NYC Part II

I escaped TV land to the streets with my new found geek companions. My Rolodex was full of numbers the potentialist inside me screamed to possess but I’d likely never call. As we treaded to Nintendo World a memory bubble played a segment from my own childhood. This is exactly the kind of place I would have dreamed of when I was twelve on family vacation and begged my father to visit only to arrive with it closed for renovation. I couldn’t help but tell every twelve year old child I passed that less then a mile away existed a life sized virtual reality chamber where “You too can stomp goombas and eat magic mushrooms!” I could paint a picture of every mothers grimace.

It was pretty much twenty stories tall and I wandered as Link for two hours in a real life representation of Hyrule. The balance board is fun too, I got a perfect score in the surfing game, and now have the confidence to take waves as tall as the Nintendo building. I’ll be buying my real life surfboard with my next paycheck. To be honest, I wanted to get out on my own again. I could tell the guy from Wisconsin was a bit nervous with me around his girlfriend, which makes sense… he knew she was obviously my type. So I kicked it after lunch, after having a fight with some Time Square pizza jerks who tried to charge me $50 for a slice I thought was only $30. I grabbed my bags, stole some more cookies, and turned on my biological supercomputer to figure out the NY Subway system.NY Subway Worship

Imagine re-entering your mothers womb. Of course… huge, cement and filled with many other people trying to do the same thing. The New York Subway possess all the grit, damp, steaming, burning sweaty air of a sauna with its bench on fire. Flailing, towel waving old men and all. It is so symbolic of New York, there is a entire religion dedicated to its worship, and felt as if I had just been inducted. A masochists dream, the suffering which occurs before your A, B, 1, 2 or three arrives is legendary, lucky for all you sadists out their the misery is shared by all. When it pulls to a stop and the doors slide open it is reminiscent of stepping into a mountain lake at 10,000 feet. A flood of cool air pours out and crawls up your arms, neck, and with a shiver finally over your head. Everything moves fast. I with a 50 pound pack filled with useless cold weather cloths strapped to my back, sent people toppling over in piles like bowling pins with every turn. The subway is amazing. I absolutely love it.

Upon exiting and coming to the surface from what felt like a teleporter, conception of distance traveled could only be measured in the change in the people and scenery around me. “Union Square” this was the home of the True New Yorker, I could feel it boiling my blood. Everything was real, and alive. It possessed all the spirit and soul Time Square lacked.

Union Square, 16 Story Fox

I engendered a endless, but beautiful walk to my hostel for the night. Arriving only to find it’s width to be approximate to my arms reach. I deposited my pack, and set out to make my possessions look as worthless as possible, placing my ratty green shoes on the pillow, and various wrappers, trash and distractions to encourage anyone curious to believe my bag did not happen to contain my 17″ Sony laptop. I could hear people outside wailing in such a way that could only be the result of a sixteen-story fox consuming them one by one, but was focused in my task. One of my soon to be eight roommates, a portly man with a full size keyboard cellphone informed me as to a bar where every drink gets you free pizz… and without even finishing his sentence I had departed to acquire some.

The Gator Bar. Impressive. The bartender wore a flat brimmed hat, huge black sideburns, a nose of legendary proportions, a runway goatee, and a styled greased mustache. He was Cyrano De Bergerac incarnate and if not with his arms, but with his smile, he could obviously wrestle an an alligator.

The Impressive Bartender

I ordered a some SlyFox from the tap, a brilliant ale. Within a few minutes an full bodied orchestra played a micro-symphony as my pizza arrived, but immediately cut off as the plate hit the table. The thick amber ale and pie satisfied my body while conversation with locals satisfied my mind. We all came to the conclusion that my act on television was merely a drop in the machine fueling the numbing, dumbing, down of America, and it was acts like these that get people like Bush into office. They were brassy, crass, and had an ounce of sass. They were all manners of ass, and I loved them.

The timbre of my type is growing dissonant… to be continued.

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