New York Diary: Part IV.

New York Diary: Part IV.
Drunk And Painted Green.

Going by what EVERYBODY told me last night, there is no way I’m avoiding St. Patrick’s Day in Manhattan.
I’m in the wrong place too.
5th Avenue – The very heart of the St. Patrick’s Day Parade!
Nah.
No way am I avoiding this.

Today, the bars opened at 5am and everyone is Irish.
They’re more Irish than the Irish today!
– Except they’re not.
Their Great Grandparents were maybe from Ireland but eating a bowl of Lucky Charms every morning is about as Irish as most of the folks I meet today are gonna get.

The parade is brilliant and everyone is drunk and painted green but 5 hours of standing in a big fuck off crowd like this?
Nah.
It’s jam packed here and after 2 hours I decide to get the hell out of there.
I head up to Central Park West and keep walking.
I’ve got designs on seeing Harlem but I get nowhere near it.
I walked up and took a left at The Dakota building where John Lennon got shot in 1980.

Across 72nd and down through Columbus Circle.
It’s nice and quiet up here and I’m wishing my Family were up this part of town with me when a funny thing happens.

Who do I spy WAAAAAYYYYY across the street at the foot of Central Park but my Family!
Crazy when you think I never told them where I was gonna be and I left them blocks and blocks away on the east side of the city on one of busiest days of the year.
That’s New York for ya!

My Sister told me of her trauma of meeting Elmo and how he wanted “Dollars!” before he allowed a photo!
Ha Ha!

The St. Patrick’s Celebrations continued all day and all night.
I was impressed by New Yorkers and their ability to drink.
…But only just.
I guess it’s easy with the teeny weeny glasses they call ‘pints’ 🙂

Today, the entire city took a day off.
Even The Empire State Building got in on the action!

Even the usually black Metlife Building was green that day and I still can’t work out how that was done.

Don’t try and tll me it’s always green because it’s not!

That night we walked around Times Square which is probably the most terrifying part of New York for me.
Neon everywhere and mobbed with tourists and rip-off shops.
Pretty to look at though 🙂

At 11pm that night I did something which I don’t think I’ll forget any time soon.
I walked around Midtown Manhattan listening to Bernard Hermann’s soundtrack for “Taxi Driver”.
That was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had!

When I was sure all the drunks would be drunk enough to get their asses home, I hit a few bars.

Frat Party’s.
I can’t stand these meathead frat guys.
I saw 5 of them all high-fiving each other outside an Irish Bar beside Madison Square Garden and when I walked past them into the bar they shouted “Hey man! Do you like Football!?” but I just glowered at them because I still had the seedy murderous music of “Taxi Driver” in my ears.

It was a pretty good bar to be fair.
It was called Molly Wee’s and you should stop by if you’re ever passing.
Abbey tried to teach me to dance that night.
Big mistake there.
I’m the World’s worst dancer!
I’ve danced girls full on into walls before and had to run away!
One of these days I’m gonna learn to dance.

I remember those frat guys coming into the bar later and shouting:
“CAN I GET A HEEEEELLLLLL YEAH!?” and straight away I heard a Glasgow voice answer:
– “Naw”.
It could’ve been the whisky I was drinking but it was the funniest thing I’d seen all night.

My 4th night ended at 4ish across the street listening to the whole bar sing along to Bob Dylan’s “Subtrerranean Homesick Blues”

I loved that and already I was dreading the homesickness I knew I was gonna be feeling for New York in a couple of days time.

New York Diary: Part II.

New York Diary: Part II.
When In New York.

I feel pretty good today even although I only had about 4 hours sleep.
We all did a power of walking yesterday and today, like tomorrow, will be the same.

New York street traffic is pretty ruthless.
Everyone knows exactly where they’re going and they are in a hurry.
That suits me fine.
Like I said, this is my 3rd time in this City and I know my way around better than I know my way around back home in Glasgow!
Matter of fact, we’d constantly get asked for directions and we got pretty good at pointing people the right way.

Ever stood at the foot of the Rockefeller building and looked up?
You can’t see the top of it for clouds sometimes!

It’s dizzying and for some reason unknown to me, we all thought that it would be a pretty good idea to pay 80 bucks and go up onto the roof and look at the city.
I don’t usually have much of a problem with great heights but tonight I do.
Hayley does too.

We’re up on the roof of the Rockefeller building.
They call it “Top Of The Rock” and frankly, It’s fucking terrifying!
At the top of The Empire State building, there is a big wall and big iron railings on account of all the folk who used to go up there and jump off it.
These days, you feel pretty safe and secure up on top of the Empire State.
I wish I was up there right now because the Rockefeller is a sheer drop only surrounded by one thin looking layer of clear plexi-glass.

