Soapbox – Page 4 – a little cameo

Venice: not all it’s cracked up to be

April 16, 2011

Venice Beach in California that is. My Lonely Planet Encounter guide says “Venice is just plain cool.” It then follows up by describing the oceanfront walk as “… a little bit crazy and a whole lot of fun.” I beg to differ.

Perhaps I should mention it right up front here, that I’m not a beachy person. Going to the beach has never really interested me. It’s a whole lot of sand that sticks to sweat and vestiges of salt water. It’s a whole bunch of waves pounding incessantly forming a tinnitus in my head. I just don’t find it a relaxing experience. I have seen a lot of beautiful beaches in my time and spent a good two months traversing the Brazilian coast where after a couple of hours at the beach, I was chomping for something more active and adventurous than lazing on a sarong. So for me, there is rarely anything charming about a city beach.

I went to Venice with Movie Lass to see the beach, walk the esplanade and observe the circus I had imagined it to be. I was kind of surprised to see the market stalls setting up as we arrived on a Saturday around 11am. That and getting a $15 park just one street back. I had been told to go on a weekend to see it at its craziest yet here we were in a relatively deserted place with crowds I would expect to find on a weekday, not a glorious 30°C Saturday.

Venice scene — Old guy rocking out in Venice

We started off checking out some stalls, for essentials like hats and sunglasses, but didn’t buy anything. In hindsight, we should have bought the hats when we first saw them because the sun started to beat down rays of redness. We wandered past Muscle Beach, an outdoor gymnasium where I saw a really toned chick with ginormous breasts giving instructions to two muscle-bound guys, but otherwise, it was fairly quiet and there weren’t any other dudes with thighs like huge hocks of ham working out.

It’s obligatory to dip one’s feet in the opposite side of the Pacific, so we crossed the wide stretch of sand to the shore where people were sunbathing, kids were building sandcastles and playing in the shallows, girls taking glamour shots of each other with the waves in the background and people running on the wet sand. Just your regular city beach. The water was freezing cold, yet there were still kids running in there.

Freebies — When they were handing out freebies, Movie Lass & I were there. Ping pong balls and free soft drink.

We walked north towards Santa Monica where the pier juts out ostentatiously and if we were so inclined, it would have been a good walk to go the whole way. But instead we had to feed our hunger so we walked back to the boardwalk and got a table at the Figtree Cafe, first in the burning sun, and then we moved to a table in the shade, although it wasn’t as great a place to watch the people go by.

I had been expecting it to be circus, with crazy people everywhere, weirdos, and glamazons, and fitness freaks. I guess I expected a lot more entertainment from the people watching than there was. Sure, there was a guy standing on a stool wearing a leopard print loincloth and holding real looking rubber snakes in his hands, and the guy spruiking tickets to see a two-headed turtle, but that was about it.

Venice canals — The beautiful canals of Venice, CA

Aside from the canals, which are really beautiful and peaceful, I didn’t find much to love in Venice. Maybe there’s some more charm for me hidden in the streets away from the beach, but since I’m not into the weed scene or beach scene, Venice is not my kind of place. I’d be keen to hear your thoughts about Venice Beach. What are your memories or experiences? Would you recommend it to your friends as a place to visit?

Hurricanes and tornadoes

April 15, 2011

I have no idea what a hurricane or tornado is like. I only have footage from television to inform me on this count.

So when Astra invited Movie Lass and I along to an artist’s talk at the Annenberg Space for Photography exhibit titled Extreme Exposure we decided to go and were fascinated by Mike Thiess’s presentation and commentary as a photographer and videographer of hurricanes and tornadoes.

We heard the story of how he documents these massive storms to show people why they should be evacuating and he gets right in to the eyewall so as to get the full brunt of the weather conditions rather than the relatively ‘gentle breezes’ of the outer zones where most film crews are getting their news footage after going through a major hurricane as a teenager in Florida.

