Guy Brighton: November 2004 Archives

November 30, 2004

Tues 30th Nov : Southern Tapas

In between mucking up and being told to muck up I took the Lady to that little Tapas place on the corner of the Irving and 17th. Or is it 18th. Not the restautant one but the place just round the corner where you stand up and eat as if you're in a Spanish tapas floor. Except that it's not brightly lit with marble and brass toppings. Serves more than one type of tapas. Nor is the floor encrusted with the used napkins and paper plates of the rest of the day's customers.

Anyway - I was going to put this little story in my 'Why I Love New York' section but then I stopped laughing. We were stood at the back - eating from the shelf on what looks like a cupboard. we're jammed in there and the coat rack is behind me. Most people are coureous and apologize when they have to squeeze past.

One girl in a bright red top - barges past. The Lady shrugs. She barge past again and I say to her, "Normally an excuse me would suffice.'' She looks at me incredulously. I look at her: head pulled back - ex. Upper East Sider now lives round the corner from me in the Far West Village. Once pretty, now her donwturned lips and that 'don't touch me' expression has lined her face. "Normally an excuse me would suffice.'' I repeat. She looks at me. She can't upturn her lip anymore. She raises her hand and the smallest middle finger the world has ever seen is raised. Typical. You want to go and get some old world experience. I want to remember Madrid and with the help of this young lady and all I can remember are the loud moneyed Americans who sat in those Spanish bars making life hell for the rest of us.

Anyway - we went to remind us why America is great. We saw Tony Joe White (The Swamp Fox - listen here) play the Irving Plaza. He reminded me what life in America could really be all about.

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Tues 30th Nov : Typo Salvo

I'm off to Chicago tomorrow for work. Windy City. I was hoping I was going to send myself on a little project to Miami or London and then my boss got involved and I'm here. That could partly be to do with the fact I had one of those days where I had a million things to get done and my spell checker missed the CAPS typos (and the mild swear words) and my boss jumped up and down all over me.

With my head lowered he told me if such and such package had been sent to such and such person yet. It hadn't because he had told me that we had to do such a thing in passing and then not given any instructions where. So he gives me the hotel and and he makes sure that I know I can't make a mistake. I Google the hotel for an address and put it on a bike. 50 minutes later HE answers a call from the wrong hotel who's received the package! That site I googled had the wrong address!! Should have seen his face.

So that's how I got my second warning for the job. He told me I had a warning over the phone 11pm Tuesday night - just before he asked if I could go to Chicago at 10.45am the next day. I asked when I would book return. There was no answer.

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November 29, 2004

Coming Soon

Cerys Matthews, Brits Versus Night With Americans, Brother In Town, Banking, US Airlines, ThanksGiving.

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November 20, 2004

Sat 20th Nov: Cerys Matthews

Saw the lead singer of Catatonia on Saturday night at a small venue in Lower East Side. Surprise... she's lost her taff accent and now lives in Nashville. I wanted to keep asking for that 'road rage' song. It's the only one I remember. Funny seeing someone who must have played to 0000s now play to 00s.

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November 19, 2004

Fri 19th Nov : Drained

All the ideas I suggest are wrong. I'm told the way I should think when really I want to be inspired to have beautiful dreams.

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November 17, 2004

Wed 17th Nov : Brother In Town

So the brother hit town. He turned up and I got there late. The A & The Air Train isn't as fast as I try to convince the lady. First night a burger at Bistro, He got tired. I hate the rest of his burger, drank the rest of his beer. Shame to waste.

The next day I left him to wander the lean streets of Manhattan. I think a mix of jet lag, exercise and Britishness got the best of him so he got home and had a large beer in the garden out back. Night fell and after he finished the beer he realised he was locked out. Starts banging on the door. Neighbour comes out and opens up. He’s standing there looking like a shaven headed thug and a large bottle o beer in a brown paper bag in his hand. Kind neighours as they are - they let him in of course.

The next 2 nights the Lady and I subject him to a competition: my frrends vs. her friends. My friends being Brits and their Brit girlfriends and the Lady's friends being single, barmy, probably-blonde. The night out with the Brits last night was quite tame. Everyone has got a job. I was gettign worried. My bro couldn't make up his mind so we dragged the Lady's friends on the second night down to Nu Blu. They had a one handed trumpeter playing to the beats. He blew us away - and the blondes home.

Ho hum - tried to get to new bar about 49 Bowery but it wasn't open so I took him for a few late night beers at Passer By. Yeah - a good NYC experience late at night. Fun, frenzied crowd. And the staff even gave me a 'these ones are on the house'! Never before.

My brother must have looked cool all weekend.

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November 16, 2004

Mon 15th Nov : Silent Seattle

Seattlepic

Back in Seattle again. It's nice to slow down a gear. You have to or the relaxed attitude will wind you up too much.

The city center is ok. This time I tried a different hotel: I downgraded (!) and went to a Sheraton. Well it had a pool. The difference between the W and the Sheraton - I feel like I'm a long way from home at the Sheraton. The whole ambiance makes me miss my loved ones.

I think a visitor needs to be on their guard in Seattle though. There's something odd going on. I couldn't find a single pub in the downtown area. No Irish bar all Grill This or This Grill. I ended in Zoe's on 2nd - the starter of Bluetail was heavenly, the main course with scallops and corn and bacon and Japanese mushroom and cream potato was a tad too complicated. I told the waiter but, nice as he was, he was too interested about to know where I came from. I told him New York. He gave me a Zagat's America's Top Restaurants for free.

Another reason not to trust Seattle is the way some people dress for dinner. We're in a pretty decent restaurant and most the crowd are comfortably affluent looking, no hipsters - hey, this is Monday night -BUT here and there are a couple of pockets of couples dressed like they just popped out to take the trash to the front of the drive. Dismal sweats on dismal jeans with weary hair sat on a weary face - and that's just the women. It's like those big tech company's that let anyone wear what they like at work and people start turning up in Bermuda shorts and no one bats an eye lid. Somehow they're forty eight an bald and think they're cool. If I flew half way round the world for a business meeting and someone turned up to a meeting like that with me I'd march him down to the canteen, have a good shout about it, make an example of him to teach the rest a lesson. Anyway, I can't to night. I'm in a restaurant on my own. I am just looking at similar folk. I just watch these gormless fellows chew their food with their mouthes open: America really can be a classless society at times

In fact when you walk down the streets and swing past the vast amount of homeless and junkies - more per capita than a large British seaside town in the winter - you wonder how this all works. These poor chaps sit beside grand buildings built in good times with their hands outstretched for a taste of food whilst a couple in a restaurant - dressed pretty similar to the homeless person (just a little cleaner) - eat without registering the taste of the food, of life, of any time.

Phew. Must stop. Maybe that glass of red wine got me on a roll.

Seattlepic2

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November 15, 2004

Things I Love About New York - No. 41

You're waiting in a line/queue and the young woman infront of you is fidgeting/ "Wartz taykin sso lourng?" she mumbles audibly. Eventually it's her turn - "About time." Then she can't decide if she wants the soup or a pannini, whaddya mean you don't have the tuna you always have the tuna, what's good?, ohw-okey. She makes her order then she changes it.

I want to sneak my order in but the guy behind the counter will give her all the time in the world.

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November 14, 2004

Things I love About New York : No. 861

Older ladies in really big glasses. Example.

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November 12, 2004

Fri 12th Nov : Salt & Battery NYC

Thinking I might get to squeeze through to the bar at the Corner Bistro to get a take-out burger was a little bit naive. I walked back out into the rain, the temperature plummeting and walked up to Greenwich Avenue. Burrito, I supposed about my dinner whilst the Lady had gone to Philadelphia.

Then I saw the Salt & Battery fish and chip shop and I thought, 'Why not. I haven't been for a while, the Lady will never know, and it's been a while.' I mean, it's Friday and the feeling of the 'End of The World' has started to plateau.

The food's OK there and you sit around half expecting to chat to cheery ex-pats but you don't. It's empty most of the time bar some curious American girls visiting New York and the odd Brit just off the boat.

Yeah - it could have been the rain, it could have been the cold - but I'd suggest the Salt And Battery was empty because it transports you back to Blighty. Not London Blighty, Northern Blighty: you know - you're driving around the splendid countryside and then you spot a fish and chip shop and you think - why not. You go in and the staff give you a look, up and down, like they can't believe you've shaken them from having a fag, reading the paper and watching the soap opera from the corner of their eye. The staff at Salt & Battery are the glum miserable folk that made me move here. Maybe it's just the super-cheesy but yet-so-super-authentic service you get from Americans, or Italians, or even the French here. 'xcuse my language. Even the Oz girl behind the fish bar is miserable.

Once you order your mistake you realise it for what it is. Then you wait glad that The Onion is there - waiting for the indistinguishable yell of an order number - turning to see that by the look of her (and the bald bloke's) face she's called a couple of times already.

It looks like she doesn't know the owner and is about to chuck it. After all this palaver I'm having me fish'n'chips. I mean, I'm the only one here. Too much effort to being it out or call me by a word other than a number. Ok, ok. I'm not the only one here - there's a Brit off the boat in the corner who survived the you-what expressions when he asked if he could use a socket to charge his phone.

Ah. England. I miss you but I long to be so far from you sometimes.

Outside it's colder, wetter, and I think of the time that regular guy - the even-balder lankier see-u-next-Tuesday fella - smirked when the Lady asked for some lettuce in her fish sarnie. The burrito store next door has a menu of 100 variations.

Salt & Battery, that's what you give us.

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November 11, 2004

Work Detail

Differences about working environment UK vs US:

Shouting 'Shut Up' to the assistant outside the meeting room during a conference call with a cheeky wink is not regarded as acceptable behavior.

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Thur 11th Nov : Short Back And Sides

You know, what do you really do when you walk onto the set of Barber Shop 2?

It's Thursday and I feel like the world is about to end. I pop in here and I mean, what was I supposed to do? I had walked in looking for a haircut - even tho' it's shaggy, I'm pretty particular with my hair. But I got a little bored with trying to work out who in New York would be as understanding as Lee - not that I trust Lee is truly understanding, but we always have a good hour of theraputic chin-wag in his salon in Paddington, London.

So I had posted this article on my NYC Guide site that a whisky drink (Crown Boil I think it's called) was offering free haircuts for anyone who walked into the 199 Lafayette 'pop up barber'. Bargain. Should be OK, I think.

When I walked through the door I couldn't show I was phased. I'm a man about town, I am cosmopolitan, I can hang with anyone. I sit down and have to say 'Do you cut hair like mine?' I think it's a fair enough question. The guy grins with his gold teeth and striped eyebrow and asks me where I'm from. "Don' worry," he says (Don - who has a place up on 125th Street), "I'm goinna give you a John Lennon. Magazine style."

In Don we hope and do I care? It's free and it's fun. We both take a gulp of the sample whiskey and Don starts chopping.

A slinky excuse of a girl slides over beside me as Don sprays my hair and shows me a magazine. Nose stud in her nose. Hair tied back. "Are you a subscriber of Smooth Girl?" she asks me with that candy sweet smile waving a magazine before me and for a moment I want to be but then I don't want another mag like I need another RSS listing on my aggregator. I apologize and she smiles - I think she's conceded to failure this day. She leaves me a magazine to peruse whilst Don starts on my hair.

"I thought I said a 'trim'?" I ask him.

"Yeah. Yeah, yeah," he replies, fluffing off the hair. He takes another whiskey.

I open the Smooth Girl mag. It's pretty timid soft porn but still, it's athletic, nubile young ladies in various outfits spread across the magazine. Don purrs. It might be soft and but I feel more than odd looking at the greased bodies of various women like these whilst being tendered to guy like Don.

I laugh and fold it up. It helps Don concentrate anyway - well aftr another shot of the whiskey. Don does a good job - 'magazine style,' he says. He tells me to come up and get a cut at his salon. Maybe I will. I feel sad that he has sell me with the line, "It's OK, it's becoming gentrified." but business is business and people is people.

Later I go back and tell work I got a free haircut when they notice. A few are a little bemused that I admit I got it for free. But I did. With a tip of course. All about Karma I am learning these days. It all comes around.

They ask what's in my hand and I naturally show them: I whip out the Smooth Girl magazine and expect laugh.

Instead: horror, disgust, revoltion. And that's just from the guys. And my boss.

So that's how I got my first warning at my new job and learned about the sexual discrimination/harrassment clause in my contract.

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November 10, 2004

Wed 10th Oct : Doorway

Wednesday - at death's door. Work getting hectic. Looks like we won some business and I am going to be crazy for a few weeks. It's gone flipping cold. Blimey, gvnr.

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November 9, 2004

Tue 9th Oct : Down

Tuesday - started to feel like shit.

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November 8, 2004

Mon 8th Oct : Thirst

Monday - beginning to lag. Now walking to work down Bleeker. Great to see the world - instead of the bloody tube. See what's going on. Get a sense of the city. Build a thirst for that cwarffee.

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November 7, 2004

Sun 7th Oct : Red Red

Sunday the Lady stayed home all day - I had to go to work. Was late and useless. I cleared my head by going the most amazing jog down the river - the most brilliant sunset I have seen - I wrote a nice letter about it to my father for his birthday - I'll post it to you after.

Went and saw Sideways. Great film from the guy who did About Schmidt. Best to watch early 'cos it gets your red red wine drinking hat on.

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Recent Google Searches That Have Led People To My Blog

Just in from Google:

New York Brighton Blog
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and...

What Dogs Are Really Thinking At Halloween

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November 6, 2004

Sat 6th Nov : Pass Her

Saturday. Wake up not too late as we have to tidy up. Traipse around the stores before welcoming the Lady's mother and grand mother for the avro. Interestingly I can understand everything this non-English speaking septuagenarian can say for 6 hours (I know what she's saying tho, on repeat: babies, marriage, engagement rings).

Escaped and went out to celebrate this girl's birthday the Lady knows. Everyone was hungover from night before - the Lady had kept them all out so as not to get home before me on Friday. Went to Von - nice bar, you remember? - good Stella quaffing and the wind was up - well, it was someone's birthday after all.

