BKNY, Hot August Night, B&E, Rain-Outs + Fribbles

Jessica and I took a vacation last week. What better way to downshift from the rat race than to fly across the country and run around New York and Boston, catching up with old friends, discovering Brooklyn, going to see Neil Diamond at the Garden, the Red Sox at Fenway, and breaking into my longtime roommate's house with a credit card?

SATURDAY: PROSPECT HEIGHTS
Leave Seattle 7:40am, arrive JFK 4pm, drive into Brooklyn and connect with Ryan, a semi-retired party catalyst and old high school friend with whom I'd delightfully re-connected four years ago after a few inexplicable years of being out of touch. We enjoy a quality evening of Mexican food and talking in Prospect Heights.


SUNDAY: YACHT ROCK in GREENPOINT + FRANKIE'S w/ 60% of the DUNDAS CLAN
We spend the morning and afternoon in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Greenpoint, checking out Yacht Rock, a brunch event featuring free bagels and DJs spinning wimpy 70s music (think: Michael McDonald, Toto, Steely Dan, Kenny Loggins, et al). We decide a proper brunch is needed, something beyond free bagels and musical guilty pleasures. So we walk a couple blocks and hit what proves to be a brilliant spot called Brooklyn Label. Jessica's french toast is a work of art and my biscuits & gravy w/ a couple eggs over easy just knocks me on my ass. Later, we check into the brand new Nu Hotel, just a couple blocks from where one of my oldest and dearest friends, Jennie, lives and works. We connect with her and her visiting mom and brother, Dot and Michael, for a lovely dinner at Frankie's 457. I haven't seen Jennie in six years, or Dot and Michael in probably fifteen... shit, what a marvelous occasion this is.




MONDAY: BLUE MARBLE, ANTIQUES, & TIKI BARS
BLUE MARBLE ICE CREAM. I'm so proud of Jennie! This joint rocks. We make sure to arrive unannounced, to have a genuine experience without the accoutrements of being friends of the co-proprietress. The place is clean, cool, it smells nice, the staff is dynamite, the line moves at a very nice clip, the ice cream is the best we've ever had... the ice cream is farm-fresh and organic, all the coffee is fair trade, all the packaging is bio-degradable, they're located in an eco-friendly building, they offer a rotating menu of fresh-baked stuff like the chorizo quiche that's featured during our stay...

CLICK HERE AND SPEND 20 SECONDS TO NOMINATE BLUE MARBLE FOR A $2.5m AMEX AWARD WHICH WILL ALLOW THEM TO OPEN A NON-PROFIT ICE CREAM SHOP IN RWANDA. WHAT THE F**K ARE YOU WAITING FOR? DO IT NOW. OR THE CAT GETS IT.



After dinner, Jessica and I walk down to a tiki bar. She has a weakness for tiki bars. Weaknesses, we all have them and who am I to judge? I resist, but as she's accompanied me on countless endeavors that only interest me, I must go. It goes well. We play many rounds of Scattergories, our bartender is nice, Jessica gets a Scorpion Bowl which I thought only underage kids ordered in Chinese restaurants...



TUESDAY: CONEY ISLAND, HOT AUGUST NIGHT
Perhaps the most action-packed day & night of the trip... if you haven't been, Coney Island is everything you think it is. Boardwalk beachfront, games, rides, arcades, Nathan's Hot Dogs, the Cyclone... it's a storybook afternoon. Holding hands on the boardwalk, playing Skeeball, taking in the brilliant blend of arcade and seaside sounds... The Cyclone, built in 1927, the world's most infamous rollercoaster... I must ride this thing. I must document the experience... Jessica and then the guy who gets you seated in the coaster, they both advise me to put my camera away. Jessica advises me to take my hat and glasses off. Naturally, I listen only to myself, who at the time says, how hard can it be to hold onto a camera on a rollercoaster? and how could an 80 year-old rollercoaster be fast enough to endanger my hat and glasses? Well... my logic lasts until about one or two seconds into the first drop, at which point the camera flies out of my hands, the hat off my head, the glasses off my face... luckily, gravity and my mad hand-eye skills give me the opportunity to swat everything back into the coaster. THE CYCLONE IS CRAZY!!! YOU MUST RIDE IT!!!
Below: aforementioned video from said incident

Also of note... SHOOT THE FREAK. I can't stop laughing about this. In between cotton candy stands and arcades is what looks like a vacant lot, within which we have a game called Shoot The Freak. The customer side is like any carnival game. There's a counter with mounted guns - in this case, paint ball rifles - the difference being, instead of balloons or stationary clowns, the target is a person. The Freak. He wears a helmet with facemask, he carries a shield, and if you fork over three bucks for five shots or, taking advantage of what those in the economics biz refer to as the economy of scale, five bucks for ten shots, your job is to shoot the Freak.
Back to the Cyclone... I can't get it off my mind! Break my balls all you want - the Cyclone is CRAZY! It yanks and jerks you you all over the place, the drops are painfully sharp, the seats are made for smaller people of an earlier era... I've been on more modern coasters which are empirically faster and so forth, and they're exciting but smooth and decidedly safe. The Cyclone? Are you shitting me? You can't hold onto a camera on this thing, this 80 year-old rickety monstrosity and marvel of the post Industrial Revolution. And neither could I...











HOT AUGUST NIGHT: NEIL AT THE GARDEN
When you consider the quintessential New York things to do, a handful of things come to mind. In August, ice skating at Rockefeller Plaza is out. The Yankess are out of town, which works well because I'd undoubtedly have gone to their stadium only to pee on it and inevitably get roughed up by NYPD Blue. And so we see, Neil Diamond is playing Madison Square Garden. What a show! He comes out with Holly Holy, Beautiful Noise, Love on the Rocks... Jessica enjoys the show on some twisted level of schlock appreciation. I enjoy it on the level of a brilliant pop songwriter whose songbook includes dozens of songs the other 99.9% of artists out there wish they'd written. Tonight, the set list is as complete as anyone could ask for. Play Me. Cherry Cherry. Thank the Lord for the Night Time. Crunchy Granola Suite. Done Too Soon. I'm a Believer. Brooklyn Roads (complete with requisite story about his poverty-stricken childhood). I Am, I Said. Kentucky Woman. Solitary Man. Forever in Blue Jeans. Sweet Caroline. Song Sung Blue. You Don't bring Me Flowers. Cracklin' Rosie. America. Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show. Come on now!


After the show, the subway takes us up to B.B. King's Blues Club and then down to Greenwich Village, where we thoroughly enjoy our stay at Terra Blues. This club is a gem, my kind of place where you can take in real rhythm & blues music in a setting that's cozy and unassuming. They run a good show there, and the manager Gabriel is a very nice guy with whom I enjoy a quality talk about the current state of r&b. Otherwise, I'm sad about Bleecker Street, which used to be where it's at for Bohemian culture but is now a place where you'll see sandwich board specials about 2-for-1 Sex on the Beach and Kamikaze shots. On this Hot August Night, the subway takes us back to Brooklyn where we find a nice dump with a Galaga machine. Jessica is sick - she has been during this trip - but she's willing to drink Hot Totties while I work the video game into submission. I don't get the machine high score, not even close, but I do reach a personal high score. I appreciate Jessica's patience in this matter.

A good night's sleep and we're shipping up to Boston.


WEDNESDAY: GEE, O'BOY, WE'RE DOIN' A B&E
Wednesday, we hit Greenpoint again to walk the shops, pick up a Dane Cook comedy CD for the ride, get a couple slices (Jessica: "So THIS is real pizza! NOW I know what you've been talking about!"), and hit the road. The Deegan to the Cross County to the Hutch to 684 to 84 to the Pike... like the back of my hand, brothers and sisters. We approach Boston and call my main man Fran and Tina (they are one), with whom we'll be staying tonight, and he says, "You'll get to our house 45 minutes before we do. You know how to break into a house with a credit card, right?" As a matter of fact, I do! So we break into Fran & Tina's lovely house and make ourselves at home. Soon, they arrive, we haven't robbed them, and we hit a local joint for dinner and the Sox game, finish the game back at their house and chill. Tina goes out and brings back some Ben & Jerry's. Quality time with two of my favorite people on the planet. It doesn't get better, and I'm happier than a sailor in a brothel with a fistful of hundreds that Jessica gets to meet these guys. Guy. And gal.

THURSDAY: ROXBURY, THE BERRY, BUT NOT THE FRUIT Y'ALL
Thursday is nice. We have a remarkable lunch in the North End with Fran which defies the statement "Good, fast, cheap - choose two." Today we get all three, then walk it off a bit, checking out the post Big Dig city.
Later, we drive to Cambridge to check out Mass. Ave. and Harvard Square, home of more public chess playing than anywhere this side of Smartville. Then we hit West Roxbury and
my old high school for a quick "holy crap, this place looks like a small college!" tour, then around the corner to my cousin Tricia's house where we meet her and my uncle Eddie for dinner at O'Hara's and a delightful chat in Trish's kitchen. Trish has some folks staying with her, a friend who has adopted a pair of deaf children from China, they're running around and making lots of noise but whattayagonnado? Uncle Eddie gives me some records (the Fugs, anyone?). Finally, off to Roxbury where we hang with Jason and Elaina. Jaybo, good man that he is, has acquired some scotch and vodka to facilitate our arrival. Elaina, good woman that she is, has prepared their guest room for our arrival. Hospitality, baby. Or as Jessica says, horse brutality. Jason pours cocktails and plays records for us, everything from Dokken to Kraftwerk and everything in between. With Jason playing DJ and Elaina whipping out veggies & dip, we're enjoying a brand of horse brutality that we're just not used to. But we like it!


FRIDAY: A RAINY NIGHT AT FENWAY
More mind-boggling horse brutality as Jason and Elaina serve up a breakfast fit for royalty. Eggs. Bacon. O.J. Fruit. I swear to Tom Brady, this meal is a Norman Rockwell painting. And we're off! Jessica likes museums. I've been dragging her to Neil Diamond concerts, blues clubs, and putting her through the (albeit enjoyable) process of meeting a number of my best friends for the first time... we're going to a museum, dammit. Jason suggests the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. What a cool place. Brilliant, beautiful, and it sparks the imagination of the kinds of parties and shenanigans that must have taken place here. Then, we head over to Kenmore Square and enjoy a cocktail and appetizers at a posh new (to me) spot called the Eastern Standard, which ironically sits in the space formerly occupied by the legendary punk rock club The Rathskeller. Alas, we're off to one of the world's greatest wonders, a cathedral of the National Pastime... Fenway Park. Home of the Boston Red Sox. We get there. It's raining. We wait. Jessica scarfs down a couple Fenway Franks like they're going out of style. She loves 'em. If I didn't know she was a keeper before this moment, I surely know it now (disclosure: I knew she was a keeper within the first date). After ninety minutes of hanging in our great seats, compliments of my man Pete who is currently in Vietnam with his family to adopt a child, the game is postponed until a month from now. We leave in a near-catatonic state. However, a rapid pick-me-up comes in the form of a call from another of my oldest friends, Mike, who advises us that despite his wife Caroline being about to give birth to their second child, he saw the game was called and it's still early enough for him to meet us out for a beer. I haven't seen Mike in six years, so this is a special occasion. We meet Mike, Jason and Elaina and hit McGreevey's, the bar recently opened by the Dropkick Murphys, and then a first-class dump suggested by Mike, T.C.'s Lounge.







Next day, we drive to a nice wedding in New York, and for our final act of this semi-glorious trip we stop in Poughkeepsie to enjoy a couple of these...


Ending on a high note is good. Fribbles are good.