Frowning in the Land O Smiles

I arrived in Phuket, Thailand Monday afternoon. Felt ready to hit the ground running, even after being on a plane for 24 hours. Checked into my room... which I must say is pretty spartan. There is a huge space next to my bed that I had no idea as to why it exists. The bed is harder than the tiled floor, so I guess the empty space is for guests want to sleep on a softer surface.


After unpacking, I decide to shower and start exploring... While showering, I slip and fall (full on fall). I attempted to cushion the impact with my hands, resulting in a sore and mightily damaged left arm.

After 2 days of arm agony, I decide to go to the hospital. I have sprained body parts in the past, so am no beginner dealing with muscle strains. And even though I knew that was what it was, 10,000 miles cannot remove my hypochondria, so off to the hospital I went.

Mistake number 1: Grabbed taxi outside hotel and asked to go to hospital, driver said 200 baht ($6), I said OK, and off we went. For a total of 500 yards (DOH!). Like I couldn't have walked it in say 5 mins... Just goes to show, use google maps, even in Thailand.

So I go into hospital. They make me fill out some forms, get some basic medical info, then it is off to the doctor.

Doctor definitely looks like resident (based on age), but asked same questions any doc in the USA would ask. I was shuttled off for an x-ray, then back to the doc. Sure enough, no bones broken, but nasty sprain. Doc prescribed muscle\pain medication and an arm sling and I was good to go.

Now I had no idea what all this was going to cost. Care was equivalent to hospital in USA, even better than hospitals in NYC. When I went to NYC emergency room, total time was around 4 hours (similar injury). Cost was about $175 (that's with insurance and no meds prescribed).

My trip to Thailand ER experience lasted 1 hour and came out to 1174 bht, that's about $35 (that included all meds and supplies).



Notice the "professional service" was a whopping 500 bht ($15).

Now people say that America has one of the best quality health services in world, and based on my experience, I just don't see it.

People working at Thai hospital were attentive and nice... Can't say that about ER in NYC.

Course, when I left hospital, cabbies were already soliciting me, but I decided to walk the 500 yards back to my hotel.

Here is a photo, all patched up and ready to go...

No Reservations... Yes Reservations

Quick preface. You will no doubtably hear many stories similar to this one in the future. A good friend of mine (Layne) and his wife moved out to NYC about 6 years ago. Before that time they lived in Seattle (In fact, Layne worked at MS with me (that's how we met)). While in Seattle we started a bi-monthly tradition of having a "guys night out". We would pick a night, go out and get totally racked, then do something stupid (usually go to a bad movie, etc...)

Note: Crappy movies become exceedingly awesome if you are stinking drunk.

When I arrived in NYC, we immediately decided to restart this glorious and hallowed tradition. Me being newly arrived in NYC, the ball was in my court. Now I am a big fan of Television. In particular, reality and travel shows. One of my favorites is "No Reservations", hosted by Tony Bourdain. The bestway to describe Tony is to imagine Hunter S. Thompson going to cooking school and becoming a chef. His love of food and new\exotic experiences, coupled with with a disdain for the ordiinary has made this one of best travel\coooking shows on TV. In one episode he visited some of his favorite NYC haunts, and a few of them struck me as pretty damn cool. So I thought Layne and I should try these locations and see if they are as great as they appeared. So I met up with him and off we went.

Our first destination was in mid-town. I usually try to avoid midtown like the plague. Too many tourists and way to many preppy yucksters. A good divebar and locals with character is the way to go every time. But we braved midtown because it was the location of Hagi. Hagi is a great Japanese restaurant. Its like going into a local eating den if one were living in Japan. The first hurdle of the evening was finding the place. We had the address, but we couldn't seem to find the entrance. We eventually figured it out (10 minutes). Hagi is a basement restauant, so you have to walk down a long flight of stairs to get there. Additionally, the entrance only has the smallest of signs and is wedged between 2 other japanese restauants, so its very easy to overshoot.

Well, after figuring this out, we entered into the world of Hagi. First impression, we were the only white people in the place, and it was packed. I mean, the place was small, but it was packed with Asians. Well, after waiting like an hour for a seat (kept telling Layne it was worth the wait), we got 2 seats at the bar. I do not remember what we ordered, but it was all amazing and I always wanted more. I do remember sucking down like 12-15 wasabi balls (dumplings here filling is generously coated in wasabi (yum). We got pretty drunk on Sapporo and were ready for the next event.

I do remember that while we were leaving another group of "round eyes" were coming down the stairs, and one of them was saying this would be great (he saw it on "No reservations"). Damn...

