Marty After Dark - Almost Live...From New York

Entries in Cigarette Machines (1)

Thursday

May192011

May 19, 2011

It was another killer night tonight and I’m pretty beat, but luckily I have tomorrow off from work, so don’t worry, I’m not going back to the Papaya Dog in Penn Station!

One thing I’ve been meaning to do is go and take a picture of the last cigarette machine in Manhattan. Back when I was doing the bar crawl, Fat Al from the fine blog, The Half Empty Glass made a comment saying that the last cigarette machine was located in a bar called J. Mac’s on the West side of Hell's Kitchen. I went there and it was wild in there that night. There were three drunken people, two men and a women and they were making more noise and trouble than than a field full of lunatics gakked to the nines on crystal methedrine. All three were screaming at each other, one of the men was swinging a pool cue in the air, the woman was hitting and kicking both of them and the other man was throwing balls from the pool table at the wall.

I approached the bartender a somewhat hard-looking woman and started to give her my crawl spiel and took out my camera. She just shook her head and said, “You can’t take pictures in here tonight, I can’t deal with anything more than this.”

I have to tell you, I was kind of relieved. I didn’t want those people fixating on me and happily went to another bar. I was pissed I didn’t get a picture of the cigarette machine though. So tonight, I thought we’d go back and document Manhattan’s last cigarette machine.

Okay, here we are on 57th Street. I spared you a long-ass wait for a subway train that was a little grueling. It's raining out here and pretty miserable. Maybe I should've gone to the Papaya in Penn again. Oh well, onwards and upwards.

I'm just ignoring that pile and walking real fast past it. I don't need a Cardboard Box Man sighting tonight, my nerves are frazzled enough as it is.

But I don't have a boarding pass! Does this sign know something I don't?

Okay, if you insist.

Jesus fucking Christ, this is one long-ass walk over there. It's on the corner of 57th and 11th.

The rain is really coming down now. I'm wet and tired and miserable. I really need a drink!

Fancy Psychic Reader alert! I like the golden man and the hand statues. So tell me, Psychic, when in the fuck will I ever get to J. Mac's?

Oh, never mind, here we are.

The first of many drinks.

Okay, so I walked in and it was kind of like walking into a private party. Everybody in there was Hispanic and the only other white guy in the joint was the picture of John Wayne on the calendar behind the bar. Everyone was speaking Spanish and taking turns playing pool. The bartender was a stocky woman with black hair done up in a braided pigtail. I asked her where the cigarette machine was and she told me they took it out.

“There’s new owners here,” She noted.

Fuck, I was tired, wet and felt defeated five ways from Friday. I ordered a double gin and tonic and of course it arrived without a swizzle stick. The bar was dark and there was a shiny, sparkly internet jukebox behind a pile of discarded liquor boxes in the corner. I went over and put on a few selections including “Gimme Shelter” by the Rolling Stones, “Baba O’Reilly” by the Who, “I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man” by Prince and “Now I Wanna Be Your Dog” by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts. A tiny Hispanic man was seated at the end of the well-worn wooden bar and was wearing a backwards baseball cap and nodding his head along to the tunes. He got up and walked over to me after a couple of them had played. He was drinking Red Bull and Coors Light and approached me with the can of Red Bull in his hands. He smiled and stuck out his hand. I shook it and he started speaking Spanish to me.

“I’m sorry,” I said shaking my head, “I don’t speak Spanish.”

He then walked over to a tiny woman with black rimmed shell glasses who was playing pool and whispered in her ear. She walked over to me and said, “He wants to tell you he likes your songs.”

I smiled and looked over at him and held my glass up. His can of Red Bull went up in the air just as Roger Daltry’s voice was booming, “It's only teenage wasteland, they're all wasted!” through the shiny internet jukebox. All of a sudden I didn’t care that the cigarette machine wasn’t there. I ordered another drink and the bartender told me, “It’s on the house.”

All in all, it was a decent night.