Johnny kept asking all weekend, “Is it gay to say my best birthday present ever is a dude?” I must have heard it at least thirty times; which is oddly appropriate because this past weekend, my roommate, Johnny Martini, celebrated his 30th birthday in Brooklyn, New York. And, thanks to his amazing girlfriend Bruno, I was able to be there to help him celebrate.
The week before Thanksgiving, we (and by we, I mean Parental Control) did our Vignette shoot at Bruno’s apartment. After we were done, she asked me if I was planning on going to New York for Johnny’s birthday. I told her sadly, I couldn’t afford a flight, especially since I was flying home two weeks later for Xmas. To which she replied, “Well, what if I paid for you to go?” Well shit. Bruno informed me she had enough airlines miles saved up, she could fly, herself, Roger, and me to NYC for Johnny’s bash for free. It would Johnny’s present to have Roger and I be there to spend his birthday with him.
In the end, Roger didn’t go because he simply did not have the money to go out in New York; it’s a little pricey. Johnny told Bruno not to go because she would have to miss two days of work and he would be home a week later, so she should save money and make money. So I made the trip alone.
I had to work all day Friday; we were shooting a Reveal Day on PC. We wrapped around eight, I grabbed the shot tapes, and headed for MTV. I made it home in enough time to grab a shower and chill for about two hours before Bruno picked me up for the airport. We departed The Hotel around 10:30. My flight was at 11:55 PM. Late. Good old red eye.
I arrived just in time to get thru security and board the plane. I missed hearing my section being called to board the plane, not because I was late, but because I was in the middle of a chapter of the book Angler I was reading. I went and asked the man behind the counter if he called my seat to be boarded and like a dick with a horrible accent, he says, “Ugh, yes. Get on the plane. Geez.” Thanks dick. Way to make me want to fly your airline (American) again. Dick.
I took some sleeping pills knowing full well this five hour flight might be the only sleep I would get before getting snoggered Saturday night. Well, unfortunately, the plane got delayed for like a half hour, so my groggy ass was too tired to read, and too uncomfortable to sleep due to an upright seat. To top it off, some jit-bag British actor from Orange County kept talking to anyone who would listen about his acting troop, and where they performed, and discussed the evolution of his beer palette, and how he likes cold beer now even though he was raised in Ireland on warm beer. Who gives a rat’s ass?! It’s 12:15 AM, I got a big day ahead of me. I need to sleep. The bastard couldn’t even wait to get into the air to get an alcoholic beverage. He got out of his seat and bothered the airline staff until he got a free beer, then showed it off to everyone like he was twelve, bragging to his friends, “Look what I snagged from the Old Man’s liquor cabinet.”
Once in the air I slept the whole time. Thank god. I woke up the next morning at 8:30 as the plane was descending onto the cold JFK airport runway below. My adventure was poised to begin. I made my way to the AirTrain per directions from Bruno. This little train transports it’s passengers from any terminal to the subway lines. After a quick fifteen minute jaunt, I stood on a platform waiting for the A-train member of the New York Metro Subway system. From the A, I transferred to L-train to make my way to Brooklyn to Dooner’s place, where Johnny is staying. This was the first time I rode on the NY subway, and I must say, I know I only took three trains total, but the subway was a lot easier than I expected.
At 10:15 AM I reached the point of no return at Graham Ave. in Brooklyn, a mere ten minute walk to my final destination. My palms were sweating in anticipation as I Google mapped my route via my iPhone. Soon, I found myself around the corner, sniping Dooner’s front door from behind a brick apartment building. I called Bruno to let her know I was there. Bruno told Johnny the previous day he would be receiving a birthday care package the following morning around ten. He thought he was getting cupcakes; boy, he was way off. The plan was as follows: Bruno would now call Johnny to say his delivery was there, he would walk downstairs, and viola I would be there, pink bow on my head, and birthday card in hand. Simple. Well, Johnny decided to leave him phone on silent, so he never received her call. Apparently (luckily), he got bored waiting for the “delivery man” and walked downstairs to take his laundry to the cleaners. So even though he never received the call, he still hit his mark.
I expected a rampage when he opened the door. Instead I got a barely audible, “What the fuck? How the… Wait… What are you doing here? I can’t believe you’re here.” A girl followed him down the stairs, witnessed this all go down, and from Johnny’s delivery, she probably assumed two long-lost gay lovers were reunited and she would have to listen to their love making all day thru the thin walls of her apartment. Johnny read Bruno’s card and began to realize I was his birthday present from his girlfriend to which he first stated, “I got a man for my birthday. This is the first time I got a dude for my birthday. This might be my greatest birthday present ever. Is that gay?” Maybe a little, buddy.
After a quick reunion on the ground floor, we headed to floor three to the apartment where Johnny said Dooner was still asleep and I needed to fuck with him. Camera rolling, I tip-toed over to Doon-dog’s bed and right as I was about to spring into action, he used his Spidey sense to realize there was danger brewing, he rolled over, looked at me, and said, “I knew you assholes would be here.” He eventually got out of bed and the three of us repeated the “dude-what-are-you-doing-in-Brooklyn-I-can’t-believe-you’re-here” scenario before snapping a few photos, calling Bruno to tell her how shit went down, and then headed out for brunch at a nice little bar called Harefield Road.
