Pia Pia Piano's

When you wake up in the morning to find three stamps of varying words and pictures on your hand as well as a discarded Burger wrapper (of the Blue 9 variety) and half a Gatorade all accompanied by a thumping headache, you know you had an interesting time the night before.

That was me on Friday morning, slowly piecing together the night before.

It started with a song. To be more precise it started with the song 'Something in Common' by Free Energy, a happy clappy dancey pop song that my former roommate Victoria had fallen in love with. Whenever she comes to visit down from Queens we have to listen to the song many many times. It transpired that Free Energy were playing a small gig at a bar called Piano's. Now let me put into context why this was exciting. I fucking love Piano's (the bar.... I could give or take the instrument). If I have nothing to do and am out then inevitably I will recommend Piano's, it has everything, a bar, a dance/club bit and a gig venue in the back. I had my 23rd birthday there and to be honest when the big 25 hits I'll probably be there again. If you have come to visit me in New York, I probably took you there. I've managed to pull women from all corners of the globe in that place. It's my New York Robinski's.

Delighted that I had an excuse to go I was all over the idea of a night out like a rash on a nymphomaniac. The crew was a good one. Everyone had a connection to 203 East 14th Street, they had either lived in the apartment or were dating someone that lived in the apartment.

We started the evening in the same way any night at 203 begins, we listened to 'Something In Common' 7 times on repeat. We slowly started drinking some Wine and Beer. I harped back to an old saying 'Beer before Wine feeling fine, Wine Before Beer.... feeling fine!' A big night lay ahead. We arrived at Piano's after a rowdy cab ride and stumbled in. We headed for the back and into the gig room. Now I hadn't been in this room for a while and had forgotten the nasal stinging stench that singes your nostrils when you enter. A mix of B.O, beer and Hispters. It smelt gross. We sucked it up and had more beer. Victoria then requested we move to the front by the stage so we could dance.... begrudgingly I obliged. Once the band started setting up I could see Vic becoming more and more excited. Finally a waif like individual with the waistline of Kate Moss appeared n the stage and wrote down the set list.... guess which song wasn't on it! We asked politely and he decided to stick our song on one from the end. As the band struck up and started Victoria became 'That' girl. You know, the one at the front of the gig who dances way to much and is far far to into it. The rest of us had to take it in turns to dance with her to avoid embarrassment. It took a while, but eventually the opening chords to the one song we knew struck up. There was one problem, our friend Markus was in the toilet. So unfortunately for him he missed the one reason he came out! The rest of us danced, Vic may as well have thrown her pants on the stage and just like that the band were done. We had our picture taken with the singer.... seriously, and then scurried off upstairs to the club part.

By now I had switched from Wine to Beer to Vodka to JD, things were starting to become blurry. After busting out the weightlifter move a few times 4 of the 6 of us went home, these 4 are of course all in a relationship, so it was up to Victoria and I to hold down the fort. The problem was Victoria had been caught in the tractor beam of two competitive guys both vying for her affection. She seemed to be enjoying it so I took the time to talk to the bemused Chinese girl standing next to me. The conversation didn't exactly flow! Eventually Victoria managed to escape her two would be suitors and headed off home, I decided to stick it out with Miss China, unfortunately her boyfriend turned up and I took that as my cue to leave.

All in all a fun, drunk night at Piano's and now I have somewhere to stay should I get lost in China. I wouldn't expect anything else.

Oh and for those wondering about the Burger wrapper.... I was hungry when I got home.

Diary Of A Bored Man

Life is boring. Nothing exciting is happening. These blogs are stagnating as a result. In order to convey the total mind numbing boringness of my life we will once again delve into the diary of a typical wek.

Monday - Day off. This is one of those glorious days where you do nothing whatsoever. You rise at 12 consider breakfast but instead decide your time will be better spent sleeping for an extra hour. Once you are up at 1 the mother of all achievements is on, the less than 12 hour day. The less than 12 hour day consists of going to bed less than 12 hours after you left it that morning. In order to achieve this you will need the following. 1) Take out menu's. 2) Football Manager. 3) YouTube. 4) Cable TV. Once these are in place you can split your time equally between watching dancing midgets, winning the champions league, ordering Thai food and cursing the cable company that cancelled the food network, thus ensuring the commercial to put it back on plays during every single ad break! After interchanging between these things for ten or so hours you hop back into bed at 11:30 to complete your less than 12 hour day. Beautiful.

Tuesday - This day usually consists of a shift at work that I like to call a 'Nothing Shift.' Nothing shift's are exactly what they sound like nothing. Nothing funny happens, nobody makes a lot of money, but nobody makes a small amount. The world just continues to turn. Everyone smells of BBQ and is zombified by the sheer nothingness of the shift. Beware the nothing shift though. The nothing shift can lead to excessive drinking, for you see after a nothing shift the brain has become a mushy mass of ill formed ideas and the one that usually pops out is the decision to go to a bar. By the time everyone is off work and at the bar it is usually midnight, meaning we drink until 3. Meaning we close down the bar. Meaning everyone is hungover for Wednesday.

Wednesday - The day is a write off, no man alive can cope with a hangover that big. Instead all hopes and dreams are projected onto the night, for you see Wednesday night is the perfect date night. It's far enough away from the weekend to not feel like a waste of a night and close enough to it to make you want to drink. In short wednesday night is the perfect alignment of the stars and planets to go out on a date.
The rules remain the same. You meet for drinks/dinner. You keep on eye on the bill. You decline her offer to pay despite dying a little inside when you see the hit your wallet is about to take. You then move onto stage 2 of the date. Stage 2 can take place anywhere in the city say another bar or perhaps back at your apartment. The trick is to get it right on Wednesday though because otherwise you have another 7 days to wait before you can go on a date again.

Thursday - The double shift. Lesser men have gone insane when confronted with the terror of the double shift, it makes them weep and beg for mercy whilst they simultaneously crap their pants and piss themselves, beware the double shift.
You start at 10 moving tables, filling sauces and laying out silverware in a race against time to set up the restaurant for 11. After that the shift begins. Lunch is slow... always slow. You serve a few tables, fold a few napkins and the thought of the evening shift is yet to enter your mind.
Then you go on break. This is perhaps the toughest decision of the day... where to eat. It's enough to drive a man mad! Usually you end up at Starbucks eating apple fritters and downing Latte's.
Then it's time for the evening shift. By now your feet are sore, your legs weak, your eyes streaming and you nostril hair parched with BBQ sauce. You check your watch... it's only 8! You want to cry. You've been at work for 10 hours, that's 10 hours of non stop country music. Your pray for mercy as you hum 'Against The Wind.' Then finally, finally it's over. You go home and collapse on your bed half man, half Rib Sampler.

Friday - The morning can go one of a few ways. You can close lunch, meaning you work until 6 and are manically swept off of your feet as the only waiter in the restaurant from 2 onwards. Or you sometimes have an audition.
If it's the latter you hop on the Subway to some nothing part of New York, find some tall non desrcript building, head up a few floors and wait to be called. Smiling falsely you shake everyones hand and then read the page of script they have prepared for you. They seem to really like you, in fact, heck, they love you! They tell you when they will be putting on the play/filming the film and ask if you are free on those dates.... You are. They say they will call you..... They don't.
Friday night. Call Dylan find some cool New York bar and get right on it. Friday night is drinking night. You party hard because Saturday night will be spent at work... and that's no treat.

Saturday - The morning always starts with football. PHart and his terrible QPR side loose, nobody in the Gilbert household is happy but at least I got to see Warren Barton's opinions on Liverpool's current crisis whilst I sat hungover in bed.
Suddenly it's 4 and it's off to work. The weekends are a different animal at work, they get very busy. When it's like that it becomes every waiter for themselves. You have to get in with the hosts so they will sit your tables thus generating maximum income. After that you have to sell sell sell. Everything on the menu is your favorite dish and nothing can't be done for a guest. You do however want to stay out of the kitchen. If you don't you face the wrath of the chef, who at this point resembles a BBQ stained gargoyle wearing MC Hammer's pants, screaming at you for being in his domain.
Eventually... eventually you are done, off the hook. Usually with a nice amount of money in your pocket, so what do you do with the money? That's right spend it on beer. So you trudge off to some crap bar that is empty because you don't want to walk in and be the only sober people inside and drink until the wee hours of the morning.

Sunday - A day off. Always starts with walking the 200 steps from your apartment to Blue 9 Burger always fresh and always delicious. Due to the fat content of these being more than James Corden you limit yourself to one a week. This eases any hangover.
After feeling a little better Sunday gets underway and to be honest, it's a lot like Monday. You sit around, you watch TV, you play computer games. It also has the ability to be a second date night. After laying the groundwork on Wednesday you can often suggest something a little more relaxed for your hungover souls on Sunday such as a movie or even better just hanging out at the apartment and seeing what happens. I don't want to give away all my moves though.

So as you can see my life is pretty dull right now, although it could be worse, I could be snowed in, I could be a Liverpool fan or I could not be in New York. Guess I'll just have to get on with it eh!