Monday, February 21, 2011
Wandering around @8:45 pm
Bleecker St. in Greenwich Village
One thing I like about this blog is I can do whatever the fuck I want to do. Some nights I may just wander around and take pictures and that’s the plan for this evening. I’m going to try and go to one bar a week, but I just am not in the mood tonight. It’s one of those nights I don’t feel like talking or being sociable, so maybe I’ll go to one tomorrow. This is what I love about this blog. If I don’t want to mingle with people I don’t have to. Do you know how many nights I didn’t want to go to a bar last year, but still had to drag my sorry ass to one and then be the motherfucking life of the goddamned party, I’m breaking out in sweats just thinking about it.
So, no bar tonight, I think I’ll walk down towards Greenwich Village and see what’s happening.
Here I am, ready to go out outfitted in my recently purchased Jaws the Cabbie jersey. Check out the Jaws the Cabbie store here: Jaws the Cabbie Store.
I've wandered down towards Bleecker Street and thought we'd take a little tour of this fine street in Greenwich Village.
The walking man says, "Walk," so that's what we'll do.
And so, here we go. A journey of Bleecker Street begins.
Here's one of my favorite stops on Bleecker Street: Bleecker Street Records.
Here's Caleb who's manning the counter at the store.
A sight for sore eyes in this day of mp3's, a wall of vinyl records.
It's time for Regis...to retire, from what I've read in the papers lately.
Mick Jagger's first solo outing, the soundtrack to "Performance."
Buttshakers!
Here's the store's security cat. Hey, wake up fella!
Night time shoppers around an outside jewelry sales table.
That's one bold statement!
The Back Fence Bar. This place has been on the block for years, maybe I'll go here tomorrow night.
I had a late lunch of a grilled salami and swiss cheese sandwich on rye and it's giving me heartburn like crazy, so I'm stopping in here to get some Rolaids. Maybe I can get a shot of a deli man in my travels.
The Chinese deli man was shy and didn't want his picture taken, but Sammy, who was buying some bagels was happy to pose for the MAD camera.
Sammy told me he works two doors down here at the Trattoria restaurant.
Here's the legendary Bleecker Street nightclub, The Bitter End.
Tom Howes was having a cigarette outside. I had a nice conversation with Tom about New York, The Lovin' Spoonful and other topics. Tom's a singer, guitarist and writer who'll be performing here in a few weeks.
And they say there's no jobs in New York these days.
And they say there's no jobs in New York these days, part II, the search for a cook.
A shadowy portrait of Kari and Mike who were relaxing on a bench on Bleecker Street.
Guitars behind bars.
Racks of postcards on Bleecker Street.
Alfrey was decked out in a suit and tie and waiting for friends to show up on Bleecker Street.
I wonder if this place is any relation to Frank Booth?
The question here is, do you really want your teeth whitened by someone who can't spell, "guaranteed?"
This is one of the best pizza joints in New York City.
Hookah pipes in a window on Bleecker Street.
Eye spy.
This store has legs.
Okay, up Sixth Avenue and homeward bound.
Boy, there's just no escape from this shit! Goodnight everybody and see you tomorrow, after dark.
Bleecker St.
One of the chapters in my book, “99 Beers Off The Wall,” was spent on Bleecker St. Here’s the introduction to that chapter.
Yesterday’s scattered, all-over-the-city bar battles have left me fatigued and a true General Patton-like weariness has sunk into my battered body. My head aches, my eyes are reduced to sunken globes of a pinkish hue and my jeans stink of blood, sweat and beers. Today will be a more relaxed day as I plan to keep close to home by leisurely reviewing bars close by the homefront on Bleecker St., a mere pebble’s throw away.
The reason I chose Bleecker St., other than the fact that it’s close by, is because in my wild-eyed youth when I was in high school in the midwest town of Peoria, Illinois, my friends and I would pile in a couple of cars and park in a field on the outskirts of town where we’d proceed to get high on a variety of pills, powders, smoke and beer. When it was winter we’d sit in the beat up cars with the heaters on like they were our little apartments, stoned out of our gourds, jabbering, joking and being silly in a carefree way only a stoned 16-year-old can be. When it was an exceptionally clear night we tuned up and down the FM dial for a late night show called “Bleecker St.” The DJ/Emcee of the Bleecker St. show was one of those low-voiced, stoned/smooth talking DJ’s that emanated “cool” in the mid ’70s. He’d play music unknown and unheard of in Peoria, Illinois—the first time I ever heard The Velvet Underground was on “Bleecker St.”—and we’d get high, drink and listen intently to these new and wonderful sounds. We all wondered where this elusive Bleecker St. was until one night the stoned DJ, announced, “You’re listening to Bleecker St., here in New York City, maaan.” I remember trying to imagine what Bleecker St. and New York were like. Even my imagination stoked to the gills on pot, various pills and cheap cans of Blatz beer failed to conjure up the proper imagery, but I knew it was world’s away from sitting in a car in the middle of a field, stoned to the bone in Peoria, Illinois.
Most of the people I used to sit in cars and get high and drink cheap beer with are still in Peoria. The majority of them are married with kids, cars, jobs, house payments and lives steeped in the middle class world of midwest America. And as I consider my life of freelance writing, being single, working a goofy, responsibility-free night-shift job to pay my rent in New York City while I count the 56 bucks in my only pair of jeans, gather up my cigarettes and head out the door to drink 14 beers in 14 bars on Bleecker Street, I feel like the luckiest son of a bitch in the land.
Further reading: New York Songlines, Bleecker St. Bars on metromix and Wikipedia.
Nightcap
Thirty dollars pays your rent
On Bleecker Street.
(Not anymore, Paul, not anymore.)
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