The Lullaby Of Broadway
vee Teaches &roid The Value Of Street Smarts
June 3rd, 2006
When vee and &roid chartered a jet to New York in the Spring of 2006, little did they know what adventures awaited them in that vast urban jungle. Most men of their stature would have had their personal assistants book and arrange a trip itinerary: world class hotels, $500 dinners, limousines, and wild late-night parties at the swankiest midtown lofts. Thankfully, vee and &roid are not most men.
Before we go any further, perhaps we should clarify what we mean when we speak of chartered jets. In this case, we refer to American Airlines and their fleet of MD-80s. It was in the spacious confines of one of these pressurized, flying metal-tubes that our two heroes took off from their mountain fortress. Equipped with nothing but backpacks full of clean underpants, a tattered copy of Dostoevsky's "Notes From The Underground," and rations enough to last a weekend, they landed at LaGuardia.
From there, it was a short bus-ride into Penn Station, courtesy NY Airport Service. (All for the unbelievably low, low price of $12!) Bus rides in New York are great fun. Most likely owing to their ever-growing fame, the driver even went so far as to nominate vee and &roid as "best passengers of the week!"
Stepping off the bus and into the chaotic swirlings of humanity was nearly enough to overload the neural-nets of poor &roid. In fact, at one point in the subway, he shouted "Vroom, Vroom! Too many vectors!" Several passersby, mistaking him for a crazy wino, tossed their spare change his direction. (Contrary to popular belief, New Yorkers really are quite generous.) Soon, however, he was upstaged by a disheveled aesthete playing marimba and singing dirges in Latin. Truly, New York's title of "The Macaronic City" is well-deserved.
Monument to monument, couch to couch, they continued their journey. A city like New York is best seen on foot. Wonderful odors drift from street vendors to mingle with other scrumptious smells like urine and smog. It doesn't get much better than that. Whilst on their walkabout, they spent a long time casing the Flatiron Building. Gazing up at its triangular glory. It's only eight feet wide at the front! Do you not find that fact amazing? That's almost as long as vee's inhuman wingspan. In any event, &roid recommended that the building be purchased and converted into v.d. headquarters. What a wise robot. vee concurred and they soon found a willing realtor -- a stony-faced Goethe of a man.
Odd then that next to Goethe's office was the most hideous carousel ever. It bore the apropos name of "Carousel of the Damned." Each of the spindled creatures skewered on it were grotesque caricatures of insipid fear, as if possessed by Mephistopheles himself. I know you don't believe me. But pictures do not lie.
Finally, Sunday came. This was the reason for the trip. G-Man was playing Carnegie Hall. People packed the place, hoping to catch a glimpse of his shimmering visage and were thusly rewarded when he appeared on stage, brandishing his guitar like a goblin-cleaver. Riotous applause. An audience enraptured. You know the drill by now.
When the show ended, the real adventure began. vee and &roid had to find a place to sleep at midnight in New York City. Luckily they'd made no prior reservations. Their plane home left in ten hours. vee made the comment "You know, an airport is like a really expensive hotel without beds." And it was settled.
Question: How does one get from Carnegie Hall to LaGuardia at 12:30AM on a Monday morning? A NY Airport Service bus, you say? WRONG: they do not run at that hour. A taxi, you opine? WRONG: they are bloody expensive. Eschewing such direct forms of transit, our two heroes instead found a more ingenious route. Would you believe it is possible to get from Penn Station to LaGuardia for just $4.00? Believe it, because that's the fiscal nirvana crazy kids were able to achieve. All it involved a subway to Astoria Boulevard and a ride on the M-80 bus. (Note to anyone who tries to undertake this route -- the last bus stops at Astoria Blvd. sometime around 1:30AM.)
By 2:30AM, they'd made it to their destination. Finding an inviting expanse of cool, mottled tile, vee and &roid stretched out for a short nap. If there's a more comfortable airport floor in this world, it hasn't yet been discovered. There, they dreamed of days gone by, warm meals, and the welcoming paucity of oxygen in the Colorado air.
Up at the crack of dawn, they wandered down the concourse. At the end of the jetway stood a pair of silver wings waiting to take them away. Sunlight shone. Engines roared. And New York slowly faded out of sight.
Long Live The vee Revolution.