Matador would probably think so.

Last week I took a trip over to Cincinnati. I went to check out Dr. Sketchy’s. The often Burlesque themed Life Drawing class started in NYC. The Cincinnati branch is the closest to around here.

(I’m trying to bring a branch to Charleston, WV, but that’s for another time.)

I note I’m getting lazier with my travel arrangements. Last year when I went to New York, I meticulously searched for a an apartment to sublease for the duration of my trip. But Portland? I didn’t like the non-committal reviews on the local hostels, and the apartments seemed a little shady.

And you know what? I liked the hotel. It was a local chain, but I didn’t have to fight any hipsters for towels or spaghetti. A friggin’ duck tour didn’t come by my window every hour and piss their pants over a Starbucks that really isn’t even really the first one. (It’s a liar’s Starbucks.) The risk of tripping over Aussies and Kiwis in their ironic Flight of the Conchords shirts getting all makey-outey dropped sharply.

So DC. Didn’t even look at anything else. Even committed the sin of getting drinks and snacks from the hotel’s bar. Very pleasant time. Probably the trip with least screw ups on my part ever. You know hostels often end up costing as much as small hotels with all their other little fees, right?

Same in Cincinnati. Actually, paid for the breakfast buffet and coffee there. Scandalous.

I must be losing my indie travel edge is I’m taking the easy way out for the same cost. Then again I never did bother going over the river into Ohio. Also I found a clock that tells the story of the Pied Piper in a children’s playground. Not through the internet, but ACTUALLY TALKING TO SOMEONE. And the originally purpose of the trip was to check out a burlesque themed figure drawing class.

Hamelin Square in Mainstrasse Village

So maybe there’s hope for me afterall.

The crew mills around in front of the Guggs.

First of all I didn’t even know that show was still on. It would seem that I have nothing but apathy for ABC. I have no idea what is actually on that channel. Even Scrubs starring my beloved Zach Braff is apparently still on that channel. New episodes and everything, but I still haven’t bothered to try watching it. I thought that show was done when they took it off ABC.

(Please don’t put Conan on ABC. I want to actually watch him once he’s no longer legally prohibited from television.)

This is now the second time that the Entertainment industry has snubbed me. First Warner Bros. never paid me for We Are Marshall, but they certainly reported that income to the IRS. (Granted this was $75 bucks, not enough to buy Mcconaughey a bag of pot.)

Maybe, I’m getting ahead of myself. We never actually made it to the Guggenheim on our first trip to New York. So this time we made sure to go there. The architecture is a big deal, but I have no idea what is inside it. I still don’t. Well, except for the Ugly Betty cast and crew. I can only assume they are still there.

While walking down the street I noticed a car parked with a tiny sign in the window, “Ugly Betty Crew”. So I thought “huh, I guess someone that lives in this neighborhood works on the show.” Three more cars, and I begin to be suspicious.

There is an array of lights at the entrance. We walk in and mind you no one stops us. In fact if we never tried to purchase tickets, we might have gotten after all. It was no longer the lobby of the Guggenheim, but the set of Ugly Betty. If I hadn’t broken the illusion by asking someone about it, I probably could have remained in their world forever. An Extra walking around and looking at the pictures forever in celluloid limbo.

Once again not paid.

However, the Union crew glared at us until we sulked across the street into Central Park. A car was parked there in the park. Right beside the no parking sign. The crew of Ugly Betty cannot be bound by the mere courts of Men!

So instead I went and took pictures of Belvedere Castle. Probably had more fun doing that too. It would have closed by the time I got out of the Guggs.

Surveying my kingdom. A bird sanctuary and frozen over hockey field.

And while, this is probably a much better story than “I went to a museum and saw a tissue box.” I still feel bitter, because once again I’ve written something and found out it came from TV.

Recently, I headed to New York, and I needed a place to stay cheap and fast. I didn’t want to fool with a hostel again. Not, so much because I’m against staying in hostels. Good night of sleep and room to iron was important for the job interview. There aren’t many flat surfaces in a hostel that New Zealanders aren’t having sex on at any given moment.

So I did what I always do and shook the Internet until something fell out. On a tip from the Matador Network (a good one not something on saving money by staying in a chicken coop or harnessing the power of New Zealand hostel orgies to smite whalers), I found out about a site where I can find apartments to stay in.

