America

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Here I sit in a backpackers in Melbourne, awaiting a flight Back to America. After 3 months traveling around the USA and 6 weeks back home in Tasmania, it’s to my surprise I’m about to fly back there. Apart from being robbed while I was there and losing most of the stuff I had originally written about America, every time I think about writing something on the USA it becomes too hard and I get scared it will turn into a book length ordeal on how fucked up ‘the land of the rich and free’ really is.



The fact I love home state of Tasmania so much probably doesn’t help when it comes to bouts of bias point of views either. In fact I just had to bite my lip as I was walking around the streets of Melbourne when I walked past a beggar who politely asked me for money. I just started thinking to myself how pleasant it was to spend a day walking around the streets, not being harassed by junkies and alcoholics, unlike America, and then a tyrant of abuse started being aimed at me. In the words of his, I was a ‘bloody fucking cunt bastard” and in true drunken Australian slur, I was told to “fuck off ya cunt”.



I then had to remind myself that our own country isn’t all roses either. But in Melbourne’s defence, I had wandered around the streets for the last three hours and hadn’t been asked by a single beggar for money. I also would have been perfectly happy to walk in bare feet, and the only smell I encountered on the street was from wogs cooking kebabs. I actually think there are more wogs selling kebabs and spaghetti in Melbourne than hobos on the streets of San Francisco, and that’s saying something.



I originally went to America and expected to spend maybe a month there at the most, so I could check out Burning Man and have a laugh at crazy Americans walking the streets of LA. Apart from meeting some great Americans whilst travelling through Asia, I didn’t have too many high hopes for meeting many people I could tolerate, and as somebody who struggled to even listen to an American speak in a movie, I thought, if anything, their accent would be enough to drive me out of the place quick smart.



Not to my surprise, most of what I thought about America was true in some elements. But to my huge surprise, my views of the country and especially its people were completely wrong. I would have to say America would have to host some of the most forward thinking, proactive and intelligent people I have ever met, especially in the younger generations. Many of them really want to make a difference in this struggling world for the better, which is more than I can say for many Australians.



Sometimes it frustrates me to think that Australians just sit back with our ‘she’ll be right’ attitude, watching on as our government does what it likes and turns us into an over ruled retirement village full of whiners. But at the end of the day, our standard of living is pretty cushy and cosy compared to most of the world. So I can also understand why we don’t really bother doing anything about anything.



To put this into perspective, the typical Wall Mart employee in America often seems to be a 50 year old, who earns about 8 bucks an hour. The equivalent employee in a similar role in Australia, at say Woolworths, is a 16 year old, pimply school kid earning 18 bucks an hour plus penalty rates, sick pay and holiday pay. Even an uneducated Tasmanian bogan, who wouldn’t have a hope in hell of even spelling his own name, can head off to a mine and sit in air conditioned comfort, listening to music, driving about in a truck for 12 hours a day and earn 120 000 bucks for working less than half the year. He or she, if lucky, can even get flown back to re-infect my home state of Tasmania every 2 weeks, for 2 weeks of rest as a company benefit.



Americans also have been some of the most welcoming and friendly people I have ever met. It’s crazy to think that the first 3 times I went out for a drink I had complete strangers invite me back to their homes. While one of these occasions was to get me away from a Neo Nazi, White Pride oil rig worker, I still found this sort of kindness pretty damn accommodating. It set a standard for my whole trip after I brought a car with the help of my kind friend Steve in Portland, and headed off across the country. Apart from the times I slept in my car, I only stayed in paid accommodation twice in two months. The rest of the time, I was being accommodated by friends, friends of friends, or through Couch Surfing. All of which was provided by extremely accommodating, generous people.



Arriving in the States and stepping on to the streets of Los Angeles was at first everything I expected America to be. If there is a city in this world that’s full of the most crazy, idiotic and materialistic driven plasticised people, this city is it. Hopping off the plane in Los Angeles, the very first thing I was confronted with was a psychotic woman pushing a dog dressed in a baby’s outfit, sitting in a child's pram abusing one of the airport shuttle service providers because he wouldn't let her in his van with a dog. Her argument was that the dog was an emotional support animal, technically known as an ESA. I didn't know such a thing ever existed but apparently it’s true. Why hasn't Animal Welfare stopped this!?



