Hey Taxi - McDougal & Bleeker!!

A few weeks ago a friend and I escaped to the City to see a small concert by an A list band. After trying to be cool (with no real success), we decided to call it a night at about 11:30 on a Monday night. That's when he whistled only like a grandpa could with both fingers in his mouth at a taxi that had stopped just in front of the hotel. He grabbed me by the coat and we hopped in the taxi. He yelled to the driver in his East Hartford accent "McDougal & Bleeker".

I stopped and looked at him and said, ok - we're back by 12:15 at the latest. He smiled and said "sure". We landed near McDougal & Bleeker and hit a slice of pie and then tried to find a club that was hopping on a cold December Monday night in the Village. Any club would do. (Well not any). We were about to go into a bar when I asked the bouncer whether it was hopping or not. He gave me my ID back and said "man, there ain't shit happening here. You want action you have to go to the Black Pussycat". I looked at my friend and he was two steps in front of me headed back down the street. On some weird quest we were to find Adam Duritz from the Counting Crows who lives in Washington Square.

We head in and I settle nicely in a booth enjoying what I think is the last beer of the evening at nearly midnight. My buddy disappears and comes running in and tells me I have to check this out..It's a karaoke lounge and it's packed. Ok, I am NOT a karaoke singer at all. I was blown away at the professional singers that were taking the stage. My friend tried to convince me to embarrass myself, but no can do. We sat there awestruck and waiting for Adam to show up, but he never came. Who are these people that sing and where do they come from. We sat there just in amazement and watching. When the DJ announced that they were only open until 3am, we realized our age and the fact that we needed to find our beds on a Monday night....

I'll save the other details, but just know that there was passing out in a return taxi that left us in the lower east side far from our hotel, walking through the NYC Housing Department's finest projects in the middle of the night and a few other acts that neither of us will ever talk about.

And we never found Adam :(