D.C. Invades NYC Part Dos

As I had mentioned before…I awoke and decided to check on the boys. Of course they are all sleeping being that I wake up early after a night on the town. Some of you have been on the receiving end of those early morning calls after a bender and you always get pissed and ask how come I’m up so early. I don’t know, I just wake-up early after a night of drinking. So the posse finally got up. I always feel that there are some characteristics that show if a person is old school and should be respected…now I love all my boys who were in town, but Big Red pulled off the biggest old school from the neighborhood move of them all, he started to drink again. Yes, after all the alcohol consumption of the night before (read previous post), Big Red pulled out a beer to clear the cobwebs. Nuff said!!

So the posse was up and I decided that Tom’s diner was in order. You know the whole tourist thing. The boys were troopers and decided to hit the MET and get some museum time in. Not sure how they did it but I decided to pass and clean up the apt. a bit. Not to mention, I was feeling a little shaky after the food. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE TOM’s. O.K. so it’s not the best diner food…but I have fond memories there.

I figured might as well make dinner so when the fellas arrived we would eat and get out again. Sure it wasn’t fair that I got to sleep a bit while they were visiting the ruins of ancient Egypt….but they were on vacation…not me! We ate dinner and decided to watch a video that J-Lo brought of SNL CD with Christopher Walken. It was rather funny and of course there was the classic line, “FINE CHAMPANIA”. The line comes from a skit in which C. Walken is trying to get a girl into bed by offering her some FINE CHAMPANIA…very funny and very classic. So we watched that and we ran out of beer. This was rather disturbing so we had to break open the bottle of rum and J-Lo made us a poor man’s mojito because I forgot to purchase the right condiments.

Fuzzzy…adjust your radio dials….oh a new added member to the crew of the night…Alberto “San Antonio” Puentes. Nuff said, more trouble brewing.

We decide that its MKL weekend and a Sunday so not much must be going on…wrong. There are those individuals who can find trouble no matter where they are and these are those guys. We head to the LES (Lower East Side) and get our drink on at Piano. I’m trying to hold back because I’m a bit beat from the night before and so are the guys, you know a group of beat troops when you see them. Yet, we had to dig deep in our arsenal and reach where we had never reached before. So we started to put them down again. It hurt at first, but then the drinks started to go down like, FINE CHAMPANIA!

Roberto and Beto (not the same person) were three sheets to the wind by the end of the night. As I think Big Red was a combination of tired and buzzed…but we were all hurting. As we all jumped in a cab after a sloppy late night dinner (3:30 am to be exact) and yes, all five of us jumped in. There was a wounded soldier by the name of San Antonio who valiantly yelled, “Cabbie to Au Bar.” Now I know San Antonio is drunk. For some reason he yells this place when really drunk for two reasons. One, he’s o.k. with spending a crap load of money on this place. Don’t get me wrong, San Antonio isn’t cheap by any means…but this place at 4:00 in the morning? Two, he still thinks has clout at this place like he use to….sorry, you have been out of that scene for about 3 years now my friend. None the less, we stopped by and of course it was closed. What can you say, it was a great effort by a wounded soldier. I guess every soldier has his last battle cry when in war. Just the same, J-Lo kept saying, I need some FINE CHAMPANIA here” the whole night which was funny as hell.

You would think it was over when we got home. No, this is where it got ugly. We got in about 4:30 or so and decided to laugh and chat a bit. Then Mr. Michigan found my roommates CD collection. In any case, there are four people in the house with some odd ties to Texas. My family has ties to Brownsville, Tx. J-Lo to Eagle Pass and of course Rey (the sleeping roommate) comes from Corpus Christie and Beto from SA. So we pull out all the Tex-Mex music and start playing it….well loud. Rey wakes up and it’s all over as everyone starts naming their favorite groups…when, where and with whom they saw the group for the first time. It was fun and reminded me of home.

Sooo…6:00 or 6:30 am rolls around and I have to do brunch with Anita the next morning before she leave back to Jersey. I wake up at 9:00 and we are off to the races. The boys had left by the time I came back which sucked, I would have liked to see them out…but they understood…all in two days my friends…and to that…I will toast and lift my glass of FINE CHAMPANIA!

