strange evenings
There are a bunch of things I've been meaning to post about! I'm going to break it all up into a few different entries, I think.
The NYC Evening [about a month ago]
Part 1: Intro
I was lucky enough to have been authorized to be the rep from my work for the Million Trees NYC Symposium. I care about trees and all, and some of the info presented was interesting, but my excitement wasn't due to the prospect of two straight days of powerpoints. There's nothing like the chance to travel to a cool city on someone else's dime! I've been to New York on trips as a kid, and within the last year on the Colbert Report trip with Page, but I'd never really explored it as an independent adult. The Symposium was a two-day affair, and I resolved to make the most of my one solid night in town -- Friday.
Once the day's presentations and reception were over, I got back to my hotel, got on the internet and began searching for Friday night goth events. For some reason I really wanted to go to a club night, something that would remind me of Nation. I should have been tipped off that this wasn't going to go well when a lot of the links I found referred to venues and events that, when I dug a little deeper, turned out to have gone defunct.
I finally found something that was definitely still going on, and it was also very near Mehanata, aka The Bulgarian Bar, a place that Inox had told me about -- Eugene Hutz of Gogol Bordello sometimes DJs there, or so Wikipedia says, and I was curious to see it. I decided that this made the most sense as a destination, as I could check out both things.
It was a short walk-plus-Metro-ride from my Chelsea hotel down to the Lower East Side. I was very pleased at the fact that I could just pick a random Manhattan destination and get there with no trouble at all and very little expense.
Part 2: The Scene is Dead
I walked right past my first destination of the evening, the goth night. Then I doubled back and looked for a street number on the unassuming bar that seemed like it was in the right place. A dude hanging out in front (a bouncer?) asked me if I was there for... fuck, I don't even remember, it was something like Ascension or Reincarnation or one of those names like that. I said that I was and he pointed me down some stairs.
It was the saddest. Dinkiest. Crappiest little club night I have ever been to, and that includes Charm City. I was in a basement bar with claustrophobically low ceilings. About a dozen black clad folks sat on gray-painted boxes, stood or sat at the bar, or danced listlessly in a small open area. It was very dark except for some lights at the bar and a set of ASSBRIGHT flashing green and red strobes that kept hitting me in the eyes. At the back of the bar, a tv screen showed a set of extremely stereotypical images -- a crow flying, a pale woman looking off at nothing, a leather clad dude leering down from a throne. After a minute I realized that the images were not, as I had initially hoped, video for the music that was playing, but were simply looped, showing the same crow, the same woman again and again.
For some reason, maybe because of all the time I had spent searching online, I decided to give the whole thing at least a little bit of a try. I went up to the bar and found out that the place did have one thing going for it -- my gin and tonic was both large and strong. I sat in a corner and sipped, watching as a few more people began to sway out on what could generously be called the dance floor. One or two of the dancers looked at least a little appealing, though it was frankly hard to tell with only the ridiculous strobing Christmas lights to go by. When my drink was gone, so was I.
Walking down Ludlow, I felt kind of empty. Here I was, in freakin' New York City, and I had managed to make such a dud of my evening so far. Why had I even thought a goth night was a good idea? Should I just go back to Chelsea? It was getting late, after all. I dismissed that thought easily -- I had to at least take a peek at my second destination, even though I wasn't feeling that hopeful. I really wasn't relishing another letdown, and I was afraid that's what I was going to get with Mehanata. Maybe Eugene used to go there back in the day because it was cheap and he was a poor, immigrant punk... that didn't necessarily make it a cool place. And Gogol Bordello was on tour anyway, so it wasn't like I was going to see him there.
Part 3: A Change of Fortune
Just like with the last place, I walked right past Mehanata. I caught myself sooner this time, and went quickly back. There were two clues that I was in the right place -- 1) a surly, Eastern European looking dude in a heavy coat standing sentry at a plain door, and 2) an oversized bottle behind a glass storefront window that, after a moment of observation, turned out to be scrolling the word "Mehanata" around its center in pink LEDs. I paid the entry fee and found myself in a long, white hall. There was a mandatory coat and bag check, which cost another $2. Here I was, shelling out more money, and I had no idea yet if it was going to be for anything remotely worth the sleep that I could have been getting.
