It was two weeks ago. Blondie and I had just arrived at the Club and were slowly setting up our bar.
The minute she saw me that night, she said : I have something to tell you.
A few minutes later, when we were alone, she told me to come over. In her purse, she was holding a positive pregnancy test.
I never thought that one day I’d be so happy to have never slept with her.
I’m so grateful to live in a country where girls can get a free and discreet abortion. Blondie will probably make a great mother someday, but definitely not today. She’s still a self-absorbed kid with absolutely no sense of responsibility.
The only time she had unprotected sex was when she slept with her ex a little while ago. And she took the morning after pill. But these pills are not fail proof.
I’m talking about this because I saw the news about this American abortion doctor who was shot in church and it makes me incredibly sad. I have the utmost respect for doctors who perform abortions. These doctors aren’t monsters, they took the Hippocrate oath live every other doctor, they probably have more respect for human life than any of us. I’m sure they struggle with this choice their whole life, but in the end, they understand the fact that the right to a decent life is more important than the right to life.
Sure, it is remotely possible that if Blondie were to keep that kid, he’d grow up to be good person and live a happy life. But if we’re gonna give right of life to the unborn, why stop at the fetus. If Blondie were to have this kid right now, she’d be denying life to another kid, one she would have latter, one with much, much higher chances of having a happy life, a stable life filled with love.
I understand that some women simply can’t live with that idea and believe they should have the kid regardless. And I have great respect for that too as I believe it takes immense courage to raise a kid when you’re nothing but ready. And that’s why it’s called pro-choice.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Life is good
Tonight at The Club, it was ok. Well, actually, if last week was “just ok”, tonight was below average.
The money was good, but hardly anything happened. I had a bunch of American tourists at my bar. They were loud, the girls weren’t cute at all and they tipped like shit.
In general, it’s known that Americans are good tippers. When I was a waiter at an upscale tourist restaurant, I used to love Americans! They religiously tipped 20$ after taxes.
But at The Club, the Americans we get are mostly under 21. They can’t get into bars at home and they just don’t know how it works. Unlike most girls I work with, I always try to tell them nicely. “hey guys, try to leave some tips tonight… all right ?”
I know most of them are just not used to this unwritten rule, but it can really ruin my mood. It’s pretty easy: 1 drink, 1 $. Two shots, 1$. There you go.
At 7$ a drink and 3$ a shot, it rounds up to 15%. I know, you think that 2$ is still a good tip for opening three beers. After all, why should I even make more? Opening three beers ain’t much harder than opening just one.
But that’s not how it works. See, I pay a cut. I pay 6% of my sales, regardless of how much tips I make, to my busboys and managers. Which means that if you tip me 10%, I only get to keep 4%. At this rate, to come home with a whole 10$ of tips, I’ll need to sell over 16 of those 6$ beers. So… yeah, I’m a bit pissed off when you leave me 1$ for two beers (which is actually less than 10%)
Fortunately, I always have some good local customers who compensate for the cheap fucks I get.
Enough with that, I just needed to blow off some steam. Let’s stay zen… you win some you loose some.
At one point in the night, I see a camera on my bar. The only people around are facing away, it seems like it was forgotten there. To make sure it doesn’t get stolen, I take it from the bar and put it on my back bar, right there in plain view.
At 3am, when everybody’s out, I reach for my pack of cigarette and I realize the camera is still there. No one came to ask for it.
I actually feel sorry for the owner. I once lost my camera, a few years ago, and I know how much it sucks. But it’s now totally mine. It’s not like handing it over to my bosses would be the honest thing to do. One of my boss would just have a new camera. It would be as helpful as giving it to the homeless guy on the street, in terms of returning it to the owner.
When I get home, I look in the camera to see what pictures are on it. Hey maybe I’ll see a boob or two!
I open the camera, and the first picture that appears (the last taken) is me, behind my bar. The second picture? Still me behind my bar. It’s not like I’m at the back of a shot. No, it’s just me. How fucking weird!
The other 150 pictures were of the American kids that were hanging out at my bar. I hope it belongs to the overly drunk fucker who consistently undertipped me, cause some of these guys were actually ok. But since there’s two pictures of me taken secretly on that thing, I kinda wish it belongs to the cutest of the American girls.
I guess I’ll start to post pictures now.
Oh! And it was Pascale’s birthday. She got pretty drunk. At one point, Sara and her were kissing. It’s always fun to see two (HOT) girls you’ve slept with in the last week kiss each other. It fuels the imagination, to say the least.
At 3:25, I received a text message from Pascale: Can I come sleep with you?
I’m tired, I’m drunk, she’s WAY drunk, all I want to do is go home and smoke a joint. I choose to ignore it.
At 4:30, when I’m ready to leave the club, I text back: Sorry, I just got your message… going to sleep, I’ll see you soon.
You know life is good when you can afford to turn down booty calls from a cute 19 years old barmaid.
The money was good, but hardly anything happened. I had a bunch of American tourists at my bar. They were loud, the girls weren’t cute at all and they tipped like shit.
In general, it’s known that Americans are good tippers. When I was a waiter at an upscale tourist restaurant, I used to love Americans! They religiously tipped 20$ after taxes.
But at The Club, the Americans we get are mostly under 21. They can’t get into bars at home and they just don’t know how it works. Unlike most girls I work with, I always try to tell them nicely. “hey guys, try to leave some tips tonight… all right ?”
I know most of them are just not used to this unwritten rule, but it can really ruin my mood. It’s pretty easy: 1 drink, 1 $. Two shots, 1$. There you go.
At 7$ a drink and 3$ a shot, it rounds up to 15%. I know, you think that 2$ is still a good tip for opening three beers. After all, why should I even make more? Opening three beers ain’t much harder than opening just one.
But that’s not how it works. See, I pay a cut. I pay 6% of my sales, regardless of how much tips I make, to my busboys and managers. Which means that if you tip me 10%, I only get to keep 4%. At this rate, to come home with a whole 10$ of tips, I’ll need to sell over 16 of those 6$ beers. So… yeah, I’m a bit pissed off when you leave me 1$ for two beers (which is actually less than 10%)
Fortunately, I always have some good local customers who compensate for the cheap fucks I get.
Enough with that, I just needed to blow off some steam. Let’s stay zen… you win some you loose some.
At one point in the night, I see a camera on my bar. The only people around are facing away, it seems like it was forgotten there. To make sure it doesn’t get stolen, I take it from the bar and put it on my back bar, right there in plain view.
At 3am, when everybody’s out, I reach for my pack of cigarette and I realize the camera is still there. No one came to ask for it.
I actually feel sorry for the owner. I once lost my camera, a few years ago, and I know how much it sucks. But it’s now totally mine. It’s not like handing it over to my bosses would be the honest thing to do. One of my boss would just have a new camera. It would be as helpful as giving it to the homeless guy on the street, in terms of returning it to the owner.
When I get home, I look in the camera to see what pictures are on it. Hey maybe I’ll see a boob or two!
I open the camera, and the first picture that appears (the last taken) is me, behind my bar. The second picture? Still me behind my bar. It’s not like I’m at the back of a shot. No, it’s just me. How fucking weird!
The other 150 pictures were of the American kids that were hanging out at my bar. I hope it belongs to the overly drunk fucker who consistently undertipped me, cause some of these guys were actually ok. But since there’s two pictures of me taken secretly on that thing, I kinda wish it belongs to the cutest of the American girls.
I guess I’ll start to post pictures now.
Oh! And it was Pascale’s birthday. She got pretty drunk. At one point, Sara and her were kissing. It’s always fun to see two (HOT) girls you’ve slept with in the last week kiss each other. It fuels the imagination, to say the least.
At 3:25, I received a text message from Pascale: Can I come sleep with you?
I’m tired, I’m drunk, she’s WAY drunk, all I want to do is go home and smoke a joint. I choose to ignore it.
At 4:30, when I’m ready to leave the club, I text back: Sorry, I just got your message… going to sleep, I’ll see you soon.
You know life is good when you can afford to turn down booty calls from a cute 19 years old barmaid.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
A kiss and a smile
She’s standing in front of the bathroom mirror, wearing nothing but a pair of tight boxers, some tiny pair I bought a while ago without trying them on and that I now keep for this specific purpose.
I take a last good look at her endless legs, at her small perky breasts. We’re going to bed, for good this time. It’s passed 5 in the morning. I just changed the bed sheets.
Her, looking in her purse: I had no idea I’d end up here tonight, I don’t have anything with me.
She pulls a pack of gum from that tiny black purse. I think she’s seriously considering the idea of using that sugar-free gum as a toothbrush.
I grab her around the waist, kiss her in the neck and gently move her to the side. I open the cabinet under the sink. I take out a new toothbrush, a bottle of make-up remover and the little cotton tampons. And a hair elastic.
Me: Here. Oh and if you need to pluck your eyes out, there’s some contact lens solution and the little case to store them in there as well.
Her: you know… most guys I know have a hard time buying toilet paper.
Me: Well, a lady’s gotta be treated like a lady, don’t you think?
Her with a slightly malicious smile on her face: … you really love women don’t you? I mean, you really actually love them... you’re a rare kind.
Me: And what kind is that?
Her: The kind that you love with all your heart for a night and that you set free the next morning, with a kiss and a smile.
Me: I don’t feel especially imprisoned right now.
Her: oh you will. I might not look like so, but I’m insanely jealous.
Me: … well come closer for now, the sun is not up yet.
I take a last good look at her endless legs, at her small perky breasts. We’re going to bed, for good this time. It’s passed 5 in the morning. I just changed the bed sheets.
Her, looking in her purse: I had no idea I’d end up here tonight, I don’t have anything with me.
She pulls a pack of gum from that tiny black purse. I think she’s seriously considering the idea of using that sugar-free gum as a toothbrush.
I grab her around the waist, kiss her in the neck and gently move her to the side. I open the cabinet under the sink. I take out a new toothbrush, a bottle of make-up remover and the little cotton tampons. And a hair elastic.
Me: Here. Oh and if you need to pluck your eyes out, there’s some contact lens solution and the little case to store them in there as well.
Her: you know… most guys I know have a hard time buying toilet paper.
Me: Well, a lady’s gotta be treated like a lady, don’t you think?
Her with a slightly malicious smile on her face: … you really love women don’t you? I mean, you really actually love them... you’re a rare kind.
Me: And what kind is that?
Her: The kind that you love with all your heart for a night and that you set free the next morning, with a kiss and a smile.
Me: I don’t feel especially imprisoned right now.
Her: oh you will. I might not look like so, but I’m insanely jealous.
Me: … well come closer for now, the sun is not up yet.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Gastro
Last night, I had plans to meet Brad after work to go to a new bar that opened in an up and coming part of town. He calls me in the afternoon: D’you mind if we go have dinner with my father? He’ll be at the restaurant where my brother works and he’s inviting us.
Not only am I always up for a dinner out and some good wine, and God knows Brad’s father never orders cheap wine, but I was genuinely happy to see his father.
Brad and I know each other since we were born, our fathers were friends in college. Brad’s father is like a dad to me. When I first moved into the city, an hour and a half away from my parent’s home, I could always go to Brad’s house for a good home cooked dinner.
I also used to go up to their cottage a lot, which is more a mansion than a cottage. But I didn’t even get a change to go once this winter. I’m working every Saturday night at the bar so I can never leave town for the week-end with Brad.
It had been a long time since I had seen him. Brad’s younger brother Chuck was also at the table with us. He’s a waiter here, in this nice little authentic Italian restaurant. My parmegianna was great and so was the stuffed veal roast.
After dinner, Chuck comes with Brad and I to go see that new trendy English pub. On the way there, we get a call from Max, an old friend of us. His father too was friends with our parents in college. Somewhere at Brad’s house, there’s a picture of the three of us, in the bathtub, at 4 years old.
Max is with is roommate and good friend Johnson, they live quite close to where we’re going.
We meet up in some grocery store parking lot, not too far from the bar. Brad pulls over incredibly close to them, so they can pass the joint they’re smoking thru the window.
