Shoot the freak

Last weekend I went to the Siren Music Festival at Coney Island with my buddy Dan from work. I’ve been wanting to go to Coney Island since before I even arrived in NYC so I was pretty excited to get out there and see what all the hype was about.

Wow. Coney Island sure is a sight to see. The diversity of people that lined the boardwalk and crowded the lines at Nathan’s Famous really were quite the sight. Fans of people-watching can rejoice, for I have found their Mecca.

The amusement rides and attractions themselves are a mix of dilapidated structures and relics from Coney Island past. The people running them were all local scam artists literally offering “Big Ass Prizes” to all who dared enter:

I saw so many people get ripped off by rigged games and broken machines, it was unbelievable. I even paid to use the restroom! Who knew they charged for restrooms outside of Europe?

As Dan and I were walking down the boardwalk admiring all the pretty people, we could hear someone on a loud speaker yelling “Live human target! We have a freak right here, he runs around and you shoot him! Shoot him in the face, shoot him in the eye, shoot him in the nuts!”. Obviously we had to check it out. After we pushed through the crowd we were able to see the source of the commotion: a seemingly very popular ‘game’ called “Shoot the Freak”. The premise was simple, you pay $3 and you get 5 shots with a paintball gun to shoot some poor sap running around in an alley. Sure he had enough protective gear on that he wouldn’t feel anything, but seriously? Shoot the Freak?

I can see the thought process now: ‘Well, we have this open lot next to the shop right on the boardwalk. Too expensive to build something… and I do have a can of paint, some plywood, and an old paintball gun. I know! We’ll hire some kid to run around and charge people to shoot at him!”

I also managed to have 3 Nathan’s chili-cheese dogs at over 500 calories a pop. Delicious.

What you’ve missed

Looking back over pictures that I’ve taken while in NYC has made me wish that I would have told a million more stories on here. Well, its too late for that, but here are some more notable happenings that you may have missed:

I learned that you can drop off laundry and pay someone else to do it for you. It costs only $5 more and saves at least 2 hours of your life. So much for mom making you learn how to do laundry at home “because you’ll need to know how to do it when you live on your own”. Apparently you don’t:

Often times I like to go to neighborhoods or parts of town that I haven’t seen and just wander around to see what I find. Not too long ago I was on just such a mission and decided to sit down to read for a bit. Remarkably, I made a new friend:

So, I do lots of reading. Central Park is another fave:

Something I certainly wish I have been doing more of is wandering around with my camera. I take my little one pretty much everywhere I go, but I am very rarely out with my nicer one. On my way to dinner one evening I decided to take it out. I managed to take some pretty interesting photos, but I’m clearly out of practice. Here is something new I tried:

Not long after that last shot was taken, I stumbled into a hotel which had the address of a reputably incredible burger restaurant, called Burger Joint. It took a good 10 minutes and bit of courage for me to pull aside long draping curtains behind a desk in this 5-star hotel lobby. What I saw behind the curtains was a long dark hallway with a small neon Burger sign at the end. I followed it down and discovered a true hidden gem. Within the walls of this nice modern hotel was a hidden hole-in-the wall burger joint that offered one of the best and cheapest burgers I’ve had in NYC:

Something you have to do once in your life: walk across the Brooklyn Bridge:

Fortunately, I’ve also been able to go to a lot of concerts. All of them have been free too – except one. The one lucky concert that earned my hard earned cash: Spoon in Prospect Park. I was amazed that I was able to get off of work in time to catch the show, but I’m very glad that I did. It was an amazing concert:

Oh and Brock and I managed to find a pretty cool bar called 1, 2, 3. $1 sliders, $2 shots, $3 beers. All varieties, all night, every night. A pretty cool and novel concept and the bar itself was very clean and new. Unfortunately, it seems to be very similar to Taylors and caters to the Guido clientele. The night we went there, Brock and I were enjoying our $3 beer when the table next to us ordered this huge 100 oz tube of beer. It made sense, it was a big group and it was really the type of novelty drink that you share.

However, jealousy soon set in and it wasn’t long before we decided that we needed one to ourselves. The waitress thought it was funny that we were ordering an entire tube for just two people. No one was laughing though when we quickly finished one and moved on to our second. Yikes.

I made it home alright, but Brock was lucky I was there…

And a video of the crowd…

Oh, and I went to Coney Island last weekend. Wow. Definitely more to come on that later.

Jacques

If anyone has ever seen Along Came Polly, then you can imagine perfectly what this guy looks like:

Just a few days after I moved into my apartment, Tim, the guy I’m subletting from called me to tell me his boyfriend would be coming over to pick up a few things that he left in my room. I told him it was fine and was eagerly awaiting meeting this guy.

When he walked in (he has keys to the apartment), he introduced himself as Jacques. Unfortunately, he didn’t have an accent – but he did have long untamed hair and dirty hands. Immediately I was reminded back to one pathetic night that I accidentally watched Along Came Polly by myself last term. I was convinced that Jacques was Claude – the scuba guy that stole Ruben’s girl.

In hindsight, the only real reason for the connection was likely the shared foreign name/persona and the long hair. Whatever, they were the same person in my book.

So fast forward a couple weeks and I get another call from Tim. This time his EX boyfriend, Jacques, needs to come by and pick some things up from the room. Of course, I obliged as though I had a say. He had keys to the apartment still, after all.

So when Jacques arrived I shook his hand and greeted him again (this time his hands were clean) and helped him get his things from the room. Apparently what he was looking for was hidden way above the closet behind a bunch of other junk. So Jacques balanced on a stool and handed me things to uncover his items.

I stood there numbly taking items from Jacques and placed them on the ground, wondering what the hell he could be looking for. Finally, after several minutes, he exclaimed with gleeful excitement as he finally starts to hand me the subjects of his search. So what was it that he was looking for?

SNORKELING GEAR!

He is Claude from Along Came Polly after all!

But that begs the question: why the hell would anyone ever need snorkel gear in NYC? And why was it stored in Jacques’ boyfriend’s room?

I pondered these questions as Jacques took his gear and left the apartment. Although he is now referred to as the ex, something tells me I haven’t seen the last of my new friend, Jacques…