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!