Ok well here I am in L.A
Dan my new found friend in San Fran was adamant I would hate it as it's ugly and not pretty like San Fran so he said - although he did say he hasn't been here yet.
Well I actually don't mind it!
It is ugly and spread out. It's just so massive... it goes for ages.. Streets go for literally miles and miles and miles! some numbers end up in the thousands...like 16,000 Santa Monica boulevard etc etc.
Savannah Fiora and I drove her from San Fran on Sunday. it was meant to be Sunday afternoon but by the time we left it was evening! it was a pretty flat and uneventful drive. We stopped at this 'famous' pea soup restaurant - yeah pea soup and had yeah - pea soup which was pretty good actually. It was inside this German or Dutch like restaurant motel thing. We were there prettty late but hell - it was busy! The highway from San Fran to LA which i assume is like most highways in the states had no shops or anything on it at all. It just goes and goes and goes... if you want something you have to pull off the highway and enter one of these little highway town kinda things - which is some kind of collection of shops hotels restaurants and takeaways all glitzy and brightly lit - well we did go at night. We apparently passed through a section of the highway which is notorious for it's stench as it is a huge abitoir :( . That was pretty rotten went for ages - we just were holding our noses and trying to be sick until Savannah was sure we had driven far enough away from the smell to open the windows and get some oxygen again. In LA we were told it was most probably the abitoir...so in that respect it turned out to be good we were travelling at night as we were also told there were heaps and heaps of cows etc just standing around that field :( that's not nice.
Sunday night we got to LA in the morning and suitably for what i had imagined a town of highways - stayed in a hotel by a highway. The receptionist straight faced asked Savannah and I - did we want a room with a view of the highway. We were tired and confused but Savannah said no then exchanged looks with me. As if you'd want that. Turned out we did end up with a room with a partial highway view and the noise! Which was a rude change from staying in San Fran at Rowland and Savannahs beautifully quiet homes!
I met Guy a UK music producer my sister is working with in London - but they are all here in LA producing an album for a famous person at the moment, and Andrei my sisters Fiance - who is working on that job and staying in the same hotel. A late night and the next day sightseeing of LA which was horrible! all 5 of us (Savannah/Fiora/Guy/Andrei and I) piled into a Crysler PT cruiser - which looks large but is not inside and drove around LA looking for this famed view of 'the city' from Mullholland drive. I say 'city' as it's more like a an experiment in low rise living or a guiness book or records attempt and creating the biggest urban sprawl on the planet...
now I don't know if i've said earlier but you don't drive anywhere in the states without a GPS. and good one at that. Talking ones are preferred! The reasons for this are: there are a lot of streets, highways don't have names but numbers, and americans don't give directions like Australian are used to - they use north/south/east/west. So you might get ... drive 1/4 of a mile to 988 (a highway) and head south to 760 (another highway). That sounds easy enough but with the ammount of streets and highways/overpasses/one way streets etc etc etc it is hard! That said - it turns out the PT Cruiser had a really average (non talking GPS). So that equalled a day of mostly sitting in the car with people trying to figure out what the unit was saying to us and where the F we were! So we are trying to find a lookout on mullholland drive - but we don't know what the lookout is called - or what street it is near and mullholland drive goes for miles and miles and miles! So the GPS is taking us there but then where do we go! anyway...
we made it to Santa Monica boulevard, Venice Beach, Santa monica boardwalk or something?, Malibu, Beveryly HIlls, and finally Mulholland drive on dark! so we got a lovely view of all the lights etc! Malibu looked ok...but nothing here is as beautiful as back home. So we're talking big homes on long long streets with NO corner shops in site. everyone has a car and they are usually big fuck off affairs (SUVs = big 4wds) built into the sides of hills that have ok vegetation. NOt the blue lagoon or anything like that - more like how i would imagine a semi vegetated desert!
