tom has entered the building... is it really all over?.....uberpingpong ??

I heart New York

Can you hear them?
The helicopters?
I'm in New York
No need for words now

Five hours and twenty minutes later and I was sitting on the tarmac at JFK airport with the actual realisation in my head that in 8 days time I would be back home in London. This was my first time in the big apple and I had better make it good! It didn't exactly start smoothly after the airport shuttle bus I got into Manhattan drove us the long and wrong way round to my mid-town accommodation and when I finally arrived there after over 1.5 hours sat in that bus the driver wanted me to pay extra for bringing my guitar in the bus. One heated argument later, me not getting my full change and him not getting his extra (not to mention a tip!) we parted ways. (Don't use Super Shuttle to get from JFK airport into New York City ever! Hopefully Google picks this up too!). One positive was that I only had 8 more nights in hostels and I then NO more! Hopefully forever! That will be sweet. (As I'd left it late I had to get a room in HI-NY which is the largest hostel in the world too, 625 beds all in the same room! Oh god, and it smells bad!)

The first thing I noticed about NY was how much like London it was. Manhattan (central NY) is small and oh, so easy to get around thanks to the subway (identical almost to the tube). But in fact the vast majority you can walk (nothing like LA where I had just come from). My ticket to everywhere was the 7 day subway card (only $24). I felt at home straight away and its only 7 hours across the Atlantic back to London too! I really do heart NY! On my first day I checked out: Times Square (twice, during daytime and at night), applied for audience tickets to the David Letterman show, went to the Chelsea district to see the famous Chelsea Hotel (where Dylan, Richards, Worhol, Morrison, Ryan Adams among many others have all have stayed and where Sid Vicious died. Its also had a number of songs written about it by these artists), went to Chelsea guitars next door and saw a 1948 Gibson acoustic Ryan Adams once owned (he's a regular there), went to a record store near Fifth Avenue, ventured in and around Washington Park in Greenwich Village, took in Ground Zero, Battery Park (overlooking the statue of liberty on the horizon) and topped it off with a cheap chinese dinner in Chinatown. There is no way you could get even three of those things done in a whole day in LA!! If I were to sit here and compare the two (as it begs to be done as they are the two main commercial cities), I will put it this way: In San Francisco I felt creative if not a little overwhelmed, in New York I feel creative but like I am at home and in LA I felt inferior and helpless. I don't hate LA but it doesn't particularly hold anything for me either. Having stayed there for just over 2 weeks in total, LA appears from where I was standing to be full of insincerity and vanity (not to mention smog).

"No liquids, gels or aerosol cans"... "Don't touch the bag sir"

Taking a bunch of musical recording equipment (look, I got a good deal ok!) from LAX to JFK, New York on an American Airlines flight couldn't have been a worse idea. Both ends I had my entire bag turned inside out (wiping down a microphone and its lead with lint cloth then analysing it in a machine), this is all whilst I tried to dodge checked and carry on weight and size limits. When the Americans do a security check, they do it. Shoes and all! I can't imagine what it would be like to have a dark skin and a big beard, a guy roughly fitting that description (he was from Cyprus) in Santa Monica I met was recounting his experience from Heathrow to LAX the previous week. They held him in a room for an hour asking what his purpose of visiting was and why he had chosen Los Angeles, United States of America as his holiday destination. They made him miss his flight, re-scheduling him to another later one. Will he be hurrying back to the USA after that experience, the first of his vacation? There is no quick answer on how to handle this whole messed up situation.

Two days previous and I was sitting in LA's South Broadway Orpheum Theatre to see Ani DiFranco in concert. She was her normal amazing self playing guitar in her distinctive percussive style and a few tunes off the great new album "Reprive". As I stood listening to the last song "Hypnotized" (such a lovely song) it actually physically felt like a long and eventful chapter of my trip was closing and had come to an end. Its amazing what music can do. Ani, the self proclaimed "little folksinger" and her "slam poet" support Buddy Wakefield and friends had much to say on this situation of terrorism. Its everywhere in one form or another. America see's itself as unfairly treated but as they eloquently pointed out, the country (and the UK no different) has been causing the same terror on thousands for many, many more years. 48 hours later on my first day in Manhattan I visited "Ground Zero" otherwise known as the World Trade Center. Its just a large hole in the ground. A construction site. But a collection of photographs depicting tastefully but powerfully the experience NYC went through on that dreaded day sits on one of the fences. The old man with tears flowing from under his dark sunglasses with the reflection of the American flag on the lens. The Army officer stood with his face screwed up to hold back the tears whilst saluting at the remembrance ceremony. A picture really can speak a thousand words. But, most of all what brought the whole, actually emotional and overwhelming, experience into reality was the full, seemingly never ending, list of the thousands that died that day. Full christian name followed by surname. As you ran your eyes down and along the list, you would almost have to look twice because you thought you had spotted a similar name to a family member or friend amongst this mass. Thats when it really bought it home. How anybody, your parent, your sibling, your friend could have been killed in the same or another similar episode. I didn't quite understand what was going through the minds of all the tourists standing taking pictures of one another in different poses with smiles on their faces. Japanese tourists with their obligatory 'peace' hand signals, and the middle aged man from middle america who described the scene as "awesome". Has it just become another entry on the tourist "to-do" list. No one can blame those from all over the world wanting to see with their own eyes what we as humans the world over saw happening on our TV screens on September 11th 2001. Hell, thats why I was there. But if this becomes yet another place just to snap a photo on a whirlwind double decker bus tour, it will be very sad. I didn't want to take any pictures but eventually I tried some black and white arty ones of the wilting flag against the backdrop and the police car watching the site like a hawk. To 99.9% of people around the world, this event never directly affected them. But coming here it almost made me feel a distant part of it. That was my experience anyway.

