America America
Hi,
I got up at 4.30 this morning and thought I’d make an entry. I typed it out and when i went to publish it, unfortunately, all was lost, bugger. So I’ll do a shortened version and get on with the day. I called the entry america america because I wanted to talk about some reflections on everyday life here, much as it is for a tourist in Hollywood. We brought some transistor radios with us so we’ve been listening in. We’ve come across loads of talk back and opinion makers, or breakers, on the airwaves. They’ve been going on and on about Rev. Wright and Obama and it looks like the road to the whitehouse has been stuffed for him.
Of the 80 to 100 television stations (including National Geographic and the History station) there is loads of the usual crime shows, cartoon and kids stations, and we found the American Broadcasting Commission station last night that was airing a talk show hosted by Bill Maher (a liberal (I think) babyboomer) and he had as his guests, Phil Donaghue, Gary Shandling (Larry Sanders Show, comic) and a woman called Adriena Huffington. it was a mix of politcs and comedy and Adriena seemed to hit the spot with the audience and was applauded from time to time. Donaghue was talking about a documentary that he had put together on the war in Iraq called Body of War – and Huffington about a new book, Right is Wrong. Barry found a community station where an old hippy was talking about his views on the world, the cosmos and everything in between and he was set up with a phone number and waiting for the plebs to ring in and have a talk with him. This was funny and entertaining for a while, the first caller was drunk, or something and was making less sense the guy himself, and the second caller talked about his nice hair and asked what shampoo he was using – i think we turned off after that.
The universal studios – should you go – well I wouldn’t jump at it. There were hundreds, maybe thousands of tourists from all over the world, as you might imagine. We all lined up to get in the front gates, only to find that the studios is surrounded by an amusement park, and we all rushed to the second gates for the studios and linked up again to then be filed into trolly buses that were linked together that eventually set off for a 45 minute tour of the studios. The rest of the day was to be spent in the amusement park that included rides called The Mummy, Jarassic Park, the House of Horrors and a couple more, and there were a few behind the scenes presentations showing techniques that are used, for example with the movie Backburn, and how they use a mix of computer generated images, stunts, and dramatic effect that get the final result. The main impression i left with was the highly manufactured nature of the medium.
The 45 minute tour drove past studios 23, 32 and more (where I guess work was taking place inside though not much sense of it from the bus) and then they drove us past loads of acerages that included street scenes, and backdrops for the movies, Jaws, Bruce Almighty, Evan Almighty, and the TV show Desperate Housewives and Wisteria lane. How they got from what we saw (the raw material) and the final product is amazing but I’m not sure the description of dream weaver captures it.
Joey was keen to leave. We went on some of the rides and visited some of the presentations but left early. The food on the grounds looked pretty awful and typical of these places. then we left and headed back to walk quite a few blocks of the Hollywood Boulevard, which was intersting, loads of tatoo shops, cheap tourist outlets (3 T-shirts for $10), and loads of local doods.
In the last post I mentioned about the land of free enterprise (that kept playing in my head along the lines of Howard’s incentervation) the result as we’ve experienced it over these days has been quite a few very nice, and enthusiastic, service people both in the hotel and in the buses, the workers go that extra mile, but then their pay relies on tips, and I just keep wondering what their base wage might be. It is May Day today and the big news is the predicted demonstrations that they are expecting in Los Angeles city – mostly focusing on issues related to immigration.
well there you go, better sign off for now, at least i’ve managed to savage something of my entry.
Hope you are well!! take care and love from us, JBHJ
Tags: Travel
canberrians
I was not surprised to hear about Universal Studios being such a disappointing experience – and to hear about the thousands of people there. At least you have DONE IT! Here are some questions – is there a lot of obvious smog? What have you eaten so far? Have you supersized yet? What have you noticed about prices generally? Are people friendly/interested in you as Australians? Have you talked to any real Americans (not tourists)? Have you talked to any other tourists? What cars are people driving? Our news: the carpet is in; the furniture/books are now back in place (massive job); Max stayed overnight last night (as both parents interstate); Sam is going on a bikeride today at school; and it is our Grandma’s 81st birthday today. Did you have a lovely birthday Hannah? What did you do? Looking forward to hearing about your new adventures.
Love from Jen and Sam
PS A student at College had an amazing jacket he got from the US – when you zipped the hood up it went into a cone shape with two plastic see-through bright red eye holes! It was pretty cool. He said he was intending to “zip up totally” because it is getting soooo cold here – so that will be an interesting experience for those at Woden Plaza!
Hi Jenny,
You wouldn’t believe that I have written to you to answer your questions and Barry has written twice – but each time we have lost our answers – the computer disconnects just when we do the publish. There is a way around it and this is to save after writing, which I’m hoping will work this time, fingers crossed. So re: your questions – some overview answers – no we haven’t spoken more than a few sentences with the locals. Though, today, funnily enough we went to a shopping area and caught the bus back to the hotel. We got off a few stops early and while walking back there was a film crew working on a film – Seven Pounds – with Will Smith we didn’t get to see any filming but we got into a bit of a conversation with one of the female cops. She was very friendly and said that she has a brother who lives an hour out of Sydney. The people are very friendly but probably a combination of our schedule, catching up with sleep, and being a unit, has meant that we haven’t had many opportunities to meet and/or talk with locals.
Funnily enough all of us haven’t been all that hungry while we have been here. The hotel provides a cold breakfast, which includes cereal, juice, bread, muffins and some other things, with yoghurt and that seems to keep us going for ages. We’ve been to the supermarket and bought various bits and pieces and have been snacking on these. We’ve bought a few things while we’ve been out and we were going to go out to a lovely mexican restaurant tonight for Hannah’s birthday, but she flaked out on the lounge and we called it off. Hopefully in New York we’ll get to have one or two nights out at a restaurant.
We went to a coffee shop the other night and Joey ordered a iced cofee, which came back in a large cup, cold coffee in icey water. It tasted awful and needless to say he didn’t drink much. The last time I ordered a drink I quickly followed with small please and even then the cup was too much – so yes we’ve experienced something of the over sizing. The hotel offers a free mini bar and there are always apples left to pick up on the way in or out so, again, we’ve been enjoying the fruit as well. We haven’t been eating a lot but its been reasonably healthy.
Thanks for your posts and hope all is going well – are things moving ahead with the bathroom?
best for us to yous …. JBHJ