September 9, 2005

My POV of NYC

I forgot that I've yet to recap my recent trip to NYC, and since we could all use some fluff around here, considering hurricanes, trigger-happy police, poverty all around (us three & abound), and countless other examples of crappery. Since it is Friday & my brain has ceased to work, I will outline my trip in little baby chunklets.

The Accommo
dations:

We stayed on the 17th floor of the famed Waldorf-Astoria, a hotel forever burned in my memory as the hotel that King & Queen Jaffe Jaffur stayed at in the film Coming to America. I have to say, my electronic friends, this hotel did not suck. Our room had a doorbell, which I thought was very lovely, if entirely useless as we only had one room. A light knock would have sufficed. The best thing about this hotel, aside from the cheesy bravado when ordering a cab driver to take you to the Waldorf, was how comfy the beds were. I would have been totally okay with just staying in bed watching Big Brother. Hey man, it's my vacation. I only have 480 thread-count at home!

The Tourist Traps:
We purchased something called a "New York Pass" which gets you into all sorts of crap, so we had a laundry list of places to go. Our first day there we did the Empire State Buidling, which I found sort of meh. Directly after was the NYC Skyride inside the Empire State Building which was equally meh, besides it being narrated by Kevin Bacon (Hench's man) & featuring a recently departed Scotty from Star Trek. In other landmarky-type stuff, we took the Circle Line cruise out to the Statue of Liberty. She's tall & green. That's about it.

We did the NBC Studios Tour, and the most exciting thing about that was che
cking out the clay figures from the claymation episode of Conan. Other than that, the NBC Studios Tour was a massive marketing campaign for HDTV (which our tour guide frequently flubbed as HGTV aka the evil network that dominates like 78% of my television watching time with all them damn House Hunters reruns). Seriously, they were pushing HDTV hard, probably cause they've gotta spend a bazillion dollars upgrading their shit & actually having to make decent sets (instead of using duct tape to indicate metal trim on the Dateline set, etc.), they'll make us spend a coupla bucks on a new damn tv to appreciate it.

Also on the tourist-trap route was the mandatory visit to Madame Toussaud's wax museum. Not that I've ever fronted like I'm some kind of sophisticated lady or anything, but goddamn this place is fun. Where else can you knee the President in the junk & not get tackled? I mean, I mysteriously have been audited in the two weeks since I've been there, but whatever!

Seriously though, I almost got put in wax museum jail as I have medically-documented poor balance. In trying to get this picture in, I nearly toppled our dear (pff!) president for reals.



Actual Culture:

We went to see Spamalot, starring my (gay?, I don't even know) boyfriend Tim Curry as the Arthur King. I can't even hate on Condi wanting to go see this shit cause it was the bizomb. The Lady of the Lake's costumes were so shiny & fantastical that the 5 year old in me was totally awoken and wanting to be her for Halloween.

Our shiny New York Pass allowed us to whisk to the front of the line at the Museum of Modern Art, where I stupidly forgot to bring my camera. Actually, I didn't know I was allowed to photograph anything so I didn't bother bringing it. But I did snap a pic of this OOF painting with my phone because I thought it would make a good wallpaper (on the phone). No, I didn't catch who painted the damn thing, and No I don't feel bad about that. I don't have conversations where I have to prove that I know crap about art, so I'll just save that real estate in my brain. Now, if we're talking about the history of the lives of the residents of a fictional town of Salem, USA as depicted on the critically-underappreciated television series Days of Our Lives, well, fasten your seatbelts. Because I DO often have to match wits on that business.

In other culture taking-ining, we also went to the Museum of Television & Radio. When I win the Mega Millions I am totally going to give this museum some money. It was D-O-P-E. First, you go up to the library, where you hopped on some 15 year old Apple computer & could look up any damn television or radio program in HISTORY. You could pick up to four & they send you down to the viewing room to check em out. So what did I do with this awesome opportunity to use the world's biggest TiVo? Watch JFK's funeral? No. First Moonwalk? No. Listen to the original War of the Worlds broadcast? NO! The three programs I chose were

(1. First Episode of Days of Our Lives, 1965: This was AWESOME. Alice & Tom before gray hair & Julie as a pre-teen! Also, soap operas were originally shot live so there were plenty of line flubs. The best part, though, was when Marie Horton's fiancee said (I think he was ad-libbing) "You wanton hussy!", when his fiancee intimated that she couldn't wait to get married so they could get busy.