3 States

The day after I got into Santa Monica, September 7th, it was my birthday! It was not ideal as having just arrived alone in a place where I didn't know anyone, it wasn't exactly the crazy wild booze fueled day and night of excess and celebration in LA (like I planned and you would possibly imagine) as a 24th! But I did meet up with a guy Martin from my room and we went to Hooters (something I'd looked forward to - until they called me up to dance on a chair to of all things, Nelly! I couldn't deny the fit girls though) and then we went onto "a club".

One thing you immediately notice about LA is how bloody massive it is! Its impossible. Trying to navigate the place by bus is like torture, you need a car. The lay-out of this "super-city" caters only to those with one. However, because everyone drives everywhere (including almost every store with its own parking lot) the roads are rammed and apart from the VERY valuable factor that you are in your own environment whilst sitting in traffic (don't ask why), its speed of progression is often not much greater than the damn bus. So, the cheaper option was the bus. It took over an hour to reach Hollywood from Santa Monica on the bus! A total distance of only about 15 miles. After meeting Cameron from New Zealand at the hostel, we spent the next 2 days checking out Hollywood and the surrounding area. Doing the tourist thing: The Chinese Theater, Walkway of the Stars, Kodak Theatre (where the Oscars were held), the Hollywood sign and most importantly Hooters Hollywood (damn, there is ALOT of Hooter to be seen its too much to take in). We also went to the Baywatch beach in Santa Monica and Rodeo Drive, Beverly Hills. It was good to get the tourist stuff out the way quickly anyway. Tourist attractions hold no real short or long term value to me on such a trip, they are about the only element that I want to get over and done with.

On Sunday 10th it was time for the first of my 4 gigs in LA. Willie Nelson and Ryan Adams at the Hollywood Bowl. I had booked the ticket, primarily to see Ryan Adams but always wanted to see Willie too. Not to mention visiting the Hollywood Bowl (a legendary venue in the music world, you name 'em, they've played there). Ryan Adams has such a prolific talent and way with good melodies. He churns them out constantly, its amazing. He can have the most random and out-and-out weird lyrical content but coupled with this knowledge and feel for melody the songs become amazing pieces of music. Even when just played acoustic and solo. And this leads me to analyse songwriting styles. You can go with the standard widely used method of following the notes to discover the melody or go the way Ryan will often (and lately) go which is to work out the melody using the vocal rather than the main instrument. Becoming a songwriter, rather becoming a better to good songwriter, I think is all about understanding other music and to do so it appears that all you really need is to just have to be a massive fan of music. Constantly listening to music. Another thing about Ryan I love is he will openly admit that he uses the formula and idea from other artists songs, styles and melodies to write many of his own songs. He'll say "this song is a copy of the Doors" for example. Also, he will explore and record a number of different styles and genres. Never fully fitting into a "category". Some (the media) feel this is being disingenuous but those in the know, know otherwise. He is, in my opinion, one of the greatest modern-day songwriters alive today. Playing with his band "The Cardinals" every moment of the (too) short set was so special (I suppose he was officially-speaking 'supporting' Willie). It cracked me up when I read a recent interview where when asked how a nasty broken wrist last year (suffered from falling off stage) changed the way he played guitar, his response was "Now I play guitar like I'm touching a girl. I used to play it like I was touching myself." As for Willie, oh he can still kick it too! He is doing well for 72 or something. He can still find his way around the guitar too and on a couple of tracks you could hear that he still possessed that powerful voice of his. The Hollywood Bowl is a particularly legendary venue but my seat (which was one of the better ones) was too far from stage. It felt like the artists on stage were on the distant horizon. This goes against everything I normally enjoy about live music (seated + far away). The venue is too big, plus you have to have big bucks to afford a front row "enclosure" seat. There were like another 200 rows of benches behind me and their view would have been diabolical. It was a good gig all in all though.

Next day it was time to check out and pick up another rental car for road trip number 2...

We're off to Vegas, Baby!

Room 5721 Riviera Casino and Resort

Its hard not to love Vegas. Although alot of it is pretty downmarket in parts (typical of a "resort town"), full of old fat Americans from middle-America like Utah and Iowa dressed with little or no style, and everything of any quality costing big $$$ (a ticket to one of the main shows is $150 upwards!) - the purpose of this town is nothing but drunken debauchery and gambling. 24 hours, 365 days. The beauty is that, unlike any other place (probably in the world) there is nothing to feel guilty about laying in after a big night out. There is nothing to see during the day, you are in the middle of the Nevada desert! The nearest major town is like 500 miles away. Pretty much every other holiday destination in the world has some beautiful scenery or a famous landmark to haul your ass out of bed for, for fear of missing the opportunity. For this reason its the perfect location for debauchery and thus the perfect holiday destination. All you need to worry about is getting up to go lay by the pool and fry in the 103f heat (with disgusting humidity!) which can't be stood for too long as the sweat is rolling off you. You just wait for the evening again and do the same. Thats why you came after-all!

I got myself a room in the Rivera Casino and Resort located on the main strip (thanks to cheap mid-week deals), a pack of 36 Budweiser (stocked on ice as soon as I checked in) and no plan but to drink them all and see what happened. I rented a car in Santa Monica to drive to Vegas along the Interstate 15 highway. The drive is one I've always wanted to do. I'm a big fan of the book "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" by Hunter S. Thompson and this trip warranted it (plus I love a road trip, nothing beats it). Driving through the Nevada desert wasn't as desolate as I'd expected but it was really awesome. There is just something about driving fast through the vast open desert with some good tunes blasting out that I love. There was a fair bit of fear and loathing to be had over the next few days. By the time I got the hell out of LA I'd been on the road for 2 hours (damn traffic, on a Monday lunchtime!?? Oh i forgot I'm talking about LA!). By the time I had arrived the tripometer was already reading 300 miles and I had the Hoover Dam, the Grand Canyon and Area 51 ideally all to fit in over the next 7 days!

