Monday 13 July 2009

Sunday 12 July 2009

A Saturday Night In In The City

Well, the last couple of days have been quite interesting to say the least. 

Wednesday night found me acting like a teenager again on Facebook talking to TA and listening to more of the playlist she sent me. We get on famously in cyber land and I was certain that the following night at The Anchor would prove that we get on well in reality too. I almost fell asleep at my desk whilst listening to one of her favourite songs waiting for her to come back from getting into her PJs. How I miss the days of late night MSN chats.

Thursday was such a fricking great day. The first good part of it was the lack of a hangover! During my runs of going out I forget how glorious it is to wander to work feeling fresh and ready for the day ahead. I was excited today as I knew I was making a trip up to Rockerfeller Center to spy on the Sci Fi Channel (now SyFy) event happening up there. The office was quiet, with half the team in Phili for the Piticure so we chilled and did some work. Myself, fellow intern IH and new boy on the block PP had a good creative meeting and went over a pitch and started to get our heads around a new brief that has come in.

Soon it was time for me to trek uptown to the Rockerfeller Center. I ended up going on my own as the others were busy but this was actually a good thing. I got the E train up to 53rd and 5th and gulped as I remembered I had to navigate a HUGE London Underground style escalator to reach the surface. Let me tell you now that I have a fear of heights and of moving stairs so escalators, the big ones, really freak me out! I gripped onto the railing with both hands and leant in a wierd position trying to compose myself all the way up. I made it, but I decided I would walk over to 34th to get the E train back to the office and take in Bryant Park on my way. I walked down to Rockerfeller Center and had a look around the event, it was pretty boring really. I won't go into details as the rest of my day was far more interesting.

So I was walking by Bryant Park snapping my favourite building in the city, The Bank Of America Tower, when I heard a lot of banging and cheering. I wandered into the park and found myself stood behind a large stage where STOMP were playing. I soon clocked the crowd of around 4000 people watching as well. It turned out I had stumbled across Broadway In The Park. Score. I watched the rest of STOMP and some of Avenue Q before deciding it was probably time to get back to the office. What an adventure so far.

When I left the office to head uptown there had been a whole array of lorries along Greene Street right outside our front door so I was pretty sure something was getting filmed around there and wanted to get back and see what was going on. I wasn't dissapointed. When I returned there were crowds of people on the corner of Greene and Prince so I rushed over to check it out. I was peering through the window of a perfume store trying to work out who/what was being filmed and quickly realised I was staring Blake Lively in the eye. Thats right, I got eye contact with a TV star. They were filming Gossip Girl. Blake and Leighton Meester could been seen walking up and down Prince practicing a scene. I joined the hoardes of teenage girls getting snap happy and played paparazzi. When I left the office I decided to take Wooster instead of going straight down Spring and found myself stood in the background of another Gossip Girl shoot. This time it was Leighton and Ed Westwick. I was ordered to cross the road so I stayed and took some more photos. What a celeb packed day I was having!

The night rolled on and I soon found myself taking advantage of the $20 open bar at The Anchor. By 9pm we were all happily drunk and the place began to fill up. TA arrived with her sister and a friend and we immediately hit it off as I knew we would. By this point we had a free bottle of Grey Goose at our table so I quickly got the three girls nicely drunk for free and we all partied until they left. As far as my hazy memory can recall we held hands for much of the evening and had a couple of kisses. She really is a great girl, and a breath of fresh air.

So Friday was a hard day, I woke up late and rushed into work to find everyone else hungover too! I struggled through the morning and soon found myself heading out with the creatives to check out a car my creative director might be buying. Walking back to the office I spotted a tshirt on a street stall that read I HATE MAYO! Now, TA and I share a love of ketchup and have had some good convos about this, and I discovered that she hates Mayo. This t shirt was too good to be true and I had to buy it for her, even though I had only known her a week. As I was paying the drugged up stall lady I noticed another t shirt which ready I LOVE KETCHUP! Once again I had to impulse buy. Is it cute or disturbing to buy a girl you barely know two random t shirts?! TA seemed to think it was cute! Phew! I get to give them to her tomorrow (Sunday) on our date.

