My Old Man and Our New York

Posted on October 22, 2014 by Tiny Tino

My final days in New York were simultaneously heart-warming and slightly devastating. Well, maybe not at the same time, but the last few days turned out to be a kaleidoscope of emotions, and a lot of goodbyes, with not all of them turning out how I had expected…

***

The first farewell was to Melissa, and the apartment that I had, for all intents and purposes, been calling home for the last six weeks. They say time flies when you’re having fun, but honestly, so much had happened since I first stepped off the subway in Grand Central Station that sometimes it felt like a lifetime ago. And while I’m sure Melissa was ready to finally have her very own apartment completely to herself for the first time since she had moved in, we shared an emotional goodbye with lots of long hugs and me being unable to adequately express my gratitude for everything that she has done for me.
“Really, it was no trouble at all. I’ve loved having you here! It’s gonna be weird not having you around,” she said with a beaming smile. “As long as I’m here, you’ve always got a home in New York City.” To this day, I’m still amazed by the endless depth of her generosity. I gathered up my things and said goodbye for the final time, and even said a final farewell to the doorman (“I’m leaving for good this time, I promise!“) as I made my way back to Grand Central Station. However, JFK Airport was not my destination today. I still had one last night in New York, and I was going to spend it with an old friend who I hadn’t seen in many months: my father.

Back when I was staying with Mike in Washington, I got a phone call in the middle of the day. I didn’t get a lot of calls while I was on the road, since nothing was ever usually that urgent that it required them, but I remember being extremely surprised to see that it was my father calling. When you get long distance phone falls from your family, sometimes it’s only natural to expect the worst, so I was a little hesitant when I answered the phone.
“Hello? Dad?”
“Robert! How are you?”
“I’m… I’m good, though… Dad, I’m in Washington DC.”
“Ah, I was wondering where you would be! What time is it there? It’s shouldn’t be late.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle. “No, Dad. It’s 1pm.” Far from being the bearer of bad news, my dad was just on his way home from having some drinks with his work associates. Uncharacteristically, he’d had enough to push him into a state of being relatively tipsy, but rather than being clumsy or slurring his words, he spoke in a rather eloquent and poetic manner, an extension of his usual well-composed self.
“I just called your mother to let her know where I was and that I’m on my way home,” he told me. “But it’s late here, and… I just felt that I wanted to speak to somebody that I love.” I swear I teared up a little when I heard that. If we’d been in the same time zone I assume I would have been a little annoyed to be receiving drunk dials in such a manner, but when my own father – who I hadn’t seen in approximately 5 months – calls you from the other side of the world for no reason other than to tell you that he loves you… well, it was a little special.

I take after my father in quite a few ways. We’re both deep thinkers and can get extremely philosophical. I mean, we can all get philosophical after a few drinks, but my dad’s one of the few people I know who can still hold a substantial and legitimate conversation about the meaning of life after one too many nips of whiskey. I wish I could say the same for myself – I guess he’s a role model to me in that regard… and among other things, of course. We spoke for almost an hour, and if I closed my eyes I could imagine us sitting around the dining room table in my old family home, bottle of scotch open in front of us, having the same, life-affirming conversation. With a substantial amount of time still left on my journey, it was a beautiful experience that was able to keep at bay any homesickness that might have been creeping into my subconscious.

***

It couldn’t have been any more than a month later that I was hopping onto the NYC subway to to head over to the Hell’s Kitchen, where I’d be sharing a hotel room with my dad that evening. He was in the USA as part of a business trip, but had managed to set aside a night in New York for some personal time to see UFO, a beloved rock band of his youth, playing a live gig. When he’d called me up that afternoon in Washington and told me the date of the one night he’d be in New York, it seemed like the perfect coincidence that that was the night before I flew out of the US and down to Brazil. When he’d asked if I wanted to come to the concert and spend some time with him, I immediately said yes, despite not having any idea who UFO was. It certainly wasn’t how I ever imagined my last night in New York would look like, but when things like that work out so neatly, it seems wrong not to take the opportunity to make it happen.

So I rocked up to the Holiday Inn in west Manhattan, where the reception staff were apparently expecting me. My dad arrived a few hours later, and after a brief and jovial reunion we set out to have a bite to eat and a drink or two before the concert that evening. My dad had booked a VIP pass to the concert, which apparently involved some kind of backstage tour and meet and greet with the band. When we rocked up to the venue, I suppressed a little chuckle under my breath when I realised I’d already had my own behind-the-scenes tour of the place – it was the same venue that the VIVA party had been in. We were early, so there was no queue to speak of, and the doors that I knew to be an entrance to the main room of the building were wide open. When we couldn’t see any sign of an official person waiting for us, my dad took it upon himself to go inside and see what was happening for himself.
“Dad! Wait… what… where are you… Oh God,” I sighed, having no choice but to follow him. There were what appeared to be a bunch of roadies setting up equipment and running sound checks on the the guitars and drums. We stood around for longer than I thought should have been possible before someone noticed us and asked if they could help us.

When my dad explained the VIP ticket and what he was doing here, the man stared back at us blankly.
“Oh..kay…” he said, trying to make some kind of sense of the information my dad has given him. “Honestly, I don’t know anything about it, but let me see if I can find someone who does.” We waited patiently, and I exchanged a look with my dad. He just shrugged and rolled his eyes.
“You’ve gotta take a bit of initiative sometimes, Robert. Otherwise we’d still be waiting outside for someone who clearly wasn’t looking for us.” Normally I would have been a little irked that this was turning into a lecture, but I have to admit, he had a point. He’s a smart man, my father, so I let him have that one. Eventually the guy who we spoke to originally came back, with a sheepish, timid smile that looked unbelievably out of place of a guy who looked as though he could be the drummer in a metal band.

As it turns out, I was pretty close. He was the lead singer of the first opening act, a band called Awaken, and he seemed have taken his inability to help us to heart.
“I’m sorry guys, it’s a bit of a mess back here right now. I’m not really sure what’s going on with the guys from UFO.” My dad explained the VIP ticket thing again, throwing in that’d he’d only managed to get a regular ticket for me and asked if I’d be able to still join. From the looks of what was going on, it didn’t seem like it would have been a problem – nothing here was too official or professional. But there didn’t even appear to be any kind of meet and greet, or any VIP experience at all.
“Look, I’m so sorry for this,” the guy said, and finally introduced who he actually was. “But here – I’ll give you guys these.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out some official looking lanyards, with passes that were emblazoned with Awaken’s logo and the letters ‘VIP’. “The show isn’t officially opening for a little while, but when you come back later you’ll be able to use these to skip the queue and come and sit in the VIP area.”
So we walked away from the whole thing a little confused, but not empty-handed. “All you have to do it look like you know what you’re talking about,” my dad said with a chuckle, “and people will respond to that.” I guess there’s still a lesson or two in life I can still learn from my old man.

