NYC mayhem

I'm going to post some pics from my trip to Burlington VT and NYC soon. But just wanted to throw down a couple lines here about NYC. What a great city. I had such a good time hanging out in that huge fucking place. I stayed with my good friend Henri Mills-Knapp in East Harlem again. That place is wild. I went to the CVS near his house and it was a complete cluster fuck. I stood in line for 20 minutes to buy some Tylenol and chapstick, witness to the young lady behind the register's utter incompatence. Not a word of English was spoken. Which was pretty cool. People stormed out. It was funny. A good experience. Henri said that there was almost a riot at the post office up there a couple weeks ago. There was a huge line and everybody was pissed off. Then a militant, well spoken black man started to get everybody riled up, as Ryan put it. Their main complaint was that "this shit doesn't happen in Midtown, we get shity service cause we're in Harlem!" Well, I got some news for you folks, the shitty service is indeed a sympton of living in Harlem, but I don't think it has anything to do with a systematic scheme by the USPS to screw you over.

Anyway, got some good mexican food while I was there.

Also went to Brooklyn to a very cool beer bar. One of the best I've ever been in, Spuyten Duyvil. Incredible beer selection. Read my review of it here. I was quite smitten with both bar tenders as well. Very cute and well spoken and friendly. And they knew about beer to boot.

Got really drunk there and by the time we made it back to the subway stop nearby it was closed up so we had to take a cab back to Manhattan. It was a pretty intense ride. The driver was nutballs. But we made it safely. I only gave the guy the change on the dollar for a tip. He didn't say anything. The next night we took a cab from the West Village to East Harlem and did the same thing, but this guy got all pissed off. "If you can't afford a better tip than this you should take the fucking train!" Well fuck you too very much. I just sat there and listened to him then said, "Ok. Thanks for the advice. Sorry about the small tip." But you know what: fuck him! I wish my students would tip me after class some day. That would be nice. "Great lecture today. I'm paying about 100$ per class day so here is $20. I'm feeling generous today." Tipping is weird and I plan to rant and rave about it some more one day.

Got to meet up with Senor Grant Goodrich, a fellow HPSer at IU. He was in the city and we hung out at the Blind Tiger for a couple hours. It was cool, but Henri and I had to cut the night short as we were quite tired.

I also ran into a woman affiliated with IU HPS in some way. That was weird. Read about it here.