NYC June 2007

My first trip to New York City. My reaction: Wow! I had great hosts, great times, and I can’t wait to go back. Could one ask for any more? Well, maybe for more time to do all the things that I didn’t have time to do. I stayed most of the time with my friend Kemp, who made it her personal mission to show me all the greatest nooks and crannies of NYC. On the last night I stayed with my other gracious host, Heather, who cooks up some amazing cuisine even at 1am. I did so many little things that by day two I was already having trouble remembering what all we had done so far, so I started keeping a bulleted list of experiences. If you would care to peruse the list, click the link below and read on. If you want to see the photo gallery, click here or the photo on the left.

Day 1, June 6th, Wed:
-I flew into La Guardia airport at 8pm and took a cab to Kemp’s place. It is in a building that was built in the late 1800s or early 1900s, so everything is very old and vintage. Her decor matches that time period so it was almost like getting into a time machine… except for the flatscreen TV on the wall in her bedroom.
-Soon after arriving I met her next door neighbor Todd and his friend
-We all played ping-pong at at a neat live-jazz bar called Fat Cat’s
-Kemp and I walked to a local cinema and watched Pirate’s 3. It was a good flick… at least, relative to the previous one.
-We ate a yummy late night dinner (1am) at Blue Ribbon restaurant. I had pecan covered trout that was delectable!

Day 2, June 7th, Thurs:
-Met Kate, Kemp’s agent assistant
-Tagged along while they did casting calls and met photographers all day
-Ate at Korean place called Won Jo, where they cooked meat in front of us, wrapped in lettuce, and the wait staff kept going crazy over Kemp’s portfolio. It was very funny.
-Stopped into Tasty Delight and had “fake” ice-cream that apparently only has a minimal number of calories. It was tasty and delightful.
-Ate sushi dinner at Ido where Kemp was treated like a celebrity. The owners kept asking to get photos with us. I guess I became a celebrity by association. Yeah, we’ll go with that.
-Went swing dancing at Club 412. There were lots of good dancers there. All the guys were going ga-ga over Kemp. Imagine that.
-One of the guys we met, Yuval (no, I had not heard of him), invited us (read: insisted) to join him afterward for a drink a bar called EO. It was a fabulous place! Amazing tapas food and exotic hand-made drinks.
-Afterward Yuval showed us a cool dessert spot that served the best pumpkin vanilla cheesecake in the world! The hot apple cider was really good too.
-On the way home, about 3am, we walked through Washington Square park and came upon a group of stoners playing songs with guitars, maracas, and other instruments. The divo of the group was an obese redhead named Jerry who insisted that the songs be done his way or else he was leaving. He tried to leave about 10 times, but kept coming back and finally sang some stuff. The whole thing was utterly amusing.

Day 3, June 8th, Fri:
-Kemp and I went to Balthazar’s for lunch where I enjoyed a chicken club and foie gras. The foie gras was Kemp’s idea, but I thought the combination was fitting.
-We walked around NYC a bit and kept running into Kemp’s friends everywhere, including a world renound photographer named Greg, a musician whose music video she starred in, and an indie movie director who looked very opinionated.
-I saw my first official NYC driver/pedestrian “exchange”, with plenty of verbal cues and even hand gestures! Ah, New York, New York.
-Kemp and I went to her favorite Asian massage parlor and had a 61 minute massage. Why 61 minutes? I guess so you feel like you got more than the hour massage place down the street is offering. *shrug*
-I ventured off by myself to a little restaurant called Burritoville for a snack while Kemp went to the gym.
-We stopped be a video rental store to get some movies for when Eden arrived that night.
-Spent a couple hours cleaning up the apt for Eden’s arrival. Those animals (two kittens, two parakeets, and a wascawwy wabbit) can get messy faster than one would expect.
-Ordered some late-night food from a Greek diner called Manatus including blueberry/banana pancakes. Those damn kittens kept trying to eat my pancakes. “BAD KITTIES!! That’s mah pancakes!!”
-Eden arrives just in time for the food around 2:30am
-We started watching part of a terrible movie called The Pillow Book before I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer and crashed. Apparently the girls ended up finishing the movie and went out somewhere until about 8am.

Day 4, June 9th, Sat:
-Ate lunch at La Bottega restaurant in the Maritime Hotel and ordered a French version of eggs Benedict. It pretty much rocked my socks off.
-We all went shopping all afternoon at street markets around town and ran some errands
-We stopped into an internet cafe to check on the details of our dinner cruise only to encounter a tense moment when we thought we missed a deadline and would not be able to go. Luckily it was resolved and we were good to go for Sunday night!
-Did a photo shoot on the roof of Kemp’s building to begin building my acting/modeling portfolio
-Went to Ido again for sushi and karaoke, heard some amazing child pianists
-Sean Lennon joined us and sang some Beatles songs, but with “alternate” lyrics — very funny stuff!
-We all went swing dancing at a club called Swing 46 after dinner. The club has an authentic roaring twenties feel to it, and even the live band was dressed up accordingly. At one point the female singer said after a song where Kemp was dancing next to the stage, “I just want thank the girl in the yellow dress [Kemp] for distracting my entire band for that last song. I think I and [the female bassist] were the only ones actually playing that song.” It was hysterical. Also, I taught Sean Lennon his first swing dancing steps. Way cool.
-Sean insisted that we come over to his mom’s place and look at the art collection, so we took a cab to Yoko Ono’s place on the upper east side. Yoko was not home, but Sean opened a bottle of wine for us and showed us the most amazing personal art collection I have ever seen. There were priceless pieces (and a full time security guard to protect them)… Dalis, Magrittes, stone door to an Egyptian tomb, a real mummy, an intricately painted and carved Renaissance piece, John Lennon’s guitar with original strings (note: not on display), etc.
-After admiring the art, Sean played music with us on guitar and piano and we all had a blast. Sean is a witty person and quite an amazing pianist!
-Afterward Eden and I split from Kemp and Sean and went to that Greek diner Manatus until about 5am.

Day 5, June 10th, Sun:
-We walked through Times Square
-Saw Les Miserables on Broadway – what a wonderful play! It is the best stage show I’ve seen to date.
-After the play we went immediately to the Chelsea pier to board the boat for our dinner cruise on Spirit cruise lines. I had a crab cake appetizer, fillet mignon entree, and chocolate torte with ice cream on top for dessert. Yum! Love potion #9 was a hit drink, and Kemp and Eden I think drank more of my drinks than I did. The lights on the Hudson were amazing, with NYC on one side and Jersey on the other. The the boat pulled right up to the Statue of Liberty and everyone had a photo-fest. During the voyage we danced to the live jazz music and were a hit!
-After disembarking, we walked home about 30 blocks on a beautiful evening.
-Once home, Kemp did another photo shoot with me to make some headshots.

Day 6, June 11th, Mon:
-Kemp got pulled away unexpectedly for some casting calls. Ah, the life of a star.
-Eden and I went to Zabar’s for lunch and then walked around town for awhile chatting and shopping. We stopped into Filene’s Basement for a look around.
-Met up with Kemp later in the afternoon and we all walked around a bit more and then home.
-Alas, it was time for me to depart for Brooklyn to stay my final night in New York with Heather. Around 6pm there was a light rain, so I took a cab to Heather’s loft. The rain had subsided by the time I got there.
-We took the metro down a few stops and went to dinner at a restaurant simply called Diner. We both had the Wild Striped Sea Bass that was very tasty. I washed it down, appropriately, with Bass ale.
-Next we took a cab to the Financial District in Manhattan and met up with my cousin Jeremy at a pub called Suspenders, about a block south of Wall Street on Broadway. We had a great time catching up, talking about business as well as his experience during 9/11.
-Heather and I went to a little neighborhood store and picked up bacon and then went home and made bacon egg and cheese sandwiches – yum!
-We hung out with one of her roommates and his friends for awhile at the loft, and then watched about half of I Heart Huckabees before crashing.

Day 7, June 12th, Tues:
-Heather left for work before I got up, so I hung out with her roommate Matt for awhile and talked about his photography career, and he taught me some tricks in Photoshop.
-Soon it was time to head to the airport, so around noon I took a shuttle car to La Guardia and so concluded my visit to the city that never sleeps. I’ll be back.

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