Friday night started late, we went to Joshua Tree and ended up at Phebes. It was not very eventful. 

It has just turned Sunday morning now. I have stayed in my room all day today feeling hungover and bunged up with a cold. Tomorrow I'm taking TA to Central Park Zoo, or to a movie and for food if the weather is bad! It is actually the first real date I think I have ever been on, and I'm a little bit nervous if I'm honest. But I'm sure it will be fine as I won't be hungover and I know we have so much to talk about! And she will be reveling from the excitement of her two new t shirts. I will tell you about the date tomorrow once it has happened.

TA and I have been texting and talking non stop all week and last night we had a little bit of a heart to heart. She likes me, I like her and we both think each other is a breath of fresh air and something a bit special. I could be wrong here but I see things maybe blooming with this girl. I wonder if I will be right about this one?!

Thursday 9 July 2009

A Summary Of An Eventful Week And A Bit Continued...

So the 4th July had arrived. I had been in the states, Florida to be exact, a couple years ago for 4th July but it was nothing compared to the 4th in New York.

So the day got off to a bad start - I was hungover and unwell. I finally got out of the room around 3pm and went up and met up with K and G and their french friend EL. We wandered up to Columbus Circle and made our way into central park. Here we came across all manner of madness, most notably a crazy cool skating ring with a DJ and some totally insane characters and people just dancing around. We perched on a hill and settled down for a while. It was nice and chilled and gave me a chance to get to know K and G better. We walked further into the park and got to the lake and watched people in boats which was pretty funny! We then went back to the Hotel where I met H's sister JE properly, I had met her earlier but was too ill to talk to her properly. They were pregaming but I was off the drink for now. We made out way over to the fireworks display on the Hudson. We sat down on 29th and 12th and waited almost 2 hours for the show to start - it did at 9.20 and was truely awesome! After they were finished we headed back to the hotel and had some drinks before heading out and having a quick drink in Van Diemens and then went to Joshua Tree where we all got drunk and danced the night away to 80s classics! It was a lot of fun but quite uneventful really!

Sunday saw another hang over and another trip up to Central Park where we watched a bunch of cool street performers and wandered around! We made out way out into the Upper East Side and hunted for food before coming back to 34th and 8th and ate at Jimmys BBQ and had a laugh! Garrett was being pretty damn funny but we are all tired. We headed back to the hotel and just chilled out for the rest of the night. I watched a film called Seven Pounds (Will Smith) and thought it was very profound and a bit touching. I then had a shit nights sleep due to roadworks going on outside.

On Monday I worked. I then went and did laundry with B. This turned out to be more eventful than I was expecting as I walked right past a drumming idol of mine - Abe Laboriel Jr - who plays for Paul McCartney amongst others. I was too star stuck to talk to him, and he had headphones in so I did not want to disturb him. I wish I had now. Later I went to see the Carolina girls who are completely nuts, but quite funny when they want to be too! The night came to a close with a mammoth conversation with TA over facebook late into the night exchanging playlists and talking about all kinda of things. I felt 16 all over again but it was great.

Tuesday involved more work and then a kareoke comp at Van Diemens. The Carolina girls were shockingly hammered wayyy to early on, including Miss Texas. I had fun singing all kinds of songs all night including Wonder Wall, Don't Stop Believing, You're The One That I Want, Proclaimers, The Darkness and some others! Myself and U met two girls from Pennsylvania who came in to join the fun, they were a great laugh and I got their numbers down. Doubt we will ever see them again though!

So here we are on Wednesday evening. I had a bad hangover today once again, but had a good two hour creative meeting and helped set up the new Cunning Tumblr page for internal creative content we want to share with the rest of the team. I was also told that a BIG client I did some idea work for in my first couple of weeks REALLY LOVE one of MY ideas and are thinking about going forward with it in Dubai! Woo!!

Big night at The Anchor tomorrow, seeing TA again...I wonder what I will be writing about this time on Friday! Stay well!

Wednesday 8 July 2009

A Summary Of An Eventful Week And A Bit

Ok so since the big wipe out quite a lot has happened, once more. Let me attempt to summerise and shout about the main points before I forget.

