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The
End of the New York Trip report
After Ricky Martin, we took a cab down to Washington Square Park.
It's a nice park - people were hanging out, walking their dogs, smoking handrolled cigarettes...
Have you ever seen on TV or in movies where people are sitting
outside playing chess?
That's Washington park.
I think Jeff Goldblum's dad was playing chess here in Independence
Day.
We kept walking and stumbled on New York's club scene.
This is the world famous Blue Note Jazz Club.
From their
web page:
The flagship New York club has earned the
distinction of being the world's premier jazz club and restaurant.
Tony Bennett, George Benson, Ray Charles,
Natalie Cole, Oscar Peterson, David Sanborn, Nancy Wilson,
the late Sarah Vaughan and Dizzy Gillespie
are just a few of the superstars that have called the Blue Note "home."
Right across the street is the Village Underground.
Look! Patti Smith is here the first week of June!
Next door to that is The Fat Black Pussycat.
It's famous, too:
DAVID BLUE:
I remember one afternoon [Apr 16, 1962]
we were sitting in The Fat Black Pussycat drinking coffee, and Dylan
started writing a song. He had his guitar
and he was scribbling away, writing on a piece of paper. And he gave me
his guitar and asked me to play various
chords, while he worked on the words. When he finished it, we went over
to
Folk City and Bob played it for Gil Turner,
who thought it was fantastic. And then Gil got up on the stage and
played it for the audience, while Bob stood
in the shadows at the bar. The song was "Blowin' In The Wind."
Just outside the front door of the Fat Black Pussycat was a trash can that causght my eye.
They want to keep New York clean, but, ...but, ...but what's that on top of the trash can?
ha ha
That club is a happenin' place, all right.
Continuing onward, we saw Jefferson Square Market Library.
Cool building, eh?
Look
upper right, you can see Rapunzel
We kept running into these great little bakeries. Not only does
NY food taste like a million dollars,
it looks so good, you want to eat it even if you don't like what
it's made of.
........
I guess volume is the key. If you're going to sell $1500 worth
of pastry a day, you can afford
to pay a bad-ass pastry chef $1500 a week to create these incredible
edible works of art.
We kept walking and walking and eventually were were within a
mile of the Savoy so it wasn't worth
getting a taxi, so we just continued walking. Mrs. BartCop said
she'd hate to visit New York and not
get any great Italian food. I reminded her we'd had some great
pizza, which got me an icy stare.
So we jumped in the Le Sabre and drove towards Little Italy. (bottom)
Of course, we kept filming as we drove, so as not to miss any of the sights.
Yes, they love Hillary in New York.
Only the criminals, the defacers and the Republicans hate her.
One other thing - see that tiny sign in the upper right?
It says, "Don't Block the Box - Fine + 2 Points."
That's confusing, I wondered all week what that meant, then I
found out.
"The box" is the center of the intersection. What they sign means
to say is,
"Don't pull into the intersection unless
you can get all the way across, dumbass."
As savvy a New York driver as I am, I got caught in "the box"
once.
I was almost all the way across, then, in a New York second,
hundreds of pedestrians
were walking in front of my car, meaning I was blocking the traffic
that had the green light.
While hundreds of people were walking in front of the Le Sabre,
a NY cop tapped on
my fender with his night stick and said, "Don't
Block the Box - Fine + 2 Points."
I gave him my best Okie blank stare, like, "So what do I do
now, O'Toole?"
And he said, "Ease forward - through
the crowd."
Hmmmm....
Doing my best to avoid an indictment for "depraved indifference,"
I let up on the brake
and the car inched into the madding crowd, ...and they parted
like the Red Sea for Ol' Chuck!
I got away with blocking the box without a penalty.
Continuing with the story (which has taken longer to write than
live thru) I used my honing skills
to get us closer and closer to Little Italy. The
map I had didn't show street names,
but logically it had to be in the next few blocks - then we saw
- the flags.
Mulberry Street, where Brando got shot in Godfather
One
This was way cool.
We saw a bunch of restaurants with outdoor dining and the weather
was perfect.
All we needed now was a place to dump the Le Sabre.
You see it?
I'll be damned, there's a parking spot right there, so I snatched
it.
We were parked and soaking in Little Italy on foot.
We saw this place called Florios, which reminded me of
Tony's enforcer Furio.
Then this dude spoke to us with his thick Italian accent and invited us to dinner.
We figured it was a sign from God, so we accepted his invitation.
The menu had a whole lotta stuff I didn't recognize, but I saw
"Spaghetti and Meatballs,"
and I've eaten that before, so that's what I ordered. Mrs. BartCop
ordered the Fettucini Alfredo
Of course, we asked for a giraffe of red wine, too.
Within seconds, we had the wine, some bread and a dinner salad
on our table.
Salad? I didn't notice salad on the menu, but there's a
lot I don't notice...
How did they know what kind of dressing I wanted on my salad?
Duh!
They serve Italian dressing on the salad.
It's possible I use the term "greatest ever" too much, but this
salad was so simple
yet so damn delicious that no words have I. Their dressing
is what did it.
Oh, I've never tasted anything like this Italian dressing.
It was 90 percent regular, no radical changes or flavors, it
was just better.
Famous building in the background
So here's the deal:
I'm racking up major, major points with Mrs. BartCop.
She was happier than she was in Volume
260 in the cool Santa Fe breeze.
She couldn't be having a better time.
We were dining outside, the birds were chirping, the Italian
language was being spoken
by a majority of the people around us, she had a glass of red
wine in her hand and the giant
fried cheese sticks were done just right. I wish
I had a picture. Wait, ...I do!
ha ha
A little sip of wine, a nibble from a cheese stick, a half-a-slice
of that bread
followed by another sip of the red wine. I was scoring like Mickey
Jordan.in his prime.
Then it was time for la munche'
Her bowl was bigger than it looks.
So was mine:
Mama Mia, that's some spicy meatballs.
Some little dude ran out and said, "...Parmesan?"
I gave him that palms-open up move that Brando does when he means
"Why
not?"
It was really Catholic-tasting.
...and look at the size of those meatballs!!
If only the senate Democrats...
Uhh, ...nevermind.
We were having a lot of fun and everything was going perfect.
After we ate, we walked around and looked at the old shops.
........
pasta
pasta
We were filming everything. The shops, the streets, the store windows,
the people.
........
pasta
not pasta
I forget what this is called, but didn't they carry one
of these in the parade scene in Godfather II when
Travis Bickle shot the Black Hand in the mouth?
Cheese shops, pasta shops, restaurants and bars.
Little Italy - what a place!
Little did I know I was about to be the victim of a mob hit.
The End of New York II
Swear to Koresh, I was attacked by The Mob.
Here's what happened, here's how the hit went down:
So we're walking around, like two bonehead tourists from Oklahoma,
the camera's pointing everywhere, and then I catch a glimpse of this
gang...
They started giving me the skunk eye - for no reason.
As I got further up the street, the one with the striped tie
gives a head nod to this guy,
...who jumped up and grabbed a giant wrench and started opening the hydrant.
........
He had that hydrant open faster than any fireman I'd ever seen.
........
I was wet, but I was alive.
That's a true story, Kate, swear to Koresh.
OK, new rule - no more taunting New York's gangsters...
Back in traffic, we saw a car with diplomatic plates.
Any guesses what VG is?
If it's car #1, it must be the ambassador, himself
The sun was setting and we wanted to get back to the hotel.
On the way (not really) we thought we'd drive through Central
Park.
I am so stupid!
By now, at was 5 PM on Friday afternoon in gridlocked Manhattan.
It was taking 5 minutes per block, and Central Park was 45 blocks
away.
By the way, did you know the New York cabbies have come up with
a new measurement for time?
It's called a nano-gigo-second, and it's the precise period
of time between when the light turns green
and that son of a bitch starts honking at you from behind.
We gave up and went back to the hotel - there's always tomorrow.
The rest of the evening we sipped Chinaco and watched
New York from our window.
Funny, in New York, they never look up.
We were only on the second floor, and we could watch people was
they walked by
and listen to their conversations, but in four days, nobody ever
looked up and saw us.
The End of New York Final
Saturday morning we only had a couple of hours before our 11:45
flight.
We packed, checked out and picked up the car.
There were so many things we didn't get a chance to see, but
we wanted
to take one last shot at Central Park on our way out of town.
Driving up 6th Avenue, we hit the stoplights with perfect timing.
I only stopped three times from 23rd street to110th - amazing.
I had to cross 110th Street, because of the song in the Jackie Brown movie.
We made a left and found ourselves in Duke Ellington Park!
I didn't even know the Duke had a park, but there it is...
According to the map, were only a block away from Central Park.
I'll be damned - they did it again.
Closed, just like the Guggenheim, The Twin Towers, the state
of Maine,
the top of the Empire State building - they've closed Central
Park
Maybe we were too early, or maybe Central Park was closed permanantly
after Bruce and Sam tore it to hell in Die Hard III.
By the way, wasn't the scene with the bomb in the fountain shot
in Washington Park?
So we're out of time, we gotta hurry to the airport for that 11:45 flight.
Back thru Tony's toll booth, to New Jersey.
I started humming the theme to The Sopranos.
Mrs. BartCop told me to knock it off.
We get to the Avis rental return and the dark complected man was
very friendly.
