Hurricane Henn blew into town this weekend, and as his reputation would suggest–and my scars prove–Rich left my world with the lawn furniture up in a tree.
Rich, who like yours truly, was recently laid off, and decided to come up from New York City (from the Baltimore area) to attend a book signing by Niel Gaiman, a writer who made his initial fame in comics, with Sandman, and has since progressed onto novels. The movie Coraline 3-D is based on his Gaiman’s book.
In classic Rich fasHurricane Henn blew into town this weekend, and as his reputation would suggest–and my scars prove–Rich left my world with the lawn furniture up in a tree.
Rich, who like yours truly, was recently laid off, and decided to come up from New York City (from the Baltimore area) to attend a book signing by Niel Gaiman, a writer who made his initial fame in comics, with Sandman, and has since progressed onto novels. The movie Coraline 3-D is based on his Gaiman’s book.
In classic Rich fashion, he was supposed to be on the road on Friday at 2:30, after seeing Watchmen (for my review, see the Movies, TV and DVD section). The plan was that he was going to bring some of his key Sandman books for Neil Gamain to sign, but, due to a delivery screw up, Rich was delayed (without his planned books), and so had to scour his basement for something else for Neil to sign. Rich finally got on the road at 4 pm, and rolled into Manhattan by 8 pm. There I met Rich and fellow writer Jim Chambers. We chowed and had a few drinks, including some powerful martinis at the Westin bar at 43rd and 8th Avenue. After a few more beers at my place, Rich and I closed up shop around 1 am.
On Saturday, we went down to the book store around noon, and it took until 3 pm before we could get his books signed. But that’s when the real mayhem ensued.
We stopped off for a slice a Jay’s pizza, and then took the L train into the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn to meet Rich’s niece, and her boyfriend. We met at Barcade, which is just what it sounds like–a bar that has video arcade games. We sucked down a few beers, and played Frogger, Q-Bert, Galaga, Ms. Pacman and all the old-school classics. We then moved onto Alligator bar. It’s a dive bar which had one unique plus–for every drink you bought, you get a ticket for one personal brick-over pizza. We drank, we chowed, we shot pool.
Afterwards, Rich and I headed back to the city, but not before I took some bruises. The doors were closing on the L train heading back to Manhattan, so in my rush to catch it in time, I ran over there to stick my foot in the door, but since the platform was slick … [i]whamo! [/i]… I went flat on my back. I’ve got the bruises on my elbow and hip to prove it. Still, not to be deterred, Rich and I headed up to the Grand Hyatt bar in midtown, where my buddy Kevin is a bartender. Rich and I knocked out a drink each before meeting Kevin for a few beers around the corner. From there, Rich and I headed over to meet film-maker on the rise Todd Gilio (www.drawingwithchalk.com) at an Irish pub near Madison Square Garden, where Todd works as a waiter.
Finally, a few more beers and chicken fingers down, and Rich and I were headed back to Queens. Thankfully, I woke up just in time to catch our stop, or we would have woken up at the end of the line! We were both so hammered I had to literally drag Rich off the subway, until we could stumble back to my place.
By the time we finished the journey, we hit one book signing, five bars and drank at least a 12 pack each.
It was a hell of a time indeed, but I’m paying for it now.
Post edited by: rcolchamiro, at: 2009/03/09 17:16
