Leaving 2008 in Style...
Happy New Year!! I can't believe it's 2009 already! Whoa does time fly. I'm sitting hear typing this at 2:30pm and I just woke up about a half hour ago. My New Year's Eve in NY was so much fun to say the least. The day was pretty lax since I woke up, organized my room, and worked on some projects. So I was in my jammies until 6:00 or so. Then the night of craziness began. I got dolled up to meet my friends in the lower east side at a place called Open The Sesame. It's a Thai place and my friends who set it up said we could BYOB, so I went and got a bottle of wine. When I stepped out my door I was flabbergasted to see a dusting of snow on the ground (since I hadn't been out all day) and the wind on my street was fiercely cold. I swear my whole being was going to freeze right there at the doorway as I walked out. I got a Malbec at the wine shop, a grape from Argentina that my friend suggested if I was to bring wine. I went back to my place to get the small wine opener I forgot just in case the restaurant was not equipped. If it was BYOB, I could only assume that it was a little dive without wine and such. The wind on my street again as I turned the corner was hitting me like a hundred stinging bees. Oy!! It was bone chilling cold last night in NYC. I felt sorry for all the peeps in Times Square, but with them all being huddled together they probably created warmth.
I was the first to arrive in SOHO (a common name for the lower east derived from SOuth of HOuston street). I was not familiar with SOHO, so I was wondering around in the biting air for a while asking everyone I could where the street of the restaurant was located. See, all the streets in SOHO are NAMED unlike the ease of mid-uptown where everything is by number. I had no idea where N W E or S was and where to find these streets. I was dying in the cold. I finally found it my nose dripping excessively from the cold. Tonight is a night of decadence and people can either choose fashion or function. I was somewhere in between, so I was still cold. The others arrived leisurely and we started with the cheap champagne toasting the evening. Once we finished off that bottle we cracked open the Dom Perignon. Yes, you read correctly, Dom Perignon. A friend of a friend came to join us that night and he won big at a slot machine in Atlantic City, so he decided to splurge for the occasion. We cracked it open early so we could appreciate the taste while still sober. It was very smooth and sweet champagne. I don't particularly think it's worth its price tag, but it was an experience I had never had and wasn't sure if I ever would. I don't believe in spending that much on a single item of alcohol. We still hadn't eaten or ordered yet and I was already feeling the effect of the champagne on an empty stomach. We were basically just going around and talking about the good and bad things of 2008 and what our resolutions for 2009 would be. After much socializing we FINALLY ordered and had a semi-fabulous meal. The food I ordered I thought was good, but no Pam Real Thai. I do love that place. I was happy with it though. Others were not so pleased so the verdict on Open The Sesame is a mixed review. During dinner we managed to crack open the Malbec wine and that was yet another experience. I had never tasted this grape before and the wine it was contained in was spicy with a fruity finish. Perfect for the food I was having since my tongue was on fire from the chili spice. We had 1 other bottle of wine left and 2 bottles of cheap champagne that remained unpopped. We all braved the cold again to take the wine back to my friend's car and make our way to the Sapphire club where we were on a guest list to get in. Two of us wimped out and took a cab the 2 blocks to the club, but the rest of us attacked the chill. My ears were ready to fall off from the wind.
We got in and the placed HAD to be over capacity. This tiny club was overstuffed with people thrashing about and crowding the bar. You could pay $25 to get in ($20 if you were a couple or female) or stiff the $80 for the open bar. I opted for the cheaper entry and was glad I did after seeing that it would be impossible to get to the bar all night without much aggravation and delay, and then have little success getting an unspilled drink back to wherever we were dancing. We checked our coats and proceeded to the dance floor where we thrashed out until midnight. A few drinks were spilt, a few of us had a hard time standing after getting thrashed into, and a few crazy people roused some of our tempers, but all in all we had a blast with each other. We did manage to get one drink away from the bar through the night and that was about it. The New Year came in and we hugged and kissed rejoicing the friends we had in our presence.
After this club we parted ways. A few went to a party uptown and some of us went to G (a gay bar in the West Village). Here the club was also packed to capacity and we had to wait outside in a line to get in. Typical NY. We waited for about 30 minutes. Two more minutes more and I would've called it a night. My ears and face were buzzing from the cold. We finally got in and checked our coats. It was definitely packed. We managed to get to the bar for another drink to toast the New Year and after finishing that one, we had another. That was it for me. Or so I thought. I was definitely feeling it now. I was socializing around with my friends and another guy started talking to me. Him and his friend were flight attendants in town from Air Italia. They were from Rome. We started talking about Rome and then they wanted me to come with them to another bar in the West Village called Splash. This was the big gay dance club. I think other than a place in the Meat Packing District it was the only "dance" club. All the other bars are more hangouts. The Roxy used to be a dance club in Times Square, but it closed a while ago and the only other dance place was Studio 54 in the 70s. I decided to go and my other friends decided to go home. It was now 3ish and I was on the move with a few nice strangers to another club. After all dating is meeting strangers to see if you have anything in common, so these guys seemed nice enough and trustworthy to hang with so I went. We had a common link to Rome and Italy. I do love Italy. We got there and I thought the cover charge for the evening would be lifted since it was past 3:00am, but it was just reduced to $40. What the hell I paid it. It was New Year's Eve. We got in and I checked the heavy stuff again. My new friends bought me a drink. Definitely the last one, and I danced clear until closing, which was 7:00am! I had NEVER closed a bar in NYC since they do tend to stay open all night. Hello. This is the city that never sleeps. Well, I closed it. I was on a train dosing and feeling the spirits all the way to Harlem. I got out of the subway in the bone chilling cold one station past mine (since I was sleeping) and walked the 15 blocks back to my place. Whoa! It was cold and sunny. I was still in my previous night's clothes. It kind of reminded me of that night in Russia. Only not so cold. I stumbled into bed around 8:00am this morning and now I begin my new year in 2009. What a night!!! Christmas comes down today, or so I attempt.
Tomorrow I start the regime of NYC busy life again. I hope 2009 is prosperous in many ways. My resolution is to LET GO. I found in 2008 (well I knew this for a while) that I was a bit of a control freak and have difficult time in new situations and things that seem beyond reach or beyond my boundary of a safe haven. This affects me as an actor since the whole point of an actor is to engulf a character and bare your soul. Without letting go, I cannot fully succeed as an actor/storyteller. So, I plan to train, train, and re-train in 2009 to get my mind and body in shape for auditions and shows. I want to explore more creative outlets and submit to things I would normally bypass such as film and print. I already started my resolution in 2008 in December and hope to carry those ideas into 2009. Cheers to letting go.
I was the first to arrive in SOHO (a common name for the lower east derived from SOuth of HOuston street). I was not familiar with SOHO, so I was wondering around in the biting air for a while asking everyone I could where the street of the restaurant was located. See, all the streets in SOHO are NAMED unlike the ease of mid-uptown where everything is by number. I had no idea where N W E or S was and where to find these streets. I was dying in the cold. I finally found it my nose dripping excessively from the cold. Tonight is a night of decadence and people can either choose fashion or function. I was somewhere in between, so I was still cold. The others arrived leisurely and we started with the cheap champagne toasting the evening. Once we finished off that bottle we cracked open the Dom Perignon. Yes, you read correctly, Dom Perignon. A friend of a friend came to join us that night and he won big at a slot machine in Atlantic City, so he decided to splurge for the occasion. We cracked it open early so we could appreciate the taste while still sober. It was very smooth and sweet champagne. I don't particularly think it's worth its price tag, but it was an experience I had never had and wasn't sure if I ever would. I don't believe in spending that much on a single item of alcohol. We still hadn't eaten or ordered yet and I was already feeling the effect of the champagne on an empty stomach. We were basically just going around and talking about the good and bad things of 2008 and what our resolutions for 2009 would be. After much socializing we FINALLY ordered and had a semi-fabulous meal. The food I ordered I thought was good, but no Pam Real Thai. I do love that place. I was happy with it though. Others were not so pleased so the verdict on Open The Sesame is a mixed review. During dinner we managed to crack open the Malbec wine and that was yet another experience. I had never tasted this grape before and the wine it was contained in was spicy with a fruity finish. Perfect for the food I was having since my tongue was on fire from the chili spice. We had 1 other bottle of wine left and 2 bottles of cheap champagne that remained unpopped. We all braved the cold again to take the wine back to my friend's car and make our way to the Sapphire club where we were on a guest list to get in. Two of us wimped out and took a cab the 2 blocks to the club, but the rest of us attacked the chill. My ears were ready to fall off from the wind.
