We knew that the bars stopped serving at 4am so we just assumed the club would close at 4 (or 20-30 mins before that, as they usually kick everyone out in Baltimore about 1:30 or 1:40, even though the bars have until 2am). They served right up until 4am and to my surprise, the club was still open after that. Trash closed a little before 5am and the dance party that was upstairs was still kickin’ when we left. And guess what? They don’t come up to you and yell and scream in your face to get out. I don’t know if this is how all venues in NYC are, but this was a welcome change from Baltimore. I sort of understand why they do it here, but it’s still nice to be a patron and not be treated like crap.

We stepped outside and met even more people in front of Webster Hall. People were asking what else was going on and if we knew where the after party was. Mandi said to someone, “After party? It’s so late.” This guy replied, “It’s only 5am, what are you talking about?” Haha, I love it. What I also liked was that the food comes to you. I knew there were stands all through Manhattan that serve hot food but I just assumed it was mostly stuff I would never eat and I also didn’t realize that they would be there that late at night. That area had a falafel stand. I want to hit that up another time. We ended up going to Ray’s Pizza with some people we met. After we got there, I realized that I had eaten there the night I/Skitzo Calypso played CB’s a few years ago.

As we were walking to the metro station, we saw two crust punks who were at Ray’s and they were in physical fights with two non-punk dudes. The punks were losing. The other non-punk dude left after beating on a guy. But the other non-punk guy – who was this really short, but buff dude – stayed and was beating up the punks. More punks came, but somehow the one dude was winning against all of them. Don’t ask me how, but it’s true. He was maybe 4’ 4” but he was muscular and tough (and I think probably a bit crazy). Then he took his shirt and his belt off and came after them with his belt swinging. It was crazy! Cops finally drove by and saw what was happening, so they stopped. The punks were yelling, “Help, he’s beating us up!” and we snickered to ourselves, “Yeah, like they’re really going to believe that, even though it’s true – one little dude beating up that whole group”. But the cops instantly believed them, haha. Angry NYC cops yelling at him = loved it! Police officers don’t mess around there. At this point, we decided to leave because the reason we stayed was to make sure that no one got seriously hurt.

We were walking back to our hotel in Times Square at 6:30am and people were still coming up to us and making conversation. Some crazy, old dude with a Slipknot shirt tried to get our attention but we kept walking. Not everyone out at that time was weird, though. We met some kind of cute dudes from the Bronx. They walked us to our hotel. And then Mandi and I hit the hay around 8am.