My friends Kathleen and Atom got married to each other last week, and Anne and I went to New York for their wedding.
It’s the first time I’ve been to New York and the first time Anne and I have been able to go anywhere together for more than two days in forever, so I decided to keep business to a minimum while we were there (as it turns out, a lot of people I work with in various capacities live in Manhattan, and it would have been all-too-easy to end up with six hours of meetings a day.)
During the height of my "Hey, you’re that guy on TV" years, I went to New York every couple of months for press events, meetings, and other PR-related things. I’m sure I went there for at least one Star Trek convention, but in my memory, New York, Philly, and Pittsburgh are all conflated and I couldn’t tell you which was which.
(Hey! Want to know how to piss off everyone who lives in New York, Philly and Pittsburgh? Tell them you’ve been to their cities but can’t tell them apart. Before you send in angry cards and letters, I don’t mean the cities. I mean the conventions. In fact, I’ve done so many conventions in my life, it’s a miracle that I can keep any of them separate from another in my brain, which I’ve tried so hard to kill with beer over the years.)
Anne and I were very excited to go to New York. We absolutely adore our friends, who are absolutely perfect for each other, and we were both tremendously excited to get some time away together in one of the coolest cities on the planet.
We took the Red Eye out of LAX, planning to grab some sleep on the plane so we could get the most out of the next day when we arrived.
Guess how that worked out? They don’t call it the Red Eye for nothing.
Actually, it’s pretty funny in retrospect: I’m reading a book that is magnificent. I won’t tell you what it is, because you’d lose a lot of respect for me upon learning that I didn’t read this book a decade — or more — ago. Suffice to say, it’s one of the best I’ve ever read, and I’m well into the point in the book where I don’t want to do anything except fall into it and keep reading.
Our flight took off at 11:40, and I read this particular book until about 2:30 Pacific time. We were supposed to land just before 8 Eastern time, so I forced myself to put the book down and get some sleep.
I reclined my seat to the maximum four degrees allowed, put on a silly eye mask, and settled in for a few hours of sleep.
That’s when the turbulence started. Seriously! It was like the air was just waiting for me to close my eyes so it could start shaking the plane. Imagine that you’re starting to fall asleep, and someone comes up and shakes your chair: "Hey! Wake up! Dude! Wake up!"
Yeah, it’s hilarious now, but at the time? Not that funny.
So we don’t sleep at all, sit in horrible morning rush hour traffic fro JFK to Manhattan, and finally get to take a little nap around 10.
"I don’t want to sleep the entire day away," I said when we got into our hotel, "and end up so jet lagged I’m staying up all night and missing the days while we’re here."
"Don’t worry," Anne said, closing the curtains, "I’ll only sleep for an hour or so, and then I’ll wake you up."
Four hours later, we woke up, groggy but rested enough to go explore Manhattan a little bit.
First stop: food. We were staying at the W on Union Square, so we walked to Dojo West by NYU. I had a bowl of lentil soup with an awesome soy burger, and Anne had a tofu salad with this incredible soy ginger carrot dressing that was the size of Delaware. There was so much food, we had to share it and still couldn’t eat it all. Total bill? About 17 bucks, which seems like a lot, but for the amount of food we got it really wasn’t.
Like I said, I wanted to keep business to a minimum, so I used a simple criteria: I only set up business meetings with people who are close friends, so we could pretend it wasn’t business (even though it really was.) Ha! Take that, uh, thing-that-needs-a-finger-wagging-from-Wil. (That doesn’t make sense to me, either. Let’s never speak of it again.)
The first business-but-not-really stop was at Rockstar games, so we could visit with my friend Lazlow, who is responsible for all the awesome audio, dialog and music in the Grant Theft Auto games. Lazlow and I met years ago when I was promoting Dancing Barefoot and he interviewed me for his radio show, The Technophile. We hit it off, and eventually Lazlow cast me as Richard Burns in San Andreas.
Now I’m sure you’re wondering what business we could possibly have had to discuss, what with GTA IV about to ship and take over all of our lives in ways that not even Halo 3 and Rock Band could achieve.
Well, I’m kinda sorta, well, in GTA IV. It’s not a huge part, but it’s massively entertaining, and Lazlow wanted to show me how my character ended up looking and how all the work we did looked when it was all put together. I can’t say anything specific about it, but in my totally objective opinion, it’s awesome and will be the most memorable part of the game, probably spinning off a multi-billion dollar franchise of its own.
And the Rockstar offices? Sofa king cool. There’s great music playing everywhere, lots of bikes, arcade cabinets, and tons of extremely focused people who care deeply about making sure the games they release are as awesome as they can possibly be. I saw a lot of stuff that I’d get thrown out of a helicopter for revealing, but I think I can safely admire how they’ve got an entire department dedicated to researching the cities, people, culture, and history of the places they set their games.
And Lazlow’s dog is adorable, smart, supports Obama and followed us all over the building. Because every day at Rockstar is Bring Your Dog to Work Day.
