New York City 2006 : A Travelogue
Saturday, November 4
We finally got moving around 2PM after last night's long haul. We had the perfect hangover food at Great Jones Cafe.
Best damned Cajun food I've ever had. Best damned grits I've ever had. In New York City?? You damn right. And the jukebox featured all kinds of stuff you can barely get on CD: Ernie K-Doe. Slim Harpo. Memphis Minnie. The real shit, yo.
After that, though, we were at a loss for what to do. We only had a couple good hours of daylight, so we wandered back to Tower Records for a bit, and back to H&M and Rockefeller Plaza. I split off to check out 48th street where the big music stores are: Manny's, Sam Ash, and Rudy's. After a brief nap at the hotel our big happy drunk B-Side crew reunited this time at McSorley's.
Rami and Kristin. The deal at McSorley's is that they only sell two types of beer, their own light and dark brews. For $3.50 or something, they bring you two half-pint glasses and they keep bringing you more as soon as they see that you're done. Basically they force you to drink until you leave. It's like a frat party but with good beer, minus the Greeks, plus the Irish. I stayed for a few rounds before I had to jet back to the Lower East Side for more CMJ goodness.
I caught the American Princes again, catching up with them and Katherine at Arlene's Grocery before zooming over to Midway to see my heroes The Soft.Lightes.
Ron and the Soft.Lightes put together some delightful slide shows, movies and animation for each of their songs. I can't tell you what a perfect cap this was for a great week of music. And I owe much of it to the Soft.Lightes. Their first CD as The Incredible Moses Leroy was what led me to meet Jamie, who led me to Spiraling, who became my friends and a big reason I decided to take this trip. So it all came full circle.
Also at the show I met a photographer from Savannah, Georgia, named Marci who spent 4 years as a counselor at Kanakuk, a camp in the Ozarks where several of my hometown friends went. Because New York is freaky like that.
Afterward, I went to Brooklyn for Elizabeth's birthday party. This is the only picture I took:
I don't know what it means, either. On the way back to the hotel I got to see some transit workers use the little cubby holes along the tracks:
I got back to the hotel at 3AM. I asked for a wakeup call at 6AM. I did not get it. I woke up at 7AM, and rushed myself to Penn Station for the LIRR to JFK for my 10:30 flight. Got there with just enough time to eat one last bagel before my flight to St. Louis. But my flight was delayed 45 minutes, which meant that I missed my connection to Little Rock. Which meant that I had to stay the night in St. Louis. Which wasn't so bad, as American Airlines set me up at the Holiday Inn, and I called my old high school chum, Lance, to hang out. I got to meet his new baby:
So an extra day of very sleepy, jet-weary vacation. I'm still tired.