My VIP pass, courtesy of one very persuasive father.

***

We returned to the venue later to see a line of fans dressed primarily in black lining up along the edge of the building. Dad and I flashed our VIP passes.
“We’re with the band,” my dad said with a laugh as the bouncers inspected them, and I suppressed a groan of mild embarrassment. We were waved through to a foyer area, where we were required to present our actual tickets, but then once I was inside no one gave much notice to which kind of ticket I’d had – I had a VIP pass from the band! There was a small roped off VIP section, so dad and I got a drink each and sat down in it, just because we could. We watched a security guard come around and usher people who weren’t supposed to be there out of the area, but he left us well alone when we showed him our passes. It was all pretty hilarious, to be honest. I can’t say I’ve ever really been a VIP at any kind of event, but I had a feeling this kind of magic that my dad worked landed him in similar situations often enough.

Awaken playing their opening set.

The rest of the night was pretty standard – we saw our mates from Awaken play, and even had a chat with them after they’d played their set, and eventually UFO came on. I didn’t know a single song, but they were a crew of old men who still knew how to play their instruments after all these years, and they put on a really good show. It was an enjoyable evening, and I’m glad I’d chosen to take the time on my final night in New York to hang out with my dad. I guess it took being on the road for was long as I had been, and being away from them for so long, for me to really appreciate just how much I love my family, and how much they love me.

My dad and I in the VIP area.

The main event – UFO.

***

My dad had to leave New York quite early the next morning, but we wandered down the streets of Hell’s Kitchen to get a slice of pizza before heading back to the hotel. I got up to say goodbye in the morning, but I was probably a little too tired to be emotional.
“Stay safe, call if you ever need anything, and I’ll see you in the new year,” he said with a hug and a pat on the back, and then he was gone.

I’d hoped that I would be able to say one final goodbye in New York before heading over to JFK later that afternoon to catch my flight. Ralf was also leaving New York that afternoon, but his trip was only half-vacation and half-business, and he’d told me that he still had some work he needed to get done, and in the end there wasn’t any time for us to meet up one last time before we parted ways for a final, indefinite time. If I had known that the last time I was going to see him was on the subway home from our walk through Central Park, I might have taken the time to make it a little more meaningful than “Oh crap, this is my stop! Sorry, I’ll text you when I get home, see you soon!”
Because that was what happened the last time I saw him – an abrupt, awkward leap off the subway, completely convinced I would see him again before leaving New York. The fact that it really upset me that I didn’t see him again… well, in retrospect I can’t really put my finger on it. He had been a really enchanting person to meet – a diamond in the rough in an almost literal sense, when you consider where exactly we met in Berlin – and I think I had carried that enchantment with me when I had continued on my journey. Knowing that I actually was going to see him again in New York had kept whatever romantic spark we had had alive in my mind, but to have that final goodbye that I had been building up to ripped away from me so easily was, in short, devastating. I probably cried as hard as I would have at an emotional goodbye at the airport, but being alone was an extra twist of the knife – an extra knot in my stomach.

But that’s the way the cookie crumbles, and after the brief moment of heartache I remembered that I’d been getting quite good at being alone over the past five months. But it was in New York City, baby – New York City that I had really experienced it all. Many people say it’s the greatest city on Earth. I think that’s a very subjective title to award any city, but I have to admit, I understand why the Big Apple is a big contender. It exists as the epicentre of the world in countless stories and works of fiction just as much as it does in the minds and hearts of people all over the world. I’d both loved and hated New York, for all of it’s beauty, excitement, danger and wonder, and the city had both loved me back and crushed me at the same time. It was those experiences of that I was living for – the ones that test you, amaze you, open your eyes, open your heart, and eventually morph you into a better person. I reflected on all of this on my long public transport journey through Queens and out to the airport. For all it’s worthy and memorable experiences, it was time to finally move on from the Big Apple.

So long, NYC.

Thanks for having me, New York: I’m sure I’ll see you again soon.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling 22”

Posted on September 24, 2014 by Tiny Tino

As my Amtrak train chugged through upstate New York, I watched the scenery pass me by. Back where I grew up, changes between the seasons were relatively mild compared to some other parts of the world. The eastern coast of Australia is populated by a lot of evergreen trees that generally don’t lose their leaves during the winter, but the eastern coast of North America was a different story entirely. The autumn equinox had occurred while I’d been in Canada, and summer was officially over. As my New York City bound train travelled through the woods, I could see that the trees surrounding us had already taken on hues of red, yellow and orange, and the normally green scenery was combined with a wash of natural fiery tones. It was something that I had only seen happen very sparsely in my own country, so I soaked in the sight and enjoyed the novelty of it all. It certainly made for a pleasant visual accompaniment on my trek back to the smog of the Big Apple.

Upstate New York at the turn of autumn.

The timing of my trip was so perfect that I observed foliage of both green and red, as the former gave way to the latter.

Returning to Manhattan almost felt like coming home. After casually jumping on the S Train across town to Grand Central Station, receiving a friendly welcome from Brandon the doorman as I arrived at the apartment, and letting myself in to wait for Melissa to get home so I could tell her all about my trip, I realised just how much time I had spent here in the the last month. “Home is where the heart is”, as the old adage goes, and there in that moment I don’t think anything could have rang more true in my mind. After being on the road for so long you start to believe that you’ve lost all concept of home, but the reality is that if you have the right attitude, and surround yourself with the right people, anywhere can feel like home – no matter how brief or temporary a home it may be.

***

While I’d been keen to get back and see my New Yorker friends like Melissa and Stefon, there was also another reason why returning to the city this time had been such an incredibly exciting prospect. Georgia, one of my best and dearest friends from back home, had been doing her own tour across the USA for the past couple of months, and now she and her friend Eva had arrived in NYC, just days before my birthday. She’d kept warning me that she had a surprise for me, but that she couldn’t wait until my birthday and would have to give it to me as soon as she saw me. It was well into the evening when I arrived back in NYC, and Georgia had some final plans with the girls who she had been on the tour with, so we made plans to meet the next day at Grand Central Station.

