Moment Magnitude

Candy Darling

Before 2007 fades into history (history, dammit!), Liz Taylor Jr. celebrated her birthday, notwithstanding that her latest amour, a yummy, young fellow, flew up from his Caribbean-isla home, but not before he advanced two cases of Perrier Jouet and three dozen orange roses to NYC. Now that's a statement. Pedro's got my vote.

Who but Surfer Girl to upstage LT Jr., and on the latter's own anniversaire?

And so, to paraphrase, from the story delivered not from the honeyed lips of "she-who-challenges-the-Ditch-Plains-break," but from the distillation of the drunken bacchanal that ensued in honor of LT Jr.  Yep, an email, photos shared.

The birthday dinner (the birthday bash started the festivities the week before at Niki Beach), was held at Phillipe Chow's, a kind-of offshoot from the 80s-dinosaur, Mr. Chow. Surfer Girl commented that she nearly went blind from all the ice on parade (unlike my concern during this procedure), the likes of which would cost as much as her entire apartment building.

I'll bet the blingerati stared harder at our girls, as maitres d' escorted them through the dining rooms, through the kitchen, "Goodfellas" style to the private cellar, where their gussied-up table awaited.

No mention was made of actual food. Drink was. Oh, and...

"When dessert was served, I got up, clinged (?) my wine glass for everyone's attention, and announced, 'If anyone needs sugar for their coffee or tea, I got the goods.'"

At which point, Surfer Girl unzipped the front of her top and flashed all fifteen people at the table, in addition to three waiters, and two other adjacent dinner parties.

"My candy bikini top." (Recall photos, above.)

Her quickie backstory (my asides in italic, parenthetically): "A few months ago, I was getting drunk (I am shocked) in Chelsea with my best gay boyfriend (duh), when our bartender hooked me up with a bikini top made of candy. It's the same candy used to make candy bracelets, the ones that ice cream trucks display, hanging next to the ring pops."

To me, they look a confectionery version of puka shells. C'mon now, retro 70s-chic, I saw a resurgence out East last summer on (ahem) younger fellas. But back to Surfer Girl, baring her almost-all, chez Phillipe's cellar tables.

"There were three people at out table whom I had just met. I doubt they'll be forgetting me. I had to give a Tara Reid apology, the 'nip-slip,' because I had no control over my candies."

Now take a harder look at those photos.

"The waiters told me to come back very soon."

Heck, I just jealous of her tan!

The fur hat-and-jacket poses came later, reportedly four-something in the morning. Note what appears to be an empty bottle of designer vodka. Even if it is a water bottle, I'm wagering the contents were swapped out for something Russian. Da!

Herbie

This story makes me smile. We don't get together as often as we used to, but when we do, something happens. Of course, plenty happens to each of us when we're not together. Plenty.

Liz Taylor, Jr. (up there, wielding the pool cue) continues blithely to break hearts. Surfer Girl (into whose gob the pool cue is aimed), is terrorizing men - especially one in particular, a well-known film director (think: Harvey Keitel- and a nun...yep).

Prima Downhill hosted her once-a-month gathering for skiers and friends. There she is, lovely, next to Surfer Girl. And take that, Surfer Girl, another damned good photo of you, although I may have to call you "Busty McSurfer," given your well-defined attributes, ahem.

And Prima Downhill's friends, one of whom is in the photo next to that blond, tan guy.

That blond, tan guy wandered into the bar where Prima Downhill had gathered us.

Pow! In a shot, Cousin T. dashed up to him to flirt. I love my Chelsea-Boy second cousin. He breaks ice in a heartbeat. According to Cousin T., blond tanned guy resembles a co-worker in his company. In those handful of sentences, some three women dropped in, all over blond tan guy.

I stepped away, back to the pool table.

Cousin T. wandered over to me and asked me, "Why didn't you talk to that (blond tan) guy? He noticed you." 

"I know," I smiled. "but he has plenty of distractions right now. Didn't you see? At least two other gals all but dived right onto him."

"But you should have!"

"Nah. Not my style."

Yes, it seems that we city kids still get whiplash from folks who drop in - and stand out because they don't look like us. It's autumn in New york, glorious and crisp, our summer glows have softened into lighter shades. We're wearing layers, sweaters, readying ourselves for the inevitable cold. And in wanders a fellow who looks like he just pulled in off the Newport Beach break.

