The Moose in the Closet: Definitive Brooklyn: The Sweet 16

Yesterday on the Bendis Board I stumbled across this which is basically an announcement made way too early about a book that’s very, very close to my idea that’s been posted on this site since January as a sample of my writing (and I say that in the thread, too). With that in mind, a head start on the script, a complete idea for the first two graphic novels as well as the confidence that I can do anything 10x better than most up-and-coming comic writers and 20x better than this guy, I finally started getting back on Esau (designed to be a 96-page+ OGN - there's ten pages at that link). Talking to some artists now, hope to have ten pages by January some time. If anyone wants to get thrown into the pool shoot me an email, I can talk it up. Between the story and contacts some good art could give this book a shot at being somewhere…pleasant. I needed a kick in the ass like this and the threat of having someone doing a mediocre version of my idea before I get it done is just what I needed.

It was a productive day yesterday, by the way. I got my pitch straight for that back-up story I was telling you about and it’s pretty sweet (it’s a baseball story, five pages). Also blocked out the Shear Terror Anthology story, just need to touch it up a bit and add dialog to the last three pages and I can send it off to Chris for comments and art.

Story time…

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The fact that Sweet 16’s, as I know them, are a Brooklyn thing took me by surprise when I went to college. I met girls who weren’t from Brooklyn and had “Sweet 16” parties but none of these chicks were even capable of comprehending the enormity of the Sweet 16 parties I’ve been to.

Sophomore year in high school was INSANE. It was the year where girl’s proved that their parents would throw them the biggest, most elaborate birthday parties imaginable – I’m talking the type of party you’d expect for a Kennedy’s fiftieth birthday – and it was the year where boys measured how popular they are by a complicated ranking system that was based on the total number of Sweet 16 parties attended plus the table number you sat at for each party times the number of candles you lit at the candle lighting ceremony.

The parties ranged in size, obviously – they weren’t all gala events. The ones that were the most fun tended to be the ones that were in the hall of a church, a local DJ and everyday food like roast chicken or pork-chops. With those types of Sweet 16 parties you end up dancing and eating all night – the candle lighting ceremony is pretty short, usually.

Let me backtrack. A Sweet 16 starts with a general meet and greet – people coming in, giving pounds and kisses. Some light dancing is usually followed by dinner where everyone takes their assigned seat. While we eat the DJ usually emcees some really cheesy ceremony which is sort of retrospective of the birthday girl through the years. Either a slide show or reading shit off of a card – a “This is Your Life” for a 16-year-old. The candle lighting ceremony comes next where 16 lucky people get to have some nice words said about them by the birthday girl before they light the candle. After the candle lighting it’s usually dancing all-night.

There’s an order to the candle-lighting. The 15th and 16th candle usually goes to family members – siblings and parents. The 14th candle is primo real estate for non-family members – it basically means you’re the most important friend. I co-lit one 14th candle, for Jackie, and took part in two other candle lighting ceremonies. This girl Ronnie who had my beat-box/freestyling crew (the legendary Thermal Siphon who’s hit songs included Joe of the Tundra, Paul of the Marine Biome and Mike of the Deciduous Rainforest) come up and light a candle and I don’t remember who the second girl was, probably this girl Debra, but if anything it goes to show how non-issue these things are in retrospect.

Anyway, the more elaborate parties had the girl sitting on a thrown – like a bride’s wedding table except the birthday girl’s chair is this gaudy thing you’d expect Kim Jong Il to sit on. There are all these weird ceremonies at the elaborate ones too – I don’t remember any of them, though. I keep thinking one involves a shoe but I think I’m getting confused with a Jewish wedding. The point is – no-one gave a shit about the ceremony kind of shit. Sweet 16s were about dancing, eating and trying to hook up with party goers.

Off the top of my head I can remember going to twelve different Sweet 16s. Of those, about 8 of them were of the ridiculously expensive variety. I remember you’d hear rumors floating around that so-and-so was planning a Sweet 16 and you’d anxiously wait for her to inquire about your home address or simply hand you an invitation (and these fucking things were like wedding invitations). Once you got an invitation you’d call up your friends and see if they got one too, there was no discretion.

The best part was when the guy came around with the video camera and asked us to say something to the birthday girl. If it was a family member doing the recording we’d play it cool, say happy birthday, and get back to the roasted chicken. But hold the fuck if it was one of those hired guys who don’t know us from Sinbad (the comedian, not the pirate). Man, we’d grab that microphone and say some fucked up shit. “Christina – happy 16th birthday. I didn’t think you were going to invite me after I came in your mouth behind your parent’s house.” The camera man would nervously move on and avoid all of the sixteen year old boys because he needed to have at least an hour of video after editing it down.

By the end of the night the party shifted to a bunch of teenage boys in a circle jumping around and spitting Wu-Tang lyrics while sipping five dollar vodka out of a flask. There’d be a fleet of car service cars sitting outside and waiting for us, we’d pile in and make our way back home – dream of candles and shadowboxing and wondering how we were going to style our hair for the next party so it’s not all disheveled looking by the end of the night.

That’s what we call definitive Brooklyn.

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Definitive Brooklyn: The Sweet 16

Wednesday, December 07, 2005

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