Santa Barbara and San Francisco

Home of that terrible daytime soap opera from the 1980s (maybe it's even still going, I don't know), Santa Barbara was perhaps a bit of a strange choice for us, but I wanted to break the long train trip from Anaheim to San Francisco up into two days, so Santa Barbara was somewhat randomly chosen as a stopover destination along the way. I have since remembered that Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch is also nearby, which may have subconsciously influenced my decision, but unfortunately this thought only struck me once we were home, so no arrests in Santa Barbara for attempting to scale the fence and find out if the petting zoo is still there. In a happy coincidence, not only it was the first night of a week long Mexican fiesta, it was also my birthday (well, in New Zealand time at least), and therefore an appropriate excuse to drink margaritas, get covered in confetti and revel in the streets, in what was originally supposed to have been a low-key, quiet night between major cities. I hadn't actually been planning on celebrating my birthday till the next day when it was the 1^st of  August in US time, but then I started getting texts and facebook messages from people in New Zealand, and coupled with the festive street party atmosphere, it seemed like it would be rude not to celebrate. After dropping our bags off at the motel in the late afternoon, we bussed back to the heart of the fiesta on State Street, I bought flowers for my hair from a street stall, we found a cantina selling two-for-one margaritas, and it was all downhill from there... Wanting to improve on my abysmal experience with the shrimp cocktail in Vegas, I decided that I was allowed one last seafood indulgence before writing it off entirely again (hey, it was my 'sort of' birthday after all), and ordered the lobster burrito for dinner. This sounds like it would have been the best thing ever back in the day, but I think I really have lost my taste for seafood after so many years without it (or perhaps I just empathise with Dr Zoidberg too much these days), as it just tasted bland and yuck, and I kept sneaking bites of Sam's much more appeal-a-tising vegetarian meal instead. The jalapeno-cucumber margaritas on the other hand went down rather nicely, and after a few of these, we decided to fit in a bit of a drunken shopping mission before the stores closed at 8pm, having spied the inevitable record places etc on our way to dinner.

Dia de los Muertos painted skulls in Santa Barbara

 Sipping on jalapeno-cucumber margaritas

Floral fiesta mode as the margaritas are kicking in...

I happened upon another Bettie Page store (this may have been the fourth or fifth one on the trip, I lost count), and finally found that damn blouse I'd sweated all over back in NYC in my size this time, and triumphantly bought it while ranting at the salesgirl that it was meant to be, since during my time in the store they had played  three of my favourite songs (I believe we had 'Lounge Act,' 'Clash City Rockers' and something Operation Ivy). Since it was apparently her iPod on shuffle playing said songs, she was most chuffed, and gave me some recommendations for cool bars to go to in Santa Barbara that I promptly forgot upon exiting the store. One of the downsides of America is that public toilets just do not seem to exist anywhere, and most places are way too strict about you wandering in to use the restroom if you're not a paying customer, so after shopping, it was straight back to the cantina we'd just left to buy more drinks in order to be able to pee. Sam got adventurous and ordered a tropical-looking blue cocktail with a plastic shark in it that spewed some kind of red liquid into the concoction (the shark was the sole reason he strayed from beer I think), and I continued the margarita trend. I'd been really keen to head back to our motel to use the pool and jacuzzi before they closed at ten, but it soon became apparent that this was not going to happen, as it was nearing 9.30 and the bus trip back would take about half an hour. Thus, we surrendered to the street festival. By this time, there were Mariachi bands out and about in full force, I was covered in confetti, and valiant attempts were made by stallholders to get Sam to swap his black fedora for a sombrero or such, but it was time to escape to the familiar comfort of a dive bar; we managed to find one that fit the bill, even in Santa Barbara. Wednesday night was their punk rock record night, and the DJ was playing a great selection, further enhanced by Sam requesting Rancid for me for my birthday. A lovely evening all round, up until the point we tried to get the bus back to our motel many hours later and discovered that public transport had stopped running for the night. After a bit of drunken grumpy walking, Sam made the sensible decision to hail us a taxi instead, and we made it back to the Sandman Inn unscathed.

My birthday in US time was - somewhat predictably - spent quite hungover, on what we thought would be a leisurely eight hour train trip, but after two hours on the nice spacious train with sufficient leg room and a food car, we all got transferred to a much less comfortable bus in San Luis Obispo (the town whose acronym made all its services seem sub-par: SLO Taxis, SLO Buses, SLO Senior Citizens’ Home). Instead of a food car, it made one fifteen minute food stop at a McDonalds’, so it was a box of fries for my birthday lunch. The bus then got stuck in traffic about twenty miles out of San Francisco, and was subsequently an hour late arriving at the station. Even better, when we got there, it became apparent that my suitcase had not joined us, having been loaded onto the wrong bus when we changed from the train. The guy at the station told us to wait round for the next bus to arrive, in the hope that my suitcase had at least been put on to that and wasn't on its way to Texas instead. There was a mighty sigh of relief when we saw the guy wheeling my suitcase off the next bus that arrived in from Santa Barbara; it had not gone off on its own sightseeing tour of the South after all. Still though, by the time we finally got to our hotel, it was 9.30pm rather than the 7pm we had planned on, and the also planned 'go out for a special birthday dinner' was thrown out by the fact that most of the restaurants we looked up online in the area had already closed their kitchens. Thus, the special birthday dinner took place at the burger joint in the hotel, which was about our only option by that stage. At least this was pretty cool though, given that I had blown out the accommodation budget for two nights in a fancy retro hotel called the Americania, with mid-century modern furnishings and old rock n' roll playing on the jukebox. Not quite waitresses on rollerskates, but close. I'm then disappointed to say that there was no hitting the town on my US birthday; instead, too tired to do much else, we curled up on our stylish 1950s couch and watched a movie in the hotel room (‘Mama,’ a thriller starring Jaime Lannister or whatever his real name is, and a female lead styled so much on Brody Dalle it was almost painful; some good creepy children in it though and ultimately quite watchable). And here you all were thinking that I was up to some kind of glamorous partying...

View from our room into the back alleys of San Francisco 

Enjoying the mid-century modern vibe at the Americania hotel

I always wanted one of these chairs! 

Friday was to be the last night of seeing Rancid (I say ‘was to be;’ as you’ll see, we managed to slip another gig in, taking the number of Rancid shows seen on this trip to four, grand total ever of six) and as you all know, these things start inconveniently early over here, so we decided not to stray too far from our hotel and the Warfield where the gig was being held and spent the afternoon on Haight Street. The highlight for me turned out to be lunch at Love and Haight (best sammitch I've ever eaten! I need to learn how to make meatless chicken), whereas the vintage stores on the whole proved to be more for looking rather than buying. I did overhear an interesting conversation with the owner of one though, who basically said they deliberately overprice because they mainly get in buyers from LA for movies who have huge budgets to blow, so they can get away with it (Americans talk way too loudly, I overheard all sorts of interesting things while over there). Apparently Frances Bean Cobain had also been shopping in the store earlier that week. Sam went to Amoeba Records (I think they need to make him an honorary staff member), and then we caught the bus back to the hotel for a few pre-gig PBRs.

Street art on Haight 

Another excellent Transplants and Rancid show ensued (you probably don’t need a third review), and afterwards we did our by now familiar wander-round-the-side-of -the-venue trick and befriended yet another crew member, this time Rancid’s tourbus driver, a thoroughly nice guy who was very keen to visit New Zealand with his son some day and thus hung on our every word. Skinhead Rob, the lead singer for the Transplants, emerged from the venue and was more amiable than might have been expected for a guy who, as Sam put it “looks like he wants to stab someone all the time.” We probably should have made more of an attempt to put our tough faces on in the photo we got with him though… Entertainingly enough, him and Sam then bonded over a discussion about d-beat and Sam apparently made quite the impression, as Rob put our names on the guest list for the show the next night, which we didn't have tickets for. Hey, I wasn’t going to turn down an unexpected fourth Rancid show for free, so Saturday night plans were immediately cancelled and one last stalking opportunity was back on the agenda.

Tim, early on in the set at the first Rancid show at the Warfield, before I rampaged off down the front

Skinheads Rob and Sam, and Andy, with more than enough hair to make up for both of them... 

