When I was in Brighton for the first time seeing Saves The Day a few months ago, I stumbled into a cool little second hand shop and started talking to the guy who owns it about American football. Turns out, he was a big fan of the college game, and would go so far as to wait up until 3 or 4 in the morning to watch the games that ESPN would broadcast over here. He told me briefly about his trip to the US and how he met someone who took him to a game, and how he thought that was the coolest thing.

So he offered to essentially repay the favor by taking me to an English football (soccer) match.

Me, hungry for experiences, thought it would be awesome to see a game. Who gives a shit about the size of the team or stadium—the English invented the fucking thing! So we made tentative plans, and over the course of the past month or so, had corresponded about the specifics, and it turned out that Brighton’s team was playing their rivals, Bristol City, soon.

Soon meant yesterday, and frankly, I was pretty excited. He had basically described the day as being half drinking, half watching. I was preparing myself all week for the unknown. Would I get stabbed with a knife fashioned out of a bottle? Piece of plastic cutlery? Punched in the face?

I bought my round trip ticket from London to Brighton the other day. 10 pounds, because I agreed to essentially take the worst trains at the worst times. This involved waking up at 5:30, walking to Victoria Station at 6:30, and boarding the train at 7, all of which I did. I was supposed to meet up with the guy at 12:30 at a bar for a 3pm game, which gave us enough time to get nice and fucked up.

I get into Brighton at 8, and immediately head to Starbucks, hoping that he had emailed me a name of a bar, directions…something. Well, turns out there was nothing, and after waiting around there for a few hours sipping on a coffee and trying to stay awake, I decided to brave the extremely cold Brighton air and walk around a bit.

Having been there several times now, the tourist sheen has worn off, so I was visiting shops that I knew about and liked, etc. This went on for a few hours. I bought a baguette, walked through the mall…you know. Killed time.

I start to get a little worried around 11:30. As I was leaving the house, my uncle Derek says, let’s hope they don’t forget you! I had that kicking around in the back of my mind, but it seemed so unlikely. The guy is a really nice/cool guy. He wouldn’t. No way.

I decided to walk to his shop at 12:15. As I’m standing maybe 30 feet from the door, I get a call on my new English cellphone. Cool. Finally. Here he is.

It isn’t. It’s his friend.

“Yeah sorry. (Name) told me to call you to tell you he won’t be able to make it.”

“Really?

“Yeah. He went and got himself arrested. He’s in jail.”

Jail?

A siren blares down the street. It comes in through the phone, so I know that I’m close to the person speaking. I thank her for letting me know, and hang up.

I walked into the store anyway just to make sure that he wasn’t just hanging around there, looking for a way to get out of going to the game. He wasn’t, and everyone in there was kind of frantic. He had used his phone call to tell his shop that he wouldn’t be there for a few days and to call me, which was a superbly nice gesture. I wouldn’t have called me if I had one phone call.

So he got into a fight the night before, turns out. Couldn’t make it. All was for naught. I couldn’t go to the game, had to buy another ticket to get back earlier, and had woken up at a pretty ungodly hour for, turns out, no reason at all.

On the train ride back, we were diverted to London Bridge station as opposed to Victoria, which is near our house. The train driver told us the tickets would work on the Tube, so I gave it a shot. The machine took it, so I figured we were in the clear.

But when I got to Victoria, it wouldn’t let me back out again. So, seeing an opening to get through the turnstile, I go through, and walk up to the person working there, asking her what the deal was.

She looks at me, dumbfounded, and says, “well, you’re out. Why not just run?” She kind of smiles. I say ok, and walk away. I worried for the rest of the day, because in a CCTV state, I’m inclined to believe that something like that is a blatant form of entrapment.

I get back to the house, exhausted, and crack open a beer. My Uncle comes back, and asks if I want to go catch a movie, get a drink…make something of the day. Awesome. so we go out and watch Shame, the Michael Fassbender sex addiction movie.

Jesus fucking christ.

Brighton won 2-0.

Niners won on what is being called the best playoff game in years. I haven’t watched a down after I turned on the game and watched Arizona rifle off a 70 yard TD pass in what turned out to be one of the Niners’ only losses. My mental fortitude/devotion to the team should be written about.

As I alluded to back in November, I have new digs. The hostel game is over for an extended period. After something like 25 different ones, ranging from the lowest bed total (4) to the highest (30), the shittiest breakfast (none) to the best (cereal)…I have escaped communal living after nearly 4 complete months. I have moved in to the home of my Aunt and Uncle, who are living in downtown London, and were kind enough to offer me a place to be for awhile. I have my own room and everything. It’s completely bare so far, which is both fun and daunting, but it is coming together, and my Uncle and I are having a good time setting it all up.

So yeah, the house is right in the thick of it. I took a 30 second stroll down to the V+A Museum, which is right next to the Natural History Museum, which, as I’ve mentioned before, is filled with awesome shit and worthy of several visits. Hyde Park is also just a matter of minutes from the front door. It’s the spot to be.

But back to the V+A. Primarily a design museum, but plenty of sculpture, painting, and other stuff. I was pleasantly surprised by how many awesome things I found in there. It was riddled with probably 60-70 art school classes with kids who would just sit inches away from the pieces and draw them. Made it a little hard to really see the GRAIN of a bust, for example…and they would kind of scoff if you broke their line of vision. Look pal, I paid the same amount as you did to get in here (It’s free.)

That was a cabinet for someone. Just to store TV cables in probably. I’m sure you could fit a pretty fuckin’ rockin’ flat screen in there.

This is another thing that brought me great joy. Commemorating the house dogs is something that all places should do, and all of them should include the years in Roman numerals.

Well, it may feel like a long time for you dedicated readers, but it has sure as shit felt a lot longer for me. Between gigs, friends visiting, having the most important parts of my daily routine stolen unceremoniously, and having to move around at an extremely rapid pace, there truly has been maybe 1-2 free minutes of computer access where I could update. I’m here now, however, and willing to call it even if you guys are.

Back at the end of November and into the first few weeks of December, I was staying out at my friend Andrew’s place in Chesham. It was a nice, quiet place to be, and allowed me to relax and get a bunch of work done. I gave a somewhat comprehensive breakdown of life out there, but I now have pictures to back it up just to give you a sense of the area.

This is the road I walked down on a daily basis as I would make my way to the local Starbucks, where they would give me my “usual,” which turned out to be a bad thing. After 4 cups one day, I came home and literally could not move before getting sick for about a week. Turns out that qualifies as a shitty thing to have happen.

I moved back into the hostel game in preparation for several things, including the holidays. I was a bit skeptical about the prospect of spending Christmas in a hostel with a bunch of people I didn’t know, probably eating Wasabi peas for dinner and having a nice warm cup of tap water. Turns out that would be the least of my worries.

I was pumped to get back into London, mainly due to the rehearsing and to being able to see things like the Monument to the Great Fire of London. That started down their at the bakery on Pudding Lane, way back in 1666. I had one really shitty teacher assign a research paper to me on that topic, and the criteria for a good grade was checking out 9 library books on the topic. I think I subliminally told him to go fuck himself by way of embedding a short novel about how shitty a person he was. He gave me a C+. Turns out Google Books doesn’t count as a library.

Then tragedy struck. After staying at several hostels that I knew and was comfortable with, I had one booked across the street from the British Museum. I figured I would spend every waking hour in that place before the holidays, and then hopefully meet some fun people who would make Christmas not shitty.

This was a branch of a hostel chain that I had used before, and was thus very happy to see that they had the same security set up, which involved under-bed lockers that required a pad lock to secure. I, being hyper-conscious of my electronics, had several pad locks that I have employed successfully for 4 months now, and therefore, felt that I was in no danger when I entered the hostel that day. I took my spot, pulled out my computer, and looked around the room while chatting casually to a few people in there. Sitting in the middle of the room, however, was a guy that wasn’t saying anything to anyone. He was messing with a cellphone, and didn’t appear to have any luggage. While I didn’t consider it at the moment, when you’re in a hostel, sitting in the middle of the room is bizarre. He was there for a few hours, saw that I had my iPad and Macbook with me, and left.

Two Australian girls had taken to propping the door open with a shoe, and given that my room was one of the most easily accessible from the two doors (one of which was doorbell/passcode-protected), this did not bode well. Regardless, having seen and dealt with that before, I had no reason to ask them to stop doing that. I went out, bought some food, and returned to read and catch my breath after a day of getting around. I made my way down to the kitchen, and was drinking a beer before a member of the hostel staff approached me.

