Big Apple, English Pip

My Little Pony

2010-05-03T13:54:00.000-07:00

In England we have The Grand National. In America they have The Kentucky Derby. Once a year everyone suddenly becomes interested in Horse Racing back in Blighty, and in America it’s no different.

The Kentucky Derby is a huge deal, so huge in fact that we have been planning special events for it at work for weeks now. Last week a man from Makers Mark came in to tell us about the promotions the restaurant would be running, needless to say he was a stone cold dickwad. He sat down and the first thing he said was ‘Man I’m tired, I’ve been riding my bike all day and then I ran like fifteen miles.’ I immediately turned to him and asked ‘Did you then bench double your body weight? You must be exhausted.’ He didn’t appreciate my comment. He continued to teach us about Makers Mark whilst simultaneously hitting on all the girls at work. He told us that if he came back into the restaurant and asked someone if they knew how makers Mark was made he would take them out to dinner, I turned to him once again and said ‘Even me? Because I warn you, I like to be treated like a Lady.’ Once again, not amused. The celebration of the Makers Mark Man continued for about half an hour more and he signed off by saying ‘If any of you are having a party give me a call, I’ll hook you up with free whiskey.’ I took his card, I’m considering a Dexter style party where I invite him round and kill him before drinking some limited edition Makers over his dead body. Dickhead.

The promotion for the day of the race was $6 Mint Julep’s and a free glass. I thought nothing of it at the time but on Saturday as the build up to the race began all people were interested in at work was the free glass. It was like crack to them. The free glass was basically a plastic tumbler with a list of former Kentucky Derby winners dipped in red wax.... hmmmmm.

The slow trickle of people entering the restaurant suddenly became a wave and every seat in the house was taken up. Of course they all wanted a piece of the Mint Julep and free glass. So i rang about 15 of them into the computer and walked over to the bar to collect my drinks. As I arrived the bartender Sean looked like he wanted to commit suicide. In about ten minuted he was expected to make Julep’s for the whole restaurant (250 people). He started to lose his shit. The ice from the Julep’s was rubbing the ink off of the tickets so he didn’t know what to make and the new manager who is training at our restaurant was getting in the way. The thing is the new manager is giant, around 6 foot 5 so he was really in the way.

Eventually I gave up and decided to speak to my tables. On one table I had 4 crazy Russian ladies who had backed about 5 horses each. The only thing that excited them more than winning money was obtaining a free commemorative glass. Another table was 3 good looking young ladies all dressed up in hats for the occasion and having a liquid dinner, I liked them. My last table were two couples, before I tell you about them you need to know that on saturday I almost won $400 dollars. We had a sweepstake going at work, $20 each to pick a name out of a hat, winner takes all. Twenty horses were running so there was a lot of money up for grabs. Earlier in the day I had pulled my horse out the hat (a cowboy hat for those interested) his name.... American Lion. His number.... number 7. I thought of all the great number 7’s over the years, Beckham, Best, Ronaldo, Pires, Raul, Matthew Rose, I was destined to win. All my tables were aware that if American Lion roared through to the finish I was going to be giving them great service, so understandably they wanted him to win. As my final table, the two couples sat down, I told them that we wanted American Lion to win and that I had $400 on it. They looked at me like I was the scum of the earth. I offered them some alcohol to drink. They continued to look at me like I molest puppies.

The Lion was 21/1.... O.K not the best but you never know. The Fastest Two Minutes in sport was drawing closer. All my tables were excited except the two couples, I couldn’t work out why. Their food came just before the race started, I sauntered over to see if they were O.K and as I did their stand offishness became clear. Their heads were bowed and their hands together.... they were saying a prayer. Oh fuck, I had just told a table of devout Christians about my gambling exploits and tried to get them to drink with the promise of a free glass.

The race was about to begin. I was two minutes away from becoming richer than wildest dreams. I was relying on a Lion, not just any Lion, but American Lion.

Bang!!!! The race started. Number 12 raced into the lead as I scanned the field for 7. He was nowhere to be seen, the pack was too tight and the rain had meant the horses were covered in dirt thus obscuring most of their numbers. The atmosphere was electric as the lead changed hands several times.... then at the last corner I saw him streaking down the outside.... AMERICAN LION!!!!!

They switched the camera angle and suddenly I couldn’t tell what the hell was going on. It was tense as everyone waited to see the final standings and the winner was........

................. Number 4, Super Saver. Oh well, hopefully American Lion will have finished inside the top 3 at least for some dignity. They flashed the results up on the screen, American Lion finished 11th.... fucker.

Two minutes after the race Ashley came leaping over to the bar. ‘How did number 4 do?’ she asked?. Bitch hadn’t even watched the race and she made $400.

Let’s just say I know what brand of glue I am going to buying next year.

The Sneezing Bard

2010-04-18T06:15:00.000-07:00

So the updates have been scarce of late because I have been ridiculously busy of late. I returned home from Israel and the next day, jet lagged up to my eyeballs, I began rehearsing for my play.

I was turning up to rehearsals 10 days before we actually went up, so everyone else was vastly ahead of me in the process, remember I was doing Shakespeare so this wasn’t ideal. I will now let you in on a secret, I have no idea what the hell Shakespeare is ever on about. When I audition for plays by him I just read the punctuation and try and sound like I understand the text, apparently it worked.

I walked into rehearsal where the director, who was a dead ringer for Neil Warnock, was standing. He told me to stand on the stage with the rest of the cast and ‘Shoot Love everywhere’..... excuse me! He wanted me to shoot love to the heavens, then down to hell then to the person standing to my right. At this point I shot the guy on my left a look which said ‘don’t you dare.’ With the stage now covered in Love rehearsals could get underway.

The rehearsals themselves were pretty straightforward, but my worst rehearsal came last friday.

Hungover from a JD and Coke filled date (toped off with a little Blue 9 of course) I stumbled to the train to try and make it to the rehearsal on time for 9 am. It was proving to be difficult. The train transpired to work against me so I walked twenty blocks in the rain, hungover. As I arrived at the theatre I saw Neil Warnock sitting outside smoking a cigar, I feared the worst. He started to laugh before enquiring what the hell I was doing there? Turned out we didn’t have a rehearsal. Great, I thought, back off to bed. Oh how wrong I was, Neil decided he wanted to have a a half hour chat about Shakespeare (who remember I know very little about) and if they would stage the play the same in England. Once more I bullshitted.

A few days ago the shit really hit the fan with the play. There is a song at the end that we had all assumed the director had cut because, well because it was silly. That was until our final rehearsal when he decided to put it back into the play. We all started singing the song and then Neil Warnock had a genius idea. ‘I want Costard to sing the song’ (that’s my character). You have got to be fucking me. Suddenly two days before I go on I have to learn a song, and sing it.... solo..... In Shakespeare! Oh do fuck off.

So yesterday I turned up at the theatre, song prepared and ready to go for the first show at 1:00. Neil came in smelling of cigar smoke and decided he wanted to change the end. So as the the clock ticked over to 1:00 we were all stood onstage working on a new ending. Lo and behold I didn’t have to sing. The shows went well and my little celebration dinner with my rock and sugarpop was a lovely way to top off a hectic week.

Another reason I am exhausted is hay fever (or for the Americans, allergies). Dear sweet lord they are bad. I wake up at 5 with my nose full of snot, and I mean full. It’s usually dripped out a little and formed a pool above my lip. My eyes look like I am constantly stoned and my throat feels like I have swallowed a cheese grater. Of course my mother loves to tell me ‘I knew you’d have hay fever because you had eczema as a baby’ well gee thanks for telling me now Mum! I refuse to be the prat who wears sunglasses at night so instead I suffer. But you know me, I’m not one to complain.

And before anyone else tells me, yes, I know, local honey is a good cure, I can google too.

New York Love Story. Part 2

2010-03-26T10:17:00.000-07:00

Now these blog posts have ranged from killing mice, to riding roller-coasters, to singing karaoke. However one story has garnered the most interest and that is my New York love story.

It all took place over a month ago and I had moved on from everything (I couldn’t get the girl to come for a second drink with me!) So imagine my surprise when I arrived home from work on wednesday afternoon to find a box from the same flower company I used for Project Valentine addressed to me. Inside where a bunch of Sunflowers with a note that said

Robert Gilbert:

Because Valentines Day is just one day of the year.

Love is still out there.

Keep the romance alive. (The Girl)

Needless to say I was completely flummoxed. I worked out that the flowers had to be from someone I had invited to my housewarming because they knew my address. So i narrowed it down to my friends Nicole, Victoria or Dena. All three are very sweet girls and loved what I did for Valentines Day so it wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility.

I called Nicole who within an hour had schlaped to my place from new Jersey to inspect the flowers and the letter. It wasn’t her.

I text Victoria who was as intrigued as the rest of us. However due to her law school commitments it was pretty unfeasible that she had set them. So that left Dena. I sent her a text asking if they were from her....... No response.

Nicole and I brainstormed a while and thought maybe..... just maybe The Girl from project Valentine felt bad and had sent me some flowers. I doubted it. However I needed to cover all bases. Her best friend was then called upon for her input. She knew nothing of it.

Then my phone beeped, Dena had replied and said they were from her. Case closed. Nicole went to work and I had a nap. Then Dena text me back saying she was only kidding!!!!! Case wide fucking open!!!!!!

With all the subtlety a Hippo ice skating Nicole decided to ask The Girl from Project Valentine if they were from her. She claimed they weren’t.

Hmmmmmmmm.

Then I received a message on Facebook from a mystery person called Amelie. Who asked if I liked the flowers............

I added her immediately and she popped up on my facebook chat. I launched in with a million questions. Who is she? Was there more planned? What was going on!!??

She said she wasn’t playing a joke and I had to work out who she was. What followed was the most intense version of the Yes/No game I have ever played.

Slowly but surely I deduced that she was lived in New York, but hadn’t been to my apartment and wanted to be an actress. She then showed me a picture of her chin.... well that didn’t help at all!

After an hour of persuasion she told me that this was a fake facebook profile (obviously) and we were actually facebook friends.

A light went off in my head. A week earlier I had been added by a random girl who I had one friend in common with. I stabbed in the dark and asked if it was her. It muthafuking was! her name was Maria.

So now I needed an explanation. Did I have a stalker? Would I have to move? Was this all a joke?

Maria very slowly explained what this was all about...

She had read my blog and loved the Valentines Day story. She thought it was so romantic and when she read the last part she couldn’t believe how it ended. She didn’t like the fact that I had done all of this stuff only to get rebutted at the end of it all. So she sent me flowers, she told me that she wanted to give me the happy ending my story deserved. There was no agenda attached to this, she just thought I deserved better.

So I just want to take this opportunity to say to Maria, thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart because that is the sweetest thing anyone has ever done for me... ever.

And just very briefly for those following my acting career, I managed to book a part. Shakespeare nonetheless. I’ll be playing the part of Costard in Love’s Labour’s Lost..... He is the Clown, how apt!

The Young and Coned

2010-03-17T10:37:00.000-07:00

I awoke this morning with a cone in my room, one of those big orange ones. I had stolen it from the street to impress a girl. This story is about how I met a racist in a bar, stole a cone and kinda got the girl.

It was tuesday, that legendary day of drinking when I decided to go out with my new wingman, Fred. Let me preface this by saying that Dylan is an excellent wingman however he has upset the airplane gods and apparently is never in New York these days. So Fred and I trotted out, he a mixture of mustache and pop culture tattoos, me all dimpled and messy haired. We are quite the pair.

Our first (and eventually our only stop) was The Watering Hole, you of course know my disdain for this place so I didn’t plan on staying for long. Once inside Fred started talking to Bruce, an older guy who loves opera and talks with Fred about it for hours on end. After a discussion that was more akin to my Grandma’s taste we went and said hi to a girl who worked at our favorite bar and was sitting at the end of the bar with a friend. Her and her friend were being hit on by a gross, overweight lothario. We said hey to the girls and suddenly big fat gross man became all defensive and started ranting and raving about how we had ‘broken up then band.’ After five more minutes of huffing and puffing big fat gross guy decided to leave. He leant in slowly to the girls and after realizing he wasn’t going to be able to kiss them he made a beeline for one of their hands, perhaps in an effort to look classy. She immediately retracted her hand with a squeal before big fat gross guy once again got all upset and said ‘It’s not like I’m trying to sniff your fingers!’ It was at that point BFGG turned to me and Fred and gave us a giant bear hug. After releasing us from his iron grip he looked us both in the eye and said ‘we should start a band.’ Here’s the thing, Fred and I have a pact that if we start a band we will call it ‘Crazy Japanese Gameshow Audience’ so after BFGG suggested forming a band we started to tell him about Crazy Japanese Gameshow Audience. He got all excited and said he had a better name for the band, ‘The Racists.’ I wasn’t so keen on that one but before I could object BFGG drunkenly shouted at the top of his voice ‘Lets just call our band The Niggers.’ Silence. Wooooooah. BFGG had just become BFR(racist)GG. Slowly we turned away and he slunk out with all the finesse of an elephant giving birth.

After he left the girls said that their friend Stacey was coming to the bar and when she walked in we should all shout her name really loudly. Banter innit. So she walked in.... and guess what, we all shouted at the top of our voices ‘STACEY!!!’ The little slut lapped it, she loved it. We drank some more, but it seemed the more we drank the more friends walked in and the more we would shout out their names. Now I was drunk so all I remember is shouting ‘BLAH BLAHHHH!!!!’ So myself, Fred, Stacey, Blah Blah and the girls were by now pretty hammered and we all know what happens when I get drunk.... get hungry. And when I get hungry I get Blue 9 Burgers. So I suggested to Stacey (who had been throwing herself at my testicles) that we grab some food. She was up for it, however because it was Greek Easter she couldn’t eat meat or any food from an animal. What! Greek Easter..... Greek fucking Easter. I was gonna miss out on Blue 9 because of Greek Easter! I went to the toilet, gave myself that drunken pep talk in the mirror that all guys do, sung the hook-up song and decided to bite the bullet.

