Culture Shock in New Jack City

I guess this entry could be considered Part 2 to the NYC weekend saga. Anyway, I just thought I'd spill the beans on a few more of my experiences in New York. I spent the day after that gut-wrenching Yankee game with my old school pal John, who goes to NYU. Since there wasn't much to see as far as a campus goes, we decided on a self-guided walking tour of the neighborhoods around NYU. We passed by the dozens of local street vendors, Thai's selling Thai food, Native Americans selling junky clothing including the token "Original Homeland Security" t-shirt, etc. From here we made our way through St. Mark's Place in the East Village, one of the areas famous for its anarchistic punk subculture. John told me though, that this was becoming one of the areas that was no longer "legit", just an imitation of what it used to be. I could sort tell. There were only a few dives on the street, with a bare minimum of punks and hobos hanging out along the way. (Though it was a nice day, they were all probably hiding out in some dark basement).

After St. Marks, we came into a small Puerto Rican neighborhood and passed a large wall with murals on it. I might add that one of which, the largest, was one of the funniest depictions of Barack Obama I've seen. It may not have been a Monet, but I must say, it had the same level of impact on me as that Shepard Fairey "HOPE" poster thats been damn near everywhere for the past six months. I guess its not until you see this sort of thing without an MSNBC ticker underneath that you realize that '08 election really mattered to people you wouldn't normally expect it to. Imagine an urban neighborhood painting John Kerry's face on a mural back in 2004. I can't either.

So we were parched and headed into a local grocery store to get some drinks. That Arnold Palmer really hit the spot as we sat in a nearby park, shooting the breeze and quietly making fun of people walking by. People watching really is a fun thing to do. Try it sometime. And commentary always helps. Even if it just involves talking about what would happen if you walked over and punched a random person in the face, or what would happpen if you ran off with a bum's bag of cans, or even making your own humorous interpretation of the conversation two people are having twenty feet away. Yeah it sounds dumb and immature, and it very well may be, but when you do it you know you'll laugh.

Following our little rest, we went in search of Chinatown. Now, John doesn't have the best sense of direction, but we still found our way there. A few storefronts with chinese characters signaled we were getting close and soon enough we were there. Not simply content with walking the streets, John and I popped into several random stores which looked interesting, the first being a music-ish store with shelves of CD's and DVD's. I say "music-ish" because none of these local retail establishments sold only one type of thing. For example, this store in particular had its chinese porn section right across from a shelf of canes and walkers. There's something you won't find at Wal-Mart. We then left this establishment and made our way into... well I'm not exactly sure what you'd call this store. It was full of dried sea creatures and herbs. Need dried shark fin? They have it. How about some dried sea cucumber? Well it doesn't smell to good but they have it as well. And of course they have the required, almost gag-gift funny, asian aphrodesiacs. I could not help but snap a picture of the funniest of these, the box labled "Best Penis" with a picture of a burley chinese man on the front. And I thought those Cialis commercials were ridiculous!

Slowly but surely we moseyed out of Chinatown and into Little Italy. Now I might add that one of the most interesting things I saw during this transition was that there really wasn't much transition at all. The only way you could really tell the demarcation line was where the little chinese lanterns that hung above the street stopped and the stringy red, white, and green italian decorations began. Beneath this, chinese shops became intersparsed less and less with the numerous italian restaurants until it seemed as if every storefront was some sort of bistro. With so many eateries so close together, the owners resorted to stationing a member of the wait-staff outside of each restaurant, beckoning couples and tourists to choose their place for lunch. Of course, no one stopped John and I. We didn't really fit the tourist look and had we been a couple, I doubt any restauranteur would want us to eat at their establishment anyway.

That was basically it for Little Italy. I'm sure we could've taken in some more but it was getting late. We headed back through the street vendors near NYU and grabbed some good ol' Pad Thai on styrofoam plates and fried oreos for dinner. I insisted that we sit on benches in Washinton Square Park that had a good view of a group of NYU students practicing dramatic readings. The "stage was set" for yet another session of people watching and quiet mockery.
"What if we ran up and stole their books?"
"What if we started belting out that Macbeth passage we all memorized in 10th grade?"
"What if we just stood up and yelled 'YOU SUCK'?"
The hypothetical ideas bounded back and forth until we were scratching the plates where our Pad Thai had once been. With another hilarious day in the books, I bid John adieu and headed for the Brooklyn-bound F Train that was calling my name.