And then it got strange.

A while later, back toward the front bar, I caught the blond tan guy alone second. Perhaps one of the admiring females had gone to the bathroom. Another was pulled into conversation by another man.

I decided to go free-form. I looked right up at him.

"Have you told anyone here your name?" I didn't wait for an answer.

"No. It doesn't matter. You look like, yes, you look like a...'Herbert.' Right. "Herbert.' 'Herb' for short. Or 'Herbie,' yes, 'Herbie."

In truth, I had opened my mind, his blond tanned look, a southern California vibe, I remembered that old Disney movie, from when I was a kid (the original, for chrissakes), "Herbie." That sequence of thoughts zipped through my mind.

"Do you know me? Do you know who I am?" he asked me. He sounded somewhat incredulous.

"No. I never saw you before you walked into this bar tonight."

Another fast thought - who was this guy? Somebody famous? Somebody I should know? I answered myself: Screw it, who cares?

He squinted at me. "My name is Herbert."

(Look at that photo up there. Does that guy look like a Herbert?)

"You are full of shit." I squinted back at him. "Let me see your drivers license."

He fished out his wallet and walked over to the bar-cashier light. Sure enough: Herbert.

The quizzical looks on each of our faces were identical in disbelief. So I gave him my card, attempting to deflect what could have been a round of funny-name banter. (In my mind, I doubted that any woman would moan, sigh, or scream "Herbert!" in the throes of ecstasy. Another lightning-fast thought.) I said," Yep. Holly Hodder. I'm not a porn star."

At least one of the admiring women returned, and I backed away.

I think he told everyone else that his name is Joe. One of the gals later confided that she though he was full of himself. He's not from New York. He was just in town for business, and a John Bon Jovi concert in the deepest heart of Newark, NJ. I think his hotel was somewhere in the swamps of Jersey too - he told me later that everything in the city started at $500. Which it does.

I'm not sure he knows where the Hamptons are.

And I know all of this, because Herb and I have struck up a conversation. And it is very amusing. I recommended that he read this post, and this one too. I said I might write about his name - not an idle promise.

He did - read those posts. And here's his response, verbatim: "Make sure that you exaggerate that you met this guy Herbert that made you orgasm just by looking into his sea blue eyes."

I suspect that he may have succeeded with at least one of his NYC-gal admirers. You never know.

Certainly I would welcome such an action-reaction. Let's see what happens when I go to sleep tonight.

Herbie, The Love Bug.

A Single Girl's Caesar

Caesar salad, that is. With grilled shrimp. And a glass of white wine (I prefer French chardonnays, but I'll go with what's available).

I got it into my head that I would sample grilled shrimp Caesar salads among some of the East End restaurants - now that I am living out here 90% of the time.

Since I run - okay, drive - around a lot (the real estate biz), I often like nothing so much at the end of the day as a solo-stop into a restaurant, a stool at a bar (if there is one, either a stool or a bar), a newspaper or book, a glass of wine, and that salad.

So far, I've sampled restaurants in Bridgehampton and East Hampton. I try to keep the meal to $30, tip included. It is off-season out here, so that price point could work, hypothetically. The challenge of it is, I seldom have just one glass of wine - and the bill reflects that.

Since this idea popped into my head, I've sampled World Pie (two times) and Bobby Van's (once) in Bridgehampton, Nichols (once), and The Lodge (once) in East Hampton. I have a way to go. Good thing I like Caesars.

So far, The Lodge's salad is hands-down, the best. The dressing goes beyond the expected, piquant, salty tang of the usual Caesar (I "get" the anchovy requirement). Some would aver that when it comes to Caesars, it's all about the dressing. If that's so, then The Lodge's chef worked special magic. It had an additional lemony tang that made me want to gobble it in a pico-second. The Romaine lettuce was crisp, crunchy, and just cold enough. The dish included eight (maybe more), fat, perfectly grilled shrimp, a tinge of charring to spike the flavor. Yum. I sat at the bar (the bartender served me a lovely French white), and recollected the first time I dined in that room, back in the mid-late 1980s, off-season, when it was The Laundry. The room has lost nothing of its ambiance, even with the change of proprietorship. If I had stuck to one glass of wine, the tab would have been $30.

