dead kings.

bonnaroo was intense. kinda like how i imagine woodstock would be if they tried to run it today. about a tenth of the people and widespread commercialization. they had a helicopter too. jay-z gave me a rap hat, thanks mate. well, not him personally but his clothing brand. i don't really wear it but it's a good'un. we played on a little stage in front of where weezer was playing which was interesting. never played on a stage in front of another stage before. i ended the set with a white towel wrapped around my head held on with a garnier fructus elastic headband. may have inadvertently bolstered the rep of just being a band called the middle east and seeming like we're from the middle east. after the set we all caught some dinner together (tme and mumford & crew) which was excellent. the food and the company were unbeatable. we said some goodbyes and i ran off to get a rap hat while everyone else went to stevie wonder. i went to stevie after but couldn't find anyone so i just caught a tiny bit then bailed back to the van. we went back to mike & ash's, split up the gear, did some general cleaning and sorting of the van then mark and i set off to get to jackson, TN. we arrived and slept.

we woke up and drove. and drove. and drove. and drove. and for a change then we thought it might be a cool idea if maybe we considered possibly just driving a little bit more. eventually we got to dallas and i got on my flight. after some drama with my credit card eventually they gave me inflight wireless internet for free. this therefore made it the best flight ever. inflight internet is amazing. anyone who saw all of my facebook updates understands how much i loved it. anyway. landed at LGA in NYC and caught a taxi to rich's where i slept. the next day i woke up and pretty much just started to plan my next few days. after working out a rough plan rich and i met up with sasha and we went and saw sally seltmann play at a sweet dark little bar. she ruled. then sasha and i headed off to the empire state to try and catch the sunset but we missed it by like a half hour. that's alright, we enjoyed it anyway. after that we went to planet hollywood in times square. what a weird place. the most unusual memorabilia hanging around the place. some rad stuff from se7en that i really wanted. some stuff from beetlejuice (yep). some stuff from fifth element and die hard 3. a bunch of stallone stuff. you could tell who owned the place. the food wasn't too bad. a couple basically broke up next to us which was kind of distressing but we tried to block it out. after that we bid our farewells (see you in australia!) and went to our respective places of rest.

the next day (the 15th) i went on a bit of a mission. i dropped some rolls of film (14) off at a sweet photo lab, walked up to the NYC public library and took a look, then went to the chrysler building and took a big long look at that (favourite building in NYC next to the empire, definitely), then checked out grand central (mark told me i'd love it and i did), then dropped some stuff off at our business manager's office, then went to NBC for a fallon taping. it was pretty rad. such a tiny studio, really surprised me. the guy who was warming up the crowd singled me out as the orrstrayylyann so we had a bit of a back and forth which was entertaining. the roots came out and played thought @ work to get the crowd ready (awesome) to which i reacted like a school girl to the beatles in the 60's. the roots are still the best. see them live and try denying it. cedric the entertainer was on and he was funnier than i remember. he made some crack about there being an ipad app for where to buy weed in the hood and ?uestlove made a "he just say that on fallon?" face. it was a pretty awkward comment. fred willard was on too and wasn't as funny as i'd hoped. still cool to see him in person though. broken social scene played a song too. killed it.

afterwards this feller named paul took me down and showed me the set which was pretty cool to see. i got to see ?uest's kit up close too which was pretty surreal. learned a few little things i might try and work into my setup. after that i walked down 7th and found a cinema and watched get him to the greek which was alright. might have to see it again. i dig jonah hill so i was always destined to see it. walked back to rich's and slept. i don't remember what i did the next day. i think i went and saw splice which was pretty surprisingly rad and legitimately disturbing. and really well made. after that i bailed back to rich's then went out again and saw best worst movie which is a doco about troll 2 and the recent cult status it's achieved. really good, really funny, really entertaining doco. kinda heartbreaking in parts too. definitely recommend it. after that, sleep. next day i got up and saw breathless (godard) at the film forum which was a pretty killer experience. brand new print, lovingly restored. looks good as new. still as fresh of a film as ever too. after that i headed back to rich's and we picked up greg and went to brooklyn bowl to see the roots/john legend play.

pretty surreal little show. not a big venue which was odd given who was playing. i watched ?uest and john the whole time, and james poyser. i didn't even realise poyser was playing with the roots now. he's amazing. pure fire on a piano. did a ridiculous solo in one of the songs that had everyone else in the band cracking up laughing from the sheer sickness of it. after that we bowled awhile while ?uesto dj'd the night away. i did good on my first game but sucked royally after that. what's a boy to do. the lakers/celtics game was playing all around the venue at the same time and when the lakers won, ?uest was spinning that kelis "i hate you so much right now" song and he dropped it back to probably half the speed or more for a couple of minutes to really emphasize exactly how he was feeling about the lakers at the time. we eventually headed home and i slept.

woke up, hectic times. picked up some photos from the shop, packed my bags, booked hostels...a few other things before i left. bid my farewell to rich (who's a legend for putting me up for the last couple of days/nights), jumped in a cab, raced to jfk as fast as i could (it took around an hour and forty five...nasty) only to find the computers were down so they just manually checked us in. which was interesting. the flight was alright, i watched star wars episode III: revenge of the sith. if you take out all the clowning droid voices and basically every scene (except the choking one) with padme then you have a really solid film. easily the best of the prequels. very badarse. the opening is the best of the prequels too, straight into it.

I HAVEN'T SEEN YOU THIS NERVOUS SINCE WE FELL INTO THAT NEST OF GUNDARS

i also read child of god by cormac mccarthy. pretty intense book, not for the weak of stomach or those who don't like weird stories. definitely his shortest book too. after i got off the flight they put us with a different carrier to get to munich (the flight went into dusseldorf) who charged me excess baggage which is a whole other kettle of fish but i eventually got on the flight and listened to animal collective the whole way. real short flight, might have actually been less than an hour flight time. once i got there it was a juggling act with all of my gear. when it came to stairs, cause i had my rolling luggage, snare and cymbals (and backpack but that doesn't count), sometimes i had to take two items up some steps, come down, grab the lone item, grab one of the two items i already brought up on the way past, go up further, go down and grab the straggler and so on. painful. but i finally got to the hostel where i am now at. sigh.

the title has no relevance to the contents of this post, i just think they're a badass band.

catch.