1) I got a text that said, "Get read for invasion of the east side girls!" from Andrea while I was DJing on the west side last Thursday. She was out with some friends of hers in the East Village and a friend of hers is a liquor rep so occasionally she has to go out and help her friend buy a lot of liquor from bars around there.
I was glad to hear she was bringing friends. I'm finally out of the trap where you have to make your own guest list and text a bunch of people you barely talk to and trick them into coming to see you. But I do have a rule against visiting me alone. It boils down to: I don't show up to where you work, drinking, and expect to be entertained.
She shows up with a friend of hers a few minutes later and they are slightly out of breath. "Terri just freaked out."
It was a Thursday so I had time to deal with this. I was basically playing a number of soul songs in a row, not mixing too much. "What happened?"
"She was in the front seat of the cab and right when we go her she started screaming, jumped out of the cab and ran. The cab driver tried to feel her up."
Just then Terri walks in, also out of breath.
"Are you okay?" I ask.
"Fine." She's actually kind of laughing about it.
Then the manager runs over with the nice black bouncer and he shouts, "Go downstairs. Hide in the walk in." So now I'm wondering what the hell is going on and why the nice guy who sings along to early Michael Jackson has to hide in the refrigerator.
Two cops walk in. There is a cab driver following them and he points to Terri. "That's her, she ran out on her fare!"
I finally get the whole story: Terri was in the front seat and split. There were three girls in the back, one of whom was Terri's friend and she just completely split on the night. But then when they ran out on the cab the driver came in after Terri and grabbed her arm to get her to pay. The bouncer sees some dude grab a girl and he arm-bars her out the door.
Now, if I were at the door I'd probably do the same thing. However. Driving a cab is just about the worst job in the city, day or night. You sit around for 12 hours and can't pee and have drunks yell at you. It's worse than bartending.
There was one time when I first moved here that I took a cab a long distance to get to a dinner in Park Slope and the poor guy mixed up 8th Ave and 3rd St with 3rd Ave and 8th St. The fare was some crazy price like $19 and I hopped out. "This is bullshit. You're taking me for a ride here. I'm not paying for that." And the Nigerian dude just parked the car and said, "I don't care if you don't tip me. But look at this face. I want you to remember this face because I still have to pay the fare you rang up here." I felt bad. He's right. I went back and paid him.
Most cab companies work it so that the driver and the company split the money and the driver has to pay for gas. They do 12 hr shifts and make something like $28,000. For that amount they might as well do some other piss-paying job. Like work in publishing.
Also, my brother raised me to have a Good Will Hunting level or respect for working people and it manifests itself in different ways. I get out of the way when someone's cleaning the subway, when I go to the bathroom in restaurants I always let people carrying trays go by me instead of making them halt as I pass in that servile way.
"You didn't pay the driver?"
"Terri said she would do it."
"But then she ran?"
The cops stood in front of the DJ booth for probably 45 minutes straightening the whole thing out. Which, y'know, puckered the buttholes of all the cokeheads present and gave plenty of people the motivation to move along.
Andrea had to pay the driver because Terri turned out not to have money on her. She also didn't have her credit card with her. I later put it all together. Terri had run out on the cab and expected everyone to follow. Terri is twice the acceptable age of girls going wild.
But then I had this moment where I thought of all the girls who broke up with me for this kind of cadology. This is what obnoxious drunk behavior looks like. It's really unattractive.
I'm not very good at hiding it when someone has pushed one of my buttons. I'd rather hear someone explain why gay marriage is going to ruin this country than stand around pretending that it's okay to steal from poor people.
Terri left without saying goodbye.
2) I never get time off for Thanksgiving it's like I always have to take the train up and back the same day. This year I have a whole week! I made it to the train with plenty of time.
I had my own seat. My parents also moved to upstate New York, east of the Hudson which means I can come visit in an hour and half and I ride up along the river. It's also the same line that Don Draper rides in Madmen so that's a nice thing.
I got an assload of writing done. Then as we got closer some homeboy comes and sits down next to me, talking on his phone. In the spirit of the season I don't let it bother me. Since I quit bartending there's actually not a whole lot that bothers me now that I'm not up all night shouting at drunks. Now when I'm up all night shouting at drunks it's because we're screaming along to the song I'm playing.
His conversation is the kind of informed intellectual exchange that you get when you've seen too many videos. "...dis muthahfuckah said..."
I live in Brooklyn. Usually when someone's being an a-hole I just shoot them a look and they at least go be an a-hole somewhere else. It's the nice thing about having big eyes the color of dogshit. Rarely, rarely do you have to add the Brooklyn version of "excuse me?" ("Yo.")
Then he starts punching the seat in front of him. He was hitting it so hard, repeatedly, that the girl in that seat's curly hair bounced each time.
I have him a simple, "Yo."
"Wut?" Whap.
"Yo, you're punching the seat."
"Am I bothering you?"
"Yes, but that's because you're on the phone. You're bothering her by punching the seat."
"Whatchu gonna do about it?"
I was wearing my sunglasses at the time, so I was shielded from looking stupid. "Just cut it out. You're bothering her, you're bothering me."
"Why don't you make me?"
I didn't respond. I have also seen too many videos. I had this flash of memory where I remembered I was wearing a pair of vintage Nikes that I stole from a video shoot. I didn't want to show up to thanksgiving laptopless in my socks.
I went through various scenarios in my head and realized that picking a fight with the guy who had the aisle seat was not one of them. I don't think I could have had a better advantage on my side than being a white guy on Metronorth. If it did go down I would just curl up into a little ball until the conductor came over and had him thrown into whatever upstate prison he's obviously on the way to visit someone in.
After a few stops he moved across the aisle. But when it came to my stop I waited a moment. This is a trick I do in the subway whenever someone is eying me late at night. I go to my stop and then get out just when the doors might close so I know no to look behind me. (I can't imagine a more exciting person to jump on the way back to Brooklyn at 5 AM. "Yo? Laptop? Needles? Headphones? Shit, he can keep his tired-ass Nikes.")
So I stood up and gave him the long eye. This is just short of staring someone down. You look at them in a way that reminds both of you that they are not worth it. But then the line clogged up. I could feel him staring daggers behind me. Keep walking, keep the line moving.
But then--I couldn't resist--right when I saw the exit to the platform open and knew that following me would mean missing his stop, I turned and gave him whatever smug look people hate that I do. He was staring right at me the whole time, but I looked away before he had any chance to make some vague threat back at me.
On the way down the platform I caught myself getting ready. I passed a payphone and played out this ridiculous scenario where if he came up behind me I would smack him with the receiver.
This is just a warning to the other novelists in the world. You might want to take night-classes in accounting now. All those short stories you wept over in creative writing class aren't gonna mean shit. I just got my MFA.
The entire reason that I buy Boca Burgers is because each patty comes in its own plastic bag so you can just throw it in the microwave. There are dozens of kinds of veggie burgers who are out there in the grocery store whoring themselves, showing a little leg, begging me to switch brands. And I don't for the simple reason that boca burgers are the most convenient food for a single person who takes most of his meals leaning over the sink.
I've been a vegetarian since 1996 and a shitty vegetarian since 2004, which means I've eaten probably one box of these damn things for over ten years.
And I don't care if a study comes out tomorrow about the health risks of microwaving plastic. I don't care. Think of all the years I've added to my life by microwaving shit anyway. If instead of having those last ten years of impotence I was able to spend more of my youth on facebook, so be it.
The only time I don't buy Boca Burgers is when I can find the Morningstar farms sausage patties. Their veggie burgers might be orgasmic, but I have no way of knowing because they come in the stupid two-per packaging. But I buy the sausage patties because, c'mon, who only wants one sausage patty?
And don't give me that shit about less packaging less waste. First of all I now have to wrap it in wax paper or plastic just to cook the orphaned half. Plus, I'm already eating vegetarian foods most of the week so I don't need to feel sanctimonious about something else.
Something magical happened to me this week and I guess I have Vancouver to thank.While I was gone I lost one of my gigs and the day I got back I was offered a much, much better one.It’s been a while since I’ve woken up and realized, that I’m not a bartender anymore.
Not only am I getting too old to still be doing it, but there was a time where I was giving up DJ gigs so I could go for the high score.I put up with an obscene amount of bullshit to have the opportunity to maybe make $500/night once a week (which is really a rarity these days and usually means sucking it up and working Sundays).
For a long time I’ve been playing someone else’s game, which is always a bad idea for me because I’m terrible at not pushing boundaries.I’ve been DJ’ing other people’s parties and wearing other people’s uniforms for far too long.Even working for the record label was a little bit degrading for a person like me who is comfortable with all of my failures and my vast amount of short comings.
Between touring and booking more gigs (I just got a call from Puerto Rico) I’ve accidentally just put words to the brand of dance rock that I’m been doing alone for five fucking years.It was worth it.
I’m also slowly getting more journalism work too.
It’s not rocket science, but whatever it is that I’m doing I happen to be good at it and enjoy it more than I enjoy getting yelled out by drunks.
I woke up Sunday in my shiny brushed demin pants, shirt and I still had on two of the three pieces of my suit and tie.I got straight up and went to shut the alarm off.Even though I was awake, I wanted to get back to sleep (more on this later).
At almost two I got on the Vespa and went to meet Jackie and Sarah at her house.They were having a brunch party “Brunch for Our Veterans” at Sarah’s.When I got there they had twenty bottles of Andre champagne.It was not very long before we had to go on a champagne run.
Having fun with Jackie is like no other fun that I have with anyone.We’ve been great friends for years in a brother/sister kind of way and she just cracks me up more than anyone I’ve ever known.I’ve never had a boring time with Jackie and she came into my life at a time where I really needed a great friend to have fun with.
I came back and took a nap and woke up to reading Wuthering Heights in bed, which was slow going at first and then I thought about how funny it would be, really, to have a landlord/tenant relationship like the one that begins the book.
This morning I woke up and decided that I would start a new novel.Usually this takes months of research and planning but today I woke up and thought about the story I’ve wanted to write for the past few years.I knew it would take forever.
I started writing and it came out like someone who was beginning to tell a story he was uncomfortable with.There’s lots of throat clearing and shuffling of notecards.
I started a new document and promised myself I would just say the truest thing anyone could ever imagine.I would make the character younger so whatever he said would be as untainted as possible.
Then I looked up and it was nine PM and I been at it all day.All those things I’ve said before and mentioned in passing.It all came together.It’s like I’ve been researching this project since I moved to Brooklyn
The one thing I cannot describe is how good this all feels.
A few weeks ago I went to Barnes & Nobel Brooklyn to see Joe's reading. When I was in college I interned at The Onion, which was just about the coolest thing I could have possibly done on spring break when I was 19. I still keep up with the writer I shadowed. We had a hilarious office joke that I was not just his intern but actually his illegitimate son. Whenever we see each other now I shout "Dad??"
And he goes, "My son!" and that has never gotten old in seven years.
This was just after the dot-com thing, so the office was all cool and had ping pong tables and shit. I got one head line through and I can now tack that up on my list of Forrest Gump-like things that happened to me. My first day there a guy called in sick so they had me take his place at a press brunch with Cartoon Network for the show "Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law" which was voiced by some guy named Stephen Colbert (present). I was in New York City staying in a friend of a friend's dorm at Pratt in Brooklyn and had just enough money to buy a bagel and ride the subway. And then there I am at fancy-ass Michael's Restaurant in midtown with a bunch of cable execs telling me how brilliant I am.
Fun times.
The next time I saw him was probably when Pete and Annie and I went to see "URG! A Music War" which was put on by the Onion at Film Forum or Anthology Film Archives. Then later in the year I was out in San Francisco DJ'ing and seeing Ben's comedy group and I got to hang out with the Onion and Dave Eggers at a thing they did for San Francisco Sketch Fest.
Leila and I met up with him one night at Adult Ed at Union Hall and I guess I'm having a hard time hiding the fact that I'd do pretty much anything he invites me to on Facebook.
Why the fuck didn't I blog about these things at the time?
So I'm at the reading and there's about eleven people on stage--all the graphic designers and writers who contributed to "The New Vampire's Handbook" which is the only vampire book I own.
What's funny about these readings and things is that I always feel like Joe's intern. I feel like I should be collating something and setting up the conference room for the writers' meeting.
So they introduce the panel and at the very end they get down to a cartoonist who did their illustrations. And then I realize. I know that name.
Shannon Wheeler (a dude) is the editor of Too Much Coffeeman Magazine, which was the first imprint to publish one of my short stories! The best day of my life in 2005 was the day he emailed me to say that he liked my story and wanted me to be one of his writers. He published my story called Bomb Day.
And that's how I became the brilliant, overnight literary success story that I am today.
Joe and his wife did a hilarious job with the book. It's not only about vampires and weird vampire people but also it warns new vampires about the dingleberries of vampiria like Twighlight fans and--worse--Twighlight moms. They showed a bunch of videos and then I got my book signed. Joe was happy to see me in line there and he stood up and gave me a big hug, "My son, everybody!"
He also had copies of his other books "The Devious book for Cats" and "The Dangerous Book for Dogs." Last year for Christmas he signed copies of these for my family. When he went to sign my copy that night he had to flip open the cover a few times and remember which persona he was signing under.
Then I said hi to his wife and she said, "You know what's funny? Is now you're this big famous DJ and whenever I see you I'm always like, 'Oh, there's Joe's intern.'" Since I never don't want to feel like Joe's intern I'm totally okay with this.
I awkwardly tried to deprecate my way out of this, "I'm the same way. You guys have been married for years and I'm like, 'Good to see you, Joe's girlfriend from USA Films.'" I should have just said aww shucks.
Then I get to the end of the line and I very heartily introduce myself to Shannon. "I've always wanted to meet you! You published my first short story in the War Issue!"
"Oh that...yeah...that was the last issue of the magazine."
"It was?"
"Yeah."
For some reason I felt thrilled to be part of something wonderful that died. And it's not because folding magazine companies are so hip right now. But it did make me feel like the captain to go down with the ship.
"Well...here, hang on," he rifled through this coat and pulled out a small book about the size of 20 business cards called "Dirty Funnies" from the"Postage Stamp Funnies" comic that he draws for The Onion. "Here."
One thing I do do whenever I travel (other than reading books and increasing the mass of my literary giantess--to the point of never using phrases like "do do") is pick up medication.
For some hilarious reason in the US you cannot purchases simple pills for pedestrian illnesses. When I was rich and had health insurance I used to take Claritin-D but now that is over the counter, which is some medical corporations life-affirming way of making more money by taking advantage of sick people. When I was in Mexico in March I bought a bottle of the active ingredient in Claritin for about $5 at the airport. In Cuba it cost $0.15.
In Bermuda they have all the simple British medication that I missed from going to school there. I came home with Lemsips (better than Theraflu) and a bottle of Sudogest, which is the "D" in Claritin D.
In Canada last week I got a big ole box of Allegra D.
Other than that I don't get any prescriptions or take any pills (anymore). When you're an artist there is a huge temptation to become superhuman, take Benzedrine and pump out reams of genius and then put yourself into an I-Dream-of-Jeannie snap-coma on command with sleeping pills. This is how we lose all of our Michael Jacksons.
When I saw Kanye at the VMAs my first thought was here is a lonely overworked man who probably self medicates a little too much. There is a difference between being diagnosed with something and taking a pill at the same time everyday to balance your condition and taking pills because you're happy or sad or tired or trying to work but you can't stop thinking about what happened on Madmen last night.
Then again, I was raised Christian Scientist so I've never really taken any pills and when I do I know it's because I'm a failure as a Christian and "Error" (our word for Satan) has moved into my room and sleeps under my bed.
Also, when people tell me they're staying in because they're sick I don't see how that's any different from just telling me you're going to watch movies in sweatpants for nine hours.
When Andrea and I were on Vancouver Island I couldn't sleep. I had a big gig the next day and not enough to drink at dinner. Her brother and his wife slept in one of the boys rooms and the monsters bunked together. We were staying in their room, which is the locus of the spirit that they are having a specialist come and get rid of on Tuesday.
I don't want to sound like a bad houseguest, but if you knew you had company coming: wouldn't you prioritize the exorcism over putting clean sheets on the bed?
So I got up to walk around in this strange town. I think maybe I just wanted some alone time. Being on tour and meeting relatives for the first time is exhausting. The whole time reminded me of when Annie kicked me out and I was job hunting and apartment hunting at the same time ("...I just moved here from Chicago, I'm very quiet and I like to have my days free for writing..."). Everyone was wicked nice to me, but I am this kind of person. I pretend that I need all this freedom and free time for writing and whatnot, but I also need lots of time to dick around and waste my life.
