Hometown Adventures

Or: Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy While Eating Scallion Salad with Chopsticks

I wasn't going to write another blog post about Florida because, well, this blog is about New York. Except I realized that it's not just really that. I hope on some level this also serves as a travel blog, and I realize that just because going home is going home that doesn't mean there can't be superfunsurprise-hey-maybe-I-would-take-people-to-do-that experiences there, too. Sometimes when you're in your bubble you forget to step outside of it. I mean, on the surface, anyone's idea of their own home might not be particularly interesting only because a lot of the time we tend to take such things for granted. But here are some things I did in Florida that I would love for you to do, too.

Round Up
I have never been to a line dancing bar before. Round Up is just that, a country-western bar located in the rather country-western city of Davie, in Broward County, where I'm from. On a wooden dance floor encircled by what looked like wooden corrals, people stomped and clapped in succession like I had never seen. The line dancing culture is not one I'm particularly familiar with, but damn, these people seem to know a dance for every single song that came on in the club. How do you learn them? How do you know when to do them? My friends and I, who are far more versed in latin dances like merengue, salsa and bachata, can hear in the music what's called for, but there's only so many dances--each line dance seemed to be completely new and different, save for the Texas Cha-Cha (I'm not even sure if that's what it's called) and the Two-Step. I watched in awe. Eventually, though, an older gentleman actually taught me how to do the last two dances and I was two-steppin' right along there with them. While I hardly consider myself a cowgirl, I do indeed think I would do it again!



Yeah, I went there.

Gabose
To understand the impact this restaurant had on me, it's first important to understand that my parents aren't particularly adventurous eaters. In most restaurants they frequent, they have a number of things they like and are willing to experiment to an extent, but not to a wild degree (I, on the other hand, will try pretty much anything, including but not limited to chicken feet and burgers topped with cashew butter). So to have them expand their culinary repertoires is very exciting for me!

Gabose is a Korean and Japanese restaurant my parents go to at least once every two weeks or so. One day, my mother told me, one of the owners who now knows them as regulars (they have "their table" and everything) brought over some new foods for them to try. And they tried them! And they liked them so much they wanted me to try them too! Then we went and had what my parents call "Korean tapas." There was a spicy, red pepper scallion salad that I would be happy to take intravenously, as well as a chive pancake, a crab and cucumber salad in a rice vinaigrette and old standbys like vegetable tempura and tuna tataki. It was all delicious, but what made me enjoy it even more was seeing my parents still learning new things and enjoying the ride. Isn't that all we really want for our loved ones?

--

Sometimes I forget that just because I'm not downtown that there's not nothing to do. Like any place, the really wonderful things to do are the things suggested by people who know the area really well. To step outside of yourself and have an experience unlike one you typically have, even in an area you know like the back of your hand. Looking at an old place with new eyes means there are infinite possibilities for adventures.

That being said, tonight back in New York I walked down 58th Street from 9th Avenue to Madison Avenue, just to enjoy the surprisingly cool, breezy air and see some of those famous glittering storefronts in a different way. With Jimi Hendrix's Electric Ladyland playing in my ears, Bergdorf Goodman, Dior, and Chanel were especially beautiful to the tune of "Voodoo Chile" and "Crosstown Traffic." Even in New York, where we always think we've seen everything, there's always something left to see.

A Few Notes About Relaxation

There comes a time in every freelancer's life where they must do the thing they perhaps most fear doing: stop working.

Yes, there must be a pause in the schedules we have set up so seamlessly to get us through the work week and enable us to be our most productive for, truthfully, if there isn't, we simply won't be able to produce work anymore. And then we'll be useless. So part of this grand productivity is to be productive in another way, to produce in ourselves a sense of relaxation and pause so we can produce more later.

