Oh around 2000, my dad decided to take the family to New York City. He may have been going there as a chaperone for Main Street Tours around that time and that's how the idea got into his head to go with his loving family. I'm not exactly sure when he started going there. Either/or, it was going to be a great vacation filled with wonderful sight seeing, souvenirs, and pictures that would last a lifetime. Beyond all of that though is the family time we'd get to share. Stories we'd tell our children and grand children. Everyone packed their suitcases and got some snacks and drinks ready for the drive. The car was giddy with anticipation on what we would see first and would we go to the top of the Empire State building? Would we see a celebrity?!?
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Truth be told, I'm only assuming how this all went because, well... THEY DIDN'T FUCKING INVITE ME!!! Me! The oldest and most cherished child. The one who was in stupid college and needed a break from Costco sized bags of gummy worms and nightly bouts with alcohol poisoning. And this was Kent before the "new downtown" with all of it's buildings and no piles of week old human shit on the sidewalk. Everyone there was a hobo living practically in an alleyway eating out of dumpsters. I needed fresh air and culture! I needed to see how successful people lived so I knew where to aim my life goals... and the bastards went without me. Well I got them back by having a party at their house after we got kick out of our neighbor Mike's house by his drunk dad. To this day I can't say for sure who puked on our white carpet or even if it was puke but I do know that my sister lost a collectible taco bell chihuahua plush doll that night to what I can only hope was two herpes riddled homeless people having gross sex in her waterbed. Pictures of that party (thanks to some drunk slut) ended up in multiple dumpsters in multiple cities before they could do any harm. Serves you assholes right. I should have burned the place to the ground and saved us all the terrible paint job and queer outdoor lamp that's there now.
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OK, so there's your back story for the real story. Flash forward about a decade or so. I had just got dumped after finding out that I was one of 2 boyfriends my ex had dated at the same time for a year and change. I lost the real life game of the bachelorette and they, like a month later, got engaged. So needless to say, I felt awesome. Oh and not to mention about 300 lbs. There was that too. I had a goatee as well. I think I was done wearing jean shorts, so that was a positive in my life. Needless to say I needed a vacation so I jumped at the chance to go on a Vozar boy's weekend in New York City that May!
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I've never really had a chance to sight see in a huge city before. It was always park in a garage, walk directly to venue, enjoy, walk directly back to car, go back home where it's safe. The tallest building I think I was ever in was in downtown Canton. It was the building where we'd go to traffic court for my minor automotive infractions. All I knew about New York was from movies and TV so I knew what I wanted to hit. Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty, Central Park, and the Cellar for a chance to see a famous comedian. Little did I know how much there was to do there. My tiny mid-western mind couldn't hold all of the names of the things you could do in just 1 block of Manhattan as opposed to the whole island or the whole city! I wasn't really sure what I was getting into but I was ready to get the hell out of Ohio and away from my problems and depressing existence.
The details of the drive there can be summed up into one sentence... Pennsylvania is one long ass, always under construction, boring state! Thanks for nothing Pennsylvania.
When we got close to NYC I was instantly drawn to the skyline. It's huge and almost like I was looking at a post card. It didn't seem real to me. I couldn't get past the height of the whole thing. I had lived my life in a 6 story world. We kept driving and driving around Jersey along the river until we got to our hotel at some airport. The hotel was whatever but all it had to be was a place to sleep because hopefully we'd be having NYC fun all day. From the hotel we would take the bus into the city. Bus huh? Kinda sketchy but I trust my dad to know how this stuff works.
I'll give you the highlights...
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Fatty McGee and his brother who was just home from boot camp walked around the city with their Dad doing tourist stuff. We ate at Times Square. We saw Pauly D from Jersey Shore crossing the street. We went to Rockefeller Center. We went to Battery Park. We really hit the sightseeing hard! I couldn't get over how tall everything was and how many people there were. Don't they have TV in NYC? Why is everyone outside? Friends is on somewhere on the dial right. Well I guess it WAS May and the sun WAS out. Wanting to ditch that feeling of cabin fever got everyone out and about in the city... is what I thought but really it's like that all the time.
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| I can see why people flock to Times Square. If you come in to the city and get off of your bus at the Port Authority like we did, it's what your senses are drawn to first as you walk out into public.. It's not only lit up like a Christmas tree but it's loud! Horns from all of the cars and taxi's, conversations between the thousands of people shuffling through, the black Hebrew Israelites yelling at white people... it really was an overload for me at first. I tried my hardest to look natural and not seem too touristy but look at me! I was mid-west soft and squishy. I stuck out no matter how much I tried not to. |  |
All in all the whole thing was pretty awesome at first sight. Business men, hippies, tourists all crammed into every square inch of every major street and restaurant as far as the eye could see. Buildings and Parks that were only famous for being part of this great skyline were right there for me to touch and interact with. Everything you saw on TV and in movies was right there. I had to smile a toothy grin to keep myself from popping with emotion. For all the times I'd ever said that I was bored in my past, this made up for it. But we only had 3 days! Go go go! What's next?
 | A trip to Broadway, that's what! Will we see a Tony award winner? Ooh ooh or maybe the Book of Mormon by the guys from South Park! Oooo or a timeless classic. Ya when Dad came back from behind the Times Square grand stands he underwhelmed us with tickets to Million Dollar Quartet. John and I bitched the entire walk over to the theater like we do from time to time. "I've never heard of this" and "It's going to be way too Broadway swishy for us" blah blah blah... We were wrong. The story was awesome! I'd heard of all of the characters in the play and had no idea all of that talent was in the same place at the same time?!? The music was great and sounded just like the real performers! The girl they forced into it was kinda lame but we know why she was put there... I guess. I'd been to 1 play years ago and only because a girl I liked was in it. Other than that, I thought what the rest of Middle-American men thought. Plays were kinda... feminine. This one wasn't though. Wait... do I actually have to experience things before I make an opinion about them? Shit, have I been doing it all wrong this whole time. My bad! My bad everybody. |
Sure city life seemed great and there was tons to do and a million things going on at once...
but this last part is what brought it all together and changed me forever.
So here we are with our cousin Mike. Mike lived (and may still) in the Soho area of Manhattan. We got to see his apartment which was on the smaller side for (what I remember as) 3 people but definitely in a great area. Parks, restaurants, and just a shit ton of things to do just right outside his door. It was his own little piece of NYC. It could have been 1/2 the size and 10 times as dirty but he had an address in the greatest city in America. I was out of my mind impressed with this. I don't care how it came to be. I just liked that it was.
We went to Washington Square park and watched some street performers for awhile. It was free entertainment and they were good. Afterwards we ate at a Thai restaurant and I had the best sandwich. It was my first time eating Thai food even though it may have possibly been quasi authentic. Each street we passed had it's own thing going on and every restaurant and bar had people in it. It was a living entity. I was surprised the whole time with how many people were outside and how many different things they were doing. It made me want to be outside more. Hell it made me want to have a place to go.
Lastly (although not in chronological order), we got to see where Mike worked. It was in an office in a tall building somewhere north of where he lived but still in Manhattan. I could have seen the building and left impressed. That's all I really needed. We did go up though. High up. When we got off of the elevator I remember there was wood everywhere. Decoration and style. I was used to getting off an elevator and being hit with the smell of sick people's shit even before my eyes focused on the 1970's decor of a hospital ward. This was probably not as fancy as it got in NYC but to me it was as awesome as I've ever seen. Now I'll skip the parts about the cubical farms because those are whatever but I will tell you that their meeting room was top notch and the view out from it was pretty damn awesome. It was as high as I got up into a building my whole trip. It just oozed important business whatevers!
As our trip winded down, my dad asked me if I could live in NYC...
Before the trip, I'd have said no. It's too big. It's too expensive. My experience at the hospital wouldn't get me anywhere and shit I didn't even know how to get anywhere career-wise. I was one thing for almost a decade and never made anything more of myself... and I didn't know why. Sure there were a ton of things to do but I needed people to plug me in to the social pipeline and get me into places. I just knew that I was ill prepared to make it there... or anywhere.
After hanging with Mike and seeing a little bit of how he did it everyday, I said ya. It's expensive and I'd need to get a job. I'd need to find an affordable place to stay and with other people. Old Sam did worse with new people than current Sam does. I'd need to meet new friends. Help would be 10 hours away instead of 1.5. These all went through my mind but not as excuses or roadblocks... they were adventures. I've never had a reason to overcome my fears except for impressing women. I'd finally had an idea that motivated me. I'd never had that before outside of "I need to get through college so I can get the hell out of college" and that was to get some sort of stress relief. This was to be happy or at least find happiness.
| On the last day of our trip we went to Central Park but only after I threw a mini-fit that most 30 year olds would be embarrassed about. I guess it was because I didn't want to leave so soon. I'd fallen in love and found the motivation that would finally get me out of my decade long funk. I had pretty much wasted my best years away and got myself almost irreversibly stuck. I wanted to keep this experience going until my new muse took me to an exciting place in my life. I didn't want to go back home... |  |
After roaming around with John in Central Park while my dad sat and creepily watched a woman's softball game (He may not have. It's just funnier that way), we got on the road back home. It took a while for the last of the skyscrapers to disappear into the distance. I thought a lot to pass the time. I came up with a lot of plans for my life with all of the new found confidence I had collected on my trip. I boiled it down to these things:
I loved the feel of urban life and being surrounded by huge buildings.
+ It makes me feel excited and successful.
I loved the parks and enjoyed being a part of all of the people being outside.
+ It makes me feel less alone.
I loved not having to explain where I was. Everyone knows where New York City is and were impressed by it without me having to explain.
+ It makes me feel like I don't need to fight for someone's attention.
I loved that I couldn't even fathom the possibilities one city could hold for me.
+ It made me excited for the future.
This weekend I'm moving to a big city but not to NYC. I loved it and will go back again and again to see as much of it as I can before I die but there was one problem with my grand plan of moving there and starting a new life. It's actually a flaw with me and the way I think. It's mutated from the original combination of my mom's free spirit and my pop's ability to undyingly root for the underdog... NYC doesn't need me. It's already the greatest city in America and one of the greatest in the world. It doesn't need me to get better. I need to feel like I'm making a difference. I want to be a loud voice in a quiet night. I want my money to go towards bettering something. I want my attendance to push something over the top. In my life, where little of what I do matters on the grand scheme of things, I'm looking for somewhere that will appreciate me and my contribution. 2 more days...
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