Part 2 - "Eat My Buffalo" 01.17.04 Noon (E.T)
Before we left, the local weather stations put the fear of God into Ross and me by claiming it was going to be negative 10 degrees in the New York area. Because of this, we both decided that if we were going to be outside for large amounts of time (as was the plan) that we would forgo travel bags and layer on our clothes instead. At the outset we looked like a couple of Eskimos smuggling "pawchoockas" underneath our coats* Anyway, turns out New York is quite lovely this time of year – or if not lovely, at least it wasn't blistering cold. Which is why it didn't take long for sweat to begin forming underneath the 13 or 14 layers we accumulated between the two of us - not that we were wearing the same garments, when I say "between the two of us", I just mean that if you added up his layers and mine, we'd have a total of 13 or 14...:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
Just wanted to clarify.
Anyway, between the "Dragon Coach" bus stop and our Chinatown destination, Ross and I became so overheated that we found ourselves wearing tank tops and boxer shorts by the time we arrived. Frankly, this drew more scowls than smiles. I guess it's true, New Yorkers are unfoundedly mean! I don't know what to say about New York's Chinatown other than that it only enhanced my feeling of if-you've-seen-one-you've-seen-'em-all". I guess I should mention that I've never been to the Chinatown in San Francisco or, y'know… China for that matter, but I've been to New York's, D.C.'s and Chicago's and if you need to buy nine t-shirts for 10 bucks or a cute wind-up toy robot for .76 cents, Chinatown seems like a great place to make those quality purchases.
While perusing several trinket shops along the way, I did notice a lady from Texas** Anyway, she had a white mink coat, a black fur hat and pink fingernails that seemed more suitable for use as shish-kabob spires. While marveling at how many touristy NY shirts had the F-word written on them, I overheard this Texan order up six hats, 12 shirts, and a handful of key chains. This caused me to wonder, "is this woman picking up souvenirs or supplies for the wagoneers!?"
In my experience every major city has segregated "towns" and "villages". For example, in Chicago "Greektown" isn't anywhere near "Little Italy", "Chinatown", "Mexican Village", or "Ukrainian Village", but in New York, Chinatown and Italian Village t-bone one another.
It's the strangest thing I've ever seen. If you stand on the corner of Mulberry and 76th you can drop your wide-lapelled silk Poplin shirts at Antonio's Dry Cleaner, leave, go next door, slip your shoes off and have a wonderful Szechwan meal while you wait.
I dig this town! Hopefully one day, tourists will realize this place exists.
Unfortunately, neither Ross nor I were carrying any silken shirts, so we opted out of the whole package entirely. Instead, we got roped into eating at a quaint little Italian Eatery named Due Amici, which I'm pretty sure is Sicilian for "hyper-expensive-New York-restaurant-smaller –than-my-closet". Really, the only reason we went into this place is because Ross and I were starving. The McMuffins we had back in Baltimore while waiting for the "Dragon Coach" had long since, ahem… passed through our system. And the moment we stopped to look at the menu outside, a charming dwarf of a maitre-de opened his door and ushered us in as if to look at the menu was a concession of patronage.
So the dwarf seats us and the minute we sit down, he treats us as if he'd wished he hadn't hustled us in. I cannot be sure why he had such a sudden change of heart, but it must have something to do with my sudden hankering for buffalo mozzarella.
I had just visited Philadelphia to hang out for the weekend. I was warned before arriving in Philly that if I wanted to order a cheese steak, not to say, "I'd like a Philadelphia Cheese steak, please." Apparently, Philly folks hate that. I was told to simply ask for a steak. I was also told to preface the word cheese steak with the kind of cheese you wanted on it and while completing the order by saying "with" or "without" to signify whether I wanted the cheese steak with or without onions. This ain't no joke. Apparently stronger men than I have been killed over these types of cultural faux pas. I've got to keep reminding myself, I'm on the East Coast now – they do things wicked malicious around here.
This is what went through my mind moments before I articulated to my waitress that I wanted the buffalo mozzarella.
I panicked.
I worried that in just a few seconds I was going to have a "Jessica Simpson moment" and order – not the buffalo mozzarella (connoting cheese procured from the loins of an actual buffalo) but Buffalo mozzarella (connoting the geographic location that specializes in this type of cheese). If you're in upstate N.Y., I imagine the same rules applying to their mozzarella, as did Philadelphia's steak. Can you say, "I'd like Buffalo wings please?" And if you're on Long Island, do you simply order an "iced tea" and let the fun happen. Suddenly I was horrified that I was in the state of New York and was going to foolishly stamp "tourist" on my forehead without knowing it.