I could barely contain my excitement as I almost ran the few blocks up Lexington Avenue, and it was almost surreal to see her big golden curls of hair and big smile waiting for me by one of the subway exits.
“Oh my God! How are you, baby?” Georgia said as I threw my arms around her and hugged her tight for at least a solid minute. “It’s been so long!”
“I know! I’ve missed you!”
“Let’s never be apart for that long again, okay?”
“Deal.” And just like that, within moments, our casual banter had returned, almost as though we hadn’t been separated for the last six months. I guess that’s the sign of a true friendship.
“So, tell me everything. What’s been going on? How was Canada? How was Stuart?” We set off walking down the street as Georgia bombarding me with questions.
“Canada was great! It was really nice to-”
I was cut off mid-sentence, startled as someone bumped into me from behind. New Yorkers can be very pushy when it comes to their pavement etiquette, and for a moment I thought I might have been in the wrong somehow. “Ah, I’m sorry I-”
“Hey, watch where you’re going next time, fool!” I might have been more offended if the words hadn’t come from a very familiar face.
“Oh… Oh my God. Oh my God!” The person who had bumped into me was my other best friend, Jesse, who was – to the best of my knowledge – still in Australia. “What are you doing here?!”
“Surprise!” Georgia said with a sheepish grin, and suddenly it all made sense.
“We’ve been planning this the moment Georgia booked her tickets,” Jesse said. “I called her up and told her, ‘If you think I’m gonna let you and Robert be in New York City without me, then you’ve got another thing coming!’ The three of us are in the greatest city in the world, your birthday is coming up, and this place isn’t gonna know what hit it!”

***

Apparently everyone had been in on the surprise – from Ellie in London to Stuart in Montreal, and even all of our mutual friends on Facebook – everyone had known about the surprise, and nobody had let the secret slip. Jesse had blocked me on Facebook under the guise that he was “taking a break” from social media, so I’d had no idea of his whereabouts.
The three of us had lunch together and caught up about everything we’d been doing in the past few months, sharing travel horror stories and laughing both at and with each other. Afterwards we decided to visit the Museum of Sex, and as we browsed the halls of artworks and exhibitions we made crass jokes and probably nearly got ourselves thrown out on a handful of separate occasions. But I’d been reunited with some of my most favourite people in the whole world, so right now where I was at was definitely starting to feel like home.

Reunited with my best friends.

Perhaps the most definitive piece of art in the Museum of Sex.

And the reason why we can’t have nice things.

Over the next few days, it was the little things that made the time around my birthday so special. Whether it was stumbling across a little street market with Jesse and Georgia, where we bought a variety of fresh mini donuts and sat and ate them in the sunshine at Madison Square Park; or when Jesse and I bought $15 tickets to an Iggy Azalea gig at a gay bar on a Friday night; or when we trudged around Midtown for over an hour looking for a place that would cut our hair for $20 instead of $100; or when all three of us visited a phoney psychic just off Times Square, who told us we were all troubled people with shady pasts and dark futures, so we retreated back to Georgia and Eva’s Air BnB apartment with margarita mix to watch The Little Mermaid and feel sorry for ourselves – there are a whole heap of fun and slightly bizarre memories that made it a special week for me.

New York City with my best friends.

Georgia and I were a little excited to see each other again…

Strange warm-up entertainment in the gay bar before the main event…

Iggy Azalea in all her glory.

***

When it came to the actual weekend of my birthday, I had a few more intercity and international surprises. Mischa was making a second trip down from Baltimore to join the birthday celebrations, and I even received a little surprise from Ireland. Well, in the end I knew to expect something, since Matthew had asked for my address in New York several times over the past two weeks, obviously anxious as to whether whatever he had ordered would arrive. In the end a package arrived that was addressed to both Melissa and myself, so I know that had to be it. True to his national pride, he’d had a bottle of Coole Swan delivered to me.
“It’s like Baileys, but better,” he’d told when I finally wrote to him saying I’d received it. “Gotta have a little bit of something Irish on your birthday, no?” I could almost hear his accent in my head as I read the words, and imagined that cheeky, playful grin of his.

A bottle of Coole Swan, courtesy of my favourite Irish gentleman.

The actual day of my 22nd birthday fell on a Sunday, so we decided that we’d go out on the Saturday night for the big celebration. Melissa had offered to have all our friends from far and wide over at her apartment, so that evening Georgia, Eva, Jesse, Mischa, Stefon, Nirali and Melanie, another friend of Melissa’s, all came over to join in the festivities. Melissa and Nirali cooked an amazing dinner, and we all caught up over food and drinks. I was surrounded by so many beautiful people, friends both old and new, and it really was a fantastic evening.

The best friends at the birthday dinner.

Mischa reunited with more of his Australian friends.

The meal was delicious, and in true Australian fashion the drinks were flowing freely. Unfortunately Stefon wasn’t over 21, so he wasn’t able to join us when we eventually headed out, and a few other people didn’t end up making it to the clubs. We had vague plans, but I’d be lying if I said there was an overall aim to the night. I was in bar called Therapy with Melissa and Nirali, dropping my phone all over the floor and dancing like a hot mess for over half an hour before they managed to tell me that the rest of our friends still weren’t here yet. Jesse, Georgia and Eva had someone gotten lost, and we ended up meeting them in another place just across the road called Industry. From that point on, my memory of where I was, who I was with and what I was drinking became a pretty intense blur. All I know is that I was definitely having fun.

The one vivid memory I have is stumbling out of somewhere in Hell’s Kitchen with Jesse, jumping into a cab and screaming at the driver to drive. I don’t know where we told him to go, and I don’t even remember where he ended up taking us. But as we sped down a road through the West Village, we hung our heads out of the taxi windows and howled to the moon like wolves, shouting at the top of our lungs. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the taxi driver had stopped and told us to get out, and I know it’s a hideous cliché, but in that moment I felt absolutely, 100% alive. Young, dumb, drunk and free of cares, at least I was never going to look back on my life and regret that I had wasted my youth.

The morning after – birthday brunch.

I woke up at noon, curled up on the couch with Jesse at Georgia’s apartment. We’d gotten home just after dawn, apparently. Everyone was feeling a little tender as we attempted to sing happy birthday over a very hungover afternoon brunch, but I didn’t mind – the night had been worth it. For a night that I will probably never 100% clearly recollect, it was certainly a special and memorable birthday that I will never, ever forget.

The Big Apple and Other Fruits: a taste of gay NYC

Posted on July 12, 2014 by Tiny Tino

During my first week or so in New York, I didn’t really do something that I had done extensively while I was in all the other previous cities I’d recently visited, and that was explore the local gay scene. Which is a little surprising, given that a city as huge as New York is bound to have some incredible scenes to discover, but I suppose I was still slightly recovering from the hole that Dublin had corroded in my liver. I’d also been hanging out with Melissa, and while she is fabulously gay-friendly, she wasn’t exactly familiar with Manhattan’s gay nightlife scene, considering that her gay best friend lived in Brooklyn and wasn’t even above the legal drinking age anyway. However, when Mischa came down from Connecticut on the weekend that we ended up going to Six Flags, he had a couple of New Yorker friends who were going out for a few drinks and so we decided to join them.

We went over to Neil’s apartment in Hell’s Kitchen, which was the on the western side of midtown Manhattan. Hell’s Kitchen was probably closest New York came to having a ‘gay district’, although from what I had heard and what I would eventually discover, the city was a lot like London or Berlin or Paris in that it had numerous clusters of gay venues and parties scattered all over the island, and there wasn’t really a ‘central’ district of Manhattan because the whole thing is a complete metropolis, north to south and east to west. Historically the locations of the more popular gay areas had shifted, and right now Hell’s Kitchen seemed to be the place to be. We stopped by Neil’s briefly, where I met Walter and Neil for the first time, before we headed out to a bar called Boxers. When we arrived I discovered that Boxers was a sports bar – that’s right, a gay sports bar. I don’t know if I was shocked, surprised, or just confused, but the concept of a gay sports bar just seemed so contradictory to me. Perhaps it’s just because I’m not a huge sports fan of any kind, but I could never imagine a dedicated gay sports bar ever taking off in the Surry Hills area of Sydney. It was also possibly an American thing – come to think of it, ‘sports bars’ aren’t so much a thing in Australia at all, since people just go down to the local pub if they’re going to watch the football.

The juxtaposition of the hyper-masculine, all American jock themes with the obvious gay pride rainbows actually worked pretty well. All around the bar there were various sports games being shown on television screens, but less than half of the people in the bar were actually paying them any real attention. We got some drinks and stood around for a little while, but the bar wasn’t exactly going off. We had plans to go to a nightclub later – some place where Neil’s friend was working as a promoter, which meant we could get in for free – but it was still incredibly early, so at Neil’s suggestion, we swung past a corner store on the way back to his apartment and all pitched in for a case of beer. Neil’s apartment was new – so new that were were surrounded by half unpacked boxes, and were sitting on his bed because it was either that or the floor – but we made ourselves comfy and sat around drinking our beers and chatting and laughing. It was during this period of a couple of hours that Neil convinced us to join them at Six Flags the following day, a decision that would feel like a huge mistake when the alarm went off at 7am the following morning. It wasn’t like I had any other plans though, so we agreed to come along.

Eventually we left – heavily intoxicated by that stage – for XL, the club where Neil’s friend was working. We skipped the line and didn’t have to pay entry, and his friend even showered us with a handful of drink tickets. XL was located nearby in Hell’s Kitchen (it’s since closed and reopened under a new name) and was a huge club – when the smoke machines came on it was almost impossible to see the other side of the dance floor. I honestly can’t remember much else about my time spent there, thanks to the several shots that Neil ordered us immediately upon arrival and the fact that I probably drank way too much beer beforehand anyway. We attempted to drink more, mostly likely attempted to dance for a bit, and when I used the bathrooms I was intensely fascinated by another concept that was incredibly foreign to me as an Australian: bathroom attendants. These people stand around the sinks in the bathroom and offer you all kinds of things, from soap to hand towels to spritzes of cologne, in return for an appropriate tip. I find the whole thing rather awkward, because instead of requesting their service they just jump in and try to wait on your every whim or need, when honestly I would rather dry my own hands on my jeans. You feel like a bit of a jerk having to actively avoid them or ask them to leave you alone, since they’re just doing their job and trying to make as much as they can out of whatever tips they can gather, but I still find it all rather uncomfortable. Although being drunk probably helps.

I couldn’t tell you how long we stayed at XL, but knowing that we had to get up early for Out in the Park at Six Flags, I’m assuming we left at a relatively reasonable hour. My memory of the whole thing is patchy at best, and the next thing I know I woke up nursing a headache, spooning Mischa, and cursing that damned alarm clock.

***

My second night out on the gay scene was a little more memorable… well, that probably isn’t the right word since I definitely don’t remember all of it. But it was definitely a lot more eventful. I had met Scott a few years ago when he had been holidaying in Sydney. He was a big partier, and we’d gotten on pretty well, so we’d kept in touch. He had been my only gay contact who actually lived in New York, so one evening when Melissa had other plans after class, I got in touch with Scott and asked about the best places to go. It was a Wednesday night, so naturally he was going out himself, and we met for a quick sushi dinner after he had finished work before heading back to his apartment – also in Hell’s Kitchen – so he could get ready. He went to offer me a drink while I waited, although the only alcohol he had was this strange Czech liquor (which I had actually tasted with Ike in Ancona) or absinthe. I guess it was at that early point in the evening that I should have known the end of this night wasn’t going to be pretty. I opted for the absinthe on the rocks. I don’t know, #yolo or whatever.

We went to a nearby theatre where a new weekly event was starting – So You Think You Can Drag? It’s exactly what you think it is – a whole line up of drag queens performing on stage in front of an audience, with a panel of judges making comments and scores and eventually choosing a winner. Now, I’ve been all over the world and seen a fair few drag queens, most notably in Cambodia, Russia and Germany, but so far I had yet to see any drag shows that came close to the quality of the queens that I’ve seen back home in Sydney. New York changed all that. I guess you really need to have something special to stand out in a place like this, and these queens were trying their hardest. I’ve always appreciated my favourite drag queens back in Sydney, so I really enjoyed watching all the acts. Add to the fact that the first hour of the event had an open vodka bar, and I knew that if I lived in NYC I would most definitely become a regular here. Like Scott obviously was. The hostess of the evening, Paige Turner, is one of New York’s more successful drag queens, and is on a first name basis with Scott – a relationship which I am sure developed purely because he never missed one of her shows.

