There There

Today's post is gonna be a long one, so settle in before you begin.

Last night began with my sparsely attended going away dinner at Two Boots down on Avenue A. I wanted to go there becuase 8 years ago when i started my internship in NYC, the first place I went to in the city (besides the office) was Two Boots where I met a really good friend of mine for the first time. After we ate, we all went to Coney Island High on St. Marks Place ( I remember being really confused and thinking we were actually going to a high school on Coney Island) to see the Mighty Mighty Bosstones. I remember that night like it happened last week.
Anyways I was joined by Redboy, Shane, Nina, Molly and Anna (pictured). We had numerous pitchers of Stella and some great pizza (best in the city in my humble opinion) and life was good. Nina gave me a Spongebob Squarepants mouse pad that I am using at this very second. Cheers. So we ate, drank and were merry and then Redboy had to go off to his Dj gig. We all went up to Tracy J's on 19th street to catch the Duke / UNC game which, needless to say, is one of my favorite nights of the entire year. Tracy J's is owned and operated by Art Heyman a former Duke All American, 1965 National Player of the Year and #1 pick of the New York Knicks. It is Blue Devil Central in NYC. I was in heaven. And what a game! Big play after big play from both sides. That was the Duke / UNC rivalry that I remember. UNC deserved to win the game, but Chris Duhon, playing a majority of the second half with 4 fouls, would not let the Blue Devils lose. His reverse layup in the waning seconds of overtime gave Duke the W. I'm obviously biased but Duhon has to the front runner for ACC player of the year right now. He is owning pople at the PG spot.
With about 5 minutes left in regulation, Coolfer, (pictured) who had joined us at the bar for drinks, asked me what I thought the final margin would be. "Duke by 2" I replied confidently. I am so money. A sincere thanks to everyone that came out last night to send me off. Cheers!
ESPN also had some great stuff on the percieved lack of success by the Blue Devils in the pro's and how some recent Coach K disciples are changing that image. Good stuff.
Also, Danny Ainge is looking to make a trade before the deadline. Not exactly breaking news but at least he's gone on record saying further changes need to be made.

Alright, for the main even, I humbly submit my TOP 15 CELEBRITY ENCOUNTERS WHILE LIVING IN NYC. Let me preface this by saying I'm sure other pople could come up with better lists from their experiences and I'm not trying to drop a bunch of names here...This is more for me so I can come back and read this years from now when I am senile and have blocked my time in NYC out of my mind. That being said, I thought it would be cool to share some of my fun with everyone. Here goes.

