Heading out in the afternoon

Had my root canal this morning and headed straight to Avis for the car, a little woozy from painkillers and valium but certainly should be fine once skytrain drops me at Avis.

A nice black Ford Fusion, brand new, quite nice, this will be its first trip.

Heavy traffic on the #1, my phone beeped eventually that there was an accident ahead, I got off the highway and headed south, signs for the truck border crossing, saw that there was zero line (weird) so decided to cross the border, back to the USSA! (and yes border guy, I am travelling ALONE)

I like central Washington a lot, kinda backwoodsy and off the grid, headed east until the start of the Cascade Scenic Loop, Hwy-20, this is a drive I have wanted to take for a long time, supposedly gorgeous, kept heading east.

Road Trip 2015 – Mini

Unfortunate things have left me with five days off and nothing to do, I am feeling a need to get out of town, no destination just a nice summer drive.

Unfortunate Things:
1. Forest fire activity has quashed a planned weekend camping trip with friends.
2. Have a car already rented for said camping trip, too late to cancel.
3. Have a dentist phobia and a tooth abscess, root canal booked for tomorrow, stressing.
4. Had eye surgery a couple years back that is now causing some vision weirdness and a sudden need for new, expensive eyewear, stressing.

NYC – Various

The Donut Plant, best I’ve ever had, went back for seconds. The big square coconut one in particular is tongue remappingly good.

Everyone is NYC gets their own sandwich shop. The guys working there got a big enough kick outta me that they called the manager, who told them my sandwich was free.

This gondola runs from Manhatten to Roosevelt Island, possibly the only gondola in the world that is part of a city transit system, your subway pass gets you on.

NYC – Transit Museum

In heaven at the NYC Transit Museum, the museum is an entire old subway station that’s been converted into a gorgeous space where you can climb onto different subway cars from each generation, right back to the original fire-hazard wooden subway cars.

I spent way too much time here, the aspergersy part of my brain was especially triggered by the examples of each generation of turnstile, COLLECT EM ALL!

NYC – Comedy Cellar

Comedy Cellar!

One of the shrines of comedy, on any given night your chances of randomly seeing awesome comedians are better here than any other club in the world, no need to check the lineup, just go. $5 or $10 tops.

I got on the waiting list, missed the first couple shows but got in for the 12:30, was seated randomly with this couple from Brazil who are in town for a week just to see a bunch of comedy, they are awesome, we share wings and laughs.

Here was tonight’s lineup, amazing, every one of them is someone I know and like, Sheng Wang was sharp, Jeff Ross and Dave Attell went on together and basically just fucked around for an hour roasting the crowd, including me, it was about 2:30am by this point.

Sheng Wang
Mark Normand
Joe Liste
Joe Mande
Jeff Ross
Dave Attell

After the show Jeff and Dave hung out on the steps and chatted with everyone, I had a nice talk with Dave, really really cool.

And yup, if you were wondering, the Comedy Cellar is the club Louie is heading into during the opening credits of Louie.

Also found the pizza place where Louie gets his slice from the opening, it’s around the corner about a block away.

NYC – Day 2

Out the door bright and early and down into the subway, the subway is as awesome as I hoped but am already regretting getting a hotel 15 minutes walk away from the closest station, walking is a limited resource.

Breakfast at Barney Greengrass “The Sturgeon King of Manhatten”, lox and bagel, creamiest cheese.

Grand Central is impressive, level after level underground leading to dozens of platforms for subway and light rail and trains, a sign that says “TURN LEFT FOR PLATFORMS 79 – 111, A, B, 5, 7, 9, N, K TRAINS, LI RAIL” seems very New York scale.

Yes, that IS the original Winnie and Eeyore and Tigger and Rabbit that A.A. Milne gave to Christopher Robin and later made up stories about. They live in a glass box in the basement of the central library.

That’s the Gem Spa, an all-night odds and ends store with a soda counter that claims to be origin of the egg cream, stopped in for one and then went into a random bar around the corner to pee, asked the bartender for a pint of their cheapest draft, paid and lined up for the bathroom, a guy butted in front and snagged my spot, when he left he apologized and we shook. I peed and was headed out the door when the bartender yelled at me, I turned around and there, next to my untouched glass of cheap beer was a second glass of cheap beer. The bartender said it was from my friend. Mr bathroom butt-in apologized again and invited me to his table, amazing, sat with these guys and drank the two worst beers of my life but had a great time.

NYC – Flying in for the Halal Cart

My flight from Toronto went a bit sideways, couldn’t land at LaGuardia due to winds, couldn’t land at JFK as it was now too busy, circled an hour and finally landed in Newark only to learn Homeland Security wouldn’t allow us to deplane because New Jersey was not in our flight plan…

Refueled and circled the NY airports for another hour, finally managed a rough landing in the wind at LaGuardia. The one hour flight took six, got to the Comfort Inn around 11pm, figured out that the reason the room was so cheap is that it’s a basement room with no windows, fine with me as it’s silent down here.

Dropped my stuff and headed out for my number one priority of the day: Halal Guys!

I’ve made a recipe for Halal Chicken & Rice for a decade that I was told came from this cart on 53rd. The guys working there were great, ensured me that it’s not their recipe and gave me tastings of different things to prove it. Got a massive portion of chicken and rice and pita and salad for $7 and ate it sitting on the Time’s Square LOVE sign with the halal guys grinning at me, walked around a while and crashed in bed around 3.

Cleveland

Alan Freed was a Cleveland DJ when he first started using the term Rock and Roll on the radio, therefore the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is located there. I spent easily half a day here, saw Janis Joplin’s Porsche, the piano and most of the equipment from Sun Studios in Memphis, the original lyric sheets from tons of classic songs, so much stuff. Why the hell are The Cars not in the Hall of Fame?

Cleveland

Just around the corner a bit from the Superman house is this house, the house from A Christmas Story “You’ll shoot your eye out!” etc. The house across the street from it is a gift shop and museum about the movie and you can tour the house but it was too early when I visited so this pic is all I got.

Detroit, Tom’s Tavern

Evening in Detroit, I first went to an old Jazz bar, the Keyboard Lounge, (they say the oldest in the world) to hear The Blackbyrds, the club was cool but everyone was dressed way up and it was packed tight and loud, I did not fit in with the crowd in any way at all but everyone was friendly and smiley just the same. I am usually fine travelling alone and being alone in a quiet bar is totally fine, alone in a loud nightclub however is the most depressing thing I can think of so I moved on.

Back in the car I googled “quiet bar detroit” and was directed to Tom’s Tavern, I drove there and the place was totally dark with one car in the lot, I went around the block a time or two and finally parked in the snowy lot next to the other car. I couldn’t even see how to enter, walked around the outside a few times and tentatively pushed on the wooden cellar door after some serious summoning of nerves.

Down three steps into an old basement I saw an empty, incredibly rundown bar with two old guys at one table. I quietly squeaked “Are you open?”, the man in the blue shirt replied “Well, I guess we are now, sit down”.

I sat at the bar and ordered a rum and coke from the man in the blue shirt, Bob “I’m not a bartender!”. Bob is amazing, he spent 30 years as a local journalist and now helps his friend who owns Tom’s out with running the place. Bob gave me the century plus history of the tavern and told me about his history with the city over a few more drinks.

There weren’t any other customers at this point, Bob asked if I was hungry, I said I was and he replied that they don’t have a food license but if I wanted he could heat me up a can of chunky soup for free, how awesome that? Soup was great.

A few regulars started to trickle in around 10:30 and eventually there were 6-8 people there telling me about the city and asking why I was there while taking turns picking from the jukebox.

I left around midnight after sobering up enough to drive, this has been one of the best evenings in years, possibly the best evening with only strangers that I can ever remember. If you end up in Detroit for any reason I cannot recommend highly enough taking time to visit Tom’s, it is unlike anything you have been to before.