World Pie's iterations are serviceable, and tasty enough. The price is right. One of the quibbles I have is that the serving plate is too small. I have made a mess both times. The salad could be a bit more crunchy, and the croutons feel like an afterthought. The upside: The fellows at the bar are real pros, from service to personality. Classic guys. I wish they had a French white by the glass, but the sauvignon blanc does almost as well.

I have to give Bobby Vans another go. In truth, I was with Surfer Girl (she performed the heroic act of driving out from the city, fetching me from LaGuardia after a week-long stay with my Mom in New Mexico) in the early evening, and driving my ass all the way back to East Hampton). We popped in, sat at a proper table, gabbed nonstop, and chowed. I could have paid more attention to the food, but didn't - but I've never gone wrong at Bobby Van's. The staff is always first-rate - especially to folks they know (nod to Surfer Girl). It'll bear a re-visit. Or seven.

I like Nichols. It's an easy place to go - precious little attitude, a warm cluster of two small rooms, the feel of a rustic, old building, the outside patio in the warmer months. The bar is tiny, and often fully-occupied, so I sat at a table. The low lighting made it hard to read, but the conversation at the table next to me was entertaining enough, looping from modern psycho-analysis, to books on philosophy (Nietzsche in particular), to film (Elizabeth for chrissakes!), to HBO's new series, "Tell Me that You Love Me." The party seemed tweedy, city-intellectual, professorial, with a dollop of Woody Allen. I wish the salad had been half as interesting, although I know I will return to Nichols in spite of that dish's ordinariness.

I'm enjoying this, the foray and the forage. 

Crowded House

Right out of college, I landed my first book publishing job. It was far from glamorous. I was a college textbook sales representative, a "traveler." (Sounds like the Tinkers, almost.)

But in the big-ass, ten-day, corporate training, we RCGs, Recent College Grads, bonded. It made sense. Most of us were used to a tight circle of friends in college. Once graduated (or "granulated," as I like to say - I know I picked that up from someone along the way), many of we - okay, I - felt lost, adrift.

Those training sessions (editor after editor explaining book after book, sales managers declaiming Features! Advantages! Benefits!) made our eyes cross. We were used to taking drugs (okay I was), staying up, cramming for exams or papers, and hammering down to the city to hit Studio or Xenon or Mudd Club (or even Crisco Disco) and staying up for three days together.

After college, that tightly-knot group dispersed. A vast change. The ground shifted beneath my feet, and it was not the subway.

Substitute corporate training. Or a long way around to tell the story of my new best friend. She was from Southern California, and could not be more different than the snobby little New Yorker that I was (and oh, I've changed so much).

We were roomed together. I know the reason now why we became my friends (despite my air of superiority). She was open and kind, an all-around great gal. We laughed our asses off over Maalox one night - I cannot remember now why. But more important, we were music nuts. We loved music, loved live music, contemporary, cutting-edge music. Heck-fire (her words), her boyfriend was a musician, worked at KROQ, the "new music" station, the sine qua non of cool, in Los Angeles.

She turned me on to Split Enz, a new wave band from New Zealand.

A few months later, I visited her in the greater Los Angeles area (my family passed through California when we moved back to the States after living in Okinawa five years during the Viet Nam war...) for the first time. She lived in Long Beach, but we did everything I could have imagined. And we went to see/hear a lot of live music. We were - there's only one way to say it - music whores.

Pylon at The Pink (or was it The Roxy?).

A Flock of Seagulls opening for Squeeze at some place in LA - open air concrete seating like a Greco-Roman coliseum, but not the Hollywood Bowl, maybe a site on one of the area college campuses.

Split Enz opening for Elvis Costello in Irvine (I think - maybe I dreamed that when we ate mushrooms and went to see Blade Runner at the local movie house).

Which brings me to Neil Finn. Neil and Tim Finn, the brothers that fronted Split Enz. (Trust, all this was better than Human League, though by then, "Don't You Want Me," had opened the flood gates.)

Split Enz split up (sort of) and re-formed as Crowded House. Huge: "Don't Dream It's Over."

And now, kaboom. Crowded House has reformed, now in the summer of 2007. Their brand new disk dropped today. They have a new single. It's getting airplay out here, on the East End of Long Island on WEHM, the station that is so similar to the one-stop shop for all New York New Wave back in the early 80s. My god, that station played Depeche Mode into the ground. I have to believe that Depeche Mode succeeded in the States, in part, because of that station. Goth kids in Nassau and Suffolk, a million years before Columbine, just not shooting each other.