For the 127th time on this trip, its such a shame that I didn't have a mate or two with me (I can just imagine us all: Jon, James, Dave, Andy) we'd have endless, endless fun 24 hours. But I had my 36 Buds for 3 days, 12 a day + casino drinks + seeing what mischief I could get myself into = my visit to Vegas. Although for most of it I went to bed no earlier than 5am, got up after 5/6 hours sleep with the odd hour by the pool until I'd sweat 90% of my bodily fluids and then repeated again. I had neither the money nor requisite knowledge to gamble so it wasn't my top priority, but resistance is futile and I found myself placing the odd bet and winning a little then deciding to bet it all and loosing. I've realised that trying to live a healthy, sober and clean life is futile. There's nothing to eat except fast food. Well that or nothing at all. I'm living in a hotel, I don't need to care about cleaning the place. I managed to break the chair last night (not by sitting on it either). Drunk far too much last night - had 17 Budweisers!!!! 17! Then decided to have a whole big Denny's meal at 3am. How I didn't puke, I have no idea, I nearly did this morning the next morning thats for sure. Been living like a rockstar in this room, total mess, got woken up at 2pm today by the maid after that night, fully clothed passed out on bed!! My head hurts, I probably shouldn't disgrace myself anymore.

My objective on this trip was to collect tacky souvenirs from each place that I visited, in the form of cheap, nasty, tacky t-shirts. In Australia this was impossible it seemed, even in Hong Kong. They were all tacky but trying too hard to be classy, they did not fit the bill. I was seeking genuine tack. But as soon as I came into the USA there was too many to choose from! This country is the land of the tacky souvenir t-shirts and thrift stores. Expect my fashion sense to get alot worse when I return! Ha, I know, you thought that wasn't possible!

After 4 nights in Vegas, I had been into pretty much every casino on the strip, bet a little money in a couple, went downtown along the road where all the 24 hour "drive thru" wedding chapels sit next to the electric pink honeymoon motels which sit next to the run-down strip clubs. Downtown itself is not a particularly nice place when you get past them either! It was time to move on! Vegas is definitely one of those places one wouldn't want to spend too long in. 4 days is way more than enough! Any longer would drive you crazy, doing damage no rehab could fix.

Out into the Wild West

Next morning, hitting the road I had the long drive to the Grand Canyon ahead, situated around 5 hours East of Vegas in Arizona, its not quick. The first (and only) thing you reach after about 40 miles is the Hoover Dam, which was typically boring. The most exciting thing there for me was the sign saying that just past there I was entering the state of Arizona. I stopped at the largest (still small) town of xxx on the way for lunch, around 2.5 hours from the actual Canyon (but for me to say the only reason for heading into Arizona was for that would be a lie, as I wanted to see some real 'wild west' towns just as much). The typical born-and-bred-in-the-desert waitress, who owned the diner, would get every foreigner to leave a message in her visitor-guestbook. I looked back through the reams of comments. Every single one said something along the lines of 'Still 3 hours driving till grand canyon, thanks for food. Michiel, France." I wrote just 5 words in that A4 spiral bound notebook - "Embrace That Which Defines You". I had seen it written on the screen of my motel television set at the end of a program the previous night in Vegas. It is a phrase that will stay with me forever. I hoped that someone, somewhere would look back in that book one day and will see that comment among the hundreds of pleasantries, and maybe it will cause them to think about it as much as I did.

Back on the road and the final half of the journey passed quickly. My destination was the small town of Williams, 50 miles north of the Grand Canyon national park. After securing an Econolodge motel room for the night, I decided I would blast those further 100 miles there and back to catch the Canyon at sunset, and I am glad I did! It was so much more spectacular than when I visited once again the following day. Stepping out of the car after driving to the park is a weird experience. You have just driven hundreds of miles into the middle of nowhere and you walk past some trees and there it is. This massive hole in the ground. It looks like the backdrop on a film set, as though its not quite reality. It is pretty breathtaking, but quite quickly this effect wares off. I suppose because by the end of the 5 to 6 hour drive to get there, you expect alot (but NOT the McDonalds sat there. Disgusting!). I could imagine that hiking through the canyon would be pretty amazing. This brings me onto the subject of popular "tourist" attractions. Having been away for the best part of a year now, the novelty of seeing a tourist attraction has very much worn off. To be honest I've never been a major fan in the first place, I prefer to get a real understanding and experience of the place itself, what it would be like to be a part of the culture. This you can never do at a tourist attraction. They are never as good or spectacular as I hope. Always over crowded and over priced, they always seem to leave me with an empty feeling and normally an empty wallet. But the only thing that draws me is the fact that I can't go all that way and just bypass it all, its like I never want to miss what might be just around the corner.

