Cheese Dogs and Chili Fries

Saturday morning hurt a lot. But Anna and Jeff [who responsibly left Marie’s Crisis early] were up and at `em early in the AM. And by early, I mean 11. They were heading to Coney Island. I didn’t know much about it, other than the fact it was really, really far from us [1.5 hours on the subway]. But I decided I would join them.

Usually, we walk east to Broadway to catch the subway at 157th Street Station. To catch an express train to Coney Island, we walked about 15 minutes to 145th Street Station. We walked south down Riverside Drive for the first time. And we found all the white people. They were out jogging, pushing prams, walking, etc. on Riverside. Riverside is purely residential, consisting of mid-rise condos like ours. It’s funny that we rarely saw white people on Broadway, suggesting that these people leave the neighbourhood to access commercial uses. Weird.



Coney Island is a semi-abandoned amusement park on the Atlantic Ocean. Its glory days were in the early 20th Century and it started to decline after WW2. Today, there are rides, some operate, some do not. There are concessions and games [including ‘Shoot the freak’… Anna wasn’t down with it]. There’s also a great deal of high modernist era social housing. The signage is all original from the early 20th Century and has a bold, graphic, colourful quality. There was a boardwalk and the beach, of course. It was fairly busy for April. We stopped at Nathan’s, home of the infamous ‘hot dog eating contest’, complete with a digital countdown to the next even [months away]. We stopped for some traditional American food. I had a cheese dog and chili fries. It wasn’t the best idea and it sure didn’t agree with me a couple hours later.










The three of lounged on the beach, played some pinball and browsed the Coney Island museum. The museum had a large section dedicated to designs for the new ‘Dreamland’. It was designed by a man [who’s name escapes me] who was inspired to study psychology after Freud visited the park. Naturally, the designs were all sex related. The central building was called the ‘Pleasure Palace’ and it was shaped like a pre-pubescent girl. A train connected all the outlying buildings. It was pretty bizarre.

Erin warned us that we would see some characters. She was right. We saw one gentleman in sort of a tin foil tutu with a colourful wig and a parrot on his shoulder. I didn’t get a photo, but Anna did. Maybe she can hook me up.

Erin texted me as Anna, Jeff and I were planning to leave. She had some free time so I went back to Williamsburgh to hang out with her. It required going from South Brooklyn to lower Manhattan and back to Brooklyn. It was a bit of a trip. Erin told me she appreciated my spontaneity and my ability to read maps. I had no problem adjusting my plans and navigating the City for a little more quality time.

Back in Brooklyn, Erin and I were unable to find a venue that had both seating AND was not closing in 5 minutes [it was really, really weird]. So we grabbed some take away tacos and hit up a small park on the river. The park was actually a former ferry dock that connected Brooklyn and Manhattan. Ferries ran every 5 minutes beginning in 1880! In St. Catharines, buses stop at 5pm on Sundays. I’m not kidding. Erin and I chatted longer than anticipated, as usual. And I had to run back to the condo to get ready to go out.



I virtually sprinted back to Bedford Station to see that the next ‘L’ train didn’t come for 42 minutes. HWHAT?! I nearly had a heart attack. I didn’t understand how that was possible. The thought of waiting 42 minutes was obscene. It was Saturday night in New York, not weekday rush hour in St. Catharines. Oh, snap. I started plotting an alternate route on the sketchy ‘JMZ’, trying to figure out if I would save any time by walking 15 minutes south or not. Then the train came. Apparently, the sign lied.

Back at the condo, my friends were pretty low key. Chris and Matt had an unfortunate rough day. I convinced Anna and Jeff we HAD to go out for our last night in New York. I’m good at that. We went to Greenwich, as it was an easy jaunt from the condo. As we were walking down the street, a woman was herding passerbys into her bar by saying ‘$5 Cosmos’. Yes, please. We were sold. As Anna and I sipped Cosmos [I have to say it… soooo Sex and the City], Jeff nursed a pint. All of a sudden, a girl tripped and spilled her drink all over me. She apologized and ran off. I was pissed. I looked damn good that night. I went to the bathroom to towel off and stopped suddenly when she was in the bathroom. I double-checked the sign on the door. I was right. But she was the last person I wanted to see at that moment. She continued to apologize profusely. I MAY have diva’d out when I said things to her like ‘I guess I’ll live’. I joined Anna and Jeff slightly dryer and left the girl in the men’s bathroom. A few minutes later, a guy came over and introduced himself as the girl’s cousin. He gave us $40 and told us the next round was on him. We thanked him for being generous, but we told him that was far too much money for a round. He insisted we keep it. And we did. We bought two more rounds of drinks and when we were sufficiently drunk, we got pizza. It was all free. Delicious!