...though it may have been more fitting to have said "Ciao!" or "再见" or "ลาก่อน"

In a New York minute... err, weekend.

So I had the pleasure of spending this past weekend in New York City with my girlfriend. I hadn't been to the city in years and believe me, it was quite a refresher from weeks of oppressive school work. One of the more exciting things we did that weekend was attend a game at the new Yankee Stadium, a belated birthday gift from my girlfriend. The place was an absolute cathedral, a monument to players of the past and future. Along with the ballpark staples of hot dogs and pretzel, there was a deli counter, sushi stand, southern BBQ booth, and even a small window where onlookers could watch a man chopping up choice cuts of meat. I guess when you spend $1.5 Billion on a new stadium, it comes with a few extra amenities. Now with all this in mind, I have yet to mention which exact game I was at. With a heavy heart I have to admit that I was there for the April 18th game against the Cleveland Indians.

We got to our seats in the level below the grandstand, right on the third-base line. Not bad seats at all. There is no way to describe how elated I was to be there. The third regular season game ever in the new Yankee Stadium. This is the kind of thing you tell your grandkids. Unfortunately for me, I may not want to remember this game myself. First Inning. Cleveland is up. One, Two, Three, Chen Ming Wang shuts their lineup down. I was worried since he had been pitching like crap every game so far in the short season. Bottom of the First. Mark Teixeira snaps a two-run homer out right and I was almost surprised when it made it over the the center-right fence. Boy, was that an omen of things to come. With the Yankees lineup retired, the dreaded top of the second inning begins... and never ends. Home-run. Home-run. Grand Slam. They kept coming. After the first couple I was swearing Chen Ming Wang up and down. But as the Cleveland score reached double digits, it was almost as if I went numb to the horrible pitching. Wang is done, and in goes Anthony Claggett. Who the hell is that? Turns out the boys in blue were worried about not having a reliever should Wang play shitty again and they pulled this Claggett fellow out of triple-A Scranton. He didn't fare much better, although he did record one more out than Wang did.

The end of the second inning was the beginning of two things. One. The chant "We want Swisher" started to echo through the stadium and would remain for the rest of the game. Two. A mass exodus of fans out of the park began. Following each inning, as the Yanks remained in a double-digit defecit, the stands became more and more empty. But I stayed. A real Yankee doesn't abandon his team when the going gets rough, but then again, perhaps I was just deluding myself. Before too long Jeter and Teixeira were pulled from the batting order. I saw my heo, Derek Jeter himself, on the massive 110' screen, dressed in a polo and leaning over the dugout fence. Makes sense, they really didn't have much of a chance. But the fan that I am, I continued to hope that the home-run wind vortex in center-right field would pull about twenty Yankee runs over the fence even at the very end of the game... alas. As the game quickly became comical, with few innings left, my girlfriend and I made our way from out upper tier seats down to the near-empty bleachers. At this point I was in one of those "Whatever" moods and decided it would be fun to heckle the Cleveland outfielders. The very next play became my highlight of the game as the right and center fielders for the Indians slammed into eacho ther and the wall while attempting to catch a fly ball. It was one of the few moments of baseball joy I took from that game. The game was fun, I had a good time. Now it would have been better if the final score had been the other way around but eh, what are you gonna do?

Following the bloodbath in which the Yankees set a franchise record for most runs scored against them in an inning, we made our way out to the street. As a sort of nostalgic sentiment I suggested that we walk around the old stadium before getting on the Metro. There it was, the "House the Ruth Built", to be torn down slowly over one to two years. The gates were all closed, the ticket counters shut, it really was a sad sight to see. But I've moved on. The new ballpark across the street is beautiful, a testament to what it is to be a Yankee and a Yankee fan. I just hope that my Bronx Bombers can turn things around and put a little heart into the new stadium, so that its more than just a pretty building on 161st Street. A ballpark is more than luxury boxes and sushi bars. WIth that sentiment in mind, "The House that Steinbrenner Built" doesn't quite has the same ring to it as "The House that Ruth Built". There will always be the memories of what happened across the street, but I have great confidence that the Yankees can bring as much to the plate in the new stadium as they ever have.