Fourteen Hours In NYC

Every once in a while my trips to the city have nothing to do with work. This past Saturday was one of those times. I arrived a little before noon and left just before 2am. During the 14 hours in-between there were numerous adventures that involved basketball, women and, yes, some libations.

After a train ride in where I sat behind the sisterhood of the traveling pants, a loud group of women who were clearly all family and doing nothing but gossiping about other family members, my day officially started at my buddy Adam Zaslow’s 2nd Annual ASZ Charity Basketball Event, which was held at Baruch College. All the money raised from the door and the various raffles went to children’s charities (which is good, because I didn’t win jack squat!). The big surprise this year was that one of my all-time favorite basketball players was in the house, #3 himself, John Starks. After he gave a nice speech that made me feel a little bit old (part of it involved a story about his 21 year old son. To which I said “John Starks has a 21 year old son!?!?” Ouch!) he signed some autographs for the kids and took pictures with everyone. I walked over, shook his hand, thanked him for a lotta years of great b-ball, and got my picture taken with him. The highlight of his appearance was when Zaz asked him about “The Dunk.” Apparently Michael Jordan is still sore about it. Starks revealed they still replay “The Dunk” every time Jordan is in The Garden and one night Jordan saw Starks at a restaurant and said something along the lines of “man, you gotta tell them to stop playing that. Why do they play that every time I’m there?” Starks’ reply was beautiful - “because that’s my house.”

My fellow superstar journalist Bear Frazer met up with me during the event and afterwards we grabbed a fantastic cheap lunch at a panini spot right around the corner from Baruch. Then, after an extended walk in the light rain we finally made it to a subway that could take us where we wanted to go and made our way to Brooklyn. Once in Brooklyn we hung out at the spot that Bear is crashing at. After checking on the Mets game (Johan Santana is a god!) I met one of his roommates, an attractive woman who we invited to join us for dinner, but she opted to actually get work done instead (craziness!). It was probably for the best for her since we traveled in a very roundabout way that night. Before leaving, however, we went to the basement and played a little air hockey, which is a game Bear could probably go pro in were there a league of some kind (I still claim he had a “home air” advantage).

Hopping back on the J train to the city Bear and I commented on how the elevated trains always feel less safe than the underground ones, but our conversation was stopped short (pun intended) when I saw a midget sitting one section over from us. He was rockin huge (at least in comparison) diamond earrings and was dressed like we was about to do a rap concert, complete with his pants sagging off his ass. It was really hard to not mention him until he left. Thankfully he was only on for a few stops, at which point Bear told me he had spent the last few minutes praying I wouldn’t say anything.

After a bite to eat at Cozy’s and a quick run into GameStop we hailed a taxi and went over to my buddy White Ralph’s place. It was the night of his birthday party and I wanted to head over a few hours early to hang out with him before everyone else arrived. Now, bear in mind this would be the first time Bear met Ralph, and for those who don’t know, Ralph is possibly one of the coolest people on earth, and also, at times, one of the craziest. His craziness, however, is never anything harmful, just fun. Within five minutes of arriving Ralph’s wife asked him to dump some dirt outside from a large flowerpot. Rather than take the pot down the elevator over a dozen flights, dump it outside, then come back up, he casually walked it towards the garbage chute and shoved as much of it down it as he could. As he was doing this Bear said “White Ralph, you’re my new hero.” This was a perfect introduction to him. The act was crazy, ingenious, hilarious, and didn’t cause anybody any harm (except maybe the floor, which definitely got some dirt on it).

Since it was Ralph’s birthday party Bear and I went out to get a couple six packs of beer (it was BYOB), or at least we tried to. I’d been in this apartment building numerous times before, and sometimes I’d leave out the front, sometimes the side. This time I chose the side totally unaware that the building had changed its rules and now had all their gates locked from the inside as well as the outside. After spending fifteen minutes trying to find a way out I called Ralph. I explained the situation. He, hilariously, asked / noted “so I have to come down there and save you?” Sadly, he did. What was even sadder was thirty seconds after that call another group of people from the building left through the side, so had we just waited a minute someone would have let us out. Ralph agreed with us that the inside locks are ridiculous. Yes, they prevent theft, but if anyone is getting assaulted they have no way to escape.

After we were freed, got the beer, and came back, Bear left to go back to BK and work on some stuff. I hung out with Ralph as the guests arrived. By midnight his apartment was packed and I was chatting up an attractive lady I had actually met a month earlier during a night out with Ralph and his wife. Every girl had brought a boyfriend, this one being no exception, and even though I’m not the type of dude who steals girls, I’m also not the type of dude who’s going to ignore a girl just because she brought a man with her, so conversation ensued (obviously nothing else did).

At around 1am I was getting ready to leave and a few of Ralph’s buddies gave me a lift to Grand Central. I caught the 1:49am train and was home by 3:30am.