Three Idiots

The weather is finally shaping up, and it is supposed to actually be hot this weekend. We'll see.







After breakfast in our room, we headed down to the W. Village and went to Unoppressive Non-Imperialist Bargain Books. We like small NYC bookstores, and we had never visited this one. They specialize in out-of-print books, but stock only ones they like, including a large stock of R Crumb anthologies, art books, and other jewels. We spent some time looking around, bought a few small and cheap items, and then headed to Union Square. I know, Strand's is better, but we wanted a large bookstore experience, so we went to Barnes and Noble, and bought some more things.





Naturally, searching for books makes one hungry, so we stopped by Blue Water Grill, a very stylish restaurant that used to be a bank. I had a Cobb salad, and Margie enjoyed a thai-style sushi roll with crab and shrimp in it. We both liked the sunshine, dining al fresco with all sorts of NYU students walking by.






After all that work, we subwayed back to the hotel for a rest. For dinner, we decided to go Argentine, and dined at the Chimichurri Grill. We ordered just one course, but it was substantial, and we had two sides. I had a ribeye. Margie had grilled short ribs. My plate is pictured with our sides, Broccoli Rabe, and crispy garlic and parsley french fries. It was all very tasty!











































Finally, it was time for our daily show, American Idiot, the musical based on the Green Day album of the same name. It was loud, the book was almost non-existent, as they relied on the words of Green Day, and the set was very urban, with TVs everywhere spewing the them of the moment, and, in short, it was brilliant. Now maybe if you don't like Green Day as much as we do, you wouldn't be as impressed. But we loved it. The story concerned three guys who upon reaching their early 20s, decided to set out and claim the world as their own. One quickly became disenchanted, and joined the military, being sent to Afghanistan, and...well you can guess what happens to him. Another meets a girl, and things are going so well, and then he takes up drugs. The third doesn't make the road trip at all, mostly sitting on the couch drinking beer during the entire show. Meanwhile the hard working and talented ensemble belted out Green Day lyrics, occasionally played guitar, and danced frenetically in a punk style. Good stuff. And there was one acrobatic scene that was almost dream-like. But I won't spoil it like the Village Voice did.





Which brings me to the 3 idiots. Oh you thought I was referring to the show? No, afterwards we went to the ESPN Zone bar in Times Square. There I met two Redwings fans, who were nice for being Redwings fans from Michigan, and that is saying a lot. But the Sharks won, and they went home unhappy, I'm sure. The other idiot was a guy who decided to take advantage of the ticker that went around the top of the bar, and outside too I think, to ask his girlfriend to marry him. Dude, a sports bar, really? We all congratulated him, while watching our various games. But the whole time, we wondered if she would actually go through with it. Dude was crying, and saying how much he loved her, and in general slobbering all over her and her new ring. And with that, we subwayed back to our hotel for the night.