By Katie Barry
Before my sister and I found our new Upper West Side apartment, we knew we wanted to build the model home. It was only fitting that we throw an “Arrested Development” themed housewarming affair.
I’ve jumped around in the past year and a half, finding myself living on my friends’ and mother’s generosity, but not really anchored to a place that was mine. I’d lay in bed and picture everything in my storage unit, imagining my stuff springing to life like “Toy Story” and the grand party that was taking place without me. Or I’d dream of a place to call my own like a grown-up Annie sitting on a fire-escape, looking for sunshine and a no-fee, three-bedroom deal on the Upper West Side.
We vowed to paint and pitch as much as possible. We scrubbed surfaces until we were covered in calluses, and sought out my mom’s counsel for feng shui and practicality (her trump suits). “No dicking around, we’re adults now,” we told ourselves.
I literally skipped to the hardware store to get corn-on-the-cob yellow paint for my room. Previously I referred to my 73rd street lofted room with roof access as my tree house, but my new place is more of a nest, decked out in flocks of owls, and I want to keep that warmth. But for the party, my room became Wee Britain, “Soup of the Day: BREAD!” I strung up a zip-line for a doll to peg people as they entered. My childhood friend and now roommate Robin’s room became “The Tunnel of Love, Indubitably” which worked well considering her Polish paramour flew in for the event. My sister spent an admittedly embarrassing amount of time constructing a spectacularly detailed Aztec 500 tomb sign for the bathroom. Her room became the conjugal trailer/jail, “No touching! No teaching!” which provided giggles when people were smoking on the fire escape, being handcuffed and doing dirty deeds. The warden was nowhere to be found…
A cardboard Bluth stair car hung in the hallway, granted anyone needed to escape.
Given the kitchen’s layout, it made for a perfect banana stand. I bought straw and glue at Michael’s craft store on 97th and Columbus, and fetched cardboard from the trash. One side looked like a tiki hut, and the backside was plastered with fake money. We had to. There’s always money in the banana stan Once the hand-painted sign and colorful Christmas lights were strung up, my heart skipped two paces. We bought a monkey’s envy amount of bananas, which Robin dipped in chocolate and froze.
Kristy, Robin and I slathered our hands with blue washable paint, and pressed our hands on cupboards, shower walls, and light switches paying comedic homage to Tobias “I just blue myself” Funke. I painted the scene from “Arrested Development” where the Bluths build Sudden Valley, a 3D rouse to trick the Japanese investors into believing progress was being made. Which worked well, until Tobias stomps through dressed as a mole, and George Michael blazes through in a malfunctioning jetpack.
To get into character, I bought a duck backpack and funky printed argyle and neon knee-high socks, and borrowed a raccoon hat from a lovely neighbor. Suddenly, I was Rita Leeds, the darling dullard that unlucky-in-love brother Michael falls in love with but is mesmerized by her beauty and British accent to realize she’s mentally challenged. Charlize Theron would be proud. While braiding my hair in a goofy way and stacking bracelets on my wrists, I realized how much I naturally dress like my doppelganger. I hung an old volleyball medal around my neck showing my “Olympic successes,” turned my jacket inside out, and carried fake fruit around randomly gnawing on them. I sang a grating elementary version “Hot Potato” while strumming on my ukulele, and couldn’t stop saying “I want seeeexual reeeelations!”
Being tipsy, British and dimwitted gave me a free pass to do whatever I wanted. At one point I was sprawled out on the kitchen counter, legs draped over the stove eating cheesecake with my hands, drinking everything in sight and throwing onions at people. I was in character.
My college journalism professor and his equally awesome wife fit in well in the crazy confluence of characters, costumes, and decorations. They had questions I tried to answer, but usually the explanation ended in explosive laughter; mainly, “How do you know that person?”
My sister went as Kitty, the kooky loose-canon assistant and mistress to George Sr. who has a penchant for blackmailing and manipulating men by flashing her ta-tas while shouting, “You’re never going to see these again!” She found a nude suit and I made her nipples out of brown tape. At one point, she was wrestling with Lucille Bluth for the “Cooler of Evidence”: George Senior’s semen. Mother Bluth was magnificently portrayed by Dive 101’s finest and artist extraordinaire Alanna, who walked into the party swirling a martini and slinging insults. I’d cry but I can’t spare the moisture…
Our roommate Robin was a natural fit to be lawyer Maggie Lizer, seeing as she passed the New York Bar exam over the summer and has an uncanny resemblance to Julia Louis-Dreyfrus. She dragged her stuffed animal dog Justice, who is blind naturally, around on a piece of string using a dowel rod as a walking cane.
