Day 4

I went out walking under an atomic sky...

Yesterday was Sunday and I started by going to the Green Bean Cafe just round the corner from the apartment. I think it's called that anyway. I had some sort of veggie thing with rice and tofu which was quite lovely. I got the subway down to 42nd because I've already walked to there and ticked some more shops off of my list of places that sell Page Plus phones. A lot of them aren't even there any more, it's getting quite annoying. The one I went into didn't have anything cheap enough. I think I need a refurbished phone to make it value for money.

I did my usual random walking around, there was a street market sort of thing going on and I accidentally went to Union Square. There were some bendy dancing men and a guy shouting about Jesus. I spent about an hour trying to find a club called Le Poisson Rouge. It gets difficult when they have a few streets and avenues together that don't have numbers in their names. I went into the venue when it opened so it was empty and I could get my bearings, chat to the staff, etc. I started on the orange juice and progressed to a house beer with fish in the name. I spoke to a Swedish guy about life, the universe and beer. I also got chatting to a cool New York "girl" (she was 38). Xiu Xiu were rather amazing, the second band were kind of interesting but they got a bit samey after a few songs and Merzbow was on fine form.

I think that's the Chrysler Building in the far background.

I got the subway back up to 86th Street and decided that if I saw the Scottish bar that I'd go in...... and I did. There were only four people in there so it was nice and quiet. I had a good chat with everyone and made a couple of contacts. Gavin the barman was playing a U2 mix on his ipod so I was singing along to that which was rather lovely. Once everyone had left Gavin explained baseball and American football to me. I understand them a lot better now. I also figured out tipping, you tip $1 per drink and then after about five or six drinks they give you one on the house, that happened twice last night anyway and it doesn't really make much sense. I ended the night with a couple of whiskeys.

Today I've done nothing except for planning and sleeping. Pretty much a wasted day but I needed to recharge. Suzy and Mike have gone to Rhinebeck so I'm home alone in NYC, that would be a good film. I'm now watching Camp Rock 2 and Bill O'Reilly is on Jon Stewart tonight so that should be fun.

Day 2 continued plus day 3

Please be warned, an advert may come up five minutes into the video and it will be a lot louder than me talking although I've just watched it as an embedded video and there's no advert so we may be okay.


25/10/10 video blog
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Day 1 and some of Day 2

I went on a big plane in the sky. It went woooosh! We landed in Newark and I made it all the way to upper east side Manhattan on my own!

Suzy bought me carrots because I'm a vegetarian and Mike is letting me use his 100" monitor iMac. They have been most accommodating. Heather and Fred were at Suzy's apartment when I arrived and we all sat on the roof for a bit (it's a flat roof). The air conditioning has broken so it's rather warm in the apartment and I slept almost naked, Suzy said it's risky because Cosmo the cat might attack my nadgers (those were not Suzy's exact words).

Day 2 - VVVVVLOG!

I was going to do a video blog but I just watched it back and I seem wasted or something. It's quite hot and I've been walking for at least three hours. I haven't actually eaten properly today either. I had some carrots and hummus this morning. I didn't sleep very well although I do have a comfy sofa bed. It's just so hot and I've got to get used to sleeping somewhere other than my bed. I woke up feeling a bit ill actually, so I didn't leave the apartment until after midday although I did some planning online for the rest of my stay in NYC.

So I walked all the way across Manhattan today, east to west and back again. I went through Central Park which is quite lovely, there's a big lake thing and I think I spotted a location used in Devil's Advocate. There are lots of random homeless people in Central Park, lots of black homeless dudes with white beards, there are also lots of random sleeping people who don't look homeless because they have nice clothes... nevertheless they are sleeping on park benches. I walked all the way over to Riverside Park and found the location from The Warriors where Cyrus is giving his speech to all the gangs. It's now a kid's playground and no adults without children are allowed. I didn't see the sign so I walked in with my camera and the nice lady told me to leave. I then walked back through the north of Central Park and got lost in the North Woods, I made it out alive thanks to my trusty compass. I then walked through East Harlem trying to find the phone shops that I'd written down, they weren't very good shops so I'm going to try the ones downtown over the weekend. I don't really need a US phone until I start on my travels anyway.

Mike is home. Rowlands signing off.

*One quick amendment. When Mike got home we went straight out and bought a big fan. Cool.... literally.

I've booked it!

I'll be arriving in New York City on the evening of September 23rd and will be flying back from NYC to London on December 21st. I'll be flying with Virgin Atlantic and have opted for an Asian vegetarian meal and an aisle seat. At the moment those are the only definite things.

I'm sure I'll find something fun to do in the USA for three months....

Much love!

Washington DC / Polysics - 16th Feb

We rode The Metro to The Mall and met some famous dead dudes called George "The Body" Washington and Abraham Lincoln.



I tried to fill a request from my friend Jez with these photos of the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. Those guys have multiple landmarks, they must have been good.



Then we went to The White House which is where Mr Obama lives. He has a dog.