It must have been about two in the morning, pitch black and quiet. One thing you notice when you leave New York is how organic the rest of the world is. I walked around the street and I could smell who had just mowed their lawns and who needs to empty the kiddie pool after the rainstorm.
I looked up from my walk and stood at the top of a hill on Vancouver Island and enjoyed the pristine emptiness of this strange place. That's when I noticed I was completely lost.
I didn't bring my phone with me, but I don't know what good it could have done me. Also, I'm a man so this would involve both asking for directions and incurring roaming charges while I did it. That's like paying a fee for being less than a man.
At the edge of the forest I thought I heard a clacking sound. Then a rustle in the bushes.
Is that?.. no. It can't be.
Get ahold of yourself, Brendan. You're an international DJ with a hit song a future.
But what if?
What if I really am surrounded by the Little People?
Then I heard another clack. Don said that's how they communicate, by clacking rocks. What the hell?
Just then a bird flew past me. It fluttered in the breeze and landed on a moose' antler. I couldn't believe it. I stood completely still.
The moose walked away and for no reason other than loneliness I followed him. He lead me to a path in the woods, which I would not have found on my own.
About halfway down this path was a small empty cottage. I didn't know what else to do so I knocked on the door.
No one was home so I decided to let myself in and use the phone. I walked in.
The place had really low ceilings and no light switches. I stumbled around and realized that I had no idea what number to even call. I only know three phone numbers, but I don't think calling Ben, Pete or my Mom would do me any good.
So I'm walking around these strange peoples house. It looked like a bunch of children lived there. All the beds were lined up in one room. Get ahold of yourself, Sullivan. This is not where the Little People live.
My curiosity took over and I searched the rest of the cottage for signs of life. They didn't even have a phone and there were no other bedrooms. It was pretty dirty in there so maybe they were out of town or it was used by summer camp or something.
But then I went into the bathroom and it was full of prescription bottles. All for different patients, too. And I mean there was some serious stuff here. Wellbutrin, Claritin-D (!), Adderall, Ambien, Valium, Oxycotin and Prozac. They were all in these little glass bottles and had different names on the labels.
I guess I decided that the best thing for me to do would be to get some sleep. So I took an Ambian. Tomorrow I had to take the seaplane to Vancouver and do a bunch of media things. I had to be up for breakfast in just a few hours so I decided to just fall asleep across three of the beds for a little while. My feet still hung over the edge.
When I woke up in the morning there were seven tiny faces staring at me. I was scared, man. They all had on different outfits, but one of them was older, maybe twice their age. He had on little wire glasses and stood with his hands behind his back. "You've been in the medicine."
"Yes."
"Prescription drugs are serious business. Don't you understand that? My guys are on a strict program and they can only get refills once a month. Don't you know how serious the national healthcare system treats this?"
"No," I said. "I'm American."
The one with the red eyes walked up, "Did he--" and he started to sneeze "Did he--he--" he sneezes.
"Bless you."
"Thank you," he turns to the older midget. "Did he get into my Claritin?"
"I don't think so," the Doc said.
"What about my Ambien?" one of them said with a hearty yawn.
"He probably wouldn't really bother with my Prozac anyway," said the bashful one in back.
"You guys are just so mean sometimes," said the chipper happy guy in back. "He can have my Valium anytime he wants."
"Maybe you should have a handful of that yourself," said the grumpy one. "It's not your bed he drooled all over."
"Aw, c'mon you guys. Like we can't live without a little of our meds. Nobody, like, really ever finishes the bottle exactly on time anyway."
The grumpy one stood up, "Easy for you to say, you fucken junkie."
"Hey, I'm still recovering from that car accident."
On my third night in Canada we went to The Island. Even though there are a thousand islands surrounding Vancouver everyone refers to the main island as The Island.
A couple of things I was worried about before I got there:
Andrea has convinced me that the island is known for being full of beautiful women.
Everyone I've met from the island is weird. Lena is from the island and she and Andrea go on and on about the spirits they feel, how to rid the house of "a presence" and how certain people just have bad energy. I gently and lovingly remind Andrea that there is no difference between her being clairvoyant and her being beavershit crazy.
