Haggis Takes Manhattan, Part 3
Previously on “Haggis Takes Manhattan” I enjoy the beauty of Central Park, scarf down my first slice of authentic New York City style Pizza, visit the wonderful Metropolitan Museum of Art, and rock out to a house band in Greenwich Village.
When I awoke in my hotel room Sunday morning, the weather had taken a particularly nasty turn from sunny and beautiful to overcast and downright nasty. The news was saying that the rain was expected to last all afternoon, but I wasn’t about to let a little thing like rain water stop my day.
The very first thing on the agenda was lunch at The Carnegie Deli, which is by far the BEST deli shop in New York City, let alone the whole damn world. This is the deli that is made famous for it’s gigantor-sized sandwiches, and it’s apparant when you look around at the walls of the place decorated with signed photos of celebrities, sports stars, and media personalities. I don’ t think there was even a square inch of the wall that didn’t have a celebrity on it.
Woody Allen likes the place so much they named a sandwhich after him (the “Woody Allen” has 1/2 pastrami & 1/2 corned beef on rye bread.) It’s about as big as my head. I should have gotten a photo of me reacting to the size of my club sandwich, but I was so shocked by the mammoth amount of it that I completely forgot.
We had to stand outside for about 10-15 minutes just to get in, but from what everyone was saying, it was worth the time. There was another deli across the street with a sign trying to coax people over with a promise of no waiting, but everyone was still lining outside The Carnegie. Guess it speaks for itself. I couldn’t even finish the second half of my sandwich, so I packed it up to go and we went off in search of Rockefellar Center.
We walked around Midtown from around 58th down to 38th looking for NBC and I got the chance to see quite a few famous stores and buildings on the way. Pictured below is Radio City Music Hall, MTV Times Square Studios, and Hard Rock Cafe NYC.
Also saw the silver gentleman pictured at the top of the article, who was a performance artist across the street from Toys ‘R Us. I watched him for a good five minutes and he didn’t move or blink at all. Upon first glance I thought it was a statue except for the crowd of tourists gathered around watching him. Very cool.
We finally found NBC (after consulting a bus map) after about 20 minutes of walking. My sister was starting to lag behind because the walking was starting to get to a her a little bit, and I don’t blame her. It’s frustrating when you don’t know where you are going, and even more when you’re in a city you aren’t that familiar with.
Found our way into the NBC Experience Store where the tour sign up was located, but as soon as I got in line I hear one of the cashiers telling another customer that “The NBC Studios Tour for today has been sold out.” Nuts. Bad timing.
We wandered out the side door into Rockefellar Square, where the Today show is taped and features an outdoor ice skating rink. Wasn’t too incredibly busy due to the nasty weather, but it was nice to watch nonetheless. We milled around for a few minutes and tried to find a travel guide to New York (I lost mine of the first day) so we could located exactly what street the Empire State Building was located (and to see if it was open before making the trek) but we couldn’t find a bookstore in the immediate vicinity.
We decided to just hoof it anyway. You could see the Empire State Building from the street, just seemed really far away. We walked the long distance and finally found it. When we found our way down to the area for the Observation Deck we were in for a bit of a surprise.
I mentioned in yesterday’s article that we were there during the Columbus Day holiday weekend, but other than seeing a few bleachers and posters up, it wasn’t that busy around the streets. Well we found where they all went.
Richard gave up after seeing the line and went back to the hotel, leaving me and my sister to suffer through a 2 and a 1/2 hour line. Admission was $11 and a good chunk of the line wasn’t even air conditioned. It was fucking miserable the whole time until we finally got to the 85th floor observation deck. The best part was, during the movie-length amount of time we stood around waiting to go up, the weather had completely cleared up. The clouds and rain moved on and the beautiful weather I had witnessed Saturday returned in full force.
It was still hazy and visibility was about 15 miles, but it was enough. The sheer amount of concrete and glass that surrounds every corner of the city is boggling to the mind that all this is contained on one island. I got my one and only glimpse of the Statue of Liberty, but with the haze and the lateness of the afternoon, all I could really see was a silhouette. So to wrap up: Paid $11 to stand in line for 2 1/2 hours to stay on the observation deck for a total of maybe five minutes. I called it the “$11 Line Ride.” Heh.
Our feet were aching so much we had to get on our butts as soon as humanly possible and stay there, so we hailed a cab from somewhere near Madison Ave back to the hotel and relaxed for a little while before the main attraction of the night: The Upright Citizens Brigade Theater.
A little back history first. The Upright Citizens Brigade is an improv comedy troupe originally made up of four cast members: Amy Poehler (now on Saturday Night Live), Matt Walsh (now a correspondent for the Daily Show), Ian Roberts, and Matt Besser. They got their start on Late Night with Conan O’Brien before Comedy Central gave them their own show around 1997-1998. The show ran for three seasons before Comedy Central gave it the axe. (You can find the show on BitTorrent and KaZaa.)
Around 1997, the UCB opened the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater to showcase their exceptional improv skills and has received lots of critical acclaim. This was my #1 spot to see in New York City, as I am a RABID fan of the show.
I bought a t-shirt (only $10!!) and took my seat in anticipation of the show to come. It was a small theater and every seat was filled (and a few floor squatters) ready to see improv at its finest. Showtime came and I was lucky enough to have three members of the original cast come out and greet us all (Matt Besser lives in LA now.) I understood that it was a rarity for Amy to show up since she’s busy with SNL now, so I felt extremely blessed. She’s even cuter in person. 
They talked a little about the baseball game, “Kill Bill” and how Ian thinks any movie about superheroes are the best movies (he mentioned “Blankman” as being the best movie ever made), and a few other current events before getting started. They introduced the rest of the improv group made up of about 8 other people including fellow SNL’er Horatio Sanz (who came out with a baseball bat and assaulted Matt Walsh.)
The show began with the topic of “Monkeys” and they just ran with it. They did sketches from bullies assaulting a furniture designer, Matt Walsh’s childhood trauma about trying to flush his Mexican gardner down the toilet (”HIT THAT MEXICAN FARKBALL! PUT SOME FUCKING JALAPENO JUICE ON IT!”), and Video Game Camp with autistic children (”I can count things!”)
After the intermission the troupe came back out to the tune of the new Outkast song “Hey Ya” which is, according to cutie Amy Poehler, “My new jam!” They ended up doing a couple sketches about the song involving dart-throwing and Amy’s “Reverse Duck” dance move.
One of the last sketches they did was awesome. It involved a guy trying to get on an airplane with a T-shirt that read “I’m going to blow up this fucking plane” and getting detained. Matt Walsh got by security with his shirt “I’m not going to blow up this fucking plane”, as well as Amy Poehler wearing “two fried eggs covering my breasts.” (not literally) I was almost doubled over in pain from laughing so much. I loved this show before, and now that i’ve seen it in person I’m completely hooked.
Missed what happened previously?
Click here to read “Haggis Takes Manhattan, Part 1″
Click here to read “Haggis Takes Manhattan, Part 2″
Link: Haggis Takes Manhattan, Part 3
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