BQN-JFK (december vacation part 2)/end of 2011
(…cont.)
Wednesday, my last full day in PR, in the morning Reagan and i went horseback riding on the beach, where i learned i’m not as scared of horses as i thought it was. in fact, i’d maybe like to learn to ride one FAST.
after lunch, we went back down to the beach and went surfing. i was not nearly as successful as the first time (trying too hard then, i suppose) and tired myself out quite a bit paddling, falling, paddling, falling. the waves started to get bigger and one came up and reagan said watch out this one’s breaking! but it turned out that i was at just the right spot and it just lifted me up and off i went. as soon as i realized i’d caught it/it caught me, i stood up. woo! after that, my shoulder was really starting to hurt from all the paddling and so i called it a day. later we went back to the beach again and watched the sunset and had some last evening cocktails.
Thursday morning we got up early and went to have 8am breakfast at this charming english B&B on top of a hill overlooking the ocean before i had to go to the airport. it was really gorgeous, but i was *so exhausted* i could barely think. this doesn’t happen to me much – usually once i’m up i’m up, even if i haven’t slept, but i just couldn’t wake up for a couple of hours. so tired from all the frolicking in the sun the day before.
then off to the airport, but by then i was awake and no sleep on the plane. jay, who had been in NY since Tuesday, was so sweet and came to meet me at JFK. we got back to brooklyn late afternoon, settled ourselves, and then met up with peoples for dinner at a delicious veg restaurant Angelica Kitchen (where the waiter recognized me as he also works at another vegan restaurant i’d been to last week. tour de vegan restaurants NYC!) and then drinks and then late night endless bantering until 3am and finally crashed.
i tried to sleep in Friday but it didn’t work and i was up first at 8 and then at 10. Jay, Chris and I got up, had breakfast, and headed to the New Museum, which was underwhelming. i love participatory art, but the place was jammed, being a Friday and a holiday weekend, and so we weren’t able to really do all the things in the time we had. but even if we could….some of the things were broken/not available, and some were just…..? i don’t find tunnels made out of blank white styrofoam very impressive conceptually or aesthetically. i think Burning Man has ruined me ever enjoying that kind of art in such a sterile environment ever again. don’t touch! stand in line! sign this waiver! oh and it doesn’t *really* work! anyway, there was also an exhibit about conflicts surrounding censorship of Lebanese art that was much more interesting.
after the museum, Chris took off and Wiley joined us for happy hour, and then we headed up to Central Park to go ice skating. upon arrival, however, it was obvious that ice skating among the crowds would not be pleasurable. so we wandered through the park in the dark instead, came out on the other side and found ourselves some cappuccino.
at this point in the evening, it would have been smart to go back to bklyn and take a nap, as we had 2 events to attend Friday night. however, the travel and logistics were such that it would be much easier if we just went to the first one directly, and so we opted to have dinner out instead at superfine and then head to the party. but at some point during dinner i started to crash in an irritable way. i drank a 5-hour energy but basically once we got to the first party i went directly to the couch and stayed there, eyes closed (but enjoying the eclectic live music) until we left at midnight.
at midnight we went back over to the Lower East Side to see friends Stuart Bogie and Colin Stetson (of Transmission fame – you know, that band from ann arbor ->SF that we saw triple-digit times in 2000-2003?) play in a newer band formation, Superhuman Happiness at the Cake Shop on Ludlow. now, when Stuart told me about it, he said it was a Phish afterparty. generally, despite the fact that we were avid fans/phans of both during the exact same years (early 2000s), the worlds of Transmission jazz and Phish have i think never really intersected for us and so i wondered how this mashup of scenes was going to be. but i trust their musical judgement completely, and so we went. through the pre-NYE wasted crowds into a hot crowded basement we went, just as they were about to go on.
(historical aside: in May 2001, we came to NYC and a phishhead friend told us to go see Antibalas, which was playing in a basement of a jewish cultural center somewhere. we arrived, and just after the band started playing, Stuart Bogie walked out and joined them. it was very……serendipitous. so going to see him play again, in some dark basement somewhere in NYC, 10+ years later, was just kind of awesome.)
and when it started….it became very obvious that this was indeed a Phish afterparty. lots of phisheads, still with their glow bracelets and rolling eyes were packed inside. the music was definitely more indie-jam than jazz, with lots of melodic singing mixed with funked beats, which i can totally appreciate, especially watching them play so physically, so ecstatically, but i was so exhausted i just found myself a spot standing on a bench up against the wall, my head almost hitting the ceiling, observant. i wanted to make it to the end of the set to get to hang out, but just couldn’t. it was a sauna in there, i was wearing 2 layers of clothes, and the energy was so the opposite of where i needed to be. so in the middle of a cover of Sledgehammer (covers? did not expect that), we exited into the cold night and finally headed to bed at 3am, totally exhausted.
i was also not successful sleeping in more today, and right now as i’m typing this i should be trying to take a nap before heading out for NYE, but NYC makes me manic. and plus, it’s the LAST DAY OF 2011 and i get to see many of our beautiful friends tonight! how could i not be excited? we have 2+ parties on the list and we’ll see how far we get.
.::.
i’m looking forward to seeing the sun come up on 2012, as 2011 – full of personal and global/internal and external revolutions, experiments and changes – has been a one hell of a good year. keep up the good, everyone. we’re moving forward.
- me and the sunset in puerto rico, christmas eve 2011, photo by justin silver
Filed in autobiographical, music, travel | Tagged with igottawearshades, jazz, NYC, puerto rico, reagan, surfing | Comment (0)
SFO-NYC-BQN (part 1)
yes, i have been on vacation for 9 days and i have not blogged a thing about it. isn’t that what vacation is for? not doing what you don’t feel like?
first i was in new york for 4.5 days, and while i had intentions of sitting in coffee shops on snowy afternoons working on things that need to be worked on (sorry to be opaque but they aren’t quite public yet), instead the weather was quite nice and so there was a lot of wandering around with days progressing from a search for good coffee to a search for good cocktails to a search for good late night company/activities, lather rinse repeat with an increasingly foggier state of mind – something like this.
besides wandering, i did see our friend Martin Dockery’s new monologue The Holy Land Experience, and also visited the Lady Gaga installation at Barney’s on Madison Ave, which was highly underwhelming, but Bill Cunningham (famous NY fashion photographer, not the Fox News dude) was outside taking photos of people going in and out and i said hello to him as I had just watched the amazing Bill Cunningham New York documentary again just the night before. i said “hello Mr. Cunningham! I just watched your documentary again last night!” and he said “Why would you do that?” and then went on clicking. and then it’s possible that he took a photo of me that if so i’m sure will end up on the cutting room floor and not in the NYT but still made my day.
and then i came to Puerto Rico, where my friend Reagan’s surfer family has a house on the very west end in Rincón, near Aguadilla, to a surfing town that is so not-foreign it feels like i’m in Florida. i mean, it’s part of the U.S. but i didn’t realize that it would still feel like the U.S. once arrived, I also intended to do work, but i am in a house that shares wireless with the surfer hostel next door, and for the first two days it didn’t work. when we asked why it wasn’t working, dude seriously said “i dunno….wind?”. it was mentioned that turning it off and on again might work. and wouldn’t you know, we got home and hey! it worked.
our friends Justin (who always seems to be in the same part of the world i am, even when we dont plan it (see: Prague 2009, Chile 2010, and now PR 2011) and Amanda were on the island visiting family and we had quite a Christmas eve that involved surfing (catching my first wave evar!) and then some epic bar dancing where we made complete asses of ourselves and included justin catching me from hitting the floor in a badly calculated dance move involving multiple bar stools. you know: christmas.
since then Reagan and i have gone surfing, went to morning yoga on the beach, hiked a 5 mile loop, and ingested numerous rum-filled coconuts in between. i’m here for 2 more days, now the internet works, and maybe i’ll get some work done, although we tried surfing again today but the waves were too small and so obvi we have to go back tomorrow 
. then it’s back to NYC, where Jay is now wandering the streets on his own time and we will meet up, and then NYE weekend, which, if i can count on my friends, will be full bore until the sun comes up on new year’s day.
Filed in autobiographical, travel | Tagged with justin, NYC, puerto rico, reagan, wanderlust | Comment (1)
bright hot morning
Filed in tv, books and movies | Tagged with NYC | Comment (0)Later she was homeward bound at last in broad daylight, with the pigeons already breaking over Saint-Sulpice. All of them began to laugh spontaneously because they knew it was still last night while the people in the streets had the delusion that it was bright hot morning.
