I decided that today would be an opportune day to tell all of you how the robot came to be. As I’ve said before, the very first robot (may it rest in peace) was made by derrickito, here in Seattle. Derrick is int0rwebnet famous for his shenanigans in addition to the robot–dressing up as a ninja (with Scotty) and terrorizing neighborhood bars and grocery stores, biking in drag, and his most famous experiment: Homeless Week, also with Scotty.
The premise is that they went homeless for a week to make an ‘internet documentary’ of sorts to raise awareness of the homeless situation in Seattle. For this, they were ripped apart by multiple newspapers.
But back to the robots: Derrick built the first one, and had been using it to wander around town. How and where did I gain possession of it? It all started in Chicago.
Everyone mentioned in this post are members of a web forum for graphic designers, where we spend copious amounts of time talking about dead hookers and gas masks (with the exception of the editorial writer, with his delicate sensibilities, he’d be offended and driven out within minutes).
In April of 2003, the year I turned 21, many of us decided to converge upon Chicago and spend a weekend of boozification. Derrick packed up his robot costume, and he, Scotty, Dana, and Tim all flew from Seattle. Ian came from Toronto. Jeff and Michelle came from Madison. Mitch, Amye, and Jeremy came from Ohio. Audrey and Mr. Audrey came from Detroit. Chelle came from Baltimore. Dustin and Sheri came from Milwaukee. I came from California. And, God help him, Felix hosted all of us at his place.
Scotty, Ian, and I at the first bar of the evening, already showing boozy-pink cheeks.
Derrick brought out the costume at Club Foot. He’d checked it as baggage, and consequently, he marked the box as being ‘fragile’, as boxes covered in duct tape often are just that.
Derrick peeks out of the costume.
And then proceeds to make suggestive hand gestures toward the package, lest we forget that robots can love. You know, fully functional and anatomically correct?
After a while, Derrick tired of the costume and started passing it around. First Felix tried it on, as is well and proper for our host.
Look how he mesmerizes and hypnotizes in that sheath of duct tape!
After that, Felix passed the head onto me–I couldn’t wear the body if I still wanted to sit in the booth, and with as much as I’d been drinking, I *definitely* wanted to sit right then. Also, if you’ll notice: Throwing up the horns the first time you put on the costume is instinctual. Because it ROCKS SO HARD, you can’t do otherwise.
Once I had the costume on completely, I was UNSTOPPABLE. Also, more horns.
I believe Ian was trying to mind-meld with me. That, or simply make eye-contact, which is remarkably difficult to do while wearing that costume!
Ian, teaching all of us to dance.
The robot can’t take a bad picture!
So at about this point, Ian spied a bike chained up on the street, and attempted to free it, the better to ride around. Note the robot peeking out behind the crowd.
Mitch wasn’t going to take any sass from a CANADIAN, so he preceded to show Ian what happens when you try to steal bikes in ‘merica. Scotty points out the action. We were all incredibly drunk at this point, if you couldn’t already tell.
This picture was taken in the second-to-last bar. The place was packed, yet people seemed remarkably nonplussed that brought a robot into the place.
Look to the far left of the picture. That guy whose face you can half-see? Yeah, he was hitting on me. IN THE ROBOT COSTUME. I’m as shocked as you are.
I did start it, though. Drunk and confident, I walked up to him and said “Would you care to buy a strange robot a drink?” I’ve since discovered that line ALWAYS works. It should be used sparingly, as with great power comes alcoholic blindness and irreparable liver damage, yadda yadda.
Now you know the picture my icon came from. At this point, it was getting HOT inside that costume. Not only from the booze–cardboard is a far better insulator than I ever would have guessed. I stood out on the street to get some air, and found myself heckling passersby, asking them if they thought they were TOO GOOD to wave to a robot when they walked right by me. It’s really amazing no one kicked my ass that night.
With the exception of Dustin. He felt that things were ‘too boring’ in the bar, so he started a fight with me to liven things up. Clash of the titans! He broke the antenna off of the head, and stabbed it into one of the eyes. In a matter of minutes, both eyes were missing, and the antenna was hucked across the bar. For some reason, after that point, the costume still stayed on.
Around this time, Scotty and Rob got into some sort of SPANKING CONTEST. These guys were absolutely wailing on each other, full force, roundhouse blows. I’m not quite sure what this was supposed to prove…
All I knew was that I wanted in. Rob explained to me that I was not allowed to hold back, that I simply must hit Scotty as hard as possible. Ok, I think I can do that!
