Pretty much every meal I’ve had in London.

I’m headed to London tonight (and yes, I’m hard). On my two previous jaunts to Europe in November (London) and February (Amsterdam), AT&T was my cell phone carrier, so all I had to do was give them a heads up and boom – I could bring my iPhone to Europe, no problem.

While that part of AT&T was terrific, every single other part was terrible. So in March or April, I switched to Verizon. I don’t want to sound too dramatic here, but it was probably the best decision I’ve ever made. After years of AT&T and Sprint before that, I had forgotten what it’s like to have a cell phone that you can depend on and, you know, make calls with. So no complaints there.

But one thing Verizon does not have is an easy way to use your phone internationally. I was told by other Verizon customers that this was a pain: that they send you a replacement phone which you have to send back and blah blah blah. Being lazy, this turned me off immediately. But on the most recent trip to Amsterdam, which was a 12-man bachelor party, those with phones were kings, and those without phones were left in the dark, sometimes forced to hang around the spots we frequented, waiting for the rest of the group to show up, as there was no way to get in touch with the others. (But hey, at least there were whores and pot to occupy your time if you lost the rest of the group.)

So even though I’m in London this weekend for only 73 hours, I knew I wanted a phone. And to my surprise (and delight), getting the loaner from Verizon was really, really easy – the shipped it, it arrived overnight, and I activated it. When I’m done, I’ll reactivate my old phone and ship the loaner back in the same box it arrived in. (And the loaner phone is my regular NYC number!) Bless you, Verizon.

But the catch – and it’s not really a catch, per se – is that my loaner phone is not only purple (which I can deal with), but it’s a flip-type phone. And it is not only a flip-type phone, it is an old flip-type phone. While the above photo is not my actual phone, it’s close to it, sans the purple.

I tested the phone by sending two text messages, one to my lady and one to a buddy in England. The former consisted of only “testing,” while the second was “Simon, it’s Jason. Testing the new phone.” But because I haven’t had a flip phone since 2005 (I had a Treo before an iPhone), the first text message took about two minutes to type, while the second took about as long as a quarter of football and because I couldn’t find puncutation, read “simon its jason testing the new phone.”

To be sure, by the end of this trip, I’m sure my old dexterity will come back and hitting the number 7 four times for an “s” will seem as normal as updating my Facebook status from my iPhone while in the shower. But until then, I feel like my dad using a cell phone – totally and completely befuddled by this strange, new (but old) technology.

Elvis Costello and The Imposters, with big-ass song wheel, at Beacon Theatre, NYC.

God, I love him.

At one point, he did “Alison” into Jimi Hendrix’s “Wind Cries Mary” and, somewhere in a parallel universe, my 14 year old self came and then exploded. Hearing one high school idol cover another…it’s just too much.

(Elvis is still an idol, and while I will always appreciate Jimi, the allure of the whole sexy/exotic-guitar-god-who-died-young-and-fucked-up thing wears off as one grows older.)

Otherwise, the show was very good, but the wheel was sort of a double-edged sword. For those who don’t know, Elvis last travelled with this wheel, a spinning song book of hits, covers, and lesser known cuts, in the 80’s (or maybe it was ’90 or so when he retired it).

Anyway, it was cool that people were plucked from the audience to spin the wheel (and really, who doesn’t love a good wheel-spinning?), but the show was less of a concert and more of a, well, show. There was a lot of talking and EC playing to the crowd and interacting with audience members brought on stage to spin, and this interrupted the flow of the concert – both because of the breaks between songs but also because someone might hit on a faster tempo song, then the next person might hit on a slower tempo song, etc. Whenever he broke from playing to get another person to spin or to talk to the crowd, I found myself wishing he’d just keep on rocking out already. My personal highlight was “Black and White World,” which I had never heard in the dozen-plus times I’ve seen him. And of course, Alison -> Wind Cries Mary which then ended in Somewhere Over the Rainbow. Shitballs.

Still, since it was an Elvis Costello show, I’d give it a 40 out of 10. He’s the best.

Yes, that is veal and pork loaf with a fried egg on top. What?

My all-time favorite Arnold Schwarzenegger moment, and possibly my all-time favorite moment, period.

There are so many great parts to choose from in this video, but the carrot (or celery) fellatio around the 4:30 mark takes the cake for me. I promise you the whole thing is worth five minutes of your time.

I don’t know what’s more surprising: that this guy married a Kennedy and cheated on her by fucking the gross maid or that he was in charge of the world’s eighth largest economy for EIGHT YEARS.

God bless America, man.

(And I have no idea why this video doesn’t have 20,000,000+ views. Really.)

I’m calling this one “Humble Brag Fail.”

HOW DO YOU NOT KNOW THAT PAUL SANG “LET IT BE”? It’s one of the most famous Paul songs ever (and one of the most famous songs ever, period) and he wrote it about his mother’s death from cancer (“Mother Mary comes to me…”).

Not only that, how can you listen to it and think that’s John singing? I mean, have you heard a Beatles song before? Any of them? I could see not being sure who sings, for example, “Lady Madonna,” when Paul gets into that deep, from-the-diaphram voice. But “Let It Be” is distinctly, completely, obviously Paul – it’s like saying Paul sang “Imagine.”

(I know that’s not a Beatles song, obviously, but you know what I mean.)

But anyway, so awesome you’re meeting John Lennon’s family!!! OMG!!!

Lesson: If you’re going to brag all over the internet, people, at least get it right.

(Also, I couldn’t figure out how to crop the bottom two status updates out, but I think they work pretty well [all three are from different people].)

Walked 24 total blocks to get this because my hangover absolutely demanded it.

“Hi, Rock Bottom – my name is Jason. Do you want to have a drink first, or should we get straight to the fucking?”

“One never knows when the homosexual is about.”

I…uh…

(Seriously, that’s all I can muster right now – and perhaps ever.)

Three weeks, guys. Three weeks until me and my ol’ buddy Bill head over to tear up foggy London town for about 72 hours, while taking in a little soccer match.

Can’t get here soon enough.

(Editor’s Note: I’m actually not going to the soccer match, but I’ll be in/around city for it. It’s complicated.)

Enough with the politics: let’s talk muzak.

It’s just about five months until my book is due (Oct 1 – yikes!), so that means one thing: I am going to procrastinate the shit out of the next few months.

Now, usually “procrastination” means “masturbation,” but that can only last so long, especially considering I’m 98% sure I either have the diabetes (pronounced di-uh-BEET-uhs) or am on the doorstep of the diabetes, so my sex drive is quite close to nil.

(I mean, do you see my knee in the lower right hand corner? If that isn’t the knee of a diabetic, I don’t know what is.)

And so, I turn to my other love: playing instruments poorly.

As you can see, after over three years apart (courtesy of my move to LA, and then my move back to NYC into a 400 sq ft apartment, before finally moving to my large Brooklyn apartment), we’ve got the whole gang back together. Here’s a quick history:

Bass – I played bass in a band in college. Neither I nor the band were very good, but I did get a blowjob in a the woods of Vermont after playing a show at Middlebury. So that was nice.

Banjo – bought on a whim a few years back, I tried to learn it the “right way” (i.e., fingerpicking), but almost immediately quit.

Mandolin – I’ve talked enough about this lately. I love it, and am taking to it pretty well.

Acoustic – bought as a gift for myself when I finished book #1. If you’ve read the book, you can see how it’s debatable or not whether I earned it.

Electric – bought when I was 13, when I was at the height of my Jimi-Hendrix-at-Woodstock phase. It’s a Japanese “70’s style” strat with a really nice reverby tone.

Ukulele – gifted to me by an ex. Very easy and fun to play at parties and while nude (a six foot tall, 200+ pound hairy guy with a beard playing a ukulele nude = INSTANT SEX)

For book #1, I procrastinated by “learning” the piano. Mostly this meant getting drunk at the computer and composing some original pieces (limited to five notes), but I did learn passable versions of Regina Spektor’s “Us” and the “Layla” outro, which is much, much easier than I thought.

For book #2, I think I’m going to follow the lead of the mandolin and go back to the banjo. Not only is it a very hot instrument right now, but it was such a spectacular failure of an experiment the first time around that I can’t possibly get any worse. If I manage even a few shitty songs, it will give me a self-esteem boost and thus help me write the greatest book ever.

And if the banjo experiment fails, I can always go back to the masturbation. October 1 will be here before you know it.

Though a tried-and-true liberal, I feel like a goddamned card-carrying member of the Tea Party today because so many are playing the “What does it matter?” or “We shouldn’t celebrate death” cards. If you don’t understand why this matters, you are displaying your ignorance about a number of things (you know, like current events, culture, history – just small stuff). If you don’t think we should celebrate this death, then go back to your commune, hippie – I’m gonna go do some shots of whiskey in honor of our kick-ass troops, and then hand out about a million high-fives.

America. Fuck yeah.