HellaFrank

Well, sorta. Last week, LaunchSquad had its end of the year meeting and party and I put together a little video tour of the New York office with the office boss, Gavin. Check it out:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YBO7SUwvDU&rel=1]

I heard this song called “SF Anthem” last time I was in San Francisco (where I currently am now), and it’s definitely grown on me. I think the mixture of San Francisco rap and Summer of Love music (Scott McKenzie’s “San Francisco”) sums me up perfectly — a rough urban childhood and upbringing by former hippie parents. Of course, West Portal is no “HP” or “Fillmoe.” Click play below and have a listen:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4GvlYfmxiM&rel=0&color1=0xd6d6d6&color2=0xf0f0f0&border=0]

Took another trip to a deli here to get some latkes, or, potato pancakes. My roommate got this thing called a pastrami burger which I took a picture of because it was pretty remarkable. The fact that he ate the whole thing made it even more impressive. It’s a burger with pastrami on top. Overkill? Yes. Delicious? I can’t imagine it wasn’t.

I saw this on a marketing blog I read, and it made me laugh. It’s kind of like putting Jose Cuervo on sale for Ramadan or Filet Mignon on special for Diwali. Gotta love it…

Well it’s the second day of Channukah and snow is falling, so I’m gonna go out on a limb and call it a white Channukah… Pretty exciting! I guess the odds of having a white Channukah are 8 times what they are of having a white Christmas, right? I wish I had that argument in my back pocket as a kid when I’d argue with friends about whether Channukah or Christmas is better. The eight days of presents was a pretty good one though… Of course, I haven’t really gotten eight days of presents since about the age of 10, so that one’s out.

I went to downtown New York for the first time last week for a meeting and could not stop thinking that I felt like I was in a movie set. It all seemed very surreal for some reason. No cars, old buildings and churches, small winding narrow streets, some of them cobblestones, the New York Stock Exchange and the actual “Wall Street.” These pictures don’t do it justice, but you get the point.

Wow, October 12 was my last blogpost, terrible. My apologies to those loyal HellaFrank readers. I spent this last weekend in Madison for a party a client was having. I went to a Badgers football game against Michigan — unbelievable football fans who know their football. They were getting upset about the backfield formations and offensive linemen forgetting to shift on an end-around… WHAT?!?! I thought I knew a lot about football, but this humbled me. Look at all the red, it’s insane! Literally every person wore red, it was awesome. Yet another experience that made we wish I went to a real college. Go UCSD surf team!

Some very important people came to New York this weekend… the 49ers, my friend Jared from San Francisco and my cousin Marc. I thought we should all get together at some point, so we decided to go to the 49ers game against the New York Giants.

It was fun to go to a new stadium and see New York sports fans at their finest. There was a guy in front of me that was literally pulling up the leg on his shorts, stomping his foot and squealing like a pig when the Giants returned a fumble for 72 yards. I wish I had video, because nothing I can write can do this guy justice.

Here’s a picture of me and Jared. If you look really closely in the background you can see the embarrassing score. As you may be able to tell, we may have had a drink or two too many last night:

Sorry for not writing for a while — a lot going on a lot of fun being had, but I didn’t forget about you loyal HellaFrank readers!

Since I got to New York, I’ve been eating like a ravenous beast. Everything I’ve had is pretty damn good (anyone heard of Manchurian food? It’s a Chinese/Indian mix, fantastic). Anyways, the most gluttonous eating I’ve done hasn’t been at dinner or brunch or any regular meal. It has generally taken place between the hours of 2am and 4am and represents some of the most amazing eating experiences since I got here.

When people stumble out of bars here and want a late-night snack, the question isn’t “what’s open?” Instead, you will more commonly hear “what do you want to eat?” What I mean, is that the choices here at that time of the night/morning are amazing. I have seen sandwiches, tacos, pizza, halal food (see below), Jewish delis, hot dogs, giant pretzels and even knishes… yeah, 24 hour knishes. I’m sure there are a ton more I haven’t seen.

Personally, I have hit up the pizza, tacos and halal food and it’s all pretty amazing that time of day. For those who do not know what halal food is (as I didn’t when I got here), it’s generally a cart on the corner that cooks chicken and lamb and puts it over rice or in a pita with white and/or red sauce. Yes, they call it white and red sauce… What’s in it? Who cares, it’s incredible. I ate some at about 4am on Friday night and was not hungry until about 2pm the next day. The best part is that in a city of $12 drinks and $20 hamburgers, it’s refreshing to get painfully full for only four bucks.

The number of stores and restaurants that are open 24 hours is remarkable, but there is one that takes the cake. A block down from me is a hardware store, open 24 hours. I mean, I guess I can understand needing a plunger or something at a weird hour of the night, but this is a full-on hardware store, four floors. Are there people that just get the urge to pick up a table saw at 3 in the morning? I guess so. Personally, I’ll just wait till tomorrow morning to pick one of those up.

For those of you who have spent a lot of time in New York, let me know in the comments what your favorite late night places are. I welcome all suggestions!

I love New York accents. I’ve heard them in movies before and seen people on TV talking with them, but now I’m hearing them all for the first time for real.

First day here, I walked by construction worker — hard hat with an American flag, Italian guy, smoking a cigarette. As I walked by, I caught one small snippet of his conversation when he said, “Hey, dat was like two or tree days ago!” Not a misspelling, when I said “tree” I meant “tree.”

Since then, I’ve heard them all — Queens, Brooklyn, Long Island, Staten Island (and a few dirty Boston accents mixed in there, not so much a fan of that one). Basically my dilemma right now is trying to decide which one I’m going to adopt. They’re all great, but I’m leaning toward Queens. Not sure if I’m badass enough to pull that off though.

So, I defer to you, which accent should I adopt? It will take time to get it down, but I think I can do it. Maybe I can consult Frank Caliendo, the most amazing impressionist I’ve ever seen — if you’ve been watching the MLB playoffs (AKA, the Cubs getting spanked) you know what I mean. Here is a video with a bunch of his impressions… Incredible, brilliant. Make sure you watch the Bush, Madden and Deniro ones:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAMIlPudalQ]