s drop the subject there.

A Naming of a Virgin:  Wet Connection (tall blonde goddess) and an almost identical virgin were called to drink.  The virgin was dubbed “Moist Connection”.  Much excitement ensued among the male hashers, who threw beads in a frenzy.

Mean Jean: For not knowing what “camel toe” meant when applied to a woman, and emailing HUA a day later, enquiring what “camel claw” meant.  [For those still clueless, be warned when Googling this term, even at home]

AOTW:  To Fireman Bob.  His vintage (retained from his less wild days in the ‘80s) parachute pants.  After a chorus of  “It’s Hammer Time!” he was so struck by nostalgia, that he reportedly flashed the crowd. 

 

*** FOOD INTERMISSION***

 

More beads were transferred, more asses flashed. 

 

Then came the costume awards.  Imagination abandoned (yet logic, oddly not), it followed that Fireman Bob should receive “Worst Costume.”  Logic still kept an oddly tenacious hold with Smello & C*ckstar being awarded “Best Concept” with their “Visitor & Virgin” outfits.  However, it was only a matter of time before logic went the way of misrule and chaos, as Ed Lunch received “Best/Only Tail” for the Thing he was wearing attached to his ass, and I got “Best Costume” for being the only dickhead to hash in visibly frilly Granny Panties.

Vague reports may filter in later of the aftermath.  I left to a raucous din, disarray creeping into many a hasher’s veins, yet with 2 hash women who will remain nameless, and the email address of a female virgin, Jing…and I didn’t have to give beads to any of ‘em! On-out.