Not being able to afford more than two nights of luxury at the expensive hotel (by the end of the trip it was debatable if we had even been able to afford those two nights, and probably should have flagged it all together, but alas it was all pre-booked, paid for and non-refundable), it was on to our second San Fran accommodation on the Saturday, a more modest apartment on Pine Street booked through Airbnb, about ten steps from the main street of Chinatown. We quickly scouted the area for vegan noms and got back on the meatless chicken drumsticks at Enjoy vegetarian restaurant on Kearny, then wandered through North Beach, an area we hadn't been to last time, where we stumbled upon the famous City Lights Bookstore and a bunch of cool little shops and galleries. Fleeting stops were also made at Coit Tower and Lombard Street (the crooked street; too lazy to walk up it and running out of time, we just ‘experienced’ it visually from the bottom) then we walked back to the apartment to get ready for the Rancid and Transplants finale. This show was notable for a number of reasons: us arriving early enough to see all three bands (the Harrington Saints were opening); Matt and Lars bumbling onstage during the Transplants’ ‘Tall Cans in the Air’ waving tallboy PBRs around; the first of the gigs I actually managed to get my act together enough to take some photos at; meeting Lars again (!); and the piece de resistance, the driver guy we hung out with the night before giving me a snare skin signed by all members of Rancid. This resulted in many dirty looks from all the fans around me and I was convinced someone was going to mug me for it, but I managed to get both it and myself back to New Zealand safely. Since it was the last night of the tour, there was an after party in a bar nearby, and it was pretty cool hanging out and drinking in a place where you would just casually catch sight of Lars or Rob walking past (no Tim, sadly). Also, you know it’s been a good night when you wake up the next day and upon looking through your camera, find multiple photos of yourselves with new friends you have no memory of having made…

Hangin out with Lars down on 6th Street (well, 6th Street was a block away, and I did see him again at a bar on 6th later that night)

New friends, I think... I have a bunch of photos of these people, so I'm assuming we hung out for a large part of the night

On Sunday morning I awoke to the discovery that I seemed to be in a substantial amount of pain when I moved or breathed, its location suggesting either an injured rib or the start of a stomach ulcer. Either way, there were owie bits in my mid-section which felt serious enough for me to forgo beer and start off the night drinking green tea instead. Not ideal when you’re meant to be seeing the Descendents, Pennywise and Sublime with Rome later on in the evening… I did calm down a bit though when - thanks once again to the more reliable memory of my camera – I saw a photo I had taken while right up at the front at Rancid of an empty wheelchair which the security guys refused to move, despite there being no-one nearby who needed it, and despite the fact that every time the crowd moved, whoever was in the vicinity of the wheelchair got smooshed into it. There were vague recollections of some handle-of-wheelchair-meets-ribs moments, and so I was able to rule out the stomach ulcer diagnosis. After a brief detour to Rasputin Records, we had an early and restorative dinner at the nearby vege restaurant again, and then a fairly scenic half hour walk to the America’s Cup Pavilion for the show. 

Like Slurms McKenzie, by this stage I was so tired of partying and didn't really want to drink again, so ended up watching Pennywise and the Descendents sober and still having a great time (it's apparently possible!) Pennywise were one of those bands that mostly passed me by in high school; I had one of their albums and had been known to enjoy a drunken whoa-whoa-oh-oh singalong to ‘Bro Hymn,’ but on the whole I wasn’t overly excited about seeing them, having written them off as one of the those so-so SoCal skatepunk bands. Surprise, they turned out to be really friggin good! Probably the best between-song banter, heckling and hilarity of any band I’ve seen (other than the Blistering Tongues of course), and a hugely energetic set with some entertaining covers (‘Territorial Pissings,’ ‘Fight for Your Right’ and a chaotically good version of Sublime’s own ‘Same in the End’ which fell apart about halfway through). Pennywise, I’m off to get my hands on your back catalogue… Right before the Descendents played, I decided I might just be up to partaking of maybe one casual drink, and so put in a request for Sam to get me a margarita when he went and bought beers. Swigging it back full tilt proved to be a mistake, as something had gone wrong with the margarita machine, and it was actually a 24oz cup of straight tequila. Cheap shitty tequila at that. Any other time, this may have at least made for an inexpensive night, but in my fragile state there was no way straight tequila was going to happen. By this stage, the Descendents were playing, and I wasn’t about to go stand in line for another drink, so saw my second band of the evening sober and well-behaved. Ah the Descendents, so many good songs, so many good times. I resolved to get a Milo tattoo the next day. This didn’t quite happen, but it’s still on the cards… Also, there was the cutest nerdy punk couple standing near us who looked to be in their forties whose little kids sat on their shoulders waving ‘We love the Descendents’ signs they’d made. Awww… Children and no booze, what an unexpectedly wholesome experience. Before Sublime with Rome took the stage, there was some merch buying (who DOESN’T need a Descendents coozie?), and we ran into Tim, an Australian guy we’d hung out with at the Rancid shows for the last two nights. I took my mutant margarita back and they were most apologetic and gave me two beers as a replacement, so I guess I was back on the beers after all. Although they didn’t play the song I wanted to hear most, Sublime with Rome were also better than I had expected. Rome may not be the world’s most engaging frontman, but his voice is damn near as close to Bradley Nowell’s as you could get, and they played a varied set which mixed the faster stuff with the more laidback stoner anthems. Most pleased they included the Bad Religion cover, and really enjoyed ‘April 29, 1992,’ ‘Badfish’ and ‘Wrong Way.’ The sound was oddly quiet, but maybe that was just compared to the bands that preceded them? Sam, Tim and I then wandered in search of a bar and found ourselves in Mr Bing’s Cocktail Lounge, a small dive bar bordering Chinatown and North Beach. What was meant to be one drink for the walk home turned into several, and suddenly the infomercials advertising cat toys that were playing on the tv screens were the best things we’d ever watched. Sam lost 50 cents to a machine in the men’s room that proclaimed to dispense ‘shocking erotic photos’ in alluring little matchbox sized casings, but were neither shocking nor particularly erotic. To be fair, the bartender had warned him against wasting his money…

Drinks with Tim at Mr Bing's Cocktail Lounge

Monday dawned (can I say ‘dawned’ if we didn’t actually wake up until the afternoon?), and I would have been content to give in to my accumulated three day hangover and do not much of anything apart from rest, but Sam convinced me that I’d regret it once we were home, and ultimately I think he was right, so I allowed myself to be talked into an excursion to Oakland. I’m not sure how we took the BART so many times on our last trip without this occurring to me, but about halfway to Oakland, I realised we were indeed travelling in a train under the bay, and that this might not be the ideal place to find oneself should an earthquake strike. The rest of the journey was thus spent trying to ward off hangover-induced panic attack. Which was probably why I didn’t really mind too much when we discovered we had boarded the wrong train (after some well-intentioned but misguided directions from a random person we asked), and had to get off at the next stop and then walk for twenty minutes to get to Oakland – I was just happy to be above ground again.

The Tribune Building in Oakland

One of the many cool haunted mansion looking places we wandered past in Koreatown Northgate district of Oakland

We stopped at Rosamunde's Sausage Grill in Old Oakland for gourmet vegan sausage hot dogs, then set off on an hour-long walk to a local gig that was due to start at 6.30pm, checking out some shops along the way. I found plastic hairclip paradise in a weird beauty store selling all manner of wigs and weaves, and was blown away when I asked how much they were per packet of 20 and the answer was 99 cents. I now have a supermarket bag full of plastic hairclips (or ‘barrettes,’ if you will) in every colour imaginable and should probably unload some of them on trademe. We also discovered the standout record store of the trip, 1 2 3 4 Records, which had not only the cheapest and best selection of records (I bought 'Milo Goes to College' again for $11 after it was left at JFK airport, and Mudhoney album I was after), but two incredibly cute little dogs who looked like Fizzgig from the Dark Crystal and were really friendly. I’ve finally found a breed of dog I am not scared of or grossed out by; the guy in the store informed me they were pomeranians, and a drunken Google image search later on that night confirmed that they are the raddest dogs ever, looking like a cross between a miniature bear and a happy baby seal. It was then about another twenty minute walk from the record store to the gig, through a neighbourhood that gave off vibes of the look-at-someone-wrong-and-you-might-get-knifed sort, but we survived okay and found Eli's Mile High Club, possibly the dive-iest of all the dive bars we've been to. PBR on tap, punk on the stereo and the most facially tattooed guy I've ever seen working behind the bar. Apparently he must not get tipped much, because later on in the night, after I'd been consistently tipping him a dollar per beer (the done thing in the US), he poured us free shots as a thank you for being 'so good to us all night.' Perhaps everyone else there was just shooting up in the bathrooms rather than actually paying for drinks? Whatever the case, we got double shots of Fireball and had befriended the most intimidating looking guy in the bar (Eric, I believe his name was, which somehow counteracted the facial tatts). The bands were thrashy and actually more listenable than I'd been expecting, and hailed from LA, North Carolina, and Austria, my favourite of the night being the wonderfully named Speedboozer. If I ever get a pomeranian dog, I'm calling it Speedboozer...

One of my many blurred photos which captures the atmosphere of the gig at Eli's Mile High Club...

Oh no, our last day of the trip! Time to head to Walgreens to stock up on super cheap American make-up, drink the rest of the PBRs and start fretting over flying again. Paranoid about missing our flight after the New York debacle, and not really wanting to wander round with luggage after leaving our accommodation at 3pm, we sat in St Mary's park for a while with the PBRs and then decided to get the BART to the airport around 4, even though our flight wasn't until 9.30. Never before have I been so early for something; the check-in desk wasn't even open yet. I had time to catch up on some blog writing, indulge in one final Mexican meal, scope out the duty-free shop for Fireball (they didn't have it sorry New Zealanders, so you don't get to sample the glorious drop. Edit: Sam stumbled upon some at Henry’s in Dunedin the other day! It was 2.5 times the price for a smaller bottle than in the US, but I’m currently sipping on some as I type) and play on the travelators.

Our flights were smooth and uneventful, just the way I like them, and as a nice bookend to being stoked on seeing my friend Girl Sam in the Air NZ magazine on the way over, on the way back I found that one of the movie options was 'The Weight of Elephants,' directed by my friend Daniel Borgman, which I'd been keen to see. Very atmospheric and touching NZ film, great stuff Dan! It was then a bit of a comedown getting on the domestic flight at Auckland and the pilot announcing that the current temperature in Dunedin was -2 degrees.  Sigh… And as a fitting end to a blog with the URL 'threequartersfilleul,' I'm finishing writing this having watched our Filleul Street flat get demolished on my lunchbreak last week. Welcome back to Dunedin Andy...

To make myself feel better about being home, I will now list my top five gripes with America/things NZ does better. Please note that these are few and far between, and given the chance, I would easily ditch you all and go back there in a heartbeat:

1) No more freaking tipping and one cent coins and adding tax to the price of everything and a weird lack of PIN numbers and just general money oddness! For a nation of supposed convenience, America is real big on forcing you to do spontaneous maths constantly throughout the course of a regular day in order to pay for things. If most Americans had any inkling of how much simpler paying for things is in NZ, there would likely be rioting in the streets…

2) Op shops! Dunedin you rule for op shops, vintage clothing, thrift stores, secondhand, whatever we’re calling it… Although there were plenty in the US that had cool stuff, there was nowhere I could find a decent skirt/top/anything-you-could-name for $4 like you can in Dunedin. It was more like $40 if you were lucky. Actually it’s not just the US that’s made me appreciate this though, every time I go to Auckland and Wellington too, I come back home with a new respect for the awesomeness, affordability and lack of pretentiousness of Dunedin op shops. DCC, can we somehow market this as a thing to encourage people to move here?

3) Guns. This isn’t number one because to be honest, I didn’t see a single gun when I was in the US, but every time you hear some slightly unhinged person screaming obscenities in the street, or witness a fight break out, or even have an unsavoury character look at you in a shifty way, the gun thing is always in the back of your mind. Possibly this is why Americans on the whole do seem to be politer than NZers on the whole though; so many “excuse me”s and “I’m sorry”s, and that’s usually when I’ve accidentally bumped into them rather than the other way round. And although the concept of police with guns makes them way scarier than ours, I still can’t bring myself to address them as Sir or Ma’am…

4) The American phenomenon of not being able to be in a public space without either a TV being on, or talking loudly about nothing on a cellphone, or a particularly annoying blend of the two. Perhaps it’s a good thing NZ has prohibitively high costs for cellphone usage; if we ever get the same unlimited calling minutes as Americans for such a low price, we too may find ourselves surgically attached to our phones with no apparent regard for the general public within earshot. Oh, the unfortunate number of conversations I overheard where people discussed their emotions and relationship dramas loudly in public with absolutely no shame whatsoever…I’m sorry, called me uptight, call me a New Zealander, but I like the Kiwi penchant for restricting that kind of stuff to the privacy of our own homes… 

 

5) The yellow line! The damn yellow line! Everywhere you go, there is a yellow line you must comply with, and shouty, self-important enforcers making you “GET BEHIND THE YELLOW LINE!” Ostensibly this relates to public safety (they don’t want you to fall onto the train tracks, for instance, so there is a helpful yellow line which indicates that there are train tracks in front of you, because apparently this is more of a deterrent than actually seeing the tracks and observing trains pass by on them), but really I think it’s just a way of decreasing their unemployment stats by giving otherwise unemployable yelly people a token job. Oddly enough, it seems to be optional to wear a bike helmet though, so health and safety be damned in many other ways…

And with that, we reach the end of the (yellow) line for this installment of the blog... Back to entering the greencard lottery and attempting another casino win so I can go back for round three

Los Angeles and Anaheim

It was well and truly time to leave Las Vegas after five nights of gambling and drinking by pools (who would've thought I could tire of that?!), and we boarded our bus for LA quite excited about going somewhere new. We'd only spent a few hours in LA on our last trip, but had four nights there this time, followed by the obligatory night in Anaheim to visit the dreaded Disneyland. The early morning bus trip from Vegas necessitated headphones, as for some reason the driver thought it was a good idea to play childrens' movies in Spanish on the many tv screens, while simultaneously blasting Mariachi music on the radio. Too bad for anyone wanting to sleep... We arrived in downtown LA mid-afternoon, and walked to Pershing Square station to catch the train to Hollywood where we were staying. I hate walking round with our luggage in tow because it screams 'tourist' and 'target for crazy people' and sure enough, most of the journey was spent attempting to avoid crossing paths with a dude yelling that he was off his meds and wanted to kill someone. No one else seemed to be paying him much attention though, so we crossed our fingers that this was standard downtown LA behaviour and tried not to make eye contact. At one point he did tell Sam he liked his badges though. Once safely ensconced at our apartment on Whitley Ave in Hollywood (another value-for-money Airbnb find), we set out on a quest for food, and discovered that we had fortuitously managed to base ourselves about two blocks from a wonderful vegan restaurant called Vegan House, whose meatless chicken drumsticks quickly became our new favourite. I decided to have a night in and make the most of the comfy couch and huge screen TV with free Netflix and catch up on internet tasks we hadn't be able to do in Vegas, while Sam went off to see Peter Murphy from Bauhaus play again just down the road.

The view from our apartment on Whitley Ave

The swanky zebra themed bedroom in our Hollywood apartment

On Saturday it was back to Vegan House again for lunch, then a wander round some shops in the Hollywood area, including the LA branch of Amoeba Records (the first of Sam's three trips there), and a strange little vintage store with a gig and gallery space above it that happened to have an exhibition by one of the guys from the Germs on display. It consisted of lost pet posters he had collected from the Hollywood area during the years the band was active in the late 70s, and was an oddly moving yet morbid show when you started to wonder if the pets were ever eventually reunited with their owners, then concluded that even if they had been, they would be long dead by now anyway. Sad face. The guy who worked in the store was another eccentric but extra-nice American character (we seem to attract them!) who was like a Mexican hair-metal Toddy, and who gave us some sweet discounts on stuff, and seemed genuinely disappointed there would not be a gig on in the space upstairs for us to go and see while we were in LA.

Not to worry, as we already had plans for Saturday night anyway. I'm an avid reader of Juxtapoz magazine (thanks parents for the yearly Christmas present subscription!), and one of the galleries that often features in there was having an opening that night. Finally, one of the many emailed exhibition opening invitations that clog my inbox from galleries I follow in the US could actually be put to use, rather than just making me jealous when I'm in Dunedin that I can't go. The show in question was a group exhibition called 'Shades,' at Corey Helford Gallery in Culver City, about a 50 minute bus ride from Hollywood. Bus proved easy to negotiate and for a mere $1.50 each, we got an impromptu sightseeing tour of LA into the bargain (contrary to popular belief, LA is not at all difficult to navigate entirely by walking and public transport). The exhibition itself was immensely impressive, featuring 16 x 16 inch works (mainly paintings) by 16 different artists, and I would have been happy owning almost any one of them. Of course, they weren't exactly in my price range (Vegas, why did you not pull through for me?!), and it was a moot point anyway given that most of the show was sold out even before the opening, but at least we got some free fancy beers. It transpired that the area surrounding Corey Helford was a bit of a mecca for art galleries in general, and a number of others had openings on that night as well, so we gallery hopped to about five different shows within a few blocks, feeling very arty and sophisticated.

Work by Tom Bagshaw in 'Shades' show

Work by Lola at 'Shades' show

Sam and work by Shag at 'Shades' show

Too starving by that stage to face a 50 minute bus ride back to Hollywood before eating dinner, we went to a Mexican place in Culver City that wasn't overly amazing (and they didn't sell alcohol!), but were at least well-fed for our trip back. Since it was a Saturday night, and since we had already started the evening looking at lowbrow art, we continued the lowbrow approach (although as I type this, I think that's just our approach in general anyway, and I question whether we did anything distinctly 'highbrow' the whole trip, or would want to), and went and partied at some dive bars in Hollywood. The first one, Loaded, didn't really live up to the divey reviews we read on Yelp, and just seemed more like a normal nightclub but with a bit of a rocker bent, but the Burgundy Room was just what we were after (small, dark, lit with candles, cheap booze, ouija board tables, tattooed bartenders and punk on the stereo) and we settled in and drank there till closing time. On the way home we stumbled upon Frank Sinatra's star on the Walk of Fame, so I had a bit of a Grandad moment.

One for Grandad.... 

I had heard that Melrose Ave was where the more alternative-y type clothing and record stores were, so we bussed there late on Sunday afternoon for a looksie. Lo and behold, when we got off at the stop, there just happened to be the best outdoor flea market I had ever seen in front of us, which is only held on Sundays, so we had accidentally timed that well. The Melrose Trader's Market was like the biggest, most eclectic vintage clothing and general junk store ever, and even had some stallholders selling records, so Sam had something to entertain him while I faffed about with pretty dresses. Unfortunately we had just an hour till it closed, and probably only made it round about two thirds of the stalls, but it was well worth the $2 entry fee, and I snaffled up a few bargains.

We then found a beer garden on Melrose that during happy hour, would give you a huge cheese pizza for free if you each bought a drink, so that was dinner sorted. Despite our late start, most of the shops on Melrose were open until at least 8pm, and we spent a couple of hours after dinner wandering along and checking them out. If Sam is ever desperate for money (actually, this may be a good idea right now), he just needs to take his studded jacket to LA and sell it on Melrose; there was a jacket similar to his in the window of an upmarket clothing place for $3000! Unfortunately his jacket hadn't accompanied us on the trip this time, so I wasn't able to rip it off his back immediately and sell it to the nearest extreme rocker type (of which there are many in LA, so much big hair and make-up, and that's on the guys). During our trip, I'd been on the hunt for a leather vest, which had so far eluded me, and at one of the last shops we were walking past, I spied a red one in the style I wanted in the window, so went in to see if they also had it in black. Success! After I'd tried the vest on and ascertained that it wasn't $3000, the super-friendly shop girl and guy then talked both Sam and I into trying on a bunch of new jeans that had just arrived in so that they could take photos of them for the shop's Instagram page. Our first modelling job, ha! We agreed when they assured us they just wanted pictures of the clothes and would take the photos from the neck down. An odd half hour followed in which we were given free beer and piles of jeans to model. And when I bought the vest, the guy ended up chucking the pair of jeans I'd liked the most in for free as a thank you. LA is weird. Tipsy and bemused by our new status as jean models, we walked back to the apartment for some down-time, and watched 'The Dictator' on Netflix. Apparently we can only take so much down time, as after the movie was over, it was back to the Burgundy Room again for the rest of the evening.

Monday was our last day in Hollywood, and it dawned on us that we still had a rather long list of things we wanted to do. Inevitably some had to be culled (sorry Santa Monica and Venice Beach – I was keen, but then we decided we could go to the beach in Santa Barbara a couple of days later instead.... which itself didn't happen, so a beach-free trip in the end), although we managed to tick quite a lot of boxes on what I think may have been the busiest day on the whole trip. First up, we got photos of Capitol Records and the Hollywood sign, which were both in the neighbourhood and we had walked past a number of times, but we needed photographic proof, dammit! We then trekked about half an hour to the Hollywood Forever Cemetery to pay our respects at the graves of Dee Dee and Johnny Ramone: Johnny's headstone was a life-sized half-statue of him playing guitar; Dee Dee's was less ostentatious but had more fan tributes and offerings, including the always popular beercans, cigarette butts and lipstick kisses. Even for non-Ramones fans or people uninterested in checking out the other celebrity graves (we were in a hurry and the place was huge so the only other one we stumbled upon that we recognised was Mel Blanc's, whose epitaph was 'That's All, Folks!'), the cemetery grounds were beautiful and well worth a visit, from the elaborate tombs to the 15-strong gang of peacocks who roamed freely through the graves. Apparently they also screen outdoor cult movies there on Saturday nights during the summer.

Sam and the Johnny Ramone headstone

Graveyard peacocks

Squinty Sam and the Hollywood sign 

Capitol Records

Oh and this mural we came across down the road from Capitol Records...

Once I tore myself away from the graveyard peacocks, it was off to the La Brea Tar Pits for what was a supposedly educational experience, but for us just involved joyously watching the ooze and delighting in the retro animatronic exhibits of - among other things - a sabre-toothed tiger attacking a giant sloth. Rad! I guess it was mildly educational though, as I did learn that the dire wolf was not merely the sigil of House Stark, and that rather than being invented by the author of Game of Thrones, was an actual species of wolf now extinct. Another one of those moments that makes me  fairly sure I have become increasingly stupider since high school... From the tar pits, we bussed back to Hollywood Boulevard and then caught the train to Vermont and Sunset to visit the shop Wacko. Unfortunately its attached gallery, La Luz de Jesus, was closed for installation, but the shop itself had more than enough gorgeous art books, collectable toys and other ephemera for us to peruse. The squirrel lamp I wanted was too expensive though, and in hindsight, would have been a pain to lug round anyway.

Oozing tar pit... Looks more just like a generic swamp in the photo, but smelt like tar and was black and bubbly

Animatronic awesomeness at the La Brea Tar Pits

After a Mexican dinner at 3 Dog Cantina, then a final visit to Amoeba Records for Sam, we caught the bus to Sunset Strip for drinks at the infamous Rainbow Bar and Grill, favourite haunt of Lemmy from Motorhead and other illustrious musos. Consisting of a number of dark little nooks and crannies lit with colourful fairy lights and blasting mainly rock music, it was a great place to indulge in some Jack and Cokes, particularly as it wasn't all that busy on a Monday night. It was pretty cool to see Lemmy's name appearing on the high score list of the card game machine thingy in the top bar, and I encountered the nicest and most honest bar girl ever; when I was buying our drinks, a drunk guy started ranting at us and I was distracted as I was paying. Instead of tipping the customary $2, I accidentally left a $1 and a $20 note on the bar without realising, and although the girl easily could have taken it and I'd have been none the wiser, she came over to our table ten minutes later and had me swap the $20 for another $1. Lemmy, your bar is all right...

