NY Trivia

Did you know...
Twice a year , the sun sets in line with the Manhattan street grid.
Today is one of those days.
Must mean something!

Cheese in Your Sub?

Well not at this Subway!
Who would have thought... A Kosher Subway... Forget about the classic BLT, forget your toasted ham&cheese and say a big hello to the big Shawarma sub!

The Best Pizza in Brooklyn

I don't wanna sound like an ungrateful guest, but I had the opportunity to check out Brooklyn's famous Di-Fara Pizza, supposedly the best pizza in town.
Well let me tell you this - if this is the best pizza in town, I shudder at the thought of what the Jewish pizza places would be like. Good old Arthur would kick this pizza's ass any time, any day, with his eyes shut and hands tied behind his back.
If I had to compare it to anything, I'd say it was not unlike the slices you get around Taylor Square at 4:00am when you are really hungry, really trashy and not all that concerned about your dignity. You know the ones, right?
The other thing... You know how the Taylor Square guys keep those pizzas warm with the heating lamps. Well Di-Fara doesn't need any. The place is just ridiculously hot. I'd say I spent less than two minutes there, and I was sweating like a pig... I'm not even sure they need to place the pizzas in the oven. They'd bake just fine anywhere in the shop. I am determined to find New York's best pizza though! And I will let you guys know how I go!

I Had a Surprise, the Surprise of My Life

I had to stop and stare...
Well, to be exact, I was walking down Avenue J this morning, minding my own business (i.e. looking for somewhere to have lunch). Then, as I was passing this nail salon (and God- there are millions of these in New York, probably one every block!) something just didn't look right. I actually had to stop, go back, then look through the window, until I realised...
There was a lady there having her nails done, but the amazing thing was that the lady doing the nails was not Asian. Yes you heard right, the manicurist (is that what they're called?) was not Asian. Not even a little Asian. If I had to guess, I'd say she spoke English with a deep Yiddish accent (and vice verse).
So yeah, if you ever think your nails could do with a little pampering, and you didn't want some shikse to do them, you now have an option. A Kosher Jewish manicure (and I hear they also do waxing). Ladies and gentlemen - I give you the Cinderella Beauty Parlor!

SEX

For those of you who didn't hear about it, or heard and forgot... Tonight is the night girls (and gays) around the world been have waiting for. Yes - tonight (actually, right now as we speak) is the big premiere of the Sex & The City movie in the city!
They're all there - Sarah Jessica and the girls, walking the pink carpet at Madison Square Garden. I'll say hi for you all!
(and no, as tempting as it seems, I am not putting a SATC video here. I do have red lines, you know)

Last Jewish Thought for the Day

Well everybody knows Brooklyn has a pretty massive Jewish population. From light-weight Jews to medium-strength Jews all the way to the super-Jews of Williamsburg (or whatever that place is called).
And I'm a big fan. Jews are great with books, great with numbers, great with money. Some would even argue they're not bad with music...
But Pizza? Everywhere you look around here, there's a kosher pizza place. And let me tell you this, as someone who knows Jews first hand I think I can safely say- when it comes to pizza, the Jews are pretty lame.
Plus they can't use anything meaty on it: no pepperoni, no salami, no chicken, let alone ham. What are you left with? Olives?
So yeah - not a huge fan of the Jewish pizza thing... I reckon we should stick to a good piece of gefilte fish!

What's with the Jewish Thing?

This is truly bizarre.
I get to the B&B where I was staying in Beverly Hills, and the first thing the lady tells me (literally within 15 seconds): "I could swear you are from Israel". Which was a bit of a pin in my looking-the-part bubble, but was a good ice breaker, I guess.
Now I check into this B&B in NY, and pretty much the same thing happens.
and they all insist on chatting to me in Hebrew!!

Well, either the Jews are taking over the B&B industry (as a first step in the infamous taking-over-the-world conspiracy?) or something subconscious drove me to these places.
Maybe I'm not such a bad Jew after all??

ROFL

Came across this one as I was searching for the other video.
I am actually laughing out loud right now!

Start Spreading the News...

Waiting at LAX for Qantas flight 107 to take me across the continent to New York. Pretty excited, although I'm sure I would have been in a much better mood had I managed to get more than 3 hour sleep last night...
Not only did I have to get up at 5:00, but the next door guys at the hotel (whom I suspect were Mexicana cabin crew or something, judging from the music played and the tequila howls) had some sort of party happening.
Returned the car earlier and realised I won't be driving for a good couple of months now, which is my longest non-driving period for about 20 years.
Anyway, I'm going to grab me some food and get myself ready for the Big Apple, coz you know... If you can make it there- you'll make it anywhere...

