Downtown Shabby

“I love Kathy Griffith.”

Dear gays,

If you are going to express your devotion for some famous lady, be it on Facebook or talking on your cell phone next to the 14^th Street entrance to the 1 train, please get the name right. I am a man of many pet peeves but this one ranks near the top. Don’t post that you are someone’s biggest fan and then misspell their name. And who doesn’t know that the red headed loudmouth with no loyalty is Kathy Griffin? Not Griffith. Everyone knows that.

I was downtown for practically five seconds, so I guess I shouldn’t have been all that surprised that someone had already annoyed me. Downtown is awful. People in New York complain about neighborhoods the way other people talk about the weather. It is just something we do. So, I'll say it. I hate being downtown. As a snob who hates snobs, it is the worst place on earth. While waiting for my Army pal Josh to arrive in town tonight, I sent a text message to Matt Kugelman to find out if he was out and about so I could kill some time with him in the interim. Matt is a delight and more importantly, he is nearly always out somewhere when my show ends. So when I am in the mood for a drink or well that’s pretty much all we do is drink, so whenever I am in the mood for a drink, that Matt Kugelman is pretty handy to have around!

Birthday Preppers

Life is really unexpected. You just never know what is going to happen. This is why my new obsession is Doomsday Preppers, the show where ordinary people hoard a decade’s worth of food in their basement in the unlikely event of a water landing. Even today, I was crossing Sixth Avenue at 48^th Street and an SUV was driving the wrong way toward me, right past the cops permanently stationed by their cars outside Fox News. Always ready to channel Albert Finney in The Dresser, a movie I have never seen, I stood in front of her car and simply lifted my hand. She slowed to a stop and gave me a funny look and I showed her the error of her ways by merely gesturing back past her. Seconds later, she was completing a U-Turn and we were both on our merry way. The cops didn’t even bother getting in their cars and chasing her. That’s New York. And if you are going to freak out at every little thing, don’t come here.

I was making a rare Saturday night appearance in the city for back to back birthday celebrations. It is also Mike’s birthday on Sunday but he doesn’t feel like celebrating this year even though now that we have our glorious new coffee station in the kitchen, amazing new bathroom and showstopping fireplace, there is every reason to rejoice! I even upgraded the shelves in the closets so our own doomsday prepping won’t look as sloppy as that girl in Houston who plans to shoot her kittens in the head when we run out of oil.

First stop was The Tenth Rail down on 10^th Avenue and 33^rd Street. The neighborhood is so sketchy, the highlight is the well-traveled drive through McDonald’s next door from which the pernicious glare of the fluorescent lighting is a vision direct from the worst nightmares of the Dowager Countess, minus the gaiety. Perhaps they should rename the place The Seventh Circle, although we were really only there for the Third. As the strangers streamed into the empty bar from the street, each entered with a bewildered look on their face. “I took the M-11 bus!” one woman declared incredulously. I would have been less surprised (or concerned for her safety) if she had said she took an M-16.