Nuevo Narcocorrido

So yesterday afternoon began my attempt at transcending my Playstation 3 Rock Band stardom and actually playing the real guitar with people again. A good friend who I played in bands with from literally age 11 to about 17 (just picture four 6th graders rocking out in a band called 'Kamikaze'. Yes, that was us) plays bass and is a full-time musician in the city. After telling him about getting laid off, he brought up us playing together and I was definitely excited at the prospect.

He just acquired the keys to some studio space located actually near me, so we met up around 1pm. I hadn't carried my guitar around in a gig bag in ages and hate admitting it...it felt AWESOME. The studio was an interesting deal: apparently someone owns the entire building, the first floor is a performance space, the basement is the practice area, and the top few floors are apartments that are rented out. Apparently Jeff Buckley was living in one of them right before he died...now that his hipster cred.

It was great playing again in a semi-band situation but the sad realization was my playing stalled somewhere in 1998 whereas Chris has definitely evolved for the past ten years, which I guess would make sense as he actually is a musician. To compensate, we went right back into covers of a bunch of 90s songs like Smells Like Teen Spirit, Patience, etc. The basement was freezing and occassionally I'd have to put my hand directly on the tiny space heater just to get it warm enough to play...again, more hipster cred. From trader to starving artist trying to play in a freezing basement studio in a matter of days.

The other great introduction of the afternoon; when I asked Chris what other music he's been playing, a friend of his from Mexico recently introduced him to Narcorrido music. Apparently there's a genre of Mexican music that romanticizes drug dealers as the modern day cowboys, and draws up 'corrido' music which is the music of classic Mexican ballads. Apparently they're trying to take these old songs and make rock versions of them. Nuevo narcocorrido...it's all I listen to now.

Compliance, it's Everybody's Business

Who knew? All those awful compliance exercises about money laundering we'd have to sit through and complete or else be reprimanded by management; who knew it'd come in handy?

This might be very obvious, and maybe I was just blinded by wishful thinking, but I nearly fell victim to a craigslist scam:

I am trying to sell a second guitar of mine (a Gibson Limited Edition Flying V Silverburst if anyone has any interest) and advertised it on Craigslist. Someone responded a day later indicating they wanted the guitar, were located in Washington State, but would send a certified check and arrange for a pickup/shipment.

Sounded great and I was happy to have the transaction essentially over with. The check then comes with a corresponding email from "craigleo2000@gmail.com" indicating that his "secretary screwed up and sent a check for $3200 that should've been divided up for a few purchases". I should just cash the check and send the remainder to the recipient of the guitar via Western Union:

Anncy Graziano 

51 Amherst Ave

Waltham, MA 02451

Now, having been trained by the Bank of America Compliance Team, the number of red flags this raised was innumerable. Did a quick google of Ms. (or Mr.) Graziano, and apparently a student at UMass Medical....seemingly credible.

The check actually came. It looked legitimate, but my anti-money laundering training had me very suspicious. I continued to email craigleo, asking for either a phone number to contact him, or for the number for the shipper so I could organize the pickup properly.

After much resistance, he just emailed me back saying I can contact the shipper at "fastshippinguy@yahoo.com". 

After already giving up on the transaction, a quick google search led me to the a whole post about this scam.

After the recent Facebook "London mugging" scams, I am convinced the entire Western Union business model is based around money scams from Nigerian princes, London muggings, and Craig Leo. Anncy Graziano, if you're an innocent victim in this, I wish you the best. 

Morning Realizations

I've noticed that the first hour or so of my day is spent still in bed, but surfing all the same news sites, financial and political blogs, and sports sites that I would've while at work, but now instead of sitting on my chair I am just on my back all morning. Basically, I switched from trader to prostitute (but what's the difference? HEY-O! that joke brought to you by the Taxpayers for Common Sense)

I also realized that in the last 4 nights I've slept about 40 hours. In the past in a full week on average I'd say I slept exactly around 40 hours. Does that mean I can now just not sleep til Sunday night and my body will adjust fine? I mean, it is Thursday; others will start going out now.

Musings over the #B6 Basil Chicken

One of the little things I realized I had never partaken in while in NYC is just a plain and simple lunch special at a restaurant. The reason being for the seven years I've been here, we ate lunch at our desks every day, and on the few occasions  we'd go out for lunch with clients, etc. it would be to a fairly fancy establishment. I feel of all the tasks on my agenda, this surely must be one of the more accessible ones.