But heck-fire, Crowded House is on deck to play live at The Beacon in NYC on August 8. That's less than a month from now. Do I have the stones to get tix and go?

I picked up two Neil Finn disks when I lived in Boulder. One All, and 7 Worlds Collide, the latter of which features Eddie Vedder, Johnnie Marr (The Smiths killer guitar-player), and Radiohead's Phil Selway. I have been playing both almost incessantly for a couple of months - driving around out here in my car.

I think it's amazing. I listen to "Wherever You Are," almost once a day.

(Oh, and I think Modest Mouse sounds like <but may not be the new> Lloyd Cole, or XTC, even, while I'm at it.)

Persiflage

A snippet of light conversation from last night, after at least one too many glasses of wine:

"I don't want to talk about tennis," he said.

"Then what do you want to talk about? Do you...read?"

"No, not much. I'm a simple guy. But, we could make out for, like, forty-five minutes."

"What, what, what what, what?"

(Why did I sound like Jennifer Anniston just then, I thought, in that almost unwatchable film, The Break-Up? Mortified, face gone scarlet.)

"What?"

"I just wanted to stop that big intelligence of yours..."

C'mon, Eraser.

The Real Mikhail

The whirlwind. The bull in a china shop. The non-stop chatter, the question after question, the endless phone calls. The almost impenetrable accent. The incessant need for instant gratification. The clothes, the books and papers, the light-speed topic-by-topic change, delivered breathlessly in the ceaseless, life-and-death sounding monologue.

He sucks the air out of any room, all six feet-plus of my dear friend, whom I call "The Mad White Russian," one among the litany of phrases and names I use to describe him.

Also: The generosity, the bottles of champagne, that big ole romantic heart, the sensuous love of art and antiquity, the sweetness, the intellect, the passion and curiosity, the friendship we've shared over the years.

I adore him in segments, or intervals: The various visits we have shared together, from New York, to San Francisco. to Paris. More time than that, and I would explode - or pass out.

I expect that after the last three days, a visit to Moscow will feature at some point in my future. And Surfer Girl's too. You see, he brought a friend, and I am not kidding, the fellow is a sausage magnate. Writing those two words, even if they describe one of his actual businesses, makes me chuckle. He also owns Muscovite restaurants and a bookstore chain (!). All that and he seems to be a genuinely good guy. Yes, I sensed a little energy between Surfer Girl and him, sausages notwithstanding.

The Russians have threatened to return to the city - for a more substantial stay. Right on, I say. And maybe we'll all be together for a week in the East End this summer. We'll see how and what may unfold.

Professional Bad Influence

P.B.I.

The PBI crew included, in rough order: Dushan and Henry (the alchemical bartender-owners of Employees Only), Surfer Girl and her motorcycle-racing gal-pal, Liz Taylor Jr., and later, GV-Wonder, who stepped in as Savior, once again.

Maybe my biochemistry had shifted over the last few weeks. The wicked cold inclined me to stay inside. I hadn't been out on my town in a few weeks, much less tossing back the cocktails. Some days I barely got out of my flannel jammies.

The weather warmed for two whole days, and Surfer Girl made the call: (last) Monday night at EO.

It had to be that we hadn't seen each other in too long a while, or so it felt. By the time I walked in to EO, the champagne was flowing. I had a flute in my hand almost before I took off my jacket.

Chit-chat, catch-up. Some minutes later, Dushan fixed his stare on me and announced, "I am going to get you drunk."

Now then. When one of Manhattan's best-known bartenders throws down a statement like that, you know you are in for it. It turned out that I was doomed.

Many mini-dramas occurred during the course of the evening, down at our end of the bar. Someone took a punch to the solar plexus - although I saw no such thing. Some young fellow pulled up his t-shirt, and I (think?) we petted his pretty man-fur. Someone else wound up with a bottle of wine in her handbag.

Outside, a big-rig trailer had tried to make a turn from Christopher Street onto Hudson, and got the back wheels wedged into a pile of curbside-plowed, frozen snow. I think he side-swiped a parked car or two. A police car was locked in just behind, lights flashing. That truck driver was in for one helluva long night. He looked miserable, sitting up in his cab.

