It's cold again here in New York. I knew better than to trust the last week or so of balmly weather, but I was really hoping that spring might actually be here. Still, many of my most unpleasant cold-weather memories occurred in late March and early April, so expectations for an early thaw were tempered. Very unpleasant. Saturday started rainy, then was wonderful and sunny for about an hour, and then the cold rains came. Which was fine by me, since I had to stay inside all afternoon. James and I had been pushing back or scheduled band practice for days, since Tuesday, and finally we got together on Saturday. On the way back from parking James' car around the corner on South Eliot Pl., James made the mistake of looking a crazy man directly in the eye. So as we're walking toward this dude, a early 40's-ish black guy, he starts screaming. "What the fuck you lookin' at, motherfucker!? Wanna get your ass kicked? Wanna fucking die!? Fucking CRACKER!" The "fucking CRACKER" part put me a little more at ease, since that made it clear that he was addressing James, and not me, or even both of us. Of course, I was with James, so I guess I'd have been involved anyone had any trouble started. But I was at least a little bit glad that James had actually looked at him and "antagonized" him, because it made this lunatic just a tad more rationale than just some crazy guy screaming at strangers. Anyway, James was a bit shocked by the whole affair, and worried that his car was going to get totally fucked up by this madman. Miss Charming Melodee walked by the spot shortly after, and I was a bit worried that she'd run into the same guy and make the mistake of looking at him. When it started raining, I rode my bike down to deliver an umbrella to Miss CM, and half expected to see James' windows smashed. One of MCM's friends parked on that street, which by all accounts is a very pleasant street, and the roof of her car had been trampled on. Luckily, James' white Buick was just fine.
I'm playing the bass for most the shows with James. The biggest challenge of this arrangement is the fact that I've never really played the bass before. But there are only really two types of bass players: Those who wilfully take up the bass, and guitar players who have the bass thrust upon them. And of the second group, you never really expect much out of them. Which leads to the second challenge, which is boredom. When you're not really a bass player, there's an extremely limited number of things you can play. It'll be a little embarassing I think, to be on stage playing the same lines, which are often only two or three notes, over and over. Especially since James is going to be using a lot of samples. Why not just sample the bass? There are only so many embellishments you can make, due to both skill level, and the straightforward musical lines. Still, I'm looking forward to it. We're still not entirely sure what I'll be playing on each song. Probably some scattered guitar here and there, but in those cases it might just be ambient noise. At the very least, I have more confidence in my skills as a musician than I've ever had before.
After the little rehearsal, I had to hurry into Manhattan to meet a friend from college, the not-frequently-linked-to Nicole, who was in town for the weekend. The trip there was hellish, and was possibly one of the worse subway experiences I've ever had in my whole life. The ride actually manage to offend my senses of sight, smell, hearing, and feeling all at once. The whole commute to about an hour, which is just obscene, and the whole time the train was making this awful warbling, moaning sound. Plus, I had to smell this teenager's terribly cheap and offensive perfume. It was even worse than the perfume strippers wear. It actually made the subway experience worse than the time I was on the same car with a homeless man who'd shat himself. And that was on one of the hottest nights of the summer. All I wanted to do was to get into the "fresh" air of NYC.
So I finally get to Nicole's hotel, the stylish and uber-hip Hudson Hotel. This is exactly the sort of place I hate. Correction: I fucking hate. No sign, just a neon green strip on the front of the building. Walking in was a bit of a chore by itself. I was distracted by the green lights on the escalator, and couldn't find my way in, so confused by all the glass was I. Finally I found Nicole, her sister, and her sister's new beau waiting at the top of the escalators, in front of the cheesy bar and next to the gaudy chandelier. Then we got the hell of there.
I rarely wander above 14th st in Manhattan these days, so I wasn't really sure where to lead us for dinner. Somehow the task fell to me. The only area I venture to on the Upper West Side is Geoff's neighborhood around Lincoln Center, so we wandered about ten blocks north. It was a but chilly and I had a hankering for a good burger, so I lead them to the Fairway Cafe, which is the small but nice restaurant located directly about the gourmet Fairway supermarket on Broadway and 72nd st. The Fairway Cafe is a nice place to take out of town guests, because it seems like you know some sort of secret. You walk into the grocery store, and they say "Um, this is a grocery store," but then suddenly you're in a nice restaurant. It has a nice effect. Especially after a long walk. As an added bonus the out of town guest, there was a minor celebrity sighting in the Fairway Cafe. I'm fairly sure it was Janel Moloney, who's plays Donna on The West Wing, leaving the cafe as we were ordering. She's sort of non-descript though. But Nicole's sister was fairly certain also. She contemplated asking her for her autograph, and was surprised at how relieved I was when she didn't.
