"If you are lucky enough to have lived in New York as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for New York is a moveable feast." -Ernest Hemingway (updated for the 21st century)

Sunday, December 30, 2007

From Worse to, um, Worser

The Story So Far....

Dan was never really sure what he had with Kim, but whatever it was, it's over now. Jayson, the instigator of all this nonsense, has been fired from his job at the hostel. So that's that. Or is it? Read on....

Every wednesday JOTP puts on a pub crawl of upper west side bars. All the stuff with kim and so on happened on wednesday morning, so that night I was looking to get wrecked. It's the only sane response, right?
Also, Harold1 was making his trademark apple martinis2 in the cafe bar: a couple of those and you feel very unwound....
So I was sat in the cafe bar, drinking beers, chasing them down with these apple martinis, chilling out with coco.
The time comes around for the pub crawl to start -and I realize just how tired I am. In the morning i'd walked 50 blocks, in the afternoon i'd been dogwalking... and all on, like, 3 hours sleep
So I think, fuck it, i'll just stupefy myself right here, maybe play some nintendo, go to bed.
Meanwhile the rest of my friends, except for coco, head out.
Two of the guys, Chris and Uwe have been drinking apple martinis... washed down with Colt 45s3. I can't believe they're drinking that shit -i'm like, what is this, Compton?
They're arseholed already, and they haven't even started the crawl....
They leave, me and coco chill, eventually the matter of having a smoke arises.
So I look for my coat... and I can't find it.
No, I think, surely not
But it isn't anywhere in the cafe bar, and since coming back from dogwalking I hadn't left except to go outside and smoke or to go to the loo. Of that I'm 100% positive.
The coat HAS to be there somewhere
The only other alternative is that someone took it -and my wallet is in that coat. And in that wallet is the $200 I took out of the ATM earlier in the day.
Man, I can't believe that someone has taken my stuff again -not after what happened the day before!
WTF?!?!
So I go over to the front desk tell them what's happened, start shooting off my mouth that there was $200 in the wallet, that if it doesn't get found i'll call the cops; harold starts to check the security cameras....
Then I go for a cigarette and have a word with myself.
I expunge the outrage and try to think with a clear head.
I have an idea of what might have happened.
Chris and I have quite similar coats: long grey woolen overcoats -Mourinhos.4 Sometimes, invariably when one or other of us gets drunk, we get them mixed up. One time I put my wallet in chris's pocket by accident and tore the cafe bar apart looking for it until I realized my mistake.
Sketchy, I know.
Was it possible Chris had put on my coat by mistake and gone on the pub crawl?
I'm trying to call those guys -no answer.
Coco goes down to the pub where they're at.
Still can't get through.
Harold is just about to drive me down there in Knight Rider, when Chris calls. He is very, very drunk:
“Dude, I got your coat.”
“Oh! Thank god-”
“But your wallet's not in it.”
“Shit! Could you have dropped it?”
“Nah man it wasn't in here, I wouldn't have put it on if your wallet was in the pocket.”
I tell him to put coco on the line, and I tell coco to grab chris and retrace his exact steps to the bar.
But i've already written off getting the wallet back. A fully loaded wallet dropped on the sidewalk at 11pm at night in new york? I bet it got swiped before it hit the ground.
So I have a drink instead.
But 5 minutes later, my phone rings. It's chris. My wallet's been found. Rachel and Uwe found it on the floor of the bar, and handed it in to the barman.5
I get coco to bring it back pronto. All the money's still there, and the cards.
Waves of relief.
But after another adrenalin fix, I don't feel tired no more. I stay up longer with coco. Eventually coco goes to bed. After a bit longer (it's maybe 1.30 by this point) I follow suit.
But halfway up the stairs to my room I stop.
A voice in my head (I like to think it was the voice of the apple martini) says,
“Heeeeey, why you go to bed now, loser? Why no go ding dongs, have one more drink, eh? Eh?”6
So, foolishly, I listen to the voice, walk back down the stairs and out the hostel -to ding dongs.

(I'd just like to say here that everything that happens from here on is recalled through the fug of an alcohol haze.)