NY: all that’s fit to print
where did i leave off……
monday was rough, with the late night/early morning that happened sunday evening, and then the heat, but eventually i crawled out and wandered up to Williamsburg. yeah yeah, hipster mecca/gentrification whatever, but they have great food and shopping. i wished all day that it would rain. around dinnertime i met marc on the street and we walked his dogs and pushed his adorable child around, and i’m sure if some people could’ve seen me, standing with 2 dogs on leashes in hand and a baby in a stroller waiting for marc outside the drycleaner, they would’ve had to blink a few times. we caught up and had light dinner and eventually i had to say goodnight because my brain was no longer working. i slept monday night.
tuesday i met up with W.O for lunch near chinatown at a vegan restaurant, and everything looked so good we ordered way too much food. to my luck he summoned JayB to tag team, and after W left J and i finished the food and then headed out for early afternoon cocktails at some random place nearby. after that i hopped a train uptown to visit my one and only coworker, who i’ve worked with for more than 10 years, as i’d never seen his apt. since he moved from berkeley to NY a few years ago. it was a short trip that included a visit to St. John’s Cathedral and a walk to Columbia where he was giving an evening guest lecture.
back on the train downtown to the village to meet up with Alliedise and CGlush, my old phishy phriends! we had a great dinner at Kin Shop – a thai fusion place that was delish! – and then headed out for cocktails. tried to get in Death and Co. – i really loved the carved gothic doors – but it was so crowded maitre d’ dude wouldn’t even let us inside. so a quick phone call and off to Please Don’t Tell, which i won’t tell you about except that it was hands down my favorite of all the bars i went to (which in 10 days has to be at least 20). other friends joined in and it turned into yet another very late and mostly sleepless night.
very early (6:45) the next (Wed.) morning i travelled back to brooklyn (aside: on the oh-hi-i’ve-been-up-all-night-drinking-on-a-weeknight walk of shame on the train, during AM rush hour, a woman dressed much like any other commuter is standing 12 inches from me. she is loudly evangalizing: “YOU ARE THE PROBLEM WITH THIS WORLD. LOOK AT YOURSELF. YOU KNOW YOU ARE A SINNER. YOU KNOW IT. DEEP DOWN. YOU KNOW YOU ARE THE PROBLEM. SEE THE LIGHT. TAKE JESUS AS YOUR SAVIOR AND BECOME GOOD, NOT EVIL…and on in that vein. at first i was like OMG CLASSIC NEW YORK CRAZY and initially aggravated, but then i determined i was not going to be affected by her words, and i just started watching her closely. she was mostly eloquent. she was sincere. she sounded genuinely concerned. and so i just watched her face. watched her speak, watched her eyes look at no one. then she got off. i wondered if she does that regularly. or with direction.) (also: early morning joggers always make me feel more shame than commuters. getting up and going to work is de rigueur. but getting up to jog represents something i have never had and seeing them while i’m making my way home sometimes makes me question my priorities.) i grabbed a backpack full of beachy things, and hopped the LIRR to go see Reagan at the beach. by this point i needed a vacation from my vacation. i was in Wantagh by 11:00am and half asleep on the beach for the rest of the afternoon after that.
in the evening Orange arrived, and we made Big Gulp sized margaritas and headed a half mile down the beach to:
according to RBM, this kind of thing never happens there. down the way is Jones Beach amphitheater, but this was right there in their little town and FREE on the BEACH and this was a BIG DEAL. and the crowd proved it. thousands! really!
to start it off the mayor and some other people got up and started talking and during this we went over to the beach and had fun jumping off the lifeguard stands into the sand. some tweenie girls with Bieber t-shirts who were also doing this took these photos of us:
and then, back to the show. now, i have never been a huge Billy Joel fan. the Greatest Hits existed in my college house just so we could get drunk and sing Piano Man at 4am. repeatedly. so anyway – i was super pleasantly surprised at how good this cover band was (they were not joking with the “Ultimate” descriptor) and also surprised at myself that i did actually know a lot of the words to the songs i didn’t even realize i knew. they also covered Tiny Dancer which made my day and then Whole Lotta Love, which you wouldn’t think a Billy Joel Cover Band would be able to nail but they did a hell of a job on that.
most of the other attendees had brought lawn chairs and blankets and picnics and coolers and whatnot. all we had was our enormous margaritas, and eventually summoned the Brother to bring the other half of the bottle of tequila which we drank just like, straight. most of the other attendees also stayed seated in said lawnchairs, but we were DANCING and after a while a whole slew of Women With Husbands Who Don’t Dance joined us and we started our own little dance party there on stage right.
