NYC 2015: Part III

With the last week of New York staring me in the face, I was basically ready to take it easy. Monday turned out to be an impromptu trip to Queens, to catch up with the marrieds. G&C and P&A live like ten blocks from each other in Bayside so I public transported myself up to P’s office on top of the 5th Ave Apple Store and then he and A gave me a ride as I experienced their daily commute. P&A have a newborn son, who was not yet born last time I was in New York, and I got to hear about the travails and joys of first year baby-dom. Perhaps more travails than joys actually, but that’s the common refrain right?

After stopping in to check out their place, I walked over to G&C’s a few streets over and settled in for an evening of Uncle Jon-ness. G&C have two little girls, aged five and three, and last time the three year old barely spoke to me. This time she was hyper hyper hyper and was whirling around all over the place. It should be no surprise that I get along with little girls remarkably well and they took me on a tour of their dollhouses, Frozen paraphernalia, and various plush things they took turns hitting me with. All was going well until bed time was announced, at which point semi-chaos broke out.

Ostensibly I was at G&C’s house to watch the MNF game but most of it was a learning experience in putting kids to sleep. The whole process, no joke, took three hours. One of G or C had to be in the room to comfort the little one to bed, and even when I left at eleven-is, she was still sort of awake. Parents, I don’t know how you do it. I sure hope I never find out…

G was kind enough to drive me back into the city and I had him drop me off in midtown so I could cruise down 2nd Ave again, this time pounding out to Tribe and De La Soul. At the end of my ride, J popped up after going to Sleep No More and he took me to Punjabi Grocery & Deli on 1st and Houston for some late night Indian. Freaking delicious. It’s a tiny spot that stays open twenty-four hours and lots of cabbies stop there.

Afterwards, we hung out for a couple of hours, walking around and near his stoop, chatting about Taiwan and the U.S., and girls, of course. Any time two guys get to talking, girls will come up. I mean, any time any guys get together I guess. But in our situations, it was a very relevant conversation since we were both single and facing the canyon of almost forties. Okay, it doesn’t sound that bad, but turning thirty-seven a few weeks ago was freaking me out a bit.

Completing my baby greeting merit badge, I got up early once again and went down to Park Slope to see a YA author friend and his new baby. He and his wife do this podcast about publishing, parenting, and I listen to it religiously of course, but it was nice to say hello in person and meet his daughter. They are now the Park Slope parents that you hear about, and to be honest, Park Slope was a very lovely area I’d like to visit again.

After a cat nap, I got up with my ex-roommate, M, and we trekked to K-Town for some sundubu. Unfortunately, we were dressed exactly the same. Denim jacket, white tee, black pants, and even matching black Chucks. I took my jacket off just so we wouldn’t look so ridiculous. Y met us at dinner, in anticipation of karaoke, and after some song selection indecisiveness, my karaoke pal M burst into the room and we were off, screaming into our mics and and drinking everything in sight. Songs hit list: Starship, “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now.” Meatloaf, "I Would Do Anything." And of course Eric Carmen, "Make Me Lose Control," the real reason we're friends. I love singing with M because she throws in everything I want to hear and then we sing with abandon.

A little light headed, I thought my night was done but J was with his friend at Attaboy, the old Milk and Honey speakeasy. His friend C was returning to Taipei the next day and so we just sat around chatting. At 4AM, once we spilled back out, they were hungry so we took a taxi to K-Town — back up for me — and threw down another full meal. With the sunrise out, we stumbled home at dawn.

Predictably, I was dead the next day and stumbled out of bed in time to clean up and then hustle over to my friend’s book signing. Overall I rode across the WB Bridge probably five or six times this trip, getting used to the landmarks each time. On a heavy Citibike, it’s not a super easy ride, and I arrived late and all sweaty. S’s book is a printed version of her one woman play I saw back in S.F. a few years ago, and it’s her first release so I was glad to be able to be there for support. Afterwards we gathered at Pencil Factory for a bit before I had to jet back across to Manhattan, to meet some friends for dinner and dessert.

On Thursday SW and I met up with K for dinner, but beforehand we were at an art gallery in Tribeca. The piece was sort of Game of Thrones meets White Queen, and mostly we stood around chatting. K’s been traveling like crazy, either for work, bicycling, or vacation, and this was the one time we could catch each other. She took us to this Vietnamese place in Chinatown, Pho Vietnam 87, that was quite good, a rarity for New York.

