Mugs away

I urge you to join the great novelty coffee mug hunt of 2006:

Chris suffers from stress

Glen is disorganised and appears prone to procrastination

Komal is busy

SVENYPD Blue: (aka Stick em up punk, it’s the pun loving criminals)

They say that you are not a true New Yorker until you have been mugged. If so, then I well and truly earned my stripes on the evening of Tuesday, October 25 in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn.

Jessica has been living on St Marks Avenue for close to seven years now and has never had any trouble whatsoever in the neighbourhood. Lil Luce lived there for half a year and never had any trouble; in fact she was a nanny for two children on the same street for a period of time. It’s a beautiful neighbourhood,with a troubled past that is rapidly succumbing to gentrification as Manhattan space (a true oxymoron) rises beyond prices even a Sultan would consider premium.

So the odds of running into a convicted murderer out on bail, who had used a stun gun on a 57 year old Bangladeshi shop keep then beaten him to death for a cell phone and a few dollars, on this street, a mere 40 metres from Jessica’s apartment are more remote than Larry dedicating 5 minutes of thought to planning a surprise leaving bash for me at the end of my tenure.

I was making great time after having been issued with strict instructions to not be late this time. For some reason, I decided to take a different train to Brooklyn, the 4/5 instead of the 2/3 which docks closer to Jess’s house purely cos I felt like a walk up Flatbush Avenue. (Jim, never feels like walking at home…) I decide to further extend my boyfriend greatness by popping my head into Garry’s Liquor Store and pick up a cheeky little bottle of New Zealand Pinot Noir.

Exiting the store, I place my headphones on, press play on the Ipod and notice a young chap walking past who is staring directly at me, and it gives me an odd feeling in my stomach. A feeling akin to having just finished a second helping of Collegiate School battered luncheon on a Wednesday afternoon prior to a rugby match against City College. So I cross the street earlier than usual and let them pass, thinking no more of it, listening to the Kings of Leon, Slow Long, Slow Night reminiscing of my trip to Atlantic City with Guy.

I turn on to St Mark’s and notice a guy cut in front of me about 10 metres ahead. Three others are about 25 metres ahead. I am now fully aware of the wine bottle and the black plastic bag cutting into my fingers, and I grip it tightly and muse over the thought of me having to whack this guy in front of me if he tries anything. The thought of me doing that amuses me no end.

He stops.

He turns around.

He pulls a gun out of his jacket and points it to my chest.

“Give me your cash or I’ll f*cking shoot you”

“No problem. Which album do you want? Live at Folsom Prison? American Recordings? Both are excellent”

Instead of saying the above line, I am now freaking out, truly thinking I am going to get shot, so I thrust forth my bag and tell him that I don’t have any money. I see Jessica’s eyes rolling and explaining to my assailant, “Believe me, you’re wasting your time, he doesn’t carry cash”.

I am a clumsy oaf at the best of times and I think this is agitating the gun toter no end by fumbling through my bag, trying to demonstrate that I don’t have cash. He confirms my suspicions that he is frustrated by informing me

“This is taking to f*cking long, hurry up or I’m going to shoot you”

“You’re taking to f*cking long,.. it’s close to 7 and I need time to let this Pinot breath”

Instead of saying the above line, I watch him take my Ipod from my bag and then he demands that I empty the contents on to the ground and I’m begging for him not to shoot me, over and over again. He takes my credit cards and my passport. Then with gun in hand, searches my back pockets for cash. To my dismay he finds some and now I am truly fearful this is going to upset him.

The whole time I am aware of people walking past us on the street. It’s utterly surreal.

He turns and walks away. He just walks away casually. Turns again and throws my passport towards me onto the pavement.

He’s gone.

I’m scrambling for my things on the ground, so thankful I’m ok and I ask an elderly gentlemen who is walking past to stay with me for a while. He leads me to the police station just around the corner. I am shaking. The Halloween decorations of Frankenstein and Dracula life size dummies on the police steps do little to soothe my nerves.

After giving my description of the guy to the police, (6 foot, 16 – 18 years old, baseball cap, bomber jacket blah blah blah) there is general chaos over the airways as we hear that the Perp has been found.

Gunshots. Three or four of them.

A male and female police officer then instruct me to go with them in the car to identify the “Perp”. I’m running towards a police car with two officers in Brooklyn, New York feeling like I am in a movie.

Gunshots. Fifteen of them.

The female remarks “Should we be taking him with us?”

I don’t stop to hear the answer, I turn on my heels and run back into the police station.

About 1 minute later I find myself sitting in a car with four detectives, driving towards the shooting to identify a man who has been shot. I am petrified about seeing the three other gentlemen that were with my assailant. They all leave the car and I am sitting by myself, and notice one clown has left his window down. I’m feeling pretty secure with NY’s finest right about now….I’m also acutely aware that the time is 7.15pm and Jessica will be livid at home right now completely unaware that all this chaos is happening right outside her window.

