a walk thru london - part 8

to keep this up to date:

the manchester show was gangsta. good nite. great poets. good set. great sales. very happy with the evening...

back into london same night. slept the entire road - thankfully. woke up fairly early to catch a coffee and lite breakfast with my hostess and visiting San Antonionian Poet Beverley. we make our way to south bank, which is like NYC's Vilage.

we munch on chicken salad sandwiches, crawfish sandwiches and my favorite: prawns and mayonnaise sandwich - trust me. they sound much better than the name! lol

after watching the skateboarder swirl around the graffiti dizzingly, we make our way closer to the london eye. its beautiful. it is. so many people are out today, as its one of london's warmest days... kids are everywhere. strollers line restaurant walls and we have the perfect timing for vieweing a circus cyclist juggle basketballs for laughs, entertainment and a couple of pounds.

afterwards, its time for me to make it back to the flat, as jive and i have a 5 pm soundcheck. the location of the albany theatre and crazy far, so it will take us a good 1hr to get there.

somehow, i get caught up waiting for a bus that never comes - damn 341 - so i take matters into my own hands. i run, a hobble-like run, to the tube, pay for an all day pass (to make transfers, of course) then i return to the bus stop to catch the 171 to bus 19 which drops me off right in front of the house. i make it up the 91 flights, wash up, change and take out the braids (they were itching the hell outta me...). jive has a dilemma that involves shaving cream, a burnt out electrical clipper and some razors. we leave slightly behind schedule. but plan to make it up with an ingenous bus route that will drop us to the express train. slicing our travel time in half.

but if you know me. then you know we got lost under my navigational leadership. so late - that when we finally made it to the vicinity of the venue, we still had to take a cab to the theatre. show starts @ 730 - we get there @ 744. i suck

but the show was good. nice crowd. it filled it before my set in the second half. so it was nostalgic, as we opened the original production in 2003. i had friends from BBC and Soul Food - so the company was great. i was the only woman on the bill - and before the audience was able to hear my set - badgered the host for the delay in some estrogen on stage. i felt very wanted for the first time in a long time. :)

i had a shorter set than normal, because we were late. but i poured my heart out on that stage - so much so, the crowd's laughter and my light bantering walked us into a 4 minute overtime. stewart, the stage manager replied "bollacks! dont worry about the time! you did fantastically ms. mahogany browne"... that's the best thing about being london. you are always told the most beautifulliest things in these instances.

i sat in a seat by the wall, trying to sort out things in my head. i was still a lil' heavy from the hour long walk for the bus that made us so late. but the constant conversations that found me in this state made me focus on the importance of the evening. i signed books and cd's until i was on auto-pilot. i conversed with old friends and new friends. and i ignored the fatigue. the experience was worth it.

afterwards, we had to figure out if we wanted to chill at skorpio's crib as he was having a get together, or did we want to make our way back to central london before the tube closed (as it was sunday - and they close - no matter where they are @ midnight). we decided to make our way back to the flat, walked along the dark pathway with a poet from the States that now lives in the Queensland. for some reason, he reminds me of christian slater. his poetry is funny however, full of cock jokes and porn shop settings. i ask him where this stems from... he then tells me the best way to get over a heartbreak is to visit amsterdam for a specific amount of days. partake in a lot of drinking, selective drugs (his was magic mushrooms) and live sex shows (unless you were the type to visit the inside of those red light district workers). he said, it doesn't have to be a good experience. it just has to work. i dig his thought process. maybe not the hookers part - but i understand his line of genuis. word

we say our goodbyes to nii and the poet that loves family guy as much as i - before huggin marie. her and i will have lunch before i leave. and boogie and jive and i make it for the train. headed back to the flat. for recovery and those special double cheeseburgers that the kebab spot makes us miss home. again and again.

next stop: brighton