The Unrelated Joys of Pizza and J-e-l-l-o

So I had pizza for dinner….once again. It seems as though when you live on a diet of just pizza, and some chips every once in a while, you end up feeling pretty damn poor. And this is not luxury pizza, this is pizza you get at the store for 1 pound. No good. I guess this is the life of an artist in London. Or maybe just a poor artist. Hopefully sometime soon, I will be not so poor, and more so well-fed, famous, rich and powerful. I think these are the four pillars of happiness. Yes, actually I am sure of it. I could be wrong though, ask me tomorrow.

So quick recap of this weekends events. Seeing as I drank nearly every night, I will do my best. This weekend marked the departure of one of my favorite housemates. Miss Shannon Walton is making her way back to South Africa as we speak. So, as a result, this weekend became a full out “party hardy” weekend. The only things missing were Jason and Nathan Hardy out of Arizona. What’s up fellas!

Thursday night the housemates and I made our way up the block to the crazy Australian establishment that has come to be known as the Walkie. It’s actually called the Walkabout, but you know how those crazy Australians can be sometimes….um…ah…yea, crazy. We danced the night away to music and drinks, and you guessed it, they played that “land down under song” 100 times. Don’t fret though, they played all your favorite Poppy Trance tunes as well. My god I hate that shit. Could music get any worse. Anyway, it wasn’t about the music or the drinks that night, it was about having a group oriented “go get em” type of night so Shannon would sho’ ‘nuff (“sure enough” for the non-american-slang-speakers) know how much we all love her before she leaves. Cause Shan, we do, were gonna miss ya.

Friday came along without regard for the Thursday we had undertaken. What is with Friday anyway, always pullin’ that shit. Oh well, I made the best of it and had a mid-day beer to beat off the hangover leach that was riding me pretty hard that day. Some how we discovered that Shannon had yet to ever enjoy the sweet pleasure of J-e-ll-o shots, so we made it the job of the day to find Jello, and make shots. Too bad England doesn’t believe in Jello. I thought they loved Mr. Cosby over here too. I was dead wrong. We finally found this box that looked and felt like a Jello box, making the assumption that due to the weight of the packaging, there was indeed a pack of powder enclosed that one could make Jello with. They called this “Jelly.” Jelly I say. Try to find that in a store that carries jellys, jams, and no Jello. Crazy business. Well, needless to say, we made our way back home and opened the package. Inside was a Jello box shaped Jello mold, cut into sugar cube sized pieces. What the fuck are we supposed to do with this. Read the directions you say. Ok, great idea…to bad they are in English. “English, great, just read them and figure it out. It can’t be that hard.” Riiiiiiiight….pint, ml, cl, you name it, it was all there. Cooking words like boil and so on are all different as well. Let the guessing begin. We came to the conclusion that the cubes were concentrate and if you can believe it, we were right. Apparently, you don’t eat the cubes, you dissolves them into the boiling water and then add the ridiculous amounts of Vodka. Perfect, we were on our way.

Later that night I made my way to the Westminster Tube stop, which exits right in front of Big Ben and the House of Parliaments. I was to meet Jim Barnhill and his mother Maile Barnhill. At this point, every one in my house is pissed at me (not drunk, angry :-). I get to have family friends who I love come into town just about every weekend to love me endlessly with free food. I must have been fat in a previous life because at this point I just can’t seem to eat enough, thanks to everyone one buys me food. Wow, I am one lucky bastard. Well, we ate at a Chinese restaurant in the front of the Saatchi gallery, directly across from Big Ben on the Thames River. The food was good, the conversation was better, and the view was the best. Out the window we could see Big Ben, in all its glory. As Jim pointed out, they should call it Little Ben and go ahead and build another Ben somewhere. When they do, they should actually make it Big, and then they could use the “Big” adjective to describe it. Until then we will have to be happy with the 8-10 story, so called “Big Ben,” that they currently misrepresent to the masses.

After dinner I rushed home to make it back in time to enjoy the “Jelly Shooters” I had made earlier that day. To bad my housemates were too eager to wait for me and by the time I made it home, they had already had shooters and left for the bars. This pissed me off cause they got pissed and I was left to get pissed on my own. Follow? They even went as far as to lock the door where the remainder of the shots were being held hostage. Never put the fate of your pissedness in the hand of others, this is the lesson of the evening. I dragged my sober ass to the bar where they were hanging out, pissed, and gave them a call when I made it there. The bar was one I had already been to, Zoo Bar, in Leicester Square. In a previous blog entry I described this bar as “Nothing really that exciting to report, a lot of American music, dancing, drinking, and all that jazz.” It ceased to impress me the second time around. Why I went is beyond me. All I can say is at this point I was extremely happy that I hadn’t paid to get in. Not that there wasn’t an 8 pound cover. You see, when my housemates came out to get me, I was told to go by the cashier on the way in. Under no supervision, I tend to not do what I am told. Actually, now that I think about it, I tend to not do what I’m told under supervision as well. As I walked in between my housemates, I acted as though I had already been in the club as well. No prob bob, I was in. All I know is that when a DJ spins the 50’s song Twist and mixes from there into the Friends Theme Song, you know you are not in the states anymore. At this point, I knew I had to leave. When I got home I helped myself to the much-anticipated Jello, or Jelly, shots. Whew, I needed that.

My Saturday went pretty smoothly. I watched Dawn of the Dead with a few people in the house on my computer. That movie is out of control. I wouldn’t really recommend it to anyone though, its not very good. After the movie was over I made my way out to the Chalk Farm Tube station to meet up with my friend Tanya that is helping me out with promotion of my art in London. She has been working in the music and art industries the past few years and has made many friends and contacts that could prove to be useful for me. While we sat enjoying a beer and a pizza (yes, another pizza), I had to use the toilet (as they say here). I went into the loo (also a bathroom here) and when I walked in the only other guy in there was beat-boxing. Now for those of you who don’t listen to hip-hop, beat-boxing is the way an artist would create beats and sounds with his mouth as his instrument. As I walked into the bathroom, he stopped. I let him know right away that he didn’t have to stop for me. He replied, “Alright, I’ll beat-box if you rap.” Now for those of you who know me, I do enjoy the occasional freestyle session, but I maintain no degree of seriousness when I do. I proceeded to throw down some fly ass shit. (Not really, but I did keep up with the beat and rhyme which is about all I can hope for.) When I lost my concentration, the guy proceeded to tell me that my “shit was tight.” I said, “yea, right.” And he’s all, “You here all night.” I’m like, “Right…you too? tiiiight!” See my shit is tight, right? No but seriously, I gave him my card and told him that I do shoots for musicians. He then went onto tell me he was the lead singer/rapper/beat-boxer of a live hip-hop band called the “Hipopratives.” I got his number and I will definitely be at their next show. Tiiiiiiight.

After enjoying dinner and a few beers, I took my first ride in a car in almost 2 months. I rode in the passenger seat and I have to say it was quite a trip. Fun stuff. She dropped me off at the tube station that I had come in from and I made my way back to The Bush. On the way back I called my friends Melinda and Chip, whose engagement party I had attended a few weeks back. They were going out for a little bar hopping in their town, the burrow of Wimbledon.

I got home, dropped off my computer and a few other things, and ran back out to hop on the tube to get down to Wimbledon. I met up with Chip and Melinda at a bar called Suburban in the heart of Wimbledon, about a 2 minute walk from their front door. We had a few drinks, a few shots, and a few words with each other, and then we made our way to another bar via taxi. I have to say a huge thanks to Chip for all the kindness he shows me when I go out with them. He definitely makes the evening happen for me when we go out…this is for sure. We went to one other bar and then made our way home to their flat to call it a night. They put me up in their extra bedroom and in the morning Melinda cooked up a delicious egg and toast breakfast. Thanks you guys! Great night!

Ok, so that is all for now. Missing you guys. Promise.


Love You All I’m Sure,

Blakeroo