Fashion Week's Over. Go Home.

I have been to America a number of times now, hung out and had stories to tell at the end of it. San Fran, Hollywood, Las Vegas etc. For som reason I hadn't ever ventured to the east coast. Everyone from home that has embarked on any type of states travel had raved to me about how great New York was. So on this trip, i thought fuck it, Ill check it out.

We left LA and made the 5 odd hour flight to NYC to be greeted by this stylish bastard at the airport



John has been travelling through the Euro's for the last month or so and has a blog that has a name cooler than mine. YON VOYAGE

We had talked about him coming over and hanging out while we were in the states, but i doubted it would happen. Most people are all talk, Yon however, is all action. A few nights before I left Aus, I got a text message from an unknown European number letting me know that he had booked his flights and would be meeting us in NYC.

Great story I know, but if you have ever read the lame shit i post on here, you know that I pretty much just start talking and after a few paragraphs, things get half interesting.

Thanks for coming this far with me.

Spaks was living in SanFrancisco for the last 9 months or so and flew out to meet us too. He had been at Burning Man the week before and we were unsure if he was going to arrive in LA as the same dude we knew before. For those of you who dont know, burning man is a huge DIY festival in the desert where everyone does heaps of mind bending drugs and they get naked and set fire to a large wooden effigy. Or something.



So the 4 of us all linked up in New York. We stayed on Waverly and Broadway, pretty muh on the NYU campus on the Lower East Side, just up from Soho. Great area, heaps of cool bars and resteraunts etc, not pricey, not pretentious.

Our apartment was meant to sleep 4 but instead it was a double bed and a small couch. 2 in the bed, 1 on the floor, 1 on the couch. No homo.

Hung out mostly around LES. I seriously want to move there, the area is amazing.

Took a train to brooklyn, met a girl on the train that was giving us directions. Conversation started off with her telling us what was good in brooklyn, to why ignorant people hate tattoos, to eventually telling us about how she liked to be suspended from her body piercings and "fucked up shit like that". So it is little surprise that taking her directions was a bad idea. We got off, as instructed at Dekalb station. 4 white dudes..
Well, 3 white dudes and dwight. Im going to have to back track here a little. Dwight likes to dress a little bit hip hop from time to time. Not usually a problem in "the hood" that is Perth, but put him on the streets of new york, rocking a shirt that says "DIRTY GHETTO KIDS" in massive letters, and you get some interesting responses from, you know, dudes that have actually spent time in the ghetto. The blacker you dress, the whiter you are. Fact.



Anyway, I digress. We get off at Dekalb, walk about 3 blocks and realise quickly that every single person there knows we are lost. Every store sold jewellery, fitted caps and nikes. We witnessed a bizzare car accident where a dude was arguing with the woman in the car behind him, he gets out to confront her, forgets his truck is set to reverse, and watches while his unmanned car crunches into hers. Shit was real.

But regardless of anything, nobody bothered us, we got a few harsh stares and a few laughs here and there, but we were sweet. If shit was to get real, im sure i could have explained how much i listen to NY hip hop and we would have been sweet...



We hit up a bunch of dive bars in Soho/Grenwich village. So many cool bars, just doors with no signs etc. $3 beers.

Heres some snaps so that you keep reading.

















Ended up meeting some dude that ran a surf shop on the east side. He invited us out to a Volcom party and screening of their new snowboarding video. Jack mentioned on the way in that snowboarders are pretty much on the same level as rollerbladers.
The dude that ran volcom was there, as were a bunch of pro snowboarders. Had a few drinks, headed to the theatre that had a line around the block for people trying to get in to the screening. We were skipped to the front of the cue, got to see the first screening, and I managed to fall asleep within 2 or 3 minutes. Legit.



Linked up with Jacks mate Charlotte who is living in NYC with her bf. Her place is amazing, sweet apartment with an amazing rooftop where you can see pretty much all of the east river, the statue of liberty etc. Charlotte was dope, she showed us around a few cool bars. We ended up linking up with a bunch of her friends, playing pool and hanging out in their sweet apartment. Ended up getting a noise complaint and the NYPD rocked up and asked us to leave. Realised we were a few blocks from ground zero and it was 4am on September 11. Police were a little bit cautious..

Went to ground zero on sept 11. Not sure why, i mean, your in NYC, its september 11. We were going to check it out anyway, but it just sort of made sense to go on that day. Sort of wish i didnt. Thousands of people walking the streets, completely silent. No one was on a mic instructing the crowd to do anything, it was just eerie, people were just walking and not saying a word. Very un nerving. I literally couldnt fathom that there had been 2 buildings where we were standing. Shit is crazy.











Charlotte took us to Ameture Night at The Apollo. Definately one of the best nights I have had since being away. We cabbed it out to Harlem and took our seats, I had no idea what to expect. Basically, its a talent show that has been running for years. The crowd is encouraged to cheer or boo depending on the act. If the crowd boos enough, a dude runs out on stage and sweeps the act off. The night prestigious and lots of people have got their big break there, apparently james brown was discovered there.

Anyway, it was amazing. This is footage from the night. This dude was super entertaining. The crowd was divided, half boos and half cheers during the song, it looked like he was about to get swept off, so he just stopped singing and started dancing his ass off. He made it through the whole song and ended up coming 4th. Give me the greeennn liggggght.



A buck toothed bald woman won. In fairness, she probably put on the greatest peformance i have ever seen live.

Im getting way too indepth here, but yeah, I had a good time in NYC.

It was the last couple of days of fashion week when we got into New York. Heaps of stunning people everywhere. Some rapper tried to sell us a CD when we were walking down broadway. We declined. He got pissed. Yonny has flamboyant hair. Dude yells "Fashion Week's Over. Go Home." Golden.

Went to hundreds new store. Dope



Met up with Kim and Jess who are travelling from Perth. Went up the empire state building. It was tall. Tried to take them to brooklyn. Got lost. Ended up following Yonny around while he tried to buy shoes. All day.

Went to a comedy show in times square. Australians wouldnt stop talking in the corner. Everyone wanted to kill them. Dude from 30 Rock did some standup. I got called out by one of the comedians but came out unscathed. Good times.

So for all of these great tales of New York, it wasnt all roses. Below is a story of heartache. Read with tissues close.



JAY Z & EMINEM LIVE AT YANKEE STADIUM IN THE BRONX.

Like this wasn't going to be the best concert of the last 10 years. Jay Z in his home town, Eminems first tour since he stopped sucking. I have no doubt at all that this show will come out on DVD. A DVD that i will never watch, as i fear these wounds will never fully heal.

Me Dwight and Yonny decided that we were going to hit the show. It was on our last night in NYC and it seemed like a perfect end to our time there. Ticketmaster tickets were sold out, but there was a tonne of tickets on reseller sites (which are legit out here) like stepup etc. Unfortunately, through the reseller sites, you need to input the credit card billing address (the addy where your card is registered to) in with your credit card details, then they send the tickets to that address. I didnt want to risk the tickets getting posted back to Australia and us missing the show, so we decided to go with option b. Craigslist.

I have talked about craigslist before. I havent had a bad experience with it, but we went into this situation fully aware that there are con artists etc on the site.

We ended up hitting up a few people on there, there was hundreds of tickets available. In the end, we decided to buy 3 tickets for $150 each from one dude. He came and delivered the tickets to us, me and dwight looked closely at them before handing any money over. The tickets looked legit. I assume most of the people that read this know myself and the dudes I was travelling with. We arent chumps, the tickets looked completely real. Printed on legitimate ticketmaster stock, all the barcode ref numbers were different etc.



Anyway. Money is handed over, pleasantrys exchanged. Tickets aquired. We were still skeptical, but we were confident that the tickets were legit.

Fast forward to 2 days later.

We jump a train to the bronx. Cue up for nearly an hour with about 5000 people trying to get into one gate. Push, shove, go through metal detectors, hand tickets to the dudes that are frantically scanning....

"Where did you get these"

"Craigslist."

"You've been fucked. Go to customer service at gate 4"

Its a small conselation but the cue at customer service was around 400 people deep, and after a lot of cuing and chatting with other suckers, we realised that pretty much everyone had the same fake tickets. Someone made a killing, we didnt get to see the show. Shit is rough.

Just to turn the knife a little more, secret guests that came out at the show: Dr Dre, Chris Martin from Coldplay, 50 cent, Beyonce and Kanye West.



Fuck you New York. (I still love you)


We ended up heading to Times Square because Cudi was playing a free show for the Halo launch. Unfortunately there were about a thousand nerdy kids already cuing, not to see Cudi, but to get the game before their other mates, so we couldnt get in there either.

We ended up having an absolute bender night though. Jess and Kim came out and we met up with Charlotte, drank Four Loco (google this, 12.5% alc energy drink that tastes like petrol) and partied at Lit Lounge till about 5am. Me and dwight got an hours sleep and I caught my first ever drunk flight. NYC to SF. Never again.

p.s. yonny, dwight and jack, post your pics up, you slow motherfuckers.

xx