As we were walking away from The White House we bumped into Polysics. Fumi told me later on that they were just taking photos around DC in their outfits for fun. Although Yano's constant mantra of "samui, samui, samui" (cold, cold, cold) lead me to believe it probably wasn't his idea. Yano made me laugh by walking right up in front of me, bowing and saying "domo" in a really over the top way. They remembered me from the Akron show and were kind enough to pose for a couple of photos with Brannon and I.



We left them taking photos in front of The White House and headed off for food at a high class Mexican restaurant called Chipotle. After we'd eaten we had to drive from the west of DC to the east of DC during rush hour. With the snow blocking off lanes, many bad drivers and dodgy traffic lights it was a horrible drive. I think it took about 2 hours but we got to the venue dead on 8pm when the doors opened (thank you Sidley!). Once again people were commenting on my outfit and this time it was better because nearly everyone was there to see Polysics. At the Akron show a lot of people were there for the support bands and didn't even know who Polysics were. Even Travis had made it to the show, I'd spoken to him briefly at the Akron show and he said I was partly his inspiration for making the four hour drive solo to DC. We chatted with a few other fans too, Mike and Francis are the names that I remember. My super friend Brannon had made a lovely owl for Kayo so we gave that to her. She definitely smiled!



After discovering there was only one support band that night we made our move to the front of the crowd once they'd finished. It was now that I slowly realised that the front row seemed to be mostly (there were actually only 6 or 7 of them) made up of Japanese girls wearing those Polysics towels that can only be acquired in Japan. Hiro had his usual iPod playlist going so a few of us were joining in with Take On Me and making the most horrific noise on the high notes. It has to be done...

Sean appeared with his usual spiel about not taking any photos. I continued my ass kissing by shouting "go Sean!" a few times. Then Polysics took to the stage and here's what they played.



They added My Sharona to the set following the death the previous day of Doug Fieger from The Knack. One lovely bit of banter from Hiro during the set was "Today we went to The White House to see President Obama but he was not home! So POLYSICS gave new album to first lady. She was so excited! She played Kayo's pom pom!". There was the usual balloon shooting into the crowd during Fire Bison (I got one this time) and during one song Hiro shoved his butt into the face of a girl on the front row, she kept turning away but he ended up grabbing her head and shoving it into his sweaty backside. Oh those reserved Japaneses! Again the crowd was not as crazy as I've been used to but at least I had just enough room to join Hiro in doing jumping jacks during Baby Bias. I had a tear in my eye during Black Out Fall Out and at the end there was a lot more cheering for Kayo than usual, one middle aged man gave her some flowers.

After Polysics had left the stage I realised that ALL of the Japanese girls were crying. I went around to each of them asking "daijoubu?" (are you ok?). I spoke to a few of them and discovered that some of them had been to as many as ten shows on the US tour. They'd come over from Japan to see Kayo's farewell tour and in Japan they don't get the chance to meet the band because they play in much bigger venues. After about ten minutes we got kicked out of the performance room and were told that if we waited upstairs the band would come up to sign stuff and say goodbye. I was a bit wary of this because I'd heard something similar at a UK gig and the band hadn't known so they just left. What else could we do though? So about 25 of us headed upstairs to wait for the band. I spoke to a few more fans and we all took some photos of each other. Other than myself are Brannon, Brian, Martin and two Japanese fans that I didn't get the names of.



One of the Japanese fans ran up to me saying that Polysics were downstairs so we went down to the front of the building to see them loading up the van. One of the venue staff told us we couldn't wait there and they would definitely be coming upstairs.... so back upstairs we went. We could see the band from the front windows so in a Japanese/American/English bonding session we all attempted to draw backwards messages on the windows for Polysics to see.



Eventually they did come upstairs and Sean announced they only had about fifteen minutes because they had an early start in the morning. Each band member got a fairly orderly queue and people were being pretty good about getting something signed, getting a photo and then moving along. There were only about 25 of us up there so it all went quite smoothly. I got my Akron set list signed by the whole band. Yano wrote something on there about the UK but I can't figure out what it is.



During the signing session somebody shouted my name to get my attention and one of the Japanese fans overheard them. She came up to me and said "maakun?" (which is a name I use on a Japanese language fan blog), she explained that her name was Haruchi and she knew me from my posts where I'd attempted to tell them I was travelling from England to the US to see Polysics. She told her friend who I was and she seemed to know me as well. Haruchi's English wasn't great so it ended up with her just holding my hand and repeating "maakun, maakun, maakun".

The band had come upstairs wearing some brightly coloured shiny bead necklaces, I only discovered after getting home that this was to do with Mardi Gras, we don't celebrate that in the UK. After Haruchi realised who I was she spoke to the band and as they were leaving each band member ended up giving me most of their beads. At the time I wasn't sure what was going on but I figured the best thing to do was just keep bowing and saying "arigatou".



Washington DC or DIE!!!!