So, the plan was to stay off the drink until Thursday...this lasted all of two days as I followed the girls of the New Yorker over to Van Diemens for Kareoke. B, M and U came along for the ride too. Long story short, the girls were hammered early on, I got hammered too with some free drinks, kareoke was cancelled which sucked some what so in the end we went down to Wicked Willies to play beer pong. Miss Texas could not get in, and by this point it was only me, H and J still out, U joined us again a little later. H and J went off to talk to random men to try and get some drinks bought for them, leaving me on my own. I met some Irish guys who I thought lived in the same area as some friends of mine, they diddn't. I then met a lovely bargirl selling jello shots, or which I had a few to keep her chatting for a bit. Her name was Chelsea. I was then asked to play beer pong with some random yanks who needed an extra player so I was happy to get stuck in and not be a loner anymore. I beat them with a little help from U. We headed back at a reasonable time of 2am to the hotel to find Miss Texas sat eating a free meal with an old gentlemen who may have wanted to rape her...we helped her escape but she and J soon ended up back there. I went to bed to later be awoken by Miss Texas and J who forced me to "camp out" on my bedroom floor with them. My back is still in a mood with me now.

On Wednesday I managed to have a well earned night off after a particularily nasty hangover from Tuesdays drinking and lack of sleep.

Thursday brought around an early finish for 4th July, some drinks with the Cunning team at Franellis on Prince and Mercer. After this I changed in the office and went with some work friends to Williamsburg in Brooklyn on the train that goes over the Williamsburg bridge which was cool! We wandered around Brooklyn and went to a Mexican place and had some food and frozen Margeritas! After this I ran to reach the L train back to Manhattan in the rain and soon made it to The Anchor where I found H and B hammered at 8pm. I soon left The Anchor and went back to Franellis and got a drink there with H's friend MW and shared some onion rings. I soon went back to get H and B but found they had gone. Thankfully U had arrived and taken them elsewhere. We ended up at Wicked Willies, got bored and soon moved onto Phebes. Once in here M, B and E joined us and I was still sober. People flitted off into their own things and I wound up hanging around. Soon U had had enough of all the folk more drunk than us and so we got talking to two girls. One of them was particularily lovely, she shall be called TA. We chatted about all sorts for hours, we had so much in common is was great! Loved the same music, she wants to be a writer, studies at NYU (not that we have that in common of course) and was generally a cute, sweet, nice girl who seemed a lot different to the others I have met so far.

Soon people left, first my friends and then hers and it was just the two of us. In the end I walked her home to 14th Street talking about all sorts, including architecture which was very cool! We had a little kiss out on 14th street and she was gone. I went home feeling like I had had a damn good night. I knew I wanted to see her again, and I diddn't have to wait long...

Friday flew by as I slept off a weeks worth of early mornings and late nights! Before I knew it it was midnight and I was stood in G's room sipping on a vodka coke with way too many guys. Myy quote for the evening was "this room is just a varitable array of cultural cock" which with my accent cracked the american boys up! We finally headed out downtown towards The Village Lantern but found it to be dead. Long story short, G lost his phone (but got it back again!) we tried a bar opposite Phebes, but it was $10 a drink so soon enough we ended up at Phebes where I had planned to meet up with TA. I ended up walking straight past her in a wave of being a moron but she grabbed my arm and we got to talking again. She had just had a LOT of money stolen from her purse so I tried to cheer her up with some English humour...I hope it worked. Her friends soon dragged her off to another bar but as she left she turned, grabbed my hand and squeezed it. As I said before, she is too cute!

I have to mention here that TA is studying in London for three months from around the time I get home. She also REALLY likes ketchup with foods you shouldn't really have it with, just like me. Match made in heaven? haha I don't know...time will tell. I have not seen TA again since but we have been texting and talking online a lot which is great, and unusual for these american girls it seems! We shared playlists on Pandora.com and I spat out another classic quote..."I don't let many girls put their playlists on my pandora!" which sounded way ruder than it was intended to! I see TA again this coming Thursday at The Anchor and I'm really looking forward to it!