Walking through the street to a supposed killer falafel place on St. Marks Street I tried to suggest that maybe Stacey would enjoy watching me eat a burger. She wouldn’t. Halfway through our discussion about late night snacks I spied a large orange cone on the pavement. I don’t know why I picked it up but I did and before I knew it the cone was now being held by both of us.

It was a good job I picked up the cone because after 30 seconds we both realized nobody wanted to walk the cone all the way to St. Marks. At that point I spied a Falafel stand on the corner of where I live......

Cost of Falafel - $3. Extra Tahini - $1. Paying the $4 and looking like a gentleman..... priceless.

I must warn you if you are a family member and still remember me as the innocent spikey haired dimpled boy you love then don’t read on.... it gets weird.

So we’re back at mine eating falafel and drinking beer, a healthy combination. The cone is neatly positioned next to the TV. Of course we finish the food and drink and move to my room, away from the cone.

We begin kissing and suddenly ‘ol Stacey gets a bit amorous and bites my lip. I think nothing of it (I’m a good kisser, I bring it out in people). After a minute or so she does it again, this time longer and harder. I manage to turn my pained ‘owww’ into an ‘ooooh’ so it sounds as though it didn’t hurt. I stand up to turn the light off and Stacey straight up bites into my stomach. What the fuck! She had drawn blood! I was now in pain and bleeding. She told me that ‘that’s how real New Yorkers kiss.’ I really had no response that. I weighed up my options and decided to keep going, but with the light on. I told her no more biting. After another minute she couldn’t contain herself and bit my neck. Right, that was it. It was all good and well biting above the belt line but what if she got carried away with Rob Junior!? I have future generations to father with that guy. Scarily she told me she wanted to see me on Friday, I’ll be watching Twilight in anticipation.

As for the cone, it’s still here as a reminder that sometimes you bite off more than you can chew.

Snowballin'

2010-03-05T09:03:00.000-08:00

Let me start off with he disclaimer that I am very bad at sports, rarely do I win. So last week when I won the Ultimate Snowball Fight I felt the need to gloat. The other snowball fighters fail to see how I won, but I will now explain how victory was achieved.

First off lets introduce the players

Robert Gilbert - 5 foot 9 1/2. Special skills; Dimples and accent.

Fred Nicholson - 5 foot 9. Special skills; A mustache that can shoot rainbows.

Nicole Patterson - 5 foot 5. Special skills; Like any good football team, a great pair upfront.

Ashley Herring - 5 foot 8. Special skills; A secret past as a Philadelphia Eagles cheerleader.

Katlin McGrath - 5 foot 2. Special skills; The loudest voice in the world.

Before I tell you the story I need to explain one thing. Recently I have undertaken a mission to phase out Katlin’s name and replace it with a combination of her name and what she is doing. For example when she is drinking I call her drinklin, if she is yawning then I call her yawnlin, if she is throwing a long pointy stick then she is javelin and so on and so on. For the remainder of this story she will not be called Katlin.

The 5 of us were at a bar to celebrate the lovely Kellan’s birthday, however an evening of a few drinks quickly turned into a lot of drinks. We all decided enough was enough and it was time to leave. As we walked out the bar we saw that New York had been covered in a blanket of snow. Our joy was cut short pretty quickly as we were confronted with an elite team of snowball throwers lobbing grenades our way. Ducklin got out of the way pretty fast leaving the 4 of us to take some hits. We of course responded in kind and suddenly the great snowball fight of 2010 was on. After 2 minutes it was off. Our foes had decided they had had enough and left.

Now there is a big question as to who threw the next snowball or who it even hit. We have our suspicions, personally I think it was turncoatlin but before we knew it someone within our group of 5 was firing snowballs not at the enemy but at their own side. It was time for all out carnage.

Left, right and centre snowballs were being catapulted skywards and falling on unsuspecting heads. As the 5 of us pelted each other with snowballs many other men, lured in by Ashley’s cheerleading skills and Nicole’s breasts, would try and participate but we were far to professional for them and they soon faded away. My cat like skills were ensuring I was pretty much remaining dry and un-snowed throughout this exchange but it was time for me to step up the game and manipulate my friends...

Ashley lives on the Lower East Side, Katlin lives in the East Village, I live by Union Square, Fred lives in Brooklyn and Nicole in Hoboken (stop laughing). Whoever gave up and went home first would lose and right now we were standing exactly in the middle of all 5 locations. I decided I didn’t want to walk home by myself in the snow so lagged behind the group and threw snowballs from the back. Unbeknownst to my friends I was the rudder of this proverbial motorboat, directing them to my apartment to I had an excuse to go home and not have to walk by myself. Genius.

However the shit then hit the fan. Bitchlin suddenly stopped in her tracks and picked up a big lump of snow, walked straight up to me and from 5 inches away threw a combination of snow and ice into my face. She had broken the universal rules of snowball fights; No Ice and no throwing from point blank range. The bitch had to go. I picked her up and threw her over my shoulder (not that impressive, she’s tiny). Flailin was complainlin but I was having none of it. I threw her headfirst into a huge pile of snow. Cheatlin was now soakedlin. She tried to stand back up but I just pushed her over. An undisputed victory for Team Rob. Confusedlin was then too disorientated and lamelin to hit me with snowballs anymore, thus eliminating her from the competition. I returned to my position of boat rudder and slowly but surely directed everyone to the where I needed to be.

After ten minutes we were standing outside Blue 9 Burger..... well whaddyaknow! It felt like the right thing to do and finish the fight and have a burger. Blue 9 is less than a block from my apartment. As everyone finished their burger they all realized they had to jump in cabs (hard to come by in a snowy New York) or ride the faltering snowed in Subway home. I walked for 2 minutes and was in my bed whilst everyone shivered and waited for cabs.

And that’s how you win a snowball fight.

My New York Love Story

2010-02-20T09:33:00.000-08:00

New York is famous for it’s love stories, it’s over the top grand gestures which inspire songs and movies. This, Ladies and Gentlemen, is the story of mine.

Let me give you a little background to the story. There is a girl from work (I won’t name her, too many people seem to read these now!) who I have hooked up with many times and, I am a little ashamed to say, I have not treated her particularly well. You see unbeknownst to me this girl had a thing for me (this is where my Mother chimes in and says ‘who wouldn’t’). I was blissfully unaware of this fact and behaved in a manner as such. I would talk about other girls in front of her, try and hook up with other girls in front of her and generally behave like a guy who thought he had stumbled across a nice girl who enjoyed a drunk hook up. Let’s just say I kinda upset this girl.

This went on for 3 months until one day the tables started to turn and lo and behold I started to have a thing for her. Of course as is the way in these things she no longer had a thing for me. Unlike her I decided to do something about it and told her how I felt, she declined my advances and said she no longer had feelings for me (you can all pick your jaws up off the floor). It wasn’t long before I realized why, I had never done anything nice for this girl ever. So I concocted a plan, I was going to give her the greatest Valentines Day gift ever.

Project Valentine:

Phase 1.

At work there are more and more TV’s by the day cropping up on the walls. You can’t blink for some high def’d sports presenter beaming down from a screen telling you his pick of the week. As with all American TV’s there are a plethora of adverts, every five fucking minutes we have to watch ANOTHER advert. One day one of these caught my eye, an advert for a flower company. I took a note of their details.

At the end of my shift I checked to see when my girl was working during the coming week and formulated my plan.

I trotted off home and ordered 12 red roses to be delivered to work on Feb 15th with the following note; “Sorry theses are a day late, happy Valentines Day, ?”

On Monday at work I sat quietly in the back before my shift as every girl fawned over this mystery note and red roses trying to figure out who the admirer was, only one girl asked if it was me, I of course denied it before sneaking off to the toilet to have a giggle and congratulate myself. Then the actor in me struck, I swanned up to the host stand to talk to the girl and gave her about 5 options as to who could have sent her the flowers. She bought it. Later that night as she took the note home with her everything was perfectly set up for phase 2.

Phase 2.

This phase was all about upping the mystery and in order to do that I had to have a note delivered by hand to work. So after my lunch shift I ran to the print shop and printed out a note that said “I hope you liked your flowers, but they were just the start. This week I will be taking you for a drink, call this number at 2:00 tomorrow.” At the bottom of the note was my new roommate (who no one from work has met in order to maintain his anonymity) Dan’s number.

I needed a random member of the public to bring this note to work and then leave, however finding someone to deliver the note was harder than I thought. I first approached a group of kids, but as I started talking and said ‘excuse me, can you do me a favor?’ I realized I looked like a pedophile and aborted that attempt pretty quickly. I must have asked about 10 people with everyone just passing me by, I tell you something from now on I will stop when Green Peace ask me for a minute of my time.

Eventually I managed to convince a nervous teenager to deliver the note. In order to cover myself I spoke to her in an American accent, gave her the note and left.

We all went drinking that night and once again I sat for about twenty minutes coming up with possible answers as to who the admirer could be. She didn’t suspect me at all.

Phase 3.

At 2:00 on the dot she called. Dan answered gave her a time and a place to meet and hung up. Now in order to fully get an idea of what was going on I needed a mole on the inside. Luckily unbeknownst to everyone my friend Nicole was playing for Team Rob. Ten minutes later I received a call from Nicole saying that my girl was completely flummoxed and thought this was the most romantic thing ever. In true Gilbert fashion I clapped my hands together and gave them a rub.

Phase 4.

An important thing to know for this phase is that this girl often calls me Dimples.

Everything was set, all I had to do was call this cool little bar at 3pm on Thursday to make a reservation so my girl could meet there and explode from the shock. So I waited and waited and called, engaged.... I called again.... engaged... and again... engaged. This went on for a good half hour until someone picked up the phone and told me they were full for the night. Oh Shit. The whole plan was starting to fall apart, without the bar there was no reveal, fuuuuuuuucccckkkkkk. I needed options and fast. I called Dylan, obviously, who gave me some suggestions and I went with one (apparently in my mind Dylan is some New York love guru). However my girl was going to be turning up to the wrong place at 10:45 later that evening. I needed Dan.

Dan finally came home and I leapt on him, stole his phone and texted my girl the change of address and told her the doorman at the new place had a note for her. Now I couldn’t make a reservation at the new bar so I’d have to get their early to guarantee myself a nice little booth.

I arrived at the bar at 9, she was coming at 10:45. I spoke to the doorman about my plan and he, being French, loved it. Giddy with the smell of romance he sent me downstairs to put my name down for a table but I would then have to come up and wait in line to get into the bar. I then gave the doorman a note that looked like this.

Dear Girl,

I’m going to reveal who I am.

Many theories have been thrown about but it’s time for me to

Put my money where my mouth is.

Let’s make it easy for you and find out the answer to the question

Everyone wants to know.

Spell out the first letter from each line to reveal the name the reservation is under.

(it spells out Dimples for the idiots among you)

He was under instructions to give this to her as she walked up to the door.

I went downstairs and waited for my booth whilst slowly sipping on an insanely strong cocktail, at this point I was shitting myself with nerves. Thankfully the nice hostess seated me a little earlier than expected, she was a sucker for a love story I guess! So I sat in the booth for an hour and waited and waited and waited.

Finally at 10:45 after a week of crazy games and elaborate plans my girl walked in.......

You can plan most things in life, but you can’t plan what other people are going to do. Unfortunately the love story stops here and reality kicks in. She sat down with a smile on her face, I explained that this was her Valentines Day present and I had wanted to give her a great story that she could always tell people and hopefully make her forgive me for all the crappy things I had done to her. She thanked me and told me how sweet it was, the sweetest thing anyone has ever done for her actually. However here’s the thing, it seemed she had wanted her secret admirer to be someone else. Who I don’t know, but as she sat there trying to hide the disappointment it became kind of obvious. I don’t blame her for it, I mean who wouldn’t let their imagination run wild? We had a nice chat but really I didn’t want to keep her and make her have a bad time.

After one drink I decided to throw in the towel, I thanked her for playing along, made sure she got safely in a cab and then I left.

I don’t regret the last week, you have to do these things. For one thing I don’t think people at work have me down as lazy anymore! As anyone who knows me will tell you I am a big analyzer, well this time I didn’t analyze I acted and you know what, on Thursday night after it had all gone down I slept like a baby (thanks Nicole) because truly there was nothing else I could have done.

Vodka and Coat

2010-02-08T09:54:00.000-08:00

Friday night was just one of those nights. One of those nights where the God's of the strange all come together and send you on a crazy trip.

I hadn't seen Dylan for a month, this is far to long so we decided to go for a burger at our regular date place 'Rare Burger' (I felt guilty for cheating on Blue 9). Our friend Dan came along as well and after some delectable burgers we decided to grab a drink.

We found a nice little bar called The Dove and as we walked in we noticed a nice amount of cute girls. Before we knew it an incredibly hot tattooed woman was walking up to us. Holy shit, had we found the only bar in the city where women hit on men!? We straightened up, smiled, and prepared to be chatted up. Of course this woman wasn't here for some English men, she was a bartender and asked us if we wanted a drink..... damn. We placed our order and before we knew it another cute girl was walking towards us. Now this girl was my type to a tee, girl next door with a little edge, big brown eyes, I've gone weak just thinking about her! She was coming up to me... to me! She sidled over and simply said 'Can I check your coats guys?' Fooled once again we sat down in a booth and began to drink. Five minutes later a woman defining the word sexy walked up and sat down in our booth.... Thank you God! However once again our hearts were broken as she informed us we could only sit there until the party who had reserved it arrived. Eventually some girls did come over with the intention of talking to us.... alas they weren't exactly the most stunning creatures of the night, in-fact they probably should have just stuck to talking to people at night.

We soon moved and were immediately accosted by the most annoying girl in the world. Let me start by saying that this girl was wearing a hat in a bar, always a bad sign. If a girl wears a hat she is either a moody bitch, loaded with baggage or a loud and annoying shrill human being, the girl who was talking to us was the latter. She refused to believe we were English and so in order to prove a point she spoke to us in a terrible English accent for the entire night. I wanted to kill her. This would result in me going to prison so I thought I'd fuck with her instead. Luckily Dylan was on the same wavelength. He introduced himself as Rob whilst I introduced myself as Dylan. I then proceeded to talk to her in an American accent and convince her I faked the whole English thing. She made all the hilarious jokes you would expect a moron to make to an Englishman; Harry Potter jokes..... that's about it. She was without doubt the least funny person I have ever met.

Finally relief arrived in the form of Dylan's latest squeeze, I will let him tell you about her. She brought a friend, unfortunately the friend was a guy, fortunately he was a cool guy. Dylan was feeling ill so decided to leave early, meanwhile this new guy, Chris, was heading to a club.... Fuck it I thought, I'm on this like cream cheese on a bagel. We found cute coat check girl and waited for our coats. Now fellow readers it's been a rough month and I needed to get back on the proverbial horse so in a moment of madness, egged on by Dylan of course, I decided to ask coat check girl for her number. I stumbled through, appeared to be losing her interest so brought out the big guns, the dimples. Success! Number in phone.... more on that later.

Chris and I proceeded to the next club, Lit Lounge. A gloriously gross place which plays an eclectic mix of music but i populated by horny 19 year old girls..... joy. Chris and I took some shots (because that's the sensible thing to do) and started to become acquainted with the local talent. Chris then found some of Dylan's girls friends by the bar and we hung out with them for the evening.

We went downstairs to the dance-floor and the fun began. One of the girls we were with (I have no idea what her name was) was absolutely shitfaced... and I mean shitfaced. However she wanted another drink from the bar, I happened to need my thirst quenched too so accompanied her. As we hit the bar she pressed herself right up against me. Hmmmm interesting. She then started dancing with me all up in ma grill, and i mean all. up. in. ma. grill. This felt wrong however, she was really drunk and I was just drunk. It wouldn't be fair. She then leant in slowly but wasn't going for my lips... she was heading for my ear. She whispered into it "We can dance and it's fine because you're gay aren't you?" Woah. Woah. Woah. I spat my drink out and objected before adding the obligatory 'not that there's anything wrong with that.' She wasn't convinced, she asked me to prove to her wasn't gay..... At this point I laughed and thought of Adam Pike and Jack Prevezer's saying that sometimes a theoretical pull is better than the trouble a real one can get you in... this was one of those times.

Drunk girl led me back to her friend Bethany who was immediately the love of my life. Cute, edgy, Jewish, smaller than me. Hot Damn. Next thing I know she has started dancing with me.... well hello. She's into it, this is fantastic, this is amazing this is... about to be interrupted by her friend who tells me that I will have to wait in line. Sure enough I look over to my right and there is literally a line of guys all watching this girl dance with me as they wait their turn. This was getting weird. The whole night descended into anarchy. I met a random guy, got some random numbers, was told I was gay and then had to wait in line for the girl of my dreams. I was stupendously hungover the next day.

Ahhhh yes, Coat Check Girl. I have done some stupid things in my life, however on Saturday morning I sent THE worst first text I have ever sent. Still blurry from the night before I grabbed my phone to check her number wasn't all a glorious dream, it wasn't! I then sent her the following text.

'Hey, it's Rob the English guy from last night. How was work? Did you get out late? Did all the coats get returned to their desired destination?' She is yet to reply.

Korea Town

2010-02-01T09:51:00.000-08:00

Hardcore regular readers will remember the Ugly Christmas Sweater update from last year. Well the driving force behind it, the group of friends known as BSC were at it again last night. Inspired by our newest members Hana and Jen a Korean night had been arranged.

This had been organized months ago, our group of friends would have a typical Korean adventure, whilst I was a little upset the Korean's didn't share the Thai peoples love of prostitutes I was still game. Then the emails started. It's fair to say that in the build up to last night I must have received an email a day with different instructions/guest-lists/ideas/menu choices. Perhaps the most worrying one came in the middle of last week. we were all emailed a list of Korean traditions when eating dinner and getting drunk on Soja. Basically all the traditions can be honed down to one sentence; The most junior member at the table has the least privileges and has to be everyone else's bitch. Unfortunately for me I am the baby of the group by a good couple of years so it looked like I would spend the evening respecting my elders.

Disaster. Catastrophe. A flu epidemic appears to have struck New York. People left, right and centre started pulling out of our Korean extravaganza. It was suggested that the baby of the group send round an impassioned email begging people to come, but as a stickler for tradition, coupled with the fact I am lazy, I refused. We set off to a Korean Restaurant to begin the evening. The restaurant had been reviewed by the New York Times, a fact it was very proud of. It displayed the review everywhere, on the walls, on the place settings, everywhere. The issue with this was that the review gave it one star..... hmmmm. Also my place setting didn't have a review, it just had pictures of puppies for sale.

I thought the evening was about to take an interesting turn when a new member of the group sat opposite me. This cute new girl suddenly had me shaking off my hangover (oh yeah, I got shitfaced on saturday night). Cute girl looked younger than me too. After some prying I was left disappointed, she was 26 and was in the midst of some major relationship drama. Luckily for her right now my mind game playing is top notch so we had an Oprah moment and I gave her some golden advice.

Finally the food started arriving but not before I had poured everyone their drink whilst not making eye contact! There appeared to be now rules regarding the amount of food the Junior can eat so I stuffed my face.

At this point in the update let's all take a moment to applaud Miss Hana Jung on her food selection. Bravo.

As dinner finished we were off to the second half of the evening. Karaoke. Chinese for empty orchestra.... kinda haunting if you think about it. I had been practicing my repertoire of songs and had made the decision that unless I saw a drunk Asian businessman singing Lady In Red the night was a flop.

We scoured the streets for a decent bar in which to sing and my word did we find one.

We ascended three flights of stairs and pushed open a rickety door to find a Korean couple with some microphones. They ushered us into a room with really really small chairs. It was at this moment we realized we were sitting in a daycare centre. Yes we had managed to find the only place in New York city which is daycare by day and karaoke by night. I personally felt like I was in a crazy strip club. Bright flashing lights, private rooms, a strange looking Asian man on the door. It was odd. They made us place what can only be described as fuzzy condoms on top the microphones so as not to spread germs and we were ready to sing. Unsurprisingly Victoria went first. The music blared out of a huge speaker in our tiny private room and the lights went epileptic. Then the sound of The Spice Girls filled the air. We all chose songs and drank... we needed to, as one bad rendition after another was blared out in this daycare/Karaoke/strip club mash up. The best part of every song was afterwards they would give you a score out of 100. What this was based on we will never know. It was impossible to score below 85 and above 99.If anyone ever breaks the 3 digit barrier in that place drinks are on me. The songs kept coming (my suggestion of 'All By Myself' wasn't taken kindly by the cute girl) and eventually our hour was up (kind of like a strip club).

Eardrums bleeding, pupils dilated we stumbled out into the cool night air perhaps just a tad more cultured than we had been earlier that evening.

Pia Pia Piano's

2010-01-25T09:06:00.000-08:00

When you wake up in the morning to find three stamps of varying words and pictures on your hand as well as a discarded Burger wrapper (of the Blue 9 variety) and half a Gatorade all accompanied by a thumping headache, you know you had an interesting time the night before.

That was me on Friday morning, slowly piecing together the night before.

It started with a song. To be more precise it started with the song 'Something in Common' by Free Energy, a happy clappy dancey pop song that my former roommate Victoria had fallen in love with. Whenever she comes to visit down from Queens we have to listen to the song many many times. It transpired that Free Energy were playing a small gig at a bar called Piano's. Now let me put into context why this was exciting. I fucking love Piano's (the bar.... I could give or take the instrument). If I have nothing to do and am out then inevitably I will recommend Piano's, it has everything, a bar, a dance/club bit and a gig venue in the back. I had my 23rd birthday there and to be honest when the big 25 hits I'll probably be there again. If you have come to visit me in New York, I probably took you there. I've managed to pull women from all corners of the globe in that place. It's my New York Robinski's.

Delighted that I had an excuse to go I was all over the idea of a night out like a rash on a nymphomaniac. The crew was a good one. Everyone had a connection to 203 East 14th Street, they had either lived in the apartment or were dating someone that lived in the apartment.

We started the evening in the same way any night at 203 begins, we listened to 'Something In Common' 7 times on repeat. We slowly started drinking some Wine and Beer. I harped back to an old saying 'Beer before Wine feeling fine, Wine Before Beer.... feeling fine!' A big night lay ahead. We arrived at Piano's after a rowdy cab ride and stumbled in. We headed for the back and into the gig room. Now I hadn't been in this room for a while and had forgotten the nasal stinging stench that singes your nostrils when you enter. A mix of B.O, beer and Hispters. It smelt gross. We sucked it up and had more beer. Victoria then requested we move to the front by the stage so we could dance.... begrudgingly I obliged. Once the band started setting up I could see Vic becoming more and more excited. Finally a waif like individual with the waistline of Kate Moss appeared n the stage and wrote down the set list.... guess which song wasn't on it! We asked politely and he decided to stick our song on one from the end. As the band struck up and started Victoria became 'That' girl. You know, the one at the front of the gig who dances way to much and is far far to into it. The rest of us had to take it in turns to dance with her to avoid embarrassment. It took a while, but eventually the opening chords to the one song we knew struck up. There was one problem, our friend Markus was in the toilet. So unfortunately for him he missed the one reason he came out! The rest of us danced, Vic may as well have thrown her pants on the stage and just like that the band were done. We had our picture taken with the singer.... seriously, and then scurried off upstairs to the club part.

By now I had switched from Wine to Beer to Vodka to JD, things were starting to become blurry. After busting out the weightlifter move a few times 4 of the 6 of us went home, these 4 are of course all in a relationship, so it was up to Victoria and I to hold down the fort. The problem was Victoria had been caught in the tractor beam of two competitive guys both vying for her affection. She seemed to be enjoying it so I took the time to talk to the bemused Chinese girl standing next to me. The conversation didn't exactly flow! Eventually Victoria managed to escape her two would be suitors and headed off home, I decided to stick it out with Miss China, unfortunately her boyfriend turned up and I took that as my cue to leave.

All in all a fun, drunk night at Piano's and now I have somewhere to stay should I get lost in China. I wouldn't expect anything else.

Oh and for those wondering about the Burger wrapper.... I was hungry when I got home.

Diary Of A Bored Man

2010-01-14T09:01:00.001-08:00

Life is boring. Nothing exciting is happening. These blogs are stagnating as a result. In order to convey the total mind numbing boringness of my life we will once again delve into the diary of a typical wek.

Monday - Day off. This is one of those glorious days where you do nothing whatsoever. You rise at 12 consider breakfast but instead decide your time will be better spent sleeping for an extra hour. Once you are up at 1 the mother of all achievements is on, the less than 12 hour day. The less than 12 hour day consists of going to bed less than 12 hours after you left it that morning. In order to achieve this you will need the following. 1) Take out menu's. 2) Football Manager. 3) YouTube. 4) Cable TV. Once these are in place you can split your time equally between watching dancing midgets, winning the champions league, ordering Thai food and cursing the cable company that cancelled the food network, thus ensuring the commercial to put it back on plays during every single ad break! After interchanging between these things for ten or so hours you hop back into bed at 11:30 to complete your less than 12 hour day. Beautiful.

Tuesday - This day usually consists of a shift at work that I like to call a 'Nothing Shift.' Nothing shift's are exactly what they sound like nothing. Nothing funny happens, nobody makes a lot of money, but nobody makes a small amount. The world just continues to turn. Everyone smells of BBQ and is zombified by the sheer nothingness of the shift. Beware the nothing shift though. The nothing shift can lead to excessive drinking, for you see after a nothing shift the brain has become a mushy mass of ill formed ideas and the one that usually pops out is the decision to go to a bar. By the time everyone is off work and at the bar it is usually midnight, meaning we drink until 3. Meaning we close down the bar. Meaning everyone is hungover for Wednesday.

Wednesday - The day is a write off, no man alive can cope with a hangover that big. Instead all hopes and dreams are projected onto the night, for you see Wednesday night is the perfect date night. It's far enough away from the weekend to not feel like a waste of a night and close enough to it to make you want to drink. In short wednesday night is the perfect alignment of the stars and planets to go out on a date.
The rules remain the same. You meet for drinks/dinner. You keep on eye on the bill. You decline her offer to pay despite dying a little inside when you see the hit your wallet is about to take. You then move onto stage 2 of the date. Stage 2 can take place anywhere in the city say another bar or perhaps back at your apartment. The trick is to get it right on Wednesday though because otherwise you have another 7 days to wait before you can go on a date again.

Thursday - The double shift. Lesser men have gone insane when confronted with the terror of the double shift, it makes them weep and beg for mercy whilst they simultaneously crap their pants and piss themselves, beware the double shift.
You start at 10 moving tables, filling sauces and laying out silverware in a race against time to set up the restaurant for 11. After that the shift begins. Lunch is slow... always slow. You serve a few tables, fold a few napkins and the thought of the evening shift is yet to enter your mind.
Then you go on break. This is perhaps the toughest decision of the day... where to eat. It's enough to drive a man mad! Usually you end up at Starbucks eating apple fritters and downing Latte's.
Then it's time for the evening shift. By now your feet are sore, your legs weak, your eyes streaming and you nostril hair parched with BBQ sauce. You check your watch... it's only 8! You want to cry. You've been at work for 10 hours, that's 10 hours of non stop country music. Your pray for mercy as you hum 'Against The Wind.' Then finally, finally it's over. You go home and collapse on your bed half man, half Rib Sampler.

Friday - The morning can go one of a few ways. You can close lunch, meaning you work until 6 and are manically swept off of your feet as the only waiter in the restaurant from 2 onwards. Or you sometimes have an audition.
If it's the latter you hop on the Subway to some nothing part of New York, find some tall non desrcript building, head up a few floors and wait to be called. Smiling falsely you shake everyones hand and then read the page of script they have prepared for you. They seem to really like you, in fact, heck, they love you! They tell you when they will be putting on the play/filming the film and ask if you are free on those dates.... You are. They say they will call you..... They don't.
Friday night. Call Dylan find some cool New York bar and get right on it. Friday night is drinking night. You party hard because Saturday night will be spent at work... and that's no treat.

Saturday - The morning always starts with football. PHart and his terrible QPR side loose, nobody in the Gilbert household is happy but at least I got to see Warren Barton's opinions on Liverpool's current crisis whilst I sat hungover in bed.
Suddenly it's 4 and it's off to work. The weekends are a different animal at work, they get very busy. When it's like that it becomes every waiter for themselves. You have to get in with the hosts so they will sit your tables thus generating maximum income. After that you have to sell sell sell. Everything on the menu is your favorite dish and nothing can't be done for a guest. You do however want to stay out of the kitchen. If you don't you face the wrath of the chef, who at this point resembles a BBQ stained gargoyle wearing MC Hammer's pants, screaming at you for being in his domain.
Eventually... eventually you are done, off the hook. Usually with a nice amount of money in your pocket, so what do you do with the money? That's right spend it on beer. So you trudge off to some crap bar that is empty because you don't want to walk in and be the only sober people inside and drink until the wee hours of the morning.

Sunday - A day off. Always starts with walking the 200 steps from your apartment to Blue 9 Burger always fresh and always delicious. Due to the fat content of these being more than James Corden you limit yourself to one a week. This eases any hangover.
After feeling a little better Sunday gets underway and to be honest, it's a lot like Monday. You sit around, you watch TV, you play computer games. It also has the ability to be a second date night. After laying the groundwork on Wednesday you can often suggest something a little more relaxed for your hungover souls on Sunday such as a movie or even better just hanging out at the apartment and seeing what happens. I don't want to give away all my moves though.

So as you can see my life is pretty dull right now, although it could be worse, I could be snowed in, I could be a Liverpool fan or I could not be in New York. Guess I'll just have to get on with it eh!

A Magical Place

2009-12-28T10:22:00.000-08:00

On December 26th family Gilbert made the journey to Disneyland, Anaheim. As can often be expected with these things it was eventful. I will start by running down each family members take on roller-coasters.

Dad - Hates them. Would rather watch the Disney parade.

Mum - Despite a bad back is always game.

Me - I'll always go but can be easily dissuaded into chickening out.

Claire - Loves them and will ride anything.

Elizabeth - Is scared of the teacups.

So with this in mind we all made a pact to do everything and anything. We raced into the park and made sure we had our fast pass tickets to Space Mountain so we wouldn't have to que later. In order to pass the time we decided to jump on a couple of other rides. First up was the Buzz Lightyear ride. A slow moving, slightly spinning ride in the dark. It was full of fun and merriment.... but no for Elizabeth who felt sick afterwards.

A fact you need to know for this tale is that Claire suffers from Vertigo. Basically if things move fast she becomes dizzy. After the Buzz ride she said she felt a little dizzy but would carry on. Next up was the relatively tame rollercoaster 'The Matterhorn.' Elizabeth spent the whole time before we went on crapping her pants with Dad slowly turning whiter at the prospect of moving fast. We made it to the front of the line and all jumped aboard. 30 seconds later the tame ride finished. Elizabeth had survived. Dad had survived. Claire had not. An attack of the dizzies had struck her and she had to be helped out of the children's ride and onto a bench.

She then made the executive decision that she couldn't ride anything that moved. Fun. So the family had been beaten by Buzz Lightyears's ride and The Matterhorn. The problem was it was 11am at this point and we still had plenty of time in the park. We were then reduced to riding the Winnie the Pooh ride which crawled along whilst robotic characters ate honey. Claire felt a little dizzy after that but maintained that was the level of rides she could cope with. Elizabeth was pleased.

Elizabeth was even more pleased when we stopped off to wolf down hot-dogs for lunch. Lets not beat around the bush here, the food at Disney isn't exactly gourmet! The hot-dogs were disgusting, like a dog had just curled out a crap and it had been placed between a bun. Even fouler than the hot dogs were the abomination that was 'Meat on a Stick.' The world 'Ronseal' hasn't ever been more appropriate, it does what it says on the tin. 'Meat on a Stick' was a lump of meat on a stick. Even better than seeing the foul processed food was watching my pescaparian mother gag at the sight of fat Americans and camera happy Japanese chowing down on the meat.It was the closest anyone came to throwing up all day.

So a day of crap food and crap rides as the family all left the park feeling queazy because of Matterhorn's, Toys and meat. Still at the end of the day it's all about spending time with family.

Arctic Conditions

2009-12-12T10:42:00.001-08:00

On Thursday night I removed myself from American culture for a slice of Britannia in the shape of a ticket to see the Arctic Monkeys. Dylan had lovingly found the tickets via some means on the internet and we were off to look good on the dancefloor.

Ladies and Gentlemen the weather in new York has turned, it is absolutely freezing. The kind of freezing that makes your hands so cold it's like you've been jerking off a Polar Bear. I was ill prepared for this cold snap and had not really dressed accordingly. Having lost my gloves in a drunken mess on Tuesday I was struggling against the biting winds as my body slowly started resemble a popsicle.

I arrived at the venue 5 minutes early and waited for Dylan, he had a work engagement so we decided to meet there. At 8:45 (meeting time) I received a message from Dylan asking for the address. I was not best pleased. By now the weather had turned and a smattering of snow was falling, my nuts weren't having any of it and retreated into my body to find warmth. Of course Dylan couldn't find a cab because they were all taken as no one in their right mind would want to stand in the cold longer than they had too.... except me. Of course I'm my own worst enemy and should have picked up my ticket from Dylan earlier in the week. The next 10 minutes a barrage of messages were exchanged as I demanded to know how long he was going to be. I ended up calling Dyl and telling him to run the final few avenues if he was stuck in traffic.

For those not up to date on their pop culture the singer of the Arctic Monkeys is currently dating a TV presenter called Alexa Chung, she is beyond beautiful and needless to say I am a little bit in love with her. As I stood slowly freezing to death I noticed a tall attractive woman standing next to me.... then I looked again, holy fucking shit I was standing next to Alexa Chung! My balls were no longer afraid of the cold and decided they wanted to see what the fuss was about. I stood gawping, heart aching and longing as she too waited for a friend in the cold! Annoyingly for me her friend showed up after a minute and she swept inside via the VIP entrance. Then I saw in the distance a mound of flustered curly hair come jogging down the road.... finally! There was one problem though Dylan had been at his work Christmas party and was down 4 gin and tonics. He had just run halfway across Manhattan in the freezing cold and he looked like he was about to die. He excused himself for a moment, walked across the road, probably vomited and then it was time to go inside.

The olden days of throwing myself about in the moshpit are long gone. Instead Dyl and I met up with his friend Tiff and her roommate and decided to stand on the edge and frown on the shenanigans of the youth of today. A few songs in I suddenly felt a searing pain in my foot. Some fat Irish girl had stabbed me with her high heels, her and her equally tubby friend apologized and then started asking me a plethora of questions I was not interested in. They were soon given attention though by the drunk swayer. The drunk swayer was a man who was off his face and was standing around swaying uncontrollably pointing a random people and singing to them. He, Tweedle O'Dum and Tweedle O'Dee were soon the best of friends, stabbing and swaying along to the music. The gig changed pace when the band played one of their slower songs, Cornerstone, somewhat of a love song. The swayer saw this as his chance he grabbed one of the fat girls and started singing in her ear before leaning in for the kiss, unfortunately for him and luckily for the watching crowd he was presented with the cheek as oppose to the lips.

As quickly as they had all fallen in love the trio were no longer friends. The Swayer wasn't done there though. He set his sights on Tiff's roommate. As he moved in for the kill in stepped that colossus of a man and protector of women's rights, Dylan Viner. Bristling like an angered wolf he told the Swayer to move on or there would be trouble. The swayer moved on very quickly, as quickly as a 9-1 victory can be forgotten (no plethora of status updates after this result guys? Shame, I love reading them. COYS) . His next target was Dylan, he leaned in and rested his head on Dylan's shoulder, a quick push and he disappeared into the crowd. we saw Swayer later squaring up to some guy about to get in a fight, I assume they kissed and made up though.

As I braved the cold home Dylan and I reminisced about the old days of attending gigs, and we both agreed by far the funniest two things we have seen both involve out friend Jeremy Elster. The first was when he arrived at a gig for the last 3 songs, because Shabbos went out late that night, yet still insisted he enjoyed it and it was worth the money. The second was waiting for Oasis to take the stage at Finsbury Park only for a bowl of pasta to come flying through the air and land of Jeremy's head. Good times.

Murder Bar

2009-12-03T22:05:00.001-08:00

They say where you drink is a reflection of you.... If this is the case then man am I in trouble.

You see I don't like the bar where I regularly drink. It's dark and dingy and has a terrible selection of beers, however I find myself there at least twice a week.

The Watering Hole is less than a block away from work, this means that after a stressful shift where you reek of Barbeque sauce there is really only one place to go. I've tried to champion other bars, in fact Crocodile lounge with its free pizza with every beer threatened to topple the hellhole that is our local, it just couldn't bring in the numbers and fell by the wayside.

Perhaps the worst thing about The Hole is the karaoke, dear sweet lord the karaoke. I have had some interesting experiences revolving around that microphone. Hell I've sung when I've had a few to many and I can just about get away with it, but the problem is when pissed up girls belt out 'It's Raining Men' it makes me want to cry. The most interesting aspect of karaoke is when the Mafia come to drink in the bar. You see the Mafia get what they want and when they say it's their turn to sing, it's their turn to sing. There is a catch to this, you see they sing the same fucking song every... single... time. Even more messed up is when you try to sing the song that they always do. Halfway through your rendition you will feel a thick Italian hand hand on your shoulder followed by the pasta breath of someone quietly explaining that you can't sing that song because it is reserved for a friend. It is at this point you drop the microphone and leave the bar.
Perhaps the most surreal moment was watching actor William Hurt singing the song with the Mafia before hitting on every young black girl in the bar.
No matter how drunk or sober I am, no matter what day of the week it is I always seem to end up at The Hole. Even on my birthday at 4:30am I suddenly realized that I was standing in a room with a familiar dank smell. At the point I stumbled home.

But by far and away the most frustrating thing about the Hole is the fact there is no reception there. It's like it is a vortex and once inside you can never escape, at no point can you call a mate to see where they are because that involves walking outside into the cold New York air.
Nothing good comes of a night in The Hole, you either leave to drunk and are annoyed you got wasted for no reason, or you leave sober and are annoyed you bothered to buy a couple of drinks.

So Ladies and Gentlemen the reason you haven't heard from me for a few weeks is because I have been trapped. Trapped inside a bar full of shitty sports memorabilia, bad singers, weird smells, terrible beer and a lingering sense of guilt. The Watering Hole. I tell you, if drinks weren't $4 for regulars I'd never go.

Squeak

2009-11-18T12:22:00.000-08:00

Last night was incredibly distressing for me. I came home, drunk and was faced with a huge moral dilemma.... let me explain.

Regular readers will know of my New York nemesis, that's right, The Mouse, or to give him his real name (as christened by Anna Marshall) 'Rodrigo.' Rodrigo has been the bane of my existence for 9 months. He wakes me up in the middle of night rustling in my bedroom. He pokes his head out when we have guests over. He scares off women, he taunts me by strutting around the apartment like he owns it and worst of all he outsmarts me and moves the traps I set for him. I have given up on beating him.

Last night whilst at work the exterminator came over to our house, unbeknownst to me, and laid some traps. Good luck mate, I thought, Rodrigo is one tough cookie, you wont catch him.
As usual I had too much to drink after work and returned home at 3 am. As I walked in I noticed the traps the exterminator had set, they were more advanced than the store bought ones, impressive I thought..... then I saw it..... Lying on a sticky mat was Rodrigo... caught. He was struggling to break free, horrified that he had been captured. I took a moment to compose myself and weighed up my options. Should I unstick him and let him go free? Should I walk 10 blocks and then let him go free? Should I leave him overnight to starve? Should I squash him? One thing was for sure..... I had to kill him.
I searched online for advice and I found it.... boy did I find it. I looked down at Rodrigo, he was suffering bad, he had wriggled so much that he was bleeding and was obviously hurt. He looked so harmless and cute. I welled up thinking about what I had to do... It was my very own Sophie's Choice.
What happened from then on is something I'm not proud of, but remember I was drunk and Rodrigo had terrorized me for months.
I boiled the kettle.
One the water inside was at the desired temperature I poured in some washing up liquid and poured the contents into a bowel.
I looked down at Rodrigo, he just stared up at me.. helpless.
I couldn't bear to do it.... the water was cooling down. I made a snap decision. I placed the bowel outside the apartment in the hallway. As I walked back inside I reminisced about all the times me and Rodrigo had had together. The first time he ran into the girls bedroom and I didn't tell them. The way me and him used to team up to scare Anna. The times we would both just sit there and watch TV.
I looked down at him, no longer an adversary... but a friend. He looked back at me with those big beady eyes as if to say 'Rob... it's me Rodrigo.... don't do it.' But it was time.
I lifted up the sticky mat and carried it out to the hall. I look at Rodrigo one last time, said goodbye, then flipped the map upside down and placed it in the boiling soapy water.

Rodrigo Mouse passed away in the early hours of the morning on November 18th. He is survived by three housemates in Apartment 3.

My Kinda Town

2009-11-10T08:15:00.000-08:00

So after last weekend in London this weekend it was off to Chicago with Dylan to meet Sammy and Dean.

Now there are many places I could start with the review of the weekend. The crap shower in the hostel, the hot receptionist in the hostel with the icy icy heart and come to bed eyes, but instead I'm going to start with Brunch.

On the flight to The Windy City Viner and I were mapping out exactly what we wanted to do once we landed and both of us agreed that the way forward was a pot of Brunch. So once we checked into our ghetto hostel the first thing we asked was where was good for Brunch, a few options were gathered and then we met Dean and Sammy and headed out for some well deserved food.

The restaurant we went to was called Orange, indeed it was life changing.

