I went to New York and all I did was stalk the Ghostbusters

For Christmas last year, my sisters told me that they would chip in to buy me a round trip ticket to anywhere I wanted to go. Specifically, anywhere I wanted to go where one of them also happened to live. So Australia was out of the question, because none of them live there (yet). A few years ago I went to LA to visit Jill and that was a total blast, and then for thanksgiving of the same year I went to Colorado to visit Amy. I'm not a very good brother, in that I don't buy many (or any) birthday or christmas presents. Or make a lot of phone calls to relatives, or leave the friendly confines of King Vermin HQ unless I absolutely have to. And a round-trip ticket to Chicago was out of the question. The one person who I hadn't gone to visit was Sara, and that was probably because she and her adorable awesome children Macy and Acadia had already spent a lot of time here since both of those girls were born. Macy, of "Macy & The Mooses" fame, is my pal, and I was very lucky to have been around her so much while her daddy was in Iraq, in that now I could play with my toys and if another adult walked in on me, I could always say, "oh, these Transformers toys are out for Macy. I don't play with them on a regular basis any more, not since I became a grown up. Way back in 2005." These people never tend to believe me. But I always have a riot with Macy, Sara had just had Acadia a few months earlier, and I figured I should get out there to hang with the kids a bit, watch cartoons with Macy on some days and play with her My Little Ponys on others. I'd even let her play with them if I was in the mood to do so.

Also, I had never been to New York, specifically New York City, and as the saying goes, if I can make it there, I can get the hell out of the midwest and the tractor pulls one would normally find in the midwest, at least for a few days. Also, both the Mets and Yankees were in town that week. With a promise that I'd have a few days to go to NYC on my own, on a sunny Monday morning, I hopped on a plane to Long Island...

The Mavica, my formerly trusty digital camera that has taken all the great 72 dpi photos you've seen from me, let me know that it was done, over with, kaput, dead, when I got to Port Jefferson in Long Island. I was going to take a picture of Macy on one of the docks, but the thing wouldn't even turn on...and when it did, it said that there was no disk (it takes floppys! Technology!) inside, and of course you know there was, but I gave up the fight. So, no scenic photographs of the scenic tourist shops selling overpriced "No Fear" t-shirts or weird looking carpets with pictures of animals in nocturnal settings....sorry. It was a nice place, but it looked like your basic small town surrounded by all the chintzy shops you'd find at various San Fransisco wharfs that the natives would never step foot in.

We drove down to Shea Stadium in Queens of New York on Wednesday, July 26th. On the way in, I saw that we were passing through Queens. I asked my sister if she knew where Forest Park was. She didn't. I told her that that was where Spider-Man was from. My sister looked at me, "Paul, Spider-Man's a FICTIONAL character. He's not real." I was a bit upset with her. How dare she?

My sister said to Macy, "Now Macy, you understand that we're going to a baseball game, right?" Macy said, "We're going to see the Cubs play!" Sara tried to explain, "Macy, we won't be seeing baby bears playing, we're going to see people playing a game." Macy thought for a second, "Baby lions!"

"Baby tigers?"

If only. The Tigers are in first place. However, we did get to see the triumphant return of Mark Prior, and he pitched over five innings of no-hit baseball before being taken out. The game went into extra innings and the Cubs lost 1-0. This was not a surprise. Macy looked somewhat dejected during the game, consoling herself with her Littlest Pet Shot toy. She likes clapping, and so when the Mets fans clapped, she clapped along with them. I didn't want to spend the time teaching her about clapping only when good things were happening for the CUBS, and never for the Mets, but that just didn't seem right, as she didn't understand the game and it was the only joy she was having, and frankly if she does become a Cub fan she may never experience any joy for the rest of her life. Anyway...

Shea Stadium Staff: Nice people who will take your photo!

Shea Stadium seemed like an alright place; it didn't seem run down enough to warrant a new ballpark. I mean, if Spider-Man could get married there... We sat in the Mezzanine level to the right of home plate. The fans weren't unruly or anything like that, I was expecting a lot of screaming vulgar jerk types. There were a lot of Cub fans in the stands. Wednesday afternoon in the summer, lots of kids on field trips enjoying the game, and as an added bonus: our entire section cast in the shade of the Upper Level in the New York heat. Ahhhhhhh. The kids behaved so well, we somehow managed to stay through the whole game, all 10 innings.

