USA Email Series 10: Beatnik scum, zombies, Texas Pete. Amaaaaaaazzziiinnggg.

(First sent: 12th August 2009)

Good morning my dears,

I sure hope you guys back home are having a lot of fun. Here it’s currently the middle of a very nice heatwave, which has upgraded my complexion to ‘pale’ rather than the usual translucent. Hasn’t done anything for my guns though, so unfortunately the pictures of me on facebook swinging on a rope in Yosemite park are a little on the grotesque side for general consumption. The ‘explicit material’ tag that itunes uses will have to be added to them as a warning for children.

The San Francisconian (is that a word? How do you describe a person from SF? Goddamn beatnik scum, that’s how.) fun has taken off and it feels like a world away from the laid back jollity that prevailed in Seattle.

On arrival, I was very late and wandering the streets in the dark, all my worldly possessions on my back like a little Berghaus snail, desperately trying to locate my hostel. The place I was staying is called ‘downtown’ which is shorthand in the hostel world for ‘shithole’ and I wasn’t disappointed.

The area I was in is called The Tenderloin, and the locals adore it for the profligacy of the ‘crazy screamers’ that litter the streets. It’s pretty difficult trying to look double-hard if you are a lanky English goon with geek spectacles armed with little more than middle class humor and a spork.

As suspected, it was a pretty ‘diverse’ area. A number of the residents were defiant: ‘I gonna be the man. You want the man?’ (no I certainly do not, especially as I suspect that ‘the man’ was a very odd, very fat, black man’s winky), others were resigned ‘I got to get me something. Can I get something? There’s no food in the streets’ and others were drunk. Actually most of them were drunk and I was surprised at how little I was harassed given the situation, far less than you get harassed for money in New York. It was very uncomfortable walking those streets, but I was largely ignored – these people have their own problems for Arnie sort out but I doubt he will, unless there’s a solution that involves right wing politics or a hand grenade, neither of which really help, but both have similar effects.

So upon finding said hostel, checking in and having a mild freak out about being stuck in the Thriller video (only with more convincing zombies) I got up the second day to really explore. I’m happy to say, I love it here. The only problems come when the place drifts over into ‘too cool for school’ territory. I love the fact that the fire engines have The Grateful Dead logo on the back but tend to roll my eyes when I see a besweatered, bespecled, betypewritered tool on the side of the road with a sign that reads ‘give me money and I’ll write you a poem’.

I can really imagine the haggling process would be a major success, but it would be funny to observe the strop when I announce that the verse is only worth $3 of anybodies cash. Closely followed by the strop when I tell him to pull his socks up and get a bloody job, the scruffy tree hugging hippy tit.

Yeah, it’s a great old city, but compared to Yosemite, it’s a boil on the bum of humanity. However, as I always said that this series of mails would avoid gushing whimsy about how wonderful it has been to see a waterfall or some crap like that, I will leave it short: Best. Thing. I’ve. Ever. Done.

I will say this though, as I feel that it would be churlish to leave out all my observations: People who live inside national parks are weird. Really weird. On the second day after a very long hike, the guide (Greg) and I decided to investigate a light ale in the campsite’s brew house. What we walked into was a 1950’s style diner bar that had a jukebox pumping out Slayer as a gang of French Goths played pool in the corner and a squad of Texas Pete lookalikes (Stetsons, check shirts, mildly concealed racist attitudes) guffawed and jostled around a Pac-Man machine like pigs over a Tamiflu drop off. I should have realized that I was in the frigging Twilight zone and despite my ‘abort mission’ alarm ringing we decided to investigate.

Upon entering, the owner (only known as Su – pronounced like the girls’ name: Sue, meaning that he really was a boy named Sue) was jovial. In fact, he was about 12 pints jovial and proceeded to tell us what a bitch his girlfriend was and that he was considering burning the place down to get hold of the insurance money. I don’t know, but I’m beginning to suspect that either I’m a massive freak magnet or that I love America. Definitely one of the two, and I have a feeling it’s the latter.