Andrea's wicked-native dad would be there. Either we'll be best buddies and I'll get an extra dad out of it, or he's the chief of this beavershit tribe.
We took the ferry over from the mainland, which was fun. The cafeteria on the inside was a big favorite of Andrea's when she was a kid. The way the cool kids in my high school would get up early on a saturday and drive to New Haven and take metro north to New York was how the cool kids in her high school were about the ferry.
Also, whenever someone reminisces too much about home or high school it can get boring. But Andrea has a decade on me so any time she tells a story about high school I just imagine all the girls have big hair and all the guys pull up to every story in a Trans Am.
It was great to finally meet her brother because whenever she calls him to talk on the phone I usually grab the receiver and we yak for a while. He has two kids who are a little older than my brother's kids and they struggle with the same things. His kids are so cute. The little one was born premature and spent the first year of his life in a hospital, following two years of feeding tubes and emergencies and helivacuations to the main land. This means that his older brother acts like his little protector and that's just the cutest thing on the planet.
As we were driving down the high way we passed their dad, whom everyone just calls "Don." He was walking along the side of it in a light jacket. Again, he was either on a spirit quest or beavershit. "There's Don."
"Oh, should we pick him up?"
"Hmm...nah."
The family sort of explained to me that they don't know what to do with Don. Their mother is remarried to a guy who has a nice job at a library. But Don is just retired and making his native art wood carvings and walking around on the side of highways. It reminded me of chapter 88 in Moby Dick about how older whales eventually stop fighting other male whales and leave the harem and just swim in the oceans alone, thinking about their past adventures.
In good time, nevertheless, as the ardor of youth declines; as years and dumps increase; as reflection lends her solemn pauses; in short, as a general lassitude overtakes the sated Turk; then a love of ease and virtue supplants the love for maidens; our Ottoman enters upon the impotent, repentant, admonitory stage of life, forswears, disbands the harem, and grown to an exemplary, sulky old soul, goes about all alone among the meridians and parallels saying his prayers, and warning each young Leviathan from his amorous errors.
Eventually Don came over and when he walked in I stood up to introduce myself and he said, "So this is Sean?"
"Brendan," Andrea said.
"Oh, why did I think his name was Sean?"
"It's Irish enough," I smiled and shook his hand. It's nice when people with home-court advantage make the first mistake because you can all be embarrassed about it and laugh for a second and then cut the bullshit. The other option is I do something stupid, which I am fantastic at.
We took a hike in Cathedral Grove forest, which is where some of the oldest Douglas Firs in the world. One of them specifically says, "This tree was 300 years old when Columbus arrived in North America." It was fun to take the little monsters there because they are young kids who grew up in the woods and like to play with sticks. It made me want to call my brother.
Don came along and after a few minutes of playing with the kids and talking about normal things he said, "This is where the little people live."
I didn't know what he was talking about and first thought maybe he was referring to the kids so I decided to say something Irish, "They're delightful little leprechauns aren't they."
"We don't get a lot of leprechauns here on the island."
"Really? You'd think with this kind of weather you could count on many rainbows* to lead you to that pot of gold."
"I never thought of it that way."
We let it go at that, but later when we were back in the driveway he asked me what I thought of the trees. "That's where the little people live, you know."
Again I'm nodding and pretending that discussions of little people are normal.
"I've seen 'em. That's what made me first question my religion." (The whole clan was Jehovah's witness, as were a lot of the people I meet from the island. It means they all got married by 20 in really, really ugly churches. Their wedding photos look like our prom photos. Y'know, if we held our proms in aluminum buildings.) "You hear rocks clacking together. Then snapping noises, from the sticks when they run away from you. I don't think they're really there."
Oh, good.
"I think they live in a parallel universe."
After dinner we played with the little monsters and made pita bread pizza. Andrea's brother and his wife are wicked nice (there's a local newspaper clipping on the wall of his barber shop of a picture with him and his son on his lap that says "Local Dad Does Good."
