tip for a long weekend

even though my job sucks, they do things like give us the entire friday before labor day weekend off, so what can you do? guillaume and i are headed up to his fancy new house somewheres upstate for some steak grilling and i guess a lot of copy editing for me. yee haw.

knox: but that's not the point, that's not the point at all
charlie: what is the point?
knox: the point, charlie, is uh...

beer

is it just me?

or is the nytimes.com front page every conservative republican's worst nightmare?



yesterday on the subway i finally saw something that inspired me enough to fill in my username and password on blogger and get this party started again. at least for today.

these two guys were sitting next to me and being generally annoying and loud. each listening to headphones and so talking over their own soundtracks. they took pictures of women as they got off the train with their cameraphones, which is just bizarre behaviour in my book. but then i looked over and noticed in one guy's armpit -- brace yourselves here -- was something that really really can only be described as a cocoon-like ball hanging in his pit tresses. talk about naseous. repulsive. of course then i couldn't stop staring at it. gross.

ps - the day my skillz go beyond screenshots and ms paint is the day i sell out.

didya miss me?

i got me a free starbuck's coffee. i don't even like coffee. or iced coffee, but i'm a jew. and it was free.

the woman who sits behind me has just informed me that tomorrow is "miller time" and seems to believe that she is going to bring beer to work and we're gonna drink it. i don't have anything against this, but that does not make it any less fucking weird.

finally made it to union hall last night. hoorah! they've got some nice bands lined up for the next week or so. i'm sadly going to miss oppenheimer tomorrow cause i'm going to see the 'rents. but maybe i'll catch the mugs next week finally. and rumor has it that sam champion will be there at some point.

so the point of this post is to welcome me back by telling you this quick tale....

i downloaded the newest version of itunes on my computer here at the office...in norwegian:

first off, through no fault of the US govt, the aforementioned friend's family are safely back on us soil, or at least on their way (i'm not sure when she sent the email).

perhaps you've seen movies, or even that windows wallpaper that alludes to a place...a tropical paradise where it's just you and the sand and the lapping sea. a corona ad, perhaps. the end of 'trading places'. that stupid 'kokomo' song. there is always the promise of a place where mangrove trees grow over the ocean with enough low hanging branches to sling a hammock over, where the palm trees gracefully arch out over the sand, straining to get a look at the sea, where the water is blue, or green, or some new color that defies description. and there's no one else around. no one. unless you count the few people staying at the same bamboo hut village you're staying. where the food is unbelievably good and the beer is cold and they don't sell it during the day, but they are willing to give it to you for free. and the weather is perfect. and the rain is a performance not to be missed. and on the other side of this perfect island is another beach. different from the miles of uninhabited, almost flat, shallow waters of the first side. this side has thunderous surf, chrystalline blue waves, and is backed immediately beyond the sand by a jungle. perhaps a nice richshaw driver will take you and those with whom you came on a short walk, where you will see a lagoon that brings tears to your eyes because the color of the water can be captured only by an immensly expensive and rare gemstone, if that. and you will see a bird that glows.

you might, if you're very very lucky, spend three days floating on your back in this paradise of paradises, and continually say or agree with the maj as she says, 'holy fucking shit, this place IS perfect.'

so there was that whole thing. we're in chennai (madras) now. you may not know that indians didn't stop at renaming their cities. a great number of streets were renamed too. this makes it damn near impossible to get anywhere in the cities. it's not like anyone knows where the hell he's going anyway. every taxi, rickshaw or auto rickshaw we've been in has stopped to ask directions, or taken the lonely planet map away from me and made it perfectly clear that he is not at all familiar with his city of residence. i used to think new york cabbies weren't so great compared to london taxi trivers (which is true), but this shit is ridiculous.

good god i've gotten about ten mosquito bites since starting to write this. my feet are on fire.

ok, this ghetto version of IE won't even let me change the font or colour, so we're goin' analog. enjoy.

baited breath

today's update is only this:

i just found out that one of my closest friends in the world's family are stranded in beruit. it would seem that they should be fine but it will probably be hard for them to get home what with the aiport bombed and all. some day i will tell you the stories of the post office, and the train to calcutta and maybe even some other stuff, but for now, let's just wish them well.

wcs

a quick tally

Number of times my imminent death has become a very real possibility:

5 july: 2
9 july: 2
10 july: 4
11 july: 8

jeeps with a minimum of 10 people + fog + himalayas + monsoon season + washed out roads + 7+ hour journeys = lots of really fucking close calls.

ps--we had our very own bomb scare here in gangtok...a box was left in the middle of MG Marg and the police shut everythihg around it down and cleared the area. turned out to be some dude's pyjamas.

it sure does rain a lot here

greetings from gangtok! the commercial and something or other capital of sikkim. the views from here are pretty great, even if the clouds are still blocking the major himalayan peaks.

we arrived yesterday, promptly found some other travellers, and got drunk. today was a bit of shut up monastery and walking up steep hills and krrish, a movie you should see if you're anywhere near a theatre that's playing it. (ny kids, i'm looking at you here.)

the rain will not hold us back, we will trudge on through the mud. and the leeches. tomorrow we go up to some valley with some dudes and trek around. it sounds like a lot more driving and staying in hotels than trekkking, but if you could see the kind of rain that's coming down right now, you'd be OK with that, too. pray for clear skies.

i've finally realized that there is a minimum of three cups of chai a day, and this is if you refuse upwards of five offers of it. what's more, it's usually poffered by some adorable child who looks at you with gigantic brown eyes and a dazzling smile and has this cute metal basket that holds glasses that he or she is delightedly swinging back and forth in anticipation of bringing you a hot glass, and sweetly says "chai?" you've said "two please," before you even know what happened.

hey, HBO has commercials on it here. isn't that weird? i suppose that might be the least weird thing i've seen here, but i still get a kick out of it. i'm surprised at how many hotels have had tellys. even the bare bones place we stayed in siliguri had one. we do not have one here and it's a nice change of pace.

this town apparently has a city-wide wake up policy that requires some dude to roam the streets at some ungodly hour banging on a gong and yelling something in one of about four options of languages, a la "bring out your dead". who knows, maybe that's what he's saying.

gangtok is the source for "alpine gouda cheese". what else do you want from me?

chow mein is very popular here. i've enjoyed it myself. it is more like what is called lo mein in the states, but with thinner noodles. also popular here is chewing on red stuff and spewing a geyser of red saliva all over the place. these dudes are way into that.

a spring roll has nothing to do with anything you've ever seen before. it's basically a chow mein omlette. yep, that's what i said, and that's what i meant.

per usual, it is loud, chaotic, confusing and beautiful. and the water is rather unreliable.

who knows what my rrs reader looks like

so we're in darjeeling at the mo. it's a bit wet here. but that's what happens when you travel to india during the monsoons. despite all the rain/mist/clouds, etc., it's still been sweet. all wide eyed and what not. i've been taking pictures like a japanese tourist, and will upload them at some point and you will all gasp with disbelief when i show you just how fucking insanely enchanting this coutnry is.

a few highlights:

our shared jeep (read: 15 people in the equivalent of a shitty land rover) broke its axle on the way from siliguri to darjeeling and we were serendipitously picked up by the bus. this is clearly not scratching the surface of this story, but it's enough to give you an idea of how things work around here.

delhi is kind of a hell hole. the maj and i were thrilled to leave. we flew to bagdogra or something like that. it's beautiful in this part of the coutnry (west bengal).

people LOVE taking pictures of us. we were at the zoo earlier and we felt like one of the attractions. the maj and i patiently smiled whilst about 20 bangledeshis (who we'd met thenight before at a park) all posed one by one to have their pictures snapped (with oldschool film cameras) with two white chicks.

the food is unbelievably good and almost as unbelievably cheap. we ate lunch for less than a dollar each.

that's it for now as i'm typing this on a shitty keyboard with a pretty heavy buzz on and we'rea headed off for more beers.

xo

wcs

the longest day of my life

currently i am relaxing at my friend wanda's house in woking, surrey. she very kindly came and fetched me at heathrow, drove me to hers and had her lovely fiancee (congratulations!!) make bacon sandwiches, which we enjoyed in the garden. i've had a shower and a tea and it's fantastic. in a couple hours, i'll go back to LHR and await my final leg to delhi. i do not like planes. i will also be enjoying the second of two flights in middle seats, hurrah. i am tired. it's 1230 here, about 730 eastern time.

weather in london is spectacular. even a bit hot.

watched 'junebug' on the plane. it's rather enjoyable.

cheers
wcs

so this is it

my final entry on us soil for a while. last night, we had a very good celebration of all things american, mac 'n'cheese for dinner, a west wing, oh, and roll bounce.

xy shaved my head, and i won't mention the weird bald patch right above my right ear and the chunk he tried to take of my left ear (of my ear, not my hair). i look like i like the ladies...ooops.

namaste, motherfuckers.

come pick me up

the maj just emailed me this confirmation from sweet ass hotel in delhi re: our pick up at the airport. it's like a piece of candy, this one:

Please note the driver would be standing near the arrival lounge with a placard in his hand which shall be having Hotel’s name and your name printed on it. The same shall be at the time of pick-up for Ms. Wild Cherry Sara. The placard shall be having her name printed. The car would definitely be in the parking but the driver would wait for you near the arrival lounge. If in case you find any trouble locating the driver please contact the hotel reception at [redacto].

the placard shall be having my name printed!! and the car would be in the parking lot! yes! and what do i do if trouble finds me first?

with a little help from my friends

this is a special shout-out edition to those of you who have been so sweet about me going away...

some folks from work went out for a special lunch yesterday, and i was presented with my very favorite insanely delicious dessert: buttercup's banana pudding, so for that, thanks to rudoph and west river.

west river came through with the hilarious "sara, please come home safe EP" mixtape. i've never gotten an EP mixtape before, but i love it. we discussed how it makes good sense, as he didn't want to overload me with stuff, and this was the best and why waste time with filler. nice work, wr. thanks.

lester sent me the 21st century version of a mixtape, a buncha links. including lilly allen's LDN, which he suggested i listen to whilst im back home is where the heart is, and i just might!

stella has kindly volunteered to take me for a last fling with charred cow flesh tomorrow before i go to the airport.

and xy will be not only watering my plants, but doing the honors of removing the vast majority of my hair tonight. too bad he has no idea i sabotaged the shit out of the netflix queue for the time when xx and i will be gone.

xx took the time to read through more of my lonely planet than i did and spent tuesday night following me around the house as i pre-packed spewing all sorts of useful facts.

apple brandy gave me a handy list of good street foods to try in delhi and the name of a restaurant or two.

and lots of others who've given me advice or hooked me up with people who've travelled in india. thank you all!

i hope to do at least a few posts from hindustan, but who the hell knows what will happen. check in every now and again and i'll try and give you a reason to stay.

ps, what's up with this? someone stole a government laptop that had all sorts of infor about veterans? kinda strange thing to steal if you ask me. this is just like the time someone stole bono's laptop with all the lyrics to the then-upcoming U2 record.

a last holdout

brooklyn record's all up in timboo's with a great, albeit quick, piece about the age-old bar. it's not a place i frequent. i've been maybe twice in the last 4 years, but whenever i did go in (super wasted and ready for karaoke) the people were friendly and fun.

br talks about how it is an ironworkers bar, which makes me wonder how many ironworkers are really left in the slope. but the best thing about the article is the picture...see that guy in the cowboy hat? he's always standing out front of timboo's. full suit, hat, great stache (the kind you're just not allowed to have unless you're over 70), beautiful cane and a bunch of union pins on his lapel. i see him out there almost every saturday and sunday morning. yeah, morning. anyway, whoever you are, cheers to you, that guy!

just so you know

i'm officially a douchebag. i just bought a moleskine journal (r) to record my idiot musings whilst in india.

things left to buy:

purse/bag, knife, soap, some stuff for the maj, toothbrush holder.

good news: i will be in fucking london for saturday's england v. portugal world cup game
bad news: i will be boarding a plane just around halftime of saturday's england v. portugal world cup game.

kisses,

cliche cherry sara

devotchka!!

Saturday guillaume and i checked out devotchka at bowery ballroom (oh, what a thrill with two visits to bb in one week!). they were totally awesome.

nick urata's voice is just as spine tingling as i hoped it would be, and they treated us to the two stars from their latest ep of covers, "curse your little heart": "i cried like a silly boy" and "somethin' stupid". i remember 'the oblivion' and 'queen of the surface streets' and 'how it ends', the rest of their set was nicely sprinkled with ballads, but much of it was rambunctious and fun. the crowd really got into it. the girl in front of me bounced through most of the show, only landing on my foot twice.