Polysics - Akron Musica - 12th Feb 2010

These next two blogs may sound a little self indulgent but I'm doing them from my point of view and what made the two shows amazing for me personally. If you want a blow by blow account of the performance then go read another blog :)

We arrived at Musica (the venue for the night's show) a bit later than expected so it was going to be tricky to get a good spot in the crowd. I thought I'd forget about that for now and instead just hunt down my favourite Japanese people. Kayo and Fumi were womanning the merch stall so I loitered around them for a bit, got stuff signed, got some photos and used my best Japanese to tell Kayo:
"I've come from England to see your final shows. Thank you for the music you have given us up until now. I wish you all the happiness in the future."
She said thank you and bowed more than usual. She told Fumi what I'd said and Fumi remembered that I was the English guy that had Tweeted her.



Then Hiro showed up at the merch stall and I did the signing, photo, "I'm from England" stuff with him. "Igirisu?!" he said. He did sound pretty impressed.



Then I went off to find Yano. All the while people were giving me funny looks and commenting on my outfit. At one point when I went to the toilet some guy asked about my outfit and when he realised I was English he started singing "London Bridge is falling down"...... Akronians are weird but they have a good Dr. Who style alien name. Eventually we found Yano drinking coffee in the cafe area (no surprise there!). I was trying to ask him if he had any Japanese coffee left because I knew he'd brought a load of it over with him for the tour. It took him a while (and asking me about Costa coffee in England) but eventually he understood me and said "wakatta!" whilst slapping my butt. Oh those reserved Japaneses!

After watching an old man dancing for about ten minutes the second support band (who were not called Nick Cage And The Face Offs) had finally finished I made my move. I figured I've travelled 5000 miles so I might as well push to the front. I got to the second row after pushing past a few annoyed looking faces. I was chatting to the guys on the front row about all things Polysics. It's actually quite weird talking about the band in person because I'm so used to only chatting about them online. Hiro put his set list down and we were trying to read it upside down. He'd written his whole script on there too. I got a photo of the set list after the concert for the benefit of the Japanese fans over at the Japanese language fan blog.



Sean the tour manager insisted on no photos during the concert, as far as I know it's because Myspace and possibly Polysics Japanese record label want sole rights to images from the concerts. It would be a lot better if they explained that rather than just saying "No photos!"

Just before going on stage Hiro spotted me in the crowd and waved to me. That was the start of me feeling like I was getting slightly special treatment seeing as I'd travelled so far. Whether I imagined this or not I have no idea.
It was a great performance even though the crowd was probably the most timid I'd ever seen at a Polysics show. They were all good with the shouting and everything but there was hardly any movement. I was used to being squashed at the front but there was none of that until they got to Coelakanth Is Android and then a few guys started going a bit crazy. During one of the early songs Hiro came up to the crowd and I decided to put my hands on his guitar strings, he pulled away and waved his finger, then I wiped my hand down his face. This is something I did at a London concert and it ended up being very visible in a video on Youtube so I thought I'd repeat that for the amusement of my friend. I did my usual shouting of Yano's name at various because he always seems to be the least appreciated member of the band. Before the encore the Akron crowd decided to go for the chant of "one more song!" to which Polysics replied with two more songs including a cover of Devo's Sloppy in which Yano seemed totally confused as to what Hiro was doing. At the end Hiro did a lot of high-fives and looked at me, smiled and grabbed my hand.

Then proceeded lots of hanging about, a few beers, sucking up the tour manager and lots of chatting to fans including one girl, Satoko, who'd travelled from Japan and was staying with friends in Ohio. She wanted a photo with me and then I took her photo with Fumi. One regret from my US trip is that I didn't get any contact details for her. A Japanese Polysics fan with good English is hard to find. After about half an hour Polysics came out to pack up their stuff. It ended up with each band member having a queue of people wanting stuff signed.
I had a chat with Yano about what it will be like playing as a 3 piece, he said they hope to be ready to come to the UK in 2011. At least I think that's what he said...



I told Hiro I was sorry for grabbing his guitar and explained the whole "face touching" thing. He laughed and said it was ok and that stuff like that makes the shows fun. At least I think that's what he said...
I told Kayo and Fumi that I would see them in Washington DC. Fumi said "see you tomorrow!". That's definitely what she said...

Akron Musica or DIE!!!!!

Testing, testing

This is me testing the possibility of using this blog as a diary of my trip to the USA. I'm not sure I'll have the time to do it but just in case....

Here is where I would post a photo of me looking fed up standing in front of the house where Mr Ohio (the inventor of Ohio) was born.



Here is where I would say that Brannon cooked me some food today, it was above average but only just.

Here is where I would say that Jeff tried to catch me naked in the shower but I'd pre-empted his attack and I was wearing my trusty swimming shorts.

Here is where I would say that Columbo (Columbus) is not the ideal place to bring children, there's too many scary people here. I would liken it to Disneyland but without the fun and excitement, unless you consider it fun to be chased through a field by an angry hobo.

Then to finish I might post another photo. This time it would be me scaring the oldest person in Ohio (it's ok, this is actually my nan)