Central Park, The Met, The Gotham
I was back in the Big Manhattan Apple today, in the city that never sleeps - though most parts of it do.
The weather was bright, warm, and rather humid. But it made a good change to Seattle/Vancouver/London weather. On the BBC web site yesterday I learnt that Mr Bill Gates is now Sir Bill Gates; in the article, they had a picture of him chatting with the Queen, and then another picture of him and Melinda posing outside Buckingham Palace. They were under an umbrella, and the skies were gray. Oh dear!
Whereas I carry DNA made in Egypt, I am not highly resistant to heat. Whenever I am confronted with heat - at least initially - I want to go and hide somewhere cool; it also makes me lethargic. So, unsurprisingly, it took me until 11am to actually reach Penn Station. And almost 1.30pm before I was meandering around in Central Park. And 3pm before I walked into the Met.
The met was wonderful. The Egyptian collection, which I started with - of course, is better presented than the British Museum's. The reconstructed, genuine temple is a great achievement. (The Egyptian government when building the Aswan High Dam in the sixties gave the temple to the Met, because it was going to be flooded otherwise; the Met transferred it out.)
The architecture of the Met was inspiring; the photographic and painting collections very engaging. I stayed until 5pm.
"Where the frick is the Frick?" That was the question I asked a few people after coming out of the Met. But I did eventually find it. A $15 entrance fee combined with a closure time of 6pm drove me off though. I am not sure I will come back; the collection is old-school painting. (And Frick turned out to have been a robber baron!)
Next was the Whitney, which houses contemporary art and is highly acclaimed. Same problem: fee and closure time. But the information desk told me I could come back tomorrow at 6: it would be free - and the closing time extends to 9 on Fridays.
I then hailed my first ever New York cabbie. The Indian chap was reluctant to pick me up because he was heading in a particular direction to do some shopping for his kids. He had apparently spent the whole day shopping. Anyway, he dropped me off at 23rd and 7th - for $10, which is a bargain. I then located The Gotham comedy club where all my comedy heros performed at, one time or another. The Gotham's corridor is lined with big portraits of: Chris Rock, George Carlin, Robin Williams, Jerry Seinfeld, etc.
The set-up is different here to what I am used to in London. An expensive venue in London will charge you £15 - and that's it. But The Gotham charges $20 entrance fee, and a minimum of two drinks. I ended up spending $40 (I don't mind). Also, I was entirely unused to being sat in a big space with dinner tables and waitresses running up and down; comedy venues in London are small and pushed-together, or in the style of a lecture theatre.
The comedians were top notch. People I had never heard of: Ryan Hamilton, Jim Gaffigan, and Nick Griffin headlining. The last two have been on TV. I guess they would not get these spots without having been vetted carefully, and they were professional. But the topics were not particularly original. Ryan Hamilton is from Idaho; he made some jokes about that; he went skydiving and found that he and his mentor were in a highly suggestive position; he is 31, single and makes $16K; he is awkward and gets rejected by women a lot.
Jim Gaffigan is a very lazy fellow. He loves to bowl - the world's fall-back activity (next stop suicide); he loves to sit on his sofa and watch tv and not read and is waiting for the invention of a device to allow him to flip channels telepathetically; and he adores escalators and moving pavements and hates people who rush. What I found endearing about him was a soft voice that he switched to to comment on his act "the guy's jerk, i don't think he's funny, really bad jokes" or "interesting. not funny though."
Mr Nick Griffin, who had his own 30-minute HBO special, is depressing. In fact, within a minute he was talking about suicide and other such morbid thoughts. It is a tribute to his skills that he took such a heavy topic and worked through it with us to get us laughing. He is 41, single, and earns virtually nothing (spotting a pattern here?). Nick thinks you can say you're single when you're in your twenties, but if you're divorced and older, "you are Alone". He thinks we live in a society of overstimulation: there is nothing wrong with those ADD kids, they're just coping. People are so used to getting things done so efficiently, a 3 minute wait in line at a starbucks turns them ballistic. Women should stop asking men "What are you thinking about?" Nothing romantic to report at all. Being an ethnic minority is good because every minority has a rallying call; but whites only have "sorry". Nothing says "Plan B" like internet dating. People tell him "ah, you'll find your soulmate". If he looks over at a woman he likes, she will look down into her cell and text her girlfriend "weirdo staring at me ohmygod".