I don’t say anything, but now that there’s five of us, the chances of finding a place are pretty slim. I know this is a trendy and so quite busy spot. You can always squeeze yourself at the bar when you’re only two, but a table for five, at 9 on a Thursday night? Good luck.
As I expected, the bar is packed. I look around to see what the hype is all about. It’s really just some English pub. Apparently they’re all about that gastro pub trend, where they revisit traditional pub grub with fresh ingredients and new techniques. I hate the expression gastro pub. To me, gastro refers more to the stomach in its most medical and acid oozing form than to gastronomy. Why the unnecessary medical abbreviation? Just call it a damn gastronomy pub.
I suggest an old tavern, an institution in town, that’s just a few blocks away. It’s a huge place, a family business of more than 75 years, where they serve big bocks of beer and steaks the size of dictionaries.
They have a huge heated and covered patio. This is quite a set up, they even have a small kitchen with a grill outside. We go sit at the bar. The guys are happy; there’s a sport game on the big flat screen hung behind the bar. I couldn’t care less.
I started talking with Chuck, Brad’s brother. It’s been a while since we had a conversation.
He’s a smart kid, but he thinks a bit too much. Also, he’s a prisoner of his own life.
When I moved to the city, right before University, I was effectively cutting the bridge with my past. And though it might have been rough and lonely at first, it was incredibly liberating.
I was free of all the stupid things I had done and said to people, the kind of stupid things someone does when growing up, while learning the ropes of social relationships. But most of all, I was free of the image I had set up for myself as a kid, free of that image others expected from me.
All of a sudden, I could be whoever I wanted. I could make friends with people like me, people with whom I shared interests, not just the people who happened to be in my class that specific year.
Friends you make as an adult are often much better friends. The connections are richer too, these people love you for who you are, not just because you were friends at 14 years old and it’s what you’re used to..
I still see some good friends from high school, but on a one to one basis. Not with the whole gang, where we would inevitably regress to our stupid 15 years old selves.
Chuck is still caught up with is high school group of friends. He doesn’t feel he can really be himself when he’s among them and that they don’t appreciate him for what he truly is. He seemed quite relieved to know that it was a legitimate desire to make a tabula rasa and start fresh, as an adult, with everything you learned. He was interested in my stance on the topic since I had been there myself.
I also made sure to tell him how difficult and lonely that process can be. It’s hard to make new friends at first. But the more people you know, the more people you meet. And then you come across some wonderful beings. And then more and more and and you’re like… woah, there’s more to life than what I knew in my little teenage bubble life.
Hopefully, we’ll get to discuss this some more. I care for this kid.
Not only am I always up for a dinner out and some good wine, and God knows Brad’s father never orders cheap wine, but I was genuinely happy to see his father.
Brad and I know each other since we were born, our fathers were friends in college. Brad’s father is like a dad to me. When I first moved into the city, an hour and a half away from my parent’s home, I could always go to Brad’s house for a good home cooked dinner.
I also used to go up to their cottage a lot, which is more a mansion than a cottage. But I didn’t even get a change to go once this winter. I’m working every Saturday night at the bar so I can never leave town for the week-end with Brad.
It had been a long time since I had seen him. Brad’s younger brother Chuck was also at the table with us. He’s a waiter here, in this nice little authentic Italian restaurant. My parmegianna was great and so was the stuffed veal roast.
After dinner, Chuck comes with Brad and I to go see that new trendy English pub. On the way there, we get a call from Max, an old friend of us. His father too was friends with our parents in college. Somewhere at Brad’s house, there’s a picture of the three of us, in the bathtub, at 4 years old.
Max is with is roommate and good friend Johnson, they live quite close to where we’re going.
We meet up in some grocery store parking lot, not too far from the bar. Brad pulls over incredibly close to them, so they can pass the joint they’re smoking thru the window.
I don’t say anything, but now that there’s five of us, the chances of finding a place are pretty slim. I know this is a trendy and so quite busy spot. You can always squeeze yourself at the bar when you’re only two, but a table for five, at 9 on a Thursday night? Good luck.
As I expected, the bar is packed. I look around to see what the hype is all about. It’s really just some English pub. Apparently they’re all about that gastro pub trend, where they revisit traditional pub grub with fresh ingredients and new techniques. I hate the expression gastro pub. To me, gastro refers more to the stomach in its most medical and acid oozing form than to gastronomy. Why the unnecessary medical abbreviation? Just call it a damn gastronomy pub.
I suggest an old tavern, an institution in town, that’s just a few blocks away. It’s a huge place, a family business of more than 75 years, where they serve big bocks of beer and steaks the size of dictionaries.
They have a huge heated and covered patio. This is quite a set up, they even have a small kitchen with a grill outside. We go sit at the bar. The guys are happy; there’s a sport game on the big flat screen hung behind the bar. I couldn’t care less.
I started talking with Chuck, Brad’s brother. It’s been a while since we had a conversation.
He’s a smart kid, but he thinks a bit too much. Also, he’s a prisoner of his own life.
When I moved to the city, right before University, I was effectively cutting the bridge with my past. And though it might have been rough and lonely at first, it was incredibly liberating.
I was free of all the stupid things I had done and said to people, the kind of stupid things someone does when growing up, while learning the ropes of social relationships. But most of all, I was free of the image I had set up for myself as a kid, free of that image others expected from me.
All of a sudden, I could be whoever I wanted. I could make friends with people like me, people with whom I shared interests, not just the people who happened to be in my class that specific year.
Friends you make as an adult are often much better friends. The connections are richer too, these people love you for who you are, not just because you were friends at 14 years old and it’s what you’re used to..
I still see some good friends from high school, but on a one to one basis. Not with the whole gang, where we would inevitably regress to our stupid 15 years old selves.
Chuck is still caught up with is high school group of friends. He doesn’t feel he can really be himself when he’s among them and that they don’t appreciate him for what he truly is. He seemed quite relieved to know that it was a legitimate desire to make a tabula rasa and start fresh, as an adult, with everything you learned. He was interested in my stance on the topic since I had been there myself.
I also made sure to tell him how difficult and lonely that process can be. It’s hard to make new friends at first. But the more people you know, the more people you meet. And then you come across some wonderful beings. And then more and more and and you’re like… woah, there’s more to life than what I knew in my little teenage bubble life.
Hopefully, we’ll get to discuss this some more. I care for this kid.
good...
Everything's fine with Pascale, we're friends and it's all good. Few.
Now I stay away from younger girls.
Now I stay away from younger girls.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
New York - Day 2
For day one, go here.
Friday morning. Harry and I wake up around 10 am. The sun is out, the air is warm, it’s a beautiful summer day. We smoke a joint and roll two more for later on in the day.
We stop at the Starbucks on Broadways to grab a coffee and a muffin. We walk north to central park. On our way, we see a TGIF. Harry says he’d like to have a drink there. The French guys who taught us most of what we know behind a bar, worked at TGIF in Paris. I suggest we could try more authentic places since you can find these family restaurants along any highway in the states. He seems to really want it. I don’t want to play killjoy and what are 20 minutes and two drinks at a bar if it’ll make him happy? Plus, in the window, we see that they have 5$ long island iced tea for happy hour.
When we reach central park, we find a spot of lawn that’s not protected by a fence and that’s not too damp. We had brought our flair practice bottles and our shakers and we start juggling around for fun.
After a while, we smoke our joint, and just when we’re about to finish it, a bunch of teenagers, only guys, come near us with what appears to be their phys ed teacher… or something like that. We botch the joint and start to practice our flair again. The kids notice and they like it a lot. Some start filming us. We play along for a while.
Harry wants to see Central Park. I can barely stand up, let alone walk, so we decide to rent bicycles.
We go back to the park entrance, where we had seen guys with signs. We go see the first one and tell him we want bikes. He points to those man-powered tuktuk, the tricyles in which they take tourists around the park.
Sorry sir, there must be a misunderstanding. We want bicycles that we ride ourselves, not a stroll in what is basically the poorman’s version of the horse carriage. He says he’ll take us to the store, not too far away. Harry looks at me dead serious and says: if you tell anyone about this, I’ll kill you.
And so we hop on the tuktuk. We try to make friends with our Turkish “driver” to ease off the weird feeling of being some old colonialists in early 1900’s Indochine. He’s a recently graduated architect, he shows us his favorite skyscraper. Can’t remember which one it was, didn’t care much for it either.
At the bike shop, we get two decent mountain bikes with front suspension for 2 hours for a mere 20$. Every one is so friendly, they give us a map of the park, tell us we can even bring em in 15 minutes late without a problem.
Riding a bike doesn’t hurt at all, actually it kind of relaxes the overly tensed muscles in my feet. The feeling is amazing.
I had NO IDEA how big this freakin park is. After a good 15 minutes of fast pace riding, we get to the boathouse. At this point, I’m pretty sure we reached the north end of the park and that we’re about to turn around. Hell’s no! We haven’t even crossed the third of the park.
We stop on the great lawn to do some more flair. Some people are juggling with pins, with balls, others are playing with Frisbees. We have a crowd of spectators, which is always fun, but we don’t look like we’re putting on a show out nowhere either.
Two of the very few pretty girls we’ll see all week-end walk by and decide to stop and sit on the grass to watch us.
I ask Harry if he wants to go talk to the two girls and ask them what they’re doing tonight. He doesn’t seem too sure about it and I don’t feel like limping over there all by myself. We rationalize our lack of balls: whatever, we’ll meet girls tonight wherever we go.
We bring back the bikes and go back to the hotel, to smoke a joint, have a beer and relax a bit.
Showers and nice clothes.
We walk on Broadway and stop at the first TGIF we see. We find a place at the bar. We order two long island iced teas. The barmaid disappears somewhere behind and comes back with our drink a little later. What the hell was that? What’s the point of having a bar if you’re gonna go behind at the barservice station to make drinks. During the whole time we’re there, there’s never anyone behind the bar. This truly sucks, and the drinks taste kinda weird. We ask for the bill. 24$. 12$ each
“Aren’t we still on happy hour?”
“yeah, but there’s no special on long islands”
Turns out every franchise can choose their own happy hours special.
Now I can understand a TGIF on Time Square and a TGIF in buttfuck, Alabama might post different prices, but I’d expect the two restaurants on broadway, located less then half a mile apart, to have the same freakin happy hour specials.
We decide to head downtown to go to PDT, a pseudo-secret cocktail bar. I met one of theirs bartenders at a cocktail competition somewhere and I wanted to visit ever since.
We walk down fifth avenue. At the corner of 41st, there’s a town car on the left hand side of the street, waiting at a red light. We hear a huge boom, coming from the car. Immediately we think it just exploded.
Actually, it’s the manhole right behind it that poped out of the ground, flying 15 feet into the air. A second later, two more manholes go up flying with a huge boom, right in the middle of the intersection. And then, a HUGE blue flame comes up from the first exploding manhole. It doesn’t go up in a mushroom movie way. It actually makes more of a thick fog just over the grounds, 3 or 4 feet high, and 20 feet around the manhole.
Vince is thrilled. I’m not. I pull him by the sleeve, we’re getting away from here. We keep walking down 5th, carefully avoiding manholes. A minute later, the whole exloding corner street is in complete lock down, with police, paramedics and firemen.
I can no longer stand on my feet, so we try to get a cab. We haven’t yet figured out how the signs on the roof work and what they’re supposed to indicate. So we just keep our arm raised all the time hoping one will stop. It doesn’t work.
But a towncar waiting at a red light horns at us, flashing its lights. We’re a bit confused, we thought you could only get these cars on calls. The driver tells us it’s 20$ to go where we want. I’m more than willing to pay extra to ride in style, if only once. Too bad we’re not going to some velvet rope club with a line-up.
Harry really loves the Lower east side. It reminds us of the hip and trendy neighborhood in our town, where 95% of the population is between 20 and 35.
To get in PDT (Please don’t tell), you have to get into Criff’s Dogs, some hipster hot dog joint, and go into the old phone booth. In there, there’s a phone with a single button “call”. You hit it, it rings, some guy picks up and tells you they’ll be right there.