We saw so many photos and video clips of hurricanes, the before, the during and the after, however I was most in awe of the tornadoes. The photographs of tornadoes are incredibly beautiful and totally blew my mind with the colours and contrasts and cloud formations. However seeing photos of Greensburg, Kansas tornado in 2007 where the entire town was torn apart and flattened, and seeing trees that looked like they’d gone through a mulcher had a great impact on me in terms of the severity and relentlessness of these storms. I don’t know how I could live in tornado alley where this type of threat is always a possibility.

In Australia we’ve had our share of major disasters this year with the floods in Queensland and Victoria and the cyclone in Northern Queensland, but for me, coming from a town where the major storm events are massive red dust storms and irregular floods, the idea of such strong winds is really foreign. But I now have a much greater appreciation for them.

Love a friendly chat

March 28, 2011

For the most part, Americans are really friendly.

I know it’s not the stereotype where I’m from, but I really do find most of them friendly. Americans strike up conversations easily and frequently and are often ready for a chat. That is one thing I love about being here. It really is okay to talk to strangers, and you don’t get glared down when you do. You just never know who you’re going to meet.

However, when the conversation is more than a random chit chat in a queue or other such encounter, they also talk a lot. A lot. And mostly about themselves. It can be very tiring to keep up the nodding, agreeing, oohing and aahing you feel you need to make in order to appear polite. Meanwhile, your sentence beginnings remain stuck in the back of your throat as you try and staccato out a phrase when you think it is finally your turn to speak only to find out that it was not.

So I was pleased when after being cooped up inside and only speaking to Gin, J and a girl on the phone all day I had a great chat with the guy who served me at Dosa Truck, a South Indian food truck that was out the front of Silver Lake Wine. It was a quiet time of night with barely any customers, so I stuck around to eat my dosa and had a nice conversation about Palm Springs, film sets, Australian versus New Zealand accents, taking public transport, the desert and food trucks.

There is something really invigorating about a good chat. Especially an unexpected one. I walked back to my car feeling really happy and I felt that knot of excitement at being somewhere new with millions of new people to meet return to me.

Some sleuthing a la the Famous Five

March 24, 2011

Bonding with Esmeralda after I got her home yesterday, I discovered that her rear seats fold down flat!

It was a nice surprise that was to come in handy as I did a late night dash to Ikea for a whole bunch of stuff, just because I could. Because I had wheels and freedom and the ability to ride the freeways to my heart’s content.

I think that the previous owner had no idea that the seats folded flat, because when I pulled up the base of the seat, I found two receipts dating back to 2005. (see them here: Found Receipts)

I feel like I want to make you guess what is so interesting about these receipts, but that doesn’t really work over this medium. It turns into a whole lot of bubbling excitement for me for too few or too slow responses. So here I go and give the game away with a list instead.

These facsimile receipts are still readable after 5 1/2 years. Quite remarkable.
The purchases were made in Phoenix, Arizona and they were returned to Los Angeles, California. A distance of 378 miles which takes 6 to 8 hours of driving (according to Google).
The sales tax in each state differs, 8.1% in Arizona and 8.25% in California (2005 tax rates)
When the chick (note the jewelry on the receipt and hence my dubbing the previous owner a female) returned the items in California, she got more money back. She got $29.50 plus the tax of $2.43 when she only paid $2.38 in tax in Arizona.

Okay, so she only made a nickel (five cents) on that transaction which would have gone nowhere if put towards her gas (petrol) bill to drive back. But it raises an interesting point of how you can make money on returning items in a different state, and how much tax you could save on some of those bigger ticket items you might be purchasing.

Side note: I always wanted to solve mysteries like the Famous Five, Trixie Belden, the Secret Seven and sometimes Nancy Drew. That went nicely with my fascination of Harriet the Spy and love of the boardgame Cluedo. Whilst this may not be a real mystery, it has been fun putting all the pieces together. Who knows, maybe I’ll be dumpster diving tomorrow in search of the next great mystery.

Did you go to school for that?

