HELL WEEK PART TWO 10-19-03
When last we left off it was Wednesday, September 17th. I was sitting on a big deadline, and had just had the worst time getting into the city. I was to meet JEN and take her to this party, which I don't usually do because of her work schedule so it was to be a nice change of pace. I would then take my parent's out for their Anniversary dinner. Then work for a few days, and then relax on my real birthday-September 25th (although we are celebrating it on October 22nd, for scheduling reasons).
Car problems, then train problems, then bus problems all slowed me down, but I keep trucking. Finally met up with Jen at Penn station, our rendezvous point, where we would then cab it down to JOSH CLARK'S swanky east village apartment complex party. We were both dressed nice, because the event was to be killer.
Let me refresh your memory further.
Josh Clark's building party. (You will meet him if you make it to my birthday party for sure)
His new East Village complex is unique in that it throws an open bar, free food, lobby gallery opening, and DJ hosted party once a month for residents. Combine that with the fact that the building houses Elite and Ford models who are all in from other countries while on location, and you have the makings of a pretty swanky-eyecandy-o-licious event. Also taking into account that this was Fashion Week in Manhattan-they would all be done up nice for the various other parties and events they would be hitting, so, a no brainer good time.
So now that we are all caught up, let's get back to the story: : :
We arrive at the party and, wow, it was clear that this was the place. A doorman building with a huge reception area, metal awning and planed glass entryway. It would be common to see this uptown, but this was a little odd to see in alphabet city. We entered, passed the hallway with the art exhibit where people were sipping wine and eating cheese and crackers and hit the elevator.
We got to Josh's apartment just on time, amazing considering the bitch of a time I had getting there. His roommate Ki Ki greeted us, and ya kind of had to do a double take. Josh has two female roommates (whom recently hooked him up with the place through an ad) which are stunningly attractive. The doorbell rung and Ki Ki's friend came in, with bottle in hand. She was really happy and also really pretty, I didn't catch her name, they were going out to party elsewhere, while we had our party downstairs to enjoy. We were kind of in a hurry and wanted to get our drink and eat on as quickly as possible. We dropped our bags and coats in his room, and sped down to the ground floor where we exited into the courtyard.
NOW, hell week aside, this party was a good time, and the highlight of the month for me partywise. One of those times when you are just so in the groove, you feel nothing can go wrong. Relaxing with my girl, and drinking heavily with an open bar, dressed up and hanging out with friends with plenty of eye candy all around. When I talk of eye candy, it was exactly as it was described to me. Models, models everywhere and not a drop to drink. .not from the models anyway, but the wine was flowin'. There was a beautiful stone fountain in the center of the square, the courtyard was lined with trees, some of which had white Christmas lights. Some of these trees were probably a hundred years old. In Manhattan that's a rare find. It was a beautiful night, and got more and more beautiful as I got more and more tanked.
I've found from parties, that you can usually judge the type of people at the party by the food, booze and music. The liquor was wine and beer (in bottles), which is typical of a gallery opening so no real judge, no keg so you know it's not the rowdy college crowd. The music was a DJ spinning old and new stuff, but keeping it really mellow, so you know it's a more sophisticated "chill and lounge" type of crowd.
The food on the other hand at this event was the dead give away that the party was full of models. There were three spreads which I watched them bring out. A Vegetable & Fruit Spread (the waif tray), a cheese and cracker spread (the gallery traditional), and a cookies and brownies spread (death by desert). The brownies looked amazing, stacked in a nice little pyramid, you can tell by this spread that if there were brownies in Ancient Egypt, this would be pharo food.
I knew the only way to judge this perfectly would be to go back after a few hours and see what was left.
At the end of the night I returned to the scene to see the evidence. The waif tray-completely wiped out (As predicted), as was the gallery traditional (of course), although there were a few halves of crackers left on the tray (carbs= evil). But, the desert tray actually made me laugh aloud. The cookies and the brownies hadn't been touched. I mean nothing was missing! Not a one! The pyramid of brownies had zero bricks removed! I had to drag the others over to point this observation out. When I say "the others" I refer to Josh's friends and Jen, who all got a kick out of it.