Though we’re both normally confident in any situations, this whole setups makes us feel like some 8th graders trying to get into a 12th graders’ party. Will we say the right thing? Will they let us in? … Try to act cool…
Harry doesn’t like it at all and finds this to be a lot of hassle just to have a drink.
I go over to the phone. The hostess opens the secret door from within the booth, she asks if I have a reservation. I tell her there’s just two of us and we’d like to sit at the bar. She puts us on the bar waiting list. My phone doesn’t get any signal here so I just tell her we’ll go have a drink somewhere on the street and be back.
We go to some little pub right around the corner. It’s just ok. We go back to Criff’s Dogs and start to wait. Fortunately, there’s a tv with a surf and skateboarding movie playing. We see tons of people going to the phone booth, talking to the girl and walking away, but we hardly see anyone going in. After 40 minutes of this, I go tell her we’ll just come some other time. She asks my name. Tells me she’s been looking for me for a while. She says I’m next on the list.
She finally comes to get us 5 minutes later.
The place is small, dark and intimate. On the wall, just next to the bar is a stuffed rabbit head with deer antlers. Cool.
Once again we try to make friends with the bartender and once again it’s proving real hard. Bartenders keep to themselves and don’t seem to want to drink with customers here. I mean that’s precisely the two cornerstones of the profession: being outgoing and being able to drink. Why not become a librarian instead?
I order a variation of the manhattan. Instead of putting cubes of ices in my drink, the barman takes a huge block of ice, something the size of a rubic cube and puts it into a weird machine. When he opens the machine, there’s a perfect sphere of ice, the size of a snooker ball. (images here)
Harry and I can’t believe it and we go like: WHAT!, maybe a little loud.
The very pretty girl sitting next to us at the bar, one of the very few we saw all week-end, turns around with a curious face that says: Hey what’s this all about?
We try to briefly explain it to her: oh sorry, it’s just this machine produced a perfect sphere of ice, we’re both bartenders and we’ve never seen that anywh …
She interrupts and says, with such condescendence: I have no idea what you’re talking about and honestly I don’t care.
It’s only because she was sitting with a somewhat tough looking guy that I didn’t put her back in her place. “Listen girl, no one is pretty enough to be that big of a bitch Try being nice to strangers, it’ll change your life. Now you can turn right back around and have a nice night”. The guy would have had to step in and I really didn’t want to make a scene.
But that really bothered us. I mean we’re nice guys, we’re polite and tactful, we’re fun and won’t intrude, what the fuck is her problem. No wonder the bartenders keep to themselves if that’s what New York is like.
We keep ordering drinks, we don’t know half the bottles behind that bar. The cocktails are nice, very old school, but nothing blew us away. You can add the rarest and oldest bitter to your cocktail if you want, but if there’s only booze in there, it’ll taste like booze. I mean I like a straight bourbon so I can appreciate pretty much anything. But I also like the new kinds of cocktails, with fresh fruits, fruit purees, teas, jams… even the new molecular cocktails, but the whole old school thing, well… it gets old pretty fast.
The bitch and her date finally leave. Two nice people take their place. A girl who just moved to NY and her friend who knows the place very well. We become friends real fast.
PDT is really a no-fun bar. The bartender never exchanged more than a word with us, though I must admit he willfully did the whole Ice sphere thing again so we could videotape it. But at three different times, he told us to quite down. Yeah PDT is a bar where you can’t laugh, or if you do, you have to whisper-laugh.
I mean we were louder than the rest of the patrons, but we weren’t particularly loud. The four of us were the only ones who actually seemed to have fun in the place. But it was really weird. I mean in a bar where people are dancing on the tables, Harry and I will be leaning casually on the bar, talking to girls. We’re not rowdy people, we’re bar people.
Yeah, this guy definitely should have become a librarian.
I ask our new friend who knows the area for a good steakhouse. He tells me we need to try Azul, this argentinian grill. Sounds perfect.
We leave PDT, walk into the little park just at the end of the street, find a comfortable bench without too many people around and smoke a joint. We sit there for a minute, enjoying the warm night, and we get up to go to Azul.
We turn on Stanton, where the restaurant is located. I stop at a convenience store to buy cigarettes. Harry waits outside.
When I get out, he points to the restaurant with the big open windows, right next to the convenience store and tells me: Fuck Azul, man, I want to go to this place.
Whatever, this place looks fun and it smells amazing: a mix of smoke, lemon and rosemary. We look to the sign above the door: Azul. RIGHT ON!
We get a table just by the window. We order the mixed grill for two and nice bottle of argentinian wine. Everything is completely amazing. The restaurant is unique and authentic, exactly what we wanted. This night is perfect.
After dinner, we go in search of a bar. We find one and walk up to the doorman. “10$ to get in, there’s lots of women in there guys”.
That’s something a doorman would NEVER say in our town! Of course there are girls in there, probably something like half the people in there, no? But then again, we live in a city where at least 75% of the girls in any given bar on any given night are pretty. On any given night in any give bar, there’s at least one, but most likely 5 to 10 girls that could do the cover of Maxim. And these girls are fun and easy to approach.
We saw that things are quite different in NY.
There was not a single cute girl in this bar. And the weirdest thing was that mostly everyone in this club was asian. That’s not what’s weird, at home too the Asians all hang out at the same club. No. What’s weird is that asian girls are normally very very cute and very slim. In this club… not so much.
Whatever, we were leaning at the bar, the barmaid was the only cute girl in the place and the DJ was spinning old school hip hop. Good old music I know, drinks and a cute barmaid, that’s all I need.
We didn’t make it pass 1am. Drunk, still a little high, and way tired, we took a cab and crashed for a good night sleep at the magnificent Carter Hotel.
Friday morning. Harry and I wake up around 10 am. The sun is out, the air is warm, it’s a beautiful summer day. We smoke a joint and roll two more for later on in the day.
We stop at the Starbucks on Broadways to grab a coffee and a muffin. We walk north to central park. On our way, we see a TGIF. Harry says he’d like to have a drink there. The French guys who taught us most of what we know behind a bar, worked at TGIF in Paris. I suggest we could try more authentic places since you can find these family restaurants along any highway in the states. He seems to really want it. I don’t want to play killjoy and what are 20 minutes and two drinks at a bar if it’ll make him happy? Plus, in the window, we see that they have 5$ long island iced tea for happy hour.
When we reach central park, we find a spot of lawn that’s not protected by a fence and that’s not too damp. We had brought our flair practice bottles and our shakers and we start juggling around for fun.
After a while, we smoke our joint, and just when we’re about to finish it, a bunch of teenagers, only guys, come near us with what appears to be their phys ed teacher… or something like that. We botch the joint and start to practice our flair again. The kids notice and they like it a lot. Some start filming us. We play along for a while.
Harry wants to see Central Park. I can barely stand up, let alone walk, so we decide to rent bicycles.
We go back to the park entrance, where we had seen guys with signs. We go see the first one and tell him we want bikes. He points to those man-powered tuktuk, the tricyles in which they take tourists around the park.
Sorry sir, there must be a misunderstanding. We want bicycles that we ride ourselves, not a stroll in what is basically the poorman’s version of the horse carriage. He says he’ll take us to the store, not too far away. Harry looks at me dead serious and says: if you tell anyone about this, I’ll kill you.
And so we hop on the tuktuk. We try to make friends with our Turkish “driver” to ease off the weird feeling of being some old colonialists in early 1900’s Indochine. He’s a recently graduated architect, he shows us his favorite skyscraper. Can’t remember which one it was, didn’t care much for it either.
At the bike shop, we get two decent mountain bikes with front suspension for 2 hours for a mere 20$. Every one is so friendly, they give us a map of the park, tell us we can even bring em in 15 minutes late without a problem.
Riding a bike doesn’t hurt at all, actually it kind of relaxes the overly tensed muscles in my feet. The feeling is amazing.
I had NO IDEA how big this freakin park is. After a good 15 minutes of fast pace riding, we get to the boathouse. At this point, I’m pretty sure we reached the north end of the park and that we’re about to turn around. Hell’s no! We haven’t even crossed the third of the park.
We stop on the great lawn to do some more flair. Some people are juggling with pins, with balls, others are playing with Frisbees. We have a crowd of spectators, which is always fun, but we don’t look like we’re putting on a show out nowhere either.
Two of the very few pretty girls we’ll see all week-end walk by and decide to stop and sit on the grass to watch us.
I ask Harry if he wants to go talk to the two girls and ask them what they’re doing tonight. He doesn’t seem too sure about it and I don’t feel like limping over there all by myself. We rationalize our lack of balls: whatever, we’ll meet girls tonight wherever we go.
We bring back the bikes and go back to the hotel, to smoke a joint, have a beer and relax a bit.
Showers and nice clothes.
We walk on Broadway and stop at the first TGIF we see. We find a place at the bar. We order two long island iced teas. The barmaid disappears somewhere behind and comes back with our drink a little later. What the hell was that? What’s the point of having a bar if you’re gonna go behind at the barservice station to make drinks. During the whole time we’re there, there’s never anyone behind the bar. This truly sucks, and the drinks taste kinda weird. We ask for the bill. 24$. 12$ each
“Aren’t we still on happy hour?”
“yeah, but there’s no special on long islands”
Turns out every franchise can choose their own happy hours special.
Now I can understand a TGIF on Time Square and a TGIF in buttfuck, Alabama might post different prices, but I’d expect the two restaurants on broadway, located less then half a mile apart, to have the same freakin happy hour specials.
We decide to head downtown to go to PDT, a pseudo-secret cocktail bar. I met one of theirs bartenders at a cocktail competition somewhere and I wanted to visit ever since.
We walk down fifth avenue. At the corner of 41st, there’s a town car on the left hand side of the street, waiting at a red light. We hear a huge boom, coming from the car. Immediately we think it just exploded.
Actually, it’s the manhole right behind it that poped out of the ground, flying 15 feet into the air. A second later, two more manholes go up flying with a huge boom, right in the middle of the intersection. And then, a HUGE blue flame comes up from the first exploding manhole. It doesn’t go up in a mushroom movie way. It actually makes more of a thick fog just over the grounds, 3 or 4 feet high, and 20 feet around the manhole.
Vince is thrilled. I’m not. I pull him by the sleeve, we’re getting away from here. We keep walking down 5th, carefully avoiding manholes. A minute later, the whole exloding corner street is in complete lock down, with police, paramedics and firemen.
I can no longer stand on my feet, so we try to get a cab. We haven’t yet figured out how the signs on the roof work and what they’re supposed to indicate. So we just keep our arm raised all the time hoping one will stop. It doesn’t work.
But a towncar waiting at a red light horns at us, flashing its lights. We’re a bit confused, we thought you could only get these cars on calls. The driver tells us it’s 20$ to go where we want. I’m more than willing to pay extra to ride in style, if only once. Too bad we’re not going to some velvet rope club with a line-up.
Harry really loves the Lower east side. It reminds us of the hip and trendy neighborhood in our town, where 95% of the population is between 20 and 35.
To get in PDT (Please don’t tell), you have to get into Criff’s Dogs, some hipster hot dog joint, and go into the old phone booth. In there, there’s a phone with a single button “call”. You hit it, it rings, some guy picks up and tells you they’ll be right there.
Though we’re both normally confident in any situations, this whole setups makes us feel like some 8th graders trying to get into a 12th graders’ party. Will we say the right thing? Will they let us in? … Try to act cool…
Harry doesn’t like it at all and finds this to be a lot of hassle just to have a drink.
I go over to the phone. The hostess opens the secret door from within the booth, she asks if I have a reservation. I tell her there’s just two of us and we’d like to sit at the bar. She puts us on the bar waiting list. My phone doesn’t get any signal here so I just tell her we’ll go have a drink somewhere on the street and be back.
