Walkin' in Auckland - Jim White, Mark Kozelek, Ben Boye

Some hotel, Auckland, room 1028

Got in late last night, Ben and I went to some Turkish place

And around 2 o clock in the morning, we ordered pizza to go

And some bottled wine, the guys said it was the best sparkling water in the

world

I said, «Really?

How’s that?»

He said «At the bottom of the bottle is a [?}»

I said, «Well then friend, consider it sold.»

The music was so pulsating and loud, I couldn’t think

I walked to the bathroom and there was vomit in the sinks

And tissues with blood and plastic cups all over the floor

And when I came back to meet Ben

Young people were gathered around tables and smokin' hookahs

Or dancing on the dance floor

And in that moment, I felt so old

A girl near the bar was by herself gyrating

While the people there smoking were yelling at each other across the tables

aggressively communicating

Ben and I just sat there in a daze waiting for our pizzas just yawning and

gazing

I got back to my room and ate my entire pizza and didn’t fall asleep until

maybe 4 o clock in the morning

I was up emailing

Woke up at 7:30 and went down to the lobby

The girl in the breakfast room could sense my weariness and she went and

politely got me a banana and an orange and a yogurt and green tea

I didn’t feel like sitting down in the breakfast area

There were too many people and it was so noisy and cluttery

I told her thank you and I started walking to my room to eat my breakfast in

privacy

I had my slippers on, my hands were full, I was feeling so out of it

I was walking back to the elevator when the front desk guy got in my face

Started giving me shit about spilling water all over the place

I said, «What water?

Show me where its wet on the floor?»

He said, «There is water everywhere, let me have one of my staff members bring

your things up to you.

Please sir, you are spilling water all over the place.»

I said, «In your disgruntled dreams maybe but okay.»

«And hurry it up because I want to get back to sleep soon, fuckface.»

I went back to sleep and I woke up at noon

I needed to find a new computer bad and a disposable camera too

I went down to the lobby and asked a doorman for directions

When Ben suddenly appeared beside me

And at that point I stopped asking the doorman questions

Ben said that he had some of his own shopping to do

He needed a thumb-drive and a swimming suit

Because he’s going to spend some time in Christchurch or Churchchrist,

or whatever its called

With his girlfriend, when the tour is over

So we got to walking and we did our shopping together

We started out at some mall and then ended up at a place called Bear House

And I gotta say I went nuts in there

I bought some socks and some jockey type shirt that’s not even my style

And some new underwear

And some new sweatpants

For the gym which I’m too tired to even go to

And yeah, I got a new computer bag too

Its just so exciting to see things priced for 4 dollars

How can you not go nuts?

I wonder if everybody goes nuts in those places

Everything’s priced at 4 dollars

During our shopping I took maybe 5 to 7 photos of Auckland payphones for the

payphone book I’ve been working on

I might have a whole section dedicated to New Zealand payphones

And we went and got some sushi and it tasted great

The miso soup, the unsweetened green tea

We were discussing what we knew about New Zealand and didn’t come up with much

Other than Neil Finn, Anna Paquin, Flight of the Conchords, Once Were Warriors

And some other thing on TV, a series maybe?

A show that was filmed here?

One of those epic fantasy series maybe

I can’t think of the name of it

And then we went on our separate ways so I could get more payphone shots

I was sweating like crazy so I sat down on a bench and realized that I was lost

When a little sparrow flew over to say hi to me

I took his photo, a lot of them, actually

That sparrow was on an ego trip

He was striking all kind of poses, completely in love with himself

It was the Bradley Cooper of sparrows

When I found my way back to the hotel

I was so tired I only shadowboxed one three minute round

With two bottles of 750 millilitre New Zealand spring water, called «Pump»

And I organized my receipts from the Australian part of the tour

And two shows left tonight in Auckland

And tomorrow in Wellington

It was nice getting out today and walking

Everyone in Auckland seemed so alive out there walking

And the sun was shining

Its been so nice walking today in Auckland

I look forward to singing tonight and talking

In Auckland

I emailed Neil Finn to see if he wanted to join us on stage like he did last

time

He said I’m so sorry Mark, I’d love to join you but I’m on tour with Fleetwood

Mac