“What’re you doing tonight?”

Me: (looking down at iPad longingly, knowing my plans were about to be fucked up) “Nothing, I think.”

“You should come on the Pub Crawl! We’ve got a good group going.”

“Well, ok. That sounds alright.”

I agreed to meet them in the lobby in about a half hour. I go upstairs to my locker, where I place my laptop and iPad inside. I lock it, and head downstairs. This was 10:30.

We were on our way to Camden, which is kind of a punky little section that has a ton of bars/shops/clubs to explore, and I’m sure the latter portion would be very fun if I was a different person. Turns out, “pub crawl” did not mean going to a bunch of different bars and trying out awesome ales; quite the contrary, as a matter of fact. We went to one dance club, and we got there at 11:30, which in London time, spells certain death for getting home at a reasonable hour.

The dance club sucked, mini Becks bottles were 4 pounds, and I wanted to leave almost immediately. I humored the smallish group and hung outside for a bit before deciding to catch the nightbus back. One girl decided she wasn’t enjoying herself either, and asked if she could tag along. Crucial mistake. Damn this kindness of mine!

Turns out this girl had no idea how to buy a bus ticket. She thought it involved finding a kiosk, of which there were none. But we didn’t call our search off after 5 minutes. It took a fucking hour, before I just suggest asking the next bus driver what to do. He says we could easily pay on the bus. No problemo, even. I take my seat with the fakest fucking smile I’ve ever conjured up and wait to get back to the hostel. Pub crawl? Fuck you.

I walk into the hostel around 2am. I walk up to my room—which is pitch black, mind you—and open up my locker. I place my hand where I know my computer was when I left. Nothing. I whip my phone out as my breathing picks up and light up the cage.

My iPad and Macbook are not in the cage. This is my nightmare, folks—completely alone in a foreign place without my main information/work/entertainment hub. I run downstairs to the girl working the front desk, who just happened to be really nice, and tell her what happened.

Me: “My computer and iPad are gone.” I am keeping composed for the moment.

Her: “Oh my god. Well, no one has turned anything in since I’ve been working.”

(record scratch sound)….Nobody has turned anything in? You think I just came down here to get out of the rain? No fucking way in hell did I leave 2000 dollars worth of equipment just LAYING around for someone to pick up and return to the front desk.

She says she hasn’t seen anyone come by the front desk that is tucked far away from the main hallway. And they just buzz people in when the doorbell is rung. Security, huh? I ask if we can check the CCTV footage, which I for once am happy exists.

Her: “Oh, I don’t think anyone but the manager of all of the hostels knows how to do that. She’s sleeping right now. I’ll email her.”

That email went unanswered for the duration of my stay. The manager of the hostel, who was on the pub crawl, shows back up around 3:30am completely smashed and was actually more helpful than he was when he was sober, where he constantly reminded me that these were “professional thieves” we were dealing with, and that there was really nothing we could do. Turns out that place is a high traffic area for thieves, and tons of people have things stolen all the time. They told me the cops wouldn’t do anything, but I submitted a report anyway, because I was fed up with their bullshit. This was all on the 23rd of December, aka, the day before Christmas eve.

My friend Amanda was due to turn up on Christmas eve at Liverpool Street Station with Rosa, who actually was another UCLA-ite in her time. Customs held them up for 2 hours, which left me wondering what the fuck I should do at the station for much longer than I expected. It let me stew nice and long on a truly shitty situation. Even now, with a new setup thanks to my parents, who totally came through for me again in a true time of need, I still have the propensity to scream MOTHERFUCKER at the top of my lungs. Lots of work was on there. All of my photos. MOTHERFUCKER. (I’m in a Starbucks.)

So Amanda and Rosa finally turn up, and we find a place open on Christmas Eve that is still serving at 11pm. What type you ask? Why, a Chinese restaurant of course. And it was delicious. So that was good, and nice to see some friendly faces after dealing with the constant rigamaroll of assholes and not sleeping for 2 days straight. Nice way to start the holiday season.