We go to some little pub right around the corner. It’s just ok. We go back to Criff’s Dogs and start to wait. Fortunately, there’s a tv with a surf and skateboarding movie playing. We see tons of people going to the phone booth, talking to the girl and walking away, but we hardly see anyone going in. After 40 minutes of this, I go tell her we’ll just come some other time. She asks my name. Tells me she’s been looking for me for a while. She says I’m next on the list.
She finally comes to get us 5 minutes later.
The place is small, dark and intimate. On the wall, just next to the bar is a stuffed rabbit head with deer antlers. Cool.
Once again we try to make friends with the bartender and once again it’s proving real hard. Bartenders keep to themselves and don’t seem to want to drink with customers here. I mean that’s precisely the two cornerstones of the profession: being outgoing and being able to drink. Why not become a librarian instead?
I order a variation of the manhattan. Instead of putting cubes of ices in my drink, the barman takes a huge block of ice, something the size of a rubic cube and puts it into a weird machine. When he opens the machine, there’s a perfect sphere of ice, the size of a snooker ball. (images here)
Harry and I can’t believe it and we go like: WHAT!, maybe a little loud.
The very pretty girl sitting next to us at the bar, one of the very few we saw all week-end, turns around with a curious face that says: Hey what’s this all about?
We try to briefly explain it to her: oh sorry, it’s just this machine produced a perfect sphere of ice, we’re both bartenders and we’ve never seen that anywh …
She interrupts and says, with such condescendence: I have no idea what you’re talking about and honestly I don’t care.
It’s only because she was sitting with a somewhat tough looking guy that I didn’t put her back in her place. “Listen girl, no one is pretty enough to be that big of a bitch Try being nice to strangers, it’ll change your life. Now you can turn right back around and have a nice night”. The guy would have had to step in and I really didn’t want to make a scene.
But that really bothered us. I mean we’re nice guys, we’re polite and tactful, we’re fun and won’t intrude, what the fuck is her problem. No wonder the bartenders keep to themselves if that’s what New York is like.
We keep ordering drinks, we don’t know half the bottles behind that bar. The cocktails are nice, very old school, but nothing blew us away. You can add the rarest and oldest bitter to your cocktail if you want, but if there’s only booze in there, it’ll taste like booze. I mean I like a straight bourbon so I can appreciate pretty much anything. But I also like the new kinds of cocktails, with fresh fruits, fruit purees, teas, jams… even the new molecular cocktails, but the whole old school thing, well… it gets old pretty fast.
The bitch and her date finally leave. Two nice people take their place. A girl who just moved to NY and her friend who knows the place very well. We become friends real fast.
PDT is really a no-fun bar. The bartender never exchanged more than a word with us, though I must admit he willfully did the whole Ice sphere thing again so we could videotape it. But at three different times, he told us to quite down. Yeah PDT is a bar where you can’t laugh, or if you do, you have to whisper-laugh.
I mean we were louder than the rest of the patrons, but we weren’t particularly loud. The four of us were the only ones who actually seemed to have fun in the place. But it was really weird. I mean in a bar where people are dancing on the tables, Harry and I will be leaning casually on the bar, talking to girls. We’re not rowdy people, we’re bar people.
Yeah, this guy definitely should have become a librarian.
I ask our new friend who knows the area for a good steakhouse. He tells me we need to try Azul, this argentinian grill. Sounds perfect.
We leave PDT, walk into the little park just at the end of the street, find a comfortable bench without too many people around and smoke a joint. We sit there for a minute, enjoying the warm night, and we get up to go to Azul.
We turn on Stanton, where the restaurant is located. I stop at a convenience store to buy cigarettes. Harry waits outside.
When I get out, he points to the restaurant with the big open windows, right next to the convenience store and tells me: Fuck Azul, man, I want to go to this place.
Whatever, this place looks fun and it smells amazing: a mix of smoke, lemon and rosemary. We look to the sign above the door: Azul. RIGHT ON!
We get a table just by the window. We order the mixed grill for two and nice bottle of argentinian wine. Everything is completely amazing. The restaurant is unique and authentic, exactly what we wanted. This night is perfect.
After dinner, we go in search of a bar. We find one and walk up to the doorman. “10$ to get in, there’s lots of women in there guys”.
That’s something a doorman would NEVER say in our town! Of course there are girls in there, probably something like half the people in there, no? But then again, we live in a city where at least 75% of the girls in any given bar on any given night are pretty. On any given night in any give bar, there’s at least one, but most likely 5 to 10 girls that could do the cover of Maxim. And these girls are fun and easy to approach.
We saw that things are quite different in NY.
There was not a single cute girl in this bar. And the weirdest thing was that mostly everyone in this club was asian. That’s not what’s weird, at home too the Asians all hang out at the same club. No. What’s weird is that asian girls are normally very very cute and very slim. In this club… not so much.
Whatever, we were leaning at the bar, the barmaid was the only cute girl in the place and the DJ was spinning old school hip hop. Good old music I know, drinks and a cute barmaid, that’s all I need.
We didn’t make it pass 1am. Drunk, still a little high, and way tired, we took a cab and crashed for a good night sleep at the magnificent Carter Hotel.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Just ok - part 2
For part one, go here.
So last night, Scarlett came to see me at The Club with Marianne and her friends.
One of these girls is really cute, I mean really really cute. I’ve never seen her before. Turns out she’s Marianne’s best friend so we better forget about her.
Later on, Jenny comes to the bar. I’m surprised and quite happy to see her. At this point, I’m more than tipsy and Blondie, my beloved partner behind the bar, is completely wasted. She’s hardly doing anything, but I don’t care, I’m not very busy myself.
Around 2:30, Sara, the hot blonde waitress, comes up to my bar to flirt a bit. Blondie and I are the first ones upstairs in the office to count the cash, so by 3:30, we’re back at the bar to clean it. Sara is there, she’s as wasted as Blondie. The two girls inevitably start talking about their breasts and their nipples in particular.
Meanwhile, Nate, a 50 years old manager, is counting my liquor bottles and Marco, the busboy, is filling back my fridges. Both girls are sitting on the bar, still talking about their nipples. Many girls at The Club have fake boobs and most of the ones who don’t wish they had. These two wish they had. I tried to convince them that it’s nonsense and that fake boobs suck anyways but it’s a lost cause. Anyhow, Sara convinces Blondie to show all of us her nipple by first showing hers. I know she’s doing that specifically to turn me on and it’s totally working. I’ve probably seen every pair of underwear Blondie has, since she has trouble remembering to keep her legs closed when she’s wearing short short dresses, and I’ve even seen her just in her panties and bra, but I had never seen her nipple. Until last night. Meh… just another night at the bar.
The two girls were harassing Nate for a bottle a champagne. For a little while, he made them believe he’d get one and then he just disappeared.
I tell Sara: “Wanna come over to my place? I have plenty to drink.” As I’m saying that, she’s sitting on my bar and I’m in front of her, with my hands on each side of her tights, way up. At this very second, Pascale walks by us, coming down from the office. She goes down one more floor to go clean her bar.
I’m so busted. Forget that whole gentleman player bullshit, this definitely lacks class.
I go down first, say good night to Pascale, and wait for Sara on the curb. She comes down less than a minute later. I doubt Pascale was fooled.
In the cab, I receive a text message. Here’s the exchange that followed in the cab and at my place, while I was talking to Sara.
Pascale: Do you play the same number to every girl?
Me: A number? I don’t play any number
P: Ah… sorry then
Me: You ok?
P: It’s relative
Me: ?
P: Sara?
Me: Forget about that. It’s late, we’ll talk about it tomorrow.
Most girl would be completely intrigued as to who would send me these many text messages at 4 in the morning. But people at the club live for their phone, they constantly receive hundreds of text messages after closing time. I never do, but for Sara it seemed totally normal… I don’t think she even noticed.
Sara was insane in bed. I won’t get into crude details cause that’s not what we do here at WnC, but she demanded things you’d normally have trouble convincing a girl to do. Unheard of.
But now I have to fix this with Pascale. I still want her as a friend, she’s fun and all.
Seriously, I need to get away from younger girls now. Unless they throw themselves at me in a strictly sexual kind of way, like Sara just did.
So last night, Scarlett came to see me at The Club with Marianne and her friends.
One of these girls is really cute, I mean really really cute. I’ve never seen her before. Turns out she’s Marianne’s best friend so we better forget about her.
Later on, Jenny comes to the bar. I’m surprised and quite happy to see her. At this point, I’m more than tipsy and Blondie, my beloved partner behind the bar, is completely wasted. She’s hardly doing anything, but I don’t care, I’m not very busy myself.
Around 2:30, Sara, the hot blonde waitress, comes up to my bar to flirt a bit. Blondie and I are the first ones upstairs in the office to count the cash, so by 3:30, we’re back at the bar to clean it. Sara is there, she’s as wasted as Blondie. The two girls inevitably start talking about their breasts and their nipples in particular.
Meanwhile, Nate, a 50 years old manager, is counting my liquor bottles and Marco, the busboy, is filling back my fridges. Both girls are sitting on the bar, still talking about their nipples. Many girls at The Club have fake boobs and most of the ones who don’t wish they had. These two wish they had. I tried to convince them that it’s nonsense and that fake boobs suck anyways but it’s a lost cause. Anyhow, Sara convinces Blondie to show all of us her nipple by first showing hers. I know she’s doing that specifically to turn me on and it’s totally working. I’ve probably seen every pair of underwear Blondie has, since she has trouble remembering to keep her legs closed when she’s wearing short short dresses, and I’ve even seen her just in her panties and bra, but I had never seen her nipple. Until last night. Meh… just another night at the bar.
The two girls were harassing Nate for a bottle a champagne. For a little while, he made them believe he’d get one and then he just disappeared.
I tell Sara: “Wanna come over to my place? I have plenty to drink.” As I’m saying that, she’s sitting on my bar and I’m in front of her, with my hands on each side of her tights, way up. At this very second, Pascale walks by us, coming down from the office. She goes down one more floor to go clean her bar.
I’m so busted. Forget that whole gentleman player bullshit, this definitely lacks class.
I go down first, say good night to Pascale, and wait for Sara on the curb. She comes down less than a minute later. I doubt Pascale was fooled.
In the cab, I receive a text message. Here’s the exchange that followed in the cab and at my place, while I was talking to Sara.
Pascale: Do you play the same number to every girl?
Me: A number? I don’t play any number
P: Ah… sorry then
Me: You ok?
P: It’s relative
Me: ?
P: Sara?
Me: Forget about that. It’s late, we’ll talk about it tomorrow.
Most girl would be completely intrigued as to who would send me these many text messages at 4 in the morning. But people at the club live for their phone, they constantly receive hundreds of text messages after closing time. I never do, but for Sara it seemed totally normal… I don’t think she even noticed.
Sara was insane in bed. I won’t get into crude details cause that’s not what we do here at WnC, but she demanded things you’d normally have trouble convincing a girl to do. Unheard of.
But now I have to fix this with Pascale. I still want her as a friend, she’s fun and all.
Seriously, I need to get away from younger girls now. Unless they throw themselves at me in a strictly sexual kind of way, like Sara just did.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Just ok - part 1
Last night at The Club was ok. Just ok. Not so many people, hardly any cute girls at my bar I could flirt with.
Scarlett and her friends came to see me at one point in the night. She was with her friend Marianne, who I know, and a few of Marianne’s friends.
I’ve met Marianne some night this winter. Scarlett and I were at this new club opening, where I slipped in the stairs and almost fell all the way down. I managed to hold on for dear life, but all my right hand could grab on was a small twisted steel cable (in the design of the handrail). I didn’t break a leg, but the skin at the first flex point on my middle and ring fingers was completely ripped off. I had two huge holes right where the fingers bend. And of course, I’m right handed. The fun of dry friction.
This happened just when we were leaving. We get into a cab to go to some other club where Scarlett’s friends are. Right around the corner to the second club was a parked ambulance, waiting for a call. I knock on the window and show my bleeding hand. The paramedic did an awesome job at fixing me up. The huge band aid she put on allowed me to still move my hand. And I wasn’t feeling much pain, but that could have been the booze or the cold. All that for free and with a smile.
