In the last two weeks I have been in Mexico City, Palenque, Campeche, Merida and Cancun. Its been hard finding the time to blog, but I have heaps of funny stories and will write them up in the next week or so.
Thanks for holding, your call has progressed in the queue.
cue latino musak
Monday, June 30, 2008
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
I'm in Carmel, by the sea.
Having arrived back from LA to SFO it was time to get ready for Cousin Gregs wedding to Sarah. This was set to happen in the town of Carmel-By-The-Sea which is famous because Clint Eastwood used to be the mayor, or something, and it is incredibly posh and well to do - every second shop sells antiques or overpriced bric-a-brac and it is truely a sight to behold. Boring as bat shit if you are poor and still relativley young, but I managed to find some fun in the situation.
Cousin Stephanie and I shared the 2 hour drive from San Fran to Carmel, running about an hour late for the wedding rehearsal which was just finishing as we rocked up, and out lateness was slightly controvertial because it meant Stephanie missed the rehearsal for her part of the wedding ceremony, which was to open the door for the bride. If our excuse counts for anything: we had to run a few errands in Palo Alto before we left including going to Best Buy and In & Out burger for provisions. Not to mention an hour or so faffing around on the Internet.
After the wedding rehearsal was a dinner where the two families came together and met each other, which was cool because Sarah has a cool All American Family and the dynamic was interesting considering my family is All Australian and fairly lazy and we are not the kind of people who indulge in too much ceremony, but will go along with it if there is ample food and wine involved, and this place had a Buffet.
My family was well and truely exhausted having just arrived from Australia and while Sarah's family included people such as Airline Pilots and a Super Mom, my family is so spread out that when we do catch up, we have a lot of catching up to do. My family had people from Japan, New York City, Sydney and Melbourne and all of our weird and wonderful eccentricities, loyalties and all that other family stuff needed to be re-established.
Cousin Stephanie and I amused ourselves using Cousin Anna's Fiance Tomo's Japanese Translator thing to look up rude words. This ended up being double fun because we did not anticipate that as well as giving the japanese equivalent curse word, it also provided a Queens English dictionary definition of the curse. Another thing we did not anticipate was that the translator had a back button allowing the next user (more than likely Fiance Tomo) to go through the list of words we had translated and wonder what the hell he was marrying into.
The "bouf-ay" was quite nice, tho not up to the high standard set by places like Sizzler - they only had about 4 dishes on offer including one for fruit and one for baked vegetables - but I digress - judge not a gathering by its buffet but by the quality of its people. Speaking of Quality, at one point it was noted by guests on the grooms side (including but not limited to my family) that we had run dry on cigarettes, so being relativley sober (having had only 1 glass of wine) I set about finding some more with incredibly drunk Cousin Jeff as navigator.
Carmel is a funny little town in that it is built on a grid on the side of a hill and rather than having round-a-bouts or traffic lights at every intersection, it has these 4 way stop signs, which actually work quite well, but are full on scary the first few times. Under the drunken guidance of Cousin Jeff I was able to learn and execute the "California Roll" - slowing down on approach to a stop sign, then a gentle roll through the intersection, given that it is safe to do so. That it has a widely accepted name "The California Roll" says to me that not coming to a complete stop is not an offense, altho my parents would (and did) argue otherwise.
We discovered that Carmel is not like any other place on earth - there are no 7/11's. We came close to aborting the mission as we California Rolled around the smallish town looking for a place that would sell smokes, and when Cousin Stephanie, who forgot that I had asked for the car keys earlier, had called Cousin Jeff to report that her car had been stolen, it all became too much.
Once it had been established that the car had in fact not been stolen, that I was "sober" and that we were out doing a smoke run, we received another request, this time for Cigars, for the groom himself. So now our mission was even more complex, but in the end we found a store that sold smokes and the incredibly helpful checkout chick was able to point out the place next door where we could buy cigars. Hooray!
We made it back to the dinner and when we did the whole place went up in smoke, at least outside did and when my mum worked out what was going on, she said she was pretty sure I had something to do with this, as I do any kind of suspicious activity. When I said "I drove" she was unimpressed but I can hardly say she was surprised. This was the first of many indiscretions which I believe make my parents think that maybe me living in Melbourne is a good thing after all.
The entire family was staying at the Embassy Suites Hotel (aka "the family compound") in the suburb of Seaside which is about 10 minutes drive from Carmel and about 5 minutes from Monterrey, another gorgeous picture perfect town near by. Seaside felt a little bit like Penrith but with a sea breeze, but it was still alright. It evoked Middle America with the big hair, big malls and big parking lots and all the non descript housing. It was definitely nicer experiencing Middle America in Seaside, rather than actually going to Middle America, or flying over it.
It was one of the most enjoyable things ever having the entire family holed up together in the one hotel, bumping into relatives from far and wide and making chit chat in the lift about various plans we had; "what time is the wedding?", "who are you going with?", "do you know anyone who will be able to drive home from the reception?" etc.
It was also one of the most insane things ever having the entire family holed up together in the one hotel and having to deal with the idiosyncracies of everyone at the same time. All in all it was very funny and I will say this: my family is not as crazy as the fabled Spears, Lohans or more locally, the Newtons - but we are definitely up there!
I decided to drive across the road to the Starbucks where i got drive thru star bucks which took about 15 minutes all up - it would have been so much quicker to either walk (literally across the road) or park, get out and order, or use the starbucks plunger in the foyer. It was a truely cultural experience getting drive thru coffee and was made all the more better when they spilt mine inside the drive thru window and made me another one, with a voucher for a complimentary coffee because my star bucks experience was not the greatest, or whatever marketing want me to think. Whatever - free coffee!
Drive Thru is truely embraced in the USA to the point of stupidity - one night I felt like a midnight snack from McDonalds (next door to star bucks) and feeling rather foolish for the 15 minute drive thru coffee experience earlier in the day, I decided to walk. more fool me!! Apparently the restaurant had shut, but the drive thru remained open.
I remembered this was the case from last time I was in the USA and me and several of my family members tried unsuccessfully to go through the drive thru in a super market trolley which resulted in no big macs, but the cops being called. So i walked back, got the keys, drove to the McDonalds, and got the drive thru. When oil costs $10 a gallon, it will signal the death of the drive thru, which will kind of suck because its a convenience in life I could totally get used to.
We also "previewed" the hotels porn offerings, which involved watching movies for less than 5 minutes and calling up reception to have it taken off our bill "as its not to our liking". This is what happens when I get drunk and bored and want a laugh. We previewed "Even Ugly Gals Need Loving Too" (so bad its good, you won't confuse these older and unattractive ladies with your average porn star") and Bisexual Threeways. When we called to have Bisexual Threeways removed from the bill, it wouldn't go off the TV and we kept calling the front desk and eventually the guy at front desk asked if we were dressed, and came up and showed us how to turn it off. SO embarrassing - and of course we were fully dressed.
The wedding itself was gorgeous - straight to the point, delightful singing and reading and lots of Amen'ing and standing up and sitting down to the point of utter confusion, but my immediate family took their queue from the more religious among the congregation and didn't stand out too badly. Sarah looked absolutely gorgeous and seeing my two cousins up there as Groom and Grooms Man (or whatever they are called) was pretty cool. The wedding was in a church called, i think, "The Mission" and was one of the first spanish missions in California, so was shrouded in history and some really awesome architecture. Sarah's parents had been married there, as had some random elderly lady I had started talking to in the street, who mentioned she was married there, "but of course, divorced now". Given that Sarah's parents are still happily together, I did not take the old bats sage wisdom as a bad omen for Greg and Sarah.
The Reception was again, gorgeous- it was held at a near by country club. We arrived to some kind of pomegranite and champaigne cocktails and absolutely divine canapes - and an absolutely divine waiter. To cut a long story short, I don't really remember much about the wedding except that the aforementioned waiter was very open to many suggestions, one of which that he keep a bottle of champaigne at our table, which included Cousin Stephanie, Piano Man, Wes and myself - otherwise known as "trouble". At one point Piano man and Wes went on a mission to try and score some harder booze which at first was unsuccessful but upon finding the back bar and a bartender who was very open to suggestion, we secured Gin and later on, Cointreau.
It was noted by both families that we ("trouble") had our own bottle of champaigne at all times, not waiting for the waiters to top us up; we helped ourselves. I heard on the grapevine that Wes ended up taking a golf cart for a joy ride and Piano Man hooked up with someone from the bridal party, and i'm much more comfortable revealing that about the night rather than my antics, which mum and I agreed would not be discussed - at least not on here.
The DJ was not as receptive to our suggestions as the waiter or the bartender, but the absolute funniest moment was watching the "old" people, including my parents, getting down to "My Humps" by Fergie - we wondered if they had any idea what it was about, but I believe that Sarah's Super Mom had a quick word to the DJ who all of a sudden became receptive to suggestion, and he stuck to old classics from there. You just can't hear enough "Come On Eileen" at a wedding reception.
The whole night is a bit of a blur really, but its a good blur, and I really enjoyed running amok and celebrating the wedding and I am certainly happy that everyone had such a great night. Except Cousin Greg, whose expensive sunglasses were, allegedly, in the care of Cousin Stephanie, and could not be found in the morning.
Debates ensued as to who was ultimatley responsible for the glasses, and at 8am when Cousin Jeff received an urgent request by Piano Man to be picked up (the bridal party had sobered up) the shit really hit the fan and we all paid for our indiscretions with the champaigne/gin/contreau. It was exactly like that scene in Absolutely Fabulous where Saffron takes the wrong tape in for her Genetics and Ethics presentation and everyone is running around without any central co-ordination except we were not trying to locate pornography (we'd had enough the night before) we were trying to find glasses, camera's and tiny shreds of our dignity. I was reluctant to show my face but felt much more at peace when I had learned that others had disgraced themselves far more than I had, and the case of the missing glasses had consumed collective thought to the point that I was the good one, through a bit of denial and by default (I repeat, I had no involvement with the lost glasses)
Most of the family left the Embassy Suites after that - Kerry and Barry off to Philadelphia to see Barry's grandkids; Anna and Tomo back to Japan; Michael and Jessica back to New York City and the San Franciscan Ludvik's went back to their home to recoup. This left Kathy, my parents and me to hold fort. Kathy was quickly out of there as she had secured some fuddy duddy old worlde accommodation in Carmel which was great because she likes the finer things in life and her new accommodation was definitely that.
My parents, Kathy and I took a drive down Route 1 to see Big Sur and the AMAZING Californian coastline, which is a definite 'must see' and is even more fun to drive as its like an obstacle course with each twist in the road accompanied by a massive drop down to the ocean. I insisted on driving which was good because i learnt the ability to take corners slowly, something I had not quite mastered yet, and I am sure my parents hearts have been strengthened and they will have a few more good years in them yet - or their hearts are on the verge of stopping in which case, oops - but it was great fun anyway.
I drove most of the way back to San Francisco in the Rav 4 and insisted on listening to Country Music as nothing beats driving on the interstate with country music blaring, but when we ran out of signal (the Rav 4 was not Sirius Satellite Enabled - dammit) we went back to the old favourites of silence peppered with me cursing other cars on the road and at one point going 140km/h cause I was "overtaking".
Back in San Francisco I was sorta in the area of a drive by shooting, which was totally whack. I heard the gun shots, the tram I was on skidded to a halt and a few people hit the floor - I wasn't sure what to do but when I heard wheels screach and a car hooning off, I was pretty sure that trouble had passed. One lady started lamenting that her tax dollars pay for this and that they should put "them" all on an island with guns if that is what they want to do. It was very confronting and I ended up getting off the tram, walking a block or two in the opposite direction and jumping on a bus. I felt safer being away from the situation, and not having to deal with the cops who had arrived really quickly and were trying to establish what had happened. When I went past on the tram a few hours later, they were still trying to sort it out - so I am glad that I got out of there.
The USA is many things but one thing it is not is boring.
Next Stop: Mexico City.
The party goes up in smoke.
Aunty Kathy and I
Bride and Groom
The reception + The waiter
California Coastline
Cousin Stephanie and I shared the 2 hour drive from San Fran to Carmel, running about an hour late for the wedding rehearsal which was just finishing as we rocked up, and out lateness was slightly controvertial because it meant Stephanie missed the rehearsal for her part of the wedding ceremony, which was to open the door for the bride. If our excuse counts for anything: we had to run a few errands in Palo Alto before we left including going to Best Buy and In & Out burger for provisions. Not to mention an hour or so faffing around on the Internet.
After the wedding rehearsal was a dinner where the two families came together and met each other, which was cool because Sarah has a cool All American Family and the dynamic was interesting considering my family is All Australian and fairly lazy and we are not the kind of people who indulge in too much ceremony, but will go along with it if there is ample food and wine involved, and this place had a Buffet.
My family was well and truely exhausted having just arrived from Australia and while Sarah's family included people such as Airline Pilots and a Super Mom, my family is so spread out that when we do catch up, we have a lot of catching up to do. My family had people from Japan, New York City, Sydney and Melbourne and all of our weird and wonderful eccentricities, loyalties and all that other family stuff needed to be re-established.
Cousin Stephanie and I amused ourselves using Cousin Anna's Fiance Tomo's Japanese Translator thing to look up rude words. This ended up being double fun because we did not anticipate that as well as giving the japanese equivalent curse word, it also provided a Queens English dictionary definition of the curse. Another thing we did not anticipate was that the translator had a back button allowing the next user (more than likely Fiance Tomo) to go through the list of words we had translated and wonder what the hell he was marrying into.
The "bouf-ay" was quite nice, tho not up to the high standard set by places like Sizzler - they only had about 4 dishes on offer including one for fruit and one for baked vegetables - but I digress - judge not a gathering by its buffet but by the quality of its people. Speaking of Quality, at one point it was noted by guests on the grooms side (including but not limited to my family) that we had run dry on cigarettes, so being relativley sober (having had only 1 glass of wine) I set about finding some more with incredibly drunk Cousin Jeff as navigator.
Carmel is a funny little town in that it is built on a grid on the side of a hill and rather than having round-a-bouts or traffic lights at every intersection, it has these 4 way stop signs, which actually work quite well, but are full on scary the first few times. Under the drunken guidance of Cousin Jeff I was able to learn and execute the "California Roll" - slowing down on approach to a stop sign, then a gentle roll through the intersection, given that it is safe to do so. That it has a widely accepted name "The California Roll" says to me that not coming to a complete stop is not an offense, altho my parents would (and did) argue otherwise.
We discovered that Carmel is not like any other place on earth - there are no 7/11's. We came close to aborting the mission as we California Rolled around the smallish town looking for a place that would sell smokes, and when Cousin Stephanie, who forgot that I had asked for the car keys earlier, had called Cousin Jeff to report that her car had been stolen, it all became too much.
Once it had been established that the car had in fact not been stolen, that I was "sober" and that we were out doing a smoke run, we received another request, this time for Cigars, for the groom himself. So now our mission was even more complex, but in the end we found a store that sold smokes and the incredibly helpful checkout chick was able to point out the place next door where we could buy cigars. Hooray!
We made it back to the dinner and when we did the whole place went up in smoke, at least outside did and when my mum worked out what was going on, she said she was pretty sure I had something to do with this, as I do any kind of suspicious activity. When I said "I drove" she was unimpressed but I can hardly say she was surprised. This was the first of many indiscretions which I believe make my parents think that maybe me living in Melbourne is a good thing after all.
The entire family was staying at the Embassy Suites Hotel (aka "the family compound") in the suburb of Seaside which is about 10 minutes drive from Carmel and about 5 minutes from Monterrey, another gorgeous picture perfect town near by. Seaside felt a little bit like Penrith but with a sea breeze, but it was still alright. It evoked Middle America with the big hair, big malls and big parking lots and all the non descript housing. It was definitely nicer experiencing Middle America in Seaside, rather than actually going to Middle America, or flying over it.
It was one of the most enjoyable things ever having the entire family holed up together in the one hotel, bumping into relatives from far and wide and making chit chat in the lift about various plans we had; "what time is the wedding?", "who are you going with?", "do you know anyone who will be able to drive home from the reception?" etc.
It was also one of the most insane things ever having the entire family holed up together in the one hotel and having to deal with the idiosyncracies of everyone at the same time. All in all it was very funny and I will say this: my family is not as crazy as the fabled Spears, Lohans or more locally, the Newtons - but we are definitely up there!
I decided to drive across the road to the Starbucks where i got drive thru star bucks which took about 15 minutes all up - it would have been so much quicker to either walk (literally across the road) or park, get out and order, or use the starbucks plunger in the foyer. It was a truely cultural experience getting drive thru coffee and was made all the more better when they spilt mine inside the drive thru window and made me another one, with a voucher for a complimentary coffee because my star bucks experience was not the greatest, or whatever marketing want me to think. Whatever - free coffee!
Drive Thru is truely embraced in the USA to the point of stupidity - one night I felt like a midnight snack from McDonalds (next door to star bucks) and feeling rather foolish for the 15 minute drive thru coffee experience earlier in the day, I decided to walk. more fool me!! Apparently the restaurant had shut, but the drive thru remained open.
I remembered this was the case from last time I was in the USA and me and several of my family members tried unsuccessfully to go through the drive thru in a super market trolley which resulted in no big macs, but the cops being called. So i walked back, got the keys, drove to the McDonalds, and got the drive thru. When oil costs $10 a gallon, it will signal the death of the drive thru, which will kind of suck because its a convenience in life I could totally get used to.
We also "previewed" the hotels porn offerings, which involved watching movies for less than 5 minutes and calling up reception to have it taken off our bill "as its not to our liking". This is what happens when I get drunk and bored and want a laugh. We previewed "Even Ugly Gals Need Loving Too" (so bad its good, you won't confuse these older and unattractive ladies with your average porn star") and Bisexual Threeways. When we called to have Bisexual Threeways removed from the bill, it wouldn't go off the TV and we kept calling the front desk and eventually the guy at front desk asked if we were dressed, and came up and showed us how to turn it off. SO embarrassing - and of course we were fully dressed.
The wedding itself was gorgeous - straight to the point, delightful singing and reading and lots of Amen'ing and standing up and sitting down to the point of utter confusion, but my immediate family took their queue from the more religious among the congregation and didn't stand out too badly. Sarah looked absolutely gorgeous and seeing my two cousins up there as Groom and Grooms Man (or whatever they are called) was pretty cool. The wedding was in a church called, i think, "The Mission" and was one of the first spanish missions in California, so was shrouded in history and some really awesome architecture. Sarah's parents had been married there, as had some random elderly lady I had started talking to in the street, who mentioned she was married there, "but of course, divorced now". Given that Sarah's parents are still happily together, I did not take the old bats sage wisdom as a bad omen for Greg and Sarah.
The Reception was again, gorgeous- it was held at a near by country club. We arrived to some kind of pomegranite and champaigne cocktails and absolutely divine canapes - and an absolutely divine waiter. To cut a long story short, I don't really remember much about the wedding except that the aforementioned waiter was very open to many suggestions, one of which that he keep a bottle of champaigne at our table, which included Cousin Stephanie, Piano Man, Wes and myself - otherwise known as "trouble". At one point Piano man and Wes went on a mission to try and score some harder booze which at first was unsuccessful but upon finding the back bar and a bartender who was very open to suggestion, we secured Gin and later on, Cointreau.
It was noted by both families that we ("trouble") had our own bottle of champaigne at all times, not waiting for the waiters to top us up; we helped ourselves. I heard on the grapevine that Wes ended up taking a golf cart for a joy ride and Piano Man hooked up with someone from the bridal party, and i'm much more comfortable revealing that about the night rather than my antics, which mum and I agreed would not be discussed - at least not on here.
The DJ was not as receptive to our suggestions as the waiter or the bartender, but the absolute funniest moment was watching the "old" people, including my parents, getting down to "My Humps" by Fergie - we wondered if they had any idea what it was about, but I believe that Sarah's Super Mom had a quick word to the DJ who all of a sudden became receptive to suggestion, and he stuck to old classics from there. You just can't hear enough "Come On Eileen" at a wedding reception.
The whole night is a bit of a blur really, but its a good blur, and I really enjoyed running amok and celebrating the wedding and I am certainly happy that everyone had such a great night. Except Cousin Greg, whose expensive sunglasses were, allegedly, in the care of Cousin Stephanie, and could not be found in the morning.
Debates ensued as to who was ultimatley responsible for the glasses, and at 8am when Cousin Jeff received an urgent request by Piano Man to be picked up (the bridal party had sobered up) the shit really hit the fan and we all paid for our indiscretions with the champaigne/gin/contreau. It was exactly like that scene in Absolutely Fabulous where Saffron takes the wrong tape in for her Genetics and Ethics presentation and everyone is running around without any central co-ordination except we were not trying to locate pornography (we'd had enough the night before) we were trying to find glasses, camera's and tiny shreds of our dignity. I was reluctant to show my face but felt much more at peace when I had learned that others had disgraced themselves far more than I had, and the case of the missing glasses had consumed collective thought to the point that I was the good one, through a bit of denial and by default (I repeat, I had no involvement with the lost glasses)
Most of the family left the Embassy Suites after that - Kerry and Barry off to Philadelphia to see Barry's grandkids; Anna and Tomo back to Japan; Michael and Jessica back to New York City and the San Franciscan Ludvik's went back to their home to recoup. This left Kathy, my parents and me to hold fort. Kathy was quickly out of there as she had secured some fuddy duddy old worlde accommodation in Carmel which was great because she likes the finer things in life and her new accommodation was definitely that.
My parents, Kathy and I took a drive down Route 1 to see Big Sur and the AMAZING Californian coastline, which is a definite 'must see' and is even more fun to drive as its like an obstacle course with each twist in the road accompanied by a massive drop down to the ocean. I insisted on driving which was good because i learnt the ability to take corners slowly, something I had not quite mastered yet, and I am sure my parents hearts have been strengthened and they will have a few more good years in them yet - or their hearts are on the verge of stopping in which case, oops - but it was great fun anyway.
I drove most of the way back to San Francisco in the Rav 4 and insisted on listening to Country Music as nothing beats driving on the interstate with country music blaring, but when we ran out of signal (the Rav 4 was not Sirius Satellite Enabled - dammit) we went back to the old favourites of silence peppered with me cursing other cars on the road and at one point going 140km/h cause I was "overtaking".
Back in San Francisco I was sorta in the area of a drive by shooting, which was totally whack. I heard the gun shots, the tram I was on skidded to a halt and a few people hit the floor - I wasn't sure what to do but when I heard wheels screach and a car hooning off, I was pretty sure that trouble had passed. One lady started lamenting that her tax dollars pay for this and that they should put "them" all on an island with guns if that is what they want to do. It was very confronting and I ended up getting off the tram, walking a block or two in the opposite direction and jumping on a bus. I felt safer being away from the situation, and not having to deal with the cops who had arrived really quickly and were trying to establish what had happened. When I went past on the tram a few hours later, they were still trying to sort it out - so I am glad that I got out of there.
The USA is many things but one thing it is not is boring.
Next Stop: Mexico City.
The party goes up in smoke.
Aunty Kathy and I
Bride and Groom
The reception + The waiter
California Coastline
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Viva Los Angeles
After we spent the morning walking Venice Beach, checking out the freaks including, but not limited to: a D-grade TV show involving a cop and a busker, street vendors selling "plus size bikini's", art that consisted of wood burnt by the roaches of a joint and street musicians, some of which were so in your face it made it hard to relax and enjoy the spectacle.
One guy was so invasive in his attempt to put headphones on us so he could play his CD and that he actually succeeded and the track ended up being something about his mama getting shot and it was all just a bit too full on.
Venice Beach is nothing like anything back in Australia - its maybe like Manly Beach on Acid - which sounds like a great idea at the time but you end up really disorientated with a lot of sand up your nose. I was disorientated, as I always am on the West Coast of anywhere (i'm used to ALL beaches facing east) but I had my wits about me and managed to keep the majority of the sand on the beach.
I had an absolute thumping headache and necked about 4 Nurofen when I realised I hadn't had caffeine all day and that a caffeine headache can only be cured with caffeine. As an aside to this situation, I read an article in the American Airlines magazine called "American Way" entitled "America - Caffinated Nation" (i'm in America, der!).
The article was an interesting read as it pointed out that a caffeine addiction is "negativley reinforced" in our psyche just like cigarettes are, so we all stay addicted. We drink to stop the headaches, we smoke to avoid withdrawals.
Interesting! I wonder if soon they will start taxing Caffeine?
It was at 7/11 that i saw the most abhorrent thing on holidays thus far - a morbidly obese man sort of half passed out, half resting by the door of the 7/11;
"*WHEEZE* ... gahd ah ... *HUFF* ... dahllaaah?"
I am not sure how long he had been there but he looked fairly settled in, and it was just an appalling situation to be in, trying to process and reconcile what I had just seen.
- If he is so poor how did he get SO FAT?
- Maybe he is fat as people donate leftover nasty from the 7/11?
- Had he got a good butt groove going on the concrete?
- How will he get up?
- Will he ever get up?
I should have tried a little harder than I did at the time to get a photo of this spectacle of a man (Only in America) but at the time I felt it would have been inappropriate to laugh at his misfortune using a photograph as evidence, as opposed to now, using just the written word. Everyone deserves their dignity, but in hindsite if I was not feeling so moral and ethical at the time, if he did not take to the camera kindly I could have either given him some cash or just not, because what are the chances he's going to stand up at all, let alone chase and (b)eat me.
After this, we drove around some more while listening to Howard Sterns show on Sirius Satellite Radio. As Howard Stern is so brilliant, we were inspired to drive to a bakery across town to get cupcakes some of which were in turn inspired by Howard Stern and his on air team.
Cousin Stephanie was calling the bakery and asking for directions which were helpfully provided by the employee as "its near the car park!" or "just past the mexican restaurant!" As it turned out, getting some relevant directions, such as the nearest cross street, was like getting the 7/11 fat man on his feet - it took us a few goes before we succeeded.
Several phone calls later (to the same employee) we found it - sure enough there was a car park near by and several mexican restaurants, so the employee was helpfully describing about 90% of greater Los Angeles so it really was a special moment when we found those cupcakes.
The cupcakes were divine, I didn't bother taking a photo of them because I started feeling like the fat man at 7/11 with all the junk i'd been eating (6 burgers, 4 days) and to obsess over the beauty of a cupcake was not going to help a thing when it comes to my impending hardened arteries/gout/cholesterol/obesity etc.
I'd rather not have the evidence; unhealthy is denial and cupcakes.
Suffice it to say, the cupcake had about 5cm of frosting, a pretty little carrot made out of frosting and I think beneath the frosting was some carrot cake but with that much frosting going on I really couldn't tell what was happening when I ate it. I can just imagine trying to justify this indulgence to an ex Colleague of mine Jill, who is to health as I am to junk - a keen enthusiast.
"At least it had a carrot on it!"
The dumb part is that I actually got the carrot cake thinking it might be the healthiest of the options, but alas - I am in America.
Cousin Stephanie had the "Artie Lange" cupcake as it is frequently mentioned on the Howard Stern show and she is a devotee if ever there was one. I saw a picture of Artie Lange and he is one fat bastard so I dunno what was going on with her cupcake but it made the carrot one look TOTALLY like the healthy option, so Jill would be proud of my attempts at being healthy. cough, wheeze.
If there is one thing Cousin Stephanie and I share in common aside from some DNA it is a love of good radio. Howard Stern, he is brilliant, I can understand why so many people are offended by him but he "goes there" and that is really refreshing to hear sometimes.
From my limited knowledge of the guy, he started on syndicated broadcast radio around America but was far too risque for public broadcast radio and as such, ended up causing quite the scandal on a couple of occasions. Using Radio as a medium, he successfully involved sex, nudity, porn and lewdity in his show, and rather than being rewarded for his creativity he was promptly was taken off the air.
Now, on Subscription Satellite Radio, he's free to do as he pleases as Satellite is not held to the same "high standards" as the FCC holds the free to air TV networks and public broadcast radio.
It came to me on one of our many looong drives around LA that in Australia we have very little by way of good mainstream celebrities or icons or mouthpieces. Bert Newton and Kerry Ann Kennerley - spare me. John Laws and Alan Jones - well one retired and I am not sure what the other one is up to but he is full of contradictions which are even more insane than the FCC who are still on "Code Red" after Janet Jacksons boob fell out during Superbowl a few years back.
So, I ended up driving the convertible around LA and "getting my wheels" via a baptism of fire - Driving on LA roads and freeways!. And drove I did - I initially got my wheels in the Hollywood Hills, which were incredibly steep and tight and arrow but we made it up there and back down and learning to drive on the wrong side of the road in LA really paid off - The view paid off, LA at night is totally gorgeous and now I know why all the celebrities seem to sleep during the day, it is because they would not be able to see a thing from their houses on the Hollywood Hills for the smog, but by night - heat that plate!
Aside from that, I did some driving around LA at night when the streets were relativley quiet and got FAT BURGER which was absolutely divine despite the politically incorrect (yet strangely, the most appropriate) name.
The next morning we sadly checked out of the Hotel Roosevelt and left its celebrities, its pool, its cable TV, its CCTV, its room service, its pill bottles, its crisp linen sheets - basically everything I value in life I left it all behind.
There was a photo shoot for P Diddy's new something (I never know what he is called or what he is selling these days) and that was cool to watch until we realised it made the valet an absolute clusterfuck of confused people trying to find their cars. Clearly, Sean Coombes paid good coin for that location and made the hotel guests chopped liver for the duration of the shoot.
Speaking of chopped liver, we checked out Canters Deli which is a famous Jewish cafe slash institution not far from where we had been staying, and I wondered how many back room deals had occured in that deli. Maybe the decision to make Britney "THE proverbial cash cow" came from a meeting over a Reuben in a back room at Canters? I will never know, but my quest to find Britney was rekindled.
Having eaten a Reuben for breakfast and feeling an incredible bowel movement on its way, we cruised on over to Melrose where I found a Tea Bean & Coffee Leaf and used their facilities. I quickly ordered a large coffee and went about my business, which involved the not so discrete getting of the key to the bathroom, and when I came out the barista announced really loudly that he had mad mine really hot, coz he thought I might have been a while.
If ever I have been mortified it was then.
So aside from a mercy coffee, all I bought on Melrose was a T-Mobile Sim Card and as it turns out I was in the right place for a COOL NUMBER. THe 323 area code signifies "Los Angeles" to the rest of America and so to drop that into a conversation or onto a form usually got me a second glance, just incase I was famous.
Then it happened - on Melrose: I found Britney.
It happened in a Vintage Tshirt Shop and it wasn't what I expected ie the recovering addict with mental issues that we hear about today. Instead I saw the not-so-innocent gal that had so much going for her in 2004, which was when she'd autographed the wall of the shop.
She had written about her "fine hubby" Kevin Federline who was the "Sexiest Man Alive" and to be honest with you, based on what I know from what I read, that is probably when she was at her happiest; she was free of the corporate money making machines, she was free from her overbearing pageant style parents, she was not pleasing any record label who had managed her life to the point of her never actually having her own life and she had let go - At this time, it really was Britney, bitches.
This is how I like to remember her.
Viva Los Angeles.
One guy was so invasive in his attempt to put headphones on us so he could play his CD and that he actually succeeded and the track ended up being something about his mama getting shot and it was all just a bit too full on.
Venice Beach is nothing like anything back in Australia - its maybe like Manly Beach on Acid - which sounds like a great idea at the time but you end up really disorientated with a lot of sand up your nose. I was disorientated, as I always am on the West Coast of anywhere (i'm used to ALL beaches facing east) but I had my wits about me and managed to keep the majority of the sand on the beach.
I had an absolute thumping headache and necked about 4 Nurofen when I realised I hadn't had caffeine all day and that a caffeine headache can only be cured with caffeine. As an aside to this situation, I read an article in the American Airlines magazine called "American Way" entitled "America - Caffinated Nation" (i'm in America, der!).
The article was an interesting read as it pointed out that a caffeine addiction is "negativley reinforced" in our psyche just like cigarettes are, so we all stay addicted. We drink to stop the headaches, we smoke to avoid withdrawals.
Interesting! I wonder if soon they will start taxing Caffeine?
It was at 7/11 that i saw the most abhorrent thing on holidays thus far - a morbidly obese man sort of half passed out, half resting by the door of the 7/11;
"*WHEEZE* ... gahd ah ... *HUFF* ... dahllaaah?"
I am not sure how long he had been there but he looked fairly settled in, and it was just an appalling situation to be in, trying to process and reconcile what I had just seen.
- If he is so poor how did he get SO FAT?
- Maybe he is fat as people donate leftover nasty from the 7/11?
- Had he got a good butt groove going on the concrete?
- How will he get up?
- Will he ever get up?
I should have tried a little harder than I did at the time to get a photo of this spectacle of a man (Only in America) but at the time I felt it would have been inappropriate to laugh at his misfortune using a photograph as evidence, as opposed to now, using just the written word. Everyone deserves their dignity, but in hindsite if I was not feeling so moral and ethical at the time, if he did not take to the camera kindly I could have either given him some cash or just not, because what are the chances he's going to stand up at all, let alone chase and (b)eat me.
After this, we drove around some more while listening to Howard Sterns show on Sirius Satellite Radio. As Howard Stern is so brilliant, we were inspired to drive to a bakery across town to get cupcakes some of which were in turn inspired by Howard Stern and his on air team.
Cousin Stephanie was calling the bakery and asking for directions which were helpfully provided by the employee as "its near the car park!" or "just past the mexican restaurant!" As it turned out, getting some relevant directions, such as the nearest cross street, was like getting the 7/11 fat man on his feet - it took us a few goes before we succeeded.
Several phone calls later (to the same employee) we found it - sure enough there was a car park near by and several mexican restaurants, so the employee was helpfully describing about 90% of greater Los Angeles so it really was a special moment when we found those cupcakes.
The cupcakes were divine, I didn't bother taking a photo of them because I started feeling like the fat man at 7/11 with all the junk i'd been eating (6 burgers, 4 days) and to obsess over the beauty of a cupcake was not going to help a thing when it comes to my impending hardened arteries/gout/cholesterol/obesity etc.
I'd rather not have the evidence; unhealthy is denial and cupcakes.
Suffice it to say, the cupcake had about 5cm of frosting, a pretty little carrot made out of frosting and I think beneath the frosting was some carrot cake but with that much frosting going on I really couldn't tell what was happening when I ate it. I can just imagine trying to justify this indulgence to an ex Colleague of mine Jill, who is to health as I am to junk - a keen enthusiast.
"At least it had a carrot on it!"
The dumb part is that I actually got the carrot cake thinking it might be the healthiest of the options, but alas - I am in America.
Cousin Stephanie had the "Artie Lange" cupcake as it is frequently mentioned on the Howard Stern show and she is a devotee if ever there was one. I saw a picture of Artie Lange and he is one fat bastard so I dunno what was going on with her cupcake but it made the carrot one look TOTALLY like the healthy option, so Jill would be proud of my attempts at being healthy. cough, wheeze.
If there is one thing Cousin Stephanie and I share in common aside from some DNA it is a love of good radio. Howard Stern, he is brilliant, I can understand why so many people are offended by him but he "goes there" and that is really refreshing to hear sometimes.
From my limited knowledge of the guy, he started on syndicated broadcast radio around America but was far too risque for public broadcast radio and as such, ended up causing quite the scandal on a couple of occasions. Using Radio as a medium, he successfully involved sex, nudity, porn and lewdity in his show, and rather than being rewarded for his creativity he was promptly was taken off the air.
Now, on Subscription Satellite Radio, he's free to do as he pleases as Satellite is not held to the same "high standards" as the FCC holds the free to air TV networks and public broadcast radio.
It came to me on one of our many looong drives around LA that in Australia we have very little by way of good mainstream celebrities or icons or mouthpieces. Bert Newton and Kerry Ann Kennerley - spare me. John Laws and Alan Jones - well one retired and I am not sure what the other one is up to but he is full of contradictions which are even more insane than the FCC who are still on "Code Red" after Janet Jacksons boob fell out during Superbowl a few years back.
So, I ended up driving the convertible around LA and "getting my wheels" via a baptism of fire - Driving on LA roads and freeways!. And drove I did - I initially got my wheels in the Hollywood Hills, which were incredibly steep and tight and arrow but we made it up there and back down and learning to drive on the wrong side of the road in LA really paid off - The view paid off, LA at night is totally gorgeous and now I know why all the celebrities seem to sleep during the day, it is because they would not be able to see a thing from their houses on the Hollywood Hills for the smog, but by night - heat that plate!
Aside from that, I did some driving around LA at night when the streets were relativley quiet and got FAT BURGER which was absolutely divine despite the politically incorrect (yet strangely, the most appropriate) name.
The next morning we sadly checked out of the Hotel Roosevelt and left its celebrities, its pool, its cable TV, its CCTV, its room service, its pill bottles, its crisp linen sheets - basically everything I value in life I left it all behind.
There was a photo shoot for P Diddy's new something (I never know what he is called or what he is selling these days) and that was cool to watch until we realised it made the valet an absolute clusterfuck of confused people trying to find their cars. Clearly, Sean Coombes paid good coin for that location and made the hotel guests chopped liver for the duration of the shoot.
Speaking of chopped liver, we checked out Canters Deli which is a famous Jewish cafe slash institution not far from where we had been staying, and I wondered how many back room deals had occured in that deli. Maybe the decision to make Britney "THE proverbial cash cow" came from a meeting over a Reuben in a back room at Canters? I will never know, but my quest to find Britney was rekindled.
Having eaten a Reuben for breakfast and feeling an incredible bowel movement on its way, we cruised on over to Melrose where I found a Tea Bean & Coffee Leaf and used their facilities. I quickly ordered a large coffee and went about my business, which involved the not so discrete getting of the key to the bathroom, and when I came out the barista announced really loudly that he had mad mine really hot, coz he thought I might have been a while.
If ever I have been mortified it was then.
So aside from a mercy coffee, all I bought on Melrose was a T-Mobile Sim Card and as it turns out I was in the right place for a COOL NUMBER. THe 323 area code signifies "Los Angeles" to the rest of America and so to drop that into a conversation or onto a form usually got me a second glance, just incase I was famous.
Then it happened - on Melrose: I found Britney.
It happened in a Vintage Tshirt Shop and it wasn't what I expected ie the recovering addict with mental issues that we hear about today. Instead I saw the not-so-innocent gal that had so much going for her in 2004, which was when she'd autographed the wall of the shop.
She had written about her "fine hubby" Kevin Federline who was the "Sexiest Man Alive" and to be honest with you, based on what I know from what I read, that is probably when she was at her happiest; she was free of the corporate money making machines, she was free from her overbearing pageant style parents, she was not pleasing any record label who had managed her life to the point of her never actually having her own life and she had let go - At this time, it really was Britney, bitches.
This is how I like to remember her.
Viva Los Angeles.
Monday, June 16, 2008
TravelBlog #2 - A Day in LA
My LA experience was limited to a red convertible, driving around aimlessly and almost exclusively eating either drive thru, or burgers, or both. Cousin Stephanie and I did it Britney Stylee!!!
We landed in LA to Fog which is definitely out of character for that city (they prefer Smog) and caught the bus to Budget rent a car. This was the beginning of what was to be, many "in jokes" which you had to be there for, and when we told the lady we were staying at the "Hotel Roosevelt" she immediatley assumed we were way more upper class than we looked and wrote down a whole host of celebrity hot spots that we should visit around our hotel and engaged in some really funny conversation that involved a personal commentary on the Musak they had playing.
On the first of many aimless drives around LA we passed some really seedy motels like the Sunset Motor Inn or the Shady Pines Motor Inn and worked these into theoretical interactions with the Budget Rent a Car Lady:
"So, where 'bouts y'all staying?"
"Sunset Motor Inn"
".........Oh... I...*shrug*...I dunno it - have a nice day now!"
We drove seriously aimlessly around LA but I got to see some topical celebrity hotspots such as Kitsons, Cedar Sinai Medical Centre (ominously, George Burns Road leads into it), Fred Segal ($400 t-shirts - not), the studio where Dr Phil gets filmed, Amoeba Music and the Hollywood Sign (from a distance).
First up, we had to have something to eat and my cousin said I was in for a real surprise. I honestly thought we'd be going to a celebrity hotspot like Koi or The Ivy but for us that fateful morning, it was ROSCOES CHICKEN AND WAFFLES. Thats right - that is all they serve.
The place is an institution in LA and the food is truely gross and still turns my stomach just thinking about it. It could be the killer hangover i'm nursing or just the gastric recollections of digesting half a chicken covered in batter, deep fried, served with a huge waffle covered in butter and maple syrup. Honest to god!!!
I would not even dream that up in my most stoned of stoner fantasies nor would I wish it upon my worst enemy even if i spat in the maple syrup.
Regardless, I put that food away like it was going out of fashion, despite that combination of food never really being in fashion in the first place, and felt slightly more cultured and less like a tourist because there is no way in hell Lonely Planet could find any reason to tell you to go there.
You need to go and see it for yourself - "soul food" - perhaps because you will be bloated into your next life?
After that experience, we drove up to Griffith Observatory which was kind of cool and involved going up onto one of the many hills that surrounds LA. My first impressions were that they would be lucky to see *anything* out of their telecope because I could not see any of Downtown LA which was a few miles away, due to the smog.
By this time the fog had lifted and we were up high enough that you could clearly see where the smog ended and the clear blue sky began. It was unsettling to say the least, but hey, its America and given that LA is all about driving around aimlessly, there really isn't much that can be done in the short term, but this is one place that the High Price of Oil ("a new record!") can only mean good things.
They have "Smog Check" stations everywhere for peoples cars, which appeared to be as effective as relying on Alka Seltzer and a tabloid magazine from 1991 to relieve and distract a woman in the throes of childbirth.
Full Disclosure: I was chainsmoking at this point and can't place the entire blame on the cars for the smog, but in my defence I was trying really to pass the Roscoes and was using any and all methods to speed up nature!
Griffith was cool and we did all the free stuff which included using a public toilet (Hooray!) and viewing some really cool exhibits like the Foucault Pendulum which set about proving the earths rotation by knocking a pin down every 10 minutes. It was just like bowling, but the swinging pendulum did not deviate from its course and it was the earth that was rotating and causing the pins to be knocked down. That was WAY cool!
I actually found some of the imagery which adorned the building to be quite confronting, as they were images which evoked the Illuminati conspiracy; the "all seeing eye", the pyramids and the masonic square and compass symbol. If you've ever seen a US $1 bill you'll find the same images there and some latin stuff about new world order. I'm almost loathe to mention any more incase I have trouble with the Department of Homeland and Security - but suffice to say, I noticed these images and it made my hair stand up a little bit. I've found that the foil cap i've taken to wearing kind of stops the hair from sticking up which is totally cool, but a total nightmare when passing through the TSA at any airport.
The Griffith Observatory has been featured in many films like Terminator and is a truely wonderful way to see LA, and it reinforces the reality that California is one big desert - you can see where people stop watering and the ground goes from lush green to dust.
After that we drove back down the mountain and continued our aimless driving along streets like Melrose, La Brea, Robertson Sunset and Santa Monica Boulevard and, rather disappointingly did not encounter a single clusterfuck of paparazzi, so we called it a very early day and checked into the Hotel Roosevelt.
I must say, there is a certain "je ne sais quoi" about rocking up to a celebrity hot spot hotel in a red convertible and having it valet parked. It was kind of "de rigeur" for those parts of town and if you'll pardon my try hard french, we felt less like the F List and more like the D List and it was at this point that we were truely thankful that we forked out the $20 and upgraded from a Budget Economy car (2 door lawnmower) to something with a bit of cred, even if it was a Convertible Mitsubishi.
The Convertible Mitzo had satellite radio which made the ride all the more sweeter - i "sirius"-ly can't wait until we have satellite radio in Australia!
We soon discovered that we did not need to leave our hotel to check out the Chinese Theatre across the road as they had CCTV installed on the hotel roof giving us a birds eye view, which was kind of lazy but cool at the same time.
I decided that I had seen enough of Hollywood on the TV both at the Hotel Roosevelt and on the TV back in Australia so I head out on a solo mission and walked around only a little bit, only to be incredibly annoyed by the black guys pushing burnt cd's yelling "MAKE ME FAMOUS" and some other street performers who defy anything more than a passing mention.
It was very tacky to say the least, so I decided to get some take away food and go back to watching Hollywood on the TV.
This was where I had my first and only real celebrity encounter - I had take-away Baja Fresh (Australian Pronounciation: Bar Jar Fresh. American Pronounciation: Bai yah fresh) and was struggling to work the card reader in the lift, when it stopped on the Mezzanine floor and who should walk in but Seann William Scott!!!!!!!! (of American Pie Fame)
I immediately recognised him but was totally paralysed in fear as I had never met someone so famous before, except maybe Kamahl, but you get what I am saying. Seann (First Name Basis) had trouble working the card too and I nervously showed him how it was done - quite simple in the end, you put the card in the way the arrows are facing and Stifflers mom's your uncle.
I couldn't quite remember his name and I didn't wanna make a vague reference to one of his iconic movies by saying "so, your mama still wanna fuck?" incase he totally misunderstood the situation and I ended up with an eye the same colour and texture as my impending Baja shit.
He knew that I knew and I knew that he knew and I was eternally grateful when he broke the silence and said "hey man, I'm going on Jimmy Kimmel Live in about 45 minutes, why don't you head on down" and so I wrote my name down (with a +1) and got out of the lift and nearly died about a thousand times and ran back to the room to wake my cousin from her slumber (hollywood CCTV was boring) and we made the whole half a block walk to the live studio taping of Jimmy Kimmel Live.
Watching a talk show being produced was a part of My American Dream(tm) and so I really enjoyed the experience and relished in the fakeness of it all, but to Jimmy Kimmels credit, despite being recorded hours before being broadcast, it was filmed in a live format - there was no stopping once it started and no take two's.
Stiffler told a few stories about the toilet and his brother sleeping with a midget, some chick came on and talked about her experiences on Entourage and, the poor little lamb, some story about a crush she had on Lance Bass and then we were all herded outside for an exclusive N.E.R.D concert!!! I mean, i'm not a huge fan of N.E.R.D but they were way cool and they had a full festival set up for maybe 100 people who were totally into him, so I stood back and vibed it out.
It was definitely an amazing way to spend a day in LA with my most awesome cousin. :)
More Soon :)
- How i brought SHAME to my family name
- Why I will never ever be invited to another family wedding
LA in a Convertible!
LA in Smog
LA in Gluttony
Chicken & Waffles
Cousin Stephanie
Griffith Observatory
Jimmy Kimmel Live!
We landed in LA to Fog which is definitely out of character for that city (they prefer Smog) and caught the bus to Budget rent a car. This was the beginning of what was to be, many "in jokes" which you had to be there for, and when we told the lady we were staying at the "Hotel Roosevelt" she immediatley assumed we were way more upper class than we looked and wrote down a whole host of celebrity hot spots that we should visit around our hotel and engaged in some really funny conversation that involved a personal commentary on the Musak they had playing.
On the first of many aimless drives around LA we passed some really seedy motels like the Sunset Motor Inn or the Shady Pines Motor Inn and worked these into theoretical interactions with the Budget Rent a Car Lady:
"So, where 'bouts y'all staying?"
"Sunset Motor Inn"
".........Oh... I...*shrug*...I dunno it - have a nice day now!"
We drove seriously aimlessly around LA but I got to see some topical celebrity hotspots such as Kitsons, Cedar Sinai Medical Centre (ominously, George Burns Road leads into it), Fred Segal ($400 t-shirts - not), the studio where Dr Phil gets filmed, Amoeba Music and the Hollywood Sign (from a distance).
First up, we had to have something to eat and my cousin said I was in for a real surprise. I honestly thought we'd be going to a celebrity hotspot like Koi or The Ivy but for us that fateful morning, it was ROSCOES CHICKEN AND WAFFLES. Thats right - that is all they serve.
The place is an institution in LA and the food is truely gross and still turns my stomach just thinking about it. It could be the killer hangover i'm nursing or just the gastric recollections of digesting half a chicken covered in batter, deep fried, served with a huge waffle covered in butter and maple syrup. Honest to god!!!
I would not even dream that up in my most stoned of stoner fantasies nor would I wish it upon my worst enemy even if i spat in the maple syrup.
Regardless, I put that food away like it was going out of fashion, despite that combination of food never really being in fashion in the first place, and felt slightly more cultured and less like a tourist because there is no way in hell Lonely Planet could find any reason to tell you to go there.
You need to go and see it for yourself - "soul food" - perhaps because you will be bloated into your next life?
After that experience, we drove up to Griffith Observatory which was kind of cool and involved going up onto one of the many hills that surrounds LA. My first impressions were that they would be lucky to see *anything* out of their telecope because I could not see any of Downtown LA which was a few miles away, due to the smog.
By this time the fog had lifted and we were up high enough that you could clearly see where the smog ended and the clear blue sky began. It was unsettling to say the least, but hey, its America and given that LA is all about driving around aimlessly, there really isn't much that can be done in the short term, but this is one place that the High Price of Oil ("a new record!") can only mean good things.
They have "Smog Check" stations everywhere for peoples cars, which appeared to be as effective as relying on Alka Seltzer and a tabloid magazine from 1991 to relieve and distract a woman in the throes of childbirth.
Full Disclosure: I was chainsmoking at this point and can't place the entire blame on the cars for the smog, but in my defence I was trying really to pass the Roscoes and was using any and all methods to speed up nature!
Griffith was cool and we did all the free stuff which included using a public toilet (Hooray!) and viewing some really cool exhibits like the Foucault Pendulum which set about proving the earths rotation by knocking a pin down every 10 minutes. It was just like bowling, but the swinging pendulum did not deviate from its course and it was the earth that was rotating and causing the pins to be knocked down. That was WAY cool!
I actually found some of the imagery which adorned the building to be quite confronting, as they were images which evoked the Illuminati conspiracy; the "all seeing eye", the pyramids and the masonic square and compass symbol. If you've ever seen a US $1 bill you'll find the same images there and some latin stuff about new world order. I'm almost loathe to mention any more incase I have trouble with the Department of Homeland and Security - but suffice to say, I noticed these images and it made my hair stand up a little bit. I've found that the foil cap i've taken to wearing kind of stops the hair from sticking up which is totally cool, but a total nightmare when passing through the TSA at any airport.
The Griffith Observatory has been featured in many films like Terminator and is a truely wonderful way to see LA, and it reinforces the reality that California is one big desert - you can see where people stop watering and the ground goes from lush green to dust.
After that we drove back down the mountain and continued our aimless driving along streets like Melrose, La Brea, Robertson Sunset and Santa Monica Boulevard and, rather disappointingly did not encounter a single clusterfuck of paparazzi, so we called it a very early day and checked into the Hotel Roosevelt.
I must say, there is a certain "je ne sais quoi" about rocking up to a celebrity hot spot hotel in a red convertible and having it valet parked. It was kind of "de rigeur" for those parts of town and if you'll pardon my try hard french, we felt less like the F List and more like the D List and it was at this point that we were truely thankful that we forked out the $20 and upgraded from a Budget Economy car (2 door lawnmower) to something with a bit of cred, even if it was a Convertible Mitsubishi.
The Convertible Mitzo had satellite radio which made the ride all the more sweeter - i "sirius"-ly can't wait until we have satellite radio in Australia!
We soon discovered that we did not need to leave our hotel to check out the Chinese Theatre across the road as they had CCTV installed on the hotel roof giving us a birds eye view, which was kind of lazy but cool at the same time.
I decided that I had seen enough of Hollywood on the TV both at the Hotel Roosevelt and on the TV back in Australia so I head out on a solo mission and walked around only a little bit, only to be incredibly annoyed by the black guys pushing burnt cd's yelling "MAKE ME FAMOUS" and some other street performers who defy anything more than a passing mention.
It was very tacky to say the least, so I decided to get some take away food and go back to watching Hollywood on the TV.
This was where I had my first and only real celebrity encounter - I had take-away Baja Fresh (Australian Pronounciation: Bar Jar Fresh. American Pronounciation: Bai yah fresh) and was struggling to work the card reader in the lift, when it stopped on the Mezzanine floor and who should walk in but Seann William Scott!!!!!!!! (of American Pie Fame)
I immediately recognised him but was totally paralysed in fear as I had never met someone so famous before, except maybe Kamahl, but you get what I am saying. Seann (First Name Basis) had trouble working the card too and I nervously showed him how it was done - quite simple in the end, you put the card in the way the arrows are facing and Stifflers mom's your uncle.
I couldn't quite remember his name and I didn't wanna make a vague reference to one of his iconic movies by saying "so, your mama still wanna fuck?" incase he totally misunderstood the situation and I ended up with an eye the same colour and texture as my impending Baja shit.
He knew that I knew and I knew that he knew and I was eternally grateful when he broke the silence and said "hey man, I'm going on Jimmy Kimmel Live in about 45 minutes, why don't you head on down" and so I wrote my name down (with a +1) and got out of the lift and nearly died about a thousand times and ran back to the room to wake my cousin from her slumber (hollywood CCTV was boring) and we made the whole half a block walk to the live studio taping of Jimmy Kimmel Live.
Watching a talk show being produced was a part of My American Dream(tm) and so I really enjoyed the experience and relished in the fakeness of it all, but to Jimmy Kimmels credit, despite being recorded hours before being broadcast, it was filmed in a live format - there was no stopping once it started and no take two's.
Stiffler told a few stories about the toilet and his brother sleeping with a midget, some chick came on and talked about her experiences on Entourage and, the poor little lamb, some story about a crush she had on Lance Bass and then we were all herded outside for an exclusive N.E.R.D concert!!! I mean, i'm not a huge fan of N.E.R.D but they were way cool and they had a full festival set up for maybe 100 people who were totally into him, so I stood back and vibed it out.
It was definitely an amazing way to spend a day in LA with my most awesome cousin. :)
More Soon :)
- How i brought SHAME to my family name
- Why I will never ever be invited to another family wedding
LA in a Convertible!
LA in Smog
LA in Gluttony
Chicken & Waffles
Cousin Stephanie
Griffith Observatory
Jimmy Kimmel Live!
Snuck Backstage!
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
TravelBlog #1 - The US of Wa-hey
Lets begin.
Lynn drove me to the airport in what is a new tradition (she drove me to the airport for one of my other O/S trips) and we had McDonalds which is never a good idea before a flight because something they put in the special sauce "at altitude" turns in to a scientific experiment of turning a solid into a gas and several hours later, a super sized solid. Fun hey? I opened my travel blog with a fart joke.
Leaving for a big holiday is always stressful, and the major source of stress more often than not is "what have I left behind?".
Despite the stress of packing up and leaving, all along I was told by my friends that houses, jobs and posessions can easily be replaced. If i leave something behind, no worry, buy it again.
As I discovered on Saturday morning, a forgotten drivers licence is INCREDIBLY hard to replace. Especially when the drivers licence is in Melbourne, I'm in Sydney and in 24 hours I would be in San Francisco. Shit.
What really annoyed me is that I had to show my drivers licence and lie to buy Codral at the chemist. I wanted the Codral with pseudo ephedrine incase I came down with something overseas that required medication, and the over the counter non pseudo ephedrine stuff claims to make one "drowsy".
I don't want to spend my holiday "drowsy" in bed, at major landmarks, in LA traffic, or at nightclubs (i do enough of that at home) so that is why Codral was an absolute must.
As I was technically "not sick" the Pharmacist refused my request stating that I needed an 'immediate need' for Codral and it can't be given out for "preventative purposes" and so when I said "ok, i have a little sniffle" the medicine chest was opened! I was free to buy pseudo ephedrine.
The downside to this incredibly unnecessarily exercise in bullshitting is that I left my licence behind in the confusion of the situation involving me, a bored and unfulfilled pharmacist and his dumb fuck pharmacy assistant, and ended up breaking several more laws including driving without a licence several times. Go that! It seems pointless to have all these measures in place so that (for arguments sake) law-abiding citizens are required to make up lies to get medicinal assistance.
While i agree that Meth is bad and that measures should be put in place to make it less available, this game of charades at the pharmacy is like the Australian Government taxing 'alco-pops' to try and deal with the problem of underage binge drinking. A 6 pack of Bacardi Breezers has gone up? Its almost worth buying a whole bottle of Bacardi! Next they'll be taxing Red Cordial.
Thankfully, despite the initial stress and anxiety that I would not be able to legally drive in far away and exotic places I managed to locate my licence at the pharmacy in Chadstone, Melbourne. They told me I had forgotten to take the Codral as well, so I formulated a plan involving Australia Post, Fed Ex and the services of a Columbian Cartel so it all arrives safely to me somewhere in the USA. I should specify here, i'm referring to my drivers licence AND THE CODRAL.
The flight to the USA was half empty (or half full, which is actually the pessimistic way of looking at it) which was great because it meant that we were able to stretch out. My aunt had 2 seats to herself and I moved 2 rows back and had my own two seats. This meant that I was able to feign sleep for about 5 hours despite having my legally-obtained-but-somewhat-questionable Valium but the absolute horror of a 14 hour flight means that when you reach the 6 hour mark, you are really and truely over it and want to get off.
My feet were itching, but it was more of a psychological itch than a tinea itch, which was great because my tinea cream was in the hold.
My aunt commented that Qantas flight attendants are "getting a bit long in the tooth" after one of the ladies, who I should say performed her job amazingly, announced to an older couple that she was a "war baby, born in 1945".
I wondered aloud, maybe too a-loudly, whether she was member number #00000001 of the Mile High Club and is now spending her time serving chicken or beef on the long haul before she qualifies for some profoundly amazing retirement package.
This, of course, would involve first class flights and all the long service perks the airlines would loathe to offer new recruits citing oil prices or 9/11 or any of those politically motivated excuses that someone speculated about on a cable news network and we have collectively accepted as "fact".
Good on her!
We got to San Francisco Airport and the wheel chair I had organised for my Aunt really paid off as we were wheeled through Dept of Homeland Security Immigration ahead of everyone else, including a former boss of mine whose name I will not mention, but he recognised me and I recognised him - standing in a queue! HA! It goes without saying that he was probably flown all expenses by the company we worked at, but I skipped the queue - so i win.
I'm now thinking up creative excuses as to why I need a wheel chair in *every* airport, but given that I am able bodied I figure I'll not ask too much of the universe.
Tania, my travel buddy, not so lucky - say she should accidentally and unfortunately "trip" somewhere in the airport, i'd hate for her ankle to get twisted...
One thing I noticed in America is that a lot of taxi drivers are of Eastern European decent. This made me think of "The American Dream (TM)" and how big budget Hollywood has developed this image of America as the Land of Opportunity. It made me wonder whether Murials Wedding and Pricilla were hugely influential in places like India and Pakistan and the freakonomic analysis would say that having seen and met the people of the not-so-fictional Poipoise Spit ("he's a good man, charlie chan") and the talented Ping Pong champ from Bangkok in outback Australia (*pop* *pop*) that some of our Australian taxi drivers thought "Fuck America - Australia is the land of Opportunity!".
We had a rather spunky Latvian driver drive us from SFO airport to Fishermans Wharf and given that I had just arrived and not yet mastered the art of Tipping, rather than giving him a monetary tip I thought I'd offer to do something involving another tip, but lets face it - after a 14 hour flight from Australia and having being served food that I would not offer my worst enemy (maybe I would but with bodily fluids), i had about the same chances at "tipping" the hot Latvian as the Pakistani or Indian would have at independent wealth and success outside of the taxi cab in the progressive and racially tolerant fictional backwater of Porpoise Spit.
San Fran was great - the day we landed my aunty and I checked into the Holiday Inn Fishermans Wharf which did not offer a wheel chair service and involved far too many hoops to jump through and a more thorough interrogation and a longer walk than San Francisco Airport could ever dream of.
Once we found the room and worked out how to use the US phone service (hint: call the operator, ask for connection) we were starving, so went out and sampled the local seafood fare at Fishermans Wharf. The memory of that calamari still turns my stomach and how anyone could manage to fuck up a salad like they did is beyond me - but the point is we ate.
After that we walked around a little bit and decided that we were pretty tired, so we would buy a 3-day tourist bus pass for some exhorbitant amount of money, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. I had neglected to realise that I have been to San Fran a few times and being jetlagged and bored I ended up sleeping for most of the ride. It was a nice, sunny day on an open topped bus - who wouldn't?
I eventually woke up and my Aunt told me I'd been sleeping and I made more of an effort to stay awake, then I realised she had fallen asleep. Later in the trip when it came to recalling what the guide had said about various parts of the city, we had to piece it together based on who was awake for that district and we realised that the bus tour guide really sucked because all he seemed to do was tell us which Irish bars NOT to drink at, like that was all we came here to do.
Later that night when we were peckish and judging by the appearance of the place (think Sizzlers Poor Cousin without the Buffet) the Denny's 24 hour restaurant in the foyer defied eating, so I suggested we go for In and Out burgers. That place is AWESOME and I would consider giving everything up in Australia to open my own franchise of this amazingly cool fast food restaurant.
We ended up back in Denny's for dessert and the quality of the pancakes and cake said to me that the rest of the food there was going to be awful, as if I couldn't already tell that by the dreadful smell in the lobby shared by Holiday Inn and Dennys.
When I refused to get out of bed the next morning due to jetlag, my Aunt went down to have breakfast and by all reports my predictions of unsavouryness were proven correct.
San Francisco has the best public transport I have seen in America, cept for NYC and its sewer trains - San Fran have busses that run on electricity ("Zero Emission Vehicle"), trams, and a metro style train called BART. The trams are amazing - the city has restored trams from such far away places as Philadelphia and Italy and restored them to the former glory, usually the 1950's style, and run them up and down Market St linking the Castro (gay town) with Fishermans Wharf.
For $1.50 we were able to ride all public transport up until 4pm, meaning that the workers had to pay the $1.50 twice but for tourists, it worked out to be a fantastic way to see the city and get around. The Castro is amazing by day, by night I imagine it to be a little seedy, but its nothing like Darlinghurst or Oxford St and has some really amazing book stores, antiques, furniture and of course, the architecture for which San Francisco is famous for (think Full House opening credits but without an Olsen spoiling the view).
I met up with my parents that evening and we went to the San Franciscan China Town and had a really pleasant meal, then I went to bed early as I had to be at San Francisco Airport at 6am for a 8am flight to Los Angeles.
The Moldavian who drove me to SFO airport at 5am after I missed the affectionatley known "PEASANT SHUTTLE" entertained me with stories of the motherland, including what was, in his eyes, the greatest accomplishment associated with the downfall of the Soviet Union: The speed limit in Moldavia was increased.
Apparently to visit his wife in Odessa, across the border, he was restricted to driving 90km/h however after the downfall of all things Bloc the speed limits in Moldavia were no longer under Soviet control, and they went a little crazy.
Clearly many decades of an iron fist makes one want to push that Skoda to the limits and it took him one hour less to travel to Odessa for a little 'somethin' somethin' (i believe - my Moldavian is not up to scratch but i am sure that is what he was saying) and clearly this was a good thing.
Slow and steady does not necessarily win the race!
I guess old habits die hard and he seemed to drive at 90 km/h to the airport while everyone else (including the aforementioned Latvian) drove at speeds more comparable to 140 km/h.
I hope the Latvian is not so much of a fast lover as he was driver but he certainly knew how to get me where I wanted to be and bloody fast.
COMING UP!
- Los Angeles
- Meeting a Celebrity
- Attending Jimmy Kimmel LIVE! including N.E.R.D and Seann William Scott (American Pie)
Qantas Dave
San Fran Tram
No Beaver
Gay Trash
Bay Bridge
Lynn drove me to the airport in what is a new tradition (she drove me to the airport for one of my other O/S trips) and we had McDonalds which is never a good idea before a flight because something they put in the special sauce "at altitude" turns in to a scientific experiment of turning a solid into a gas and several hours later, a super sized solid. Fun hey? I opened my travel blog with a fart joke.
Leaving for a big holiday is always stressful, and the major source of stress more often than not is "what have I left behind?".
Despite the stress of packing up and leaving, all along I was told by my friends that houses, jobs and posessions can easily be replaced. If i leave something behind, no worry, buy it again.
As I discovered on Saturday morning, a forgotten drivers licence is INCREDIBLY hard to replace. Especially when the drivers licence is in Melbourne, I'm in Sydney and in 24 hours I would be in San Francisco. Shit.
What really annoyed me is that I had to show my drivers licence and lie to buy Codral at the chemist. I wanted the Codral with pseudo ephedrine incase I came down with something overseas that required medication, and the over the counter non pseudo ephedrine stuff claims to make one "drowsy".
I don't want to spend my holiday "drowsy" in bed, at major landmarks, in LA traffic, or at nightclubs (i do enough of that at home) so that is why Codral was an absolute must.
As I was technically "not sick" the Pharmacist refused my request stating that I needed an 'immediate need' for Codral and it can't be given out for "preventative purposes" and so when I said "ok, i have a little sniffle" the medicine chest was opened! I was free to buy pseudo ephedrine.
The downside to this incredibly unnecessarily exercise in bullshitting is that I left my licence behind in the confusion of the situation involving me, a bored and unfulfilled pharmacist and his dumb fuck pharmacy assistant, and ended up breaking several more laws including driving without a licence several times. Go that! It seems pointless to have all these measures in place so that (for arguments sake) law-abiding citizens are required to make up lies to get medicinal assistance.
While i agree that Meth is bad and that measures should be put in place to make it less available, this game of charades at the pharmacy is like the Australian Government taxing 'alco-pops' to try and deal with the problem of underage binge drinking. A 6 pack of Bacardi Breezers has gone up? Its almost worth buying a whole bottle of Bacardi! Next they'll be taxing Red Cordial.
Thankfully, despite the initial stress and anxiety that I would not be able to legally drive in far away and exotic places I managed to locate my licence at the pharmacy in Chadstone, Melbourne. They told me I had forgotten to take the Codral as well, so I formulated a plan involving Australia Post, Fed Ex and the services of a Columbian Cartel so it all arrives safely to me somewhere in the USA. I should specify here, i'm referring to my drivers licence AND THE CODRAL.
The flight to the USA was half empty (or half full, which is actually the pessimistic way of looking at it) which was great because it meant that we were able to stretch out. My aunt had 2 seats to herself and I moved 2 rows back and had my own two seats. This meant that I was able to feign sleep for about 5 hours despite having my legally-obtained-but-somewhat-questionable Valium but the absolute horror of a 14 hour flight means that when you reach the 6 hour mark, you are really and truely over it and want to get off.
My feet were itching, but it was more of a psychological itch than a tinea itch, which was great because my tinea cream was in the hold.
My aunt commented that Qantas flight attendants are "getting a bit long in the tooth" after one of the ladies, who I should say performed her job amazingly, announced to an older couple that she was a "war baby, born in 1945".
I wondered aloud, maybe too a-loudly, whether she was member number #00000001 of the Mile High Club and is now spending her time serving chicken or beef on the long haul before she qualifies for some profoundly amazing retirement package.
This, of course, would involve first class flights and all the long service perks the airlines would loathe to offer new recruits citing oil prices or 9/11 or any of those politically motivated excuses that someone speculated about on a cable news network and we have collectively accepted as "fact".
Good on her!
We got to San Francisco Airport and the wheel chair I had organised for my Aunt really paid off as we were wheeled through Dept of Homeland Security Immigration ahead of everyone else, including a former boss of mine whose name I will not mention, but he recognised me and I recognised him - standing in a queue! HA! It goes without saying that he was probably flown all expenses by the company we worked at, but I skipped the queue - so i win.
I'm now thinking up creative excuses as to why I need a wheel chair in *every* airport, but given that I am able bodied I figure I'll not ask too much of the universe.
Tania, my travel buddy, not so lucky - say she should accidentally and unfortunately "trip" somewhere in the airport, i'd hate for her ankle to get twisted...
One thing I noticed in America is that a lot of taxi drivers are of Eastern European decent. This made me think of "The American Dream (TM)" and how big budget Hollywood has developed this image of America as the Land of Opportunity. It made me wonder whether Murials Wedding and Pricilla were hugely influential in places like India and Pakistan and the freakonomic analysis would say that having seen and met the people of the not-so-fictional Poipoise Spit ("he's a good man, charlie chan") and the talented Ping Pong champ from Bangkok in outback Australia (*pop* *pop*) that some of our Australian taxi drivers thought "Fuck America - Australia is the land of Opportunity!".
We had a rather spunky Latvian driver drive us from SFO airport to Fishermans Wharf and given that I had just arrived and not yet mastered the art of Tipping, rather than giving him a monetary tip I thought I'd offer to do something involving another tip, but lets face it - after a 14 hour flight from Australia and having being served food that I would not offer my worst enemy (maybe I would but with bodily fluids), i had about the same chances at "tipping" the hot Latvian as the Pakistani or Indian would have at independent wealth and success outside of the taxi cab in the progressive and racially tolerant fictional backwater of Porpoise Spit.
San Fran was great - the day we landed my aunty and I checked into the Holiday Inn Fishermans Wharf which did not offer a wheel chair service and involved far too many hoops to jump through and a more thorough interrogation and a longer walk than San Francisco Airport could ever dream of.
Once we found the room and worked out how to use the US phone service (hint: call the operator, ask for connection) we were starving, so went out and sampled the local seafood fare at Fishermans Wharf. The memory of that calamari still turns my stomach and how anyone could manage to fuck up a salad like they did is beyond me - but the point is we ate.
After that we walked around a little bit and decided that we were pretty tired, so we would buy a 3-day tourist bus pass for some exhorbitant amount of money, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. I had neglected to realise that I have been to San Fran a few times and being jetlagged and bored I ended up sleeping for most of the ride. It was a nice, sunny day on an open topped bus - who wouldn't?
I eventually woke up and my Aunt told me I'd been sleeping and I made more of an effort to stay awake, then I realised she had fallen asleep. Later in the trip when it came to recalling what the guide had said about various parts of the city, we had to piece it together based on who was awake for that district and we realised that the bus tour guide really sucked because all he seemed to do was tell us which Irish bars NOT to drink at, like that was all we came here to do.
Later that night when we were peckish and judging by the appearance of the place (think Sizzlers Poor Cousin without the Buffet) the Denny's 24 hour restaurant in the foyer defied eating, so I suggested we go for In and Out burgers. That place is AWESOME and I would consider giving everything up in Australia to open my own franchise of this amazingly cool fast food restaurant.
We ended up back in Denny's for dessert and the quality of the pancakes and cake said to me that the rest of the food there was going to be awful, as if I couldn't already tell that by the dreadful smell in the lobby shared by Holiday Inn and Dennys.
When I refused to get out of bed the next morning due to jetlag, my Aunt went down to have breakfast and by all reports my predictions of unsavouryness were proven correct.
San Francisco has the best public transport I have seen in America, cept for NYC and its sewer trains - San Fran have busses that run on electricity ("Zero Emission Vehicle"), trams, and a metro style train called BART. The trams are amazing - the city has restored trams from such far away places as Philadelphia and Italy and restored them to the former glory, usually the 1950's style, and run them up and down Market St linking the Castro (gay town) with Fishermans Wharf.
For $1.50 we were able to ride all public transport up until 4pm, meaning that the workers had to pay the $1.50 twice but for tourists, it worked out to be a fantastic way to see the city and get around. The Castro is amazing by day, by night I imagine it to be a little seedy, but its nothing like Darlinghurst or Oxford St and has some really amazing book stores, antiques, furniture and of course, the architecture for which San Francisco is famous for (think Full House opening credits but without an Olsen spoiling the view).
I met up with my parents that evening and we went to the San Franciscan China Town and had a really pleasant meal, then I went to bed early as I had to be at San Francisco Airport at 6am for a 8am flight to Los Angeles.
The Moldavian who drove me to SFO airport at 5am after I missed the affectionatley known "PEASANT SHUTTLE" entertained me with stories of the motherland, including what was, in his eyes, the greatest accomplishment associated with the downfall of the Soviet Union: The speed limit in Moldavia was increased.
Apparently to visit his wife in Odessa, across the border, he was restricted to driving 90km/h however after the downfall of all things Bloc the speed limits in Moldavia were no longer under Soviet control, and they went a little crazy.
Clearly many decades of an iron fist makes one want to push that Skoda to the limits and it took him one hour less to travel to Odessa for a little 'somethin' somethin' (i believe - my Moldavian is not up to scratch but i am sure that is what he was saying) and clearly this was a good thing.
Slow and steady does not necessarily win the race!
I guess old habits die hard and he seemed to drive at 90 km/h to the airport while everyone else (including the aforementioned Latvian) drove at speeds more comparable to 140 km/h.
I hope the Latvian is not so much of a fast lover as he was driver but he certainly knew how to get me where I wanted to be and bloody fast.
COMING UP!
- Los Angeles
- Meeting a Celebrity
- Attending Jimmy Kimmel LIVE! including N.E.R.D and Seann William Scott (American Pie)
Qantas Dave
San Fran Tram
No Beaver
Gay Trash
Bay Bridge
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