Scott and Paige Turner – apparently I was a bit of a hit that night myself.

New York drag queens giving it all they’ve got.

Scott introduced me to a bunch of people as we mingled before the drag performances. It was here that I would learn that aspects of nightlife in New York are very different to Sydney – different from most places in the world that I’ve been to, now that I think about it. It’s not so much about certain venues or bars as it is about different events run by certain nightlife companies, which are held over a variety of venues on a weekly basis. Of course, there are dedicated gay bars too, but it’s very much a matter of knowing where to go on what night, depending on what you’re looking for or what you want to do. I think you could probably live there for years and still never figure it out, so I’m not going to pretend I am an expert or anything – this is purely just my understanding and perceptions based on my experience. When I was waiting in line with Scott, I was introduced to a guy named Bobby – he worked for BoiParty.com, the company that was running So You Think You Can Drag? – who was going down the line and signing up anyone who wasn’t part of the mailing list. Maybe it was something else, since it seemed like I had to give my details to even get in, but I didn’t mind, since I had no idea about what was going on in New York and would appreciate some email notifications about upcoming parties. I got chatting to Bobby for a little bit too, and he told me to add him on Facebook. He would end up being my go-to guy when it came to all things nightlife-related in New York.

After the shows had ended – the winner of tonight was a musical theatre queen named Sutton Lee Seymour – I headed back to Scott’s with a bunch of other people for a… ‘between events’ party? Post/pre drinks party? I don’t know exactly what it was, but I discovered just now non G-rated Scott’s life is. More absinthe was involved. The next thing I know I am at a bar called the Ritz, a place Scott was always raving about, which was the official, or maybe unofficial, after party for the previous drag event. The venue was pretty small and intimate, but the drinks were cheap and it was packed with guys and queens from earlier in the night. We danced, we sang, we made it rain dollar bills during the impromptu performances. Tipping drag queens was another thing that slightly shocked me, but I was coming to realise that the service industry workers who primarily relied on tips didn’t just finish in restaurants and bars and hospitality. It was something I would get used to during my months in the states, but right now it all seemed kind of awkward. At least, it did for me – the workers on the other end had no hesitation in taking my money.

Snapshot from one of my future nights out in New York City.

It doesn’t happen often, but that night I blacked out. When I woke up, I was lying on Scott’s bed, fully clothed except for my shoes, which I appeared to have kicked off and were sitting on the floor by the bed. There was another guy lying next to me, still asleep and also fully clothed. I had no idea who he was. Scott was sitting on the end of the bed, and seemed to be in the middle of a very serious conversation with what appeared to be a drag queen who had only gotten halfway out of her drag outfit from the pervious evening. When I stirred and tried to sit up, Scott broke away from the conversation and turned around.
“Okay, twinks, it’s 9am. I have to teach in four hours so I need my bed back.” I stared at him, comprehending but being beyond speech in my current state. “You can sleep on the couch.”
It was nine on the morning?! I should have just gone home but I wasn’t ready to face the day. Scott woke up the other guy on the bed, who I later learned was named Mat, and shooed us both out of his room, along with the drag queen. She left, but Mat and I collapsed on the couch. I had absolutely no recollection of ever meeting him, or why we we’d ended up on a bed together, even though we were fully clothed. We spooned on the couch so we would both fit, and I managed to get a couple of more hours sleep. However, I didn’t let myself get too comfortable, because I had somewhere to be.

Melissa had some family coming to stay with her that weekend, which meant I had to make myself scarce for a little while. So I had planned a trip out of the city to Washington, DC. Well, I had a cheap bus ticket and a Couchsurfing host lined up at the other end, which is about as much planning as I ever do. The bus was leaving in the early afternoon, but I had, in all my infinite wisdom, still decided to have an absolute bender of an evening the night before. Eventually I dragged myself out of Scott’s apartment and into the to bright sunshine that was Hell’s Kitchen by day, and ran back across town – with a quick pit stop at McDonalds – to pack my bag and head of the bus station. Melissa wasn’t around, but by this point of my stay I finally had my own key, which she had said I could hang onto until I was leaving New York for the final time. I thought I’d left myself enough time to get the bus stop via the subway, but by the time I got home, showered, threw all my stuff into my bad and got back to the station, I realised that I really hadn’t. I hailed a cab. We got halfway across town – the bus was leaving from a corner near Penn Station – when it started to rain. Traffic came to standstill. I ended up throwing some cash at the driver and running through the torrential downpour that seemingly came out of no where. Gasping and panting, I made it to the bus just in time to have my baggage stowed away underneath. Climbing aboard the bus, I made a promise to myself I would never be hungover on a day of travel again – it wasn’t the first time I’d said that, and of course, it wouldn’t be the last.

First bite of the Big Apple

Posted on June 16, 2014 by Tiny Tino

New York City is a pretty incredible place. You feel like you know so much about it when you first arrive, purely from all the movies and TV shows you’ve seen throughout your life (or at least, that’s how I felt), but when you’re actually there, you discover that it is so much bigger, so much denser, and so much more eccentric than you ever realised. It’s everything you thought it was, but also so much more. The people who live there are forever calling it the greatest city in the world, and while I personally wouldn’t be so quick to immediately hand it such a title, it definitely clocks in as a major contender. New York City and Melissa’s apartment would be my home for the next six weeks, acting as my base camp during my time on the upper east coast of North America.

***

While I was here on holidays, to explore the concrete jungle, Melissa had just started grad school, so in the morning when she set off for school in the Bronx, I set out to wander the streets. I guess it was that morning, when Melissa told me where exactly she was going, that I started to learn about the local geography that made up New York City. The five boroughs of New York City are Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island – any further east and you’ll find yourself in the rest of Long Island, and eventually hit the Hamptons. Cross any bridge to your west and you’ll find yourself not even in New York state anymore, but the state of New Jersey. Manhattan is the main central island that you see in all the movies, the real “city”, such skyscrapers and department stores and parks and… well, it has everything, really. The Bronx is north of Manhattan, considered a little unsafe but also hailed as the birthplace of hip hop. Brooklyn is the western tip of Long Island and a haven for hipsters and creative types, and Queens, just above Brooklyn, is the largest borough and a huge cultural and ethnic melting pot. Staten Island is south of Manhattan, and mostly just a residential area that honestly feels like a bit of a stretch when you try and say it’s part of New York City but whatever. That’s the most basic way I can describe it, but I’m not going to pretend like I learnt a lot about each borough – I spent 98% of my time in New York City in Manhattan. Still, it was interesting to actually study the map and the layout of the city, putting physical locations to names that I had been hearing repeated constantly on the television and in cinemas for as many years as I can remember. I finally understood what Gossip Girl‘s Blair meant every time she complained about the distance between Brooklyn and the Upper East side of Manhattan.