Anyhow, we get into the club and join Scarlett’s friends.
I go see Scarlett: This girl over there, she’s really cute.
Scarlett: She’s my friend Marianne, she’s a nice girl.
A few moments later, when she’s standing nearby, Scarlett introduces us : Marianne, I don’t know if you’ve met Alex, we work together at The Journal.
And that was it, that was all it took me. I pulled the classic moves with the classic attitude. By 2:30 I was kissing her, at 3 she was jumping in the cab with me. And all that with a torn up hand.
That’s a thing I love about older girls, they know what they want and don’t need a whole mise-en-scene to allow themselves to get it. She has a good 8 years on me.
A few weeks later, I was with Scarlett and her boyfriend, in a trendy lounge in the hip part of town, and she was there too. She was a bit distant. Not playing stranger or anything, but she was putting on a slight "don’t think it’ll happen again" attitude. The first night, she actually thought that I was younger by a year or two, not a freakin decade.
At one point, we’re both leaning on the bar, next to each other. We don’t talk much. She turns and says: Listen I’m sorry, I’m a little off tonight, my ex is right here with a girl.
She points me to some tall guy not even 10 feet away from us, dancing with a girl.
Her: He left me cause I was too old, that’s what he said. Look at this bitch, she’s older than me. I’m sure she sucks in bed… I’m sorry, I’m way out of line.
Me: No you’re not. That’s incredibly tacky of him. If I was here with some girl and an ex-girlfriend who I had left walked in the door, I’d be gone in a minute. Want to make him jealous?
Her: How?
I start leaning in a little closer on her, looking her deep in the eyes, touching her each time I make her laugh, stroking her hair from time to time. I can see from the corner of my eye that the ex-boyfriend hasn’t missed a thing.
His face is priceless when we walk pass him, at 2:30 am as we leave the bar hand in hand.
Outside on the curb, I say: Well that was fun. Have a good night princess and don’t worry about it too much.
Her: You’re taking me to your place?
Seems like pretend flirting is just as efficient as real life flirting!
--
So last night, Scarlett came to see me at the club with Marianne and her friends.
To be continued…
Scarlett and her friends came to see me at one point in the night. She was with her friend Marianne, who I know, and a few of Marianne’s friends.
I’ve met Marianne some night this winter. Scarlett and I were at this new club opening, where I slipped in the stairs and almost fell all the way down. I managed to hold on for dear life, but all my right hand could grab on was a small twisted steel cable (in the design of the handrail). I didn’t break a leg, but the skin at the first flex point on my middle and ring fingers was completely ripped off. I had two huge holes right where the fingers bend. And of course, I’m right handed. The fun of dry friction.
This happened just when we were leaving. We get into a cab to go to some other club where Scarlett’s friends are. Right around the corner to the second club was a parked ambulance, waiting for a call. I knock on the window and show my bleeding hand. The paramedic did an awesome job at fixing me up. The huge band aid she put on allowed me to still move my hand. And I wasn’t feeling much pain, but that could have been the booze or the cold. All that for free and with a smile.
Anyhow, we get into the club and join Scarlett’s friends.
I go see Scarlett: This girl over there, she’s really cute.
Scarlett: She’s my friend Marianne, she’s a nice girl.
A few moments later, when she’s standing nearby, Scarlett introduces us : Marianne, I don’t know if you’ve met Alex, we work together at The Journal.
And that was it, that was all it took me. I pulled the classic moves with the classic attitude. By 2:30 I was kissing her, at 3 she was jumping in the cab with me. And all that with a torn up hand.
That’s a thing I love about older girls, they know what they want and don’t need a whole mise-en-scene to allow themselves to get it. She has a good 8 years on me.
A few weeks later, I was with Scarlett and her boyfriend, in a trendy lounge in the hip part of town, and she was there too. She was a bit distant. Not playing stranger or anything, but she was putting on a slight "don’t think it’ll happen again" attitude. The first night, she actually thought that I was younger by a year or two, not a freakin decade.
At one point, we’re both leaning on the bar, next to each other. We don’t talk much. She turns and says: Listen I’m sorry, I’m a little off tonight, my ex is right here with a girl.
She points me to some tall guy not even 10 feet away from us, dancing with a girl.
Her: He left me cause I was too old, that’s what he said. Look at this bitch, she’s older than me. I’m sure she sucks in bed… I’m sorry, I’m way out of line.
Me: No you’re not. That’s incredibly tacky of him. If I was here with some girl and an ex-girlfriend who I had left walked in the door, I’d be gone in a minute. Want to make him jealous?
Her: How?
I start leaning in a little closer on her, looking her deep in the eyes, touching her each time I make her laugh, stroking her hair from time to time. I can see from the corner of my eye that the ex-boyfriend hasn’t missed a thing.
His face is priceless when we walk pass him, at 2:30 am as we leave the bar hand in hand.
Outside on the curb, I say: Well that was fun. Have a good night princess and don’t worry about it too much.
Her: You’re taking me to your place?
Seems like pretend flirting is just as efficient as real life flirting!
--
So last night, Scarlett came to see me at the club with Marianne and her friends.
To be continued…
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Monday afternoon
I clean the hell out of my apartment. Dishes, laundry, ironing, clean bedsheets and a quick bathroom fix.
Pascale comes to pick me up around 4:30. We go to the wine store. I choose a ripasso and a new-zealand sauvignon blanc. We go to the huge farmer’s market, not to far from my place. It’s still early spring so there’s mostly flowers, but we manage to find everything we want. She loves the place, as do most people. We go the fish monger, the cheese store, the bakery, and we pick up fruits and vegetables in the market. I let her pay for a few things.
As we’re walking around, we run into Scarlett. She’s with her mother. Now I know Scarlett and Pascale come from the same far away town, some place very small. But I also know they are nearly 10 years apart… what are the odds.
I introduce everyone. Scarlett looks at Pascale and says: I so know you!
She continues: Yeah, when you were a young teen, you were hanging out at The Local (Some sort of youth community center where they offer activities back in their home town).
Now this is embarrassing. Scarlett was not hanging out there herself, she was a youth worker there. It’s like she’s seeing me walk around with a girl she babysat!
We get back to my place. I make her a watermelon and basil cocktail and I pour myself a bourbon on ice.
I cook for her… I mess up pretty much everything. My timing was way off, I was a bit tipsy and my small kitchen with about two square feet of countertop surface sucks. She says she loves everything and eats way more than I do.
After dinner, we moved to the living room. There was some tension, some touching, but she was not gonna make that easy for me. Fine, I don’t mind pulling bold moves. It works 99% of the time and if it doesn’t, women are still gonna respect you way more for trying than for not trying.
I move in and kiss her.
Things heat up a bit, but she looks like she wants to stay in control. It’s normal, she’s young, she’s here alone at my place and she barely knows me. All she knows is that I’m sort of a player. So I just let her take things slow, until she closes in on me.
We never made it to the fourth anniversary party of The Club. I hope it wasn’t noticed.
Pascale comes to pick me up around 4:30. We go to the wine store. I choose a ripasso and a new-zealand sauvignon blanc. We go to the huge farmer’s market, not to far from my place. It’s still early spring so there’s mostly flowers, but we manage to find everything we want. She loves the place, as do most people. We go the fish monger, the cheese store, the bakery, and we pick up fruits and vegetables in the market. I let her pay for a few things.
As we’re walking around, we run into Scarlett. She’s with her mother. Now I know Scarlett and Pascale come from the same far away town, some place very small. But I also know they are nearly 10 years apart… what are the odds.
I introduce everyone. Scarlett looks at Pascale and says: I so know you!
She continues: Yeah, when you were a young teen, you were hanging out at The Local (Some sort of youth community center where they offer activities back in their home town).
Now this is embarrassing. Scarlett was not hanging out there herself, she was a youth worker there. It’s like she’s seeing me walk around with a girl she babysat!
We get back to my place. I make her a watermelon and basil cocktail and I pour myself a bourbon on ice.
I cook for her… I mess up pretty much everything. My timing was way off, I was a bit tipsy and my small kitchen with about two square feet of countertop surface sucks. She says she loves everything and eats way more than I do.
After dinner, we moved to the living room. There was some tension, some touching, but she was not gonna make that easy for me. Fine, I don’t mind pulling bold moves. It works 99% of the time and if it doesn’t, women are still gonna respect you way more for trying than for not trying.
I move in and kiss her.
Things heat up a bit, but she looks like she wants to stay in control. It’s normal, she’s young, she’s here alone at my place and she barely knows me. All she knows is that I’m sort of a player. So I just let her take things slow, until she closes in on me.
We never made it to the fourth anniversary party of The Club. I hope it wasn’t noticed.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
A triangle?
Tonight was fun.
Not only did I make a shitload of money, but I also got to flirt a bit.
Bartending is all about meeting girls and being the center of attention. But at The Club, I always work on the third floor. On the third floor, there’s only groups of friends. People come to the bar to order a drink and go straight back to their friends. I never have two or three girls who just hang out all night at my bar.
But tonight, for some reason, I got some attention.
There was this cute young girl. She’s cute but she knows it way too much. She orders shots. As I take the empty shots, I throw them in the air, catch one up high and the other one below, behind my back. It’s a slick move that’s fun and easy to do.
She goes, a little bit cocky: Hey! You stop that. Now just give me 3 shots of Tequila.
Me, with a huge smile on my face: Hey pumpkin, you don’t talk to me like that… just won’t work. Now what can I do you for? Still with a big smile on my face
Her: … oh… I’m sorry… ok. Could I have three shots of tequila please?
Me: you got it cutie.
She gave me like 10 bucks of tips for her three shots, and just because I turned her right around when she started being bitchy. She ordered all night at my bar, even kissing me on the cheeks a few times.
Then there was this cute girl who was obviously not from here but I couldn’t tell for my life where she’s from. Somewhere between Morocco and Indonesia, I’d say.
She starts arguing about something, I don’t remember what, but it’s playful. I get into it. One of her friends, or maybe even her boyfriend, comes right next to her and puts his arm around her shoulder. Pretty pathetic defensive move. I seize the opportunity and whisper in her ear, while the other looser still has his arm around her: Wow, he’s very possessive your friend. She goes “yeah”, with a face that says : tell me about it!
A few minutes later she orders something, she looks at me and says: Can I tell you something? You’re kinda cute.
Me: Can I tell you something? Right back at you.
But that’s nothing.
No.
On my last post, I was telling you about Sara, the hot, tall, blonde waitress who was overly flirty a few weeks ago, right in front of the other cute barmaid, Pascale, who’s coming over for dinner Monday night.
Tonight, Pascale was filling in once again and Sara was serving the booths right next to her bar. They hung out the whole night.
Around 2:30 am, when we’re both tipsy, Sara comes up to my bar to get something. Just as she walks behind the bar, I look at her and say: God you’re hot.
She looks at me with a are you for real? look on her face and says: You know I kinda want you, right?
I look at her with my typical Oooh, that’s hot face.
And then she says: Now why didn’t you ask me my number and took me out for dinks? Why did you go with Pascale last night?
It’s not exactly playful anymore, I mean there's still a lot of sexual tension, she touches me while she says this, but she actually looks a bit hurt.
I tell her: Now wait. First, I added you on facebook, and I asked if you were coming to the staff night, a few weeks ago, hoping you’d be there, and you never answered. Second of all, Pascale is a friend. She’s the one who started talking to me, and yes I did have drinks with her last night, but I didn’t try to take her home. You… on the other hand…
She looks at me with a yeah, yeah, keep talking kind of face, but I can see she buys into my logics.
When the club is closed, she comes over to my bar when I’m alone to smoke a cigarette. I go straight back to building sexual tension.
Me: you know, I actually can’t wait to see you again. I wanted you since the first time I saw you.
Her: yeah right, bullshit!
Me: for real, my friends have heard of Sara, this hot, tall, blonde waitress at The Club.
Her, sill pretending to not buy it, but obviously flattered: yeah yeah…
And then I grab her, pull her close and kiss her. The new busboy, who was on his very first shift, was coming up the stairs at the very same time. He turned right around. Good boy.
