About a year ago, I stumbled onto Nile Rodgers’ Twitter account. Yes, that Nile Rodgers. I can’t remember how it happened. I remember him talking about how he was recently struck with cancer. He was in treatment, after surgery, and spoke about his doctor-prescribed daily walking therapy. The part that interested me is the way he narrated his daily walks. They were spotted with “we did this here” and “that was recorded there”. Of course, these references were always about some of my favorite soundtrack-to-your-life artists.

Of course I knew of Chic, Nile’s band along with Bernard Edwards and Tony Thompson and the ladies. I remembered roller skating to them on Friday nights and dancing to them in my room as a young teenager. I knew of Nile’s far-reaching producing efforts (Madonna, Duran Duran, Diana Ross, David Bowie, Sister Sledge) and of course Bernard and Tony’s crucial contributions in Power Station but it wasn’t until reading his daily blog, and seeing wonderful vintage photos, that I realized how extensive Nile’s musical reach was into the fabric of the soundtrack of my life.

Last year when I was going to spend a long weekend in New York I thought “How wonderful would it be to run into Mr. Rodgers on one of his daily walks?” We had batted a tweet back and forth, about what I can’t remember, but he did start following me and I always appreciated that. The accidental meet up never occurred, unfortunately. Probably because I was way downtown in Chelsea and not waking up until the afternoon and I think Nile is up on the Upper East Side somewhere. And judging by the pictures he took of him bundled up from the cold on his daily walk, it seemed he started pretty early in the morning. No worries.

Tonight, I saw Nile post a tweet to Miss Jody Watley (swoon) about loving to play on her new album. I noticed he accidentally made a typo (@ jodywatley instead of @jodywatley) and I realized she wouldn’t get the message. I retweeted his tweet, correcting it so it would show up in her feed. This is what he sent back to me:

What a helluva guy. Maybe one of these days I’ll be in New York and accidentally run into Mr. Nile Rodgers and I would love to shake his hand. Shake his hand and say “Thank you, sir”, thank for all the wonderful music you have given to me.

You can read Nile’s Planet C blog here and his homepage here. You can also purchase his autobiography, Le Freak, (which I haven’t started reading yet) here.

Be well.

It’s Tuesday now but here’s the rundown on Monday in NYC.

I woke up to the sound of the city going to work. Across the street from me appeared to be a printer or some service bureau and I watched them move around for a while, wondering if they were complaining about it being Monday. Then I noticed it was raining, which wasn’t good news since I did not bring an umbrella with me. Then it actually started snowing for about a minute.

I checked out of the hotel (while they held my luggage) and headed down to SoHo to visit my last AS (BOH tour!) and also to check for a new wallet at Yellow Rat Bastard. Couldn’t find one that I liked.

Then I headed over to Record Runner to have a talk with John about the version options of Duran Duran’s All You Need Is Now which is actually releasing today in its full version. He’s going to look into some of the UK versions which have additional songs and get back in touch with me later this week.

Then I kinda just bummed around the Village until it was time to pick up my luggage and head up to Penn Station for my train home. Luckily there were none of the power outtages that delayed my trip up and I was home on schedule in Union Station at 10:40.

Technically I’m no longer in New York, but this is more of a wrap-up than anything. So I think I left off with Sunday morning?

Sunday I started a little late, but that’s a little indicative of nightlife in New York: one doesn’t wake up to early. So I went out. I had decided that I wasn’t going to take any public transpo’ anywhere, no cabs, but then realizing that I wanted to go up to the AS UWS that it would be a hike. So I trained it up there, did a great BOH tour and then ventured to 5AV and did a most excellent tour there, led by an Expert. #geekawesomeness!

From there I took Franklin’s advice and headed to ViG 27 which is an awesome lounge bar on the east side. There I had delicious cilantro gimlets and black raspberry cosmos.

Heading back to Chelsea Inn it was time to do some reassessment and from there I decided to watch a little tv and then pass out. Maybe I missed out on some unique NYC stuff but at least I got a full nights sleep out of it.

So what did I get up to last night?

Getting into town a little later than I anticipated put a damper on things; by the time I was settled it was time to go out and I didn’t have much assimilation time. No worries.

I decided to start my night by going to the AS at W14 and they showed me BOH! They didn’t even ask for credentials which I thought was a little odd but chalk one up for honesty.

