Portland II, Seattle I

My last day in Portland arrived, and my plans of staying until the hostel's open mic night finished then getting an overnight bus north were foiled by the journey to seattle only taking 4 hours, and therefore not suitable for an overnighter, and anywhow the last bus left at 8.30 - so I got the 5 15 which as of course an hour and a bit late and arrived in seattle at 11ish. A brief walk through the night and the hostel welcomed me with an open-mic night of it's own, mostly dominated by boys that could either play the guitar well, or sing well, but never both.

One girl could do both but wrote very long songs and played about a set's worth. A man read a funny story he'd written in a totally monotone voice, and some guy from england just off the greyhound played a guitar piece. He was, at least, relaxed. I went to bed.

Next day I wandered the streets of seattle, and it seemed that at all times there was a queue of events or prettinesses waiting to work to persuade me that the world hasn't gone terribly wrong, but is a lovely beautiful place peopled by kindly, insightful species', working together toward a golden utopia. However, in hindsight, these were tiny things that wouldn't make any sense from a computer screen - just trust I had a real good time amongst the statues and people and music (and waterfall gardens and ivy'd buildings) of seattle downtown.

The evening was 'first-thursday-of-the-month-museums-are-free-day', or, as seattle has more catchily put it: 'all-access day'. So I went for free into the usually $20 music museum which for some reason made me run about like a child in a candy (sweety) store (shop), looking at each exhibit for 30 seconds maximum and then running off again. I felt innocently happy and enjoyed it, even though there was nothing of particular interest there (more aimed at non-musicians and jimi hendrix obsessives). Then i took the monorail (seattle, seattle...) to the big bookshop to see a reading of some guy's new book, which was actually very very good.

Thence back to hostel and a shockingly well-cooked and bountiful meal, and an evening of free beer, guitar playing and (un)witty banter with people I didn't Like, as such, but were interesting in their misguided and transparent pettinesses.

Another day another gig in seattle's central square, this time an excellent bluegrass/old-time american band, all crowding round one microphone to amplify their voices and instruments. This trick they'd got to a fine art, moving closer to or further away to the mic depending on what levels they wanted, and were deeply entertaining, for 90 minutes. However, the day wasn't going to match up to yesterday and a malaise (malazyness) spread across the sky, due to a mix of -this-weather-and-place-is-similar-to-england, tiredness, and such minor factors. So Hostelday, and then evening on a 'beat-walk' in he north of the city.

This was good. $5 'cover' and entry into six or seven venues (coffee shops or booksops or bars of art galleries) each with a band or singer playing. I ran from place to place and was surprised by the quality of the music (even the relaxed old man in the coffeeshop wrote fascinating songs - "he went home and called the cops/you don't meet nice girls in - coffee shops" amused me) but the best was a band consiting of that classic bouzouki/double-bass/electric guitar combination, doing Zorba the Greek & Folsom Prison Blues medleys and things much much better than that sounds.

Then today I settled on going to Canada, said goodbye to my friends Paul and Martian from Dronfield who had crashed their van, and booked my Ferry up to Victoria. Hooray. On the way from the ferryport I found the most perfect beautiful tiny urban garden. This was possibly the prettiest and most wonderful place I've seen so far. It's on Vine Street, if you're ever in Seattle.

San Francisco IV, Portland I

So um where was I? Tum teee tum okay leaving off immediatly after last entry we see me leaving cafe, finding wallace and jackie for classy pizza, then music festival on lovely washington square and confiscation of our precious wine, and meeting there a poet I'd earlier met (these things happen in San Francisco), watching fun band then to greyhound and a 16 hour greyhound that went by bizarrely quickly, possibly to due my relenting and allowing myself to sleep (missing lovely romantic barrelling across the highways of america etc plus sore neck) and i arrived in Portland.

And breathe. (Portland has blurred slightly so events may not have actually taken place at the times suggested)

Due to everything being suprisingly busy in what I thought was a pretty low-profile city, I was staying in a 'more adult-friendly' hostel, which either meant swingers-den-bondage-palace or quiet homely little place And it was the latter. So a shopping at Trader Joe's later and a cooking tuna pasta and a conversationing with intelligent interesting Political Types later, and I feel quite at home. It's late and I can't remember what I did that first day - I must have... looked around the city, been turned away from the $2 eatery place due to being 20 not 21 (my first rage at being underage), then spent the evening at Powells bookstore (which takes up an entire block and has four stories and used and new books mixed together and - I couldn't buy any books because no money and already carrying 14 (FOURTEEN I miscounted last time) around with me) watching a reading which was suprisingly good from a book of short stories about The Apocolypse.