The next notable stereotype was all the people driving trucks around as passenger vehicles, then the loud and outgoing voices echoing around the streets, black people speaking to each other like in an American comedy and like all of America, portions of food large enough to feed a small village. Even the toilets here seem to use the average Nigerian’s water supply for a week in a single flush.



If you ever come to America in hope of finding a place that projects America like what you see in an American TV series, Los Angeles is definitely the place to go; and to no surprise I guess, as it is where the majority of America’s films and television shows get produced. It would be interesting to see what effect this has had on the people living in LA, as parts of the city literally make you feel like you have walked into some sort of crazy reality TV set.



Image power and status is everywhere. Walking around Hollywood you see all the crazy people trying to make something of themselves possible, and of course, heaps of idiotic tourists hoping to catch a glimpse of someone famous walking down the street, taking pictures of actors names stamped in little gold stars and imbedded into the streets. I never thought getting to stand next to the place where Michael Jackson’s dead carcass was carried out from could be such an amazing place to visit. But apparently it is, as more than one fellow tourist asked me if I had checked it out.



Heading from Hollywood down to the beach is another interesting spectacle. I’ve never seen such a place where image is so important in all my life. If you’re in any way self-conscious, this definitely is a place to avoid at all costs, as it’s literally like being in a movie set and all the hottest people have turned up for the shooting.



I never thought exercising could possibly be so cool until I headed down to Santa Monica beach. The path running along the beach is host to thousands of people all sporting buff, tanned bodies, designer tattoos, perfect figures and operating some of the stupidest contraptions I've ever seen in my life. Mixed in with the people on the more conventional exercise utensils like roller blades, skate boards and bikes, are people running with funny looking shoes that have some sort of spring attached to the bottom that makes them look like they're jogging on the moon. Then there are people driving about in designer billy carts using their arms as a means of propulsion, and more different types of bicycle than is possible to imagine. Most of these bikes are styled like hip Harley Davidson cruisers, but mixed in with them is all sorts of contraptions powered by pedals. From tricycles that look like space ships, to bikes carting designer trailers equipped with boom boxes and baby seats. Everything that moves is built with fashion and coolness as the number one priority.



The next noticeable thing I found traveling around in America was the tragic amount of homeless people, disabled people and the amount of poor who live well below the poverty line. Nearly every city and town I’ve been to seems to have a huge number of homeless people roaming the streets, many who are clearly mentally ill or chronic drug addicts, unable to get any kind of rehabilitation.



Taking the metro and bus systems, which is mostly used by the poorer classes, also gives a small in site into Americas poor health system. Boarding a bus you realise many of Americas poorer class have some sort of physical disability. As a country with a long active military history, many of these people are war veterans. But it’s also clear that so many poor people live with physical disabilities that aren't covered by the public health system or can’t be fixed under private health care.



America also hosts the world’s largest prison system. In fact, America’s prison system, which contains 2.4 million prisoners (the population of Western Australia), makes up 25 per cent of the world’s prison population. As an Australian, I find it a bit annoying that we’re quick to judge America for having these problems, yet we're sitting back and allowing our government to follow in a similar path to America when it comes to many issues such as the slow destruction of our public health system and the steady privatisation of our prison systems.



On a brighter note, America has an amazing amount to offer. It has some amazing cities, events like Burning Man which I couldn’t even begin to describe without writing a whole novel, some of the most amazing National Parks, coast lines and land formations, like the Grand Canyon which is one of the most jaw dropping sights I’ve ever seen.



Like Australia, America still contains large enough populations of wildlife that native animals can easily be seen outside of a zoo. Unlike Australia, America also hosts the biggest and the best of a hell of a lot of stuff. It’s got big mountains, big volcanoes, big National Parks, big museums, big cities, big highways, big cars, some of the best music, the biggest portions of food and of course, big people.



If there’s one thing America did in its days of glory it was measure everything in the rest of the world, then double it.



To be continued

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