It’s real windy up here tonight and Hayley and I feel the building sway.
Its better that a building this tall sways a lot rather than not at all.
But still.

New York twinkles from up there and it feels good to be young and alive etc…

All the same, I’m glad when we finally get back down to the street.
Fuck doing that again anytime soon.

My folks and Hayley planned their trip out.
They had designs on shopping like mad people possessed and that is what they did.
They shopped like Paris Hilton on cocaine!
I can’t stand shopping.
I hate it.
I don’t care about what’s in or out.
I don’t care whether it’s designer or vintage.
If it’s black and I need it then I’ll buy it but even then, I don’t care.
I only buy clothes and shoes when my existing ones fall apart so I left them to it and off I went again.

I hadn’t even thought about what I was gonna do in this city.
I don’t tend to plan anything out because I like not knowing what will happen every day.

I pounded the streets again tonight and ended up outside of Madison Square Garden.
Elton John’s playing tonight and you can’t move for people trying to sell fake tickets at 20 bucks apiece.

Over I go to Hell’s Kitchen which is maybe my favourite part of the city.
It’s laid back. Not as laid back as the village but just enough.
The village doesn’t really have the edge that Hell’s Kitchen has.
I wrote down a list of locations where notorious mobsters were murdered but I’ve forgotten to bring it.
You can meet a lot of interesting characters walking around Hell’s Kitchen if you’re not careful.
In 2002 I quickly learned that if someone comes up to you and starts telling jokes then walk away because he’s gonna demand money when he’s done.

If someone comes out of the blue at you and says “Sir, do you mind if I ask you a question?” then walk away because that question won’t be a question.
It’ll be “Gimmie money!”
If you get involved in any sort of conversation with anyone in any street then be prepared to be asked for money.
These days, I find myself in-step with most other New Yorkers;
On my way to somewhere in a hurry with no time for anyone who tries to stop me.
Walk fast enough and you probably won’t even be approached but stop for a second to light a cigarette or tie your shoelace and you can forget it because there will be 3 people standing around you wanting a piece of you.

Tonight was the night I got lucky and found The Tempest.
The Tempest is a bar on 8th Avenue.
It’s right beside this big Post Office:

It’s not hard to find nice bars in New York but it can be really difficult to find the kind of dives that I like.
The Tempest doesn’t look like my kind of place from the outside.

You could easily mistake it for some touristy Irish themed bar which inside, it definitely ain’t.
It’s a dark, Rock & Roll dive.

I ended up getting pretty friendly with quite a few people in The Tempest.
The sound of Dr. John singing “Such A Night” led me to this bar.
In here you can hear The Flaming Lips, Radiohead, Little Richard, Bob Dylan, Black Sabbath & Sinatra records and like I say, it’s pitch black inside.

I ended up going to The Tempest when I couldn’t sleep at night because it stayed open to 4am and when it closed I’d get invited to hang around inside which was great.
After hours, Chris the bartender and Bob the bouncer would tell me where to go to find the best live music in the city.
They’d also point out characters on the street and tell me which ones were okay and which ones I should avoid.
In fact,
Chris and Bob pretty much clued me right in about New York and it made my stay a helluva lot more interesting.

For instance,
I got introduced to a guy who managed a recording studio across the street and one night at 4am about 5 of us all got invited over for a couple of drinks.
I sat down and played a black Baby Grand piano!
I’m not a very good piano player at all but who cares.
When in New York!

Too much wild turkey later and I went back to the hotel in the drizzling rain for my 3 to 4 hours sleep.
That particular part of town was deserted on that night and I decided there and then that I was gonna do this again on my last night with the soundtrack to “Taxi Driver” in my ears.
I knew it was a good idea to put it on my mp3 player!

New York Diary: Part I.

This is the first part of the scribbly writings I kept last month in New York.
It’s pretty much:
“Here’s What I Did On My Holidays”.

New York Diary: Part I.
A Voyeur In Manhattan.

It hadn’t quite sunk in.
Here was me up at 4am today, trying to shave – getting ready to go to New York City!

Me and my Family, heading for The Big Apple to celebrate my Mum’s 50th Birthday which was in January and my 30th which arrives this November.
Pretty good!

The last minute case packing,
The staring at the paperwork,
The drive to the airport,
The check-in and still it hadn’t sunk in for me yet.

It’s 8am now and the four of us are half awake in some bar in Glasgow Airport.
My folks buy me a pint of John Smith.
8am and here we all are drinking in a bar.
Now it sinks in.

