all medicated geniuses

I remember when I was able to do this daily. Something more urgent about the writing there but I shall trudge through enjoyably to put down to the proverbial paper my recollection of the last week. When I left you: the brit and I had the long night with the tequila and the dancing. If I slept at all, I left her abode at around 10:30am, craving some air. I took to the streets, and decided I wanted something greasy. Bought the NME and went to a pub where I consumed a wonderful burger by myself. I must say one thing New Yorkers(c) have is the balls to eat alone. I fucking love it. Eating and reading out and about is a weapson in the arsenal I should put on my utility belt more often.
I forgot how goddamn good the Pretty Girls Make Graves are/were.
On Friday I went, for the fifth or so time to Camdentown, this time walking. Much like the nyc(c), the subway sometimes makes the city feel bigger, when everything is just a handful of blocks away, except for uptown, obviously. we are talking more downtown kids. I bought more records. The used record stores here are insane, I couldn't imagine being near them if I had a job. You can get nearly any single from nearly any band in some capacity for a reasonable price. At the end, I plan to make a list of all I've acquired, just to be a dork but all I will mention here is the first XTC LP, "Drums and Wires."
By Friday night I realized I would not be traveling to Oxford because I had too much stuff going on with finals the next week. Not that I wound up studying. I really took the weekend off, at least booze wise. I played Scrabble. I talk to the French Girls who, although you'd never imagine, were quite enamored with me. I finally found my niche, 16-17 year old girls who barely speak any English. On Saturday during the day Azam and I braved the streets for a trip to Harrod's to buy things for our respective families. Dad and Jane made out pretty well. Harrod's is insane. They literally sell everything.

Horse saddles?
They're in.
Tennis racket?
Oh yeah.
2005 D & G retail line?
Lower ground floor, sir.
Old Skool Vans made by Marc Jacobs?
110 pounds, ma'am.
Coffee? Belgium chocolate?
Done and Done.

I think you've gotten my point. We spent hours there, and decided after hearing Coldplay 5 times that they are an all new genre, together with Keane and Starsailor known as "Harrod's rock." Clever.

The brit was away for the weekend. She came back Sunday and we hung out. I would never ever go for this kind of girl, and when I'm not with her I'm always unsure of my feelings but then I see her and can't say no. It's been bizarre.

I don't feel like writing the rest right now.

deceptacon (remix)

Right now this will the blog equivilent of a montage: if I was feeling super sap, I’d say, “Velvet Waltz” by the Built to Spill, but I am feeling melancholic pop so I’ll go with “Ageless Beauty” by Stars, although I am feeling sort of menacing so I could have just as easily thrown on “Druganaut” by Black Mountain. So here is the last week in a stream of conscious spell check fun fest. Post Amsterdam, I need a fookin’ break and although I swore I wouldn’t drink on Monday I bought a big ‘ole bottle of Jameson and killed it with my pal Azam. We ran around the dorm like a bunch of idiots, ate a whole lot of Tesco and acted like college students. I took that time to get that sort of behavior out of my system and I wish some of the people around me would heed that sort of self control; the people here are the upwards of 35 and there was a goddamn food fight in the common area.

Food Fight! Common Area!

Sounds like the chorus or chant to a hardcore song about college although I think Good Clean Fun already sort of tackled that subject matter in their epic, “Coll-edge.” Speaking of hardcore I listened to when I was younger, emo-blueprint band Lifetime, a childhood favourite is reuniting in New Jersey(duh city) at a place called Hellfest. So I will be attending a concert called Hellfest. Keep it up, Thom.

Tuesday was interesting, I spent the morning arguing with some girls in my media law class for their utter stupidity and lack of deductive reasoning. I say it once, I’ll say it a million times: I can’t wait to go back to Brooklyn to be the dumbest person in my class as opposed to the only person who could tackle the LSAT in a timely and efficient manner. The irony is one of the girls is sitting next to me and I am sure she is reading this. Enjoy! Regardless, it was one of those typical situations where someone decides to make such fun statements as, “The economy is good because my brother got a job!” Keep it up. Logic, kids! We all like to talk it but does anyone know how to back it up? Nah brah.

After that thrilling event of a class, that for some reason really got my classmates riled up (if they think thats hot they should hit up a night at the Continental for some analytical arguments and our waitress picking up on the most obscure of “Jay and Silent Bob” lines), we went for a tour of the Guardian, the world’s premier liberal paper. It was righteous. The guy who spoke to us was an Ameri(k)an writing in the UK and we spoke about the mucked up system of news all over the world and how hard it is to maintain some semblance of integrity in this world of $ell outs and thieves. Afterwards we went to a pub called Three Kings, which is amusing in that, ‘hey I saw that Spike Jonze’ movie sort of way.’ The kick was that above the sign is a picture of Henry the VII, Elvis, and King Kong. Ha HA ha ha. Kristina and I then went to Ciao Bella, a brilliant Italian restaurant near my dorm that serves free olives and cheese that drive me wild.