I went to Pad Thai where I saw the sign "Lunch Specials starting from $6". I got the Basil Chicken, extra spicy, which was in fact $6 and came with a choice of appetizer, from which I chose the Fried Dumplings.

Some thoughts:

- What exactly is in a Thai Iced Tea? I dont really want to look it up because they are just so damn good and I dont want to see a composition of ingredients like "pure and unadulterated heavy cream", sugar, sin, more sugar, maybe a drop of actual tea, and half and half. But of course I had one of these with the meal

- An interesting group of people around me. Down the row was a group of "The Gays" (as this is the heart of Chelsea) getting absolutely wasted on Bellinis. Oh, the Gays...how you make my neighborhood so much more lively.

- Directly to my right were two people who looked very goodfellas-ish, and still using Nextel walkie-talkies. I didnt know they even had those anymore. More importantly, I did realize the first thought that went through my head was "I wonder what those guys are up to?" But I then realized that was more borne of the idea that anyone who has time to go sit down and take an hour lunch is "obviously not working hard enough, so must be scamming".....oh, how work had warped my thinking.

- I also see two women with their children in strollers next to them chatting away. These must be the stay-at-home mom's who meet up over Thai food and walk their children around the neighborhood. Why do they look younger than me? Could they be nannies or au pairs? Or could it be that I'm almost 29, and yes, there are mothers younger than me.

- The food is absolutely amazing. If you are ever looking for quality food at a very cheap price, in a setting that makes you feel somewhat "New York-y", I'd strongly recommend the "Gay Chelsea Thai District". I dont know how they all survive, but there's four places (Nooch, Pad Thai, Room Service, and a new place I think called Shilom) that all have great food, drinks, decor, and a lively scene and are inexpensive all within a few blocks. I guess there is one fundamental truth in life: "The Gays" love their Thai.

Spanish'ing

I have just commenced Season 1 of Mad Men....with Spanish subtitles. The show is amazing, let's see if this also will count as homework.

February 3rd, 2009

My second INSEAD interview has been delayed yet again, now moved to tomorrow. Hopefully I can just get this over with successfully as it's been delayed now three times.

So my new task: learning Spanish...and as this is a somewhat cliche endeavor, I am excited by a new method my roommate pointed me in the direction of by the guy who wrote 4-hour Workweek, Tim Ferriss. The basic synopsis is: completely absorb the 300 most commonly occurring words in print, and then study the language and additional vocabulary through an area of great interest. In English apparently the 300 most printed words constitute about 65% of printed literature. Basically, rather than learning through the grammatical way they try to teach you throughout high school that you forget instantly, you effectively learn in a similar manner that you learned your native language, and most importantly, you learn in the context of something you're genuinely interested about. I spent the afternoon at Barnes & Noble going through a book list of the most frequent Spanish Words and put the top 300 words into an iphone flashcard program.

Of course the weather sucks today and its a major blizzard. I dont anticipate I'll be leaving my apartment anytime soon. Starting my studies by watching a full replay of the Chelsea v. Liverpool match from Sunday on Fox Espanol. Suddenly homework is fun.

A few days late

So as with most of my attempts at blogging, I have naturally been thoroughly unproductive on creating entries. However, a quick recap for my own records:

Last Thursday night went and saw Kings of Leon at Madison Square Garden. Decent show and have never seen so many attractive, hipster type girls at a large concert. I think we know who are the current 'it' band. I will be obnoxious and say, they were a lot better at the Bowery Ballroom in 2003. Yes, I said it.

Weekend was a lot of drinking. I guess the main difference now with weekend and weekday is suddenly there's just more people texting you about what you're up to. Hopefully I can build out my network of daytime people. 

Sunday was an amazing Superbowl. I hate the Steelers but dont really have any love for the Cardinals after they made it and the Pats didnt after that Week 15 game. I won my bet (line was Steelers by 6.5, they won by 4) and it was a great game, so I really can't complain. I do love me that Larry Fitzgerald.

Monday was gorgeous out. Over 50 degrees. Of course I was sitting there thinking "man, if every day is like this, this could be the greatest two months of my life" only to see snow and freezing temperatures in the forecast for the remainder of the week. C'est la vie, I got some errands done and made it back to the Bhangra class. Also spent a lot of the day sitting outside in Union Square and Madison Square Park on my computer and reading. I am a little disappointed as I thought both parks were fully wi-fi enabled, but it doesnt seem so.