also cool, two bands (i think norfolk & western used one) with theremins in one night. YES! btw, norfolk & western are worth checking out, if only to watch the one guy who seemingly plays every fucking instrument there is...banjo, mandolin, musical saw, accordion, violin/viola(?). he came out for a devotchka song and played violin with them, too.

for the encore, they brought out a bunch of young ladies with accordions, here is a blurry picture of them:

ps--this band have an AWESOME sense of style. they were so professional looking. uh. that nick is HOT.

fun with realaudio

how many times can i talk about how much i love mmj? lots. and more excitingly, i can give you a link to their 3+ hour bonaroo performance. woo! it takes a fucking year to download tho.

via gothamist, i think.

ps, that is bor fave andrew bird whistling and violining along in there. dude sounds like a theramin

you gotta put your faith in a loud guitar

there was a little bit of controversy at last night's Air Guitar Championships at Bowery Ballroom.

It seems the judges (the owner of Vice, a dude from the daily show, former champion sonyk rock and an a&r dude from Atlantic Records) didn't know exactly how the scoring worked and so asked for a reneg on the champion they chose. what happened was, william ocean scored ok in the first round and got a near-perfect in the second round, while the guy with the sombrero scored very well in the first round and also got a near perfect second round score, giving him the title. seems fair enough. whether or not you win should be based on your chosen performance song as well as compulsory (enter sandman, excellent choice!-- when the contestants all got to listen to the bit they would play, it took about three seconds before all their heads, save that of the rainbow zombie guy, who totally stayed in character, were bobbing along. mine was too) performance.

anyway, the judges were all "we'd like to have an air-off", because they wanted william ocean to win. give it up for the man, he shaved the word "air" into his chest hair, and crushed a beer can by sort of piledriving it. he also had his cohorts carry him through the crowd during his entersandman. he was pretty insane. (his first performance was prince, i think, and he came out with a graduation gown type thing that said Warning: prepare to be rocked on the back.) anyway, the sombrero guy, who's initial song i cannot remember but who was very good, went totally insane during the second round and ran up the stairs to the balcony where the judges were and hooked his legs through the bars and leaned over. we all thought in some way he was going to die. but he didn't, he just spilled all the judges' drinks and knocked a bunch of shit over and scared the shit out of them. intense, thy name is sombrero dude.

anyway, it was a bit shitty because they'd given sombrero guy his trophy already--the head of the air guitar committee or whatever looked like he walked off a dockers ad, not exactly the kind of person you'd expect to be in charge of a bunch of air guitarists--but now they wanted to take it away. william ocean was very gracious and clearly did not want to be a part of such an unearned and underhanded win, the audience were torn, wanting to see an air off (who doesn't?) but also thinking it was a shit thing to do. in the end, the air guitarists spoke, all of them stuck up for mr sombrero head because he'd won it fair and square. one of them even told the judges to "follow the rules". it was an interesting political process.

other highlights of the evening included me getting pissed off at the morons who had to take upwards of 40 pictures (i took two and haven't uploaded them yet), a guy breathing fire, a 50-something guy who put on a pretty sad performance, but was cool nonetheless, psycho dave losing his wig about six seconds into his performance and ruining his chances (much like that fucking penatly kick ghana undeservedly got fucked the US in yesterday's game...ahem), bjorn toroque endlessly talking about himself, the owner of vice remarking that rainbow zombie's partial-moon looked like a "baby's cunt", and the overwhelming joy that only comes when someone plays "crazy train", good god i love that song, i mean are there better lyrics in the world than "i'm running off the rails on a crazy train"? (no, there aren't)

extra special attention should be paid to the guy who...caught the air guitar that one of the performers pretended to throw off the stage. to you, dude, i say this: you are SO. FUCKING. LAME.
the final hurrah, anyone was invited to the stage for "keep on rocking in the free world"




william ocean, in all his violent glory

if living right is easy, what goes wrong?

i met (beta) for the son volt show at the world financial center yesterday. it was really fun! if you like alt-country, free things, bagels and breezy afternoons, you would have liked it, too.

the show was at the marina next to the financial center so it was just lovely out. except for the short, heavy rainshower we got. which was exceptionally weird as it was sunny to the west. i bet there was a rainbow somewhere.

i don't know son volt that well, i've heard and always liked them, but the only song i recognized was "drown", which is great and i used to think was they might be giants...they played lots of pretty stuff that goes well with sunny afternoons, and some crunchier stuff and they covered "i'm not like everybody else", which was pretty cool.