To wake myself up, and as a gesture to New York's first lady (and also as a warning to us all about the effects of too much gin, pills and gay men in your life)...

Made me Think of Mum....

And Someone else's mum. Well quite a few mums, now that I think about it...
Happy (belated) Mother's Day!!!

Beverly Hills - Gotta Love It

Been driving around postcode 90210 most of the day today... This one's dedicated to Karl. Everybody else- please feel free to ignore.

On the Road - Pt 4

Did you know that when you rent a car from Alamo you get to pick whichever car you want? I bet you didn't. Neither did I. But that's how it works, and I spent about 20 minutes trying to choose my wheels for the next week or so. I think I did pretty well though, always wanted to drive the Cruiser (see pic).
Next four hours or so were spent driving to Palm Springs in annoyingly slow LA afternoon traffic. Not really that much fun at all.
Palm Springs is definitely worth a visit though.To be honest I only went there because Connor suggested it as a cool place to go to (thanks Connor!). It's in the middle of this big canyon in the middle of the desert, but is surprisingly green (I assume that has something to do with the springs...). Back in the 50's and 60's Palms Springs was the most chi-chi place to spend time in, if you had plenty of money and didn't need to work too much. Frank Sinatra and his rat pack particularly liked it, possibly because the law was never enforced too hard if you were nice, had blue eyes and could sing My Way.
Did the whole desert-stay for the next couple of days, which was a bit full-on due to the stupidly hot weather. If I had to guess I'd say it was somewhere in the mid 40's and let me tell you, that's hot! Add to that the fact that everybody drives around there, and there is very little shade, and you will agree that doing the four hour Joshua Tree excursion was something I should have skipped.

On the Road - Pt 3

OK... Last time I blogged I managed to make it to Sunday night in Santa Barbara... Seeing that it is Thursday night now, I guess there are some serious gaps to fill here. So without further ado, and with the unavoidable shortcuts, lets get down to business.
Monday morning we headed down to LA. Janet had to catch an evening flight back home to SF, so we tried to come up with a couple of glitz and glam things to do before she leaves.
First on the list was to get pics taken while leaning against the 'H' of the Hollywood sign. Not so easy it turns out. After a pretty annoying drive (I never said I can read a map! You all just assumed). We got as close as you can get to it, without having to deal with electric fences, dogs and snipers. Which is not very close at all to be honest (see pic). It was still miles and miles and miles away. The thing is probably more secure than Guantanamo, which makes sense, given the number of college students in the area, and how fond they are of doing things to embarrass the authorities. Bottom line - that was some two hours of our day lost.
We thought of heading to the Getty but then someone (well, by now I guess everybody knows that someone is me) had the idea of let's see what the GPS has to offer in the area... And guess what comes up? "My Jewish Discovery Place"! I kid you not - our trusty GPS proposed "My Jewish Discovery Place" as our next stop, and having had some serious bacon thoughts (if not real bacon) that morning, I found it impossibe to say no. Some 40 minutes later, driving through heavy LA traffic we reached said discovery place. And while I have enormous respect for jews, jewish food and jewish places, that particular one really sucked. It was one of those nondescript, big concrete building.. Nothing remotely Jewish about it. Next to it there was this gang of Hispanic youths trying to impress the chicks. Coming to think about it, it looked a bit like the setting for West Side Story. Definitely nothing to do with Fiddler On The Roof...
I think this was when we decided to cut our losses and do lunch, which, as always, was very pleasant, although we were the only ones dining in this big Italian place in the suburbs, with the Soprano-esque owners doing what seems to be money laundering at the far end... But I mean, isn't that part of what owning a suburban Italian is all about?
Ten minutes later we were on our way to LAX airport, where Janet dropped me get my car, before heading back home to San Fran.

Super Big Night Tonight!

Not only is tonight the biggest night in the American Idol year (Paula must be relieved- she can go back to abusing substance and young men as early as tomorrow morning!), but at midnight, 5 minutes after midnight to be exact, the new installment in the Indiana Jones saga will be released. Massive lines at the cinema of all sorts of Indiana wannabes who want to see it first.
Personally, midnight shows were never my thing. I think I'll wait a couple of days but reckon I have to see it before I leave Hollywood!

