New York, New York

Only relatively recently did I realise “New York, New York” was a specific address and not merely a lyrical redundancy. I’ve been all over it lately and concur that it is indeed a helluva town.

The night I arrived in my Kensington, Brooklyn sublet, they were having a kind of a going away party for one of the other flatmates who was leaving for a longer stint. They were hoping I wasn’t going to be disturbed by this. I showed up with a six-pack, putting their fears to rest. The other three rooms in the house seem to be populated by easygoing and sane human beings so that’s a relief. The location isn’t totally ideal (knowing what I know now I’d put myself somewhere on the L train in Brooklyn) but it is really cheap, and since I got myself a heater and a dressing gown ($45 and $5, respectively) I’m comfortable enough.

I spent new year’s day scratching around to find something to do that night; at midday I had no options and by 5:00pm I had about six different ones, but I knew that was going to happen. I decided on the Burner-related warehouse party in Red Hook, with an afterparty run by Disorient in another part of Brooklyn. They were both great; the warehouse party had lots of Burner-style art including The Seizuredome which was a light and sound installation controlled by a perspex ball containing a Wii-mote. Heaps of cool people at both parties too.

I’ve eaten some wonderful food here so far; breakfast on my first full day here was a Jamaican goat curry from just down the road and I had a slice of pepperoni and bacon pizza on the way home the other night (Pepperoni! Bacon! Together at last!). I have also sought out some good coffee. I’d had Café Grumpy recommended to me and the ristretto there is as good as I have had anywhere. I also found another random place in Brooklyn serving Intelligentsia and it was also great. Of course I’ve also had some horrible food and truly terrible coffee, but I had to experiment. In the next few days I’m going to do some of Anthony Bourdain’s food excursions to the outer burroughs.

For all those following me on Twitter, yes, on Sunday I did ride the subway without wearing pants. Indeed, part of the gag was to take them off while still on the subway between stations. There were half a dozen meetup points around the city with my closest being not very far away in Park Slope. Which is fortunate because I got the time wrong and arrived just as the final instructions were being given and people went down into the station. I glommed onto a group and someone gave me the precis; once on the subway we were to pretend we didn’t know eachother. After passing our assigned station we were to casually remove our pants and then get off at the next stop and get on the next train. Everyone converged in Union Square a couple of hours later.

I almost lost it when I saw the first poor mark’s look of amazement and horror as she watched the first guy nonchalantly take off his pants, put them in his backpack and sit back down. It was awesome. By the time we got to 14th St there were dozens of people, men and women, just standing around on the platform without any pants waiting for the train. By that stage it was much easier to look casual as I had the cold to concentrate on, I think it was hovering around -4°C in New York on Sunday. By the time we got to Union Square there were a couple of thousand people out there whooping and cheering, chanting “Take ‘em off, take ‘em off!” to those poor unfortunate panted individuals who passed, playing pantsless duck duck goose, engaging in the odd “pants-off dance-off” and just generally laughing (and freezing) their arses off.

I was handed some pro-pants literature by a group of pants zealots in “Haven’t You Forgotten Something” sandwich boards and there were even some people with “God Wears Pants” signs but I didn’t let them faze me and wandered over to a nearby pub to shoot the (rather brisk!) breeze with some of my pants-less compatriots before going home. Funny thing is that I found putting my pants back on while riding the subway a much odder feeling than taking them off.

Today I’d planned to have a lay-day and take it easy in front of the TV but of course I saw on Reggie Watts’ Twitter feed that they were shooting a music video in The Bronx so I had to go. It’s a ways away, but it was worth it and a bit of fun. I suppose I’ll post a link when they’ve finished post-production and it goes up some time in March. If nothing else, I’ve learned a new dance. It’s called the Fuck Shit Stack. (Oh, probably NSFW).