Our fair city has been known as the Concrete Jungle, the Asphalt Jungle, and even the Lipstick Jungle. I still to this day do not understand why those yahoos at NBC canceled Lipstick Jungle, way to go geniuses, way to go. Cashmere Mafia was one thing, but Lipstick Jungle, you blew it dudes. Anyway, it’s not a stretch to say that the City can seem like a zoo. After all, who can begin to count the amount of crazy monkeys we’ve sat next to on the train, the irate apes we’ve dealt with at the office, or the grouchy grizzly bears that we can all be sans our morning cup, or two, of overpriced Starbucks cafe (sidebar, at $5 a pop, do you think they secretly slip a roofie of liquid crack in the Colombian blend? I’ve often wondered). Apart from movies and T.V. shows, even stores promote the image of New York being a city full of predators. A recent trip to the Alexis Bittar store, a jewelry store located in Soho, displayed a full grown adult male stuffed lion (pictured here, unfortunately not pictured are his majesty’s giant stuffed cojones that are still intact), which made me think that we New Yorkers are a competitive lot vying for precious resources, be it space, a rent stabilized apartment, a table at the newest hot spot, admission behind the velvet ropes, single straight emotionally available men (assuming they exist and aren’t some mythical urban legend), or the perfect pair of our favorite designer shoes or jeans at a sample sale in our size. Bottom line, it’s a jungle out there!

Even in its quieter moments, the City can at the very least seem like we’re all cooped up on an animal farm. Who hasn’t felt like cattle being herded into the corral while getting on and off the subway during rush hour? I particularly feel that way when I randomly find myself Uptown and walking off of the 86th Street station on the Lexington Avenue line, sometimes I feel like all that is missing is a lasso and a branding iron. Although I’m a fan of cowboys, I’m not the biggest fan of tattoos so I’m rather thankful that no cowboys are on the loose armed with branding irons. Although the Naked Cowboy in Times Square is a whole other story!

With friends in town from L.A. who had brought their 4 year old daughter, I thought it was the perfect opportunity to suggest a trip to the Bronx Zoo. At first, I was afraid that they would want to spend a larger part of the day there than I did, but I’ll be the first one to admit that I was like, “um, do you mind if we could also squeeze in seeing the tigers and the gorillas?” They almost had to restrain me from walking out with a stuffed animal at the gift shop. I’m surprised that I was so into it, having just gotten back from Africa and all, but the Bronx Zoo rocks! I’m ready to go back. Any takers?

For a smattering of what’s available at the Bronx Zoo, I’ve included my first youtube video. If you hold out and watch all the way through, you’ll see actual film footage at the end rather than still footage. It’s not Tribeca Film Festival worthy and I’m sure I won’t be winning any awards for cinematography anytime soon, but I hope you enjoy it and come with me on my next trip to the Bronx Zoo (it’s sure cheaper than a ticket to Africa).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uiiMbx_0oc

This weekend a college friend of mine, we’ll call her, “J,” was visiting me.  The weekend started out innocently enough.  We headed to the Boat Basin for lunch and then onto Central Park to enjoy the absolutely gorgeous New York summer like weather and the half naked men.  There was a little chillaxin time thrown in before we headed to dinner at Café Cluny in the West Village followed by stop offs at Waverly Inn, The Spotted Pig, Employees Only and Cabana (where the bouncer was sweet enough to let us cut the line…I’d like to think it’s because we were charming and beautiful, but it’s probably because he took pity on us since by that time our dogs were barking and we needed a cocktail and a seat). My goal was to take “J” to places known for celeb sightings, but we didn’t have any such luck. All in all a busy, but fun night and entirely on the up and up.

Today, however, was a bit of a different story.  Again, we were blessed with fantastic weather and “J” and I set off to meet “K” for brunch in Noho and shopping in Soho.  She had stated that she wanted to purchase um, a discounted “designer,” bag.  As any New Yorker knows rather than trying to locate Africans that are FOB (fresh of the boat) who walk around wheeling dollies loaded with giant boxes with blankets draped over them in midtown (seriously who are they kidding, everyone knows the boxes are filled with fake fendis), the natural choice would be to go to Chinatown and do business with the illegal FOB Chinese (I know this because I’ve spoken to people in the Chinese community who have told me that all your DVD sellers, your sellers of “Rolexes” and “Pradas” are illegals, but that’s a fascinating story for another time).  So, we knew we were going to have to make our way down to Chinatown post brunch. 