I was still in the hostel where all my shit was stolen for Christmas Day. The hostel bought a bunch of food and actually made a really nice dinner, but in keeping with the trend, I had my appetite ruined by a drunk American redneck type dude who would pause every few minutes of our conversation to hit on the Chinese girls in the cafeteria, only to feel rejected by the language barrier and returning to our conversation with things like “Asian bitches are impossible.” Well, thats nice. He would say things like “The British Office sucks. I like How I Met Your Mother.” My god. There was a really great American guy there from LA who I was chatting with about airline travel, since he works at LAX. We both were sharing our stories about the TSA and how ridiculous they are, before redneck guy pipes in and says, “WELL I LIKE THE SECURITY. MY DAD WAS FLYING ON 9/11!”

“My Dad was flying on 9/11” is a sentence directly out of the Curb episode where Larry’s Rabbi had a friend who died riding his bike on 9/11. Turns out this guy’s Dad was just on a plane. On 9/11. Lots of people were, guy. He took it as some badge of bravery. I nearly vomited on him on purpose just to send a message.

Back to the meat. Amanda, Rosa, and I meet up on the 26th with plans to head to Brighton. The UK train operators were striking that day, so the 50 minute train was shut down in favor of a 2 hour bus ride through some nice, windy country roads. We arrived, and it was still awesome.

We returned after a few days to London, where we continued to explore. Places included the British Museum, Abbey Road, and the Tate Modern.

Then New Year’s rolled around. New Years always manages to be a pain in the ass because of the absurd amount of planning. This one was no different, if not more so, simply due to the fact that the London hostel scene was completely booked for this one night all the way back in late November. Why we didn’t plan ahead is beyond me, but what we wound up finding, for 25 pounds a night, which is double what I pay on a normal night, was a small place known as THE WEST TWO. Let it roll around on your tongue for a second. The WEST TWO. What does it mean? Two what? Is it West?

Turns out, this was perhaps one step above a housing project that is subject to frequent gunfire, forcing the residents to eat below the windows (I’m drawing from the Keanu Reeves classic Hardball). We had a 4 bed room, with a guy who said he was 26 (he was closer to 36) and doused the room with so much Axe spray that it was literally in our hair for the duration of the night. He said he was staying for one night, yet had 2-3 large bags, and had established a corner where he had a stock of Pringles, a few cans of shitty cider, and a bottle of Vodka. This was a mystery.

Being fearful of theft, the girls brought basically everything of value with them, and seeing as I had nothing left for him to take, only had to carry around my camera. We had plans to go to Camden again, by way of stopping at my friend Eddie, Adam, and Chris’ house, who were throwing a party. We ate some delicious jerk chicken, and went inside. Totally fun time, and it got the night started on a positive foot.

Before making it to Camden, we explored many of the bars around the Finsbury Park, including one where an awesome band was playing some African music that I danced around to foolishly.

The place we were headed in Camden is known as the Stables, which is an underground network of former horse stalls where a bunch of little shops are. It was a 50s burlesque thing, and after plenty of worrying on my part about not being able to get in due to my inability/lack of desire to dress up like anything even close to 50s burlesque, I was a bit tepid. Turns out, it was at the same night club I was at the night my computer was stolen, making that two occasions on which I was duped to going into the same place. But, after several whiskey cokes, I was having a wonderful time looking at my feet and making everyone uncomfortable as I, again, danced like a member of the Peanuts gang. Amanda and Rosa had fun, too. The tube was running for free all night!

2012, dudes. Let’s do it! FUCK THIEVES!

Moved into my aunt and uncle’s place in Knightsbridge after a mind-numbingly fast couple of weeks. The home is without Internet at the moment, but we will return to regularly scheduled Onward and Upward programming in a matter of days.

Despite the best efforts of the scum residing in the bile-filled underbelly of London, I will not be silenced, motherfuckers!

It is with great sadness and a tremendous amount of frustration and anger that I write to you from the public computers in the Astor Museum hostel in Central London. My laptop and iPad, both containing innumerable amounts of important, private information, were taken out of the locker beneath my bunk bed in a 12 person room by someone who I suspect was not even staying here. All of my photographs from my trip are gone, as is all the work I’ve been doing recently. I am heartbroken and do not think there is any amount of fire with which I could adequately burn the culprit existing today on this planet.