Honestly, while traveling, this is the one thing I hate doing most – stamping things on my forehead. So I rolled the dice. I looked up at our waitress and asked for the mozzarella…
That's it.
I pointed at the menu and smiled. "I'd like the mozzarella, please." There was a pause. I looked my waitress in the eyes for the first time. She had an accent, from a place I could not detect, but wasn't Italy. Only then, at that moment, did I realize how cute she was. That's when I knew I had made a fool of myself. That's what I do around cute girls – I make a fool out of myself and anyone else around me.
"Mozzarella on what?" the waitress asked.
So you know what I said back? Can you guess what a genius like me might have replied to the waitress' understandably confused question? I replied, "On the buffalo."
She asked where I'd like the mozzarella and I answered that I'd like it on the Goddamned buffalo.
Sometimes I hate myself.
It made sense in my head. I took a second to recoup and corrected myself.
"Ma'am, I'd like the buffalo-mozzarella."
Nothing. Not a smile, not a nod, just a scribble on her little pad and an extended hand to which we were encouraged to set our menus in. The kick of it is that buffalo mozzarella wasn't not even all that good. I had to give half of it to Ross. And as he sampled the first bit, I explained what went through my head moments before I ordered.
Ross paused, finished chewing and said, "This is an Italian restaurant. Why would they serve a cheese dish originating in upstate New York?"
I looked at Ross. Ross looked at me and smiled. Again, I had no idea what he meant by that smile.
This was my first meal in Manhattan.
Part 3 – "Contemporary Awesomeness" 01/17/04 2:30 p.m. (E.T.)
I'll be honest with you, culture and I do not get along. I've had my squabbles with culture ever since I went to an artsy college in the heart of one of the most "cultured" cities in the world. I've seen culture, I've shaken hands with culture, I've even danced with culture's girl once or twice and lemme tell you, there is a dark side to culture that most of you could not stand to behold.
Ross and I ran into culture at New York's Whitney Museum of Contemporary American Art. Both of us being contemporary art fans, it was either this or the Guggenheim and neither one of us were dressed haughtily enough for the "Goog". At first I was mesmerized by this place. Edward Hopper is my absolute favorite American painter (his most famous work, 'Nighthawks at the Diner' is currently housed in Chicago's Art Institute) and lo and behold, there was an exhibit of Hopper's later works.
Awesome!
Tubular!
The exhibit rocked butt!
Y'see? This is how someone who refuses to conform to the dictates of "culture" describes something they highly admire. In fact, I believe, after seeing Hopper's Tracks At Sunset I may have shouted, "Isn't Hopper the jam!"
I like to do this, if for no other reason, than to see the expressions of all those "cultured" art lovers change from vitriolic boredom to bitter pomposity. And this is what bothers me about culture; I could be standing at a series of photographs (everything in the Whitney whupped butt, by the way, not just Hopper's stuff) and there'd be a plaque next to the grouping describing what the artist (or photographer in this instance) was trying to convey. Inevitably, three fools in custom linked watches and platinum bifocals will sidle up to the work – stand right next to the plaque – and offer up their amateur (and often pretentious) musings on what they "know" the artist was trying to say.
"Well clearly what Curran is dictating with this mélange is that man is not only a vessel unto himself, a theory that was well-worn amongst his nihilistic contemporaries, but that we are all being caste out of each other's social consciousness so hurriedly, in fact, that we will all find ourselves living in separate universes of emotion altogether."
Meanwhile, the two jackasses nodding in agreement with this goober are standing directly in front of the plaque that reads:
"Plates 5-10 are representative of Curran's constant belief that naked ladies are pretty."
Now you see why I hate "culture".
We hightailed it from the museum and headed northward toward our reservations at the New York Comedy Club. And I'm not being generic when I call it that – that's what the place was called, The New York Comedy Club.
I'll mention here that to get to this comedy club, Ross and I decided to take a walk through Central Park. It was winter and it was dark and kinda nippy outside with a light snow beginning to dust the landscape. I remember breaking several minutes of mutual silence by sighing and saying that "this could be a really romantic moment for the both of us if you were a girl that I had romantic feelings for."
Ross said nothing in response and although I can never be sure, I may have seen a tear form in his eye, spill onto his cheek, freeze and snap off.