At the pizza place, a bunch of frat types were trying to see how many saltines they could eat at one time. I’ve never heard of this game, but I want to play sometime. Anna thinks she can eat one million saltines at one time:

It was SO hard to leave on Sunday. We had such an epic trip. We got to experience living in New York, without any responsibilities, and a whole lot of disposable income. Is that what it’s like to be independently wealthy... or a trustafarian? That’s the life for me!

Chris and Matt drove back to Kingston. Anna and Jeff rode the Megabus back to Kingston and I lugged 50lbs of luggage on the subway to JFK to fly back to Buffalo. At the airport, a stranger gave me a note and walked away. It read ‘You’re very attractive. I hope you have a good flight, where ever you’re going.’

It must be the beard.

I’ve Never Been To Brooklyn And I’d Like to See What’s Good.

Actually, I have. And I love Brooklyn.

Chris and I did some more shopping Friday morning. We both got a pair of Sperry Topsiders at a store called Shoegasm. It was great. No tax. After a couple hours, I had to meet Anna and Jeff in the East Village to see more parts of Brooklyn. We were at Washington Square and Chris told me to take to the B or D train to Delancey Street. Shan’t. Fortunately, I had the foresight not to trust a policy planner with directions and I checked the map in the station. I actually took the F train to 2nd Ave, where there was an exit to 1st Ave. Pretty sure he deliberately tried to sabotage me. Jerk.

While Chris and Matt did something lame and touristy, Anna, Jeff and I wandered through parts of Brooklyn I’d never seen: DUMBO and Brooklyn Heights. DUMBO stands for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass. It’s located beneath the Manhattan Bridge AND the Brooklyn Bridge [and associated subways]. So it’s fairly noisy, but still completely gentrified and appeared pretty expensive. It seemed a tad sterile – like my old hood in London, Canary Wharf. We chilled in a park on the river for a while.









Then we wandered over to Brooklyn Heights. We’re pretty sure that’s where the Cosby’s were supposed to live. There were old brownstones and streets with mature tree canopies. It was SO quiet and peaceful, despite being really close to a freeway. An old woman wearing more bling than Tiffany’s sells, told us we had to go see this statue:

I guess we looked liked tourists. Stupid running shoes.

We had a cheap dinner followed by cheap beer in the East Village. I liked the East Village. It’s very Annex-y, but denser. And I got checked out there. What, what!

Back at the condo, the five of us got dressed for the Tribeca Film Festival party. We looked HOT. So we took a whole lot of photos of ourselves. Eventually, we strutted through the lobby as the doorman grabbed the door and we headed south.






The downside is that due to our photo shoot, we lost track of time. We arrived at the Juliet Supper Club later than anticipated and as soon as we pushed our way to the bar, the bartender removed the ‘open bar’ sign. Curses! My cheap ass friends made me order a drink. I got a vodka soda. It was $14. I socialized a bit with Erin and her friends, but it was inevitable – we had to find somewhere else to go. We needed a venue with cheaper drinks. Erin’s roommate Alena [who I met last summer in Brooklyn] suggested Marie’s Crisis [she had also suggested it when I was in town last summer]. During my extensive pre-trip research, I had come across this bar and wanted to check it out. And it wasn’t too far away.

As we descended the stairs into the basement bar that is Marie’s Crisis, it was clear that this bar was TINY. It was also packed full of people standing around a man playing the piano. He was playing show tunes – no sheet music, no lyrics, he had it all memorized. And everyone just sang along. It was HILARIOUS. He played some Oklahoma, Mary Poppins and RENT!!!!! Anna LOVED it. She knew ALL the words to ALL the songs. I knew Rent. Ha!



Erin later told me that the bar serves poison. It makes sense because I only had four drinks and I was CRUNK. But Americans don’t precisely measure one-ounce drinks like we do. They just pour. God bless America.

MOMA – And I Don’t Mean, 'Model Matt'

We had our timed entry to the Tim Burton exhibit at the MOMA on Thursday from 12:30 to 13:00. We were browsing some images in a lower level gallery and after 20 minutes thought – is this it? At 12:50 we realized that the main exhibit was on another floor and we ran upstairs. The gallery was PACKED. I thought it was only going to be pieces from his movies but it was so much more. There were hundreds of conceptual drawings, videos, models and early scripts. There were lots of dark, twisted ideas and imagery. The most upsetting part was a model of Sarah Jessica Parker’s decapitated head from ‘Mars Attacks’.