Looking for something to do, I biked over the bridge again to catch C at a concert she was attending in Williamsburg. Even though it was late, the headliners were just starting to go on so I ponied up for a discounted ticket and slipped in. The crowd was older, smelly, and very dense so I opted to head upstairs to the balcony where I could stare down in peace. The band, Severed Heads, was described to me as “German industrial EDM” and I still have no idea what that means. It wasn’t exactly my type of music but I stuck it out though both encores, and then I took C and her friend S around the corner to Kinfolk for an hour or so of dancing.

On Friday morning, I popped right up before noon to get some bagels with SW at Sadelle’s in Soho, apparently the hot new thing on the scene. If you love to wait for two dollar bagels and twelve dollar lox and cream cheese, this could be your spot. Final verdict: undecided, because we only got a bagel or two, and a subpar cheese danish. Fancy place though.

I had made a lunch date with N, who was coming off of teaching his creative writing class. Wanting to hang out with M, I just conflated the two together because I figured we could talk books and writing and stuff. Getting writers together is always a good thing, because writers gotta stick together! I even had a second to go see S, who just had a baby two months ago but is walking around and like totally still working and researching. Some people just make motherhood look easy I guess!

After a much needed afternoon nap, I got up for 9PM dinner with JMZ and Michael. We ate at a curious place, Jack’s Sliders and Sushi, and it had been awhile since we all got up together. There was a pit stop at Veloce for a drink before we headed down to LES for some dancing at The Late Late (great name!). On this trip, I haven’t been to any of the old LES standards at all, which has been great. It reminds me that New York’s going out scene is just so much better. Even the dull spots have better music, and there’s usually a workable crowd anywhere you end up. We shut down The Late Late and then went up to finish our night at Veselka, behind breakfast foods and chicken soup. I took a little clear the head walk up with M, and then bounced on home. Dawn again.

The next morning/afternoon, I was groggy as heck but M called about basketball and I biked over to a court on 16th and 2nd Ave. There was nobody there but we amused ourselves by taking lots of slo-mo video and photos of us mid-flight, basket or no basket. Eventually two young guys showed up and we engaged in a couple games of two-on-two. Us old men got the better of them, since we were bigger and bully-er, and it was super fun. When I returned I was hoping to grab a nap but that didn’t happen so instead I started packing up as I was headed out of SW’s place that night. J happened to be heading to Super Taste for hand cut noodles and so I met him and a bunch of his friends there. Again, super interesting people and one of them I had literally just read about a few weeks ago, but didn’t know it till afterwards.

With New York winding down, I took one last bike ride and then called it a night. Sunday ended up being lazy, with brunch, a Brazilian movie, and then a finale meal at Saravanaa Bhavan (you should read the article about its founder, if you haven't).

• Podcast: Writing in Real Life
• Punjabi Grocery and Deli
• Pho Vietnam 87: A Cut Above Chinatown's Vietnamese Restaurants (2014)
• 7 Important Facts Gleaned From the Opening Day of Sadelle's
• Why The Fashion Industry Is (Finally) Talking About China
• Masala Dosa to Die For (2014)

Overall New York was exactly what I wanted it to be. And I think I'm ready to go back. I mean, when the weather gets warm again. From the time I was there, the temperature swung from 90s to 70s and I left at just about the perfect time. While I love Taipei, the sheer amount of stuff New York has on offer is unbeatable.

Then again, three weeks ago I was starting to convince that maybe being in San Diego wouldn't be too bad, what with its convenience, easy lifestyle, and the beach. I guess I won't know till I know right? There's a lot of compelling reasons to be in New York right now, so really the winter should be used to make moves.

NYC 2015: Part II

After a fast start to the trip, Monday was just sit back and recover time. I crashed out until evening and then wound up in Times Square, looking for a movie, any movie. We ended up watching American Ultra, in which Jesse Eisenberg plays a secret agent turned stoner, and his girlfriend is Kristen Stewart. I’d heard the movie wasn’t good but had good chemistry between the leads. Instead the best thing to come out of the film was the end credits song, Miniature Tigers’, “Oblivious.” Afterwards we jaunted over to The Halal Guys, which now has a stand on each of the four corners on 53rd and 6th. Apparently The Halal Guys is headed to the West Coast soon, in Costa Mesa of all places.

The next night we prepped to head out to Semilla, Pam’s new restaurant. I Tumblr and tweet about Semilla incessantly because it’s Pam's (and Jose, her partner) first solo project. They’ve been getting rave reviews from everywhere and I was hoping to get a reservation squeezed in because when I was here last year, Semilla was still, literally, under construction. The amount of work that Pam and Jose put into building out the space was amazing — JMZ did their website and some other graphic work too. (Update: Semilla just received a Michelin star!) The food is “vegetable forward” and if you’re in town, you should give it a shot before it blows up even more. At dinner, we sat next to a guy visiting from Austin and since he said he was a dancer, I invited him along with us to Daybreaker the next day.

