Yuka

Damn! It being Sunday says that there is but one week left of my time in New York. You know what that means? It’s the perfect time to get a cold and feel shitty, that’s what. Spent the last couple of days a sweaty, gooky mess but managed to get out and about thanks to miracle drugs. Not very far though, in fact both days it was only as far as the park by the piers to chill out on the grass and read and watch the world go by. I like doing that though so it’s not time wasted. Does people watching make me a voyeur? Feeling remarkably better today thanks to drugs and a few glasses of red wine last night.

The rest of my trip around the US is now booked. I looked at a map the other day and realised that my geographic knowledge of this place is worse than I thought, and I was already convinced it was pretty bad. Boston’s by the sea? Who knew? Now that I have the States the right way up I probably stand a better chance of getting from one place to another.

Think I might take the Staten Island ferry today or maybe go to Coney Island again and see the sea. Either sounds quite tempting.

Laura I have it on good authority that Krispy Kremes are just a brand name for a donut type thing so they’re not crispy like you think.

Had a good wander around Greenwich last night before stopping at a little Indian (How) for a bite. Had a look in a shop that sold only gay porn video’s and Glen Miller CD’s. I’m sure that makes sense in some way that just eludes me at the moment. Why did I go in? Because it was there. Did I buy anything? Hell no, I already have Glen Miller on my Ipod.

Actually I went to Boston but hey, close enough. So courtesy of the lovely Fung Wah bus company ($15 all the way there) I get to see another city bringing my total of places visited in the US to 3. What a traveller! Boston was far more mellow than Manhattan. They seem to have cut back on the number of people banging dustbin lids together on the street at 4am unlike New York so I enjoyed the peace. Boston is also much smaller than NY and more spaced out (not stoned) so you get to realise how claustrophobic NY is compared to most places. What’s that? Oh it’s the sky. Weird. Stayed in a lovely little place called Brookline which is very pretty with fantastic houses and proper all American schools just like in John Hughes movies. Spent a lot of the time just being shown around by someone lovely that I’ve only ever met twice, and hanging out.

Back late the next day via the Fung Wah bus with a quick stop off at the…

Wednesday, after a bit of a late start, busy, busy, busy. Off to a gallery to see the Winogrand zoo photography exhibition. Excellent pictures. Total genius.



Back to central park for a little post-art recharge and then off for dinner at another little Italian, (Marinara, is that with fish?) and then off to see Stephen Fry’s Bright Young Things at the Angelika downtown. Good film but a few too many cameo’s got in the way of the story a bit. Still, enjoyed it though. Drowned our minor disappointment with lager at the Red Lion followed by gins and natter at the apartment. Woke up strangely with a headache. What happened there?

People at Aardvark who make my soundcard say that they only support it by email and then don’t reply to emails. When you call them they say it’s a software problem and I’ll have to speak to Microsoft… ahem. Or am I taking the card back to the shop tomorrow morning and getting my money back off Aardvark and then telling everyone I know not to touch them with an 80 foot stick? You decide, or even “you deicide” as I wrote the first time. Much better instruction don’t you think? Now here I am surrounded by the garden of delights that is New York. What’s on the telly?

Ooops, a few busy nights and what happens? Well this doesn’t for a start. Ok, brief whistle stop tour from Thursday night to here.

Thursday night, went and saw the the Zutons (excellent live, not sure I’d be a fan of the recordings), sax playing girl was stella (like a star rather than that being her name), the rest of ’em were like cartoon characters and the crowd did love ’em, oh yes. The Thrills were introduced by John McEnroe which was a little unexpected. They were OK but they seemed to be relying on click tracks and backing tracks for a bit of the backing which took a chunk of spontaneity out of their act. Seemed like they should have been a lot more spontaneous but were held back from being that way so it all went a bit damp. Irving Plaza was a good looking venue and the first place we’d been where the music was turned up loud enough. It suffered a bit from the interminable rules that seem to stop anyone from having fun though. All beer was about 2% proof in tiny cans. You could only buy it if you had ID no matter what age you were. Now I know I look damn good for my advanced years but even I don’t think I can pass for 20. Sure, you probably disagree and I’m being a little harsh on myself but I think I look no younger than 23. AND nowhere to nip out for a fag. (I refuse to stop calling them fags no matter what it means here, also interestingly “twat” is a really bad word here. Must say it more). Anyway, for a place that harps on about freedom so much there seems to be a hell of a small amount of it in New York. Guess that’s Giuliani’s legacy but hey, he cleaned the place up so it’s safer than London. “Hey buddy, you can’t do that, you’ll get a ticket.” Seems the freedom they’re on about is the opportunity to choose between 27 trillion formats of toothpaste in any drugstore. Decaf, low mint, extra sugar, sunny side up, on rye with miniature breath strips for me. Hold the mayo. So that was Thursday. Where next, ah yes, Friday.

We started Friday in fair weather maintaining a steady 7 knots which depth readings showing plenty of hull clearance. Bit of diner breakfast and then a bit of a read in Washington Square. I seem to be a bit of a hit with the boys down there (and the squirrels, but I think they may just be after my nuts. Ahem.). Drove myself nuts trying to get soundcard to record more than 6 seconds of sound at a time (yeah I know, dull) then out in the evening to the Lower East Side for an explore with a very genial tour guide (actually a very nice friend who lives down that way). Bars were entered, that had proper smoking bits (yeah i’m obsessed). It’s a very cool area which music in lots of bars and performance stuff, but not the sanitised Greenwich version, proper creative stuff. Me like. Back for Gin and sleep.

Saturday was a day of rest. Well it had been a hectic week. It’s just work work work around here. Nice phone calls and then out to dinner at a good Italian. Doesn’t matter how much Marinara sauce I have, I still wonder whether it has fish in it. It doesn’t. After that off to Marie Crisis piano bar which was extraordinary. Basically a cellar with a bar at one end, and a piano at the other, crowded with people singing show tunes as though their very existence depended on it. Managed an hour or so there but I didn’t know the words so it got to be a bit like that bit when you go to a wedding and don’t know the words to the hymns so have to stand there mouthing along like a goldfish that just jumped out of it’s bowl. Or something. After that back for a Gin and more sleeping.

So now I’m on to today. Still with me? Day of the bugs. Hell, we found out what had been munching us… They weren’t nice. We ran away and left it to grownups to fix the situation. Wandered down Broadway for a few hours looking for clothes and finding some. Into the Apple Store in Soho which is an remarkable place. Literally a cathedral dedicated to the purchase of preposterously well designed, very white consumer electronics. Fabio I bought you something there which should make you happy. ;-). A bit of a walk along the piers on the way back which was very pretty as the sun dipped in the sky and twinkled on the Hudson. After that back home for an evening of pizza and watching Titanic. Never seen it before and missed the end so I’m hoping they all arrived in America safely. Looked like it was going pretty well up to the point I saw.

And now the future… Tomorrow I catch a bus down to Boston for the night which means, horror, setting an alarm clock… that’s going to smart. See ya on Tuesday.

First the technicalities. My new soundcard is being badly behaved and it’s annoying the crap out of me. I’m on the phone to the people who make it tomorrow, probably to be told that there’s one tiny button that I haven’t pushed that they forget to mention in the manual that will make everything better. God I hope so. I’ve got a bottleneck!

Second the mundanities. I went out today first to the laundrette and then to the music shop Manny’s up on 48th Street to pick up a cable. Don’t ask for a lead. They don’t know what that is. Then I went to a drugstore looking for a mosquito killing device as I’m getting munched again by the big brother of the fella I killed in a previous post down there. Then I bought some food at the deli (New York deli’s are a fantastic invention) and came back and ate it. Shortly, I will have a shower and then I will go to the laundry again to pick up some nice clean sheets. See how my life has changed?

Thirdly the good stuff. The Thrills tonight at the Irving Plaza which should be ace and the support, The Zutons get a good write up too. I saw the advert for Perfectil below on the subway which I thought the lady readers in Europe may appreciate. I am really looking forward to Monday a lot. Oh yes.

Hey well, meeting someone you never met before can be a very, very good thing and don’t let anyone tell you any different.

Had a bit of a wander through Chinatown yesterday. Man, if ever a place smelt bad, then it was Chinatown. It has a great feeling to it though and is much more Chinese than the picture postcard London equivalent. Walked back up from there up Bowery and then across 4th to Washington Square before cutting across Waverly and across 6th to Greenwich Avenue and then home. Listen to me, sound almost like I know what I’m doing don’t I?

Tomorrow depends on the weather but will hopefully involve making some music which I’m beimg very lax about… Oh and we go to see The Thrills too…

Cryptic Crossword

1 Across, Off to Boston for the night on Monday to see someone I’ve only met once before. (4,8)

1 Down, See picture, this is just an office block (2,3)

First support Amy Correia had a certain charm but seemed to lack a bit of oomph. She had the balls to do her last song in a totally acapella (all right, can you spell it?) style which was very good and she had a lovely voice. Polly Paulusma, well, least said soonest mended. We had to go to the bar while she was on. She seemed to play about a hundred songs, each of which was an hour long, and about being slightly miffed about something really minor in a wistful way. No saving graces. Dull.

