Sunday, 20. July 2008

In the morning I move to Brooklyn to stay with my other friend Peter. For the obvious reasons, let's call him Peter Ka.

Now, Peter Ka and I go way back. Back to 1996 and my first US trip actually.

I was staying with a friend from Sarajevo, Bosnia just outside Pittsburgh. One day we decided to check some talk on socialism and religion or something of sorts at the Carnegie Mellon university in Pittsburgh and noticed a couple of guys with some cool Punk patches on their bags. Soon we made new friends.

Their names were Andrew and Peter, and they had a radio show at the college radio. I gave them some Goodwill releases, they invited us at the show and we kept hanging out for the next few days.

Then a year later Peter came to visit me in Rome and we had some great time there getting locked inside some ancient Roman ruins amongst other things. We've never lost touch, although our communication suffered the usual laziness and the amounts of being busy and not keeping in touch because of that. But a few mails a year almost always happened, besides finding each other at different virtual communities like Friendster or Facebook (that I still confuse, by the way. most probably cos both start with an F).

So Sunday morning I take a cab to the west village to join Peter Ka and his friends at a very crowded brunch. I tend to forget people's names, but I remember Jose. He's a young architect from Santiago de Chile who just moved to New York City from Minneapolis. He has a few interesting stories to tell before we all walk to take the train home.

Peter Ka and I get to his flat in Brooklyn. Wow! What a place!

It's a two level apartment in a wooden building in the heart of Brooklyn (better known as Williamsburg) with the kitchen, living room, two bathrooms and a storage room at the bottom level and 3 rooms and one more bathroom at the top level. Behind the house there's a small garden (where I planted an avocado without telling anyone!) and in front of the house there's a little patio with the gate. Peter's room is the biggest of three. Not only it's the biggest, it's actually gigantic. At least 30 square meters (or over 90 square feet, for you Americans) if not more.

We hop on bikes (his roommate has a Schwinn that he doesn't care much about, so I get to ride that one while in NYC) and head to an empty swimming pool to watch some bands playing. Emma, Viktoria and Scott are already there and we watch a couple of bands (one of them is Liars, the other I forgot the name of and the one we missed is called Team Robespierre) together, before Peter Ka and I head into exploring Williamsburg on bikes.

Peter, me, Viktoria, Emma in Williamsburg, NYC. Photos by Scott.

It's actually a very nice and extremely diverse neighborhood. From the hip and trendy, student populated area around Bedford and the North 4th, 5th, 6th... Avenue, to the Hasidic Jews' neighborhood just a few blocks away (south of the Brooklyn Queens Expressway) to the black neighborhood further up Bedford street.

In the evening, I meet Emma and Viktoria at White Ginger, a vegetarian restaurant in Williamsburg. With them there's this young couple that has just moved into the area. His name is Briton and we discover to have at least 10 friends in common. Not only that. When he asks me for the name of my label, he says "I've heard of Goodwill records before. You've released someone big, haven't you?". Well, we haven't released anyone big, but it turns out that he's best friends with the Damage Done who we released a split 7" with a few years ago. That's why the name of the label made him think it must've been someone big. I guess it was just familiar in a different way.

At home (Peter Ka's place) we wait for "Ben". "Ben" (not his real name, although it makes sense to call him Ben as I've never heard his real name before) is a friend of Peter's roommate's friend. Or better, he's a friend of his roommate's ex roommate, if that makes more sense.

In reality, neither Peter nor his roommate (who isn't even at home a the moment but rather on the other side of the world, exploring China) have ever met "Ben", but his roommate's ex roommate has asked Peter's roommate to ask Peter if "Ben" could stay there for a few days.

"Ben" was supposed to call in the afternoon, but he hasn't. We both worry what may have happened to the guy.

Finally, at around midnight a taxi stops and "Ben" arrives.

"Ben" is about our age, not very tall, to put it politely and despite he comes from London, he doesn't have English accent at all. I ask him where he was from and he says "Kosovo".

Ha! We exchange a few sentences in Croatian and then chat until it's really late and makes sense to go to bed, especially for the two that have to work in the morning. Not me.