Yankees

Sometimes I hate AT&T. Like most of the time when they are charging me $120 a month for my phone contract and dropping all my calls.

In this occasion they totally redeemed themselves. For our sins, they are on of our largest clients, which means we occasionally get tickets to baseball games (they have corporate seats).

I was fortunate enough to get hold of one of these prized tickets and went along with a couple of guys from work. Krista and Dominik (below). Unfortunately as Dom is German and Krista has no interest in baseball, none of us really knew what was going on. I'm not sure that's the point though. Baseball seems to be about sitting around chatting for 4 hours, whilst drinking overpriced beers and eating over-salted hot dogs.

Dom, attempting to blend in.

We had amazing seats, maybe 20 rows back

Close enough for the necessity of this sign anyway



Not cheap though...

Neither was the beer. $12 for a Budweiser is daylight robbery.

Half-way through, everyone stands and sings the national anthem. I did the Eddie Izzard method and just confirmed and denied things.

Coordination

To match your nails to your iPhone case is impressive.
To match a houndstooth pattern is downright gobsmacking.

Dumb.Poor

James sold peoples pets

Saw these on the wall of a bar. Definitely the best art I've seen in a bar in ages. Normally it's dreary black and white photos of cities, or terrible modern/post modern art.

They also get better the more drunk you become.

The Frying Pan

One more in a series of my favourite bars in New York. This time, The Frying Pan.

This bar is made of a series of boats and jetties in the hudson river. It's pretty much always crowded, but it's a fun place to sink a few (ho ho), and the food is surprisingly good (if you're happy with burgers, but then, who isn't?!)

Get here around 7ish, to toast the sun going down, or just to stick your finger up your nose.

Gay Pride

Gay Pride was pretty damned serious this year. In addition to the normal reasons for celebrating, it also coincided with New York state legalising gay marriage!

In honour of this historic occasion the Empire State building was lit up like a rainbow at the top.

Unfortunately this photo doesn't really do it justice, however the view from the Mé bar in Korea-town where it was taken from is spectacular. If you can find the bar, this is the place to bring tourists.

Stop. Coffee time.

Interbrand coffee is god damned disgusting. We have 135 varieties on tap, each worse than the next.

The upshot of this is that I've ended up bringing my cafetiere (french press in America) into the studio to brew up my own superior caffeine hit.

Unfortunately as I don't want to cart it back and forth from work everyday, I'm not french press-less at home.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, and I've had to come up with alternative coffee making methods.

Below is my favoured new way. A couple of pieces of kitchen roll rolled into a cone, and stuffed into a cup. Add coffee, add water, wait for 4 minutes, remove coffee and kitchen roll. which won't fall apart. (I don't advise trying the same with toilet roll, you'll be in a world of trouble).

This actually gives a damned good cup of coffee, it's just pretty wasteful if you're making more than one cup. But for those coffee lovers who find themselves on holiday without their french press, I hope this advise comes in useful!

Vinyl posters

We managed to come across an old roll of printable vinyl while we were cleaning out the paper cupboard. What better excuse to create a series of transparent posters to hang in the studio?

I went for a big colour wheel, trying to take advantage of the properties of vinyl.

As you can see below, I was quite smug about this...

Fun, but not as good as Meg's underwear series...

Not French cookery

I'm soon to visit France and was trying to make my cooking more french to get into the spirit. I've been told I put too much into my food, it's all about simple ingredients, cooked well.

Below is my attempt to be simple: 

Parmasan and pesto stuffed chicken thighs, wrapped in ham, served on grilled aubergines, mushrooms and onions. Oh yeah, and a tomato salad.

As you can tell, I failed miserably at simple cooking. It turned out to just be fairly busy italian cooking instead. 

I think the french version would have been a piece of chicken, served with a very large piece of butter.

In my defence, this was delicious!

Mannequin

Nothing big or clever about this, I just like finding mannequins outside of shops. It's like something from an episode of Dr. Who

FriendsWithYou

The new section of the HighLine was recently completed, taking it right up to 30th street. It's a beautiful walk through Chelsea and soon I'll have to give it it's own posting, but unfortunately I don't have any good shots of it yet (when I went it was so crowded it was impossible to stop and take photos)

However, what I did both photograph, and love was the exhibition put on at the end of the Highline just underneath it at 11th and 30th.

FriendsWithYou are a toy making collective set up by a couple of American wanting to look Japanese.

AOL gave them the resources to build there very own Mario Kingdom of inflatable mushrooms and giant tethered balloons.

I can't imagine what it would be like on drugs, but even in my lucid state I was pretty blown away by the place.

I even bought the t-shirt. Thankfully free of AOL branding on the front :)

Flavaboom

When the heat hits, as it does unrelentingly in New York in the summer, the people turn to ice cream as their saviour. Well, that's not quite true. In health conscious New York, people turn to ice creams supposedly healthier brother, frozen yogurt for relief.

Flavaboom is one of a number of over-priced, flashy frozen yoghurt dispenseries populating Manhattan.

As you can see below, it's slick in pink and purple below. You go to the back wall, grab a cup, push a button and choose you flavours.



For those feeling fruity, there is a wide range of sweets, chocolates and fresh fruit to add to your frozen beverage.




Although, because I'm secretly a 4 year old boy masquerading in a 28 year olds body, I went for hundreds and thousands, and mini-MnM's. Mmm....

The Hamptons

Hey all,

Sorry for the long gap between posts, I've been busy and lazy.

Anyway, I went to the Hamptons! Some lovely people called Chris and Lisa invited me along for the day to Lisa's parents home. Beautiful it was too.

I got a 7am train there, which amazingly, was full of drinking youths! Apparently there is some crazy bar in the Hamptons called the Boardy Barn that opens one day a week (sunday) all day, and kids from all over go there to play beer pong and get fucked up.

This was the scene at the station:

Skin headed youfs and their girls, wearing t-shirts with lovely expressions such as: "I have the penis so I make the rules" The guys were wearing the t-shirts I mean, not the girls. But damn, I mean, really?!!

Anyway, when we got to the house it was beautiful, and it had a nice big pool (lisa below de-leafing said pool)



At the house were lisa's family including her lovely little niece (below)

My favourite member of the family however, was their ENORMOUS dog, which was a cross breed, half dog, half bear. Below is Chris holding the dog. This makes the dog/bear look kinda small but please bear (ho ho) in mind that Chris is a really big guy and the dog is cropped.

For a reference of scale, here is me and the dog/bear. It's a big dog!

I burnt myself to a crisp trying to invent new pool games involving oversized inflatables. Inflatable lacrosse was particularly challenging. But I had an amazing time and I'm ever so grateful to the guys for inviting me over.

A breakfast of champions

Stuff your bacon sandwiches. When truly hungover, the hamburger is king. 

Films on the Green Festival

Films on the Green Festival shows movies every Friday night outdoors in the village. I wandered into this one without really knowing what was going on. As it was in French it took me a while to work out what the hell was going on. This is a damned good way to spend a lazy friday evening before meeting people for drinks.

Chelsea Market sign

Love this sign

Favourite sitting man of the week

You've had a hard day picking up rubbish, hauling a giant wheely bin around with you, god damn it, you deserve a break. Your legs are killing you and you need to sit down, but where to sit?

The chalk or the moustache

I spent a while looking at this chalk drawing on a sidewalk. I still can't figure out whether someone saw a fake moustache on the pavement and drew a face around it. Or whether some wag stuck a fake moustache onto a chalk drawing.

The figure appears to be female, so the moustache seems like a later addition, but who knows, maybe the mouth was drawn on after the moustache. I really shouldn't let this stuff bother me.

Hudson Hotel

I recently met a friend on the rooftop bar of the Hudson Hotel in midtown Manhattan. This is a cramped and overpriced bar that totally gets away with it because the views are fucking spectacular.

Question of the day. In this photo am I looking uptown or downtown?

Smarten up

One of the biggest differences between working in the UK and the US is how smart you need to be when you see clients. On the left, you see me as I'd like to be dressed. The other pictures are me wearing my only two ties. This is getting a little embarrassing, I need to buy more ties. I have clothing I normally only ever dig out for wedding and funerals, which is now my meeting attire. 