So while Melissa had to trek it all the way to the Bronx, I was already starting my day in midtown Manhattan, so that’s where I would begin my exploring on foot. Looking at maps of Manhattan, you would think that it would be pretty hard to get technically get lost. The streets running from east to west were all numbered with numbers, and with a few exceptions like Lexington and Madison, all the avenues running to tip to tip of the island were too. You just had to look at the street sign and any corner and then walk a block in any direction to see how the numbers changed in order to know what direction you were going in. It was so logical, and suddenly any reference to a number of ‘blocks’ as a measure of distance finally made sense – this was a city of revelations! ‘Blocks’, as such, in Sydney aren’t geographically even, so the concept of blocks had always been a little lost on me, but the way you could literally just use street signs to navigate through New York City was just remarkable. Or so I thought.

There are tricky streets that I think are thrown in just to purposely confuse people – the culprit in this particular situation being Broadway. Broadway is a street with a slight diagonal tilt that dissects the blocks unevenly, and if you follow it long enough it can be a little trickier to keep track of both how many horizontal streets and vertical avenues that you’ve crossed. Or maybe I was too awestruck but the city lights around me to really keep track. But really, can you blame me? I must have looked exactly like the kind of tourist I hate, dawdling along the footpath and staring up at the skyscrapers and the flashing lights of Times Square, but it was really was something incredible. It was my first day there, so I figured I should cut myself some slack.

New York, New York! The city was full of advertisements as well as skyscrapers.

Bright lights and traffic in the concrete jungle.

Couldn’t help but take a picture of this one for Matt back in Dublin.

And so I stopped into a Starbucks to grab some breakfast (when in Rome, right?), and as I headed back out onto the street I turned and headed in what I thought was the right direction. I mean, I was just continuing on the way that I was going before. My plan was to walk through the city all the way to Central Park – it would take a while, but I was in no rush, and I could meet Melissa there after she had finished class. But after a while I noticed that the numbers of the streets I passed were going down rather than up, which would mean I was heading south. Well, that’s impossible, I thought to myself as I carried on. I turned the right way, I’m sure of it. The numbers must just do something a little strange here. Yet as I carried on, I started to see a few things that were slightly familiar, and eventually it became clear that I was indeed walking the wrong way. I still honestly have no idea how it happened. I consider myself to be a very good navigator, and there were few times on my entire journey where I had been unknowingly walking in the wrong direction. I guess I got a little cocky in thinking that New York was a navigators dream, because all those distractions definitely worked on me.

***

There were other dangers that I found myself unprepared for, ones that make me cringe when I think back on them, but ones that I learnt from very quickly. Times Square is for all intents and purposes, a tourist trap. I should have expected that there were people who were up to no good and trying to take my money. Now I wasn’t mugged or anything – though I’m entirely aware that’s within the realm of possibility – but I think my sense of wonder forced me to let my guard down a little bit. All along select parts of Broadway were a lot of mostly African American men who seemed to be promoting themselves as rappers or hip hop artists, giving out demo CDs and collecting donations. One of them stopped me to comment on my t-shirt – the “I ‘Heart’ BJ” one I got in Beijing – and I was glad that the humour was finally being appreciated in an English-speaking country. He asked for a photo with me, and I obliged, and then he gave me a copy of his CD in a clear plastic case. Then he said something about asking for a donation or something to help him out. I couldn’t tell you his exact words, but he came across as a bit of a sweet-talking crooner – or a hustler, whatever – and I guess he seemed decent enough to spare some change on. Except I had just arrived, and didn’t have a lot of coins. The smallest note that I had was a ten dollar bill, which I wasn’t actually prepared to give to some random guy on the street giving out free rap CD’s – I don’t even really like rap music that much. I don’t know what I was expecting – I tried to say something about not having anything smaller, he cooly said something about change, but I ended up walking away rather confused and with ten less dollars in my wallet. It was kind of surreal. When I realised what had just happened, I was a little angry, but decided it would be a bad idea to make a scene of ask for some change from the $10 I’d given him, or try and get my money back at all. I just sighed and kept walking, thankful that the damage wasn’t as bad as the last time I’d been played by a scammer in China. And now that I think about it, I never even ended up listening to that CD.

I continued on to Central Perk, which is absolutely huge. I know people have always said Central Park is huge, just like New York City is huge, but just like I never realised how huge New York City really is, I never realised how huge Central Park is too! It’s not just a casual park in the middle of the city – it goes on seemingly forever. I wandered through the southern tip of the park, where there were kids playing, people walking their dogs and riding their bikes, other people jogging on their lunch breaks, horse drawn carriages taking people for a ride, and I even stumbled across a baseball diamond where a bunch of people were playing a game. I sat down in the shade, tired of my long walk through the city, before going to meet Melissa at Columbus Circle, the monument on the south eastern tip of the park. From there, she showed me probably one of the most iconic parts of the Central Park that was within suitable walking distance – Strawberry Fields, the landscaped section that is dedicated to John Lennon, with the Imagine memorial mosaic located directly across the street from where he was assassinated in 1980.

The Imagine memorial.

“There’s a lot of stuff that goes on here,” Melissa said as we walked around the rather quiet and solemn area of the park. “People come and lay flowers and roses all the time, and people play music a lot too.” On one of the benches was a man who was strumming a guitar, not too loud to be disturbing, but more like peaceful background music. Though I think he was homeless and the guitar was rather out of tune, it was still a touch that felt very authentic for New York. There was a sole flower bud that had been placed on the memorial that morning, and Melissa and I wandered around for a little while as she told me more things about the park and the city, as well as just hanging out and catching up some more.

