The Forced Laughter of...

... a thousand arthouse movie patrons doesn't come close, because at least they do it without explicit instruction from severely goosed-up network drones on happy pills. On the Late Show with David Letterman, the laughs are produced on cue to spine-chilling effect. The world's shittest stand up could perform on that show and feel like Bill Hicks. No, not cancer-ridden ( although incidentally, Letterman's virtuoso partner in crime, Paul Shaffer, looks remarkably like Jade Goody does at the moment) but akin to one of the all-time greats. Texting of Shaffer though, all credit to him and the CBS orchestra he leads, as they play great music throughout the ad-breaks. Also, Letteman himself is not an unfunny guy, but it's just when you're given strict instructions to laugh five times harder than you normally would, and even to go for it if you're not actually amused, it totally cheapens any genuine laughs you might have. But anyway (my most underused linking words by far) the overall Late Show experience was fun, even if the most high profile guest was some guy from American Chopper. After it was over I headed back to Brooklyn to check into possibly the nicest hostel I've ever stayed at. If you find yourself heading to NY and wanna pay closer to 20 quid than 200, meet a ton interesting people in place more modern and well furnished than most budgety five-times-the-cost hotels in the city, look up the New York City Loft. So besides the shameless plugging, I ended up hitting (so they claim) the only exclusively blues club in Manhattan, an excellent evening with a couple of welshmen, two Americans from Michigan and a south African applying to do a massively complicated chemistry-based doctorate at Princeton. Who was actually infectiously funny. Well, he had a funny infection. Sweaty puss-ball blistitis. Or so he said. Didn't fancy checking. Regardless, Terra Blues, a few blocks south of Bleeker Street had an awesome band that played well into the small hours. Their bar prices were nuts - the cheapest pint being Rolling Rock coming in at a cool $6, plus the dollar tip, making it over five quid! But even so, it was worth it for the music. My hostel buddies trickled away bit by bit after between midnight and one, but I wasn't quite ready to quit that early. I couldn't get enough! Plus I knew getting back to Brooklyn with company would be too easy - I figured you've not experienced New York till you've been alone and at least a bit lost on the subway in the wee hours. Not that it was my intention, but it came to pass anyway. Staying till closing, I felt torn between having a great time listening to the Blues, yet by the very nature of the music feeling somewhat sombre. I chatted to the girls on the table next to mine, recognising their Baltic accents as an easy in, we talked about Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, travel and loads of other jazz, except of course jazz itself, as it may have been a violation of the whole exclusively-blues status of the place. After they left, a waitess seemed to both respect my long-haul patronage (by then running into hour four or five) and pity my lack of company. Bizarrely, she offered to buy me a drink, which just confused me. Already hopelessly lost in the ocean of tipping etiquette, I had no idea how to respond, except for hesitantly taking her up, requesting a Rolling Rock with a terribly British Hugh Grant-esque overly-polite bemusement-babble. It seemed to work, and my offer of a tip was politely waved away. But I offered distracting, yet seemingly well received conversation as she was attempting to clean up, trading a plethora of contact details. It was a brilliant night, topped off nicely by, as hinted at before, a long and confusing journey. The most baffling part of it was Bleeker Street station having the least clear signage in the world, making me enter the station from both sides of the street, running up and down the stairs and J-walking several times, to hear conflcting reports from everyone about which side was heading north. Eventually I needed to pee so bad I had to head into a nearby bar, and again, being ridiculously English felt obligated to buy something. Asking if there were any drink deals, the bar tender informed Bud on draught was five bucks a pint. And why not? Whatever. Drinking quickly before I left I made sure to ask which side of the road would take me NORTH on the subway. "absolutely the one across the street. Not this side, the other." Great. Got on. Doors close. SOUTH. Bastard. This is far too long, so to it down, eventually made it to the L Train to Brooklyn, drifted off, thought I'd gone past my stop, got off, as it was leaving saw I was in fact three or four stops short. There wasn't another train for ages, so I just went for walk. As much as this BlackBerry is pissing me off, Google Maps saved my bum (possibly literally), as Brooklyn isn't as easy to navigate as Manhattan, as the grid system gives way to a more British windy and twisty-turny setup. Anyway, I made it back by 6 and slept feeling a little braver (unfortunately not 'beaver' as my predictive text suggested), yet had no clue where I'd be bedding down the next night. It's all part of the game.