altrok main 6/5/2002

for June 5, 2002

Check Your Head
by Your Diva, Robin Pastorio-Newman

Springtime lingers another couple of weeks, yet summer's in the air. You know what that means: Barbecues, festivals, bona fide parking spaces in college towns; sundresses, unwanted relatives, driver's tans on elbows. You're outdoors, you're roaring down the interstate, you're hitting the beach. You're a crazed American, armed with vacation time, and you, dear friend, need wacky foam headgear for every occasion.

In the words of Your Darling's, Your Diva's, Your One True Love's favorite philosophers A Halo Called Fred, "If I put this guitar on my head, it would be a hat / If I put your mother on my head, she too would be a hat." A reveler's got to wear what a reveler's got to wear, unconfined by millinery convention.

Last Friday night's festival in New Brunswick's Boyd Park was interrupted by a sudden, torrential downpour, complete with the kind of lightning strikes Your Strawberry Milkshake crosses streets near churches to avoid. Recommended headgear: the roomy interior of a brand New Volkswagen, preferably welded in Wiesbaden to a chasis sporting tires.

Saturday, Waterloo Village's Crawfish Festival was a vibrant, fragrant, sun-drenched, deep-fried zydeco concert filling a wide, shadeless field. Sunscreen drippng in one's eyes as one nibbles wickedly spicy boiled crawfish is not for the weak. Plus, it was windy. Prepared celebrants brought patio umbrellas and pavilion tents, which quickly became party-colored airborne missiles. Recommended headgear: air-conditioned body armor.

Also available for your sunburning pleasure, Asbury Park's Riverfest. Your Mango Lassi hasn't the faintest notion what happened or didn't because dodging lightning followed by pre-cancerous ultraviolet exposure set to accordian music can suck the life out of a gal. Recommended headgear: sleeping cap.

Great Britain's celebrated the Queen's Jubilee and everyone's sleeping it off. It's caused Your Egg Cream to realize: she has plenty of occasion-worthy little old lady hats, but where are the tiara-related holidays?

A reveler's got to wear what a reveler's got to wear, be it lampshade or lamprey. Got an event looming on the horizon and a dearth of ideas? Your Mint Julep is here to help.