This Bogus Poetry

It’s the evening of Chinese New Year and I’m taking my chances in a shorthanded 30/60 game at the Oaks Club. The only reason I’m in this game is the middle aged Chinese megafish to my right and the fact there is no 15/30 game running tonight. The rest of the table seems pretty solid, though not without leaks. To celebrate Chinese New Year the card room is running an all you can eat Chinese buffet and the line snakes around the lobby. It’s unclear to me how one goes about getting a ticket for the buffet, but they are hot property and are being traded around the poker floor like cigarettes in a prison. A man painted orange and with loads of orange balloons attached to him ambles around the room, not sure of what he is expected to do. I assume he is supposed to be a tiger, as this is the year of the tiger, but to me he looks like a man painted orange who is waiting for his shift to finish. A little later he accidently pops one of his balloons, causing the old man on the next table to me t...

Willits, California is not somewhere I’d recommend to the casual tourist. But for the road tripper, I feel the experience was a vital rite of passage. My companion and I left Oakland late and drove for around three hours before hitting our destination. On the way we’d stopped for a classic roadtrip burger from In and Out, a place in America that is after my own heart by having only about five items on the menu. One thing that I’ve begun to hate in the US is choice for food and drink. Just give me a few options and I’ll decide, don’t give me infinite choice – my British brain just gets all confused and hurty. Arriving in Willits the action was slow. It seemed there wouldn’t be any tourist sights to view the next morning and we soon found a road with about ten motels on. With such a range of options some might decide to go for quality and which one looked the best, some might go for a chain that they’d heard of which would hopefully provide some kind of basic standards. We chose the one ...

I spent the first part of this evening with about 25 other people packed in the kitchen of the hostel where I'm staying in San Francisco. The occasion was the Vice Presidential debate and the chance to see Sarah Palin in action! There were several nationalities present in the kitchen, all of them seemingly in favour of the Democrats. To spice up proceedings we played a spot of Sarah Palin bingo. Each of us was given a sheet with keywords or phrases that she might use during the debate. Prizes were on offer of the first to get a line. I was off to a flying start as Palin mentioned being a 'soccer mum' within ten seconds of her first answer, but it wasn't to be and I didn't win. Now first let me say that if you ever wanted to get a definition of the phrase 'out of your depth', you just need to look at Sarah Palin. But fair play to her, she stuck in there in the debate. To quote Big Ron Atkinson, "she did the ugly things well" and stayed with what she...

The veins bulged on his neck. Sweat trickled down the side of his mohawk. Concentration was etched on his face as he butchered one chord after another. "Oooohhhh woooah, we're never gonna survive, unless we get a little bit, craaaazy" I'm not sure what drives a rotund, middle aged man with a moustache and peroxide blonde mohawk to stand in the middle of a busy street and perform an under-rehearsed 15 minute punk rock version of the song Crazy by Seal. Whatever his motivation, he provided something that couldn't be ignored by the customers of Starbucks on Second Street, downtown San Jose. The performance had it all; soul, passion, drama, rawness, pathos and violent energy. He was a man wrestling with his inner demons and how to play bar chords in equal measures. His struggle on both counts was captivating. And that was only the warm up where he tuned his guitar. Little did I, a young mother breast feeding her child, three off duty Nigerian taxi drivers and two ...

The second Thursday of every months sees the Downtown Art Walk take over the artists quarter of downtown LA. Little did I realise that the hotel I'm staying in, in what I thought was the most seedy part of LA possible, is smack in the centre of the action. I'm guessing the random crazy people and general sketchy underbelly of the area brings the rents down. About 45 galleries of varying sizes throw their doors open for the evening and the streets were full of people, many in fancy evening wear. Bands played on street corners and a graffiti covered bus did laps around the galleries transporting people. I visited maybe half the galleries, moving around them like some kind of ninja, eyes eagerly scanning each gallery for any free booze on offer like an alcoholic scavenger. Galleries were in clothes shops, in cafes and one was even in a cigar store. Whilst there I perused the latest issue of Cigar Aficionado (cover star Kevin Costner). I have to admit I didn't find it to be a ...

I guess I should fill you in a little about my accommodation over the past few weeks here in the States. The first week was spent in a luxury hotel with my mum and sister. We got free fruit, a daily weather report delivered to our room and all the shampoo, shower gel and towels we could handle! When they flew back to the UK, my standards of dropped considerably. I spent the next four nights in a hostel, which was pretty much OK apart from the Germans waking me up at 6am every day by rooting around in carrier bags and planning their schedule for the day. One other thing to note about the hostel was the complimentary breakfast it served which was basically just lots of varieties of sponge cake. No toast, no cereal, just lots and lots of cake and some lemon flavoured water. Very strange indeed. Next I spent several days couch surfing with three different people in San Jose, San Luis Obispo and Oxnard. All of whom were great and in one I even got my own room. Then I got to LA. I was always...