After the game, we headed down back home, but I asked Sara to pull over so we could look at the park that housed the World's Fair. Did you ever see the movie Men In Black? Of course you did. The end? At the end? You know, the end of the movie, where they gotta stop the "bug" from using the spaceship hidden in plain sight of the public? Because the public doesn't know about aliens? Well, I saw them (the "spaceships") on the way in to the game, so I wanted to check them out. I think there's a theater at the base of...whatever those are, I guess obvservation sight-seeing towers that haven't been used in who knows how long. The park is still open and used, but I'm guessing whatever purpose the World's Fair hoped to serve the area never happened, and the towers and the weird, ominous, almost gladiator-arena-like world map at the base of those towers just sit there decaying and looking more ominous. How cool is that? Before we check that out, Macy ran full force to the giant steel globe. STEEL! When we had enough of it to waste into refining into a giant 120 foot high globe! STEEL! The foundation of our country! I would assume that there was a fountain below the globe, but there wasn't any water running in there, just below. There were a few dead pigeons lying closer and closer to the base of the globe. None of the skateboarders seemed to mind the dead birds. There were a lot of skateboarders, and i would have loved to have tried that there if not for all the hazards a neglected giant empty fountain may provide the amateur skateboarder. After walking around the observation towers, we headed back home.

Anyway, the next couple of days were spent watching cartoons with Macy, swimming in the pool, tearing up the tiles on the basement floor (at my sister's request; I promise you I won't show up and start slicing up your basement floor), and attempting to go to "the Hamptons," which sounded like a local hangout but became a mystical far-off land that only unicorns and fairies (or faeries) can find during the equinox. While stuck on the ONE-LANE ROAD, THE ONLY ROAD TO A POPULAR SUMMER DESTINATION, I assessed the layout of Long Island: to the west, Queens and Brooklyn and Manhattan. To the north and south, various "ports" and "beaches" in a land where everyone seems to have pools (the flight in, looking out the window, that's all I saw). To the east, a lot of BMW and Lexus dealerships on the way to a very posh countryside that we never reached. And in its gooey center, lots of mullet-headed guys (and a few girls) in very tight fitting wifebeaters. I mean wow, I think Sara had an actual Nascar racer living next door to her. A very tacky dark side in the gooey center of the sophisticated cultural epicenter of our fair nation?

Macy runs full force to take on the world!

Macy and I jumping up and down at the base of the globe.
I really wanted a skateboard.

Saturday
My sister was probably annoyed with my insistence of being dropped off at the train at 8:30am. For the train ride, I popped in Pelican's first EP, the perfect music for a long train ride: long, droning, repetative riffage. It helped that there was nothing to look at other than the back of doublewides, storage facilities, and more trains. Whatever romantic notion I had of staring out the window, my contemplative reflection an almost transparent reflection over the scenic terrain that we zipped through...nope, no reason to have the window seat at all. I should have brought something to read.

Anyway, the train pulled into Penn Station, and I walked outside and found myself at Madison Square Garden. I walked around aimlessly west before heading back east and into Times Square. I figured that since I was in that area, I might as well check out one of the most famous sites in New York, but really it was just a lot of ads and those tacky theme restaurants that you can probably find anywhere. Like, let's go to New York and check out the Disney Store. Silly, I can do that at home. Or all of Chicago. But everything was covered with giant billboards and even bigger TV-screens hawking something. That's all fine and good, I'm not trying to go on an anti-advertising rant so I can get into Adbusters, but if there was one sign that needed to be in the middle of all that, it was "go spend your time somewhere else."

