Do You Have a Pen: New York City
New York City
Before anything, I will include a blog piece. This, I feel, is important because it shows my love of New York City and some great general tips on the city. One blog piece I wrote for VagabondingAmerica.com was titled “New York City on the Cheap.” Perhaps I could have come up it’s a better name for the piece. Either way, add that here:
People always say how expensive New York City is and I can’t deny it. If you are totally ill prepared, New York will suck and you will leave broke. I will break this up into multiple segments for ease of reading by topic and make things easier. I am assuming a five day, four night stay in New York. The goal here is a full vacation under $1,000 and you’ll have fun doing it.
Transportation to and from NYC.
I am basing this part on Chicago costs. Preplan your trip! This cannot be stressed enough. Airlines and trains will do you no favors the day before your trip if you don’t have your tickets already. I’d suggest planning a month out for your transportation. I’ve flown from NYC for as little as $50 for basic economy and $75 for main cabin (which is more comfortable). I assume an average of $100 each way, which isn’t bad. Basic economy allows you a single personal item to be stored below the seat in front of you so you have even less room to stretch out. Economy allows a carry-on item to be stored in the overhead bin as well. Usually the cost for a check bag is between $35 and $50 additional, so pack your carry-on tight to save money, but be up to date on TSA regulations. For flight bookings, I suggest Sky Scanner unless you already have a preferred airline. Do not use the Skip Lagged app!!! They are the best way to lose any points, status, or miles you have accumulated. My preference is American Airlines with a flight to and from NYC every thirty minutes from both LaGuardia (LGA) and John F. Kennedy International (JFK).
Amtrak is $110 each way from and to Chicago so basically the same price.
Round trip airfare $200.
Hotel.
You have multiple options for hotels, some starting at over $1,000 per night. Stay away from those unless you are trying to impress somebody. I’ve seen some in Manhattan as low as $350. Another option is a youth hostel. So if you are ok with bunk beds and a community bathroom this is an option—but we are Americans. We aren’t staying in that crap. I advise to stay in the Hotel Pennsylvania. They run an internet-only special of $99 per night. Do not book last minute and do not book during big events. They do this rate to ensure they sell out nightly. Also assume a tax rate of 15% so $115 per night is a great guess. Before booking the flight, make sure the room for the nights you want works. The Hotel Pennsylvania is located right across the street from the famous New York Penn Station so if you take Amtrak, you are right across the street.
Hotel Cost $460
Ground Transportation.
Public transportation is the best answer. New York City has done its best to make sure no one really has to drive in the city and of ever place I’ve been in the United States, they have done the best job of it. The traffic jams are horrible and I recommend not driving to the city even if you’re close enough to do so. If you’re that close, take the train in. There are multiple train options from closer distances besides Amtrak.
You can buy an unlimited ride MTA (Metropolitan Transportation Authority) seven day pass (subway and bus) for $32 per person. This is your best deal if you want to move around the whole city. If you want to just move around Manhattan, just buy the standard MTA pass and pay the $2.75 per ride. Buses are free if within two hours of a subway entry and you can transfer from one subway to another and ride continuously to your destination as long as you don’t go outside the turnstiles. Go HERE to check your best options on their website, but so much of Manhattan can be discovered by just going for a walk.
Stay away from taxis. They are overpriced compared to Uber and that’s not just NYC. That is true nationwide. In NYC, unless you’re running late for something, there’s no real need to be in a car.
Remember the E Train. E Train goes to two different stops that have transfers to one airport or the other. If you are flying out of LaGuardia, take the E Train to Jackson Heights – Roosevelt Avenue and take the Q70 bus to the airport. It’s an express bus only to and from the airport. If you are flying out of JFK, take the E Train to Sutphin and Archer. Go upstairs of that train station and you’ll find the Airtrain to JFK. If you are flying into New York, reverse those directions and take the train to Penn Station. The Q70 transfer is free both ways. Be careful of the Sutphin and Archer stop. It’s not the best part of the city, especially at two in the morning (I made that mistake before). In the daytime, it’s a nice, vibrant, multicultural community.
Ground Transportation $32
Food.
Food is as expensive in New York as you would assume—sort of. If you are in the Ruby Tuesday’s in Times Square, assume you will spend at least $3 to $5 per person per meal more than you would just about everyplace else in the country. That’s the cost of eating on the second floor of a pretty cool place and looking down over the famous Times Square. You’re basically paying for the most expensive real estate in the world.
