My feet hurt.
“What’s that? Your feet hurt? Well now your back’s gonna hurt, ‘cause you just pulled landscaping duty? You’re in my room now grandma. Check out the nametag. Now you’ll go to sleep, or I’ll put you to sleep”
Sorry, really gotta quit the Adam Sandler quotes.
But seriously, my feet hurt. Manhattan island New York is so much bigger than it looks on the map. All I did in New York was walk. And walk. And walk. And watch child porn. And walk. And even if you walked until you developed trench foot, you still would only have seen a fraction of what this incredible city has to offer. I don’t know why you would develop trench foot from constant walking, but it helps support my exaggeration.
Despite never having been to the city before, when you walk the streets of New York, there’s a certain sense of familiarity about it. Almost as if you know the place backwards. On every corner, there are scenes you can swear you have witnessed tonnes of times prior – even the most miniscule of things such as some old guy taking out the trash can; or the steam filtering out through the drains on the street at night; or some hip black dude standing on a corner in his hoodie with a ghetto blaster propped upon his shoulder. It’s only then that you realise the inescapable penetration of Hollywood into our daily lives, to the point where you feel that you know a city simply through repeated viewings of it on a small screen. On occasions, I’d actually feel as though I was in a movie. Specifically, Home Alone and Ghostbusters. Mmmmm Egon. I’d love to know how someone who has never been exposed to TV would interpret New York. Anthropology and social commentary aside, New York is a damn wicked place with a unique charm about it.
Not only that, I had the opportunity to totally, like live the life of Carrie Bradshaw. Men, shoes, and wine. Sweet.
My crib in Central Park.
Still the cribs...
With Sporko. Mushroom soup was order of the day.
Because I’m black and am trying to make up for lost time due to thousands of years of slavery and persecution, I will henceforth provide my travel accounts in point form.
• Ok, I know I promised to follow up on my hypothesis regarding the correlation between arrogant yanks and the presence of a moustache, however I simply have not been able to find any case studies in New York. On my next journey, I’m heading straight to Kansas. Yes Toto, you can come too.
• New Yorkers are nowhere near as rude as people make them out to be. In fact, I’ve found them to be exceptionally friendly – particularly compared to those wretched British. I only had to survive one tirade of New York maltreatment. That was when I was trying to navigate my way around the convenient but ever-confusing New York subway system and upon asking for assistance, received “Are you listening to me? Are you fuckin listening to me?”, after apparently asking one too many questions.
• New York fashion is awesome. Not for any particular reason other than you can wear whatever you want, wherever you want, whenever you want. And everyone is good at it. Oh, and brands don’t mean shit in most places as nobody is really trying to make a statement, unlike the tools commonly found at Beach Road Hotel and Harbourlife. New York fashion makes the Modular/Ksubi ‘crew’ look like glorified emos who were drugged while a hair straightening iron was attached to their heads and fluorescent dye dripping from their necks.
Possibly the biggest distraction in New York. Spent about 6 hours in there. Shiiiite.
• I spent three hours lining up for Conan O’Brien, only to be forced to give up my seat because I had the key to Sporko’s apartment and she didn’t make it to the studio in time. Curse you Sporkos!! I was successful, however, in acquiring tickets to the Polyphonic Spree, Ben Gibbard (Postal Service) and Lez Zeppelin (yes, that is a lesbian Led Zeppelin cover band – quite the niche) and was only a shoestring away from paying $138 for Arcade Fire tickets, so I guess they made up for missing Conan. However, I’m still bitter about missing it, as Lindsay Lohan was appearing that night and scheduled to wear no panties as usual. Dang. But the beauty of New York is that you can rock up to any smallish venue, pay around US$8 and see an awesome local band. Employing the same strategy in Sydney may lead you to paying to see someone like Van She. It’s a risk you simply can’t afford to take back home. Oh and if you’re ever in New York and contemplating doing the NBC studio tour, don’t. It’s a complete waste of time and money.
Ahem.
Polyphonic Spree in NYC.
Onstage with the Polyphonic Spree. Oooh celebri'y.
One of the many awesome struggling local bands. So awesome in fact that I can't even remember their name.
• The Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, Rockefeller Plaza, Times Square and Central Park are all very cool icons and I definitely recommend visiting them (especially Times Square at night) Just beware the queues at the Empire State Building; not to enter the friggin’ thing, but to catch the one and only lift back down to the ground. But of all the touristy shit I did in New York, the highlight was by far the personal guided tour of the World Trade Centre site, where people who were personally affected by the tragedy take you around ground zero and share their personal story relating to 911. My tour guides comprised an ex-fire-fighter who lost several colleagues and a lady who lost her husband in the attack. But apart from being and extremely touching experience, I couldn’t help but notice the pseudo-solemn facial expressions that tourists don for photos outside ground zero, then walk away laughing and joking. Very genuine.
Oh, that thing...
The WTC site. Essentially, a massive construction site. Complete with sexist labourers.
Relics from the WTC.
A wall in the WTC museum with pictures of all the victims.
• If you’re smoker trying to quit, head to the Bodies Exhibition. I guarantee you’ll never want to put another stick of that burning tar in your mouth. Essentially, the Bodies Exhibition is a display of real dead bodies and body parts. Everything from haemorrhaged brains, alcohol-destroyed livers, colons with ulcerative colitis and tuberculosis-infected lungs to cancerous mammaries, gangrened scrotums and entire cross-sections of a dead pregnant mother is exhibited. The dead foetus section is probably the most nauseating, however seeing what a healthy lung looks like compared with a cancerous lung as a result of smoking (only 1 pack a week over 12 years) makes the very notion of smoking seem irreparably irrational. But enough of the preaching… here is just a small sample of the knowledge I acquired: when breast feeding, a woman who has eaten garlic will have the baby suckle longer and; and a woman is born with all the eggs she will ever have, whereas a man continues to produce sperm throughout his lifetime. Hear, hear.
Me about to take to the court...
• Go to any of the contemporary art galleries in New York (e.g. MoMA, MET, etc). They will blow your mind. Or, at least get you thinking.
Photo of a reflection. Does that make it art? The MoMA.
$12 to anyone who recognises this art...
• Contrary to popular belief, New York is actually quite friendly on the wallet. Accommodation is really the only thing you’ll need to mortgage your house for, so stay with friends or sleep in Washington Square Park - the benches there are ergonomically designed.
• Not only is it easy to pick up a ridiculously inexpensive meal, but the variety available is inconceivable. Absolutely anything you could want is on virtually every street. IF you feel like a Mediterranean bite, you’ll find it. IF you feel like a Senegalese snack, just wander the streets for 10 minutes and you’ll stumble along a place. In fact, even something as outlandishly niche as vegetarian Ethiopian can be found. I don’t even know what regular Ethiopian cuisine is, let alone the vegetarian variety. But, of course, it’s the burgers and street vendor hotdogs that NYC is most renowned. In fact, Sporko and I actually spent an hour and a half queuing at the Shake Shack for potentially the absurdly tasty cheese-burger I’ve ever experienced. Ever. And holy shit, what an experience it was. I’m pretty adamant that my brain was paying my heart danger money to process that thing.
I simply cannot explain how unbelievably incredible this was. I'm now dead, but dang it was awesome.
The results...
A stereotypical NY night street shot.
This is how I roll...
A hangout for Hobos. Wait, why did I capitalise 'hobos'?
• A message to Julie Louis-Dreyfus: don’t do stand-up. I managed to catch a snippet of her routine, and dude, she might as well be a school-teacher (not that there’s anything wrong with that).
• Does anyone find it intriguing that Starbucks is branded green and white? Like American money… I dunno, maybe I’m being overly sceptical.
So, in essence, New York is a disgustingly charming and truly multicultural city. Go there. Off I went, on my last night in this amazing city, heading back into the ghetto, I donned my hoodie, lowered my belt and flattened the beak of my hat until it resembled Rebecca Cartwright’s chest. Oh I went there. Totally went there.
See you in London.
But before that, some more photos:
Atop the ESB. Yep, I'm on nickname terms with it...
Intrigue at the MoMA.
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