Luckily we got out of the park without encountering any more nutters and also without encountering a Pooh, which is a shame because I thought I might have gotten close enough for a photo, but not so close that one might want to rip my spine out and gnaw on the bones, which I think is a pretty good possibility. As I said to the group I was with ‘I don’t need to run faster than a bear, I just need to be able to run faster than you’.

So there it is: a wondrous juxtaposition of city and country summed up in a no way enlightening or relevant way. So, pretty standard email this week then. As usual here’s the top ten (or twelve, just to keep you guessing. Ahhhh, didn’t expect that did you.)

1. Went to South Park. Had myself a time.
2. Visited the cartoon art museum to see some original stills and cells used in Sleeping Beauty, original Calvin and Hobbs sketches by Bill Waterson and some animated shorts by local cartoonists. It was actually lovely to see the look on the kids faces when they walked around. Then amusing to watch them cry as they reached the ‘dark side’ exhibition, which featured some of their beloved characters being mutilated with chainsaws by chuckling demons. They should really have had a warning on that exhibit.
3. Stayed for one night in a hostel that is above a nightclub. I think you might be able to sense what happened next, but it seemed rude not to join in the fun.
4. Visited a pirate supplies shop, giving fine advice on how to keep your peg leg looking spiff, avoiding scurvy and public information on the importance of keeping a shovel with you at all times. Bought a Jolly Rodger.
5. Attached Jolly Rodger to top of tent in Yosemite. Get in.
6. Fretted over the absence of rooms in this city. Come on San Fran, open more hostels you complacent woman.
7. Walked the golden gate bridge. Don’t do it, it’s bloody miles. They had some signs all the way down saying ‘Jumping from this bridge has far reaching and fatal consequences.’ And a phone giving 24 hour access to counseling. Looked over the edge. Felt queasy but resisted dialing the number.
8. Got lost in the woods.
9. Met a deer in the park but they are so over us. Didn’t give a shit we were there and I think was actually posing, the four legged publicity whore. Ever since Bambi, they’ve got really complacent. Dey well tink dey’re all dat.
10. I saw a waterfall and it was amaaaaazzzingg (I’m a traitor to my own cause)
11. However, at said waterfall, just before the edge, we climbed down for a closer look and I marveled as some of the braver ones jumped over the water that lead into the ragging torrent. I then promptly bricked it as one girl tried and failed to do the same. Luckily, her boyfriend caught her and although she hit her knee badly she was lucky to get out of there alive.
12. I then had a go. Genius.
13. Engaged in mortal combat with a wasp. I won, then did the wasp victory dance. Eat that, minute creatures.
14. Felt a bit silly about doing the ‘wasp dance’. Got mocked quite rightly so.
15. Found a pine cone the size of my head and ate a sandwich of similar proportions.
16. Booked details of journey to LA. Fame beckons.

Well that’s a reasonable round up, so there you go. No, really that’s it. I’m not a performing monkey you know. I can’t entertain you every second of the day, so you’ll just have to do without for a bit. Sorry. Only the first hit’s free, after that you’re on your own.

I’ll have more coherent musings next week where we’ll be looking at the socio-economic effects of the Governor’s proposal to downgrade funding for the national parks and the packages proposed to parachute these effects from actually perpetuating the downturn. Or we’ll have semi-coherent ranting about the mentals I encounter. Which will it be? Find out next time on Jim’ll Fix It.

Byeloveyoubye. xx

...I started to take the piss a bit. 'Jim'll Fix It'? More like 'Dickhead TV'. There is also a secret story behind that mad bloke in Yosemite that I didn't write in the mail. We were at the bar and he was talking crap and telling really bad jokes and generally being pretty offensive, to the point that me and Greg were getting a bit pissed off, but because we're so polite we just sat there. This went on for a few rounds until he started rambling on about how he likes to take tourists into the woods and shoot them. So I decided to hand him a small card, that I had been given in Boston to hand out to anybody who fitted the bill. He took the card from me and noted, with darkening mood, that it simply read "STOP TALKING". Now, me and Greg obviously thought this was funny as hell, but he literally seethed. Probably not a good idea to do that to a guy who, ten seconds previously, was snorting lines of salt from the table and discussing killing tourists. Actually, the more I think about this story, the more worried I am for my own safety in the world. Never mind...