Trying to stick with a "Asian" theme, we were off to Sakagura. This was another "reservations" locale that was also dubbed as a "undiscovered gem" in the city. Another mid-town location that was within walking distance on Hagi, Sakagura promised a oasis of endless Saki and more tasty bites. It didn't disappoint. Once again, a bit hard to find. You walked into this office building, then went down some back stairs and there it is. If I hadn't seen it on TV, I would have never found the place. The place was great. It wasn't nearly as crowded as Hagi, the decor was very traditional, and the service was great...

Only one problem, they had like 100+ varieties of sake. Now I know next to nothing on sake, their different tastes and levels of dryness are a mystery to me. I drink sake so rarely, and when I do I usually get the "House Special". So we decided to ask our waitress for advice. She picked out some good varieties, and Layne and I had about 3 glasses each of various Sakes. After drinking and eating for about 2 hours or so, we decided to call it a night. Asked for our check, and felt like the first night of "guys night out" was a tremendous success.

Then we got the bill... $260. HOLY CRAP! What the Fuc! $260... Looking at the bill we didn't realize how much a glassof sake cost. Our cheapest glass was $19, and our most expensive was $39. For $39 dollars you could get an amazing bottle of wine or like 3 6-packs of beer. It was like a bucket of ice water on our drunken stupor. It was then I realized that one of the bennies of being on a popular travel\food show is that you either get comped at every establishment you visit, or the bill is coved by the show. Tony Bourdain, I love your show, but in the future, if you are doing a show in NYC again, please include $$$ ratings at the end of each establishment you visit.

Coffee and Warmth?

Today I decided to walk around SoHo. I am beginning to get inspired to start blowing glass again. What brought on this inspiration, NY grafitti\tagging. Something about all this "urban art" is giving me some great ideas that I want to translate into glass. Whenever I see interesting "urban art" I take a picture (if I have a camera with me). I have taken many shots in my Bedsty neighborhood, and have even hit some places in Brooklyn (Williamsbug, Park Slope...).

Today I thought I would walk around SoHo and get a few shots from there. I get on the subway at bedford and the weather is nice and sunny. I get out at Prince and its overcast and minutes away from rain. What the hell happenned. Its not like I was travelling to another state. How did the weather change so damn fast.

I started walking around SoHo until it started to rain, at which point I ducked into the first store I came across. It was the soho Apple store (Dhooo!). I hate Apple stores. They are just sooo cool and hip, and happening, and now, that I want to throw up after 5 minutes. No way I was breaking out my laptop in this spot, I'd be strung up within seconds, or worse yet, branded as someone who has a job.

As soon as the rain started to slacken, I got out of there and continued my search for UA (urban art). Here are a few shots:

Well I wasn't out for more than 10 minutes when the rain started up again. At this point I was on a side street of soho and not many people were around.I then notice some people coming out a door with coffee in their hands. Jackpot! A coffee shop. A place to kick back, dry off, have a nice cup-o-joe and wait out the rain. So I run up, open the door, and run inside to escape the cold, rainy, outdoors.

I was first struck with the fact that it was colder inside than out. I'm not just talking physical warmth, but emotional warmth as well. The shop was called Alessi, which is Italian for "Stark, barren, cold", or at least it should be. I now know Alessi is a super retro urban Italian design store, kind of like Ikea, but with an air of frigidity. The front of the store was a coffee shop, and the back was the small shop that sold odd little pieces for every room of the house. I went to get my coffee and was greeted by a tall, super-thin, euro-flash guy wearing a thin black turtleneck sweater with attitude. I guess a paunchy, wet, underdressed (shorts and tee) pale white guy isn't the kind of cool customer they are looking for.

After getting my coffee (to go, I didn't want to spend another minute more thanI had to in here), I looked for a place to sit (which wasn't to hard to find, since I was the only customer in the place), and realized that even the furniture was designed with a"get the Fuc# out of here" style. Everything was sharp angled and hard. The chairs had no backs to them and the wall benches were as comfortable as flat iron benches stuffed into meat lockers. As I was waiting for the rain to die down, another euro-flash guy came in and started chatting it up with the Italo-barista guy. Nothing like feeling wanted...