This post has gotten too long, I will conclude the week with stories from July 4th and Tuesday night just gone. Lovely.

Monday 6 July 2009

The Wipe Out

So, you have read about the nights that lead to what follows, so let me fill you in.

I was woken by H and MJ at 11am Sunday morning and dragged off to do laundry. I felt okay but I was definitely still drunk. I ate lunch with S and J at a little burger bar down 9th Ave and really felt pretty fine. So fine in fact that I joined H, MJ and S on a trip up to Central Park.

As we got off the subway and started walking through the crowded 5th Ave I began to feel a little funny, I sucked it up and carried on my way, not wanting to have to go back. As we neared Central Park I had another odd feeling in my stomach and across my body. I again ignored it and moved on.

We made it a little way into the park and all of a sudden I came over all dizzy and had to grab onto S and sit down. I knew I had to get out of the park and into a cab fast but we were already quite a way into the park. I walked as quickly as I could, feeling truely awful, back to 5th and managed to get a cab. S came back with me to make sure I was alright. The traffic was horrendous and we requested to go down 9th Ave which was just as bad due to the Gay Pride Parade on 5th.

In the cab I couldn't breath, I put my head forward and cringed as my whole body started to get pins and needles. I had no control. My heart was racing and I was panicking. In the end we left the cab and had to walk almost 20 blogs back to the hotel. My hands were spasming out of my control and I kept feeling dizzy. We finally made it to the hotel to my relief and I went to lie down. As I lay there I remembered a story of a bar tender from New Castle who would drink excessively every day and went to Ibiza, caught a virus and as his liver was so damaged could not sort himself out and almost died. His quote was "I best cut back on the drinking then." This story ran through my head as I lay there, I actually thought I might have been dying. I wasn't...I was just incredibly hungover.

I decided I was not going to drink for a week...I went out again on Tuesday, Thursday, Friday Saturday...

The Fourth Night Of Four That Wiped Me Out

By this point I had suffered three intense hangovers, recovered, and done it all again. Tonight saw a group of us pre-gaming in H's room with some vodka and orange juice. The pre-game turned into a bit of a party with a good 12 people in H's room shouting over each other. The plan was simple - get drunk and go to the Coyote Ugly Saloon on 2nd Avenue.

We got the E train to 14th, and then the L to 3rd Ave and walked the rest of the way. The subway ride saw a very drunk B pole dancing and a very drunk KV joining him. Everyone on the train hated us for sure. We got to the saloon and I immediately wanted to leave.

The bar girls were less than hot, the "punters" were mostly over weight, balding, sweaty, scary looking and perverted. We got drunks and settled in to watch the mayhem. KV and the french girls were drunk enough to get up on the bar and gave it their all to get a free shot. An odd gentlemen tried to help the girls (who were all wearing skirts) up onto the bar and soon one of the french girls had to be removed from the bar as she was about to fall off it. She later fell asleep in the street. The girls were awarded with a shot from the bar girl and soon a guy at the other end of the bar was having his clothes ripped off, getting whipped and having a shot spat into his mouth by a bar girl. All very moving, but I have had more fun.

We moved on to try and go to my favourite bar in the city so far, Phebes. We got there, B and E left and after a moment of queing we went round the corner to another bar. I wasn't really feeling it in there. It was crowded, and the people wouldn't move out of your way. The music was good though to be fair. I sat drinkless whilst everyone had a beer, I think it may have come across that I was in a mood but I wasn't, I just wanted to go to Phebes...

And so we went over to Phebes. Soon U and I got to talking to two girls. One was very short, the other really quite tall. I liked the short one myself and she was really good fun! We chatted and danced around a bit. What we were talking about and dancing to escapes both U and myself. I got the short girls number and have heard her from once since. Oh well. The love life has progressed slightly from then already as it is now over a week since I was wiped out.

The Third Night Of Four That Wiped Me Out

So this night, Friday June something or other saw all venture out downtown. We ate at a bar called Firefly on Spring St in Soho and then meandered our way over to The Village Lantern. On our way we passed Wicked Willies which we had heard of before and as it seemed to be busseling we went in. In there we found a live band playing covers (mainly of MJ) and a bunch of beer pong tables. It was $4 for a rum and coke which was a nice little earner for our livers. Hours and hours past, I played beer pong with G and met a few random people.

The night progressed and we all got thoroughly drunk once again and danced the night away. There was a posh lounge at the back of the bar where me, G and K chilled out in and boogied around. We attempted to infiltrate a group of pretty looking girls to find them completely uninterested and more than boring so that conversation came to an abrupt end.

We ventured over to Village Lantern to find it empty, completely empty so back to WW's we went and finished of the night. Tonight was good fun but lacked any crazy happenings like so many of my nights out in New York City.

Thursday 2 July 2009

The Second Night Of Four That Wiped Me Out

So Wednesdays antics left me feeling a little worse for wear on Thursday. Work was a struggle with bouts of nausea followed my stomach cramps, not to mention the heat in and out of the office. But once again by 4pm I was feeling right as rain and ready for another night out.

I mentioned in the last post that my friend was promoting a night at The Anchor. Well that night was tonight (Thursday) and so I rushed to the hotel to change and go get food with H, MJ and B and then jumped onto the E train downtown to Spring street. We found The Anchor hiding on the corner of Spring and Greenwich Streets. It simply had a ships anchor above a big non-descript door. We went over and went in...it was dead. K and G were there with some of their friends from MTV. It was a $20 cover open bar for the first hour we were there so we made the most of it, fitting in around 7 drinks before the time was up.

As we sat sipping our final virtually free drink the first celebrity of the evening walked in, although I was oblivious. It was the actor who plays "The Most Interesting Man In The World" on the Dos Saccis (the beer, probably spelt wrong here) advert. He was strutting around with two young girls and the first thought that popped into my head was "dick" but how wrong an English boy could be.

I strolled over to the old gent a little while later as the club began to fill up and stretched out my hand, and uttered "So, I hear your famous? I don't know who you are though." We went on to chat for a while about acting, about New York, about England and about his life. He was thoroughly interesting and a really nice bloke. He explained that there was actually a rap party going on for a film he had just been in, although I recognised no faces. But hey, I was from England and just liked the fact I could now boast that I had been to a NYC movie rap party.

The BIG news of the night was that Paul Rudd (Hollywood Actor if you please) was meant to be coming to the club around 11pm. We were all sat around patiently awaiting his arrival. 11pm came and went and Paul never showed...typical. I later found out there was another big celebrity party happening somewhere in the city, where possibly Cameron Diaz was attending...damn, I knew I had made the wrong decision.

The night flew by. Drinks were flying and we were all having so much fun. Almost all our friends turned up at some point and we danced the night away in a little corner on some couches. It was grand. I met a random blonde girl who had the same hat as another blonde girl so I felt it was my duty to inform her. I "cock blocked" K with a 26 year old girl who looked like Lilly Allen. She then took me outside and forced a cigerette into my hand and just started telling everyone how cute I was...at this point I decided I had had enough of her and went back inside.

Later in the night H and MJ decided they wanted to go meet a friend of H's uptown at a bar on 3rd ave. I stayed behind with K and G for a bit but the club began to quieten a little bit so decided I would head uptown myself and see what was going on. It was now about 2am. The taxi ride was a nightmare and I ended up directing the driver on a better and much quicker route to 3rd ave. Once I met H and MJ at a bar called Plug Uglies I realised I had made another bad decision as they were playing some game called "Shuffle Board" with some random guy. I stood and watched for a while getting more and more bored and soon decided it was time for me to make a move.

The move, as it turned out, was not a good one. I was drunk, really very drunk right now and had been texting KVD all night as she was working at Van Diemens. I knew Van Diemens was only a short trip north on 3rd from where I was and I figured she would still be working so I left Plug Uglies and stumbled my way up the road. I finally made it to Diemens and walked inside. As it turns out her shift had ended and she had gone home. Now, a sober man would just walk back out and jump into a cab and get to bed as they have work at 9.30am the next day and it was gone 3am but as I was hammered I thought it best to sit down and have another drink. I sipped the drink, sat on my own at a bar with 5 other men...I had officially hit a new low and will never do that again.

Third night coming soon...