Andrea wanted to have dinner over at her friend's house and the little monsters begged us, "Don't go!" "Maybe just go for five minutes and don't have dinner." "We could play X-Box!" I played with the monsters a little more. The older one is just now getting into the Goosebumps series, which is awesome because they're all the same books we read ("The Dead House? Ohmygod! We had a house in our neighborhood that we called the dead house because of this book!" "Did you ever read Say Cheese and Die?" "Uhm, of course!" "Did you read Say Cheese and Die Again?" "There was a sequel??")
*I always misspell rainbow as "rainbo" after Rainbo Club in Chicago, which was the trashy bar below the recording studio where everyone meets their one-night stands. I wonder if every recovering scenester from Chicago has to spell this world wrong for the rest of their lives.
We dropped off our stuff at Tyson and Lena's super-swank apartment by the water in downtown Vancouver. I checked my email. I had been fired from my new job back in New York.
Well, this should make for a good day of TV appearances.
The promoter picked us up and we went to a TV studio downtown and met the local daytime TV people. It was wicked cute because they've been local TV legends together for 13 years. The guy is this little tiny local-Regis.
When you're young you read a lot of interview with people in magazines and dream about what you would say one day. Wouldn't it be great to outwit Deborah Solomon in the Sunday Times Magazine or discover something about yourself that even you didn't know?
But this was a mercenary mission. I just needed to dazzle the hosts and plug my show on Thursday. I figured I would tell an old story, mention another thing, and then in the end bring that new thing back around to the original point of the old story.
Viola.
The other guests on the show that day were some "celebrity" chef and comedian Tom Arnold.
While I was waiting for my segment to come on TV they instead had some thing on about the Yaletown neighborhood where I was staying. It used to be the train yard for the railroad company, but they moved it out to the suburbs. Then the city had a Wold's Fair kind of thing called Expo 88 on the remaining land. Then it got developed sort of all at once into wicked nice thirty-story glass condos right on the water.
I had met Tyson and Lena for about five-seconds at Sweet Paradise before we left for Bermuda last month. But I didn't get to talk to them. They're a cute couple. Wifey is a wedding planner and hubby is opening for Pete Tong.
They have one of those new apartments that still has that new-apartment smell. It's mostly glass walls. A two bedroom with an office and an actual dining room. Y'know, things you can't afford in New York.
The fun part was that we were all like a Time Out International Edition version of the modern workforce. Each one of us was at work on a laptop, not one of us had been to the office that day. It was wonderful.
We walked out of the building and Tyson gave me a quick tour of the pool/sauna/billards area of their complex. I live in the wrong city.
We went first to this wicked nice restaurant called Goldfish and ordered cocktails.
Andrea ordered an old fashioned but then Tyson suggested that she get that drink they used to like, called a Vesper. The waiter didn't know what it was and then came back to report that they didn't have Lillet, but that they could make it with Alize (which does not compute).
Andrea looked at the menu and it seemed like we would have plenty of fun there. Andrea is from one of the salmon tribes of the west coast, so she is constantly craving good salmon and never finding it. We looked around the menu and Lena turned to her and said, "This is not what you wanted."
"It's fine."
"We should just go somewhere else."
"Oh my god," I said. "You picked that up on the first hint." This is a weird thing that I can't believe I witnessed. Andrea and I constantly have this problem in New York where she's being the polite Canadian who is "hinting" at things she wants and I'm the ignorant dumb guy who doesn't pick up on hints. She's always told me that it just isn't polite where she comes from to be direct. I told her that when she's in the states she has to speak English and that I would learn Canadian if we ever went there.
We're there.
Tyson throws down his credit card and refuses any assistance. We down our drinks and walk over to Blue Water, which is a nicer wooded sea-food restaurant further into Yaletown. Tyson knew all the bartenders and walked in and ordered a Vesper, "something great with gin", "something with Bulleit Bourbon for Brendan" and then a drink for wifey. I loved this because that's my favorite way to order drinks in a strange land. The hostess sat us at the best table and the bartenders (I would pretty must only do this to someone I really thought was awesome) proudly came over to the table with the drinks they had made for us to tell us all about them.
We looked at the menu and everything was awesome. It wasn't a seafood restaurant like back home in New England where it looks like a restaurant made out of a shipwrecked whaler. It was a sushi and sealife restaurant of all Pacific caught fish in a restaurant halfway through the shipping lane from Alaska to LA. There were little signs on the menu denoting which came from sustainable fisheries. They did not have a salmon dish because it's not salmon fishing season. Awesome.