The excitement for GTA IV’s release was palpable, and so was the pressure everyone was obviously under as the street date draws near. We could have spent hours there, (I could have stayed in the research department alone for the rest of the day) but it was clear that there was lots of real work to be done, and we didn’t want to overstay our welcome, so we thanked Lazlow for showing us around and headed back out into the city.
Next stop: Washington Square Park, which I didn’t know was reduced by 50% because they’re doing some massive renovation on the whole thing. I haven’t been there in over a decade, but the stuff I loved about it back then: the students, the various musicians, the dog walkers and the weirdoes were still there. We passed a bebop jazz duo, stopped to listen to a different jazz quartet and watched some film students screw light bulbs into the dirt beneath a tree (I hope they were filming in black and white, and the finished cut has a clown flipping pancakes before it says fin and fades to black.) We saw tons of families playing with their kids, students playing frisbee, religious nuts squawking about their particular flavor of Armageddon. It was like the city had managed to temporarily cut the park in half, but didn’t reduce any of the things that made it a weird and wonderful place to visit.
We headed back up fifth avenue toward midtown. It was starting to get dark, and we’d planned to meet up with Kathleen and Atom for snacks and drink, so we had time for just one more silly sight seeing thing I wanted to do.
"I really want to see the Flatiron building," I said.
"I really wish you wouldn’t talk in hyperlinks," Anne said.
"Sorry. I’m a blogger. I can’t help it."
"What’s the Flatiron building?" She said.
"Oh, you’ll recognize it as soon as you see it, " I said. "It’s only about a fifteen minute walk from here."
More later . . .
What I’ve read about the multiplayer games in GTA4 sound really, really awesome.
This confirms my suspicion that everyone else on the planet is living an abundantly more interesting life than I am!
Time to change another diaper and get the pizza out of the oven. Meh, my life’s pretty cool actually.
Great entry! ~ Aaron
Your trip sounds pretty rad so far! Drat. Now I have to save up for an xbox 360 to get GTA IV. (Well, I’m saving up for Rock Band but knowing you’re in GTA IV is another perk to having a 360 system.) I found San Andreas for the old xbox and am looking forward to Richard Burns.
“I really wish you wouldn’t talk in hyperlinks.”
That made me LOL. Love it. Looking forward to part 2.
Talking in hyperlinks cracked me up too. It had me transported to a virtual comic strip where the person has a link available for the recipient to touch for more information. π Hilarious.
I look forward to more. I had my first visit to the city last October. I was alone the whole time though. I’d love to take my wife there sometime soon.(flash forward 18 years later).
Ah, Please Wil! Tell us the name of the book. Maybe some of us managed to miss it decades ago too!
Dude – if I’d known you were going to be in my old neighborhood I would have hooked you up with my folks! – your basically walked past the house… lol sounds like lots of fun though! Can’t wait to hear how the wedding went!
Oddly enough, I’m not offended that your convention experiences with New York, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh run together. You probably didn’t make it out of the hotel except to go to and from the airport. Hotels pretty much look the same. Glad you enjoyed your time in New York.
And yeah, Red Eyes are like that. The one time I took one, there was a team of junior football (midget maybe?) kids — ten year old boys, I think, going to Florida for a playoff game from San Francisco. They were too excited to sleep. So no one else got to either.
Part of your post doesn’t make any sense.
Can you explain this:
“It’s the first time I’ve been to New York….” and this: “During the height of my “Hey, you’re that guy on TV” years, I went to New York every couple of months….”
I was in New York with my husband for the first time in January – can’t wait to return! The Flatiron building is awesome! Looking forward to Part 2 to see what else you explored (and maybe some pics?).
J: “In forever” applies both to “It’s the first time I’ve been to New York” and “the first time Anne and I have been able to go anywhere together for more than two days.” It gave me pause the first time I read that sentence, too.
Great entry, but yeah, I want to know the name of the book, too. Give!
J: Read, “It’s the first time I’ve been to New York and the first time Anne and I have been able to go anywhere together for more than two days in forever…” this way:
“It’s the first time I’ve been to New York… for more than two days… in forever.”
Better yet, read it this way: “It’s the first time in forever that I’ve been to New York for more than two days.”
It gave me pause, too… I had to read it twice. Wil, you can pay me for my editing by coming to the East Coast one of these days. You still owe me for the green tea soy ice cream. π
-Alicia
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http://www.thewagband.com
I’m happy you’re back in GTA once more. Richard Burns was a radio-only character, but you say you LOOKED at your GTA4 character. Can you say if you did motion capture for this? Does he look like you?
Amusingly enough, I’ve worked about 5 blocks from the flatiron building for two years, but because I never walk *downtown* past it (only uptown), I didn’t realize it until this weekend.
BLARGH GTA IV!! *foams at the mouth*
So glad to hear you’ve got a role in it Wil, I’ll be scouring the game for it. π
I was going to say something about the first time in NY gaff but two people beat me to it. Besides, if I call you on it, you may throw a book at me next Sunday whether David has my credit card in his hand or not. Maybe though I should make some dig about the dog supporting Obama. Nah, I had better let that pass. He is having enough problems already. (giggle, giggle from the McCain supporter here) Glad you liked my old home town. Bill M.