I had been to the San Francisco version of Daybreaker, basically an early morning rave with coffee and juices instead of alcohol, but this was the original and much bigger in every respect. I saw my camp friends there, the ones who started Daybreaker, and it was pretty fun to just dance around for two straight hours. I’m not sure how much fun my other friends had, but it was a unique experience at the worst. At around 8:30am, they opened the blackout curtains and it really was like the sun was rising to engulf the club. Not bad!

After some rest and collapse, I ran uptown to Asian American Writer’s Workshop to stalk/see this blogger I’d been following for years, Technicolor. I covered her book release here, but in general it was mind-warping to have one of my favorite bloggers on-stage at AAWW, talking about her book debut. I kind of don’t like to talk to talk to people I follow but in this case the audience size was right and the space un-intimidating, so I chatted it up with Alex for a few minutes as she signed my book. As it turned out, she’s half-Taiwanese (I had always assumed half-Japanese) and her professor mother was slated to come teach in Taiwan soon. Can you imagine if I somehow became real life friends with a blog person I’d been tracking through the years? It would be like a dream come true, but also weird right?

With that over, I met J at Union Square to take in Sleeping With Other People, which featured Alison Brie and Jason Sudeikis as a pair of serial cheaters who, no spoiler, end up falling for each other. Sudeikis is an annoying on-screen presence, like a schlubby Ryan Reynolds. Even with some good lines and cute moments, a rom-com lives and dies by its leads and this one died for me, even though I love Brie. Movies I wanted to catch in New York but didn’t: The Diary of a Teenage Girl, Pawn Sacrifice, Sicario, The End of the Tour.

J left to go back to Taiwan the next day, but not before we got to try out the “V Special,” which was V’s deli sandwich special: something like eggs, ham, avocado, and hot sauce. Pretty incredible. And somehow I stumbled my way to lunch too, to eat arepas with K during her lunch break.

On Thursday night, after a long nap, I welcomed the newest returnee to New York, our friend R from the Bay. He had been talking about moving back to the East Coast after some time in L.A. and S.F., but it all happened super quick as he took a new job and was out here in like a week. We caught up at yakitori in St. Mark’s and then headed over to Tiki Tabu, a rooftop tiki bar in LES. Turns out, I’d been to this bar before, but it was something entirely different. Still, the music was good and we got to hang out with a Manhattan view while listening to some good music. (The music was good pretty much anywhere I went, which made me ache even more to be back.)

Last October, when I was still fresh to Taipei, I attended a Sunday b-boy party at Chess and met a few friends there. One of them turned out to be from San Diego and we’d kept in social media touch since. After getting to know him better, J is like the successful version of me — or I’m the poor man’s version of him, either or. What that means is that he’s a nomad who seems like he’s just traveling wherever he wants, but while accomplishing things and getting shit moving. We trailed each other down California’s coast for a few weeks before hitting the beach one afternoon in San Diego. Since then he’s been back to Taipei for a food pop-up — he’s part owner of a hip ramen / Taiwanese restaurant in D.C. — as well as a few other locales.  From what I can tell, he’s got his hands in a ton of random things, including Fashion Week related. Who are these people?!

Friday night we also ended up stopping by his place, a LES food and dance place that I’d been to before, but didn’t even know he owned. The music there wasn’t quite my speed though so we left after a bit to head to the Meatpacking. Oh, before that, we had dinner with my friend K, newly engaged and in the midst of moving with his new fiance into an apartment. Lots can happen in ten months when you’re gone eh? Last October, K and M were barely even dating — he was still in dogged pursuit. And now, engaged!

Although I missed my friend in Meatpacking, we ended up shifting to No.8 in Chelsea and found a lively dancing scene there — with, you guessed it, great music — and so of course my friend and I stayed till they shut down. Another Friday, another fantastic going out time!

I woke up ass up super early on Saturday, in order to hit up dim sum with my new hostess, SW. There was once a time when I relied on her for all the dancing spots but now SW is of the “go to sleep at 11PM and go hiking at 8AM” variety. We walked down from her Chinatown apartment for dim sum at Golden Unicorn — plus a huge long wait — and met up with a friend she’d met the night before.

After parting ways, the two of us headed to the New Whitney Museum, which was huge and crowded. We zipped through the upstairs floors, hit up the terrace for awhile, and ended up by on the fifth floor couches, overlooking the Hudson River. Not a bad way to spend an afternoon. After waiting around for K and her friend A to say hello, we booted out of there and hit up Chelsea Market to fuel up on tacos. The taco place, Los Tacos No.1, was new to me and quite legit, even with a long line.

Even though we were a bit tired, we headed to SL’s apartment for a casual dinner she’d invited us to, on the strength of our dim sum lunch. SL was British, as were her three friends, and we ended up having a really great dinner and convo. As it got to around midnight, I coerced them to come karaoking with us and a few RSVP misfires later, we were embedded at Wow Karaoke in K-Town, belting out Eighties hits. Again, it was another of those perfect New York weekends, when you start one place and end up somewhere else completely, with old faces and new friends thrown in.

After the too-short karaoke session, we whipped down to Central Bar for some nightcap dancing, which went well until K burned her hand on a candle and our night officially ended around 4AM.

Sunday was busy busy. I popped up and rushed out of the house to get down to Brooklyn Book Festival, in order to see D&S’s book panel. Unfortunately, I got there about five minutes late and the panel was overcapacity. It ended up alright though, as I lingered around outside, chatting with S’s husband about Taiwan and his years spent wandering around China and Asia. I really wished I could have seen D&S speak but oh well, they’ll have other book events soon I’m sure.

The book festival was crazy packed, with lines for everything — the last time I’d gone was maybe three years ago — and I didn’t end up having much time anyway. I snuck in a quick fifteen minutes with my writing friend, M, before having to rush off to half a panel on gender and sexuality before having to bolt to K-Town to catch up with D&S. Basically Sunday was just rushing rushing rushing, with hardly any quality time fit in.

After sitting down for dessert, S came to meet me and we threw down some pizza before going to watch Mission Impossible. This fifth installment got an improbable 92% on Rotten Tomatoes. Again, never trust the wisdom of the crowds… After some post-movie tapas and a short walk, I grabbed a Citibike and cruised the thirty or so blocks back home, blasting Carly Rae Jepsen all the way. Glorious!

NYC 2015: Part I

Usually I like to be in a place for longer, but two plus weeks in New York was better than nothing right? Originally I was planning to AirBnB a spot but since I was only going to be there a few weeks, I relied on the kindness of friends to house me (as usual). I didn’t have many specific plans once I hit the city but in an effort to document what I ended up doing, here we go!

First off, I took a non-direct flight from San Diego to New York, which turned out to be a huge mistake. Due to a three hour delay on the front end, I missed my connection in Philadelphia and was almost stuck at the airport there for the night. Instead, I ran from gate to gate, in out-of-breath sprints, and eventually got a ride to Newark. From there, I took a cab into the city — minus luggage since that had gone on to LaGuardia — and got to my friend’s house in Alphabet City around one in the morning. Although it was late, we did our basic catch up and I found out that not only was my friend not in a relationship — when I left, he was! — but he was also recently unemployed and taking some time to figure out his next move. I believe the next morning V bought an extra Playstation controller for Rocket League, even though we never ended up playing it...

The next afternoon, in a move that threatened to tear apart the fabric of reality, I went to the gym. Yes, I put on my work out shoes — same as my regular shoes — and got in forty minutes of real deal exercise. V’s work out routine was this Japanese thing (“tabata”) where you do a set of something for twenty seconds, rest for ten, and then go again. Think lots of push-ups, jumping jacks/stars, and tricep dips. It was mostly fun of the first bit, but by the end I was ready to collapse.

For the next few days I bragged to everyone how much I’d worked out. And vowed to not do it again. Once a decade is plenty.

I generally don’t tell anyone I’m in town until I’m actually there, so the next day I started texting people that I’d arrived! Cue the excitement. Okay, not really. As it turned out, my friend was in town from Chicago and was doing drinks with a number of our friends already. Perfect! After stopping by a friend’s ex’s fashion week show, we went down to Flatiron Hall to say hello. I’d missed J’s wedding back in June, and totally regretted it, so this was a nice surprise, being able to catch her back in New York.

And then since I needed to dance right away, we (my friend from Taiwan who was here for the week, and M, who lives in Greenpoint) hopped in a cab to Williamsburg and hit up Kinfolk 94 and eventually The Tender Trap. Both places were pretty empty but the music at Kinfolk was stellar — at one point there was PM Dawn. We also met a close-up magician who was in the same Magic Castle training class as Neil Patrick Harris. I guess if I could make poker chips and foam balls disappear and reappear, I’d bring props to the club too. The only other people dancing were us three, the magician, and a bunch of lesbians who were making out in every corner and empty space of the dance floor. Kinfolk: always great music, always a different crowd.

Sometimes people take my “I sleep all day” statements as hyperbole. As V found out, I really did sleep late into the afternoon and evening. On Friday I rolled out of bed at like six, prepped up and headed toward K-Town to meet with M. She was already downstairs at her neighborhood bar and we chatted with her friend for a bit about his girlfriend problems and the challenges of going from six blocks to an uptown/downtown romance. Also, when does someone get key status? Their simple opinion: Never, until you live together. Harsh.

Afterwards, M took me around the corner to a steakhouse where we sat in a long line of two tops against the wall. Each interior seat was occupied by a woman, and on the outside seat was planted a man. Like maybe ten couples, all just sitting in a line. So weird. The couple next to us were on the worst date ever, as the guy lectured on and on while the woman sat quiet and displayed little to no interest. I was sure they weren’t on a first date, as the guy was being truly boring, but M assured me it was a first date. It’s a tough (dating) world out there ladies, cut bait on a mansplainer when you can!

Later on, I hopped over to meet up with K&S, and then we walked over to No Malice Palace for dancing. In line, K started talking to the people behind us and they turned out to be quite nice and fun. She simply had told them some friends of hers that had gotten out of line would be right back, which was a very polite thing to do. NMP is a freaking hotbox but the music is always good and it’s basically a no fail fun place, assuming you can get in. A couple more people joined us inside and I even ran into a friend’s brother, whom I had met last year right around this time. This was the party I’d been looking for, with the right people, the right music, and the right atmosphere. Thanks New York!

Since drinking leads to early mornings for me, I got up at 11AM-ish and scrolled through Facebook, trying to see who was in New York. As it turned out, my ex-roommate M was going to be moderating a panel at Photoville, New York’s largest photographic event out in DUMBO. I got myself revved up and out the door to make the early afternoon panel on migration and statelessness. (Read M’s bio, it sounds so damn impressive. Like who are you?!) What I learned was that photographers really shouldn’t talk about their work. I mean, no, they should, but it’s difficult to separate out the photographer from the photos. Like one the panelists just didn’t articulate himself well and I couldn’t take his work seriously. And another photographer, whose work was clearly amazing, seemed to lose some of the audience due to his thick accent. “Let the work speak for itself,” seems to apply in these cases.

After the panel, two of M’s friends cruised the rest of the exhibition with us and then we booked it to Chinatown for soup dumplings. As it turned out, my favorite couple/people from San Francisco were in town, after participating in the Labor Day 9-Man tournament the weekend before. They met up with us for dumplings too and it was one of those times when strangers come together but the discussion doesn’t skip a beat. Everyone got along, we were talking about interesting things, and there was just no lull in the conversation or boredom, etc. It was amazing! Afterwards, we didn’t want to end the day there so hopped to a bar for a quick drink and then rolled up to K-Town for some bonchon. And then after fried chicken, we went down to Revision, right next to V’s apartment, for some dancing and drinks. All in all, a perfect day slash night! (A handful of us chased the night to a few other bars, but that was likely a mistake. “Don’t chase the night,” as Worldwide Wes / Bill Simmons says.)

It made me think that the long percolating Before Sunrise-like movie I’d want to make should really be about a group of people. After all, those were the times I liked best about New York. How you can just travel from place to place, picking up new people, and having the night go wherever. It’s not something that happens in other cities, as far as I’ve experienced, and I associate that sort of time with only New York. It would be a challenge to get that kind of chemistry depicted on-screen but that’s an interesting twist on the genre right?

With Sunday here, I woke up early yet again and met up with JMZ and Jenn in Noho for brunch. We were tucked into a back corner booth at Cafe Select, and it was a lovely place to take down their Croque Monsieurs. Afterwards, we waited around for P to show up, as this was her day off. P’s new restaurant had been getting brilliant reviews for months and her schedule was even more slammed than usual but we got to spend most of the afternoon and early evening chilling out. A true rarity.

Meanwhile, my Taiwan friends were in Soho and after leaving JMZ, Jenn, and P, I met up with them and went to dinner at some Italian spot. J and C were in town from Taipei to help their aunt move from Queens to the Upper East Side, and although it was exhausting, J was still down to do stuff at night. After dropping off C in the UES, we went downtown to grab Citibikes and I took her on her first New York ride, across the Williamsburg Bridge, cruising by the construction that has overtaken WB’s west side. On the way back, we trolled through East Village for pizza, falafels, and hot dogs.

That was the first four days and I'd basically covered all the things I wanted to do in New York already. What's next?!