We joked about Guiliani being such a slut, bringing his goomah
home.
After he checked the car, he gave me my receipt.
$1247
to rent a Le Sabre with a noisy air-conditioner for five days?
What, do I look like I'm from Oklahoma or something?
I got the attention of the dark complected guy and said,
"This is crazy. I didn't want
to buy the car, I was just renting the son of a bitch."
Ho looks at me and says, "No Hablo English."
He stayed in character, like he's been thru this before, with
other unsuspecting victims.
By now, I'm worried that I did something wrong, because everyone
knows you don't
rent a car in Jersey because of that $950 car rental tax Trump
pushed thru.
The lady at the counter acted oh, so very surpised that "the
computer made a mistake,"
and came up with a more reasonable receipt, not realizing I'd
palmed the original.
Avis, you do that to every chap-wearing rube flying out of New
York, don't you.
You have to refund the money in what, 94 out of 100 times?
But that "full-billing" on the other six makes up for the tarnished
reputation, right?
It's not even 11 AM and it already seems like a long day.
We drag the bags to the TWA terminal and stand in the long line.
When we're finally granted an audience with the ticket agent,
and she looks like Luci the Bat!
Worse still, she's all bad news.
"You're not booked on this flight," she said, with a snicker.
"Sure I am," I protested, checking my notes. "I'm on
Flight 201 at 11:45."
(damn ticketless tickets)
She checks again, under my name instead of the flight, and says,
"No, you're booked on the 2:45 flight."
"Wrong lady, I know which flight I'm on."
"No, you're booked on the 2:45 flight," insisted The Bat.
"Hey, lady!
How'd I know you even had an 11:45 flight?
How'd I know that flight was Flight 201?"
Of course, she had no answer for that.
I asked to speak with a supervisior, but Luci kept fighting me
and I was getting tired
so we figured we'd just take the screwing and get lost in the
airport bar.
It was closed.
So we sat at the damn Burger King for almost three hours, listening
to crying kids
as the Katherine Harris-type mother screamed cruel insults at
them.
They were boys, maybe 5 and 7 years old. Poor kids.
Finally, we "bored" the plane and head for home.
The pilot seemed to know the way out better than the way in.
Heading for K-Drag, we assessed the trip as an amazing success.
Eight days ago, Mrs. BartCop was dragged kicking and screaming
into New York.
She's leaving with a smile on her face, except for the fact that
she'd miss The Preakness
because goddamn TWA wanted to bump me off that flight without
paying me, which is
probably a crime if there are any assistant DAs from the Newark
City Prosecutors Office
reading this, but how am I going to prove anything?
But even with missing the Preakness, we had a great time.
Sidebar:
I want to thank Ray again for the great
city tour and the "extras," and I especially
want to thank Christian Livemore for giving
us the great gift of New York City.
Without her, we wouldn't have gone and
we might not ever have gone without her.
A big shot of Chinaco Anejo
to CAL, who not only has great taste in food,
but she also does a lot of behind the scenes
stuff for bartcop.com
Ok, time to bring the story home.
It's four plus hours of the plane bumping and layovers.
We just wanted to get back to BartCop manor and unwind.
Finally, we get to the K-Drag dirt landing strip, (taxes are low,
here in GOP-land)
and we drag ourselves off the plane and
stagger to the luggage carousel. The sign says
"Luggage Guaranteed in 3 Minutes,"
but it was 18 minutes before it started gurgitating.
Another ten minutes go by, and everyone
gets their luggage except poor, tired BartCop.
The conveyor belt shuts off ...and here
we go...
I've never dealt with lost luggage before
- no telling what kind of nightmare this will be.
I go downstairs to the TWA ticket counter,
and the lady says
"The claims lady is already upstairs
to take your claim."
That's odd, how did they know I had a claim
to make?
I get upstairs and there's nobody but a
tired Mrs. BartCop.
I go back downstairs to the ticket counter
and tell them I missed the claims lady.
She gives me directions to the TWA luggage
claims office, back upstairs.
<big Al Gore sigh...>
I finally found the claims office, and there's
my damn bags.
I said, "Hey, thanks for finding them so
fast," and the lady said,
"Those bags? They've been here since 2 O'Clock. They arrrved on Flight 201."
Grrrrrrrrrrrrr........
The TWA luggage people put my damn bags
on that earlier flight because that's the
goddamn flight we, and the damn bags
were booked on, you morons!
Oh, I needed a drink or a loaded gun in
my hands real quick.
I settled on some Canaan tequila,
which I had 45 minutes later,
at home, at my computer, cat in my lap,
as I started writing.
Now we need to plan a trip to Las Vegas so we can compare the two!
ha ha
Thankgiving
Tequilafest at the Rio!