We arrive at the darkened hole-in-the-wall club*** and get seated near the front of the stage, which is great for any live performance other than a comedy club, where I will almost assuredly be made fun of for one of any number of my obvious flaws.**** So they sit Ross and I right on top of this nice African-American couple (Jasmine and Clem) in what can only be described as an impossibly cramped seating area. Soon, a club hostess arrived at our table with two more patrons; this time with two pretty Madison Avenue girls. I looked at Ross and wondered why they were standing right here. We found out that the club wasn't done "filling the section". Apparently in New York, you haven't "filled the section" until you are wearing and sharing the clothes of all the people around you.
So Jasmine and Clem skootch over.
Ross and I skootch over.
The two (thankfully skinny) girls skootch in.
You'll notice that I mentioned the new girls were pretty and if you were paying attention to the previous section, you'll remember that I don't do well with "pretty people", so I imagine you're just waiting for the "stupid-thing-that-Adam-does" portion of the story. Well, I didn't do anything stupid, I kept my cool the entire night. I was "Fonzi-cool."
Fonzi's still cool right? Do the kids even say "cool" anymore?
The oddest thing though, is as we're laughing our heads off, I notice that every time one of the six showcased comedians said something embarrassing about gender differences, the more outgoing of the two girls leaned in real close to me, and laugh much louder than she was laughing before. She even gestured to me a couple of times and would turn to her friend and whisper something.
What the Hell is that? I mean, the stuff these comedians were saying was funny and all – but not the kind of stuff you want some cute 27-year-old to associate with you. I mean, how could she even know? For two hours, I felt like this girl was laughing directly at me. I just wanted to stand up and shout, "Listen lady, get off my back! I don't have romantic feelings for my dog, I only have two nipples not three, I have never taken a bath in blood, I've never smelled another man's armpit, I don't use the remote control like a caveman, and I do know the difference between a lily and a tulip!"
Actually, I don't know the difference between the two flowers, but this girl didn't know that and it irked me that she acted as if she did. And why me anyway? Ross is just as weird as I am.
I was so distraught that I had to take a potty break in between the fifth and sixth comic. I wasn't the only one with this plan apparently because there was a line as cramped as the seating area I had just retreated from. The reason I am relaying the details of my bathroom break is to make good on my afore mentioned embarrassing moment at the club that did not involve a girl; in fact it involved a comic.
There I was, standing in line waiting to "number 1", and off near the bathrooms was a small bar near the front entrance of the building. I guess it was the owner (or maybe the manager) of the N.Y. Comedy Club chatting with a schlumpy chap who seemed to be pretty well known in the place. Not famous, just the type to come around a lot. His name was Dave (a solid comedian name, if ever there was one) and in my time standing in line waiting for the toilet, I gathered that in the comedy club weekend circuit, if you're a comedian and you're looking for an unscheduled gig, you go to the club of your choice and wait to see how the scheduled comics go. If the fans are in a good mood and responsive, they give you one more comic (Dave) if it's a cold night, they don't (Dave goes home). Well, I guess we were a cold crowd because the owner/manager person was telling Dave that it didn't look good for him, that he might as well try again next weekend. Dave looked absolutely hangdog but he said, he'd appreciate it if he could just stick around until the sixth comedian finished.
This was a pitiful display, if ever I'd seen one. He looked so sad, like he really had nowhere else to go and all I kept thinking was that this guy couldn't possibly be funny in this condition. He looked like he was two martinis away from suicide, which last I checked, didn't make for good yuks.
Eventually, I scooted into the bathroom, did my business and tried to leave. I felt some resistance on the other side, so I reared back a bit and pushed the door open hard. This action was met immediately by a small grunt and whimper. Confused, I opened the door saw that Dave had moved closer to the bathroom and had just unwittingly spilled the entirety of his drink onto his sport coat.
I apologized, but my heart wasn't in it. What was he doing standing right in front of the bathroom anyway? Before, I had felt sorry for the guy, but now I had become kinda disgusted by him. He didn't even look at me, he just raised his hand in the air, waved to his owner/manager buddy and said, "I'll see ya next week, Kenny." And he left.
You gotta give Dave this much: that was pretty funny.
To be continued tomorrow with Part 4: "Willy-Nilly Adventure"
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* I inserted the term "pawchoockas" to mean "Eskimo baby". I however don't speak Eskimo and have no clue as to how accurate this term is, or if this term even exists at all in any language.
** She had a Southern accent and until I am told otherwise, all ladies with Southern accents are from Texas.
*** The best clubs are often described as holes-in-walls.
****Height.
Ears.
Skinny ankles.
Clothes.
Hair.
And so on.
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