Day 31: The day the police brought me home

Lets just pretend I didn´t take a two weeks break from everything and wrote this blog post when I should have done it. Yes? Yes.

The night before a friend hooked me up with Helga, a photographer that I kinda knew because she made her masters degree in my hometown and we share a lot of contacts but never really met in person. She lives in NY at the moment and invited me to join her at a James Blake concert. So day 31 started with me trying to get tickets.

Therefore I went to "Disc-O-Rama"- a small record shop in lower manhattan but their internet didn´t work at the moment so they asked me to return later. I was hungry anyway so I took the chance to look for the supermarket I found on my second day on the continent. After some temporary confusion and the wrong turns that come with it I actually made it and invested 5 dollars in a drink and awesome supermarket sushi. I will miss this back home!

On my "way back" I passed the "Little Lebowski Shop". I really wanted to go in but I didn´t feel like talking and in these small shops they always talk to you because you´re the only costumer and stuff so I moved on, turned at the end of the block and came back. Fuck it, I really wanted to see what they sell.

And, lucky me, the moment I entered a 1,5 hour conversation started but I actually enjoyed it. I may suck at smalltalk but I am awesome at quoting movies and movie trivia and so was this guy. We connected very fast.

Nicholas opened the shop together with a friend. In his free time he works on a science-fiction movie that is based on selected autobiographical episodes of so said friend- who will also play the leading role. Nicholas writes the script and builds the props- he stored some of them in the back of the shop and showed them to me, explaining what function each of them serves. You also have to imagine loud classical music playing at all times and every time the song changed Nicholas would stop for a moment and tell me exactly which symphony, composer and era we will listen to next. I was entertained!

I ended up giving him the my soundcloud name and buying 2 stickers that I happen to find very funny but then again I watched the movie like 20 times. They say:

"I CAN GET YOU A TOE"

and

"GO OUT AN ACHIEVE ANYWAY"

I wen´t back to my ticket-buying mission and this time Disc-O-Rama had internet access. Next stop was the museum of the moving image which was just soooooooo good. A lot of models, screening rooms, photographs, installations, workstations and database research areas. My favorite part was probably the room where you could overdub movie scenes with your own voice and the camera showcase. I researched a little before going there and this way luckily knew where to search for temporary art installation: DVD Dead Drop.

I then went home, drank some coffee with Sophie in the living room and, since it would take me an hour to get to Terminal 5, had to leave soon after. Helga, Rebecca (a work colleague of Helga) and I met up, survived the security body and bag controls and ended up drinking 8 dollar beer while listening to Nosaj thing. I love Nosaj thing but, since he was only the support act, a lot of the mood got lost over people talking and the fact that they didn´t play him loud enough. This guy just released a new video where he shows how to properly use projection mapping:

I didn´t know anything by James Blake but he was good too and suddenly the whole location was stuffed with well dressed people lifting their phones in the air to film the show. We tried to find a good spot and found one- behind a couple making out. But sometimes you have to be a creep in order to see the stage. I thought it would be funny to include them in my stage-pictures so here we go, James Blake in a literal love triangle starring a couple making out for a ridiculously long time.

After the show we tried to find some food and ended up in a diner where we paid 20 dollars for a veggie burger and 10 dollars for fries. It was very good food but not worth what we paid for it. Still, a very nice night. I was happy. 

The way back to the flat was interesting- while waiting for the J-train a guy hit on me. He was totally stoned, like, completely wasted but he did it in such a funny way that, after some time, I just talked to him to make time pass faster. He was a film student and probably the best smalltalker of all times. He just knew how to do it so instead of asking me how I am and what I do he wanted to know:

"What´s your favorite color of the rainbow?"

"If you could be an animal, what would you be?"

"Do you think life on other planets exist?"

This way I had fun and made it home. But as soon as I arrived I had to face another problem: My host wouldn´t open the door. I tried for a very long time- rang the bell, shouted his name, even shot little stones at his window but no reaction. I borrowed strangers phones to call him but he wouldn´t pick up. Around 2 am I decided to look for a place to sleep so I went back to the "main street" (and I´m not talking about a very safe or nice district here) and looked for some kind of motel. I didn´t find a motel but an old man who offered me money if I would sleep with him and a guy that smelled my hair. This is not only cliché but also scary so I changed my plans again: I tried to find some policemen and, because of the districts reputation, at least this didn´t take me too long. So I walked up to the car, signaled them to open the door and asked if they could drop me off at a motel. But not confident, more like very tired, very irritated and super pissed.

They told me to get in the car, checked my ID and asked me all kinds of questions for about 10 minutes. Then they drove to my hosts place and started to make noise- it took us another 30 minutes and we probably woke the WHOLE neighbourhood but my host opened the window asking "Dude, whassup?" I responded with "Man, I really need to get in" and he came downstairs.

Topless and very aggressively he opened the door and shouted: "Lisa, you are not allowed to bring guys? Who are these douchebags?" Clearly he didn´t realise that these guys were policeman and they reacted with shouting back. The whole thing got very loud and rude and I really didn´t know what to do. I probably  just stared at them. It was just surreal.

But at some point everyone calmed down and I went into the flat. I felt really uncomfortable and to top this my host decided to stay up and talk to me, which made it super awkward. There are certain moments in life when you want to implode and this was one of them. But I got home, I saw a policecar from the inside and it´s a good story to tell my fictional grandchildren who will hopefully think I was a complete punk in my twenties.