We got in and the placed HAD to be over capacity. This tiny club was overstuffed with people thrashing about and crowding the bar. You could pay $25 to get in ($20 if you were a couple or female) or stiff the $80 for the open bar. I opted for the cheaper entry and was glad I did after seeing that it would be impossible to get to the bar all night without much aggravation and delay, and then have little success getting an unspilled drink back to wherever we were dancing. We checked our coats and proceeded to the dance floor where we thrashed out until midnight. A few drinks were spilt, a few of us had a hard time standing after getting thrashed into, and a few crazy people roused some of our tempers, but all in all we had a blast with each other. We did manage to get one drink away from the bar through the night and that was about it. The New Year came in and we hugged and kissed rejoicing the friends we had in our presence.
After this club we parted ways. A few went to a party uptown and some of us went to G (a gay bar in the West Village). Here the club was also packed to capacity and we had to wait outside in a line to get in. Typical NY. We waited for about 30 minutes. Two more minutes more and I would've called it a night. My ears and face were buzzing from the cold. We finally got in and checked our coats. It was definitely packed. We managed to get to the bar for another drink to toast the New Year and after finishing that one, we had another. That was it for me. Or so I thought. I was definitely feeling it now. I was socializing around with my friends and another guy started talking to me. Him and his friend were flight attendants in town from Air Italia. They were from Rome. We started talking about Rome and then they wanted me to come with them to another bar in the West Village called Splash. This was the big gay dance club. I think other than a place in the Meat Packing District it was the only "dance" club. All the other bars are more hangouts. The Roxy used to be a dance club in Times Square, but it closed a while ago and the only other dance place was Studio 54 in the 70s. I decided to go and my other friends decided to go home. It was now 3ish and I was on the move with a few nice strangers to another club. After all dating is meeting strangers to see if you have anything in common, so these guys seemed nice enough and trustworthy to hang with so I went. We had a common link to Rome and Italy. I do love Italy. We got there and I thought the cover charge for the evening would be lifted since it was past 3:00am, but it was just reduced to $40. What the hell I paid it. It was New Year's Eve. We got in and I checked the heavy stuff again. My new friends bought me a drink. Definitely the last one, and I danced clear until closing, which was 7:00am! I had NEVER closed a bar in NYC since they do tend to stay open all night. Hello. This is the city that never sleeps. Well, I closed it. I was on a train dosing and feeling the spirits all the way to Harlem. I got out of the subway in the bone chilling cold one station past mine (since I was sleeping) and walked the 15 blocks back to my place. Whoa! It was cold and sunny. I was still in my previous night's clothes. It kind of reminded me of that night in Russia. Only not so cold. I stumbled into bed around 8:00am this morning and now I begin my new year in 2009. What a night!!! Christmas comes down today, or so I attempt.
Tomorrow I start the regime of NYC busy life again. I hope 2009 is prosperous in many ways. My resolution is to LET GO. I found in 2008 (well I knew this for a while) that I was a bit of a control freak and have difficult time in new situations and things that seem beyond reach or beyond my boundary of a safe haven. This affects me as an actor since the whole point of an actor is to engulf a character and bare your soul. Without letting go, I cannot fully succeed as an actor/storyteller. So, I plan to train, train, and re-train in 2009 to get my mind and body in shape for auditions and shows. I want to explore more creative outlets and submit to things I would normally bypass such as film and print. I already started my resolution in 2008 in December and hope to carry those ideas into 2009. Cheers to letting go.
posted by Chris | 3:33 PM
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