WELCOME TO NEW YORK!

A dear friend of mine is taking his teenage daughter to New York City for the first time today and it got me thinking back to when I visited New York City with my father back in 2003 when I bought him a holiday with my friends and I for his 60th birthday.

I can still remember my dad's surprise upon opening the birthday card I'd made for him that day and how he took an hour or two to process the reality of what we were doing together.

Looking back now, I'm so glad I took him on that pilgrimage to the place that had defined so many of our shared cultural interests.

2nd March 2003

Leaving Heathrow against the backdrop of a huge military presence at the airport due to concerns of potential terrorist acts in retaliation for the developing war in Afghanistan post 9/11, it didn't exactly feel like the most auspicious timing for a pre-spring break, I must say.

Nevertheless, once you're up in the air and you've said a hail mary or two you try and put geo-political events behind you and focus on more serious matters - like what in-flight movies are available to watch.

I succumbed to some dumb blockbuster or three while I found my dad enjoying a film called The Man From The Elysian Fields starring Andy Garcia and Mick Jagger on a perpetual loop. It seemed like the kind of film that didn't get the kind of distribution it had originally hoped for and ended up with an airline bargain basement deal instead where unsuspecting passengers would stumble upon it, like my dad. There's a whole genre of lost films that most people only ever see 35,000 feet above ground. This was one of them.

I've always wondered what the Elysian movie was actually like. Maybe I'll finally get round to watching it someday.

In-between watching trash and eating trash, my mind drifted toward thoughts of how much the New York City of one's dreams projects itself onto New York City in reality. To what extent do we persuade ourselves of the magic of a place before we arrive there and how much of it is actually real?

New York City had always been to me a combination of Gershwin, Scott Fitzgerald, Woody Allen and Scorcese movies, to say nothing of the Tin Pan Alley poets of Broadway and all the great history of jazz practitioners in the place.

We arrived later that evening at JFK airport where we were expecting to be picked up by a man called Dante after I punched in the dodgy looking free telephone number on a public payphone.

"You didn't book us into Dante's Inferno did you?" one of my wise cracking travel companions suggested jokingly, though I could quite well imagine some run down motel with such a name, the sort of bad visual gag you would find in a sub John Hughes comedy rip off.

The whole arrangement with our own NYC lessor/ferryman had something off about it which was further confirmed when Dante finally appeared in a black tinted windowed SUV - the kind terrorists or bank robbers might use in a Michael Mann  movie.

"Welcome to New York boys, hop in the back," he said in a breezy manner ill suited for a villain.

My stomach seemed to be signalling to my brain that now was the time to panic but nevertheless our fate was sealed. We'd come too far to turn back now.

Driving across Manhattan Bridge, the city looked Gotham-esque as I wondered how bad this situation might get. What potentially gruesome outcome awaited us at the three level duplex I'd booked for our vacation stay, I wondered?

Turning to face us in the back, Dante lowered his voice and instructed us to go and check out the duplex before coming back down to his SUV to pay him the money for our stay in hard cash.

"Okay, boys. Parking round this neighbourhood is a nightmare. Go check out the joint and then come down and pay me money. Make sure its all properly counted, if you don't mind."

At this point I just figured we were actually in a real life gangster movie and Dante (though appearing relatively benign) was actually some kind of urban kingpin taking unsuspecting English tourists to places he didn't even own.

Regardless of my panic, myself, my dad and our three friends all went up to take a look at the place.

"Where are the beds. I only see one bed!" I shouted hysterically in a Gene Wilder kind of manner.

"Here you go!" said one of my pals, pulling out a murphy bed from the wall.

"Here's another!"

On auto-pilot, I checked the money and went down to the street to pay Dante down in his van; he drove off in haste, leaving a cloud of grey exhaust fumes behind, similar to those two dodgy looking parking valets in Ferris Buller's Day Off.

Back at the Duplex, I did a body count to make sure all of my fellow travellers were still with me.

"Maybe we should count our fingers just to make sure," quipped one of the group.

We left the duplex soon after as I'd reserved a table that evening at the famous Blue Note jazz club in Greenwich Village.

Going to the club by way of Grand Central Station, we marvelled at the cathedral-like space as I remembered that beautiful scene in Terry Gilliam's The Fisher King where city commuters all break into dance at rush hour.

As it was a Sunday evening, everything was naturally much less busy and so we were able to enjoy the Beaux-Arts design of the place (almost entirely to ourselves) without huge amounts of human traffic.

Jet lagged and recovering from the episode with Dante, we finally made it by way of a Mexican restaurant to our table at the Blue Note.

Sitting in the low lit place, I noticed the boys were hanging a bit, tired from all the travel and logistics with the duplex.

I ordered a round of beers as we waited for the main act to start.

And as if by magic, the band all took their positions and started up with a high tempo piece preparing for the main act soloist who was currently nowhere to be seen.

"Maybe he forgot to pay Dante," one of the gang suggested, raising a half smile from me.

And then then he appeared, looking like he was on the brink of a major heart attack as he wheezed and coughed, holding onto the banister rail leading to the stage for dear life with a shiny trumpet in his hand.

It was at this point most of us weren't sure whether we should alert the staff to call an ambulance or stay in our seats at our table.

Finally reaching his spot lit destination, the trumpeter balefully looked around at the audience before he brought his instrument to his lips and blew a note so loud and hard, it almost blew all of our ear drums out in one.

The sound was like a thousand sirens and the history of jazz fused into one massive scream of noise.

Noticing the boys all looked wide awake now, I proudly exclaimed ...

"Welcome to New York!"

To be continued ...