“Don’t you hate pants?” I shout into a
microphone from atop a stone lion outside the New York Public Library on 5th
and 42nd, fully aware that my life has become a complete and utter Simpsons reference in, like, not a good
way at all. Here I stand, in front of a thousand New Yorkers, each one as
depantsed as I am. My boxers are all that stand between the outside world and
my inner secrets. I hold my jeans aloft with one hand, a lit Zippo beneath them
with the other, just waiting for the right moment. It takes me a second, but as
I focus on the crowd, I begin to realize they remind me exactly of that
underground lo-fi experimental electronic rave I went to six and a half years
ago in a church basement. As the beats and way-out grooves violently shook the
floor and static coursed through the PA, electrifying the out-of-control
partygoers, a miraculous thing happened, like St. Elmo’s Fire overtaking the
entire room: everybody, as if prodded by extrasensory perception,
simultaneously removed their pants and continued dancing, as if nothing had
happened. Back in the present, crowd buzzing with anticipation, a thousand
lighters held under a thousand pairs of pants, I realize the true origin of my
inspiration, and I press play on my old-school yellow Sony sport Walkman. Deadbeat’s
brand of noise-inflected technological beatscapes course through my headphones
(along with the Panda Bear–esuqe “Unstable Influences” and the alt rock of
“Won’t You Meet Us in Vegas?”), and when the tape ends, I realize I’ve been
standing there for eighteen minutes already, and everybody’s starting to get
nervous. Well, I think to myself, there’s no way this day’s going off without
my Big Forever, no matter how hot my
fingers are getting. I look each and every person there on the street right in
the eye. Slowly, I raise my lighter to my outstretched denim and set it ablaze.
A thousand lighters follow suit, and the sidewalk in front of the library
becomes infinitely brighter as khakis, sweats, suit pants, cargo pants, and
bellbottoms, among others, go up like torches. Everyone begins to cheer, and I
deign to share my Walkman with them, plugging it into the PA system so they can
hear side B repeat the program along with me. Before pressing play, and
gesturing to the smoldering remains of my 501s on the ground, I say to the
massed audience, because I can’t leave without finishing my life-as-Simpsons-reference train of thought, “Those
things were driving me nuts!”
Applause. Big Forever side B. Tape flip.
Big Forever side A again. Cops
arrive.
--Ryan Masteller
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