The show went swimmingly in my opinion, if we are only counting our performance, which was also a bit rough rough around the edges. Considering we all managed to have a bit to drink, as did the rest of the audience, AND we managed to follow 6 acts of slow, largely acoustic music—excluding the truly transcendent and brilliant solo electric act of Rock N’ Roll Steve—it went about as good as it could’ve gone. The audience was tepid all night…bordering on cold for every single act, which was sort of unpleasant. I didn’t get to debut my Pippa Middleton/Cockney accent material, which is a shame, but those fucking punks didn’t deserve it anyway. Someone hit William’s bass over, which popped a string off minutes before our set, and I used up all of my energy on the first song, and probably looked to be in extreme pain for the rest of the gig, but that means the sets can only get better from here! If there are any videos posted from it, I’ll make sure to direct you to them.

The hostel scene has been treating me surprisingly well, if not only for the fact that someone in the current one decided to make some pretty goddamn great paella last night, of which I ate plenty. I just turned down an ice skating trip because it is cold outside, to which the invitor responded, “it’s an indoor skating rink.” My brilliant response, which could’ve been taken from an Andy Rooney bit, was “It’s a little cold inside.”

Hey, sorry. You chose to read the blog this afternoon. Here is a video of all the other people who were non-plussed by today’s post.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/tzQ8hY1iNAk (Piece of shit YouTube not embedding if you feel so inclined to experience some weirdness.)

First Jeeps gig, which is the band I’m in, on Friday. We’ve been rehearsing, and having not been on stage for a few years in a music setting, I don’t really know what to expect. I’m going to have someone take video so hopefully you fine folks can see and feel the anxiety I induce in people!

Life has an interesting way of calling you on things. I was talking with a couple of guys from the US who are staying in my hostel, and, seeing as I’m from California, was asked if I knew any Spanish. I said, “yeah, of course, dudes.” 

“Do you speak it well?”

“Yeah, man. I’m pretty good. Little out of practice. But yeah, I can definitely let it rip when I need to.”

Boom. Kid walks in, and it becomes apparent in about 3 seconds that he knows no English at all. His language of preference is of COURSE Spanish, and the room immediately looks at me and goes, “GREAT! Help this guy out, Mother Theresa!”

Needless to say, I stumbled through a few things, and once I exchanged pleasantries at an acceptable level, the Spanish speaker (and Spain Spanish, so, extremely fast) decides to take it up a notch, which forces me to cower into the corner like an asshole. Over the course of the night, however, after a few spirits, I was speaking pretty acceptable Spanish to him. I think I even offered to help him translate when he goes to a Job Center tomorrow. Hey, I’m an idiot. But a NICE one. What’d you ever do for anybody?! YEAH!

Today I head back into Central London. I’ve had a wonderfully relaxing stay out here in Chesham, and seeing as I’ve just discovered a great little cafe on the 2nd to last day of being here after eating at a shitty chain one with asshole servers for 2 weeks, I feel like I could’ve spent my time a bit better.

2 gigs in the next 10 days. I haven’t been on a stage for a music-related project in some time. If any videos start circulating and you get a chain email from your boss that is titled “DOZY AMERICAN TWAT FUCKS OFF TO PROPER ‘ELL ON STAGE, PURE SHIT,” just let it pass on by. Right now, I think the only thing I’m going to say is “Is Pippa Middleton here?”

Still with you now, albeit rested, refreshed, and relaxed. I’ll preface this post by saying there are none of my famous visual aperitifs that make my often poor writing go unnoticed in this particular update, so you’re going to have to fight through it.

I’ve been out in a small area known as Chesham for the past week. It is about 45 minutes to an hour outside of London, depending on whether or not the train decides to come. I’m listening outside of my window to someone peeling out in a car, and apparently they’re not worried about the possibilities of CCTV-related backlash, which should give you an idea of how suburby the suburbs are out here—your every move isn’t being watched 24 hours a day. To give you a sense of just where this place is, I’d normally provide you with a zip code, but the English decided to combine numbers AND letters for those things, rendering them impossible to decipher. Just Google Chesham, UK, and you’ll see it. Can’t miss it, in fact.

The city has one main drag, essentially. On the side roads are a bunch of houses that I’d describe as traditionally British. If you’ve seen Shawn Of The Dead or Hot Fuzz, you know what I mean. They’re tall, with really acutely angled roofs, and more often than not, are described by the architecturally-challenged such as myself as “cute.” There? Have a picture? Get off me about the damn houses.

On this main drag, however, is a pretty bizarre collection of businesses. Across the street from one another down the road from me are competing funeral homes. Turns out that’s a thing. And there is a Chinese restaurant that specializes in “take-away” food (that’s TO-GO, in American), but all of their items are pre-wrapped in plastic, and hey, if I value anything, it’s my discerning appetite—apparently not enough, however, as dedicated fans will remember the food poisoning saga of two weeks ago. Anyway, besides a corner store little market type thing, a pizza joint called “Perfect Pizza,” and a place that sells motorcycles, that’s kind of it. Then you enter into what I’ve come to know as Old Town.

Old Town starts off with an Indian restaurant. That’s fine. And across the way is a pub known as The WAGGON (SIC), which I haven’t been in. The street is nicely finished with red bricks and hosts a little market on Saturdays, and feels really delightfully Cheshamy, before you get to the fuckin’ Blockbuster that has somehow managed to become THE hangout for neighborhood toughs.

You may suspect that the following description is somewhat hyperbolic, but I kid you not—once school lets out on weekdays, the kids from the high school, dressed in their sport coats, green ties, and loafers, all head down to the Blockbuster, grab a soda from the grocery store, and sit outside and say things like “don’t you have a go at ME, mate.” Frankly, I found it strange at first. A Blockbuster? They have a poster up for the Eddie Murphy laugh-fest Norbit inside! This is a Blockbuster. But the more that I walked by on my way to and from the STARBUCKS further down the road in Old Town (more on that in a moment), I’ve kind of gotten a strange sense of nostalgia from it. Not only do I remember going to the Blockbuster in Sonoma and saying to myself, “THIS WOULD BE SUCH A FUN PLACE TO WORK,” but it takes me back to the days in high school when my friends and I would stay at the Santa Rosa Mall, quite possibly the saddest place on earth when I go there now, and sit around there for hours. Fun fact—star of Transformers 1, 2, AND 3, Josh Duhamel, actually worked at the Gap in the Santa Rosa Mall. Bet you didn’t think you’d be learning a bunch of awesome Josh Duhamel facts when you stumbled upon the page today. 

Right. So I’ve been going to the Starbucks to get my work done, just because it feels nice to get out of the house and go for a stroll. But what I’ve also achieved, and this is something I’ve searched the world over for for years, and it has taken a week in Chesham, England to find, is a place that serves food to acknowledge my “usual” order. I’ve been to places in LA thousands of times, spoken with the servers, yadda yadda, ordered the same thing constantly, only to never have them say “the usual, sir?” That all changed this week, when on two occasions, the people that work in a Starbucks in the middle of nowhere saw me walk in, grabbed the materials for what I always order, and had it waiting for me by the time I walked in. IMPRESSIVE. TIPPED THEM 50p, I DID.

Nights in Chesham are interesting. I have not seen another person on a street past 8pm on a weeknight. I’m not sure if there is a curfew of some sort, and I can’t imagine what could possibly prompt a curfew to go into effect in a place as far removed as this, but do not expect to find a sign of life on a sidewalk. The pubs, of which there are about 4, don’t seem too populated either—people just seem to like to call it a night early. 

Which brings me to the weekends. I’ve had the pleasure of being in town for two of them now, the first of which I spent at a pub recommended to be by a friend that is known as George And The Dragon. The bar states proudly outside that it has stood in that spot since 1719—WHAT? People are filing by in Washington DC at this very moment, waiting to see the Declaration Of Independence, while I’m having a drink in a place where someone more than likely came and TALKED about the Revolutionary War AS IT WAS HAPPENING? Surely you jest! It’s these little reminders, as I think I’ve mentioned before, that make you see how truly NEW the US still feels. I suppose future generations will take pictures in front of an Olive Garden in Redondo Beach because of how long it’s been there. Or because, in the event that this blog makes me famous, people will want to see where I ate. That type of thing. If you’re to tell me that’s not likely, buzz off, dream killer.

