Every time I travel for work I try to make the most of it; it’s something that causes me endless anxiety. Sometimes I even get stressed that I’m not relaxing enough. But when it really comes down to it, there is only so much fun a person can have by themselves. I wandered into a comic book shop and bought Brian O’Mailey’s latest comic SNOTGIRL. It’s s’not very good, primarily because he didn’t draw it.
After that, I went to
VR world. I figured I might as well go now because it’ll probably be out of
business by next week. I got sick immediately and had to sit down and have
a ginger ale. I don’t like to say it, but VR is a fad - for now at least.
Call me when they can
free base that shit straight to your dome piece. I mean, I guess it's kind of fun,
The Ricky and Morty game, and this other one called Superhot, but no matter how
good any VR game is, after ten minutes you’re taking off an awkward headset,
wrapped in a bundle of cables, saying, “Hahaha, wow that was so crazy, awesome
thanks.” All the while your inner dialogue is like, “Let’s get the fuck out of
here.”
Additionally, seeing someone walking in virtual reality gear should be enough to turn anyone
off. It looks like a bad S&M rig from the future. Is that what S&M
people call them? Rigs?
The day really started
to steer towards Nerds St. and Dork Ave, so I decided it was time to get
hammered and have smoke smokes like a cool guy again.
I met up with my
buddies, Mike and Angela, at this bar called 169 where you could text your
drink order. Why (long pause for emphasis) THE FUCK doesn’t every bar have
this? It’s not like it was a tech bar in Silicon Valley. They were nonchalant
about it. “If you need a drink, just text me, mate.”
The next morning I scrolled through my texts and was reminded what a piece of shit I am.
“Suuuuup it’s Matt at table 18, Can you send over three yager bombs, two Millers and a glass of champieeeees, thanks mate.”
Obviously, I was hung over as shit and needed to steam it. First, I called Aire, the gold standard of spas, second only to Scandinave in Collingwood Ontario (weird I know that, right?).
The next morning I scrolled through my texts and was reminded what a piece of shit I am.
“Suuuuup it’s Matt at table 18, Can you send over three yager bombs, two Millers and a glass of champieeeees, thanks mate.”
Obviously, I was hung over as shit and needed to steam it. First, I called Aire, the gold standard of spas, second only to Scandinave in Collingwood Ontario (weird I know that, right?).
Aire has a dead sea
pool that you can just float around in. Just don’t do it if you have a chapped
ass from walking around New York all day, because it’ll burn really bad. It’s
like that old adage (I’m really into adages lately), something like, “Imagine
sliding down a banister of razor blades into a pool of salt water.” Wasn’t
that a thing you’d say as a kid? It was one of those analogue memes that
travelled over the Cousin Network™.
For all the millennials
out there, the Cousin Network was a pre-internet thing where you’d meet up with
your cousins and exchange all the crucial information kids need to know.
Popular articles shared over the CN included: girl who had sex with a hot dog,
lyrics to Diarrhea song, the Konami code, hurts donut, Pen 15 club, M.A.S.H.,
that thing when you’d push your arms against a door frame and then when you let
go they’d raise up by themselves.
You could even search
for porn on the Cousin Network, which meant literally searching for it, in the woods behind
your cousin's house. And eventually you’d find that dog-eared issue of Penthouse
magazine hidden in a hollowed-out log covered in snails and moss. You’d
flip through the pages, either ogling at the babes or laughing at the ads in
the back. Man, the internet took away so many awesome things.
Anyway, Aire spa
rules. They also have a huge hot tub that’s so violent it feels like
you’re out in the middle of the ocean during a storm, but hot. Of course,
it’s also a million dollars, and super hard to get in. I called them up and
said, in a rugged hangover voice, “Hello are there any walk-ins today?” The French
guy on other side of the line went, “On le Saturday? HAHAHAHA, fuck off, you
American piece of shit.”
I hit Yelp to find an alternative and stumbled upon: THE RUSIAN BATH HOUSE, and this place was… crazy.
It has been around
since 1892. Let that sink in. When I first realized that, I was like, “Wait a
minute, nah, nah, dawg, dat too long,” but it’s legit. It’s been there for roughly
125 years. Imagine that. Back then, you could have bought a building for, like,
six bucks. Think about how weird New York must have been back in Eighteen Ninety-Two. Did
they have clocks?
