After 2+ years spent in 7 states and 20 countries it was finally time for me to return home to the one and only, City of New York. I spent the first few days (Monday through Friday) catching up with friends, running in Central Park and getting some sleep after a wild run in Tel Aviv. The rest was all for naught though because DAMAGE was done over the weekend (my first back, but last before starting my new job). Here's the story of 48 hysterical hours "in the life of"...
Friday, 10pm - I met the crew for a pre-game at Colleen and Sean's in Chelsea.
11:30pm - We went to Rebel for Stadenco's birthday soirée, got drunk, danced and generally acted like fewls. I used Eileen's toy machine gun to hold up both the bartender (for drinks) and a few innocent pizza-eating bystanders on the street (for half of a slice).
Saturday, 5am - We returned to our pre-game location in Chelsea for morning shenanigans. We drank, we played Wii, we tossed around a fake boobie from Japan and we plotted.
8am - We moved the posse to Lloyd's apartment and that's when things really got interesting. After an hour of chilling out, I suggested that we do *something fun* like pull a prank at the Starbucks across the street. My suggestions were not met with very much enthusiasm, so I decided to show some initiative. I picked up a glass vase filled with rocks (to hold bamboo) and asked the group how much money they thought I could earn by trying to sell the rocks on the street outside the apartment. They laughed, made low ball estimates and doubted that I'd even do it. Ha!
I took to the streets with Karen as my trusty sidekick and the crew peering down from Lloyd's second floor apartment. In 7 short minutes, I made $5 and had a woman flash her breasts twice. And to think that New Yorkers have such a bad reputation!?! All of the locals were extremely cool and generous... in fact, it was the tourists who shunned me and ran away! I'd like to give public recognition to the six kind souls whose generosity has earned them good karma forevermore:
--Mr. Belt-Selling-Black-Man with the table on the NE corner who believed in me and gave me my first dollar of the day.
--Ms. Young-Baby-Carrying-Asian-Woman who had so much trouble finding her wallet, but still kept digging even though she had a baby in her arms.
--Mrs. Black-Hoodie-Black-Woman who overheard me asking someone else and voluntarily coughed up the $1.
--Miss On-The-Phone-But-Didn't-Skip-A-Beat-Chickie for her silky smooth ability to deal with beggars while walking and carrying on a conversation with her friend.
--Mr. Balding-Older-Dude who showed me love right from the start and didn't even want to take a karma rock.
--Miss No-Bra-Wearing-Boobie-Flashing-Crazy-White-Woman. I salute you!
A big FU to the following people:
--The guy wearing the back support belt who didn't give me a $1 even though I danced, begged, bowed and kissed his feet.
--The guy in the Budget Rental Van who made an obscene gesture at me.
--The two white chicks from the Midwest and the middle aged lady in red who looked at me like I was on crack and ran away.
Oh and by the way, we have this entire episode on video. If you thought that was slightly humorous... keep reading, we're just getting started.
10am - After I returned to the apartment and got congratulated for my efforts, my friend, Mikey, decided he was going to take a turn. Despite his broken nose sympathy ploy, he earned a measly $2 and was not flashed by anyone. We pooled our cash and decided it was time for a field trip for lottery tickets. We bought 7 $1 tickets and gave one to each of the crackas back at the apartment. We raked in $6 and set off for more tickets. This time we bought 1 $5 (which we gave to Joel in honor of his birthday) and 1 $1 (for Eileen and her pending move to Madrid). The lovely couple scratched their way to a whopping $15 jackpot, which we promptly took back to the store. By this point, Mike and I had become extremely close with the woman behind the counter who was originally from Bombay, but had been in the US for quite some time. You could tell by the look in her eye that she wanted us to be the big winners. So we decided to go for a $10 New York Millions card and keep the remaining $5 to use toward the ENORMOUS jar of pickles that we'd seen in a local deli earlier that morning. On our way back to the apartment, we stopped into the deli to buy the pickles. My recently learned Arabic came in handy because I somehow managed to sweet talk the Yemenese dude behind the counter to give us the pickles for $5 instead of their $8 price. We even took a picture of the transaction, which he promptly asked to see. We paraded up the stairs with the $10 ticket and the holy grail of after hours, a 1 gallon jar of B&G Kosher Dill Pickles. By now you have probably realized that we didn't win the big money )-: but the pickles were a big hit (to look at...not to eat, of course).
2pm - The rest of the afternoon was spent between the apartment, the roof and Central Park... with stops at the Mac store (to buy iPod speakers) and Nancy's (to walk Norman). Let's just say the humorous behavior continued with a pickle parade, a suspicious fountain security guard, a near confiscation of the pickles in the park, a scavenger hunt for a bicycle and a pair of underwear and various other acts of stupidity by each of the characters that lasted the full day. I finally got to bed around 10pm... just in time to get enough rest before...
Sunday, 12pm - I met the usual suspects at Penn Station to catch the train to Albertson for the marquee event of the summer, Saisha's pool party. The weather was crappy - clouds and some rain - but somehow that didn't manage to dampen the spirit or the debauchery. The boys sans shorts, the girls sans tops... and Tony Lee sans everything including his mind! Hmmm, what else? We set new hot tub records, Lola rocked the BluBlockers, the mustache bandits were on the prowl, a few fewls knocked down tiki torches and I got electrocuted by the rabbit fence - sweet! Not bad for the day before the start of a new job!
Believe it or not, I had never seen the Rocky Horror Picture Show, nor did I have any clue what it was about. So at Joel's urging, a crew of 11 of us ventured out to the Chelsea Clearview Theater for the midnight showing of the cult classic. Let's just say it started out with a 30 minute dance party (of which we were the stars), followed with a live orgasm contest (won by one of us) and finished with two hours of zany interactive antics by the whole crowd. I can't believe I waited this long to go see it - I highly recommend it and for those who don't know what its about, I'd like to share an overview and the trailer (below). The basic premise: a young engaged couple gets lost one dark and gloomy night and wind up at the castle of a sweet transvestite who is about to reveal his newest creation (a hot go-go boy). After that there is sex, murder, dancing and debauchery. You don't need to know much more than that... just go!