Somewhere in all of this I received an e-mail from my friend Alan Moreno, who I had met for a couple of shows and works for Matador UK. He put me on the list for a show on Wednesday called 13 and God, which is a collaborative group between Germany’s Notwist and a hip hop group called Themselves. We hit up Camdentown, then hit up our man, and proceeded to the Buzzard (formerly the Purple Turtle). One of the highlights of living in another city is when you start to find your favourite places and things don’t seem so mysterious. The only problem with the show is that I brought Azam and Kristina down but the show was sold out. It sucked for them, we smoked in a park and I hit up Alan. The first band on was good, but the second band The Clap was amazing. It was one of those situations where the music makes you uncomfortable, then you don’t like it, then you wanna fucking dance to the feedback. The singer was this adorable brit, who I am fairly certain was making eyes at me during 13 and God’s set. I bought lots of records on this trip, and tonight was no exception; the Clap and 13 and God will surely be worked into a Lecherous Frenchmen set soon, no doubt. 13 and God fucking slayed, it’s like the Postal Service as it’s darkest, with a madman with a mohawk and a blazer with one angel wing attached to it spewing all sorts of free-style rap making the kids go crazy. The man actually would take in some kind of helium and then rap in that voice. Where do these shows go on in the US and where is Alan Moreno to get me in for free? Speaking of Alan, this guy is the fucking man. He actually invited me to what I am sure was an amazing festival in Oxford last weekend which I cancelled on him at the zero hour due to academic obligations. The festival sounded amazing too but as we will learn, my Thursday night was a little bit of a blur and slept was not really had, so let’s just jump to that, shall we?

I’ll just say it, because most of my friends (Che, we’re looking at you here), think it all the time, and my main man Jeff Tweedy articulated the best: “I’m worried (bragging), I’m always in love.” And if anyone thought that would change internationally, well you couldn’t be farther from the truth. I’ll say that New York has the most beautiful women but the girls out here have a little thing called intrigue. I can’t put my finger on it, maybe it’s the fact that they all listen to Oasis and the Libertines (and subsequently Babyshambles) or maybe it’s the accent. Or maybe they are so much fucking better. Whatever the case is, I had been harboring a crush on my Hall Assistant (the equivilent of an RA, except she works at a desk). She is a very tall brunette named Helen, who plays drums in a band and goes to art school. I think I am finally coming to terms with the fact that I have this art school fetish. Cue up, “We become what we hate” by Screeching Weasel or conversly, “Paint Nothing” by Idlewild. We met one of the first weeks but she was with boys so I naturely assumed she was taken but proceeded to flirt my face off whenever I saw her, which I have really gotten into the habit of these last few weeks. Naturally, Azam kept telling me she wanted me and I kept not listening (cuz it’s MY trip). I have to say though, being clueless is clearly the way to be and I totally understand why so many girls like my dear friend Art: there is something so hot about just wanting to be friends with someone. There are all kinds of pyscho babblesque reasons for this but I don’t want to get into them right now. Although I did get the hint when she said she was stalking me and sort of meant it. I suggested we all go out and on Thursday, I met her in the bar in my dorm, after being stood up by a bunch of idiot Michigan State Girls(c) who Azam wanted us to gang bang (I love that boy 87.5% of the time), half in the bag, half in my head. We did flaming shots of sambuca and some sort of fruity schnapps. Then things obviously got weird. Azam came down. They did coke. I felt left out. I sort of don’t trust too many people, and after nicknaming someone the walking penis, it’s sort of tough to let it go. Now, I rarely am a bad drunk. Yes, I’ll fall, yes, I’ll play Operation Ivy for a roomful of hipsters but I never get dark or angry. But I did. Like furious. Consa knows, because in the interim between Sanbuca and going out we spoke on the computer and though I don’t remember what I said, she seemed concerned when we spoke the next day. So I decided to not go out, she looked sad, I thought she liked my friend but then in an act of pure revenge I decided to go out, merely to make sure no one did anything stupid. My friend Jessica came even though we were going to some sort of “rock” club and she is pure booty and she was amazing at cheering me up. The name of the night was Teenage Kicks and it was pretty good. When I say pretty good, I mean 2 pound (currency, not weight) shots of tequila. Of which I did two as soon as I walked in. And then 3 more. To say I danced my face off was an understatement; my feet actually were leaving the ground. The DJ was pretty decent and in NYC would be pretty decent also. He played a lot of stuff my friend Chris Chase plays. I will say that I was drunk enough to drag everyone to the dancefloor to dance to “Mr. Brightside” which I will publically admit is a slice of pure pop heaven. I kept asking for LCD until I realized they didn’t have it and made them play the Rapture instead. Hey! DJs in the UK! The Rapture have like 7 singles, “House of Jealous Lovers” is only one. One of the best, yes, but give me some “Olio” or “I Need Your Love.”
Long story short: after several shots of tequila, I pulled Azam over and asked him to not hook up with her to which he laughed and told me she was upset because I was ignoring her and she had a crush on me. We did a shot. I threw up under the bar when no one was looking. I had a piece of gum. And me and the brit made out to “Twist and Shout” by the Beatles. We walked home and I stayed with her, barely sleeping at all until her alarm went off and I had to leave since her Dad was about to arrive.

care of cell 44

The next morning I was so tired of the girls that I thought about going back early but decided that I should eat hash brownies and hit the Van Gogh musuem. Mark ate some shrooms and we hit the tram. He was scared but I took care of him. The Van Gogh was quite incredible, it had a huge selection of his originals, since he spent most of his life in Holland, and while some didn’t really move me, others really hit hard, especially his pointillism era. Unfortunetely, Mark and Nitin were flying home that night and I would be left with the girls. So we went on a smoke fest, I bought some things for friends at home, and we headed back to the lounge. This is when Mark and Nitin realized that their flight wasn’t leaving at 10pm, but 7:30pm and it was 5:30. Mark was still on shrooms trying to smoke his way down. It was hysterical. It’s similar to drinking yourself sober, a practice I never really signed up for the newsletter of. They left in a blink!