And let me tell you, it is difficult. When you've wired yourself to get up everyday and answer to yourself at a certain hour for fear you will make a mess of this entire freelancing business into which you've entered, stopping seems a sacrilege. So you have to make yourself answer to a new kind of self, one who simply won't take 'work' for an answer, much as you've conditioned yourself previously to not take 'relax' for an answer.

So here I am in South Florida, writing from my parents' kitchen table, overlooking all sorts of strange trees we don't have in New York, wearing my bathing suit and thinking about how much work I'm absolutely not going to do today. I have been doing all sorts of unheard of things since I arrived: lying out in the sun, watching Doris Day movies and back to back to back episodes of The Big Bang Theory on demand, eating French food and Cheetos and pausing in the middle of the day to read a book, of all things. I hardly know who I am anymore--how does one do nothing?

Last weekend I worked every day; in fact, I had been working for 10 days straight before I left New York Wednesday evening. There is something about New York that completely disables my 'do nothing' factor. I am never home just sitting around watching television during the day (at night, it's a different story, as I recently went through the entire series of Freaks and Geeks on Netflix and have become newly obsessed with this brilliant but canceled series). The days are for working, the nights are for not working, if possible--often I am working an eight hour day plus whatever event I attend in the evening to write about or to photograph. But here...little work is happening, and that's the way it's supposed to be. I have been here three days and already my inner moral compass is failing--or is it not failing? I am, essentially, forcing myself to relax and it is stressing me out.

I think if I had not earned the title 'New Yorker' before, I certainly have now. I had a glass of wine on the beach yesterday. WHO AM I?? New York, we are often told, is the city that never sleeps, and it is 100% true--because when the city is not sleeping, why should we be? We keep working and working and working until we have nothing left and we fall apart. Ultimately, though, what we need to do is program ourselves to relax, to understand that what we're doing is not bad or incorrect: it is simply necessary so we can keep going later on.

So, New Yorkers, if you have the chance to relax on occasion, be it for only a Saturday spent lolling about on your couch or for a trip to see your family or a weekend getaway to the Hamptons, please do so. You'll find yourself rejuvenated and ready to take on your life anew, freelancer or not. It'll just take some getting used to--relaxation, for us folk, doesn't come easy. But once you start, I promise you'll get the hang of it.

OXHEART Interview: Alfie Bunz

This Friday, August 9th, OXHEART will present its eighth event, CURRENT at 3rd Ward in Brooklyn. We'll have a fantastic lineup of tunes and performances, all topped off with the cherry that is one Mr. Alfie Bunz, emcee and performer extraordinaire. Take a look at the interview with Alfie below and get psyched for another superrad OXHEART show!*

Alfie Bunz, Photo by Sean Luke Hopkins

How and when did you begin emceeing and performing?

I began performing during spring, in 2011. My first show, ever! Pat Muko [sideshow and burlesque performer] and Dick Zigun [founder of the modern Coney Island Sideshow] had (still do have!) so much faith in me; they invited me to do a burlesque show, then their Halloween Creepshow at the Freakshow. I started emceeing when I became the Bilingual Bally Master at Coney Island USA, 2011. I was given the “groovy” opportunity to host the Gowanus Circus (Noah from Brooklyn’s baby), and I became the Emcee/Ringmaster. Been workin' the crowds, ever since!

What made you get interested in sideshow culture?

My romance began in 2010 when I started working for the sideshow. I really didn’t know what I was getting into. I thought it was just a cashiering job. As the months went-by, I began seeing the strange happenings at Coney USA, and when I saw Scott Baker do the blockhead. It had been the first time I had ever seen any type of sideshow. From that moment, back in April 2010, I was in love!

What is your favorite part of emceeing and performing?

Anything that I would do on a stage wouldn’t be worth my while if not for the people! I live and breathe for entertaining people; the good, the bad and the ugly. I’ve had people get up and walk out when I hit the stage. I’ve had people compliment me…but, when ya get that ovation from your audience, you know you’ve reached them; you know you’ve entertained them. This is the height of any time spent on stage, for me!