At this juncture, I can tell you I could do an entire food blog website about where to eat cheap in New York City and no, not the places who’s names you know already. You won’t find cheap steaks there, but you will find cheap food. Look at food carts, pizza places open to the street, and family owned ethnic restaurants. At the train station in Jamaica, New York, at Sutphin and Archer, you can walk just ten minutes in any direction to find amazing ethnic restaurants for under $12 for lunch. It’s worth the train ride out there from Manhattan to enjoy the atmosphere the area has to offer. Near the Port Authority Bus Terminal (PABT) you will find pizza places with fantastic prices. I am talking $2 a slice or less for pizza in a couple places. One is actually named “99 Cent Pizza.” Find that cheap in a mall pizza kiosk anywhere else in the United States. I do have one word of caution here, pizza in Chicago and New York is considered the best in the country, both with their unique styles. NYC pizza purists will tell you to go to Brooklyn for the best pizza in New York. While no two New Yorkers will agree on who’s pizza is the best in the city, 80% of them agree that you’ll find it in Brooklyn. With that, the stuff you get in Manhattan for a couple bucks a slice is still pretty damn good pizza.
New York is known as “the city that never sleeps,” but around 5AM when you want breakfast, you’ll have to search hard. All locals know “that one place on that street,” which helps no one that’s not from there. There are very few 24-hour dinners in NYC. They do exist, but they are not overly easy to find because it’s not one after another on the main streets people walk. Use Google and you will find them, but be patient. Make your plan the night before in your room so you’re not walking around looking for breakfast and not finding it.
I’m averaging meal expenses at $12 per meal. Lunch should be cheaper and dinner will be more, but use that as a good baseline since food carts are $6 to $8 including a drink.
Food Cost $180
Entertainment.
Do you like museums? Unlike the Smithsonian, NYC museums are not free, however, many offer free, discounted, and suggested donation days. I found a great piece on NY.com that lists them by day as to what is cheap or free. Please click HERE for the direct link. They in turn, have links to each museum and have really done their homework.
The zoo in Central Park is also free and open daily throughout summer. Check out the oculus at Ground Zero, an unusual place that is the site of the greatest single tragedy on U.S. soil and a tribute to American resilience (it’s a shopping mall now that looks up to the new World Trade Center). Another option is to just ride the subway for a day. If you buy the day pass, get off and on whenever and wherever you want. This is about exploration and fun, but mostly this is about you getting out of your comfort zone for a little while.
Are you really going to go to New York without seeing a show? Check out Showtickets HERE for the list of off broadway shows and costs. All along Times Square, you will hear “ wanna see a show?” Assuming it’s not a transvestite hooker, the shows are typically comedy and a great way to spend part of an evening in the big city. A lot of these are free to be part of a studio audience or they will ask for donations after. Times Square itself is a place to behold as well. I love Times Square, as is evident in one of my first blog pieces. You can spend an entire night just taking in the multicultural atmosphere that is Times Square. It is amazing!
They have multiple bus tours of the city starting at around $50. It is a good way to see things, if a little on the pricy side, but you get to ride a double deck bus and sit up top, which is really cool! Another option for a full day is literally to go for a long walk with your camera. You will regret not taking those pictures if you don’t do it. Take a look at my personal website and you will see my pictures from various trips to NYC in a tab titled New York City.
Entertainment Cost $128
Other Stuff.
Stay away from drinking there. It’s not cheap. Average about $10 to $15 per adult mixed beverage. So I suggest staying sober. Also, if you want to go shopping, it’s not cheap but if you want the fun of negotiating price, hit Jamaica Avenue in Jamaica, New York for something that seems like a Moroccan bazar of food, spices, and wears of all kinds.
There. I just helped you spend $1,000 of your hard earned money in the course of a week and you got to see the greatest city on Earth.
If there are two or more people, share the room expense and everyone has more money to spend on doing stuff in the city. A lot of people are afraid of New York and twenty years ago, rightfully so, but this isn’t that city anymore. The crime rate has dropped and in Manhattan especially, you can’t swing a dead rat without accidentally hitting a cop (please note that cops hate being hit by dead rats and doing so may get you arrested). Have fun, be safe, and watch out for pickpockets.
The whole point of the preceding is to illustrate that New York City is no more expensive than any other city in America if planned out right. In fact, the Holiday Inn in Manhattan is $127 on weekdays in the fall so long as there are no events at the time. I know that sounds like a lot of criteria, but it’s really not bad.
The first time I was in New York City was about fifteen years ago. It was a vacation and I stayed at a Holiday Inn in a Fort Lee, New Jersey. It was about one-third the price of staying in Manhattan. I checked in around three in the afternoon and decided to go into the city. I saw names familiar from TV to me, such as Bronx. Of course that’s about the point I needed gas. I pulled into a Mobil and swiped my credit card as I notice a group of people gathering in the street. I put five dollars in the car and got the hell out of there. Later that night I called my boss who was covering my midnight shift at my old job to tell her I was driving around Manhattan at 2AM. Coolest. Thing. Ever.
