| -April 15th 2011. The journey begins – and I’m riddled with aprehension. The recent prang in my car – with its brain jarring impact, has left me feeling depleted and lacking in confidence. Strange. Part of me is terrified about going to New York on my own – the first time since 1999 – but another part of me can’t wait. Soundtrack to these memories is albumn by The Foals.
This is the journey I had been planning on doing back in February but the whole motive seems much different now: however, one thing is fixed – I’m doing the Catskills with Floyd. I do the bus ride into Bristol, grab a traditional coffee at Cafe Amore (formerly Joe Cubas) and then head to London; leave London around 4.40 pm and arrive in Newark around 8pm after an 8 hour flight that I really enjoyed. Watched Wall Street 2 and Get Low (Robert Duvall as old man in the woods). Ramona is there to meet me at Newark. Back to her place for much comfort. Nibbles, red wine, a shot of blueberry vodka that I left there from December 2010. Watch Camelot before I crash on the sofa. Next morning is like clockwork. Up early. Ramona and I head into the city to grab breakfast at a dinner (sausages, eggs, potatoes, black coffee and OJ). It’s surreal riding the bus in. My brain is not prepared for actually being here again, so soon after December. Meet Floyd as arranged and it’s a blissful 2 hour coach ride north, out of the city, past Tappan Zee Bridge, past Bear Mountain. We get off at a small town called Kingston. Then Floyd calls his man, Jamal, and we get a taxi for a 45 minute ride into the middle of nowhere… literally, stopping via a beer shack and spending $50 on delicious imported beers. |
| Catskill Mountains, New York State – The Country Club |
April 2011. I didn’t know what to really expect with Floyd’s country retreat. I certainly didn’t expect the immaculate show-house decor and the sense of extreme isolation being there. It was wonderful. It started to rain as we arrived; the house was like a fridge so Floyd got the heating going. Then we cracked open the beers and started to talk about everything: in particular his situation with his wife and child. Difficult times for him. A sense of feeling trapped – but I challenged his desires to return back to the UK and suggested that he was possibly viewing England as a green field on the other side of a fence through rose tinted glasses. I don’t think he could ever go back.
After a few hours we were hungry so did the 50 minute walk along a deserted and lonely strip of blacktop – winding through dense and endless forests – to Krumville Road and the Country Inn. It was raining lightly but I’d brought along my pack-a-mac. Inside we peeled off damp outer layers and stood by the roaring log fire to take off the chill and dry out, whilst supping pints of delicious Evans Kick Ass Dark Ale. We sat at the bar, ate great food, chatted with locals who found the English accent a little exotic and intriguing.
Then it started to get dark and the rain was coming down heavier than ever. We did the walk back in the final blue haze of twilight, me with the Foals playing through headphones… grinning despite being soaking wet… Floyd jangling his keys to alert the large number of bears in the area to our approach.
| Catskill Mountains, New York State – The Country Club – Floyd |
April 2011. We got back soaked to the skin – the rain was so heavy it had penetrated even our waterproofs. We stripped off, grinnning like kids, shivering and cold. Floyd got the cast iron fire going whilst I took a hot shower – my skin flaring red with the chill in my flesh and the hot water.
Pulling on fresh dry clothes and coming down to the fire, and a bottle of Hudson Valley Whisky… was just heaven. We stayed up until the wee hours, drying our clothes and boots and chatting away. A lot of whisky and a lot of beer.
| Catskill Mountains, New York State – The Country Club – Floyd |
April 2011. Needless to say we both slept like babies. Next morning I felt only a little delicate – a close shave with a bad hangover. Instead, I chilled out on the sofa whilst Floyd slept into the morning and I have really special memories of sitting with my legs stretched out, blankets on my lap, headphones playing The Foals and gazing out the window at the moody forest surrounding the house on every angle. Every few minutes the sun would burn holes through the low clouds and flood the room with light. It was really magical.
Floyd woke and made breakfast. Then we went for a long hike around the area.
| Catskill Mountains, New York State – The Country Club |
April 2011. Soundtrack to memories.
| Catskill Mountains, New York State – The Country Club – Djr |
April 2011. That’s the house in the background – with one of the two house sized sheds that also come with the property. A lot of the land is his too.
| Catskill Mountains, New York State – Djr |
April 2011. Walking and walking you only pass another building infrequently. You get the sense that anything could come stumbling out of the woods towards you.
Getting back to the house we packed and got ready to depart. I dropped my camera (that I’ve had since October 2005) and cracked the casing. You could “kind of” still use it but the thing was a mess.
