Back To Whatever Passes For Normality…
September 21, 2008 (One Response)
WE’RE BACK from the American Odyssey, still in one piece (well sort of!) and trying to adjust to being home again… it may take a few days!! So – what did I make of the good ‘ol US of A this time around? Well to start with – I’m surprised they let me in at all…
Border security was a real pain in the ass as expected, with fingerprinting, facial recognition and endless checks. I lost count of the number of scans and checks to be honest, however flying into America was easier than flying across it; those domestic flights were a bitch when it came to security. We kept getting ‘pre-selected’ for special treatment (e.g. explosives/drugs swabbing/testing, body searches, bag searches etc.) which really pissed me off. I’m sure someone somewhere has a file on me for all my errant and independant thought expressed on the Internet in the last few years – hell maybe that’s a pre-selection criteria at work right there!
The attitude of some of those airport officials was also pretty piss poor, with the exception of the lads and lassies in Las Vegas airport who actually responded to my questions very professionally and explained some of the ‘criteria’ that led to pre-selection for all this special treatment (such as one-way tickets, non-nationals, paying for tickets in cash etc.). In fairness to them the Las Vegas crew handled things professionally and I didn’t mind the extra wait, but the morons in Atlanta and New York were pretty off handed, uncommunicative, rude and just plain bad at dealing with the public.
Still – all the security not withstanding – we had a great couple of weeks in the USA, moving between New York, Las Vegas and San Francisco and getting in a few shows and events here and there as well as a stupid amount of food (not the portions, the sheer volume!). I have to say the Japanese food in San Francisco is absolutely amazing.
As for the sky diving – yup did that as planned in Las Vegas. Strangely enough I wasn’t nervous at all; in fact I found jumping out of a perfectly good / working plane at 14,000 feet actually quite relaxing for some reason. Not sure why – can’t really explain it, but it was worth doing anyway.
On the ground most of the conversations and news programming was centered on two things – the presidential race and the imploding financial situation/economy. Beyond that I found no real sign or indication of a country at war with most of the rest of the world (either from a military or political perspective). II did however notice many homless people scattered around the cities and encountered some war vets who were complaining about being ‘abandoned’ by their country, and given the state of the economy I don’t see this getting any better in the near future. For the most part though the average person in the street didn’t seem to even know there was a war going on or indeed where the rest of the world was, never mind what was going on in it.
Although I haven’t spent too much time following the presidential race thus far I’ve been bombarded with both sides for the last two weeks and I came away with one very sobering thought. If the republicans get voted in there is a very real chance the next president could die during his term (Mc Cain is in his seventies don’t forget) at which point his Vice President would step in… so in fact there is a good chance that Sarah Palin could become president and from what I’ve seen she seems to me to be the most inexperienced character of all of them, and only there to boost the voting in redneck land because her track record is pretty minor compared to the other candidates.
It’s a sobering thought to be sure.
Oh well - the vacation is over and it’s time to get back to whatever passes for normality around here. Time to make some fundamental decisions about the future in the next few weeks, but more about that later…
It sounds as though you got a real taste of my country. But please, the next time you drop in, take me back out with you.