So next day I look round further and found Pioneer Square, which they said was good for people watching and was, then had a nice time at the Rose Garden - I genuinely never realised how beautiful roses were until that day. I think that sums that day up, and an evening in conversation with my incredibly literary room-mates. I feel I've forgotten something in these first two days, in which case I'll remedy when I make another attempt to bring y'all up to date.

If you notice a lack of commitment to this blog on the keeping up/writing coherently /spelling fronts, it's because you have shown a correlatative (?) trend of not commenting. The idea the relationship could be inverse is laughable. Oh yes.

San Francisco III

My last night, hah. San Francisco excersised it's (un)holy hold over me and I stayed two more days. The day following the previous entry was eaten quickly in the visiting the Golden Gate Bridge (which wins the prize for Most Foggiest Tourist Attraction, and actually the fog was the most amazing thing about it - Downtown Frisco was sunny but two miles away the fog and wind waas so intense, at no point was it possible to see the top of the bridge - suspension wires stretching from apparently nowhere. From the middle of the bridge neither end could be seen, and even the waves breaking hundreds of feet below were pretty dim. It was pretty exultant, I'd say).



Afterwards I found my way to the 'Palace Of The Fine Arts' (awesome name, awesome idea, and it really is a palace) for the poetry reading of aforementioned International Poetry Festival. After sitting down (theatre like setting) and appreciating totally the little poems left on every arm-rest, I happened to glance down the row I was sitting on and, staggeringly, five seats down were Wallace and Jacky (See Asheville III in case youdon't remember. Which you won't). This was a wonderful suprise and we watched the poetry together and wined and had good times, before making our way to their flat in Oakland, singing along the streets (not drunkenly, we had a guitar and everything) and Jacky read me her poetry (beautiful), Walt Whitman's poetry (stunning), and and I returned some Ginsberg laaate into the night. Everybody in San Francisco is a poet or an artist of some kind. Wallace demonstrated this the next morning by playing me some actually erally good songs of his, then we returned into Frisco for mooore poetry.

We crammed into Cafe Trieste (beat hangout) but at some point Wallace left to make a phonecall, and then Jacky to see where he was. I, with my guitar and backpack and stuff actually couldn't leave, due to overcrowding. It became clear W+J weren't coming back, but some kind woman said I could come and sit with her, so I followed her through the throng irritating people with all my stuff. Then she discovered someone had taken her seats - anyway blah blah long story but I somehow ended up sitting with the poets, a yard from Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Jack Hirschmann asked me about Sheffield... crazy stuff. Anyhow running out of internet time so more later...

San Francisco II

Okay, okay. Yesterday I went to Berkeley, and today I looked around more San Francisco. Is that alright? YOU WANT MORE?!~

Hmm, after writing the other night a large group of hostellers emigrated to a karaoke bar and we had fun with Bohemian Rhapsody etc. Then the next day I went to berkeley, which is mainly a 'collage' (university) but also where Mr. Ginsberg (holy) grew up and wrote. I found places he'd written about, had coffee in the jazz cafe basement, read poems they have on the pavement there, read 'time' magazine in berkerley public library (massive joeypoints for anyone that can figure out why I did that...), ate my hummous and bread, went to Cody's books and couldn't resist more books (I now have eleven. ELEVEN. Tell me that isn't ridiculous for a traveller. I'm dangerous). Anyway then I came back to Frisco (beat) and checked out the following areas: Mission (grey lines); Castro (the gay quarter. The gay quarter of SAN FRANCISCO. Awesome, all businesses called 'gay cleaning' and such, and more rainbow flags than the eyes could digest); and Haight Ashbury (awesome-also. I bet guidebooks describe it as 'bohemian' or 'altrnative', and it is. So much painting on walls, so much singing in the streets, so much justification for the quote 'there are more buddhists in [san francisco] than tibet).

Then I came back to the hostel and spent one of the pleasentest evenings in good conversation over wine (two buck chuck - c'mon) with Chloe and her Mum and Leigham, who from giving the impression of being a football hooligan turned out to be a poet. You had to be there, really.

So I went to bed and after waking up at a few times (bunkmate irish girl, derrrunk: 'hey i need you to set an alarm to get me up, i need to wake at 4.30 for a flght' - me, bleary: it's '4 10 now' - bunkmate: 'set it for five then' - the alarm goes off for ten minutes and she still don't wake up so I get dressed climb down, shake her, still not waking, in the end i pour water on her face, she wakes up then but still doesn't get out of bed, so I give up and retire to my bunk (top bunk) and periodically shake her duvet from above until 5 30 when I go to sleep. anyway, she misses her flight. haffharf) I wake up finally and set off for another day of exploration, go to the beat museum (discoveries: william burroughs shot his wife in the head; allen ginsberg was in a gap advert; there are no heroes) and more of Frisco then head at 6 30 to 'jack kerouac' alley for the opening ceremoney of the International Poetry Festival. Lawrence Ferlinghetti read and walked within inches of me. That was cool. He said 'I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by boredom, at poetry readings'.

There was also a stunning jazz band, and now Im back at the hostel for my last night here. Cool.

Calabasas III, Monterey I, Big Sur I, San Francisco I

Okay so finally free internet and free time have collided, and though I am aware I am hopelessly behind, I will try to bring you up to date without missing anything vital.

So Calabasas remained beautiful, and, due to circumstances kind of out of my control, I was unable to leave when I planned to, which meant missing Ani Difranco which was a stab in the leg, but it did mean that I got to stay what felt more like a reasonable amount of time. But eventually and with regret I set off for Monterey.

Train journey (san luis obispo), bus journey (salinas), another bus (monterey), then a final bus (to hostel) and I was there. Monterey, supposedly a quiet pretty coastal town, was absolutely thronged with people, and not just any people - bikers. Motorbikers. With Beards! This crowdedness and everything being booked was what had kept me and calabasas those excellent last two days, and can be explained by the Moto GP race at Laguna Seca just outside monterey - 170 000 motorbike racing fans were in the area.

So much to my suprise Laura and Lindsey- the scots from the Grand Canyon - were at the hostel, and also planning to head down to Big Sur the next day. I hadn't really talked to them at flagstaff but over the course of the evening they proved to be superlative company, and, unlike everyone else I'd spoken to, not obsessed with motor-racing, which improved the conversation considerably.

So the next morning hit, and I got up early to prepare for my time at Big Sur (the hostel had no beds for the coming night, so I was staying down there - somewhere). A nice british girl called Chrissie was renting a car and driving down through Big Sur and kindly offered the three of us a lift down. So our rush to catch the first bus (there were only three a day) was unnecessary, and we hung around cooking pancakes and waiting for her car to be delivered. Chrissie had warned us that she had asked for the smallest car they had, so we might have to squash up. However, the rental company took her excellently at her word and turned up in a tiny two-seater convertible sportscar. Which was pretty funny but meant we'd missed our first bus and three hours until the next stretched out.

But we were opportunistic and took a different bus to picturesque Carmel, half-way to Big Sur, and while there realised we were only 10 minutes from the northermost state park of BigSur (hereafter known as BS) and so took a cab. We burned a happy couple of hours watching cute seals and cuter deers (deer? deers?) and whale-bones (not cute). We arrived at the bus-stop in time for the bus passing in the other direction to stop, and its driver to tell us that the bus (that we would have been on if it wasn't for the sportscar debacle haroo hooray) had broken down and was an hour late. So back on the return bus to Carmel, where we planned to wait in style with Ice-Cream. This led to the discovery that I had no money left on my card, and needed my debit card, back in Monterey, to top it up.

This meant I would undoubtedly starve to death and all kinds of terrible things, from which Laura saved me with $20, which was incredibly kind of her, in case she's reading, and even if not.

Anyway time passed and we finally got the bus, which moved us down to Pfeiffer state park (via Nepenthe where someone had lost his dog joey amongst the posion-oak) which had some lovely trails, such as 'pfeiffer waterfall trail' which led us to a waterfall, and 'valley view', which supplied a gorgeous view of, shockingly, the valley, which carried our eyes out to the beautiful azure sea.

Lindsey and Laura and I took the last bus (we were now pretty good friends with this bus driver) and bid one another a fond farewell when I got off at Andrew Molera, another statepark. [at this point the author becomes bored and the rest of the post is abbreviated] Here I spent a beautiful night beneath the stars and then rose early and walked up the too-pretty-for-words coast all day - one of the happiest days of my trip so far or maybe ever.

However, due to my using a not-to-scale busmap as my guide (long story), I ended up walking 9 hours and being exhausted by the end, as well as not being able to afford anything to eat. So I burned back to monterey, and decided to stay another night due to really not being in any state to travel to San Francisco that night and arrive at 11 o clock and find somewhere to stay.

So I did that the next day instead and it was fine. Then I spent yesterday looking around North Beach (city lights bookstore! Washington Sqare! Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac etc) and Chinatown. I really like this city a lot. I love it's bizarre mixing. I love that on one side of the road a guy is being sick by a postbox and on the other a crowd is watching a film being shot with loads of camaras and massive lights and red sportscars and such. I love that upon entry from Oakland an enormous impressive bridge (not even the golden gate) speeds you into a huge fogbank from which the hugest towers unexpected suddenly loom prettily. There are poetry readings everynight, in alleyways.

So anyway, I'm going to go out at look at it.

My First Novel

Ft. Lauderdale

Look at all the blue! That's the sky, you know.

Paaalllllllllmmmmm Trrreeeeeeess

This is experimental shell-art. It is called 'thought bubble' and is shown here on the canvas of my knee, on the beach.

More beachart.

Spaceship-looking controls of Mike's Boat.

Pretty tree. Ft Lauderdale is full of things like this.

More controls

More! Unfortunatly I just deleted the best picture, which was an action shot of me (my disembodied hand) pretending to press a button.

On the train journey away, I took some photos of SWAMP (trees)

And MARSH (no trees. That's the difference)

This is a road which for some reason caught my attention

Here are some people in the sun. The train carried me to...

New Orleans

There was some poignant slogan somewhere in this picture, but it is irritatingly unseeable here and I can't remember what it was. Still, illumnating of New Orleans halfdestruction.

Same ting.

What kind of animal is this? I don't know!

Memphis

(in no particular order...)

Beale Street. I'm annoyed you can't see the throngs of people on the street - the whole thing was as crowded outside as the bars were inside. All the bars. Count the neons.

This is where Gibson guitars are born.

This is an early stage in the process, before the guitars are made less fuzzy and grainy, and before they're rotated 90 degrees, so they're upright.

This photo is of guitars hanging upside-down so their paint can dry.

See that label 'scrap'? These guitars, because of minor faults such as one fret being slanted, or even 'visual imperfections', will be put through the shredding machine. They are worth around three thousand pounds each. ALL OF THEM! Argh.

I did not write Joey, someone else did. This is ART. It is called 'portrait of the artist as a young graffitti artist'.

This is the MISSISSIPPI. Even cooler, it is where JEFF BUCKLEY drowned. Sweet.

More Mississippi action.

I think this photo, taken at 3AM, nicely captures the feeling of the greyhound journey which took me to...

Austin

Congress ave. Below my feet, unbeknowst to me at the time of this picture being taken, is the largest urban bat colony in the world. In the far distance is the Austin Capitol. Which is in the next picture.

Oh No! Austin Capitol has fallen over, and Joey doesn't understand this photo downloading program enough to do anything about it.

This illustrates america's long, straight, vertical streets.

This monument, proving Texans are lovely people, was hidden behind the capitol building and shielding from view by hedges. Still there though.

A greyhound bus through the night took me to...

Flagstaff+The Grand Canyon

This pretty flower in a beer bottle welcomed me.

This photo is boring, but this post needs some padding out.

Trees and cloud.

That tattered and yellow paper reads 'Enjoying the Grand Canyon'. If i had looked up and taken another photo you would have seen 27 miles of drops up to 5000 feet; mountains and rivers of breathtaking beauty spread like a dried eden below me in a phantasmagorical panorama of biblical proportions. I didn't, though.

Here is our tour guide sitting on the edge. It gives you a vague idea of grand canyonish scenery.

If you want to know what the Grand Canyon was like, put 'Grand Canyon' into google pictures.

Calabasas II

Wearily I am updating my 'weblog' - it's so much effort to do anything here where it is so pleasurable to do nothing. Sun, Beach/Poolside, Cooling Breeze, Plums/Nectarines, Book: difficult to be less than relaxed utterly.

Yesterday I was kindly driven by Alice, only present cousin and my guide and companion throughout the evenings of LA, into Hollywood. We saw the stars, and footprints and handprints, the chinese-man theatre, and maybe more interestingly, the collection of people come to see the stars, and footprints and handprints, the chinese-man theatre. We made up some backgrounds for them and drank a little coffee, then moved on to a Downtown Artwalk which provided me with a glimpse into LA's contradictions - cracking and falling buildings and 'spare a quarter buddy?'s mixing with the smart and the hip trailing contemporary trendy gallery to gallery with wine and some interesting art.

Afterwhich we found The Cathedral Of Mary Of The Angels and after some canned-food donating, watched an actually-rather-good jazz version of a midsummer night's dream, complete with jazz standards and suits sharp as icecles. On the part of the actors, not us.

Today I went to a georgeous beach.

I seem to have conveniently forgotten the circumstances of my going to see the Harry Potter film, but I guess you should know that it happened. It was pretty fun, I enjoyed the screaming and clapping US audience.