Taxi driver arrives before 1pm to take us back to Kingston. He’s behaving a little strange – not quite with it. It takes him five attempts to reverse out of the drive. A few miles later we narrowly avoid (blink and we would have crashed) a head on collision with a stationary SUV that was straddling our lane… a big black thing that you just could not fail to see was blocking the road… unless of course you were asleep… which our driver was. He only snapped awake as Floyd and I made sounds of protest seeing the crash begining to unfold in sickening slow motion before us. As it was we veered across into the opposite lane, on a blind corner (which could have been another tragedy if something had been coming the other way), and then managed to avoid crashing into the trees on the opposite verge before swinging wildly back into the proper lane. The driver muttered something about having quick reflexes. WTF?! So I watched his eyes in the mirror and saw him nodding off again. I texted Floyd and so he and I kept up spontaneous and random conversation with the driver for the duration of the journey. Getting into Kingston we rang his boss and told him to get the driver off the road before he killed somebody. That’s when the shock settled in… and left us both feeling uneasy. This increased many times when on the coach ride from Kingston back into New York… we passed an area where the northbound lane was closed off with emergency vehicles… and there in the middle of the isolated lane was a burning wreck of a car that looked oddly as if somebody was still inside.
Both Floyd and I felt freaked out. As if strange unnatural forces were at play. Getting into Port Authority the CITY hit us like a slap in the face. We grabbed the tube to Brooklyn and the Iona for a beer. Then I headed off to meet [] for a dinner party – in a Taxi that nearly hit and killed a dog and a driver who didn’t know where the fuck he was supposed to be taking me.
Felt like shit the next morning. [] took me out to a cafe, then down to H P Lovecraft’s apartment in Red Hook. That was great to be there. Then we walked to and across the Brooklyn Bridge,
| New York City – The High Line |
April 2011. Wednesday. Another ride into the city with Mona on the bus; coffee at her office, then I cut loose and pounded pavement. Bought myself a new camera, a Nikon. Met up with [] at a private club for creative types called Norwood on 14th West Street between 7th and 8th… very lovely. Then she took me to the High Line, a stretch of elevated railway following the line of Grenwhich which has recently been targeted by an urban regeneration project. Really lovely thing to do.
| New York City – The High Line – Looking East across town. |
April 2011. Wednesday.
| New York City – The High Line – Looking North East. |
April 2011. Wednesday. This image captures the variety that is Manhattan. The old red brick church, the turn of the last century factory building and the varying bulks of skyscrapers from different eras.
| New York City. |
April 2011. Wednesday. Another iconic aspect of the city… cars stacked up in vertical car parks.
| New York City. Just another street scene. |
April 2011. Wednesday.
| New York City. Djr. |
April 2011. Wednesday. It’s my final night.
| New York – New Jersey – View of Manhattan Skyline |
April 2011. Wednesday. This is a view that never fails me make me pause and stare. It’s the view from Ramona’s apartment building, overlooking the Hudson river… and it stretches left and right almost as far as the eye can see in either direction.
| New York – New Jersey – Gibbous Moon over Manhattan |
April 2011. Wednesday.
| New York City – Grand Central Station and view of the Crystler Building |
April 2011. Thursday. A final bus ride into the city with Mona. Coffee at her office, then I dumped my bags and walked south south south.
| New York City – When Stone Gods Rise in Manhattan |
April 2011. Thursday. Steam and stone. Ancient and modern.
| New York City |
April 2011. Thursday. One of the two lions flanking the steps of New York City Library and the very same that were visible in the film Ghostbusters.
| New York City – Mary’s Fish Camp |
April 2011. Thursday. The plan was to meet Floyd at the Ear Inn (not far from his work) in the early afternoon. I caught up with [] before this and she took me to yet another amazing place; this one called Mary’s Fish Camp in West Village. Best oysters I’ve ever had; ever.
| New York City – Ear Inn – Floyd, Djr |
April 2011. Thursday. The Ear Inn is an incredibly special place. Look up the history of it and you’ll see its managed to remain standing for nearly two hundred years against all the odds, and the never ending flurry of re-development that churns around the island. A den of inequity for decades and a haunt for the many gangs and river pirates that used to terrorise the settlements and docks along the Hudson. For me, I first discovered the Ear back in 2007 when Floyd took me there – and since then it’s become our prime rendezvous point.
Floyd’s clutching the NATO issue pen he bought as part of his post-apocalyptic survivor fetish he’s gotten into since reading Dog Eat Dog.
| New York City – Ear Inn – []. |
April 2011. Thursday.
New York City – Ear Inn.
April 2011. Thursday.Such a cool place.
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