At the end of the hall was another plain door. I could hear a muffled melody behind it. The whole thing had a slightly unreal feeling, which was magnified like WOAH when I opened the door to find a wall of people and a wash of loud, oddly electronic horn music.
I had to squeeze through just to get in. I've been to many crowded shows, but this press was actually a little intimidating. I could see a bar to my right, but the idea of making my way over to it seemed impossible. I noticed some stairs off to the side and made a beeline for them, hoping to find some breathing room.
On the basement level, I found myself in an entirely different environment. Upstairs had been all color and bared skin and heat. Down here, everything was white and slick, and FAR less crowded. Immediately to my left at the bottom of the stairs was a glass room the size of a large elevator car. There was a ledge all along the inside of it, which was covered in various bottles of vodka. A sign was stuck to the side of the glass, which read:
"The Ice Cage
$10 to open the door
$20 all you can drink for two minutes
Maximum 6 people
You must wear the costumes!!!"
"Well that's cool," I thought.
Further in, I found a bar and a recessed dance floor with a few people hanging out. A lone guy with headphones on, presumably the DJ, bobbed behind a macBook up on a little stage. Two large jars sat atop the bar, each filled with colored liquid and fruit. Hand-written signs proclaimed them to be Sangria and Vodka Hard Cider, $6/each. I got a cup of the latter and, thus armed, went back upstairs.
The music I had initially heard, it turned out, was coming from two dudes in the later stage of middle age who were standing on a raised platform. It was a minute before I got a good glimpse of them, and when I did I felt a thrill go through me -- the closer of the two was playing an electric saxophone which was beautifully engraved. The other one looked to be playing a similar plugged-in instrument. The Ice Cage had been cool but I knew for sure when I saw them, and really heard, for the first time somehow, the richness of the music they were playing, that I had actually found something special this time.
Losing my apprehension about the crowd, I made my way off to one side and up some steps to a deserted balcony dining area that looked down on the main floor. I called Inox and let him listen to the music for a minute. I watched the musicians, I watched people drinking and dancing and smoking hookahs and making out with abandon. After a couple of minutes, the guys on the stage finished up -- it seemed I had come at the end of their set -- and what sounded like Eastern European techno dance music began to play from the speakers. The crowd thinned out a little, and more people were dancing now that they actually had the space. I went back down and danced for a few, then decided to further investigate the lower level.
There were quite a few more people down there now, though still not nearly as many as above. Three women and a man were in the Ice Cage, wearing what appeared to be Russian military issue long coats. They smiled, posing for a picture. I got another drink and eyed a line of hookahs sitting at the end of the bar. I'd only ever smoked from a hookah very occasionally at parties with friends, and the experiences then had always been pleasant. I knew very little about the hookah, really, except that it's a device from which you inhale smoke from a tube. I decided that I was interested.
I inquired with the hot, redheaded bartender chick -- hookah rental was $14. She set mine up for me, nonchalantly pulling out a small blow torch and heating up a little briquette atop the contraption, then breathing deeply from the tube to get the whole thing started. I was glad to see that there were little disposable plastic bits that fit over the tube, each in its own sealed package, to make the smoking process sanitary... I had wondered how that part worked.
I carefully scooped up the hookah, heading towards the tables that lined the dance floor, and promptly tripped like an idiot on the two tiny freaking steps down. I managed to catch the hookah and not quite fall on my face, but the clay piece at the top, which held the briquette, flew to the floor and broke. I was mortified and freaked out and had definitely been hit by the briquette at some point, though I didn't feel hurt.
"Oh my gosh!" A hot asian girl with long black hair who had been dancing right in front of where I fell looked at me with concern. "Are you ok?"
She helped me kick the briquette into a corner, and gathered up the clay bits for me.
"You have ash on your face," she told me. I wiped at my cheek and she gestured that I should move my fingers higher. I wiped again. She leaned in and wiped the last of it away with her own warm fingers, and for just a second was very close to me, which was actually quite nice, despite everything.
I took the hookah back to the bar, ashamed but ready to face the music. "Uh, I guess I owe you some money, I dropped the hookah and the top broke. Um, also, the brick is on the floor in the corner and it's still lit" I said. The bartender chick didn't even betray any annoyance. She just handed me a glass of water and directed me to pour it on the briquette. Then she set up the whole hookah for me again, with a new clay piece. She didn't ask for any money or anything. It occurred to me that, at a place like this where everyone seemed to have a drink in hand, this must happen often.
A random mid-20's guy was standing next to me. "How are you?" he asked.
"Not so good," I said, "I broke the hookah."
"That sucks!"
"Yeah, I know, but she's just making me up a new one, it's really cool of her."
"Why wouldn't she?" he asked. "We're all friends!"
"Yeah!" I said, and gave the guy a spontaneous hug. I was feeling better. The thought crossed my mind that I had never seen someone smoke a hookah alone.
"Hey, do you and your friend want to share my hookah with me?" I asked. They did indeed, and we all sat down at a table just next to the dance floor. I forget the first dude's name, it was something generic, let's call him Eric. His friend, a laconic young man from Poland, introduced himself as Wojtek.
"Hi Wojtek!" I said. They gaped.
"What?"
"You said it right!!"
"Yeah, actually, I just heard about a famous Wojtek the other day." I related, as best I could over the pounding Eastern European hip hop that was currently playing, the story that John had recently told me about Wojtek the Bear.
We smoked, they bought me more vodka cider, I watched hot young people dance. I noticed hetero couples, two women dancing together, a man dancing with two women. The music was good, a couple of Gogol songs thrown in with a mix of wholly foreign-to-me but wonderfully energetic beats. I was feeling a little light-headed, in a nice way.
I did a good half-hour's worth of dancing, mostly alone. Just once I danced with someone else -- halfway through a great, move-your-body number, I turned and found myself face to face with a tall dude with dark, shoulder length hair and light brown skin. We smiled at each other and danced together, matching our movements. At the end of the song we reached out to one another without hesitation and hugged, then moved off our separate ways.
Finally, around 1:30am, I gave in to the knowledge that I was going to have to get up before 7am tomorrow. Eric and Wojtek had already left. Back out through the still-pulsing club I went, back into the cold NYC night, back to the metro and to my waiting, oversized hotel bed with its tightly tucked white sheets and millions of pillows.
It was one of those evenings that shines out in your mind amidst the collected mass of experiences. I am definitely revisiting the Bulgarian Bar.
The NYC Evening [about a month ago]
Part 1: Intro
I was lucky enough to have been authorized to be the rep from my work for the Million Trees NYC Symposium. I care about trees and all, and some of the info presented was interesting, but my excitement wasn't due to the prospect of two straight days of powerpoints. There's nothing like the chance to travel to a cool city on someone else's dime! I've been to New York on trips as a kid, and within the last year on the Colbert Report trip with Page, but I'd never really explored it as an independent adult. The Symposium was a two-day affair, and I resolved to make the most of my one solid night in town -- Friday.
Once the day's presentations and reception were over, I got back to my hotel, got on the internet and began searching for Friday night goth events. For some reason I really wanted to go to a club night, something that would remind me of Nation. I should have been tipped off that this wasn't going to go well when a lot of the links I found referred to venues and events that, when I dug a little deeper, turned out to have gone defunct.
I finally found something that was definitely still going on, and it was also very near Mehanata, aka The Bulgarian Bar, a place that Inox had told me about -- Eugene Hutz of Gogol Bordello sometimes DJs there, or so Wikipedia says, and I was curious to see it. I decided that this made the most sense as a destination, as I could check out both things.
It was a short walk-plus-Metro-ride from my Chelsea hotel down to the Lower East Side. I was very pleased at the fact that I could just pick a random Manhattan destination and get there with no trouble at all and very little expense.
Part 2: The Scene is Dead
I walked right past my first destination of the evening, the goth night. Then I doubled back and looked for a street number on the unassuming bar that seemed like it was in the right place. A dude hanging out in front (a bouncer?) asked me if I was there for... fuck, I don't even remember, it was something like Ascension or Reincarnation or one of those names like that. I said that I was and he pointed me down some stairs.