We also checked out ‘The Artists is Present’ – an exhibit by Marina Abramovic. Her medium is the nude body. To enter the gallery, you have to walk between two nude models standing about one foot apart. And it wasn’t so much ‘walking between’ as it was ‘squeezing between’. There was one man and one woman. It was interesting to see which model people chose to face as they passed though. Anna, Chris, Matt and I all entered the gallery between the models. Jeff did not. POOR JEFF. Inside, there were images, videos and live models. Some of it was a bit… odd. For example, there were a series of three videos on the wall. One had women flashing their genitals in the rain, one of a woman caressing her breasts in field, and one of men copulating with the ground. Viewed in isolation, they were pretty bizarre. But we read that it was actually depicting Baltic agricultural folklore. Women would flash their genitals to stop the rain, rub their breasts to call for rain and the men copulating with the ground represented fertility. Crazy.

There was an episode of Sex and the City when Carries meets Alexander Petrovsky at a gallery where there’s an exhibit of a woman living in the gallery for 12 days without food. That whole set up is now in the MOMA. There were a series of VERY minimal ‘rooms’ elevated above the floor and fully exposed the the gallery. The ladders to access to living spaces were made of knives… to discourage the artist from escaping.

After the MOMA, Anna and Jeff left and Chris, Matt and I went to Macy’s. Macy’s is terrible. I thought Erin was biased because she was a bitter former-employee. No, it’s total crap. It was such an enormous waste of time. Do not bother going there. It was just…. ghetto. I’m so sorry I doubted you, Erin. Forgive me? The three of us had dinner in Macy’s food hall. It was dec but in a basement and still kinda smelled of cigarette smoke from the 80s forward. After sitting for a while, we realized that we were all completely exhausted and wanted to die. Maybe we partied too hard the night before? In any case, Chris and Matt ended up bailing on the opera despite having already bought tickets, and the three of us went back to the condo to chill, eat junk food and watch Dr. Who.

Quality Doug Time

I spent most of Wednesday on my own. The five of us had a picnic in Central Park as the cherry blossoms were blooming. It was warm and breezy and I wore my new Modern Amusement shorts.






When we split up, I lay around in the park for a while, then wandered a bit to see the body of water where Charlotte had jogged in Sex and the City. I popped in the Guggenheim [which I affectionately call ‘the Gugg’], just to see the building and take a couple pics.




I spent the rest of the afternoon in the Met, browsing Greek, Roman and Modern Art. Here's a bizarre new trend in museum viewing:

1) Take a photo of the art.
2) Take a photo of the description.
3) Repeat.

I.... guess it saves a lot of time? But you can view photographs in books, people. The experience of the actual artwork is completely different. Also, it's tacky. Really tacky.

The fab five had agreed to meet in Washingston Square at 6:30. Since I arrived a bit early, I went to Union Square and bought a couple pairs of skinny jeans. When I found Chris in Washington Square, I got a stern talking to. I had my ringer off and I had missed a series of texts / phone calls from him telling me they had found a restaurant in which to dine – Elmo. It was comfortable and not unaffordable. I ordered meat loaf and an $11 mojito. Delicious.


The ceiling of Elmo.

The great thing about Canadians is that we know how to appreciate warm weather. As soon as double digits hit, it’s time for patios and TRAVEL. My friend Terence [from Toronto] was in New York the same time as us. I literally had MORE friends in New York than in St. Catharines, where I’ve lived for nearly three years. There’s something sad and tragic about that. Chris, Matt and I met up with Terence on Wednesday night for some bar hopping. We went to the lounge area of Monster, Eastern Bloc and G-Lounge. I think. Our fav was Eastern Bloc. It was very West Queen West-esque. It was small, with fun music and lots of hot hipsters. And we even managed to leave a lasting impression at each venue. Bar stars!



I love my iphone. And it's so handy when I don't want to take a camera out with me. I especially like the real friendly bathroom and Jersey Couture. Here are some iphone shots:












By the time we got back to our hood, it was about 3am and we were starving. We were drawn to the bright lights of ‘Kennedy Friend Chicken’, the first of two visits [when in Rome…]. We were talking to the man working and he said he had family in Hamilton and it’s his dream in life to one day live in Oshawa. Oshawa? For real, real? We didn’t question it, because we didn’t want to shatter his hopes and dreams. But we sure hope he meant Ottawa.

A Proper British Reunion 2

I met Erin in ’06 at a BUNAC social night for foreigners in London. We hit it off immediately because we’re both pretty fab.





Anna, Jeff, Chris, Matt and I walked across the bridge to Erin’s hood - Williamsburgh. It’s a mix of old warehouses converted to relatively affordable housing [predominantly for artists], new faux loft buildings [for really, really rich people] and industrial uses that still operate. Erin lives across the street from a hot dog factory. Do people still eat hot dogs? Who do you think you are, my dad feeding my brother and I in the 90s? What? While my Canadian friends explored the area, Erin and I hung out at her apartment of questionable legitimacy and caught up. Her roommate had a film in the Tribecca Film Fest [Sons of Perdition] and Erin had been keeping herself busy with that. She invited us to the film’s after party in the meat packing district. She had also been working part-time at Macy’s, which she despised.

A little later, Erin and I met up with my Canuck friends at a bar on Bedford Avenue – the main drag. The bar was amazing. You get a free pizza when you order a pint [a re-occurring theme in the US, it seems]. For a mere $10, I got two pizzas and two pints. Delicious.

After dinner, Chris and Matt left for Riverside Drive, but Anna, Jeff, Erin and I got some Brooklyn Brand Ale went to Erin’s roof – my fav place to chill in New York. It’s a large space, about 5 [industrial] floors up, with a view of the Manhattan skyline. It’s pretty special.



Anna, Jeff, Erin and I had a deep moment on the roof.





A very rare patch of grass!

After some beers, we went to car-e-oke. A gentleman in a red station wagon used to drive laps in the hood while blasting music and singing along. He now hosts the karaoke night at a local bar. Aren’t hipsters fun?


He puts the 'car' in 'careokee'.

The singers were quite good. Erin sang. She was good too. Anna, Jeff and I were too intimidated… BUT… there was a TACO CAR on the PATIO of the bar. Shall.

New York City Boy: Where 157th Ave Meets Broadway

I went all the way around Lake Ontario. Lia was in Canada after living and working in Abu Dhabi and before moving to Amsterdam with her man. So I left St. Catharines for Toronto on Thursday night so I could spend all of Friday with her. We explored the Beach before heading to the Annex for dinner on a patio followed by a ridiculous number of pints. It was upsetting to say goodbye yet again.



My train to Kingston was at 7am the next day. 7am hurt a lot the next day. Soon after I arrived in Kingston, Chris, Matt and I loaded up the Accentrice and we were on our way. We crossed the border somewhere east of Kingston. The conversation with the border guard went as follows:

Guard: “What do you do for a living?”
Chris: “I’m an urban planner.”
Matt: “I’m a festival director.”
Doug: “I make sparkly pillows!”



Ok, I’m kidding about that last part. But why on earth did a sparkly pillow make it on the road trip in a tiny, tiny automobile?!

After we made a scene with our photo shoot in McDonald’s, and sped past a paranormal investigator just before getting very lost in rural New York, we decided it was time to buy a road map. Google maps was very disappointing. Actually, it may have been ok if Chris has printed out the visual instructions, not just the text. Apparently, there are situations when it’s worth the ink and paper.



The purpose of going all around the lake was to see Lake Placid, site of the Olympics in 1932 and 1980. There were some stores dedicated to Olympic paraphernalia, other gift stores, the hockey arena, a ski jump way in the distance and Starbucks. Oh, thank goodness.




How can Curious George POSSIBLY be live?!?!


It was cold and rainy at the lake, so we continued south. Matt used a cartoon, not-to-scale map drawn by an Autistic child to find Mallory’s Bush. It had a covered bridge and a house that looked like Goldie Hawn’s faux house in ‘Swept Away’. Then Matt used his cartoon, not-to-scale map drawn by an Autistic child to insist that the empty driveway 20 metres to the east was the interstate. Shan’t.




As dusk fell near Albany, we were tired and hungry and cranky for deciding to be spontaneous and not booking a hotel in advance. We couldn’t find a hotel and we were on a toll highway with about 4 exits in a 2000km stretch of road. We got off at a rest stop and Matt asked for a hotel. The girl gave him directions and asked where we were going. When he said ‘New York’, we thought she was going to say, ‘You mean over there?’ and gesture out the window toward the Manhattan skyline. We were only about 100km away by this point, but it was time for food and sleep and booze [not in that order].

You know what I love about the US? There are stores with names like ‘Liquor Warehouse’… AND they sell ONE LITRE bottles of Smirnoff PINEAPPLE Vodka for $17. God Bless America.

--------------------- Sleep.

