January 2012
4 posts
Football Game!!!!!!!!!
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...
1.11.12 (UPDATED)
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...
Recap Of December/Xmas/New Years
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...
Stay Tuned For More
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!
December 2011
5 posts
The End?
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...
12.17
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...
JEEPS
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...
Rebirth
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...
The Suburbs
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,...
November 2011
7 posts
11.13, 11.21-11.24: Two Part Mega
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...
The Return
I am back now from the brink. It may sound like surprisingly bad luck, but hours after posting that last update regarding my recent struggles, I realized that my jacket felt unusually light, which meant something was missing. Given that I keep everything in a specified pocket of the two jackets that I’ve brought with me, I can tell pretty quickly what is missing. I was asked recently if I...
Quick Note
Still with you here. I’ve been having an uncommonly bad week, which began with moving into a hostel that was 6 floors high, several hundred stairs without an elevator, and having to march up and down to literally the last room on the last floor. The Internet was 8 pounds for the week, around 15 dollars, and didn’t work worth a goddamn.
I moved then to a hostel 20 minutes away from the...
10.10
Little bit of this, a little bit of that. Mostly a lot of that being long hours in Starbucks. I’ve listened to two girls talk trash about another girl for the last hour. They’ve covered every facet of her existence and how much it sucks. Seconds away from telling them I’m her brother.
Past couple of days have been relatively low key, which essentially means me picking a...
Mega Update: London Edition
Despite being rankled with sickness constantly, this time with a nagging bout of tonsillitis of some kind, I have not been disturbed from my peak of London-induced serenity. Each day has been an action packed, if not absolutely wonderful, experience—a trend that I hope continues long into the months that I aim to be here.
Last we heard from me, I had explored the British Museum in all of...
Amsterdam Birthday-London Day 1
As an exhausted individual having to sleep on a bunkbed made for people half his size, I am writing this in neither the right frame of mind nor mattress class. The hate mail continued from you readers today, as I received a series of very aggressive instant messages from a coward, essentially threatening me with violence if I was unable to post. And thus, as I am nothing but accommodating, write...
Declining Readership-Last Berlin Day
According to a dedicated reader who will remain nameless, morale around the Onward and Upward readership camp is at an all-time low due to a lack of posts. That WILL CHANGE once I get settled in London, and it’s going to kick you in the ass and you’re going to have to like it.
I took a train yesterday to Amsterdam. It took 6.5 hours. It was nice and I LIKED it. But before that, I had...
October 2011
10 posts
Stay Positive
To Berlin I give a hearty and passionate handshake and the promise of more to come, for within the bosom of this place lies a spirit that is so magnanimous and welcoming that I can do nothing but turn my back, close my eyes, and walk away, hoping that it will be here in this same state upon my return.
This will be my last Berlin update. With the train to Amsterdam on Tuesday, followed by the...
10.26
I’ve been without wifi now for several days. I’ve felt completely naked and alone. In the meantime, I’ve had to pay to use a desktop computer in the lobby of my latest hostel, which just truly illustrates the degree of my dependency on the Internet. I think the computers have Windows 98 on them. This is real.
This is it: the final 5 days of Berlin round 1. It should be...
10.18
Switched hostels out of embarrassment. One of the guys working at the other place said as I was checking out, “man, you basically lived here.”
Look. I’m sorry.
This new one is fine, I suppose. It packs 16 people into a room designed for maybe 4, and given that my backpack is a treasure trove of Apple electronics, I’ve been waking up with a start throughout the night...
10.14
With my time in Berlin winding down, I’ve developed a list of things that I still have to do before I take off; a Jack Nicholson/Morgan Freeman venture I call The Bucket List. One of them is exploring an area to the south of the center of Berlin known as Neukolln. It is a popular area with the city’s youth, and is undergoing a bit of a transformation. Lots of new bars popping up, dance...
My Life With A Monster: The Apartment Year 2011 In...
O Come, All Ye Faithful.
Chances are, anyone who reads this knows about the year I’ve had and where I spent the large majority of it. For anyone who doesn’t, this post is for you, and is aptly titled “My Life With A Monster,” because that is, in fact, what it was: a monster. It, in this instance, refers to the roommate I had from September of 2010 to August of 2011.
Quick...
10.11-10.12
Well, look at me.
The cold is now alarming. I am having difficulty sensing that there is snot on my face at this point, which makes for a wonderful entrance into bars and restaurants. It isn’t snowing or anything, but when the wind is WHIPPING in your FACE, what can you DO besides wear a ski mask? Amanda Knox ruined those for all Americans outside of the country. Looking for a cap to wear....
The Mundane, Bizarre, And Exquisite: Month 1 Recap
I lied in the previous post. What was going to be a quiet night turned initially into a spirited Chess party before morphing into a completely unexpected monster that involved us wandering the streets of Friedrichshain, Berlin aimlessly looking for a party in an area where the punks have claimed squatter’s rights for the past 10 years. The result was me walking home in a drizzle at...
10.7
Long time no bloggable activity. I’ve been settling down into a nice routine here in Berlin—one that involves delicious sandwiches, good coffee, and some cool, interesting people who like to talk about intriguing and/or stupid things. People seem to be more willing to just go sit in parks in Berlin. I can’t exactly put my finger on it. I tried to partake, but was quickly...
If And Only If
If the ferry that I just booked from the Hook Of Holland to Norwich, England sinks, someone please write an awesome, epic folk song about it. Here are a few things you can use:
I was escaping from some debts that I managed to incur after a particularly ugly night of card playing. Shit. Too Titanic-y.
Heading to London to start a new life, I symbolically tossed my computer and clothing...