OK. Jane and chris are still at ding dongs. Chris is completely gone. Jane is not too far behind. And i'm fairly toasted myself.
So it's business as usual for a wednesday.
I get a drink in for me and jane. Jane's talking about how unimpressed she is with american men -the constantly being hit on (I think I wrote a footnote bout that in a previous post).
Eventually, Jane and I are the only jazz heads left in the place. Jane is explaining to these drunk guys at the bar how cup size is calculated, and they are getting a bit fixated on her boobs7, so I'm like “Hometime, Janey!”
I walk her back to the staff basement [at the time I lived with the guests in the other building, i'm in the basement at the time of writing], and the weather is filthy (wind and freezing rain), so I go inside for a bit and we end up chilling out in her bunk.
Let me say right now: Nothing happened.8
Just a lot of giggling and Carry On9 style bawdiness.
We wake up shannon, who's in the bunk below, but rather than be pissed off, she joins in with the silliness.
The three of us get louder and louder -and wake up the other person in the room, Maria.
Now she IS pissed off.
So shannon suggests that me and jane come and join her in her bed.
Ah ha ha ha.
So me and jane get into bed with shannon.
(we were all three of us fully clothed -NOTHING HAPPENED)
I was on the outside edge of the bed, so I said: “What the fuck's going on here? The dude should be between the two chicks, everyone knows that.”
So Jane shifts over: it's shannon, me, Jane.
Really, nothing happened10, just more silliness.
(I think at one point we made sex-noise! O.M.G.!)
Poor maria couldn't sleep with all that going on, and when she complained next, I told her that she lived in a hostel so she should just deal with it, or words to that effect (this was the apple martini talking again)
She left the room in tears
Not my finest hour11
Now let me tell you something about Shannon
She has a thing with another member of staff, who also lives in the basement, Darryl
I'm not going to speculate as to the nature of their relationship, as it's none of my business
but let's just say that Darryl feels a certain protectiveness for Shannon
So ask shannon if me being in her bed is going to be cool
And she's like, “Sure, it'll be fine, and nothing's going on is there?”12
And that was good enough for me
Now maria's not in the room, we don't feel like we have to be quiet anymore
We get louder and louder
I think at some point someone hammers on the wall of the room.
The next thing I remember clearly is a bunch of guys are in the room
(I don't see them because I have the sheet pulled up over my head!)
But I hear their voices: I can make out two distinctly
One is Big B's: “Hey dan you gotta go back to your own room, get back to the other building.”
The other, I assume, is Darryl's: “WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON IN HERE?!”So this is it, I think, I'm finally going to my ass whupped
Is this the end for little danny spencer?
But the hands i'm expecting to drag me out of the bed never come
One way or the other, I don't know how, the guys go
And shortly after that I pass out -it must be 4am by then
(Did I mention that I had to work the next day -or, rather, later that day- at 6.30am in the cafe bar, on my own?)
But i'd already cleverly set my alarm for six
Less cleverly, when the alarm goes, I turn it off and give myself “10 more minutes”
The next time I wake up it's 8am
I'm an hour and a half late for work
And because i'm on my own, there's no one to cover for me
And breakfast is the busiest time at the cafe bar -i'm picturing a long line of angry guests clamouring for their free breakfast, and no one there to serve it to them
Oh shit, I think, I'm fired
So I jump out of bed and get my shit together
Two things I can't find: my glasses and my coat
I look for a good two or three minutes, but I can't find em, it's crazy
I'm still drunk though, ha ha
so I tear over to the cafe bar, ready to face the music
But when I get there, there's no queue, no pissed off guests
Valentina and Steve-o -bless them, bless them!- have opened up for me and are working the bar
I can't believe it -what absolute stars!
My ass has been saved yet again by my most excellent friends, who I've only known a month or so
There's some real good people in the world, y'know?
They even give me some time to drink a shit load of water, coffee, smoke a cigarette and generally get my head straight
It's during this time that davey comes in, sits down.
I know davey lives in the basement, so I figure I better go over and apologize.
So I do.
But he says: “It's not me you should be apologizing to, it's Darryl.”
Me: “Is he mad?”
Davey: “He was last night.”
Me: “I know it looked bad, but honestly, nothing was going on it was completely innocent.”
Davey: “It's not me you've got to tell....”
So, I'm thinking, great -i wonder if Darryl will let me get a word in before I get my clock cleaned.
But then I think, I've done nothing wrong -the truth will out!
And then, finally, I start work.
Apart from all this the other thing that's preying on my mind is where my coat's at -because my wallet is in there (I hope!)
I want to go back over to the basement, but I figure I need someone with 20/20 vision to help me
(couldn't find my specs either, remember?)
So I ask my friend bobby if he'll come over and help me look when the cafe bar quiets down
but the cafe bar is really busy for some reason, wouldntchaknow
so I ask bobby if he wouldn't mind going and seeing if he could find it for me
He's back in 5 minutes
He tells me I must have been really drunk when I woke up (and I was13) because my coat was right there on the next bunk
So I'm like, “Really? I was looking all over for it, shit!”
He hands it over and I check my wallet's there; it is.
I put it in my jeans pocket -not letting that baby out of my sight again!
Then I go back to work
At some point I decide I want a soda from the machine
So I get my wallet out, open it up
All my money, $200 dollars, is gone
At some point between going to dingdongs and me getting my coat back, someone lifted the money out of my wallet.
I've been robbed!
Holy fucking shit
What else can go wrong? Find out next time....

TO BE CONTINUED....
1 Harold works at the front desk. He's from the bronx and epitomizes the new york character. He's the sweetest guy in the world, but if you cross him... well, I won't go into details, but the first time I got a ride in his, er, ride (a black SUV with blacked out windows called knight rider; he's getting the red flashing strip) I had to move an aluminium baseball bat from my seat.
Me (dryly): Hey Harold, I didn't know you played baseball.
Harold (chuckling): Just don't lose my weapon, nigga.

2 I don't know exactly what goes into these, but he sells them for $5 a pop and boy they are strong. They're radioactive green too. They are some kind of ghetto concoction anyway; they're name checked in a Wu Tang track, Wolves: “My force might blur, the Porsche'll purr/The apple martini, of course it's stirred”

3 AKA Malt Liquor AKA Liquid Crack. Ice Cube's character in Boyz N The Hood always had one in his hand. The US equivalent of Special Brew or Tenant's Super. Nasty nasty.

4 After the iconic grey armani overcoat Jose Mourinho wore in his first two seasons as manager of Chelsea FC.

5 This is an example of how drunk these guys were: not only did they not realise the wallet was mine, even after looking at my bank card, they saw my initials “D.J.” -and thought the wallet must belong to the DJ who works at the bar! Oh. My. God. Nincompoops! Imbeciles!

6 The voice of the apple martini is the same as the voice of “Chico”, my evil mexican alter-ego. I'll tell ya'll about Chico another day.

7 When Jane gets drunk, she goes a bit crazy as far as her boobs are concerned. She is size G, and these guys at the bar were like: “Whoa! I didn't even know they went up to G!”