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| Do you even clock, bro? |
The lobby (I guess
that’s what you’d call it) was right out of a Wes Anderson movie. Already a
great sign. There was a sweet-ass grill on one side that you know makes some awesome eggs
medium and crispy AF bacon. I felt a little queasy (what’s new) so I asked for
a ginger ale. The grumpy grill-man handed me one. The bottle had zero fizz when
I opened it, and when I took a sip, it
was totally flat.
“Hey, excuse me,
something’s wrong with the drink, it’s flat.”
The grill guy looked
at me and, in a thick Russian accent said, “Not my problem, call Canada Dry.” He
made me buy a second ginger ale, no refunds. Such authentic surliness - the guy
didn’t give a flying fuck and I liked it. I’ll always know where I stand with grill guy.
There was a dry sauna, steam room, a room I’ll call Satan’s Asshole, a cold bath, a smelly steam room, and a Turkish steam bath. Oh yeah, and a pressure washer disguised as a shower. I felt a little out of my league. I could tell I was surrounded by professional steamers. It was the same feeling as when you’d go to the snowboard park and you could only do a shitty 180, and you'd see a 12-year-old doing a triple misty flip off sixty-foot table top. Like that, but steamier.
I played it cool, though. I walked around checking out the temperatures and humidity and nodding my head like I knew what I was doing. So I walked into Satan’s Asshole first. It was so, SO fucking hot. My brain immediately went into fight or flight mode, and not like there’s a threat, like, “You’re gonna die.”
 |
| Saunas heated by dragon glass |
It was so hot that I
could barely make it to the bench on the other side of the room. With every
step, it felt like my skin was burning off and floating away into ash like
getting blasted by a dragon in Game of Thrones. There was only one other guy in
there. He was sitting at the back with a towel over his head. It looked like
the cover of a black metal album in there. The guy was either the toughest heat
man in the world, or he had died hours ago. I feared that if I sat down, I
wouldn’t be able to make it back to the door without collapsing from heat
exhaustion.
A sign said, “Don’t touch the walls, or you will get burned.” The ancient stone work made it feel like a haunted dungeon, and there was no doubt in my mind multiple people have died in that room. All I wanted to do was run out, but I didn’t want to be a spa poser (Sposer™) so I sat down and risked the same fate as the jerked human body slouched in the corner.
After what felt like three hours, but in reality was no more than two minutes, I got up and staggered towards the door. But I wasn’t going to make it, so at the last second, I saw a chain hanging from the ceiling and grabbed it for support. It was attached to a lever that instantly dumped a torrent of ice cold water over me. I let out a little girls scream. My nerve endings had no idea what was happening. They were like, “Fuck this, I’m outta here.”
A sign said, “Don’t touch the walls, or you will get burned.” The ancient stone work made it feel like a haunted dungeon, and there was no doubt in my mind multiple people have died in that room. All I wanted to do was run out, but I didn’t want to be a spa poser (Sposer™) so I sat down and risked the same fate as the jerked human body slouched in the corner.
After what felt like three hours, but in reality was no more than two minutes, I got up and staggered towards the door. But I wasn’t going to make it, so at the last second, I saw a chain hanging from the ceiling and grabbed it for support. It was attached to a lever that instantly dumped a torrent of ice cold water over me. I let out a little girls scream. My nerve endings had no idea what was happening. They were like, “Fuck this, I’m outta here.”
After that, I went into the smelly steam room.
Or if we’re going to be less childish about it, the aromatherapy steam room. I
sat across from this aging hippy. He was wearing a speedo and a full winter
tuque. An odd choice, I thought. So I’m watching this guy, and he has all these
potion bottles. He opens one and pours it on a pile of leaves in the corner.
The bottles had all this ancient writing on them that might have been
Chinese.
So I go, “What you got there, bud?” And he looks at me and goes, “LSD, man.” For just a second, I believed him. I mean, it was possible, right? Especially in this place, with this weird-ass dude wearing a winter hat in a fucking sauna. It seemed like an acid decision to me. Then he burst into a raspy, deep hippy laugh. I’m going to call him Jasper because he looked like a Jasper.
So I go, “What you got there, bud?” And he looks at me and goes, “LSD, man.” For just a second, I believed him. I mean, it was possible, right? Especially in this place, with this weird-ass dude wearing a winter hat in a fucking sauna. It seemed like an acid decision to me. Then he burst into a raspy, deep hippy laugh. I’m going to call him Jasper because he looked like a Jasper.
Jasper goes, “You ever tried it?”
“What acid?”
“Yeah man, you ever tried acid?”
I go, “No.”
Jasper continues, “My brother thought it would
be a good idea to give me acid three days after I got back from Vietnam.”
“What was that like?”
“At first it was beautiful, like I understood
existence, then things went dark, and I thought I was back in Nam. Next thing I
knew I woke up in a field two days later, getting barked at by a bunch of sheep
dogs.”
Jasper turned out to be a cool guy. Hard to
guess his age, but judging by Nam, probably 70? He went onto tell me that he’s
never owned a cell phone or used the internet.
Next I tried the blaster shower. It didn’t get its name for nothing. I figured no one would believe how powerful it was, so I recorded it.
Next I tried the blaster shower. It didn’t get its name for nothing. I figured no one would believe how powerful it was, so I recorded it.
After that I bumped into this nice guy named Sasha. He asked me if I wanted a treatment. It was $40 dollars for one and $99 for all three treatments. What these treatments were exactly, I had no idea, but when in Rome, or in this case when in a one hundred and twenty-five-year-old Russian bath house. Sasha leads into a tiny booth made of sheet metal and tells me take off all my clothes. Seems legit.
So I’m lying butt-ass naked on my back on this stone slab as Sasha covers me with mud and as he's doing it the whole time he's humming the Titanic song. He left me to dry, and after a few minutes, I started to get really hot and began to panic. My hangover was beginning to fight back, and I thought, what if all of a sudden I get the urge to barf? Am I going to run out of this room covered from head to toe in mud except for my bikini zone. That would be embarrassing for everybody, then I’d totally slip and fall and then barf all over myself, and Norbit would say “Rookie” and the whole place would break out into laughter.
Sasha came back in, Salt Bae'd me, and then scrubbed it off, in the process removing my skin leaving behind just muscles and purple veins.
The mud and salt must have sucked out the Yager bomb residue because I felt awesome after that. The Sasha experience was like one of those mentor-guided training montages in 80's movies like Karate Kid. Me, training to spa battle Norbit, while Sasha hummed the Titanic song for the montage music. I came back out with my golden fleece in hand and ready to out steam anyone that crossed my path. I walked up to the cold bath, stopped, stared Norbit directly in the eye and slowly removed my flip flops. Norbit nodded in respect. Who’s a Sposer now, bitch?
In addition to all the
wonderful facilities in the basement, there was a roof top patio (chill
zone) where you can lay in the sun, drink beers and even smoke smokes. That was
amazing, because you’re not allowed to smoke on patios in New York. They must
be grandfathered into it. Am I the only one who loves everything about
grandfather laws? They are definitely my favorite kind of laws.
In conclusion, I can hands-down say the 10th Street Baths was one of the best spa experience I’ve had in the extreme category. I had such a great that time I even bought this sweet t-shirt.
In conclusion, I can hands-down say the 10th Street Baths was one of the best spa experience I’ve had in the extreme category. I had such a great that time I even bought this sweet t-shirt.
Cost wise, you can’t
beat it. Admittance, Sasha combo, a t-shirt and two ginger ales all together
was $150. Okay, I definitely went overboard. Just for your own personal
reference, admittance was $30.
I finished off the wonderful evening with some Korean BBQ, by myself, in a six person booth, in a crowded restaurant. It was a pretty sad scene, and my phone was dead, so I just sat there like a psychopath cooking meat by myself. A) "What a loser", and B) "There’s a huge line out here and this one asshole is taking up an entire six-person booth. Thank God, I think he’s asking for the bill. Nope, never mind. He just ordered another round of beef. Why’s his face so red, and is that mud in his ears? Who the fuck does this guy think he is?"
And now I’m flying back, humming the Titanic song, wishing I was back chilling in the smell zone with my buds Norby, Jasp and that dead guy.
I finished off the wonderful evening with some Korean BBQ, by myself, in a six person booth, in a crowded restaurant. It was a pretty sad scene, and my phone was dead, so I just sat there like a psychopath cooking meat by myself. A) "What a loser", and B) "There’s a huge line out here and this one asshole is taking up an entire six-person booth. Thank God, I think he’s asking for the bill. Nope, never mind. He just ordered another round of beef. Why’s his face so red, and is that mud in his ears? Who the fuck does this guy think he is?"
And now I’m flying back, humming the Titanic song, wishing I was back chilling in the smell zone with my buds Norby, Jasp and that dead guy.