So, after popping into some art galleries and high end boutique jewelry store (BTW, what is up with Alexis Bittar’s current collection? Not a fan) and with “fakes” on the brain we just so happened to stumble upon Babeland and our search for “fakes” started a little earlier than anticipated, if you catch my drift single ladies (and ladies with crap boyfriends/husbands…hate to burst your bubble boys, but the consensus among ladies is you frequently don’t get the job done…someone had to say it).  For those of you not in the know Babeland is a special store for ladies in particular (I warned you this blog would at times be a bit “tawdry,” but I figure if Marie Claire can talk about Babeland so can I).  I will leave it at this to say that one product was apparently featured on Oprah (that shocked me…the $185 price tag was also a bit of a sticker shocker) and for those environmentalists out there who hug trees on Earth Day instead of loving the one you’re with, there are ecofriendly toys available for purchase (I kids you not)!  Since when are “good vibrations” bad for the environment?  I shudder to think what the Beach Boys would say.

Where it all began to get a little "seedy."

After spending sufficient time in Babeland largely getting a kick out of certain products and getting slapped around by “K” who kept testing out accessories on me by beating me with them (I’m amazed we weren’t kicked out), and trying to figure out what the point of some of them were, we headed down to Chinatown which is where the story gets interesting.  I’ve been down there thousands of times and have been approached and asked if I wanted to buy a bag, I never do, so I always say no.  Well since one of the members of our crew did, we said yes.  And although I’ve heard of the rumors of back rooms, false walls, and the like, I’ve never cared to explore them so I’ve never been seen them in action…that is until today when I became a passive observer of the criminal underworld.  I can confirm that the urban legends are no longer just legends, but will be forever legendary for the 3 of us.

So, at first we were approached by some guy who then radioed on his walkie talkie to his “business partner” and we were escorted to a van with tinted windows where a Chinese woman was sitting inside with lots of “product” and some odd power source for light (I think she had a battery for the sole purpose of hooking up this handyman’s type light).  We crawled into the van and she shut the door and locked it and gave us three stools to sit on (the proper seats had been removed so basically we were in the perfect child molesting kidnappers car).  Not being in the market for anything myself and along purely for the investigative journalist story potential and while the others were examining the merchandise, in the back of my head I was thinking, “ok this is how it happens…this is how we’re going to be sold into white slavery and end up on a slow boat to Moscow or some other European or Asian country where kiddie porn and S&M reign supreme and we’re spending the rest of our lives in the red light district getting addicted to heroin to get through the day and doing the “me love you long time” routine to married men there to support the sex tourism industry.  It’s a good thing we don’t have our passports on us.”

Luckily we got out alive and were quickly approached by someone else.  I should mention that this is a highly organized operation and they all communicate by walkie talkies and have look outs (I’ve heard they can shut down operations, i.e., hide the goods, quicker than you can say “does this say Prada or Prado?”).   Which begs the question do they ever have to say in Cantonese on their walkie talkies “can you hear me now?”  I have always thought the bag people and the DVD ladies were super easy to spot (it’s like spotting European tourists in Time Square or on Fifth Avenue, which is to say easy) so I’m not sure why the fuzz hasn’t put the kibosh on this with a sting operation, but who knows. 

Although we visited several shops three stick out in my mind.  One is literally in the subway system.  It’s behind a locked door (security is uber tight at these places). I wonder if the NYC transit authority knows this is going on. 

The second shop was a highly sophisticated outfit where we were passed off to various people via the walkie talkie system and walked about 5 minutes from our original location and were let into a locked store that was the money laundering “front” for the real money maker.  It totally looked legit.  It was a dress shop (kinda one of those everything is $15 and under shops)…the girl walked to the back of the wall where boxes of men’s shoes were located…selected one pair of men’s shoes and NO JOKE pressed a secret button in the shoes and a door opened.  I was like OMG, WTF, those are totally inspector gadget go-go gadget shoes!  I thought I imagined it but when we passed on the selection of the products and came out empty handed (a common theme of the day), another guy asked us if we wanted to see another room and he used the go-go gadget shoes too to get in.  Incroyable!

This was the closest I could get to go go gadget shoes.

The third store that stuck out in my head did so only because there was a sign that said “we are not responsible for lost or stolen articles. ”  I thought about writing graffiti style “no, but you sell them.”  I would’ve loved to have taken a picture of that, but I figured considering the circumstances they’d probably freak out if I whipped out my camera (these days I’m refusing to leave home without a camera). 

Anyway, no laws were broken as no purchases were made, but it was sure one heck of a fun day!  And to think the Italians were basically driven out of Little Italy as an effort to break up the mob only to be taken over by a highly sophisticated Chinese outfit.  Oh and if you don’t think there’s a Chinese mafia that exists then you need to google the deaths related to the rival el cheapo bus services from NY to Boston. 

So there you have it my first foray into the word of the Chinese underground.