What is the most shocking sideshow trick you've ever performed? 

Before I begin, let me clarify that they are not tricks. They are acts. A trick implies some kind of an illusion; this is all real, all alive… Now, this was back in 2011. I was in Philadelphia, performing with [circus performers] Alejandro Dubois and Rev. MacKenzie Moltov. I did a mental floss while eating glass and standing on glass…Then, I proceeded to blockhead, all while snapping a rat trap on my hand. ;-) This is light, compared to what my brothers and sisters in sideshow can do!

How did you learn to perform sideshow acts? How long did it take?

Sideshow acts can be learned in a day, or in a week…or…maybe longer. Quite honestly, it’s mind over matter. Pardon the cliché: practice makes perfect! But, the first act I learned was the blockhead. The incomparable Scott Baker taught me the act…the rest is history…

What can OXHEART-ers expect to see from you at CURRENT?

They will have to come and watch!  …and…that’s that…hehehehehe!

What performers inspire you most and why?

Tigger! (Boylesque performer) and Scott Baker; they both know their stuff! They are confident, amiable, have incredible stage presence and are incredibly talented performers. When they hit the stage, they illuminate it entirely! In one expression: “The Sun came up!” The level of their professionalism and respect and love for what they do, well, they are genius!

What do you do when you're not performing?

I have a day job. But! Aside from this, I love being surrounded by nature. Love hiking and camping. I am currently taking classes to learn how to swim in the open ocean! Can’t wait to master this skill!  Otherwise, I’m always making costumes, developing choreography because I do sideshow, but I also do Boylesque. Then, it’s just about spending time with family and friends! This is my favorite part about life…then…there are those moments when a stroll is just enough…

Where else around New York do you perform?

I perform at the Parkside Lounge (East Village), where I host a burlesque show for Sake Fevah, in Drag! I also perform in Long Island City, and just all over…including Philly and if all goes well, next Spring in Sydney, Australia!

*sponsored post

The Air Up There

I learned something very important about myself this past weekend:

I have excellent taste in music but I cannot read maps to save my life.

This seems to be a very 'Do you walk to school or carry your lunch?' scenario (thanks, mom), but it is in fact quite accurate. Let me explain.

Months and months ago, DL emailed me with a link to see the fabulous and wonderful cabaret performer Taylor Mac upstate (read: two hours north of the city) at Bard College in a town called Annandale-on-Hudson. Groupies to the core, we had been flirting with the idea of even driving to North Carolina to see him perform in a production of Cabaret, so this trip didn't ruffle a feather. Maybe we would do both! But ultimately the shorter trip won out. So, along with recent Taylor Mac convert SE, we popped ourselves into a Zipcar and headed north on a Friday evening. Responsible adults that we are, we left early so we wouldn't have to rush. Seated in the front, I was in charge of directions. Which was very easy to do when I had printouts in front of me, but almost literally impossible when using DL's iPhone to navigate. I am quite sure I deleted or erased the directions several times on the phone, inadvertently testing DL's patience in ways I'm sure only his middle school-aged students had to this point. Ultimately, I handed over the phone to SE for fear of mapping us off a cliff and stuck to my original job, choosing tuneage. At which I greatly excelled, thank you very much.

Map-ly challenged as I am, the trip was utterly delightful and, I feel, very representative of the way I like to take road trips. Did we stop at a greasy spoon or pizza joint on the way up? No sir! Rather, we found ourselves in front of a boat of sushi at Abis, a Japanese restaurant in a town called Thornwood. Continuing on, SE educated us in the ways of indie classical music (I especially enjoyed Gabriel Kahane, so thank you dahhhling for opening my mind and pouring good music into it).


We drove and drove some more, getting close to Bard and coming across a petite street covered in brick buildings and white-bordered signs and country stores. I felt like I was on the set of Pollyanna, but in the best way possible. We get so used to seeing the same lights and signs and buildings after a while that we just forget there's life on other planets, as it were. That there are trees and stars and cool mountain air. That sometimes all the lights you need are billions of miles away and in some places it gets cool at night in the summertime.

