Day 7: Thursday November 11, 2004

I awake and look at the clock. 7am. I slept like a rock, and feel a little groggy still from the sleeping pills. A quick trip to the bathroom and back to bed. I glance at the clock again. 8am. Shortly after 9, I get up, go to my computer and download photos from my camera. Maybe I will finally start to write my travel journal. Somehow I get caught up doing who knows what on my machine and an hour has passed. Therese stirs and tells me she took one of the sleeping pills and that it worked. Because the blinds are drawn in the bedroom, she has no idea what time it is. When I tell her it is already 10am, she gets up. We get ready, but by the time we're ready to leave, it's already 11am and once again have missed the free breakfast at the hotel.

Nevermind, as I take out my City Secrets New York City book and read her the description of Patisserie Claude (mind you, not a boulangerie) Claude on West 4th Street, which, according to the book, is owned and operated by a taciturn Frenchman named Claude, who aloof and cold as he is, believes in the power of butter, and makes the best pain au chocolat in the city. Upon hearing the review of the pain au chocolat, Therese is sold and off we go. As we make our way there, we pass through Bleeker Street and I tell her I want to stop at the guitar store once more to look at that Gibson guitar again, but I ask her to not let me buy it, no matter what.

Matt Umanov's Guitars
We get to Matt Umanov's Guitars, where they are repaving the sidewalk in front, which I don't remember them doing yesterday. I head to the back of the store where the Gibsons were last night, but they've moved everything around and I instead I am looking at a wall of big beautiful-bodied Gretschs staring at me in the face as if to say, "Wouldn't you rather have me instead?" "It's gone!" I gasp, looking around for the SG Specials. I ask someone who works there who is moving guitars around about the SG and he brings out one from the back - a dark wood colored one. I hold it and ask for a pick. "Just take one from the register," he tells me. I sit on the stool in the back, grateful that they haven't offered to let me plug it in, as I always feel embarrassed playing a guitar in a store where I know everyone else has been playing for 30 years, and I have barely played again for a month. I start to play The Kinks song "I'm Not Like Everybody Else" and imagine what it would sound like loud and amplified. Although this guitar feels great, it isn't exactly the way I remember it. The store guy tells me they have 2 left and won't be getting any more the rest of the year. "What's the other one?" I ask him. He tells me it's a cherry colored one, and brings it out. This is the one I remember, and I feel the urge to make the guitar mine. He hands it to me, and I play the Smithereens' "Behind The Wall of Sleep" the only other song that I can seem to remember the chords for at that moment.

Therese, instead of discouraging me, starts to encourage me to buy the guitar. "You're not helping," I tell her, but she insists that she is. Feeling guilty for spending so much money already on this trip, I start to figure out how I can justify it. "I could return the cashmere sweaters I bought," I say. "What is better? Cashmere sweaters or a guitar?" I ask, as I cradle the axe in my arms. I ask if I can take a photo of the guitar to show to a friend to ask for their opinion, and they say sure. Therese takes a picture of me with the guitar and I look back at it in the camera. I didn't realize what a huge smile I had while I was holding it. "This is not helping at all," I say. I take a picture of the guitar by itself on a stand with a wall of Fenders behind it. I ask the salesman if they carry Rickenbackers, but he tells me that to do that, they'd have to carry their entire line of guitars, and quite simply, they aren't popular enough of a guitar to warrant that. The Gibsons on the other hand, well everyone wants a Gibson. I ask him how heavy the Les Pauls are, and he says they're heavy, and expensive. Well, that's it then, I think. The Les Paul is out. The SG might just be the one for me. But I resist making a hasty purchase and ask him if he'd put the guitar back in the back of the store where no one will see it. "It's going right here," he says, pointing to a space on the wall behind the counter. "How long is the sale on? 'Til the end of the year?" I ask him. He replies, until the guitar sells! Of course! He's a salesperson, what else is he going to say? So I tell him I may return, but I'm still not sure about buying a guitar on this trip.

Pattiserie Claude
So having made my obligatory trip back to the guitar shop, we head off to the Patisserie for breakfast. A young woman is working the counter, but I can spot Claude in the kitchen behind her. There is an array of pastries on display, but what strikes me immediately and causes me to stop looking at the other selections are the Napoleons, a pastry that I have a great weakness for. Feeling that it is too decadent to eat for breakfast, I order what they call a quiche instead. Not what you would normally expect when you think of quiche, but more like a very small pizza. Therese orders 2 pain au chocolats! "Two!" I ask her, surprised at her unusual voluminous appetite. She tells me how she always had 2 chocolate croissants for breakfast when she lived in Paris. So we find a place at of the few tables in the small store, and sit by the window. The quiche takes ages to warm as they've put it in the oven, and not a microwave. I say how I may just have that Napoleon after the quiche, in fact I could probably just stay here all day and eat pastries. Claude hears that, and smiles. So the taciturn old man is capable of humor and can be easily flattered just like the rest of us. He asks us where we are from and I tell him I am from San Francisco, but my friend Therese is from Paris (well, she was born there, and lived there for many years). I think he thinks I'm joking and speaks French to Therese, just to make sure. Of course she answers him flawlessly and he is satisfied. While waiting for my quiche, I take a bite of one of Therese's pain au chocolats. The chocolate is thick and dark, and whereas it is delicious, I cannot imagine eating two of them. I do wolf down my quiche though and decide to have the Napoleon next. This pleases Claude very much. Some other patrons come in, including a woman with her daughter who carries a leather tote with a Prada logo on it. I wonder if it is real or fake, and decide it must be fake, but I cannot believe such a young child would want a fake Prada. Claude asks how old the girl is, and the woman responds 10. Claude says he as an 11 year old himself. An older man sits at a table beside us, eating a plain croissant. He tells us he's been coming here everyday for the past 15 years. Although this man looks a very normal size, I can't imagine how much weight I would gain if I did the same. I have eaten all my pastries and drank all my coffee, and Therese is done with her chocolate croissants. We bid au revior to Claude, saying how much we'd love to stay all day, but must leave. He smiles and says goodbye and asks us to return on our next trip.

Other Music
My next designated stop is "Other Music" the record/CD store on East 4th, I had difficulty finding the day before as I was looking for it on 14th Street instead. We head through Washington Square Park, and on our way, Therese gets a call on her mobile phone. It's someone from her volunteer job and she tells me to go ahead to the store as she'll be a while talking to him. So off I go and actually find my way there this time. For a store that was voted best record store in NY, it is surprisingly small (not even 1/10th the size of a typical Rasputin's or Amoeba in the Bay Area), but it's the selection that counts. What a relief not to wade through thousands of CDs trying to find that obscure or long forgotten recording that you've been in search of for so long. I bypass all the new and easily obtainable CDs and instead go through the used, imports and independent releases. I've been collecting recorded music for 25 years now, and it's always a little dangerous for me when I'm in a good record store. I find CDs from the Dream Syndicate (with bonus tracks!), Mission of Burma, some used CDs: Mary Lou Lord's "Got No Shadow", Bob Dylan's "Infidels", a 13th Floor Elevators collection, "In the Presence of Greatness" by the Velvet Crush a CD single with bonus videos of Soundtrack of Our Lives' "Sister Surround" and a 45 of James Blood Ulmer's "Are You Glad to Be In America", an oldie hailing back to my college radio days. All of these could be included in the "Lost in the Grooves" book I think. On the way out of the store, I pick up a copy of the Village Voice, which is now a free paper. I guess it has been that way for a while, but I remember when I used to run out and buy a copy of it every Wednesday, when I used to live in New York that summer over 20 years ago. I also rummaged through records stores, looking for pretty much the same kind of music back then. I wonder if 20 years from now when I'm in my 60's, if I will still be doing the same thing.

Therese calls and says she'll still be a while, so I head back to my hotel to leave my new purchases. I ask again about extending my stay through the weekend, but get the same response, "No, we are sold out. But you can ask again when you check out." I know that cancelling my reservation tomorrow at the other hotel will cause me a fine, and resign myself to the fact that I will have to check out tomorrow and leave my comfortable room in the Village. I meet Therese in the lobby, and she tells me how Paul, her colleague at her volunteer job is so thrilled that someone is finally staying at a hotel that he always recommends to friends, but they never stay at. The place was a dump up to a few years ago, but since it's been totally renovated, it's taken on a new life. He also tells me the owner's wife is an artist and painted the murals in the lobby. She probably put together the photo frames in my room. Whoever she is, I think she is extremely gifted, and what a wonderful thing to personally paint and decorate a hotel that she owns.