After fifteen years of not being there, I went back with a big truck. It had been so long that I was scared. My first day driving transport was a truck going to Brooklyn and I was nervous as hell. Robert booked a flight back. What if i miss my flight? I had to drive from Indiana there in less than fourteen hours then get to the airport and fly back—and I did it! Hell yeah! I am unstoppable! I thought I was unstoppable. The George Washington Bridge will stop you and there you will sit for what seems like six hours in traffic. It may have only been though minutes, but it felt like six hours. Looking over your right shoulder is the entirety of Manhattan and it is gorgeous. Once I got moving again, I headed Robert’s advice of “stay on my ass” and I followed everything he did, even if he caught the green light and I had a red. It’s New York and when in Rome, right? Once we got to Brooklyn, it was almost equally as impressive as Manhattan, just differently. We drove through this one area where there were street venders and tents set up on the sidewalks selling things. It was like a scene out of a movie. I was driving through a Moroccan Bazar in the United States. People just walking in the street to get from one side to the other and so many of them that the traffic had to go slow. The smells from the spice merchants was odd and mixed with the smells of the freshly cooked food, I was instantly hungry. This may have been one of the coolest days of my life and for them, it was just a Wednesday. If you needed a car radio, a dress, or a whole fresh duck for dinner that night, someone there had it. We delivered our trucks and made it to the airport. This was my first time riding in an Uber, riding on a subway, riding a monorail, and my first time flying commercially. I had to qualify this with “commercially” since I have flown in small private airplanes and helicopters numerous times prior to this.
The following is a piece, titled Homeless in New York, from my Vagabonding America website, VagabondingAmerica.com. It was about me getting stuck in New York City one day and how I handled it.
I love New York! There, I said it. With that, it’s an alright place to be trapped if the bartenders are amicable but I learned a few lessons.
The first lesson is, call if you’re going to be late. I was sick on one of my runs so I took a nap. One thing I know about Amtrak is that if you miss a train but had a ticket, you can just use it later. That is NOT true. I had a really good $104 deal from New York City to Elkhart, Indiana but I was sick and decided that it was better to nap for a few hours and just grab my return trip a day later. Yeah. That program doesn’t exist anymore. So not only did I lose my $104 ticket, but can’t get another one for that price for two days, not just one. The next day price is $200. So I now have two real options, stay at Hotel Pennsylvania for $99 plus tax or pay an extra $120 for the next day Amtrak ticket. Either way, it’ll cost me $220. According to Amtrak policy, you have until the time of departure to call and change a reservation, but they are not exactly forthcoming about that policy nor do that place a phone number that is easy to just find while in a New York City traffic jam. So yeah, I screwed up and the customer service representative and “your supervisor” all agreed that I was screwed and not getting my money back in any way, shape, or form. If you know you’re going to miss a train prior to departure, you can just reschedule it on your phone app or by calling them. Trains the next day are usually more, so you have to pay an upcharge.
The second lesson is that hotels don’t take cash in New York City. I attempted to check in to the Hotel Pennsylvania for the night but they require a credit card and then you can pay cash when you check out. Because of the nature of my job, I have cash on me and get paid via ATM card, not direct deposit to my bank. Also, I use a bank that’s local to where I live, so I can’t just run my deposit to the bank as soon as I get it. Basically, the $99 room rate is just a big joke that I can’t get because I have actual money on me, plus it has to be booked online and they sell out fast, so you probably aren’t getting one for tonight.
Third is that bars close at 4AM, which can be good or bad, depending on how many drinks you have while at the bar (still to be determined), but right now I am REALLY sleepy! Are you really homeless while in a bar? I tend to think not.
Park benches are hard to find, even in parks and when you do find one, another homeless parson is on it already. There is a fine line between my job and being homeless and for such a nice night, I have crossed that line. With that, airports are also great for being homeless. You are out of the elements and can sleep without being harassed too much, though you need a ticket to get in at most times if it’s odd hours, but I still suggest wrapping the straps of your bags around you.
My friend took pity upon me and charged a plane ticket for me so I just walked around for a bit and was homeless just over 24 hours. In conclusion, being homeless isn’t that rough if you are properly prepared and have a good social network of friends along with cash on your person. If you are a homeless advocate for whatever reason—it was a joke and I was drunk when I wrote this part as it happened. Screw you!
