…Sacramento, actually, but yours truly just returned from both. I had only visited the former at age 20, for 24 hours. It badly needed another look. Now, I’ll save DC, a city I lived in for 10 weeks in 1976 for next week. Here’s my personal update on The Big Apple. It is is not so expensive. At least not for food. Ubiquitous delis offer an excellent selection, fast service, reasonable prices and very tasty food.

Hotels, conversely, were full – probably the falling dollar superimposed on Spring Break. My nephew called 44 – NONE had vacancies. He started to call his list on the cell over again (I called it the dumbest idea I’d heard) then hit on the first try. The Howard Johnson’s 3 blocks from our location at Katz’s deli in lower Manhattan set me up with in a basement room slightly bigger than a walk-in closet for $332. Luckily a colleague was visiting so the next two nights involved splitting a room – around 50th street, mid-town – with space bigger than a closet.

NYC’s changed from 1973. Duh, what hasn’t. But I did miss the ad blowing smoke rings in Times Square. Sad; it was in a hundred movies – but gone too are the sleazy joints that used to line it like Market Street’s fleshpots. That is good – even if its more a tourist theme park now. Huge signs and neon were everywhere. Manhattan is a canyon of steel and glass, and a cold one at that, but the stereotype of a pulsating, humming city is a palpable reality.

I got a tour of “30 Rock” seeing where Ackroyd and Belushi once did SNL – and where the current crop of stiffs continues to go thru the motions of comedy. In the NBC commissary, butt of so many Johnny Carson jokes I signed a publicist to help promote this show. More on that in future blogs.

A few blocks away I got a tour of Sirius Radio’s headquarters courtesy of former KDVS GM (and KZFR DJ) Steven Valentino. Howard Stern was not in the house, but he does have a mini-empire staked out in the building.

The Museum of Natural History was great. Steve and I admired a couple of busts of the Emperor Caracalla, he of Roman Baths fame, and were entertained by the sign noting that his legs were in the mezzanine. The Egyptian collection was equally good. And note: the mosaic from Antioch (ancient Roman Syria) is better than the ones currently on display in modern Antakya, Turkey.

The Staten Island Ferry provides a fine view of the Statue of Liberty – free. I recommend it. Don’t ask me how the funding works, but what a deal for commuter and tourist alike.

A walking tour of Brooklyn was fine too. Movie-backdrop views with open air. It felt like Miami in parts. More good food – they even do Mexican well. As the evening evolved I was abandoned by nephew and roomate alike who had other agendas. This left me needing to make my way back to midtown post taco dinner while notably inebriated from sangria.

The added challenge struck me as an adventure (warning: this is not advised!) and it proved so, slightly. Bulletproof instructions helped: get off at the 3rd stop and go north on the #6 line. Even though a guy told me, wrongly, that I needed a different line my excellent sense of direction carried me through such bogus instructions. Signs helped, and the fact that I was barely over 0.08 in blood alcohol (probably).

By the way the moving population is young. As in 20 and 30-somethings. I felt like John McCain.

Funniest moment: near Wall Street; the tourists taking picture using the giant bronze bull as a backdrop. Guess which part of bovine anatomy is the favorite to dress up the photo? Hint: it’s not the head.

There USED to be a bear next to the bull, but the stock & bond pirates decided that the mere SUGGESTION that the market could turn south caused the sculpture to be knocked off its stand and carted off. Its probably been melted down into cups from which former hedge fund managers will be selling pencils on the street in the decade to come.

If anyone has to sell pencils on the street I DO hope its the weasels who promoted this latest “bubble”. Tho in the end it’ll be you and I who pay for their greasy schemings.

A tour of the UN was curious. The two bodies we observed in actual session looked less lively than Congress and even more trivial. Interesting sight:. the diagram of what the world (it diplomatically did not reveal the USA’s share) spends on armaments vs the estimated costs of fixing many world problems. That was depressing. It would have been worse to see that the US of A accounts for half of that squandering of resources on bullets, bombs and killing machines ΓÇô with you and I, AGAIN, stuck with the bill.

The demonstration across the street by 100 or so Tibetans protesting China’s invasion and colonization of their country was, on the other hand, encouraging. China is actually being shamed by its imperialistic misbehavior. Good. Let’s have more of that.

I want to go back some time before too long. More Turkish food and more ancient art is in order.Dateline: New York City and Washington DC…