8 No, really, nothing happened!

9 For the benefit of non-uk readers, the “Carry On” films, were a series of films made in england in the 60's and 70's characterised by sexual innuendo laden humour: Here's an example, from Carry On Doctor (I can't believe I can quote this shit from memory):

A blonde, pretty nurse [Barbara Windsor, back in the day] with a, ahem, “full chest” is walking up the hospital concourse. She is being admired by a couple of ambulance drivers. Driver #2 is eating a pear.

DRIVER#1 (to DRIVER #2): Cor!

The nurse shimmies by.

NURSE (to DRIVER #2): Nice pear?

DRIVER #2: You took the words right out of my mouth!

(ba-dum, tsch!)

1 0 Though the next day a rumor was going round that we'd had a threesome, and I didn't exactly shoot it down in flames right away, y'know?

1 1 A couple days later I bought her some flowers by way of apology; we're good. She's back in denmark now. Miss you maria!

1 2 See?

1 3 Shannon had to guide me to the bathroom. Oh dear oh dear.

Friday, December 28, 2007

Dramatis Personae

While i've been writing the next part of the story (nearly done!) i've also been learning how to do "advanced" things with the blog
like streaming a slideshow from flickr, so ya'll can put some faces to the names i mention in the story
So up in the left hand corner you should be able to see a little box with ever changing pictures of the players, main and bit part, in the story
not everyone is up there yet, i am scouring facebook for pics
if you get named in the blog, expect to see your little face up there! :-)

Monday, December 24, 2007

The End of the Affair

The story so far....
Dan has bored the shit out of his readers by posting about a gig when he should be spilling the dirt on his so-called private life. I mean, who wants to hear about once-in-a-lifetime gigs, right? People wanna hear the bad stuff, it’s human nature.
Hasn't what happened to kathi slaked your thirst for human misery, you muthafucking vultures!
So, last time, Dan was walking toward the lower east side, walking and thinking, thinking and walking, waiting for his confrontation with kim....

After walking for, like, 50 blocks i decide i’d better get the subway over to brooklyn.
for once the subway gods are with me and i arrive early
so i sit on the stoop of kim’s building drinking coffee like a total loser
eventually she comes down and we walk and talk[1]

She doesn’t want me to come up to her room, which is obviously a Bad Sign
So our conversation happens in the street, and ends up in burger king –i thought it appropriate, seeing as i’ve been dumped in one of those before[2]

Without going into too much detail, kim gives me the “let’s be friends” spiel
She’s setting up a business, doesn’t want this right now etc etc
On top of that, she thinks i’m a jekyll-and-hyde because of the previous day's antics
Doesn’t matter if i swear to her i’m not –and i’m not, right?- she’s only known me a few weeks and we’ve only dated a few times
And she’s had plenty of guys spin her similar bullshit in the past
So she’d rather just be friends
But it’s here that something strange happens
Normally i’d be like “OK, let’s be friends”
But out of nowhere I say,” No i don’t wanna be your friend”
Whether this is NY Dan or something else, i don’t know[3]
But i’m like, “Kim I’m an all or nothing guy. I found the whole casual relationship, dating thing really confusing. I mean, how often should you see someone, call them on the phone? Can you see other people? Are you supposed to negotiate this stuff at the start? It’s bullshit, really. So here’s the deal: either we have a relationship or we don’t see each other at all. I’m not gonna become one of these guys [and she has a few across the country] who are your friends, when really what they want is to be with you. I did that shit in my early twenties, and i promised myself i wouldn’t go back there again. That kind of stuff is OK, maybe even necessary, when you’re 21, but now i’m pushing 31. I’m too old for all that nonsense.”
So kim says, “Well I really don’t want a relationship right now.”
Me: “OK then, I guess this is goodbye.”[4]
I give her the headphones –i was glad to be rid of the bloody things, they’d caused me nothing but grief- and she gives me back the mini speakers i’d lent to her.[5]

The whole conversation is very civilized –i actually feel quite cheery, to be honest. We really haven’t known each other long enough for it to be a huge deal.
There’s only one time it gets heated –on the question of trust.
Kim : “You shouldn’t trust people unless you want to get fucked over.”
Me: “I’m always going to trust people Kim. That’s who i am. I’d rather trust people than not.”
Kim: “That’s fine if you want to be like that, but not when it’s with someone else’s stuff.”
And I have to concede that she was right on that point.[6]

So we run out of things to say, and i walk her back to her apartment; a hug goodbye and a kiss on the cheek
The vibe is really quite cool, kind of “the timing was wrong, it’s a shame”
We agree that in maybe a few months time, when we’re both more settled, we could try dating again or something
And that was that
On the subway back to manhattan, i feel a little glum. The dating thing aside, Kim is the person i’ve known for longest in new york and we’d been through some trauma together[7]
But now all that shit was over
So i decide to cheer myself up with a bit of retail therapy.
I get off the subway at 34th and 8th, withdraw $250 from HSBC[8] and go to B&H
B&H is this electronics store, run by orthodox jews. Practically everybody there is jewish!
It’s a really great store, a tech-heads wet dream, and the staff are super friendly and knowledgeable
But then I have word with myself and decide that purchase buying a digital camera without checking my bank balance is probably pretty stupid
So I go home instead, tell my friends what’s happened
And they tell me Jayson has been fired9
And at the time I felt vindicated -he loses job, I lose girl; all's fair in love and war, right?
The way I saw it then was, if he hadn't taken the headphones then I wouldn't have got mad, and if he'd left me alone I wouldn't have got REALLY mad and had to leave in the middle of my shift; management wouldn't have needed to know, and I wouldn't have got shirty with kim, because I wouldn't have been so wound up.
Now? I don't know. Someone should have put the brakes on.
Because we haven't reached the nadir yet, oh no
Cause and effect, my friends, cause and effect....

TO BE CONTINUED....
[1] I’d just like to say, for the benefit of past and future girlfriends, that i am not usually so candid about my personal relationships. Discretion is my watchword! But in order to get the context right for the shitstorm that happens next, it’s necessary. And besides kim is writing an autobiography –she’s had an interesting life- and i figure if she’s prepared to make her life public domain for money (maybe), then she can’t really complain if i choose to make mine public domain, for free. And i might as well get my side of things in first –attack is the best form of defense (as my chess/RTS opponents will attest)! I’ve tried to be as honest about conversations as my not-so-great memory will allow, and any text messages i quote are taken verbatim from my phone.

[2] If you’re reading this, you know who you are!

[3] I like to think this is my subconscious mind in action, saving my ass (yet again). I’ve bored too many people with my obsession with the subconscious, but i’ve gotta say once again, it’s an incredible thing. It’s like having a super smart, super wise version of yourself looking over your shoulder, giving you a nudge at just the right moments.

[4] This is obviously a contraction of a longer conversation.

[5] At the time of writing she still owes me $50 i lent her when she was completely penniless, and Maus by Art Spiegelman (we have a shared interest in the holocaust). I don’t expect to see the book or the money again. You’ll see why.

[6] But I didn’t (and still don’t) agree with her on the general issue of trust. She’s not alone in this opinion. I’ve lost count of the number of people who’ve said to me “Trust no one”. But I’m like, “Trust no one? Gimme a break. What is this, the fucking X-files?”

[7] Back when we were just friends, we had a nightmare day schlepping her stuff (three suitcases) around the city by subway. And when she moved back to NY, i went with her looking at some of the grottiest apartments in manhattan. Man, some of those places were crack dens!

[8] HSBC may be up there with the most evil fucks on the planet, but banking with them has certain advantages for the international traveller. Like a preferential exchange rate and no ATM fee. So i always try to withdraw from their machines. Also I would never walk around manchester with that amount of cash on me. But Manhattan is easily the safest place i’ve ever lived, and i’m including Sudbury AND Long Melford. I’ve walked across Manhattan Island, 50 odd blocks, at 4am on a Sunday morning high as a kite on morphine and never once felt in danger. (I’ll save the morphine story for another time).

9 I found out later that they'd been looking to fire jayson for a number of reasons. What happened with me just gave them the pretext. So it wasn't totally down to me.

Friday, December 21, 2007

Kathi is free -free!

Kathi has been let out of jail -thank fuck
they let her out yesterday night and I saw her in the afternoon
she looked pretty chipper for someone who hadn't drank, ate, or slept in 32 hours
they build em tough in Hungary!

man what happened is fucked up
I won't go into too much detail as it's not my story, but here are some highlights

it wasn't the cops who got her it was the central park rangers. let me tell you something about the central park rangers. They may have removed just about every physical requirement to join the NYPD, a la police academy1 but you need to at least have a college education. The rangers are basically cop wannabes who are too dumb to get into college. And they hate dog walkers. They know how much dog walkers get paid -at least 3 or 4 times as much an hour as they do. (or in kathi's case 15 or 16 times as much). But they've given these jokers handcuffs and mace. So now they think they're the fucking NYPD. One day someone's gonna give them guns and there's gonna be a bloodbath in central park!

The ranger who tried to bust kathi put hands on her. kathi was walking 11 dogs at the time, she's the pack leader, and one of the dogs didn't like to see the leader getting hassled. So she bit the ranger (i'd guessed something like that had happened). Just a nip apparently.

The bitten ranger calls in back up. And when I say back up, I mean 3 cars and about 12 more rangers. 9 of whom restrain kathi.

Kathi is wearing a backpack in which she carries Rusty, a miniature dachshund (so cute!2) when his little legs get tired. He nearly gets crushed in the melee.

Kathi gets maced, FUCKING MACED, while she is being restrained by these 9 ogres

motherfuckers! fascists!

but oh dear oh dear -they messed with the wrong dog walker. You know what I said about new yorkers being the nicest people in the world, just don't cross them?
well kathi may be hungarian but she's lived in new york for 22 years
she is gonna FUCK THEM UP!
she has got a lot of powerful friends, clients and ex-clients
i'm talking lawyers (a LOT of lawyers) journalists, celebrities(!)
she's gonna take it as far as she can, sue their fucking asses, take it to the press
they will rue the day!
go go kathi!!!

1 I've seen some right sweetchucks in uniform. I wanted to take some pics, but prob not a v clever idea....

2 here is a picture of his lordship in his backpack:






Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Hungarian Martyr

Just spoke to the client who's acting as contact with kathi
she has yet to be arraigned
they can hold her for 72 hours like that if they want
and there's nothing we can do -there's no point even hiring a lawyer until she's arraigned
apparently the assistant DAs are all fresh out of law school and don't know what to do with a case like hers
jesus christ
i should go to the new york post with this, they eat up stories about police abuse of power -i'm sure gonna sound kathi out about it when they finally release her
meantime she is refusing to eat or drink anything while she's in there
i can understand that when it comes to the food, but if she doesn't drink anything for 72 hours she'll send herself to the emergency room
but she is hungarian and stubborn!
hopefully they will release her before then, watch this space....

