7th May - "Shall we help them here?"....."No"

Worst day ever.

Leathering it down. Professional rain, the heaviest ever. Made getting a cab very taxing. Got one – slowest driver of all time. Missed the plane.
Then Delta airlines staff went head-to-head with Footlocker’s for being the most unhelpful, ‘street’, put-out-by-simple-tasks buggers ever. They were actively unhelpful in getting us on the next flight (which was mercifully two hours later) and there were legions of pissed off people at their gate. If you would ever like to see a vein in my head bulge just say the passphrase ‘Delta check-in staff’.
We got to Seattle later than scheduled which was probably for the best as we now had to learn how to drive in America. We got in our car (a natty little 4x4) at 2 in the morning having been in the air for seven hours and headed for downtown Seattle. We were being understandably cautious and to be fair only drove the wrong way down a major road once.
We got to Travelodge at 3am and as soon as we got out of the car were faced by a six foot tall lady of the night and someone trying to pick her up. This was the appropriately titled John Street. This was Seattle. This was Travelodge. But more importantly this was Jesse….

6th May – ‘Yeah I’ll get you in your fucking head!’

Hangover time. Got up understandably late but managed to drag ourselves over to the Staten Island ferry to go and have a look at France’s gift to America, a bloody great statue. It is, for some reason, quite awe-inspiring to see it in the ‘flesh’ and another touristy thing that must be done in New York.

I took my second trip to Foot Locker. I forgot to mention that in addition to the aforementioned bad traits inherent in all their staff they decided that I can’t dance and gave me two left shoes that I went to return. I was met with the same welcome as the first time round and they didn’t even have the right trainer for the right foot. After being told that I do in fact like white trainers and don’t look like a tit in them I managed to get some trainers that I liked that fit! Incredible
Ian and I went to watch neo-hippies Akron/Family at the Bowery Ballroom, a very very nice venue near Little Italy. Not so nice around the area as a nutty six foot four native took a sort of swing at me on the streets, testing my ninja reactions to their very limits.
The band were great, a very fine performance. Many fruity types in the crowd but it worked out ok as the band are big on audience participation and there were right characters getting right into the spirit of things.

New York 5th May - "Demi Moore - 'My secret passion'"

Rob left us today with much wailing and gnashing of teeth from everyone so we tried to fit as much as possible into his final hours.
We went to Ground Zero to go and have look at a big building site, I felt slightly guilty about my Halloween costume and we went into a Hilton hotel to have a ghoulish, morbid gawp at the site from above. Didn't have the gall to take any pictures though. This was before we took some photos outside the iconic Ghostbusters Firehouse alongside other Brits from our demographic.
Then we stumbled across a cigar shop and encountered six New York Dons sitting around smoking cigars INSIDE and generally shooting the shit. We must have looked like such limp, giggling streaks of piss to their eyes;nevertheless we got our cigars and had a quick chat with Mr Miagi who was a lovely gent and it became an unexpected highlight of NYC.
The first bridge of the trip! Brooklyn.

Walked up and down this iconic monster taking many photos on the way. Amazing structure. I was very aroused.
Then we stopped to gedda pizza pie at Grimaldi's which stands at the foot of the beast on the Brooklyn side. As you can see it was massif and the best pizza i've ever had.


Then for the evening's entertainment it was Owen's sisters(Carys) screenplay (which was great) being acted out alongside some others (that weren't - seriously). This was in a swanky conference centre and we felt slightly out of place amongst the Colombia trendy students but got stuck into the free food and pop. This wasn't helped by the fact that myself and ian had been sniggering and imitating the gestures of the most self-congratulatory, OTT, mis-shapen mincebag we had ever seen without realising we were sat directly in front of his parents.... Think The Penguin from Batman Returns crossed with We got down to their last bottle of beer and went out en masse to a bar conveniently round the corner and talked SHITE around a booth that was too small. We were accompanied by Carys' boyfriend Jaren and her friend Maya amongst other entertaining film students Met another fairly poncy southerner who was on his own and thought he knew everything about everything, but he was a kind enough soul I guess..This was quite a boozy affair and we went on til 7 in the morning. A lot of the subject matter was taken up by Nick Cage as he was filming his new film The Sorcerers Apprentice about a hundred yards away in Times Square and there were all sorts of overly cautious security guards bossing people about on the streets (which myself and Maya pointed out to them was fruitless as they had no jurisdiction there). We got to see a bit of Hollywood magic take place as they were filming a big car chase set-piece at the time. Ooooh!

There are no photos of this evening and that is probably a good thing.

New York 4th May - "Yo shut the fuck up man, he's trying to tell some jokes!"

This was a busy busy day, highlights included:
Rob and Ian went to the Gugenheim whilst me and Owen spent NINETY MINUTES looking for a suitable diner before finally settling on this breakfast....



....which led to this happening in a bin outside.



So many pancakes.

We then went to FAO Schwartz, the home of the piano from the film Big and it was a Big disappointment, not a patch on the Times Square Toys R Us. Then back to the glorious Williamsburg. There was this chinless sonofabitch stood near us at all times as we browsed in a record store and he kept looking and listening at/to us, obviously realising we were English. We thought nothing of this until we were walking through a sketchy area where we saw the fruit from the record shop with four other fruits from his punnet and a photographer.... Turns out it was English hipsters The Horrors! Well known for being absolutely fucking rubbish! They were doing a piece with NME so we made sure we got our own shots (from a safe distance, lest we get our faces scratched).


There they are in the background looking all 'important'
Footlocker Times Square. The staff; feckless, unhelpful, disinterested, 'street', attitudeful, rude, ugly, spotty TWATS.
Then off for better times with Owen's sister Carys and her boyfriend Jaren at the Dinosaur grill on the edge of Harlem. So. Much. Meat. Great.
Then back to UCB for more chuckles with Aziz Ansari, a tremendous little tyke of a comedian and an excellent supporting cast. Front row seats this time and the obligatory 'meet the act and tell him to look pissed off in the picture'. Except I got confused and also looked pissed off. Oh well

New York 3rd May - 'I just want to kill every mother-fucker around here'

Not too much happened today because of last nights excessesses. So here's a picture of Times Square to keep you entertained.


We had the inevitable hangover but braved it and got the subway to Rob's favourite place in the whole wide world Williamsburg, which is in Brooklyn. It's a bit like Chorlton.

We went into a bar called Hugs which was pretty dead, it being a Sunday night and all. There were Frat Boys singing along annoyingly to shit English indie songs and i once again defeated Rob at a shit fairground style ball game. The one thing that wasn't shit was that they served Boddingtons! But it had run out. Shit.
Then we went to Rosemary's another Irish bar, but this time it was amazing! Thanks to their excellent jukebox we got talking to a scary but awesome man called Berk. A local man of Irish descent who came from a thrash-metal background in Brooklyn but was into all types of very good music. We talked to him for hours about all sorts of shite and he veered from being pretty scary to downright amiable which I liked; not knowing where a conversation in going to go makes it more interesting.
We left in good spirits, merry but not annihilated.

New York 2nd May - "Como esta nigger?"

Big sleeps in the tiny apartment – two in the bed, one on the couch and one on the floor. Also premier league football on the cable TV; the other three guys were totally stoked about that….
We went and did sensible things near Colombia University like buying food in an amazing (ly expensive) supermarket. This was after going to Tom’s Restaurant, the exterior of which was made immortal by the genius of Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld and had a truly tremendous NY Lumberjack breakfast.

Upon returning to the apartment we saw an excellent exchange between two rude bois at a tube station just outside of Harlem. Lots of trash-talking from the safety of either side of the barrier that we were desperate to but fearful of watching. This was also after taking a wrong turn down a side-street to see some Cuban gents illegally playing cards – that was a treat.
We got to the top of Rockerfeller Centre just in time for sunset and got, as you can see, an incredible view of the city and it’s bridges.

This was Saturday in Mother F’ing New York yeah? Let’s do this yeah? Let’s walk around Grenwich Village aimlessly for an hour, then go in a shit bar called 99 Below that served overpriced small glasses of booze and played bad hip-hop to no-one, then let’s walk around for a further forty minutes!!!Woo!
Then let’s go in the Stonewall Inn. What we saw: an oasis in the desert of New York, beer, pool tables, good times. What it took us a few more crucial seconds to see: The rainbow flags outside, the fellas getting off with each other aggressively, the fact a lot of fellas were staring at us and the videos of fellas doing rude things to each other involving bumholes and willies. Not homophobic but don’t want to be in a scene from the film Irreversible.
We eventually decided to get in a cab and drive til we got to somewhere good. Details of this hilarious journey are available in person from any of the four of us as it would not come across with mere written words.
We eventually got into a decent bar called Whiskey but it was a little to ‘preppy’ for our tastes so we hit the streets once more. Girls from New Jersey are loose. And flattering. And thought I was Irish. Fools. Another street encounter included me perhaps overly-aggressively asked a Latino drug-dealer the result of the ill-fated Ricky Hatton fight.
As we got into the next bar (a good Irish bar!!!) the drinks were becoming a little mixed, whiskey, Guiness, vodka, Jager, beer and it was becoming rowdy. Rob and I engaged in an epic darts match and our skills improved as we drank.
Ian and Owen hit the road whilst myself and Rob were escorted around some ever-emptying bars by girls named Liz and Beth, which made remembering their names easier. More shots, a karaoke-bar-cum-brothel, more shots, another bar, telling an excited cockney who asked if I supported United to ‘go away’, home for five.

Phase One - New York 1st May – “Don’t be afraid of black music”

Ian and I embarked upon Phase One aiming to join up with Owen and Rob in our rented New York apartment which was three blocks down from the hideous and at first mind-blowing Times Square right in the core of ‘The Big Apple’.
The Naked Cowboy, people everywhere, vomit Ian having CD’s waved in his face and being told he is afraid of black music, a shit Irish bar with tiny ‘pints’ that made us feel like giants.Before we set off for our first night out together we had sewious weservations about leaving the apartment unattended as it had quite clearly been broken into time and time again in a variety of entrances and burglariffic styles. The valuables were places in crafty hiding places such as behind red hot fridges and bins, of course the passports had to come with due to America’s Draconian policies t’ward buying booze.
We went to the legendary UCB comedy club to watch the improv group Step-Fathers who were ruddy excellent – it was like Whose Line Is It Anyway ON ACID!!! And the goofy, lanky one from the brilliant In The Loop was in the troup so that was nice. Although the leader looked unnervingly like James Nesbitt. I cut my finger on the frankly antiquated chairs and blood came out. And I spilt two beers.