There are about 25 police cars with red and blue neon illuminating the brownstone buildings in every possible direction. People standing outside on their stoops, hanging out of apartment windows, watching the drama unfold. It seems like every cop in Brooklyn has arrived at the scene.

I am led to the ambulance. This is quite a strange moment in time. I’ve never seen someone shot before. What if it isn’t him? Will I be able to recognize him? Does he deserve to be shot? How the hell do I feel?!

There he is on the stretcher. A policeman’s flashlight is scooting over his face and I instantly see the gunshot wound to the cheek. I tell the police that I’m pretty sure it’s the guy. I then ask to see his clothes and immediately recognize the hat and jacket, take another look at him and tell the police that it is him. They start screaming into their walkie talkies “Positive ID! Positive ID!”. I remember wanting to identify the gun, my Ipod just to be sure in my mind, but it never happened. I remember feeling instant remorse for a young boy who had just thrust a gun in my chest and threatened to kill me, now lying on stretcher with two bullet holes in him. He was still alive.

Thus begins a long saga of questioning back at the 77th Precinct from 8pm through until 11.30pm when I was moved to the 78th Precinct for more questioning until 3am. Jess came down to the station and we ate some pizza. She said to a police officer that she felt sorry for the mother which started an argument between the two in the first moments she was there. The gun was fake 9mm pellet gun we discovered. I told the same story over and over. Internal Affairs. Homicide. Detectives from both 78th and 77th Precincts. District Attorney’s. Interview after interview to the backdrop of the World Series match between Chicago and Houston. I found myself looking around, soaking it in, the accents, the smells, the b*llsh*t constantly issuing forth from these gung ho cops amazed at the fact I was here. That I was seemingly in a scene I have watched a hundred times on T.V.

We slept in late, had a nice breakfast and almost choked when we read the New York Times who had printed the story the next day. We painted Jess’s bedroom which was nice and cruisy. Then the story broke on the 6pm news. My reaction to being the second story after Hurricane Wilma on my beloved FOX was again utterly surreal. Almost as surreal as the moment Jess informed me there were reporters from the New York Post and the Daily News downstairs wishing to interview me. Our information had been leaked by the police. I also had reporters come to my house, my work leaving messages on my work phone.

So there you have it. I’ve left detail after detail out of this one but there were too many really. I’m Ipodless but looking at this guy's record, feel pretty lucky!

Check out these links if you wanna see the press. Even got Mayor Bloomberg talking about it at a press conference. "I think this is a perfect example of turnstile justice," Bloomberg said. "This is somebody who was facing a murder charge and a judge just put him back on the streets to threaten you and me and our Police Department and that's just unacceptable." Quite classic, the you part is me.

Love ya all

This NBC one has some video footage.

http://www.wnbc.com/news/5178403/detail.html

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/story/359344p-306150c.html

http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?stid=1&aid=54510

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/26/nyregion/26shoot.html

http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/30215.htm

The Wool Street Journal: Episode III: The Thumbpire Strikes Back

A one month dating anniversary, thus doubling the previous attempt was a good cause indeed for me to pack up me togs, Jess her bathing suit, take the Friday off and make our merry way to the Russian and Turkish Bath House in the Lower East Side.

Both being New York bath house virgins, we spent the first twenty minutes completely confused. One of these New York places where you have to be in the know already. Don’t dare ask what to do. You’ll end up looking more foolish than George Bush attempting to coordinate a national disaster recovery program.

After being directed in to the changing rooms, I was greeted by a muscle bound, 6 foot Russian Adonis with his Foxton Straits around his ankles. Contrary to popular belief (it was my god damn thin green tie in my mouth in that photo, Ant!!!) I tend to get a little shaky around nude foreign men. Retiring post haste to my designated locker with a plethora of male appendage insecurities swimming around my head, I happened upon yet another naked male piling his clothes in to my locker. I checked my key number again in the vain hope I had mistaken the number 15 for 24, (must… resist…. Michael… Jackson jokes…) as if there is one thing less appealing than simply holding a casual conversation with a nude foreign man, it’s getting in to a proverbial head to head with him. (A tie Ant, a god damn tie!). After some cock and balls story (slowly warming up on putting pun to paper again, butt bare with me) from this guy that he had been given the wrong key by the staff, I was now really quiet flustered by this experience and completely oblivious to the fact I had met two of three nemesis’s of the day, yes, three within 5 minutes which is really quite saying something for me.

Time for a nice relaxing steam room. Meet up with young Jess outside in her bathing suit and immediately rue not bringing a camera.