After I left the bar around 2AM I went to Penn Station. I decided to leave the bar early because I was at the point of needing either enough more to drink to get rid of my headache or it was just going to get worse while waiting there. While near Penn Station, I found a few open food carts and the one I picked was awesome. I had an Italian Sausage on a pita for only $6, the best prices on anything I found in New York City. My friend told me to take the E Train from Penn Station to where I needed to be. That didn’t make much sense since the Long Island Railroad went right where I wanted to go also—till I realized it didn’t actually go where I wanted it to. My bad! So I took the Long Island Railroad to Jamacia Station then had to bring the E Train back toward Manhattan then I got off in Queens at Washington Heights so I could take a bus to LaGuardia. Yes. The first several times you in New York are very confusing and hard to get around. After several trips there, it’s still difficult to get around even when you do know where you’re going, mainly because there is a lot to remember. After finally making it to the airport, I found a nice area of the food court to sleep in. I woke up around noon or so to a rather full airport and hung out and ate, then got on my 6:30 flight to Chicago.
My night of homelessness consisted of me getting hammered at Playwrights Irish Pub (which ironically has a VERY limited number of electrical outlets to keep your MacBook running so I’m not sure how they expect the next great play to be written here in modern days on dead laptops, but the food is good and drinks are strong so I can’t complain. Tom, Carrie, and Catherine (she was from my last trip here) are all friendly and will take care of your beverage needs. I will defiantly stay at Hotel Pennsylvania when I have money on my card to check in. It’s a nice place with a good price if you aren’t paying cash and are willing to pay for your room online.
The above was not my only time being stuck in New York City with no place to sleep, nor the worse. At least that had an easy solution. The worst one happened sometime later and was totally my own fault. I was looking for flights one day on my American Airlines app for a specific date around six weeks from that point just out of curiosity for a then future concert I was considering seeing. I was asked by work to train a couple guys and we were going to NYC so I booked a flight—without resetting the month in my app. I got the two guys trained and in New York and they were renting a car from Kennedy International Airport (JFK) since airport car rentals are usually cheaper and I was flying back out of LaGuardia International Airport (LGA). I got to LaGuardia and went to check in for my flight and it didn’t work. I couldn’t figure it out and I asked one of the nice ladies that assists you and she looked at my app and noticed the date was for the following month. This was where I learned some things about New York City. I had a local bank account to my home and with that, couldn’t make a deposit and I don’t have credit cards. Hotels in New York don’t take cash. That was lesson one. Lesson two was that Greyhound will take cash, but they charge a service fee to do so. It would have been sixty dollars cheaper to book my Greyhound ticket online. This all happened on a Friday and the Friday night Greyhound out west was booked, as was Amtrak and the Saturday Amtrak was over $200. Greyhound was $160 including the service fee for taking cash. Money on me wasn’t the issue, but money on my debit card was. So my Greyhound, even worse, isn’t till 10:30PM Saturday night. I had no idea what to do. I guessed I was going to get to know the city well. I went to Playwrights Irish Pub again since the last time I was homeless in New York I went there. I wasn’t there long, just enough to have a couple drinks, then I walked to the Hotel Pennsylvania. That’s where I learned that hotels in NYC do not take cash. This is also the reason now I have an account at Chase Bank so I can put cash in at the ATM and immediately have access to those funds. The Hotel Pennsylvania offers an $99 internet-only rate for bookings, but the hotel was booked that night. They are about the cheapest, though if you go in Expedia and it is not a weekend, prices can be less horrible. I found another bar after several hours of walking around Times Square called Pisces. There I had a few more drinks and then went walking again when they closed and sat down on a bench in a plaza where I fell asleep. Yes. I slept on a New York City park bench. That sort of defines homelessness I think. Still drunk, I woke up when the sprinklers went off. At this point, I wish I was just writing this through text so I could add an emoji of sighing. I felt like I hit rock bottom at that point and I later found out that rock bottom has a basement. Rock bottom’s basement was when I was on the Greyhound without showering for a couple days. I was tired, depressed, pissed, and questioning if this job was really for me. It was just the exhaustion at that point then I had to take a bus. God, I hate the bus. After I woke up to the sprinkler, I went to find food at some food carts then made my way to the Port Authority Bus Terminal (PABT) where I found the waiting area for Greyhound down in the basement, hence rock bottom having a basement. I slept on the waiting room chair in a Greyhound station. Yeah...THIS is what rock bottom feels like. I had only planned on this being an overnight trip and was gone for four days.