I don't know why I look so suspicious on the right. I don't really like having my photo taken so maybe I was trying to surprise myself.

Little Lebowski

Down in Greenwich Village resides Little Lebowski. If you need a rug that really ties the room together, the latest Autobahn album or a toe, this is the place to be.

His fathers eyes

I found this van, trawling for business near Atlantic station both disturbing and depressing.

Although it does amusingly look like they are kidnapping giant babies.

I can't decide whether this tagline is genius or hideous. 

Cat sandwich

As you all know, the sandwich may have been christened in England (I refuse to say invented, the chances that no one placed their lunch between two slices of bread before the Earl of Sandwich is rather unlikely to say the least), but it's spiritual home has to be New York. As those of you who know me (i.e. all of you) will know, I'm slightly obsessed by sandwiches. I thank my dad for that one. As such, this Englishman in New York is as happy as a pig in shit when it comes to lunchtime.

The local deli near work (a Sunac if you're interested) has a full gamut of breads and fillings, hot and cold. After six months of experimentation I believe I've perfected my order.

I give you: The CAT

The ingredients in order of importance:

1 x grilled chicken breast (still hot)
1/4 Avocado
1/2 Tomato
Large soft white roll
A generous about of mayonnaise
A small squirt of hot sauce
Lettuce (I'm not fooling anyone with this pretence to healthy eating)

Why the cat? Like the BLT, this is Chicken, Avocado and Tomato.

The only thing that would improve this is bacon, because, well, bacon improves everything. I have to have some limits though. So please, my readers, go forth, order your cat sandwiches.
Tell them James sent you. This will confuse them.

For more tasty sandwich facts, pop on over to:

http://www.foodtimeline.org/foodsandwiches.html

Greenwood Cemetery

According to my father, back in the day, Greenwood Cemetery was quite the tourist destination. People would come from miles around to wander through its perfectly sculpted meadows and gander at it's vast array of over the top gravestones and tombs. Well, that day was probably before video games, tv, electricity, etc, because when I went it was as silent as a... well, a tomb, I guess...

It's in Brooklyn, just below Prospect Park...


View Larger Map

As the reviews testify (and seriously, who is posting reviews of a graveyard?!) It is beautiful though, rolling hills and great views over Manhattan. Even the entrance gate is spectacular, if rather foreboding.

I found a rosary! No, really, I found it, I didn't steal it. It was on the road. I thought it might be good luck to keep it. Hmm... come to think of it, I can't remember where I put it.
Ahh fuck, I lost a rosary.

Let's play guess the creature. I'm going for cat. Very Egyptian. Could be a dog though. Whatever it is, it's clearly in need of a good meal. And a head.

I went on the day the Rapture was meant to be taking place (do you capitalise rapture? I guess it's an event, like Christmas or Champions League Final Day, so you must do), which could have been a serious mistake if the Rapture had taken the form of a zombie uprising.

However, I did see this sign of the way home that made me chuckle.

This is a hell of a good way to sell Cheeseburgers (hey, if I can capitalise Rapture, I sure as hell can capitalise Cheeseburgers).

Union Square bands

Union Square, my regular work stop, is a music mecca (that's the location, not the robot). The bands who play in the main underground area are by and large terrible. As were these guys. But good luck to them I guess, after all:

If you can make it there. 
You can make it anywhere. 
It's up to you, 
New York, New York 

Lego Castles

This is a very late post, but I attended a strange lego festival a few weeks ago. It was just outside of New York in a small town with the lovely name of Tarrytown. Shown on the map below.


View Larger Map

(don't you just love google maps?)

It was set in a castle that is such a good resemblance to a lego castle, a committed user of Danish brickware once created a lego version and presented it to the castle.

To commemorate the building of such a house a yearly lego festival was initiated.

Above is the real one, not the lego one.

It was mainly full of kids creations, but there were a few interesting bits and pieces in there. In particular I liked the portraits made from a version of Lego pointillism.

Strange place, quite a long way away, fairly expensive to get to (train and taxi) and get back from, but certainly an interesting New York experience. More photos below: