Halloween in the West Village AKA the 7th Layer of Hell! - State # 5

I have been living in NYC for a couple years but felt this pretty much summed it up as far as NYC goes.  It's a whole different world from the West Coast.  I guess technically, New York is state #5 on the 50 State Project.  I was in Salt Lake City for 36 hours once, but I really don't have much to say about it and I didn't even get a photo out of the deal.  That means, I will have to go back which works for me, they have some cool parks I can check out.  On to NYC!

Who Ya Gonna Call...

Halloween in The Village is just asking for trouble.  After you go once, you will never want to go again, EVER!  Unfortunately, that was not to be the case for me this Halloween.  I have a friend who had never been to the parade before and she couldn't find anyone to go with her.  I told her no way at least 10 times!  I had lived through the madness before and was still recovering thanks to therapy.

Yee Haw!

She couldn't understand why.  I told her, first off, she is too short to see over the heads of people and there aren't all that many floats.  Most of the parade is just people on ground level running around in costumes, you can see that anywhere, any day on a regular basis in NYC.

Also, this night attracts the lightweight drunks who can't handle their liquor.  All the pros are at home or waiting for the weekend when all of the amateurs are gone.  Also, unless you are a teenage boy the costumes are pretty weak.  Most of the women don't even try to come up with good costumes.  They just try to dress up sexy and most fail miserably.  Examples : A sexy zombie, a sexy thing with a tail, a sexy dolphin, etc.  I was with two straight guys and even they were confused by the women and their costume choices.  At least the men were giving it a try with their costumes and actually came up with some great ideas that didn't include trying too hard to impress the other sex.  Right on, guys!!  Women, get some self esteem and quit trying to impress men to give yourself worth!  Also, don't bitch when you are dressed up like a ho and get "unwanted" harassment.  Duh!

A  Banana, Jesus or Moses and an I Have No Idea

Yeah, it sounds like I am not a fan of Halloween, and you know what, you would be right.  I haven't really cared for Halloween much since I was about 12 and there wasn't any more free candy.  That and I have been doing theatre since I was a kid which means I have to dress up all of the time in all types of period pieces so the thrill just isn't there anymore.  Especially with many of the horror stories I could tell you about half the costumes I have had to wear. 

So after the flashback of my previous Village Halloween Parade experience had subsided, I told her no yet again.  But she was persistent and told me she really couldn't con anyone to go. Finally, I broke, how could I crush someone's dream?  I couldn't!  I tried to warn her that it would be the ultimate freak show.  She told me that's what she wanted.  Ask her her about three hours later!

Luckily, misery loves company and I was able to rope in two other victims.  Chip had never been to the parade before even though he was born and raised in NYC and Noah is just plain crazy and will do practically anything for a good laugh.  Good man!  So after work, we all met up in midtown (minus Noah) and took the B train to W4.

Entering the 7th Layer of Hell

Exactly what I remembered!  Pure madness, everywhere!  It took ten minutes to get out of the subway station and that is not an exaggeration.  The best part was the people behind us who kept asking, "What is the hold up?"  I don't know, maybe the other 5000 people trying to get to the parade.  Still they kept pushing!  These are the type of people who end up killing people during a fire by pushing them down and trampling them.  In short, they suck!

We finally did get out of the subway, but were still not in the clear, on no!  We then had to go through the gate two blocks up that would allows us into the 7^th layer of Hell that is known as the parade route.  Chip and I finally choose a place that was close to the gated entrance so that we could make a quick escape after the first half an hour.  We were not going to stay long, that was for sure.

Love Her!

The parade was supposed to start by 7:00PM, but nothing in NYC starts on time.  I am surprised the ball drops at all on New Year's Eve.  So we entertained ourselves by taking photos of the various people who walked past us.  That and we were on the outlook for Noah who had gone all the way back to Brooklyn for some odd reason and was coming back to the city to meet us.  We knew we would most likely never see him again and turned our attention to the on coming parade.

It turned out it wasn't  the parade, but rather a group of policemen riding down the road telling us to behave and then a group of people trying to get donations from the crowd for what I do not know.  But Ashley made a good point, if she couldn't see, she wasn't paying.  I told her it was still not too late to leave, but she knew it had to get better.  Yeah, once you go home! 

Fun, Fun Fun

The sweeping for donations went on for another five minutes, not exciting at all.  But along came Noah, he had found us!  Unbelievable!  We all cried a little; because we thought he was dead to us in the crowd of two billion. 

After our joyful reunion, we went back to the show.  Well, Chip and Noah went back to the show as they are tall enough to see.  But Ashley and I couldn't see anything over the heads in the crowd.  The only way we could watch the show was to put our cameras over our head, video tape segments, and then press rewind and watch.  Sad!  Other people around us were climbing onto telephone booths and climbing into trees to see the action.  New Yorkers always find a way.  Usually, I would be right there with them, but that would leave Ashley behind and I couldn't do that, she was the reason I was there!  So, I continued taking video and asking Noah and Chip what was going on.  Loads of fun!

Spooky!

After another half an hour, Ashley's back and neck began to give.  That and none of us had eaten since around 1PM so we decided we had had enough and began swimming up stream to freedom.  Most of the roads were closed and many of the subway stations had been sealed up.  Thwarted!  So we headed up to 7^th Avenue.

Ashley figured we could just pop into one of the nearby restaurants and eat there!  HA!  Lack of major nutrients can do a number on your brain and she was being way too optimistic.  We told her it wasn't going to happen and it didn't.  Our goal became Midtown; nobody would be in Midtown on Halloween.  And after we got off of the 1 line, we found this to be a reality.  Oh, sweet freedom!

Chip and Noah Being Good Samaritans 

We headed to 9th avenue and decided that Thai food was the answer.  Yes, 9^th avenue is far over, but that can be a good thing.  Tourists find it too scary and the Halloween crowd won't get the attention they so desire.  It was a win win situation!  Though we did find a drunk Hansel and Gretel trying to hold each other up while arguing with each other over what I do no know.  We ran into them three times that night and we came to the conclusion that it was now Groundhog's Day or that they were just drunk and lost.  I vote for the latter.

We ended up going to Yum Yum Bangkok for dinner (yes this is the name, even I can't make this stuff up) and got the pre-fixed meal.   Due to the holiday, the service was a lot slower than usual.  Usually, they try to rush you out to flip the tables, but being Halloween; they were in no hurry and were busy taking photos the whole time.  I understand it was a holiday so no big deal, but that left too much time for Noah to start getting creative and to cause trouble.  We began taking our own photos and the evening began hitting rock bottom.  It was time to go.  We all had a long train ride ahead of us.

Time for Some Yum Yum Bangkok

And long it was.  Every teenager trying to hit curfew and every drunk in the city was on our train.  Nobody was using their inside voices and people were running up and down the aisles screaming and wrestling each other.  Someone couldn't hold their liquor and had an oopsy in the corner.  We were thrilled when our stop came because the train reeked hardcore!  As we exited the train Noah and I agreed it just isn't as much fun when you are sober, which we were.  We weren't amateurs; we were waiting for the weekend when our city would be ours again, that and I had to be coherent early the next morning.

As we headed onto the train platform, I got a text from Ashley saying that her train was running slowly and that there were drunken people pole dancing on her train and dropping empty booze bottles in the aisles.  She said it was unreal, my response was, "No, it really wasn't.  Welcome to Halloween in NYC, baby!"