As we got closer to the city on Sunday morning, I found myself baffled by American planning. We were driving down a highway around 100km/hour, and there were stores along the side of the highway. No ramps, no service roads, just direct driveway access from the highway into the store parking lots. And I don’t just mean gas stations but clothing stores and big box stores. The thought of having to merge into heavy, high-speed traffic from 0km/h terrifies me.

We played ‘Empire State of Mind’ as we crossed the George Washington Bridge among hoards of high-end automobiles. Damn tourists. Somehow, we crossed too far on the bridge and got lost in the Bronx. Matt wanted to stop and ask some thuggy looking gentlemen, one of which had his hand down his pants, for directions. Chris and I suggested it wasn’t the type of neighbourhood where you want to be identified as tourists. Matt finally won and we stopped and he asked directions. We soon arrived at our new home on Riverside Drive. It was pretty ballin’ – 1000 square feet, 2 bedrooms, new kitchen and bathroom, and there were more closets than residents.

The hood was interesting. Our street was very residential composed of mid-rise condos. The commercial uses were concentrated a block away on Broadway. Broadway was very ethnic and our pasty white skin stuck out like a well-designed house on Rykert Street [pale is in for 2010]. We had restaurants, grocery stores liquor stores and convenience stores. Everything was pretty cheap, which was a bonus as we’re a frugal bunch… some more than others. I later learned from Erin that we were staying PAST the area that everyone’s afraid to go to.

We found a canvas shopping bag for a grocery store and set out to look for it to buy supplies. We couldn’t find it so we went to a different store that had ‘security guards’ in every aisle. When we returned to the condo, we asked the doorman where that particular grocery storey was located. He told us it was a very nice store and it was located at 125th street, a few subway stops away. We started to suspect that white people leave the neighbourhood to meet their daily needs.

I must say, I loved having a doorman. He jumps up to open the door when you enter / exit the building. It feels pretty posh. I should always have a doorman.

We soon headed to the Port Authority to meet Ma and Pa… I mean Anna and Jeff… who had just spent 10 hours on the Mega Bus from Toronto. Their border guard was super cranky and asked them for pay stubs. For real, real? Who brings pay stubs across the border?




We left early on Monday to go shopping at Century 21. It was near the former World Trade Centre site, which is now under construction. We wandered into a nearby church. It had free bathrooms. Suckers. We looked around the church. There were memorials to people who had died in the WTC everywhere. There were hundreds and hundreds of photos – and mostly young people in their 20s and 30s. After we felt thoroughly depressed, we went shopping.
Century 21 is epic. It’s in an old bank building and spans several floors. There were names like Ringspun, Diesel, Alexander McQueen, Modern Amusement and many more. The only problem, and it’s a huge problem that needs to be fixed Century 21, is that there were 5 change rooms for men that you can ONLY use if you’re trying on suits, not the regular clothes. The regular men’s clothes consumed the floor area of the Empire State Building. But men are expected to buy them, try them on at home and return items they don’t want. Srsly? The gentleman at the change room who explained this to me…. well he was a dick. I would have had no problem changing in the middle of the store, but I didn’t want to get kicked out, so I tried on shirts. A nicer employee told us that there are THIRTY-SEVEN change rooms for women, but none-ish for men. I ended up buying one Ringspun t-shirt and one pair of Modern Amusement shorts – regular price would have been $250. I paid $90.

Dear Century 21: I would have spent much, much more money in your clothing store, if I had been permitted to try on the clothes. In fact, you left me $800 below budget. How many fitting rooms does that buy? Jerks. Love, Doug.

Also, if you spend less than $110, there’s no sales tax [and tax is only 8% anyway]. It was amazing for me as a foreign shopper. But it also explains a lot of America’s social ills.

We split up. Chris and Matt went off and Anna, Jeff and I walked around Greenwich and found one of those pre-fab diners with cheap food where we could barely fit in the seats. Delicious.



I re-wired the ATM / At the Food Emporium / To provide an honourarium to anyone with the code / The code, well, A-N-G-E-L / Yet robin hooding isn't the solution / The powers that be must be undermined where they dwell / In a small, exclusive gourmet institution / Where we over-charge the wealthy clientele.

My friend Bryan lives in Hell’s kitchen. I met him in ’04 on the dance flo’ when he was a UofT engineering student and I was a York grad student. He’s a big shot NYC lawyer now. He invited me to my first opera – Armeda. It was about a woman who tricks a warrior into loving her and then takes him down to her pleasure palace. His mates come looking for him and steal him back and then girl is PISSED. Bryan explained that it wasn’t the best opera for a first-timer. I guess that’s because it was 4 hours long. Yep, I’m a champ. The building was stunning though.