Walking in Soho
We head off to Soho, which I remember from my last visit a year-and-a-half ago as a great shopping area. This time I take little interest in the stores, as I feel I'm all shopped out. After a while, our appetite picks up again, and we stop at a small, but lovely looking restaurant for a late lunch. I notice the sign on the door says it has a "Best Women's Chef" award, and you can tell immediately by the decor in the place that it has been designed by a woman. Small wooden pears and chopsticks adorn our table. I order a raw yellowtail tuna sandwich and Therese has a salad with bleu cheese and chicken (a substitute for bacon, which they are out of). I order coffee which comes in a silver press pot, and Therese has some tea after our meal. Unlike our breakfast which I hastily cut off at the end, we have a very long lunch and spend the entire time engrossed in deep conversation. Since the place is relatively empty, they don't mind and leave us alone. After all, women know how much two women can go on talking!

It is about 4 when we leave, and we can feel it about to get dark soon. We head back to the shopping drag and stop outside the Prada store, which was a highlight of my last trip. This time I take a photo of the row of manachins in the front window display but pass on going in, as the Apple store is close by, and well, I'd pick a Mac over a Prada any day! I go to the Apple store in every city I visit, and this is by far the biggest and best one I've been to yet. Like the San Francisco store, it is two stories high, and has that beautiful translucent staircase going upstairs to a huge and inspiring open auditorium, where you can sit and watch presentations on Mac products. I still feel like I should be working at the Apple store, but how can I, when I am about 15 years older than everyone else that works there? I show Therese the new photo iPod, and we gasp at the Super Computer hooked up to the 30" cinema display. I look through the iPod cases and show her the various selection of speakers they have for the iPod. Yeah, I could easily work at this store and sell their products - I'll always be a Mac advocate whether or not I'm paid for it!

Feeling through with Soho, we take the subway to Chelsea. While waiting in the station, we are serenaded by a young beautiful black woman, playing a blue electric guitar, perched on a tiny amp. She is singing a folk song (her own, I presume). What it's about, I forget, but I'm sure it was a love song. She has a beautiful voice, and it is easily audible in spite of the fact that it is not amplified, except maybe by the echoes in the tunnel. I think how much guts it takes to perform like that, and how I could never do that. She finishes her song as our train arrives, and I give her a dollar before I board, telling her that she has a lovely voice.

We get to Chelsea, and I'm not impressed, still having bad vibes from my miserable stay at the Chelsea Hotel back in 1987. We walk through the Chelsea Market, a large factory-like building filled with food stores, an amazing florist, a meat shop that displayed an animal carcass in the window (reminding me of a Sopranos episode where Christopher and Furio chopped up a body in the pork store) and various other stores. But I'm feeling very tired, not impressed and eager to leave. So we walk quickly through and exit through a spooky hallway that features a row of sculptures of feet. Too freaky for me. I don't like Chelsea and I don't want to be there anymore. So we take the subway back to Washington Square and go back to my hotel room. Therese gets her things and we discuss what to do on Friday night. She says she's not sure if she will have the energy to stand through another rock concert, but I tell her it's unlikely that there will be room to sit unless we get there very early, and I will want to stand and watch the show. So we decide to play it by ear on Friday, but definitely plan on getting together on Saturday.

After Therese leaves, I get on my computer again and look at some of the photos I've taken from last night's show. There are some really good ones, and I consider emailing them to the webmaster of Steve Wynn's website. I wonder if they'd give me credit for it. But I can't really focus on that task, and instead check and answer some emails instead. By now it is almost 8pm and I'm hungry for dinner.

Bleecker Records
I leave and find myself on Bleeker Street again. At least I seem to know how to get there! I see Bleeker Records and decide to check it out. It's much larger than Other Music, and has a good selection. Not wanting to buy too many CDs, I don't look through everything, but select a few bands to concentrate on. I pick up a Joe Jackson A&M years import double-CD collection, which was compiled by Joe Jackson himself. I also pick up an import of Pulp's greatest hits. I look through the entire selection of Kinks CDs (about a dozen of them) trying to find their version of "I'm Not Like Everybody Else" but it not on any of the CDs, in spite of how rare and obscure they claim to be. Of course, by now, it has suddenly become the song I am urging to find. I notice that they have a vinyl section downstairs, so I descend, and find my way to the "K" section of the 45s. Thankfully there are only about 100 to go through. I patiently look through each one, find about 5 Knack 45's and a Charlatans UK single that was misfiled. I notice it was produced by Steve Hillage, who I had no idea had anything to do with the Charlatans. But not a single record by the Kinks. So I go up to the counter and ask the guy there if they have any other 45s. Nope, this is it, he tells me, and asks me what I'm looking for. I tell him "Sunny Afternoon" by the Kinks. "Oh that's a collectable," he says. "What we have there is mostly junk." I say there's a few funny things like the Knack, but he responds that funny is not worth money. I tell him that it's really the b-side of the single that I'm looking for. Then he tells me about another store around the corner "House of Oldies" which he says might have it, however it's run by a very grumpy old man, who is the only person that works there, and may charge me an arm and a leg for it. I ask him how much he thinks it's worth. I guess $40, thinking it must be very valuable. He says he would've guessed $30. So he looks it up in the blue book. We find out that there was a 1966 and a 1968 version of Sunny Afternoon, and the earlier version has the b-side I am looking for, which of course, makes it worth more money. The blue book price - $15. I buy my CDs and go around the corner to Carmine Street and locate the House of Oldies and make note of their Friday hours - 10am-5pm. I need to get up early tomorrow and pay them a visit before I check out and leave the Village.