One thing of note: The coffee was damn good... You know, being from Seattle I have become a bit snobbish about coffee and coffeehouses. There aren't many places to choose from in NYC, and it seems for consistency, you have to go to Starbucks. As any true Seattlite knows, Starbucks is where you go when you can't find anywhere else to go (coffeeshop oflast resort). Only 2 coffee shops in NYC have left me with any lasting impressions. The Alessi shop, which was described above and can be described as fantastic coffee, horrific space. And Gorilla coffee (in Brooklyn), which has horrific coffee but a great space. If the powers that be ever combined the two places, I would be a frequest visitor of Goressi.

Into the Mouth of Madness

As the NYC summer progressed, I felt very lucky. Although it was hot, I was somehow spared the hellish humidity which can wrack the NE during the summer months. That ended on August 5th. Years from now I will still think back on that purely evil event of that day.

As with all such stories, the day started out quite normally. I woke up around 9:30 (the joys of not having a job), had a lazy breakfast, got cleaned up, and headed out to explore the city. One thing that happens when you live in NYC, is that you fairly quickly find the closest subway stops to where you live. For me, this was the Bedford-Nostrand stop on the G line. Now the G line is definitely in need for some renovations. Its not only the only line that doesn't go into Manhattan, but its the only line where I saw rats running along the main level of the concourse with all the other commuters.

Anyway, I digress. I was walking to my stop, enjoying the morning (it was hot (85) but not overwhelming), thinking about how great it was to be in NYC, when it happened. As I turned to go down the entrance to the subway I was hit with a blast of the most foul smelling, rank, heinous odor that I have ever smelled. It wasn't just the smell. The air coming out of the entrance was super hot and blasting out like a furnace. It was as if god turned on his own 2500 watt hairdryer out of a day use national park port-a-potty after a long 3-day weekend. And it was non-stop. I tried to go down at least 3 times, but was repulsed after the 2nd step. And then, then most amazing thing occurred, people started coming out of this "pit of Mordor". None looked happy, and some looked like they could have used some immediate care.

Finally, I sucked up my courage, took a deep breath, and ran down the entrance. OMG! It didn't end. That rank wind followed me all the way down to the waitingplatform. There were about 20-30 others down there waiting with me, and from what little I could see through the tearing of my eyes, they were going through their own personal trials attempting to endure this situation. While bracing myself against a pillar, waiting for the train, the lyric from "wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" kept going through my head.

Lyric from Song: Does anyone know where the love of God goes, When the waves turn the minutes to hours

My Adaptation: Does anyone know where the love of God goes, When the wind turns the minutes to hours

Eventually, my ears (which was the only part of my body not affected by this demonic effluence) picked up the glorious sound of screeching subway brakes. As the doors to the subway opened, you never saw people jump onto a subway so fast. Passengers getting off took one step onto the platform, then immediately got back on the subway. I think I carried that smell around with me all day. Not that I smelled it, but I would get sideways looks from people I was standing upwind of during the day.

When I got back to the Bedford stop at the end of the day the "Wind" was gone and it was back to normal. But I will always remember that "wind" and that day will always be remembered as the day that I no longer feared death.

It's Alton

After living out of a suitcase for the past couple of months the desire to find a permanent place and start nesting is becoming more and more important. Thanks to my friend Layne, I was able to get into an amazing ground level unit in an old brownstone in Brooklyn. Turns out his landlord (who lives upstairs from Layne) called and mentioned to Layne that he had a unit coming up for rent and would his friend (me) be interested. I was then handed the phone and to sum things up I now have a super-fantastic place I can hang my hat.

There was only one catch, the unit would not be available till the middle of August. As my Brooklyn Heights sublet runs out on the 28th of July, I needed a 2-3 week place to stay. This was how I met Alton. I was searching the Craigslist "shared housing" section and came upon a weekly rental in Bedsty. I was searching for ads that contained the words "Park Slope", and the writer of this ad cleverly put "Park Slope" in the body of the ad (I think it was something like "close to Park Slope, Williamsburg, Boston, Martha's Vineyard,..."). Anyway, I responed to the ad (I was getting very good at writing these intro mails), and within 12 hours I got a call from Alton.

Confession: it wasn't until I had been living in the studio for 4 days that I finally figured out her name was Alton.

Next morning, I was off on another great adventure to the land called Bedsty. Now, those of you readers that know me know that I sometimes have problems with directions. Well, this was no different. I was so confused by the instructions that I became hopelessly lost. Now this wasn't Alton'sfault, but mine. Things not to do when getting directions:

1. Don't get directions while shopping at Dean & Deluca's during rush hour.
2. Don't be eating while trying to listen to directions.
3. If you only have 3 viable brain cells, don't rely on memory.

During my "walkabout", I travelled from sketchy urban areas (ganglandish) to the Hacidic Jew area of Brooklyn. Eventually the stares from the Hacidic Jews walking by me eroded my will enough to call back for aid and assistance. Let me tell you, getting the "stare down" from passing Hacidic Jews was quitenerve wracking. I think what they were thinking was "Why are YOU sweating, we are the ones in suits". Side Note: In my attempt to find out more on Hacidic fashion, I found this site: http://crjew.vshirts.com/.

Well, I called and was able to get back on track and find the apartment building. The building was a huge 5 story grouping of artist lofts. Alton's unit was on the 5th floor and thankfully there was an elevator. The room I ended up renting was damn big and one wall was almost completely windows.There was a bed (yea!) and a desk and chair (yea), and more importantly, an unsecured Netgear wireless network I could piggyback on (hoo-hoo!).

Over the next couple of weeks a dresser, table lamp, bookshelf, and mirror made it into my room. Now Alton is a recent art school grad, who doesn'thave money she can just throw around. So how did she get all this stuff, craigslist. The deals she would find on craigslist for free stuff was pretty amazing. She could put Crate & Barrel out of business if she had her own truck. As it was, she was able to transform both her rooms that she rents intovery nice furnished units. I wish I had photos of the place, because it was very funky and very cool...

Alton is pretty unique. She has what you'd call a "free spirit". Besides her urban "Hunter Gather" skills, she has a tendency to get into very interesting situations. Also, she has distanced herself from the whole "aquisition of wealth" and embraced the "life is for living" philosophy. Very Bohemian.

Now Alton has 2 rooms she rents out fairly consistently, and during my 3 weeks there I was able to see the other room change hands. I don't remembertheir names (of course), but the first tenent was a Junior in film school (midwest) who was in NY for the summer doing an intership, and the other was a professional dog walker. He has 2 awesome pugs names "Mao (black)" and "Fidel (Tan)", and one of my true joys during this time was to watch the 2 lads fight with each other. I was like "why can't you 2 communist leaders just get along". Ahh, to see them fighting brought back memories of the cold war, those were the days.

Here are a couple of pictures of the boys.























During my stint at the "bedsty loft", I was able to be the cook for 2 weekly dinners. Both dinners were amazing and fun, and of course I cannot rememberthe names of any of the other diners other than myself and Alton. I do have a photo from each party and here they are:



















All of the other diner's were friends of Alton's. They were all really cool and everybody had a great time. The food was great and so was the company.When I was this age (mid\late 20's) I had many similar parties, and it felt great to relive that experience with a new group of people. It was with mixed feelings that I ended my tenure at the "Bedsty loft", I was excited about having my own space, but sad about leaving a great community of people.

All hail Alton.

Lychee Gut

Last night I spent a low key Saturday night watching a movie in Soho. The movie was called “Mongol”, and it was about the early years of Genghis Khan. I really liked this move; if you want to view the trailer here is the link (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsAdwoFDYW4).

It did a pretty good job of showing the early years of Temujin, and there was good acting and great scenery all around. It was good to see this movie; it taught me a lot about the man and removed any preconceptions I might have had. Before this movie, I thought Genghis Khan liked Twinkies and totally destroyed the San Dimas Mall (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2a3nbTrO_c&NR=1).

After the movie was over (around 11:45pm), as I was getting up, I noticed that my legs were really weak. I attributed this to the time of evening and that I needed to get back to my place and crash. As I was walking to the subway I started feeling a little sweaty and nauseous. Now I believe that everybody on this planet has a special. Sometimes they never find it, sometimes it’s obvious. Well, I am no exception. My special talent is that if I can instantly tell what food I have eaten earlier in the day is making me sick. With a growing sense of dread I realized that I had a case of food poisoning courtesy of Lychee Nut (a Chinese restaurant near my place) and a gourmet dish called Tangerine Bean Curd.

It really wasn’t that appetizing when I ate it, way too much MSG, sodium, and sugar. After finishing it I felt like my arteries shrank to the size of fiber optics. It could have just been a bad batch or maybe all Tangerine Bean Curds are the same. It kind of reminds me of the Shawshank Redemption line:

“Bad luck, it floats around. Has to land on somebody… It was my turn, that's all. I was in the path of the tornado.”

Replace bad luck with Bad Tangerine Bean Curd and there you go.

Well, the bean curd was working its special magic on me now. By the time I arrived at the subway stop, it was really starting to work its magic on me. Waiting 30 minutes for my train to arrive didn’t help matters either. As I finally boarded the subway I was in serious doubt as to whether or not I’d make it to my stop without incident. I was doing pretty well until the subway left the Wall Street station on its way to Clark Street (my stop), and then things came to a head.

