Guest Blog: Turning 40 in the Big Apple (pt. 1)

For the third installment of my guest blogger series, I asked a human I know with impeccable taste in television, movies, and, after reading this blog (which will take a few days to release), all media in general.

It’s my friend Sam. Well, one of my friends named Sam. Some of y’all may know her from her former days on Tom & Dan, or, more recently, her own podcast, Samantics. I know her, however, from being an in-general cool-ass human and, like I said, having incredible taste in media.

Earlier this year, I heard she was going to New York City for the very first time, ever, and I knew I was gonna wanna hear all about it, so I asked her to write a blog.

Here is (part one of) the results:

Saying Yes to the Blog

When Jacki asked me to do a guest blog for her about my trip to NYC, my immediate answer was YES! I have never written a blog before, well, unless you count making long dramatic posts on LiveJournal as a teen a “blog”. I was excited to try something new, and I had been almost subconsciously waiting for that push (or request) to finally do something! (Jacki note: this makes me so happy. I love reading Sam’s words on the Internet and knowing this gave her the push she needed to write more tickles me to no end!)

Why New York? Turning 40 and Chasing the Dream

So, let’s jump into the reason for visiting NYC. Well, first of all, I have never been, and it is one of those places that you see through the lens of shows and movies growing up, and there is this aura around the arts there that makes it seem like this magical place.

This year I was turning 40, so I felt like it deserved a big celebration for making it this far in this whacked-out world. I have to say, I am not one of those women who get weird about telling my age, but turning 40 does not compute in my head. How the hell am I 40? (Jacki note: I FEEL this. I am almost 50 and feel like I’m early 30s at the absolute latest.)

Planning the Trip: Lessons Learned from Vegas

Anyway, my husband Travis and I have been talking about doing a New York trip for a while. I basically told him I really hadn’t had New York on the top of my list to visit UNLESS we go see a bunch of shows.

I had the same thought about Vegas years ago, and boy, was I right. I went with a friend who isn’t a “shows” type person and also not a “plans” type person, which is basically the complete opposite to me. Add on that it was in July and hot as fuck, and neither of us had ever been to Vegas before, so we weren’t familiar with the city – it was a nightmare.

So, I didn’t want to have that kind of experience again, and Travis totally understood, and in fact, he wanted to go see shows too!

Broadway Becomes the Mission

Now growing up, I always said if I ever made it to NY that I wanted to be in the studio audience for “SNL” and Conan. Welp, Conan was obviously a no-go, and once I looked into the system for how to get into “SNL”, I decided it was too much of a hassle and damn near impossible unless you wanted to wait outside for hours for a possibility of getting in.

Not to worry though, there are plenty of other shows to see!

We literally booked our hotel with travel points my husband has through his credit card (saved us a ton) for a place just on the other side of the Hudson River in New Jersey.

If you are visiting NY and you want to save some dough on lodging, may I suggest the Garden State? Oh, and don’t think I didn’t look up filming locations from the movie “Garden State” because I definitely did; it is one of my favorite movies and holds a special place in my heart. They were just too far from where we were staying.

So now we have a place to stay, perfect. Now, what shows are we going to see?

Reddit Research and Building the Show List

I did my due diligence and hit the reddit streets. I read through so many posts and comments trying to get a feel for which shows both of us would enjoy and were worth seeing.

Even though I am a huge Disney nerd, I purposefully decided not to pick any Disney shows since a lot of them travel to Orlando anyway at our Dr. Phillips Center that has a Disney Theater.

After a couple of days of making notes on shows to pick from, it was announced that Megan Thee Stallion would be making her Broadway debut as Zigler in “Moulin Rouge”. No fucking brainer.

I had never seen “Moulin Rouge” the stage show, nor the movie. I was only familiar with the “Lady Marmalade” song and video from 2001, which is a banger; let’s not kid ourselves.

So BOOM, first show booked! I mean, I am a Hottie and Meg stan, so I had to go see my girl on Broadway! AHHH!! (tongue out)

We decided Broadway shows would be our main focus and try to fit as many as we could without overextending ourselves. We booked 4 more shows that night: “Little Shop of Horrors”, “Hadestown”, “Death Becomes Her”, and “Maybe Happy Ending”. I had only seen the movie versions of Little Shop and Death Becomes Her, but wasn’t familiar with the other two. I chose those because they came up the most as the “must-see” shows when you visit.

So we had at least 5 shows to go to in a week; even if that was all we did, it would be perfectly fine because that’s a lot!

But of course, me being me, I spent hours doing research on things to do, places to go, things to see, etc. in the city. I tend to do this for every trip we make because it is good to have options.

And then, lo and behold, it was announced that “Rocky Horror Show” was coming to Broadway and it was bringing Juliette Lewis with it. Huge fan of Juliette, I also really loved her band and saw them live when they passed through Orlando in what used to be Backbooth. (Jacki note: I have also always loved JL, especially her song on the “Strange Days” soundtrack, which I can sing pretty well myself. So, I am JEALOUS Sam got to experience Ms. Lewis live on Broadway.)

I had to go. It would be ridiculous not to.

We now had 6 shows to go to in 7 days. 

Arrival in New Jersey

We flew into Jersey and asked for an early check-in so we could offload our luggage and meander around the city.