On a trip like this, personal autonomy is cherished. I decided to hang out by myself because things were getting ugly with the girls, who with the exception of Sharon, just followed us around, smoking our drugs. Tonight was my night, and I decided that I would begin it by taking a small dose of mushrooms and smoking a huge joints. The mushrooms were light and visual ones and were by far the best mushrooms I have ever eaten. They were fresh and moist and hit me in such a clean way. That is one thing I will say about drugs being legal: the quality is incredible. The weed never made you tired (although hash cake will) and the shrooms never made you feel exceptionally ill. They started hitting me after about an hour and I walked to the square to chain smoke and occasionally listen to my ipod. I walked around, glowing and happy, feeling buzzy and oozing with excitement. Shortly after, I came back to the hostel (why is it when you trip you always have to touch home base?) where I listened to Television for a few minutes before heading to the lounge to smoke some more.

As I was sitting there, a very dark haired girl with a bandana in her hair walked past minute. I can’t lie, I was a mess, tripping gently, stoned as hell. She was checking her e-mail so I made a trip over there and sat a seat away. I checked her out a few times, and read my e-mail. I went over and had a few more cigarettes waiting to see if this girl’s boyfriend showed up, but no one did. She was sitting there, alone, drinking a glass of red wine. I walked over and let her have it. I let her know I was alone and that the girls I were with were BORING and that I couldn’t help but come over and say hello. She had a great smile. Her name was Armineh and she was Armenian. She was from Australia (accent and all) and was staying in Hamburg, Germany. Her male counterpart was in the room sleeping. She said he was pretty boring, and she smoked my cigarettes as we giggled and talked. I have to say, she was very charming. Maybe it was the accent or the dark hair and freckles. Or maybe it was the flood of chemicals saturating every pore of my body. I told her how I missed having great conversations while stoned and she did also, since her friend was, well, boring. I nonchalantly asked her to the coffeeshop across the way. She was shy to leave her friend upstairs, but the moment after last we were walking parallel to the canal that ran perpendicular to our hostel. We smoked a huge joint next to the canal, her journal was laying by my feet and I kind of wanted to crack it open to see what types of things she was writing. We talked about our programs, she was an Australian law student, which is pretty wild and oddly coincidental. We walked out of the Red Light District and down the more traditional streets of Holland in all their cliched beauty. I’ve never seen Before Sunset or whatever the Ethan Hawke movie is called but I would imagine this would be the drugged out version. The best part of my version? When some guy one a bicycle offered us coke or ecstacy. He just rode on down the street repeating, “coka? X? coka? X?” I was offered cocaine around 52 times that weekend, and that drug became something of a background motif on my journey through Europe. We sat and talked under this bridge, and eventually had to go back to check on her poor friend who was listening to his i-pod. We kept bumping into each other. I put my arm around her ever so fragile and we kissed. Then we kissed hard in front of the hotel down the street that was far fancier than the hostel either of us would reside that night.
I was coming down and it felt nice, my chemical dependence being replaced with that rush from when you unexpectedly have someone’s hands randomly touching you in even the most mild of places. We eventually met up with her friend, whose name escapes me. He was a good bloke, finding the entire situation mildly comical. I could relate; had I been traveling with Cheryl and awoken from a nap to her telling me she’d met some boy I would be in a humorous spirit. We all got beers, her and I smoked another joint. We all walked back to the hostel, and in an odd stroke of luck, I had a hotel room to myself. We never went to sleep that night and when the grey light of dawn shot up, we parted, giggling and mildly sad, since it is unknown if I’d ever see her again. I headed to the Green House for a cup of coffee and a smoke, before meeting up with my awful traveling companions for a relaxing trip back to London, which may I add, started to feel like home. Morning highlight? When Avital asked if there was any drugs in the hash browns.

Is this home on ice?

I didn’t get much sleep that night, since I slept on a mattress on the floor with the window open. Lord do they ring too many bells in that town. It’s like the Hunchback had too many red bulls or something. The next morning we had more fights about hotel rooms and money, which it turns out would all benefit me later on, but at the moment I wanted no part and smoked a joint in the lounge. And so the coffeeshop tour began. Ironically, on Sharon’s suggestion (the third girl of the trio, who is a very nice girl, with her loyalties in the wrong places), we headed towards the Green House, where they played bar none the best music, had the best selection of drugs and the cutest and friendliest bar tenders. Their coffee was pretty tops also. So we bought some pre-rolled joints since I was the only one who can roll and rolling for six people didn’t sound enticing. We got a hash joint and a weed joint, which were huge cannons, and lit them up. I was excited, the quality was unmatched and a smile was creeping on my face. At some point, the Incredibles came up (yes the Disney movie). With a buzz going I decided I would start what would be the first of many faux intellectual conversations. I compared the attitude of the movie with Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead, since essentially both works exemplify a similar attitude: If you have a special talent you should exploint, regardless of the detriment it causes others. Basically that some people are more special than others and that’s the way that it is, which for a kid’s movie is a bit odd. Blank stares would have been better than the response I got.

“I don’t like talking about stuff like that when I’m stoned.”

Followed by everyone else agreeing. It was just at that moment that I truly missed my friends and that as blase as it sounds, doing drugs is fun, but doing them with quality people is so much fucking better. Hell I even missed my friends who sign off on me without saying goodbye and take passive aggression stabs at me in their myspace profile (yes I recognize the i-ro-ny). I missed all of them. A dark cloud began to hang over my head, but our whirlwind tour of coffee shops continued. Now, although the men with me were not up for deep conversation, they were head and shoulders above the rest of my crew and joy to be around. They wanted to party hard and who am I to blow against the wind? When I say party hard, I mean smoke a lot of pot and eat.

It began there: we went to breakfast where I had a pancake with ham and cheese. And then we smoked. And then we had waffles with apples and cream. And then we smoked. And then we had frites in a cone with mayo and ketchup. And then we ate hash cake. I think you all get the point. I had a very good time. Mark bought shrooms to do that night but it never happened. We all passed out at 9. At some point I got a thrilling e-mail from my friend Aaron asking me if I would like to take over for him as the legal intern for Matador Records. I nearly exploded. Working for Matador has been a dream of mine for a long time and it’s still pending since I need to go home and interview, I will stop speaking of it.


I woke up later, where my boys were sleeping and decided, that hell, I’ll go get a joint, make some friends. So I put on a clean shirt. Brushed my teeth and hit the streets. Except that it was 3am. And nothing was open. Except the Red Light District. I rolled a joint and hit the streets. I got some fries and ate them. Mark and Nitin walked down the street and we all hit the hay.

Clap Yours Hands Say Yeah!

And we awoke like most any other Thursday, except I had been thoroughly Kurt Loder-ed the night before and had helped two hapless girls find their dormitory at like 3am. It took me awhile but it felt righteous to be so self righteous and I felt good about feeling good. The plan was to leave after our classes ended at 1pm and head to the airport to fly to le Amsterdam. Now, I have been waiting to go to Amsterdam most of my adult life. Some people face East towards, Mecha, and I faced Northeast to the ‘dam. Yes, the prostitutes were supposed to be hot but I don’t think one person who will read this will even have a doubt about why it is I wanted to go there. I could barely sleep the night before I was so satiated with anticipation. The set up was as follows: me and three girls from my program would be flying there on Thursday early evening, being met up later by two guys from my program. None of my closer friends on the trip were to join me, and this was definitely to my detriment. After my first class, I skipped my second class to get some flight info and such, as my excitement had caused me to make some foolish errors. So I hit Tesco, the utterly brilliant market that is like Wawa but so so so much more. Giddy and smiling I headed to my room. It was definitely warm, I remember that much. I wound up talking to a guy named Andrew for awhile, and eventually made my way into my e-mail. Where I realized the flight I booked for me and the three girls was for January 14th and not July 14th. I am thoroughly perplexed on how this happened. But the catch is that we purchased them off LastMinute.com, a website that has a non-transferable/non-exchangeable rule. And they mean it. Not to mention, we had no way of getting to Amsterdam, where we had reservations in my name and on my credit card.

Panic.

I actually ran down the hall to find one of the girls, a girl named Avital. Avital had been hooking up with Azam during this trip and had it not been for that factor, she is the type of girl I would never ever talk to. Some things that Avital has said she doesn’t do:
- charity (because her parents worked hard and made money so anyone can)
- The Economist
- understand wit and/or sarcasm (I jokingly told her not to die so I didn’t have to fill out the paperwork and she got angry with me and told me to fuck off)
- pay for drugs in Amsterdam
- sleep in hostels
To sum up: she is rich and lives in Beverly Hills and is exactly what you would think she is. She also got angry when I laughed at her for asking if there were drugs in hash browns.

So, I woke her up from her nap. I was in extreme panic mode, as we had many hurdles to overcome. One was that another girl we were traveling with, who is 32 and living in a dormitory in London, is apparently wretchedly poor and isn’t shy about letting people know. The trip to Amsterdam was a stretch for her and we were all guilty of coercing her into coming because the hotel would be cheaper. But talk about something that will bite you in the ass. Because at this point, all the girls are trickling back and blaming me for what was clearly a computer error. There was immediate tension since I held (and still hold), that I shouldn’t have had to book 3 additional adults flights, especially one that could nearly be my mother. And it’s not that I used my credit card, I literally sat there and filled out all the forms as they were laying around my room feeding me their information. And I thought planning Disney Spring Break was tough. Which it wasn’t. And I thoroughly miss all those fucking hammerheads. Except Piehler and Gribbon who, if I remember correctly, dressed in Safari Gear tried to go to a place on Disney grounds called the Venetian, the fanciest of hotels they told me, which was actually the Polynesian, the oldest of hotels on Disney Grounds, with the exception of the Contemporary(c), which in this day and age is far from the contemporary. Lord I need to go to Florida. I should never put that in print.

Anyway, I’ve digressed. Arguments ensue, and we are all trying to figure out how to get to Amsterdam before night fall. My chances of seeing LCD Soundsystem flew out the window, along with most of my dignity that boiling London day. For a city where it so often rains, it’s so frustrating to be sitting, sweltering and mentally melting in a last ditch effort to get to a foreign city. Finally, I found a train that would take 5 hours, that wasn’t sold out, and left shortly. And now, the girls won’t leave without Silva, the feminine equivilent of a “yes man.” The thirty two year old, Armenian woman who wears low cut shirts daily so she can brag that men are checking out her cleavage. A bit haggard, although far more set in reality than the rest of the girls in my program, she made me apologize (to this day, I am not sure why) in order for her to go. I swallowed my sometimes non-existent pride because lord, did I want to get high.

We were off.

I won’t lie, I definitely have a proclivity to train it over flying and today was no exception. Don’t get me wrong, I had no problem flying but there is something relaxing about taking the train through the countryside. We took the Eurostar through the Chunnel to Brussels and then transferred to a local train to Amsterdam. I had been on the Eurostar before, from France to London, the last time I had been in the London. It looked pretty much the same except I wasn’t listening to Blink 182’s “Dude Ranch.” And proud I am of this menial factor. The Eurostar ride was nice, I sat apart from the girls and finished up Social Blunders. I definitely liked it. So much so, that I decided I would try to bridge the gap between me and the ladies, and strut up a few cars to see if they wanted to borrow it. They had brought neither school books, personal reading nor i-pods, although Avital did bring the latest issue of “Tatler” which is basically the intellectual equivilent of going to the bathroom. To say they were nonplussed is an understatement; only one of them were awake, Silva Haggard. None were very interested in the novel at any point, I wound up offering it a handful of times. So I head back to my seat to listen to some music.

When we finally arrived in Brussels about 2 and half hours later, we had to get on a local train. For the first time I truly felt like I was in another country. It was more than the language barrier. The people’s faces changed, the architecture was definitely more blurred between the lines of rural and urban. But they still served paninis. The local train was hot, I was sweating through my shirt and surrounded by various families and commuters coming and going and coming and going. I remember a beautiful African woman, and a young girl with piercing blue eyes who kept giggling in my direction. I started reading my second novel of the trip, Winner of the National Book Award, which was given to me by a lovely young woman in the states named Lyndsay, whom will be referred to as the good Lyndsay, as opposed to the evil girl of last summer, Lindsay. About 20 pages in my eyes fell flat and my head lay upon my arms and BIFF! BANG! POW! I was asleep.

Shortly thereafter, I was woken up by a boy with scruffy hair, letting me know I had to get off the train. What I was not aware of was the fact that the sweaty local train was replaced by an air conditioned local train about halfway through our three hour journey from Brussels to Amsterdam. Thankfully, before he got off the train, he woke me, since the girls just got off the train, a mere train car ahead of me. I groggily trudged to the next car, took a cold deep breath, and saw the last minutes of the sunset in the distance. It sounds like a cliche obviously, but it was fucking beautiful. The boy who woke me up was named Teun, and he was an Amsterdam native whose parents had a place in Park Slope! On 7th Ave and 9th Street, right across the street from where I was supposed to live. He said that he couldn’t understand how Bush got elected twice when everyone he meets say they voted Kerry. I explained how those people don’t leave their town, and he was saying how he read that 85% of Amerikkkans don’t even own a passport. Motherfucker, what the fuck.

We got off the train, after a conversation with the girls about the hostel (they had read it was loud in a book and got freaked), and hit up the ATM. The train station is minutes from the Red Light District, where our hostel is. We stayed in one of the biggest hostels in Amsterdam, the Bulldog. Although, there was some trepidation about staying there from the general peanut gallery, it turned out to be awesome. Amsterdam is comprised of a handful of important things.
1)Canals
2)Trams
3)”Coffee” Shops
4)Girls in windows who will have sex with you for 50 dollars.

You smell marijuana as soon as you hit the street. Coming out of the train station at midnight, the place was intimidating as hell. We walked through Dam Square, and quickly found out hotel where one of the many arguments over our sleeping arrangements and money quickly fell into place. The Haggard woman was awful, absolutely pathetic that at 32 she is squabbling over 30 bucks. Did I mention she worked for the Drudge Report AND currently works for Clear Channel? No, shockingly, she doesn’t have horns. The first night we all wind up in an apartment, which while aesthetically awesome was rather “buggy,” although that seemed to be a motif for the weekend. We took our time getting showered, not realizing coffee shops close at 1am, even though our hostel had a smoke lounge open to 5am. So we wound up having to buy pre-rolled joints off the street, presumably by the guy who ran the hostel. It was Thursday so the whole town shut down early, and we made our first run into the Red Light District. Now, I am a pretty good guy most of the time. Generally respectful towards women. I’ve never gotten a prostitute at home and have only been to two nudie bars in my life. With that said, the Red Light District is absolutely amazing. The set up is there are two huge streets, with a canal in the middle, standing in windows with red lights above them. They were literally the hottest girls I’ve ever seen in my life. Every type of girls, in every outfit, even some with horn rimmed glasses. For those of you unaware, Amsterdam’s government actually regulates the girls, has them tested all the time, and all the rooms have government security guards in a backroom. The men (who we met up with, and were truly amazing) were giddy, the girls uncomfortable, and we head back to the apartment to smoke and watch tv, where we found, duh, porn.

