I'm almost on the night train outta here so thought I should try and make some decent pictures for once - ones that show this part of the world in all it's Brady Bunch glory. Southern California architecture is pretty amazing. It's kind of like living in what I imagine my Day-To-Night Barbie's home would have been located within. I only ever had her plastic bedroom (and when I lost one of her sparkly stiletto heels I gave up on that shit and went back to my Tonka trucks. Only to have my dad sell them in a garage sale without my permission later on. I'm still pissed off at the loss of my green back-loader truck. But I severely digress)….
The houses and town planning in American suburbia are kind of creepy - even in perfect and relentlessly good weather. They're just too perfect. Everything works, everything is clean and tidy, everyone has a two car garage, a double door entrance, a double door fridge and 2.5 kids. Everyone says hello to each other in the street (you should see me trying to crack my concrete face into a smile to complete strangers after living in London, it's like seeing a stroke victim trying to speak).
It's just not real here. Everyone is white, everyone has a tertiary education, everyone can afford to shop at Whole Foods. Everyone believes soap to be inferior to antibacterial hand cleanser (soap is antibacterial by definition people!). I keep expecting Mike Brady to come cruising round the corner. Marcia, marcia, marcia - where are the skeletons?
I'm in one small part of white suburban america - but having travelled the country quite a bit over the last 14 years and having lived here before, i feel safe and sad to say that a lot of America is much the same as it is here (just minus the education part and Whole Food affordability) - in terms of conservatism and sheltered existence. Most people who have the means to, haven't travelled. When they meet someone who has, they have a longing in their voice but a sentiment that implies it's not something they could ever do. If only there was a culture of travel here - a culture of inquisitiveness and fascination with the other. I think the world would be a different place if at least every second American had travelled. Oh and if they also gave up their irritating obsession with that pesky little Jesus character that wouldn't go astray either.
America has produced some massively important movements that have shifted cultural paradigms worldwide - for good and bad. We very easily focus on the bad, but let's not forget where feminism/women's rights, black people's rights, student movements originated from (and erm, Gunners!). But it always seems to stop short, or become overshadowed by a nationalistic pride in bullying. Cultural bullying, economic bullying, environmental bullying and so on.
America is quite an amazing place. The landscape, the people, the diversity. It's like an amazing painting or favourite picture where each time you look at it you see something different. Sometimes you like what you see, sometimes you don't. It's never definitively one or the other.
But one thing is for sure, there are not enough pubs here. Fucking bullshit!
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