One day that truly stands out was the day I went to see the Statue of Liberty from across the water. I was down by Battery Park and saw the Castle Clinton National Monument and New York Korean Veterans War Memorial. I also walked up to Broadway and saw the Charging Bull Statue. It was a personal Tour de New York via Subway because we took the train up to Central Park and eventually ended up near Ground Zero. Seeing the Ground Zero Memorial is surreal, but going into the oculus and realizing that its just a big shopping mall now gave me a perspective on America I never had before. On 9-11 we were attacked by people that hate our vary way of life, much of which revolves around our capitalism and free market—so I see a shopping mall at the site of the worst attack on U.S. soil the best memorial America could have ever come up with. Looking up through the skylight to Freedom Tower is a strange feeling. You see it, but at first you don’t realize you’re looking at Freedom Tower. Like they need a sign that reads “hey jackass, look up!” Then Robert and I walked to Liberty Park, a park with so many cameras on poles that I personally have renamed it “Surveillance Park.” They are watching you, whomever the “they” is. You can’t scratch your balls without at least six camera angles seeing how you did it.
Times Square may be the most impressive thing I’ve seen anywhere in my travels. Since I started traveling as much as I do, I’ve learned just how much I love New York City. I was there once before years back and it was a fantastic sight to behold, but at the time I wasn’t able to truly appreciate the city. There was so much I hadn’t seen or experienced on that one single trip.
I brought a bus from Boston into the Port Authority Bus Terminal (PABT) and when you come out of the terminal, you are face-to-face across the street from a huge sign for the New York Times on their namesake building. Everything is just larger than life. A block or two away is the actual Times Square, which is freaking huge! It is really a visual rendition of American excesseism and materialism at both its best and worst. If I wanted to show any foreigner what America is and there was only ten minutes to do it, Times Square is where I would take them.
When you are there the first time, it’s overwhelming on every sense. There are people bumping into you, the smell of food, the lights, the sounds of people talking and cars honking, and you can almost taste the air for good or bad. Everything is there at once. After a while, it starts making sense and like fractals, the real patterns of Times Square start to emerge. It is truly a piece of living four-dimensional art with various focal points from any direction you stand and look. The lights that blinded you at first make way to the symmetry of the area. The streets are almost perfect angles—but not exactly. There’s a feeling of imperfection there as well brought together by the whole. Times Square is the definition of “synergy.” The addition of the people from all walks of life in there squirm like a hand full of flies on fermented apple juice, adding the finishing touch to the woven tapestry. New York may just be any other city if it wasn’t for Times Square.
The art is just the start of it though. Beyond that, there is materialism in excess to the point of shear beauty. At one or two in the morning, mall type stores are open everywhere there. There are classy stores and shops in New York. Those are not in Times Square. Times Square is more like Mall of America or an outdoor outlet mall with all the same stores and they are packed because sometimes you just need to buy a pair of Raybans and Sunglass Hut at midnight. Between mall stores and souvenir shops capitalizing on the NYC name, the city stays alive.
A lot of people think I am crazy for my love of New York but they don’t see it and that’s fine. They are just wrong. Times Square is America from sea to shining sea and there is a wave of calm that washes over me every time I am there. If I am married to my work, New York City has become my mistress.
Though I won’t always do that delivery job, I think it stands up to a permanent reality for me. A friend of mine that knows I am a frequent traveler was recently in New York City and followed some of my suggestions on the city and where to stay. He said he wants to spend a month there to see more, but conceded that a person could live their entire life in Manhattan and not see everything the city has to offer.
Ryan and I went to a concert in New York one time. We both love the band KMFDM, a group I turned him on to and I have been a fan of since the mid ninety’s. We have seen them in Chicago a number of times, but we wanted to try something different. We decided to see them at Irving Plaza in New York City! He flew in to JFK and I met him there rather than explain to him how to find me in Manhattan. Though he can navigate Chicago quite well, it’s because he’s been there so many times. By the time we got to Manhattan, it was really early in the morning and we both had to take a leak, so we went to Penn Station. They have the restrooms open around the clock so it seemed like a good option. His “welcome to New York” happened almost immediately when the homeless guy walked up next to him as he was washing his hands and the bum started washing his balls in the sink. We left and he asked me if that really just happened. I said, “Welcome to New York!” We left there and walked a bit till we found a nice twenty-four hour place for breakfast and had some omelettes. We screwed around in New York for some time and he got to see Times Square for the first time. Seeing the look on someone’s face when they first see it is priceless. We went back to Penn Station and to take the train into New Jersey, where we planned to stay for the evening but due to a debacle with the hotel mentioned in the chapter on New Jersey, we ended up with hotel rooms in Manhattan—for a considerably higher price per person. We tried doing an early check in but his room was ready but mine was not, so I went up to his room with him and slept in the chair while he slept in his bed. He asked if I wanted the bed instead after driving all night and being awake like that, but I’m kind of used to that with my job so it wasn’t a big deal to me. As Robert once said to me, the list of places we haven’t slept is shrinking. A chair in a $500 a night room is a luxury compared to baggage claim in the airport or the previously mentioned park bench in Manhattan. We both got up and I was able to check in so I could shower and nap before the concert. This was Ryan’s first experience with using Uber and he instantly fell in love. At one point the lazy ass opted to Uber instead of walking four blocks. We took the Uber to the concert and had a fantastic time. We were both drunk off our asses. The band did their encore set of three songs, but after the second of three, I had to pee from the alcohol so I went downstairs to the restroom. Now I could fight through the crowed or I could go outside for a smoke and wait for him. The show got over and I texted him to tell him I couldn’t get back in so I asked him to pick up a tee shirt for my friend Bill. So I lit another cigarette and see a beautiful goth Asian girl who I talked to briefly in the club and she didn’t roll her eyes at me. I had enough long islands to go up and talk to her when just then, a blonde walks by with some fishnet tank top thing on and her tits almost hanging out. Staring right at the twins, I said “Hey there!” She then asked how I knew her name. I said I didn’t know her name yet and apologized for being a drunken idiot. She said her name was Heather. Ohhhhh! “Hey there” sounds like “Heather.” It took me a while to figure that out. I’m talking to her and her friend Michelle walks up as does Ryan. I have Heather about convinced to have a drink with me and Michelle sees Ryan and says to me, “Wow! Your friend is hot!” Awesome! This can work great! Two guys, two girls, two nice hotel rooms. Then Michelle says she can’t afford to buy drinks and bales before I have the chance to say that we can buy them. It wouldn’t have been a problem. So Michelle left Heather in the company of two strange men. We’re both safe, but Michelle didn’t know that yet. Heather asked us where we wanted to go and we’re not from there so I told her it was lady’s choice. We go to some bar around the corner and I put two hours worth of charm, alcohol, and time into her—and she was interested in Ryan. Crap! So we all go back to the hotel together and get to the elevator where I looked them both dead in the eyes and proclaimed, “when I write my autobiography, tonight goes totally different.” They agreed and she is sworn to agree that she slept with me if ever questioned after I someday write that autobiography. After I went upstairs, I decided that wasn’t gonna work, so I went to a gentleman’s club. I paid the twenty dollar cover and was informed by a girl dances were twenty dollars each, which seems about average nationwide. The place was packed and the first girl that came up was a hot Lithuanian girl who suggested I do two songs and as I pulled a single twenty out of my wallet helped herself and took out a second one for the next dance. Ummm....ok. Whatever. The next girl came up and started chitchatting with me and said if I do the private dance, which is $200 for fifteen minutes, she’d suck my dick (her words, not mine). I politely said, “Bitch, this is Times Square. I can get my dick sucked outside those doors for fifty bucks.” I can be classy sometimes. While I don’t recommend addressing strippers as, “Bitch,” to start a sentence, what was she going to do? Complain to management that I wasn’t nice to her while she was propositioning me? She promptly left me alone. I don’t mind extras in a strip club, but don’t be a hooker pretending to be a stripper. Next was Geneva (not her real name or stage name), a hot Asian early twenty-something that couldn’t remember where she put her dress after the last table dance and was walking around the club totally naked for twenty minutes looking for it. She asked everyone to let her know if they found her red dress. She finally found it. It was green. She wasn’t dumb by any stretch of the imagination, but oblivious and lacked an attention span. She gave me a couple dances and we talked a bit and had a good time. I jokingly invited her back to my room and told me she wouldn’t be off till four. I said she’d be worth staying awake and waiting on so she giggled and gave me her number to text her so I did, assuming it was fake. I left the club and went back to my hotel. At something near 4:00AM she called me and said she got off early and asked my room number. She came up and left at around 8AM. Best trip ever! As we checked out, we decided to go to an Irish pub nearby for some pub burgers. The NYC pub burgers in Irish pubs have spoiled me to believe that when I see a bar anywhere else offer a pub burger, it will have an egg and proper pub sauce on it. That is seldom the case and I have to specifically request it. We walked to Penn Station after a burger and whiskey infused breakfast to wait on our Amtrak out of town. When we got back to my job to get my car and I drove Ryan home, I looked at him and asked if he was ready to sign up. He looked at me and said, “You travel like that all the time? I would be dead.” He got home around noon and slept till ten at night, then got up for a couple hours and went back to bed later. Travel like I do is rather trying, but completely worth it.
