More about Life

Canada is the US's personal New Zealand. On the surface, Canada looks very like the US. Same roads, same street signs, same stores, same clothes. Only a slight preponderance for beards gives you a hint at the vast difference that lies beneath the surface.

First thing that caught our eyes as we drove along the highway was a mega mosque. This is the equally vast equivalent of the American mega church and confirmed our suspicions that Canada is in fact a Muslim country.

There are several subtle differences that we immediately noticed with the Canadian way of doing things. Their traffic lights do a strange flashing green light thing that seems to mean, "go, but I ain't taking responsibility." Also there seems to be a conscious effort to make blocks of flats and other tall buildings ugly.

After driving into the core of Vancouver and finding our hotel, we headed out for food. We had received a recommendation from one of Cath's colleagues. A place called "Sanafir" which is a Silk Road / fusion restaurant. Basically you are served a series of dishes based on points of the Silk Road which connects the Middle East / Mediterranean and Asia. It was great, enormously tasty food served by Bond Girls. I kid you not, all the women were supermodels in their own unique interpretation of the tight, black uniform. Any one of them could have met James Bond at the roulette table and ended up back in his hotel room, chastely under the sheets not realising this was their last night on Earth.

The street that the restaurant was on was one of the major going-out / shopping streets in the city, despite being in the process of being dug up. (If that's not too many "beings.") There were lines of young and enthusiastic "pimplies" lining up outside all sorts of pubs and clubs getting ready to shake their pimples to the music of their choice and maybe even, if their luck held out, meet another like-minded member of their sect and press pimples with them.

We passed a great human statue. Normally, I have a problem with human statues as the only real skill involved is being able to keep still. Personally, I feel if you have this skill, then buy a camera and produce great wildlife photography or buy a gun and become a sniper. Don't clutter up the streets. It almost only becomes acceptable when the outfit and makeup is intricate and, when there is movement, it is done well and in keeping with the theme. But in general, anyone with a few motors, some Mechano and a cloak could build a machine that does exactly the same thing; freeing the human version to go and work in a salt mine or something like that.

In Amsterdam, especially, the art-form has been lost. If you go to Dam Square, you'll see scores of "human statues" but instead of standing still in an intricate outfit with painted skin and stylised hair, you'll see middle-aged men in ill-fitting rented costumes, standing fidgeting on a box. However, sometimes they are so bad they become fantastic. (This is Rule 9 from Ed Wood.) My personal favourite is a man with middle-age spread, a Batman suit and a bored, dejected expression on his face. Only the truly ironic (or a rose-tinted child) would want their picture taken with this guy.

On one corner there was an enthusiastic troupe of Christian street thespians performing for a small group of mostly other Christian street thespians. I think they were re-enacting the parable of the non-Samaritans who passed by on the other side rather than help an ailing art form.

Labels: Americas, Anthropology, Art, Food, Impro, Movies, Religion, Travel, US, Wildlife

Today's news was full of massacres and drive-by shootings. It is a coincidence we are leaving the US. News of this ilk always confirms my European perception that in the US you are never more than 100m away from a crazy neighbour or colleague. And all of these crazy people have access to guns.

I may have mentioned the difficulties we had with booking the flight, well there was one other minor little thing that occurred when we tried to change details online, that I haven't mentioned. A small bug meant that I was forced to select a meal type from the "fussy eaters" list. Normally, you can leave this field set to "I'm not a fussy eater, I'll eat whatever crap you throw at me." But somehow, it forced me to select something more specific. Probably because we had selected lactose free for Cath, some screwy back-room logic meant I had to select something too.

The "fussy eaters" list is quite long these days, and includes religious fussiness (kosher, halal, etc), conscience fussiness (vegetarian, vegan) and allergic-related fussiness (lactose-free, gluten-free). And even sub categories of these. I chose "Asian Vegetarian" because Asian vegetarian meals can be pretty good. I know people who always chose a special meal because they get their food before everyone else and they figure it's had more attention than the ones everyone else gets. However, I prefer to get my food at the same time as everybody else and not feel that the rest of the plane is looking on at me with resentment. Even when they probably aren't.

When my meal arrived, way ahead of most other people's, it proclaimed "Your Special Meal" in bright letters. I felt like I was 8 and not very gifted. It also had scrawled on it some garbage like "The smell of a fresh meal... on your face." It made no sense and made me feel this was a meal for someone so "special" it didn't matter what you wrote on it.

The "fussy" part of the meal only replaces the main part of what they give you, the extra ancillary bits are the same as everybody else. Which is why Cath, having been singled out and handed a lactose-free meal, free from any products containing or related to cow's milk, she was offered a pot of ice cream. Ice cream! It's hard to get more lactose than ice cream. She declined.

Obviously as we are talking about flights, the subject once again comes up: children. Why, oh, why are they still allowed to run, shout and scream in the same section of the plane that the civilised, adult members of the world pay for? Why has no airline started using the hold for the purposes of housing the children on a flight? I'd use that airline.

I don't say it to be mean to the kids, I say it as a way to get some relative peace. You can fill the hold with balls so they enjoy it. All pets travel that way and Children are just pets that will one day grow up to become people. Children love screaming in enclosed spaces; so why not give them an even more enclosed space in which they can scream to their little hearts and lungs' content.

To shut out the little buggers, I watched my first ever episode of Gilligan's Island. Now I have a clue when Americans in the audience shout out "Gilligan's Island." It was cute, but definitely of its day. I snuggled back and tried to dream of being on a desert island surrounded by coconut trees and not a single screaming child for thousands of miles.

Labels: Anthropology, Food, Impro, Transport, Travel, TV, US

We landed in Portland International Airport, which is one of the best organised airports I've seen in the US. It helps that it's not so big. The thing I am still not used to is the American system whereby all of the shops are before you go through security. Therefore after you have checked in, you still mingle with thieves, drug smugglers and terrorists for a long time before you get on the flight. But I guess I'm used to security-conscious Europe rather than the commercially-minded US.

One thing I did touch upon was the problem we were having with NWA, the Network With Additional Costs. When we came to check in online, we were allocated seats. Two people who booked tickets together paid for in the same payment were allocated seats at two different ends of the plane. Why would any company do that? There is a 100% chance we would want to sit together in those situations. The reason is, NWA wanted to grab more money from us. It allowed us to change these seats, but most of the available seats were only available at a 50 dollar upgrade charge. So basically, they stick you in unacceptable seats and charge you to sit somewhere reasonable. We picked the last two free seats together that weren't charged for (right up near the back of the plane) because we didn't want to give these crooks any more money. We should have remembered their 1988 hit, "F**k tha Passengas."

On top of that the site wouldn't let us fully check in after we selected seats because we'd booked via KLM. It suggested trying then booking airline's site. We tried KLM's website told us "why not check in online at nwa.com." Believe me, baby, we tried.

I am currently trying to complain but because of the fact we booked through KLM, they can't seem to find details. Criminal AND badly organised. Sounds like a bad combination.

We had a lot of time before the flight. I ate a huge mushroom burger while Cath napped. For some reason Americans think there is nothing better than putting a pickled gherkin in a bun otherwise filled with good things. They must either like them or think that it is good to do some penance with something that is otherwise enjoyable. Maybe they think it will help them get into heaven. Not with gherkin-breath, you won't.

Going through security, it was shown that my ticket had a random "S" on it. This random letter is added to the card based on criteria unknown and means extra security check required. It meant that I had to go through the "puffer." This is a glass box the size of a small elevator that blows air at you in order to dislodge particles. It then sniffs the air for whatever they are looking for: pesticides, drugs or explosives. Then a chatty woman swabbed my new bag and put the swabs into a machine. It was my new laptop bag and she swabbed pockets I hadn't even known were there. If the machine was calibrated for "new bag smell" alarms would have gone off all over the building. But whatever they were looking for, I didn't have any. They funny thing is, this extra security took me outside of the normal queue and I was all done before Catherine with her standard security was through. Evidently potential terrorists get fast-tracked onto the plane. The Americans have never really understood security. But I guess it protects the airport itself more.

We still had plenty of time and so nabbed some coffee and used the airport's power to laptoptify. Portland is a fun, small airport and huge jumbo planes have to line up with tiny little things that are barely bigger than the cockpit of the former.

Our flight was full and our seats at the back were not bad in that they had a little more room as there were only three of them instead of the four earlier on in the plane as it was starting to taper in there. And we weren't right at the back where the seats don't go back. However the flight was popular with people with children who I still insist should have a class of their own.