(2. Conan's first show, 1994: I loves me some Conan.

(3. Last Episode of My So-Called Life : Holy crap. Brian Krakow! Even though this was, like, the greatest tv show of all time, I'm sort of glad it only lasted one season (like Freaks & Geeks) and didn't have a chance to get shitty.


So, those were the highlights (or lowlights, depending who you ask).



3 comments:

Leslie said...

My So-Called Life was television gold. I wander if the producers ever look back at the cult following the show had developed and kick theirselves in the junk.
It's too bad the WB wasn't around, they woulda snatched it up in a heartbeat.

I watched Days of Our Lives in the 80's. I was there when Marlena thought John Black was in fact Roman, but NOOO he was John Black. Did she truly love Roman on John Black? Then there was the guy that replace Peter Reckell for awhile and played Bo and he was a hottie, with a hot sai tattoo.

It lost me during the whole Carrie/Austin/Sammy/Lukas ordeal. I always liked Sammy better because Carries doe-eyed innocence crap got annoying.

I switched over to ABC just to see Susan Lucci as Erica Kane. She gets some of the best one-liners on primetime.

Carol Ann said...

I think you need to start watching Days again. It's easy! You have TiVo. The reason I say so is all of your questions concerning Marlena/Roman/John Black are coming to a boil once again.

You see, Tony DiMera had some fucked up island where he stowed all these people (Roman included) who Marlena "killed" as the Salem Stalker. Then Bo & Hope & some other people found out about the island & came to the rescue. THEN Tony DiMera blew up the island while they were all escaping, causing a tidal wave, & some of the escapees were "lost at sea". BUT REALLY they (Marlena, Roman, Victor Kiriakis, Caroline Brady, Jack Deveroux, & a girl who originally came to Salem in a pod with her twin brother but turned out to be Roman's daughter created in a test tube & implanted in Marlena's belly to deliver that time Tony's father held her prisoner on yet ANOTHER island) (or possibly the same, now blowed-up island, who knows) were re-captured by Tony & held in a very oppulent castle prison somewhere in the outskirts of modern Bavaria. While being held in the castle prison, Marlena and Roman were chained together & Tony served them all their favorite foods from when they were lovahs, & after months & months of showing them closed-circuit television feeds of their respective spouses doing it on various pieces of furniture, they "turned to eachother for comfort" i.e. totally boned, and then they got rescued like three days later.

DEEP BREATH. Turns out Marlena got knocked up in the castle prison tryst, & once they were back in Salem safe & sound she kept that fact from John until, after fainting at a double vow-renewal ceremony (triple really, if you count Mickey & Maggie) she fell down the steps in her penthouse & miscarried the baby.

To complicate things further, Marlena woke up with amnesia, and for some ungodly reason, the only fancy psychologist they could find to help her with her amnesia was the guy who ORIGINALLY played Roman Brady. So in any given scene now, you can have one, two, or three men who have at one time been Roman Brady. It's all very intellectual and craptacular.

Leslie said...

I wish I could hit up the elementary school tour of NY. Cattina gave me my first trip - in which we hit all major landmarks, but given time restraints we were hauling serious behind.

My highlight of the whole trip was a fancy comic book store by Times Square (Midtown Comics) which ran the gamut of comics. The Art Museums in New York (maybe I didn't go to the right ones) seemed kinda drab. I'm not a renaissance, baroque kinda girl. It's all about expressionism and post modernism. I loved the idea of a two story Old Navy, McDonalds, and Target!

What caught me off guard was how dirty it was. No fresh Mountain (smelly Nofo sea) air..just smog.

There weren't nearly as many Carrie Bradshaws or Powersuit people roaming about as I envisioned.

Funny I had spent my entire life thinking my first visit to NY I would have on a powersuit, with briefcase and cell phone.