Bonkers for Yonkers... and the Big Apple

Indulge me for a moment.

You find yourself in your hotel room after a long day of traveling, and an evening that didn’t quite turn out the way that you had expected it to.

You were pleasantly surprised by your meal, which had been a last minute selection between you and your girlfriend. The goal was to find a restaurant that was open late and not completely terrible, yet this may have been the best dinner that you have ever had.

After a bottle of wine and a number of cocktails, the two of you stroll out of the restaurant seeking further entertainment. You happen upon a stained glass door, complete with the ambient glow of club lighting on the inside, the rhythmic pounding of what seems to be house music, and the classic “please give me a reason to end your life ASAP” bouncer. This place must be good.

No words are spoken, as you are both drawn to this mystical music haven like moths to a flame. As you enter the club, you look for the nearest bar to grab a drink. It seems to be on the other side of a large crowd. You grab your girlfriend’s hand as the two of you try to squeeze your way through the mob and find the nearest opening to place your order.

Someone grabs your ass…. must have been your girlfriend. Hmmm… you can’t wait to get back to the hotel.

Two hands are now on your ass. You are holding your girlfriend’s right hand. You now believe that you are god’s gift to earth. You are clearly taken, yet this mystery woman could not resist the beautiful curvature of your well-defined buttox. Foolish, but can you blame her?

You look back to your girlfriend… she seems distracted.  Perhaps she noticed that someone else was grabbing your ass. “Doesn’t something seem a little different about this place?” she asks.

You stop and take a closer look at the bar. Cool lighting, hardwood lined walls, modern feel… there seems to be an over-abundance of cologne… but nothing that unusual. You keep walking to the bar, order your drink, and the two of you head upstairs where the source of the music seems to be. As you reach the top of the stairs, you notice that there seems to be some sort of show going on. What’s that music playing? Is that… Whitney Houston? You could have sworn you heard house music from the street, but clearly you were mistaken. And how did that guy who’s wearing ass-less chaps get by the bouncer? He seemed so official. And what are you watching? There seems to be some sort of extremely well toned woman on stage… she must work out. Perhaps she is an Olympian… track and field most likely. Is that stubble? She must have been kicked out of the olympics for using steroids, and that’s why she’s working here… as a karaoke-singing-Whitney-Houston impersonator.

“MMMMMM, YUMMMAAaaaaAAAAAaaaYYYY”

What the fuck was that? The guy to your left is overly enthusiastic about this very muscular karaoke-singing-Whitney-Houston impersonator. Maybe he thinks it’s actually Whitney Houston…. Or maybe….

The woman on stage has something to say.

“Y’all want anotha numba? Well everyone wants… anotha numba. But I can’t be doin no notha numba… unless y’all do what y’all gotta do to be getting’ anotha numba. SO DON’T ACT LIKE YOU DON’T SEE A TRANNY WITH A TIP JA!!!!”

Yes. This is a tranny-bar, and you will never know who grabbed your ass.

Before the night is done you will lose your phone, meet someone who offers to buy you and your girlfriend a drink while claiming that he knows O.J. Simpson on a personal basis, and get stuck talking to an overly friendly street-salesman for half an hour before you can finally tell him to bugger off. However, this might have just been one of the best nights of your life. There is only one explanation.

You must be in New York City.

I eventually found my phone thanks to the selective text message that Therapy Bar on 52^nd street sent out to some of my most obviously close contacts. First and foremost was the text that was sent to my dad. If he took the time to do any research on the bar, then he would know that I spent a good portion of my first night in New York City at one of the most popular gay bars in town. No explanation on my thoughts regarding this situation are needed.

They call NYC, “the big apple.” I’ve always hoped that someone would explain this to me. I’ve been to Central Park, and there are no apple trees that I could see… not really any abundance of apples on any of the menus… or maybe it was all a clever marketing ploy concocted by Steve Jobs. Greedy fucker. I’ve had two macs that have blown up on me a total of 3 times, and I’m experiencing difficulties on my current laptop as I write this post. There’s absolutely no fucking way that bastard gets to name one of the coolest cities on the planet after his fucking garbage company.

Perhaps the concept of the Big Apple is symbolic. Sir Isaac Newton “discovered” gravity when he was hit on the head by an apple falling from a tree, and since then the apple has come to represent knowledge. An apple is an idea, and so too is New York City. A big one.

Sure, if you want to work your ass off and become a Wall Street broker, you can do that. But if you want to have a sex change, dress up in drag, and perform Whitney Houston karaoke at the local gay bar, you can do that too. Both paths are perfectly acceptable and available. This is a city where you can literally do whatever you want, and in a city of 22 million there are bound to be a good number of people who agree with whatever that decision may be. This is apparent almost immediately upon stepping foot in the city, and I believe it’s why the “I (heart) New York” t-shirts are so popular.

Of course, my experience in NYC cannot merely be summarized by the first night.

On our first actual day in New York, it was my girlfriend’s immediate desire to see the museum of modern art, or the MOMA for short. Keeping in mind that the temperature was a balmy 20 degrees and we were accustomed to a much chillier Montreal climate, the idea of spending the better part of the afternoon indoors did not appeal to me. But I am a man, and one of the things that any man will tell you is that having a penis ensures two things in life: 1) you can stand when you pee, and 2) you are going to the MOMA if she wants to go.

While she was admiring “Starry Night” by Vincent Van Gogh, I was not so discretely taking a picture of the security guard that I thought was the spitting image of Ted from Scrubs.

Ted

 I believe it was around this point when she began to realize that I was not enjoying this. We then entered a Picasso exhibit revolving around some sort of guitar theme. I’m sure that she could give you some clever insight, but to me this entailed about 45 paintings of something vaguely resembling a guitar, all pretty much identical but in different colored frames. At this point, I decided that I would show my appreciation for art by sharing my well-formed opinion on Picasso.

“This guy’s crap. And that’s the stupidest looking guitar I’ve ever seen… it would sound like shit.” I should write exhibit reviews for the New York Times. Somehow, this comment was not appreciated.

“It’s amazing… I take you into a museum for 5 minutes and your maturity level plummets.”

Now, a word of advice to anyone who is willing to listen. If you ever here a similar response, you have been found out. No amount of, “… but I really like those other paintings,” will suffice. Your under-appreciation for Picasso and your over-appreciation of the guy who looks like Ted from Scrubs has exposed you for what you really are: an idiot. Even though you are an idiot, you do not need to prove this fact even further by losing her souvenirs from the place that you did not fully appreciate. Furthermore, considering that you realize this as you get back to the hotel room after you have made a special out of the way trip to collect your phone that you lost the night before, your idiot-ness is basically exploding out of your eye balls.

Fortunately for me, it’s quite difficult to reach a level of “exceptionally pissed off” when you’re in NYC as a tourist… or at least maintain that level for an extensive period of time. So eventually, I was forgiven and I would like to think that it is now a “funny story.” I hope.

Story aside, I do believe that the museums of New York are overrated. As is Broadway theater. Both my girlfriend and I are what you would call, “theater buffs,” and we tried - really tried - to find something. We even looked off Broadway… off-off Broadway, and still nothing. Sure, there are a vast number of plays to choose from. However, making a choice between Golf the Musical and paying $400 for something that might be half decent doesn’t usually indicate a vibrant theater scene. What we did end up seeing was Robin Williams in Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo for $100. At the end of the performance, Robin Williams ran a spontaneous bidding war for a select charity. What resulted was essentially him performing a stand-up routine for approximately 15 minutes. That was worth it.

The play, on the other hand, was not quite so interesting. The premise was that an American soldier had his hand bitten off by a tiger in Baghdad, and from there on in, nothing really happens. There’s an Iraqi translator who at the beginning of the play is friendly and keen to learn English, but at the end kills the American soldier and “likes it.” Really? I’m not an Iraqi citizen, and I was more than a little offended. The fact that the play got a standing ovation at the end, as well as a number of rave reviews including one from the New Yorker, is just downright scary. On a sidenote, we recently saw a play in Toronto (Zadie’s Shoes) for half the price and half the research. Brilliant acting and a great script, something I wish I could have said for Robin Williams and the Bitch-ass fuckers in the Broadway Zoo.

In my opinion, you need to get away from Time Square, Broadway, and the massive stores of 5^th Avenue in order to truly have a great time in New York. Chinatown, Little Italy, Greenwich Village, and the Lower East Side are what truly stood out to me. In addition, the Shake Shack probably has the best burgers you will ever consume, and Clinton Street Bakery the best breakfast. I’m pretty sure that I put on 10 pounds in fat over the course of those four days, but it was worth it.

Don’t be afraid to talk to strangers. On our third night, we wanted to dance. No exceptions. We heard that Bleaker street was a good spot for this, but couldn’t really find anything. As we were trying to catch a cab, we noticed two girls who were “dressed to impress.” Think a Victoria’s Secret model meets the wife of any pro soccer player. I think Jamie may have been more attracted to them than I was. We asked them where they were headed, and they were indeed going to a club. They then invited us to share a cab… and then into the club, dismissing the massive lineup curling around the corner… and then into the VIP section. Those MOMA souvenirs are probably chilling in some homeless guy’s shopping cart, but there is no question that we are still very, very lucky people.

To quickly summarize other highlights, if you are ever in New York make a point to see the Brooklyn Bridge, Grand Central… even the MOMA… and as many sights as you can. Just don’t limit yourself to these alone. Watching Jamie manage to bargain down a purse in Chinatown from $25 to $5, chilling in the VIP section of a new swanky downtown club, taking a stroll through Central Park, sharing a bottle of wine over lunch in Little Italy, and yes even watching a transvestite show in full, were my highlights. These as well as the train trip to and back, but I am lucky enough to be in considerably good company these days.

While walking through Central Park, we stumbled upon a number of little league baseball games. The kids were playing just like I would have done, but they were surrounded by massive buildings in the distance as if this were normal for them… and I guess it is. Standing behind the chained fence and simply observing for a few minutes, I felt like I was an observer at a zoo (not the Baghdad zoo, thank God). I will probably never think quite like a New Yorker, no matter how much I try. But in order to really get the full New York experience, to try and see how a New Yorker actually lives, throw away the travel books and get off the beaten path. Just remember to keep the souvenirs.