More Tales From the City
Let’s see how far I get today at the great risk of boring you all to tears. Oh, well. It could be worse. As you can imagine, we couldn’t possibly go to New York and only see shows. We definitely had our share of tourist moments and exploration. We didn’t see everything, but did enough that we were pretty pleased with ourselves. We did a lot without scheduling every second and waking up at the crack of dawn everyday, so it still felt like a vacation. So, here’s a whirlwind tour of the more notable things we saw/did:
Saturday Night Live
This was one of the big luck moments of the trip. We had absolutely no idea how difficult it is to get tickets to SNL. I guess the normal procedure is that you have to write in for tickets during the first couple of weeks in August, you are put into a lottery and if you are chosen SNL tells you what date you can come and if you can’t make it that day you go back into the lottery. No wonder people looked at us weird when we said that we were going to try to go. Thankfully, we have a connection with one of the cast members, Jason Sudeikis. He is a Second City Las Vegas alum and is now a featured player on SNL. He has been in a lot of sketches lately, so we’re all hoping that he becomes part of the regular cast next season. He actually left for SNL just as Don was starting with Second City, so we didn’t really know him, but the other Second City guys do. So, long story short, we got hooked up with tickets the first night we were in town without having to worry about lotteries and bad dates.
It was fun and interesting to watch the taping. The soundstage isn’t as big as you would think. There are set pieces all over the room and the cameras and mics are wheeled around to each set. It is amazingly co-coordinated. They really do need those commercial breaks to get things changed and ready. I will never watch the show the same way again. The crew really has to be on top of things. Also, the playing space is smaller than it seems on TV. They use a lot of camera angle tricks to make the area seem larger, especially the main monologue area and the area the musical guests play from.
After the show, Jason invited us to check out an improv show the next night at the Upright Citizens Brigade. It turns out that a lot of the SNL people participate in the local improv community. That night Jason and Amy Poehler were on-stage with a bunch of other really talented improv comedians (I feel awful that I don’t remember their names!). The show was a lot like the S.E.T. which the Second City guys participate in here on Monday nights. It’s a whole night of improv for five bucks. That’s a lot cheaper than their 90 minute show at the Flamingo. Anyway, Don and I thought that it was pretty cool that we got to go to a somewhat underground show. The audience was full of artsy-type college aged kids. We saw a lot of pink and blue hair and a lot of the guys were sporting really scruffy, mountainman-esque beards. I guess we’ll be seeing that here within the year (trends always move slowly from coast to coast). Joy.
Jason was very gracious to us and really made our first few days in town fun. Hopefully, we can return the favor some day.
Shopping
That very same first night in town we ate at a little Italian place on our way to the NBC studios. We met up with a very nice Australian couple who gave us a lot of great tourist tips like: Don’t worry about your purse. It’s not as bad as people make it out to be. (Very true. I carried my backpack all week without a worry at all.) On of the best tips that they gave us was to check out Canal Street for super knock-off deals. We were game, so a few days later we caught a cab down to Canal (which is basically in Chinatown and Little Italy). It reminded me a little of the California beach communities (not in a good way). There were Asian men and women all over trying to entice us with Rolex, Gucci and Chanel. After walking out of the dozenth shop with the same crappy Prada copies marked Pagoda, I was ready to call it a day and wondered what the Australian people were talking about. Then it happened. We were standing in one shop and a man brushed passed us and asked the sales lady for Coach. She took him to a room in the back and he emerged with a black plastic bag. All of a sudden, the sales ladies start yelling that they were closed and that we needed to get out. Weird. We noticed that a lot of store owners were on walkie talkies. It all started to become clearer, so I went on a hunt of my own. We had our very own tour of the backroom and brought back our own black-market souvenir. As far as we can tell it is the real deal. Had I known, I would have tried to score more. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to go back. I know people have strong feelings about this kind of business. We were pretty naive, actually. It’s one of those things that I’ve heard about, but had never really seen in action. It was a very illuminating experience.
One thing I will say about New York is that they take shopping very seriously! It’s not just high end, either. We went to a four story Old Navy with a huge bargain basement. The Macy’s is an entire block with a few stories of its own. It was the most massive store I have ever been in. It made my few years as a sales associate not seem so bad, because it is a big deal out there. It probably would have been a lot cooler to work in that store. We were excited to find a GAP close to us and soon realized that there is a GAP around every other corner it seems. It’s as prolific as Wal-Greens is out here! We also went to a store that Jessica would have loved. It’s called Century 21 and is across from the WTC site. It is also four stories and is all discount clothing. They had $5.00 skirts and $200.00 or less designer suit coats for men. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. I don’t usually have patience for discount shopping, and this was no different. It must be the years spent sizing rounders. Ahhhhhh! Everyone asks if we went to Tiffany & Co, and the answer is, “no”. We didn’t even see it. We have one here, though (as Jessica is well aware.).
Souvenir wise, it was just the same old crap that is in every gift shop in every city. Does anyone really need a mini New York license plate with their name on it? We did buy a few shot glasses and I bought a Statue of Liberty bear to go with my geographical bear collection. We could have bought “I (heart) New York” t-shirts for everyone for $3.00 each, but, again, does anyone really need another t-shirt?