Carrying an “Old Man and the Sea” script, my friend Moira and her crazy curls dazzled as Maeby (right), the young cousin who scores a job as a movie executive. Her freckles were impeccable, especially in the face of my real-life brother Alex who went as George-Michael, the nerdy and earnest cousin who secretly loves Maeby. Les cousins dangeroux! Another George-Michael named Matt came dressed in a yellow shirt with a banana stand apron. It was stunning. He manned the banana stand with the help of my real-life mom, who insisted on being Lupe so she could cook and clean. She was amazing.
Our friend Mike went as Michael Bluth, the voice of reason son that tries to hold the whole family together. Stella wore a red shirt with SLUT scrawled across her chest to make an apt Lindsay Bluth.
I was getting a distressed that we didn’t have someone slated to be Buster, the socially awkward developmentally challenged cartographer Mama’s boy, despite knowing a few good men to play the role. My neighbor and Ohio friend for life Jason saved the day shaving his beard to be Buster pre-seal attack. Wearing a three-piece tan suit, he skittishly mingled throughout the party giving guests uncomfortable shoulder squeezes while sipping a juice box later filled with beer. He avoided Mother, and flirted with oft-vertigo leaning Lucille Austero played by my gutsy friend Karen sporting a rock-star wig, oversized button-up blouse, and snazzy black tights. A banner in the living room read: “You’re killing me Buster.”
Good things come in pairs. There were two surrogates, played by my friend Jeff and brother Zack who rigged a helmet cam to his cap getting footage of the mayhem. There were two Busters, young and old: Jason and Moira’s boyfriend Matt wore a seaman costume with a sash reading “Motherboy XXX.”
There were two versions of Tobias: My football friend Louis rocked out a Mrs. Featherbottom get-up, compiled on a field trip to a Salvation Army. My ballsy softball teammate Josh wore cut-off jean shorts and a robe, making the hottest Never-nude ever. His giggly girlfriend Sydney went as Ann “Hog” Veal, “Ann who?” the shlubby Bible thumper girlfriend of George Michael.
It was cool having solid main characters and a plethora of obscure people. Alanna’s boyfriend Beda, outrageously funny, went from Franklin the puppet to Stan Sitwell by adjusting his eyebrows to last I saw him, Carl Weathers, the acting coach. By repositioning his eyebrows into the shape of a mustache. My brother Zack’s lady Stephanie went as Miss Barely, the ethics teacher who loved Saddam Hussein played by Heather Graham. A guy I met the night before at the bar, a spitting image of Tyson Beckford, wore a black vest to be the badass bounty hunter named Ice who in the show was hired by Gob to follow Michael to Mexico. Robin’s law school roommate Deneal, visiting from Ohio pulled off an amazing Starla, the business model, by slipping into our sailor suit and toting around a sign reading “Solid As A Rock.”
My ornery friend Paul went as Mr. F, delighting in the opportunity to boss me around and put invisible locks on doors. He switched mid-party to be Gob’s son Steve Holt, accomplished by a subtle accent change from British businessman to high school jock. English isn’t our friend Michael’s first language, so we told him to just say “Annyong” whenever anyone talked to him. Buster wasn’t buying this, and transformed him into the fledgling magician screw-up son Gob; Simply by unbuttoning his shirt, putting a magic knife in his mouth, and giving him a deck of cards to do tricks for people. To our amazement, he already knew card tricks and fluttered around performing them for people.
At several points in the night, I felt my heart actually swell with overwhelming joy. Dishes were broken, the keg was depleted, the floors were sticky and yet we were all one big happy dysfunctional family, held together by our strengths, shortcomings, and sense of humor. The hot cops (and real cops, for that matter) never showed up, the banana stand didn’t burn down, and by dawn, Steve Holt was challenging Maggie Lizer and Rita to Twister. It speaks to that saying about not being able to choose your family, and I think in a way, you can’t really choose your friends. They just show up in your life, and serve amazing purposes.
Reality was suspended, development arrested.
All photos courtesy of Katie Barry.
Katie is a columnist for the West Side Rag. She came to the Upper West Side a few years ago from Ohio, with an interlude in Newark, New Jersey. To earn a living, she has waitressed, walked dogs, played the saxophone in the subway and typed memos in charmless cubicles. Her last column was about riding her bike through the neighborhood at night.
