Random Monster Encounters

Some Pictures From My 2011 NYC Trip

A couple of days ago I got back from my big NYC trip with my friend George Wines. During this trip I took a lot of pictures, some of which I post here, for those friends of mine who don’t keep track of me on Facebook.

Approaching NYC in an AMTRAK train.

George took a bus to get to NYC and we met up at Penn Station. During our rides we texted each other back and forth. It’s hard to read, but in the above picture George texted me this message: “I’m sitting next to a petite Asian girl with gigantic breasts!” (he was joking about the size of her breasts: he knows I have a slight fetish for Asian girls with big boobs).

Ramada Inn of New Jersey: the hotel we stayed at. Nice place inside, but the neighborhood around it was very seedy (and scary to walk through at night). Our room was on the top (and fifth) floor. It was deluxe, split into two bedrooms, so George and I each got our own room. Very clean, though the air conditioning didn’t work very well. About a block away was a PATH station that we used to go back and forth to the city.

This was my bed in the hotel. The view wasn’t that great though.

This was the view from my room’s leftmost window. The view from the right window was pretty much just a giant brick wall.

George and I posing in our hotel room. George is a really nice guy and I liked his perverse sense of humor. I also felt safe walking around NYC with him because he looks like he can take care of himself.

Of course, while in Union Square we had to stop at this giant 4-story Barnes & Noble. I visited this store during my first trip to the city in 2009 (mainly to drop into the restrooms and wash some pigeon shit out of my hair).

On Sunday, before going to Madison Square Park, we went to Union Square first. George took this picture of me posing next to the Andy Warhol monument there. I think this statue was placed here earlier this year.

The Met Life Tower, as seen from Madison Square Park. I’ve always loved this building. We hung around Madison Square Park the second day of our trip and it was very beautiful.

Salvador Dali’s “The Persistence of Memory.” One of the many pictures I took of artwork at the Museum of Modern Art. Here’s a few more:

Me clowning around at MoMA.

Weird statue of MoMA.

Vacation purchases: the “Them” CD and Jean Genet’s plays “The Maids/Deathwatch” (the CD was purchased at the “Them” CD release party at Le Poisson Rouge on Sunday evening, while the book was purchased at St. Mark’s Book shop, which we visited earlier that day). “Them” is a project/collaboration between Dennis Cooper (text), Ishmael Jones (concept/choreography), and Chris Cochrane (composer). It was really incredible music and I can’t wait to hear how it sounds on CD, though it will lack the visual element provided by the dancers. George and I met Dennis outside the club prior to the show: George has met Dennis in person a few times over the years, but for me, it was a first, as I’ve only ever known him as an online friend. He’s a really nice guy.

On Tuesday afternoon we hung out with a mutual online friend, the writer Alan Horn. He was cool. After having lunch at Cafe Reggio in Greenwich Village, we took a brief walk around Washington Square Park. After saying bye to Alan, George and I popped into the Strand bookstore for a few minutes.

Window display at McNally Jackson bookstore showcasing Dennis’ new novel “The Marbled Swarm.” Dennis did a reading there on Monday night. It was great, though I felt very claustrophobic because there were a ton of people crammed into a small, hot space. I didn’t like how you had to pay to use the restroom either. After the reading Dennis autographed my copy of “Swarm.” Then George, Dennis, myself and a few other people went to have a bite to eat at some Mexican place. Well, I didn’t eat much because I don’t like Mexican food. But I did get to meet some interesting new people.

On Tuesday night Dennis did a second reading at powerHouse books in Brooklyn. I liked this reading more because it was more intimate, with less people and in a larger, air-conditioned space: instead of chairs there were church pews, and prior to the reading they played a lot of cool 1980s music, bands like Depeche Mode and New Order and the Cure and stuff. After the reading Dennis autographed my copy of “Closer,” which is the first novel of his I ever purchased, around ten years or so ago. Then he, George, and myself went down to the subways, where Dennis posed for this picture with me (he joked a bit about my “Les Miserables” t-shirt afterwards). My smile looks odd here because my lips were very dry and chapped.

Autographed copy of “Closer.”

Autographed copy of “The Marbled Swarm.”

One night I did a Google image search for “gay dragon” and this was one of the pics that popped up