Fuck hotels for charging you extra to check in if the room is ready; they already way overcharge per night, and now most hotels even charge to park in their lots, and the quality of housekeeping has significantly gone down. Actually, most times the AirBnB or other vacation rental spots we have stayed in are cleaner than most hotels nowadays.

We had a great view of the city skyline from our room, and we could even see the Statue of Liberty.

We wandered into Jersey City to see what we could find for lunch. We ended up at a small Mexican restaurant after failing to track down a Halal food truck that I had on my list of foods to try. Food was great, and it felt like you were at your Hispanic friends’ house and their mom was cooking for you.

We decided it was best to do some grocery shopping so we at least had drinks and snacks in our room. Man, Jersey City loves a boutique grocery store. It was a unique experience, and we spent a small fortune, but whaddya gonna do?

First Day in Manhattan 

After we dropped off our groceries at our room, we decided it was due time to head into the city.

Our hotel was literally right next door to the PATH train station, so it was VERY convenient to get to and from places back to our home base. Since Travis did most of the navigating for our trip to Ireland that had public transit, he kinda took the lead on it here too.

We got off in lower Manhattan (don’t call it southern Manhattan, apparently) and spent most of our time in the Financial District. It was interesting because here you are walking by these huge skyscrapers and then there’s just a beautiful park with colorful flowers and wildlife. It just felt like such a weird contrast.

We strolled through Battery Park, walked past the “Charging Bull” statue and saw lines of tourists on both ends of the bull to take pictures, and tried to navigate our way through the never-ending construction that was going on.

One thing you will notice in NYC is the constant noise. It’s a combination of jackhammers, car horns, sirens, and people yelling.

Dinner at Fraunces Tavern

We made it safely to our destination for dinner, Fraunces Tavern.

This place was really cool, and I had it on my list of places because of the history of the building. It is the oldest and most historic bar in the city, allegedly being a favorite watering hole for some of the founding fathers.

Now, I don’t drink anymore (over 2 years sober now, YAY!), but from everything I read online, their food was really good, and the place was just a historic landmark on its own. It definitely gave off local vibes. I think everyone in there either knew each other or they had a mutual friend or connection somehow. It seemed to be a lot of service industry folks, they were discussing shifts and managers and thing like that.

Hey, I people-watch, ok?! And sometimes that includes people-listen. (Jacki note: people watching is one of my personal favorite hobbies. People-listening too.)

The food, in fact, was delicious. 

The Comedy Cellar Gamble

A couple of days prior to our trip, I happened to see that the Comedy Cellar had announced who was to be on the schedule this week. And wouldn’t you know it….Dave Attell was going to headline the late show on the night we flew in!

The Comedy Cellar is a staple for any stand-up comedy fan, and after experiencing The Comedy Store in LA, I knew I wanted to go to a show at the Cellar regardless of who was performing, but I hadn’t reserved a spot prior because I was waiting to see the lineup.

Unfortunately, the reservations were all booked up, BUT there is a standby line for every show in case someone doesn’t show up for their spot.

We hoofed it over to Greenwich Village where the Cellar is located, and as we walked by the entrance, the doorman asked if we had reservations or standby, and we told him we wanted to try and do standby for the late show.

He was very kind and gave us confidence that we would be able to get in; chances were higher because it was a Thursday night.

We waited in the standby line for a while before the 8:30 pm show and saw the process of how it worked. Then we were the only ones left in the street. The door guy came back to us and convinced us that we would be fine leaving for a while and coming back 15-30 mins before the show. We walked across the street and went to a basement bar to kill time, which basically turned out to be the time it took to drink one beer and one Sprite.

Back to the line! I wasn’t missing this show. Got back to the standby sign, but now there was a guy waiting there. He asked if we knew who Andrew Schultz was because he was here to see him, and I laughed and said, “Oh yeah, I know that guy. He’s definitely on the lineup for tonight.”

At this point, the reservation line was getting long, like super long, way longer than the 8:30 pm show. It seemed to be filled with Schultz fans; if you are familiar with his audience, you know what I mean. I wasn’t thrilled we would have to sit through his set, but fuck it, ATTELL!

Buuuut as the line started moving inside I started to get nervous that maybe we wouldn’t get in.

The door guy came back over by the lines and said: “Man, I really hope you guys get in!”

Welp. We did not.

Of course, on this night, everyone showed up for their reservation, and no one was let in on standby.

FAAACCCCCKK!

Was I upset? Of course. I basically wasted my entire evening in the hopes that this standby line thing would work out.

A Second Chance

As we started making our way back to the subway station, I decided to pull up the Comedy Cellar website and see what other shows we could make and just make a rezz so we don’t have this problem again.

The weekend was pretty booked already with Broadway shows, so I skipped to Monday, and there he was again: Dave Attell was going to headline the late show on Monday, and there were spots left!

So I snagged us a reservation for two, and it made the night a little lighter as far as the mood after feeling like we’d just been stood up.

There are so many other details I could give simply about the time spent in line outside of the Cellar, including a guy we met from Chicago who was a SAG member and reminded us of Stevie from “East Bound and Down”, but this is already going to be long as hell, so I’ll have to skip a lot of that for the sake of time and your eyes. 

Part 2 of ???? tomorrow