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.