Looking for love

I looked all over town for love.

Everywhere i turned i found signs of love.  what does it mean? That the cold big city has so much heart?  what does it mean that its all written in chalk?

banksy!

what I want, i get!

Me with original Banksy art in NYC.  Down with the idealists!

Belly dancing and more food

I love the walls and ceilings draped  with cloth so that you feel like you're in a tent.

It's border line obscene how much I've been eating here.

This belly dancer makes me feel fat.

I feel like I'm in game of thrones, in Daenerys story line. The belly dancer is higher in hierarchy, but I'm intrigued by the older servant girl with the refined features and intense eyes wearing a peasant dress....

I wonder how much this belly dancer gets paid. and how much she enjoys what she does.  Is it a job?  or is it her passion to dance for strangers in a kitschy (but delicious) new york ethnic restaurant?  

Also, I can now cross "watch awkward white guy try to learn to belly dance" off my bucket list.  This was an interactive belly dancer and liked to make people dance with her.  

They...

Wear so much foundation here.  walking photoshops.

Intelligentsia

Considering the process intensive and quality of the coffee they serve here, and this little set only cost me $4.50, I don't know where starbucks thinks it gets off charging what they do for what they serve.

Hostel life

Dude passed out on an upper bunk with his shoes still on. Weak sauce. It's not even four am yet.

Turkuaz

Turk your ass with some delicious Turkish ass food:

Waiting for the late night A.

Slake

Night club in midtown on 30th. It was fun.

Oh my god...My anaconda

Holy... Where am I. This like Kelly O'Neills but worse and with weird new york tourists instead of military guys.

So far today, Friday

I walked myrtle, Broadway and some other streets. Found my banksy despite the best attempts of the capitalists and anarchists.   Didn't do much of what I planned. I managed lunch and a couple of banksy spots in bk and now drinks. The cold man, the cold.  Plus I really like this bar, might make camp here for now. May have to try to make it back to the hostel for pub crawl, not because I want to get drunk or anything, but because I don't know what else to do with myself, and its about people, it's always been about the people.

Bizarre bar in Bushwick

bizarre is the name of the establishment.   Really cool, quirky, designed and restored hip place at myrtle and Broadway in Brooklyn.  How hip and quirky? Playing Gummo on the brick wall. Great music, did I mention the great music.  Bartenderess is very beautiful.  she smiled a lot. Who says new yorkers are mean?

But let's be honest, any place in this city of hip is about as cool and hip and quirky as any other. par for course if I want be cynical and jaded.

Disco ball in bathroom, giant urinal as tall as me, burlesque shows on Wednesdays...

Lol. Just read the yelp reviews about this place and they all trash the slow, pretentious, rude hipster bartenders.   now I'm afraid to ask the cute blonde bartender for another drink because she is talking to a friend in the corner....lol.  note, the picture below is of the bartender with another friend from earlier, she is now talking to another friend on the other end of the bar.  Update: no, they were both great, the beautiful blond one and the cute brunette who took over. But, then again, there's like two customers in the bar. You would have to try to provide bad service when this well empty.

Anyway, would recommend.

Mcdonalds people watching

Hot chocolate in Brooklyn. 280 calories. Small fries, btw, is 230 calories.  

Maybe I shouldn't disparage McDonald's so much. Everyone here right now seems quite happy and content. Is it the high calorie processed comfort food? The cheapness? The literal warmth of the facility?

She snatched the nickel.  behind the cup is a nickel the previous person left behind.  invisible cleaning lady.

Asian lady selling bootleg dvds and head scratchers table to table.

Soco

The humanity! How many of my Hedwigs rode by me on the opposite track? How many yidzaks have I passed on the street here?

My platonian other half may be in this city of eight million and I....would never know.

It's 41 degrees right now at 1 pm in the afternoon. It's going to hit the twenties tonight. Not looking forward to my street walk.

This is soco in Brooklyn, soul food with edge. It was pretty good. 

Yesterday

Rancid and the bowery and lower east side. Little bit of shopping. Graffiti hunting.

Today, soul food in Brooklyn, more banksy, the bridge, maybe grand central terminal and the public library and H&M..... I have about six hours to do all this before it gets uncomfortably cold and dark.

L.E.S.

This city is just too cool for me, particularly the Lower East Side.  The beautiful rich well dressed people.  It is all too hip for me.