Caffe Vivaldi
By now I am starving, and wander the streets looking for a place to eat. I don't like dining out alone in New York, and although I see plenty of choices, I keep walking until until I find something that is right - a quiet place without too many people. I pass by Caffe Vivaldi and notice that they have live music, a young guy with an amplified acoustic guitar. This is the right spot I know and I enter. As I open the door I am standing in front of the performer who is in the middle of a song. I quickly make my way to the back table in the small room. The place is near empty - I am one of only 5 customers. The waiter gives me a menu and I order a diet coke. I need more caffeine to sustain me through the night. I ask the waiter which is better the pizzetta or the crab cakes and he says crab cakes, so that's what I order. They come soon, served with a small salad. It is delicious, but I'm still hungry and ask for the desert menu. Once again I ask the waiter which is better - the carrot cake or rum raisin. Of course it's the rum raisin and I order that with a cup of coffee. The singer has been playing the entire time, and although it's a small audience, we make a point of applauding after each song. Once again, I think about the guts it takes to perform solo in front of an audience, no matter how large or small, and wonder if I can ever do such a thing without feeling like I am a complete idiot for wanting to ever try it. I try to listen to his lyrics, but all I can remember is the first song I heard about a girl wanting to move out of the city to the country where it's cheaper to live, and how she doesn't mind being alone. I guess that's what can go through your mind when you live in New York city. Our peaceful ambiance is broken by a rowdy group of 5 people who come in, and start chatting loudly and talking on their mobile phones. The singer plays a cover of Neil Young's "Keep on Rocking in the Free World" and they get into it. Then he announces he is going to take a 5 minute break, and goes to the bar. The people ask him if he can play Bossa Nova, to which he replies, "You mean the Pixies song?" I smile, getting the joke, but of course they don't, and proceed to explain and start to imitate what Bossa Nova music sounds like. Time to leave, I tell myself and pay my bill, and throw a couple of dollars in the til for the musician.

I try to find my way back to the hotel, but I can't really remember which way to go. Like a typical male, I hate to look at a map or ask for directions when I'm in New York, for fear that someone will realize I'm a visitor and mug me. Unlike a typical male, I have a very poor sense of direction. So I walk around hoping to find my way back somehow, after all I know I am not far from the hotel. I end up walking in a few circles, passing by what has become all-too-familiar stores by now. Finally I seem to find my way out of the shopping area to where I think I should be going. I see a dog off leash, the first one I've seen off leash in this city and wonder if he's a stray. Then I see his owner, a woman, walking out of an apartment building. I ask her which direction Washington Square Park is and she says straight ahead, so I'm comforted that I was at least on the right track. I get to the park, and am unsure which way to go from there. I walk the perimeter of the square, only to find out that the corner that I was closest to at the start, was the one where I should've headed. Yeah, my sense of direction is almost non-existent, and I'll be the first to admit it.

It's 11pm, and I draw a bath and lie down in it. It's a relief to soak in the tub after the long day, but I don't stay too long. I call Rick and then I pack my suitcase, realizing I haven't bought an extra bag to put my extra stuff in, and really should try to do that before I change hotels. Another thing to do in the morning before I leave! All before noon! It's almost 1am by the time I'm done, but rather than go to bed, I take out my iPod and play some music and bring my laptop to bed, and finally begin writing my travel journal, starting with Day 7 and working backwards. It was 3:45am when I finally stopped and turned out the light.

Next > Day 8: Another Rainy Day, New York City