it was actually kind of a long show and by the end of it we were exhausted from screaming and dancing, and also totally tanked. i had to wrangle the girls away from trying to talk some security guards into coming home with us, and we (us three + Mom, Brother, and Brother’s GF) walked back home. we all eventually went to bed, but as tweeted, someone woke up on top of the pool table after having gone to sleep in a BED and it wasn’t me. i laughed so hard when this was revealed i almost fell down.
anyway, up early before 6am again on Thurs AM (so many early mornings in new york!) to retrieve Jay from his red-eye flight into JFK despite irreconcilable hangovers from that bottle of tequila. jay retrieved, back to the beach. the morning was fogged in (so nice after NYC heat!!!) but it eventually burned off, and Reagan’s brother took us out on his boat from some pull-behind-the-boat tubing action on the little inlet. this looked super fun but also looked like i might hurt my shoulder if i tried, as people were getting THROWN from that thing, so i did not participate. boat was also acting janky, and so we headed back to the beach. not as nice of a beachy beach day as the day before – windy/sandblown and the water was rougher. so we lounged around, and then in early evening got back on the LIRR and headed back to Brooklyn.
where it was HOTTTT. man. whew. it took us a while to get back to our host apt and then we headed out again for a late dinner with W.O. and Kat, which of course led to after dinner drinks and by around midnight i totally CRASHED.
so where are we now. Friday. i had now been in NY for a full week and i think i got maybe 3 nights of actual sleep? unclear. also, i can’t eat well in the heat and had about 5 iced coffees every day. so i was starting to get that end-of-the-week-at-burning-man feeling. sort of light and not quite focused. we had breakfast at an airconditioned coffee shop (which had a totally oversharing young sexy counter staff) and then headed to midtown to have lunch at a vegan japanese place with Bex before she left the country, and got to see C and her tiny baby girl. by the time we got done with lunch it was literally 104 degrees in manhattan – i saw the temp on a clock tower.
we opted to walk through central park anyway, and eventually came upon some kids playing in a sprinkler. adults were going by sweating buckets in all directions, tourists looking like they were going to drop dead kept walking, but we were like OH YES and took off everything we could in public and joined the kids in the sprinkler. definite HIGHLIGHT.
and then back on the train to Brooklyn for happy hour. a lot of our friends were going that evening to see the Glitch Mob somewhere, so this was a pre-gathering of sorts. we were not going to that show, and so after the many happy hours instead had a late dinner at IndochineNY. great atmosphere, if a little kitchy, super hot wait staff, good cocktails. and then out for more cocktails. and more. until we ended up back in Brooklyn at the Fulton Grand until 3am+, where some wasted asshat made a snide Paris Hilton comment at me. i really wanted to punch him and that’s when i knew it was time to go home.
saturday we got up slowly and eventually braved the heat and made it to the Brooklyn flea market. lots of cool stuff, but we were SWEATING. i never sweat. it was amazing how much i was sweating. hopped the train to PS1 -formerly public school #1, now an extension of MoMA where they have afternoon parties in their courtyard. i don’t want to talk too much shit about the art inside, but none of us liked it. except for the longstanding piece “Meeting” by James Turrell, which is one of the old classrooms with benches along with walls and a big hole to the sky. so simple, yet so much more enjoyable than the videos of people screaming on an endless loop.
anyway, when they redid PS1 into the museum, they bought out the houses/buildings around the sides to demolish and create the outdoor spaces, but one of the landowners wouldn’t sell. and now, some friends of friends live in the only remaining apartment building, which has a deck that literally sits above the courtyard where the party is going on. it’s definitely baller to sit up there on a hot afternoon with a couple of bottles of champagne and watch the crowd.
um…..then. saturday night. back to brooklyn. to dinner party. to bar. and finally, a late night hottub party. that went until the sun was well up. i finally went to sleep at 11:00am on Sunday. and that’s all i’ll say about that.
sunday then, as you can imagine, was more than a little surreal. i slept for 3 hours but then we had to get back to the host apartment, pack our stuff, and get on a plane back to SFO. and thus ended my 10 days in NYC.
.::.
things i did not do:
see the Statue of Liberty, even in the distance. (maybe i did from the brooklyn bridge?)
visit Ground Zero
go to Times Square or anywhere near it
go to the Zoo
see some people i wanted to
shop nearly enough
.::.
i went to yoga today and my instructor said she was a little out of it and low energy because she’s doing the 10 day master cleanse. i was like, yeah, i feel you, because i am still pretty exhausted and so had empathy. even though i’ve been home for 3 days, i still feel in recovery. while i did what was perhaps the opposite of a traditional cleanse, as i’ve mentioned before with burning man, it’s actually sort of the same in terms of deprivation and your body going into survival mode, which at a certain point starts to feel euphoric. after 10 days of extreme heat, tons of water to stay hydrated, too many iced coffees, sleep deprivation, walking miles and miles every day (after a couple of days of walking in the heat my feet were so swollen every pair of shoes i had gave me blisters and eventually i had my feet almost totally taped. not to mention all the other weird bruises and scrapes i somehow acquired. sexy.), dancing, too many bars and drinks to count, and most importantly, the constant enveloping feeling of love from all of my amazing friends, by the time i got off the plane late sunday evening, i was practically delirious. but it felt really good to be alive.
.::.
many thx again to all the lovelies who put me up, picked me up, took me out, danced with me, drank with me, ate with me, walked with me, laughed with me, sang with me, talked with me, lounged with me, soaked with me, napped with me, sweat your ass off with me, beached with me, walked me home, called me a car. especially Bex and Nat for hosting. so amazing.
Filed in autobiographical, travel | Tagged with NYC | Comment (0)i’d like to blame this on NY and the heat but maybe it’s just me
a sunday expected to be chill and healthy with afternoon yoga and dinner somehow became a 12 hour marathon that included many things i rarely ever do. like drink white wine (never!). and frozen margaritas from a machine (many!). and more bottles of white wine while howling at the moon from a rooftop in brooklyn at 3am! i swear: today i am taking it easy and tonight i am going to SLEEP! it will be hard, whatwith going to visit dangermarc soon, but at least i have a lot of current evidence that i am not the Enemy of Fun he once accused me of being at burning man.
Filed in autobiographical, travel | Tagged with NYC | Comment (0)so far in NY, in brief
Thurs AM departure – upgraded on flight (SFO to JFK) – was able to lay down/relax, which was an amazing gift since i woke up Thurs AM with some intense shoulder/neck pain (why on a travel day?????)
arrived thurs PM, but my luggage somehow did not even though it was checked 90mins ahead. was supposed to be delivered btw 12:00-6:00am.
had late dinner at nice italian wine bar w/bex
tried to sleep at 2:00am (11:00pm PST). half slept/half waited for luggage, did not sleep well.
Friday – luggage finally delivered 10:30am. left house solo at 1:00ish, walked through brooklyn, found a burrito (why must i have an intense burrito craving the first day in NY!) and walked over the brooklyn bridge.
took quick train to SoHo, did some shopping. was once again accused of being a Russian.
met up with bex for vegan dinner at http://www.blossomnyc.com/ . DELISH.
then we went to Fuerza Bruta dance/performance in union square, a friend of a friend is in the show. awesome, like a waking dream. and definitely a dream job. also included an audience-participation induced club-dance-party element which was hilarious with all the tourists types. highly recommended. maybe if you live in NY go for the rush tickets one night.
came back to brooklyn and had a beer at Fulton Grand, went to sleep around 1:00am
Sat AM got up at 7:15 to get to Met by 9:00 for the Alexander McQueen w/Bex and coworker Bennett. i’m not sure what to say right now. Savage Beauty. inspired and distraught.
after, got some froyo and walked through central park to the west side, took train to chelsea, went to Chelsea Market, got thai food, had lunch on the High Line. HOT. full of tourists. but beautiful.
back to brooklyn, totally crashed into an afternoon nap.
6:00 – backyard BBQ/cool-tub party. funtimes. eventually ended up at Burning Man Temple fundraiser in Fort Greene/Brooklyn at an old church. Jesus’ Beatitudes still on the wall, now with a psychedelic projection overlay. perfectly apt, IMO.
so far in 2 days i have walked >22972+23560 steps in new york city according to my #fitbit.
and now it’s sunday morning (relative). just got up and my throat is totally sore as if there was a lot of screaming involved last night. apologies to william & steph’s neighbors. and soon i am off to wander and go to yoga with aB.
Filed in autobiographical, travel | Tagged with NYC | Comments (2)
