Tuesday, 31 July 2007
10:00pm

L
ast week I went to New York City to attend the New York International Latino Film Festival because "Shelter", one of the short films I shot in school made it into the short film program! I have actually been wanting to go to New York for a really, really long time, and this was the perfect excuse to go! The festival was great and we got good responses from everyone who saw "Shelter". It was one of the most amazing trips I'd ever taken. I spent the first few nights in a hotel and then the next few nights staying with my friend Omar, who you might remember from one of my old Vegas videos, haha.
Although I was born in Brooklyn, my family moved back to L.A. when I was around 2 years old and I don't remember anything about that time, and I hadn't ever been back, so this was really basically my first trip to New York. I had an absolute blast. Rather than listing all the usual sights (Empire State Building, Central Park, etc.), here are some of what I felt were my uniquely "New York" experiences from the trip, in no particular order:

Walking. Lots of it.
Visiting all five boroughs - Even Staten Island and I don't mean I rode the ferry there to take pictures of the Statue of Liberty and came straight back.
Eating food in all five boroughs - Some highlights:
1. Katz' Deli Pastrami - This absolutely and completely blew away what I had previously considered the best pastrami I had ever eaten.
2. Pizza from a random shop in The Bronx - The slice I got there was head and shoulders above what I got in Manhattan, and I did go to quite a few places in Manhattan. And I found that, as a lot of locals told me, Ray's Pizza is kind of overrated.
3. Hotdogs and kebabs from street vendors eaten while busily walking down the street.
4. Tad's Steaks - They cook them up so fast it's practically fast food, and they're pretty dang tasty and filling for the price!
5. Lindy's - Ah yes, New York Cheesecake... in New York.
6. Beer that comes with free pizza - Omar took me to a bar that would give you a free eight-or-so-inch pizza with every pint of beer that you bought. It wasn't the best pizza, but what a deal!
Riding the subway - The subway was my favorite way to get around the city. It's probably the fastest way to travel and frequently came with free entertainment, such as:
1. Drunk French guys singing the French national anthem - I kinda wanted to start a scene with a competing (namely our) national anthem similar the scene at Rick's from Casablanca, but no one was drunk enough to really want to join in despite the fact that all the Americans on board were pretty annoyed with the one guy yelling "Vive la France!" over and over. They also at one point reenacted a Spanish bullfight. At least when they disembarked one of the French dudes yelled, "We love you American people!" with great gusto. We were less irritated after that :)
2. Breakdancers - the highlight of the routine being two guys swinging a third around like a jump rope while a fourth did "the worm" over the guy being swung around... within the confined space of a train car!
3. A homeless guy yelling and threatening to hold the train hostage by telling the conductor to stop the train to take him to the hospital leaving us stranded, unless we gave him money. He also claimed he had already done it four times that day. Haha, yeah right. If he had, he'd have already either be arrested or been in the hospital for real after receiving a beat down from all the passengers who definitely would not have given him an money if he had made good on his threats. Kudos to New Yorkers for being very savvy and not falling for this stupid crap.
4. Taking "the A-train to Harlem" - This really was only entertaining to myself. Most of you squares probably don't even get the reference anyway ;)
5. Getting hassled by NYPD officers - I think I may have even ended up on some kind of terrorist watch list. Immediately after my run-in with them, I saw the same two cops hassle a guy wearing a turban who wasn't even doing anything at all. Ask me in person and I'll tell you the whole story :)
Getting in and then being refused to be taken somewhere a cab driver didn't want to go.
Visiting the B&H Photo Video store - I knew from their frequent website closures on Jewish holidays that this place was run by Jewish folks but I really didn't expect all the workers to be wearing yamulkes!
Walking under the train tracks from the car chase scene in The French Connection.
Going to a huge, "artsy" party in an empty warehouse in Brooklyn. Lots of emo nerds with digital SLR cameras were there. It was kind of weird, actually. And very, very, very hot and sweaty inside.
Walking around on the rooftops of apartment buildings just like young Vito Corleone as played by Robert DeNiro.
Seeing a celebrity - Namely Heather Graham. I kind of cheated though since I knew she would be at the premiere of her latest film which screened at the festival directly before the shorts program that "Shelter" was in. I gotta say that watching a sex scene in a theater with one of its participants in attendance is kind of awkward!
Going to the July 26, 2007 taping of "The Daily Show" - Although the episode itself was not one of the funnier ones, all of the pre-show goings on like the the Q&A with Jon Stewart before the actual show made the overall experience incredibly fun. Jon Stewart is very sharp on his feet, I was very, very impressed. I highly recommend this activity.
Visiting museums - How can you pass up MoMA and the Metropolitan Museum of Art? Although I was somewhat disappointed in that I had hoped to see a few more Rothko paintings between the two.
Speaking with someone in English, Spanish, and Russian. Same guy, too!