I went back to the Canyon the next morning (mainly due to the fact that I had come all this way and it was $25 to get into the park). I went for a walk around one of the sides mainly to get away from all the tourists. When I left the park I was so indecisive as to whether to go back to LA via Pheonix that when I got to the crossroads I had to pull over and make a snap decision. I decided to take the road towards Pheonix, which ended up taking me past a strange old Indian settlement with wigwams and a shop with animal heads adoring the walls. It felt like I was really in Arizona. Then, further along the road to towards the town of Flagstaff I pulled up to the only documented place in the world to own and have bred 100% pure White Buffalo. The woman who owned the place kept reminding me of that fact, and that they had been in the papers and on national news. To get a white buffalo is like 1 in a million normal buffalo. They had 6! I decided it was worth the $5 to see. By the time I left, if I could have felt any more like I was beginning to get the real 'country ranch' taste of Arizona it was when I hit Flagstaff and saw my first gun shop. It was closed as by the time I passed through it was about 9pm. Due to this fact I decided to retreat back to Williams for one more night and then drive straight back to LA the following day. Williams was a typical wild west town which sat on Route 66. I think it had been refurbished in order to please tourists wanting to see what an authentic wild west town looked like. After another night in a different but equally cheap motel it was time to head back to LA. And I did just that. All in the same day. All 480 miles of it. This was real desert driving with about two small trucker towns the whole way. It was great until I begun to approach the colossus that is LA once again. People in LA drive like psychopaths on acid. Nobody sticks to any lane rules, everyone drives 10 to 20 mph over the speed limit (even in heavy traffic) and I felt the most unsafe I have that entire time until I reached my destination. I had a coupon for a cheap hotel near Hollywood but when I arrived I discovered that it was more of a hole in the wall than a hotel, plus it had been shut down for some reason. So I started my hunt for a 'reasonable' place to stay at a reasonable cost at 5 on a Sunday evening in hot, polluted central LA. But, as I discovered, the only way one has any chance of achieving this objective of reasonable cost is to head into (what is in an ideal world) a no-go area: East Hollywood. Eventually, after trying several establishments, I came across a motel named the "Del Air Motel". It looked like a shit hole from outside, like something straight out of a Tarantino movie, but I had since decided by this point that if I was to stay in Hollywood, especially East Hollywood, this was the only way it could be authentically done - by slumming it like the rest of them. As I stepped through the office doorway which displayed the sign "No drug use on premises. No prostitution." a mere $55 later I opened the door to dirty, dusty, hot, sticky, insecure room 110. I couldn't help but feel as though in this little room, it personified everything that was the 'real' Hollywood in low class, low quality accommodation. It was everything I secretly wanted therefore. The room had seen, without a doubt, more action than Paris Hilton in its time. The lock on the door didn't work, there were more ashtrays than (dirty) towels and whilst flicking through the television channels upon arrival there was free, unlimited hardcore porn on channel 3 which was barely possible to be made out due to terrible reception. You could kind of make out two fuzzy characters going at it, doing what you could only imagine would be things you wouldn't relay to your mother. There was a bottle opener on the door frame (which usefully allowed me to finish my remaining Budweisers) and the dark bed-sheets were fake silk with a Navy paisley patten to undoubtedly disguise illegitimate stainage. The complimentary book of matches that sat on the table bared the name of another (better) hotel; "The Four Points Sheriton". Dust that had failed to be cleared from the carpet after various wall fittings had been installed covered areas of the carpet and the chair in the room has been badly repaired using six inch nails. It was so bad it was great! However it was only at around 11pm that loud gangster rap began to emanate through the walls, causing the water level in my Budweiser to ripple. Next door sat a concrete building that looked like a portacabin. It was a 'niteclub' named "The Study" and from around this time till the very late hours of the next morning cars would pull up behind it (via the motel car park) full of what must have been gang members from the Compton and Inglewood areas. A haze of weed smoke followed them into the building after they had been fully searched shoes and all for weapons by the bouncer. Funnily enough I got a good nights sleep with my iPod on to mask the sounds of gunshot in the track the dj kept playing over and over. I was unsure whether it was real or not, especially after hearing nothing but sirens for half and hour. However, it was alot better than sleeping in another hostel!

By the time I hit that dodgy flea hole of a East Hollywood motel I had driven 1238 miles in 5 days, across 3 different states and the next day I was due to move back to Santa Monica.

Seven (more) days in LA

The next day in Santa Monica I took the bus past Beverly Hills to West Hollywood's "The Troubadour". Another legendary venue on a much smaller scale (500 capacity) than the Bowl. It was time to witness the live experience that was Ray Lamontagne. I had been looking forward to seeing him for a year. Waiting for an hour to get in, then another hour till Ray and co got onto the stage, it was so worth it. What I saw was a painfully shy and quiet man who clearly only felt it possible to translate his emotion via his music. He wasn't there for the audience, he had probably never written a song for any other reason but as self-medication to just get it out to save it eating him up. I knew exactly where he was coming from. Playing almost the entire new album it was so special, he wouldn't count into a song until he felt ready and 'in the setting' he needed to be. He performed two encores as we just couldn't get enough, he warned the crowd that he couldn't play all night. Ray began to open up as the night got later. One memorable moment was when during this last encore sat there on his own, just his acoustic and a microphone, many people were shouting requests. It was ridiculous. Then over the top of everyone the distinctive voice of an afro-american, who was apparently actor Lawrence Fishborne, said with relaxed authority "You play what you wanna play man". It shut everyone up. I got it on video on my camera too. I left feeling I had really experienced something special.

The next couple of days were spent hanging out with a nice Australian girl, Tara, I met who lived on the Gold Coast. She was hanging around waiting for a tour, so we both had some time to kill. We visited the Getty Center (LA's art museum), checked out the squalid downtown area and hired beach-cruiser bikes and cycled along the beach side bike path to Hermosa Beach and back (34 miles in total). I also met a couple of English guys Mark and Kes from Croydon who were over on holiday in the hostel. We had a couple of beers and met up in Hollywood. We had a beer in the infamous Roosevelt Hotel on Hollywood Blvd where we met many 'on their way up' actors. The penultimate night was spent seeing Ani DiFranco in concert (details in next post). On my last night I met a guy in my room, Joe, who was in LA to play some gigs. He was a typical young independent artist trying to make it somewhere from Illinois. We chatted about the whole thing and I got some tips off him. Early next morning it was time to leave for LAX, as I was heading East, to New York City.

So long San Francisco!

With the skyline of San Francisco fading fast in my rear view mirror I had learned to love the city by the time I left. I was sad to see it go. Again, i didn't realise this as much until I left and saw other places, other cities, later on.

Where I left off before you could have fallen under the impression that I was not completely fond of San Francisco, but nothing could be further from the truth. After deciding to spend a full 2 weeks in the city and let the initial culture shock run its course, I began to discover and understand the real SF. The city that the tourists don't take the time to explore. My last few days were spent re-visiting the areas that I had developed a fondness for, meeting some interesting people (mostly weird and drunk in bars) and exploring further what the city was really "about". Unfortunately being on a limited budget meant I couldn't do everything that I wanted but I realised how fond of this city, that really is like no other anywhere in the USA, I am. By this point even the walk home through the crack-addict infested, pee-stained streets were not so bad. The unique thing about SF is that anything and anyone goes and goes freely. There seems to be no major friction, it works together so uniquely, considering the very limited square mileage that the bay area exists within. All types of weird and wonderful people co-exist to make the city and area so diverse. With this comes a considerable variety of things to see and do.

