Monday 28th July 2002 - Flying to San Francisco
Go West, Young Man!
OK, not many pictures for this page, so I'll make it as short and sweet as possible! Monday the 28th was, essentially, a travel day. We had spent the night at the Holiday Inn, out by Newark Liberty airport and enjoyed all the facilities of a hotel; toilet, shower, and television, things you just take for granted, as a rule. Oh, yeah, certain members of our party discovered the bar and stayed there for the duration.
Here is the scenic view from the window of The Holiday Inn at Newark Liberty.
OK, not many pictures for this page, so I'll make it as short and sweet as possible! Monday the 28th was, essentially, a travel day. We had spent the night at the Holiday Inn, out by Newark Liberty airport and enjoyed all the facilities of a hotel; toilet, shower, and television, things you just take for granted, as a rule. Oh, yeah, certain members of our party discovered the bar and stayed there for the duration.
Here is the scenic view from the window of The Holiday Inn at Newark Liberty.
The City By The Bay: Oakland
The flight to San Francisco was unremarkable and I spent it reading my 'Lonely Planet' guide to the USA and listening to Sammy Hagar's awesomely brilliant Hallelujah CD, a bit of Marillion, and some Dave Matthews Band. Anything but punk. Hehehe. Only joking. I love punk, but I can't listen to it exclusively, I need some variety in my music. The in-flight food was truly disgusting and my seat was knackered. Every time I leaned back, I ended up in the lap of the bloke behind me, staring right up his nose. Whilst he understood the problem, it didn't change the fact that it was highly annoying for both of us. Continental Airlines, take note.
By the time we landed in San Francisco, it was dark, so I couldn't see much out of the window, no view of the Golden Gate Bridge for me. [Pouts]
When you enter the country, you have to go through the immigration and passport shit before you collect your baggage. I've now done that twice and neither time was particularly difficult, even in the week before the first anniversary of 9-11. Security on internal flights is lax at best, non-existent at worst. I guess they figure that if you're already in the country, you couldn't possibly have any axe to grind. Yeah, that must be it.
So, anyway, we sauntered off the plane, collected our bags and wandered outside to wait for Davey, our left coast driver. A phone call was all that it should have taken but mobiles being what they are, we couldn't get hold of him. The idea was to phone him when we got out of the terminal and he would come and pick us up. What we didn't know was that he had broken down in Death Valley and was running late. We decided that we would wait for the others to land, meet them at their terminal and phone again, once we were all together. Still, Davey was incommunicado.
By the time we landed in San Francisco, it was dark, so I couldn't see much out of the window, no view of the Golden Gate Bridge for me. [Pouts]
When you enter the country, you have to go through the immigration and passport shit before you collect your baggage. I've now done that twice and neither time was particularly difficult, even in the week before the first anniversary of 9-11. Security on internal flights is lax at best, non-existent at worst. I guess they figure that if you're already in the country, you couldn't possibly have any axe to grind. Yeah, that must be it.
So, anyway, we sauntered off the plane, collected our bags and wandered outside to wait for Davey, our left coast driver. A phone call was all that it should have taken but mobiles being what they are, we couldn't get hold of him. The idea was to phone him when we got out of the terminal and he would come and pick us up. What we didn't know was that he had broken down in Death Valley and was running late. We decided that we would wait for the others to land, meet them at their terminal and phone again, once we were all together. Still, Davey was incommunicado.
San Francisco Airport
Street Brat Ugly
The police at US airports are pretty hot on moving those along who have come to collect passengers. At San Francisco airport, the road loops around, so you see the same vehicles driving past, time and again. We figured that someone would see the guitar cases and the haircuts sooner or later and stop. Sure enough, eventually, a white van stopped. Chris, the young lady driving, explained Davey's situation and told us that she had come to pick us up and take us to a bar in Oakland. Once there, we would meet the Street Brats, a bunch of young Chicagoites, who would serve as support band for the remaining dates, providing the backline and drum kit for The Skeptix into the bargain. Davey would get there as soon as he could. A bar in Oakland, home of my team, The Raiders - I could see no major problems with the arrangement. Well, as long as there was beer.
Street Brat Max
Of course, as soon as we met the Brats, we could see that they had trouble on their agenda. Young, good-looking (well, mostly), beers in hand, Max, Ugly, Rick, Jordan and merch man Chris, were already severely liquored-up and out of control by the time we arrived. Their Chicago-mean-streets-hoodlum ways cut no ice with us Midlanders. We slapped them around and made them toe the line; we whipped them like dogs until they begged for us to stop; they cried like Nancy Kerrigan and pleaded for mercy. We showed them none. This was the way it would have to be for the next 12 days. It was a case of tough love, but it was necessary.
Street Brat Jordy
Actually, it didn't happen quite like that. We got on famously with the Brats from the word go. Anyone who's reading this and thinks the Brats are tough guys... Hahahahahah! Pussy cats, all of them.
Street Brat Rick
I had the first of many late night discussions with bass player Rick. We discussed the ins and outs of gridiron for hours, remembering many of the great teams and players of the past. I don't often get the chance to talk about the game that I have followed for the last 21 years, following a US institution from the UK, so I made the best of it. Last year, I spent my first night in America, in a bar in New Jersey on opening night, as the Giants played the 49ers. This year I spend my first night in California, in a bar in Oakland, talking to a Chicago Bears fan about the Monsters of the Midway. For me, this is about as good as it gets. No, wait, it was about to get better. The bar owner was forcing Wild Turkey down us, for free. That really is about as good as it gets..
The rest of the night gets somewhat blurred. I must have had some tainted water, or something. I will not get into the extreme detail but, suffice it to say, we went back to someone's place for a party. I think his name was Mikey, but I could be wrong. I do remember listening to Iron Maiden's Killers album on vinyl around 2AM; eating burgers from the barbecue about 3AM; some crazy Latina tart with knives in her knickers, running around trying to cut someone who'd tried to cop a feel about 4AM. I have recollections of picking the sweetest lemons and limes you can imagine, from a tree in the garden, the police coming around and running out of beer around 5AM. I think it was about then that Davey mentioned that you could buy beer at gas stations from 6AM. So, we did. What's more, me, Davey, Chris and Ush went back to Chris's and drank until we fell asleep, some time around 9AM.
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