It's Square To Be Hip

And it's cute to be cute

Williamsburg Bridge...I think

We made the transition off the rock of Manhattan to further shores.  Not that much further though.  Basically just over the Williamsburg bridge.  It was our first time to actually stay in Brooklyn.  Although we'd visited Williamsburg before, it wasn't until the first couple of hotels sprung up on Wythe and North 12th, that we had an easy option for staying there.  Incidentally, it is these two hotels that many believe have sounded the death knell for Williamsburg.  Not financially of course - it is only going further up in that regard.  But many people believe that the integrity of the area is now compromised now that the tourist scum have hit town.  Fair call.  Although really, what a load of shit.  Any former residents from the 90s would also claim that the area has been fucked up since the hipsters came to town, and jazzed it all up from it's former seedy roots.

Hangin' out just shootin' the shit with ma bros

But doesn't that happen everywhere?  Everybody always claims places and things were better (and more happening) when they were there years before.  That they did it first, "discovered" it,  and made it cool when all the present day goers were little shits teasing the fat kid from the back of the school bus.  That's life.  Maybe it was better then, maybe it's better now.  Who knows.  Or maybe it's a way for old cunts to still feel relevant when they just aren't anymore.  Move with the times, accept you are middle aged and a has-been.  Look at old photos, drink some shots and talk to other old fucks.  It always feels better when you surrender to it.  Let me promise you something though, you will always look like the "old guy" to all the 20 year olds, and you won't get a head job unless just maybe you've got heaps of cocaine to hand out to the slutty young chicks.  Fine, go ahead.....Just leave before sunrise.  Do yourself that favour.

Like.... OMG is that kale organic?

Williamsburg is currently so fucking hip that it's nauseating.  I don't think I have ever stepped foot in a more happening place in my life.  I feel confident to proclaim it "The Coolest Place on the Planet" right now.  It's pretty much too cool really, like it's going to explode with style and splatter pieces of art student, vintage clothes and kale all over the lower east side of Manhattan.  I felt like a middle-aged Martha Stewart-type.  Thank fuck that cute kids are a "now" accessory or I'm sure I would have been kicked out for crimes against banality.  Every store, every bar, every restaurant  is obscenely brilliant.  The street art is sublime, the outfits inspirational, and it's the head quarters for my favourite magazine/TV show (apart from Game of Thrones) - Vice.  Enough said. It's also very neighbourhoody and has huge parks nearby, a weekend farmers market (where you can fill your bags with enough biodynamic crap to make green power smoothies for all your little film major mates), and a fantastic view of Manhattan over the river.

Basically it's shit hot, and it knows it.

Yeah I'm hot shit too (thinks the dude in the white top)

City Scape

Speaker seat

We were staying a one of the previously mentioned hotels that have arrived to fuck shit up.  Actually, our hotel was all kinds of fucked up itself - but they didn't mention that when we made the booking.  Massive renovations were underway, which meant that you had to enter through the basement, and also that the reception area was inside a hotel room on the 6th floor.  There was no restaurant either.  To have breakfast you sort of awkwardly went into a tiny room next to reception and sat on one of two couches around the wall next to strangers, and hoped that a pittance of the miserable spread they put on was still available for consumption.  I stopped going after the second day.  First order of business was hair.  Got it cut and dyed.  Nothing like long grey roots to give the jig up.  Chalky said my eventual hairstyle looked like it was done by a fat middle-aged woman.  He was right.  She was also Italian. Think Jesrsey-Shore.

Vintage is like.... so now - if you know what I mean

Whipping up pizzas for all

As we were staying in Brooklyn, I decided that the time had come to take the girls to the Brooklyn Children's Museum.  I'd wanted to for several visits, but just hadn't been able to psychologically bring myself to step off Manhattan.  This time I took a cab.  The driver got lost and I ended paying a fortune for the taxi ride.  The museum was worth it though.  What a place.  One side of it was set up like a city street with all different stores.  There was a pizza shop where you make your own pizzas and cook them (out of felt ingredients).  Valli was all over that shit.  Her biggest dream is to be a "restaurant lady".  She gave out menus, made the pizzas, answered the phone and worked the cash register.  The international food supermarket was also a hit.  The goods were realistic and plentiful.  The girls filled their baskets, worked the cash registers, moved their shopping on the conveyor belt and wore green aprons.  Then there was the Caribbean Travel agency, Valli was taking reservations on the phone, while Cordi was out the back designing her own costume for Carnival.  There was also a Mexican bakery, a Chinese bookstore, a train, a river system, a vegetable patch, a toy bonanza and a water world.  It was very hard to drag them out of there.

Cordi favours anchovies alone

takes it to the next level - large, but still with only anchovies

spewing that there's no actual cash inside - she hands me my bill

that plastic turkey was as heavy as the real thing

Takes a reservation

Cordi works on her outfit

Nice job darling

There were no taxis when I left, so I thought I'd walk a few blocks to a street I saw, that I knew ran all the way back to Williamsburg, and flag one down there.  The thing with New York is that neighbourhoods change pretty quickly.  I kind of noticed that I was the only whitey for miles around once I started walking, but as I kept going the area quickly digressed into the kind of dodgy zone you read about on the news.  There were down and outs everywhere, and most seemed to be fucked up on nasty shit.  One guy was laughing hysterically, smelt like poo and was putting handfuls of leaves under people's windscreen wipers.  Another guy was swaying back and forth, blocking the middle of the footpath with his eyes rolled back in his head.  I had to walk under some building scaffolding and the entire way along was filled with dodgy types lurking in the shadows unable to move.  Either in that state, or in a screaming brawl with another of their fellow candidates for Most Fucked Up Person In The World.  People walking by were eying me off with a "Wha da FUCK you doing here Snow White?" look.  Basically it was the kind of place where you imagine that people are packing some heat.  And there were no fucking taxis.  For 20 minutes I dragged my baby girls through an area famous for drive-by shootings (as later discovered),  just internally pleading that somehow I would get out of here.

I hope the love one is for me

I spotted a cab outside a petrol station, only it was empty.  I kind of hung around near the area until I saw it drive out and then I flagged it.  He half stopped and said he wasn't in service.  Naturally I begged.  He took pity.  Sometimes they do.  The god dam relief when I had us all bundled in that yellow cab and pulled out of there was palatable.  I was actually shaking.  But then again, I am a panic merchant, with a penchant for drama.  As we drove down Bedford Street I spotted a religious Jew.  My first thought was "What on earth is he doing here?".  He looked as out of place as Johnny Howard in a 'Welcome to Malawi' ceremony.  And then suddenly the whole area gave way to a veritable city of religious Jewish people.  It was like going to one of those special areas in Jerusalem.  For over 20 blocks it was all Jews, and then just as suddenly I saw a few young people in brogues, rolled up jeans and white framed sunglasses, and the Hipster Zone started up.  I was comfortably out of place again.  Much better than being uncomfortably out of place.

Another world

Momofuku means "lucky peach"

I've mentioned the sheer scope of restaurants in the city.  I honestly don't think I've ever had a bad meal there.  The choice is ridiculous, and you can always find something excellent no matter what your eating style.  I've been to raw food restaurants, sushi restaurants, Brazilian steakhouses, burger joints, late night snack nightclub-restaurants, wine and cheese bars.  Always better than you could even imagine.  Even when you get home delivery it's fantastic.  With home delivery in Australia, you always imagine that it will be shit (like hotel room service).  And it usually is.  But not in New York.  They have special companies that pick up your order from any number of restaurants you may select online.  The food is always, hot, perfectly packed, incredible, and cheap.  I have no idea how they do it.
However, sometimes you go to a restaurant that is cut above everything else.  Momofuku Ko is one of those places.  Established by famous chef David Chang, the restaurant is small (10 seats) and releases 10 days of bookings slots on the internet at a time.  They usually fill up immediately.  Basically it's impossible to get a reservation there.  Chang's name is cursed all over town.  You are not allowed to take pictures inside (although there are actually some out there as I just discovered), and if you fail to show up to your reservation, it will cost you $150 bucks.  They are serious.  By miracle, Chalks thought he would check it out, and there was one slot available on the Saturday night before we left.  I can't explain the slim odds of that happening.  Someone must have cancelled just as Chalks scoped the website. We were in.