It was the saddest. Dinkiest. Crappiest little club night I have ever been to, and that includes Charm City. I was in a basement bar with claustrophobically low ceilings. About a dozen black clad folks sat on gray-painted boxes, stood or sat at the bar, or danced listlessly in a small open area. It was very dark except for some lights at the bar and a set of ASSBRIGHT flashing green and red strobes that kept hitting me in the eyes. At the back of the bar, a tv screen showed a set of extremely stereotypical images -- a crow flying, a pale woman looking off at nothing, a leather clad dude leering down from a throne. After a minute I realized that the images were not, as I had initially hoped, video for the music that was playing, but were simply looped, showing the same crow, the same woman again and again.
For some reason, maybe because of all the time I had spent searching online, I decided to give the whole thing at least a little bit of a try. I went up to the bar and found out that the place did have one thing going for it -- my gin and tonic was both large and strong. I sat in a corner and sipped, watching as a few more people began to sway out on what could generously be called the dance floor. One or two of the dancers looked at least a little appealing, though it was frankly hard to tell with only the ridiculous strobing Christmas lights to go by. When my drink was gone, so was I.
Walking down Ludlow, I felt kind of empty. Here I was, in freakin' New York City, and I had managed to make such a dud of my evening so far. Why had I even thought a goth night was a good idea? Should I just go back to Chelsea? It was getting late, after all. I dismissed that thought easily -- I had to at least take a peek at my second destination, even though I wasn't feeling that hopeful. I really wasn't relishing another letdown, and I was afraid that's what I was going to get with Mehanata. Maybe Eugene used to go there back in the day because it was cheap and he was a poor, immigrant punk... that didn't necessarily make it a cool place. And Gogol Bordello was on tour anyway, so it wasn't like I was going to see him there.
Part 3: A Change of Fortune
Just like with the last place, I walked right past Mehanata. I caught myself sooner this time, and went quickly back. There were two clues that I was in the right place -- 1) a surly, Eastern European looking dude in a heavy coat standing sentry at a plain door, and 2) an oversized bottle behind a glass storefront window that, after a moment of observation, turned out to be scrolling the word "Mehanata" around its center in pink LEDs. I paid the entry fee and found myself in a long, white hall. There was a mandatory coat and bag check, which cost another $2. Here I was, shelling out more money, and I had no idea yet if it was going to be for anything remotely worth the sleep that I could have been getting.
At the end of the hall was another plain door. I could hear a muffled melody behind it. The whole thing had a slightly unreal feeling, which was magnified like WOAH when I opened the door to find a wall of people and a wash of loud, oddly electronic horn music.
I had to squeeze through just to get in. I've been to many crowded shows, but this press was actually a little intimidating. I could see a bar to my right, but the idea of making my way over to it seemed impossible. I noticed some stairs off to the side and made a beeline for them, hoping to find some breathing room.
On the basement level, I found myself in an entirely different environment. Upstairs had been all color and bared skin and heat. Down here, everything was white and slick, and FAR less crowded. Immediately to my left at the bottom of the stairs was a glass room the size of a large elevator car. There was a ledge all along the inside of it, which was covered in various bottles of vodka. A sign was stuck to the side of the glass, which read:
"The Ice Cage
$10 to open the door
$20 all you can drink for two minutes
Maximum 6 people
You must wear the costumes!!!"
"Well that's cool," I thought.
Further in, I found a bar and a recessed dance floor with a few people hanging out. A lone guy with headphones on, presumably the DJ, bobbed behind a macBook up on a little stage. Two large jars sat atop the bar, each filled with colored liquid and fruit. Hand-written signs proclaimed them to be Sangria and Vodka Hard Cider, $6/each. I got a cup of the latter and, thus armed, went back upstairs.
The music I had initially heard, it turned out, was coming from two dudes in the later stage of middle age who were standing on a raised platform. It was a minute before I got a good glimpse of them, and when I did I felt a thrill go through me -- the closer of the two was playing an electric saxophone which was beautifully engraved. The other one looked to be playing a similar plugged-in instrument. The Ice Cage had been cool but I knew for sure when I saw them, and really heard, for the first time somehow, the richness of the music they were playing, that I had actually found something special this time.
Losing my apprehension about the crowd, I made my way off to one side and up some steps to a deserted balcony dining area that looked down on the main floor. I called Inox and let him listen to the music for a minute. I watched the musicians, I watched people drinking and dancing and smoking hookahs and making out with abandon. After a couple of minutes, the guys on the stage finished up -- it seemed I had come at the end of their set -- and what sounded like Eastern European techno dance music began to play from the speakers. The crowd thinned out a little, and more people were dancing now that they actually had the space. I went back down and danced for a few, then decided to further investigate the lower level.