I think that’s it for our big shopping sprees (yeah, right!). Stay tuned for more. (Hopefully, I’m not boring the crap out of everyone, but I decided that this would be the easiest way to catalog our trip.)
Saturday Night Live
This was one of the big luck moments of the trip. We had absolutely no idea how difficult it is to get tickets to SNL. I guess the normal procedure is that you have to write in for tickets during the first couple of weeks in August, you are put into a lottery and if you are chosen SNL tells you what date you can come and if you can’t make it that day you go back into the lottery. No wonder people looked at us weird when we said that we were going to try to go. Thankfully, we have a connection with one of the cast members, Jason Sudeikis. He is a Second City Las Vegas alum and is now a featured player on SNL. He has been in a lot of sketches lately, so we’re all hoping that he becomes part of the regular cast next season. He actually left for SNL just as Don was starting with Second City, so we didn’t really know him, but the other Second City guys do. So, long story short, we got hooked up with tickets the first night we were in town without having to worry about lotteries and bad dates.
It was fun and interesting to watch the taping. The soundstage isn’t as big as you would think. There are set pieces all over the room and the cameras and mics are wheeled around to each set. It is amazingly co-coordinated. They really do need those commercial breaks to get things changed and ready. I will never watch the show the same way again. The crew really has to be on top of things. Also, the playing space is smaller than it seems on TV. They use a lot of camera angle tricks to make the area seem larger, especially the main monologue area and the area the musical guests play from.
After the show, Jason invited us to check out an improv show the next night at the Upright Citizens Brigade. It turns out that a lot of the SNL people participate in the local improv community. That night Jason and Amy Poehler were on-stage with a bunch of other really talented improv comedians (I feel awful that I don’t remember their names!). The show was a lot like the S.E.T. which the Second City guys participate in here on Monday nights. It’s a whole night of improv for five bucks. That’s a lot cheaper than their 90 minute show at the Flamingo. Anyway, Don and I thought that it was pretty cool that we got to go to a somewhat underground show. The audience was full of artsy-type college aged kids. We saw a lot of pink and blue hair and a lot of the guys were sporting really scruffy, mountainman-esque beards. I guess we’ll be seeing that here within the year (trends always move slowly from coast to coast). Joy.
Jason was very gracious to us and really made our first few days in town fun. Hopefully, we can return the favor some day.
Shopping
That very same first night in town we ate at a little Italian place on our way to the NBC studios. We met up with a very nice Australian couple who gave us a lot of great tourist tips like: Don’t worry about your purse. It’s not as bad as people make it out to be. (Very true. I carried my backpack all week without a worry at all.) On of the best tips that they gave us was to check out Canal Street for super knock-off deals. We were game, so a few days later we caught a cab down to Canal (which is basically in Chinatown and Little Italy). It reminded me a little of the California beach communities (not in a good way). There were Asian men and women all over trying to entice us with Rolex, Gucci and Chanel. After walking out of the dozenth shop with the same crappy Prada copies marked Pagoda, I was ready to call it a day and wondered what the Australian people were talking about. Then it happened. We were standing in one shop and a man brushed passed us and asked the sales lady for Coach. She took him to a room in the back and he emerged with a black plastic bag. All of a sudden, the sales ladies start yelling that they were closed and that we needed to get out. Weird. We noticed that a lot of store owners were on walkie talkies. It all started to become clearer, so I went on a hunt of my own. We had our very own tour of the backroom and brought back our own black-market souvenir. As far as we can tell it is the real deal. Had I known, I would have tried to score more. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to go back. I know people have strong feelings about this kind of business. We were pretty naive, actually. It’s one of those things that I’ve heard about, but had never really seen in action. It was a very illuminating experience.
One thing I will say about New York is that they take shopping very seriously! It’s not just high end, either. We went to a four story Old Navy with a huge bargain basement. The Macy’s is an entire block with a few stories of its own. It was the most massive store I have ever been in. It made my few years as a sales associate not seem so bad, because it is a big deal out there. It probably would have been a lot cooler to work in that store. We were excited to find a GAP close to us and soon realized that there is a GAP around every other corner it seems. It’s as prolific as Wal-Greens is out here! We also went to a store that Jessica would have loved. It’s called Century 21 and is across from the WTC site. It is also four stories and is all discount clothing. They had $5.00 skirts and $200.00 or less designer suit coats for men. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. I don’t usually have patience for discount shopping, and this was no different. It must be the years spent sizing rounders. Ahhhhhh! Everyone asks if we went to Tiffany & Co, and the answer is, “no”. We didn’t even see it. We have one here, though (as Jessica is well aware.).
Souvenir wise, it was just the same old crap that is in every gift shop in every city. Does anyone really need a mini New York license plate with their name on it? We did buy a few shot glasses and I bought a Statue of Liberty bear to go with my geographical bear collection. We could have bought “I (heart) New York” t-shirts for everyone for $3.00 each, but, again, does anyone really need another t-shirt?
I think that’s it for our big shopping sprees (yeah, right!). Stay tuned for more. (Hopefully, I’m not boring the crap out of everyone, but I decided that this would be the easiest way to catalog our trip.)
posted by Unknown at 6:14 PM
3 Comments:
It sounds like you guys had an awesome time. I want to go to New York so bad. When we do go, you'll have to give us some tips.
It sounds like you guys had a really awesome time.
It was a blast. We'll do dinner and give you the 411.
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