Make our way downstairs under the streets of New York and you are transported back in time with stone steam rooms and tiled floors. Things are most certainly looking up and we pile into the first steam room together. It’s tough to breath but nothing compared to the cardiac arrest that follows upon hearing “Huller…your time first with steam room?”

I immediately put a phallus to the voice; me ole Russian buddy from upstairs, who Jess so lovingly refers to as Ivan Draco, (Dolph Lundgren in Rocky IV, although Cocky IV seems more appropriate after the locker room experience) Turns out he’s ever so nice and comes in with Jess and I to the steam room and explains in perfect English the way everything works, spending equal amounts of time with us both and I really start feeling quite comfortable about this whole bath house experience.

The above paragraph is a complete and utter lie.

The steam room has apparently worked so effectively that I have actually evaporated completely as Ivan makes it clear who the centre of attention is. Highlight for me in the first steam room? Definitely his demonstration of how to activate the cold shower to Jessica. Complicated stuff there comrade. You stand under the shower head and pull on the cord hanging from the roof to release water that sensually trickles all over your body that houses more rippling abdominal muscles than there are breakaway Baltic States. I get it. I get it.

After trying more steam rooms, with the Bolshevik (who has obviously forgotten the true meaning of Communism) constantly in tow, I have now officially expended more sweat and mental anguish in a bath house than when I was sweat 16 in Japan, and strolled gingerly into a Yoda sized steam cocoon, with my English teacher Chris Shorter and my Japanese teacher’s son, Matthew Barnacott, who go from stark raving mad to stark raving naked within 15 seconds.

Time to get some air out on the sundeck, soak up the rays, drink a few lagers and regather my thoughts, or as Jess calls them, male ego. What a bizarre feeling lying outside on a small wooden deck in the heart of Manhattan, with about 4 or 5 other people beside you, mainly men, who consider this their form of exercise.

“Hey Marty, that steam room really had me going today boss. I really toughed it out”

“I hear ya big guy. I’m now steaming 120F”

Aside from a few more pest appearances from Ivan and the guy who stole my locker who is still desperate for me to believe his initial story, the deck proves itself to be surprisingly relaxing.

Here’s a little tidbit from the bath house website

“The best part is that you never have to feel rushed to make massage appointment”

Another complete lie. Men accosting you left, right and centre, eager to solicit their hands upon your (read: girlfriend’s) body, so I’m completely flattered when one man does approach me whilst Jess is off in the steam rooms again. His name is Vladimir and he has a handshake so firm I choose to believe it has settled a thousand foreign disputes at the United Nations. I’m booked in for 4.00pm. Time to find Jess and tell her the good news.

Downstairs, Jess is explaining to two female masseuses how she didn’t realize there were females working and that she had already booked in for sea-salt scrub with one of the males. No prizes for guessing who with. No worries, I inform her that I have found someone with a remarkably strong handshake and that I’m pretty sure I’m going to get the best massage I’ve experienced.

I’m lead to a dingy room, decorated with what appears to be Vladimir’s clothing and a few objects that resemble sexual aids and am asked to take my pants off. I find myself removing my togs instantly. I’m still puzzled as to what part of my brain was not working when that decision was made. I’m asked to sit on the side of the table, as naked as a Jay bird and Vladimir walks behind me and begins to give me a reverse bear hug, lifting me a foot in the air. Lying now, head down on the table, Vladimir continues his offensive. The man has thumbs that feel three inches wide. These can’t be real thumbs I immediately think. Attachments. His thumbs have been replaced after Chernobyl.

I am wincing with pain. He is treating each muscle in my back like Chechan rebels and I am beginning to seriously doubt my ability to survive a further 25 minutes. Someone is looking out for me as Vladimir announces “I must go toilet”. I welcome the break and reflect that the clothes beneath the table must in fact be clients who were having the exact same thought I am having right now. “Escape while you can Waterhouse. Spare the clothes, just get the goddamn hell outta there while there is still some energy left in your muscles”.

My clothing theory is strengthened by the fact that he returns within, no joke, 15 seconds. He has learnt over the years that people escape hence his toilet routine has been finely tuned. I start imagining his maniacal, contemptuous laughter in the toilet, as he spits on the “EMPLOYEES MUST WASH HANDS” sign in frustration as he struggles to zip up his fly on account of his steroid thumbs.

Also not helping right now is the thought of Jessica having her body scrubbed down by Ivan, as he whispers sweet pigeon English nothings into her ear.

Vladimir’s cell phone rings. He informs me it is his mother and he takes the call. I am lying naked, ass up, in front of a Russian man I have just met who is charging me money as he takes a call from his mother. This is fast becoming one of the strangest days of my life.

