My Adventures In New York
Seeing as it's been over a month since my New York trips, I think it's time to write about them, even though I'm probably not going to want to remember much of the first one. However, I did get a few good experiences out of it. My second trip, however, had nothing BUT good. So this should be an interesting entry.
Although it had been over a year since my last visit to the Big Apple, I had still been dreading the trip. This was entirely because I didn't ever want to see or talk to Steve again, and here I was going to stay with him for almost a whole week. I took along "Memoirs of a Geisha" to read (which, it turns out, proved to be an effective way to keep from interacting with Steve) and boarded my plane late Monday morning. The flight was about an hour and fifteen minutes. When I arrived in New Jersey, I met with Steve at the airport and we drove into New York. We would be staying with some relatives of his in Queens. However, Steve got his directions wrong, so when we reached more than halfway to the house by the long route he decided to go all the way back to the beginning so we could take the short one. We thus ended up walking through the rain for about twenty minutes, and I was not pleased. On the bright side, the aforementioned relatives were very nice and set up an air mattress for us. It turns out Steve was okay to sleep with except in the mornings, when he would wake up and get overly touchy feely and roll over to put his arm over me - or up my shirt. Which got me really uncomfortable really fast. I put a stop to it.
As far as what we did in the city, there's not much to tell. Because Steve had failed to plan anything, we wandered around Manhattan for days, which got old quickly. You'd think he would at least have had some SUGGESTIONS. But he really didn't. What ticked me off in this regard was that he seemed to blame HIS lack of ideas on ME. So we pretty much went in and out of various stores. We tried to get into tapings of "The Colbert Report" and "The Daily Show," but both of these failed; the "Report" wasn't taping that week, and Steve took forever to get ready so by the time we finally arrived at "The Daily Show" we were stuck in the back of the line. Steve had ordered tickets, but since they were free it was pretty much a first-come-first-served thing once you arrived at the studio. And since we arrived last, we didn't get any. We went to go see two moves, "Brokeback Mountain" and "King Kong," to pass the time a few nights. The main reason for the trip, though, was to see "Monty Python's Spamalot." Not even THIS turned out well, again because of Steve's annoyingly bad sense of direction. We ended up arriving at the theatre fifteen minutes late and missing the first few scenes. Luckily, the rest of the musical was incredible and I absolutely loved it. I didn't hear Steve laugh once, but I shouldn't have expected him to, given that he has the worst sense of humor out of any person I know. After the show was over I bought a T-shirt and program for souvenirs and we went back to the apartment in Queens. The rest of the trip was fairly nondescript and I was glad to leave on Friday morning.
The following week school began, and it was during this time that I decided the time had come to sever my connections with Steve. I told him I was no longer interested in communicating, and as a result I had to deal with an annoyingly long phone call during which I did almost no talking - I had already said what I had to say. I deleted him as a friend from Facebook and Myspace, erased his number from my cell phone, and deleted his contact information on my computer. I felt really good after doing all of that, because now I could move on and never have to deal with him and his bullshit drama ever again.
That weekend the Jazz Ensemble went to New York to play at Dizzy's Club in Lincoln Center. I rode in the van with Steve Haines, Sal Mascali, Kenny Butler, John Davis, Mark Shoun, and Brandon Bullard. Brandon Tesh joined us on the way back. The trip was entertaining but long. Most of it consisted of conversation and listening to music, with the exception of the times when the guys decided to moon the other van. When we arrived at the hotel, I discovered I was rooming with Gray Hackelman, the bass player. Since this was what I had hoped for, I was pleased with the arrangement. That night we went to the Village Vanguard, perhaps the most famous jazz club in the world, where guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel was playing. It was an amazing performance. Rosenwinkel and his band rattled off fiery solo after fiery solo, and at one point the pianist doubled what he was playing on piano and Fender Rhodes. We went back to the hotel happy.
The next day consisted mainly of getting ready for that night's performance. At around two in the afternoon we went to Lincoln Center to do our sound check. First we got to watch the WDR Big Band, from Cologne, Germany, do their check. I wasn't impressed. They played far too loud, the members arrived late, and they walked all over their director, who eventually just gave up trying to talk to them. Steve later told us he was sorry we had to see such a display of unprofessionalism. After our sound check we had a brief tour of the Center and then went to go eat at a little place called The Flame. I got a pizza burger, which was very good. After eating I went back with a few others to Lincoln Center to get ready for the performance. During the whole day a vague sense of dread had been building inside me, but it wasn't nerves. It was that I might have to see Steve again; when we had still been talking he had said he would come. When the hour finally rolled around and we took the stage, I saw that Steve wasn't in the audience. Relieved, I was able to fully enjoy myself. We played amazingly - there will minimal mistakes and the audience loved us. Below I have posted the set list for the sake of posterity.
