Nothing's Sacred: *** WARNING: Impromptu trips to NYC can be good for your Health ***

I think i should disclaimer this post by saying. Yes, I have been pysically in NYC on 2 occasions, but, for all intensive purposes. I really haven't been to NYC. When my family lived in NJ, we went only to Ellis Island to go in the Statue Of Liberty, and when our music department went there for a competition. ANd while, it would at first seem to count as being there, I don't really remember anything.

So, Bethany IM's me sunday early evening and tells me that there is a Open Casting Call for royal carribeaian cruise lines. So, after giving her some slack and a well needed swift kick in the ass, she deicded that she was going to go to this casting call to really give some honest effort to purusing her dream of being singer. Knowing that she was kind of nervous and I, never really havening been to NYC along w/ the fact we were planning to go sometime in the near future. I was like, well hey, you said you would like someone to go with you, I'll go. So, by 6 I was pack and ready to go, because i was hoping to catch atleast the last half of the super bowl, which worked out pretty well, since, both, I don't have cable to even watch anything, and the fact that i got there right before half time. (for her blog entry as to why she went and her overview of the day click here.)

Admist Bethany being a psyco, I was able to really appricate the MP3 player I got for xmas, I loaded it up with all the music Bethany had leeched from me in the first place, so it was all good (I wasn't going to be happy being stuck with Rent musical sound track! haha ). Em (from forp.net in my very post) tends to name all of her electronics, her iPod has a name, her iBook has a name, some how I feel that maybe I should give my mp3 player a name, maybe if I had an iPod I might, but, I think for now, my nice little 512meg PNY Vibe Mp3 player, shall just be refered to as my MP3 player. With 512 megs there was a lot of room to play with, however, Bethany hasn't leeched ALL of my music (atleast not as of yet) so I was limited somewhat in my selection, however, I was still able to fill it with all very good music. So, by way of Becky, my sister's former roomate, who then asked Elana a girl down the hall from where my sister lives, I was finally able to find the name of the person/group who does Vegas lounge style of popular songs. His name is no other than.... Richard Cheese. At first I compared him to Jamie Cullum, but with edge and a sense of sarcasim. Now, I just think, he a funny guy that puts his own touch into lounge style version of popular songs. Right now, I think his version of Hey Ya is by far my favorite. Along with Mr. Cheese, had to throw some Joss on there, a few Norah songs, and of course all the Acapella. Soo many great songs in that folder I can't even begin to descibe how much I love that stuff. Speaking of Norah, I think I've decided to tear into my Disc Change and reclaim my prized fav. CD's.

So, after a short interlude of me singing the richard cheese version of Sublime's wrong way, at the time of my lungs no less, I was told, I would NOT be allowed to sing as such on the train, oh well, it was then off to get some infamous c-store chicken cheese steakes and cheese sticks. I was highly impressed w/ the new layout, since the last time I had been there was 3 years earlier, when I then again, had cheese sticks. the almost high of the night had to be though, almost getting tea cooler all the way in NJ, though they had Swiss Premium Products they were out of tea cooler for the evening, Lemonadie had to sufice. Anyhow, watched the overly safe half time show, and watched the Eagles screw the pooch, which, of course being a steelers fan is kind of a mixed blessing. I didn't want to see the Eagles win at all, but now, New England is now encroaching into the Iron Currtain of the 70's Steelers legacy.

Then, EV came home... wow.. I hadn't see her since the last time I was in the C-store there. It was funny, I had to give her a hard time about Nichole and her leaving me to talk to the security guard, since THEY were the smokin' up. I will forever remember these words "Yeah, I'm really sorry about that." hahaha... ya gotta love her, she usally just a heart beat away from coma, but... was actully on sunday night a few hear beats away.. hehe the most talkative and excited i had ever seen her :P though i've only never meet her twice, so i'm not sure what I say could ever really matter. But she is a very cool girl none the less, and I hope that I get to chill w/ her more often.

Sleeping on the flip and fuck wasn't so bad, it was actually quite comfortable, but for some reason, just wasn't able to get to sleep. Not all was lost though, I had the privledge of hearing EV talk in her sleep. haha. So somewhere around 3 or so i was finally able to get to sleep. 5:15 rolls around and the alarm goes off. Oh well... sleep is highly over rated anyway :-P It was funny though, Bethany was like trying to be so quite, and didn't turn on a light or anything, and was trying not to step on me, but, i think she about killed herself in trying to do so. Luckily everyone came out unscathed.

So in tradtional Alex style, I of course didn't wear a jacket/coat what have you. But, damn, it was cold out in the morning. By the time we got to NYC at Penn Station though, it was turing out to be quite the nice day out. Now, I've been on the DC metro, which i guess counts as a train. But, I've never been on like Amtrack, or any type of "real" train. So, we pull into the NJ Transit parking lot at Hamilton. And find a parking spot 2232 (not sure why, but that number just stuck in my head). So Bethany stood in front of the pay booth kind of looking a bit clueless and this guy was kind of standing there, so she let him in front of us. Woah damn, was he wearing way too much after shave, and i knew then, it was going to be an interesting group of people on the train. Anyway, the pay booth, was almost the same as the one at the IUP parking garage when I went to visit Jen, so after some guidance, we were all paid, and on the way to getting train tickets to Penn Station NYC. It appeared that the ticket station weren't accepting credit cards, so cash it was, and luckily i had enough on me. It wasn't long before our train arrived, and bam, there we were on the train. I sat in the very first seat so i could see everyone else in the car.

Now, I was kind of approached this whole day into NYC as just kind of like a fly on the wall.. just kind of wanted to see what it was all about, and just take it all in. The actually train and the train cars were much nicer than I thought thought they were going to be. But the first thing that really stuck in my mind, was the smell. Just so much aftershave from all the business men, and perfume from all of the women, though I tend to think it was more of the men and their aftershave. It was also much quiter than I had thought it was going to be, I mean the train it's self was fairly loud, but in Pgh people were always talking on the buses, or there were be someone singing along to songs in their head phone, or something but no. There was none of that. Which, in my mind is actually quite amazing. It's amazing to think, how many 1000's of people every day take the train into the city to do their jobs, but you take into account the cost of the train, the fact that even on the express train that we were on it still took an hour to get there. It's just amazing that those 1000's of people that travel together everyday, that you don't have converstaion, or get to know people that are always in the same routine that you, yourself might be in. But, with that aside, it was interesting just to see the mix of people there were on the train to begin with, a majority of them I would say were business men (and some women), funny to see the sterotype, trench coat, scarf, gloves, Wall Street Journal. But, it was quite the melting pot of people on the train, some poeple sleeping, some people reading, and others... just staring off into nothing. I wondered then, what those people were thinking. If they were actually thinking anything at all. I mean, I can't imagine, 5 days a week sitting there for an hour, not really talking or anyone, or doing anything. I think, those people must wonder, wow, i'm just part of this herd mentality. I get on the train, like a drone... sit here like a drone... go to work like a drone.. and come back like a... drone. Some of them just had lifeless looks in their eyes, like, there wasn't really anyone there, it was just a shell going through the motions. Just as interesting though, was seeing all the different papers that were being read. New York Times, Wall Street Journal, papers in Spanish, Arabic and Korean. I also got a fair good kick out of the ticket collector, just like one might imagine, blue uniform w/ the cap. He was also very handy w/ his hole punch. Though, i guess if I were getting paid to punch tickets, I too, would be come fairly handy with a hole punch. I had really wanted to take some candids of people on the train, I think it would have been really remicident of some of the great street photographers. I had only brought my small digital camera, and people tend to take you less seriously if you not carrying a large SLR camera. Though, It couldn't have hurt to ask, i think it would have embarrased Bethany. Which, that is a whole seperate issue for another time.

So, Penn Station here we come. I was actually very surprised w/ the lack of trash and homeless people at this station, though i suppose since it is such a high profile station, and maddison square gardens is directly atop of it, they would probably tend to keep it a bit more clean than the other stations. I must say, i'm a fairly laid back person, and after being there now, I think NYC and I could get along, though, it is such a face paced city, and i'm a fairly laid back person. If your not moving a mile a minute in NYC your going way to slow for them. Which is fine, but it just surprsing to see EVERYONE in the city be so fast paced, you would think there would be a since of balace or something. Nope, it just one city with fast on their mind. So, if i recall we walked down 8th ave towards 47th street, and I was like Bethany, I think we are on Porn street, the entire left side of the street was all Adult DVD shopes and Peep show signs, I found it kind of odd, all of those were so close to times square. It was also somewhat odd, just to see business men in their Trenchcoats with breif cases walk into these store along w/ the skeevy slimball types. But, I guess the Porn inudstry isnt' a multibillion dollar industry for no reason.

So, we arive that the New Dance Company, and there was already a group of girls there all waiting and they had already made a sign up sheet and the works. All of them seemed very nice, and there was a group that had driven all the way from virgina to try out. Very starving artist if you ask me. So anyway.. Bethany and I just chill for a bit, talking and both listening to our MP3 players, and then someone came and opened a door, and way the all went, and I went and explorered what i could of NYC(which wasn't much as i did it all on foot :-P) I was about a block away from Times Square, so I headed in that direction. For those of you that have seen "Lost in translation" I very much reminded of the scene where Charlotte is walking around Tokyo for the first time by herself. It was just totally amazing to see the amount of money and energy put into the adversting there. CRAZY, I personaly liked though the cadailac front end sticking out of the bottom of the tower by Olive Garden. So i walked all up and down and remember that Hershey had just recently opened a store there, it is in Times Square, but i was somewhat disapointed with it's location, it was kind of on the outer edge of it, and i guess, all the good spots had already been taken, from the outside it looked fairly cool, the inside was nice too, but almost an exacty copy of what "factory works" is now at Chocolate world. So that was slightly less than exciting, but it was kewl to see it none the less after working at chocolate world for so long.

The entire time I just took some fairly random pictures, my digital camera is great, i love it to death, but, for NYC, it just does't have the reach of the lense i would have used on my SLR, so the pictures i took all for the most part look fairly "toursit", though, i plan to spend some time in photoshop with some of them, and make them "mine." I also had some really kewl ideas had i been able to get to a higher place to take pictures, but that didn't seem likely. Perhaps another time. Anyway, shortly after seeing the Hershey store, I got the ring a ding from Bethany that she was done. So, I meet back up w/ her at the place, and then we found our way into central park. Wow, it is huge, and the squirles are awesome. check out the pictures and video clips. So we wondered all around the park and pretty much got utterly lost, and then we decided that we were hungry, so we found a Uno and ate there. I had never been to one, the food was fairly good, but.. there was something slightly off about our waitress... can't really explain it, but... there was somethign odd about her. Anyway, while sitting there, we noticed there was a Bombay imports store across the street, and with my desire to decorate in somewhat of that style we headed over there, there were some interesting things there, a few interesting end tables, and other nick nacks. Then I feel it would be a good idea to go to the Finical Distric. So, we take a bus all the way down to 13th street, thinking there was nother stop pass that, we both just sat there, the only ones on the bus, and then the Bus driver turns back and says, this is the last stop. So, we are like oh haha okay, and we go to the door in the back of the bus, and the don't open, and then bus driver is like.. you have to push them open. So, after making totall asses of ourselves on the bus, we are way downtown. And we are walking around and such, sort of looking for Wall Street, but not really finding it, we come arcoss an east asian imports store. WOW. This place was absolutly amazing, mostly they just had really really kewl ornate Amroirs, evrything in this place was HUGE though, I mean, like it was made for Giants. It was so sad though everything was so expensive. But... perhaps one day. It's good to know... things that I like are out there though.

This all happened while trying to find wall street, so after consulting a map in a CVS window, we needed up touring pretty much all the NYU campus, and still not finding Wall Street. So, we needed up in the NYC information office, get another map and are still on the quest to find Wall Street. We need up by the brooklyn Bridge and download police station. Still looking for Wall Street, we finally ask a very nice Police Officer where it is, and we were heading in the totally wrong direction. So... we finall find wall street... hehe and I must say, it was very lack luster. It wasn't really a street that you could drive down, it looked much more like an alley way, but it was interesting to see where probably one of the most importance places in world economics. But, not all was lost, because there were NYC offiers there in riot/S.W.A.T. geat with M16. I'm not sure if there was somethign going on, I tend to think not, because everyone seemed pretty normal about it, I think probably it's more of a preventitive measure since 9/11. So... that was pretty much the end of the day in NYC, headed back to Penn Station got on the train, and while Bethany was sleeping she missed out on all the action of them having to throw someone off of the train.

So, we get back, and wait for nichole to get out of class, and then the 3 of us went out and had a very nice dinner. So all in all it was a great 24 hours, and more impromptu trips like that should happen for everyone. Also, want to congradulate Bethany, on doing something about her dreams. We should all take a chapter out of that book, and do something about the things we have aspirations of doing. Regulardless of how crazy or unatainable they may seem.

Looking forward to going back to the Big Apple sometime soon, Hell who knows.. maybe I could even one day like it as much as I love Pittsburgh.

interesting series of pictures I took in times square, reminds me very much of my photography proffesor Mark Parot.