The safety instructions were given via a video with what seemed to be real aircrew carefully picked to be completely across the board racially. There was a Dutch translation after every explanation, but it was done quickly and only covered some of the topics. For example none of the first class apparatus was explained suggesting the cost-conscious Dutch don't travel first class.

Soon after take off we were offered a last glimpse of the magnificent Mount St. Helens, sitting there, biding its time.

It was a long ten-hour flight which Cath cleverly slept through. She part-fasted whilst I ate everything that came my way and completely failed to sleep whatsoever. My method was actually the more successful at getting back on the new time zone but only because I have the more flexible body clock that sorts itself out pretty quickly at the expense of being a zombie for the first few days back. I even managed to do a short improv gig the afternoon I arrived. I have no idea how it went, but I certainly wasn't in my head, which is a good thing.

It was nice to visit new places in the US. San Francisco and Portland I could definitely do again. In fact I suspect I could live in both places, and not many cities in the US make me feel like that.

Labels: Drink, Food, Impro, Music, Science, Transport, Travel, US

Sleeping was not as easy as you'd think. The hotel had one of those air conditioning systems that works by loud mechanical gears, clunking pistons and turbines from the days before oil. We found out in the morning it is possible to switch it off, but then of course everything heats up because LA is all about sunshine and chaos. It's hot and sticky.

Those of you who complain about the size of UK Sunday Newspapers should get a US Sunday Paper. There's enough written material here to keep you going a whole month. And enough wood to build a shed.

The hotel had a buffet breakfast like most hotels. It was pretty good with a fair selection. Best of all was a make-your-own-waffle machine. However, this was so popular you could never get to it for kids.

The morning concierge also had that actor look. It's pretty safe to assume everyone in LA from the road sweeper to the mayor is an actor. It should be noted that even the state governor is an actor. (In the loosest possible meaning of the term - he's actually only a bodybuilder who can read out lines, but in Hollywood, anything goes.)

We took a walk around the area. It was not the movie-star part of Beverley Hills, but a highly Jewish area. With kosher delis, Hebrew schools and groups of men walking around dressed in black with big hats covering little caps. We stopped in Label's (probably pronounced "Labelle" rather than "label") for so-so coffee and coffee cake. I liked the coffee cake, but it was perhaps a bit early in the morning for sponge. Cath said it wasn't at all what she thinks off when she thinks of coffee cake. The guy seemed to mutter when we only ordered coffee, I think annoyed that we didn't order any of their staple sandwiches.

A number of years back, a friend, Carolyn and I staged a few cultural exchanges. She came to London and I went over to see their three capital cities Washington DC, Disneyland and Universal Studios. Since then she's been married, separated and now moves in theatrical circles.

Carolyn and her friend Arjay had agreed to show us about a bit. As they were running late we decided we had time to feed Catherine. We went to "Factor's Famous Deli" which was closer, bigger and better labelled than Label's. We sat in the nice garden whilst Cath had a great ALT (Avocado Lettuce Tomato) on rye bread (of course) and I had a very decent cup of coffee (decaf as there had been much "caf" at breakfast). This meant we were a little late getting back and nearly missed the friends. But eventually we got together and drove to some of the places to see and be seen in LA.

First off was the Santa Monica Pier a popular tourist and pleasure zone. Off the pier is the beach front. The beach is beautiful golden sand made 1,000,000 degrees by the sun. Near the pier is Muscle Beach, made famous because here men and women with bizarrely formed pectoral muscles would perform amazing feats of sand-kicking.

Although we had been hoping for stars, the beach is more for your regular people, so we saw only one instance of over-the-top breast enhancement. We saw none of what we were really hoping to see (and something a lot of guys are apparently getting) butt implants.

Dogs were very much in evidence. LA is dogtown. People have all shapes and sizes of them. There is a tendency for the smaller more effeminate dog especially wearing a designer dog T-shirt, but you can also see many of the super-large variety often filling the back of a large pick-up truck.

We moved on to the Venice area named after the canals there. We didn't see any of those, but wandered down a street famed for its quirky shops and good eateries before popping in for some good old up-market slash quirky versions of regular foods. I had a pretzel burger which proved that sesame buns or wholemeal rolls are still the top thing to put burgers in and not pretzels. But you can't blame them for trying.