Flatiron buiding: Tor Books FTW!
Ah, the Flatiron Building. Made my mind immediately flash on this guys’s album cover:
http://www.myspace.com/szobel
(No, it’s not a Rick Roll)
J. D.
I guess that the real trick of visiting a new city is finding what makes it different from everywhere else. Finding that something special. A particular challenge given the fact that large citites are increasingly similar ?
terrific travel blog Wil, thanks.
But,
but,
what was the book you were reading? Come on dude, don’t leave us hanging!
Some weird synchronicities here: My husband and I went to NY last June on a business trip for a sneak peek at GTA (his peek, not mine) and also tonight I was playing Yahoo poker and a guy had a trek name and I asked him to name his favorite episode and his was “Mirror mirror” which is just wrong because “Chain of Command” is the best episode ever. Anyway, my husband is in the VG business and the GTA people are his vendors, so if you guys run into each other some day, remember, there are FOUR lights!
Thats ok, I LIVE in NY and regularly say “Oh, he’s from Philly, or Pittsburgh… or one of the ones with a P…”
But I’m a CA transplant, so they let us off the hook after a while.
If thats the Jet Blue red eye, I so know of the 3am turbulence. Except, come 3 am, I decided “Hey, we’re landing in a couple hours, now would be a good time to go pee.”
I was washing my hands when the turbulance started and the pilot comes on to say that they are turning on the seatbelt sign probably until we land because we’re not too far away. This was some ROUGH turbulance.
I peek out the bathroom door, and all the attendants are strapped into their little seats and one gives me this wide eyed look and motions me back into the bathroom “Stay in there!”
When a flight attendant is scared, its never a good sign.
So I turned around, assessed my options… Put down the lid to the toilet and took a seat, thinking they should have added seat belts to the bathrooms. I left the door unlocked lest I hit my head on something, and spent the next 20 minutes gripping the handle next to the seat and with my foot braced against the wall next to the door, fearing for my life, or the humility of being in a bathroom when a plane crashed.
I’m not offended that you can’t tell my city apart from those other ones. So don’t worry, we’re cool.
I hope that, during some future visit, you’ll do a reading for something out here. Sometimes it kind of sucks that the west coasters get all the cool Weaton readings / comedy-shows / convention-key-notes / etc.
Heck, the UN is here so you could require them to sumbit to your demands or you will destroy the world with your doomesday device! (That would be really cool. Please let us know when you’re planning to do that so we can try to get some visitor seats that day)
notes to self:
1) Use of the word “cool” in every paragraph is not cool.
2) Wheaton has an “H”. Jeez, don’t you know anything?
π
As a Philly girl, I’m not offended. You have to come back sometime.
So cool you’re back in GTA IV. My husband is dying fo it to come out. My oldest got Bully a few weeks ago (first one) and he loves it. Rock Star Games is a hit in my house!
Please tell me you went inside the Flatiron Bldg. and rode the elevators.
They’re some of the only pneumatic elevators I know of and when you get to your floor, they bounce for a couple of seconds before the pressure equalizes.
BTW, the “Numbers” episode Graphic was on last night. I kept thinking, I know who that evil f**k Sklar is.
I hope your part 2 isn’t a Bogus Journey:) I really enjoyed reading this. I had a few laughing out loud moments. Can’t wait for the sequel.
J @2:50pm
I’d lay odds that
“It’s the first time I’ve been to New York….” is supposed to read “It’s the first time Anne’s been to New York”.
Or Wil’s web of deceit is unravelling, and that this blog is written by a 55 year old Woman in Nebraska will soon become common knowledge…
Can’t wait until I get my book.
I saw this and it made me think of you…
http://www.sheldoncomics.com/archive/020202.html
Thanks, Mikey
Ahh.. the Flatiron Building. I was showing someone my pictures from my one and only trip to New York and they asked, why do you have so many pictures of this one building. Because I LOVE IT!
Looking forward to part 2.
$17 seems like a lot for a non-fast-food meal for 2 people? I wanna live where you live! Even a diner in NYC will usually be about $10 per person for most things. Dojo’s great though, I’m glad you guys found it!
Wil:
Forgive me if you’ve already seen this (“Brokeback Trek”), but if not check it out…
Regards,
CHV
See, that’s why I don’t live in The City. I’m more like in the arpit…or perhaps the butt crack. Smack dab between Buffalo and Niagara Falls.
But we’re still crazy drivers. Guaranteed. (Not as crazy as Georgia I hear though.)
Ahh, I see. It was very confusing to me. Thanks to you both, Andrew and Alicia.
You are TOTALLY reading Harry Potter. Mmm hmm.
π
It’s not Harry Potter. Believe it or not, I just couldn’t ever get into those books.
ROFL at “I really wish you wouldn’t talk in hyperlinks,” Anne said.
GENIUS!
People who’ve read the HP book s said almost exactly what you said, so that’s why I guessed Mr. Potter. I haven’t read them either. Boy wizards. Sheesh.