My Proposed Trip
Out of fear of reaching a point of stagnancy, I’ve taken to planning my long awaited trip to the Undying Lands and leaving Middle Earth. God I hate myself.
I’ve taken to planning my long awaited trip to London and leaving Berlin. London, of course, is the only safe haven (that I would feel comfortable staying in for over a month) from the strictures of what is known as the Schengen...
September 2011
18 posts
9.30
Anyone who is receiving a postcard from me now MUST appreciate it. I searched for the post office for maybe 2 hours around the same block, walking back and forth in front of tables of people, looking like a jackass.
I found the post office. It had been conveniently combined with a floral shop. I asked the woman behind the counter if I could buy nine stamps. For nine postcards. She found this...
9.29
Little bursts of familiarity with even the smallest of objects have been making me a bit homesick. I decided to go to a burrito joint yesterday called “Dolores,” and they fancy themselves an “AUTHENTIC SAN FRANCISCO BURRITO” joint. The burrito was decent—more of a Chipotle than anything. But the shittiest part of the whole experience was looking up at the walls...
9.26-9.28, now with less videos
Turns out the Internet connection over here is going to be a son of a bitch about posting videos, so it looks like that won’t be happening for the time being. I will keep them stored, naturally, and will shock and awe you with a flurry of poorly shot, rambling videos all at once down the road. Stay tuned for that as you move through your life. How will you manage?
I am back at the hostel....
Spotted: Babbling Brooks--Oktoberfest
Let’s just talk about me for two seconds, alright?
I remember seeing that movie Beerfest when I was a kid and thinking, man, what a stupid thing. Beer is beer is beer, I thought—and having some tremendous festival to celebrate it means I’d probably be puked on and someone would definitely spill some shit on my shoes.
Fast forward to now. Me, a strapping—well, a...
Preview: Oktoberfest
I don’t feel prepared to write about Oktoberfest just yet, so I’m providing a convenient preview to get everyone adequately excited. Below is a before and after series of photographs:
Before:
After:
The string around my neck leads to a photograph inside of a heart. It had mustard on it. I did the Linus Van Pelt dance (shown below) on a fucking picnic table, then I high-fived...
No Photos Of Me In Liederhosen. Sorry, ladies.
In flipping through my photos, I noticed this interesting description of a menu item in Prague. Maybe the Internet has made me completely numb and my formerly clean and pristine mind a disgusting, diseased gutter, but I got a pretty hearty chuckle out of this:
I imagined an eager traveler, anxious to enjoy some authentic Czech cuisine, excitedly spouting off his order to a less-than-amused ...
9.21-9.22
Well, the sickness has set upon me. It is without a doubt a result of the creepy guy in the lobby referenced in the last post. He would cough and sneeze constantly, without covering his mouth and without regard for anything. I am convinced that, had he not kept me up with his outrageous snoring, he would’ve sneezed ON me. Definitely in the top three worst people I’ve encountered so...
The Morning of the 20th
i think im about to witness a fight
a fracas if you will oh fuck
tell me the sf kid is gonna get his ass beat?
nah that guy is gone
man im so happy about that its almost 3am here
and this other weird dude from NYC, maybe 50 years old
sleeps the majority of the day
then goes down at night and sips coffee in the lobby by himself
he’s a weird motherfucker
these dutch dudes are in...
9.18
So I’ve been going to a bunch of museums, you know, letting cultural treasures wash over me like a sweet, fine paste. They’re not the cheapest things to go to, and despite the fact that I can get in with a student discount, I always justify my purchase of these ~10 Euro tickets by hoping that some older people will look at me, standing there by myself, inches away from the GRAIN of the...
Disclaimer
Look. I KNOW I said I’d be trying to update this thing every day, but it’s a process, alright? To compensate you for your tireless devotion, here is a photo of me after looking at a German washing machine for 25 minutes.
Tonight, I’m going to a bar where some friends are playing music. I might just play, also. If a video of this turns up on the Internet, as well as the...
9.14-9.16
Starting to feel a bit shitty health-wise, but with my Dad coming on Wednesday and Oktoberfest in sight, there is no way I am going to let any kind of sickness prevent me from enjoying myself. When you’ve stayed in a hostel for over a week, and having run into people traveling from all OVER the goddamned place, you’re bound to catch something. In my case in Argentina ‘08, it was...
Routineless
I’ve been struggling pretty mightily with the jet lag, but apparently that is what is supposed to happen, and I’m not just completely inept at traveling efficiently.
I’ve been doing my fair share of walking around, eating a lot of the same foods. So far, it’s been burgers, currywurst, and falafel. I think a tremendous mistake I made as a young adult was not getting into...
Those two British fellas from my hostel room were just kicked out. One of them hadn’t been paying and was just sneaking in and out. They’re staying on a boat on a river and are playing guitars with missing strings on a bridge for a couple of Euros a day.
All of the sudden, I miss everyone.
No Substance
I’ve managed to make a couple of friends here as a result of living in this hostel, and it just so happens that these people are very big on staying out until at least 6am. I thought I had snuck back to the hostel successfully, but after trying to go to sleep for about a half hour (it was midnight), I was tapped on the shoulder, and obliged them on their offer to go to a bar or two.
I will...
I just missed being the 10 billionth Tumblr post? God dammit.
Sudoku, Blood Letting, and Missed Connections
This is written on perhaps 2 hours of total sleep. Forgive any misspellings, you monsters.
I was nervous enough already before a guy who fancied himself a flight attendant began calling unofficial shots. He was working down the aisles, finding available spaces in the overhead compartments and screaming at anyone who was carrying something. I saw blood in the water. This person was going to be the...
August 2011
1 post
The beginning
Well, this is certainly something.