Along the beach a variety of stores and home-made stalls appealed to the hippy in all of us. And also the fashion victim in all of us, as the ultra-tight leggings painted made to look like jeans proclaimed. People sold their wears or set themselves up as human guitar-wielding jukeboxes. One man declared that he would insult anyone anytime for a fee. We nearly took him up on it.

Once again the so-called beautiful people were less in evidence. But then it was Sunday and they were probably in Church. Or at kabala school. Oh hang on, that's Saturday.

It had been nice to see Carolyn again, even for a short amount of time. We shall have to make sure it can happen again soon.

At night, back at our hotel, the streets were patrolled by gangs of men in black coming and going, possibly to their gang head quarters, or "sinnergogs." We had planned to go out and watch some sketch show performed by improvisers or some other Sunday twist on improv or just find a haunt to hang out with the stars, but tiredness due to obscene heat (in my opinion, not Catherine's) took over and we collapsed on the bed.

Labels: Anthropology, Drink, Fashion, Food, Impro, Movies, Transport, Travel, US

At 22:05 on 23 April, David Dabekaussen passed away after an intense battle with leukaemia. He was 27. David was a shining light in the Dutch improv community; a member of the awesome Fluffy Suicide Bunnies. He was talented, creative and energetic; an accomplished musician (with the band Mr Moody); and a truly great improviser. It's hard to imagine him not being around.

When I picture him, I see him stand nobly in the Crea bar, his girlfriend Binky skating around him. Or I picture him at the end of the 2006 Amsterdam Improv Theatre festival, being showered in roses after deservedly winning the accolade of Maestro after a hard-fought competition.

He was very photogenic, and more than that he always manages to look very different in every photo you see of him. But in nearly all, there is the tell-tale cheeky grin. It is a testament to his spirit that he never seemed to lose his sense of humour no matter how the fight with the disease went.

Naturally, this good humour inspired others, and his funeral last Tuesday was filled with much of it. Binky, now his wife of a few weeks, recalled some things that were typical David which made a whole room of hundreds of sad people burst into laughter. Karen, a fellow Fluffy Suicide Bunny, came later an delivered a speech to him filled with laughter and regret, showing characteristic Bunny humour. She recalled a recent argument about her giving up performing to spend more time studying, noting David's mock dismissive response and the saying "and now, at your funeral, I get the last word." Humour and sadness is a potent mix.

There were several other speeches and some moving music before it was time to follow the coffin down to the cemetery. It was not, of course, your ordinary coffin. Usually these things are highly polished dark wood looking more like granite than wood. David's was plane pine on which loved ones had written personal notes or pithy sayings. I realised this is exactly what a coffin should be. It should be personal and contain things that tie the dead to the living, and not be some impersonal slab of wood trying to resemble stone.

There being several hundred people, the road was soon clogged up as we left the church hall. The police soon arrived to first stop traffic and then redirect us. It was impressive and testament to a life that touched so many people. I find it hard to imagine some one meeting David and not enjoying the process. Even the weather was enchanted and the sun definitely walked with us.

At the grave, we crowded round as best we could. A poem written by a friend was read and we all filed past in ones and twos. We all dropped flowers into a hole barely big enough to contain them all and certainly not big enough to contain our loss. So even though it was the disease that won, it was still David who was once again being showered with flowers.

[Various tributes to David have been or are being staged. easylaughs is having a benefit on 16th of May to raise money for a leukaemia charity. Further reading: David's Blog.]

Labels: Anthropology, Impro, Music, Netherlands, Religion

Yet more shopping. But we ended the day by heading over to Fort Worth to watch some improv comedy. Four Day Weekend are a bunch of guys who from what I can see seem to be the best group in the area. They certainly put on a great, tight show. The opening was low-key, but effective. Made to be a sort of therapy session, where a light picked out people from the audience who were declared to be alcoholics, drug addicts, prostitutes, etc.

They do many of the usual games, but also they throw in free scenes. They even have a few twists all of their own, like a game which is a take-off of one of those ride-in-the-car reality cop shows. In this, two actors play two very Texan cops cruising around and talking to the camera guy in the back seat. What makes this game is that there really is a camera guy with a camcorder behind them and the footage is relayed on a big screen. The effect is especially good when they give chase to the (celebrity) perpetrator. They all run on the spot, but with the shaky camera 'following' them, it looks exactly like the chase sequences from these shows. It all ended with a Day in the Life style musical, and they were lucky to pick a teacher whose hobby was roping cattle. He was dressed as one would expect with jeans, huge belt buckle and bandanna. Possibly the most Texan person I have encountered so far.

Labels: Anthropology, Impro, Travel, US

The showers in Hotel 17 are tiny. Good water pressure, but if you were to throw your arms out during a rendition of the 3rd aria in Verdi's Stagliatelli, you'd find both broken at the shoulder. There are still no signs of the hotel's resident drag queen we were promised by a previous tenant.

We went into Stealbucks Coffee because it seemed to imply we could use the internet there. We could, but only if you pay T-mobile too much money, so we didn't. After that we strolled and took in a large Virgin. Finally we rested in a small, empty snack bar run by (Asian) Indians selling (Asian) Indian-style food disguised as American-friendly wraps.

We finally got our internet fix – Cath had work to do – in a public library where we got to observe daytime library users, who somehow don't differ from country to country.

Our next snack was at Amy's Bread where we popped in partly to avoid the rain. Here we had coffee and sticky buns and I was introduced to Devil's food cake which is rich, gooey and in parts probably made by Satan himself it's so tasty. Here we got to see some examples of pudding, plus what American's call scones, which are almost the same thing as we call them, but not quite.

There seems to be a lot of people walking around whilst reading here. It seems dangerous, but shows how comfortable people feel. For Catherine it feels safer on the streets in New York where traffic is more orderly and less diverse than in Amsterdam. I have seen people cross the street whilst reading a book, which seems madness, but probably makes you smarter. The other thing I saw that I couldn't do is people walking around carrying a plastic bag that said "Stop using plastic bags." Too much irony in one disposable item.

For dinner we sought out a Vietnamese restaurant, but were disappointed. We found the one we were after, but it seemed to cater more for students (cheap and you get lots) than for those who like food to do wonderful things to your taste buds. It was a bit bland. But filling.

For culture we went back to UCB and watched a show of try-outs of sketch and improv groups. The host couldn't describe anything without using half a dozen superlatives, which the audience seemed to not mind, but bothered myself and Lady Catherine. The shows was a pretty mixed bag. There were a few improv groups of varying degrees of experience. Highlights included a double-act featuring two builders on a lunch break which had great fast dialogue, part of which at least was improvised about random stories picked from the paper and about the bizarre things they had in their lunch box. The best were the team of four girls "from the admin department" who were putting on an improv show. It was sublime to watch these characters talk about every suggestion and comment to each other during their deliberately terrible scenes. Hilarious.

Labels: Anthropology, Drink, Food, Impro, Travel

The drive to the Ronald Reagan National Airport (usually the Ronald Regan is dropped) took us past such important spy-novel locations as Langley, Virginia (headquarters of the CIA) and The Pentagon (headquarters of The League of Satan, judging by the design). Most of the people who go on to become enemies of the US are trained by people from these places.

From the airport, we took a moving walkway, a shuttle bus and a moving walkway to get to the metro, which we rode to Union Station in Washington itself. I'd forgotten how soporific the lighting was on DC metro stations. I'm sure violence on the subway is very low there, although incidents of people falling asleep onto the track must be pretty high. We arrived a good hour early at Union Station, so had a chance to grab food and see the resplendent décor.

We took the Amtrak train to New York Penn Station. A pleasant three hour ride with more space and less panic than on a plane, but for only a tiny little bit more money and much more travel time, but much less faff time.

At New York Penn, we jumped in a taxi and were swerved over to the East Village to the deceptively large Hotel 17. After flooding the toilets, we roamed around the streets hunting down healthy, dairy-free places to eat before settling on a Chipotle's Mexican deli. We walked pretty much the whole day acquainting ourselves with a small part of the world's best-known metropolis.

The evening was rounded off with "Harold Night" at the Upright Citizen's Brigade. UCB are one of the best-known improv groups and is an improv academy in the style of Second City. The show we watched was basically 5 different groups all performing a Harold (short, semi-structured, improvised performance of about 20-30 minutes). The audience was mostly other performers or students of the many classes they give. It was never-the-less practically full.

UCB's theatre is underneath a huge drugstore (chemist). It is quirky, somewhat rock and roll, or rather grunge, and suitably makeshift as befits an improv space. It was as well arranged as the obligatory view-blocking posts would allow.

Labels: Food, Impro, Travel