.......... I don't even know what to say about NYC.  I'm at a loss for words.  Not becuase I'm overwhelmed or so impressed,  but becuase it's impossible to generalize or summarize.  So, I won't even try.

today was day four:  I slept in late after the jazz night, then went to the lower east side to eat and walk around.

I am stubborn and like to do the things I will say I do, and since all the Banksy graffiti art that he did for a month when he was doing his NYC residency in October 2013 was immediately defaced, painted over or even removed intact to be sold within days or weeks of its appearance, I walked all over town to track down the traces of history.  Here is what I found:

Graffiti is a Crime: Allen Street, between Hester and Canal Street: 

Car Mural: 159 Ludlow Street"

Before

Now

Some of his other stuff: 

Beyoglu

Best meal yet. Unbelievable.

"I can't breathe!"

I always seek the most authentic experiences of wherever i travel.

$50 ticket for urinating in public at 2:30 in the morning in NYC.

Jazz...love is like

At Dizzy Coca Cola jazz club at Time Warner Center with Andre and Issella.  

Taking picture of giant guy with shiny penis; 

Jazz is alright.   Not as bad as I always thought. 

I was on my way to Cafe Habana for the fish tacos today when I got sidetracked by this vegan Dosa and Uppatam.  I had a chai and cilantro chutney with it.  so good. so big.  it looked like a giant elephant penis. This place was called Hampton Chutney, on Elizabeth Street.  would recommend. 

I eventually found the cafe habana and ate there.  kind of disappointed.  probably shoud have tried their famous cuban sandwhices and grilled corn, but neither appealed to me like a good fish taco.  Nowhere near as good as Ofrenda's fish tacos, would not recommend:

Bar scene

I hate it.

Bansky found

Nope. Never mind. Found his work. He was here in the hostel lobby all this time...

banksy and the death of artistic merit

in hindsight and after seconds of research, i am very silly and naive to think any of the banksy pieces still exist in nyc. 

day one in NYC

what the hell did i do in nyc?

day one, i think was: arrive in town, put on game face, get slightly lost in Penn station, find the one train, find the hostel, check in and get bearings,

wish they had more of these helpful signs when i was traveling in central america. 

then somehow ended up in Times Square like a cliche tourist, scoped out Times Square, had a roast chicken meal in some hole in the wall cuban place right off of times square on 44th, called Margo or something like that.  it was good.

then I joined the hostel pub night thing for one dollar beers and three dollar shots where there was close to 20 of us, our designated hostel guide cancelled on us, so one of volunteered to lead the pack, we all take the subway there, find out the designated place was closed !, then bar hopped a few different places, this is where I fell in love with an english girl named Emma.  ended up drinking till 4am.  slept in late the next day.

Day two:
woke up late, walked to somewhere, the highline. meh.

got a little lost along the way.

how the hell did people like me survive without smart phones and GPS?  how does anyone get lost nowadays with smart phones and GPS?  by not being smart, that's how.

ate at fantastic mexican place on 7th ave.

then...went to times square again to try to score Hedwig tickets, got them.  enjoyed the show (except for the annoying Jewish women: loud italian jewish woman with another loud italian jewish woman at the play, with a head cold and....lol. it would have been annoying if they weren't so awesomely cliche).  Props to the old couple who went to the show and was hesitant about what they were getting into and worriedly asked the usher if it was appropriate for them.

then....home and sleep.

Day three:  ate at delicious indian place for breakfast, Doaba (?) Deli on W 106th, open 23.5 hours a day (6am to 5:30am):

  this was seven dollars, including a chai!  seven dollars! with a chai!  Indian quality food at indian quality prices in Upper West Side manhattan. then....up to the cloisters, then down to brooklyn to walk across the  bridge but ran out of time.

now here, at home at hostel.  tired.  debating if i do the jazz club thing or strike out on my own.  jazz night club thing is 10 bucks cover plus 10 dollars food and drink minium, and i dont' even really like jazz that much....but live music is cool...i guess.  it's either that or....find some bansky art....or....go after those fish taco's at Cafe Hababa in Nolita or go shopping....or...IDK.

New York

damn this city is hip.  the shops, the art, the buildings, the restaurants, the people.... the poetry.


"My heart is proud of its pain".  Reminiscent of that Stephen Crane poem "...because it is bitter..."

New york.

haven't seen much art yet, need to start looking for it.

manhattan is boring.  I should be in Brooklyn or the Bronx...