Chapter 8: Sweet, like Chocolate
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We piled into Janes car. Lapiz took the front passenger seat. As
Richie already commented on this I’ll refer back to his earlier post
for the following description:
– Jane’s driving skills and acute direction taking, or lack thereof…
Me: “Jeanette run those people over man, go ahead, plow right through them…”.
Jane: “I can’t. I don’t have the light! Where’s West End
anyway???…”.
Lapiz: “Aw shit man, why’d I sit in the front for?!?…”.
Slaphappy: “You can’t buy times like these ever…”.
DJ Ricardo: “Is that Wuelfo on the radio?…”.
OK, back to me. That describes the journey to the hotel perfectly. At
one stage we were situated, immobile, in a part of the road where
cars from all four directions could have hit us, but being NYC, they
JUST missed, at speed. I will hand over to Jane now, I received this
message on my return (edited highlight):
“Yesterday I was going to work and a tow truck hit me. Left rear end of my car is smashed. The man just wanted to get in my space. He thought I was going to go thru the yellow light which was about to turn red in 2 seconds, so he decided to move in my lane. He turned back when he realized I don’t drive like him and the back of his car hit mine and lifted me up a few inches. Now you know I’m a good driver, except when I have men telling me to go or stop at the same time! lol… I’m fine, a little bruised on the shoulder due to the seat belt. Now I have to get his insurance to pay. They said they would. My friends tell me to sue! lol. How’s Richard?”
LMFAO!!!
Tourist tip: Driving round NYC could well be hazardous
to your health
Back to Saturday evening in NYC with Jane driving Richie, Lapiz,
Ricardo and me???.
We eventually found a space and sometime around 6.30pm we entered our
very smart looking studio block at 850 West End Studios, West End
Ave, just off Central Park. Quite a smart part of town. Quite a nice
reception area. Quite a, DID YOU SEE THAT WOMAN! JESUS!!!
[she was huge, wearing a pink flannel dressing gown, hair in tight curlers.
She was on her way OUT of the hotel]. Quite a sight.
Up to the room and the “Quite nice” references vanished. Quite basic.
Quite clean. Quite what are we doing here?
No worries, it WAS clean and for the few hours we would be there was
more than adequate for our purposes, which so far was to sleep for no
more than 2 hours at a time in any one place. We unpacked our NYC
bag, our BOS bag being left back at Niks place. I forgot to mention
the ugly and utterly pointless Mo Fo tourist pencil for Lapiz, which
we revealed to our buddy was lost in transit at the Metro Museum. Did
we leave it at Niks? Another On My Return post reveals all:
“By the way I found the “Lapiz”. You guys left it in the bedroom at my place where you “slept”/laid down. What should I do with it? ?Nik”
I didn’t tell Nik to do with it what he suggested I do to Ricardo
with it at one stage (sideways), but have suggested he contact Lapiz
when he’s next in or moves to NYC. Duty discharged.
Back to the Hotel in NYC now: Wash and change, downstairs and meet
back with the guys and gal.
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Previously Deleted/Lost Scene
Restored Outtake:
For some reason, possibly due to my internal server shutting this out because of the sheer psychological trauma caused at the time, I forgot to mention this??.
When I was getting changed in the down the hall toilet, I couldn?t get out. The door jammed. I tried to open it for what felt like 5 minutes. Someone outside gave the door a ?BANG?. It was the huge pink woman. She freed me, but I do wonder if I had somehow fallen into some sort of mantrap of her construction.
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Off to well known eating establishment/bar La Fonda Boricua in what had
to be 2 taxis, Lapiz and Ricardo this time joined by Jane for the B team,
Richie and I [original A team members] followed.
La Fonda was pretty busy. We had to wait a short while for a table in
the corridor between the bar and the wall. What do you do in
situations like these? Well, you turn around and start chatting with
just entering the bar world class [and definitely Cuban] trumpet
players. It was Chocolate Armenteros and he immediately recognised
Jane and Richie. We had to be introduced, our fame having, as yet,
failed to reach this spot.
He unfolded a flyer that detailed where he had been the last couple
of days. Alabama, or possibly Arkansas. Some university big band gig
with him as featured player. We admired the crumpled, folded, A5 pink
sheet of photocopied concert advertisement as much as men can in such
circumstances.
Our table was said to be available and we went over, Lapiz buying
beers and Ricardo and I hopping back to get Fan Shots with Chocolate.
Genuine Puerto Rican beers in hand we discussed the menu. “The
Waitress is the menu here,? said Jane. And so she was, nothing was
written down, the days orders being kept, like most of Ricardo’s
information, inside her head and not available for reference. One
thing she did say was that turtle something WAS on the menu that
night. Tee Hee.
We had great dishes of pork, potato, rice, beans, prawns [shrimp for
American viewers], salad, chicken, various dips and plantains. Very
very tasty, good sized portions and built for sharing which was a
good job as hands were constantly clashing over the table. Ricardo
had prawn in garlic with, you guessed it, garlic dip on the side.
As time was getting on, Richie asked us what we were doing later. He
had to shoot off to El Taller for a gig he was promoting. As he described
it to Jane as “experimental Latin Jazz” and she made a face like the
one we all made in the Nottingham pub at the reference
to ‘Descargas Infamous Adriel Review’.
Despite our wanting to keep Richie with us, maybe not there then.
Kojak corner AKA Chello’s was just around the corner and was a MUST
SEE for us. Jane was less thrilled at the prospect, it’s fair to say.
Lapiz had hoped we could fit it in earlier in the day as that’s when
Frankie Vazquez was most likely to be there, but the longer than
expected Salsa Walking Tour had meant we had to wait until after the
meal. After that? Well, Jakes Bar and then head out for some live
music, another essential ingredient to our whistle stop NYC
experience.
Richie headed off for his gig saying that he’d try and catch us
later.
I threw his $20 meal/drink contribution back at him as we
were not charity cases.
Oh how I wanted that $20 when in Boston on Monday, that would have
taken my CD count to 20. We knew that Richie would probably not make
it back, but hoped he would. He left the bar and we paid for the meal
and headed over the street towards the next block, where Kojak Corner
beckoned……
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Previously Deleted/Lost Scene
Restored Outtake:
Kojak Corner was a name given by me to one of Lapiz?s regular hang out spots. So named as, from his descriptions, it sounded like somewhere ordinary Barrio folk might have hung out, 70?s cop show style.
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