that just happened

A Harlem caress

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• Author: thatjusthappened
• August 4, 2008
• Category: Uncategorized

Yesterday I saw a friend with whom I’d become acquainted with earlier this year when I had moved to NYC to intern on Madison Avenue with a PR agency. For your and my pleasure I decided to make a check list of all the crazy things that happened during my stay.

Preface: Moving from the 73rd street of the Upper East Side to 111th (by Malcolm X Blvd) Lower Harlem was solely a move to trade paying $1000 a month for my own room to $450 for a shared room in Harlem. But Harlem changed me like a much needed lover…

Before diving into Harlem, a mention of the Upper East Side:

I lived with Shahar, an Israeli who worked for a moving truck company with decent english in his late 20s. One downside was that I listened to him for a week straight ravish the shores of his very vocal girlfriend while I tried to get beauty rest on the other side of a thin wall. My jewish roommate daily smoked the dankest weed I’ve ever smelled, yuck; but good chap on all other accounts. Really.

The fourth floor upper east apt had a picture of two women kissing that took up most of the wall in the living room, the whole apartment was the size of a beefy shoe-box. Shahar was able to hook me up after my two month stay with a box-spring bed. Maybe it had its share of plate-sized stains, but who am I to be picky. Thank-you Shahar.

March and April belonged to Harlem, and I LOVED em.

I had two roommates in Harlem, Adam a 140 pound calm intelligent Christian in my room and Dean, or Dean-o as his friends called him, a big red headed fun-loving Aussie studying film.

Harlem was the cultural experience I’ve always wanted. I’d hang out on 125th and I felt like it was 1990. Clothes was baggy and there was tons of bling. I could never figure out how most everyone in Harlem could afford the hottest sneaks, newest bluetooth earpiece, shiny 22s and still collect hand outs from the government.

While shopping for protein shakes in a Harlem GNC, I had a black girl sales girl ask me if I enjoyed vanilla flavor or chocolate. I said “I dunno which one tastes better?” She said “You should try chocolate, its a whole new experience and you’ll be hooked. You really should try some chocolate buttaah.” I realized she was not talking about protein shakes and we had a playfully sexual conversation. This would not happen anywhere else I’m convinced.

If I ever move back to NYC, Harlem please reserve me a spot.

Here she goes, my top memories and lessons learned while my stay:

• knowing how to hail a cab
• not smiling, regularly frowning when walking around and being proud of it. (sheesh, only tourists smile in  NYC)
• Slighlty exagerating my swagger in a feable attempt to look tougher during the late hours in Harlem
• Almost daily stopping by the Fried Chicken corner store down my street to pick up cheeseburgers or fried  chicken and mash.
• Passing by the 40 and 50 year old homies on the corner playing rap by attaching a CD player to a larger  speaker which was attached to a car battery; everything housed on a portable cart.
• One of the those homies offered me weed and told me not to go to the other corner cause he’s got the best green.
• Getting out of the 2 train at Central Park North (my stop) and being the only white guy in sight.
• Longboarding with Dean-o on a warm spring night through Central Park, talking about women.
• Skateboarding under the brooklyn bridge on those red bricks, a famous skate spot for the last 30 years.
• Being part of the largest pillow-fight on a sunny saturday afternoon in Union Square I have ever been in. Thousands of strangers with pillows, mayhem.
• Going to Harlem lanes with my friends and having our waists and ankles searched for weapons. To go bowling? Seriously.
• Seeing bottles of Hennessy chilling in ice buckets right there on the bowling lanes and big black ladies smiling, grinding up on their men while hip hop and disco spills over the happy crowd.
• Realizing how lucky I am to have such a top notch agency to work with in with a 12th floor cube that looks out onto Madison Sqaure Park.
• Leaving work after a typical 11 hour shift, headphone playing in one ear, cell on other ear, darting through traffic with my blue adidas gym bag on my way to a $120 a month gym and thinking I’m sane.
• Getting offered cocaine right in Times Square.
• Feeling the ground move during a Angels and Airwaves concert in the Roseland Ballroom.
• Getting in for free to see The Presidents of the USA and singing “Millions of peaches” with a very drunk crowd.
• Spring in NYC, everything in bloom including ladies in short skirts, magic.
• Scaring the crap out of Chris Brown during Toy Fair. I was dressed in a Clone Trooper outfit outside of the Star Wars room (the costume guy was hung-over and didn’t come in so as a good intern I offered to take his spot) and Chris thought I was fake because I stayed still. He leans in and I move. He jumps back and yells “OH Shit!” and everyone laughs.
• Going to a Poetry Slam in the East Village expecting to hear poetry and instead hearing about 100 ways to say punany by a lady who created a new religion all for women. She encouraged the ladies to pleasure themselves everyday for a month and passed out little bottles of “sacred lube oil” at the end of her 30 minute religious speal.
• Getting audibly angry by the quality of comedians at various comedy clubs
• Almost getting in a fight in the subway with a guy bigger than me because I was too high on caffine after a work out to think straight. I looked him in the eye cocked my head narrowed my eyes and said “whatssup” in the cockiest tone; sometimes I am so stupid.
• Stuttering while helping Miss Switzerland pick a city to vote for during our World Monopoly Vote media event. She was too fine… sweaty palms.
• One favorite deli that always played 70’s disco, I’d sit, eat my cheeseburger and pickles and soak in the sounds.
• On dateless fridays nights I would cozy up in a four story mid-town Barnes & Noble usually in the biography section and lose track of time.
• Walking to the subway and watching a crazy women run by bleeding out the eye yelling at some guy and not thinking anything was out of the ordinary.
• Watching movies into the early hours with a friend on the worst TV I’ve ever used.
• Surviving the worst week of my life and laughing at it when it was done.
• Pursuing a girl who was way out my my league and thinking that she would be lucky to be with me.

And lastly picture this:

• Shopping on 116th and the grocery store was playing RnB, disco and Hip Hop and everyone in the store is singing along and some people are dancing along. At first this threw me off but after a while I realized this is their culture and I loved it. Hopefully they didn’t see me, white boy in the vegetable isle, trying to dance along as well.

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