We decided the head home for lunch, stopping at the grocery store to buy food for the empty fridge in Melissa’s new kitchen. So we took the subway home – and this is the final feature of New York City that I want to gush about in this post. For everyone who has been following my journey from the beginning, you will know that I am a bit of public transport enthusiast. I think most of it can probably be traced back to the subpar rail network in my own hometown of Sydney, but whether it was the MRT in Singapore, the BTS in Bangkok, the U-Bahn in Berlin, the metros in Paris, Madrid, Moscow or St Petersburg, or the tube in London, I was basically obsessed with these public transport systems that could take you relatively quickly across large distances within a city, as well as having services coming every 3 to 5 minutes on average. But now I was finally in New York, and I was getting to experience the subway for the first time. I’d been very impressed with London, but I think the New York City subway really in the Holy Grail of city-wide public transportation. Sure, it’s not always as clean as some of the other city’s metros, and you’re often packed in like sardines with commuters during peak hour and there’s a 50% chance there will be some kind of musician or other irritating person on the carriage, but aside from considering all of those things as hidden perks that give the system a bit of authentic New York charm, the subway covers some enormous distances in relatively good time. There are all kinds of connections running from east to west, multiple lines going up and down Manhattan offering express services as well as local ones for the smaller stops, there are connections to ferry wharfs and trains that go to Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx. No matter where you need to go in the city, there is a good chance the public transport can take you very close to where you need to be, and that was just something I wasn’t used to – there are parts of Sydney I’ve hardly ever been to because if you don’t have a car then it’s almost impossible. In this city, car ownership is practically considered a waste of space.

I still had a lot to see, and probably a lot to learn about the city. But I had only just arrived, and I had quite a long time to immerse myself in one of the biggest cities in the world. My brain was already exploding and I’d been in town for less than 24 hours, but I was sure New York hadn’t even begun to blow my mind.

Across the Atlantic: Arriving in Manhattan

Posted on June 8, 2014 by Tiny Tino

Having a seat on that afternoon flight to New York was a feeling of sweet relief that went unrivalled for a quite some time – the emotional toll on everyone involved during my last morning in Dublin plus all the unexpected problems with the flights and visas had made for a very stressful series of events. Even if it was amongst a group of rowdy and restless Italian teenage boys who were acting like they’d never been on a plane before (they definitely weren’t locals of Ireland so I highly doubt that was the case), a seat was a seat. In a way the long overseas flight between continents was kind of cathartic – travelling by train in Europe had always left things open to possibility and potential, and plans could change at the drop of the hat, but the long haul flight across the Atlantic meant that there was no going back. As difficult as it may have been, I had felt the feelings that I needed to feel, but then I packed them up and moved along. It was almost like leaving home again – there were definitely things I would miss, but the excitement of what to come was just too overpowering.

Since I had gone through the pre-customs clearance at Dublin airport, I didn’t have to deal with any of that when I got to New York. We landed at Terminal 5 of JFK, a domestic terminal, and after collecting my bag from the baggage carousel I walked out of the terminal and… that was it. It was so easy. Too easy, I would have thought, but seeing how quickly I was out of there, I guess the whole pre-customs clearance thing in another country makes a whole lot of sense. I navigated my way to the subway system, purchased the swipe ticket that would be my access to said system for the next six weeks, and started the long train ride from the airport to Manhattan. Thank God for express trains, that’s all I can say (even then it took over an hour).

***

And so I found myself in the main chamber of Grand Central Station, staring up at the ceiling and all around me at the great, cavernous hall. It was almost like having déjà vu – I knew I’d never been to New York City before, but I had seen this very scene countless times in movies and television shows, and the familiarity was somehow there. Just being there made me feeling I was in a movie myself – hearing American accents alone was enough of a novelty. But thankfully I wasn’t sleeping in Grand Central Station – I was waiting on a message from a friend, and as soon as I got it I navigated my way out of the station to the street.

Enter Melissa – co-star in this part of my journey and subsequently in many blogs that will follow. Melissa and I had met in Sydney when she had been there on an exchange semester. She was in the same philosophy class in which I had met Stefan (the three of us had been study buddies before our final exam), and from the moment she had struck up a conversation asking me about some of my tattoos – and showing off some of her own – I instantly knew that we would be good friends. We didn’t get to hang out too much off campus or outside of classes, but we had kept in touch when she went home, and when I had told Melissa about my plans to travel the world she had insisted that I come and visit her should I ever find myself heading to New York. Of course, New York being… well, New York, I had hardly needed a reason to include it on my travel itinerary, but the fact that I did have a reason made it all the more exciting. I scanned the opposite side of the street 42nd Street until I saw her jumping up and down and waving, and as soon as the traffic lights changed I rushed over to greet her.

“Robert! How are you? Oh my God, it’s been so long I’ve seen you!” Melissa is without a doubt one of the happiest and most loving people that I know. It had been over a year since we’d seen each other, or even really spoken in depth about our lives, yet meeting her there that night felt as natural as meeting an old friend I had known for years.
“I’m good! I’m great! Exhausted, but still great,” I said with a smile as I leant down to hug her – Melissa was a short woman. “I’m so sorry I’m late, the airport in Dublin was a bit of a disaster – I have so much to tell you!”
“Excellent, I can’t wait!” she replied with a smile. “You’re so lucky, though – I know I’ve been saying you could stay with me this whole time, but I’ve been in the process of moving at the moment… I wasn’t even sure if I was going to be in this apartment by now or not, but I moved in today – literally just got the keys.”
“Today?”
“Yeah, today! I was scared for a minute that we’d have to stay out with my mom in Jersey.” The impact of that statement was lost on me at this point in time, since I really had no idea how far away New Jersey was.

“But you’ve got it now, right?” I’m all about spur of the moment plans, but I’d had my fair share of them this morning in Dublin, and the time differences between here and there had made it a very long day. I just needed to lie down.
“Yep, it’s only a couple of blocks away. Follow me!”

***

Melissa’s new apartment was on East 39th Street, pretty much right in the middle of Manhattan. At this stage I still had no sense of where that was, or how big Manhattan was, or how big New York City as a whole was, but the geography of the city is actually both simple and fascinating – anyone who’s seen a road map of Sydney might understand – and something that I would come to master by the end of my stay. But for now, we were home.
Melissa introduced me to the doorman on duty as we passed into the lobby, stressing to him that I was just a friend who was staying with her for a little while. Brandon introduced himself, a muscular man with tattoo sleeves extending from his wrists up his arms and underneath the shirt he was wearing, and I almost squealed with excitement when he spoke with his Queens accent – it was just like the movies!
“The place is a studio, and I told them there’s only one person moving in,” she explained once the sliding doors had closed. “So it just looks a little odd that there’s another person coming in with all these bags.” She just giggled, confident that it wouldn’t be a problem. When we went through the apartment door, we walked through a small kitchenette and a bathroom before walking into the main room. It was a sizeable studio, and would have been very spacious… except that there was a lot of junk all over the place: stacked boxes, stacked tables, half assembled furniture.
“So, the reason I ended up getting the sub-lease for this place was because I agreed that the girls who were here before didn’t have to move their stuff out right away. They can’t get it out for a few days, so for now… well, it’s here for now.” There were a few things that were Melissa’s, but a lot of her stuff was back at her mom’s house in New Jersey, which she would bring over once the previous owners stuff was gone.
“I don’t mind,” I said as I plopped my bags down to soak it all in. “It’s kinda cozy.” I turned around to smile at her and found she was back in the small kitchen.
“Aww, yeah! It will be cozy! I’m so excited you’re here! Are you hungry?” There was leftovers of a thick, New York style pizza Melissa’s mother had bought earlier in the day, so we heated it up and I tucked into a piece of that. There was also red wine, so Melissa got out some glasses.