Her: Oh, and I must confess something, I think I said something I shouldn’t have earlier.
Me: go on…
Here’s how she told me the conversation went:
Her: So I basically have three options to have sex tonight, this cute friend of my ex, the soccer player (from a BIG team, which we won’t name cause we’re classy here at WnC) and this other guy you don’t know.
Pascale: who’s that other guy?
Her: You don’t know him.
Pascale: He works here doesn’t he?
Her: No, you don’t know him!
Pascale: It’s Alex isn’t it?
Her: yeah kinda.
--
I ask her: Why did she jump to me right away?
She says: well cause earlier, when she told me she went to have a drinks with you last night, I might have been a little surprised, and maybe asked a little to much about it.
Her: Really? He invited you? How was it? Do you two like each other?
Pascale: Well he’s nice, but I’m not sure he’s interested in me.
Her: Yeah, that’s Alex…
--
And then she tells me: Well it looks like Pascale liked you, so it’s wide open.
I act like I didn’t even hear that and I say, looking her straight in the eyes: We’ll see each other soon princesse… and I can’t wait. But now I have to clean my bar. Good night.
What is awesome about this story is that I’m not that pretty. I mean I guess I’m cute, if you’re looking for it, but these girl wouldn’t even notice me if I walked pass them in the street.
But what’s really awesome about this situation, is that this morning, Pascale was thinking: wow, what a gentleman, he didn’t try to get me home or anything, he just wanted to have a good time.
And tonight, she’s thinking….. well why the hell didn’t he try to bring me home? Am I not cute enough, why would he prefer Sara?
Seriously… I can’t say this enough. I love my life.
Not only did I make a shitload of money, but I also got to flirt a bit.
Bartending is all about meeting girls and being the center of attention. But at The Club, I always work on the third floor. On the third floor, there’s only groups of friends. People come to the bar to order a drink and go straight back to their friends. I never have two or three girls who just hang out all night at my bar.
But tonight, for some reason, I got some attention.
There was this cute young girl. She’s cute but she knows it way too much. She orders shots. As I take the empty shots, I throw them in the air, catch one up high and the other one below, behind my back. It’s a slick move that’s fun and easy to do.
She goes, a little bit cocky: Hey! You stop that. Now just give me 3 shots of Tequila.
Me, with a huge smile on my face: Hey pumpkin, you don’t talk to me like that… just won’t work. Now what can I do you for? Still with a big smile on my face
Her: … oh… I’m sorry… ok. Could I have three shots of tequila please?
Me: you got it cutie.
She gave me like 10 bucks of tips for her three shots, and just because I turned her right around when she started being bitchy. She ordered all night at my bar, even kissing me on the cheeks a few times.
Then there was this cute girl who was obviously not from here but I couldn’t tell for my life where she’s from. Somewhere between Morocco and Indonesia, I’d say.
She starts arguing about something, I don’t remember what, but it’s playful. I get into it. One of her friends, or maybe even her boyfriend, comes right next to her and puts his arm around her shoulder. Pretty pathetic defensive move. I seize the opportunity and whisper in her ear, while the other looser still has his arm around her: Wow, he’s very possessive your friend. She goes “yeah”, with a face that says : tell me about it!
A few minutes later she orders something, she looks at me and says: Can I tell you something? You’re kinda cute.
Me: Can I tell you something? Right back at you.
But that’s nothing.
No.
On my last post, I was telling you about Sara, the hot, tall, blonde waitress who was overly flirty a few weeks ago, right in front of the other cute barmaid, Pascale, who’s coming over for dinner Monday night.
Tonight, Pascale was filling in once again and Sara was serving the booths right next to her bar. They hung out the whole night.
Around 2:30 am, when we’re both tipsy, Sara comes up to my bar to get something. Just as she walks behind the bar, I look at her and say: God you’re hot.
She looks at me with a are you for real? look on her face and says: You know I kinda want you, right?
I look at her with my typical Oooh, that’s hot face.
And then she says: Now why didn’t you ask me my number and took me out for dinks? Why did you go with Pascale last night?
It’s not exactly playful anymore, I mean there's still a lot of sexual tension, she touches me while she says this, but she actually looks a bit hurt.
I tell her: Now wait. First, I added you on facebook, and I asked if you were coming to the staff night, a few weeks ago, hoping you’d be there, and you never answered. Second of all, Pascale is a friend. She’s the one who started talking to me, and yes I did have drinks with her last night, but I didn’t try to take her home. You… on the other hand…
She looks at me with a yeah, yeah, keep talking kind of face, but I can see she buys into my logics.
When the club is closed, she comes over to my bar when I’m alone to smoke a cigarette. I go straight back to building sexual tension.
Me: you know, I actually can’t wait to see you again. I wanted you since the first time I saw you.
Her: yeah right, bullshit!
Me: for real, my friends have heard of Sara, this hot, tall, blonde waitress at The Club.
Her, sill pretending to not buy it, but obviously flattered: yeah yeah…
And then I grab her, pull her close and kiss her. The new busboy, who was on his very first shift, was coming up the stairs at the very same time. He turned right around. Good boy.
Her: Oh, and I must confess something, I think I said something I shouldn’t have earlier.
Me: go on…
Here’s how she told me the conversation went:
Her: So I basically have three options to have sex tonight, this cute friend of my ex, the soccer player (from a BIG team, which we won’t name cause we’re classy here at WnC) and this other guy you don’t know.
Pascale: who’s that other guy?
Her: You don’t know him.
Pascale: He works here doesn’t he?
Her: No, you don’t know him!
Pascale: It’s Alex isn’t it?
Her: yeah kinda.
--
I ask her: Why did she jump to me right away?
She says: well cause earlier, when she told me she went to have a drinks with you last night, I might have been a little surprised, and maybe asked a little to much about it.
Her: Really? He invited you? How was it? Do you two like each other?
Pascale: Well he’s nice, but I’m not sure he’s interested in me.
Her: Yeah, that’s Alex…
--
And then she tells me: Well it looks like Pascale liked you, so it’s wide open.
I act like I didn’t even hear that and I say, looking her straight in the eyes: We’ll see each other soon princesse… and I can’t wait. But now I have to clean my bar. Good night.
What is awesome about this story is that I’m not that pretty. I mean I guess I’m cute, if you’re looking for it, but these girl wouldn’t even notice me if I walked pass them in the street.
But what’s really awesome about this situation, is that this morning, Pascale was thinking: wow, what a gentleman, he didn’t try to get me home or anything, he just wanted to have a good time.
And tonight, she’s thinking….. well why the hell didn’t he try to bring me home? Am I not cute enough, why would he prefer Sara?
Seriously… I can’t say this enough. I love my life.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
I really don't
So there’s this cute barmaid I work with at The Club. I say work with, but we never actually worked at the same bar. I’m always with Blondie and she just fills in once in a while.
She’s pretty, she’s fun and she’s not even 20. I figured I’d try to know her. The Universe decided to make it happen, in a way so effective I didn’t think it was even possible.
A few weeks ago, I stopped at her bar to chat a minute or two, before the doors were opened. Her bar is literally on the way to mine and I kept it very cool.
A minute later, I was chatting with Sara, this tall and hot blonde waitress, who was overly flirty. She’s often like that at 3am when she’s drunk, but it wasn’t even 10. All that in front of the cute barmaid. Once again, I kept it cool.
She added me on Facebook and we chatted a few times. Each time, she was the one engaging the conversation, and each time, I was the one ending it. We would talk for a good half hour when I’d say “gotta go”. But each time, the conversation would go on and I would always blame it on her: like please, you gotta let me go now, I have stuff to do. Playful of course.
Then there was a staff meeting, where we both were. I gave her a nice and genuine smile when I came it, but sat with Blondie the whole time. We chatted a bit on the curb outside when the meeting was over and went our way.
She’s been starting MSN conversation all the time since, even putting herself “appear offline” while talking to me for long times.
Turns out she’s from a small town, far far away and came here for school, in September. She hasn’t made many friends yet and she’s pretty excited about her first summer in the city. I offered to play tour guide, something I love to do. No one loves this city like I do, and knows it the way I do.
Last night, we had drinks at The Drinkery. She loved the place, loved the drinks I picked for her, loved the flair they do over there. As always, I knew everyone in the place.
At one point she says: You’re a real star here, aren’t you?
I kept it cool: Well it’s family here.
When we left, I told her which way to take and I walked away right there and then, without pulling any move whatsoever.
It’s all about logistics. Tonight was about her testing me, seeing me outside of work for a whole evening. She still has one paper to finish before her semester is officially over and she knew she was going home alone and not too late.
Like Wyclef said: Good things come to those who wait.
So she’s coming over Monday to have dinner. I think I’ll take her to the huge fresh market. She might have already been, but maybe not and it’s still something fun to do. You go handpick your ingredients, letting yourself be inspired by what you see. You come home and you cook the hell out of them. This setup has never failed. Not once. I cook well according to any standards, but for a mid 20s single bartender living alone, I cook fucking well. They usually jump me before desert.
But this one, I want to make sure we’re friends before we sleep together. She’s a fun girl I’d like to have in my group of friends. I’ll have plenty of free time this summer and there’s no better way to spend it than with a cute girl. I have very good friends, friends that will be there all my life, but they’re not the people I can spend all my afternoons and nights with. They’re all working 9 to 5 (some 8 to 8, 6/7 ), they live with their boyfriends and girlfriends or they’re traveling the world.
No, spending time with someone new to the city will be awesome. It’ll make me revisit places I haven’t been in ages and will make me do things I probably wouldn’t have bothered to do.
Plus, it’s no secret that hanging out with cute girls attract more cute girls.
There’s two types of player, in a woman’s mind.
There’s the self absorbed player, who do it to tell his friends, who accumulates women like hunting trophies. These guys don’t respect the women they’re sleeping with precisely because they’re sleeping with them. Like, Woody Allen said in Annie Hall, which he attributed to Groucho Marx: I would not want to belong to a club that would have me as a member.
Most women, in other words, the not too stupid and not too drunk women can smell this kind of player come from miles away and will protect they’re girlfriends from him.
Then there’s the gentleman player. The one who sleeps with women because he truly loves them. The kind that respects the women he sleeps with, that doesn’t judge them, that doesn’t get jealous or possessive. The kind that will make a women feel sexy, desired and appreciated when she leaves in the morning, after a cappuccino and croissants.
Most women love this kind of player and even if they’re not interested, they’ll let him get away with pretty much everything.
And there’s no better way to set that frame than to hang out with beautiful girls who you’ve obviously slept with. You don’t have to mention anything, other girls will pick up on the shared complicity. It shows them that you’re used to being with pretty girls, that you don’t idolize them, don’t put em on a pedestal, appreciate them for the person they are. And most important, it shows that you’re a guy who respects the girls he sleeps with, enough to be friends with many of them.
But then again, if after a cocktail or two and half a bottle of wine, this cutie jumps me, I don’t see how I could possibly get out of it. I really don’t.
She’s pretty, she’s fun and she’s not even 20. I figured I’d try to know her. The Universe decided to make it happen, in a way so effective I didn’t think it was even possible.
A few weeks ago, I stopped at her bar to chat a minute or two, before the doors were opened. Her bar is literally on the way to mine and I kept it very cool.
A minute later, I was chatting with Sara, this tall and hot blonde waitress, who was overly flirty. She’s often like that at 3am when she’s drunk, but it wasn’t even 10. All that in front of the cute barmaid. Once again, I kept it cool.
She added me on Facebook and we chatted a few times. Each time, she was the one engaging the conversation, and each time, I was the one ending it. We would talk for a good half hour when I’d say “gotta go”. But each time, the conversation would go on and I would always blame it on her: like please, you gotta let me go now, I have stuff to do. Playful of course.
Then there was a staff meeting, where we both were. I gave her a nice and genuine smile when I came it, but sat with Blondie the whole time. We chatted a bit on the curb outside when the meeting was over and went our way.
