Chumley's (another novel)

Well another one of many late story's from the island of Manhattan. It wouldn't be a trip to New York without going to one of my favorite bars, Chumley's. This was only my second time there, but I was just as impressed with it the second time as I was the first. My first time I was brought there by Cerone and when we got out of the cab at the corner he pointed down the closely lined apartment buildings and said alright its over there. What, where, over there, where only apartment buildings stood. As we started to walk down the block it sounded and looked as though one of these Greenwich Village residents was having a party and as one person came out of their apartment and the door shut behind him showing a great old wooden door with a gold 86 on the front and a metal gate over the small window, Cerone said alright go on in. It wasn't an apartment at all. I couldn't believe what a great place this must be. I could only assume, if the outside was this great what was the inside like. As we entered you immediately walk up a few steps still not really being able to see what you are going into. After walking through a second doorway you can now grasp what this place really is. As you look across Chumley's standing atop the three stairs that lead into the seating area you can really take in the old feel, its like you are in back the 1920's. The first section you see is for people trying to grab a bite to eat. The whole area is covered in packed booths with waitresses running around trying to serve everyone. I wasn't here for the food so I walked through this section to get to the center room. Here they have a few small tables but it is mostly a standing room. The bar is along the wall and behind the bar coming straight out of an old cooper wall there are taps serving only Chumley's special brews. Every beer is brewed by them, but they do have quite a nice selection, red, amber, pale ale, stout, they have what you need. In the center of the bar is a statue of a bulldog which is there representing the marines, somebody must have been a marine because there was memorabilia like that all over. Sitting on a ledge above the taps there is a pint of beer and above that beer is a giant picture of a fireman. When asked what the beer was for the bartender said, "for him" and pointed to the picture, Cerone then asked, "when do you take the beer down?", "when he's finished" he replied. This was not the only representation of firemen, it was all over the bar along with the entire history of the neighborhood and Chumley's. There are pictures of many authors, artist, and poets among them Ernest Hemingway. There books, in the original covers line the walls, this places walls are in themselves a history lesson. After trying all their beers we decided it was time to leave and the way we do that is of course through the back door which leads into an open courtyard which I am told was an old stable, then out through a gate and out you come onto a street around the corner from where you went in. This place is especially famous because of this back way out. Supposedly during prohibition when this bar was a speakeasy when the cops came knocking on the front door everyone would sneak out the back, leading to the phrase "they 86'ed the cops". I love Chumley's.

pics here

Its Late, But Still The Greatest Game Ever

I cannot begin to describe how lucky I was a couple of weekends ago, not only did I get to go to New York and hang out with great friends but I was able to get to go to the friggen Bears vs Giants game at the Meadowlands.

Ok, so on game day we get on the first bus to Jersey and we are off. Its Nell, Cerone, Joe and I all out of are minds excited about the greatness ahead of us. It was a slight warm rain when we left, so Cerone and I were obviously wearing bright orange ponchos. When we get there we are let off right in front of the Giants stadium.

Pat is sitting with a friend of Garrs so we go looking for their tailgate tent. Joe and I were lucky enough to get tickets through a co-worker of Cerones who amazingly wanted us to go over him and his friend, Nell we were hoping to find a ticket for outside the stadium.

While Cerone was on the phone trying to find his friend in one of several ridiculously huge parking lot by having him describe the way to go, a man walked right by Joe and Nell..."Got one, anyone need one". What? Thats doesn't happen, we need one, we have been off the bus no longer than 10 minutes and we already have someone selling just one ticket, this is to good to be true. So, Joe tells him yeah we need one, but how much is it going to cost, (they were on stubhub.com and other sites for over $250 a ticket) well amazingly the guy says "face value", that being $75. This was getting better every second, but it could be a fake even though the guy look straight, but then he says yeah this ticket is right next to me and my friend I will see you in there. The guy had season tickets and just wanted to get his money back for the extra one . We gave him $80 and started to walk away but he was addimint about giving us the change and when he could only find 4 he said he was going to go back to his tailgate site and get the dollar, we new this guy was legit. We all had tickets now and no longer had to worry about that. The game day was off to an amazing start.

So since this place is huge and Cerone and his friend were not having any chance of finding us the right path, we stood next to a huge sign and had him come get us. When we get to his tent we meet his hilarious New Yorker crew and started grillin. They had a little habachi out there along with some chairs and a cooler full of beer. We brought food and beers also but nothing like these guys had. They had brought not only burgers, but also they had a cheese and meat platter, and a huge one at that, and also a tray of homemade buffalo wings, which were not suprisingly delicious, they are New Yorkers.

Ok, ok, food greatness, tailgating greatness,...I'll get to the game. When walking in everyone was going in around the same time so it was just a huge crazy wave of people trying to fit in through not enough gates. The jokes in the crowd and the general atmosphere was fun , but I really wanted to get in. Before going in Cerone left and went with the NY crew. Nell, Joe and I were now on our way in and we were about to split till halftime, back at the tent we decided that it was probably better that Nell and either Joe or I sat together and the other sat in the solo seat. I went solo first and we were going to meet back at half and switch. Outside the gate Joe and Nell went up and I went down, what lied ahead I had no idea. I did however know that I was going to be sitting by myself, a Bears fan, in the middle of the G mens house.

I walked to my area which took forever, I think it was at the other end of the field from where I was. I got to my section as I looked down the stairs towards the field in amazment I quickly glanced at my ticket, row 4, I looked at the top row it was something like 40, as the math poped in my head I almost jumped for joy and then once again looked down the stairs, but this time I counted up four rows and almost died. I walked slowly and in aww taking in everything around me as much as I could while still being pushed down the aisle by other fans trying to get to their seats. I was in the Meadowlands and I had seats to the Bears Game and I was sitting four rows up on the Giants side next to the end zone.

Once I got my bearings I sat in my seat took a couple of pictures the game began. At first I was a little scared the first quarter was just ok and Rex was really not that impressive, Rex threw an interception that was ran back to the 1 yard line, and then the easy score. The Bears retaliated with a Robbie Gould kick, but going into the 2nd quarter down by a score I was a little nervous. Some of my nerves may have come from the insane, shouting, yelling and swearing Giants fans all around me. In the second quarter there was not a real big improvent by the offense but the defense was doing all they could to stop every Giants drive but twice they had to let up field goals. The score was now 13-3. After that there was the Rex I had seen glimps of in the past games and right before the half Rex throws a nice little touchdown pass into the corner of the end zone. Halftime, 13-10, Giants.

At half I went up to meet with Joe and Nell. As soon as half came Joe called, "Louie where is your exact section, we will come meet you." When they finally met up and saw the greatness of the seats they couldn't just turn around. They said there seats were at the top of the stadium in the end zone and there was not Bears fan in site. Well since the day was obviously some how going in our favor every time, turns out there were two empty seats directly to my right and when I asked the guy who sold the tickets if he knew who's they were he said we could take them he didn't know where the people were.

So now for the whole second half Joe Nell and I sat in the fourth row in amazing seats. The Bears came out of half time with a quick score with a pass by Rex to "Moose" and then after another stop by the defense the Bears scored again with a short pass to Desmund Clark. The score was 24-13, now the Giants fans were gettin real angry they wanted everyones head, the coach, the QB, and the left guard, but before the 3rd quarter ended and not before a lot of the NY fans left they scored a touchdown, but the momentum was still in the Bears favor. And to start of the fourth quarter the Giants came driving down, but the Bears held them to a field goal and a long one at that, 52 yards, the kick went up...short, and in the hands of Devin Hester. He waited a second and then, he was off he ran with blocks by Hunter Hillenmeyer, then somehow the next 2 amazing blocks were also by Hillenmeyer. it was amazing from the back of the end zone Hester was flying all the way down the field and in a matter of seconds it was over Devin Hester had just tied the longest score in football history tying Nathan Vasher a cornerback for the Bears who got the record last year. The game and the night was going perfect.

The Bears would score again only minutes later, but the damage was done, nobody could recover from that and as the time dwindled down and the Giants fans left the stadium, I could only look around at the empty seats, Nell and Joe and thank God for how lucky I was that somehow Cerone got me tickets and that I was in New York and had just been to the greatest football game ever.

The Halloween Party

More great pics Here

Grupo Di Amici

IMG_3143, originally uploaded by Manufacturer.

This place is a hidden gem, it is right next to the Morse L stop in Rogers Park. They make brick oven Roma style pizza and they do it well. The oven has to be over 10 feet tall and is the centerpiece of the restaurant. They have a great wine list and a surprisingly large amount of food, I mean you would think the pizza is there bread and butter, turns out it is only a small part of their menu. There appetizer were phenomenal especially the buffalo mozzarella. We all split some entrees along with three pizzas which was more than enough food. We had pork chops and potatoes, along with veal ravioli and the pizzas. The food was delicious and there was nothing I could complain about. Hope to be back soon.

New Flickr Pics

More here

RevoFuel

Here is a website worth checking out, RevoFuel. It is a "nonprofit organization dedicated to expanding the marketplace for energy efficient products" which is very much needed concidering the way in which our country is headed. Anyways I will let you read it for yourself and make your own decisions, but do check it out, http://www.revofuel.org/wscraft/page.php?id=90.

Some Wines

Some wines I have been drinking lately that are really, really good,

Cusamano
Colonia Las Liebres
Caldora
Nino Franco

And yes of course they are all Vin Divino Wines, what can I say Ryan is good at pushing his product.