Volume 13: Pete in NYC Part 2 - Occasionally going to sleep in the city that suggests you shouldn't
Day 2 – Observations about the inaccuracy of Ghostbusters II
I’d had a solid 3 hours sleep by the time I woke up at 2am, which I figured was more than enough for a city that never sleeps, and I should contemplate getting up and ready for the day. Okay, that’s a bit of creative license, as I had tried to get back to sleep for about an hour, but I had an alarm set for 5:30am to getup and watch my beloved Geelong Cats take on the Eagles in an all important semi final clash that would go a long way to determining who would be the world champions of the Australian Football League, so given I was just a short 2 and half hours away from that my brain was now in that “if I can’t get back to sleep in the next hour, then I’ll only have an hour and half of good sleep…which isn’t really good sleep so I really should get to sleep now…oh crap, I can’t stop thinking about trying to get to sleep which is ironically making it impossible for me to do the 1 thing I’m focusing on which is to get to sleep!”.
I switched on the TV in the hope that would distract me from the constant thought of trying to sleep, which would then help me to sleep (it’s a watched pot not boiling type thing). A constant ad that appeared on TV was for a product called Truvada, an AIDS “preventive” drug. It was a bizarre ad, that suggested the product was best suited for people at high risk of catching AIDS, but that risk just seemed to be increased by the product encouraging people not to use condoms because they’re using Truvada. And judging by the general theme and disclaimer at the end of the ad, their slogan is “Truvada: it might definitely maybe prevent you from getting HIV. Maybe”. Later on in the day on a train I would see an ad with the caption reading “I can’t believe they didn’t test me for Hep C”. Why? Because you’re a giant whore that bangs anything that says “hello” to you? Drug advertising in the US; both wrong and different.
I was then distracted by the Australia versus Spain Semi-final of the basketball World Cup, which was now happening in China.
Australia seemed well in control, with a double-digit lead, by the time I left the hotel to head to “The Australian” bar on 38thstreet just after 5:30am. I arrived 5 minutes into the AFL game and was happy to see about 10 other aussies foolish enough to be up this early to watch a game of football. I was tempted to question their Australianness when none of them was drinking a beer, so instead took it upon myself to act as our national ambassador by ordering a beer before breakfast. I’m not sure which took longer; the game or the young aussie barman attempting to change the Coopers keg after my 1stbeer. It was annoying that he was taking so long, but comforting to know his incompetence had been exported to a far off land and was less likely to impact me at future bars in Australia. The young aussie barman eventually gave up (Australia: if it’s too hard, it’s not worth doing. Why JFK would never have been able to launch a space program in Australia) and resorted to serving my Coopers in bottle form. The mighty Cats ended up winning so I left the bar a happy man, a feeling no doubt enhanced by the 4 beers, and was more than happy to pay the “party gratuity” of $8.75 that had found its way onto my bar tab without questioning it.
After the game I headed back to the hotel to dress more appropriately then my current 5:30am wear, namely to put on some shorts in anticipation of a long day of walking on a warm day. I couldn’t believe it when housekeeping knocked on the door at 9:50am. How was it possible hotel check-in was at 4pm given my room was going to conceivably be clean by 10am? That would be 6 hours of the room doing nothing. Unless the concierge had done a deal with a local pimp to rent the rooms by the hour to local hookers. In any case, I told housekeeping I would be gone shortly, and would be happy for them to change my sheets given I was in a hotel that as far as my imagination knew was renting rooms out to hookers by the hour.
My only real goal today was to head down to the old World Trade Center site. I hadn’t been back to New York in 12 years, but on previous visits in 2003, 2005 and 2007 the only progress I’d ever seen at the site was the digging of giant foundations. Given I’d listened to an audio tour on top of the Empire State Building in 2005 which informed me it went up in just over a year (410 days for those playing at home), 4 years to just dig a hole seemed like inadequate progress.