Simple yet stylish

Not my favourite course - but it looks good in a photo

We took a cab there and it was a little tricky to find.  But at last we spotted the tiny black door with the faint picture of a peach on it.  Inside the seating was up at a bar in front of the chefs preparing the food. They would explain each dish as they put it in front of you.  As you would imagine the mini mouthfuls were like a work of art.  Typically in these kind of set ups you can go either way - ignore the strangers in your immediate vicinity, or strike up conversation which gets better the more drinks you have.  We got lucky and ended up crapping on to a couple on our right for hours.  They were funny and sweet.  And they had triplets!!! Three girls - the same age as Valli and Cordi.  Unbelievably they'd had another (although I think it was a surprise) and luckily it was only one little boy.  Anyway, as I often state, I'm just not recruiting to the friend stockpile, but they were nice.  We decided to go for a after dinner drink and had a recommendation from our waitress.  However, our new friend had spotted the "Coyote Ugly" bar a few doors down and suggested we check it.  Embarrassingly we'd all seen the movie, and decided that Coyote Ugly beat some swanky lounge bar for sure.

Vodka skulls down best

It's not like I was expecting to see Tyra Banks in there or anything, but the place was an absolute dive.  There were a couple of chicks dancing on the bar (I think they were customers) and one girl in a leather crop top and hot pants belting out some cheesy number.  But the rest of the customers were pretty much intoxicated hicks.  Scrawled on the wall were the words "Bodyshots, Babes and Booze" - they should have added "And Bogans".  There were bras hanging all over the ceiling, punching bag games, and the music was so loud we had to scream in each other's ears.  Old Leather screamed into the microphone "From now on it's shots only, you can only get SHHOOOOOOTTTTSSSS WOOOOOO HOOOOOOO".  I guess a wine spritzer was out of the question.  Chalky got 4 shots of vodka - the non-body type.  I put mine away fast - you need to be drunk in there.
Ok, so it was funny to see, but it's not the kind of place you really want to put in the mega hours and stumble out into the morning hours with a metallic taste in your mouth, and dried vomit on your shoes.  We all left, I dragged myself away from taking that long awaited bar dance I had always dreamed of - followed by a standing shag with a stranger in one of the seedy toilet cubicles - and we then said our goodbyes to our new chums.  We were late for our babysitter.

You hope for this

You get this

Funny bastard

The final day was my last chance to spot Season Three of "Girls" being filmed.  Apparently it is filmed and set around Williamsburg - mainly in Greenpoint - just north of where we were staying.  The actual apartment that Hannah and Marnie "live in" can be tracked down, and you can take pictures of yourself on the stairs outside.  I wasn't quite willing to go there.  Maybe when we go back in July I'll be more sad and desperate.   Anyway, after a trip to the playground, we were cruising around Greenpoint ( I was buying Boo - The Cutest Dog In The World plush toys for V & C's birthday) when I spotted him coming out of store.  It was Ray from "Girls"!!!!!  And it was definitely him, he had the same mushed-up lip.  He was with a girl with a smug look on her face that said "Yep, I'm with Ray from Girls".  He looked like he does on TV.  Evasive gaze, slightly shifty, bored and pissed off - yet inherently likeable.  I was satisfied.  Look he's not my favourite character, if I had a choice it would have been Jessa (Jemima Kirke) who I spotted.  She is my current girl crush.  I think I'm in love with her.  She could turn any woman lesbian.  But Ray was better than nothing.  I am going to get more committed next time around and crash that film set.  Maybe Lena Durham wants me to do a guest spot on the show as a bitter, 40 year old Australian.
She couldn't find a better candidate.

I need to move on and stop googling her