No Tourist Please

I woke up early today to let a friend in the house. he just arrived from Portland and is going to be staying with us a few days. That means there is a full house, every soft surface has got a stake claimed to it. I sense a toilet paper shortage in the future.

We’ll probably go to the city later, check out a few record stores in the village, maybe get a pair of jeans in SOHO. Its what you do when people come to nyc for a weekend. Then you go to dinner then you go out for drinks. The whole time you hope that magic strikes and there will be a shining moment that makes the trip grand and real and most importantly, significant. Maybe you’ll see an amazing show on a crowded street corner or find yourself at a private party in a penthouse with views of the Hudson. Maybe you’ll wind up in bed with a beautiful stranger or maybe facing the barrel of a gun or an old forgotten friend or something. Maybe your cabbie will sell you drugs. Maybe he’ll just share some with you. That would be memorable either way you looked at it.

What you don’t want to do is pay twenty bucks to go to the top of the Empire State Building, and you don’t want to spend too much time in Times Square. Stay away from Midtown and don’t even bother with seeing the Statue of Liberty. Those are forgettable ventures that will only jog your memory when you see the pictures afterwards, otherwise they will be cataloged, with memories of other, equally mundane exercises, in the back of your mind with the grocery receipts and waiting room visits and stupid boring crap like that. They will not sit with you, they will not inspire you, you will not tell your friends about them when you get back home.

He’s a smart enough guy though, and he’s been to New York before, so I don’t expect to get any request to see ground zero or some shit. We’ll hit the town, paint it a pleasant shade of magenta (red is to aggressive) and then thank each other for the experience after. It’ll be fun, like an episode of Scrubs.

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The New York Metro made a list of the most influential New Yorkers in music and Ultragrrl made the cut. I bet she’ll be at the Erol Alkan gig tonight at the Tribeca Grand, I hear Mylo is supposed to show too.