I walked down to Port Authority Bus Terminal to do some reconnaissance of a bus I would need to catch out to New Jersey tomorrow and to catch a train down to the World Trade Center. Port Authority Bus Terminal is on 8th avenue, so I made my way across to 8th avenue via Times Square. 8th avenue borders Hell’s Kitchen, or should I say acts as a gateway to Hell as you do notice a change in the appearance of the people in this part of town which suggests they may not have made the best decisions in life. You head downtown to find Penn station on 34th street in the Garment District. Judging by the people loitering around Penn station, those garments were not manufactured in this district, but definitely stolen by some of the residence of the district. The people were down on their luck, in the way a poker player who has lost 1,000 straight hands and bet his shirt AND pants and is now wearing a shirt and pants they found in a dumpster type down on their luck.
I survived the Penn station to board a downtown train to the World Trade Center. They may not have achieved much in the 3 times I’d visited the site previously, but what they’d done now was quite impressive. The giant remembrance pools now located at the foot of the old twin towers with the waterfalls built to drown out the sound of the city to give you time to contemplate the tragedy are a very effective at getting you to think and contemplate. Like contemplate the appropriateness of so many people taking selfies on the location where over 2,000 people died. Also contemplate whether to do a joke on the new Freedom Tower asking why they named the tower after a George Michael song.
Next, I headed towards Wall street (no one was jumping out of office windows, so I figured the market was up) and then further onto Battery Park for a view of the Statue of Liberty. Its at Battery Park you realise just how far offshore the Statue of Liberty is. So far offshore that there’s no way in Ghostbusters II they accurately reflect the great distance she allegedly covered in a short period of time to save the day. There’s no way she’s making that trip inside of the duration of the movie. The human brain: can happily suspend disbelief when it comes to a movie with ghosts, but can’t when it comes to inaccurate representations of the distance covered by a walking giant monument in the same movie. Mental.
From Battery Park, I tried to walk as close to the East River as possible, with the goal of hopefully getting some great and varied views of the Brooklyn Bridge. It was Pier 17 I found the most visually pleasing views at the Heineken River Deck. I thought it not overly wise to have another beer at the river deck for fear the combination of a comfortable seat, a cold beer and a great view would lead to my ass being firmly planted for an extended period of time, which was not conducive to my plan to continue to walk and see the city. Also 4 beers before breakfast let alone before noon was probably the right amount (something I’m sure someone in AA has said at some point to justify their drinking habits. These are not thought patterns you want to share). In addition to the Brooklyn Bridge catching my attention, was an ad from New York Presbyterian Hospital saying they’re #1. Seemed an odd thing for a hospital to boast. Just short of saying “you’ll be happy you were involved in an industrial accident that severed your leg off at New York Presbyterian Hospital. We’re #1 baby!”.
Content that I’d taken in enough of the views, I headed back in towards the city, with the goal of walking all the way back to my hotel on 45th street as I find walking a city is the best way to discover it and make great accidental discoveries that aren’t listed on any website that lists “the 10 best things to do”. Now, if you haven’t been to New York City before, it’s hard to describe the size of it. As I was at pier 17, it was probably at least 15 blocks just to get to 1st street, and from there a mere 44 blocks to 45th street. There are not many cities in the world you can say you’re about to walk 60 blocks and still fill in the heart of the city at each block. This is the great size of New York City, and the greatness of New York City.
My first discovery as I continued walking was Washington Square Park, with the most notable feature being the Washington Square Arch. If you haven’t seen it, think Arc de Triomphe, but after it’s been through the wash and shrunk. Don’t get me wrong, it’s quite impressive, but I get the feeling had the Arc de Triomphe had the same dimensions Napoleon would have seen to it the architect made his way in front of a firing squad. The Washington Square Arch was built to commemorate 100 years since the inauguration of George Washington as president. I’d like to think if such a monument was built in a cricket playing nation like Australia, it would not be an arch but simply a statue of Washington raising his bat to acknowledge the 100. Back in the day they used to have rap freestyle battles in the park, which sadly no longer exist due to the man shutting them down, as I’m sure I would have dominated.
