glaconman Wrote:You should get Andy to tell you about his teenage NYC/Dylan adventures. I've never managed to squeeze them out of him.
Not a lot of adventures to relate from there, to be honest.
I was first there in 1975 and like GM, spent a lot of time hanging out in Greenwich Village, trying to look up old Dylan hang-outs -- but almost all were gone. I had a great time just mooching round record shops and coffee bars but nothing truly remarkable happened. The weirdest thing was walking into an antique shop, and finding myself invited to a game of Dungeons and Dragons in the basement. I'd never heard of D and D before, so of course I thought these guys were totally nuts. It was like a scene from a Freak Bros cartoon down there. Fun though. I fell in love with the city, but doesn't everyone? Of course at the time I felt like an age had passed between my visit and the famous Dylan/Village years. It was only really about 11 or 12 years which now seems like a relatively short period. I got drunk a lot and made a fool of myself.
Plus ca change, eh?
I didn't go back until about 1998, when I bent a business trip to allow me a few days off. I drove from Washington to Boston via a weekend in NYC. In some ways this was a better trip. I discovered that having a car is a fantastic way of seeing the place. I just drove round for an evening and most of the rest of the next day. Absolutely loved it. It was just a few days before Christmas, and was a totally different atmosphere from high summer. I was into photography then and took a lot of pictures of Manhattan from the bridges.
The only adventures were small ones, like colliding with a guy cycling with a Christmas tree laid across the bike at right angles to the crossbar. He'd had a few beers, and was OK. We managed to have a laugh about it.
After the Brighton 10K, Nigel raised the possibility of a collective trip to do the New York marathon. I think he meant this year, but that could be difficult work-wise. How about 2008? At least I'd have no trouble getting buy-in from M. It's her favourite city and would be delighted to go back.
Sorry, didn't mean to hijack the thread. To bring it back to the subject, I saw a prog on Friday night on BBC2 or 3 featuring Patti Smith and Blondie and Lou Reed. Was this related, or just a coincidence?