I was supposed to go to a party with my friend Ben Pauly who is a guy i used to dance with in Sydney Monday night but ended up meeting him after - Savannah and I gave up on the overpriced/noisy crap hotel - which Savannah said was good for LA... as most of the hotels are very expensive. Even the crap 3 star ones. And we both went to stay with Ben. It was great seeing Ben. BEn has just moved here from living in Sweden for 5 years. He acts/sings/dances/writes etc. He is actually house sitting a friends house but was totally cool for Savannah and I to stay. He text me his address as corner Sweetzer and WIllougby streets WEHO. I'm reading this at the bar of the hotel to everyone and Savannah and I are going - Where is WEHO?? hoping it wasn't far as it didn't matter where it was cause the GPS would just know... uh-uh... WEHO was short for West Hollywood chorused my sister and Guy! Doh! haha that was lucky as I could just see us in the car typing in fucking weho with nothing! hahah
Savannah/Ben and I had breakfast at this really average place on Santa monica the next day and Savannah took off leaving Ben and I to do a bit of a drive around. which was great! we did that walk of stars, the kodak theatre (where the oscars were the night before), other stuff - blah blah - i can't really remember actually and as you can tell I was so underwhelmed by it all! hahaha! it was good seeing Ben though. We caught up with a friend of his who has been living here for a year and prior to that in NY. Natalie was cool and was getting ready to head back to Australia the next day (today) for a holiday. interesting hearing the dialogue between Ben and Natalie about doing castings etc and the LA scene. Natalie is a singer/dancer.
Later that night we caught up with my friends Nandy and Maya who are twins and ex the Lion King dancers. They have been living here for about 2 years now and doing really well! They dance and do backing vocals for Prince quite a bit and perform in his show in Vegas. They have a site it is http://www.thetwinz.net/ check it out! they're hot! We had a drink and they offered me keys to their place in Vegas (where they stay when they do the show every weekend) so that's hot and i will meet them today to get the keys!
Ben and i hit up a gay club last night which was hilarious! Guys behind the bar with their shirts off and guy dancers dancing in hot outfits on stages around the place for tips! i'm serious! Zak a guy i used to dance with in Australia was performing in the show and Ben and I stayed to watch him...
Stay tuned for more LA antics kids and maybe even some photos!
D
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Visiting the US... first stop San Francisco....
First stop San Fran... sounds like something you'd hear on a train journey or tram ride
So here I am on my last day in San Fran....I thought i'd stay here a week but well i'm still here... partly because i lost my wallet! But also cause it's been excellent... Leaving to L.A. today.
It was a long and unremarkable plane from Melbourne with a stop over in Auckland that i had no idea we were going to make. Not because it wasn't scheduled just because I thought I'd booked direct! Infact everything leading up to me going away and begining this adventure felt unreal... surreal. Felt like a ball was rolling and there was no stopping it. Something I have to do - was going to do no matter what, weather the sky fell in or not. So here I am. Doing it. Living it. It's Great!
But me coming here - ending up here it's an interesting story... well not so much of a story but me responding to what felt right. Finished dancing in October in China of 2006 and didn't really know what was going to happen next... multiple reasons formulated the idea to go. I didn't want to get stuck doing the same things i'd been doing for the last 10 years again in Australia, and there was a big chance of that. I didn't really feel motivated or challenged - more than that - like there was anything worth me trying for in Australia - i just couldn't be bothered! Also i really wanted to change my head space on how i view myself and others from a gay point of view (!) and also in the greater sense of that and was begining to feel very much a product of the 'system' in Australia. I wanted a challenge - I wanted out baby! And here it is - i'm out! Simon Doe a dresser on the LK planted a seed for this to happen and the fact you can't get a working VISA to the UK after you're 30 also was a deciding factor. I still wasn't 100% though. I'd kinda had a big relax and got closer to me since finishing work in October but still wasn't exactly right yet. And the idea of moving to a country reknowned for being grey and miserable in winter from an Australian summer was just too abhorrent :( So I still wasn't keen to race off to the UK...
My sister set this up I guess... an email suggestion to "come hang in L.A and San Fran" by Fiora sounded like a good distraction and maybe on some level just what I needed before facing up to whatever it is I'll be facing up to in London. I'd never been to the states before and didn't know when I would go... so now seemed as good a time as any...and I had enough frequent flyer points to get there without paying a fare so... it seemed like everything was fitting neatly into place. Leaving Australia though just seemed like a movie I sat through - all the images brightly coloured from different locations around the country - Sydney - Melbourne - Tasmania all presenting like a slide show in my head but me removed from it already. At least this time I didn't feel like there was more that I could have achieved or done. Something I used to feel without fail in the past when I was about to move on from somewhere. Yes everything felt like it was predetermined and I was just living through it. To make the end.
Sad to say goodbye to everyone especially since i'm telling myself that i have no fixed idea when i'll come back to Australia.
So I'm here being kindly looked after by Savannah and her partner Rowland. Savannah is my flatmate from Brisbane - from when I first moved up there in 2000. She's friends with my sister. Back then Savannah was known as Jo and my sister as Amy, but since then they've both changed their names.
Savannah plays Violin professionally and while touring the US attended a gathering of other believers in her spiritiual faith met her current partner Rowland who is a San Franciscan local. Hence Savannah is now based here and I am their guest! Rowland owns art galleries in San Fran - of which he tells me their are now more than 400 - although his were the first. I believe him too! His galleries seem to do very well...he certainly has a knack for buying and selling art judging by their lifestyle! It's been awesome staying here a very different type of expereince than travelling any other way, living with locals.
So here I am in San Fran. not what i expected. a smaller city than i thought it would be. Melbourne is easily bigger. a beautiful and clean city though. hardly see any rubbish on the streets of 'downtown' which is what the locals call the centre of town as opposed to uptown. maybe there is more rubbish outside of downtown...but there is certainly a lot of money here! I can see it everwhere. The Americans love to shop! That's all they seem to do! Shop! There are four department stores within 500 meters of where Savannah and Rowland live, and a fifth opening later this year... and really nice stores we're talking David Jones styles...
So i've been having a great time meeting people and just getting around!
I met an english guy called Dan who lives here with his boyfriend and is a theatre performer from the West End.
We've hung out quite a bit and he's been awesome showing me the sites and giving me a hard time over my 'accent', which is fine he sounds more out of place than I do here! Done the gay club thing here - lots of bears in SF - (it's a term for a big butch gay guy - usually with a beard) been sightseeing - been shopping - lost my wallet! - visited the police station in the hope of getting it back but alas! I loved that wallet too! Savannah said it was probably the universe trying to keep me here. Or a sign that I shouldn't leave yet... for had i not lost it I would have travelled south already to L.A..Las Vegas... I think she's right. My horoscope said I would find an innovative way to save money this week...well i didn't think it would be losing my wallet. but it certainly was an innovate way. I can't spend freely as I don't have any bank/credit cards so in a way it's good :)
Now i've been told that California and specifically San Fran is totally different to anywhere else in the US. People are more friendly, San Fran is cleaner and the greenest city in the states (environmentally friendly) and most tolerant of minorities. This city is 30% chinese, there are heaps of gay people (it is San Francisco) and most of the city is latinos (latin americans).
Bearing that in mind here are my thoughts so far on travelling the US:
poverty - inspite of it's wealth and cleanliness there are a lot of homeless and crazy people here. Needing mental help crazy. Apparently that's because the Bush administration cut funding to the institutions that help these people and basically turned them out on the streets. This was nationwide but as California (where L.A and San Fran are situated) had a good reputation as a welfare state and has a more consistent climate than most other places in the US (it never snows here), these displaced people were encouraged to leave NY and other places to come live in California! I've even heard some of them were given one way tickets to get here....outrageous!
carbs - i see bagels, i see donuts, foccacias, turkish bread sandwiches, sourdough, pretzels, twinkies, cakes cakes cakes! OMG these guys really love their carbs. everywhere there are great things being baked and coming out of ovens! Not many salads... The bad thing for me is that i just want to try everything! Anything new or different i havn't had before I gotta give it a go! That said i'm not looking bad... just yet.
So here I am on my last day in San Fran....I thought i'd stay here a week but well i'm still here... partly because i lost my wallet! But also cause it's been excellent... Leaving to L.A. today.
It was a long and unremarkable plane from Melbourne with a stop over in Auckland that i had no idea we were going to make. Not because it wasn't scheduled just because I thought I'd booked direct! Infact everything leading up to me going away and begining this adventure felt unreal... surreal. Felt like a ball was rolling and there was no stopping it. Something I have to do - was going to do no matter what, weather the sky fell in or not. So here I am. Doing it. Living it. It's Great!
But me coming here - ending up here it's an interesting story... well not so much of a story but me responding to what felt right. Finished dancing in October in China of 2006 and didn't really know what was going to happen next... multiple reasons formulated the idea to go. I didn't want to get stuck doing the same things i'd been doing for the last 10 years again in Australia, and there was a big chance of that. I didn't really feel motivated or challenged - more than that - like there was anything worth me trying for in Australia - i just couldn't be bothered! Also i really wanted to change my head space on how i view myself and others from a gay point of view (!) and also in the greater sense of that and was begining to feel very much a product of the 'system' in Australia. I wanted a challenge - I wanted out baby! And here it is - i'm out! Simon Doe a dresser on the LK planted a seed for this to happen and the fact you can't get a working VISA to the UK after you're 30 also was a deciding factor. I still wasn't 100% though. I'd kinda had a big relax and got closer to me since finishing work in October but still wasn't exactly right yet. And the idea of moving to a country reknowned for being grey and miserable in winter from an Australian summer was just too abhorrent :( So I still wasn't keen to race off to the UK...
