The Adventures of an Illegal Alien Part4

How I miss the lower east side. One of our coolest friends was Pete. He played bass in a well known band at the time and had an apartment on 14^th near 3^rd Ave.

Pete had a roommate, his name was Greg. Greg was hilarious, one of those typical, cynical New Yorkers with extremely dry humor. The sky was always fallen, doomed to be a slave to the grind struggling to make it with his music, hating his day job and life in general yet always displaying a little smirk while complaining. His music was pretty cool and I wish I could remember the name of the band. It was very NYC lower east side rock’n roll.

Well back to Pete. His apartment was very typical of Manhattan; small; the bathtub and sink were in the kitchen, a tiny shitter, yes, just a toilet in a room big enough to fit one in it; two small rooms. Pete was super cool. He used to wear a lot of kilts or tight jeans and was a total punk. He had bleached blond short hair, always leather clad with a ton of belts and buckles and dock martins.

We had such a Blast with those guys. Pete called his flat the “Freak out Pad”. How appropriate. He looked like a bad ass, actually a little like Billy Idol, but deep down he was the sweetest most generous guy you could ever meet.

One of many nights we went over to the “Freak out Pad” for some “home made” (fresh out of the can) deep fried beans, rice and chicken fajitas. Apparently that was Pete’s specialty and he loved to cook it. We brought some beers and the party began. The food was delicious, something I’ve never tasted before. I loved it, I remember it being pretty spicy; we told Pete it was delicious and something we could get used to. He had this big grin on his face and was extremely proud of his cooking.

Since Pete was signed to a major label, he’d pretty much get CD’s thrown at him all the time, so while we listened to music, we’d go through the CD’s and start sorting them out by “This Sucks”…”Got to Go” and “Pretty Good, we’ll keep it”.

I love NYC apartments, they might be small but they have a ton of character, you look out the window and always see a fire escape. He was on the top floor and his window overlooked a huge roof. So every CD that didn’t make it went out the window onto the roof.

We were laughing our asses off. This must have gone on for an hour or so, after a while we even tossed the once we kinda liked because it was way too much fun. The roof looked messy to begin with, apparently; we weren’t the first to think of the roof as a way to get rid of unwanted things around the pad, lol.

Many beers and a ton of laughter’s later, it started to escalate so much so that Pete decided the CD Player has to go too, hahahaha. And out it went. I don’t know what else we through out there but my stomach was hurting from laughing so hard.

Pete had this really cool skull that I loved and at one point he was about to toss that out too. Noooooooooooo I yelled, I want that; and mine it was.

It must have been around 4 am when we decided it was time to go back to our lovely hostel on 20^th. So, we headed out walking drunk on 14^th, laughing, me with my skull under my arm.

The area can be a little spooky at times but I swear no one dared to mess with us.

Cheers to the good times at the “Freak out Pad”

xoxoxo
JVB

The Adventures of an Illegal Alien part2

There are a lot of strange people in NY. We met quite a few of those.

Sarah and I were strolling through Times Square when we caught the attention of a man in a space suit and his camera. He wanted to know if we'd be interested in being on his show. What show? It's about New York and people who come here to make it, models, musicians and actors. Of course we are!
How cool? We are new here; let's get our face on TV. So we went with him and his friend to his studio somewhere uptown. Yes, we just jumped in the car with them. Again, I felt like I was in a movie. His studio was all set up, the lights went on, and we started dancing and singing, doing our thing; joking; introducing ourselves to the camera telling him about us. We had a blast.
It was sweet and short. I have no clue what the show was called. It was some local TV show. For someone new to all this, it seemed like a big deal.
He referred us to a guy who was looking for models and set us up with a photo shoot.
We went to the photo shoot; things were cool in the beginning. It was more of an apartment set-up than a photo studio. He had a pet, a monkey; I've never seen a real monkey other than in a zoo. It was a bit strange. The guys seemed a little weird but cool.
We didn't feel a 100% comfortable but we both decided that if things don't turn out to our liking we will leave. After all, we have a choice.
We took a few shots posing for the camera. It was harmless. He really liked it, we took a break and he offered us a drink which we declined. He didn't like the fact that we didn't want to drink but accepted it. Yes, we are pretty adventurous, pretty trusting, maybe even naive but we are not completely stupid. He had a drink, then asked us to shed some clothes, be more provocative; do something a bit more exciting.
While I could understand his excitement, two hot German girls getting it on while he's got his lens on us (keep dreaming buddy); I didn't like the idea. I don't mind posing sexy, in a bikini, even topless or nude if it's tastefully done on a pro level, in a pro studio. I love my body. I have no problems showing it off. But something about that whole place started to smell fishy; I didn't like the vibe or the direction this was taking. (I should've trusted my intuition from the start)
After telling him we are not into it he stopped taking pictures and started drinking, playing with his monkey, no, not what you think. His pet monkey. It became very creepy and red flags went off in my head. What the hell are we doing here? Why are we here? We told him, we had to go, grabbed our stuff and left.
Wow, that was uncomfortable.
Fortunately, nothing happened to us. Obviously, we never spoke to that guy again, nor did we see any of the footage.
I consider myself very lucky. Not once did it cross our mind that someone could actually harm or hurt us.
I would not advise any girl to do the same thing; however; I believe that as long as you don't focus on the bad stuff; the bad people out there, you won't attract them and as soon as you get into a situation where you sense a feel of danger; you act immediately and remove yourself from the situation.

Looking back, that was pretty stupid yet hilarious at the same time. Can you tell we were adventurous?