The pathway up to the venue, the Bard Spiegeltent, was strung above with colored Christmas lights, dotted below with pink, glowing round orbs to light the way. We ate homemade ice cream (vanilla with peanut butter and chocolate fudge, I died) and entered the lush purple tent, done up to resemble a luxurious, old-timey gypsy tent, decked out on the inside with a variety of wood paneling, golden carousel poles and sparkling white chandeliers. I drank a dirty martini and instantly felt at home. 

Our fair Taylor entered not too long afterward, clad in a homemade silver decoupage (?) re-imagining of the Chrysler Building. He sang tunes from the 1920s as a part of his 24-Hour History of Popular Music series, where he workshops songs from every decade from the 1770s forward. Eventually the workshops will be a 24-hour concert performed as an ode to imperfection. Like the several other decade workshops I have seen to date, the gender-bending cabaret god nailed it again: a perfect combination of song, storytelling, history, witty banter and oh-so-much glitter (not to mention a costume covered in Pez dispensers). I left feeling the way one feels after having a slice of cheesecake for dinner: pleasantly filled with all the right amounts of yumminess. I could describe more, but I don't want to ruin it for you--you should really go see the performances whenever they come through.

We walked out into the crisp summer night and I understood why people say you have to leave the city in the summer. The air felt like a sweet hug from a long-lost friend. Oh, is that what a breeze is? I daresay I felt absolutely smitten with the weather. Everything was right. The trip in the car itself even to stand outside in the fresh air was worth the trip, not to mention that we had the distinct pleasure of seeing a Taylor Mac performance on top of it. We trucked back to the car and I got us lost again on the map and put SE in charge. Not to worry, though. It was nothing a little Pixies couldn't fix.

Affirmations While Cleaning Out My Drain

Sorry to disappoint you, but this isn't a sexual metaphor.

This story starts a few years ago, when I was visiting home from college. The bathroom light beamed at the end of the hallway in our house and I went towards it to turn it off, only to realize my mother was sitting in the shower, water not running of course, hunched over the drain with a hanger in her hand. "Come here, look at this," she said, almost challenging me. "Look at what's in the drain."

"Nope," I said, shaking my head and moving to turn away. But I was too slow.

She waved a pile of dark brown, hairy slop at me. "Look at what's in the drain!"
My eyebrow raised and mouth curled in disgust. "Ew."

"Come here, you're learning how to do this," she said, beckoning me with her hangerful of slop. She had been using the hook to lift out the drain-clogging mess. "One day you'll have to do this, you know!"

I shivered. "But that day's not today!" And I walked out.

--

Twelve hours ago, my roommate J found the drain was clogged and asked if we should call the super. Having encountered this problem before, I declined and instead prescribed Drano or Liquid Plumr, or what have you. I would get some when I came home from the gym.

Hours later, I poured a half-bottle magic unclogger down the drain, waited 15 minutes and ran hot water as directed. But the water didn't move. I poured the other half-bottle down the drain and repeated the steps again, but to no avail.

I poked at the drain with a bobby pin, but suddenly I knew what I had to do. Noticing the center of the drain required a screwdriver, I retrieved said object as well as a hanger and set to work. What follows is perhaps one of the most disgusting hours I have ever spent in my life.

At first I leaned over the drain to try and unscrew the top, but soon realized I would be sitting in it, hunched over, just as my mother had. Payback, as they say, is nothing short of a bitch.

I pried the screw loose and my stomach churned at the sight of the brown goo encircling the drain below. Slowly but surely, I pried loose what were probably masses of hair and skin cells and water and sand and whatever the hell else from the drain first with the hanger, then the screwdriver. The masses slopped around the drain and stared back at me. Welcome to life, sister.

I almost threw up more than one time, but ultimately I did it. I cleaned out my drain, I cleaned out the shower, I disinfected and threw everything away, I screwed everything back in. And you know what? I felt like a rockstar.

Requiring a shower after this incredibly dirty experience, there was no greater sound than the drain happily, thirstily glugging down water like a runner after a marathon. And I did that! I fixed the drain! Couldn't have done it without mom, for sure.

But here are a few things I not so much learned as had reaffirmed along the sloppy, nearly-vomit-inducing way:

1. Sometimes you simply can't rely on anyone else and you have to do it yourself. As a person who functions as my own boss, I know the value of being independent. I do it on a daily basis, and have zero problem doing so. In fact, I quite enjoy it. But when it comes to fixing things in my own house, I am, shall we say, not the most handy. But why not? If I spent my workday waiting for other people to fix problems, I would never get anything done. Though, sure, it's important to trust and be able to rely on other people, you should always, always be able to rely on yourself. You don't know how to do something? Learn it. If you don't know, it's nobody's fault but your own. And when you do learn, it might be messy, but you won't make the same mistake again.
2. I am woman, hear me roar. I don't know who said that men are more mechanical than women, but they can bite me. My mother was always fixing things and teaching us how to use different appliances. She has a toolkit and she knows how to use it because when she was single, she had to. There wasn't just going to be some knight with shining plunger to make it all better. I don't know when I got the idea that I was some high-femme-you're-expecting-me-to-do-what-with-a-screwdriver person, but it was clearly a figment of my imagination. Sometimes all you have to do is tell yourself you can do something, then you can. 
3. Seeing the fruits of your labor is powerful stuff. Knock on wood, I've had a pretty good few weeks, career-wise. I've seen my hard work pay off, and the feeling is enough to keep me wanting it more. But the occasion is rare when I will be doing something with my bare hands like getting them all up in a drain. I spent too much time on that drain to let it get like that again. There's an investment now. I know the hard work it takes to fix it and I'm going to work hard not to get it like that in the first place. It's too often that people don't learn the value of hard work and take far too much for granted. I feel bad for them. You can't be afraid to get your hands dirty because you never know what the rewards will be! 
4. Listen to your mom. Because if you don't you'll have to write a blog post telling her how wrong you are about not paying attention when she was cleaning out the drain the first time. Moms (and dads!) have been there, they've done it, and they know a few things. You also have to have the presence of mind, though, to know when not to listen--sometimes this will result in a mistake that you'll learn from, but sometimes it will be the right choice. Sometimes there will just be brown goo and you'll have to be resourceful and get rid of it in your own way. But be open to suggestions from people who've seen it before. 

I know what the haters will say--oh, poor little girl cleaning out a drain! Your life is so difficult! Shut up. You know the first time you cleaned out a drain it was nasty as all hell, too. What I'm saying is that it's empowering, it's important to be able to do these kinds of things yourself. You can throw money at someone else to do it, but what are you really learning? Make mistakes, see the results of your actions, work hard not to make them again; or if you do, make sure you learn from them.

But if you're really too squeamish to clean out the drain, I can help you. And I promise not to vomit.

Collegiate/Collegiette Culture

Darling readers,

I may have mentioned previously that I am also the Style Editor for national college women's publication Her Campus.com. If I haven't...well, there you go! I am so excited to speak about the freelancing life at the upcoming Her Campus National Intercollegiette Conference, where HC staffers from all across the country come to meet and learn about the media industry. While the conference is normally only for HC staffers, this year there's a second day component where all readers are invited to attend, followed by some rad networking with panelists (I'll be there, too!). So if you're an HC reader, come stop by the conference and check out some more information here. It's super affordable and chock full of unique opportunities (speakers from Teen Vogue, Glamour, Seventeen, SELF, Lucky, and much more, plus free Chipotle lunch, goody bags, and more!). I highly recommend it!