It was near Times Square and was conveniently close to the interview. I knew from the site that the owner was going to be out of town that week. I scaled the elevator shaft with my grapple and tried the lock against my picks.

Inside I was greeted by an enthusiastic young man who was playing the piano and handed me a set of keys. In my dsylexia I had read the website as AirBNE dot com not AIRBNB dot com as in Bed and Breakfast. I was not in fact buying information on houses to break into, but renting the room for three days. A much easier arrangement.

I mentioned this to a friend, and it was this point she fixated on about my whole trip. (That and whether or not I used the Ninja bathroom. I wasn’t aware that was a thing, but it is.) It struck some kind of OCD nerve. So I thought maybe some of her concerns about AirBNB are shared by others. So I’ll address some of them here:

Do you have to hang out with the people?

No, you don’t. We talked to our host one night over a box of Magnolia’s cupcakes, but that was pretty much it. He took another lodger on a tour of the garment district though.

Did you get to use the rest of the apartment?

Yeah, all the common rooms including the kitchen. Now, mind you our bed room was private. On AirBNB there are four categories: couch, shared room, private, and even whole homes. Hell, while going through the top 40 properties one of the whole home was a castle. A fekkin’ castle.

Isn’t this basically Couch Surfer?

Except I can actually get a whole room. It’s review based like Ebay or Couch Surfer, and AirBNB handles all the cash. However, the addresses are public on AirBNB so you know, murderers tend to not list their address. (Not that Couch Surfer is filled with murderers). Also the public address lets you know the area your staying in before hand.

You can get a $20 dollar discount on a rental the first time you list a property on AirBNB. You can play this card only once per listing, but also like CoachSurfer you reserve the right to accept or reject any reservations.There is a motivation on either side to participate.

And how wast it?

I’ve tried it once now and got to rent a nice room in a trendy apartment in Times Square for the quarter of the price of a hotel there. It was surprising quiet and pretty large. The host was genial and fun. There was a problem with the facet in the shower, but that’s pretty standard issue in apartments.

I had a good experience, but really I’m sure it varies from place to place. So give it a try yourself.

No chocolate for you! One year! (photo by: ulteriorepicure)

I re-experience a slice of my childhood last weekend at the Lewisburg Chocolate festival.

I remember going to Lewisburg when I was a kid. (It wasn’t really that long ago). I remember riding on long, winding roads for hours on end. Vomting. The bartering of vintage pornography. All to look at a park, old hotel, and a neat cemetary.

This came as a surprise to me. I had gone to the Chocolate festival last year. It was wonderful, all of my preconceived notions of Lewisburg were shattered. This was an art town. When did this happen? Was Lewisburg always this way and I was just too rattle by car sickness to notice this?

Either way I had been pimping the festival to friends and family all year. I only got to attend for a few hours last year. I was going to make a day of it this year.

“I’m sorry,” said the lady behind the table. A sign hung from the front reading A-L. “We’re out of tickets. Only pre-orders are left. We should out thirty minutes ago.”

They were out of chocolate. By noon they were out of chocolate. No, that’s not right because there was plenty in the shops. All of their candy was reserved. What the hell kind of festival sells pre-orders on their food? I drove four hours for this.

“Well, there are other events,” she added. “You could eat chocolate in the mousse eating contest.”

“Do you have a copy of the schedule?”

“We’re out of those, too. But you can pick up a copy from one of the tasting locations.”

But the map of tasting locations is in the schedule. All of the events the super, helpful lady mentioned were long over by the time I had gotten to Lewisburg. This festival lasted a lot longer last year. It was done at noon this year.

I attempted to barter for chocolate, but to no avail without the scrip being sold by the town. I was told that later the stores were accepting a dollar per sample. That was closer to five when they were trying to get rid of the stuff. The free market prevailed, but far too late to help me.

Despite the very poor planning for this event I am the one that feels like the asshole. I’ve been promoting this even to people all year. I’m sure I’ve gotten at least twenty people to go there. When you teach someone you are karmically responsible for how they use that knowledge. That’s about twenty days I’ve ruined. 

So I offically rescind my recomendation for the chocolate festival.