Hallelujah

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

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

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

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...

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

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

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