01. Rockin' In Rhythm
02. Jeep's Blues
03. Vision
04. To You
05. Canada's Ocean Playground
06. The Razor's Edge
07. Mental Images
08. I Got Rhythm
After the set was over Steve proprosed a "Jazz Frenzy." Those of us who wanted to would stay and watch the WDR Big Band's set, then head over to the Vanguard to see the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, then head over to another club down the street called Small's to see a man whose name escapes me, and then finally go to Harlem to take part in a jam session hosted by pianist Chip Crawford. I decided I would watch the WDR and the VJO but not the other two, the reason being I would have to get up early the next morning to drive back to Greensboro. I was, again, not particularly impressed with the WDR. They played incredibly loud (we were told later the audience members kept requesting the sound people to turn them down), and their selection of music consisted almost entirely of cheesy '70s funk, or, as Steve described it, "Starsky & Hutch music." During the performance, Steve leaned down to me and told me he had a question, but it was outside the box of normal conversation so we didn't have to talk about it. Immediately I was curious, but also a bit nervous. What followed was a series of questions about my homosexuality, such as "Is it difficult?," "When did you know?," etc. Once the initial nervousness was gone, I enjoyed the conversation.
After the WDR finished played I rushed back to the hotel with a couple other band members to change and head to the Vanguard. When we got there I discovered I didn't have enough cash to get in and had to go find an ATM. After I had done this, I went back down and found a good deal of the band there. I had missed either the first or first two numbers of the set, but it was alright because the VJO blew the WDR out of the water. During the set Dick Oatts, the lead alto player, mysteriously vanished and was replaced by a guy who bore a remarkable physical resemblance to Harry Connick, Jr. After a great performance of "The Little Pixie" the set ended and we left.
The trip back home was more of the same, but I spent more time listening to music. All the time we were driving back my iPod threatened to go dead (I had brought the battery, thinking myself clever, but forgot the cord needed to plug the iPod into it), but it never did. After we got back I grabbed my stuff and headed back to the dorm. All in all, I had more fun those two days than I did in an entire week with Steve. So ends Part I of my three-part update. The second part: the Miles Davis Alumni Jazz Festival. The third part: the Electric Six concert in Carrboro I went to with David Allgood. Stay tuned!
Although it had been over a year since my last visit to the Big Apple, I had still been dreading the trip. This was entirely because I didn't ever want to see or talk to Steve again, and here I was going to stay with him for almost a whole week. I took along "Memoirs of a Geisha" to read (which, it turns out, proved to be an effective way to keep from interacting with Steve) and boarded my plane late Monday morning. The flight was about an hour and fifteen minutes. When I arrived in New Jersey, I met with Steve at the airport and we drove into New York. We would be staying with some relatives of his in Queens. However, Steve got his directions wrong, so when we reached more than halfway to the house by the long route he decided to go all the way back to the beginning so we could take the short one. We thus ended up walking through the rain for about twenty minutes, and I was not pleased. On the bright side, the aforementioned relatives were very nice and set up an air mattress for us. It turns out Steve was okay to sleep with except in the mornings, when he would wake up and get overly touchy feely and roll over to put his arm over me - or up my shirt. Which got me really uncomfortable really fast. I put a stop to it.
As far as what we did in the city, there's not much to tell. Because Steve had failed to plan anything, we wandered around Manhattan for days, which got old quickly. You'd think he would at least have had some SUGGESTIONS. But he really didn't. What ticked me off in this regard was that he seemed to blame HIS lack of ideas on ME. So we pretty much went in and out of various stores. We tried to get into tapings of "The Colbert Report" and "The Daily Show," but both of these failed; the "Report" wasn't taping that week, and Steve took forever to get ready so by the time we finally arrived at "The Daily Show" we were stuck in the back of the line. Steve had ordered tickets, but since they were free it was pretty much a first-come-first-served thing once you arrived at the studio. And since we arrived last, we didn't get any. We went to go see two moves, "Brokeback Mountain" and "King Kong," to pass the time a few nights. The main reason for the trip, though, was to see "Monty Python's Spamalot." Not even THIS turned out well, again because of Steve's annoyingly bad sense of direction. We ended up arriving at the theatre fifteen minutes late and missing the first few scenes. Luckily, the rest of the musical was incredible and I absolutely loved it. I didn't hear Steve laugh once, but I shouldn't have expected him to, given that he has the worst sense of humor out of any person I know. After the show was over I bought a T-shirt and program for souvenirs and we went back to the apartment in Queens. The rest of the trip was fairly nondescript and I was glad to leave on Friday morning.
The following week school began, and it was during this time that I decided the time had come to sever my connections with Steve. I told him I was no longer interested in communicating, and as a result I had to deal with an annoyingly long phone call during which I did almost no talking - I had already said what I had to say. I deleted him as a friend from Facebook and Myspace, erased his number from my cell phone, and deleted his contact information on my computer. I felt really good after doing all of that, because now I could move on and never have to deal with him and his bullshit drama ever again.
That weekend the Jazz Ensemble went to New York to play at Dizzy's Club in Lincoln Center. I rode in the van with Steve Haines, Sal Mascali, Kenny Butler, John Davis, Mark Shoun, and Brandon Bullard. Brandon Tesh joined us on the way back. The trip was entertaining but long. Most of it consisted of conversation and listening to music, with the exception of the times when the guys decided to moon the other van. When we arrived at the hotel, I discovered I was rooming with Gray Hackelman, the bass player. Since this was what I had hoped for, I was pleased with the arrangement. That night we went to the Village Vanguard, perhaps the most famous jazz club in the world, where guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel was playing. It was an amazing performance. Rosenwinkel and his band rattled off fiery solo after fiery solo, and at one point the pianist doubled what he was playing on piano and Fender Rhodes. We went back to the hotel happy.
The next day consisted mainly of getting ready for that night's performance. At around two in the afternoon we went to Lincoln Center to do our sound check. First we got to watch the WDR Big Band, from Cologne, Germany, do their check. I wasn't impressed. They played far too loud, the members arrived late, and they walked all over their director, who eventually just gave up trying to talk to them. Steve later told us he was sorry we had to see such a display of unprofessionalism. After our sound check we had a brief tour of the Center and then went to go eat at a little place called The Flame. I got a pizza burger, which was very good. After eating I went back with a few others to Lincoln Center to get ready for the performance. During the whole day a vague sense of dread had been building inside me, but it wasn't nerves. It was that I might have to see Steve again; when we had still been talking he had said he would come. When the hour finally rolled around and we took the stage, I saw that Steve wasn't in the audience. Relieved, I was able to fully enjoy myself. We played amazingly - there will minimal mistakes and the audience loved us. Below I have posted the set list for the sake of posterity.
01. Rockin' In Rhythm
02. Jeep's Blues
03. Vision
04. To You
05. Canada's Ocean Playground
06. The Razor's Edge
07. Mental Images
08. I Got Rhythm
After the set was over Steve proprosed a "Jazz Frenzy." Those of us who wanted to would stay and watch the WDR Big Band's set, then head over to the Vanguard to see the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, then head over to another club down the street called Small's to see a man whose name escapes me, and then finally go to Harlem to take part in a jam session hosted by pianist Chip Crawford. I decided I would watch the WDR and the VJO but not the other two, the reason being I would have to get up early the next morning to drive back to Greensboro. I was, again, not particularly impressed with the WDR. They played incredibly loud (we were told later the audience members kept requesting the sound people to turn them down), and their selection of music consisted almost entirely of cheesy '70s funk, or, as Steve described it, "Starsky & Hutch music." During the performance, Steve leaned down to me and told me he had a question, but it was outside the box of normal conversation so we didn't have to talk about it. Immediately I was curious, but also a bit nervous. What followed was a series of questions about my homosexuality, such as "Is it difficult?," "When did you know?," etc. Once the initial nervousness was gone, I enjoyed the conversation.
After the WDR finished played I rushed back to the hotel with a couple other band members to change and head to the Vanguard. When we got there I discovered I didn't have enough cash to get in and had to go find an ATM. After I had done this, I went back down and found a good deal of the band there. I had missed either the first or first two numbers of the set, but it was alright because the VJO blew the WDR out of the water. During the set Dick Oatts, the lead alto player, mysteriously vanished and was replaced by a guy who bore a remarkable physical resemblance to Harry Connick, Jr. After a great performance of "The Little Pixie" the set ended and we left.
The trip back home was more of the same, but I spent more time listening to music. All the time we were driving back my iPod threatened to go dead (I had brought the battery, thinking myself clever, but forgot the cord needed to plug the iPod into it), but it never did. After we got back I grabbed my stuff and headed back to the dorm. All in all, I had more fun those two days than I did in an entire week with Steve. So ends Part I of my three-part update. The second part: the Miles Davis Alumni Jazz Festival. The third part: the Electric Six concert in Carrboro I went to with David Allgood. Stay tuned!