sick of modern art

So the days start to blend, especially in London. I’ve been singing the same Built to Spill song since I’ve seen them although I’ve yet to learn more than a skeletal outline of the lyrics. It’s “Stab” if for some reason you were wondering. On Monday I did the school thing, followed by the usual hang around my room, recovering from my Oasis oriented hang over and the losing of my concert love, Laika. I’m doing fine though. At night Azam and I went to drink with his friend Ravi, who never ceases to amaze. Such a dry, funny guy and quite the Oasis fan. One thing I’ve noticed is that although Ravi is a huge music fan (he literally knows every video that comes on when we are watching), he has no desire to really seek out “independent music.” But that is because the Arcade Fire is not considered “indie” so much as an up and coming band. The British definitely don’t feel the need to search out music in obscurity: they want their bands in their magazines with advertisements on the tube. It’s a wholeheartedly different attitude but generally works since the press covers about forty times the amount of music any Amerikkkan press comes near. I will also say the latest batch of British bands (Razorlight, Hard Fi, Kaiser Chiefs, the Editors, Maximo Park) are generally abysmal. They take the Interpol thing way too far. I will say that Bloc Party has grown on me. I also finally heard Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! and although they didn’t hit me like the Arcade Fire or Broken Social Scene (i.e., bands that Pitchfork hyped up) it’s definitely great.
The singer has quite the interesting set of pipes, it’s like Luke Jenner from the Rapture doing his best Thom Yorke. I went for my first great Indian dinner tonight and I can now say I have another type of food to order to my apartment in Brooklyn. Lemongrass and Sea Asian should watch out.
Back to London. I cannot for the life of me remember what I did on Tuesday night. Although I might have gone to Ravi’s for one last hoorah since he is leaving for India on Monday. Actually that is what we did, basking in Tesco and a couple of spliffs. As Jeff Tweedy so succintly puts it, “It’s good to be alone.” Which in this case means away from the awful awful people in my program whom I am actually traveling with. See the problem is that Azam dates the most horrific spoiled brat from Beverly Hills. When I say date, I really mean bang and then talk a lot of shit on. Which is obviously something of a character flaw, but so be it. I think I used to think it was worse before I realized how awful she was. Utterly despicable. So needless to say, a few hours away from the Los Angeles crew is like a golden ray of sunlight from the heavens or wherever it is golden ray of sunlight comes from. One of the oddest things about traveling abroad is you meet a lot of interesting people and you never quite know who you will run into again. I do hope I run into Ravi at some point, because he is cracks me up and was incredibly hospitalible, especially considering I had just met his friend a few weeks prior. Good show, Ravi. I think I may have also gone for Thai fusion which was just ok. Although they had that wonderful hot chili sauce my brother rocks at home.
Although this seems ridiculous but I actually had a great time with someone on Wednesday. All this positivity! Don’t worry kids, it doesn’t last long. On Wednesday I was invited by my friend Kristina to go to the Tate Modern, which is London’s MOMA. Except instead of a thoroughly modern building though it is located in an abandoned warehouse that once housed a gigantic generator that powered all of London with electricity. Kristina knows a ton about art and has traveled all over the world. She is very charming and extremely dark. Not the fun in the sun type that I generally have been getting from the rest of the Southwestern students. She is from Princeton, NJ and reminds me of the equivilent of my friends Cheryl or J Mac: she is a girl that can hang with the boys. She traveled to Budapest this weekend by herself! How insane is that! I am not sure I would even do that. She explained to a lot of intricasices of the paintings and their influences and got thoroughly freaked out by the bizarre short film. I also got freaked out. I don’t even want to think about it right now. The paintings also shed some light on many songs, such as “Max Ernst” by Mission of Burma and “Man Ray” by the Futureheads. Who knews rockers were such appreciators of art! I am being ironic! Help!
Post Tate Modern, Kristina and I in an effort to avoid the Southwestern crew went to Leichester Square and got Mexican food. While it was not at all close to what Burritoville pimps off to me, and not even in the same realm as the Tex Mex powerhouse that is Jose Tejas, it really hit the spot. I had a truly fun time the whole day, and even at night when Kristina and I got totally spot on wasted doing our laundry in preparation for the big trip to Amsterdam which starts Thursday after class. Lock up your kids. Or the drugs. Or the prostitutes.
For those of you following along at home, all the pictures are from the Tate Modern Day(c).