On the Road - Pt 2

Sunday morning, bright, but again not quite as early as we thought we would be, we headed up to Hearst Castle. I was going to spend the next 30 mins writing about the history of the castle and general Hearst gossip (surprisingly saucy and very sensational! love it!) but I can't be bothered. Main thing is that it's HUGE and extremely ornate. The guy just kept buying more and more antiquey stuff from Europe (anything from books to rugs to actual wall paneling and whole ceilings) and made his architect design a house around it all (on a mountaintop!) for him, his much younger mistress (wife refused to give a divorce) and their influential high society friends. It took about 28 years to build and was never completed (Hearst died, unfortunately). Still what they did manage to complete is pretty awesome. At the time, an invite to Hearst Castle was the way to know you really made it in the world!

Now, if the house itself is somewhat of an acquired taste I guess, the swimming pools are just too cool. The outdoorsy one is set inside a Roman temple (and I mean a real temple shipped from Italy) and the indoorsy one, well, the room is covered in 22 carat golden tiles. The guy definitely wasn't trying to cut corners!

Anyway, after a few hours at the castle, it was time to get back in the car and head off. we drove through Paso Robles where we did some wine tasting before heading down to Santa Barbara for the night.

Again, we had no bookings, so had to try our luck at a couple of places before checking into Monecilo Inn for the night (Janet urged me to remind the readers that this is where Barbara Streisand and Oprah call home). (and a note to the grumpy young lady at the Four Seasons, just in case she's reading this: No, $1,000 a room+tax is not OK.)

Had a really sensational dinner of local produce (or so we're told) in downtown Santa Barb, before calling it a night.

On the Road - Pt 1

Saturday morning, bright and early (well early-ish) Janet showed up and we headed down towards LA together along Route 1, the Original version of the Great Ocean Road.

Janet was not only gracious enough to drive into town and get me, she actually drove all the way down, which made a fun trip even more fun (I was inn charge of car DJ-ing and map reading, thank you very much!)

The drive down the coast, well the first half of it at least, is just spectacular. I took a few pics that I will upload at some point, but they won't do it any justice. You will have to take my word for it I guess, or do it yourself. After lunch we headed into this weird development/community and decided to hit on a few “open homes”, just to see what people are willing to pay millions for in California's Central Coast. We both agreed that even in suburban USA it's rare to see so many different flavours of ewwww...

Finding a place to spend the night was a bigger challenge than we expected, due to the Corvette Convention taking place that weekend and every single room booked for some proud (if somewhat wanky) Corvette owner. We did however strike gold at the Quality Inn motel, partly (we figured) because the lady at the desk was pretty scary-looking and probably scared off some of the more wussy Corvette-eers. She looked like she had a huge struggle with a pair of fake eyelashes that morning and ended up just sticking the whole thing to her eyelids, plastic and all. Checked in and drove off to look for a place to have dinner, only to end up just across the road from the motel at an Italian place that redefined “suburban”. Food was surprisingly tasty, especially since we thought that was the perfect setting to have the bottle of Aussie red (thanks again Qantas chick). And while on the subject - $25 corckage? has the world gone mad?

I'm Back!

Gday all... I haven't updated the blog over the last couple of days, partly because I was pretty much on the road the entire time, and partly because (as expected) I am becoming a tad slack. Not to worry though- the long awaited update is on its way, probably going to make it in bits. (And just so that you have a complete picture... It is about 45 degrees here today and everything is melting, from the soles of my thongs to my mars bar to my brains. Apologies for typos)

Till Death Do Them Part...

Biggish street party last night... All because the Californian gays and lezos will soon be able to get married!
Read all about it here (if you can be bothered, that is)

Rainbows

Big rainbow flags
Little rainbow flags
Tiny cute rainbow flags stuck in your backpack
Rainbow kites
Rainbow belts
Rainbow dog collars
Rainbow umbrellas
Rainbow shopping bags
Rainbow socks

Can you have rainbow overdose? Coz at the moment I am feeling well and truly over the rainbow (LOL - no pun intended)

From SF with Love

San Francisco- Open your golden gate!

Gday all from SF. I was secretly hoping to have one of those blog entries detailing the horrors of US immigration and border control, and how I spent hours in ridiculous queues, followed by the usual humiliation, finger printing, digital pic-taking, cavity search etc.
Surprisingly, that was not the case, immigration and customs was a breeze and within no-time at all I found myself in the city by the bay.
I'm staying in what has to be one of the cutest b&b ever. It's not fancy or anything but would get straight A's in the friendliness department. Probably the only straight thing about it... It keeps reminding me of "Tales of the City", which, coming from me, is a good thing. I'll try to take some pics later...
Biggest news so far is that SF is going through what they perceive to be an awful heat wave. CNN begs to differ and suggests it is only 26-27 degs, but it sure does feel way hotter. And for a place that very rarely gets this kind of weather, let alone in May, it is definitely the talk of the town.
Anyway - checked in, went for a quick walk around the Castro (now that's what I call gay. Oxford St doesn't even get close...), and then caught up with Eisar for a Vietnamese dinner. Which was absolutely delicious and ridiculously cheap. Now Kim, Eisar's (Vietnamese) wife, doesn't eat meat, so we took advantage of her absence to have their "Seven Dishes of Beef", which he "always wanted to have but was never allowed to". Awesome choice!
Finished my night at the bar next door to where I'm staying, once again forgetting that the yanks mix their g&t with a lot more "g" than "t".

Flight Report

I promised an update on my flight, and i am keeping my promise, although I have to say that I am nowhere near as enthusiastic as I was a few hours ago about the intense blogging thing. I suspect it may be one of those easy-to-break habits, especially when i do have other things to fill my day with. See how we go...

All in all flight is pretty uneventful, apart from the fact that it took off a good two hours late. Food etc was all good – I even got a pair of PJ to parade around in! And they have a kangaroo printed on them! Is that fancy or what?

I am sure sometime, somewhere along the way these Pjs will be brought to some sort of good use. It may be a bar in Mexico or a Karaoke joint in Japan, but if you wanna look special it doesn't get much better than the flying kangaroo pyjamas!

Watched couple of movies (God – Ethan Hawke has aged), a few episodes of family guy, a documentary or two, and am almost ready to have a quick nap.

An interesting observation (well, at least I find it interesting) about the Qantas inflight entertainment selection. This month they are proud to offer the following:

• Hunting Emmanuelle – the true story of the groundbreaking 1974 soft core porn film Emmanuelle and its star Silvia Kristel.
• The Escort Agency - A candid look at the operation of an agency in north east London.
• JFK's Women - How the world's most powerful man put sex before country.
• Miss International Queen - The annual beauty pageant for transvestite and transgender queens.
  

(I am not making any of this up! swear!)

I don't want to spend too much time talking about this. All I am going to say is that I really wanna meet the individual in Qantas in charge of programme selection. I can't think of a better person to spend a night at the Taxi club with!

Oh, one last thing... I am not 100% positive, but I am pretty confident the lady sitting next to me is Gretel Killeen's mum. She has the exact same facial expression! And no – while it would have made a great blog story, I decided against mile-high clubbing with Old Lady K.

Big hugs from a big plane... Next entry will be from the land of the free and the home of the brave!!

PS. Big hurrah to the lovely flight attendant who gave me a bottle of 1999 Shiraz as I was walking off the plane as a good-luck pressie.

*yawn*

Flight delayed.... Beginning to think maybe the early arrival was not such an awesome idea after all...

Bye Bye Baby, Bye Bye!

Gday and welcome to this very first blog entry, brought to your from Sydney’s Kingsford Smith airport.
If there is one obsession I have to admit to, it’s early airport arrival. This morning was no exception. I had visions of horrific traffic jams and road works, flat tyres, forgotten tickets and expired passports, which compelled me to leave home super early. Thanks to zero traffic, Andrew’s driving (thanks pet!) and the fact that the airport was practically deserted – I find myself here, with about three hours to spare until they even consider boarding my flight, sitting all by myself by a PC writing airport minutia on my blog.
But then again - with the sun shining, the birds singing and the champagne flowing (I always thought that having your first glass before 11:00 is when you know you really made it!) – I can’t really see a reason to complain.
There’s this song that’s been playing in my head all morning (amplified tenfold by irresponsible consumption of alcohol), which I decided to make my official bye bye song. It is so lame that it is actually awesome. It is so out of touch with the real world that it defines a world of its own. Without further ado I give you the “Brotherhood of Man” (*cough*) in their Bye-Bye song!

I don't know about you, but I reckon this is really the epitome of WTF... I can't remember a purer combination of lame music, bad haircuts (and facial hair! I bet all four ended up doing budget porn!) and laughable choreography! And being a kid of 70's I have been exposed to a lot of that stuff! But then again - isn't it always the bad things that make you feel so good?

Actually, coming to think about bad things making you feel good, I think I will actually sign off now and leave you in favour of my pre-lunch gin&tonic. I promise to update you on my adventures onboard Qantas flight 73 very very soon!