One day while waiting on my 3:40PM Amtrak out of town, I happened into Vivid Cabaret, my new favorite gentlemen’s club. The manager was nice there, but they have one downfall and it’s a big one. Girls don’t go on stage till around two in the afternoon. I was graciously offered to go to Rick’s Cabernet, their sister club, which is open and has girls dancing starting at eleven in the morning. That works better since they are closer to Penn Station so though I prefer Vivid, Rick’s has become my go to gentlemen’s club in New York for now, though I need to explore my options more. I doubt I will find comfort and service that exceeds Vivid or cleanliness and attention that exceeds Rick’s. Both clubs are top notch and I highly recommend them.
I have a bad habit of keeping my iPhone in my shirt pocket. This kid—some punk around twenty—came up and asked if he could bum a cigarette. As he did so, he thought he was distracting me and put his hand on my iPhone. I slapped him. It wasn’t a girl-type slap but with my angle to him at the time, a punch wouldn’t have done much, so I hit him open-handed on the side of his head right above his left ear. That will throw the equilibrium off for a bit. He looked shocked as he fell to the ground right out front of Madison Square Garden. I leaned in to him, looked him dead in the eyes, and said “run.” This little shit scurried off like a rat. He ran right out into traffic like he was being chased by the Devil himself, even getting clipped by one slow moving car and rolling over the hood a bit. I’d be surprised if the asshole didn’t crack a rib the way he rolled over that hood. People that saw what happened all laughed as he got up off the ground and kept running.
I used to do a lot with the local Republican Party. Much of that has gone by the wayside since the 2016 elections, but I was an avid volunteer and would be off work for the week of the county fair. The year after I stopped doing stuff for the party, I kind of missed the fair and I worked so much that I couldn’t even make the local beach of Lake Michigan very much either so I decided one day to go to Coney Island. It was easy enough. You just take the F Train (insert innuendo here) all the way to the end of the line and you are there. I had no idea what to expect and found it all. It had all the fun to eat crap foods that we all know and love, but they also have fresh seafood so I was even happier. The rides will remind you of the county fair, but they are permanently attached and not put up week after week by drunks who also use meth to stay awake during work and the people operating the rides didn't seem like they were on any form of heroin. Then there was the beach. No it’s not a clean as other parts of the ocean, but it wasn’t as dirty as I assumed a beach in New York City would be. It was really nice and packed. With Coney Island being free to get into as is the beach, it blows the local beach and county fair out of the water. The joke when I went there was “since I missed the county fair, I figured this was the next best thing.” No. It was WAY better than any county fair because it was New York!
When in any place enough, you start emulating the drivers. One such day, there was this idiot in front of me. We were in an area clearly marked “no left turns” and he was trying to make a multi point U-turn because he was driving a long van, but in doing so, was blocking the traffic behind him from going forward. The guy was driving like a complete self-absorbed asshole. I politely opened up my window to, in the nicest tone possible, suggest he, “learn to drive the motherfucker or park the fuckin’ thing.” This was all while laying on the horn, still politely. I feel it is our civic duty to let asshole drivers they are assholes—in case they didn’t know. Think of it as sort of a public service announcement. Did I mention the NYPD logo on the back door of the van or the blue strobe lights on top? I contend that if the lights and siren aren’t going, he has to follow the same laws I do and the asshole was in my way.
One unfortunate thing in this chapter is though I well convey my love of New York City, I can’t sum up everything that makes New York City amazing to me. If I could afford to live in Manhattan comfortably without having to do a regular nine to five, I would probably move there.
Antiquer’s dream!
The following is a blog piece from my Vagabonding America website (
In the world, we seem to have a big breakthrough every twenty to thirty years that truly changes mankind. We had the internet, the space shuttle, nuclear energy, nuclear bomb, flight all around twenty to thirty years apart. Some times are slightly shorter but it’s not like we have world changing technology on a daily or yearly basis. It seems like the world then gravitates to those inventions and focuses on them. Today it’s artificial intelligence.
If you are interested in cryptocurrency, the recent spike in prices has probably not gone unnoticed. With the increase, there is a sense of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out). Bitcoin was originally designed by nerds wanting to make something cool. It was never about profit and investment. With that said, some people have made fortunes in cryptocurrency. Two years ago there were massive drops in the cryptocurrency market and we are seeing them raise up now substantially now. They are a little more than halfway to their all-time highs (ATH) and people saw what happened before and what’s happening now. They want their peace of the pie.
Today (June 30th, 2023) is the one year anniversary of my father’s death. Instead of sitting around dwelling on loss and missing my old man, I decided to post a blog piece I actually started writing over a year ago while he was ill and never finished. I simply forgot about it and only found it by accident on my phone a few days ago. As I read it I even had to check to see if I posted it already. I had not. I went through and fixed what grammar I could, but it was obviously tapped out on my iPhone, so PLEASE keep that in mind if you find any typos or bad grammar.
In 1995, I was attending two different campuses of Purdue University for one semester. I started Purdue-North Central in 1993 after graduating from high school and in spring of 1995 I started at Purdue-Calumet (the two campuses have since merged and it’s 
For months before opening, you could be out drinking with your buddies and call an HR representative at 2 AM to ask about benefits for your job class before your official first day. They were the first large scale property to do a hard opening. My critique of Las Vegas is that it has no history but that is untrue and unfair. The history just isn’t that old and it’s more of a living tapestry of history. The Mirage is part of that so the first time I stayed in Vegas I stayed…directly across the street at a place I could afford with a great view of the Volcano Show every night. The first chance I had I walked across the street to see a place I wanted to see for… 2023 – 1995 = holy shit I got old! 28 years.
Though now somewhat dated, it was impressive and a piece of the history of the casino industry. I loved it and it will be missed. I am excited about 
I decided to come up with five easy to follow tips that EVERYONE on social media needs to follow to better represent their brand. The brand can be a business or for you yourself personally because you are your own brand. This isn't just for social media, but a set of five easy rules for life too.
A lot of people want their social media presence to be impeccable and think the only way to achieve that is by living life virtually and putting the best version of themselves out online. The general public will see that as a fake and you still have a life to live. Unless you are making money from the internet, please do not treat it as a job onto itself. You have far better things to do.
Making unique content is important. This does not mean to not post the same core content on your Twitter as you did your TikTok and Instagram but it does mean not to copy what others are doing with the exception of trends. Posting trends is a great way to get more followers on your video platforms. I am even leery of the Pinterest posts that say "365 Blog Post Titles to Get You Started" because of how many others may use the exit same name and idea. Be original and if you can't be original, at least be creative in your subterfuge and originality will ensue from that. Every once in a while I will post something others are suggesting, such as "post your work area on social media." the get mixed results and I feel mike a dancing monkey when I do it without the reward of some peanuts in the end and I only do it if I haven't posted anything in a while or to break up monotonous postings like when I did 15 days from Monday to Friday for three weeks of my various social media outlets and how to follow me. It got boring less than half way through yet they were scheduled for 1PM every day still and I hadn't gone anywhere with exceptional food or views at the time to show pictures of as a way to break it up a little bit.
This tip was inspired by LinkedIn, but works with anything social really. LinkedIn is nothing more than a dick measuring contest between professionals. Don't get me wrong, I love LinkedIn and love measuring my own dick, but part of a proper dick measuring is honesty. If you are just adding someone so you can sell them something, just be upfront about that and don't try acting like you are old buddies.
Engaging, topical, educational, informative, and funny are your five main motivators for people to engage with you. Think of a dog at a party. If you are having a party and a golden retriever came in, EVERYBODY would love the dog more than anyone else. The dog would make a bunch of friends and be more popular than the most popular person there, because dogs are fun and engaging. If you can teach people something and they enjoy learning, they will follow you for more. IF you are informing them of a news event, people will follow you for more. How many news outlets do you follow on Twitter? Comedians also have huge follow numbers on social media. Have you ever wondered why?
Gary Lee often tells people to "be authentic." Though I generally appreciate what he has built and have learned a lot from him, I find it humorous that "be yourself" is his sage-like advice and it works because so many people don't think to just not lie to people or try to make themselves seem to be of greater importance. Because of my current job, I fly a lot. In the last six years I have been on more than 300 flights including connections, which became a way of life during and after the COVID-19 scare. I've flown a lot. I have sat in every row from the mouth to the asshole on a number of different flights. So I love when I am online and you see the woman with her Gucci handbag and sunglasses acting like a roll model to the next year's cast of Sugar Babies posting pictures of how successful she is and she posts a picture out of the window on takeoff...behind the wing when my broke ass even gets to sit forward of that. She is trying to show herself to be more successful than she is, playing on people's lack of deductive reasoning that she is sitting in the cheap seats. Guys do it too and all the time too. There is huge money in renting a Lamborghini for the day in Miami and taking pictures of people posing in front of it by the beachfront so guys can be posers on their social media and Tinder profiles. both men and women try to mimic people they can't afford to be even though they still have something others could learn from. Authenticity is so very important and sadly will set you apart from the crowd.
I always enjoy writing these and sharing what I know or have researched with others and I hope people get something out of my postings. I personally get something out of coming up with infographics like I did here for my social media shares and now I am writing blog pieces on them so it gave me extra content that is evergreen.