Smoke
Posted: November 13, 2012 Filed under: Upper West Side | Tags: TUESDAY TOILET TALK 3 Comments »Despite the nor’easter that followed on the heels of Sandy, I braved the first snowfall of the year last week to check out the ‘round midnight session at Smoke. I hadn’t had a chance to wear my snow boots yet, except once and very briefly last year’s Halloween weekend when it unexpectedly snowed, so I was feeling rather excited about getting bundled up. I purchased those boots along with several thermal shirts for an East Coast winter while still back in Cali, in faith that I would get into grad school in the city. And I did, but that winter didn’t come.
No longer merely the brunt of small talk, the weather has been noteworthy with life-threatening storm conditions one week and t-shirt and hoodie wearing afternoons the next. I do now feel justified for checking weather.com every hour. You never know what’s going to happen.
Saxophonist Roxy Coss led the late Wednesday night session with pianist Chris Pattishall, bassist Dave Baron and drummer Luca Santaniello. Dave and Roxy accompanied the toilet team on our first assignment to the Vanguard and Smalls back in February so it would have been a JAZZ TOILET reunion had our men’s room correspondent KMac made it out that night.
KMac felt bad he couldn’t come and not only that, he also felt ‘unmanly’ at my calling him delicate and weak sauce for not being willing to schlep his drums uptown in the snowstorm after his gig to hang. I’d like to issue a formal apology and say for the record that our men’s room correspondent conforms to conventional notions of masculinity with his diet of copious amounts of red meat and his robust physique. But make note that he can be particular about his moisturizer, as his skin is sensitive.
Smoke has one restroom directly to the left of the stage, which the horn players linger in front of when they’re not soloing. It’s a quaint restroom with a celestial lamp hanging from the ceiling that matches the décor of the rest of the small rectangular club. I appreciated that the door lock is the kind that tells you whether the restroom is red for occupied or green for vacant.
There is another door to the left of the restroom door marked off for employees. Dave told me that when the room gets really crowded, he has to go through the door and down the nearly vertical stairs to put his bass in the back. Can you imagine trying to walk down a ladder with an upright bass in your hands?
Ahmed from Saudi Arabia tells us how to say, “Where’s the restroom?” in standard Arabic —
Friday Flush, Issue 3
Posted: November 2, 2012 Filed under: Ken® | Tags: FRIDAY FLUSH Comments Off on Friday Flush, Issue 3Hey, did you all make it through Frankenstorm? I’ve been chillaxin’ on hurrication on the Upper West Side and couldn’t believe the pictures of Sandy’s work in other areas, like lower Manhattan and Haiti. It’s a bummer that it didn’t wash out all the rats from the city along with everything else.
They say this might be the beginning of ratpocalypse, with the storm driving underground rats up to spread infectious disease. Should I be worried? Check out the Huffington Post video below for the deets.
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Staff writer/model Ken® has appeared in the short, Hawaiian Vacation (2011), and numerous other features, making his first appearance in the 60′s. He has been named (the boyfriend of) one of the most influential cultural icons of the century and is a true renaissance man, with skills ranging from leading safaris in the wild to shaving without gel in the concrete jungle. Ken® currently resides in Manhattan but vacations frequently at his dream house in Malibu.
Jazz Standard
Posted: October 23, 2012 Filed under: Flatiron | Tags: TUESDAY TOILET TALK Comments Off on Jazz StandardOn Sunday, I checked out the Jacky Terrasson Trio with Burniss Travis (bass) and Justin Faulkner (drums) at the Jazz Standard. With their nuanced and adventurous playing exploring the full range of dynamics, the trio breathed new life into old standards. I was reminded that the piano trio is the perfect combination, requiring no more and no less.
My cousin, who just arrived that morning on vacation from Korea, really dug it and asked if I get to listen to this kind of music everyday. Yeah, I guess I do—I hadn’t thought of it that way, having grown accustomed to the overflowing music scene here with many options for the jazz genre alone within a five-mile radius. Things I take for granted are often notable looking from the outside in.
I was relieved that we were able to make it for the late set after an extended afternoon of shopping in Chelsea and on Bleecker Street. My cousin absolutely insisted that she buy me clothes but whether my money or not, I couldn’t justify buying a dress that was essentially a couple pieces of lace sewed together for more than my entire month’s spending budget. I didn’t resist too hard because I realized that this is her way of showing me love, not to mention that I really liked an outfit she picked out for me.
I had never been to that part of Bleecker Street, even though it is just a few blocks away from where all the jazz clubs are in Greenwich Village. Although I initially distinguished New York from Los Angeles by its mixing bowl nature of diverse peoples converging in public spaces, I’m sensing more and more that it is deeply segregated in its own way. An educator friend told me about her work with kids growing up in Harlem who practically never go outside of the immediate neighborhood. Their experience of New York must be vastly different from the foreigner here for an internship, the workaholic who makes more money than he has time to spend, and the kid who attends an Upper East Side school.
Being a tourist in the city with my cousin so far has made for a different experience, from her offer to surgically widen my eyes so that I don’t keep closing them in her photos to shopping in boutiques without looking at the price tag in true Gangnam style.
Behind an entrance framed by grand red curtains, the Jazz Standard restrooms are excellent. Though the ceiling is on the lower side in the women’s room, the three stalls are wide and the staff seemed scrupulous about cleanliness. Both times I was in there, a hostess was wiping down water that kept collecting and dripping down from the edge of the sink.
They had a separate wheelchair accessible restroom, which I hadn’t noticed in a previous visit. I wasn’t sure how one gets down the flight of stairs to access the restroom but it has been brought to my attention that the Jazz Standard has an elevator somewhere for patrons in wheelchairs.
Aza from Kyrgyzstan tells us how to say, “Where’s the restroom?” in Kyrgyz –
55 Bar
Posted: October 9, 2012 Filed under: Greenwich Village | Tags: TUESDAY TOILET TALK Comments Off on 55 BarAfter an earlier round of hot cocoa at Caffe Reggio, I walked over a few blocks to the 55 Bar. Greeted by the plethora of “2 DRINK MINIMUM PER SET” signs, I dutifully ordered grapefruit juice, which came in a heavy glass beer mug with a straw. After that, I didn’t feel that I could handle any more beverages and also didn’t want to run out to the ATM to make sure I had enough cash for the tip jar so I asked to purchase a bottle of water. The bartender replied, “we don’t sell bottled water—keep jazz alive.”
Keep jazz alive. I hardly think that the two-drink minimum is keeping jazz alive. If anything, it may be elongating a slow and painful death. Sure, the minimum is allowing the 55 Bar to stay open on a month-to-month basis but sustaining jazz through an IV drip is not the answer. A fundamental restructuring of the organization seems necessary to resuscitate the jazz economy, though I’m not sure what that would look like. I thought about this between sips of ginger ale, which the bartender poured into the beer mug I was using previously. I must have contributed a few more cents into the “keep jazz alive” jar by forgoing the labor cost required to wash an extra mug. Someone please give me a bumper sticker.
I don’t mean to get dark on 55 Bar—it’s a good venue, especially if you remember to sit along the bar so that you can get a full view of the band. There’s a somewhat festive atmosphere with icicle lights strung all around and a Christmas bow and a St. Patrick’s Day clover cutout behind the bar. The walls are adorned with many posters, album covers and a charming old clock that displays the wrong time. With a case of Samuel Adams and a box of Swiss Miss in plain view, it can feel like you are in a giant pantry, decorated by Christmas lights. This may be the closest you get to understanding how the Indian in the Cupboard felt.
While waiting in line for the ladies room, I couldn’t help but peek into the men’s room to see the urinal filled with ice. I wonder what that’s about. Both restrooms are sufficient in size for one person to use. The ladies has two trash bins and several rolls of toilet paper readily available.
When I visited two Wednesdays ago, percussionist Rogério Boccato’s quartet with Nando Michelin (keyboard), Jay Anderson (bass) and Dan Blake (sax) played sets of music from the post Bossa Nova generation. In between listening to this ensemble led by the ethnically Italian percussionist from Brazil, I talked to my ethnically Japanese friend Yumi from France about her life back home and in the city. She mentioned that while she never identified as an Asian in France, she thinks about it all the time here. On the other hand, while French peers requested an explanation as to how she can be both fully French and Asian simultaneously, New Yorkers don’t require an explanation of her Asian-ness, perceiving her simply as a foreigner.
As I recall looking upon the Japanese façade of a McDonald’s in Liberdade, a subset of São Paulo, Brazil, I wonder if national sentiment and sense of identity will shift on a global level as cultures clash and merge giving birth to things like kogi tacos and cream cheese wontons. Gulli from Iceland, who is taking Rogério’s Brazilian music class in New York tells us how to say, “Where’s the restroom?” in Icelandic –
Hvar er klósettið? (Kvar er klosettith)
Birdland
Posted: September 25, 2012 Filed under: Midtown | Tags: TUESDAY TOILET TALK 1 Comment »A couple Saturdays ago, I made it out to Birdland to hear the Dave Liebman Group. I attempted to listen for the signature Lieb chromatic sound as he played with guitarist Vic Juris, bassist Tony Marino and drummer Marko Marcinko but quickly settled into passive listening. As my threshold for dissonance increases, it may be that it takes a more concentrated effort to distinguish among the various shades on the spectrum from diatonic to chromatic harmony. My brain wasn’t up for that and I let the music wash over me as I enjoyed an old Ornette standard, played on wooden flute by the saxophonist.
Though it was my first time at the club, I found myself feeling at home in the familiar dim lighting and relaxed atmosphere, sandwiched between tourists from Brazil and Japan at the bar. Noticing the Phantom of the Opera program booklet, I began to chat with the stranger to my right about the musical and his business trip to the Big Apple. With his startled observation at my looking like an “oriental face,” bewilderment at the concept of student loans to pay for school and surprise at the fact that I am the same age as his daughter, Mr. Shikata reminded me of my dad in his curious and astounded reception. To avoid giving him a heart attack from an overload of revelatory details such as how long I have lived in the States to what I am studying in grad school, I excused myself and went to check out the bathrooms.
The ladies room was fairly nice, with a plate of potpourri on a table, flowers and posters in a long restroom with two stalls and two sinks. There’s even a slightly faded plush bench you can sit on and ample lighting by the mirrors. From photos that our diligent men’s room correspondent KMac sent me previously, it appears that the men’s room is very similar to the women’s, but with an additional sink and two urinals.
The crucial thing to note about Birdland’s restrooms is that they are wheelchair accessible. The signs on the doors caught my eye, as I have never before seen a club with such a feature in the city thus far. Before moving here, it didn’t occur to me to consider accessible restrooms, but if I had, I likely would have thought of them as a necessity and not an additional feature. But with so many clubs located underground, accommodating restrooms are rare luxuries here.
Located at ground level just a couple blocks away from the hustle and bustle of Times Square and directly across the street from a major hotel, Birdland is not only accessible, but situated in a prime sightseeing location. Scanning the audience, I thought about how many tourists must come through each night to complete their New York experience. Given the importance of tourism to this city’s economy, what kind of impact does it have on the jazz scene? I hear that the market for jazz is in the European circuit, and not here—what a funny situation that would be if it’s true that our musicians make income largely by touring abroad then come home to play at venues that are also significantly funded by foreigners.
Kim from Norway tells us how to say “Where’s the restroom?” in Norwegian –