I'd never met this sister of Nicole's before. I'd met her identical twin sister a number of times, and each of those encounters had an unnerving mix of hilarity, shock, fear, and once, near insanity. Nicole is easily the fastest, most stream-of-conscious talked I know (next to my psychotically hyper teenage cousin). It's hard enough keeping up with her, but when listening to her often confrontational and spiteful conversations with her twin sister, it's jaw-droppingly astounding. Plus, her sister was usually kind of mean to Nicole. The sister I met on Saturday was much more pleasant, perhaps due to the fact that she's five years younger. She and her boyfriend both attend Yale, and I made a half-hearted attempt to mine that for conversation since I was just there last weekend. I couldn't really come up with anything, since we pretty stayed in the same three block radius, and anything I know about Yale I gleaned from episodes of Gilmore Girls.
I seem to have a higher tolerance for prolonged interaction with Nicole than most people I know. As much as I can't stand people with traits I find annoying, there are certain people whom I find terribly endearing because of these traits. The thing about Nicole that I enjoy is that I can always say just about anything I want. This ranges from deep inner thoughts to frank and unsolicited opinions about her appearance. For a long time I figured that this behaviour was facilitated by the fact that I didn't really care what she thought anyway, or that I didn't really value her friendship all that much, so there was really no risk if she got pissed off. But I suppose in reality it's just that she has an odd mix of personality traits that make this possible and likeable, and valuable. She's very cynical I think, but at times also frighteningly naive. She's a good person at heart, but possesses virtual no filter from her mind to her mouth. It was actually a great step forward this weekend, that this was the first time I could remember where we went for more than an hour where I didn't have to remind her to only speak every other thought that popped into her head.
After dinner, we all went back to the Hudson Hotel and Nicole wanted to go to the bar there. I was trying to push for the Lower East Side or someplace downtown, but seeing as I wasn't feeling like staying out for the long haul, I yielded to one drink at the hotel bar. I was immediately turned off by the long line at the door. Luckily, since Nicole was a hotel guest, we didn't have to wait. Perhaps that should be "unluckily." It's always nice to have the velvet rope moved for you while a bunch of people are waiting though, I guess. I was telling Geoff about it the next day, and his first words I think were "What were you doing there?" Not my kind of place at all. The only times I ever went to swanky bars and whatnot was when I was interning at Gear, and they had frequent expensive parties at places like this and I didn't have to pay for anything. That was quite fun. Now, two drinks for $17 isn't exactly how I want to spend the pay from one of my three jobs.
The greenish-yellow escalator in the Hudson Hotel. Or the "Ascent to Hipness"
Nicole in the Hudson Hotel elevator. I thought the carved wood walls looked like motion lines you'd see around someone going through a time machine or something.
Sitting in Nicole's hotel room, endlessly amused by infinity mirrors.
One of the two lamps on the side of the bed in Nicole's room.
The other lamp. I just thought these were funny images to put near the bed, but the more culturally informed Miss CM believes that these are renderings of paintings by Francesco Clemente. After some checking, they are indeed by Clemente, custom-made for the Hudson Hotel. How nice.Speaking of Miss CM and art, she has a print of a Chagall painting, and I wanted her to paint a portrait of Steven Seagal or scenes from his movies in the style of Chagall and title it "Steven Chagall." I think that'd be totally awesome.
Sunday was filled with laundry and chores and grocery shopping. Geoff came to download some music from my computer, and he accompanied us to Pathmark, which was nice, since it greatly increased our carrying capacity. Then for dinner Miss CM and I made a half turkey that we received for free from Pathmark back in November. Kind of ghetto, but it ended up pretty tasty. We had watched a few episodes of the Naked Chef, which got us in a cooking mood. For my part, I was fairly pleased with myself for actually making a passable gravy using the juice and fat from the turkey. And then we ate our turkey dinner, drank a some riesling, and watched the Sopranos and Arrested Development. After that, we complained about the coming week. It's nice to have routines.