I saw all this because Henry told me to have a look, and I realized just then, that I needed air.

From there, I went straight to hell. I couldn't maintain a vertical position. The world was tilting madly. I managed to get back inside EO, asked for water, sat down, and my head dropped, sinking lower, and lower still, into a space that felt like big fluffy pillows.

GV-Wonder and Liz Taylor took note, closed the tab, and got me out of there. Apparently, the rest of our crew had long departed, and I had zero idea of the hour.

GV-Wonder took me into a cab, directed us to my address. I felt very small, curling tinier by the minute, until we reached my block. I nearly fell out of the cab onto the wet street, but somehow righted myself (despite the aforementioned vertical challenge), then leaned forward and vomited - twice - into another curbside, frozen-plowed, snow bank.

GV-Wonder got me upstairs. I made straight for my bed (strange, no spins), and he wound up on the sofa, bless his heart.

I lost all of the next day, Tuesday. I will never get it back. It's gone, vanished - although we did go and watch the film, Babel. (Wow. How?)

GV-Wonder remarked, "I have known you for over twelve years, and I have never seen you that drunk."

Lovely.

I felt eerily washed out the rest of this week, my thinking skills a tad awry. I'm coming back in-line or online, not sure, just in time for the frivolities associated with the ubiquitous film awards pending this weekend: first the Indys, then tomorrow the monsters.

Perhaps I can convince myself that sparkling water is an acceptable alternative for those other golden kind of bubbles. I'm not ready to dive back into the deep end again - just yet.   

Smart Remark

We are in a deep freeze. For any doubters, winter has hit the city. We are smack in the middle of the annual sub-twenty-degrees Fahrenheit spell that we always get, even when we think we won't.

Last Friday was not so cold, but windy and rainy in advance of this bloody, frigid front.

A hodgepodge gaggle descended on our favorite corner table at Employees Only. I had something called a Grand Fashioned, an old-fashioned made with Grand Marnier and muddled blood oranges. I took no time at all convincing myself that munching on the fruit was healthy, all that Vitamin C, you know.

Anyhow, after a few hours, a smaller group of us toddled off to the new Frederick's outpost, at the location formerly known as Bivio, in the West Village. It took no time at all to realize that I had left the sublime for the ridiculous, and had Liz Taylor Jr. and CeeCee not persuaded me to join, I would not have left the lively sanctuary of EO.

I should heed my own advice about going out, in the winter, on the weekend - unless I am in a tried-and true, reliable, locals-mostly spot.

Liz warned me that getting to the bathroom would be a challenge. It was more like Mrs. PacMan.

The line at the communal all-gender bathrooms proved to be an exercise in discomfort, and not because I had to "go" so badly. The crowd in and waiting for available toilets was horrific. First two Euro-wannabe models were primping forever in front of the mirrors, causing visible irritation to one female customer.

That customer's phone rang, and in that nasal-toned accent most prolific in the Five Towns, turned and asked me(!), "Where are we?"

"Where we are?" I asked, not sure if she was attempting an insult at the primpers.

I pressed myself against the wall, in an attempt to back as far away as possible. I don't like to chit chat with people when I am waiting in line to use the facilities. Ever.

"Ye-ah."

"We're at Hudson and Horatio." The timbre of my voice, I know, tends toward a lower register (and I am a nonsmoker).

"Where?"

That sounded like "Whe-ah."

"Hudson and Horatio," I repeated and looked at her.

She babbled the intersection into her phone. "You know, neah the Meat Packing. A little south of Fawteenth Street. Fawteenth!"

Then, the fellow next to me, with more product in his hair than I would dream of wearing myself, complained, "What's taking that person so lawng?"

He pointed at the closed bathroom door. It had been closed for not more than three minutes, but I had to agree. It felt like an hour.

I refused to comment and dropped my gaze to the floor.

"What," this fellow continued. "Does he think he's in his apahtment or somethin'?"

Now, I had no idea if the person occupying the bathroom was male or female, and I didn't care. At that point, I wanted to do my business as fast as possible and return to my friends at the bar.

I turned and said, "I'm sure he can't hear you."

The guy looked surprised. I stared straight ahead. The second bathroom opened, I got in and got out fast.

Back at the bar, I told Liz, "You were right. What a nightmare. Who are these people?"