"The others" arrived in spurts. ERIC FINKELMAN, Zack, Paul from Texas, and his roommate Emmerson. I was really trashed already, and in my drunken haze I decided to be the icebreaker for the group, all of these guys were being shy with the ladies at the party, and I wanted to expand our social talk circle to the other gender. Eric was the only one of the group (other then me) who was in a relationship. Jen was getting pretty drunk too, so she was going along with my little schemes to get the models to talk to the group. Josh wasn't sweating the situation because he had invited a few Swedish exchange students to the party and was constantly on the look out for their arrival. It was fun, and I was amusing myself, so I started politicking.
I would go over to a group of women, introduce myself, I can' t remember now what I might have said, but it would be something to make them laugh. Then I would point over to the group of guys I was hanging with, and call them over. It was fun, after about 4 or 5 times of doing this and introducing everyone and learning names which I forgot within a half a second after I heard them, we were all in a pretty raucous mood. We decided to escape to the roof, which Josh promised was top notch.
And he wasn't lying.
The roof was crazy! Picnic tables, potted plants, free range grills, padded chez lounge's, outdoor benches, and a fantastic view of the East village. In the distance you could see all the major midtown skyscrapers, totally romantic.
Jen and I had some wine together on the rooftop alone-the times in life you look back on for sure, before we knew it, it was getting late and Jen had to go home for work in the morning. I brought her down to the street and caught her a cab and kissed her good-bye. I shot back up to the roof and while I was gone, the Swedish chicks had arrived and Josh had just cracked a fresh bottle of wine. These girls were one month in America, here for school. Think Swedish bikini team-hot, Nordic and spunky.
Christine- blond
Anna-brunette
The party downstairs was wrapping but we still had to break the seal. After finding that the party was over we stumbled down one flight of stairs to the basement. There was a gym down there and a few people were lifting weights. There was a bathroom in the back of the gym, so we drunkenly lifted weights while we waited to use the loo.
After we laughingly stumbled out of there we decided to go bar hopping. Josh, (new in from L.A.) had never hung out in the L. E. S. (Lower East Side), so I had to show him and the Swedes the bars.
Some of the group left and it was thinned down to Josh, Zack, Myself, Anna, and Christine. Josh and Christine were clicking, so Zack, Anna, and myself are making small talk. (Think the guys from jackass rolling down the sidewalk drunk with two hot chicks)
Well, we hit most of the bars for a few seconds apiece, but finally ended up at pianos on Ludlow Street. Trying to not be the third wheel, and being more drunk then I had been in some time I decided to make friends with the other groups of 20 something's hanging out at the tables near ours.
I first joked it up with the table to our left, who happened to be the band that played there that night, which we hadn't seen because we showed up after they performed. They weren't really receptive to my drunken friendliness. For a band, they were the squarest musicians I have met to date.
I then wandered over to the table to our left and introduced myself to a giant group, and soon had a new group of friends. They were all jewelers in the diamond district. Boy did they talk some smack about Jacob the Jeweler- Crazy! How often do you get to talk and chill with a group of drunken jewelers? Cool shit!
The Swedish chicks had class in the morning so they took off, now it was just the guys out for a few last bar hits.
Mind you, three hours of wine, then many, many beers into the night I was only still moving because of the alcohol. We went over to Maxfish Bar and had another round, talked to a few people and we crossed the street to Ludlow Bar, and had another. Josh and I played fooseball as a team against two guys who practically own the table in this joint, and they kicked our asses. But I was happy anyway because I was drunk, and trash talking like a mothafucka and blocking most of their shit. Zack somehow managed to piss someone at the bar off and Josh and I had to play peacemaker and pull him outta there. We caught a cab, by now I could hardly walk. The alcohol and sleep deprivation had finally started to catch up with me. It dropped them off first, then dumped me at Penn Station at around AM where the cabby tried to overcharge me, but even trashed I wasn't that stupid.
(Back in the sober of the day-pre party)
Complex Magazine had finally approved the script I had written for a comic strip I was going to do for their next issue, and e-mailed me back the approved finished script. My current plan was, get to Penn Station, catch the train back to my brother's apartment, he would then drive me home, he would sleep for a few hours there, then drive back to his place. While he was sleeping, I would get on the net, start collecting some reference for the strip and start working on the rough, and continue to work on it Friday and over the weekend so I could get them a tight rough on Monday the 22nd. This way I would have time to get revisions to the rough done, and bring the piece to finish for the deadline of Friday the 26th.
This all sounds technical and Jargon-ish, but the dates are important. In this line of work, you are only as good as your deadlines. If you can't get jobs done on time, then you are making the client suffer, and you will be quickly replaced by the thousands of other artists waiting to take your spot. I love having multiple projects in, and am quite a master at balancing deadlines. Knowing how much time I can spend partying/chilling out, and how much time I have to spend working to get everything done on time. I try not to have more then like 3 or 4 jobs in at any one time, because then it gets a little hard to manage.
Well, as of now, the only job I had in was to get this Complex strip finished. These full page magazine strips take me about a week, so I was good. I had a nice clean schedule and had just had a great night of debauchery and was ready to get on that train, get home, and tackle that strip.
Standing in Penn Station, looking at a giant metal gate, my hopes were squashed.
Apparently, MY BROTHER'S information was wrong. The trains don't run all night. In fact, the New Jersey Transit system actually shuts down sometime around AM and doesn't reopen till around 5:45AM. So now I was stuck there. I decided to get a little rest. I was "the drunk guy sitting on the floor in Penn Station." A few times some cops kick my shoes until I woke up and then they would tell me "You can't sleep here." Each time I woke up, apologized and stumbled to another place, sat down and went back to sleep again, to be woken up by cops, again. It became a routine. I was actually hoping they would wake me at 5:45 so I would be able to catch the first train outta there.
I woke up and wandered over to NJ Transit, and lo and behold the gate was open. I went to the counter and purchased a ticket, I was still drunk as hell I realized, and when I heard them say that my train was on last call over the speakers I started running for it. I got to the train and it had just taken off-of course and I could see it's lights disappearing into the tunnel. This is when I realize that, much like "The Bundy Curse", (on Married with Children) nothing good is going to come of this morning after such a great night. I now had to sit on a seat, and stay awake and wait an hour for the next train to come.
I don't even remember the ride back, but I do remember when I got off the train at my stop, I wasn't sure if it was the right place, because I didn't recognize it. (Probably because I took the bus there) but I was still drunk, so I decided if I wandered in a direction, I would see something familiar and find the street my brother lived on.
I wandered drunkenly for a long ways, past a lot of stores that hadn't opened yet. I pulled out my cell phone and called my brother. Oh yay, guess what, when I paid the phone bill this month I didn't realize that I paid $20 less then I was supposed to (I found out later) and they had shut my cell phone off!!! So any call I try to make would get me forwarded to the Sprint operators!
The further I walked, the less familiar things were getting. I decided to try to talk to the Sprint operators and see if they couldn't get my phone back on, but I realized after being on hold for a few minutes, that I was too drunk, and hung over (at the same time) to deal with them. I stumbled around until I found a pay phone, pumped in some change, and called my brother.
I first bitched him out for telling me the trains ran all night when they didn't, but apparently he too was hung over from the night before, so he couldn't care less that I had to sleep in the train station. I found out from him that I had been walking in completely the wrong direction for a mile or two. He told me to turn around and walk back. Then I informed him that if I walk anymore I will puke. Which was true, and for him to please come pick me up.
A few minutes later his little shit beater of a car pulled up and I hopped in. We got back to his place and told me that I should sleep on his fold out couch for a few hours, while he catches a few z's and then I can borrow his car and drive back because he has a class he has to make. He pulled out his couch bed for me to sleep on, he then informed me that his friend had pissed on it last night and nobody had bothered to clean it up. He tossed a plastic tarp on it and laughingly said, "I'll set my alarm. Get some rest."
Then I heard him in the other room swearing. I fell asleep. A few minutes later he was waking me up. "Get your shoes on, I'm driving you, I realized I need the car." So, now with the crushed hopes of a drunken rest I am back up on my feet, doing the painful walk of morning after shame, two long blocks to the car.