15) MATT DILLON – As reported last Sunday.
14) HARRISON FORD –I saw Han Solo making his way uptown on Broadway, around 18th street, as I was on my to Paragon Sports to buy some snowboarding gloves. He had shades on and was walking very fast I spotted him a ways off, it was hard to miss him.
13) DICK CLARK – The ageless one was spotted in the crowd of the San Gennaro festival in Little Italy.and trying not to draw attention to himself.
12) HELENA CHRISTIANSON – I can name about 400 more people I saw on June 7th, 1997, the night that Radiohead played Irving Plaza, but she just stood out. It was a day after the NYC Tibetan Freedom Concert ended and I swear everyone that played the festival stayed around to catch Radiohead the next night. I can honestly say that I’ve never seen the venue as crowded as it was that night. I can also say without a doubt that it was the single greatest concert I had ever seen or will ever see in my life. Describing it as powerful doesn’t do the gig justice. OK Computer had yet to come out but they were playing the songs that would be on that album as well as a majority of The Bends. They opened with Lucky and ended it with Black Star (the only time I have heard that song ever played live) but only after Thom aborted a solo try at Been Thinking About You. I heard that u2, Oasis, Blur, Madonna, REM, and a host of other celebrities were there. I stuck around after the gig by the secret back door that the stars use to exit the club and was amazed at the people I saw. Helena wasn’t the most famous, but she was easily the most beautiful. Like Woah. Wicked game indeed.
11) WINONA RYDER – I had just gotten a beer at the Seahorses / Mansun gig at Irving Plaza and was walking back to the front of the venue when mizz Ryder passed me on her way to the bar. She was incredibly tiny and looked like you could knock her over by sneezing on her but was still captivating. I couldn’t help but stare.
10) LIV TYLER – One of the last things I got to do at my first music industry gig was hang out with a client of ours that had just done some work with Spacehog. The group were playing the Bowery Ballroom and he asked me to tag along. I did and we ended up in the band’s dressing room before they went on and everyone was just shooting the shit, catching up, etc. The room upstairs in Bowery is tiny and has an L shaped couch. I sat down. She sat next to me. Out of respect, I tried not to freak out. We spoke a bit and she was very nice. And very, very hot.
9) DAVID BYRNE – Not really a fan at all, but I got a kick out of seeing him in the crowd when the Super Furries played Irving Plaza in support of Rings Around The World.
8) EDDIE IZZARD – CMJ, many years ago when Placebo and a few other Virgin acts were playing some hotel ballroom in Midtown, I spotted Mr. Izzard, dressed in jeans and a coat (no makeup), in the crowd, casually rocking out. I knew who he was and that he was a British comedian but hadn’t ever heard any of his material. His face had been plastered all over London the last time I was there so I recognized him right away, even with his beard. I went up to him and said “Hi” and he just looked at me weird. After an uncomfortable silence he said “You’re American right? How the fuck do you know who I am?” It was fucking hilarious. I wish I would have busted out something like “Tea, Cake or Death?” but I didn’t see Dressed To Kill until 2 years ago.
7) DIANA ROSS – The Queen of Motown came into the office at my old job on 22nd street one day as she was looking to purchase the floor above us. Her hair was bigger than Ben Wallace’s. She was extremely polite and asked to have a look around. I took her on a quick tour of the premises. She thanked me and went on her way. For the record, not once did I call her “Miss Ross”.
6) GWYNETH PALTROW / CHRIS MARTIN – Some randon Sunday night a year or so ago, Molly, Anna and I decided to meet up in the city and go get dinner. We decided on Mary’s Fish Camp, on West 4th street. Unfortunately, it’s closed on Sundays. Molly and I got there first so we were going to call Anna and tell her the dilly. Molly sat down on the stoop outside the restaurant to dig her cell phone out of her purse and make the call. While she was preoccupied doing that, I spied a lanky blonde with long hair walking toward us with some scruffy looking dork by her side. As the duo got closer, it dawned on me who it was. As they walked by us, I kinda stared at them wide-eyed (I have no idea why, although Gwyneth was very pretty). Chris nodded to me as they passed and I did the same to them. And off they went. Molly missed the whole thing.
5) BEASTIE BOYS – Like I said earlier this week, there was one particular summer , the Beasties were everywhere. You couldn’t go to a decent show without seeing them. I have seen each Beastie on their own at some point in the city but two particular times stand out(not including getting my picture taken with Ad Rock). The first was one day at work when I had to go run an errand for my boss that took me all the way across town. I was pissed off that I had to do it, so I took my sweet time getting back. As I was crossing Lexington Ave on my way back to 5th Ave, I saw this middle aged guy riding a low rider bicycle lazily making his way up the street. This looked too strange to be true so I walked toward him to get to the bottom of it. Turns out it was Mike D on his way to Capitol Records New York offices. The lyrics popped into my head immediately:
My crew is shining just like and icicle / I ride around town on my low rider bicycle
The second was seeing Blur on their tour behind 13 play at the Roseland Ballroom. I was with a few friends on the VIP sidestage and the entire Grand Royal family was there, all grooving out while Damon was singing Trimm Trabb.
4) JIMMY FALLON / JACK BLACK / JOHN MCENROE – At my last gig, I worked with a NYC rock band that got the opportunity to open a show at the Roseland Ballroom. Everyone was really excited about the opportunity, but the after show was amazing. While the headliners were still on, I was hanging out backstage with Jimmy Fallon and Mick Rock, the famous photographer. I will be the first to admit that Jimmy ruins too many skits on SNL with his incessant laughing, but in real life he is sincerely one of the nicest people you could ever hope to meet. Dude got me beer after beer and kept offering more. He was DJ’ing on a crappy boombox with his iPod. Then Jack Black walked in and the two of them started going at it. It was so funny I was spitting beer out of my nose. Just fucking hilarious. Then Jables went away for a while and things returned to normal until I looked over and there he was. My hero. John Patrick McEnroe. The greatest tennis talent America has ever produced. Some of the people I was with didn’t even know who he was but I was hyperventilating. I was trashed by this point of the night but still had the ability to talk without slurring too bad so I went up to him. The timing was bad but I figured I’d never get another shot to talk to the tennis legend. I went up, introduced myself, and told him how he inspired me to play tennis as a kid and that try as I might, I could never copy his service motion even though I worked on it endlessly in high school. McEnroe could not have cared less. He said like 3 words to me and then disappeared. I didn’t care. I gave it a shot. I don’t begrudge him for not talking to my drunk ass. He did lose cool points for his outfit though. Some long trenchcoat, a dark blue button up, black leather pants and a Mets cap. Ugh.
