via abrooklynlife
I found $5 in Times Square. It was literally just sitting on the sidewalk, so I picked it up. Today, I thought, was going to be a good day.
The thing was, considering that only a few minutes earlier I’d seen a homeless old man taking off his shorts in the subway, the day could only really improve. By the way, he wasn’t wearing underwear. Vancouver’s lower Eastside, eat your heart out.
I had no plan when I left this morning. Unless you count “go to where things are” a plan. But it sort of worked out. I’d actually already been to Times Square. I passed through it last night on my way to a bar to meet my host, Liz, whose apartment I’d broken into about an hour earlier. And by “broken into” I mean I got the key from the doorman. Yeah.
I’d sort of promised myself I wouldn’t be in awe of Times Square, and I’m not sure if that was the reason I wasn’t, or just because really, let’s be honest, it’s just a bunch of flashing lights. How much fuss is really necessary over a 10-story advertisement for Samsung? (Full disclosure: I took three pictures.) What was there to celebrate, I wondered; the vapidity of consumer pop culture?
The problem with thinking of Times Square (or Picadilly Circus, which is like a smaller, British version) like that is that inevitably, and through my own doing, I was to be proven a total hypocrite within minutes.
When I saw the NBC Studios Rainbow Room marquee I smiled. Then I quickly un-smiled. No, Colin, I said to myself, this is not something to get all silly about. This is a television studio. But then again, it was the studio for the network that brought me Seinfeld. Argument over. I went inside and almost bought a ticket for the 2 o’clock tour, but then misread my watch, thought it was 1:45pm and opted for the 2:15pm tour instead, so I’d have time to eat. It was 12:45pm. This simple mistake would alter the course of my personal history.
I grabbed a hot dog, went to the bank (tears), and then bought a ticket for the Top of the Rock observation deck at the top of 30 Rockefeller Center, otherwise known as the GE Building. Top of the Rock is, quite frankly, impressive. Even my cold, cynical, heart jumped slightly at the sight of the Empire State Building standing up out of the Manhattan skyline, all Great Depression defeating and post 9/11-stoicism. And on the other side, Central Park stretched out for Harlem, protected from the world on either side first by millionaire apartments, then Everyone Else, building by building, out to either side of the island. I wandered around and around until it was time to take meet my tour.
why pay for it when you can just crop it from the internet?
The NBC studio tour operates like a sausage maker: a relentless machine, pumping out an endless stream of people who constantly fill an hour-long scuttle through the working studios. On the impressive scale, I’d say it’s a “sort of.” If you have any knowledge of NBC programming or history, then it’s kind of cool (he said, shrugging his shoulders). I was still interested in the SNL studio, despite it being deemed “totally crap” by the girl behind me when we walked in.
During the tour, I’d noticed there was one other solo traveler – a tall, rough-haired bean pole, wearing a Bonnaroo ‘09 t-shirt and a red bandanna. I’d basically written him off, thanks to the fact that he’d purchased a t-shirt that celebrated a rock festival (individual bands, ok, but it just screamed “this is the most important event of my young life!” so loudly, I almost had to cover my ears). Near the end of the tour, he and I both declined to be photographed against a fake NBC nightly news backdrop for a memento, because, let’s face it, those would be The Saddest Photos. What would we be remembering? The time we took a mediocre tour in New York alone?
Just as the tour was about to end, two girls approached the group and asked if we would like to sit in as Jimmy Fallon rehearsed his monologue for that afternoon’s taping of ‘Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.’ Yes, yes, again and again, yes, I said. Fallon fell short in his first weeks as the replacement for Conan O’Brien, but lately, I’ve actually become a fan. As we stood outside Fallon’s studio, I learned that Bonnaroo Buddy was from Toronto, was 20, and had never been anywhere in Canada apart from Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal. He’d also never heard of Jimmy Fallon, and had never seen SNL. Why he was on the tour? God only knows. But Bonnaroo, he said, was “the best.”
Our ‘monologue rehearsal’ group was small – maybe 25 people – and so after Fallon had stood up from his desk and welcomed us, he said, “anyone here not from the US?”
Two hands went up.
First, Bonnaroo Buddy and Fallon exchanged a joke about being stoned at Bonnaroo. Then, this happened:
Jimmy Fallon: And you (points to me), where are you from?
Me: Vancouver.
Jimmy Fallon: So are you guys close to one another? (motions to Bonnaroo Buddy)
Me: Not really.
Jimmy Fallon: So, Vancouver… does anyone ever call it The Couv?
Me: No, but I will now.
Jimmy Fallon: Cool.
As far as exchanges with celebrities go, it wasn’t monumental. He most likely has the same conversation (or, considering it’s not with me, a variation thereof) every single day of his life. But then I thought: had I not been a non-clock-reading moron, I would have taken the 2:00pm tour, and been just one tour too early for this to have even had the chance of occurring.
I don’t know what – if anything – any of that means, but I’ve decided to keep the $5 bill I found. Life is fun.
colin
*more to come…
Posted by colin 