D.C. Invades NYC Part I

J-Lo: Joaquin, the crew is coming to town this weekend…can you put us up?
Me: You know you always have a home here (in the back of mind I’m thinking of all weekends for scandal to breakout)
J-Lo: You sure, man? We don’t want to put you in an odd position.
Me: J-Lo…once again, you guys always have your home here.
J-Lo: Cool. We have a new member of the crew, Roberto.
Me: No problem (ITBOM – Shit, a new crazy guy to add to the crew…this weekend will equal nothing but sin)

As emails start to flow back and forth I’m thinking…crap, this is going to happen and it’s going to be ugly. Guys show up and Anita is laughing because I’m giving her the warning that it’s going to be a barnburner with the boys. She laughs about the whole thing and wishes me luck.

Roll Call Upon Arrival:
Joaquin “J-Lo, Little Joaquin” Lopez
Lee “Big Red” Morrison
Roberto “Mr. Michigan” Rodriguez

I had the boys pick up some pre-drinks on the way here because drinks are so pricey here in NYC. To my surprise they show up with a case of Presidente (which is a great beer…thanks Mr. Michigan for the suggestion) and of course a huge bottle of Rum. Hugs are exchanged and the boys are surprisingly antsy after a drive from Washington. Off to a Time Out sports bar to see the Jets…CHOKE! Damn! The boys are excited and are putting down pitcher after pitcher…I count a total of about 10 pitchers…plus pre-drinks at my pad and we are doing o.k. They even start rooting for the JETS! J-E-T-S Jets!Jets!Jets! Surprise, surprise UCLA is playing Arizona so we stay for the game and meet with the girls from the class of 2003…yes, we are getting very old. In the madness we are taking shots…it’s getting ugly. Geez…as I said, this weekend is going to sin.

Big Red says that we should get back home…I’m thinking…good thinking and someone is thinking correct. Then he mentions that we should get back and have some more drinks before we go out. You see where this is going.

Get home and down more beers before out to the meatpacking. Off to Lateran down in the MPD. I take notice that Big Red and Mr. Michigan enjoy Jack and Coke. This could be a good sign or a bad one, in this case it’s a very bad sign. We couldn’t get into Son Cubanos so we went to some other local bar. Big Red being the gracious guy he is gets everyone a Jack and Coke...me being the greedy drunk...I tell him to pour two of those in a pint glass for me. Nuff said.

We end up at the SOHO Grand Hotel where everything becomes a big blur...Anita sees us trashed and starts laughing. Joaquin keeps telling me...I'm pulling out the Champania! I didn't get the joke until the next night.

I wake up the next morning...nuff said. As I said, this was going to be a crazy one. I think the drink count went as follows:

Pre-Game Drinks: 3 Beers each at my pad
Time Out Drinks: Aprox. 10 pitchers, 2 rounds of shots, and one jack and coke.
2 round of pre-drinks: 2 Beers each at my house
Meat Packing: 6 Rounds of Jack and Cokes
SOHO Grand: 2 Beers and some Fine Champania

Day 2 in my next post.

Penthouse Party

It’s been such a long time since I have written in my city blog. Wow! Of course there’ve been many a story that I can tell but I guess I shall start with last night.

First, it was cold as hell last night. Geezzz the winter has finally arrived here in NYC. It takes a lot for me to say it’s cold…I’m not one of those stupid California people who come to NYC and say, “it’s so cold” when it’s only 50. No, I have lived here to see the snow in of 10 years ago and so forth. So I know what is cold and what isn’t…but it was cold yesterday.

O.K. so Rey “El Rey” Contreras decided to get together for some drinks at the Pac-10 happy hour. Much respect to Julie “Guinness” Ohara…who got us an open tab at Proof for a whole hour. I had my new drink of Whiskey and Coke as did Rey. I figure everyone has to jump on board to the new drink that I’m in love with. O.K. not in love with, but it’s kind of been my drink of choice as of late. So there we were drinking Whiskey and Cokes and we decided to go outside and get some fresh freezin’ ass air. We then took off to Central Bar for another two rounds. About this time the only thing keeping me warm in the drink…but I’m feeling nice and warm.

It was then that Rey mentioned that he knew of a party going on up the street. We took off to the party at the Penthouse Suite…o.k. so Rey doesn’t hit many parties nor does he bring me to many, but this party was the, SHIT!! It was on with the alcohol, the music and the view of the city. Great time and good people. We almost busted out in some shots, but we were already done for the most part. The highlight of the party was this really drunk Asian girl who was a dancing machine. I was just sitting there going…this is crazy…huge bottles and bottles of Greygoose…overlooking NYC…what can be better? And I had El Rey there to make me laugh…good times people…good times.

In closing, next entry will be about what happened when the D.C. Players Crew came threw NYC. All I can say is that it was CRAZY!