A Night Out in Harlem

I'm attempting to not fall behind on these updates, but sense it's sort of inevitable. There's far too much stuff to write about, but when it comes to abridging it, it's really tough decided to leave out. So it probably won't be abridged at all... But tenuously enough, I'll be heading over a bridge soon enough... to Brooklyn! That's actually a lie. I'll be taking the subway, and that goes under the river. So boo. But anyway, last night I went for a wander in the neighbourhood around my hostel and happened up a funky-looking eatery called Soul Food, teeming with locals, so went to check it out. Inside it looked like a highly eclectic buffet, but with polystyrene take-out trays and several confusing prices. After initially mistaking me for a Frenchman, the host was nothing but overly polite and helpful, not laughing at my lame question of "What's the deal here then?" Turned out I was being an idiot as usual, and it was a pay-by-weight situation, at $6.50 per pound. If only our exchange rate was that good! My tray full of fried and jerk chicken, rice and beans, and various other stereotypically black foodstuffs came to around ten bucks, almost eight quid! Lemonade and a dollar tip on top of that, and it'd cost almost a tenner. To eat out of a polystyrene tray. But it was good and felt better than copping out with a McDonald's shitfest meal. Stomachally satisfied, I was all ready to head back to the hostel via some sort of seedy convenience store to grab a six-pack of America's bestest brew, Sam Adams. But then the bright lights of the Apollo Theater, one of the world's most famous comedy venues were glowing invitingly from just a short distance away. I figured I might as well check out the place to say I've at least been in the lobby. When I got closer, I saw it was their famous Amatures Night, where a handful local wannabees compete against eachother with their varied performing arts skills (or lack there of), a tradition there dating back decades. The even brighter lights close-up indicated there was to be a guest appearance from TV's queen of grating voices, Cathy Griffin. The box office staff informed me the cheapest ticket was 17 dollars, and that the show would only last another hour or so. I thanked her for the help and walked away, thinking it was a bit much. Then a minute later I returned with gusto, after questioning the likelihood of ever returning to Harlem and getting to see such a famous show again. Screw it, what's 17 dollars for the chance to see a "now a white guy, he drives like this..." joke and within the same hour getting my brains screeched out by an irritated, wholly unfunny and quite ambitiously self-rated D-list celebrity. Not much. So I politely asked for "one please", to find the lovely lady behind the counter respond by slyly sliding the ticket through and going "shhhh". Let in free, I was half expecting it to be part of some cruel joke where the only white guy brave enough to venture in is paraded and ridiculed around the stage in some humiliation-based reparation scheme. But no. The place was full of pastey caucasian boys and girls. Almost disappointingly so. But the atmosphere was great, and while the hopefuls I saw were on the whole pretty mediocre, and Cathy was just Ppppfff, I had a brilliant time. Bizarrely the prominant black preacher and 2004 democrat presidential candidate nominee Al Sharpton had been hanging out with her all day and gave her a stirring, but totally unfounded introduction. She's really not the funniest woman around. Really really. I found the whole thing very strange. But anyway, thanks to the wonders of 24 hour dodgy convenience stores without any time-of-day-based licencing laws, I was able to pick up a few bottles of Sam and chat the rest of the night away with a German, and Argentine, an Aussie and a Colombian. As cool a bunch of people as they were, I made the decision to stay elsewhere the next night (tonight), hence the Brooklyn reference earlier. I started writing this on the train out of Harlem, manged to drop my stuff off then come back to Manhattan and chance upon a ticket for the Late Show with Letterman, which begins filming in less than an hour! So I'm going to have to pretend I find the man funny, lest I get thrown out the door for being a miserable bastard. Fun times!