well, that was vague.

i made the horrid mistake of meeting xy for a drink downtown. he and i are both big fans of that area of the city, so we walked around and got shitfaced. gin is disgusting. i liked it up until about 4 hours ago, and it is now my sworn enemy. i was cuddling a bottle of gatorade on the train ths morning, trying to regulate my breathing and not spew all over my fellow commuters. one of my coworkers just sent me an email addressed to "drunky the clown", which made me laugh, which made me want to puke.

best. videos. ever.

accorting to pfork. ok, it's some of their favorites, which means i can exuse them for the lack of

sabotage
i can't wait
just
if i could turn back time (kidding)

T minus 10 days

ok, so 10 days from now i will be getting on a plane to fly for two days over to india. weird. how is it that i planned this thing myself and i still can't get my head round the fact that it's actually going to happen? and what do i have to do still? laundry, for sure. probably buy some shitty clothes i can discard along the way. start malaria meds....make a big fuck off list of all the shit i need to do.

the moms was in town this weekend and we went shopping. EMS was certainly glad to see us, as i think we bought nearly everything in the store. water purifier, rehydration salts, deet, rain jacket, etc. i hope it all fits in my pack.

we spent the rest of the weekend in the theatre...

first off was the history boys: pretty good, apparently it is a movie, too. members of the cast were familiar from harry potter. anyway, it was all about how learning just to learn isn't meaningful, it's learning to live that is important. duh. still, a bunch of boys in ties lolling around a classroom pontificating is always relatively amusing, and it's very clever. there was a lack of english audience members illutsrated when no one even chuckled when they made a comment about living in hull...

we came out of the matinee and were lucky enough to catch the last few minutes + stoppage of the usa v. italy game on the jumbotron.

then we had some din din at the jewel of india restaurant, which was not far from the theatre. food was pretty good. i had some tasty lamb tandoori and mom kicked it korma style. the puri was gigantic, like the size of a basketball. unfortuntately, about halfway through my meal i looked over and noticed this sitting next to me:

next was the lieutenant of inishmore...i've been to the aran islands, they are fucking beautiful. windswept, wild, wooly. we stayed on the tiniest of them all, inis oirr, where no one locked their doors and you could traverse every inch of the place in about 45 minutes. after a long day of walking around and around and around, shwags and i went down the pub/restaurant/city centre and ate the most irish meal ever: lamb and roast potatoes with carrots or something. it was the hartiest meal in memory, and it was accompanied by live music and footie and, obviously, beer. we never wanted to leave. but the point is, these are very wee islands off the coast of galway and not a whole lot tends to happen on them. basically a member of an IRA splinter group is called home because his cat has fallen ill (actually it's been bludgeoned but he doesn't know that) the dude is what some of us would call a psychotic and his temper is feared throughout the land. the father reminded me of an old english professor i had, round pale yet blotched face, white hair, jolly stature. and the other guy was a whiny, long-haired wussy-type who provided the majority of the comic relief. the only thing i don't get is what this play is doing on broadway, it's pretty silly, and seems like it would only really appeal to a pretty small niche, those who enjoy irish nationalist humor...but moms and i both thought it was a fun time. NB: it was at the lyceum, which is probably my favorite b'way theatre.

the moms and i crashed at the algonquin hotel, which is fecking gaaargeous. they've done a really nice job keeping it looking nice. apparently it looked pretty shit up until about five years ago, but they've mended all that now. lots of very dark wood and large leather chairs that want you to sit in them all day and drink expensive scotch. we didn't, but next time!

my only complaint is this:

stupid, stupid, stupid wallpaper of new yorker cartoons. who likes that shit? they really do give themselves a lot of credit for being a literary heritage site, there's a little booklet in every room that tells you all about all the famous stuff and people that were there. it's interesting.

anyway, if you have the means, i highly recommend putting up a family member there.





sunday was the big shop, bookended by the Immigrant Day Festival (or some such)




and "7th heaven" the 7th ave fair in PS. -->



which i followed up with dinner at sakura. verdict: fucking rad.
xx and i split a tofu and avocado salad (best idea ever?) and then i had an alaska roll and a spicy tuna roll, both of which were super fresh and not that pricey (5 or 6 bucks). plus they have a nice backyard. here are the trees from it: