Written in the stars

Published on Sun 1 Aug 2010

A couple of weekends ago I went back to New York on something of a drunken whim. The idea first came up on the Wednesday, and I decided that it'd be great but a bit impractical, then on the Thursday, in a plot device that would be laughed out of the writers' meeting of even the most low budget romantic comedy, the mysterious horoscope that had been appearing unbidden in my inbox every day for a week or so, said

"Today's discerning Virgo Moon makes us aware of all the sensible reasons not to take initiative. Nevertheless, we can feel the tension increase as the Moon edges closer to action-hero Mars throughout the day. Although cool logic tells us one thing, we still may follow an impulse and do something else."

As much as I obviously don't believe in that kind of thing, being a scientist, I felt it made an argument that I had no answer to. Also we went out for Ciaron's birthday and everyone told me that you have to do this kind of thing when you can and I'm always complaining about how boring my life is. I think without really expecting me to actually go. But I got back and booked a flight for 18 hours time and the cheapest hotel I could find.

I felt like the British transport network was trying its best to make me miss the plane, but it was fine in the end. American Airlines are not a patch on Virgin. The most sour faced cabin crews I've ever come across. Below par entertainment systems too, though I did nearly watch Leap Year again on the grounds that there's a lot gratuitous transatlantic flying in it.

Once I'd eventually made it through immigration (the one guy on duty felt the need to make 10 minutes of small talk with each person. At least he was friendly) I got the subway to Manhattan and checked into my, according to a pamphlet at reception, newly refurbished hotel room. Wow. Someone decided it'd be like that. Note to self: check pictures on website in future.

I met up with Annie who you may remember from last time I was there, and we went to watch some music of varying quality before I was too tired to carry on really.

The next day there was a free festival going on in Coney Island, which is somewhere I'd meant to visit on my last trip, so that worked out quite nicely. The subway there takes quite a long time and we were lucky enough to be sat next to a guy who had his own huge cooler of beer and regaled us with tall tales of how he owned several bars and an apartment block in the city and had been to prison for 3 years for forcing a police car off a bridge during a high speed car chase or something. It's good to know that I can attract these people internationally too. Coney Island is a pretty cool place - I may have mentioned before that I have a soft spot for run down seafronts. I bet it's really atmospheric during the winter.

This is an abandoned roller rink.

The guys at the front of it were making an artwork by putting paint on various objects and using them to splat it on a big sheet of paper. My favourite ones were the robot dog and the radio controlled car. Annie chose the spiky rubber ball on a piece of elastic.

In the end we only saw one decent band - Wye Oak, but bloody hell they were amazing. I saw them support Okkervil River the day after End of the Road last year, and liked it, but they were much more powerful this time. One song in particular stood out, called "I Hope You Die". I've listened to the recorded version a lot since, and it's not so rocking as it was live. I'm glad I didn't know what it was called because I assumed it was a nice song, until out of nowhere she started singing "I hope you die" and it really affected me.

Playing drums and keyboard at the same time is pretty impressive, though thinking about it, if you're coordinated enough to play drums to any kind of standard, playing a bit of keys at the same time shouldn't be a real challenge.

Annie was singing a song with a country band later, and did a great job (they were a good band too!), then we went to Greenwich Village and got, unbelievably, an even better pizza than the one I had at Grimaldi's on my previous visit. I don't get why pizza here doesn't even come close - I'm pretty sure that if anyone opened somewhere here that sold pizzas even half as nice as this place (called John's) every other pizza restaurant in town would go out of business pretty bloody quickly. On the way home we saw the most dedicated busker ever. He takes a grand piano around with him. To provide background music for a juggler. Madness.

On the Sunday we tried out a couple of open mics, which reminded me very much of London ones - there's seems to be a real culture of people doing open mics (at least) every day of the week. The first was at a really cool venue called Pete's Candy Store in Brooklyn. I had a nervous moment during the cab ride there when the driver took us down a rough looking dead end, but it turned out he'd just got a bit lost. When we arrived there was a church service going on in the gig room, but everyone piled out for a beer in plenty of time. I nervously did Watertight and Muscle Memory to general apathy. After getting the best (and biggest) sushi I've ever had (I got put off sushi quite a long time ago by it being distinctly fishy the first time I tried it, but I think I may have been converted)

we did another nearby with better sound but less atmosphere. I played Edinburgh and You Won't Break My Heart. It was ok. For some reason I felt the need to mumble things in between songs in the style of Hugh Grant. Weird.

I spent most of the Monday wandering around Manhattan checking out a few places I'd not got round to the first time I went.

Including Union Square

and the Flatiron Building (dunno why it's called that...)

My flight home was delayed by a massive thunderstorm, but I was back in work at about 11. And feeling surprisingly chipper. I love going away for the weekend - you can get what feels like 2 week's worth of life out of a few of days. Stay tuned for more of the same...