I’m down at the George And The Dragon last weekend, and it becomes immediately clear that I am the youngest person by at least a 20 years. Everyone knew everyone else, and I was just some guy breaking into their drinking club while they were having a good time. I didn’t say much—only ordered a few drinks—but that was all it took for a couple of patrons to notice my “accent.” They started to “slag me off” about it, and that’s fine. I got a couple of laughs, and suddenly I was in a conversation with several older, drunken, English weird dudes. Perfect. We got to talking about my travel plans, and I mentioned I’d like to see parts of England before heading up to Scotland. This apparently, was enough to spark a memory of one of the blokes, who told about a 2 hour story about his 100 mile walk from such and such to such and so. It went across a SAS testing ground at one point, if my memory serves me well, and before long, everyone was calling me a pussy for basically not agreeing to do a similar hike, by myself, the next day.

“OHH BUT YOU’RE YOUNG, MATE! YOU GOT-UH DO IT!” was uttered not once, but 9 or 10 times. And when a few of them stepped out for a smoke, leaving me and one other guy, he felt it was best to not continue the conversation without first saying “I’m not some old queer or anything.” Cheers, mate.

Last night, I went down to the bar that all the folks in the George told me to avoid categorically—that it was the more “local-heavy” place and had some nefarious characters, none of whom take kindly to outsiders. Well, fuck—that sounds sort of awesome. Given that the country is reeling from the scandalous “My Tram Experience” video, which features a fucking nationalistic English bitch going on about what it means to actually BE British, I was curious to see some toned-down jingoism for myself.

Well, none of that happened, and I think that what the folks in the George meant by nefarious, they just meant “not 60 or older.” There was a Bro cover band playing—they ripped through a cover of Breakfast At Tiffany’s before jumping into Johnny B Goode, which caused me to double over in laughter. This monstrosity was followed by a Queen/Aerosmith/Franz Ferdinand medley. It clearly was time for me to go once that happened, and plus, no one spoke to me anyway, which I suppose is a common theme in what is touted to be the “young person’s bar.”

I’m out in Chesham for another week, before it’s a return to the hostel life. Having not slept on a bunk bed now for a week, I can directly attribute my exhaustion and poor health over the past 3 months to hostels, not that that was a mystery of fucking any sort at all, but it’s nice to have confirmation. Out here, I’m sleeping better, don’t have a constant stream of flu-like symptoms, and can buy AND COOK groceries! I’ve relied on more than one occasion on the 5 pound “Meal For 4” Deal, which consists of two pizzas, a salad, garlic bread, and a fucking huge vat of  coleslaw. Because as I always say, if you’re not thinking cheap in this economy, well, you’re just not thinking!

With all of my troubles detailed in my previous two posts, it is easy to forget that all of these shitty things are happening across the Atlantic in one of the most richly historic areas in the world. Thinking about all the stuff that has happened here is enough to give anyone a boost, and in walking around, I am constantly met with reminders of previous generations and epochs. The UK does a good job of reminding you that people have stood where you are at that moment for centuries, usually in the form of plaques or tiles. 

My Aunt and Uncle are moving here in January, and holy shit, is that an exciting thing. They were here last week looking at houses, and we met up for a dinner at the very posh and very amazing Scott’s, which is a seafood restaurant that caters to a celebrity crowd near Bond Street. After a couple bottles of wine and different cocktails, we didn’t really know what we were getting into when my Uncle, Derek, mentioned the waitress, “just bring us some different seafood.”

I knew we were in trouble when a couple of people came over and laid out a Bob Vila starter kit of tools for each of us.

That was before this monstrosity turned up (English phrase. Nice one [English phrase].) The iPhone 3GS photo doesn’t really do the size or breadth justice, but trust me when I say, that the amount of various types of seafood on these 3 platters was alarming. There was so much, in fact, that they send someone to change the ice for you and rearrange the food, because they REALIZE that no two people could finish this without the platters turning into a sloppy ice bath.

It was tough walking away from this dinner, knowing that I just had truly some of the best food that the UK has to offer within the first 2 weeks of being here. Nevertheless, it was a wonderful time had by all, and you’ll be hearing a lot more about them on here once they move on over. I stumbled back to the hostel that was 95% French, and had myself a nice evening before moving out the next morning.

