This is going to be my addendum to Kyle's "Behind the Mall" blogs. While I didn't grow up in Latham or the neighborhood, I've spent a ton of time there for going on eight years. For part of my sophmore year and practically all of my junior and senior years I stayed at Greg and AJ's almost every weekend. This was in large part because of the fact that at that point I only had my conditional drivers licence, which in New York means you can't drive after 9pm until you turn 18, unless you take drivers ed (which is for queers.) Greg's parents didn't care when I drove, and since at that point I was one of the few of our friends who could drive at all, this made doing things a whole lot easier. Before I get too far off track with a story that will inevitably go nowhere, I'll just jump right into it. These are the characters/places/events I experienced as a hanger-on in the 'hood.
1. Bobby Ray.
I always knew him as Bobby Arnold, and out of everyone on this list, I've had the most interaction with him. When I first met Bobby, he was just this goofy little kid who told Greg how much he liked Greg's boxers. As he grew older, he turned into this quasi sketchy lump with a moustache. AJ and I have speculated that he probably can't deal with a razor on his own, so his mom must groom it for him (see
Kyle's Blog for info on her). Now, this means that a grown woman thinks to herself "What would make my already haggard son look better? OF COURSE!! A thin, scraggly, greasy excuse for a moustahce!" I guess it's kind of arbitrary, since it's not like Bobby was going to be pulling babes in any event (except by the hair, possibly).
I spent a summer and winter break living at the Kunker War Bunker about 2 years ago. The house is laid out with a big livingroom downstairs attached to the kitchen through an archway, and then a bathroom and two bedrooms to the left (as you face the house). The second floor consists of an open livingroom and a separate master bedroom. This was pre-fire, while AJ still lived there too. I had the upstairs livingroom as my bedroom in the winter, and the downstairs front bedroom for the summer. I mention those locations only because the way the house is laid out is somewhat relevant when explaining my two most recent dealings with Bobby.
That winter break was a month and a half, and after a few halfassed attempts to get a job within walking distance of the house, I decided there was no point in trying to get a job for a few weeks anyway. Greg was unemployed at the time as well, and I can't remember if AJ was in school but he had a pretty loose schedule either way. This lead to Greg and I falling into a nocturnal sleep schedule, we'd usually wake up somewhere between 4 and 6 PM, get dressed, go hang out with whoever was around that night in Albany, come back home and bullshit around until around 7am, then finally crank it enough times to fall asleep as the sun was coming up. It would be a really depressing lifestyle if it carried on for more than a few months, but it was awesome for a short period of time. The only other useless detail that helps with this story is that there was no heat in my room and there was a hole in the window, so it was painfully cold, which lead to me sleeping underneath 7 blankets and a sleeping bag, completely covered and cocooned, head to toe.
One of my mornings/the rest of the worlds afternoon's, I was starting to wake up but pretty much still asleep when I heard a quiet rustling from above the blankets. I groggily pulled myself out of my nest and was fully awoken to the unpleasant sight of Bobby's face about 3 inches from mine. I jumped and almost fell out of bed, which spooked him and he ran off like some kind of frightened racoon or possum. Which honestly isn't too much of a stretch when it comes to how he carries himself in general. I pulled all the covers back over and hoped to fall back asleep and pretend it was some kind of bad dream. But a moment later, I hear footsteps coming up the stairs, and AJ walks up with Bobby in tow.
"Tell Sawyer what you said to me."
(Sneer and general smothered noises from Bobby.)
"Come on, tell him!"
After he looked around the room warily and muttered to himself some more, Bobby stared down at me.
"Yer...yer...yer a no good lazy bum JUST LIKE MY BROTHER!"
No matter how low my lifestyle had sunk at that point, there was no way I was going to lay around and be insulted by Bobby Arnold.
"BOBBY. Get the fuck OUT of here."
And with that, he scampered back down the down the stairs and out of the house.
The following summer I was back living at the KWB, but this time working at Safway Scaffolding with Kyle, and seeing daylight on a regular basis again, unlike the winter. I had gotten home from work and was dicking around in my room before heading out, and I heard AJ and Bobby talking in the other room. This was the first time I'd seen Bobby with his post "6 month Pie Eating contest" physique, so that was kind of a surprise. Though it really wasn't too shocking, seeing as I'd imagine his diet consists mostly of ho-ho's and cheez-its. I still don't understand why it shocked and unnerved Kyle as much as it did. He kind of plays it down in his blog, but he was in absolute disbelief when Greg and I first told him, and then after seeing Bobby with his own eyes, seriously contended for some time that Bobby might actually be wearing a fat suit. He's such a wierd dude sometimes.
So Bobby strolls into my room, and with some prodding from AJ, starts to brag about what a great rapper he is, and how he never loses a battle, and so forth. AJ suggest that Bobby battle me. Now, while this may come as a shock to some of you, I'm not the seasoned hip hopper that I might seem to be, and unless I'm amnesic and am forgetting a past life, have never actually "battled" anyone before. But I don't see any way I could have possibly turned this down. So I accepted Bobby's challenge, and said he could go first. He then told me he had to go "get ready" in the other room. He walked into Greg's bedroom, which was then across the hall from mine, and closed the door. From outside the door all AJ and I could hear was something between Bobby hyping himself up and lots of cursing.
After about a minute of this, he comes back out and immediately starts to serve me, as the kids say. If I could recount his freestyle verbatim, I would, but even if I had a dictaphone with me at the time, I doubt it would have been possible. But as memory serves, it went something like this: "Bitch motherfucker fuck you I'mma fuck shit bitch fuck you motherfuck bitch slut shit fucker fuck fuck fuck." Only it lasted almost two minutes. When he was done, I did the only thing I could do, and conceeded. I mean, he was on a whole new level of no-bullshit rapping that cut out all the flowery prose and got right down to the best part, the swearing.
2. Zach Arnold.
I only really have one story to share when it comes to Zach, but I think it gives a pretty good snapshot of the kid. Seven or eight years ago I was waiting in my car outside Greg's house to pick him up to go somewhere. I think Tony Fed was in the car too, but I can't really remember. After a moment or so, Zach moseys up to the car, leans on the doorframe and pokes his head in the window.
"Whatre you guuyshh doin?"
"Waiting for Greg. What're you doing."
"Shhhnnoootthhin."
In his one grubby little paw he was clutching some kind of container with a spout which he kept sucking on.
"Zach, what are you drinking?"
"Thissh? Ittssh a honey bear."
Yeah, he was drinking a big plastic container of honey, right out of the spout. Just strolling around town, suckin on his honey. I've been known to eat some bizarre things before, and I'm sure Kyle will say that a tortilla chip sandwhich is up there with this, but I'm sorry, it's not.
3. Steve Dunkin.
Two quick things relating to Steve. First, for a few years running, Greg would always try and talk a bunch of us into throwing a brick through the windshield of whatever shitty car Steve was working on at the time. We'd always kind of play along like we thought it was a great idea, and Greg would inevitably end up dissapointed when yet another night ended without any bricks going anywhere.
Towards the end of high school, Steve did a band with Joe Cammarere called "Dead To These Eyes." If I ever get really ambitious and dig up the demo and rip it, I'll be sure to post it here, but that isn't too likely. The only thing worth knowing about the band was that they wrote parts specifically so Steve could jump out from behind the drum kit to mosh for his own band. Then the other guitar player would throw down his guitar and join him. The most memorable of these moments was when they played some shit show at Winners, to about 20 people. I barely have a functioning memory, much less a photgraphic one, but I'm pretty sure there were jumpkicks off the stage involved. Now, Joe had enough sense not to take part in this stuff, but he still spent almost a year in a band with these clowns. Bravo, Joe.
Oh and Steve also got the outline for some kind of tribal tattoo on his back that just looked like a big tribal christmas tree. So that's pretty sweet too.
4. Mrs. Breninger
I've never actually met this woman, but Kyle left out a pretty important detail in his blog, namely that she apparently has giant tan boobs with sunspots on them, which he used to watch from his upstairs window. And I think there were some half baked schemes to go watch wrestling at Joey's house and somehow seduce Mrs. Breninger during the course of the evening.
5. Snake and the Snakepit.
I was going to write about this but I'm just going to use this opportunity to bug Kyle to do it instead, as I can't remember all the details and I wouldn't do the story justice.
So that's pretty much it, my far inferior yet slightly expanded add-on to Kyle's Behind The Mall blogs. It was worth writing if for no other reason that it got me to start working on a brief history of the Kunker War Bunker, from it's inception around 4 years ago to the present day.
And lastly, if you haven't already, go read the full version of all of this in
Kyle's Blog. He's been updating pretty frequently and it gets better every day.
Brickshitter Fanzine Issue #4 feat. Mother Night, harDCore superbattle, a mike dikk column about hype/sensi-male music, another steve fontamozzarella column about ladies, a kyle chard column about the state of hardcore merch, a Twiztid Chris column about the state of the union and a joe steinhardt financial advice column.