We get in the car and seatbelt in, "well, some fresh air at least" I think," I can sleep in the car and I will be able to get home to start my project earlier" I say to my drunken self. I start to drift off.
While sitting in the car, he must have been going over things in his head. "What the fuck am I doing, what the fuck was I thinking?" he said to himself out loud. "Forget it, let's go back." He says to me. So now again I have to pull myself together enough to walk the two blocks back and up the flights of stairs. Normally this is nothing, but trashed and hung over as I was this was quite an ordeal. By this point, the thought of walking was making my stomach churn. "Make up your fucking mind, your killing me!" I said as I staggered back, walking while righting myself on every railing, parking meter and wall I came close to.
I removed my shoes and quickly passed out on the piss couch, a few hours later I heard him clamoring about. "I missed my class." He said.
I realize I'm now sober, it's sometime in the afternoon and I have a pounding headache and a screaming hangover. His words were hitting my ears like a jackhammer. "You good to drive, cause I gotta leave?" he asked. I tell him "I am I guess...but are you sure you can't drive me back?" I ask.
"Nope," he says.
I cautiously drive the car back. I'm not drunk, but I just don't want to have to deal with a cop pulling me over for my brother's rejected inspection sticker then smelling booze coming out of my pores and wanting to field sobriety test my stinking ass.
I make it home ok, and hit the bed. I wake up and it is dark. It's Thursday night. Everything is cool, my hangover is gone. This is nothing new to me, having the most erratic sleep schedule known to man (dictated by work). I watch a little TV. The wind outside is going crazy. That hurricane they spoke of is finally here, although, for a hurricane, this is weak. Barley more then a "mighty wind." I can't remember what I was watching, I think something on Spike TV, when out the window I see a greenish blue flash of light. And some loud popping. Many flashes now, like someone was lighting off a string of firecrackers all in the road in front. Now there were blue sparks cascading down from the wires and the transformer, which was just up the telephone pole right out front, and I know that can't be good. In an instant, the power was gone.
"terrific...."
I went outside, and the neighbors were all standing on their front steps. I looked up and down the block, and it seemed that the power was only effecting about 1/4 of the street. Unfortunately, my computer was part of that 1/4.
I picked up my cell phone to call the power company, and got the Sprint Operator. "Moron!" forgot to get that working. So I went inside and called from a land line, the cordless phones being dead as well. According to them, whole area had sporadic power outages, and they can't send anyone out to even look at a reported outage for 24 hours. So I am disabled until Friday night, earliest. With nothing to do, and little candlepower, I decide to sleep. "It can't get any worse then this," I tell myself.
Or can it?....
I awoke the next morning to still a powerless house. I called Sprint and got my phone service back, only to get a call for a rush illustration job, on top of all the other jobs I had in. This was just overkill.
I had a stack of jobs that were waiting on me to get done, while my computer sat there dead and lifeless, laughing at me.
That night we took my parents out for their Anniversary dinner. I had time to kill, being that I couldn't really work, being at a restaurant where the power worked felt a nice alternative to eating apples in the dark.
Two days later the power was restored. I jumped back on the computer and started banging away at my projects, only taking one break for dinner. I had a bowl of chillie and one bite I took felt really odd. Something crunched. Chillie isn't crunchy. I then felt a sharp pain in one of my molars, like a nerve was exposed. I looked in the mirror. Lo and behold, one of my back molars was SPLIT IN HALF,the half that was missing I assume I swallowed with the chillie.
So odd, this is a tooth that has bothered me since around 2001, just always felt sort of like a faint pain on the back left side of my jaw. I subconsiously compensated for this by chewing hot or cold things on the right side of my mouth. Dentists never mentioned anything wrong with that tooth, but I knew it didn't feel right. Well, now, with all the deadlines looming, and having lost several days because of the power outage, and having taken on a new project, the last thing I would need would be to have to make an emergency dentist appointment. The next morning I was sitting in his chair though, while he sculpted me a new molar.
For the next several days I existed on a steady diet of Red Bull, Coffee, and Slim Fast. I didn't leave the studio except to shower, shave, and shit, but all the work got done on time, and looking like gold. Hell week, eh, piece o' cake.
Just another day in the life of an Art Juggernaut.
-Cojo