Back to the torture and as he tries to coax me in to upsizing my massage from 30 to 45 minutes, (really?!) he becomes very chatty, particularly so as he starts grabbing each toe and pulling them to make them crack. Strange relaxation technique indeed. He questions me as to where I am from, and then asks what the capitol of New Zealand is.

“Ahhh. Wellington. We make you strong to fly to Wellington!”

I am both confused and frightened by this remark.

Thud. Although I cannot see him, the sound is unmistakable. I know he is now straddling me from behind MY behind on the table. What the deuce is coming next? Shouldn’t have asked. He proceeds to grab my hands, pulls them back rapidly, which starts lifting me from the waist up into the air.

He starts shouting “FLY MR WELLINGTON!!!! FLY!!!!” over and over, as he continues to lift me in the air. All I really want to do by now is “CRY MR WELLINGTON!!! CRY!!!”

Once the ordeal is finally over, with Vlads having coaxed an extra $15 from my pocket through simply waving his thumbs in front of my face when I didn’t tip enough, I decide to take in another steam room to try and sweat out my anxiety.

In a room with one other man, when who should enter but Vladimir looking for more thumb-bait.

I cannot bring myself to look at him in the eye. The man beside me laughs as Vladimir leaves.

“What is so funny?” I ask.

“Oh, we call him ‘One Time Walter’. Once people have one massage with him they never go back”

(Taylor + American Girl) * (Ibiza / Beer) = Highlarious email

Sexy,hearing your voice is not good for me, I hate feeling vulnerable, wanting you, you know?

Are you ready for candor? The truth is that you are haunting me and I hate it. I'm in yoga last night, in some crazy twisted up balancing asana and the stupid teacher plays Sade- SADE? How do you play some of the sexiest music recorded and expect for people to concentrate on breathing and drishnes and letting go? When all I can think about is what it would be like to have one more moment with you alone, just to close my eyes and have one more moment. Then maybe I could let you go.

So, now I'm going to paint (walls, renovating a house). And I'm getting ready and dancing around with the vaccuum cleaner and I get this stupid image of you dancing, with a beer in each hand, the way your whole body, like shook in this really cute hyperactive way (I bet you were a teacher's nightmare in school) and so I decided to call you.

I'm sorry. I should not have done that.For one, I gave you my phone number. Big mistake. Got your text and it made me smile. Couple of things. One, I know that international texting/phone calling is ridiculously expensive and I can't afford it.

Second, just a bad idea.How are things going with my partner, you mean my fiancee? The one who I agreed to marry-and want to-but it appears that clearly I have issues with committment and fidelity, as I continue to think of you. I just wish I could be normal, you know, a stupid American girl who is dying to get married, blah blah blah, but that's not me. The truth is, I love my fiancee very much.

So I need to stop thinking of you and writing you.

And stop thinking about which recipes you would like. So here it is.

I have no idea why we met and I like you, but it would probably be best if you carried on with your life and I with mine and maybe in our next lifetime we will meet and get to share another beautiful night.But I've made reckless decisions in my life and I don't want you to be another one of them. So forgive me if I send you mixed messages. I swear I'm not playing games. Do me a favor, and don't return my call tonight. Stop emailing me. I told you, your emails are like truffles in a Parisian chocalatiers window- and I can't deal with the temptation of you. Okay? It is really for the best. But know that I'll always hold you in a special place in my heart and I do hope to meet you in a dream or maybe down the road, but for now...I'm engaged and need to be loyal and true and honest, and clearly I have not been.

That is my fault, not yours. So do me a favor and help me do the right thing.Phew. Anyway, yes, I'm sure your photographic work was gorgeous. When you told me you were doing a shoot for a software catalogue or IT company, I immediately thought of that ridiculolus scene from something about Mary when Chris Wallace tells Ben Stiller that he cannot go out on a date with a "loaded gun". Remember? He takes the department store lingerie newspaper ad into the bathroom and, um, unloads his gun. Anyway, I had a good laugh thinking about the IT women doing that with your ad.

See how twisted I am? Run from me. Run far away.But seriously, yesterday I saw a real film that changed my life. And as an actor I want you to see this. I know you have not taken ANY of my movie suggestions, but this one truly will move you. Profoundly. Its on DVD, give yourself 2 hours, really. Its called the Sea Inside and it won an Oscar in 2004 for best foreign film. It is incredible and will really get you thinking about the meaning of life, and death, and love, and freedom. And as an actor, it truly is a study because the dramatic performances are stunning. So see it.And please, I mean it. Let's not talk tonight. Okay? I'm going to paint. Hopefully the primer will erase all memories of you. Okay. Sorry for the seriousness of this email. Go home to your girlfriend and make passionate love and forget all about me. If not for your sake, for mine. Okay?

Laura