3) PAVEMENT – Possibly my best night ever in NYC. And it of course involves the Super Furries. They were opening for the Olivia Tremor Control at the Bowery Ballroom. As I briefly described before, the Bowery has one big dressing room upstairs behind the stage for the headliner. The supporting acts have to use these two small areas with velvet curtains upstairs on either side of the bar. After their set, we were all chilling in the Furries little area when Bob and Steve, the rhythm section from Pavement, dropped in and started drinking everyone’s beer. They were being really loud and boisterous and drinking up a storm. I’m a huge Pavement fan so I was just trying to take the whole scene in. I was seated opposite the Pavement guys, talking to Bunf, the Furries guitarist about football and bullshit. One of the guys from Pavement, Steve I think, busted out some weed but had nothing to smoke it in. I happened to have my bowl on me and offered it up so everyone could have a smoke. We all did and continued on talking, drinking, etc. Anyways, after the gig, Steve puts my bowl in his pocket and is getting ready to depart with it in his possession. Bunf looks at me to see if I saw what he was doing. I was cool with him taking it. Hey I like Pavement, I have no problem sacrificing my bowl to them and told Bunf the same. Bunf was having none of that. I told him I didn’t want to make a scene but he went over to Steve and said “Alright, give it back you wanker” or something like that. Steve was acting like he had no idea what was happening. Bunf wasn’t budging. “Hand it over” he said a little bit louder and finally Steve did and apologized. It was very surreal, even more so after the 37 Heineken’s I drank during the show.
After the show, we went with Gruff, some of his extended family who were in town, and a bunch of other people to a huge loft party/rave over by the main Post Office on 34th street. They had DJ’s and kegs and there were a ton of people there. Coolest of all was this huge balcony outside that was overlooking the Post Office, which was lit up on all sides by these huge lights. It was very picturesque. I distinctly remember being there drunk out of my gourd listening to Gruff talk to his cousins in Welsh for like 20 minutes, thinking what I was hearing, whatever it was, was the coolest thing ever.
Also at the party was one of my company’s clients, a record producer that has helped launch the career of more than one very famous metal band. Like the rest of us, he was plowed at this point in the night. We were talking to each other but he kept wandering around the balcony picking up the half empty cups of beer that were left out there. Then all of a sudden he starts throwing them off the balcony to the street below. Keep in mind we were about 25 floors up. It was fucking hilarious for a few seconds then I realized that someone may be down there and what kind of damage a half empty plastic cup of beer could do after falling from 25 flights up. I tried everything I could to talk him out of it but he kept doing it. “Someone could die”, I was pleading with him thinking what would happen if/when he hit a car that was passing by. Some of the other people on the balcony went to get security and tell them what was going on. I finally got him to stop and hid him in a corner behind Gruff and all his friends right before they came running out there to see what was going on. When they didn’t see anyone throwing things they went away. It was a close call. We decided to call it a night after that. Gruff and his posse went to yet another late night afterparty but I was dead tired(it was like 4;30 AM at this point) so we decided not to join them. That night showed me that there is plenty of things to get into in NYC if you know the right people. It also proved my theory that nothing good happens after 2 AM.
2) ROBERT DINERO – I had the distinct pleasure of riding in the elevator with Bobby D. not once but TWICE when I worked at my old office on 22nd street. I think his publicists or someone like that were in our building. I didn’t speak to him either time other than to ask him what floor he wanted and press the appropriate button. Both times he was totally incognito with hat and glasses and just had this “I am NOT Robert Dinero” vibe, so I decided not to bother him. But it was still cool.
1) The number one celebrity sighting that I had the pleasure of having in NYC is a doozy. It was Sunday morning and Anna was in town (she still lived in Boston at the time) and we decided to take our hungover selves up to 14th street for some brunch before Anna had to catch her train back to Beantown. We exited the subway at Union square and crossed the street right by Shoe Mania on our way to a diner on 12th street. As soon as we crossed 14th, a sleek black town car with tinted windows pulled up right beside us and a driver got out to open the door for his passengers. “Oooh, who might this be?” I thought to myself. I had to do a double take (and so did Molly and Anna) when none other than SIR PAUL McCARTNEY and Heather Mills popped out of the back seat and started across the sidelwalk not two feet from us. Macca turned to us, nodded his head, and winked in a way that seemed to say “Yes it’s me. Please don’t freak out an alert everyone else around here or it will be a madhouse.” We didn’t and off they went on their merry way into one of the buildings nearby. All three of us were on cloud 9 for the rest of the day. We told our waitress in the diner that we had just seen the most famous person alive. Her first guess was the President, McCartney was her second.

That’s all for me this week folks. I have to pack up the remaining odds and ends laying about the apartment and go pick up my old computer from the shop. I’m off to Boston early tomorrow to get my Super Furry fix. I should have time for a quick post on Monday but that will likely be it until the following Monday, the 16th. When I return, I should have lots of pictures and stories to tell so please come back. Hopefully none of you will hold the fact that I will no longer be a NYC blogger against me. I've had alot of fun this week recounting some old stories and memories. I hope you enjoyed it too.

In pitch dark I go walkin' in your landscape
Broken branches trip me as i speak
Just 'cause you feel it doesn’t mean it’s there
Just 'cause you feel it doesn’t mean it’s there
There's always a siren singing you to shipwreck
Don't reach out, don't reach out