Blog: New York Debut

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This morning i went to see a bit of the Thanksgivings Day Parade - wow! I saw a few marching bands (including the police, who got the biggest cheer of all - that'd never happen back home!) and a couple of balloons. Charlie Brown Chasing The Elusive Football was exciting to see, but the best bit was when an Eight Storey high Dora The Explorer LOOMED round then corner and all the little kids went "DORA!!" It was lovely!

I'm planning to spend the rest of the day LOAFING AROUND, as yesterday was KNACKERING. We walked up to Times Square, which was pretty amazing, then got the Open Top Bus Tour to UPTOWN. It was a great trip but BY HECK it was cold - i do not think i have EVER been so cold for so long all in my live long life. NIPPY! We hopped off near The Rockefeller Centre and went in to try and find the Observation Deck. It was here we noted a common feature of New York: lack of SIGNAGE. My word, it's BLOODY HARD to find your way around ANYWHERE here, it's as if they've decided that HEY, they had to learn how things worked DA HARD WAY, so WHADDAYA GONNA DO? WOIK IT OUT, YA MOOK!

People seem to really talk like that round here, it is ACE. We eventually found our way to the queue for the lifts, where we met someone else with an ASTOUNDING voice, it was like Janice from Friends but MORE high pitched and DERANGED. I felt my BRANE had been exfoliated by the end of it, but it was WORTH it for another experience of Americans being REALLY American. It's just like the telly!

Anyway, we went up to the top and LOOKED upon New York, then got on the Subway for the Lower East Side, where we met Mr Michael Krugman in a LOVELY restaurant called Kate's Joint. We had DELICIOUS burgers and Proper American BEER style BEER and had a LOVELY time, as he is indeed a very nice man INDEED. He's also half of the Well Hung At Dawn CHAPS who were so nice about "This Is Not A LIbrary", but he's such a DECENT CHAP you forget what an International Man Of ROCK he is. Mind you, he DID give me some handy Book Writing Tips, and i utilised them this very morning. Groovy!

We then got back on the Subway and went to Battery Park where we saw The Statue Of Liberty in the Fading Light. I was quite moved! THEN we got involved in a SCRUM to get on one of the LAST Open Top Bus Tours of the day (we got hop on hop off tickets see, HENCE we wanted to use them) and got HARANGUED by a very odd guide who seemed ENRAGED about the fact that some architects built buildings without rear windows. MAN he got quite worked up about it. We got off at The Rockefeller again and then had an INSANELY frustrating hour trying to get ANYWHERE on the subway, as once again SIGNAGE failed us drastically. New York! Put some SIGNS up, or even do a subway map that's LEGIBLE! It's easy, honest!

The Colour Coding Of My Tube Map got OFF at East 33rd Street (it's still COOL saying things like that) and I went back down to LUDLOW, for the Open Mic Night. Blimey, it was a RUM OLD DO! The first half was ALL people either doing POETRY (much of which was read like a Powerpoint Presentation) or STAND UP that just seemed to involve standing round saying Things That Had Happened. It was ODD - they stood up for six minutes without anything planned to say, and just SAID things, it was more like THERAPY or something. Mr & Mrs Weiss had come to meet me, and we had DELCIOUS Pizza during some of this, and then it was MY turn. Here's my SET:

The Peterborough All-Saints Wide Game Team (group B)

Clubbing In The Week

It was a SHORT set but an ODD one, not least because i had no guitar so had to sing it ACAPELLA! It seemed to go OK, and i actually RATHER enjoyed it, especially as i got to make with a JOKE about Thanksgiving Stories (i.e. not having any), and one about AIR BASES. I guess you had to be there... after me some Performance Artist Ladies came on and set fire to their shirt lapels then showed us their LADIES PARTS, and then we went to THE PUB. It was a really good night tho, don't get me wrong, it was a GRATE place to see and i really felt like i was in NEW YORK.

We then had a DRINK and a CHAT next door, before getting a TAXI back, and they dropped me off on the corner of 34th and Lex (oh yes, SO cool!). It was a GRATE day all round really, especially getting to see some LOVELY people in Actual Person, and also TIRING. I think we've pretty much TICKED all the Things To Do In New York now, including seeing the offices of Marvel Comics, which turned out to be... er... just an office building. I was expecting to find THE THING there, complaining about misrepresentation! But yes, it's all DONE now i think, so today i shall be giving thanks for A Bit Of A Rest. Happy Holidays everybody!

posted 24/11/2005 by MJ Hibbett

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