She’s been starting MSN conversation all the time since, even putting herself “appear offline” while talking to me for long times.
Turns out she’s from a small town, far far away and came here for school, in September. She hasn’t made many friends yet and she’s pretty excited about her first summer in the city. I offered to play tour guide, something I love to do. No one loves this city like I do, and knows it the way I do.
Last night, we had drinks at The Drinkery. She loved the place, loved the drinks I picked for her, loved the flair they do over there. As always, I knew everyone in the place.
At one point she says: You’re a real star here, aren’t you?
I kept it cool: Well it’s family here.
When we left, I told her which way to take and I walked away right there and then, without pulling any move whatsoever.
It’s all about logistics. Tonight was about her testing me, seeing me outside of work for a whole evening. She still has one paper to finish before her semester is officially over and she knew she was going home alone and not too late.
Like Wyclef said: Good things come to those who wait.
So she’s coming over Monday to have dinner. I think I’ll take her to the huge fresh market. She might have already been, but maybe not and it’s still something fun to do. You go handpick your ingredients, letting yourself be inspired by what you see. You come home and you cook the hell out of them. This setup has never failed. Not once. I cook well according to any standards, but for a mid 20s single bartender living alone, I cook fucking well. They usually jump me before desert.
But this one, I want to make sure we’re friends before we sleep together. She’s a fun girl I’d like to have in my group of friends. I’ll have plenty of free time this summer and there’s no better way to spend it than with a cute girl. I have very good friends, friends that will be there all my life, but they’re not the people I can spend all my afternoons and nights with. They’re all working 9 to 5 (some 8 to 8, 6/7 ), they live with their boyfriends and girlfriends or they’re traveling the world.
No, spending time with someone new to the city will be awesome. It’ll make me revisit places I haven’t been in ages and will make me do things I probably wouldn’t have bothered to do.
Plus, it’s no secret that hanging out with cute girls attract more cute girls.
There’s two types of player, in a woman’s mind.
There’s the self absorbed player, who do it to tell his friends, who accumulates women like hunting trophies. These guys don’t respect the women they’re sleeping with precisely because they’re sleeping with them. Like, Woody Allen said in Annie Hall, which he attributed to Groucho Marx: I would not want to belong to a club that would have me as a member.
Most women, in other words, the not too stupid and not too drunk women can smell this kind of player come from miles away and will protect they’re girlfriends from him.
Then there’s the gentleman player. The one who sleeps with women because he truly loves them. The kind that respects the women he sleeps with, that doesn’t judge them, that doesn’t get jealous or possessive. The kind that will make a women feel sexy, desired and appreciated when she leaves in the morning, after a cappuccino and croissants.
Most women love this kind of player and even if they’re not interested, they’ll let him get away with pretty much everything.
And there’s no better way to set that frame than to hang out with beautiful girls who you’ve obviously slept with. You don’t have to mention anything, other girls will pick up on the shared complicity. It shows them that you’re used to being with pretty girls, that you don’t idolize them, don’t put em on a pedestal, appreciate them for the person they are. And most important, it shows that you’re a guy who respects the girls he sleeps with, enough to be friends with many of them.
But then again, if after a cocktail or two and half a bottle of wine, this cutie jumps me, I don’t see how I could possibly get out of it. I really don’t.
Monday, May 11, 2009
New York - day 1
New York was legendary, way beyond any expectations.
We flew in quite early on Thursday morning.
Just as we get out of the airport, the bus to Time Square is leaving. Our hotel is half a block from where she drops us.
We check in at the creepy Carter hotel. Our room is actually quite ok. I haven’t seen a single bug the whole time I was there, which is a net improvement over the two previous times.
We start walking towards downtown, all the way from Time Square to the Staten Island ferry terminal at the southern point of the island. We hop on for the free back and forth ride.
The sun is starting to show itself so we start looking for a terrace, to have lunch. We end up in little Italy, where we chose a nice restaurant with a terrace on the sidewalk. The waiter brings us the menu, I stop him in his track and ask my usual:
Me: Don’t feel like reading, what’s the specialty, what can’t we miss.
Him, typical waiter answer: Depends on what you want, we got great fish, chicken is good…
Me, interrupting: no no no. What’s the best, what would you order right now?
Him, seeing that I actually trust him and that I’m not just trying to make him bear the responsibility of me not enjoy my meal or my life in general– many people are like that: Oh, the Osso Bucco.
Me: splendid. I look at Harry, he confirms. Twice. With two beers.
Him: Perroni?
Me: sure!
The osso bucco is superb, beers are good. Man this trip is starting well.
It starts to rain. Really hard. We’re covered by the awning but the wind sometimes blows a cold mist on us. The timing is perfect though, we could still be looking for a restaurant.
Just as we finish our meal, the rain stops. My left foot starts to hurt, in a way that I’m way too familiar with. It happened the last time I came to NY, almost two years ago. The first time, I thought it was because I had started wearing a new pair of shoes a few days before. But now I understand. It’s because I’ve walked for way too long in my flip flops.
Damn. So my beloved blue flip flops actually destroy the muscles in my foot if I wear them too much. Good to know.
At this point, I’m hoping it’s gonna pass. I take off my flip flops and I start walking the wet streets of Manhattan barefoot. People hardly notice. But when they do, they don’t get it. I don’t exactly look hippie.
We go back to the hotel, to take a shower and change. We go down to the Flat Iron Lounge, an old school cocktail bar.
My feet are killing me. I feel bad, cause we just got in for three days in NY which by definition means walking over a 100 miles. It’s Harry’s first time in NY and I don’t want to be a drag.
At the Flat Iron, we manage to find a spot at the bar. We start to chat with the bartender. He doesn’t seem to want to talk to us too much. We insist, we ask questions, we’re being nice and interested. He loosens up. By our third drink, he engages conversation, makes us try tiny sips of alcohol we just can’t get at home. He buys us drinks. We ask for a nice restaurant with a bar we can sit at and some ambiance. He suggests the garage, at the corner of two streets I totally have forgotten about.
We get there, find two seats at the bar. There’s a jazz band playing, they’re pretty good. We order a few appetizers and an entree that we’ll just share.
We tease the barmaid a little, she stays somewhat distant. People around us don’t seem to want to talk. This place is ok, but really not the mood I was expecting. She still offer the shots of whisky we ordered. We had ordered three jacks, but she poured a jameson for herself. I think that’s being overly picky but whatev.
We leave the restaurant quite hammered and go for the tiny little park just next block. When we get there, some big scary black guy with a shaved head, a big beard and eyes that don’t seem perfectly sane come to ask us for money. I steer the discussion away and ask him if he can get us some weed.
He says we’ll have to give him some money. Whatever, we know we’ll be overcharged, were’s tourists, but we really want some weed.
So Harry leaves with him while I stay here in the park, with his friends the flamboyant 50 something homosexual Albert, who insists that I sit on his lap the whole time, and cookie, the tranny hooker with a deep voice. This is funny.
Harry comes back with the crazy black dude and signals me that everything’s ok. Well sorta. We just paid 200$ Us for something that we pay around 20$ at home. Oh well, we didn’t come here on a budget.
We smoke one with the crazy black dude and take a cab back to time square. We’re happy, a little drunk and completely high. This night was perfect, but it’s nothing compared to what’s ahead. But we don’t know that yet, so we’re on this cloud.
We sit on two mailbox right on freakin time square and we watch people walk by. Funnily, that’s probably where we had the most interactions all day. Some guy takes a picture of us. The hottest girl we’ve seen all day, a tall and beautiful asian chick, asks us if we know a good stripjoint around. And she sticks for a little while even when we told her we didn’t know. Had we not been high, we would have definitely went with her, but this is not our trip right now.
After a while, we go back to the hotel to smoke another one and we get to sleep.
…
We flew in quite early on Thursday morning.
Just as we get out of the airport, the bus to Time Square is leaving. Our hotel is half a block from where she drops us.
We check in at the creepy Carter hotel. Our room is actually quite ok. I haven’t seen a single bug the whole time I was there, which is a net improvement over the two previous times.
We start walking towards downtown, all the way from Time Square to the Staten Island ferry terminal at the southern point of the island. We hop on for the free back and forth ride.
The sun is starting to show itself so we start looking for a terrace, to have lunch. We end up in little Italy, where we chose a nice restaurant with a terrace on the sidewalk. The waiter brings us the menu, I stop him in his track and ask my usual:
Me: Don’t feel like reading, what’s the specialty, what can’t we miss.
Him, typical waiter answer: Depends on what you want, we got great fish, chicken is good…
Me, interrupting: no no no. What’s the best, what would you order right now?
Him, seeing that I actually trust him and that I’m not just trying to make him bear the responsibility of me not enjoy my meal or my life in general– many people are like that: Oh, the Osso Bucco.
Me: splendid. I look at Harry, he confirms. Twice. With two beers.
Him: Perroni?
Me: sure!
The osso bucco is superb, beers are good. Man this trip is starting well.
It starts to rain. Really hard. We’re covered by the awning but the wind sometimes blows a cold mist on us. The timing is perfect though, we could still be looking for a restaurant.
Just as we finish our meal, the rain stops. My left foot starts to hurt, in a way that I’m way too familiar with. It happened the last time I came to NY, almost two years ago. The first time, I thought it was because I had started wearing a new pair of shoes a few days before. But now I understand. It’s because I’ve walked for way too long in my flip flops.
Damn. So my beloved blue flip flops actually destroy the muscles in my foot if I wear them too much. Good to know.
At this point, I’m hoping it’s gonna pass. I take off my flip flops and I start walking the wet streets of Manhattan barefoot. People hardly notice. But when they do, they don’t get it. I don’t exactly look hippie.
We go back to the hotel, to take a shower and change. We go down to the Flat Iron Lounge, an old school cocktail bar.
My feet are killing me. I feel bad, cause we just got in for three days in NY which by definition means walking over a 100 miles. It’s Harry’s first time in NY and I don’t want to be a drag.
At the Flat Iron, we manage to find a spot at the bar. We start to chat with the bartender. He doesn’t seem to want to talk to us too much. We insist, we ask questions, we’re being nice and interested. He loosens up. By our third drink, he engages conversation, makes us try tiny sips of alcohol we just can’t get at home. He buys us drinks. We ask for a nice restaurant with a bar we can sit at and some ambiance. He suggests the garage, at the corner of two streets I totally have forgotten about.
We get there, find two seats at the bar. There’s a jazz band playing, they’re pretty good. We order a few appetizers and an entree that we’ll just share.
We tease the barmaid a little, she stays somewhat distant. People around us don’t seem to want to talk. This place is ok, but really not the mood I was expecting. She still offer the shots of whisky we ordered. We had ordered three jacks, but she poured a jameson for herself. I think that’s being overly picky but whatev.
We leave the restaurant quite hammered and go for the tiny little park just next block. When we get there, some big scary black guy with a shaved head, a big beard and eyes that don’t seem perfectly sane come to ask us for money. I steer the discussion away and ask him if he can get us some weed.
He says we’ll have to give him some money. Whatever, we know we’ll be overcharged, were’s tourists, but we really want some weed.
So Harry leaves with him while I stay here in the park, with his friends the flamboyant 50 something homosexual Albert, who insists that I sit on his lap the whole time, and cookie, the tranny hooker with a deep voice. This is funny.
Harry comes back with the crazy black dude and signals me that everything’s ok. Well sorta. We just paid 200$ Us for something that we pay around 20$ at home. Oh well, we didn’t come here on a budget.
We smoke one with the crazy black dude and take a cab back to time square. We’re happy, a little drunk and completely high. This night was perfect, but it’s nothing compared to what’s ahead. But we don’t know that yet, so we’re on this cloud.
We sit on two mailbox right on freakin time square and we watch people walk by. Funnily, that’s probably where we had the most interactions all day. Some guy takes a picture of us. The hottest girl we’ve seen all day, a tall and beautiful asian chick, asks us if we know a good stripjoint around. And she sticks for a little while even when we told her we didn’t know. Had we not been high, we would have definitely went with her, but this is not our trip right now.