Things that I was expecting to happen that didn't happen:

Smelling a lot of bad smells - I had expected the whole city to just reek of sewage or garbage or something since that was the stereotype. Turns out my average day of work on location in Hollywood or Downtown L.A. is full of way more muck and bad smells than the vast majority of New York City. It's actually pretty dang clean! New Jersey, on the other hand, defintiely did live up to the hype.
Seeing a lot of homeless people - Again another stereotype but again, in an average day in Hollywood or Downtown L.A. I'll see more homeless people in one hour than I did the entire week I was running around all over New York City. Again, it's pretty dang clean!
Getting stabbed by a crazy Puerto Rican chick - In average day in Hollywood... haha just kidding, I have never been stabbed, but one thing is for sure -- New York is much safer these days. That's not to say no one gets stabbed, but it's been cleaned up a whole lot in recent years!

Things that I was totally caught me by surprise:

The sheer number of people - Of course I knew that New York was really crowded but I guess I was not prepared for just how crowded it would really be out there on the streets. I guess I could not conceptualize a place with nearly as many people as Los Angeles County compressed into a space that's maybe 1/10th of the size. It was quite mindblowing when I first stepped out of Penn Station after my train ride from Newark!
Incredible diversity - Like the last point, I had always known that New York was a melting pot, but I was not prepared for just how much of one it would be. The whole world really is right there. I've never heard so many different accents and languages being spoken on a single city block in my life. It seemed like every direction I pointed my camera it caught people from at least four different countries. I'm damned sure that no place in the world even comes close to having the same variety of different ethnic groups represented, except for L.A., and even then, you do not see the same degree of interaction and intermingling between people of different races in L.A. as you do in New York. L.A. is closer to being more of an overflowing, melting muffin pan with separate containers blending together than the true melting pot that is New York City.
Incredibly attractive women - I guess I had just never heard before that New York was home to so many beautiful women, but I guess all that walking around the city and oppressive humidity are good for something -- multitudes of fit bodies and beautiful skin!
New Yorkers thinking L.A. is incredibly dangerous - I thought New York would be incredibly dangerous but I found that many of the New Yorkers I met seemed to think L.A. was actually more dangerous than I was thinking New York would be. They were picturing AK-47's and drive-by shootings everywhere. I guess misconceptions from TV and the movies go both ways here.
Great food - Sure, everyone has heard that you can't get a slice anywhere like you can in New York but holy cow, every street corner has the best something or other in the world. Exept burritos. Much like the way you'll never get exactly the same pizza outside of New York... you'll never get exactly the same burritos outside of California either :).

In the end I guess I never came to New York before because I never really knew how much I would love it. But now that I know what all they have out there... there's no way I'll be able to resist going back. Would I move there permanantly? Probably not. But that "bi-coastal" living thing that I've heard so many actors talking about... I could get into that. Spending a couple weeks or months at a time working on films in New York while remaining mainly based in L.A. sounds pretty dang awesome to me. Time to start looking for some gigs!

Check out the pictures over at the Giant Repository of Pics.