Lemmy's second home 

Posing outside the entrance to the Rainbow

Tuesday: Disneyland. Sam gives the impression that I forced him into this, but his eyes shone like a small child's at the prospect of going on all the rides, and he became most disgruntled when I made it clear I would not be accompanying him on scary rollercoasters, anything spinny or rides where we would get wet. Yes, I am the fun police. Our plan was to go as late in the day as we could in order to avoid as many kids as possible, then stay till closing time at midnight. Seasoned laundromat users by this time, after checking out of the Hollywood apartment, we did a final load of washing before catching the train to Anaheim (the biggest problem this time was repacking my suitcase at the laundromat once all the clothes were clean; stop buying band t-shirts Andy, your suitcase is going to explode).

LA River, seen from the train on the way to Anaheim... You may recognise it from Grease, Terminator 2 and a bunch of other movies, as well as a Rancid song

Our motel in Anaheim was only a few blocks from the main Disneyland entrance, and across the road from a bunch of restaurants, so we took our time with dinner before braving the hordes of screaming children I was anticipating having to wait in line with for rides. We had the best pizza meal of the trip at California Pizza Kitchen (there were actual vegetables on it, not just cheese!), and indulged in some long island ice teas, in preparation for the fact that Disneyland was alcohol-free. Turns out we didn't need to though, as there was a conveniently placed liquor store close by that sold minature bottles of every spirit imaginable, and from where it was positioned and the knowing look of the old hippy dude working there, he did a roaring trade with the 'sneaking booze into Disneyland' crowd. Sure enough, the bag checks were laughably minimal, and we made it in to Disneyland about 8pm with a number of little bottles of Fireball and Drambuie concealed on our persons that we surreptitiously consumed along the way. 

Pre-Disneyland long island ice teas

The real saviour of the night though was the Disneyland employee we encountered after we got through the main ticketing bit. He caught sight of Sam's Inepsy patch and told us that he used to be in a band on the same label as them, and had been a touring guitarist with Dr Know and the Dayglo Abortions. He then wrote us out some passes which would permit us to bypass the long lines; forget hiring disabled people to allow you line skip, just take a punk rocker with you... This proved fortunate, as the very first ride we wanted to go on, the Indiana Jones one (which turned out to be one of the rides we liked most), had a 75 minute wait, so we would have been screwed if we hadn't run into punk guy. In quick succession we then did Pirates of the Caribbean (awesome!); the Haunted Mansion (even more awesome, and I heard a little kid ask his Mum afterwards “Mommy, were the ghosts in the Haunted Mansion real?” Mom, impatiently: “No, of course not.” Kid: “Is Jesus real?” Mom, stuck for words: “Come on,” and dragged him along sharply by the arm); Matterhorn Bobsleds (a bit too fast and jerky for me, I closed my eyes for a lot of it and missed seeing the Abominable Snowman who popped out at various points); It's a Small World (painfully cheesy, but necessary, given the number of things it's referenced in); Astro Blasters (you had to shoot at space monstery targets, and it took me most of the ride to figure out how to work the spacegun so I think I got the lowest score of anyone on the ride, including the three year olds); Star Tours (just a virtual reality Star Wars one, and kind of lame, but Sam liked it); Space Mountain (this was the one ride I had been quite adamant I was not going on under any circumstances, given that it was the most intense and fastest one in the park, but after much nagging on Sam's part and too much miniature bottled booze on my part, I caved in and bravely climbed aboard, and yes, it was horrible. I had my eyes closed for all but the first few seconds, and was too traumatised to even scream but apparently emitted whimpering noises the entire time. At least it was over fairly quickly); and finally, Mr Toad's Wild Ride (a slow, tame, kiddy ride, which was all I felt like after Space Mountain). I would have liked to have done a few more such things, like the carousel, and may have even been convinced into getting soaked on Splash Mountain after all, but by then it was closing time so we had to leave. 

Sam being a pretty princess outside Cinderella's castle

In conclusion, Disneyland was more of a success than I thought it would be; Sam loved it, and I wasn't as big a wuss as I had been planning on being. Going at that time of night meant there were definitely fewer kids, although we still would have been stuck in long lines for some rides if we hadn't been able to skip them, and I would even consider visiting again if I was back in LA. Thumbs up all round LA, you were pretty awesome, and those East coasters should stop talking smack about you...

Las Vegas

Once again, Vegas proved not to be as lucky for me as the good old Dunedin casino; no jackpots were struck, and even a particularly awesome Michael Jackson themed pokie machine that I had high expectations for failed to deliver. Surely it wasn't that unreasonable for me to assume I would have been able to easily win back all the money I've spent on the trip? Accommodation this time was in the middle of the action on the Strip for the first two nights at the most excellent Flamingo Hotel (they had real live flamingos hanging round by the pool! Pesky enclosures preventing you from trying to cuddle them though, but I got a lot of photos). 

Flamingos at the Flamingo

View from our floor of the hotel down into the flamingo enclosure

By the time we got into Vegas after our kerfuffle of a flight experience from New York, I was operating on two hours sleep, and Sam on none, so we snuck in a very brief (too brief, only about an hour and a half) nap before grabbing dinner at a Mexican place in our hotel, and then heading off to the second Rancid show of the trip at about 6.30. We made it in time to see the Transplants too, and the sound was a big improvement over the three songs we had heard them play in Seattle, with a particularly good rendition of 'Diamonds and Guns' with Matt Freeman guesting on bass. 'Tall Cans in the Air' was another highlight, with the inevitable raising up of said cans by audience members (tallboy PBRs are great, even bigger and better than 440 Taz. Ridiculously priced at shows - $11.00 each - but we found a 24 hour convenience store that sold them at two for $4.00, so stocked up). Rancid played another amazing show, 'Old Friend' was a stand-out and 'Rejected,' and much fun was had. I found myself down the front dancing next to a Mexican guy, who I befriended after he made it clear to me that I was nice, but that he loved his wife – this was hilarious given that he was in his fifties and shorter than me, so probably not a prime target for my affections, but I assured him I was not going to try any funny business and we sang along to some Rancid together. 

As they were playing their last song, Sam and I decided to attempt a repeat of last trip's luck and went out back to where the tour buses were to try and meet them again. And who should we encounter but our good buddy Robert the security guard from last time, who actually remembered us! Robert is fantastic, and we hung out with him for ages and a few other die-hard fans who were waiting round. Although Tim and Lars were no-shows this time (Tim had actually passed us on the pathway going there, but I didn't click until after), we got to talk with Matt Freeman again, he signed the Rancid shirt I bought in Seattle and Sam got a photo with him. I now have Robert the security guy's contact details, and he promised that if we come back to Vegas again, he'll be able to hook us up with backstage passes. Oh, and I got a Tim Armstrong pick from him too; all in all, not quite as exciting as last time, but a pretty good stalking effort. Drinks and gamblies followed, but I think we were home by the fairly respectable hour of 2.30am.

On the way to see Rancid, in front of the New York, New York hotel

Sam and Ricky Gervais, uh I mean Matt Freeman...

On Monday I ventured out by myself to the Miracle Mile shops at the Planet Hollywood hotel while Sam attempted to get in touch with JFK airport/Delta airlines/anyone who may actually be able to help us rather than direct us to a different phone number to try and sort out the lost records. The shops were mainly uninteresting and overpriced, but I was pleased to buy my first pair of tube socks (they always mentioned tube socks in American books I read as a kid, and I probably had a more exciting vision of what they would actually entail, but oh well). After I returned to the hotel, we had our first flamingo encounter, and then hung out by the pool with a beer in hand. By the time we had drunk the beer and were ready for a swim, the pool was closing though (it's Vegas, what kind of pool party is over by 6pm!?), so we de-togged and ventured out onto the Strip again. 

I was determined that we were going to do the gondola ride at the Venetian Hotel this time, but it was actually pretty lame. $18.00 each for a ten minute boat ride during which the gondolier cracks bad jokes and then sings an Italian love song. We would have been better off putting the money we wasted into a pokie machine... After a late dinner at the Cabo Wabo Cantina (we met a guy who complimented Sam on his Motorhead back patch, and said he was the first person he has ever seen wearing one. This was hard to believe, but when he explained that he was a farmer from Nebraska it made more sense. He even called his friend over to look at us), we walked for about half an hour to the Hard Rock Hotel to check out their memorabilia and have a gamble. This was where I first encountered the Michael Jackson machine, which ate a bunch of my money but gave me some pretty cool special features involving moonwalking. We had more luck on a Ghostbusters machine and made most of our money back. As soon as we started winning, a casino guy came over and ID'd us – probably in the hopes of being able to throw us out without our money – and seemed incredulous and disappointed that I was not only of age, but actually ten years older. We finished the night at the New York, New York casino, then spent our last coins on an 8.2% tallboy to share on the way home.

The rather lacklustre gondola ride at the Venetian Hotel

I had been planning on seeing the MJ Cirque du Soleil show while in Vegas, but ticket prices were outrageous and I read a bunch of really bad online reviews of it too. Contenting myself with seeing 'the glove' for free at the Hard Rock Hotel instead. 

On Tuesday it became apparent that I had a lot less money than I thought (even when taking into account the gambling), and after further investigation, I discovered the downside of fancy hotels. I realised that the places we stayed in would take a security deposit in case of damage to the hotel room etc, but I didn't realise that this amount would be in effect frozen on my card, and would take up to ten days to be available again. At this point, the security deposit from our accommodation in Seattle had still not been returned, and we had the Flamingo one on top of that – all up, about $900 that I couldn't access on my card. Grrr. The next three nights in Vegas were to be spent downtown at the Golden Nugget Hotel, and I had to give them my NZ credit card to use rather than freeze up the rest of my money on my USD one. The Golden Nugget was even swankier (yet cheaper) than the Flamingo, and we were pleased to find that their main pool was open till 8pm and then they had an adults only one with bar open till 2am. Hooray, we would get our pool party after all... While back in Dunedin, I had decided that my 'what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas' moment would be reliving the glories of seafood after about five years of vegetarianism, so I dragged us to a restaurant in downtown Vegas renowned for their shrimp cocktails. I'm sad to report that it was actually kind of gross (Mum, the shrimp cocktails you used to make were waaaay better). We ended the night wandering around the Fremont Street area, avoiding gambling for the time being.

Wednesday began with a visit to the Emergency Arts Center and Beat Coffeehouse for lunch, a cool little place a few blocks away from all the tourist madness that sold records and had artist and design studios to browse through. My phone then tricked me again; I had been searching for thrift stores to go to for vintage clothing, and it suggested what looked to me to be a cluster of 'thrift' stores all together in the one place. We walked in the baking desert heat for about half an hour (usually a distance like this would be easily walkable, but with the insanely hot sun beating down on us it felt like it took about three hours), only to discover that our destination was not a little village of vintage and secondhand stores, but an outlet mall that sold cheap label clothing. Not exactly what I was after, but we looked round for awhile and enjoyed their outdoor water spritzers and then walked back to the hotel for a quick swim at the pool to cool off. 

Downtown Vegas, view from the Emergency Arts Center

While were at the Beat Coffeehouse earlier in the day, we'd seen a sign advertising the Peter Murphy after party for that night. Peter Murphy is the guy from the band Bauhaus that Sam had booked us tickets to see in LA, but hadn't realised he was playing in Vegas as well. The venue was only about two blocks from our hotel, so Sam decided to go. Rather than spend $35 on the ticket (I don't really know any Bauhaus anyway and was sick of going to gigs for the time being), I went out for an amazing sushi dinner by myself (not quite the same as Jizo, but just as good), then chucked $20 into a haunted house themed machine which I just kept winning on, making it up to $180. Yay! I met up with Sam after the show, and given that he had spent his money on the ticket rather than dinner, but had then made friends who just kept buying him drinks, he was already somewhat slurry at this stage. Sam, his new friend Bard and I went to the nearby Beauty Bar for PBRs. The décor was very cool, all glittery walls and retro beauty salon fittings, although I was a bit disappointed to find that Union 13 would be playing here on Friday night, when would be in LA. Next stop was the Peter Murphy after party, which mainly consisted of a bunch of gothy types dancing weirdly to industrial music; Sam was drunk enough to join them though, and this may be the first time I have ever seen him on a nightclub dance floor, flailing away without an actual band playing.

At the Beauty Bar in downtown Vegas

Sam spent much of the next day in bed, and I went on an outing to the Arts District, about a half hour walk from our hotel. A respite from the flashing lights and craziness of Vegas, the galleries were quiet, air conditioned and pleasant, with some cool work on show. I even got talking to a fellow New Zealander who worked in one of the galleries (I think I've been away too long, because I couldn't quite figure out to begin with whether her accent was Kiwi or Australian). I also finally found a cool vintage clothing store called Electric Lemonade. The rest of our last night in Vegas was spent lazing round and drinking by the pool, from about 7pm to 1.30pm. I would like it noted for the record that I got up the courage to go on the waterslide (three stories high, and through a tank with sharks in it) but Sam didn't. When I shot out the bottom and into the water, I couldn't see anything, and was trying to get my bearings when a lifeguard handed me something black; for a mortifying second I thought it was my bikini top, but thankfully it was just the bandana I'd been wearing which had slipped off my head. A few more beers and some poolside margaritas later, we were off to bed and quite thoroughly Vegas'd out. Five nights would have been fine if we had endless money, but in hindsight three probably would have made more sense. Especially since we surprised ourselves by really liking LA and wishing we had more time there; details to come in next blog...   

Pool partying with tallboy PBR. Awesomely, you were allowed to buy your own cheap booze and bring it to the pool rather than buying it at their bar.

The shark tank waterslide. 

The more relaxed adults only rooftop pool area, complete with pasty Andy legs

New York

(Written while we were in Vegas, but we refused to pay $24.99 a day in our hotel for internet, so uploaded now that we're in LA)

After our last visit to New York City, I'm fairly sure I told anyone who would listen that I want to live there. Let me now change that to 'could not live there more than nine months of the year': I hate you New York summer. We arrived bang smack in the middle of a heatwave, and it was between 36 and 38 degrees every day, and not much better at night. Even the New Yorkers were complaining about it, and it made our whole experience sweaty, stifling and exhausting (not to mention unpleasantly odoured, with wafting smells of trash piled on the streets). You know it's ridiculously hot when you arrive in Vegas a week later and find the desert heat a relief from the sticky humidity of the city. My hair somehow managed to be constantly lank and frizzy at the same time, and my makeup kept melting off my face. Yuck. At least the place we were staying in had air conditioning, and we often wouldn't end up leaving the house until late afternoon just so we could avoid the worst of the heat. Oh well, at least that gave us an excuse to stay up late and then sleep in I guess. Also, while we triumphed over the NYC subway system on our last visit, we failed dismally this time round. I blame a combination of heatwave brain and my new so-called 'smart' phone; although helpful some of the time, I've now learnt that it shouldn't be relied on too much. On one memorable occasion, it directed us into an AA meeting instead of the subway station we were trying to find. Maybe it has a built-in app which senses you've been drinking too much? Despite such tribulations, NYC was still amazing, and our six nights there flew by.

We arrived at JFK airport about 9pm on Monday 15^th July, and successfully caught the air train to the Jamaica Center, transferred to the J train and made it to where we were staying in Williamsburg, Brooklyn (we would not be so successful on our way back to the airport, but that's another story). I had booked us a colorful little apartment through Airbnb, and as I mentioned earlier, it belonged to a burlesque performer, the lovely Amber Ray. I think Amber rivalled me in terms of clothing/accessory accumulation, and all her glittery outfits, shoes, jewellery and burlesque bits and pieces were on display for us to nosy at, along with tons of interesting books and DVDs. For what we paid, the big bonuses of Amber's place were the air conditioning, free wifi and location right next to a subway station. There was also a sad and somewhat bedraggled looking cat that hung out on the stairs, so I got my kitty fix after much missing of the Lulu. The slight downsides were that the building didn't have an elevator and we were on the fifth floor (yes, I could do with the exercise, but it was a pain in the ass carrying a suitcase up and down the stairs), and because it was in Brooklyn, the subway journey into Manhattan was a bit longer than last time and often there weren't many trains going back late at night. We arrived pretty hungry on our first night, and Amber recommended a restaurant and bar across the road called Moto, which was just what we were after. There was a folksy kind of female singer/guitarist performing in the tiny space, which was lit by candles and decorated with various science-y looking artefacts in bell jars. I had my first healthy and reasonably portioned meal of the trip (an asparagus concoction that I've been craving ever since, while punishing my body with pizza, veggie dogs and nachos instead), and our lovely server gave us their signature toffee date dessert on the house. Mmm, free stuff...