March 19, 2011

When I tell people I have a background in marketing they often ask “Did you go to school for that?”

People in Australia don’t ask that. They just accept the information about what field you’re in and don’t feel the need to judge them and their job on their level of education. I guess eventually you may get to the point where you find out if someone went to uni, and then you might ask them what they studied and where they went.

Sure I think tertiary study is important, but it certainly isn’t essential for everyone and if you haven’t been to university, it doesn’t make you any less good at your job or any less intelligent that someone who has.

Televised public comment

March 18, 2011

Channel surfing the cable tv tonight, I turned over to the Los Angeles City Council Public Comment and caught a fabulous piece.

During my stint in local government, it was my dream to get Council meetings podcasted. That way it would make Council and their decisions more accessible to those spread out across our large municipality. In California, they’ve taken that to a whole new level and televise it, and it really is another form of entertainment.

Each member of the public is given 2 minutes to address the Council when it opens for comment and in the few minutes I’ve been watching, I’ve seen some doozies.

1. A guy in a grey hoodie stated that his concern was with the prevailing winds. He painted a picture of WWII and Japanese hydrogen bombs setting fire to California’s countryside. He then said that he was concerned with radiation contamination coming from Japan and specifically for the 25,000 runners in this weekend’s LA Marathon. He wanted the runners to be informed that they could be exposed to radiation falling from the sky and that they could make their minds up whether to participate or pull out. According to this guy, going from your car to the shopping mall doesn’t pose as much risk as “2 – 4 hours” running.

2. A woman came up to the lectern and started on a tirade about the derogatory portrayal and stereo-typing of Latinas. She had a brain and wanted “to use every morsel of it”. She also had bleached blonde hair and was wearing a sequined tiger-striped cap. She then thanked the navy and all the pilots for being upstanding humans.

Thankfully, the Council isn’t obliged to respond at that point in time, and the next person in line is called to the microphone.

Just some fun Friday night watching and another thing that makes me feel relieved to be out of local government.

The steep LA learning curve

March 11, 2011

My naivete is a complete disadvantage in this city of hustlers.

The wide-eyed, country girl innocence I have hasn’t been working in my favour of late. Today, I received very bad news about Esmeralda in that she has a major (read very expensive to fix) problem in her engine as a result of a very new looking radiator hose breaking clean through due to a dodgy engine causing pressure on the cooling system.

I must say I was gutted when Vicente told me over the phone that it would probably cost $2800 to fix and that it is a serious problem. I felt sick and then totally sorry for myself. I went to see the mechanics in person and they told me and showed me the issue and explained the cost range depending on what they discovered after taking the engine apart.

Now I have a huge mechanic repair bill on top of the things that already needed doing, like the brakes. It doesn’t make me love Esmeralda any less, but it does make me question my ability to negotiate my way in this city full of hustlers and shady characters and find something that is true to appearances. I received an earnest speech from Nice Neighbour who implored me to be careful and exercise due diligence because he knows that there are so many phoneys who are just out for themselves in this town.

So I feel somewhat chastened and a little dispirited, but after today’s events in the world, this is nothing to worry about and I’ll bounce back with zeal real soon.

The bedacle

March 6, 2011

Perhaps I’ve consumed too many American home-style brownies today, but all I can do is laugh and shake my head at the debacle of buying a bed.

I’ve been sleeping on a blow up mattress for a month now, and it’s getting quite tiresome. Those that know me well know that I like to lounge about in bed a fair bit, and that pastime is considerably hindered when there is nothing but air and flocked top plastic beneath you. Feeling on a bit of a roll with all my fabulous purchases of the last week (car, computer, some great garage sale pick ups) I jumped on Craigslist this morning and searched for a mattress.

Now, I’d looked plenty of times, but none of those times was I looking with intent. I had made a couple of ‘going nowhere’ calls about beds and had kind of gotten distracted by my overwhelming need to get a car first. This morning, I narrowed the search to owner only, hoping to find a you-beaut quality mattress and boxspring (what we would call an ensemble in Australia) going cheap. I stumbled across this post:

Beautiful queen double pillow top mattress is in like new condition and is super comfortable. Once you sleep on this double pillow top you wont want to ever sleep on anything else. I have only slept on this bed for less than three months (always had a mattress protector on it) because I moved in with my boyfriend. Mattress is two years old and is completely clean.of stains, rips or funky smells. Actually this set has been in cold storage since january of 2010. I can deliver.

Advertised bed — A picture of the advertised bed

The photos of the mattress looked good and the price was nice for a good quality one at $225 for the mattress and boxspring. So I called and left a message for Sheila who then called me back not long after. She immediately went into the detail about the mattress, the pillow top, that it was virtually brand new and had hardly been slept on. She said she could deliver tonight after work if I went halves in the gas and that she would also throw in a free bed frame (here that just means a little metal trolley with wheels on which to place the boxspring). I said bring it on. I proceeded to then document my excitement via Facebook with a series of images of my blow up mattress and my empty room awaiting the new, super comfy bed.

On the phone Sheila had a distinct accent that I can’t place but is what you hear in the movies frequently. It has a Southern twang about it and a gravelly undertone. When I met her at the gate she totally lived up to her voice. She was a little woman in her forties, but with a younger movement about her. Her dyed blonde hair was half hidden underneath her black hoodie and she jumped out of the big white pick up truck driven by her big, goateed boyfriend and proceeded to act a bit jittery. As she opened the door of the truck, a strong waft of cigarette smoke also exited, as though it too had been trying to escape the cabin of the truck.

Gin, J and I helped take the occie straps off the tarp and we pulled out the mattress which was wrapped in plastic. Sheila retrieved a torch from the truck and shone it on the mattress, saying how the reason she wasn’t sleeping on it was “as you can see, my boyfriend’s a big guy, 6’4″ and well, it wasn’t big enough, you know?” She carried on about it for a little while, whereas I was just keen to get it upstairs. I handed over the cash and watched them back out of the driveway, trying a few times to get the big truck lined up down the narrow driveway and closed the gate behind them as they drove home to Santa Clarita (quite some way away).

In the meantime, Gin and J had carried up the frame and boxspring and J helped me carry the mattress up the stairs.

Quite excited to have a bed, I ripped off the plastic and exposed the rough fabric of a not-the-quality-I-thought-I-was-buying pillow-top. We put the mattress on the boxspring and I pressed down to hear a loud creaking as pressure was applied. The mattress certainly didn’t look as though it had only been slept on for three months. Then I saw where a stain had been cleaned. I touched it and my fingers came away white. I felt duped.

Adopting a “oh-well-ha-ha-they-got-me-but-at-least-I-have-a-bed” demeanor, I got the hairdryer to dry where I’d assumed they’d just left upholstery cleaner like J’s attempts at cleaning our white couch. Then, as I was making my bed, I noticed another spot on the bottom corner of the side of the mattress where my fingers came away white again. On closer inspection I discovered that they had painted over some scuff marks on the mattress. Who does that? So much for the “completely clean of stains” claim in the ad posting.

So I didn’t get sold the mattress I thought I was being sold but I’ll wait and see how it goes to sleep on tonight. I probably could have got a new mattress and box spring from a wholesaler for only a little bit more, I was just trying to find a good deal, instead I think I was the good deal for Sheila and her boyfriend. No doubt they are at some seedy bar drinking beers and laughing over the money they made off me right now. Do I dare text my displeasure?

For future Craigslist purchases, I must remember to do my due diligence or else the joke will always be on me.

A carefree package

March 3, 2011

Two care packages arrived from my mum today, both full of tampons.

You see I hadn’t realised that feminine hygiene products in Australia were so advanced in the world, so I hadn’t brought any with me, thinking I’d be able to buy the same here in the US. I was quite wrong. Uncomfortably wrong.