A little over a week after this, between which I managed to have all that bullshit happen, I was able to return to my museum-going ways. The hostel I moved to AFTER the passport/food poisoning shit turned out to be right next to the Imperial War Museum and a few blocks south of the London Eye. The museum is filled with tons of decommissioned vehicles, uniforms, and weapons, which makes for a pretty harrowing experience, but also makes you stop and think each way you turn, which may explain why I was there for 3 hours.

This is the same model as the first of the warheads that the US dropped on Japan. Jesus.

One-man submarines, rockets, and tanks galore. If it has been used in any of the major wars of the 20th century, chances are, this museum has it. A lot the German stuff was captured and taken by the RAF to study. When you consider how much time and money went into the development of these pretty impractical devices in a lot of cases, it’s easy to see that war isn’t pretty.

I heard rumblings in the hostel (which was above a karaoke bar, mind you. First night featured an old guy of probably 60 singing Tears In Heaven. Let that sink in.) that there was a Chipotle around Covent Garden, which is a really nice section of London. Seeing as I’m always fiending for a burrito and Chipotle happens to be my favorite fast food place in the US, it was a perfect outing. Seeing as I went to Chipotle an embarrassing number of times while living in Westwood, I, as long with most Americans, are familiar with the process. A couple of Italian guys weren’t really sure how it worked, which ended with one of them ordering JUST a plate of rice. I must’ve looked frustrated, or maybe the British are just better about not eating 6 portions too many per meal, but the final product was not of an American Chipotle’s girth. Still, the flavors were there, and when it comes down to it, that’s the kicker, ain’t it? The colors and bags were a welcomed sight.

I had tickets to see an American band from Baltimore called Wye Oak for the next day, and seeing as I had some time to kill, decided to find a place that serves a proper English breakfast. Someone in the hostel mentioned that the English “invented breakfast,” which is essentially saying that they thought the English invented eating food in the morning, but considering how good it is, they might as well have coined it for all I care.

An English Breakfast, for those not familiar, essentially revolves around some combination of meat, eggs, beans, toast, and vegetables. Most often, we’re talking a couple of sausages, some slabs of Canadian bacon, a few hash browns, baked beans, some grilled tomatoes or mushrooms, and some fresh toast. With a coffee (white or black is the common question), it usually comes out to about 3-4 pounds, which is really cheap.

After sleeping that off for a bit and reading for a while (I’ve just finished the Steve Jobs biography, am halfway through A People’s History of the US by Howard Zinn, and am just wrapping up For Whom the Bell Tolls), I found my way down to the Wye Oak show. They’ve put out what may just be the best record of the year in my opinion, Civilian, and are just a terrific couple of kids.

The venue was small enough for that “up close and personal/will never see them again in this small of a room” type of feel. They killed, and despite me being behind a guy that managed to be taller than me somehow, it was great to see some live music again.

They are only a two piece. The drummer plays the beat with his right hand, and keeps a synth/bass line going with his left, which is extremely difficult. Very Ray Manzarek-y.

The rock continued into last night, when I took a train down to the coastal city of Brighton to see my pals and favorite band Saves The Day. Not knowing anything about Brighton, I decided it would be best to only stay the night there, as it is only 50 minutes by train. Turns out, that was a shitty idea, because Brighton is FUCKING AWESOME.

Hey look at me and my gull friends.

I think I make the same face in every photo that I take of myself as a means of showing people around me that I’m not going for a MySpace profile picture. God I hate it. But I call the shots around here.

Yeah, so Saves The Day. Seen that band a whole lot over the years, and when I saw that they were headlining a gig outside of London, I figured why not. As anyone who knows me can attest, this band is kind of it for me, so needless to say, seeing them in a small venue and having a nice chat with them afterwards was a real treat.

I’m in my own room now in a small town outside of London. I don’t know what a silent room sounds like. Happy Thanksgiving to all. Happy Thursday/Friday morning to me.

The rest:

That’s an abandoned, burned down pier, complete with legend about competing bakers who hated each other so much that it lead to a firefight of some kind. England is great.

Heinrich Himmler death mask. Quite possibly the scariest thing I’ve ever seen.

Goodnight, you folks.