"What?" CeeCee asked.

"Look at the crowd. It's like that wretched place in East Hampton. You know, Saracen."

CeeCee compared it to another such spot, whose name I cannot remember right now.

"Ladies, I'm out." It had stopped raining.

Good god. Are we snobs. Good thing.

Hit and Run

I saw this happen with my own two eyes.

Last Saturday night, too early into Sunday morning, close to four a.m., I saw a person get run over. And the perpetrator car, or rather, the typical, too-big SUV raced away down the street - my street.

True, I had been out drinking glass after glass of champagne, celebrating a friend's birthday, from Buddha Bar (good food and service, lousy management, very suburban crowd on the weekend) to Double Seven (its last weekend before it reopens in its new location in about two months).

My feet were killing me. My big toes throbbed, and I was desperate to disrobe and crawl into bed. I was downing about a quart of water, plus aspirin and antihistamine, when I heard the ruckus. I looked out the window to see a group of club-stragglers, drunk and staggering, yelling and screaming - like they do almost every weekend.

In the last two years, a handful of third-tier "lounge" clubs have opened nearby. Around four in the morning, drunk (and too often belligerent) patrons stumble around the corner to the nearest garage, where they have parked their over-sized, ridiculous vehicles.

Yes, it would seem as though, despite that most cannot see straight, they get into cars and drive from wherever they came in the first place.

The garage also houses a weekend flea market, so two levels of the place are filled with what generally looks like trash-for-sale. It looks like the purveyors, if they can be called that, ransack dilapidated homes in run-down, former steel mill towns in eastern Pennsylvania, and drive them to my street, in an attempt to sell them at orders of magnitude more than they are worth. I am astonished every weekend that people (it seems that many are western European, for all the nattering of languages I overhear) continue to patronize these junk-ware booths. Warhol is long-gone already.

Anyhow, the flea market retains an off-duty policeman to stand at one of the garage doors, or so I have been told.

Back to the drunk fight. Two women were screaming in high-pitched tones. Lots of "muthafuckas," the only discernible word to travel up six stories.

I noticed that one fellow may have been brandishing what looked like a shiny silver pipe. Then, I saw another fellow lay down in front of (a non-flea market entry-driveway) one of the garage entry ways.

He was on on his back, spread-eagled, on a slight angle, his legs extended into the center of the driveway.

Why was he laying there? Did he get whacked on the head by the guy with the pipe? Or was he the guy with the pipe? Did he just pass out cold? Or was he just playing an over-dramatic prank?

No one moved to get him up or out of the way. Time slowed.

Then, a huge SUV barreled down out of the garage, and bump-bump, drove right over this guy's legs. The SUV veered hard to the left and sped west down the street. Away.

I gasped, reached for my phone and dialed 911. The operator picked up fast, and as I described what happened, informed me that police were coming. In fact, I was not off the phone before police arrived, then an FDNY ambulance, more cop cars, all first-responders.

I hung up and stared down in horror.

Some woman shrieked that the SUV had Delaware tags. Who knows - the car was gone.

The cops ran up into the garage, I presume to grill the attendant about the hit-and-run vehicle. Other cops bent down to the guy on the ground, and what felt like forever, finally wrapped his legs in some kind of stabilizing rods, his head in one of those skull braces. They lifted him onto a gurney, into the ambulance, and raced off.

Pretty much that was it. Cops interviews bystanders, nothing much more.

I wonder why none of the onlookers did nothing to move that guy from out of the driveway.

I felt shaken. I could not sleep, indeed, I shivered hours after. Much later Sunday, exhausted and aching, I did not move off the sofa. My mind replayed the scene over and over.

Yesterday, I tried to search NYC-Manhattan police reports, news police blotters, anything. I could not find a word about the incident.

I often kid that (despite the obnoxious noise from these bottom-feeding clubs) we don't get real crime on my street. Since Law and Order films episodes down here so often, I say that we have fake crime on this street.

But I don't know what to make of this event.   

Updates

I've added a couple of new Photo Albums, round-ups from 2006. I know a few folks have already perused them, given the stat-counters associated here. See the sidebar. Enjoy.

And I figured I'd get a head-start on 2007, given at least one amusing night on the town.

May 2007 bring us closer to the realization of our dreams.

Cheers.