Life in Manhattan

Today we went over to Staten Island on the Staten Island Ferry, followed by the recently opened High Line walk in the meat packing district back in Manhattan…

We began our adventure at 3pm by catching the train down to the the very bottom tip of Manhattan Island. Being such a nice sunny Saturday afternoon the tourists were out in force! We caught the ferry over to Staten Island taking some photos as we went. We arrived at the Staten Island Ferry terminal and went for a quick wander around the surrounding neighborhood…. not much is happening near the Staten Island Ferry Terminal. We had a quick pub meal and a beer at one of the few nearby restaurants and went back to Manhattan. Here are some pictures to prove we went:

After we returned from Staten Island we traveled up the west side of Manhattan and had a look at the new High Line gardens. This walk is a 2.3 kilometer elevated freight railroad, built in the 1930’s until it was abandoned in the 1980’s and began to grow a random variety of weeds and plants along the tracks. These plants were the inspiration for the redevelopment of the High Line into an above ground garden. 50 million dollars later these gardens finally opened to the public on June 2009.

Yesturday evening my girlfriend and I went to our first taping of a show in New York, “The Colbert Report”. I arrived at about 3:30pm and was tenth in line. It was a very warm afternoon, but thankfully the ticket holders get an under cover awning to hide from the weather during the long wait outside. After about an hour an intern from the show came down and took everyones names from the ticket holding queue, whilst making some small talk with me about my accent. Shortly after 5pm my girlfriend showed up (some of us had to work) and was allowed to join me up the front of the line.

At 5:30pm we were directed inside the building to a bag scanner/metal scanner area, just outside the Colbert filming studio, and were informed of what was requried of us once inside the stuido…. mostly LOTS of yelling! We ending up waiting for about an hour inside this holding area. Whilst we waited to enter the studio there was a TV on the wall playing classic clips from the show. Everyone was laughing and getting into the mood.

Around 7pm we were directed into the studio and into our seats. We were seated towards the left center of the stage in front of his desk. It is very interesting to note how small the entire taping studio actually is for the Colbert Report. The audience seats only 120 people (a third the size of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart), and because of this laughing/cheering is STRONGLY encouragred “even if you don’t understand a joke!”.

A comedian was the first out onto the stage to warm up the crowd. He spent most of the time making fun of people in the crowd and everyone was laughing along. One kid in a jacket and white singlet was singled out for being an “eastern european coke sniffer”. It was all very fun and when Stephen Colbert eventually took to the stage everyone was very excited!  Stephen feeds of the excitment of his crowd and tonight it seemed like he was more excited than his usual cheery self, which was great fun to see! First off Stephen had a brief Q and A session, where he spoke out of character about some of the bizarre people he meets and then fielded a few questions.

The episode for today was primarily about the “birther movement”, namely a bunch of weirdos not believing Obama is entilted to be the president of the United States because he was not born in this country… despite the fact that his ‘Certificate of live birth’ from Hawaii has been provided, aswell as two inserts in Hawaian newspapers annoucing his birth on August 4th 1961. This movement is so bizarre that even staunch Republican Bill O’Reilly has debunked it himself!

The person to be interviewed tonight was Arrianna Huffington, founder of the liberal news website “The Huffington Post”. The interview was interesting as I visit this site ocassionaly and didn’t know anything about it’s origins.

The taping lasted for about an hour and by 8pm we were done, three and a half hours before it is to be edited and shown on Comedy Central! We left the studio via the same holding area and walked towards home, enjoying a beautiful warm night in New York City.

At the end of March I flew down to Miami, Florida to attend the Ultra Music Festival. This is a two day electronic music festival with some of the biggest names in the world playing annually as the culmination of a week long winter music conference. My festival buddy for this weekend away was my Australian friend Jono.

Mr Jono was currently traveling in the UK during the event, and flew 14 hours each way from London just.for.the.event!! How he was able to clear customs into this country I will never understand.

Customs FAIL

After several hours of Jono drinking alone at the airport bar my plane finally arrived in Miami and we caught a cab to our accommodation for the weekend. Our accommodation was organized by a kid from South Carolina that I had never met before called Beau. Beau had advertised via facebook on the Ultra Music Festival events wall that they had a party house booked with a couple spaces available. We contacted Beau to lock in the last couple places and canceled our stay at our South Beach hostel. Luckily for us Beau was an amazingly organized individual and pretty much the entire weekend went off without a hitch!

Ultra Music Festival Day 1

We woke up on day one and began to drink! There were about 15-20 people staying at our waterfront house and it was pretty humorous talking to some South Carolinian kids with their southern accents y’all. Everyone was pretty knowledgeable about their electronic music and a wicked mix of music was played as we sat and drank some beers, finally enjoying some warmer weather after a miserable New York winter!

A few hours in the unthinkable happened and we ran out of beers, so our sober driver took us on a beer run to Walmart. Bad idea. On route to Walmart our car crashed in the middle of an intersection and our driver Tod had to pull over for a long chat with a very weird lady who did not have any insurance. Eventually Crazy Lady drove off and we went to a nearby gas station to grab some beers.

A few more cold beers by the pool and we eventually caught our taxi to the event. First up we went over and saw the final few songs from Brooklyn based Santogold. I was hoping to hear a bit more of her set though she sounded very tight! Next up on the main stage were the Ting Tings. They were great as always with a lot of energy and played all their usual crowd favorites.

Ting Tings

After Ting Tings left the stage we wandered over to the dance tent and caught most of the set from Melbourne boy Dirty South. He had a very large audience and it was the first time during the day that everyone in our group really got into it!

When Dirty South was all finished we walked over to the main stage and found a nice spot to watch Bloc Party…. Unfortunately Bloc Party front man Kele Okereke had developed some throat issues and so this band were not to play today. I had seen them in New York earlier that week and he had mentioned whilst on stage that his throat felt coarse so no surprises there.

After an hour of weird guys dancing around in green bodysuits to fill the empty Bloc Party time slot, the Black Eyed Peas came out on stage. They were surprisingly entertaining (I had very low expectations) with their music being sped up somewhat and a really good light show. A guest appearance was made by LMFAO playing their single “Im in Miami Bitch” which was fitting for the show. This was the Black Eyed Peas’ first show together in three years and I didn’t mind it at all…

Black Eyed Peas

Taking the stage next was David Guetta. I had been looking forward to this act all day and he was easily my highlight. Guest appearances were made by will.i.am, and for his latest track “Love Takes Over”, Kelly Rowland from Destiny’s Child. I quite enjoyed this song and it was quite a treat seeing it played live for the first time!

David Guetta

……Then the beers started to get at me. Tiesto was very good from what I remember (although I was never a huge fan of his) and it was a good way to round out the first day.

We eventually arrived back at our rental house, after a drive though South Beach, and after a quick swim in the pool I went to bed.

Ultra Music Festival Day 2

I got up in the morning and noticed Jono wasn’t in his bed. After a wander around the house I found him sitting by himself outside. He had been up all night and had only found about half an hours sleep on a pool lounger.

After a couple beers and a few shots of vodka we jumped into our unnecessarily extravagant stretch hummer limo and drove off towards day two of Ultra Music Festival.

First up we went over and watched the Presets‘ early afternoon set. It was very hot in the sun and the band seemed to be feeling the heat. Their set was a bit lack luster which was a shame as I had been looking forward to thema lot. Some of the songs in their set had been modifed to give them a new sound. This worked quite well for them.

Presets

After the Presets we made our way over to see a bit of the Pete Tong set in the Carl Cox tent. This was my first time seeing him and he was very good. I didn’t know any of his music but the crowd seemed to be enjoying it. After a while we left him to head towards the main stage for Infected Mushroom.

Infected Mushroom

Infected Mushroom were great! However hard I was imagining it may have been to enjoy an intense psytrance act in the mid afternoon Miami sun, people weren’t showing the signs at all. There was even some moshing up the front center, with most people enjoying a band that brought a lot of energy to the afternoon!

Next up we went towards the drum and bass tent. Knowing that most of my crowd were not fans of this music genre I told them I would meet them in an hour, and took off to see Chase and Status. It was good to see some drum and bass in the States, as I have noticed in New York it is not a very popular music genre at all. The people on stage and the DJ were very entertaining, dancing up a storm and the music was flawless. The new mix with Snoop Dogg on vocals “Snoop Dogg Millionaire” was a fun track. The set ended with their biggest current single “Pieces”.

Chase and Status

Next up was Cut Copy at the Bayfront stage. I really don’t understand the appeal to this band. The crowd however loved them and seeing some guys from home doing well was at least slightly entertaining. They played all their crowd favorites and informed all that they were doing this set as their final live show in about 18 months of touring. In their defense they brought a lot of enthusiasm to their set which the crowd responded to positively.

Game over! After a day and a half of no food, little sleep and too much alcohol I was becoming easily irritated. It was time for a break. We went and got some some Greek food next, and sat on a hill talking generic festival shit that one speaks in such a mental state. You know what I mean. After a long sit down we were feeling energised enough to hopefully make it through to the end of the day, so we went off towards the main stage to enjoy some Armin Van Buuren! This guy was great as always. It was excellent after the break and with the sun setting we were getting charged to go again. The light show for Armin was amazing. This guy is rated as the worlds number one DJ and he put on a fantastic show with some seamless mixes displayed, coupled with fantastic visuals!!

Armin Van Buuren

After watching a few tracks from final act Paul Van Dyk it was all too much and we began to make our way home. Back at the house a few wind down beers with the group were had, and we called it a night and went to sleep ending an amazingly enjoyable weekend.

On Friday night we went ten pin bowling at Harlem Lanes to celebrate our friend Michelle’s birthday. Bowling began after we had all shared a few jugs of beer in the alley bar, and so our bowling scores suffered proportionately. I somehow came in second with a high score of 86 (out of 9 people bowling!).

Afterwards we all went back to Michelle’s flat nearby and annoyed the neighbors by playing Rock Band until the early hours of Saturday morning.