I continued on from the park walking in the general direction of 45th street. At some point on 5th Avenue I was greeted by a fellow asking if I was Jewish, most likely to survey me or ask me to join some group. Being circumcised I was tempted to drop my strides and say “no, but I’m well on my way to getting there” but thought better of it and boringly replied “no” and kept walking.
I eventually made my way back to the hotel late in the afternoon, tired and sore, but now far enough removed from those 4 pre-breakfast beers to think having a beer was a great idea. Back in my hotel room, I put some pants on, before departing to go get some dinner. By now it was dark, so I made my way to Bar 54; a bar on the 54th floor of the hotel. It was there I paid $15 to enjoy a million-dollar view, with Times Square to my right and the Chrysler Building off in the distance to the left. The common theme of the people I talked to at that bar was that one of their kids was going to have to forfeit college in order for them to afford the drinks in this bar. Thankfully, I had no children’s future to mortgage away on these drinks, but still had psychological discomfort with spending $15 for a beer so moved on to nearby Connolly’s Pub and restaurant.
At Connolly’s it was only $8 for a beer and the place had a great vibe so I had a feeling this was going to be a good night. I originally sat down by myself enjoying my discounted beer watching the St Louis versus Milwaukee baseball game. Some fat bald bastard sitting in the crowd was hit by a foul ball that the catcher initially thought he could catch, which ultimately proved to be wrong as the gravitational pull from the fat bastard drew the ball into his orbit before crash landing on him. That may sound harsh, but hard to feel sorry for someone who isn’t a double amputee who can’t make a simple catch.
I had maybe another beer before heading upstairs to see if I could find a seat by the bar, making it easier to initiate a conversation with people. I may have forfeited a million-dollar view by leaving Bar 54, but that was soon replaced by a priceless view of a super-hot Latina woman. My goodness! When I first saw her the lyrics “some men die for less” from 2 Live Crew’s “With your badself” echoed around in my head. A thousand poets writing for a thousand years couldn’t describe the beauty of this woman (most likely because they would trip over their tongue, crash into a wall and knock themselves out every time they thought about her). She was sitting with what normally would be considered a smoking hot blonde, but because she was sitting next to this super-hot Latina she looked ordinary. I think this has something to do with Einstein’s theory of relativity; a woman will seem less or more hot relative to how hot the woman she’s talking to is. The super-hot Latina and “ordinary” blonde were at first talking entirely in Spanish. Oh why oh why did I not learn more Spanish than “non habla espanol” and “una cerveza por favor”! Why when I was watching all of those episodes of Narcos did I only learn “puta”! The Spanish word for “whore” was not going to help me here! It didn’t help that super-hot Latina and “ordinary” blonde were having a heart to heart in which both were crying. It could surely only help if she was crying about how she couldn’t meet a bald man with a beer gut that couldn’t speak Spanish (My god, I held my gut in the entire time I was sitting there, it would have been the equivalent of doing 1,000 sit ups).
Then it happened. They say “you never know your luck in the big city”; New York is a big city. The “ordinary” blonde must have heard me talking to the barmen and turned to ask me where I was from. Now I was simply not a bald man with a beer gut, but an exotic foreigner from a far-off island in the pacific. The ice was broken, I was now somehow talking to the “ordinary” blonde and super-hot Latina! The “ordinary” blonde was Swedish (no, I’m not making this up), but had spent several years in Spain so was now fluent in Spanish and had spent much of her conversation with the super-hot Latina correcting her Spanish. The super-hot Latina was an American from Brooklyn. Anyways, at some point I suggested we should do shots and the night slowly blurred into more shots. I can’t remember how the night ended, all I know is I managed to somehow not propose to the super-hot Latina. That’s amazing discipline.
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