Brunch supplied nothing more than a discussion of the previous events, the planning of it, the strategy for the evening, and a quaint discussion with the bartender about how I could get my will tattooed on my ass in fine print, making my last “screw you” to everyone involved being hunched over my ass with a magnifying glass reading my last wishes.
The rest of the afternoon consisted of a short two hour nap, meeting up with Johnny’s hometown buddy Juice (K-C what!), and taking a short trip to Penn Station to pick up Joanna Korman, who was excited to see everyone. Our showers became an exercise in aversion when Juice dumped oatmeal on Johnny, Johnny dumped ice water on me – twice, and I gave Dooner a nice little fruit basket which he tried to top with shaving cream. I “accidentally” grabbed his face towel to clean up. Although, he got me last, I had the last word because after I left, Dooner used the same towel I used to clean my ass to wipe off his face. Gotcha bitch!
Dinner was a chore. Five people trying to figure out a place to go in New York City proved to be a lot harder than we expected. We were like teenage girls sitting around twirling our hair continually asking, “What do you want to do? I don’t know. What do you want to do?” After a few nicely placed phone calls, Johnny, Dooner, Juice, Joanna, and I settled on and made reservations at a little Peruvian restaurant called Pampa for dinner. It was a good thing we made those reservations too because when we got there the whole place was empty save for the forty wait-staff members running amuck. Seriously, the place couldn’t have been much bigger than Dooner’s apartment, but it seems like there was a whole army of help there to serve the fifteen tables present. Waiters aside, the food was pretty good and not horribly priced. I enjoyed my meal and filled up pretty quickly.
As an added little bonus, it began to snow. Very lightly, but was the first snowfall in the city and it made a nice little addition to the whole mood of the evening. We continued our trek down to the subway where we caught the L-train, traveled a few stops, and made our way to Williamsburg to an amazing indoor beer garden named Radegast Hall & Biergarten. I believe the smallest beer you could order was like thirty-four ounces or something retarded like that. Dooner told me any beer I order would be worth while. I ordered some Dunkel something-or-other and made the very wrong assumption each beer came in similar sized mugs. Nopers. The bartender slugs over a mug that’s gotta be at least fifty-five ounces. I mean Christ, the thing weighed thirty-five pounds and I needed two hands to hold the thing in fear if I tried to muscle it with one hand my wrist would break and I would be out one gi-normous brew.
I surprised everyone there as well and did it as creatively as I could think of. I walked up to Joe Child,I brought him his mail, turned around and walked out. Joe DeVito was with him, so he just yelled at me and asked what asshole let me into his city, or some bullshit. Haha. Josh Richards walked in and sauntered the wrong way away from our section, so I walked up to him, put my arm around his shoulder, and escorted him to where we were sitting. He took three steps, stopped, and looked at me like, “What the fuck?!” and planted a huge kiss on me. Nice. Mike C. had the best reaction. I was coming back from the bathroom and walked by saying, “Hey man, good to see you.” He looks at me, does this head shake triple take, spread his arms and bellows, “What the fuck are you doing in this state!?!” I got the physical reaction I expected, but the statement was hysterical. Do I really spend that much time in Venice?
It was an amazing night. We drank until 4:00 AM (because bars are open much later in NY). Dooner and Josh postulated during the course of events that bar goers have about a seven minute window between 2:00 and 2:07 AM to decide to call it a night. If you don’t leave then, you’re in for the long haul. You don’t decide at 3:30 you’re going to call it night, at that point you wait out last call in hopes you leave the bar with as many clothes as possible and without urinating all over yourself after trying to take a leak as you wobble around like a tower of jell-o.
We made it back to Dooner’s via a ten dollar car service where I entertained everyone in the back seat with my discussion of all the world’s events with the driver.
The next morning we all awoke extremely hung-over probably because we went to bed at five and woke up at ten. But it was totally worth it. We returned to have brunch at Harefield. Then Johnny escorted Joanna back to Penn Station and I went back to Dooner’s to watch the first half of the Eagles/Giants game. (We killed them. Where the hell has that been all season?) At the half, I said my goodbyes, thanked everyone, and hopped a quick subway over to Union Square in Manhattan to meet my cousin Kristin and her boyfriend Danny there to have some coffee and catch up. We probably haven’t seen each other since our cousin Melissa’s wedding in 2007, so almost two years. It was great to see her. After, we took a quick photo in the Square, and I made my final subway ride back down to JFK to catch my flight home.
Johnny’s 30th birthday weekend has so many great memories, and hopefully I caught most of them here. The rest I’m sure will be discussed this weekend over many, many imported beers when Johnny returns home. I have his girlfriend Bruno to thank for all of it. She could be the best girlfriend ever. Possibly.
But seriously, thank you Bruno, you’re (our) boyfriend loved his present.
Earlier this year I predicted, “2008 is turning out to be a great year.” After this past weekend, and everything I wrote and you read, 2008 turned out to be an incredible year. So little of it is left, but this past weekend couldn’t have been a better way to begin ushering the year on it’s way.
We hold our hopes like cigarettes, then leave them dying in the grass…