Biking the Bridge and beyond...

On my penultimate day in SF I hired a bike and cycled over, probably the most famous of SF's landmarks, the Golden Gate Bridge. Unfortunately, having done little exercise and at irregular intervals since leaving home in January, it was good to be back out on a bike. Over the bridge sit the Marin County mountains, which I slowly but surely rode up and around a few of. Big climbs and big views! Then it was over to Sausilito, an up-market town on the otherside of the bay. By the time I was on my way back, I had rediscovered my cycling legs and on my crappy rental mountain bike was overtaking some riders on road bikes. When I finally returned to Fishermans Wharf though, I felt that I'd really earnt an XL Starbucks to celebrate!

Road trip! The world famous Highway 1

Day 1: San Francisco to Santa Cruz
The next day, it was time to leave. I hired a car for a week with the plan to drive down the legendary and picturesque Highway 1 all the way to LA and then San Diego. Doing a one-way drop off and being under 25 meant it was bluddy expensive, but this was the only way to do this route. I was gonna have to make it worthwhile! So after collecting the required maps and literature I picked up the car and after a breif trip through Tenderlion (for the last time :) to pick up my luggage, I headed as far East as you could to join the costal road. Highway 1 began in the form of Ocean Beach on the Western side of SF. When I pulled up I was amazed how long, stretching and golden it was. There is seemingly nothing that SF doesn't have! At that point there was that glorious feeling of throwing off the shoes and on with the flip flops (no longer do I have to call them "thongs") as beach mode was engaged. The sun was shining, the road was long and winding, the city was a fading image in the rear view mirror - freedom was here again - and it was time to hit the road. Good tunes in the form of some Ben Taylor and the brand new Ray Lamontagne album "Till The Sun Turns Black" (buy it!) freshly purchased and I had myself a road trip.

Almost immediately, plunging coastline and endless beaches presented themselves with regimented regularity. I was a little apprehensive about the whole driving on the otherside of the road thing. Everything is the complete opposite to what we do in the UK, so as long as I remembered that and never followed my instinct then I hoped I'd be fine. I was surprised how well I seemed to get on straight away. Stopping off at a couple of spots breifly, my destination for the first night was the "bonafide beach town" of Santa Cruz. Getting in at about 5.30pm, I was in time for the sunset and checked myself into a very nice hostel there "Carmelita Cottages" (which is exactly as it sounds, a bunch of individual cottages, one of which you stay in). Santa Cruz has a beachside themepark called The Boardwalk where I had beer and dinner, took a few shots of the park rides and then went to check the downtown area out. I saw some of the "13,000 left-of-centre students" which the guidebook mentioned (basically either gay or doing drugs) added together with the token Californian "homeless" person who ask you for a quarter then probably go home in their BMW (basically I figured out that there are some who are just people with no shame). Got back and found out I was sharing a room with a drunk 51 year-old archetypal Californian surf dude, some of the stuff he came out with was hilarious, he wouldn't shut up and I feel asleep (eventually) whilst laughing. This was until he proceeded to snore the entire night leaving me no choice but to get up and physically shake his bed to stop him on the way to inserting my ear plugs (which have become an invaluable device since being in the US... my theory of why to come..

Day 2: Santa Cruz to Monteray
Woke up to an empty room, showered and woke up (the hardest part of my day) at leisure. Waited till 10AM to try and book a ticket for a one-off just announced low key Ray Lamontagne gig in Hollywood on September 18th - and would you believe it got one! Great start to the day! Very happy I was (except for bluddy Ticketmaster and its "extra-hidden" charges), especially happy when I found out a couple of days later that it sold out in 2 minutes flat! Drove through downtown Santa Cruz by daylight, realised its actually quite upmarket during the day, whilst I ate a Starbucks breakfast of coffee and muffin. Got lost and then finally set off on Highway 1 again, bound for the town of Monterey. When I arrived checked it out, had a walk down Cannery Row. Not that you probably care but did you know, author John Stienbeck was born here? I then headed to "the world-famous institute" (according to Lonely Planet) Monterey Bay Aquarium. I lucked out by the fact that I happened to catch the final week of special exhibition "Jelly Fish: Living Art" an interesting collection of jellies and art inspired by them. I also got to take loads of photos of them and see some weird creative stuff. The penguins were good too. In the evening went for a beer in downtown Monteray, quite an upmarket little town again.

Day 3: Monteray to Carmel to Monteray (again)
After another night spent in a hostel room with two old men (why are all US hostels single-sex dorms dude!) both of whom snored constantly (I don't think there is one guy, who after they reach the age of 30-40 that doesn't snore!) I have good evidence to believe this now. I mean, have you heard your Dad asleep lately? Yeah see what I mean! After a very unhealthy pancake stack and coffee breakfast. I was off on my way to neighboring town Pacific Grove to find some "wireless internet time" and my second large coffee of the day (and it was only 10.30am!) It was whilst checking my email that I discovered that the Ray Lamontagne gig had sold out in 2 minutes and was only on sale via phone (not the usual internet medium). I am a firm believer in everything happens for a reason (especially on this trip thus far) and I think god meant for me to get one of those tickets. Normally in similar scenarios I never ever, ever, ever get one! It was at this point I also found out that they were selling bumper stickers on eBay :) I felt lucky.

It was the first day of my time in the US that the weather wasn't sunny. Looking up at a rather overcast sky I pondered whether to go on 17-mile drive to Carmel. We'd done it the last time we were here and what your $9 gets you is into the private residential town of Pebble Beach and along the particularly scenic coastline and through forests to Carmel (a particularly quaint and upmarket thus expensive little town). Being a fan of all things involving any type of wilderness, coast, forest and countryside (I'm a country boy after all) I decided I had to do it again as I had fond memories from the last time. Although it didn't quite live up to my previous memories, it was a nice day as far away from any city-type madness you could get. I realised at this point that trying to re-live previous memories and goodtimes doesn't really work and can even go as far as devaluing the original experience, so I kinda stopped trying to after that day. I stopped and had a much needed play on my guitar on one of the deserted beaches and then drove the rest of the way round whilst taking photos at all the obligatory points, including the stunning forests and the lone cypress tree.


Leaving via the Carmel gate exit I followed the road to beautiful Carmel-by-the-Sea beach. (Where I managed to drop my camera and now its a bit sketchy). This town is another one of those unique quirky places. Until recently it had a name for itself as a "artsy" non-conformist town which refused to label the streets or have sidewalks - its seems to have conformed now but its main claim to fame was that Clint Eastwood was once mayor of the town. Although very nice, it is full of rich people who I thought felt as though they are superior due to this wealth. Walking around a town when you can really ill-afford even a coffee, doesn't really make for the most pleasant of experiences. Endless rows of Tiffany & Co, Louis Vuitton and art galleries... So I had a walk around, got myself some dinner in one of the less expensive pubs "London Jacks" and as I'd spent the day doing all of the above, realised I would have to track-back and stay in Monteray again. On the way home in the dark, completely lost and trying to find my hostel, got stopped by Police for turning right on a red light (which you are actually allowed to do here) but only if there are no pedestrians waiting to cross - there were! Plus I didn't have my headlights fully on (had obviously not figured it out at that point, bluddy rental car!). The cops were ok when I played the foreigner card, did my apologetic piece and they were gone almost as quickly as they appeared. Fortunately the hostel still had a bed available when I finally arrived!

My plan for the next day was to drive the 4/5 hours south and stop for the night in San Louis Obispo (SLO) but as it was Labour Day weekend approaching, everything was booked. The best I could get was 40 miles north of SLO. This didn't bode well for the weekend as my plan was to come into LA then. Sleeping in the car may become more of a reality than I'd hoped!

Day 4: Monteray to San Louis Obispo to Cambria
Setting off from Monteray relatively early (for me) I took the unbelievably winding Highway 1 rode all the way along the spectacular costal scenery, that just kept coming and coming. Through Big Sur which I later found out that night was particularly famous along this route. The whole world seemed to be out, none of whom were watching the road and the average speed for the day was about 35 mph! It was a long drive. When I finally arrived in SLO, there isn't much to this small town but the main attraction I had come for was "Bubble Gum Alley". Now this is a real piece of living public art! The alleyway downtown over the years has seen many people contributing their used gum. Its both cool and gross, the walls must be like 20 layers of gum deep, 19 of which are moldy and rotting. Nice! I made my contribution and headed off for some good old BBQ chicken at SLO's finest place "Ma Lous". Its a bit of a religion in the US. I found out from some guys in a hostel that people make specific trips over the "BBQ Belt" just for the BBQ restaurants across the south-eastern states, sounds like a plan for the next trip! After this I had to track back the 40 miles to the tiny town of Cambria to the guest house I'd booked for the night. When I arrived it was like a little gem in a small town off the beaten track. The Bridge Street Inn was like staying at a friends house, it was so nice compared to all the hostels I had stayed in over the past 9 months and as I have found always on this trip - the nicer places tend to attract the cooler people too, even though I was in a 3 person dorm room - it didn't feel like it, more like a night round a mates.

Day 5: Cambria to Venice Beach, Los Angeles
After setting off reasonably refreshed, I stopped via Pismo Beach (just outside of SLO) it was the day before Labour Day and it was scorching hot and people everywhere. My mum had said that she remembered it to be a bit downmarket like Newquay and yep, its still like that! The drive down to LA was a long one, and the only way I was going to get to Venice Beach (where I had some kind of a hostel booked) before dark was to stop VERY breifly along the way. Driving through Santa Barbra I could tell it was a really nice town with the mountains overlooking it. I would have liked to stop but chose Malibu as the place I would make a stop. Malibu is apparently where all the A listers live or stay, it is big $$$$, I could tell as I drove down one of the private roads where each house had its own private beach access. When I finally found a beach I could sit on without being best buds with Tom Hanks, it was time to go sit in the holiday weekend traffic to get into Santa Monica (where I had wanted to stay but it was surprise, booked). When I finally got to Venice Beach, and finally found a parking space, I discovered my hostel (The Venice Beach Hostel, hopefully google will pick this up too) was a total shit hole but it was only one night and before I knew it I'd met some people from my room and we went for a few beers along the beach.


Day 6: Venice Beach to Long Beach, Los Angeles
By this point I wasn't sure what my plan was. I'd got to LA (where I was to drop the car and where I had accommodation and concerts lined up for a few days later). Pissed off by the fact the hostel had made a big thing of "free pancake mix" for breakfast but no pans to cook it in, I decided to check out Venice Beach by day before I took off further down the coast, but little did I realised that Labour Day in Venice = lots of weird stuff happening. There was a bodybuilding competition going on at Muscle Beach, both Men and Women (this ones the 35 year age category!) and loads of free rubbish being given out - mainly massive cans of energy drink that had so much crap in them that upon drinking it gives you heartburn followed by a headrush and then a headache for about 1 hour. Hmm, good stuff. However, the girls giving them out where worth the pain :) The place was a hive of activity! Then things really took a turn for the weird when the one and only "Governator" Arnie makes an appearance. He did a California Labour day governor speech at Muscle Beach on his support for the "sport" of bodybuilding among other things. Only in California! But it was great, the land of the free and the "American dream" in action. Only here could a massive ex-movie star (with his past before acting) become the main government official. I eventually escaped the madness (after my eyes could take no more) and was surprised to find one block back from the beach the beautiful Venice canal network, it was so peaceful and it reinforced the theory that 'one block over and everything changes'. By the time I had left Venice it was getting on. It was a bad idea to try and drive up Santa Monica Blvd and I quickly scrapped it. I headed south but with all the traffic, by the time I got to the area of Long Beach, which wasn't that far in terms of distance from Venice, it was late. I decided after the previous night of less-than-luxury accommodation I'd shell out the $55 for a motel room, and give myself a little "luxury". It was good!