The Divine Comedy were fantastic, stripped down to a 3 piece of Neil on piano or guitar and a cello player and another guitar/ banjo player. They did a 3 part set, first with the Piano-ey songs then the guitary ones then Neil returned to the piano for encores where they took requests for songs from the audience which was chaotic but very funny. As far as I remember they did We Are The Champions, Wonderwall, The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore, and a few others.

The Bowery audience were a bit prissy, especially upstairs where we went for the view. “You’re going to have to stop breathing on my back It’s driving me nuts” said one strange young lady. Now I wasn’t standing very close to her, and well, it was a gig so we were all standing facing the same way, and I had to breathe. It’s not like I was thrusting at her and licking her shoulder. She should be so lucky…

Today I’m going to meet someone I never met before. Ohmigod. That’s not some hippy philosophy thing by the way. It’s arranged.

Oh and if you want to be alerted when Yuka TV is live, use the special email request under the picture… Not that picture down there, that one over there.

Ah, Monday morning and Wogan’s on the radio, the sun’s out and I’m off to see The Divine Comedy tonight. Other than that todays joys feature going to a laundrette in the basement, looking for somewhere to get my hair cut and making pop music tunes.

Yesterday was an excellent day featuring a walk along the piers through the new Rockefeller Park down by the Hudson. Excellent place to chill out on the grass and watch the boats go by although some of the park areas are made of astroturf which makes it a bit Disney. Everyone was down there in bikini’s and shorts yesterday, except me obviously. I look crap in a bikini. After that I grabbed a pizza slice from Joe’s Pizza which is apparently famous and then bought a nice, new pair of trainers, nice and cheaply. Back to the apartment to flop for a couple of hours and then out to the cinema to see the very, very fantastic French thriller Red Lights. Go see it, it’s not at all bad. Then off to the Red Lion for a few beers and a chat to a looney Norwegian woman who scared us both by being only 6 years older than us but looking old enough to be our mum. After which we escape to the apartment for a bed time G+T and pop music…. and sleeeeeeeeeeppp…

There’s a a weird thing about what I’m doing here. My mind has no reference points with which to deal with the situation I currently find myself in, so it kind of flits between various options, trying them on for size but none of them quite fit.

Option 1 that it tries from previous experience is “this is a holiday lasting no more than 2 weeks”. This is patently wrong as I have shaken things up way beyond that. No job to go back to. This version also makes me feel like I should be going out every day and night.

I’ll try to work out the other options and then put them up here, more for me than for you. You realise that you are all my therapists? Tell me about your mothers.

Yesterday I was mundane. I tidied the apartment a bit. Tried to learn how my new sound card works a bit. Played a bit of guitar. Played a bit of (very bad) piano. Had a very nice phone call. Listened to a lot of UK radio on the wonderful BBC website. Ached from falling down the stairs the other day (That really hurt by the way!). Had a nice evening eating, lounging and chatting about our fears.

This morning I woke up with no new bites, my worry that I had bed bugs proved unfounded. It really was all that one very hungry and now very dead mosquito. And yes, if you didn’t know already, I really do pick up any worms I find on the pavement and put them back on the grass so they don’t get trodden on. Hippy.

Found him last night. He’d been so disciplined. Hiding during the day. Biding his time. So patient, cool, calm, still. Waiting for his moment so carefully. Playing by the rules of the game handed down to him through generations of his kind. Then his target changes routine. The lights are on into the small hours. His hunger builds yet still instinct tells him “not now”, to be seen is the end of the game. But slowly the pain in his gut starts to outweigh logic. The awful emptiness starts to tear at his sense. He knows he must do something. Surely he can get away with it by just being small and discrete? He breaks cover. Weak with hunger, he flies to his target and ahhhh stabs and starts to drink. The sweet, life-giving warmth filling him, intoxicating him, making him careless. Then the hand. From nowhere it seems. The rush of terrible wind that he knows heralds something far worse, but he is so full and so tired. There’s nowhere to run. It’s over…

I got the bastard mosquito that’s been taking chunks out of me last night.

Yesterday I mostly played with my new soundcard which is a very good little thing. I also scalded my hand on the kettle and fell down the stairs on my butt which has left me a bit on the achy side today. This morning I woke up and lay in bed for 5 minutes thinking “wow it’s so quiet today” before remembering that I put ear plugs in before I went to bed… still not getting any cleverer…

This is the view out of the apartment window…