006 - Friday Night Lies
When the universe tells you they're out of meatballs, listen!
I wasn’t even that hungry, having polished off a foot-long eggplant parm a mere four hours earlier from a newfangled sub shop seeming to offer the elevated Quiznos experience.
But it was Friday night, and I was out on the town.
“Out on the town” meant alone with my dog in the La Quinta Inn of the Upper West Side.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Should you be saying “the La Quinta Inn”? If you’ve learned anything in nine years of sporadic DuoLingo Spanish lessons, it’s that “la” means “the,” so technically you just wrote “the the Quinta Inn”… btw can you ask Duo what “Quinta” means?
The origin story of our impromptu Big Apple overnight is an entirely uninteresting collision of scheduling complications and logistical maneuverings around getting the dog to his day care and me to my temporary office — Bleecker Trading at 80th & Amsterdam, where I’ve been hosting my Eight Crazy Days of Quiz Daddy’s sports vintage pop-up — but believe me when I say it was a WHOLE ORDEAL that resulted in the rental of The World’s Smallest and Most Expensive Hotel Room® (and that’s before the $25 pet fee).
It was getting late; I was getting antsy. We had to do something, Buscemi (aka BuBu aka Pumpkin Head aka Donut Man aka Doody Boy aka…) and me. It was Friday Night after all. I couldn’t remember the last time we had had a night like this to ourselves, probably not since my single days in Los Angeles over a year ago…
A 40 year-old man and his dog had taken Manhattan. It was time to take action.
It was time to treat myself.
And that was my first mistake…
In addition to the Spanish, I’ve lately enrolled in spiritual coursework courtesy of a different app (Audible), listening to the books and lectures of Michael A. Singer and Ram Dass and Don Miguel Ruiz. I’ve been “working in” rather than out, exploring innerspace, learning to sit in the seat of Self and interface with life in a radically new and thrilling way (MUCH MUCH more on all this mumbo jumbo coming in future posts, GET READY!!!!).
From this seat, I can plainly see the absurdity of the Treat Yo’Self ethos canonized in our hyper-consumerist culture and GIF’d to death thanks to Parks and Recreation (a TV show I’m told got better after its first season, but will never know for sure).
Simply put, there is no need to “treat oneself” if one understands that every blessed moment of consciousness is a treat. Every breath drawn is a treat. Every experience upon every square foot of this Planet Earth is a treat — even those 75 square feet (at $3/sq ft) of my La Quinta Inn hotel room.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Now you’re saying “my the Quinta Inn”… that seems even worse. We must resolve this linguistic nightmare ASAP. Get me William Safire!
But Friday Night had her grips on me. The pressure was too great, the pull too strong, and I caved to carousal. Google led me to a dog-friendly cocktail bar with a well-reviewed menu of “globally inspired small plates” located directly across from the stage door of the Beacon Theatre.
The Beacon! Listed on both the National and My Personal Register of Historic Places, it being the site of my very first live concert experience — Phil Lesh & Friends (11-30-01) — and many memorable Peakin’ at the Beacons with the Brothers Allman thereafter. On this night, neighborhood kid Jerry Seinfeld was prowling her storied planks to a sold out crowd, presumably pontificating about Pop-Tarts and gay kings and asking what the deal was with two-state solutions. A hundred or so shivering lunatics were huddled behind barricades in the freezing chill, hoping to catch a glimpse of The Marriage Ref star when he would eventually traverse the 17 feet across the sidewalk to his idling Escalade.
I chuckled to myself at the absurdity of that particular scene as I made my way inside the cozy “cocktail parlor / social eatery” where I was quickly seated in the quasi-outdoor tented area facing the street, crammed together with four other parties of two, all of whom could not keep their attention off the Silly Monkey Boy and his winter sweater… with obvious good reason.
I’m not much of a drinker, never have been. Once in my first year out of college, living with two roommates in deep Bushwick, I had a few too many beers while watching the Mets lose at Shea Stadium. After the game I tried to high-five the 7 train as it pulled into the station.
But here I was, attempting to paint this dang town red (I would have settled for maroon), on a Friday friggin Night no less, so I proudly and performatively ordered a Hot Toddy with aged rum. You see, I’m a sweets man, and of all the spirits concocted over the centuries, I prefer rum, because it’s sweet. Not that spiced rum bullshit; too spicy. And certainly never an overproof like Bacardi 151, with its overwhelming flavor notes of paint thinner — and the flammability to match. Give me a Malibu. Better yet, a RumChata. I recognize that I possess the proclivities of a 58 year-old Parrothead on a post-divorce vacation in Cozumel, and I harbor not a scintilla of shame about it.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Holy shit, Bacardi 151 was discontinued in 2016 due to safety concerns after several people suffered horrific burn injuries from flaming shots gone wrong. Also, William Safire died in 2009. Jesus Christ, where have I been?
As you would surely surmise from the previously quoted descriptors, this was not an establishment to waste an opportunity for a cutesy turn of phrase to describe their food menu, which indeed was headlined “Belly Talkin.” My belly was still finishing up its conversation from our late lunch, and the chicken thigh sliders would have been enough (Dayenu!), but once again, I succumbed to the Friday Night Mood Lights and my desirous lower self. Swept up in the swinging jazzy Christmas soundtrack, I audaciously tacked on a rejoinder to my order: meatballs. Hearty, hot, my usual cold-weather go-to at joints like this. But on this night, it was not to be. The server informed me the kitchen had just run out of meat with which to ball…
“Would you like something else?”
And that is when I made my second mistake…
That was my cue to commune with the moment, to tune into the universal frequency, to tap into Spirit. Had I been more full evolved, I would have understood I was being given a reprieve, a way out from this Friday Night Fallacy of my own contrivance. A Great Being would have said, “No, that’s fine, just the chicken thigh sliders then.”
But I am not yet a Great Being.
Instead, I quickly re-scanned the menu and blurted out, “Yeah let’s do the shrimp dumplings.”
The sliders were fantastic. The dumplings, terrible — and at $16, tragic.
But I wasn’t done with my epic run of self-deception. On my way back to The Quinta Inn, I passed a brightly lit outpost of Crumbl Cookies. If there is a more effective enabler of and succcessfully exploitative caterer to our Treat Yo’Self Society, it is Crumbl Cookies. And if there was a more fitting nightcap to my FRIDAY NIGHT FREAK OFF, I would have been hard-pressed to find it.
So I popped in and perused the on-screen options which this week CLAIMED to feature my first-choice “French Toast,” but like the meatballs, were sold out at this late hour. And once again, I cosmically whiffed. Instead of bringing my awareness to this opportunity for self-restraint and personal growth, I ordered a Pecan Chocolate Chip. Perhaps it was the exposure to the elements in the five minute walk back to my hotel, or perhaps it was Pecan Chocolate Chip was a slow mover that day, but boy did that cookie disappoint. There’s gotta be hardtack on display at some Civil War museum somewhere with more moisture. Absolutely brutal.
And nobody’s fault but mine.
Treat yourself to this hard-won wisdom: every night can be Friday Night, or put another way, no night has to be Friday Night. They can all just be nights, to be reliably found at the end of each day, and to be enjoyed equally, meatballs be damned.
EDITOR’S NOTE: You’re publishing this on Christmas Day? Where are the good tidings of comfort and joy? Jesus Christ, good thing this is free.