Day 7: Long Beach, LA to Northern San Diego to San Pedro, LA
Setting off relatively early I decided to make use of the final day of having my car and drive to a few places that wouldn't be easy reach without one. So, I headed south through Orange County's Huntington Beach and Newport Beach. Both very, very nice and yeah they are the inspiration behind the TV show The OC. I stopped for a morning Starbucks in Newport and OMG so many fit girls dude! All like Marisa and Summer. It turned out that my whole trip south would be through towns of similar quality of that type! The sun was beating and my main destination was a few towns north of San Diego. The primary destination being a record store called Lou's in Encinitas. Well known for its live parking lot shows. After I reached Lou's I headed further south through the lovely beach towns of Solana Beach / Cardiff-by-the-Sea / Del Mar. In this area you can find an ultra chilled beach vibe with almost year round sun! This is where I would choose if I was looking for a place in California!

After a chill on Solana Beach, it was time to take the 405 Freeway all the way back to LA. The car had to be dropped at LAX by 2pm the next day and I'd booked in at a hostel based in Angel Park, San Pedro which was both cheap and relatively close to the airport. When I arrived I found I was sharing a two person room with a total freak-of-nature from Miami who looked a bit like Jean Paul Gauntier. After introducing myself, by way of an introduction from him I was told that he had "among other things Lymes desease". I spent the entire night sleeping very lightly. I awoke the next morning to the fumes from him smoking a hash pipe in the room. Once I got the hell out of there I was thankful to be rid of him, until he came to the same hostel in Santa Monica the very next day! Doh! I felt I was being haunted. The first person I was genuinely concerned about as he also took a particular interest in my laptop (and what I was doing on it) and my hair wax!? He also asked me and people in the shower rooms if they had any old, used razor blades as he wanted to shave. Freak!

Day 8: San Pedro, LA to Santa Monica, LA
After taking a quick look at the Korean Friendship Bell in Angel Park by the hostel (look closely at this photo for a "better view"), I visited the towns of Hermosa and Redondo Beach - where apparently the OC is filmed (the only show on TV I try to catch) but its been a long time since I saw it and wasn't sure if I recognised anything much, except this "The Bait Shop" with sign covered (I think?!). It was then off to LAX to drop the car off nearby, which I actually managed to find (much to my surprise) and 10 minutes early to boot! After arriving into Santa Monica by airport shuttle bus, it was the end of road trip 1. I had covered 800 miles in 7 days and it was now time to "do" LA!

...

"EMBRACE THAT WHICH DEFINES YOU"

Welcome to San Francisco...

"For those who come to San Francisco
Summertime will be a love-in there
In the streets of San Francisco
Gentle people with flowers in their hair"

San Francisco must have changed a fair bit since Scott McKenzie wrote these lyrics. Re-adjusting to the US after Australia has been a bit of a shock to the system.

On the flight over I had the seat next to me free so lots of room to spread and sleep, which was great. Also got talking to a really nice girl from the US who was engaged to an Ozzie and got the lowdown before I arrived. When I got to the airport there was no sign of any buses into the city and the train (BART) was gonna be a stupid idea as I'd never have found where I was staying on its actual street when i got off at the other end, so I decided to say bugger the hassle and get a taxi. But I didn't just get a taxi, I got a limo! Not a stretched one, just a normal limo, but all for just $40 which was pretty good. I arrived into SF in style!

However it was actually an even more sensible decision than I had originally realised as my hostel (which once you are inside is ok) is in the "Tenderloin district" which is basically where all the bums, the gangs selling crack and the prostitutes hang out. It is not a nice place. If fact it is the worst place in San Francisco that one could possibly stay. I didn't choose too wisely, however I am determined not to let it shade my view and experience of SF. The strangest thing about the US is you can literally walk a couple of blocks over and be in a really nice, clean, expensive district. Thats why walking through the city is such a random experience. On a long walk you can go from abject poverty to high-wealth and back again three times. Back home a dodgy area and a nice area are fairly well separated. The reason for this in SF is because of the extreme population. After Manhattan its the most densely populated city space in the whole of the USA. I had chinese for dinner the other night, at the end I had a fortune cookie placed in front of me. I opened it and it read "Look in the right places and you will find good fortune." If the cookie is correct, I am clearly not looking in the right place just yet.


On the tourist trail
On my first day I explored the Union Square down to Fishermans Wharf area (including the tourist trap Pier 39 very briefly and Jefferson Street) on foot. I thought I'd remember alot more of SF than I did at first (I was last here 8 years ago on a family holiday), but it is slowly coming back. Apparently they re-designed Union Square 5 years ago so that would explain that one. I followed the hilly SF streets and saw all the typical things like the cable cars, the bay, Alcatraz island, the bridge (from a distance), the sea lions at Pier 39 and Lombard Street (otherwise known as "the Crookedest street"). I ended up spending the evening at a place I had been told about many a time by my Dad, Lou's blues bar. They also do $1 pints of Miller every night, so with a bit of good ole' Blues and a few bucks I had myself a pleasant first evening, until I decided to walk the entire distance I'd covered previously at about 12am.

