Throwdown...

So, Stephanie and I recently made our third (count 'em, three) television appearance since moving here to New York City. Rumor on the street is that the networks are going to start paying us to use our images. First we appeared on a whole weeks worth of Who Wants to Be A Millionaire? Well, we did! We didn't get the chance, but we did get t-shirts and to sit in the audience. Fair enough I guess. (*This hasn't aired yet, and might not until next summer) The second time we graced the small screen was on Fuse TV's Video Countdown. We even got to talk! I haven't seen this yet, but my co-workers have and so have my parents. I'm supposed to get a video of the show in the e-mail anytime now, so maybe you'll get to see it too.

Most recently, we stumbled upon a taping of Throwdown! with Bobby Flay. Food Network baby! Now we're rolling on the big time networks! We didn't get there until after the food was made and tasted, but we are in the background of the judging scene. Bobby is a really nice guy. Mum's the word on who won the throwdown - we were told not to blog about it by this really mean looking producer lady. I wouldn't want to cross her, so you'll have to watch and see who won for yourself.

Fall in NYC

It's fall here in the Big Apple (I've been informed that this expression is long since outdated, yet, I can't help myself but to use it), and someone has left the air conditioner running and their front door open. I always wondered what my father meant when we would leave doors open and he would ask, "Are you trying to air condition everything outside or just the house?" Are there things I miss about Florida? Yes. Are the heat and humidity included in that category. Definitely not. We are suffering from 60 to 70 degree days with a perfect breeze and relatively low rainfall and humidity. Terrible, isn't it? To top it all off the sky just cannot seem to get any bluer. However, the most exciting part of the encroaching season has got to be the falling leaves. Like a changing of the guard, the leaves bow down, wither into magnificent color and float effortlessly to the earth below. These pictures are from Union Square on Tuesday. I hope you enjoy them as much as we are!

*All photos credited to Stephanie Long Campbell photography. Of course.

Tattoos and memories...

I was listening to Accelerate by R.E.M. on the subway today and I saw this guy that looked eerily like Michael Stipe. I know that Stipe resides here in New York City, but I couldn't get a clear view of the guy. I had to investigate a bit further before I did something embarrasing like wet myself. I walked down the moving train to where the man was standing perpendicular to me. I never saw his face. He turned his back to me and staring right at me was a tattoo of a sun with a goofy grin and a wink on the back of his bald pate. Needless to say, I didn't need to see his face to know that this was not the awkward frontman of R.E.M.

Later, Stephanie and I were walking just northwest of Union Square where we saw this man across the street with what looked like on of those leather "bombardier" helmets on his head. Still, something didn't look quite right. He crossed 6th avenue before we could get to his side of 19th street, so we crossed 6th avenue as well. When our paths crossed in the middle of 6th on the opposite side we saw that this was not a man wearing a tribute to my former band, but a man with a ridiculous full head tattoo of what appeared to be a grey helmet. It covered his entire bald head, neck, jaws, and came down to his brow on the front. Enough said.

Prime Suspect and The Squid and the Whale

The mornings come early in New York. I spent the better half of my day in Brooklyn checking out more schools and going to get fingerprinted for my teaching certification. I change my mind, the better half did not include these activities. In fact, I can't even say it was half considering the hours we've been keeping here in the city. I'm sure we'll slow down a bit when we both have jobs to go to everyday. Anyway, the inside of a Brooklyn police precinct is much like you'd expect. It's hot, sweaty and stale in the lobby. It took forever for the "reception cop" to ask me why I was there. So long in fact that it happened to be about forty minutes after my schedules appointment. There are wanted posters all over the place. Don't worry, none of these correlate to the area we live in, just the area south and east and west of us. After a significantly brief period of running my fingers through ink (which I could smell for the rest of the day and could not help but sniff like magic markers) and placing them one at a time in small squares, I departed dear old Brooklyn to meet Stephanie back in the city. The next time I'm here I'll be a resident.


By this point in the afternoon schools were beginning to get out and hopes of making it to the ones I have my eye on in Manhattan were all but lost. I also had to consider the fact that I wasn't dressed the part for an interview thanks to a lesson I learned about Brooklyn in the summertime in a shirt and tie on Tuesday. We headed out to get some lunch and visited a couple of New York tourism staples. When we actually live here, Steph and I have a plan to spend the weekends acting as tourists and hitting up all of the sites in the city. We are going to start with one of those tacky double-decker bus rides where they stop to gawk at every hole in the sidewalk where a star has spit and every building one was arrested in. We might even wear I Heart NY t-shirts and statue of liberty visor caps. We'll do it up properly. There will be pictures, I promise. As we took in the sites of the city I took some shots of the Apple Store, St. Patrick's, FAO Schwartz, and some other stuff I took while we were walking around.

We ran through Central Park and took note of all of the nannies acting as surrogate parents to the children of people too busy to be busied with their own children at 5:00 in the evening. Central park is beautiful by the way. Incredible. I know it is breathtaking on its own, but after walking around the concrete jungle of the city, it is such a breath of fresh air to see more than one two trees grouped together.

We were just in time to sneak into the Natural History Museum before it closed to check out the space exhibit, dinosaurs, and of course, the squid and the whale (though disappointingly, these are in separate rooms in real life). We didn't have time to actually look at any of the exhibits, but it is one of the first things I want to do when I have a whole day to explore the premises.

We ended up going back to Ray's for dinner. Hey, it's cheap and delicious. We then headed to Union Square where a series of non-violent protests were being held condemning China's actions in Tibet and calling for a boycott of the Olympics. I joined a mailing list for more info on the next protest. This is such a crazy place.

Anyone seen August Rush?

I think the most surprising aspect of the city is the way it sounds. Outside of our hotel room a chorus of car horns, revving engines, and voices rises up from the street. I have never heard so much music in my life. Walking down the streets in Brooklyn was like walking right through a Putumayo compilation. The countless ballads of Brooklyn oozed from open apartment windows and passing cars.

Early Sunday morning I stepped off of the subway and right past a Baptist church, which was really just a small room in-between the corner deli and a Chinese take out restaurant. The power of the music flowing out of the open door into the street vibrating the walls and nearly knocked you back a few steps. The organ was a wall of sound, and the only way to describe the vocalist voice was deeply deeply soulful.

Heading back toward the city, I began to notice a lot of people carrying instrument bags. Some I recognized - guitars, a stand-up bass, a banjo, violin. Still others were more intriguing built into shapes I had never seen before. While waiting for my first subway to emerge from the tunnel I stood and listened to a Chinese man playing an instrument I had never seen before. It was played like a cello, but was skinny and had a huge resonator at the bottom. I have no idea what it is called, but it sounded like the soundtrack to every movie you have ever seen that takes place in an Asian country.

Across the tracks on another train, I caught a crowd gathered around a man feverishly drumming on a set of ten-gallon buckets. The intensity and intricacy of his drumming reminded me of Justin. The crowd was really into it, and so was I for that matter, but the 6 train came and cut me off from the spectacle. I could still hear his steady heartbeat over the roar of tracks.

In the park where August Rush played, street performers had set up all over the place. The first act I caught was a six-piece reggae ensemble. It was a strange combination of reggae, rock, rap, ska, and had a violin player. It was - alright. Later in the same spot I would catch these guys:

As I headed out and back to Brooklyn for one last time that night the diversity of the city really struck me for the first time. Sitting there on the subway, I saw more different types of people in one spot than I had seen in a long time. My train was a, at the risk of sounding cliche, melting pot of races, sexualities, economic status, nationalities, ages and cultures. The sounds of the train hissing through the tunnel and the steady clacking of the tracks were joined by the myriad of languages being spoken on that particular car. I closed my eyes and let the sound of it all wash over me.

Union Square and the Apartment Hunt

Sunday morning in Manhattan seems to move just as fast as any other day. We began to make appointments to see apartments while we were still in the Tampa airport. For weeks, we had scoured Craig's List to find scam artists at it and real apartments come and go faster than you would ever imagine. Finally, Sunday morning we had a real stroke of apartment hunter's luck. I had called and left a message regarding an apartment and within ten minutes we had received a call back and were out the door on the way to Brooklyn. We viewed a number of apartments, but ultimately the one we fell in love with was the first apartment we ever went to in New York. We sign the lease tomorrow. That's it. Bang. Just like that. We had been in New York for less than twenty-four hours, and we had an apartment by 11:00 in the morning. You can check out some pictures we took here.

By noon we were starving, but we still wanted to walk the area a bit. We stepped into a local deli/grocery/convenience store and bought a sub. New York lesson #2: Real spicy mustard requires accompanying beverage. (In case you missed it, probably because it was only inferred, New York lesson #1 was: always have your umbrella handy.) Back to the hotel we rode. Back over the Williamsburg bridge and through the bowels of the city subway. We emerged at Lexington and 49th street greeted by the sight of The Barclay a block away. Now we wanted to celebrate our good fortune. We headed down to Union Square, via Subway of course. Have I mentioned how much I've enjoyed the walking and mass transit? I've even gotten used to the speed with which you are required to dart through traffic in order to continue on your way. We spent some time in the park at Union Square shopping the street vendors and listening to the street performers play. I bought a pair of shades from a lady for $5.00. The nose bridge piece disappeared somewhere around an hour later. He he. Oh, and there's three giant shoe stores and a Forever XXI we had to visit (obviously not for me on this one). We learned that New York lesson #3 was to have comfortable walking shoes. Steph traded in her flip flops for this cute, yet functional pair of tennis shoes. Once again, we were starving. We at at a little paneraesque restaurant where everything was served on foccocia. Not really what I'd had in mind for my first New York pizza, but it was still pretty good. We'll go to Ray's (as seen in Iron Man) later this week. Steph indulged me and we went to The Strand across the street. I have never seen so many books, and I work in a bookstore. I think Sinatra put it best, "I'm in heaven..." A few bargain book purchases and an hour later, we headed out past the movies where we were dismayed to see tickets went for $11.50 a person. We can't even pretend to be students as our student IDs are from Florida State. Oh well, you win some you lose some. Now I'll have to watch all of my movies illegally online. Just kidding.

We headed back to Brooklyn to walk the neighborhood again, this time at night. Our street was really safe and quiet; snug would be the word. We walked for about thirty blocks and took the G line back to the city. Someone was really looking out for us today.

Us in Union Square.

Rocking my new aviators.