NYC Calling

Team, Sometimes dreams do come true. Like a glorious phoenix rising from the ashes, Gardy’s Excellent Blog lives, this time with serious northern hemisphere “research” afoot. Yes, sabbatical 2008 is taking in the US of A, mighty Canada, mother England and some place, strangely enough, named after a remote southern Queensland town: Roma! The following editions come with the usual proviso that if any of you lucky enough to get GEB don’t actually want to – go figure – then you should let me know and I will bump of you off the recipient list.

This instalment comes from JFK airport where I’m waiting, exhausted, for the flight to Toronto, five days in le Grande Pomme behind me.

New York. What to say? Ok, off the bat, there are at least two salient points: dogs and fake boobs. NYC is clearly a dog friendly joint; woofers are everywhere, a bit like sheep in New Zealand. Now, this is all to the credit of the place. Anywhere pro-dog gets my humble vote. I mean, the idea of there being lots of dogs around does not, I grant you, strike one as hugely significant. But dwell a moment. Imagine swanning down the CBD of London, Sydney or Melbourne. How many times would you see besuited ladies and gents, clearly between power meetings, yanking an immaculately manicured and coifed schnauzer or West Highland white (see pic) across the street? There is definitely something going on here and I like it!

Imagine my joy, then, when I came upon the park pictured here. I kid you not; somewhere in the busy streets of the financial capitol of the world there is a park - not just an open space, oh no - design built for people to take their mutt to frolic with other mutts. At the time I was there, a pack of 'em were just cuttin' laps, as happy as Larry and providing free entertainment for the crowds of onlookers. I reckon if you'd passed round a hat, people would have gladly parted with the stuff you take into shops to exchange for food out of sheer appreciation.



Of course, being pro-dog is a bit like being pro-peace. Who would disagree? But fake boobs? This is a touchy area so I’ll offer no other comment than to say that they seem, like dogs, an important part of how one ‘does’ being a New Yorker. Is it too much of a stretch to wonder if money squandered on plastic surgery in this country is the real cause of the financial pickle we’re hearing so much about?

On the (perhaps) culturally specific side, somewhere downtown I was stopped in my tracks by a large van scooting past, it being the property of the firm “Document Security”. Underneath it said “Specialising in shredding sensitive material”. How’s that? Why didn’t it just say “Done something wrong? Need to break the law to keep your ass out of jail? We can help.”?

I spent my first three nights in the Central Park Youth Hostel on West 103rd street. Being young at heart, I fitted in nicely. I took a single room and, all-in-all, nothing to complain about. My natural reaction, given that it’s so far up town on 103rd is to say that it was “way off Broadway”; except it isn’t, Broadway is only four streets away! In fact, it was walking down Broadway late on Tuesday night, not long after arriving from the airport, that I learned my first NYC lesson: one is never far from one’s next show, anywhere, anytime. Taking in the sights I found myself shadowed by a bloke with long straight hair (think REO Speedwagon or Supertramp), baseball cap backwards, listening to music on his i-pod while screaming (and I mean screaming) the lyrics of Dylan’s Subterranean Homesick Blues (“… the vandal took the handle!”). Over the next days this extravaganza was soon matched (and easily eclipsed) by Tex Mex bands and Acapella singers on the trains and dancers in the street. All this points to the need to have dollar bills on hand to pay for one’s entertainment.

This is not a whinge, by the way. I was waiting to meet friends to go up the Empire State Building but found myself in the middle of a milling crowd eager to see a bunch of hunky dancers, including Whacko Jacko impersonator (see pictures). Well, it had been a long day and travelling alone ain’t quite as glamourous as it once was. But there is me doing my old, fat, white boy jive - in public and in broad daylight!!! - handing over dollar bills to see multiple performances of the same show. I walked away with a spring in the step and a smile on the melon and that’s no small thing.





Other highlights? Well I was determined to see a Broadway show of some kind and ended up making, I guess, a fairly conservative choice to see “A Perfect Crime”, one of those very long running plays that NY is famous for. A sign outside the theatre said it was performance 8,549. It’s been running since about 1987 and some of the reviews in the foyer said it might outdo “Mousetrap”, the grand daddy of all long runners. Next time you’re in NYC, I’d recommend giving it a scroot but you’re going to need to have your wits about you. It’s a blindingly well-acted drawing room murder mystery with masses of quick-fire dialogue to digest. Not sure if that makes it sound more or less enticing, but there you go. Amazingly, the woman doing the lead character has done all but four shows. I guess after 21 years you’d expect that she’d just about be on top of it.

Needless to say, plenty of other landmarks of great size, beauty and/or historical import were ticked off. Ground zero, that statue, the Dakota Building (final earthly home of St. John of Liverpool), Greenwich Village and the superb Chrysler Building all got the full Gard onslaught. Special mention goes to the Museum of Modern Art which has so many treasures, including currently a brilliant Van Gogh exhibition, it is difficult to know where to start or finish. I took the highly scientific approach of looking at stuff until my head hurt. Luckily the bonce lasted long enough to see a bunch of Picasso found-object sculptures up on the top floor. Bloody clever bloke Picasso.

All this was wonderfully punctuated with a chance to catch up with my friend Samantha. She seemed to have at the very least matched the cracking sight-seeing pace set by yours truly, and we sustained each other with diner-breakfasts, pasta, beer, G&Ts, cocktails and even an after dinner liqueur or three. Sincere thanks to her for keeping me company.

I can I also happily report that since I last updated the blog the good folk at Blogspot have added video capability. So, for those of you desperate to see me chowing down in Little Italy, click the link: c'est moi!



And yet! It would be remiss of me in the extreme not to at least record a final highlight. Keeping up my uncanny knack of being overseas when momentous sporting events occur, at 3am local time Sunday morning (that is, yaaawn, this morning) I fired up the laptop to follow the scores of the NRL grand final. By now most of you will no doubt be across the triumph of the peninsula battlers, one’s beloved Manly-Warringah Sea-Eagles. Just when you think the universe has turned its back on the little guy it throws up a fairytale to make life worth living again. The world is, ever so slightly, a kinder place today.

So, I’m now on my way to stay a few days in Toronto with William J. Letts IV, the only time on tour when I’ll have someone waiting for me at the airport. How nice. Ciao to all until the phoenix flies again.

love yous all

MG