Lena made the brilliant decision to just order a bunch of sushi. This was great because normally when you go out with four people everyone just orders a bunch of crap and everyone leaves over-full. We had a nice light dinner of amazing sushi.
From there we went to a place called George for more cocktails. This was a cool bar to go to on a Monday night because it was set up like a bar-kitchen. It had a regular L-shaped bar that came out from the liquor wall, only the liquor wall was an L in the inverse shape. It actually reminded me a lot of the pizza place where I worked in high school, because there was a wood table in the middle where the magic happened. Most cocktail bars now have about 4 stations where the bartenders run out of whatever they need to make drinks. Here they just had one central station where they stored a billion herbs and infused liquors.
There were only three people there when we walked in and Tyson knew two of them. The other guy was introduced to us as being from Miami. He was that kind of middle-aged Italian-Miami dude who wears necklaces that are all coke-spoony. He asked what I was doing in town, I mentioned that I DJ'd. I mentioned that I had DJ'd a few places in Miami and then I named them.
"I own those places."
It turns out he's Mr. Superstar club owner. He's about to open a megaclub in Calgary where it's going to be three stories, the top level is a club with a roof, the middle level will be a Mario Batali and the bottom floor will be a Roberto Cavali Boutique. He was in Vancouver to open another place, but he said he wasn't able to give us any details.
I always like being in conversation with people who can completely out-do me as far as stories go. We got to talking about Cuba and he told me about how he goes from Miami to the Caymans, "Then I take a day-trip to Habana."
Andrea said that she was from Vancouver Island and we would be taking the seaplane to visit and he said, "Next time you come you let me know. I am bringing my boat up here for the season and it will be the fastest boat in the pacific northwest."
I love having weird people in my phone. "You come to Miami. I take care of you. If I'm not in Miami: I phone ahead; I take care of you."
We got good and drunk there and then went to this new restaurant that had opened the week before called Society. There they had cocktails galore and a cotton candy machine so they could make little sugar sticks. It was cute and the whole menu was comfort food like truffle oil mac'n cheese. Tyson and I get along really well and we talked about DJ'ing and being a boyfriend and work and the housing crisis. ("Who are these Americans who are getting evicted from a $150,000 house? It doesn't make SENSE.")
We got home and they had a bunch of BC bud which is hard to find and easy to enjoy, even though I don't really get involved with that anymore. We watched the Family Guy and passed out delightfully on the couch overlooking the water.
(I just touched down in Vancouver after a glorious flight on Cathay Pacific Hong Kong Airlines. I have to say one thing: if "those people" are really stealing "our jobs" can more of them be like this? I just rode in on an awesome airline where they served Asian food, weird Hong Kong "Spanish" beer, and had free HBO and Kung Fu movies.)
That's the rule: one. One bag, one suit (worn on the plane), one laptop, one pair of records, one pair of headphones, one pair of needles, one sweater.
You don't have two of anything. Even if it would be nice to have a few costume changes you have to change categories. I learned this from Wayne Coyne who runs the flaming lips in a well worn grey tuxedo and undone bowtie, which is usually still undone at showtime and the next day. This was my rule before I started touring. It really infuriated Annie bc I went home with her for Christmas and dressed in my nicest outfit and didn't bring any "play clothes."
Toiletries: toothbrush. Everywhere you go has toothpaste. Try a different soap. Live a little.
The rule of frees. If it's free it's probably good for you.
Drinking from the minibar: no.
Duty free is not just a store. It's my traveling philosophy.
There is no catastrophe in the world that cannot be solved by reading books and drinking coffee for an hour.
Timezone changes mean you can have yourself a drink anytime.
Touring out west is awesome for boys who work in nightlife. You arrive and automatically are ready for a timezone where going to bed at midnight is just as easy as it would be to go to bed after three.
No matter how little clothing I bring (and I never bring enough underwear for each day) there's always something I don't wear.
Wherever you DJ there's going to be something wrong. Sometime will fall through, someone won't show up, some piece of equipment will fail you for no reason other than people around you are using the metric system. So what? You play records for a living. Learn to enjoy it!