The apartment building we stayed in in Brooklyn

The burlesque bedroom

The view from our apartment fire escape

Stairway cat! Poor lil buddy...

On Tuesday we embarked on a much-needed outing to the laundromat for the first time, which was an adventure in itself. I guess they're pretty self-explanatory for the New Yorkers who use them every day, but the ways of the laundromat were a bit mystifying for us (do we bring our own detergent or do they supply it there? Where does the detergent go in the machine? Are we meant to wait in the laundromat the whole time our clothes are being washed or do we go away and come back? Do we tip the person who works there?) We bumbled our way through it (and yes, I did tip the lady to be on the safe side), and finally had clean clothes again. 

Waiting outside the laundromat, attempting to look like we know what we're doing...

Running well ahead of schedule for once, we stopped by the Bowery Ballroom where we were seeing the band Wire play that night, only to find that the gig was going to start about two hours later than we had thought. We wandered round the East Village for a while, and had dinner at a Louisiana-themed restaurant on St Mark's Place called the Saint. Their music playlist was firmly 90s (the bad along with the good: hooray, Nirvana, followed by ugh, Aqua) and Sam and I drank beers, played 'guess the 90s tune' and attempted to get my just-purchased American SIM card up and running on my phone. It was decreed that we should make it to the Bowery Ballroom in time to catch the opening band, which unfortunately neither of us ended up liking (Bear in Heaven, I believe they were called, and yes, there were hipster moustaches and the inevitable terrible sounds to accompany them). Sam wanted to be on the ground floor to watch Wire, but I couldn't see anything, so found a spot by myself up top on the mezzanine where I had a decent view. Despite not knowing any Wire beforehand (this gig was all Sam's doing, the one that we detoured to NYC for), I had a really good time, particularly when they started playing their more raucous material a few songs into the set. After the show, we hung round with the intention of having a few more beers, and Sam ranted and raved about how awesome the show had been. It was then agreed that we had nothing to lose by sneaking out back and trying to meet the band (you can already see a theme emerging on our trip...). Sam talked nicely to one of the roadies, who told us to hang round but stay out of the way while they were loading up the gear, and then he'd see what he could do. As it turns out, we got to meet Graham Lewis the bass player, who was a very personable old British dude, and we stood outside chatting with him while he had a smoke. Because I didn't know Wire, I wasn't in the least bit starstruck, and was quite able to formulate sentences and make witty conversation (I'm fairly sure Tim Armstrong and Mark Arm must have thought I was a mute; an idiotically smiling mute). 

Meeting Graham Lewis, the bass player from Wire

As we were leaving, Graham then called us back to introduce us to his New York friend Larry, who would supposedly give us some tips on cool places to go. Larry looked like a straight-haired version of Sideshow Bob, and was a real character who had been living in the Lower East side since the 80s. Most of Larry's recommendations were more lamentations on how good things used to be, and involved helpful hints like 'you wanna check out such and such a place; it was great, but it closed down a few years back.' We ended up going to Max Fish (according to Larry, the last good bar left standing in the neighbourhood; but yes, it's due to close down soon) for a drink, and it was pretty cool. Given that we were seeing the Specials the next day and I didn't want to ruin it by partying all night beforehand, we limited ourselves to the one drink, and then got the train home by about 2am.

On Wednesday we went for a walk in search of Cotton Candy Machine - a little art gallery about ten blocks from where we were staying - along the way encountering people coping with the heatwave by turning on fire hydrants and basking in the spray (so it wasn't just something that used to happen on Sesame Street). I fell in love with a couple of prints at Cotton Candy Machine (a Tara McPherson and a Glenn Barr), but since we were going straight to the Specials gig from the gallery, it wasn't practical to buy them and lug them around, so we got some stickers instead and promised to come back. Unfortunately we didn't get around to this, although now I'm woefully down on my money anyway, so perhaps it's a good thing... A quick dinner was had at AOA, a generic pizza place and bar on Avenue of the Americas, and I was randomly befriended by two middle-aged and possibly quite drunk French women in the bathrooms, who informed me in heavily accented English that I was a 'nice-looking, all-American girl,' at which I laughed out loud. In hindsight, maybe they had been wanting to try cocaine and misguidedly thought I was their best bet? We do seem to get approached by people wanting to sell us drugs all the time... From there, it was a short stroll to Pier 86 where the Specials were playing an outdoor show, and it was an impressive setting, with the stage right at the end of the pier and the Hudson River beyond, and downtown New York skyscrapers rising up all around.

Very excited, pre-Specials show on the pier. Apparently this is the look of of a 'nice, All-American girl' according to my new French buddies. Maybe Tom Petty will write a song about me...

The stage at the Specials gig, with New Jersey skyline in background

I've seen the Specials twice before, but this was by far the coolest venue, and it wasn't horribly oversold so there was plenty of room to dance. Excellent for people-watching too; we were there about an hour before they started and it was still light out, so we passed the time by checking out the vast array of tattoos on show (I'd say 8/10 people there had at least one visible tattoo). Actually, a side note: tattoos here are far more prevalent than in New Zealand, and it's not uncommon to see people with full sleeves, neck tattoos, etc working in jobs where that totally wouldn't be allowed back home (waitresses in restaurants, post office workers, staff in hotels). Awesome. In saying that though, because there are more tattoos in general, that also means there are a greater number of rubbish tattoos; I've probably liked less than a third of those I've seen. Right, back to the Specials... They opened with 'Do the Dog,' followed by 'Dawning of a New Era,' and played every song I wanted to hear apart from 'Too Hot.' Not necessarily one of my favourites, but come on, the most appropriate song to play during a New York heatwave. The George Zimmerman verdict came out while we were in Seattle, and discussion about it has dominated what little of the news we've seen here (George Zimmerman is the cop who was acquitted of shooting black teenager Trayvon Martin; just in case this hasn't managed to penetrate the rugby-laden New Zealand news), and it was most appreciated by the crowd that the Specials dedicated 'A Message to You Rudy' to George Zimmerman, and 'It Doesn't Make It Alright' to Trayvon. Always a band who both exemplified and were vocal in advocating racial harmony, it was great to dance along to Specials songs with such a diverse crowd; in terms of age too, as there were little mohawked kids there along with their wrinkly punker parents. After a thoroughly enjoyable show ('Enjoy Yourself,' why yes I did thank you Specials), I got talking to a girl while we were both waiting outside the portaloos for our boys. I was most surprised to happen upon an American who had not only heard of New Zealand (Her: “Are you from the North or South Island?”), but who had actually been there and knew more about it than I do (Me: “Oh you went to the Waitomo Caves, yeah I've never been there, I hear they're nice; wait, remind me which island they're on again?”). For shame, Andy. My next holiday will be spent investigating more of my own country. It will also have the added bonus of being less expensive than this one is proving to be. American girl Gen and her Aussie boy Chris and Sam and I all ended up going out to a bar together (can't remember the name, but it was in Tribeca somewhere), and it had a sweet photo booth where we got some boozy pics. There were jalapeno poppers at another bar at some point, and another arduous journey home which involved too much waiting in subway stations and transfers between trains.

Thursday was dedicated to shopping in the East Village, but I discovered quickly that I have no patience or enthusiasm for shopping in such heat, and managed to buy one record all day (Descendents' 'Milo Goes to College.' Although following a later mishap, it is yet to transpire whether the record will end up accompanying me back to NZ or not). I feel bad for the Bettie Page store, the only clothing shop I tried anything on at, proceeding to transfer all my sweat to a very pretty blouse, which I then realised didn't actually fit, and had to put back. Apologies also to the people of New York, who were subjected to my pasty legs in all their mini-skirted glory, as I no longer gave a damn and just wanted rid of my signature black tights in order to experience some breeze. I think this particular day was probably the hottest of the lot, and even the squirrels in Tompkins Square park - a highlight of the last trip - failed to do much for me. Happily, we actually had a friend to meet up with later that night though, former Dunedin gal Koren who has been living in NYC for about the last six months. We joined Koren and her very welcoming friends Kurt and Francisco on the rooftop patio of a bar in Williamsburg called Night of Joy, replete with lanterns and fancy designer cocktails (after trying one to say we had, Sam and I quickly returned to beer,). We learnt from Koren and co that NYC is almost unlivably expensive; the public transport can suck (there was a particularly impassioned rant about the incompetence of the G train); that it's incredibly hard to find work here; and if you think the heatwave is bad, wait till you experience the cold in winter; despite all this, everyone agreed that it was entirely worth it, and that NYC is the place to be. I liked that as the conversation progressed further, it became apparent that everything Koren and I both knew about NYC while growing up had been gleaned from Babysitters' Club books. Francisco left at some point, and the remaining four of us ended the night at the amazing Kellogg's diner (well, probably just a standard American diner, but in my book, if it's open 24 hours a day for sit-down meals of jalapeno poppers, dirty nachos and beer, it's amazing), and then went our separate ways on various trains.

The mighty diner

On Friday we wanted to make up for our previous Empire State building visit (conducted at 11.30 at night in thick fog) and actually get some kind of daytime bird's eye view of the city, so we did the Top of the Rock visit. I think I'd recommend this one more anyway; it's better to be on another building (the Rockefeller Center) so you can look at the Empire State Building, and because this one wasn't quite as tall, you're on a similar level with some of the other skyscrapers rather than peering down at them all, so it's more immersive. I knew the city was huge, but it was quite staggering seeing it in its entirety; regrettably, the heat was no less intense 70 stories above ground.

Sam and the view from the Top of the Rock. Bet he can make this into some kind of awesome phallic artwork...

Following on from our 'correcting wrongs made on the last trip' theme, we then visted the Met and were able to spend more than an hour there. I had been looking forward to the 'Punk: From Chaos to Couture' exhibition that was on, but to be honest it was a bit of a fizzer; really just an excuse to show some outfits by big name designers that didn't seem to me to be particularly relevant to the punk movement at all; a few Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren pieces, but mostly just wearble art type outfits created in more recent years that used punk as inspiration. And why on earth would you bother creating a life-sized replica of the men's bathrooms at CBGBs to display in a New York museum when no-one thought it was worth saving the actual bar from closing down a few years ago? Granted, some of the Alexander McQueen outfits were cool (Mel, I wanted to take some photos of them for you, but the exhibition was strictly no photography, and then they didn't even have postcards of them available to buy in the gift shop, where I was quite ready to squander some dollars. I did get some sweet duct tape printed with safety pins though), and certain parts of the exhibition design were quite inspired (the walls in one section were modelled on classical architecture, with columns and recesses housing mannequins that appeared from far away as if carved from marble, but on closer inspection, were actually made from polystyrene, and you could inscribe your own graffiti into them). On the whole though, more couture than chaos, and we only spent about twenty minutes there, dedicating the rest of our time to the sections of the museum we had missed last time. Predictably, I enjoyed the 20^th century art rooms most, and we looked around as much as we could right up until closing time, but even given a week I don't think you could cover everything there with the attention it deserves. Finally, it was time for one of those few and far between early nights, and we went back to the apartment where I was most pleased to be able to catch up on new season Dexter (I'm three episodes in, and it's soooo good!)

Jasper Johns removed the red and blue from the American flag, and I inadvertently add it back in with my outfit

Our last day in NYC started earlier than most, with a visit to the shops in Williamsburg, about one train stop away from our apartment. The vintage stores I'd read up on were a bit disappointing (way overpriced and too hipster-curated), but the vibe of the area was good and thankfully the weather had calmed down a little bit and was starting to border on almost pleasant. We wandered by McCarran Park, and went back to the excellent Kellogg's Diner for a late lunch, then once again it was back to the East Village to revisit Generation Records, which we'd nearly forgotten from our last trip. As we were walking there, from out of nowhere - and about two seconds after I'd mentioned that I was starting to enjoy the weather way more - it began to rain. Heavy, pelting, bucketing-down rain of the variety that made everyone on the street stop what they were doing and go and take shelter under something. After about ten minutes of this, we had no choice but to go back out into the street and keep walking, as we were due to see the Slackers play soon, and the party boat would wait for no man, departing from the pier at 8pm sharp. Thus, we were entirely drenched by the time we arrived, but at least we made it with about five minutes to spare. And here I will copy and paste my post-gig Facebook status update as a too-lazy-to-write-a-proper-review review:

“Awesome things about seeing the Slackers on a party boat in NYC:

1. Seeing the Slackers on a party boat in NYC. Duh.
2. Marshalling a large bunch of the crowd around me into requesting 'Old Dog' - “So you like the song 'Old Dog' right, it's pretty good eh? I came all the way from Nooo Zeeeland and I really wanna hear that one, so how bout when they take requests at the end, you yell for 'Old Dog' with me?”
3. The Slackers being forced to play 'Old Dog' through extreme crowd support.
4. Vic Ruggiero from the Slackers being a complete babe.
5. Meeting Vic Ruggiero.
6. Vic Ruggiero acknowledging upon meeting me that never before had a crowd demanded Old Dog' with such enthusiasm.
7. A random dude coming up to me on the way home from the show and recognising me as the 'Old Dog' instigator and showing me a photo of his recently passed away dog and being stoked on the song being played.
8. Generally being more of a cat person anyway.”

To take it up another few notches:

9. The rain I mentioned before later evolved into a thunderstorm, and it was pretty epic sailing past the Statue of Liberty with the Slackers playing and lightning flashes cutting across the sky.
10. Vic Ruggiero was wearing a sailor's oufit.
11. I'm now the proud owner of Slackers undies.

I need to take lessons from Vic in how to pose for photos on a party boat; he achieves 'boozy captain,' while I do 'stunned mullet'

After the party boat docked at the all too early hour of 11pm, we went to a bar in Midtown Manhattan so I could use the bathroom and inevitably ended up staying for some more drinks. To get to the airport the next day for our flight at 8.15am, we would have to be up at the ungodly hour of 5am; I went to bed at 3, and Sam gave up on bed in favour of staying up drinking and sleeping on the plane. It's therefore a surprise that the rather unfortunate missing of the flight was not actually our fault, as we did indeed make it to the subway at the designated hour, bags packed and feeling chuffed with ourselves, if somewhat sleep-deprived. What we didn't realise was that a lot of maintenance/building work was being conducted on certain subway routes, and the scheduled time for this (that would supposedly cause the least disruption to public transport – ha!) was Sunday mornings. The J train that was meant to take an hour to JFK stopped at a random station about halfway along the route and remained stopped. We waited... and waited... and waited... We were the only ones in our carriage apart from a passed out drunk guy, so weren't quite sure what was happening. Sam tried to get off the train, only to be told to get back on, so we figured it was going to start moving soon. It did, after about 25 minutes, but in the wrong direction! We attempted to get off at the next station, but the train driver explained it was being rerouted and would go back about 5 stops, then we could get off, get on a different train to connect to another train, which would then take us to the airport. This may have worked out okay, if there weren't additional 15 minute waits in between each train, which then went at about half the speed they usually did. Our hour long train trip took two and a half hours, and we got to the airport at exactly 8.15am as our flight departed. Guh. I was envisioning what the cost would be of getting us on the next flight, and was close to tears, as it either seemed like I would have to forgo the rest of my spending money in order to achieve this, or miss seeing Rancid in Las Vegas. Thankfully, whether it was due to our charming NZ demeanour, my obvious close-to-tears-ness, or the fact that the lovely lady at the Delta desk was well aware of the havoc the subway work was causing for unsuspecting tourists, we were able to get put on the next flight, and she waived the additional charges, “since you're obviously having a bad day.” At this point I felt like we were on the Amazing Race. Once we got on the plane, we even found we had been upgraded to premium economy, so had comfier seats with more legroom. I had used up so much stress by this point that I didn't have any left to worry about flying, so it was actually a relaxing five hour flight for once. Until we got to Vegas, where Sam realised that he had left the bag he was carrying (which contained all the records we'd bought) back at JFK airport... Sigh... We're still trying to get them back now, but after much time spent on hold, being directed to other phone numbers and filling out online claim forms, it seems that they may end up being a casualty of our bad day. And Sam is usually so protective of records too...

Vegas up next for the blog treatment, no big wins yet (a minor small one though – I put in $20, won $180), but still two nights left, so fingers crossed....