Fear and Loathing

The literary world lost a major contributor in the death of Hunter S. Thompson. Although I was on vacation from work last week, I was up really early and saw the news online. It was such a bummer. Years ago I read Hells Angels and enjoyed his adventures. I decided to try Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and laughed so hard that I nearly wet my pants. That book truly won me over. I was glad that other cool media outlets gave him props. The Daily Show played a video blurb along with his name and years while Democracy Now's Amy Goodman paid tribute. I've always wanted to read Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail because I feel that's an era of history that I know very little about and who's a better guide than HST? I'm going to read it with an appreciation that I wouldn't had previously. HST studied the death of Ernest Hemingway. I wish he hadn't been such a good student...

TGIF!

Even though I have to work tomorrow...It's been a busy bunch of days. Just last week-end I was in NYC visiting my pal Paulie and his partner Pavs. I arrived in time for dinner on Thursday. We went to the Le Singe Verte where I strapped on a pms feedbag of steak and frites--delish! Paul had me try an escargot which was done in butter and garlic. Interesting, don't know if could do a full order of those on my own. Right after we sat down, Ted Allen ,the food dude,from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy wandered in with some butchy looking chick and some other dude. My second QE sighting (We saw Carson on 8th Ave. near the London Pharmacy). Paul assured me that if Ted was down with Le Singe, it was all good. True,true. I tried not to stare and be too much of a tourista. Friday we headed off to the box office at the Golden Theatre because I've been wanting to see Avenue Q for about a year. Ever since it won the Tony, it's been popular. I checked tix availability online but no dice. We found two seats in row O for the Friday night performance at the box office. What a great show!!! It's irreverent, snarky, and just plain fun. Truisms for all ages even though it is targeted to the 20-30 something set. The show we caught had two understudies Angela Ai as Christmas Eve and Carmen Ruby Floyd as Gary Coleman. I recently listened to the soundtrack, which was nominated for a best musical Grammy, and I must say that by comparison, the understudies did a bang-up job. Carmen Ruby Floyd (on the left in the link) is a Niagara University graduate--go on with your bad self! Paul and I took in MoMA after the long awaited remodeling. The extra room is beneficial to the works and the patrons. On Saturday we set our sights on trying a deep fried twinkie. A Brooklyn restaurant, The Chip Shop, is credited with starting the craze. They also serve deep fried MARS bars and Reeses Peanut Butter Cups. To quote Paulie, the Reeses were the "money shot". Deep fried batter with melty good chocolate and peanut butter. My advice is to bypass the traditional English fare and head straight for dessert. The savory grub is good but dessert is the real deal. As if that weren't enough, we decided to head down to Hudson Street for Jacques Torres's Chocolate Haven where the hot chocolate is to die for. I had the traditional while Paul had the wicked hot chocolate. It has ground sweet ancho chili peppers and smoked ground chipolte chili peppers in addition to allspice and cinammon. It had just enough of a kick. Both flavors were like drinking chocolate pudding. Yum! Later that evening we hung out with our old friend Sean Rite and had Chinese food and some lovely wine. It's always fun hanging with former Bahflo peeps. I decided to use the subway to get into and out of Manhattan because cab fare is $50+--wrong! No problems getting there but now I sympathize with the natives after running into train schedule drama. I didn't notice the signs and the announcements were muffled enough so I couldn't hear that the E train wasn't heading straight for Jamaica station (where you catch the Air Train to Kennedy). All of the sudden, I found myself on a rather empty train heading for 169th St. in Queens. Luckily, an astute native alerted me to this and between the two of us we figured out how to get on the right track, literally.
It's good to be back but work life has been crazier than ever, as they say in Avenue Q "It sucks to be me!"