Stephen Baldwin es el Diablo

It seems I picked the wrong few days to visit NYC as it’s the United Nation’s Everyone Gets a Platform Week in the Big Ap. This has meant that every cab ride comes with a complimentary tirade from the driver about how screwed up traffic is and a lesson in how that guy over there can grow fuck hisself. And don’t get ‘em started on the UN. They really don’t like it when the cops tell them that this block is “frozen” because Chirac may be having lunch nearby. He’ll also inform you about how your trip form the airport is taking away too much time from him getting other fares and how you have to get out here because he’s not going to drive to where you’re staying and have fun walking the last 6 blocks to your hotel.

A wiser choice would have been to come during last weekends Fashion Week when the city was rife with models and Lohan’s broken arm. Sure the same streets would have been shut down, all the cabs used up and the same number of people vomiting in the UN bathrooms but it would have been tall leggy women instead of these haughty diplomats with their musky odors. Or even better, NY would have combined this United Nations Day with Fashion Week into some sort of wondrous black Escalade, tinted windowed vamp out. What’re Mischa Barton and the Bolivian President Evo Morales both doing in that huge motorcade with a 10 motorcycle escort? Who cares, but they’re both wearing that same ugly assed sweater!

Several VIPs were staying at the Waldorf Astoria which meant more “frozen blocks.” I have never stayed at the joint but I did stick my nose in once after meeting someone nearby. Might you be interested in hearing a humorous anecdote about what happened during my visit? Because I have one.

The Waldorf is rather fancy with layers of plush carpets on the finest quarry marble and many gilded ornate things. As I was breezing about one of the busy main floor throughways, admiring the wedding I would never want, I could not help but notice a man with a video camera, walking backwards, pointing back at the man next to me. I also could help noticing that this other man was Stephen Baldwin. One of the lesser Baldwins but a Baldwin none the less.

The man with the camera inquired Steve what he though of New York and Baldwin replied he liked it very much. Next he was asked his impression of the hotel. Steve looked around at the chandeliers and Tiffany lamps and finger bowls but seemed at a loss for words. Fortunately for him, I was there with my 4th grade British school boy’s vocabulary.

“Hey man, how would you describe this place?” he asked me, squinting his eyes the same way he does when he’s being a serious actor*. “It’s pretty posh,” I replied.

“Yeah, man, posh,” he triumphed, turning back to the man with the camera. “This place is really posh.”

I quickly made my leave, letting Steve finish his single-syllabic interview without help.

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Also, I saw John Rocker on TV yesterday, for some reason. I always thought he looked like someone had kidnapped Stephen Baldwin and subjected him to the Captain America super-serum project. And while they were able to make him bigger and stronger like Steve Rogers, they also hoped to make him dumber, racist and extra cross-eyed. The sound was off on my TV but from what I could tell from his T-shirt he was sporting the experiment was a success.

*He may have also given me that face where he tilts his head down but still tries to look up at you. That means he’s serious. Or if he talks in a scratchy, more quite voice. That’s his thang.