When I spent a year travelling, I carried with me a years supply of tampons because I had read that they were hard to find in some countries. So it really isn’t an issue for me to stock up and BYO, I just hadn’t expected the US to be one of those countries.

Confronted with the task of buying tampons, I was horrified to find that there were no other options than applicator ones. At home, there is only one brand of applicator tampons, and at least five major brands of normal cotton and string tampons. There are also various styles as you can get multiple grooves, silk covered tips, spiraling grooves or all of the above. We really are spoilt for choice.

I had never used an applicator before, so it kind of took me back to my teenage years when the whole menstrual cycle was new to me and I was hesitant and unsure. It felt really awkward and I had horrid flashbacks of being at the doctor and getting a pap smear. It was also really difficult to tell if I’d done the whole process properly. All up, I hated the whole thing and longed for my compact and quality made Carefree tampons.

With a population of more than 300 million, I had expected there to be a much better range on offer for American women, but it is clearly dominated by just a couple of large companies that must make and absolute fortune. Although my favourite feminine hygiene brand, Carefree, is here, they only sell pads and don’t touch the tampon market. After looking in a couple of different places, I did manage to find one brand of tampons, OB, that resembles those at home. However locating OB tampons can be very hit and miss (dare I say irregular) and they aren’t as well made as those from home.

There’s so many levels of why I don’t understand the whole applicator tampon thing:

It creates significantly more waste that goes back into the environment.
They are big and bulky and don’t fit discreetly in your handbag, purse or pocket.
They just don’t feel right.

I’m so driven by the challenge of finding some normal, non-applicator-Tampax-style tampons that I am prowling all supermarket, pharmacy and department store aisles hoping for a miracle discovery.

If you have any suggestions of where to find quality tampons in the US or information on why the tampon situation is so dire, I’d love to hear them in the comments section.

Reasons why American money is stupid

March 1, 2011

Now that I’m in the land of the greenback, I am discovering that whilst it may be the currency that dominates the world, it lags far behind in terms of user-friendliness and technology.

Here are some reasons to support my argument that American money is stupid.

All very same same but different with the greenback denominations.

1. It is all the same colour

Every single note is a greeny, yellowy beige. When you open your purse up, you have to inspect each note carefully before handing it over.

2. The notes are all the same size
Or virtually and they don’t recognise mere millimetres here, so we’ll just say that they are the same size. Again, it means that you need to inspect each note when deciding what to pull out of your purse.

3. Pennies still exist
In America at least, the one cent coin is essentially redundant. If you are going to have a useful coin, it is the quarter. That’s what parking meters and laundromats all desire. On some rare occasions you may receive a $1 coin, which parking meters also like, but that hardly ever occurs.

4. Checks!
If the movie Catch Me If You Can didn’t highlight how fraudulent the world of cheques is, then I don’t know what would. They love those bits of paper with amounts written in full and displaying your autograph. Currently Chase Bank are advertising a phone app that takes photos of your checks and then deposits them automatically in your account. I find this ridiculous. If you’re going to embrace mobile technology, just get with the sometime-ago technology of online banking and bpay! In Australia, no landlord accepts cheques, hell, hardly anyone accepts cheques nowadays. Here, you have to furnish your landlord with a cheque. There’s no alternatives for cash or electronic banking. Totally weird.

Withdrawing $500 from the ATM gives you 25 notes. I’d say that is akin to losing the game of Uno.

5. The ATMs only dispense $20 notes

If you withdraw the usual ATM maximum of $500, it spits out twenty five $20 notes. TWENTY FIVE! Some ATMs allow you to a) withdraw more and b) give you $50 notes, but that is not the norm.

So I guess you could say that I’m finding these monetary issues frustrating. I just don’t get it. But on the bright side, the cash and cheque deposit facility on the ATMs here is great. You just feed them in like a carpark pay station and it automatically deposits.

I never thought I’d miss our colourful Aussie money or banking processes, but we really have a great system.

Colourful Australian money — Ah, the colourful (and different sized) monetary notes of Australia.