I walked south and found myself in "Hell's Kitchen," home of Daredevil and tons of chicken-themed eateries. Mmmmmm, yummy. There were a lot of clearly solid buildings that through their windows looked beaten, all promising the latest fashions, both expensive and cheap (or, in New York, expensive). The sun was rising closer to its noon peak and that's when I started to smell the urine. Oh boy, Guiliani cleaned this place as good as he could without getting on his knees and scraping the blood of innocent victims of police brutality off the streets with a toothbrush, but that would probably never eliminate the odor of urine, probably from George Washington himself as he couldn't find an outhouse made of cherry trees, that permeated from the gutters. Hooboy.

Don't get me wrong, this place was otherwise CLEAN. I was surprised. I had been warned (granted years ago) by several that the movie "Escape From New York" was a documentary. Instead I saw nothing but clean streets, clean subways (seriously! ride the Red Line in Chicago sometime if you want to compare), and only ONE person sizing me up to try and take something from me. I'll get to that later.

Anyway, I figure that it'd be pretty hot pretty soon, and I had better stick to my original plan. I figured the first thing I'd do was find the most southern location on my list and work from there. I'm sure I was in the vicinity of a few locations, but I had already looked at both the subway map AND my itinerary several times each and the papers were starting to break at the creases while the ink smeared under my hand sweat. Yup, I had better get organized soon. I walked back to Madison Square Garden and spent 10 bucks for the MTA pass. The first area I had to go to was Tribeca, so I took the 1 train and then transferred to the 2 as I discovered that the trains don't all make the same stops, nor do they stay on the same tracks.

This was totally unlike Chicago, where (with few exceptions) the trains run on their own separate lines after they get out of the loop. The Blue Line WAS the only one until recently that had its own track. But it's pretty easy to figure out where they go. I was very intimidated by the numbered and lettered trains, as they seem to alternate on various tracks, and alternate stops on alternate days. I'm surprised I didn't break down into a terror filled coma, my mind snapping from the confusing system that only those born in the city and raised by wolves could comprehend. After the first ride on the QUICK, EFFICIENTLY MOVING, AND SURPRISINGLY MUCH CLEANER THAN THE CTA train, I had it figured out. Yay me!

I got off and looked for "North Moore," the street where the first location was. I started to walk west and realized that it probably wasn't down the hill and towards the river; you never saw the Ecto-1 head uphill from the firehouse. That's right, I turned around, walked past a pastry/breakfast bar, and THERE IT WAS, THE FIREHOUSE (exterior)...FROM GHOSTBUSTERS!

That's right, the whole reason to go to NYC? To find locations from the movie Ghostbusters, probably the greatest movie EVER. EVER! Don't tell me any different. The Matrix was not that great of a movie. Proof of this is the Matrix 2 and ESPECIALLY the Matrix 3. Same thing with all of you losers who stood in line for Phantom Menance. And if you think you can bring me down with Ghostbusters 2, well, I've seen it, and yeah it sucks, but it's still better than all those movies combined. All of them. Even better than the Academy Award nominated Eight Mile. I could go on with a list of movies that could never amount to the wonder of Ghostbusters.

What I couldn't do was contain my enthusiasm. I felt a wave of joy, like i had reached some sort of holy land. A couple approached and took pictures of the firehouse, and I asked them if they could take a picture of me in front of it, and they did and I did the same for them. They were a nice British couple on their honeymoon. They came to NYC and the Groom dragged his wife to a firehouse in Tribeca. Good man, and I hope she appreciates it later down the line, perhaps by naming their first born "Egon."

Ladder 8 in Tribeca, and a big nerd in front of it.

The Ghostbusters 2 sign on one wall...

...and the burned telephones on the other.

I headed to a diner, yes the kind you see in almost every movie filmed in NYC, ordered some pancakes and a root beer (yup, healthy), and organized my notes with the map, circling the intersections and plotting some sort of linear course to find them all in a reasonable amount of time. Above me, hanging on the wall, was an autographed photo of various celebrities who had passed through or dined in or whatever, including John Travolta. Well alright!

An AC/DC song came on the radio and some high school aged kids in another booth commented on how they hated AC/DC. I didn't want to start a fight with a bunch of ungrateful hipster snobs, so I paid and left, and walked back to the Firehouse.