Neighborhood #2 (Laika)

For those of you unaware, Oasis is one of my favourite bands of all time. I will never forget my freshman year of high school when I used to hang out at track meets with Greg Carbonella, listening to “Definitely Maybe” on repeat. Pop music had never sounded so visceral and fuck man, it had heart. Those songs are to this day some of the best I ever heard, and I have gotten shit my entire life for liking them so much. The older hardcore kids in my high school used to make fun of me because apparently you weren’t allowed to like Oasis AND Operation Ivy. But boy, are they wrong! My entire life I wanted to see Oasis in the UK, where they are celebrated and revered even when they make albums that they will later disregard due to the fact that they were on too much Charlie (whatyoucallthat, Henry?). So when I heard they were playing while I was here, I found a great website, bought scalped tickets for face value and boarded a train out to the country to see Oasis with Azam. We got a late-ish start, and relaxed on the train. I brought the fuckin’ marvelous, Social Blunders by Tim Sandlin, a brilliant, raunchy satire and killed a good amount of it. Azam slept. Forty five minutes later we were in Milton Keynes at a venue called the National Bowl, which is a huge field in a bowl shape that, pending my vertical challenge, has tons of great places to see a band.
The walk to the bowl itself was about 25 minutes. The English hadn’t seen sun in weeks so one in three men had their shirts off. No emphasis on fitness here. Nearly everyone had a shaved head or was bald, and were doing soccer chants. Not sure why. The English really really really know how to booze. When I say “know how,” what I mean is “do it fucking often at all hours of the day.” As we rolled up to the gate with a nice buzz (we stopped to sit on a hill), we heard the last minutes of the Secret Machines opening set. We saw some haggard guy that looked like Iggy Pop but turned out to be an actor that appears in the new Oasis video, “The Importance of Being Idle.” The place was massive, and the first thing I noticed was that the rules of the world just didn’t apply at a concert like this. It was a huge hill with forests everywhere and people were piss ass drunk and stoned and roaming whereever they liked. Security just let everyone have a great time. It’s so odd how the rules here are so much more lax than the States but things seem to just even out. Don’t get me wrong, we saw a bunch of fights and a lot of near fights, but hey, it’s better than dealing with the 5-O. The place was fucking massive. We heard a bunch of figures about how many people attended and they ranged from 65,000- 75,000 people. To see Oasis. !!!.

We tried to find a place to sit since it was still early and two bands were to come on pre-Oasis. I wore my Pavement shirt to see if I could make some friends, but all it took was me moving over a little for this tall guy to strike up a conversation with Azam and I. And this is where the day started being one of the best I may ever have. We met about 5 or 6 guys from New Castle, which is a town between London and Edinburgh, where the people are known for being cheery and ultimately a little dim. And man, did these guys love us. And man, did these guys know how to party. They all tapped their drugs to their underarms and rolled more spliffs than I’d ever seen in my life. Literally, huge blunt like spliffs rolled with one hand every 30 minutes. It was amazing. They showed us their way too complicated cell phones, talked about the popularity of blue tooth technology and traded lingo. At one point they started chanting U-S-A over and over again. After the wholeheartedly mediocre 22-20s went off, we all moved to the front because the boys from New Castle really liked the next band, the popular English group the Coral. This is a band American kids would never understand and with the exception of their most popular singles everyone seemed to know, they were too mind blowing. Now, we were fairly close as evidenced by the attached pictures. The screens really helped since detail is lost when the venue is so large. But what they lack in visual they make up with in enthusiasm. People were seething before Oasis came on. And you’d imagine I would be too but I wasn’t. I was way too smitten for that.
As the Coral was wrapping up, it became apparent to us that at concerts like this soccer hooligans enjoy a few things. I’ll bullet point the highlights:
- drinking beer
- throwing full cups of beer into the crowd
- pissing into their empy beer cups
- throwing the piss filled beer cups into the crowd
- bare chested men sitting on top of other bare chest men waving flairs around
Not quite the Jones Beach Ampitheater. So when some topless male took his penis out to piss in a beer cup, I took a chance, pulled a George Constanza (did the opposite of what I’d usually do) and talk to the adorable girl who had been sneaking up behind our group and that I had been eyeing for 30 minutes while the Coral was snoozerockin’. She was short, dark, and looked much Lauren Cona if she was dark and british and a brunette. And I won’t gush (hence why I waited some days to write this) but she was lovely. We talked the entire hour before Oasis came on, and she cracked me up. Made fun of me relentlessly, and charmed my pants off. She was 20, and went to college in the south of England. From what I could tell her college was like NYU/BU as opposed to a campus type school. She even customized her jeans. She told me her name was Laika, and that I was the only person to say it correctly on the first try. Thank you Will Butler and the Arcade Fire for making outstanding music with bizarre names in them. She said she didn’t like short names and asked if she could call me “Thomas” which I might have rebutted had it not made me shiver in the heat they way she said it. She was clearly flirting with me. It’s not so often I say that but I knew. It was the first time since I’ve been away that I met any girl that I connected with and made me laugh so much. And she was at an Oasis concert. Now, before I get to the brilliance of Oasis, I’ll spoil the horrible ending. Being very wasted off many a spliff and many a beer with very little food in my stomach, I asked my boy Azam if I should get her number, for a little support. To which he responded, “fuck that, she is young and chubby.” It was only later when we spoke about girls at our post concert eating binge that he was so boring when it came to women (read: a brah). Besides, she was just young! But it was enough to make me feel too self conscious to do it and after the concert I said “later” and walked away, instantly feeling the pang of regret I’ve had several times in my life, but usually not so poignant. Blah blah blah girls girls girls. She made this one comment that made it so obvious that she was into me and it rings in my head like the last song you hear before you take off your headphones. I don’t really feel like writing about it any longer. To partially quote Singles; regret: it’s the world’s worst cologne. I will say it made me miss my friends at home, who albeit a tad on the Morrissey-esque asexual side, are generally supportive and have way better taste in women (read: not generic). I mean I had to miss them at SOME point, I guess, right?
Now for the good stuff, although most people are FAR more interested in my romantic life than an Oasis concert review. The screens went on, showing the iconic Oasis font and “Fuckin’ in the Bushes” blared through the speakers. People started screaming and jumping up and down. It was the first time I had pogoed in at least 5 years. It was marvelous. The band came out, the crowd cheered, “Li-am! Li-am! Li-am!” He responded by looking fucking cool as hell leering the crowd from the stage, nearly motionless except a smug look on his face, glasses around the eyes, and some bucket hat only he could get away with. The sound was incredible, especially for such a large scale concert. They opened with the first song on “Don’t Believe the Truth” and the chanting began. But it was during “Bring it On Down” that people started to explode with enthusiasm. People knew the words to all the new songs, but when they played the old stuff, the National Bowl became the biggest rowdiest sing along where everyone jumped up and down in unison. Much like when I saw Green Day a few years back, it’s incredible how many hit songs some of these bands have. At some point the whole thing because a string of utterly classic songs right in a row. “Songbird” was a highlight, with the crowd clapping to the beat for the entire 2 and half minutes and “Little by Little” was the first of many great Noel led songs to get the crowd moving to and fro. Mostly fro. The new stuff sounded just as good, and a bit refreshing, especially the Velvet Underground lifted, “Mucky Fingers.” There was something so refreshingly unpretentious about the entire thing and it made me not miss America at all. People were singing, having an amazing time, jumping around without being violent and actually feeling the music. No one was there to be cool or be to be seen(or scene), they were there because they loved it. Anyone who attended the last LCD Soundsytem show with me at Webster Hall couldn’t come close to saying the same thing. Around 3/4 through the show, the drums to “Live Forever” echoed and people began to go utterly apeshit. So much so that the crowd, including me, sang the entire first verse and first chorus without a single other instrument coming in. Even Liam looked a bit shocked when he came up on the LCD screen. Noel just smirked and pulled his glasses down a bit. Noel nailed every single note of the solo, and there was more than one person playing the air guitar. “Acquiecse” got a huge response as well and was probably my favourite song of the set, which culminated in an encore that consisted of two new songs, “Don’t Look Back in Anger” and a punked up cover of “My Generation.” It was massively brillaint and I wish I could have had all of you there because it was that type of event. I’d want to you leave right after though. And maybe encourage me to speak up when I am in love with a Brit I met at an Oasis concert two feet away from me. I’m smelling my own cologne again. I should go.

Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)

“Is this business or is it personal? Because if it’s business, I’ll walk away. But if it’s personal, I’ll walk away. But I won’t be happy”- Gob Bluth

So generally speaking, I’ve kept the personal out of le blog and le writings, partially because this isn’t livejournal and I’m not a 15 year old emo kid. But over the weekend, some new shit came to light, man. You guys aren’t privvy to the new shit, so I’m here to fill you in. The first part of what can only be called gossip happened on Saturday night after I returned home from my trip to Camdentown where Azam and I killed a whole bottle of Jameson, which in my opinion is far better than Jack Daniels. Azam was high as a kite on the white line and I was laying around my room socialing. And this is where it’s gets a bit sticky. There are really not many girls in my study abroad program I dig on, at least romantically or even sexually. There is one Persian girl, but she enjoys tall metrosexuals and has a 5 year boyfriend but let’s not talk about that. Furthermore, whereas some girls are aesthetically pleasing, I don’t exactly have the witty repartee with any of these girls, since they are from Southern California, where sarcasm is unheard of and irony is something they think they take vitamins to get more of. None of them are particularly interesting and they actually kind of make me long for New York (more and less on that later). There is one girl in particular, who is about 5’9, cute, blond with one of those bodies men go crazy for. And I will admit, I have oogled her a few times since she has that great stomach/hip bones showing thing going on. But over the last few weeks, no matter how hard I try (and trust me I have), she can’t seem to not flirt with me. And I thought that maybe I was just being a dork or being insecure, but the fact of the matter is no matter how pleasing I find her aesthetically, I just don’t dig her like that. Which is why it became a problem when she lingered next to me in my bed when everyone left Saturday night. In a nutshell, thanks to my friend Azam, who thinks she is hot and wanted me too hook up with her, she got the idea that I was interested. Which I was not. But when some girl looks you in the face and asks if you are attracted to her at 3am, whiskey drunk, how can you say, “Nah, could you leave my room?”
Not this guy. I thought maybe once it got going I’d enjoy it. But I didn’t. And she was aggressive, if not too much show (see: the bite mark she left on my neck). But thank the lord I don’t come prepared for sexual advances children (if you know what I mean). The whole thing sort of scared me because a)I have to see her everyday and she pretty much told me she wanted it to be a recurring thing and b)I didn’t like it at all. I fell asleep at 5am (she left at 4:58) thoroughly confused and drunk but excited. Because even in my sleep I was already MADFERRIT.