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Oh man now i really don't believe this shit

This is a stop press post
on top of all the shit that's been going down with me (of which i've yet to get to the heart), Kathi, my dogwalking boss, friend, hero, teacher and all round good, honest, kind, trusting person got MACED, CUFFED, ARRESTED and is right now downtown in a police cell with all kinds of scum. (anyone who has read bonfire of the vanities will know what that's like) because she was caught in central park with dogs off the leash
that's right
dogs. off. the. muthafucking. leash
in central park you are not allowed dogs off the leash after 9am
kathi, because she enjoys her job so much, loves the dogs so much, and has the dogs so well trained they are never, ever a problem, sometimes overruns
and this time the cops nailed her
i only found out because i got a call from one of her clients
the fucking cops, on top of everything else, took the dogs, these pampered upper west side pooches, to the fucking dog pound
jesus fucking christ
the client called me because he needed my help to work out which dogs belonged to who
luckily for kathi her clients are rich -and three are lawyers, one is a criminal barrister
the real damage could be to the business
we'll have to see, watch this space....
fuckin NYPD man
Macing a dogwalker????
that shit is fucked up

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Music Soothes The Savage Beast

The story so far....

In the space of 24 hours Dan has managed to burn one kind-of friendship, and (probably) one (possibly) potential relationship -over a set of headphones!


i think we need to see a picture of these fucking things:





(I just got this pic off amazon -guess how much they cost? Not $70 [maybe they did back in the day] $14.95! ha ha ha! This shit just gets dumber and dumber). On with the show....


The next day I wake up early. Very early. 5am early.[1]
I lie in bed, thinking about the craziness of the past 24 hrs
Is this really my life?
I’m meeting Kim at 10am, her place, Brooklyn
And I think we all know what the conclusion to that conversation will be
But I’m like, what the hell –I’m 30 now, it’s not the first time I’ve had to go meet a girl just to get canned
But I can’t sleep either, my mind is overclocking
So I decide to get up and head downtown
It’s still dark out, and cold
I walk to the subway, ride it down to the Rockefeller center, have a walk round the plaza
The sun is coming up, it’s a clear day, so I head east to watch it rise over the east river, Brooklyn
I’m thinking I could walk to Brooklyn over the Brooklyn bridge[2] maybe
But let me tell you –that is a serious walk
But I like to walk
I do my best thinking while I’m walking
My legs drive the crankshaft that turns the cogs in my brain
So I set off, put the cursed headphones on
Yes, I have them with! (I shudder to think what kim would have done to me had I shown up without them –the word eviscerate springs to mind)
Figure I might as well get one last use out of the fuckers –they’re good headphones (even if they’re not worth $70)
I get some soothing Erykah Badu on the wee ipod shuffle, and set off.


Now might be a good time -as I head towards 1st Avenue, the UN building and so on- to tell ya’ll about this amazing gig me and my friends went to the Sunday before all this shit kicked off
I’ve been having fun and doing cool stuff too!
But I can’t really do justice to how great this gig was –I’ve got to hand over to my man chris (AKA stoney jackson) who sorted the tickets etc and knows of what he speaks when it comes down to east coast hip-hop.
The day after the gig he sat down at his mac and wrote this stream-of-consciousness piece that has what it was like to be at that night fucking NAILED.
Here it is (I’ll be continuing my story once I’ve got a computer –it’s on its way!- and I don’t have to try and write this shit piecemeal on other peoples’ laptops/internet cafes):

"hey guys,

I'm writing this partly to share, partly to make sure i recollect every detail i can of what was without doubt the best concert i have ever been to in my life. Stones Throw Tour featuring Madlib & Karriem Riggins as Supreme Team , J Rocc , Peanut Butter Wolf, Percee P, & Guilty Simpson Now some of you out there might not alot of these artists, but thats ok, you will recognize some of them by the end of the piece.


We arrive at this small club down in the meatpacking district about 8:30 or so, called the highline ballroom. Walk in and crowd is small but you know its getting bigger, this is new york, people party LATE. Order a drink, there's some dude getting photos with someone over there, oh yeah must be some local legend. On comes the first dj spinning some crazy 80s psychedelic funk, crowd feels it a bit, I'm loving it, out comes peanut butter wolf just chillin on stage. After about 45 minutes its time for his set to be up, and guess who it is? None other than Baron Zen, a great DJ with a lot of work done on the stones throw podcast for example. Nice, nice I'm thinking.


So PBW starts spinning some tunes, and on comes Percee P, high as a mutherfucker, in fact so high all he could do was play tracks off his cd and tell us how dope they were. PBW is saying to him "man, you could at least rap WITH the tracks". But he's too high, no show. Wow, that guy's high. Next up, MED comes out on stage, WTF? MED wasn't meant to play tonight! But there he is, PBW spinning, MED rapping, me dancing, everything is doing nice. Then Guilty Simpson comes on with MED and they do a few duets. Oh shit man this is TIGHT! Once MED is done with his shit he leaves, and Guilty Simpson decides its time to do the ultimate tribute to J Dilla. Spits the most vicious lyrics over Dillas tracks man all I could do was throw my hands in the air and jump around like a madman. This maybe went on for close to an hour, Guilty finishes his shit, PBW says J-Rocc is on his way but flight is delayed. No worries, we still got madlib to come on.


Then this crew who I've never heard of jumps on. This insane guy called CXTronics, promoting his new shit Crak Attack. This guy produces more weird sounds from his mpc then I've ever heard in my life, and him and his two bros basically beat each other up on stage while playing this cray head fuck music. They get booed at the end but man people are fucked, that set was tight as prom night. I go over to the bar and one of the MCs, Sup (soup) is at the bar, we chat, exchange numbers, he says come back soon, we'll do some blunts. Ok i hear you my man! CXTronics gives me a badge, we chat, back to the crew.


Percee P storms back on stage, not so high this time, and absolutely KILLS IT. Spitting some of the freshest shit I've had the pleasure of hearing, the whole crowd is bouncing and banging and just lovin the whole episode unfold. PBW grabs his DVD turntables and spins what has to be the most amazing old skool/golden age/reggae set I've ever seen, scratching and juggling not only the music, but their film clips too, sheer madness. I turn to my buddy, dude this shit is off the HOOK! We are dancing our asses off the whole time, screaming, drinking, partying, hugging, snapping pics left and right, oh man are you feeling it? Suddenly, J-Rocc appears, oh yeah baby lets get this shit on the new level. He's spinning, juggling, throwing beats around like an italian throwing a pizza dough in the air, pure magic. The crowd is feeling it, place is packed, time to go find Sup....


Suddenly madlib comes on. OMFG! the dude who was standing next to me at the beginning of the night! That was fucking MADLIB! DOH DOH DOH DOH! J-Rocc is spinning, Madlib is rhyming, I'm blunting it up with Sup right at the front of stage, can this shit get any better? I think I've reached heaven, but we're only halfway there yet.....


Madlib absolutely tears it up on stage man, and Jerry, HE DID THE MUTHERFUCKING RED! dude, are you hearing me, THE RED! Live! ooooh weee! I am jumping around, my dilla shirt on, my cxtronix badge on, drink and blunt in my hand, life is the peak of everything. He finishes his MC set, then hits the turntables. Thats when Karriem Riggins comes on, and starts playing the drum-kit on stage, reserved all night for something big.... madlib spinning jazz, karriem playing the mad beats, people chilling on stage with all sorts of rhythm instruments, tambourines etc. Everyone is nodding their heads or shaking their ass.


Suddenly, the music stops, madlib walks to the mic, I look around, maybe 100 or so people left. Madlib starts to speak, "hey y'all, we got a special guest in the house tonight". Everyone screams DOOM! MF DOOM! naw naw doom aint here tonight, someone else. Who the fuck could it be? Out walks this fine looking girl,


OH. MY. GOD. ERYKAH BADU! ERYKAH FUCKING BADU!


she starts singing and my body turns to a pool of jelly. I'm high, drunk, rocking it to Erykah Badu with Madlib & J-Rocc on the turntables. This shit is just soaring into the sky man, what the fuck is going on? Erykah, you beautiful woman, I want you to have my babies, I want to run away with you to a special place and live our lives out being beautiful together. She sings for like 45 minutes, new shit featuring madlib as producer, old classics, man that girl commands respect when she performs. And I'm standing 5-10 m from stage with my jaw dropping, my feet moving, heart pumping, high fives are going around everywhere, I turn, man I cannot believe the shit I am seeing! I cannot think of anything more that can be done.


But theres more. PETE ROCK makes an appearance, and spits a few lyrics of his own. Holy fucking shit guys, we are seeing hiphop history here my friends. Erykah is chilling behind playing the tambourine, Karriem is playing drums, PBW is just chillin with a big smile on his face, the entire crew who played is on stage, we're witnessing a bunch of hiphop legends partying with themselves and we have the pleasure of joining them. We are in the presence of giants people. Listen hard, you'll never hear this shit again.


Dilla tributes keep coming, they must have played half his repertoire. Everyone is just jamming, Karriem is rocking the drum solo, I'm done with my beer I don't need any more, I have my intoxicants on stage and in my belly already.

It all has to come to an end at some point. Lights go on, PBW says this shit is dedicated to the 60 people who decided to stick around. Where the fuck did all those stupid people go? Did they not just miss one of the greatest hiphop shows ever? Loss to them man, loss to them. PBW thanks us for sticking around for 7.5 hours. What? 7.5 hours? seems like it just started, but it hasn't ended yet.


We stick around, man we can't leave! I turn to the bar, madlib, guilty simpson, and MED are all just chillin at the bar, long night of partying takes it out of you. I go over, Madlib apologizes to me for not playing Brisbane, like man dont sweat it, this is the best present an aussie could hope for my man. We get photos, me guilty simpson and madlib, Uwe gets one with MED. Ok we got photos, we got our asses kicked by music, we saw Erykah Badu lets end this perfect night on a perfect note. As we're walking out Percee P is just sitting near the top of the stairs, shaking the hands of everyone leaving "her man thanks for coming". What? My man, we should be thanking you for even giving us the opportunity to participate in this, the most epic night of nights.


Best.
Gig.
Ever.


And it was $30. Hell yeah!"



Also some cool B&W photos from the gig:

www.villageslum.com/page/2/

And some clever so-and-so filmed the badu bit:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1KVwuBNkn4



(yeah yeah yeah. I'll get back to the story next time, I promise.)



[1] Since living in NYC I only need 4-5 hours sleep a night. I’ll sleep when I’m dead!

[2] Check out this picture that my mate Chris took from the Brooklyn Bridge at sunset:



see it full size and others at flickr.com/photos/stoneyjackson


Some of the best things you see in New York are totally free :-)

Monday, December 10, 2007

From Bad To Worse

The story so far….

Dan has lost his shit over his room mate having no respect for personal property. Neither party able to deal with the situation sensibly, he flees into the chill Manhattan streets….


I run all the way to the subway, three blocks. No one follows, and I don’t even feel the cold, but by this point I’m so pumped with adrenalin it’s an effort NOT to run….
On the subway, I’m mad as hell. I’m like: I’m gonna call the cops on that fucking dude! Fortunately, I don’t have my phone in my pocket (I’d been playing music off it in the café bar).
I get off the subway at Columbus circle, with a vague idea of getting something to eat at Wholefoods[1] but who am I kidding, I’m too angry to eat. And it’s too cold to walk in central park. So I walk down broadway instead, trying to walk off the rage.
I walk, I walk, I walk
I see a Bum Wishing Well[2], put $5 in and feel a bit better.
I walk some more, all the way to Grand Central Station, which is no small walk (Columbus is on 59th and 8th, GCS on 42nd and Park)
I find trains quite soothing anyway, and the high ceilings and chandeliers of the main concourse bring me down some more.
Then I walk up to the ultimate centre of calm –NYPL[3]
On the way I pick up a copy of the guardian, international edition (which seems to be photocopied) and flick through it in one of the reading rooms. At first I’m not taking anything in, but by the time I reach the sports it’s getting through. Some cocksucker of a columnist actually argues AGAINST Mourinho becoming England manager! And Ronaldo scores twice to beat fulham in the EPL[4]
I’m calm(er) when I walk out the library.
I take the subway to meet my dogwalking boss, Kathi, to tell her what happened and apologize that I can’t dogwalk today, because I’ll have to go back to the hostel to face the music (and also because I don’t want the dogs to pick up on my anger)
By this time my rage has cooled –but so have I. I’ve only got jim-jams for pants[5]! (I can’t feel anything from my waist to the top of my boots).
So finally I go back to the hostel. It’s now about 1.30. I’ve been AWOL for about 2 hours, so I walk in expecting to get my ass canned.
But Elsie is not there. Neither, fortunately, is Jayson.
So I go back to work.
I feel calm now, but I can feel the anger just beneath the surface, like a submerged monster.
I end having a text argument with Kim –I want to see her to talk about what’s happened but she says she can’t see me because she has to go to the dentist.[6]
Elsie comes in and I ask if she’s heard what happened. She says she heard there was an argument, that’s all. I tell her I’ll work the rest of my shift and then we’ll talk.
So I work and I work hard. I’m buzzing round that café bar! This isn’t just to try and save my hide. I’m trying to work off the adrenalin coursing through my body.
I work the extra hours I missed too, so I don’t finish till half five[7] and I started at 7.30am. Then I explain what happened to elsie, pretty much word-for-word how I described it in the previous post.
She was very sympathetic, said I did the right thing to walk away.
I’m not fired!
So now I can relax. The sensible thing to do would be to hit the hay for a little while. But when have I ever done the sensible thing? As soon as I’m finished with elsie, I’m like:
“Coco! Hey Coco! Go get me some beer muthafuck!”
Let’s fast forward a little bit to what happened next.
I’m drinking in the café bar with my friends, it’s evening. I still haven’t moved my stuff out of my old room and into my new one. The reason is, I don’t want to run into Jayson. He’s come back to the hostel, hanging around. I think someone has had a word with him because he has not attempted to talk to me. This is just as well because I haven’t really slept, haven’t really ate and I’m running on a mixture of caffine, nicotine, alcohol and adrenalin. That’s a powderkeg mix, right there.
At some point I need something from my room and I think, fuck it, I gotta move sooner or later. And Jayson is right there in the café bar.
So I go to my room to get my shit together.
Just in case, I lock the door behind me. It’s hot in there so I open the window too.
Surprise surprise, 5 minutes later someone is trying to use their key to get into the room. There’s a knock at the door:
“Who is it?” (I know damn well who it is)
“Jayson. Let me in the room, man.”
“I’m just getting my shit together to move Jayson, give me 10 minutes and it’s all yours.”
“I’m going out, I need to get something.”
“Well that’s a coincidence that you need to get something from the room the exact same time that I’m in here. Can you wait 10 minutes, please.” (I can feel the monster rising)
[pause] “Can I talk to you?”
“Jayson, I’ve spent all day calming myself down, don’t wind me up again! I don’t want to talk to you right now.”
Then, somehow, don’t ask me how, he’s got the door open! I start to lose it again, pull a suitcase in front of the door. That isn’t going to buy me much time.
So I jump out the window.[8]
Back in the café bar, my friends can see I’m agitated again, but they’re my friends, they calm me down. I wait until I see jayson leave the hostel. Then I go move my stuff.
Let’s fast forward a little bit again.
OK, now it’s nighttime. About 11, 11.30. We (by which I mean me and my friends and a lot of the other staff and a bunch of guests) are watching Dave Chappelle[9] on DVD in the café bar. We’re all pretty drunk; some are drunker than others. I’m still wearing my work clothes, and some joker wants me to get them something because they think I’m still on duty.
I’ve got kim’s headphones round my neck, so I take them off, take off my t-shirt (I have another underneath, put the phones on the table in front of me. Continue to watch Chappelle.
After a bit someone invites me out for a cigarette. Smoke one, have a few conversations, smoke another.
Go back to my table –the headphones are gone.
I’m tired, I’m drunk –I’m stunned.
After everything that’s happened today, that everyone knows about, someone else has taken kim’s headphones? Yougottabekiddinmeright?
I’m too stunned to speak. I walk, very slowly, out of the café bar and up to my new room.
Now I make a mistake –but I’m drunk and shocked and thinking some person down there is a hater[10]. I tell kim what’s happened. She is understandably extremely pissed off that her precious headphones have been mislaid again after all that’s gone on. But, oddly, she doesn’t seem to care that I’m upset that one of my friends doesn’t respect that this is a big deal to me, because I made and broke a promise. That should have set alarm bells ringing, but I was too fucked off.
After I speak to kim -which like I said was a bad idea, because now I’m even more upset because I’ve let her down- I decide I need to get out of the hostel. I get all my warm clothes on and go downstairs. Before I leave, I pop into the café bar, go to the table I was sitting at and say:
“Hey, kim’s headphones have gone walkies again. I can scarcely believe it after all the shit that’s happened today. If those phones don’t magically appear by tomorrow morning, I’m through with jazz”[11]
Then I walk out of there, light a cigarette, head up the street, no idea where I’m gonna go.
Within 5 minutes, I get a text message: Chris, one of my closest friends -one of the guests but he’s practically staff (we joke that he’s the only jazz staff that has to pay rent)- lent the headphones to another member of staff. He was very drunk, and he didn’t think there would be a problem because “they’re only headphones dude.”
And he’s right, they are only headphones. If they were mine, I wouldn’t give a fuck who used em. But it was important to kim they weren’t used, and that made it important to me.
No one in the hostel seemed to be able grasp what I think is a quite simple concept.
So I send back a narky text, then ring kim to give her the good news.
I had no inkling of what I was going to get from the other end
She wasn’t happy her headphones had been found
She totally chewed me out because they had gone missing –for approximately half an hour.
I was like, “Kim what’s the problem, they’ve been found.”
And she’s like “Do you have them? On your person”
“No I’m not in the hostel, I had to get out of there but don’t worry-“
“Nonononono –you get my headphones, put them in a locker right fucking now.”
“Kim, they’re with my friends they’re putting them behind the café bar-
“No you listen to me dan, go and get my fucking headphones-
“Hey I trust my friends they know better now-
“Well I don’t trust them! You know what, why don’t you stick those headphones up your ass!”
And she hangs up on me!
I’m speechless again. All this shit… over a set of headphones? WTF? The alarm bells should have turned into air-raid sirens by now. Anyone who knows me knows how I feel about people who are obsessed with material goods.
I try and call back but she won’t answer. So I text her:

That’s it? You’re going to shitcan me over 70 bucks[12]? I’m sorry I trust people. It hurts me when I get let down, believe me

So now I’m feeling really low; what do I do? Go to the pub of course!
My local is called dingdongs[13] so I go there and drink a Guinness at the bar.
I manage to persuade kim, by text, into seeing me the following day, at her apartment in Brooklyn, 10am.
I’m trying to work out how things, in the space of 24 hours, have come to this.
The next thing I remember is being woken up by the barman. I’d fallen asleep at the bar like some total loser.
I finished my drink, I guess (I always finish my drinks).

I don’t remember getting home at all.

TO BE CONTINUED….

(all sounds pretty dark don’t it? [dark in the sense of “evil”] Wait till you hear what happens next. All this shit is just the tip of the iceburg….)

[1] Wholefoods is an American organic food supermarket chain. The Columbus circle branch is the flagship store. Celebs can regularly be seen shopping and eating there (Robert De Niro was spotted in there the other day). The food in there has to be seen (and smelled) to be believed; it makes me hungry just to write about it!

[2] This is [a homeless charity]; usually a guy with a table and an upturned water cooler on top for money. I’ll talk about my Bum Wishing Well theory another time.

[3] New York Public Library (on 42nd st and 5th Av). C’mon where else would a library loser like me go? I even have a library card with my little face on! Looooooosssssseeeeeeeerrrr!

[4] I know I’ll get blazed for this, but I’ve thrown in my lot with the reds. Americans CAN NOT understand how you can be into a sport and not support your hometown team. So in the end I got bored and had to make a choice between city and united. And seeing as how every European, south American, and asian says “Ah! Manchester United!” pretty much as soon as you mention you come from Manchester, the choice wasn’t hard to make. Traveling has really opened my eyes as to how huge globally the MU brand is. And I haven’t forgiven you for the world cup svennis! And my dad was born in Salford, under the shadow of the theatre of dreams…. (blergh!)

[5] By which I mean trousers, of course.

[6] To be fair to kim, this was my bad (I swore I would never, ever say “my bad”. The grammar! But I do. What the hell.). When she said dentist, I thought she meant a filling or something. She was talking about dental surgery. So I apologized and we straightened things out on the phone later.

[7] 5.30, for the benefit of American readers. Americans don’t do “half past”. I said “half five” to an American girl once and she thought I meant 4.30!

[8] Sorry, I can’t resist being needlessly dramatic. The room is on the ground floor.

[9] My American friends couldn’t believe I hadn’t ever heard of Dave Chappelle, and that we don’t get Chappelle’s Show on TV in Britain. After they showed me some, I couldn’t believe it either. I went out and bought the DVD boxed set. Dave Chappelle is the funniest person on the planet. He’s one of those rare comedians you start to laugh at before they even open their mouth, like Tommy Cooper and, I don’t know, Eddie Izzard or Harry Hill. It’s black humor (in both senses of the word), but his concepts and observations are so spot on, the humor becomes universal. Like: what would happen if a crackhead was a contestant on Fear Factor? Or if a blind black orphan grows up to become a white supremacist, and no one has the heart to tell him he’s black? I urge you to look at his R Kelly piss take on YouTube, “I wanna pee on you” (y’know, after that video got out of R Kelly pissing on a 15yr old girl). Sample lyric: “Girl my life with you won’t be complete/until I turn your face into a toilet seat”). Speaking of R Kelly, has anyone seen his “R&B opera” Trapped In The Closet? I’ve watched that three times now and I still can’t believe my eyes (and ears)! YouTube it!

[10] Incidentally, I did not suspect jayson took them again. We were keeping our distance.

[11] I told you I can’t resist being needlessly dramatic.

[12] Actually, she owed me $50 (I’d lent her so she didn’t starve to death), so $20 net. This text is verbatim BTW; I still got it on my phone.

[13] Dingdongs is actually not as dodgy as it sounds. Or rather it is, but not in that way. It’s a dive bar, rough around the edges, good djs playing alternative American and British rock, guitar fenders on the beer taps. It’s dingy though. A bit too dingy. A bit so-dingy-I-can’t-actually-see-the-person-I’m-talking-to. You know it’s hip to say “dark” meaning “cool”? Well dingdongs is dark in both the trendy and original sense.