Days 3-5: Dive bars and Distractions

I have decided to cut down the regularity that I'm going to post things here, prevents me from embarrassing myself every day through poor grammar.  It will probably mean that the posts will get longer. If bad grammar isn't your thing, you can always choose not to read these.

My phone is becoming full of photographs from this trip, as well as being eye candy for the blog, they are helpful to me for remembering what I've been up to over the last few days, it's like a slower paced version of the film Memento. I've been trying to keep my loneliness at bay through distraction and this has meant exhausting myself through immersion.

Typically I have been leaving work around 6pm and going for a long wander around the city until I find a bar to have a few beers.  The sheer size of the city astounds me: you can walk for hours and still only see the smallest part of the city. The city's size is also impressive when you look at it vertically, buildings tower over you in all parts of the city and dwarf others that would form the taller parts of the Glasgow skyline.

Wednesday

If ever there was a good way of experiencing the size of the city, it is by trying to get from Cypress Hill's to Newark Airport to meet up with my band's drummer, Woody. He was heading home after a long holiday in Florida and had a long lay-over at Newark. It took two and a half hours of public transport, comprising three subway trains and a NJ Transit train. We met up and had a coffee in the Marriot hotel before I had to head back to the city and get to work (taking a half day on my second day, smooth).

I've had this phone for over a year, and still can't
remember where the camera lens is.

I have found a bar around the corner from my office called The Iron Horse. It's a dark and grimy epitome of a 'Dive bar but it plays decent music, the beer is cheap during happy hour ($2 PBR, rising to $3 after happy hour) and the regulars, that I've met sitting at the bar, have been friendly and talkative. Each night that I've been in the has been raucous, on a par with the best nights at Cerberus in Dundee. There's a swing above the bar that people, typically drunk tourists or birthday partys, can use in return for a free shot of liquor. Then, the swing is removed and the bar staff dance loudly on the bar to rock'd up country music.

From the gents room in The Iron Horse

It's not the type of place I'd ever picture myself hanging out in, but the people I've chatted with through the evenings have helped me adjust to the surroundings. It's been useful for learning about the tipping culture, the various "Canoe Sex" USA Beers, and the strong "Noo Yoik" accent. A conversation moves very slowly when a drunk Glaswegian is chatting to a drunk Brooklyn guy, with drunken line dancing occurring on the bar, with tackity cowboy boots and loud music. Don't worry, I have a yet to get up on the bar.

Jet lag has still been flooring me around 11pm each night, at which time I bid fair well to the bar and catch the late night Subway back to Cypress Hills. Any fears that I had about the areas have been unfounded, it has shown itself to be a quiet and peaceful area.

Thursday

On Thursday I had planned on going to an open mic night in the Greenwich Village, but after walking by the place a few times (hello Social Anxiety), I decided against its muted atmosphere and and coffee drinking audience. Instead, I bided my time with another long walk from the West Village right down to Fulton St (where I work) via a couple of bars in the Lower West-but-kinda-east-central-Village. This was a financial mistake.

The area is very trendy (a real estate agent that I met in the bar told me a typical 2 bedroom apartment would cost around $1m in the area) and the soulless bars on the main street reflect this. A 'pint' of normal beer, during happy hour, was $6 in one place and a bottle of IPA was $8 in another. In order to force my body to adjust to the timezone, I decided to head back to the Iron Horse.

This night will be forever etched in my mind as "The night I heard a guy use the phrase 'I didn't choose the thug life, the thug life chose me'" when trying to chat up a girl.

No, it wasn't me.

Friday

There are strangely named parks and
streets all over the city.

On Friday I decided to retrace my footsteps from the previous night in order to find, and take a photograph, of a specific building that I had seen. My phone had died quite early on in the previous night and damned if I wasn't going to show people that I work around the corner from the fucking Ghostbuster's HQ! It isn't an exaggeration to say that there are times when walking around NYC feels like walking through a film set. This lends a degree of familiarity to the city, but also a slight disjointness from reality and life back home.

After I had achieved my goal, and photograph, I decided to keep walking uptown towards Lafayette and Broadway to find a bar that I had visited in 2007. I had to do a bit of internet sleuthing to work out exactly where the bar was since my memory of the night 6 years prior is a bit hazy. I finally found the bar, Puck Fair just off East Houston St. It's an Irish bar specialising in craft beers and american food. Much more pricey than I remember, and so, while I am waiting on pay-day, I only had a bite to eat (Buffalo Chicken Wrap) and a couple of drinks.

My tactic for going in to these bars on my own is to walk directly up to the bar, ask about happy hour deals (none in this case - fancy), order a beer and grab a seat. After the beer is delivered, I take my phone out of my pocket, find the free wifi and try and relax. I'm becoming well versed in the "pay for the beer plus leave a dollar on the bar as a tip" routine. After I've relaxed enough, I find that its usually about 5-10 minutes before someone next to me at the bar says "hey" and a conversation begins. I find this much easier than in Glasgow, where I can sit for a whole night in a bar and never say nor hear a word to anyone.

This city, thankfully, likes to make the first move.

My brother and I had this, but
in a plastic toy form