Perhaps it was the excitement of the four of us being together, perhaps it was dizziness from having not eaten, but needless to say we were in a stupid mood. Our waitress slinked over to the table and the first thing I noticed was her T-shirt. At first it appeared to be a plain pink shirt, however on closer inspection it bore the image of a Liger. Now for those of you that don't know a Liger is the result of when a Lion and Tiger have a baby.

Somewhat blown away by our waitress' bold support of such a bizarre creature I launched into a conversation with her about Liger's Even when she looked at me like I was crazy I carried on, spouting Liger facts left right and centre. The boys thought I was nuts.

After our Liger chat we ordered our breakfast, I had a steak.

The next day at about 11 we had hunger pangs. The unanimous decision was made to revisit Orange and the Liger. However we were to be disappointed, the Liger was not wearing her colors today, her dedication to the Liger cause wasn't as strong as we thought.

On our last morning Dean, Dylan and Sammy begged me to go somewhere else, but I stood firm, the combination of cucumber water, Eggs Benedict and Liger enthusiasts meant we were only going to one place.

If I could buy shares in that restaurant I would.

When in Chicago you have to do something Chicagoey, so we decided to ascend the Hancock tower in order for a nighttime view of the city.

The que to get into the lift was ridiculous, however it did spawn an interesting question 'If you had to be one tall building what would you be?' The game descended into anarchy however when used it as an opportunity to take the piss out of Sammy.

Finally we made it into the lift and after a quick ride we were at the top. There was but one problem, we had ridden the elevator the restaurant and bar as oppose to the viewing deck. No worries though we would stay and grab a drink. The wait to get to the bar was half an hour. Fuck that!

The viewing deck was just 2 floors below, but in order to get to it we had to go all the way back to the bottom and then all the way up again.

More waiting in line. Finally we reached the ticket stand where the unfunniest man in the world cracked a couple of very unfunny jokes.

We were all set and ready to go when we looked back to see Dylan milling around. He was trying to get a free ticket with his media card. Unsurprisingly he didn't.

As we waited in another line to get to yet another lift we were told we had to have a photo taken. Even if we didn't want to the 4 of us had to stand in a line and have our photo taken infront of a superimposed background of the Chicago skyline. We did. We didn't smile.

In the lift on the way up we were feeling particularly stupid and cracked jokes in the crowded lift about having bad stomachs and generally acting like 5 year olds. We got out the lift 45 minutes after we had been two floors higher to have a look at the view. It was nice, was it $20 nice? Probably not.

After twenty minutes we had to wait in another que to get the lift back down the tower. By now we were wondering if we would ever get out of the bloody Hancock building. After a quick photo session where infront of another superimposed background where we pretended to be jumping off the building we were back in the lift going down. Finally our immaturity reached new levels when the voice over the PA shrilled 'Now you've been to the top and know the Hancock tower a bit better you can call it by it's nickanme.... Big John.' We started uncontrollably giggling as the 10 year old boy next to us rolled his eyes.

I won't bore you with more details, I'll leave that to Dean and Sammy, whose blog you can follow here http://deanandsammy.blogspot.com/

It was a great weekend spent with 3 guys I have been friends with since I was 7 years old. The photos will surface in a few days, the others took just a few.

Gilbert's Know How To Party

2009-11-03T11:20:00.000-08:00

So this weekend I was back in London for brief celebratory visit. It was time for my little cousin Andrew to have his barmitzvah and become a man.

Our tale begins on Thursday morning at 6am as my father came bounding into my room to wake me up. We were off to synagogue... hurrah. Bear in mind I haven't been there for 2 years, I'm a bad Jew. You see on Thursday morning Andrew had his first call up and read from the torah for the first time, thus making him a man. After he had sung so beautifully my Uncle Michael asked me to help dress the Torah. To be more precise, I had to lift it. This is no easy task, that thing weighs a ton. I joked around and said 'what's the worst that can happen!?' Well the worst that can happen is I drop it and everyone who sees would have to fast for 7 weeks. The pressure was on. I walked onto the bimah and shakily hoisted the torah skywards. Wobbled a bit and then sat down. Phew. I turned to look at the Ladies Gallery where my Mum was sitting. I called out to her 'Are you proud Mum!?' She wasn't.

Thursday morning was amazing and I achieved something I have never achieved before. I ate 3 breakfasts. Yes.... 3. Before Setting off to listen to Andrew I wolfed down a bowl of Crunchy Nut Cornflakes in order to give me the desired energy for that time of morning. After Synagogue there was a brief but sugary selection of treats in the lobby. I made my excuses and managed to eat 4 to 5 of those. Fantastic, it wasn't even 8am and I had managed to eat two breakfasts. Then, like music to my ears I heard we were going back to Aunty Shelly and Uncle Michael's for breakfast as everyone was hungry. Now I wasn't hungry but two breakfasts wasn't going to be enough. A plethora of bagels and smoked salmon back at 17 Pine Grove meant that by 9:30 I had achieved the seemingly impossible, I had eaten breakfast 3 times.

The Friday night dinner at our house was a lovely affair. All the family together (that's nearly 50 people btw.... we're a big family), speeches made, jokes cracked, but more importantly... Duck Rolls eaten. Quite simply the Duck Rolls being handed out at my house on Friday Night were the greatest thing I have ever put in my mouth. Vegetarians can go fuck themselves, this stuff was golden. I must have eaten a good 10 of them. In fact they were so good I had them the next day for dinner cold.

The Saturday was fantastic. I'm not going to go into the details of Andrew's performance, but put it this way, I was bloody proud. That kid made me shed a tear! After his barmitzvah we decamped back to the Gilbert's for Shabbat Lunch.

As I walked in I almost got an erection. A waitress wandered up to me, stuck a platter in my face and said 'Duck Roll?' That was the second time I cried tears of happiness that day.

It was then onto the Sunday. Party time. Despite the histrionics of my to sisters with regards to being ready in time we were at the venue with minutes to spare. Photos done and it was time to begin the party.

I won't do the party justice by describing it here for you. Instead I will focus on one facet of the party... the Vodka. And by the Vodka I mean the means by which it was distributed. After all the speeches were said and done we headed to the dance floor where we were met by a vision. Three girls dressed in outfits the Rabbi would not have approved of, despite it being his birthday, with Vodka bottles strapped to their waists. It was on. Immediately I sought out Andrew Myers and Broando, they were two steps ahead of me, they each held an empty shot glass in their hand and had already decided their favorite Vodka giver. It was at this point I reminded them they were married with kids. After a few more shots we had built up a rapport with the girls, one of them was a model who had done a few glamor shoots. We nodded inquisitively as she told us this, as though she was a learned professor at a Museum telling us about how the Dinosaurs lived millions of years ago. Actually if professors looked like that I would have done much better at University. We had a mission, find out her name. With all the stealth of James Bond (drunkenly asking her what her name was) I unlocked the secret and two words came rolling out of that oerfectly formed mouth of hers..... Sammi Pennington. Like a flash I was off to report my findings to Andrew and Broando. Three minutes later they came bounding up to me like a couple of twelve year old boys who had found pornography... except they were men in their thirties who had discovered pornography. A quick google on Andrew's phone had revealed the gold mine, Sammi Pennington's nude photo shoot. As the party wrapped up with everyone singing 'We Are The Champions' a little part of me felt like a Champion.

In reality though there was only one boy we were singing to. Andrew Benjamin Gilbert, that was a great weekend!

And So I Face The Final Curtain

2009-10-26T08:00:00.000-07:00

And so the curtain comes down on my New York stage debut. Needless to say I am fucking knackered!

The show went really well and I'm very pleased with everything, but of course this wouldn't be an update if I didn't highlight some of the stranger aspects of my life for the last few weeks.
I'll start with the venue we performed in. The Medicine Room theatre was a very nice space to act however it was interesting to say the least.
The owners of the space were probably the most eccentric people I have ever met. One was a old woman who is currently rehearsing a musical version of a ll of Shakespeare's tragedies. Before every rehearsal she would sit around the piano with a group of friends and warble away about the 'Black ram tupping the white ewe.' Her voice was perhaps not broadway ready shall we say. She was also as mad as batshit. One night she came to see the play and the next day spent time questioning me about the explicit stage directions of the last scene (more on that later.) Eventually she demanded to see my script to see if I was telling her the truth!
There was also a dog who owned the theatre. The dog was just a giant ball of fluff and often mid-rehearsal you would hear him wheezing as he slothed around the lobby. The dog was also the only living thing I knew who took the lift instead of climbing two flights of stairs to get to the theatre.
Of course the dog didn't run the theatre, his owner did. His owner was also a little nuts and would always wear one pink Converse and one Green one.
Perhaps the strangest aspect of the theatre was the man who lived in our dressing room.
Now at first I thought our dressing room was just littered with props; tables, chairs, old costumes, a bed. But then last Sunday I came in for a performance early and heard a stirring. I looked into the dressing room and the long haired ghost who floated around the place was rising from a night sleep. Suddenly I realized that the bed was his, the clothes were his, the empty whisky bottle was his and from then on I was permanently creeped out that I was de-robing in another mans bedroom.

Now for those of you that don't know about the last scene of the play it's time to come clear. I get my arse out onstage. I don't flaunt it but it's there, and if you are sitting in a particular seat you get a very very good view of it.
The arse scene was never problematic however it did run into a few problems. At the end of the scene Ollie has to blow out a candle and the lights would cut to black. More often than not the candle would not blow out and the stage would be plunged into darkness except a dull flickering candle light illuminating my bum. It wasn't attractive.
Now I had no problems getting the ol' butt cheeks out, my bum is one of my better body parts. On some nights, however, the people sitting in the prime butt spotting location proved to be a problem.
On the opening night a couple of girls were laughing every time we said the word 'cum' or even 'come' so Ollie and I twigged pretty quickly that the last scene was going to be hell. Thankfully it provided just a few intakes of breath. I like to assume that's because of glorious peach like nature of my rear.
The worst was this Thursday when I had a lot of friends come see me. I had specifically told Dylan to not sit in the front row, stupidly I didn't give him a reason. Just before the lights went down I looked at the audience from the wings and saw Dylan and Dan sitting in the prime rear viewing area, front row. Bastards. They now look at me in a different light.

And so the maddest, craziest most exhausting 6 weeks of my life come to a close. I'm now a New York stage actor as well as still being a waiter extraordinaire at New York's best BBQ restaurant! I fly home on tuesday night for the mother of all celebrations.... my little cousins barmitzvah. Fuck me life is fun!

Shaving Off Some Time

2009-10-13T12:15:00.000-07:00

So it's starting to get to crunch time for the play. Costumes are being donned, lines are no longer being stumbled over and shifts at work are becoming less frequent.

The first story begins a week ago however after yet another long rehearsal. The trek back from Brooklyn is long and painful at the best of times, when you realize you don't have enough money for the train on you it makes it even worse. After a combination of begging Ollie for quarters and jumping the barrier proved to be a success we heard the unmistakeable rattle of a train passing overhead. Fuck. We were going to miss it. A mad dash followed, I did that thing that kids do when they run upstairs two steps at a time, and I made it in just as the doors were closing. Phew! a close call.
Ollie and I sat there complaining about how tired we were and how much rehearsing over in Park Slope sucks. Pretty soon we both found ourselves nodding off just a bit. Then the train came hurtling out of the tunnel and over a bridge. It pulled into Ditmas Avenue. Delighted that I had reception I whipped my phone out and started waving it around hoping I was popular enough to receive a text. I wasn't. Then Ollie grabbed my arm with a look of error in her eyes. 'We're heading in the wrong direction.' I laughed off her idiocy and checked the map to make sure...... we were indeed heading in the wrong direction. So we jumped off at the next stop only to see a train heading in the right direction pulling out of the station. We trudged across the platform and waited, in the cold. It was 11 at night, in deepest, darkest Brooklyn and I wanted to cry. The word 'fuck' emanated from my mouth a fair few times. Eventually a train came and we were back where we started an hour after we had left.
Before I went home I stopped off for a comfort burger at my favorite Burger place in New York.... they got my order wrong and I waited half an hour for a cheeseburger. It was a bad night.

So in this play I am playing the part of a 15 year old boy. In order to create this illusion I have had a haircut into a nice side parting, similar to the one I sported in my Goodwyn's days and am very clean shaven. However there is one problem. In the play I take my shirt off. Now the three women who have sen me topless (Mum and both grandma's) can testify that I have a slight smattering of chest hair.... the director told me that this would have to go.
So the other day in the shower I thought I would give this a trial run. I sought the advice of many women about the pro's and con's of shaving versus waxing. Essentially though it is free to shave so that's the way I went.
I started with the chest, no problem there, came right off. I had now reached the point of no return, it would have looked weird to have stopped so it was all or nothing. I then encountered the tricky area of the nipple, the most sensitive place I would be shaving. Thanks to some dexterous hand movements and the fingers of a sculptor, I was able to remove the hair without a problem. Then it was time for my belly. This was where the hair was at its thickest and most stubborn. Eventually after half an hour I was done and looking as smooth as baby's bottom.
The next day though I started to itch..... and when I say itch I mean burn..... and when I say burn I mean want to tear the skin from my bones. Work was hell. Every 5 minutes I was rushing to the toilet for a heavenly scratch.
Even worse just two days later the hair had started to grow back so now my body just looked like a fat girls vagina which had been poorly gardened.
So yesterday was phase two of the shaving. This time however I lathered the fuck up before and baby powdered the shit outta myself afterwards.

If you would like to see my hairless body then make sure you get a ticket to the play!

http://www.smarttix.com/show.aspx?showcode=TRE7

A sorry schedule

2009-10-13T11:54:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the irregularity of my updates... The last few weeks have been as dull as the inevitability of QPR eventually ending their 6 game unbeaten run.
My days have become regimented and tiresome, the only time they change is the weekend but let's start with the week.

9:15 - My alarm goes off. It's that annoying blackberry chime that haunts anyone who uses their phone as an alarm. It puts me in a bad mood but I refuse to change it. I am grossly hungover.

9:45 - Leave the house. Check the line at Strabucks. If short then buy a coffee. If long then buy a coffee and get to work late.

10:05 - Clock in 5 minutes late.

10:15 - Have argument with other waiters about listening to something other than country music whilst we set up the restaurant. I usually win and put on Muse. Girls complain.

11:00 Sit through pre-shift praying they don't ask me to describe some obscure item on the menu... they do. They want to know what seeds are in the duck rolls. The answer is caraway.... apparently.

12:00 - Hangover really kicks. Fold 50 napkins to ease the pain.

12:30 - Switch on auto-pilot as I serve guests.

2:00 - Get cut. Start doing sidework.

2:45 - Have sidework checked. Inevitabley I have forgotten something, usually the lemonade. Get lemonade from fridge. Fear for my life that fridge door will lock and I will be stuck in there and die.

3:15 - Leave work. Go home. Shower. Shit. Shave. Sleep

6:00 - Wake up and head off to rehearsal in Brooklyn.

6:30 - The R train stops in between stations underground for 10 minutes. I learn lines.

7:00 - Arrive at rehearsal and discover the schedule changed and we are doing a different scene.

7:15 - Embarrassingly call 'line' every 5 seconds of rehearsal.

9:00 - Make a pact with Ollie (girl from the play) that we won't get drunk again tonight.

10:00 - Rehearsal finishes and go for a beer with Ollie.

12:00 - 2 rounds later still out.

2:00 - Stumble home

Repeat until Friday when everything changes!!

11:00 - Wake up hungover. No work until 4:30. Decide to be productive.

3:00 - Still in pyjamas playing Football manager.

4:30 - Head to work.

5:00 - Text Ollie telling her I am no way going out tonight.

9:00 - Start serving beer at work. Have urge for a beer.

10:00 - Receive text from Ollie that she gave up and went out.

12:00 - Leave work and head to the crappy bar with white trash bartenders with Fred and Nicole from work. $4 beers for me because I'm a regular. Not a good sign.

3:30 - Leave bar.

Saturday.

8:00 - Wake up and head to Brooklyn.

9:00 - Hate Brooklyn.

10:00 - Realize that performing when hungover adds gravitas to scenes of a depressing nature.

10:15 - Scenes of a humorous nature aren't performed well.

12:00 - Check QPR score. Recently we have been winning. On saturday we lost.

2:00 - Go home and make a pact with Ollie that neither of us will go out.

2:30 - Shower. Shit. Shave. Sleep.

4:30 - Get to work and feel disgusting. There are 5 new servers so I have a small section meaning I make no money.

8:00 - Hear Americans talk about sporting rivalries 'decades old.' Place my head in my hands.

9:30 - Stare lovingly at the object of my desires at work. Get caught. Lie and say I was looking at a guest.

10:15 - Text from Ollie, she's out.

12:30 - Leave work

4:00 - Leave bar

Repeat on Sunday.

I am fucking knackered to say the least. However if you want cheap drinks at a crap bar after some BBQ food then I'm your man.

A more conventional update next week!

Hot Mess

2009-09-16T10:11:00.001-07:00

Recently we have been having a few issues with hot water in the apartment.... and by issues I mean we haven't had any.
Let me preface this by saying that when I come home from work I stink of BBQ sauce, it clings to me like a 3 year old boy who still breast feeds clings to his mothers nipple. It's in my hair, my clothes and my soul.
The other day I waltzed home from a double shift late one night and really, really needed a shower. I stripped down so that little Rob could take a few breaths of fresh air and jumped merrily into the shower, turned it on and waited for the hot water... and waited.... and waited.
After 5 minutes of standing there, my nipples erect enough to cut glass and little Rob retreating back inside my stomach, I realized that perhaps there was an issue with the hot water. I wrote an angry email to the Super (also called Rob but not to be confused with little Rob) and decided that I would boil a kettle in my quest for hot water.
I made a rookie error, of course I let the kettle boil, of course I screamed in agony as i poured the water over my head, of course at that moment the mouse chose to run into the bathroom causing me to scream even more. I abandoned my idea of a hot shower and instead splashed sub zero temperature water onto my shivering body trying desperately to wash off the soapy suds.
The next morning I rose early to embrace the hot water which would surely have been turned on by now.... no such luck. I now smelt of sweat, sleep, BBQ and a smattering of aftershave and deodorant to cover the smell. Amazingly two individual people that day told me I smelt good.... I have no idea of what their heritage was, but apparently where they are from the smell I was emitting was pleasant.
I returned home from another BBQ filled day at work to discover a hand scrawled note plastered to my front door 'Tomorrow No Hot Water.' Thanks for the heads up, perhaps one of these a few days ago wouldn't have gone a miss!!
Another cold water splash shower sent me on my way to bed as I dreamed of splashing about in the kiddies pool.
The next morning I awoke like a kid on Christmas, or a jew on Chanukah (8 days of presents.... we don't get as excited). I leapt in the shower and there it was, steam! Beautiful hot steamy water gushing forth from the faucet. I gorged myself on it's heat, blissfully unaware that the water was getting hotter and hotter. Soon the water was burning holes in my skin. The Super had fixed the hot water alright... he had fixed it so much that each drop of it was like sulphuric acid gnawing away at my pinky white body.
I put the tap to the coldest the shower would go and miserably washed in a lukewarm rain as the smell of BBQ sauce wafted into the air.

The Audition

2009-09-06T09:37:00.000-07:00

So I am not in New York to hunt for women, I'm here to find some work as an actor and this week I had a few auditions.

Surprisingly this tale begins with a callback from one production that wanted a second look at me. To put it in X Factor terms I had just sung for the judges and had received 3 yes', my English accent had the potential to hold me back due to it being an American play.
So on thursday I went back for another audition, I was essentially off to boot camp. This time though every time I read I had to do it in an American accent. Unfortunately the sides (script) that I had been sent by email were not Mac compatible, so I had to turn up early to the callback to pick up a script and then take myself off to a coffee shop to learn my lines. It was the equivalent of when someone changes their song last minute in order to impress Cowell and co.
My competition for the part wasn't as large as I expected, in fact there were only 4 of us who had been called back, considering there had been close to 100 poeple at the initial audition I saw that as a good thing. The first guy going for the part was a 27 year old flaming homosexual who looked like a 15 year old boy but had gray hair. Next was a tall, handsome, blonde man who oozed attractiveness and finally was a guy who looked like Chace Crawford...... shit.
I then sat and waited.... boy did I wait. I arrived at the studios at 5:30 and wasn't called in until 8:15!! After reading a few times with a couple of guys who were going for the role of the protagonists father I was then called in to read with a lady going for the part of the Mother. It was a disaster. It was awkward and generally shit. The director stopped us halfway through and explained that in the scene my character was combing his mothers hair, the woman then blurted out "it's fine Rob, you can touch me anywhere you like, however you like." There was then an awkward second of silence before I said "that's the first time a woman has said that to me in a while." Second time around the scene was still terrible.
It was now 9:15 and the waiting area which had previously been quiet and full of tension had now become an arena of boredom. Soon I started talking to the gay guy, handsome man and Chace Crawford. Then, joy, the girls arrived! I decided to talk to them instead.
I had stupidly forgotten to eat dinner and my energy levels were low, I ploughed on though and read for the director 8 times! Eventually at 11 I left. Handsome Man had since been told he could leave so I was now down to the final 3 and would receive a call the next day.

I woke up on Friday and waited..... and waited.... and waited. I booked a weekend to Chicago, then waited some more. My phone did not ring. Fuck, I hadn't got the part. Then suddenly in a blaze of flashing lights and crappy ringtones my phone burst into life..... I didn't recognize the number. Oh..... My..... God.
I tentatively answered.... "hello?" "Hey Rob, it's Josh." Josh Fineman my best friend as a baby was in New York, I tried to hide the disappointment in my voice at it not being the theatre calling.
We chatted and then my phone beeped..... Incoming call from an unrecognized number. Holy Shit.
I hung up on Josh instantly and answered the phone..........

So Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls if you would like to see Robert Gilbert in his New York stage debut then follow this link to get tickets!
http://www.smarttix.com/show.aspx?showcode=TRE7
It's only in a small theatre (I emphasize the word small here) and contrary to rumors spread by Dylan Viner there is no full frontal nudity.
You gotta start somewhere.... and I'm starting here!

Good Meet, Wrong Meat

2009-09-01T19:10:00.000-07:00

On Saturday night after a lovely dinner with the family (more about them later) myself, Dan and Desi left Tribeca in search of a good night out. After a few drinks at the female Robert Gilbert's apartment (hello Lisa Schwartz) we decided to call it a night.

I was a little tipsy at this point and on my way home decided to stop at Duane Reed for some late night snacks. Unfortunately for all concerned the 24 hour store was closed because the manager wanted to count money (perhaps he was auditioning for the role of Shylock in the local theatre production).

Dismayed and heartbroken I turned around after banging on the doors to be greeted by a sort of familiar face. 'Hello Rob' said the person... I had that terrible moment where someone knows you but you don't know them..... 'It's me... Vanessa, we met at Hectors rooftop party.' Click. I remembered who the girl was, a childhood friend of a friend originally from Chile.

It soon transpired that Vanessa was off to a bar to drink.... alone. It was already 1:30 and I had work the next day but needless to say my penis took over, 'I'll join you' I quipped, and we were off. The bar was a shithole, it was like a smelly function room where the wierd kid from school had his barmitzvah and invited everyone to come, everyone did come to look at his sisters enormous chest.

I was reconsidering my actions when Vanessa begged me to stay because she had a friend coming who was in love with her and she didn't want to be left alone with him. Into the bar then strode Kayvon. A towering beast of a man from an exotic country. The next 45 minutes were spent with me sat between Kayvon and Vanessa as he tried to woo her whilst I attempted to kill the atmosphere with unsexy topics of discussion such as soft cookies and Snow Leopard for Mac. Vanessa and I then excused ourselves to go to the toilet to come up with a plan to ditch Kayvon. The plan wasn't the most complex, Vanessa said she was tired and wanted to go home, I chimed in that I lived near her so she wouldn't be walking home alone. By now it was 3 and I had work in a few hours so despite Kayvon's protests the plan went off without a hitch. MI6 have now offered me a job.

At work the next day royalty arrived, my family. Now I have been doing pretty well so far and am yet to really mess up any orders. But this was to be my biggest test so far. Let me run through each member of the family and detail why eating dinner with them is a pain.....

Mum - Does not eat red meat, chicken (except on shabbos), bread, strawberries. Likes Salad and Grey Goose Vodka.

Dad - If he has exercised will eat a hearty meal. If not then wants to share most dishes. Won't eat Pork, a problem in a rib restaurant.

Claire - Will not eat red meat, fish, most sauces, anything exotic, vegetables. WIll eat Burgers, Pizza and Chicken Nuggets. Elizabeth - Likes sauce on the side and recently is Dad's new sharing partner. Will eat meat.

Special Guest Daniel - Wont eat Fish (but will try it). Eats everything else.

The order was a nightmare. Salad with sauces on the side, shrimps added to things, coleslaw substituted for Chips, Chips substituted for Sweet Fries. Coke's without Lemon/Ice, the works. You aren't supposed to tell a guest to fuck off.... but I came close. Of course when the food came out I had rung a few things in wrong, my loving mother pointed this out and despite me protesting my innocence she stood by her word. Thank god they liked the food I did get right though, a rarity in most restaurants we eat at. If I ever have a more complicated order I will let you know.

Hallelujah

2009-08-27T10:41:00.000-07:00

We signed a striker! Heavens above! Name a stand after him, give him the freedom of Loftus Road. See children, dreams really do come true. Jay Simpson all you have to do is win us promotion.

We Are The Gilbert Boys

2009-08-26T08:50:00.000-07:00

So yesterday my cousin and lifelong partner in crime, Daniel, decided he had had enough of married life out in Westchester and wanted to spend the day with his bachelor cousin.

The first order of the day was to find a decent football match to play in. The Yanks affectionately call it 'Pick-up Soccer,' we just call it a kickabout in the park. After walking across the length and breadth of Manhattan, discussing QPR's memorable 2-1 victory over Accrington Stanley that night, we were eventually steered towards a game taking place over on Chelsea Piers. We arrived and were greeted by a throng and Trinidadians who were all playing the beautiful game. One of the teams needed 2 extra players, so we were up!

Now when Dan and I play football I like to think we have a telepathic understanding that only family members can have, we are if you like a Jewish Gary and Phil Neville. Dan is Gary, successful, committed one of the best at what he does, a leader... I however am more like Phil, jack of all trades master of none, reckless challenger, living of my more gifted family members name. It's a burden I have learnt to deal with. As the game started one thing became clear, the Trinidadians were fast, they were shit, but they were fast. After about 5 minutes I was blowing out my arse as our self appointed captain barked out orders in a lilting Caribbean accent which I could only but smile at.

Dan had had enough of this game though, he had spied another game for us to play in. The other game looked a little crap to me though, many fat people were playing. I highlighted this to Dan but he assured me that during his time in Mexico he found that fat people were arguably better players. This wasn't the case here however, I looked pretty quick on this pitch and soon we decided to leave the game, shame, I felt I had found my level.

Finally an 11 a side team were holding trials so Dan and I jogged over to see if we could join in. Stavros (the man running the game) seemed reluctant to let us play, perhaps intimidated by our Neville brother skills and Jonas Brothers looks, he soon subsided and allowed us a kickabout. The game was 15 minutes long, nobody did anything spectacular and more importantly Dan and I did nothing wrong. As we trudged off the pitch Stavros sidled up to us and said "Go and train with our 3rd team, they are more your standard.". This was a phrase I had heard often and so I began to jog over, Dan however is not accustomed to this, demanded that he was the best player on the field and told me we were going. As we left a bitter Frenchman who had been cut walked off with us objecting furiously at his treatment, he claimed he had won 1st prie for his University for football, must have been a shit team because he was bollocks.

A quick dinner was followed by donning our handbags and gladrags, we were out to take New York by storm. A few weeks ago I had gotten disgracefully drunk, the type of drunk where you are incoherent and susceptible to drinking red bull and absinth. The reason behind this was Australians. Regular readers will know that Australians often bring out the worst in me when I drink. Anyways the two Aussie lads from that night had invited me over to their place for some drinks before they headed out to a club. Sounded like a plan.

We arrived at the Aussies place to be greeted by a sausage fest. The room was meat heavy. The Aussies assured us that some females would be arriving soon. They did. I wish they hadn't. Australian chavs aren't funny or interesting people, they are also a little disgusting when you notice that they haven't shaved their legs and have just bleached the hairs to try and hide them. After avoiding direct contact with the hairy chavs we set off for the club. The place we were heading was meant to be cool, it's the first eco-friendly club in the world apparently. Dan had fucked up though, he was wearing Converse... and not just any Converse, ones with cartoons on them. Entry was looking unlikely. Those Aussies though... they may have lost the cricket but they pulled through last night. As we arrived they told us we were on their guest list and to just walk in, which we did.... fantastic.

As we walked in Queen Latifah wobbled out of a limo and entered the club at the same time, essentially she walked into the club with us. It's fine, when I come home you can all touch me. The Aussies then surpassed themselves and told us they had a table, brilliant! This proved to be a false dawn however. You see Queen Latifah had invited Rhianna to come to the club and the manager was having a shitfit. We were kicked off the table which was now exclusively for girls. The drinks were ludicrously priced and suddenly our evening of fun was jeopardized. Dan then put that Oxford brain of his to good use. He grabbed the Hairy Aussie Chav and enquired if she would like to pass her drinks from the table down to us on the dance floor. She did. We each spent $20 that whole night.

A Week of Geek

2009-03-08T22:13:00.000-07:00

So the theme for this week has certainly been 'Geek' and it's a theme I have thoroughly embraced.. I pre warn for some people this update will make limited and little sense... but do read it will offer all the usual odd musings.

As I said geek was the word this week and the first geeky act to regale you all with took place on Thursday. Now I don't have school on Thursday and the other two guys in my class have long since banded around the idea of Star Wars Thursday... stay with me here people... I'll happily admit I am a fan, I've seen all the films and think they are good (well the original 3) I am not however a crazed fanboy who gives a shit if Han shot first, but I decided that Star Wars Thursday should indeed be this thursday.

So I awoke early on wednesday and journeyed to the Upper East Side to my friends apartment, snacks in tow and arrived ready for a day of lightsabers, Jedi's and Siths. Now my friends roomates have between them two dogs, one currently has the worst cough you could imagine. Anytime it moves or is even remotely excited it weezes uncontrollably for twenty minutes, not unlike Darth Vader really. The other dog is a puppy, but it's huge and is completely unaware of it's surroundings in relation to it's size. So for 8 hours the background to the films was one dog dying on its arse while the other hurtled around smashing and breaking anything of value in the apartment.

And so with two dogs a million miles away from Crufts dying and smashing respectively we began...... Da da da da, da da da da da da da da da daaaaaaaa..... Daaaaa da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da (that's the theme for those who are wondering) Controversially we stared with Episode 3 which was obviously made in '05. I was pro the original trilogy however my friend Tim felt they would hold more gravitas if we saw the fall of Anakin.

So after 2 and a half hours of terrible acting (Hayden Christensen you are a disgrace to your trade) and some even worse dialogue as George Lucas showcases that living your life obsessed with Wookies and The Force causes one to lose touch with human dialogue. Finally Ewan McGregor makes a big speech, Anakin... you dick, you were the chosen one, or something along those lines. Hayden dons the black helmet and screams NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

Episode 4....Da da da da... you get the idea. Now obviously in the story Episode 4 takes place after Episode 3 however they made over 20 years apart so suddenly when Alec Guinness and Darth layeth the smack down it doesn't have the same impact as a CGI Yoda double backflipping and beating up a robot.

As Darth revealed his big secret I left for home deciding not to watch a group of little teddy bears bring down the Empire. I'm not gonna lie to you here I 100% imagined I had a lightsaber and was picking of Stormtroopers left right and centre in the shower that evening.

So the next part of geekery came on Friday night with the release of Watchmen in cinemas. I read the book a few months ago after hearing great things about it and it's actually good. Once you're over the fact you are reading a giant comic you get really into it.
I was excited for the movie but wasn't simultaneously creaming my pants with every internet geek who writes a blog....wait a second....

Now my problem arose in that I wanted to go see the movie but had nobody to go with, my Star Wars boys had been given 2 free tickets (pricks) and my roommate who would've seen it with me was out of town. Dylan was unavailable for other reasons.
Now those that can read between the lines of previous messages will have worked out I've been seeing a girl... well now she gets a name... Anna.
Yes that's right Ladies and Gentlemen I asked the hot girl who is way out of my league to come and see the geekiest film of the year with me. Chutzpah... I've got it.
She agreed!!!! However I would have to owe her one... her giant Sex and the City box set looked like being forced upon my eyes.

So I book the tickets thursday for Friday night.... yes that's right a full 24 hours before to see a movie! We arrive for the 10:30 showing nice and early at 9:45... but something isn't right, they are selling comic books outside and the stench of retainers and inhalers is wafting throughout the cinema. We get to the our screen at 10 and there is a que of about 200 people!!!! what... the... fuck!!!
Thankfully I make the bold decision to wait for a seat on the balcony and we are able to watch the film with a good view.
Now like I said I'm not a fanboy.. I like the book. So no I didn't care about the lack of squid, or lack of black freighter, or lack of Under the Hood. It was a good movie. Anna was expecting a nice comic book Spiderman type affair, so when The Comedian bends Silk Spectre over a Pool table and rapes her Anna started to worry! She did however enjoy it....

And as for owing her a favour.... well she got so drunk on saturday night I pretended to be really pissed off so she felt guilty and I am no longer in her debt.... like I said, Chutzpah.

Name drop.

Michael Harris - Watching Revenge of the Sith before the others makes it all so sad. Anakin has been through so much and he's just trapped in that suit.. and nobody knows... really puts a different spin on things.

Rebecca Gilmore (again I know!) - I'm doing a scene from a play and the author is called Rebecca Gilman.. is this one of the many variations on your name we use!!??

Jamie Simon Slavin - Your most recent photo album is probably the funniest thing on Facebook

A Vast Improv....ment

2009-03-02T10:08:00.001-08:00

So after a few weeks of writing about things not regarding the reason I am out here I thought I would update everyone with some acting stuff...

I take an Improv class at school and needless to say I am the teachers pet. She loves me. Maybe it's because I have a very overactive imagination and this gives me the chance to just go and not think. Anyways after a glowing report in class (anyone who went to school with me will know that's rare) she suggested I try an open mic night an an improv theatre. She suggested The Peoples Improv Theatre.
How the open mic, or improdome as it is I guess comically called, works is that teams of 2 to 4 people stand up, take a suggestion from the audience and then create a scene. Unfortunately I couldn't convince my two friends to come with me and so went alone.
Suffice to say I was nervous, I mean I had no idea if I was funny or not or if these random people would laugh at me but I sucked it up signed my name up to be placed in a team and decided I needed some Dutch courage.

The show started... a fat... well a fat loser walked on the stage and made a joke about Battlestar Galactica which precisely zero people responded to, sensing he was on the back foot he slunk away and called the first team on the stage.
Any fears I had about not being funny were washed away as I watched 3 people die on their feet, one guy constantly mugging to the crowd whilst a girl tried desperately to create a scene. All the while someone who can only be described as Lloyd from Entourage pranced about.

Next up were an even worse team. They would probably have been o.k had they not had a Jack Black wanna be in their midst. He took his shirt off, jiggled his belly, pulled stupid faces and shouted about bearded ladies giving hand-jobs... he tried so hard to be funny it was painful. He pretended to be gay, a woman and English all in one scene.... He was however still funnier than Dane Cook.

After that shambles Battlestar Galactica man was back up and calling my name out along with 3 other random guys. I walked onto the stage to be greeted by a scared looking middle aged black man, a man with the bushiest beard ever and a homeless guy..... 'This could be interesting' I thought.

Now essentially in improv you are meant to take any suggestion given to you by the person you are acting with, so if I said "Wow it's such a hot day" it would be bad if my scene partner said "No...it's snowing."..... With that in mind I will now describe the train wreck that was our 4 man team.
So our suggestion was looking at the stars.... The homeless guy then proceeded to imitate a star...fine, however he did nothing else...just.... twinkled. After that we ended up in a doctors office... but the homeless guy barged into the scene and demanded someone french kiss his belt buckle. It was at this point I unfortunately was first able to smell the homeless man. After attempting to rearrange the scene to suit the homeless guy he was off again... running to the stage curtains and wrapping himself in them.... he said nothing. So me and nervous black guy started doing a scene in a therapists office. Next thing I know I hear a sound coming from the curtains. The homeless guy is screaming "I am the Pope of New York...woooooooo." Nervous black guy looked terrified.
Bushy beard man takes up the initative and pretends to look at some art, nervous black guy starts going crazy demanding to be 'held back'... so I restrain him. He then starts speaking for 2 minutes about the Mona Lisa only to be interrupted by the homeless guy demanding someone French Kiss his belt buckle and then feigning a heart attack.
The lights went down.... we were done.
As we trudged back to our seats bushy beard guy and nervous black guy high fived me as homeless guy wandered off into the night.
On Wednesday I will be going back to the Improdome... however I will demand that my two friends come with me

So before I return home in June my goal is to get signed by an agency. Now our school isn't showcasing until June so I've taken matters into my own hands and decided to whore myself out to agencies and try to get their attention. I started the process a few weeks ago by getting my headshots done by a nice Japanese man named Moto and have since brushed up my resume. I sent off a load of headshots, letters and resumes to agents as the next step.

After that I planned on cold calling. So last thursday I spent the whole day traipsing around Manhattan smiling politely and blagging my way past security to get into agents offices. Now you aren't supposed to turn up at Agents doors... not in New York anyways. So instead of asking to see any agents I have started by merely charming the receptionists. Now every single agency either has an overly gay receptionist, a hot female receptionist, or a bitter rejected actor for a receptionist. The trick is to avoid the latter and flirt with the first two. So I Englished up my accent a little and poked my dimples to make them seem deeper and off I went.

I was on a roll, gay receptionists loving the dimples. Hot receptionists giggling slightly at the accent things were going well. I thought the day would be hell but it turned out O.K until I reached my final destination. The final agency had been recommended to me so I walked in full of the joys of May with my final envelope of goodies. As I walked in I knew things would be different, this agency was big... the shit if you will. I reached the receptionist... "HI" I blared in my fully clipped accent with just a hint of London charm. The receptionist looked up... she wasn't hot... she wasn't gay... oh god... she was a failed actress. My heart sank. "What do you want?" I panicked... no longer was I suave, no longer was my accent a weapon, merely an obstacle which would stop her from understanding me. I blurted out something about a headshot and representation which she barely acknowledged. I was losing... then it hit me... THE DIMPLES, WHIP OUT THE DIMPLES. So I smiled an odd slightly creepy smile which was met with an unenthusiastic look. I dropped my headshot on the desk and darted out..... I tell you something, acting is hard!

So name drop

Joanna Williams - I hope you enjoyed that read, and are now safely in Highgate.

Jack Burke - I do believe I have never name checked you! Ridiculous! Your video message still made me laugh.

Spurs fans - At least you didn't lose pathetically to Barnsley this weekend.

Miss you all

Rob

And the Winner Is...

2009-02-24T10:06:00.000-08:00

So award season came to a close Sunday night with the pomp and flair of the Oscars.

It's been a pretty quiet week in New York and I'm too depressed to write about my experiences in a pub on saturday morning watching my pathetic football team whilst a group of Americans chimed "I thought Ronaldo was Brazilian." So instead I will talk about the glitz and glam of the Oscars.
Now lets not beat around the bush here, Americans love Oscar night, almost as much as the Superbowl (or i guess in honor of Arshavin's Arsenal debut the Superb Owl). The covergae starts long before the ceremony begins with talentless fecks giving their two cents on who will win. Still it's better than watching Claudia Winkleman strain to have any sort of opinion at 4am back home.
After predictions it's time to switch over to E! to watch Ryan Seacrest attempt the impossible act of crawling inside the rectum of every celebrity attending. Nobody knows how but he somehow manages this. He also has an amzing gift of being able to brush off more talented, wealthy, screen-time-worthy, people than himself in order to dash over to the next star and begin the long trek up the hole they crap out of.
Then Brad and Angelina arrive... In surely the most unprofessional moment on TV Ryan's co-presenter squeals with excitement and starts jabbering like a school girl who's been drugged by The Jonas Brothers as they burn their promise rings.
The best moment of the red carpet is when one of the 12 year olds from Slumdog decides that despite the wealth of talent he is surrounded by the only person he wants to meet is Miley Cyrus.... He obviously is yet to discover Miley doesn't take to well to ethnics.

Half an hour to go.... and ABC decide to throw the most overly gay man you can imagine in front of the camera to discuss what everyone is wearing... After half an hour of fawning he concludes that everyone looks "fabulous".... this is a lie.

And so after hours of pointless bullshit the ceremony gets underway. Out comes Hugh Jackman, an odd choice to host seeing as he's not a comedian. What he can do though is sing and dance... so he does! And pretty darn well too I thought.
The evening starts with Penelope Cruz picking up her first Oscar but then slowly tails off as we flick through the technical awards. Steve Martin cracks the most risque joke of the night by ripping on not the Jews, not the African-Americans, not the Hispanics, not the Gays.... but instead he has a dig at The Scientologists. Tom Cruise curses from a cave somewhere.
Hugh comes back and performs a number about musicals in the style of.... a musical. The kids from High School Musical and Mamma Mia join him looking suitably awkward, Beyonce whores herself out to another awards ceremony.

Then in the biggest non shock of the evening Heath Ledger wins. His mum, dad and sister collect the award and to be honest it's the first time I have ever felt moved by his death, a truly sad moment and every member of the audience cried, even Brad Pitt, who by showing such emotion apparently became even sexier.

The rest of the night went to form, apart from the decision to overlook Mickey Rourke and Slumdog deservedly won. The kid from Skins, who as Adam Jacobs points out does look like a Habs boy, cried. Fiat Punto looked shocked and one of my favorite directors did an impression of Tigger.

The last word however goes to the behemoth that is Brangelina. Surely they are the least loved up couple EVER! They didn't acknowledge each other once! They sat next to each other but not a loving hand on the knee nothing. It was very very creepy.

So after that apparent audition for Heat let's name drop in the style of the Oscars.

First off I would like to thank my Mother who today through Facebook nominated me for being a nice person.

I'd like to thank Hannah Nizri who has a birthday today and is the mother of my beautiful child... Oneg.

And finally I have to thank the T.S crew who's funny experiences pop into my head throughout most my days at school. Hard blacks and all that.

I hate football

2009-02-23T10:22:00.000-08:00

I just thought I would let the world know that nothing is worse than waiting all year to watch your football team out here in the States and then seeing them lose only their second home game of the season. One day I guess I will be rewarded for following this shower of shite!

Planes, Trains, Buses and Tow-trucks

2009-02-16T09:56:00.000-08:00

So before I begin my tale of a trip to Boston this weeks update starts here in New York. You see to get to Boston one has to take a bus from Port Authority Bus Station. Today readers I am going to explain to you why Port Authority is the most depressing place on earth.
When you step in it's like a time warp, cold, dreary and every conceivable shade of grey used to decorate the place. Now I thought the staff at Duane Reade had apathy for their jobs, Jesus himself would weep at the lazy approach taken to work here. Nobody seems happy, happy to be leaving New York, happy to be journeying somewhere new, nobody is happy, passengers, workers, fuck even the vending machines are depressed. The less said about the toilets the better really. However the piece de resistance of Port Authority is the music. Classical music is blared out at all hours of the day, yet this isn't good classical music, this is the worst music you have ever heard, it's akin to the Jones Brothers covering Stairway to Heaven whilst flaunting their promise rings in adoring teenagers faces, in fact it's worse than that, it's depressing morbid music that makes you want to slit your wrists.
People if you ever need to get anywhere from New York I beg you, for your own sanity, take the train from Penn Station, they have a Krispy Kreme there.

So onto Boston to see Jeff.
Jeff picked me up from the station in a pretty sweet car, I recognized it but didn't remember Jeff driving it from my last visit... Turns out it was Howie's car and he had lent it to Jeff for the weekend. After Jeff had visited the dentist amd performed other errands for the day we drove into Allston where Jeff had just moved to. Jeff was new to these parts but assured me he had THE perfect parking spot. We parked up and went on our merry way for an evening of fun.
The next morning we went to the magical spot to pick up Howie's car only to discover.... it wasn't there. Oh...my...God.
We had contrived to lose the car, shit. After some research we ascertained that it had been towed to pretty much the other side of town. So we hopped in a cab with a Nigerian driver who wanted to talk about how blue and white balloons remind him of Israel. After some negotiating with the white trash woman at the pound we finally had the car back. That afternoon we dropped it back at Howie's for the rest of the weekend.

That night it was time to party.... kinda. Jeff's sister Danielle was heading off to a college party and we decided to go along. After a monumental journey getting there where we doubled back on ourselves many times and ended up essentially back to where we had started the evening we arrived. The party was... well it wasn't the coolest and after about 5 minutes Jeff and I were very aware of our age. We decided to drink to feel more comfortable. This did not improve the party which peaked when a stout Indian girl emerged from a bedroom after a threesome and gave Jeff the 'come to bed eyes.' He weighed up his options however stouty was to go home alone that night. Some girl calld Jen told me she liked me, I told her I hadn't met her before, and then it was away and off into the night.
As usual I had a great time in Boston and a trip to the Lubin household for a helping of food was very appreciated.

L.N.D (let's name drop)

Jim and Barker - Every time I see a pundit exclaim that the Britannia stadium is a tough place to visit and the locals really get behind their team I imagine you two (Barker with a black eye) orchestrating the masses into a violent frenzy.

Rebecca Gilmore - You would have loved the constant Arad discussions over the weekend, how young we were!

Adam Zecharia - Could Effy be anymore wife worthy?

Miss you as always

Rob

From England but support Engerland

2009-02-11T14:54:00.001-08:00

So England went away to the best team in the world and promptly got played off the park... is anyone surprised? I mean c'mon hands up who thought we would get something from the game... put 'em down you idiots.

This isn't a comment on the England team though, instead more of a woeful tale of their fans because you see I am a fan of England, however the gentlemen I had the honor of watching todays game with over here in New York were fans of Engerland.

Let me explain. As the game starts an Engerland fan will sing the national anthem and champion the ability of Premiership also rans who look as comfortable at international level as A-Rod taking a leak at the doctors. Ten minutes into the game and England are obviously not going to beat the best team in the world on their own patch, however Engerland fans feel this isn't good enough and turn on the team, first up is the newbie who they have previously sung the praises of, today was Phil Jagielka's turn. As the best striker on the planet at the moment scores a beautiful goal instead of taking a step back and saying 'wow that was a bit special' the Engerland fan projects venom towards the screen exclaiming that the striker should have been "hacked down." This inevitably leads to the next stage of supporting Engerland, turning on the opposition. Today England played against the "Paella eating cunt munchers" just incase anyone was unclear, racism... it never hurt anyone.

Half time arrives and the Engerland fan refreshes himself with a nice beer whilst excaliming he always wanted Terry Venebles for the job. Terry Venebles!! TERRY FUCKING VENEBLES!!! are you quite deluded sir!? What on earth has that fat, perma-tanned, crook done since taking England to a semi final 13 years ago! Fool.

Then everyones favourite comes on, Peter Crouch. It doesn't matter that the player is good because it provides the Engerland fan with the opportunity to produce wit of the highest order screaming out "lanky fuck" or "freak show".... quite.

So the game peters out and as Spain score their second the bar empties and the Engerland fan proclaims "What a disappointment, as per usual." I didn't think you could top your dickhead remark about Venebles but you just have! As per usual? really? Were you not present at Englands 4-1 stuffing of Croatia? Did you not witness our reserves take apart a German team on foreign soil? Do me a favour you prick.

And so the Engerland fan stumbles off into the dusk no doubt willing to vent his spleen about how bad his football team are to anyone and everyone. The worst part is had England won then the Engerland fan would have been calling up Five Live and stating that Don Fabio is going to win us the world cup.

Ugh, at times I despair yet I'll be back, of course I will. My beloved Q.P.R will be on live in the very bar I sat in today in two weeks time, and lo and behold over here in New York there is still some muppet who thinks Venebles would do a job as manager! Yet every time the idiocy of some football fans gets me down I pause and allow myself a smile that at least I get to follow and be passionate about this sport because it could be worse, I could follow American Football.

A quick note on arguably the most important player to play for his country since Bobby Moore, the man who today equaled his record for International Caps, David Beckham. I'm a big Beckham fan and as a friend of mine put it "If you are in the AC Milan team then you are in the England team." Alright he wasn't brilliant tonight but he did as much or as little as any Beckham wanna-be's that have graced the number 7 shirt.

Some will moan he doesn't deserve his 108 caps but a man who can go from hero to villain to hero back to villain and then become a hero again deserves his place in history.

D-Beck (as the Yanks love to say) I salute you.

T.I vs Phelps

2009-02-10T14:37:00.000-08:00

So the country is going nuts about Michael Phelps smoking exploits. Obviously a lot of people aint so happy that the all American boy has been partaking in an un-American past-time (yeah right!) and he has now been dropped by one of his many sponsors.

Whilst Phelps was staring mystified at the size of his hands but still finding Dane Cook unfunny (no amount of drugs can change that), rapper T.I was swaggerin' all over the stage at the Grammy's.

MIA/ Kanye West/ Jay-Z/ Lil Wayne / TI - Grammys - 2009
Uploaded by 3030fm

Now T.I is on his way to jail for possessing firearms yet is allowed to perform with Jay-Z at the Grammy's whilst Phelps got stoned and is a national disgrace and no longer allowed to sell kids a double helping of sugar with their Frosted Flakes in the morning. Excuse me whilst I go all Hannah Montana here but WTF!!!!

So basically drugs are bad (Mmmmkay) but being sneaky sneaky with guns... yes guns y'know the things that shoot bullets is bad enough to send someone to jail for but cool to let them promote their next single in front of a live audience of millions. Call me stupid (You're stupid) but how can Kellogs drop Phelps but T.I's record company not drop him. Its Ludicrous I tell you (no not the rapper).

I have nothing against T.I and as far as I am concerned he did the crime and he's gonna do the time, as for Phelps.... Give the guy a break c'mon.

Men..... Boooooo!

2009-02-10T12:37:00.001-08:00

So last night I had the joy of a group outing to see He's Just Not That Into You. Look I'm comfortable enough to admit I love a chick flick as much as the next semi-emotional guy however as I left the cinema I thought I was gonna get pelted with fruit by the 200 or so women in the audience for having a dick.

A message to women who see that film hoping for answers... men are a simple creature, it's essentially "Have Penis... will use it."

Guys that justify seeing this as a date movie because E form Entourage is in it... don't! Take a girl to see it and you aren't getting any sex... believe me!

What Not to Do

2009-02-10T09:09:00.000-08:00

Shalom
It's early but as I sit here in front of West Ham v Man U I thought I'd write my update.

So I have finished my first term at NYFA, and in order to commemorate this my whole class and another had to perform a monologue we had been working on for an audience one evening. The process leading up to this had been pretty long, I mean I knew my monologue very well and could knock it out no problems.
Now I had decided to go for a more comedy based piece, the whole premise of my monologue was a dickhead talking about how he bullied his fat mother, lovely. Unfortunately all the girls in my class decided they wanted to go for DRAMA!!! So for the last few weeks I have had to hear monologues about molesting Uncles, Women who deserve equal rights and the unsexiest girl ever try and seduce a man whilst dressed as a hooker, it's been a test of endurance.
So on Monday it was finally time to perform these monologues, I was first up, a little nervous but hey I got to swear on stage thus killing the demons that have plagued me since playing Bill Smiley aged 17 and Tim Norton making me say Piss Off instead of Fuck Off, despite Tom Penn's best attempts to make me say Fuck. I guess I did O.K, but thats not the point of this story.
After my piece I sat and watched.... and watched... and watched and FINALLY the last guy was up. Now he was from the other class so I didn't really know him. His name.... Robert Wu.
Mr. Wu waltzed onto the stage and started his monologue. (On a side note Diego Tristan just came on for West Ham.... I remember him as a goal machine on CM, what a fall from grace!!) So... Mr. Wu, yes, he started his monologue and after about 30 seconds he paused and whispered "Oh my God" then went back to the star of is monologue. Wow, I thought that was great acting, I genuinely believed that this guy had forgotten his lines but it was part of the piece... right?
Wrong, Mr. Wu stopped short again, but instead of calmly walking off the stage, or composing himself, or even attempting some improv, Mr. Wu reacted.... well he reacted badly.
He started jumping up and down on the spot screaming "NO NO NO." He then slunk off the stage and kicked the wall. Jesus H. Christ it was intense.... but then Mr. Wu came back! Hooray! He started again but 10 seconds in he messed up...again. Dejected he walked off and all that could be heard in the auditorium was the thudding sound of Mr. Wu slowly banging his head against a wall in frustration.
Thankfully they eventually decided to go to a curtain call. 3 Days later we received a DVD of the monologue presentation, I am yet to watch myself but have watched, nay studied Mr. Wu's breakdown and am shocked that they continued to film the meltdown...even going to a close up at his most painful moment!!!
Johannes would be proud because they never stopped filming.

Game just finished... United are gonna walk it this year aren't they. Oh joy it's the full time analysis with Warren Barton (!!!) who instead of talking to the anchor looks straight down the camera, it's very unnerving, especially if you are watching the game in not many clothes.... Sorry I should have said England International Warren Barton.

I live 2 doors down from Duane Reed, which is kind of a combination of Boots and a cornershop. I have often frequented there in the wee hours of the morning when needing the oddest things (work it out). The thing is I have never...ever known service so unbelievably bad.

The staff that work there are useless, actually thats to kind, they are beyond useless.
My favourite however is a gay guy who works there called Ashanti. Ashanti is, bless him, not working at Duane Reed for the love of the job. I was waiting in line to but some shampoo one evening when I noticed Ashanti taking his sweet time counting out the change for the customer next to me and also getting it wrong. The customer rolled his eyes which led Ashanti to say to him, "Ewww you have Cum on your face." On closer inspection the customer did have some fluff on his chin, however the accusation that he had been munching down on dick did not sit kindly with him.
"What did you say!!"
"I said you have dirt on your face"
"No you didn't, you said cum"
"No I did not"
This continued until the manager arrived and backed up Ashanti.
I expected to never see Ashanti again after this however a few weeks later I walked into Duane Reed and heard a shriek emanating from behind the till. "OH MY GOD I LOVE YOUR SNEAKERS... WHERE ARE THEY FROM" I was slightly taken aback by Ashanti's love of my Nike's, yet before I could answer he was being reprimanded for being over an hour late for work!
There are many other stars at Duane Reed. There's the ongoing battle between the Hispanic 40 year old and the feisty Black girl with cushin' for the pushin' about allowing there friends to come and visit them at work.
Phone girl, who I am yet to see not texting when serving a customer, and a whole host of others. Every time I go in there it's a new experience.
It unfortunately takes forever to get anything because everyone who works there is either stupid or hates their job.

NAME DROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP

Twenty Squids League Boys - I can't take this anymore, I'm very crap at this. I also want Daniel Gilbert tested for drugs to prove he has not been enhancing his performance through illegal means.

Louise - Or should I say George....

Daniel Marshall - Haven't said it for a while..... Marshall You leeeeegend.

It's gonna be a Boston special update next week....

Miss you all

Rob