Category: Soapbox

Ravers scare me too

June 4, 2011

Just like their hippie cousins, ravers also scare me.

Ravers in their Rainbow Brite fluoro colours, skimpy stripey Lycra clothing, glow sticks, face paint, pigtails and twirling props subscribe so wholly to their look that it can be a fine line between admiration for their dedication and fright by their determination.

At the Green Room in Flagstaff I watched these girls all decked out raver style dance with glowing props like hula hoops, twirling sticks, those nunchuck-skipping-rope type things and body paint dance on a stage in front of the DJ box.

I thought I’d seen it all, then out came a chick brandishing a plastic Aladdin sword with flashing bulbs on the handle. She rested it in between her blonde pigtailed dreadlocks and danced. Then she balanced it on her hip and danced. It was kind of raver meets belly dancer, and the seriousness on her face just made her look ridiculous, so I laughed out loud and covered my mouth in abject horror at the sight.

Then I knew I’d seen it all when a nude looking silhouette started dancing behind a backlit white sheet. With a proper look I discovered she was wearing underwear or a bikini, or at least something that gave her silhouette a visible panty line.

Completely overwhelmed by the ‘entertainment’ and people watching the eccentrics, I had to take my leave. There was just too much going on for me to process and I couldn’t even take it mildly seriously.

$8 for a coke?!

May 29, 2011

We went to Vanity nightclub at the Hard Rock Hotel on Saturday night.

As is the fashion with most clubs, there is an expensive cover charge, think minimum $20. It pays to be a girl though, because girls get either discount or free entry. This is because where there are girls, the guys will flock.

Once inside one of these party havens, they will then charge you through the nose for a drink. I asked the bartender for a Coke and she said it would be $8. I wasn’t sure she understood that I didn’t want an alcoholic beverage, just a regular soft drink, so I repeated it. And she nodded, “yes, $8”.

That did not include a tip either.

I was blown away by the expense of a simple little drink. I believe the waters also cost the same, but given how steep the cost of my first drink was, I wasn’t going back for a second.

When in Vegas, drink before you go out and if you are a group of guys, try to find a group of girls to help bump you up the line to get in.

Not so remote

May 26, 2011
Two planes side by side

Apparently southern Utah was the last place of the contiguous US states to be mapped due to its remoteness. However it doesn’t feel so remote when you always see a jetstream streak across the sky.

I had expected to find wide blue skies contrasting against the red rocks of the region, but many a photo will be marred by these aeroplane scars across the sky. I counted up to 10 at one time in Bryce Canyon. It makes it hard to believe you are in the middle of nowhere when you can see a criss-cross of jetstreams and it’s a continuous reminder of life going on back in the ‘real world’ and makes it difficult to truly escape.

Count the jetstreams above Bryce Canyon

Even in the quiet of the night, you still hear jets flying over in the wee hours of the morning.

It kind of spoils the nature experience.I miss the open expanse of blue sky in Australia. The type where it is rare to see a jetstream, where the jetstream is a novelty, not the norm.

CockRock State Park

May 25, 2011

Okay, so it’s really called Kodachrome Basin State Park, so named by a bunch of National Geographic boffins who thought it so captivatingly photogenic in 1949, but whatevs, it really is just a state park full of phallic rocks.

The Panorama Trail gives you plenty of opportunity to see these giant, erect formations that some giantess would probably get her rocks off on. Yes, this post is extremely vulgar, but if you want a giggle, check out the slideshow (although not the type filmed on Kodachrome, printed at the photo shop and shown with a white pull up screen and home slide projector, even though that’s probably how the Nat Geo guys showed the park off in the first place).

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Yeah, I piked on the sunset

May 21, 2011

I spent the day at Arches National Park near Moab, Utah hiking with Brian who I’d met at the campsite.

Brian is one of those people whose passion is hiking and who is also very enthusiastic about photography. He is so keen he got up at 4:45am to capture the sunrise at Mesa Arch in Canyonlands National Park before breakfast.