There were quite a few more people down there now, though still not nearly as many as above. Three women and a man were in the Ice Cage, wearing what appeared to be Russian military issue long coats. They smiled, posing for a picture. I got another drink and eyed a line of hookahs sitting at the end of the bar. I'd only ever smoked from a hookah very occasionally at parties with friends, and the experiences then had always been pleasant. I knew very little about the hookah, really, except that it's a device from which you inhale smoke from a tube. I decided that I was interested.
I inquired with the hot, redheaded bartender chick -- hookah rental was $14. She set mine up for me, nonchalantly pulling out a small blow torch and heating up a little briquette atop the contraption, then breathing deeply from the tube to get the whole thing started. I was glad to see that there were little disposable plastic bits that fit over the tube, each in its own sealed package, to make the smoking process sanitary... I had wondered how that part worked.
I carefully scooped up the hookah, heading towards the tables that lined the dance floor, and promptly tripped like an idiot on the two tiny freaking steps down. I managed to catch the hookah and not quite fall on my face, but the clay piece at the top, which held the briquette, flew to the floor and broke. I was mortified and freaked out and had definitely been hit by the briquette at some point, though I didn't feel hurt.
"Oh my gosh!" A hot asian girl with long black hair who had been dancing right in front of where I fell looked at me with concern. "Are you ok?"
She helped me kick the briquette into a corner, and gathered up the clay bits for me.
"You have ash on your face," she told me. I wiped at my cheek and she gestured that I should move my fingers higher. I wiped again. She leaned in and wiped the last of it away with her own warm fingers, and for just a second was very close to me, which was actually quite nice, despite everything.
I took the hookah back to the bar, ashamed but ready to face the music. "Uh, I guess I owe you some money, I dropped the hookah and the top broke. Um, also, the brick is on the floor in the corner and it's still lit" I said. The bartender chick didn't even betray any annoyance. She just handed me a glass of water and directed me to pour it on the briquette. Then she set up the whole hookah for me again, with a new clay piece. She didn't ask for any money or anything. It occurred to me that, at a place like this where everyone seemed to have a drink in hand, this must happen often.
A random mid-20's guy was standing next to me. "How are you?" he asked.
"Not so good," I said, "I broke the hookah."
"That sucks!"
"Yeah, I know, but she's just making me up a new one, it's really cool of her."
"Why wouldn't she?" he asked. "We're all friends!"
"Yeah!" I said, and gave the guy a spontaneous hug. I was feeling better. The thought crossed my mind that I had never seen someone smoke a hookah alone.
"Hey, do you and your friend want to share my hookah with me?" I asked. They did indeed, and we all sat down at a table just next to the dance floor. I forget the first dude's name, it was something generic, let's call him Eric. His friend, a laconic young man from Poland, introduced himself as Wojtek.
"Hi Wojtek!" I said. They gaped.
"What?"
"You said it right!!"
"Yeah, actually, I just heard about a famous Wojtek the other day." I related, as best I could over the pounding Eastern European hip hop that was currently playing, the story that John had recently told me about Wojtek the Bear.
We smoked, they bought me more vodka cider, I watched hot young people dance. I noticed hetero couples, two women dancing together, a man dancing with two women. The music was good, a couple of Gogol songs thrown in with a mix of wholly foreign-to-me but wonderfully energetic beats. I was feeling a little light-headed, in a nice way.
I did a good half-hour's worth of dancing, mostly alone. Just once I danced with someone else -- halfway through a great, move-your-body number, I turned and found myself face to face with a tall dude with dark, shoulder length hair and light brown skin. We smiled at each other and danced together, matching our movements. At the end of the song we reached out to one another without hesitation and hugged, then moved off our separate ways.
Finally, around 1:30am, I gave in to the knowledge that I was going to have to get up before 7am tomorrow. Eric and Wojtek had already left. Back out through the still-pulsing club I went, back into the cold NYC night, back to the metro and to my waiting, oversized hotel bed with its tightly tucked white sheets and millions of pillows.
It was one of those evenings that shines out in your mind amidst the collected mass of experiences. I am definitely revisiting the Bulgarian Bar.