Touch Me on the Subway and I Get Pensive

Drowning out the rest of the universe with my headphones nestled in my ears, I watched the D train pull up, much to my dismay. I was waiting for the R train in Park Slope. It was nighttime, around 10 or 11. I tend to get jumpy taking the subway late at night anyway (blah blah blah insert how are you possibly a New Yorker comment here), but my blood pressure spiked when a woman to my left reached out and grabbed my forearm. My hand went into defense mode, almost ready to strike--I actually saw myself throwing her away from me, action-hero style-- until I noticed her eyes. Dark brown, they looked at me earnestly under a mountain of shiny, dark brown tresses. She actually needed help.

"Excuse me," she said, her words glossed with French. "Do you know if I can take this train to 34th Street?" I had to force my brain to function again, in a non-defensive mode. I pulled a headphone from one ear. I barely heard her and stared at her in disbelief. Did this woman just touch me? Could she take the train to 34th Street? I could hardly form words.

I was dumbfounded not only that someone had touched me on the subway, had grabbed me, but by my own response to it. I realized I had been in New York so long that any kind of physical contact was grounds for defense. And perhaps rightly so. We're told constantly to have our wits about us at all times, that we're not in Kansas anymore, and the best offense is a good defense. You never know who you're traveling with, who you're on a date with, who lives in your building. We're taught to keep as far away from strangers as possible, not just as New Yorkers but from birth, anywhere, with anyone.

But this woman at the subway station meant me no harm. Of course, there's no way for me to know that and it's best to have your guard up at all times, you say. True, but what interests me is the cultural exchange here. I can't tell you about this woman's culture--maybe this is completely normal where she is from? And I was about to karate chop her across the face just for asking for directions. Is that how New Yorkers got the tough reputation we have?

When we arrive in New York, we're bright and shiny, big eyes and bushy tails, ready to explore. The world is a beautiful place! We sparkle in ways we don't once we've lived here awhile, as GD says. You can always tell when someone is new. We smile and we shake our heads--soon you will learn, young grasshopper. It's not that the city beats you down, necessarily, but the lessons we learn here are magnified more I think than they are elsewhere. The motion, the force of the city changes the way you view the world. It makes us into those so-called "jaded New Yorkers." But this bright, shiny energy isn't crushed, it's made into a different, more knowledgeable kind of energy; it has more common sense, more street smarts, but it doesn't dull our fascination with the city and its immeasurable power. So the reputation is real, but how it got there isn't necessarily correct. We haven't done it all and seen it all; we're just still surprised at what we have seen.

For these reasons, it's important to understand oneself as one relates to New York. How do you feed off the energy that whirls around these five boroughs of ours? What does it do to you? Does it make you homesick? Does it make you dependent on others? Does it make you fall into yourself? Does it make your forget your responsibilities, or only focus on them? Everyone's experience of the city is different, everyone responds to the energy in different ways. For some, it's destructive. For some, it's uplifting. But there's absolutely no denying that it changes you and forces yourself to look at your life in ways you may not have if you lived somewhere else. You're in the arts? There's literally hundreds of thousands competing with you. How badly do you want it? Or you're in business. How willing are you to exchange your free time for your salary? Or you're looking for love. How willing are you to make time for someone else, to sit on the train for however long just to see their face when you could just as easily drive there in 20 minutes if only you had a car?

People who have lived in New York for a long time, longer than myself surely, have their guard up because they know the weight of these questions could break them at anytime. I don't want it enough, or I want more time, or I don't love you enough. Or I want it, I need less time, I love you. And in the seconds it takes for me to take my headphones out of my ears to answer this woman's question, all of this is running through my brain at once, causing the words to barely exit my mouth in time for her to catch the train. As much as I wanted to reprimand her, to say "DON'T TOUCH ME," to slap her hand away, I remembered the times when I felt homesick, alone, lost, confused, like I was floundering. Finally, I did get words out, but in not enough time for her to catch the D before the door closed. I told her she could take the R instead.