It’s much harder than you might think to spank someone around a cardboard box. After that, everyone started getting in on the action. I’m still not sure what it was supposed to prove.
The robot was dead at this point. We brought it into the fourth and final bar, but the bartender flipped out and wouldn’t allow us to stay if we kept the costume. It was abandoned outside in an alleyway, and we stumbled back to Felix’s place in search of aspirin, water, and Chicago style hot-dogs.
From that day forward, I carried on the robo-torch, bringing love and cardboard together with copious amounts of duct tape and booze.
I uploaded a crapton more pictures from that weekend (186 altogether, to be specific), so if you’re interested in some more of the crazy things that went on (Derrick almost going home with a transvestite, trashcan diving, pole dancing, Felix taking potentially deadly dares for $2, and our afterhours trip through IBM), check out the gallery.
Pictures like those really make me wish that I had celebrated my 21st or had gone out at all. I skipped the traditional bar-hopping adventures and traded them in for drunken frat parties. I have my fair share of juicy stories from that time in my life, but nothing come nearly as close to the awesomeness of bar robots!
Speaking of parties, Val is going to be 21 soon. I sense bar-hoppage in the near future!
I’m really bad with dates, isn’t his birthday in May? I’m willing to remain sober as the DD JUST so I can see Val get smashed. 😀
And once he’s 21, you can BOTH come to see me do comedy (y’know, if you don’t have something else going on, that is. 🙂 )
“From that day forward, I carried on the robo-torch, bringing love and cardboard together with copious amounts of duct tape and booze.”
I don’t know if more beautiful words have ever been written. Or possibly it’s just my love of the words “copious amounts of booze.”
I was rather fond of that sentence when I wrote it, myself. 😀
One day I’ll be a famous drunk writer just like Bukowski, except on the int0rwebnet!
OMG awesome. i just found this thread. such a great time out there
speaking of bukowski, i now live on top of a bar, and am following in our lord charles’ footsteps 🙂
i have another fully made robot that i was just about to throw out, this makes me want to keep it a little longer
That really was an incredible weekend. It was amazing how well everyone got along considering most of us had never met before!
How is living on top of a bar? Is noise a problem?
That last picture is priceless. It tells so much.
With the eyes gone it’s like the robot is blind drunk and/or passed out. 🙂
Surprisingly, no passing out happened that night, which is somewhat of a miracle if only because of how much booze was consumed.
It might have been better if I DID pass out, if only because it would’ve prevented me from drinking MORE and then perhaps I wouldn’t have felt like I wanted to die the next day.
Truly, that picture is worth more than a thousand words.
A tale for the ages to be told at bedtimes every where. 🙂
Has your pirate come together yet?
I decided on Ninja in the end. That way when I’ve drunken too much I can dissappear into a corner and pass out stealthily.
My pirate costume is coming along, but it’s still not done. I sewed for the whole weekend and I’m just finishing up with the corset bit. (That part, it’s SUPER IMPORTANT to sew well because when it’s being pulled tight, all the stitches will rip out…it’s taken forever with all of the seams and boning. It would be SO MUCH EASIER if I had a sewing machine, but I wouldn’t use one enough to justify the expense. That, and I’d probably break it within a week.) Then it’s on to the puffy shirt and skirt bits–I should have it done by this weekend for Justin’s pirate party, and then by Monkey’s party I should have a few more accessories/incidentals to really complete the thing. Finding a decent hat is proving frustrating–it seems they come in two categories: cheap and really crappy or super-duper-OMG-expensive and nice. I don’t need an exact replica of Jack Sparrow’s hat, fer pete’s sake!
Here’s an easy hint for your ninja costume: Make a t-shirt into a ninja hood.
Once you’ve got the hood, you could always slap on a I’m Ninja t-shirt and be done with it, though that’s probably cheating. 😉
What’s James going as?
Dude I gotta sewing machine if you want to borrow one 😀
Sewing a whole costume by hand, girl you craaaaaazy.
I may have to take you up on that! I’ve made costumes/clothes by hand before and it hasn’t been TOO bad, but they were a little simpler in terms of construction, as well. It’d be nice, if nothing else, to reinforce what I’ve already hand-stitched.
The last time I used a sewing machine was like 10 years ago, so I don’t know if I even remember how to use one anymore!