My sister set this up I guess... an email suggestion to "come hang in L.A and San Fran" by Fiora sounded like a good distraction and maybe on some level just what I needed before facing up to whatever it is I'll be facing up to in London. I'd never been to the states before and didn't know when I would go... so now seemed as good a time as any...and I had enough frequent flyer points to get there without paying a fare so... it seemed like everything was fitting neatly into place. Leaving Australia though just seemed like a movie I sat through - all the images brightly coloured from different locations around the country - Sydney - Melbourne - Tasmania all presenting like a slide show in my head but me removed from it already. At least this time I didn't feel like there was more that I could have achieved or done. Something I used to feel without fail in the past when I was about to move on from somewhere. Yes everything felt like it was predetermined and I was just living through it. To make the end.
Sad to say goodbye to everyone especially since i'm telling myself that i have no fixed idea when i'll come back to Australia.
So I'm here being kindly looked after by Savannah and her partner Rowland. Savannah is my flatmate from Brisbane - from when I first moved up there in 2000. She's friends with my sister. Back then Savannah was known as Jo and my sister as Amy, but since then they've both changed their names.
Savannah plays Violin professionally and while touring the US attended a gathering of other believers in her spiritiual faith met her current partner Rowland who is a San Franciscan local. Hence Savannah is now based here and I am their guest! Rowland owns art galleries in San Fran - of which he tells me their are now more than 400 - although his were the first. I believe him too! His galleries seem to do very well...he certainly has a knack for buying and selling art judging by their lifestyle! It's been awesome staying here a very different type of expereince than travelling any other way, living with locals.
So here I am in San Fran. not what i expected. a smaller city than i thought it would be. Melbourne is easily bigger. a beautiful and clean city though. hardly see any rubbish on the streets of 'downtown' which is what the locals call the centre of town as opposed to uptown. maybe there is more rubbish outside of downtown...but there is certainly a lot of money here! I can see it everwhere. The Americans love to shop! That's all they seem to do! Shop! There are four department stores within 500 meters of where Savannah and Rowland live, and a fifth opening later this year... and really nice stores we're talking David Jones styles...
So i've been having a great time meeting people and just getting around!
I met an english guy called Dan who lives here with his boyfriend and is a theatre performer from the West End.
We've hung out quite a bit and he's been awesome showing me the sites and giving me a hard time over my 'accent', which is fine he sounds more out of place than I do here! Done the gay club thing here - lots of bears in SF - (it's a term for a big butch gay guy - usually with a beard) been sightseeing - been shopping - lost my wallet! - visited the police station in the hope of getting it back but alas! I loved that wallet too! Savannah said it was probably the universe trying to keep me here. Or a sign that I shouldn't leave yet... for had i not lost it I would have travelled south already to L.A..Las Vegas... I think she's right. My horoscope said I would find an innovative way to save money this week...well i didn't think it would be losing my wallet. but it certainly was an innovate way. I can't spend freely as I don't have any bank/credit cards so in a way it's good :)
Now i've been told that California and specifically San Fran is totally different to anywhere else in the US. People are more friendly, San Fran is cleaner and the greenest city in the states (environmentally friendly) and most tolerant of minorities. This city is 30% chinese, there are heaps of gay people (it is San Francisco) and most of the city is latinos (latin americans).
Bearing that in mind here are my thoughts so far on travelling the US:
poverty - inspite of it's wealth and cleanliness there are a lot of homeless and crazy people here. Needing mental help crazy. Apparently that's because the Bush administration cut funding to the institutions that help these people and basically turned them out on the streets. This was nationwide but as California (where L.A and San Fran are situated) had a good reputation as a welfare state and has a more consistent climate than most other places in the US (it never snows here), these displaced people were encouraged to leave NY and other places to come live in California! I've even heard some of them were given one way tickets to get here....outrageous!
carbs - i see bagels, i see donuts, foccacias, turkish bread sandwiches, sourdough, pretzels, twinkies, cakes cakes cakes! OMG these guys really love their carbs. everywhere there are great things being baked and coming out of ovens! Not many salads... The bad thing for me is that i just want to try everything! Anything new or different i havn't had before I gotta give it a go! That said i'm not looking bad... just yet.
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