Bomba

I am not sure how our butts-up period started. Well, maybe I am more sure than I thought. Jack was living next door to us, actually practically in the same apartment. He had moved in after living with Tommy over in Little Italy. Jack doesn't really believe in owning too many things. In the apartment he had a little elementary school desk and a mattress on the floor and I think he may have had a few spoons and a knife and two pots. This meant there was a lot (relatively) of space over at his half. He would cover the walls with big canvases and would paint these nice pixelated portraits of Mao Tse Dong and Che Guevara and he would work on his computer and telephone all day as a website contractor and consultant for an internet fax company. It was a pretty nice existence for everyone involved. Marina and I would go off to work and Jack would take care of Maggy and when we got home we would have a big dinner or play cards or get real drunk. This time period coincided with the last gasps of the Williamsburg-as-artists-haven period. Cokies was still in business, the Stinger was still pumping out crazy and safe dance parties, and we basically knew everyone we knew. A good time.
Anyhow, all this space over at Jack's meant there was a wall and a few feet of empty floor. One day, while rummaging through our drawers Jack gets all excited and pulls out a little bouncy raquetball. I am thinking, what are you so excited about? my dog doesn't even chase balls. But he looks at me in the eye and says two words: butt's up. So I guess that started that whole thing. (Maybe thats really not it, but this is the only thing I can remember that sounds remotely right.)



So we are playing butts-up pretty regularly by a certain point and we had found a local wall that fit our purposes and we came up with some pretty neat innovations to the game. First of all, every game has to be initiated by slamming one of the ubiquitous energy drinks found at the local bodega. At that time I think there were even more brands of that stuff than there are now. I think inevitably the big soft drink companies swooped in to control that industry, but back then it was the wild west of the energy drink craze and there was really quite a selection. The name of whatever brand we would choose then becomes the name of the game and the letters one "gets" when one fouls up. Another twist is that when someone gets butts-up, the winner has to find pedestrians willing to throw the ball at the loser's butt. I think this came about because we were so loopy on energy drink and usually it was just Jack and I playing, making the whole pelting process a little anti-climactic as neither of us can throw a ball worth a damn.

This series of photos was from the day we picked Bomba as our energy drink. Jack and I are playing Bomba on North 6th and Berry right next to Miyako's and up walks Maile and Joe. Maile lived above Miyako's and used to be a part time waitress there. Joe worked as a catering waiter and for a time used to drive deliveries for Anytime Cafe. Both were, and still remain, professional modern dancers in a couple of the more prestigious modern dance troupes in the country. Of course Joe and Maile are up for a game (they're modern dancers, see) and we quickly discern that Bomba, while good, isn't good enough. So back to the corner store for beer. By the end of the game, it was just Joe, Jack and I jumping around, bashing into each other while Maile sat on the side cracking up and taking the photos. I can't really comment about how the marathon Bomba session ended, but I will say that ever since, no matter what flavor of energy drink we consumed, the game was called Bomba.