I spent last weekend with some of the most mean, rude, miserable, abusive and downright unpleasant people I have ever had the misfortune to meet. No, I'm not talking about the waiting room at West Bromwich Job Centre, I'm talking about the poker room at the Bicycle Casino , Los Angeles. The plan was simple - Play a little poker whilst I'm here in LA to make some of money to pay for a little bit of my trip. Little did I realise how much like work it would actually be... In Vegas gambling is fun. People play poker for recreation. Tips flow and so does the beer - It's a fun place to play. At 'The Bike' things are very different, at least in the games I played. Grim faced, moody and even downright angry, the players hurl a constant stream of abuse and often their cards at the long-suffering dealers. There is completely crazy superstition. People won't play when certain people deal, they always need to sit in certain seats and the regularly request the deck is ch...

So there I was, sitting in a dive bar in Oxnard, drinking Corona, listening to a slightly out of tune Mexican accordion player and making smalltalk with a woman whom I suspected may well be a prostitute. It felt a long way from Great Barr. I'd booked on the 8pm bus from Oxnard to LA, but due to some complete cock up, Greyhound buses had only sent a small coach, so half of us had to wait for the next one. By the resigned acceptance that people accepted this turn of events, this seems to be a regular occurrence on Greyhound buses. With any trip there are high points and low points. Scanning the array of motley characters at the bus station that I was to spend the next four hours with, I quickly surmised that this could turn into a low point. Something needed to be done. With four hours to kill in downtown Oxnard, what was I to do? When a mariachi band wearing huge cowboy hats walked past in the distance, my decision was made. I followed them! Grilled cheese! My time in Oxnard had a b...

I’ve spent the past couple of days in a place called San Luis Obispo. It’s a really fantastic city, pretty much equally between San Francisco and Los Angeles in the middle of California. It’s slightly inland and surrounded by all these great hills, but it’s also only a few miles from several great beaches. The bonus is that as it isn’t right on the coast it doesn’t get a lot of fog that hugs the coast of much of Northern California. It’s a huge college town. The university Cal Poly provides pretty much half of the population of the city, which is around 70,000 people or so. I’ve been staying on the couch of a guy called Scott and for the past few days he’s been showing me around and introducing me to his friends. I have to say, it seems like a pretty idyllic place to go to university. The first night we went to a few bars downtown, one of which hosted a covers band which was fronted by a larger Latino lady and played songs by the likes of Rage Against the Machine and Motorhead. New...

There's probably a few more San Francisco stories left to tell but I'm on the road south now. I spent a few days staying with Aubin in San Jose. Aubin was a true gent and let me sleep on his couch for three days and borrow his legendary Star Wars blanket. He took me out for sushi which was wonderful. I've never much been a man for sushi - but maybe I've been converted? I also tried a California Roll which is all the ingredients for sushi but just put together in the wrong order. Probably a work experience kid did it by accident and began a culinary phenomenon. Who knows?! We went to see the Batman film which I enjoyed a lot, despite being pretty cynical about it beforehand. Of course, I especially loved the scenes with Michael Caine in. I also met Valerie, a super cool goth girl who lives in nearby Campbell with very cute pet house bunnies. Some people may know that I've never been a huge fan of Bauhaus, but Valerie played me Pete Murphy (singer of Bauhaus)'s gr...

They are calling it Chiolence, or at least they should do. The spate of violence that is afflicting the beautiful game. Yes my friends, I saw a punch up at a chess match. There I was on the streets of San Francisco - Though Michael Douglas wasn't with me this time (that's a joke for all the 70s American cop show fans out there). On Market Street I spotted a street chess match going on - There were about ten tables on a street corner. Lots of people playing and a few watching. Now I'm not averse to the spot of street chess. I have been destroyed by old men on street chess boards on two continents. I do play a little chess but I'm not that good. I wandered over as I was perhaps interested in a game, but there was something different about this street chess gathering - It seemed to me that they were playing for money. As I was taking in the scene an elderly black man caught my eye and motioned me to come and play, no doubt salivating at the thought of some fresh meat ...

A few weird things have happened whilst I have been in San Francisco - This is perhaps to be expected. Firstly a few days ago, I saw a dog get run over right in front of me as I was standing at a bus stop. Fortunately the dog seemed pretty fine and unscathed, but it looked quite bad at the time and I did fear the worst when it happened. I was chatting to this guy at the bus stop and out of the corner of my eye I could see what might be about to happen. There was a man walking the dog without a lead and in the US you can turn right even if the lights are on red as long as there are no pedestrians. Well the man and his dog approached the intersection (as we call it over here!) and a car also approached and yeah you know what happened next, I won't describe it. Straight away me and the guy who I was at the bus stop with ran over. Instinctively I ran over to the dog and he seemed ok - he had definitely been hit but he bounded away from the taxi cab and didn't really seemed marke...