The door was open, and one of the firemen sold me a t-shirt for the station. They have one side of the sign from Ghostbusters II on the wall one one side, and on the other various burned telephones. I took pictures of both. I can only guess that they save the phones from homes and families they've rescued just in time. The firemen seemed kind of grumpy, and I would be too if midwestern idiots kept coming in the front door to take pictures of your place and ask if you have a t-shirt...NO, not the gray one, the BLUE one, and in XXL for grandma! Sheesh!

Seriously though, I turn around after buying my shirt and there's a kid there who also stopped by Ghostbusters Mecca (actually, the interior of the Ghostbusters HQ is in a firehouse in L.A.). He told me that he and his family were from Texas. I saw his mom (or at least I assumed it was his mom, the 'kid' looked to be in his late teens or mid 20's). He started talking about how they were going to make a Ghostbusters 3. I told him that that probably wasn't going to ever happen, but the kid INSISTED, a little too much, that it was because it was on the internet and it was going to be called Ghostbusters In Hell. Yes, and you'll be there. I suddenly felt bad, not just for nodding and leaving right away, but for the poor firemen who have to put up with people...like me, apparently. But they just got 20 bucks for a t-shirt, so whatever. I headed north.

Before I put on the headphones, I made a few phone calls. I called my roommate Bill because I found myself at Grand & Broadway, the Moonbeam Cafe, where Mary Jane Watson worked in Spider-Man. Yup, this was a one-two punch of a Ghostbusters and Spider-Man. I couldn't help it, I like Spider-Man.

So does Bill, so I had to call him. I wonder if Spider-Man and the Ghostbusters will ever do a Team-Up? Both movies are Sony properties, and it could happen. I should go talk to the kid from Texas about it, maybe we can work together on a fan-fic screenplay about it. And then shop it around. And then get sued.

I put on Anthrax' Stomp 442 and started walking with intent and purpose up Broadway. This was going to be the perfect album. Let me tell you about it: Anthrax' Sound Of White Noise, one of the most mind-explosiony heavy albums at the time, went gold. So, for their next album, the record label should have been really supportive about the production and marketing and tour, right? Wrong. Elektra (the label, not the Marvel Comics character) told Anthrax that they could make the album, and the label would release it, but they could forget about any support from them in any way. So, for the writing and recording process, the members would go to bar to bar drinking and starting fights and reading Charles Bukowski (I don't know in what order) until late in the night before coming back and working on the album. And so it was released and forgotten. I have met die hard Anthrax fans who still do not know that this album came out. Though maybe not as powerful as "Sound," it's still an intense and most importantly energetic album. I get such a rush listening to it. And I suggest that you check it out, especially track 2, "Fueled." Man oh man, and then when you're done, check me out as I roam up Broadway rocking out to this CD, first lip-synching along before singing out loud while stomping around to the beat. Yeah, I fit in perfectly!

I must have drifted over to sixth avenue at some point as I walked up north. I found myself in a sort of street-artist gallery. Was I in or near SoHo? The storefront galleries must not be enough for some people (ooh, there was a "pop" art "museum"), so some artists parked and set up shop on the street, selling paintings, sculptures, and xeroxed movie and TV scripts. I had a few opportunities to purchase some Seinfeld scripts, and those opportunities were gratefully squandered. Even better than the art were the signs the artists had in their "booths," along the lines of "Do Not Harass the Artist." Seriously! Dude, if you're not harassed, or bothered by something, what art do you have to create?

GET A JOB!

Soon I found myself at Washington Square. It was a long walk. There was that arc similar to the one you'd see in France if you actually bothered to go to France, and a neat fountain in the middle...where people were...soaking their feet.

Ewwwww.

I kept walking and the Stomp CD was winding down before I found myself at Union Square. There was a statue of George Washington near the entrance. What a bunch of BULLSH*T! You already have a Washington Square, what the hell does this egomaniac need to keep reinforcing his image all over the city for? Be happy with being on the dollar bill, you know?

People are soaking their FEET in that fountain!!!

The Daily Bugle. Or the Flatiron Building. Whichever.

On the way to the UN building and Tudor City.
Dunno what this was, but it looked cool.

I continued north and found the Flatiron Building, which was the exterior of The Daily Bugle from Spider-Man. It was pretty tall. North of it was Madison Square Park, and no George Washington to be found. I guess James Madison would've had a sh*t fit if a bust of Washington was found anywhere except maybe near a rest stop, if you know what I mean. I zig zagged westward a bit and found the Empire State Building. Ooh, tall. I've not seen tall buildings before. And since Empire State University exists only in the Marvel Universe, I kept walking, this time eastward, zig zagging through the posh townhouses, various embassies, and even the U.N. to Tudor City.

Tudor City was very nice. It seemed to have a larger concentration of trees than the rest of the city, save for the parks of course. The exterior of one of the buildings is where the Norman and Harry Osborn lived, but those were aerial shots and I don't think I'd be able to replicate that on foot. Shame on me. I put in the Reverend Horton Heat's latest album, Revival, and headed eastward down 42nd St. I passed the shiny Chrysler Building and went inside Grand Central Station. This is where Spider-Man slept in the comics when he had amnesia, after Doc Ock tried to convince Spidey that he was a bad guy...

Okay, SERIOUSLY, what is wrong with me? Don't I have family I could be hanging out with at that moment? Why do I have to PLAN A TRIP around fictional characters and THEIR adventures? I'll tell you why: Because it's been 6+ years since the Playboy models stopped at my door, and frankly I'm running out of cool stories. So from now on I'm living through Spider-Man. It had to happen. I COULD have mapped out a Marvel comics Spidey trip, going beyond just the movie, like the general "area" where the Daily Bugle and the various apartments Spidey lived in...but who has time for that?

These points of interest were a good way to see the city, it's my trip and I'll go where I want. Screw you. Go on your "Matrix" trip. Go to "Chicago" to see where...oh wait, it wasn't actually FILMED IN Chicago, was it? No, unlike GHOSTBUSTERS, they were too CHEAP to film in the city that serves as the actual setting. Cheap bastards, and their screwy pseudo philosophy tale! And you can come to Chicago some time and me and Bossman Adam can take you on a Blues Brothers trip if you'd like (I know Adam would be up for it!). Not Blues Brothers 2000, of course. Go to a House Of Blues in your area and see the movie there.

Okay, where was I? Grand Central Station. Nice place, headed east. There, I found...

The New York Public LIBRARY! on 5th Ave., from the beginning of the movie. The big lions and everything. I went inside and was immediately harassed by the staff for trying to bring my bag into one of the rooms. I walked around a bit and then left. Not much going on in there (the basement scene was, like most other interior shots, filmed in L.A.), so I headed outside to look at my organized itinerary.

I sat down and had some water and noticed a guy clearly eyeing me and circling around. I winked at the man and he walked away. Sorry bud. I packed up and headed towards Central Park.

I was starting to get really tired and kind of hungry. At this point in put in Rocket From The Crypt's Scream Dracula Scream to drown out the pleas of mercy from my feet, legs, and butt, and kept walking. I reached the south east corner of Central Park and realized that my butt was right: I would NEVER make it through one end to the other (of the park) or to any of the exits if I started walking through there now. So I turned around and headed down 59th street to the "4" train and took it to the Bronx. The train ride was a bit longer and so I put on "Pleasant Dreams" by The Ramones.

On the way up, some kids started talking about sports, and this older guy who looked like Newman from Seinfeld but with a lot of warts joined in their conversation, and monopolizing it, repeating the phrase "you can't asSUME anything, because then you make an ASS out of YOU and ME." FINALLY! I knew now that I was in New York!

Soon I was outside Yankee Stadium. They are the champs of the AL East, and according to ESPN all of baseball. As I type, they were eliminated from the playoffs in the first round, just like last year. That $200 million payroll sure goes far in the AL East, the toughest division in baseball, especially when you have to face the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, whom the Yanks were facing that afternoon. I had made it just in time. Before I could find out if the game was sold out or not, a young woman and an older man stopped me and asked if I wanted a ticket. DID I! I asked how much, they said thirty bucks. Hmmm, their outfield seats were only like 15 or 20, but they told me that the ticket price was $100. WHAT? Okay, I was in. Ballpark security couldn't stop me from buying a ticket for under face value, but they could stop me from bringing my backpack inside. A bowling alley across the street was offering a bag check for people at the game, and I feared a rip-off, but the $5 was reasonable and worth it. I went in and sat down.

I was in some neat seats on the first level. The couple, a father (Dave) and daughter (Julia) were in their seats, with their wife/mother (guess!). They were a really nice family, the parents were from the Chicago burbs visiting their daughter. Yes, she was cute but I'm taken, so NYAH. Get in line. They were surprised that I showed up and didn't sell the ticket to someone else. Dave offered to buy me a beer but I declined. I'm sure he's glad I did, because beer was NINE F***ING DOLLARS. Wow! No one back home believes me. The hot dog and soda I bought were, with tip, $13. Wow.

Tom Hanks was at the game and only a few sections away from us. One of the cameramen put him on the screen and Hanks was afterwards hounded by people seeking autographs. The poor guy probably just wanted to watch the game. The fans missed a homerun as they all turned to see if they could spot him from where they were at, and that wasn't good enough and so they practically mobbed him. He wasn't in Ghostbusters, so there was no need for me to leave my seat. The game was a bloodbath. Randy Johnson had a hard time keeping the ball over the plate or in the infield. He didn't have it that night, just like in the playoffs, and the team got creamed. Dave and his family left in the 7th inning, and I left after the 8th, the Devil Rays having scored 18 and the Yanks about 5. Before I left though I listened in on the guy on the other side of the aisle as he pretended to hit on some girl just out of high school in front of her boyfriend. He sounded like your stereotypical tough guy New Yorker. His attentioned turned to the field as the Yankees continued on with their distasterous display. He groaned, and I lauged at the Yankees, and he turned to and saw my White Sox hat and called me an a$$hole. I laughed and he told me that he actually admired the White Sox style of play. I'm guessing that watching the overpaid Yankees get creamed by the Devil Rays made him appreciate that, so I said thanks, and we had a nice discussion about the season before we both left the game. I was handed a flyer for a gentlemen's club on my way out of the stadium. Free pass with a paid ticket to the game. Well, gee, thanks! As classy as that seemed, I had other places to be...

I took the D train back into Manhattan, and before I popped in Fu Manchu's "King Of The Road," I headed up Central Park West and found a church, and then an apartment building...Dana Barrett's apartment, and the church next door that the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man stepped on! Awesome. I took a few pictures and then went in the nearest entrance to Central Park. Right there was Tavern On The Green, the restaurant where Rick Moranis ran for help before offering the devil dog a milkbone.

Nobody steps on a church in MY town!

Somebody let me in!

I looked at the map; I could continue to head north to Columbia University. I started walking through Central Park, past "Strawberry Fields," but by 81st street, when I got back to Central Park West and past the planetarium, I realized that I was REALLY tired, it was getting REALLY late, and I didn't think I'd make the extra 30 blocks.

Spook Central!

So what did I do instead of walking to the nearest subway station? I headed back inside Central Park and proceeded to get lost, zig zagging through various spots before finding myself at the southeast corner at 59th street. By then it was totally dark. I headed back west on 59th until I reached 8th street, and then zig zagged through the theater district, around Times Square, past the bars and greasy storefront pizzarias and all the adult video stores (no souveniers, sorry).

purty

I came across The Laugh Factory, and take a look at the marquee. That name and "laugh" should never appear on the same sign. It was time to head home. I kept walking and finally made it to 34th street and called Sarah to pick me up. No NY nightlife for me. I bought another hot dog, the same kind (Nathan's) at the ballpark, and this one only $3. I put in The Gathering's How To Measure A Planet. I think I caught the 10:30 train and was back in Long Island by midnight.

SUNDAY
The next morning I was up bright and early and tugging at my sister's sleeve, "C'mon, Sara, I gotta GOOOOOOO!" She dropped me off at the train station again. I said goobye to Macy and hopped in the train, popped in another Pelican CD, and prepared to rock out.

At the train station waiting for me were my friends Paul & Chrissy (the latter refers to themselves as our Pennsylvania pets). I had lied about bringing nude photos of my roommate Bill for Chrissy in order to convince Chrissy to meet up with me in NY, and she dragged poor Paul with her. No photos of Bill, but we soldiered on to Columbia University in the 110's of west Manhattan. There we found the Low Library, near the steps where Peter and Ray sat and drank and discussed starting a business built on containing ghosts. This was the LAST stop on my Ghostbusters tour. I'm not sure if I stood in the right spot but A. the feeling was there and B. I can always go again.

Along with their friend Taco, we headed into a bookstore and milled around a bit, looking at sweatshirts and lefty and righty winged books that are pushed on impressionable college types. Then we walked north to 131st, a very nice area. Very nice. Yup. I think this was the most ghetto area of NYC I had been to at that moment. We headed over to the Dinosaur BBQ steakhouse place, and we met up with William, another friend of Paul & Chrissy's. William bought us dinner, so he was an alright guy. There was a baby shower or something going on in the back of the room and the women, all wearing the highest of high heels on a nice Sunday afternoon, shrieked in annoying delight at seeing each other. It was time to go.
This poor woman

Chrissy B and Me!

What did I want to see next? Duh, CBGB's!!! I never made it to 53rd & 3rd, but I also didn't want to get stabbed by any male prostitutes in the event that that song was in any way still true. I still had to experience something Ramones-ish, and so I begged that we check out CBGB's. William led the way, and we took several trains back to the SoHo/Bowery area. After a little bit of walking, we found CBGB's. I went inside and a hipster lady at a computer said that I could go in and take a few pictures if I didn't touch anything. I went inside...

...what a dump.

Sure, the floors had been swept and the tables were clean, the bar was well stocked and the glasses all stacked and gleamed...but really, there were xeroxed flyers of previous shows covering nearly every inch of the place. Fire hazard? Good thing smoking was no longer allowed...pretty much anywhere in the city, I guess, including clubs. But yeah, for all the exposure this place got over the last two decades or so, and with these places charging so much for beer, you'd think that they'd use a bit of the dough they've made to spruce the place up a bit. Sure, it's supposed to be rock n roll, and not House Of Blues, but this place looked more like the Big Horse Lounge than it did the mythical rock club of ages. Not to mention the rather posh bar/gift shop next door, where I managed to pay not too much for a CBGB t-shirt (yup, TOURIST).

Okay, enough of the critique. We headed through I think New York University and back at Washington Square I used the rest room and a bum told me on the way in to smoke some weed for him. Oh, the wackiness doesn't end, does it? After perusing some record stores a few blocks away from the club, Paul and Chrissy had to leave to catch the bus back, and Taco also left, so it was just me and William. What to do next? William had no immediate plans, so he agreed to take me down to...

The WTC site, which was surrounded by two chainlink fences. The downtown skyline didn't look anywhere near as impressive without the towers. I'm upset with myself that I didn't take a photo of the woman selling rather gaudy patriotic knick knacks at the site. Am I allowed to think that there's something wrong with someone selling cheap sentimental crap at the base of one of the biggest national tragedies? We followed the walkways to the other end and then around the harbor to the Staten Island Ferry, but it looked pretty crowded, so no Statue Of Liberty close-ups for me (besides, it was a Ghostbusters tour, not a Ghostbusters TWO tour). The harbor area was very posh. Across the way was New Jersey, and a giant clock that reminded me of the clock that hovered above NYC as described in Atlas Shrugged. Why was I thinking of that? Was it because Steve Ditko, co-creator of Spider-Man, was a huge advocate of Objectivism? DUH.

We hopped back on the train to 110th street, somewhere in "Spanish Harlem," and walked west. I think William became very annoyed with me when I tried to lead the way through the north end of Central Park, as I was hopeful that I would see whatever I didn't get to see when I got lost the night before. Well, I kinda got my wish, as we seemed to go uphill in every direction that otherwise wasn't blocked. By the time we found our way on the other end at 106th, William had had enough of me and said it was time for him to go home. What a great guy, in that he didn't punch me. So I hugged him and hopped on the subway.

That hike probably did me in for the day, but in no way did I want to quit. I didn't want to keep my poor sister up too late when picking me up, but there was still so much more to see! The boroughs! The museums! The bridge the Green Goblin threw Gwen Stacy off of! My time was short and shrinking, add to that how tired I felt and now I had a bad combination to deal with in a city I still hadn't seen every inch of. Maybe I needed to find a quiet spot to sit and think about maybe one last place I could head to for the rest of my adventure.

So I headed back to Washington Square and soaked my feet in the fountain. I put Stomp 442 back on the walkman and relaxed, not thinking about whatever human residue my feet were now soaking in, but instead comforting myself with the thought that I was getting sweet revenge on everyone else who now would be semi-bathing in MY stink of feet! Revengeance is mine!
revengeance!

I was very happy at that moment, and it could have been the perfect end to a great weekend...so instead I got out of the fountain and put my shoes back on and headed over to CBGB's.

I got lost in a hurry, it seemed, so I weaved through the Bowery before I saw the club from afar. Standing outside among all the kids lookin' tough in their Hot Topic punk wear was a young man in a Corrosion Of Conformity shirt having a cigarrette. Hey, someone in a COC shirt? I crossed the street, and the guy looked up and saw...me, ALSO wearing a COC shirt! Yup, I am one of their most obsessive fans. I saw them 7 times in 2005. We both said "nice shirt!" We were instant friends. His name is Kieron, and he was from Ireland, taking a week off from his engineering job. We both headed inside, paid the $15 to get in (the security guy laughed at me when I asked if they had a bag check or something, god forbid I ask...CUSTOMER SERVICE, another thing the club could have worked on before closing!) and discussed how awesome COC was, how great other bands we liked were, and of course had many laughs, mostly on his part as I told him about seeing all the Ghostbuster and Spider-Man related locations I could find. Kieron is in a band back in sunny Ireland, Ghosts of Medina, check them out.

The band that came on was "The Freeze," and I guess they were in the scene from "way back" from the way the singer talked about the band. Of course, I have a feeling that this 'seminal' punk band that never made it huge had really just gotten back together so they could play this mythical club one last time before it closes. I could be wrong, maybe they're from somewhere else and were on tour with The Adolescents (the headliners), but I thought it odd that when he went to introduce all the new members, everyone in the band except for him was a new member. I stuck around for their set but looked at my watch and said goodbye to my new friend, said "good for me, I got to see CBGB's," and bolted out the door.

It was now dark out, I had 20 minutes to get back to Madison Square Garden, and I didn't know which way was which thanks to my being lost just a bit earlier before I found the club. So I started running.

I found Washington Square, but that wasn't enough. I ran through it, and a homeless guy watched me and yelled "hey, you don't need to run!" Oh, yes I do! I'm zig zagging between 3rd & 4th streets (I think), and that's when I come across this block... All the buildings that looked beaten and decayed during the day? The brick looked dark and sleek and the windows illuminated, either from inside or by the reflection of the streetlights, so purty! This is what I was missing at night! I passed by a clothing store, there were models in the middle of a photo shoot, some pretending to be mannequins in the windows. I waved hello and ran off, stopping myself to see a parking lot full of cars...stacked three or four high! What? I guess that makes sense in this city...whoda'thunk? I couldn't distract myself any more, it was difficult but I had to tear myself from the people who appeared out of nowhere, out of cabs, pouring in and out of restaurants, the nightlife on a Sunday (see, I'm from the midwest...) that seemed so exciting and vibrant. And then I found a subway station, and dived in just in time to catch a train back to Penn Station. With only seven minutes to spare, I called my sister letting her know I was on my way back, bought a slice of New York style pizza and a soda, and hopped on the Long Island Express.

I think I mowed Sara's lawn the next day, and played with Macy some more, and watched some more cartoons, and read her a bedtime story or two. Then I flew back to Chicago, and after participating in a few tractor pulls, I went to the Wizard World Chicago Convention and overdosed on comic books. It was a good time.

-Paul