The Sasquatch Journal

Talking about the differences between New York and Los Angeles is sort of cliche, just ask any bad standup comedian. New Yorkers are pissed. Angeleonos are chill but ridiculous, etc. etc. Still, going from one city to another in a short time is a jarring reminder of the contrast between the rainy, skyscraper, taxi and subway dominated, go-go city on the East Coast compared to the sprawling sunny laid back vibe of Los Angeles.
That said, within 20 minutes of walking down New York streets for the first time, here are several things that stood out to me immediately about the Big Apple (at least the part I was at Penn Station/Madison Square Garden to Times Square).

1. We the People - In L.A., you usually only see lots of people walking around in select areas like the beach, the 3rd Street Promenade, Hollywood Boulevard, and otherwise you see them trapped in cars. But in New York, there are countless people walking around everywhere. It's easy almost to feel lost in a sea of humanity, and in that way too there are so many unique individuals of every race, size, shape, hair color, piercing, tattoo, etc., that even the ones who would otherwise look "extreme" don't necessarily stand out. In other words, the colorful people don't stand out in a huge box of crayons.

2. Hipsters, Bohemians, and Punk Rawkers- To go along with the previous paragraph, I did observe way more artsy, thick-rimmed glasses wearing hipster/bohemian types than in L.A., not to mention more emo kids, grungy punk rockers and out and proud homosexuals. L.A. is generally more actors/models and dying your hair blonde or at least have blonde highlights, but in NYC its about dying your hair black. About 1 out of every 20 people I saw looked like they could be in the band The Killers or The White Stripes or something. Or apparently like a combination of Kurt Cobain and the Hansons.

3. Durrrty - I know part of it was where I was at, but there was an outrageous amount of garbage bags piled up near the street in front of countless businesses. In the aftermath of the rain, the city smelled vaguely of an old gym sock.

But the best thing was just the palpable sense of energy you get from the city - the sense that something exciting is happening or is just around the corner. It's a kinetic city with a frenetic pulse.





Here are a few notes and anecdotes about 48 hours I spent there:

-Trains are an excellent way to travel if you're not in an overwhelming hurry and you don't feel like the hassle of driving. My Amtrak ride was a comfortable 2 1/2 hour jaunt along the Hudson River and I didn't have to mess with security checkpoints, what liquids would be allowed, pre-boards, and I had plenty of legroom. I also talked the entire time with a genial theatre costume designer in her early 30's who'd be in the area for a play she was doing. She was the perfect Train Girlfriend - inquisitive but not overbearing, funny but not obnoxious, and she made the trip feel half as long as it was.

-Chances are you've either seen Snakes on a Plane by now or will never see it in your entire life. Nonetheless, if you haven't I advise you to see it the way I did, in a packed Times Square theatre at midnight on a Friday night with some funny people. (Well, except for the paying $10.75 to see it. If you are very poor, you sneak in or wait for it to play in the display window of Joe's TV Shop.)

Sure, there's something a little weird about every single person being in on the big stupid joke that is SoaP, but being part of a collective cheer because an annoying chiuahua got eaten by a giant snake is life affirming. (Sorry, if I just ruined the movie for you, by the way.) Too bad the movie runs out of steam after about the first 45 minutes...they just couldn't top a couple being bit to death while joining the "Mile High Club" nor a guy getting bit while peeing (causing someone at the theatre to yell "Snake on a Snake!").


-In some ways, I felt like New York City was like Six Flags in that all three places I ate, I had to wait in a long line for up to 30-45 minutes. Some have claimed that Grimaldi's Pizzaria in Brooklyn near the Brooklyn Bridge has the best pizza in NYC, so that was Mr. Brian Blank, Brandon Bostian and I's lunch destination.
The place itself is pretty unassuming, a plain smallish brick building with a single crowded dining room with red checkboard tableclothes strewn on the tables. There are autographed pictures everywhere of Frank Sinatra, which gives the place the feel of an old Italian restaurant. The pizza itself is cooked in an actual brick oven and features white mozzerela, thinish crust, some sort of herbs, and a smoky taste. Now, I can't say like Citysearch does that the pizza was "transcendant" (Food critics often go overboard in the language they use), but it was a pretty damn good pizza.


While we waited, a young black employee acted as some bakery doorman/cheerleader. When Brian noted that he wanted to get 4 cupcakes, 2 for later, the guy chimes in with "Yeah, baby, that's right. You can never have enough of these cupcakes. Yeahhhhh! Backup cupcakes are good, man." Right. So, anyway, I finally decided on a pink, purple, black and green cupcake. And they were tasty.

-I wouldn't have felt like I was in New York unless I got some patented sass talk/insults froma complete stranger. Luckily, a bicyclist on the Brooklyn Bridge was happy to oblige. While Brian and I walked across, I nonchantly strayed across the painted yellow line seperating the walkers from the bikers. The Angry Bicyclist man suddenly yells "Hey, that's the bike lane" and then as he passes me makes a snide "It's not that hard, there's a line right there!" remark. I yelled "OK, thanks!!!" in reply, but he just kept riding and grumbling along.

-Remember when Braves pitcher John Rocker became Public Enemy #1 in New York several years ago for the SI article where he said he foun it "depressing" to ride the New York subway and share so confined a space with "some kid with purple hair" or "some queer with AIDS" or "some dude who just got out of jail" or a "20-year-old mom with four kids." I thought about those comments as I rode the subway over the weekend. To me, the subway was way more egalitarian than that. Unlike the public transportation in say Los Angeles, you see people of all walks of life in the New York subway. Excepting maybe the rich, you see poor people, college students, yuppies, families, tourists, and then of course some of the more "undesirables" Rocker refers to. I enjoyed the subway rides, even if most people don't even look at each other and the tunnels are about a billion degrees. I felt like I was among the real people in a shared experience, vastly different than L.A. freeways.

-Brian and I had to nearly run from the tour he gave me of CNN in Central Park West. Why?
Here's the story. Mr. Blank is an associate news producer at CNN which is in the massive Time-Warner buildings (They recently ditched AOL for a pair of cupcakes, I hear). On the weekends, CNN is apparently run by robots, because there were only like 5 people there in a 10 story place. Brian and I basically had the place to ourselves then, and so we did what two normal guys would do if they had free reign of CNN, we tried to track down Bin Laden via satelite, we drew a fake mustache on Anderson Cooper's poster, and kicked Larry King's ass. OK, not really. But seriously, we did go into several CNN studios, where I got to take several stupid pictures with my cellphone where I sat at newsdesks. The trouble came when we were in Paula Zahn (or was it that Glenn something guy) studio wandering around in the back to the door. Brian goes "Hey man, try not to trip on any wires." Basically the second after he said that, he stepped on a wire and all the lights in the studio go out. "So, here's the studio...now let's the the hell out of here!" Blank said as we hurried out and shut the door behind us.


Maybe that would be an adventure for some, but in New York, it's just another day.