The Living Rockumentary

Adventures in New York City Part 1.

On Saturday, Lesa and I headed down to big old New York City. The spark that ignited the plans of our weekend began with The Slug Bearers of Kayrol Island, or, The Friends of Dr. Rushower, the performance piece that Brian and Ken are involved in right now. We got tickets for the Saturday night show about a month ago. Then, through the magic of Hotwire.com we reserved a room at the Essex House Westin Hotel, which is super fancy and on the edge of Central Park.

We had planned to get to the city early to do some exploring and shopping but the drive was chock full of nasty traffic and construction so it took a little longer than expected and we opted to go straight to the hotel to drop off our stuff and lose the car. We pulled up right out front and figured we may as well just have the valet parking service deal with our car (I'm sure they were psyched to get a chance to drive an old Geo Prizm in between the Farraris and BMWs).

The hotel was nice. Our room was on the 14th floor.

We had been given a list of some good cool stores to check out from our friend Dana and so we headed for Ludlow Street. I already forget what you call that area. Maybe it's the west lower east village bowery downtown meat packing uptown garment district.

We found the Subway near our hotel, feeling like we were probably the only guests of the Westin who weren't in limos or at least taxis. Suddenly we became country mice in the city. Who ever heard of a Metro Card?!? Everyone besides us apparently. In my day we bought tokens and we LIKED it. Anyway, we eventually figured out the Metro Card machine and got onto the right platform and waited for the D train, which came and went, we let it go because it was too crowded.

See, here's the issue. Both Lesa and I have a natural propulsion to try to get out of the way of other people and that just doesn't really work in NYC. I'm always trying to step aside on the sidewalk or in the subway, to squoosh up against a wall so people can get by. The problem is that in NYC, the people never end. Once you step aside out of the current, you can't get back in. So we stood there on the platform, with our backs to a big steel column waiting for our train and trying to not let the guy with the bongo and the loud born-again voice to drive us nuts. Finally, another train came and this time we got on and actually found a couple of seats together. The next 15 minutes consisted of me looking at our little hand-held map every 30 seconds to make sure we didn't miss our stop.

We got out and up into the "fresh" air and got our bearings before heading off to Ludlow. At this point, we were both starving and I remembered New York City Grilled Cheese which was right across from the Luna Lounge, a place I had played a bunch of times before. So, that's where we headed and it was great. Turns out that that little luncheonette was right next to one of the stores that Dana had recommended, so after lunch we perused a few of the little boutiques in that area. Lesa didn't find anything or at least nothing under 200 dollars but I had fun watching all the rich-looking fashion addicts on their cell phones.

We went back to the hotel to change for the performance and to give ourselves plenty of time to get where we needed to go, me clutching the little map like it was a magic ring.

Since we were now masters of the subway, our journey to the Kitchen (the performance space) was pretty easy and we got there in perfect timing. The show was wonderful. We had seen it in it's early stages at Mass MOCA last year but this time-around the edges had been smoothed and the visuals had been hugely improved. From our seats in the third row we had a perfect view of Ken and Brian in the band, they sounded amazing. As I watched and listened I thought to myself how awesome it would be if all concerts sounded like this, clear and crisp and articulated.

The music was composed by Mark Mulcahey but I could here Brian and especially Ken all over it. Mark stole the show, performance-wise. Everytime he was on stage, the whole thing kicked up a notch. Really impressive. The other stand-out was Mollie Weaver (I think that is her) who played the lead character. She was perfect.

After the show we met Ken and Brian outside and they were heading to a local Cajun place with a bucha the cast and crew to enjoy some dixieland music. We walked with them, but when we got to the restaurant our New-York-A-Phobia started kicking in again and I had one of those moments standing halfway in and out of the entrance with people trying to get past me, while the leader of our gang negotiated with the host about where we could all sit, when I just had to get out of everyone's way. So, Lesa and I went back outside with the intention of looking at the menu, but even that was not possible since other people were craning their necks in to see it and group of people behind us were yelling at each other. Country mouse no likey.

We were also suddenly going to be two strangers at a table of people who all knew each other in a restaurant that serves food that I don't really care for, so we decided to just head back to the hotel and get something to eat around there, it was already 11:30 and we were exhausted and hungry. So, that's just what we did, almost falling asleep on the subway. We didn't fall asleep because the huge guy who kicked off his shoes and was eating popcorn from a bucket decided to go out between the two subway cars and jump up and down out there, and you just can't sleep when that is happening.

When we got out of the tunnels and up to the sidewalk, we discovered that it was raining. Luckily, we found a place to eat pretty quickly and soon enough we passed out on the extremely comfortable hotel bed with thoughts of how our next day was going to be a bit more productive and relaxing than our first. Boy were we wrong...