The next couple of days were spent riding a cable car, checking out the rest of the bay including Gardelli Square. After a hostel organised bar-crawl on Friday night I slowly made it over to the "in-famous" Haight Street (pronounced "hate st") at the weekend. This was where the summer of love apparently started, which is ironic. The area of Haight-Ashbury is the "bohemian" part of SF, and my favorite district by far. There were a bunch of well known musicians who lived in some of the houses in this area including Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and The Grateful Dead house. Now it is more about bars and cool shops. Forget your Macy's (if I went in there I couldn't afford a pair of socks anyway); at the end of upper Haight is probably the biggest record store you could hope to find - Amoeda Music. Its like a warehouse of new and used music, you could spend hours in there and all your savings. I nearly did! As I did in the Virgin Megastore in the city too. From here I walked up Fillmore Street (also well known for its live music) upto Alamo Square. From here you get the perfect picture of the Victorian architecture that makes SF so unique, transposed with a backdrop of modern SF (the city centre).

Later in the week I visited Alcatraz prison ("the rock") for the second time after 8 years. The place hasn't changed much, if at all, but it still provides certainly the best experience one could realistically hope to have inside a former maximum security prison. I always loved "Escape from Alcatraz" with Clint Eastwood (based apparently very realistically on the true story of 3 inmates escaping "by spoon" in 1962). The cell blocks are still pretty much in its original state from 1960 and it would not have been a nice place to spend 18 years of your life. Even on a sunny day the bay winds blow like hell, the many different currents made any chance of escape "technically impossible". Apparently one guy did once manage to escape and made the 1.5 mile swim but by the time he made it over to the bay he was suffering from extreme hypothermia and a heart attack on the way. No chance of a run after that then! The views of the city and of the Golden Gate Bridge from the island are great. Pure torture if you were a prisoner no doubt. Alcatraz represents another important addition to what makes SF such a unique place. Its a juxtaposition of harsh and dark punishment with the natural, free and bright environment of SF bay area.

Over the next few days I visited all the other areas to be experienced. Pacific Heights (very rich, up-market and traditional part of SF. All the movies shot in SF are normally filmed here). Did you know that: Motion pictures were actually invented in the San Francisco Bay Area. The film industry moved to Los Angeles after the Earthquake of 1906 and World War I put many Bay Area movie companies out of business. I also experienced Chinatown (where I stopped in at a fortune cookie factory and saw them being made), North Beach (the Italian area and the place to get a good expresso shot) upto the Coit Tower, Telegraph Hill (very nice too with views of Bay Bridge and Angel Island), and the "Levis Plaza" on the way to the the financial district. I also took in Mission (the latin area and also visited the Mission Delores, the oldest building in San Francisco) and finally Castro (the gay area, I walked down Castro Steet and laughed and laughed and laughed. What a sight to be seen... even a butcher named "The Sausage Factory" had that campness to it). Every area a different type of person, all living on top of one another in one small city.

SF is a city of such diversity (in both a good and an extremely bad way). Maybe it optimises the modern American culture, as screwed up as it is, mixing such a variety of people into such a tight space. The traditional notion of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer is portrayed for all to see with redumented regularity. Its such a far cry from such a relaxed and deserted country like Australia which I now realise is still in its total infancy as a developing nation. I now know why American's would find Oz such an appealing place to be. Although I am still "hostelling" it at this point, I have realised that there is a clear lack of the "backpacker/traveller" movement which is rife in Australia. Its more of a plain tourist scene here (i.e. people come for a week or two of holiday). The hostel's here (or at least the one I'm currently in) definitely have a bit of a higher standard of quality and cleanliness than the Australian ones but the type of person staying in them is very different! In Australia everyone is from abroad, basically in the same predicament and on a similar itinerary. Here, there are is whole different type of person (which I didn't expect to this magnitude) alot of people from out-of-state US, Korean's, students and some very strange random strange older people chucked in to make life here even more twisted (why the hell would you stay in a young persons hostel if you are no longer in that definition of "youth", why they let them is even more distressing). Any other typical traveller I have met is either here for a few days and moving on or just here for a short holiday with a friend or partner. There are also very few people like myself, travelling on their own (this was confirmed by a girl I met who had done the same thing for the past 2 months). This doesn't really bode well.

Being away from home on your own, especially travelling (as opposed to living in one place away from home) is pretty lonely at times, as you don't have an established group of friends. Alot of people wouldn't do it for this reason. Would you? (in all honesty!?). Its not that I don't like to be alone, its nice for a couple of days to have total freedom to live to your own schedule but its hellish boring after a short period. Unless I'm at home, then I can function just fine alone for a certain time, but being away (especially in a big city) where you are not only trying to figure out which street goes where but all the new exciting (and some scary) things you are experiencing having no one to share them with is hard. Yes you do normally meet people in hostels and stuff. In Australia there were even times where I actually wanted to break away and have some time to myself, but here people in hostels are alot different and nobody seems to stick here for more than a few days at a time. Hopefully the situation will improve. This blog has depicted the major rollercoaster ride that one experiences on a trip like this, it is called "no evasion of reality..." after all! I said I'd post a truthful experience of what I saw and experienced here. Whilst I am in a moaning mood :) There are more more beggers, tramps and bums here than i have ever previously experienced (although I expect New York will not fail to surprise me!). To be honest half these people are actually mentally ill and need treatment, but again that glorious American culture lets those who are in need of serious help languish and get worse. What they don't (stupidly) seem to realise is its a vicious circle. These people are going to be the ones that end up mugging (or worse) their own children in the street. Oh and there are also next to no public restrooms around, probably due to the fact that this mass of beggars, tramps and bums would get up to no good in them. You can even be found queing in bars for the toilet in the evening!? You can't even do a "Mc-whiz" (the verb meaning "to use the restroom of a fast food restaurant without making a purchase") as they lock the doors. You have to get your daily toilet break in before you leave the house or if you have the fortune to come across one in a shopping centre or something.

For those who regularly subsribe to this journal you will remember the post from Melbourne, Australia - well there's another one of the places here! and no it wasn't found in the Castro District (which was a shame).