I stopped at a street truck vendor and got a $2 beef taco it was so good I had to go back and get another to stash in the room for later (one beef, one pork). Then I ventured out for some nightlife: Gym Bar, G Lounge and Ty’s. I had thought about recreating the blargcrawl from a couple of years ago and then decided to go visit the local joints. After these couple of spots it was about 1:00 or 2:00 and I know that’s early for a NYC Saturday night but I had been up for 20 hours and going on six hours of sleep, twas lullaby time.

So what to do today? Definitely a stop at Record Runner since they’re closed tomorrow. High line? The Met? AS UWS?

Well I made it here. There weren’t too many delays with Amtrak after we got north of Balmer, hon. Still, arrived over four hours late. The sun is just starting to lay itself down on this island as I walk to my hotel. I decided to walk because I was so happy to be getting off of that train that I didn’t want to get on another one. The walk was only 15 minutes.

After checking in I make an inquiry into my new neighborhood to find some New-York-hotel-staples: apples, bananas, nuts, bagels, cheese, juice and vodka. Eating breakfast/lunch in the room, as well as having walking around food, and doing a little frontloading is always more economical. So now I’m decompressing a little before going out into my Saturday night.

I’m staying at the Chelsea Inn, a place I’ve never staying before. I usually stay on W 83rd but this will be much closer to everything (most things) I’m here to see and do so I took a chance. My room is cute, clean on the 2nd floor with a view of the street. And inexpensive plus free breakfast from Nana’s Treats shop in the English Basement!

I would be doing a liveblogging of this but since WordPress isn’t playing nice lately, this will have to be the way to input it.

When I travel to New York City I am more than happy to take of the super-inexpensive buses that provide round-trip service. They’re not that bad; the biggest nuisance being cramped for space (leg room, personal space). Train travel is referred because of its spaciousness plus the ability to walk to the club car or even use the bathroom with relative ease.

The tickets I got for this weekend’s trip were pretty outstanding. I had a $28 voucher and price for one-way was only $49. So instead f spending $40 for a bus roundtrip I spent $72 for my roundtrip tickets thinking it would be a little more comfortable.

Mistake.

My train was scheduled to leave Union Station at 9:25 putting me into NYC at 12:45. Pretty good, right? I’d have the entire afternoon to enjoy.

Due to electrical problems on the overheads from DC to NYC there were outages all up and down the line. So we ended up not even leaving Union Station until the time I was supposed to be arriving. Then there were more delays at our first two stops. I might be able to make it to the city before the sun goes down but I’m not putting any money on it.

And the cafe car is almost completely out of food. I had planned on eating lunch in New York once I got there but since I’ll be on this train until almost dinner time I had to get whatever slim pickings they had left. You would think they would refresh the club car in Baltimore or Wilmington or something. Very poor service and a bad day for Amtrak in my book.

From brendee, whom I met doing the fabulous 2007 New York City Blarg Crawl.

Here are some of the pieces I designed for Tiki 6. The Memorial Day Tiki party is hosted by friends Chris & Jeff at their beachhouse in Rehoboth. This year’s numbers of 6-6-6 almost took on a demonic theme before it was scaled back to “Are you a good tiki or a bad tiki?” The 6-6-6 comes from the sixth party, six is their house number and six o’clock was the party’s starting time.

The pieces are, clockwise from top left: back of t-shirt, cocktail labels, elevator sign (yes, the beachhouse has an elevator), front of t-shirt, back of invitation, front of invitation, “bad tiki” sticker sheet, “good tiki” sticker sheet. All work is original and created in Illustrator. Printing was done through Vista Print, with the exception of the elevator sign and cocktail signs which were printed using a home printer.

11:52 // I’m trying to stay in bed until the last possible moment before our 1:00 checkout.

1:04 // We’ve all checked out our hotel, checked our bags for the day and are cabbing down to Chelsea to have some brunching gnoshes at Viceroy, 18th & 8.

4:38 // Waiting outside Madison Square Garden for the bus.

5:00 // No electrical outlets on the megabus.

5:23 // Goodbye, New York!

8:24 // Passing thru Balmer, hon, now. Or rather around. We are not on the two-level Megabus like we had hoped. This is just a regular ole bus like the Chinatown buses, and that means little or no legroom. Eddy, sitting next to me, is 6′-6″ so it’s a little cramped. For reference, the Bolt Bu on the way up had about three inches of room in front of my knees; they have removed a row or two to space them out and it’s really nice. Definitely would recommend the Bolt with two thumbs up. Plus Bolt has electrical outlets to charge your electinics while you’re using them.

This bus has made a stop at a mall above Balmer to drop some people off and now I’m sitting in the two front seats directly behind the driver so at least I can stretch out for an hour or so.