Right Coast, Part 3

     In which I discover the joy of a dollar slice of pizza, the weather shifts from hot and humid to torrential downpour, and I risk life and limb for a cab.  I reflect on one of humankind's only perfect creations.  More after the jump!


     I have this problem.  No matter how badly I slept the night before, I will usually wake up early.  When I woke up the Saturday after the first show, I was pretty hung over.   I'm a functioning day-after-drinking kind of person, so I crawled off my cot, showered, shaved, and made myself presentable. Me and my hostelmates, Hannah and Ash, met for coffee at the spot a block down from were staying.  This was when I first noticed the street corner was labeled "Joey Ramone way." I might not be able to see CBGB's (now a Men's designer clothing store...really) but at least there was a little Joey Ramone over my head in NYC.

    Our first show of the day was at Noon, but accounting for jet lag, felt like it was at 9 am.   Not the ideal circumstances for a show, but the Space 55 ensemble performed excellently and I managed to keep my head together despite my headache.

    After the first show of the day, the hangover progressed into more serious territory, and I thought I might lose it.  A friend purchased me a slice of Two Brothers pizza in St. Marks and Coke.  Two Brother's pizza is so freaking good, it worked like a panacea for my hangover.

Not Pictured- The Other Two Brother's less than 20 feet away.

    You want know how good their pizza is?  Just the other day I was at an Italian restaurant celebrating my girlfriend's birthday with her parents, and giving them this same rundown of the New York trip.  One of the first things I mentioned about New York was how amazingly good Two Brother's $1 slices are.  Not the parks, not the people, but the pizza is one of the first things I think of reflecting on New York. As the table next to ours was paying their check, the guy there with his girlfriend walks to our table.

Oh, there it is.  Who has toilet paper in their car?

 


"Hey, I'm sorry to interrupt y'all eating dinner, but are you talking about Two Brother's Pizza in St. Marks?  Man, great pizza.  You guys have a good night, enjoy your dinner."

    I rest my case- it's so good it brings people together.  It's so good that strangers bond over having eaten a slice of cheese pizza.  I ate at halal carts and hot dog carts and all manner of street food the week I spent in New York, but I ate pizza almost every day.  It was a DOLLAR.  A SINGLE DOLLAR

     We returned to the theater a few hours later for the second show of the day, at 6:30 local time. It went equally well, and we afterwords many of us committed to another night of drinking, albeit more relaxed than the previous night, at Cakeshop.  Gray clouds had accumulated in the sky and I bought an umbrella before the prices skyrocketed.

Pimpin' in the Rain

      Let me pause here a moment to rhapsodize: There is one thing we got basically right the first time around, and that's the umbrella.  It's been about four thousand years since the first waterproofed umbrellas were invented, and the modern umbrella with ribs was invented in the 1850s.  That's millennia of one basic design functioning around the world.  So perfect in form, design, and beauty that it has religious importance- in Tibetan Buddhism, the  Sacred Parasol is one of the 8 auspicious signs, and represents the protection of beings from harmful forces. It also represents the canopy of the sky and the expansiveness of that region.  Under the protection of the umbrella, all find sanctuary in the Dharma.  It also looks like a mushroom, if you're into that whole psychopharmacologicalspirituality thing.  I'm just saying- protection and enlightenment, hallucinogenic mushrooms, umbrellas...yeah, think about it.

    The umbrella belongs in the upper echelons of Mankind's great inventions, alongside the book and the wheel. The sight of hundreds of umbrellas raised on a city street can remind you, if only for a moment, that we as a species can do something right.  We can keep the rain off our heads.  We can build a portable shelter that can be shared.  My faith restored.

     Sadly,  my umbrella proved to be basically useless- when it did start to rain, it came down like it'd had been holding it for an entire 6 hour bus ride.  The streets of the Lower East Side were packed with party people unprepared for the torrential downpour.  I had become separated from my hostel-mates at Cakeshop. Drenched,drunk and tired, I began to wander in the general direction of the hostel trying to divine my way in the hazy sheet of rain.  I became lost almost instantly, unable to recognize any landmark in the downpour.  I watched Saturday night revellers cling to the sides of cabs that would not pick them up.  One young woman stood in her 6 inch heels on a corner screaming piercing nothing at the dark cloudcover as her designer dress dripped and her spraytan melted from her bare feminine shoulders.  One cab slowed for a group- when they told the driver through the window they wanted to go to Brooklyn, he just shook his head and started to drive off.  I knew this was probably my only chance, so I stepped out into the street and put my hands out like I was Jedi force-pushing the cab to stop.  Lucky for me he did, and I inched towards his window keeping half my body in front of his wheel.

Things I wished I had.  Even yellow ones for ladies.

    "I just need to get to the Bowery."   He nodded and motioned for me to get in quickly.  I closed the door behind me, and out the window I saw the group who initially flagged the cab down.  One guy in their number looked at the cab, unable to see me through the tinting, and watched us go off into the night with an expression of utter sadness.  10 minutes and $5 later I was standing back in front of the Hostel, drenched and tired.  My sneakers were completely water logged, and I couldn't help but recall a line from the show as I squeeked up the stairs to my room.



"Galoshes don't cover the feet- they cover the shoes."

Another show. Another night, another grip of beers.

TUNE IN TOMORROW FOR MORE RIGHT COAST!