The flight to London, Heathrow went pretty well.
Only took about an hour.
I listened to Buddy Guy and stared out at the clouds the whole way.

I’m usually pretty bad on planes.
I always think of crashing and landing in the sea in pitch black and if I’m not thinking about that, It’s a fair bet that I’m imagining what it’s like to be engulfed in burning jet fuel as our plane goes into the side of a mountain like a dart.
I wish I could stop thinking about these things but what can you do.
I asked my Sister if she had only 2 choices, burning up or dropping out of the sky into the sea, which would she prefer.
She said “The sea” and I agreed.

After bumming around Heathrow airport for a few hours we’re finally on the plane bound for JFK Airport in New York.
British Airways treat cattle class like us pretty well!
Each seat has an individual TV screen but I decide to read my book for a while.
I decided weeks ago to read Piers Paul Read’s “Alive” on the plane because I knew I’d think about crashing and death and my thinking was that if I read “Alive” then whatever happened couldn’t be as bad as what happened to those people.
It worked.

After a few hours I checked out the in-flight movie choices.
Last time I visited New York, the in-flight movie was “The Day After Tomorrow”.
Probably one of the worst movies to watch on a New York bound plane!
Anyways, the choice of flicks this time around were pretty decent.
“True Grit”, “127 Hours”, “Black Swan”, “The Social Network” etc…
I heard good things about “True Grit” and I really want to see it but I decide to hold off until I can watch it on a big screen.
Besides, at the bottom of the list I clock “The Godfather: Part II”.
Planes always seem to have that film.
It’s one of my favourites and although I’ve probably seen it 199 times, I watch it for the 200th time along with a Jack Daniels & Coke.
I still can’t believe Michael would whack out his own Brother like that!

After the film I turn on the in-flight progress map and notice that we’re flying over the spot of the Atlantic where The Titanic went down.
That calls for another Jack Daniels.
I can’t sleep on planes.
Unlike my Sister…

We make it to JFK and pretty much waltz right through airport security.
This marks the 3rd time I’ve been to New York.

The taxi ride into Manhattan is great and already I never want to go home.
The driver is a fucking maniac and that’s fine by me!
He uses two things only.
The gas pedal and the horn.

We’re staying at The New Yorker Hotel on 34th and 8th.
Cases dumped, we head out into the town.

I stop for a second to light a smoke and right away some guy gets in my face barking “Two Fifty! Two Fifty!”
I don’t know what he means and just as I’m about to tell him to get the fuck out of my face I notice he has about 100 boxes of Marlboro lights strapped around his waist.
Ah, New York!

We’re all completely beat and we decide to get some sleep about 11pm.
I can’t sleep when there’s so much out there so I head out again.

I wandered around Midtown Manhattan for 4 hours before I went back to the hotel.
I took pictures and looked at people and buildings and wandered up and down dark alleys in search of the kind of New York you see in Martin Scorsese films.
I checked out a couple of bars and cafes, got talking to a few people and had one of the best nights of my life.

A voyeur in Manhattan.

Homesick For A Place That Ain’t Even Home.

So that’s me back from New York City.
I took several big bites outta The Big Apple and it tastes sweet!

I was over there for only one week and it went past in lightning time.
This was my 3rd time over there and now it’s all over.

I’ve got the ‘came back from New York 2 days ago’ blues.
I’m bluer than Joni Mitchell’s blue face on the cover of her album “Blue“, playing the blues on a blue guitar from Picasso’s blue period with my face painted blue in front row seats watching Blue Man Group whilst punching Anthony Costa‘s face in 😦

One day you’re standing on the corner of 34th and 8th then…WHOOSH!
Next thing you know you’re standing in the middle of Duke Street with a what the hell just happened look on your face.

I’m tired as hell.
I’ve pretty much been up for a whole week and 3 hours after my plane landed back in Glasgow,
I went out on the town to see the terrifying stand up comedy of Jerry Sadowitz.

Needless to say I had the time of my life over in New York.
It feels like home more than home feels like home.
Out all day doing all kinds of interesting things and tearing the town up at night,
I know my way around NYC better than I know my way around here.

I kept a diary in New York which ended up being pretty long.
I wrote it in bars and cafes at night as I wandered around looking for the kind of New York you see in Scorsese films and the good news is that I found it!
I also took around 1500 photographs and met some great people…BUT!
I’m gonna have to tell you all about it later.
I’ll get it typed up and post it all up on here over the next week or so.

So here I am feeling homesick for a place that’s ain’t even my home.
Maybe one day it will be.