Whilst we started our day at Arches fairly late with our first hike at 11:30am, I just couldn’t make the sunset at Delicate Arch that Brian was so keen to capture. I know that I need to take the time descriptions on the trail information with a big flake of Murray River Pink Salt, but I wasn’t keen to come back down the moderate-strenuous trail in the dark when I’d already walked about 15km.

So I elected to stay in the car for the 2 and half hours it took for Brian to get there, watch the sun set and get back. Sounds kind of boring, but it gave me time to plan the next few stops on my road trip, and you know, the sun sets every day.

Worst bed ever

May 20, 2011

Last night I stayed in a dingy hostel with what I shall crown the worst bed ever.

The rickety bunk bed creaked and squeaked as I looked for a way to clamber atop. As I searched for footholds, it was revealed that this is the kind of bed you would find at your grandparents’ place that hails from the fifties or sixties. You know the type with the metal mesh that is suspended trampoline style in the frame. The type that can’t do anything but sag really.

Atop the saggy bed was a very sad mattress. It had clearly seen better days, but now, after much tossing and turning of backpackers upon it, it is so mean and bitter as to stab you with the springs inside it. I will even go so far as to say there is nothing soft about it, not even the covering. Just tired metal coils to stick and poke as you lay like a banana and will sleep to come quickly.

Each tiny move you made, be it bodily or adjusting the position of your foot, caused the bed to squeal and rock, creating more metallic creaking sounds.

This bed is even worse than the dodgy, broken bed I bought in LA.

So, I moved on and pitched my tent in a campground where I could get a comfortable night’s sleep on my queen sized airbed.

Saying goodbyes

May 5, 2011

It’s not quite of the scale of my farewells in Australia when I was heading off to LA for an indeterminate period of time, but I still had a lot of rounds of farewells to make before I left LA for greater America.

It’s nice to know that despite coming over with a few friends already, I have made some other wonderful friends in LA (strangely enough mostly Australians).

I think it’s almost harder to say goodbye to the newer friends because the friendship hasn’t been given time to blossom into something even more special. When you meet people you connect with and share interests with, the future is exciting as you get to know each other better and spend more time developing your relationship.

Now that I’m leaving LA prematurely, I hope that I can continue to maintain and these friendships via distance and wish them all the well in their endeavours.

Notes from the Getty Center

May 3, 2011
Getty Plaza
Scorching plaza

Needing some tranquil “think space” after a most interesting discussion with Peter the meditation teacher, I headed in the direction of the Getty Center, a gallery/museum perched in the hills that comes highly recommended by friends and guidebooks.

Here are some notes I made during my visit there.

First impressions

“Feeling a little underwhelmed @ The Getty. It’s very stark, bakingly hot with all the marble. Gardens are fairly sparse. Maybe I’ll find something more agreeable inside.”

Feeling the heat

“Shade is hard to come across here. People on tours carry stone-coloured parasols to keep the sun off as they hear about the architectural and garden design. A design that makes them require portable shade.”

Wanting to come up with my own emoticon

**>> which translates to wink, wink, nudge, nudge

On the art

Getty water feature
A beautiful water feature tries to offset the baking hot

“A Hare in the Forest, Hans Hoffman – such tiny detail. Spider’s web, creatures peering, hidden, like Animalia. A constant discovery + the colours ping! V. lifelike.”

“The Rest on the Flight into Egypt with Saint John the Baptist, Fra Bartolemmo (Bacciodella Porta) – Love the halos, the transparent sash of St John, the palm and golden hue in the background. Mary is beautiful, but v. pale while. Joseph looks old, swarthy and Italian. He looks like he’s resting on a baseball. Discarded pomegranate at their feet seems wasteful.”

“Giant Redwood, Santa Cruz, Carleton Watkins photograph from 1880’s – The giant redwood screws out of the earth like a drill bit, it’s bushing top depicting the remnant materials it collected on its way through the crust.”

Getty views
Great view for miles and miles

Whilst my first impressions weren’t overly enthusiastic, I warmed to the place (maybe the beating sun had something to do with that!). Parts of it were still underwhelming, like the Gods of Angkor temporary exhibit. Judging from all the flagpole banners flying around LA, I had expected a mammoth exhibit, like when the Salvador Dali exhibition was on in Melbourne. Instead, it was one small room with a few statues and a couple of information boards about the Angkor period in Cambodia. Completely underwhelming and uninspirational, although I have been to Cambodia and visited the ruins, so it wasn’t new to me.

I did spend some time sitting in the Central Garden reading and pondering, so that was nice, and the views are pretty darn incredible. However, for me, one visit to the Getty is enough.

Love from the Easter Bunny

April 24, 2011
Easter egg stash
Look what the Easter Bunny brought!

When I left Australia at the very beginning of February, there were already Easter eggs for sale in the supermarket.

Three months later, Easter has arrived and I almost missed it. I expected Americans (who love a celebration and love to eat junk food and are typically more religious than Australians) to really get behind Easter. I expected to see a mad assortment of eggs, bunnies and Easter paraphernalia. I expected to be absolutely bombarded with Easter consumerism. I didn’t and I wasn’t.

At home I would be able to find a whole aisle at a supermarket or department store dedicated to Easter. That and dozens of hot cross buns tempting me. Here, it was a struggle to find anything much other than tiny little eggs or the stuff required to make an Easter basket. In one place I saw Lindt bunnies for sale, but that was the largest chocolate Easter bunny I could find.

Only small sections of aisles or a table at my local supermarket offered up any kind of Easter merchandise. While it was kind of nice to avoid all the Easter consumerism fanfare and the temptation to buy chocolate for anyone and everyone that I possibly know and take hot cross buns to work to feed my colleagues, it also didn’t feel the same. It didn’t feel particularly celebratory, like “here’s some time off for you to spend with your family and friends and get out and about in your country”. I guess the fact that Easter Monday is not a public holiday here changes things a bit.

BUT the Easter Bunny did find his way to my place to leave some eggs, including some Reese’s peanut butter filled chocolate eggs, and he left the chocolate in the shape of a cross on the shelf at Rite-Aid.

More car woes (just not mine)

April 18, 2011

Today seemed to be the day that everyone else in my household’s cars decided to chuck spazzies.

I had a message from a friend staying with us to say her recently purchased car (as in purchased Friday three days ago) was playing up again (after already having been to visit the mechanic on day 1).

Then J called me on the way back from LAX to say that Brandon had stopped at an intersection and wouldn’t start and required a tow. She called me for my expert advice on dying cars given that Esmeralda has had two overheating issues and three tows. My advice was to call AAA (the equivalent of RACV or NRMA etc) and join up. With AAA you get four free tows of up to 7 miles each year. It’s an absolute necessity here.

So I guess if you are looking at buying a car in LA (and America) I have the following advice for you:

  • Cars are not as reliable as they are back home. The reputation cars have at home doesn’t necessarily translate to that of cars here.
  • If buying a used car, always buy a certified pre-owned car. This basically means the manufacturer has gone over it with a fine tooth comb and gives it a seal of approval.
  • Get a warranty. If something is going to go wrong, it WILL go wrong in the first month. I have at least three examples of this!
  • Find a good mechanic and check their reviews on Yelp.com. Put their contact details in your phone so you can ring them if you experience a problem and so you have their address to give if you need a tow.
  • Have a pool of contingency cash so you aren’t caught short when something does need to be fixed.
  • Don’t skimp on insurance. It is expensive, but absolutely essential.
  • Pony up to put the good gas in your car. Chevron is the most expensive, but is also the best quality. Whilst I am shopping for the cheapest gas for Esmeralda, I am putting in premium to keep her turbo engine happy.

If things go wrong, don’t despair. Everyone has a story of car woe. You arrive in LA and you have car issues. It seems to be de rigour, so don’t let it get you down, soldier on and things will get better.