After a while, we go back to the hotel to smoke another one and we get to sleep.
…
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Less?
On my dryer's cycle, there's "more dry", "less dry" and "cool down".
Now who on earth puts their clothes in the dryer to get em less dry? They're soaking wet when I put em in them, how could it even makes them less dry?
Now who on earth puts their clothes in the dryer to get em less dry? They're soaking wet when I put em in them, how could it even makes them less dry?
Monday, May 4, 2009
Lost cause
Friday I was working the bar for a special event. Every year this prominent dance company holds a black-tie 500$-a-plate ball to raise funds.
I had to get there for 3:30. At 4, my phone wakes me up. Yeah… I managed to sleep till 4 pm. It’s all good, my friends are organizing the event and I know we’ll have plenty of time to set up. We’ve done this before.
I was with Mateo, an old partner from The Drinkery. He’s an awesome bartender, he has a great energy, he’s almost a legend in the city. And there was this hottie with us, with whom I’ve worked at another event a month ago. She’s a typical barmaid, somewhat superficial - she’s about to open her own tanning salon, but really nice and sweet.
It was pretty slow. It’s a very formal event, people go more naturally towards champagne and if they do go for a cocktail, chances are they’ll take it easy to stay sober.
But after the dinner, the dancers came to our bar to party. The girls are beautiful, ridiculously fit – and flexible – and the guys are gay… my kind of demographics!
The prettiest of them all, a tall blond, is at my bar ordering when some old soul song starts to play. I ask her if there’s a show going on – from where we are, we can’t see the main dining room, where the dancers had performed earlier.
Her: no. why?
Me: oh, cause your company used to do this amazing dance on this song, my favourite one actually. It was just a couple on stage… quite beautiful.
Her: Oh my god you’re right! How d’you even know that? Oh and this drink is amazing thanks!
Me: Though I do it very well, I don’t just bartend. I like other things in life.
My sister is a dancer and she used to go to the training camp this particular dance company hold every summer. She brought me to a few of their shows. I avoid mentioning it to the blond dancer so that she wonders if I just happen to know everything or if I’m a fan of their work.
My friend/former boss cuts my shift at half passed midnight so that I can come with him at the after party in a fancy restaurant not too far away. He lets Mateo and our busboy clean and pack up everything. I feel bad, but it’s not like I asked for it.
Over there, I start talking with this cute girl that was jokingly complaining at the party earlier cause we had run out of Red Bull. She’s kind of a shy girl, works a lot, obviously not used to the whole bar environment. She seems a little bit intimidated by the way I flirt with her, but she also seems to like it. It’s playful, I tease her a lot.
Yeah she’s definitely enjoying this, but her friends and even her brother are right there around her. It’s also apparent that I’m a good 5 years younger. This is a lost cause, for tonight at least. She could never leave with the bartender she just met, like that, in front of her friends. Actually, I don’t think this kind of girl can even imagine this happening.
Oh well, that was fun anyways.
I had to get there for 3:30. At 4, my phone wakes me up. Yeah… I managed to sleep till 4 pm. It’s all good, my friends are organizing the event and I know we’ll have plenty of time to set up. We’ve done this before.
I was with Mateo, an old partner from The Drinkery. He’s an awesome bartender, he has a great energy, he’s almost a legend in the city. And there was this hottie with us, with whom I’ve worked at another event a month ago. She’s a typical barmaid, somewhat superficial - she’s about to open her own tanning salon, but really nice and sweet.
It was pretty slow. It’s a very formal event, people go more naturally towards champagne and if they do go for a cocktail, chances are they’ll take it easy to stay sober.
But after the dinner, the dancers came to our bar to party. The girls are beautiful, ridiculously fit – and flexible – and the guys are gay… my kind of demographics!
The prettiest of them all, a tall blond, is at my bar ordering when some old soul song starts to play. I ask her if there’s a show going on – from where we are, we can’t see the main dining room, where the dancers had performed earlier.
Her: no. why?
Me: oh, cause your company used to do this amazing dance on this song, my favourite one actually. It was just a couple on stage… quite beautiful.
Her: Oh my god you’re right! How d’you even know that? Oh and this drink is amazing thanks!
Me: Though I do it very well, I don’t just bartend. I like other things in life.
My sister is a dancer and she used to go to the training camp this particular dance company hold every summer. She brought me to a few of their shows. I avoid mentioning it to the blond dancer so that she wonders if I just happen to know everything or if I’m a fan of their work.
My friend/former boss cuts my shift at half passed midnight so that I can come with him at the after party in a fancy restaurant not too far away. He lets Mateo and our busboy clean and pack up everything. I feel bad, but it’s not like I asked for it.
Over there, I start talking with this cute girl that was jokingly complaining at the party earlier cause we had run out of Red Bull. She’s kind of a shy girl, works a lot, obviously not used to the whole bar environment. She seems a little bit intimidated by the way I flirt with her, but she also seems to like it. It’s playful, I tease her a lot.
Yeah she’s definitely enjoying this, but her friends and even her brother are right there around her. It’s also apparent that I’m a good 5 years younger. This is a lost cause, for tonight at least. She could never leave with the bartender she just met, like that, in front of her friends. Actually, I don’t think this kind of girl can even imagine this happening.
Oh well, that was fun anyways.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Can you say random?
And yet another drunk post. I don’t even know why I’m mentionning it, it seems to be getting the rule more than the exception.
So I just finished my semester today. Well thecnically, cause I still have a paper to turn in which is already more than a week late and I have to redo the exam for which I didn’t bother to show up. But “technically” finishing school for the summer is a good a reason as any to celebrate.
Plus, my good friend Louis-Jose, this bartender from France with whom I worked at The Drinkery finally came back, after a few months exile in his mother land, to settle here for good.
So I joined him at The Drinkery after work, Harry was at the bar.
Normally, everytime I go to The Drinkery, I end up talking to all the girls around me at the bar. But not tonight. Tonight was about being with my boys.
Louis-Jose leaves cause he has a dinner with his roomate. We must admit it, the guy is quick. He landed late last night and he’s already got a roomate and dinner to attend.
I stay bymyself at the bar, which is no biggie cause at The Drinkery, I’m never actually by myself.
Harry takes a 5 min break so we can go smoke a cigarette outside.
Some girl on a bicycle is coming toward us. I look at her the same way I look at every pretty girl that crosses my sight. She keeps looking at me and just when she gets close, she goes : NO WAY! And she stops.
Ok. Now this cute girl obviously knows me. And she does look familiar. But I have no idea where I’ve seen her before. Did she come at The Drinkery when I was working there, did I go somewhere she works, do I know her from school? I have no idea.
So yes, she’s from school. But from highschool. This is a girl I haven’t seen in 9 years.
As a teenager, I lived in a small provincial town, some two hour drive away from the city.
So we chat a bit. Harry and I both finish our cigarette, he rushes back in; he’s working.
I stay with her to chat some more. It’s pretty nice to be able to just stay outside at night without running for a coat.
Conversation isn’t exactly stale, but it isn’t flowing easily either. It’s hard to play catch up with someone you haven’t seen since you were a kid. And that you didn’t even know that much back then.
She tells me: We used to hate each other in our moral and ethics class (the class that atheists take instead of religion) I say: Well I know I could be a jerk but I don’t remember hating you.
We keep talking for a while, she just quit her job. Like today. And she just left her boyfriend. Like yesterday. I invite her inside for a drink. I don’t know if she’s gonna say yes. The Drinkery is not pretentious but it’s still upsale and quite pricey. And there’s something a little hippie about her looks. But then again, she used to work at the most prestigious jewel shop in town. I don’t know any jewel shop, but I know this one.
She comes in with me. I buy her a drink, something I never do.
So we keep talking. I start pulling the moves; teasing her, touching her when I make a joke… She has those amazing sparkling blue eyes. And I still have no fucking idea who she is.
The subtext is loud and clear: we both insist on the fact that we like to have fun and that we’re not looking for a long term relationship at the moment.
We go outside for a cigarette. It’s raining so we stand on the porch, next door, in a little cove that offers some slight privacy. And I go for it. I just say: I’m gonna do somethhing I wanted to do for a while now. And I kiss her.
It’s intense, it’s passionate, it’s “live the moment” as it can be. It lasts for a good 10 minutes. Tension rises even more, she’s almost groaning, now. I pull my usual line: Ok I want you too much now, I’ll have to kidnap you.
“Not the time of the month” she says. Damn! When I was a kid, this used to be my curse. Everytime I thaught I was getting lucky, the plane crashed the mountain because of that. But it hadn’t happen to me in years.
She’s supposed to come over for dinner in the middle of the week. I’m not sure we’ll make it pass the apetizers.
How random was that?
So I just finished my semester today. Well thecnically, cause I still have a paper to turn in which is already more than a week late and I have to redo the exam for which I didn’t bother to show up. But “technically” finishing school for the summer is a good a reason as any to celebrate.
Plus, my good friend Louis-Jose, this bartender from France with whom I worked at The Drinkery finally came back, after a few months exile in his mother land, to settle here for good.
So I joined him at The Drinkery after work, Harry was at the bar.
Normally, everytime I go to The Drinkery, I end up talking to all the girls around me at the bar. But not tonight. Tonight was about being with my boys.
Louis-Jose leaves cause he has a dinner with his roomate. We must admit it, the guy is quick. He landed late last night and he’s already got a roomate and dinner to attend.
I stay bymyself at the bar, which is no biggie cause at The Drinkery, I’m never actually by myself.
Harry takes a 5 min break so we can go smoke a cigarette outside.
Some girl on a bicycle is coming toward us. I look at her the same way I look at every pretty girl that crosses my sight. She keeps looking at me and just when she gets close, she goes : NO WAY! And she stops.
Ok. Now this cute girl obviously knows me. And she does look familiar. But I have no idea where I’ve seen her before. Did she come at The Drinkery when I was working there, did I go somewhere she works, do I know her from school? I have no idea.
So yes, she’s from school. But from highschool. This is a girl I haven’t seen in 9 years.
As a teenager, I lived in a small provincial town, some two hour drive away from the city.
So we chat a bit. Harry and I both finish our cigarette, he rushes back in; he’s working.
I stay with her to chat some more. It’s pretty nice to be able to just stay outside at night without running for a coat.
Conversation isn’t exactly stale, but it isn’t flowing easily either. It’s hard to play catch up with someone you haven’t seen since you were a kid. And that you didn’t even know that much back then.
She tells me: We used to hate each other in our moral and ethics class (the class that atheists take instead of religion) I say: Well I know I could be a jerk but I don’t remember hating you.
We keep talking for a while, she just quit her job. Like today. And she just left her boyfriend. Like yesterday. I invite her inside for a drink. I don’t know if she’s gonna say yes. The Drinkery is not pretentious but it’s still upsale and quite pricey. And there’s something a little hippie about her looks. But then again, she used to work at the most prestigious jewel shop in town. I don’t know any jewel shop, but I know this one.
She comes in with me. I buy her a drink, something I never do.
So we keep talking. I start pulling the moves; teasing her, touching her when I make a joke… She has those amazing sparkling blue eyes. And I still have no fucking idea who she is.
The subtext is loud and clear: we both insist on the fact that we like to have fun and that we’re not looking for a long term relationship at the moment.
We go outside for a cigarette. It’s raining so we stand on the porch, next door, in a little cove that offers some slight privacy. And I go for it. I just say: I’m gonna do somethhing I wanted to do for a while now. And I kiss her.
It’s intense, it’s passionate, it’s “live the moment” as it can be. It lasts for a good 10 minutes. Tension rises even more, she’s almost groaning, now. I pull my usual line: Ok I want you too much now, I’ll have to kidnap you.
“Not the time of the month” she says. Damn! When I was a kid, this used to be my curse. Everytime I thaught I was getting lucky, the plane crashed the mountain because of that. But it hadn’t happen to me in years.
She’s supposed to come over for dinner in the middle of the week. I’m not sure we’ll make it pass the apetizers.
How random was that?
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