“To your new place,” I toasted, raising my glass once Melissa had poured. “And to living in New York City, baby!”
“I’ll drink to that!” she said with a grin, and she raised her glass to clink with mine. We pulled down one of the mattress that had been standing against one of the walls, and we sat on the floor with our wine and pizza and caught up and gossiped like school girls.
I also decided it was best to have a shower after the long flight, which led to the minor problem of us not being able to turn off the bath taps when we were done. Unsure what to do, Melissa ended up calling Brandon to see if he could help us. The bad news: the hardware in one of the taps had come loose, and we would have to wait until the next day for the building manager to come and repair it properly. The good news: Brandon was able to force the tap closed and stop the water flow, but it took him several minutes to achieve, and Melissa and I enjoyed the fabulous view of his butt in his tailored work pants while he was doing so. I considered it our housewarming gift.

It’s hard to believe that all this was the same day that I had had my airport emergency back in Dublin. My situation had changed so much that it was bare recognisable – I almost had to pinch myself. But such is the life of a traveller, and I didn’t dwell on it too much – eventually jet lag lulled me to sleep, and in the morning I had a brand new city to explore.

Hello Panda: Beijing Zoo

Posted on May 13, 2013 by Tiny Tino

After my first night in Beijing, I still had a full day before meeting my tour group at the hotel in the afternoon. I knew that once I met up with them, most of us would want to do the major things in Beijing such as the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square, so I decided to find something else to do that might not as be as popular among the group. After collecting a city map from hotel reception and studying a guide to the Beijing subway system, I discovered that there was a station not too far from the hotel, and also one located right next to the Beijing Zoo. Figuring it would be a quick and easy expedition to manage by myself, I set out into the streets again to tackle Beijing in the daylight.

***

Getting to the first station was a mission in itself. I thought I was going the right way, following the major roads, but I ended up at Wangfujing Station, which was in the complete opposite direction from my desired destination of Tiananmen East Station. It was only one stop difference, so I just considered myself lucky I’d found a station at all and descended into the underground subway system. Every entrance point has a security check and bag scanning conveyor belt, just like going through customs at an airport. When I finally made it down into the station, I tried to buy a ticket to Beijing Zoo Station. It took my a while to realise the fare for the subway was just 2 yuan – less than a dollar – no matter where you were going. The train system was also clean, fast and efficient, much like the public transport I’d used in Bangkok and Singapore, and I found myself internally cursing Sydney for still not lifting its game. I had one stop to transfer to a different line, but soon enough I had arrived at the zoo.

Given that I was in China, it was very clear as to what was the major attraction at the Beijing Zoo. On top the entrance fee into the zoo, there is an additional charge for admittance into the Panda House – the exhibit that in home to the zoos five panda bears. Once you make your way past the billboards of panda history – of which the English translation was almost too painful to read – and the scores of iconic panda merchandise, you can actually get a glimpse of the animals. I have to admit they are cute, and their colouring definitely lends them a cuter appearance and reputation that almost all other bears lack. Yet like most animals in zoos, they didn’t do a great deal. Even wild pandas are known for being particularly lazy, so I wasn’t surprised to find that all the pandas were either sitting by themselves, chewing away on bamboo, or sleeping. All around me were crowds of Chinese tourists, squealing with excitement and posing for photos with the pandas in the background, and while I appreciated the rare sight, I didn’t exactly share their enthusiasm. After all, for all that the bear was doing, it could have easily swapped places with me in a day in my life back home, and I don’t think anyone would have really noticed.

Eating panda.

Sleeping panda.

***

The rest of the zoo was, to be completely honest, quite depressing. There were some nice sculptures and some beautiful scenery, but on the whole the zoo was quite dirty. A lot of the animals exhibits looked quite inadequate too. While the pandas were treated to luscious floral fields, I found wolves who were living in no more than a red dirt landscape with a few burrow holes, and no real space to run around. One on the two pools in the polar bear exhibit was a foul green colour, though one of the bears did put on a bit of a show swimming around in the other, less filthy body of water. The highlight of the whole complex was probably the aquarium – obviously newly built, and incurring another entrance fee of its own. It provided the chance to get particularly close to some of the marine animals, though again I wondered if there was adequate space for some of them – four turtles circled around a small, shallow rock pool, seemingly trying to mount the rocky walls and escape. There was also a show with the beluga whales and bottle nose dolphins, and though I couldn’t understand any of the commentary, I watched and enjoyed the tricks that they performed, including synchronised jumping, and one of the animal trainers riding a dolphin like a surfboard.

The wolves in their less than adequate exhibit.

Polar bear swimming in the cleaner of its two pools of water.

Turtle almost trying to escape from it’s exhibit.

The dolphins still seemed quite enthusiastic about life, at least.

Synchronised jumping in the dolphin show.

***

I’ve never known how I really feel about zoos. I know they play important roles in the conversation of endangered species, but I sometimes feel great sympathy for the poor animals locked away inside less than adequate exhibits. When I visited the Western Plains Zoo in Dubbo last year, I learnt that some of the animals that won’t breed are castrated to keep them under control. I was horrified – I pictured some science fiction scenario in which humans were the animals in a zoo, and myself being castrated because I refused to mate with the other female “animals”. I found it a little disturbing, and have ever since found it hard to pinpoint where zoos stand on my moral compass. Pandas might be content to sit around and eat and sleep, but my heart goes out to those captive wolves, locked in a glass box when they should be running free in the wild.

Tiny Tino's Travels

Just a boy trying to find his place in the world

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