Chat to a dutch guy and we talk about the Americans. I talk about the directness, he starts saying how everyone in New York has an angle - some guys like to be called Daddy, some guys like to be called ... I make my excuses.

Mummy!

The Lady suddenly goes crazy after 2 vodkas and is life and soul / have to make sure she doesn't get thrown out. We end up in German bar (Loreley) we have found and soon the rest of the group are starting to gurn whilst I enjoy some good Bavarian pilsner. The Lady is on water at this point - I decided not to let her know about what tricks were possibly available. She was still mental anyway.

Then we go to Passer By (flashing floor) - well, we try to go to Passer By. I am up the road with a guy by his car which is like it's made out of Lego - all parts that can be moved and removed etc, showered down, everything. The girls are 100 meters behind and break dancing in the street on a traffic island. That's my girl. Did someone say she flashed. Not my girl, surely.

At Passer By we turn up at 3.30 after some interesting driving and get a quick one in. The place is packed with the louche and the lewd: you know, full of the trendy crowd who all look a bit dirty by this time of night. Turns out Passer By doesn't have lock ins anymore but still everyone is dancing whilst the lights have been switched on. Where's my pint gone?

Got home fine and dandy. Need a week's worth of kip.

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November 5, 2004

Fri 5th Nov : Losing Popularity

The Lady had gone out with a friend from work, Stuart, so I took the opportunity to see the guys, have a small adventure in Williamsburg.

After a few minutes of rolling around the floor of the bowels of a hipster pub on the corner of a once-derelict street, Andrew finally stopped wrestling me and said, "You've been warned." Andrew's girlfriend had discovered my blog. The gentle cleaning of the floor with my back was a friendly way to tell me not to write about him again - how dare I write that he's the sort of guy who blushes in front of ladies.

Bill USA and Anthony chuckle. Samuel asks, "Why don't you ever write about me?"

Williamsburg is one of those places you want to go out in more often but when you finally get yourself over on the L you think to yourself, "Yeah, it's got some edge. Yeah, it's different. But I wouldn't come here every week."

Part of the reason for this is that there's only a few bars and part is due to a pretty sizable mix of tourists in from Manhattan.

We ended up in a pretty decent bar on North 8th - Supreme Trading - large affair, decent music and by that time we were buzzing. As the crowd packed the bar a tall Japanese guy with tale-tale signs of 'I'm so hip it hurts' pranced around the bar taking pictures of anyone he deemed glamorous. That didn't mean us - though we asked. We obviously weren't good enough for his digi-cam. But a decent dose of paranoia makes you think, why? Are we too old? We are thirty somethings. Are we not hip for Williamsburg? We are a scruffy mix of British fash-designers and an ad boy - maybe those 2 years of surviving on nothing is beginning to show in my threadbare garments. Are we too noisy? Yes. Do we care? No. Who's getting the round in, anyway?

Maybe all this I'm A Celebrity culture makes us feel that it is our right to be superstars and be snapped at by paparazzi all night.

Is this the long decent into unpopularity mirrored by age?

At Iona's for one last one the Scot behind the bar actually doesn't hate me because I'm English tonight. The boys are here but obviously I can't report that Andrew was. The barman analyzes my situation for me as he tops off the Stella: "A healthy dose of reality is good for the ego. You are losing the few friends you have due to the this blog thing you write. But at least you are getting a reaction - and at the end of the day, maybe that's all that matters."

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Fri 5th Nov : Ups And Downs

Has been an up and down week this week. Well the Lady has had the occasional up and the frequent down, tempered by the fact that we agreed that if I gave her a rent cheque she can’t even threaten kick me out for a month.

I wonder if it's really her evil twin sister......

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Fri 5th Nov : Incoming Mail

Someone wrote to me the other day when I was out of town:

I really like Guy Brighton's Wishful Thinking in New York! So are you in Seattle for work or pleasure. I heard the weather is wonderful up their right now. No rain or anything.

Between one New Yorker and another, I was wondering if you'd like to do a link exchange. My blog has a lot of readers and I'm sure that they'd like your blog too. If you would like to do the link exchange, here's my link: New York Escorts Confessions. Just drop me an email and we'll link up.

Talk to you soon! :)

A

My, my - the company we keep. I'm not too sure I should tell the Lady about this ...

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November 3, 2004

Wed 3rd Nov : The Next Day

Very calm and quiet here. I went to a dinner last night to watch the results come in. I was expecting lots of shouting and cursing the TV - I even considered doing some live blogging - but everyone just went quiet as they watched the results come in.

Hope just drained away.

Think everyone is feeling it too today. Very strange to have a country so bi-polar.

4 more years of Bush – well, I always said it was likely to the New Yorkers I met at bars but I always hoped for a change. Was time for a change. Nevermind, I took heart from this IM exchange I just had.