I was sitting near the end of one car (next to an exit), fidgeting and mentally praying to the gods of the universe, when I let the largest belch I have ever done in my life. It was on par to the belch the old man gave in Revenge of the Nerds II (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcNEVKBzlVo&NR=1). By the time I finished my head was between my legs. After about 5 seconds or so I sat up and noticed something strange, everyone that was sitting within 10 feet of me had moved to the other end of the car. This was a pretty packed car, and now I had cleared out about 1\2 of the car. My embarrassment was only overshadowed by my nausea and pain.

Thankfully, I made it to my stop without further incidents and was able to stagger home for some much needed rest…

The Monster that ate NYC

Yesterday I attended a Job Fair hosted by Monster.com in NYC. After attending the fair, not only do I no longer want to find a job, but I no longer have the will to live. To understand this fully, let me start at the beginning.

Yesterday I woke thinking I wouldn’t attend this fair. I had done no prep for this event at all. And since I blew my last job interview (it was the previous week, and I blew it so bad not only didn’t the company contact me, but the recruiting agency that was supposed to represent me hasn’t gotten in touch with me at all), I didn’t think I could go through it again. But, what the hell, fortune favors the foolish (or is it the brave?). I jumped up out of bed ready to take the bull by the horns and own this job fair.

First I filled out an online print order for my resume and some quick business cards for the local Kinko’s, and with a bit of cajoling, was able to get them to do the order by 10:00am. Then I ran to the cleaners to pick up my interview outfit (khakis and nice shirt). Since I don’t have a permanent residence yet, I’m still living out of one suitcase. Went home, got cleaned up, picked up my order at Kinko’s and off I went.

The fair was supposed to start at 11:00 at the Radisson at 32nd and Broadway, and I arrived at the 34th street station at 10:50. As I neared the hotel I noticed a peculiar sight, a line of people in business suits stretching around the corner. I thought “This can’t possibly be for the job fair”, but it was. As I walked to the end of the line, I was stunned by the turnout. Not just the sheer number of people, but their dress. It appeared as if half of Wall Street turned out for this. This was firsthand verification of the unemployment that has hit the financial sector in NYC. As I finally made it to the back of the line all I could think was “no good, no good”.

Since I had nothing else going on in my life right now, I decided to stick it out. The line slowly moved, and I mean slowly. By the time I made it around the last corner and the entrance was in sight over 1.5 hours had passed. I then noticed something that made me a bit worried. The people that were coming out of the fair were a bit pissed off. OK, they were REALLY pissed off. Oh-Boy! This doesn’t look good. One poor woman was so mad she started yelling at the hotel valets.

Foolishly I decided to stick it out. Mainly because I just spent 90 minutes in a frickin line and I’ll be dammed if I was going to quit now. At this point I wouldn't have left line even if Scatman Crothers came staggering out of the hotel with an axe buried in his chest.

Also, somebody must have called 212-GOD-LUVU, because a loving Christian showed up and started handing out little conversion bookies to the cattle (I mean people) in line. I only mention this because:

· The next blog will be an entire video reading of the material presented to me by the fellow.
· He almost came to blows with a young Jewish business type who wouldn’t take his little Christ booklet.

Finally, the powers that be blessed me, and I entered the pearly gates into the Monster.com job fair.

What do you do to sweaty, tired business types that have been standing in line for a long time… Make them walk up 3 flights of stairs to the convention room (it was explained to me that elevators were to be used by patrons of the hotel only). Once at the convention room, I along with my compatriots (after spending time in line it was the closest any of us had had to doing a tour of duty), had to sign in. I’m guessing so that Monster.com can post our names and say, these are the fools that stood in line for this fair.

I immediately went for the water cooler and tanked up. I felt like the poor camels that had to haul Lawrence and his Arab compatriots across the Nefud desert (get off my hump and give me a drink already). I then walked into the job fair and almost voided all the fluids I just consumed.

The job fair consisted of the following: 8 companies… 8… 3 insurance, 2 human resource, one frozen food co, one shoe company, and a cosmetics company. OMG… I stood in line for this. And to top it off, there were more lines for each of the booths. No way was I going to do another line. After swallowing my bile, I exited quickly, and in a move of defiance, took the elevator to the lobby.

As I was leaving, a group of concerned business types, still in line, asked me “Hey, what’s it like in there”. I thought for a second, then answered “The water tastes good”.