America is fucked - the longest day part 2

Mon 17 Feb 2014

The flight had been miserable. 60-something (their age, not quantity) hags hobbled down the aisles begrudgingly serving us nasty food, and worse than that, I was on the wagon. This was accompanied by the fact that the time difference meant certain jet lag, and I have found it increasingly difficult to sleep on transport.

By the time our interrogation at the border was over (thankfully no waterboarding), we’d collected our bags and were sitting in arrivals. It was 10:30am LA time, 4:30am in Tokyo, and I was knackered and irritable. We’d also, as per usual, neglected to find out where our hotel was, or indeed how to get there from the airport. Luckily our hotel had a unique name, sure to be recognised: The Hollywood Hotel in Hollywood. It turns out, is not the only hotel of that name in Hollywood.

Our good friend Google would come to our rescue. We would have to get a bus to downtown LA, about an hour, then a tube, then a bit of walking. Fine. We wearily strapped our bags onto our backs and caught the first big green bus we could.

The first thing you notice about Americans is basically they’re really, really annoying, loud, aggressive creatures who, it appears, have no filter mechanisms for when it’s right, for example, to shout every small thought that pops into their heads.

The second is that they appear to be immensely self-important, and this is possibly the reason they see fit to shout the thoughts.

Thirdly, and I’m no statistician, I would suggest roughly 95% of the population are mental. Not like your mate Dave who sticks his knob in your pint when you’re not looking, like actually, properly, voices-in-the-head mental. Shouting to themselves, singing very loudly, starting arguments. And generally being a complete loony. If you’re not doing these things, you’re in the minority.

In one quick train ride, the following happened:

A lady pronounced loudly that she loved Vodka, then offered the Vodka, while the old lady next to her (who she didn’t know) told the Vodka lady that she also very much liked Vodka. While this Vodka appreciation society was gaining new members, a few seats back a very camp young black man, who’d been moving from seat to seat, started singing as loud as he possibly could.

At that point, the old lady next to him started shouting: “SHUUUUT THE FUUUUUCK UPPPPPOO!!”

At this point, Vodka aficionado número uno decided to join in with a rather quick-witted “Yeeaaaaahhhh SHUUUUT THE FUUUCK UPPP!!”

The guy is not happy about this. He obviously thinks he’s brilliant and starts laughing uncontrollably.

The singer has now carried on singing, louder and more horrible than ever. The shouty lady is shouting louder, and the Vodka lady is back to her Vodka. Then he throws off his headphones: “You don’t know shit! You ain’t in ‘the business!’” he says, looking rather snootily down on her.

“Aha,” she says, “I am in ‘the business.’” (She’s definitely not in the business.) “And you’ll never make it.”

Now the Vodka lady says (apparently now switching sides): “OH MY GOD, she’s acting like Simon, give the guy a break.” Simon, by the way, is what these fame-hungry hamburger swiggers call Simon Cowell. He’s some sort of demigod, a bit like Perseus I guess, but with bad hair.

That, by the way, was just an example, and by no means a rarity or a one-off. This scene would be repeated on buses, hotels, restaurants, and in the street.

Finally, we made it to the hotel, only to be told we’d have to wait till 3pm to check in... Luckily, there was a pool so I could sleep. Unluckily, it was a bit cold, and there was a short, fat, balding American guy shouting on his Bluetooth. It didn’t matter; I was sparko in about 30 seconds. So was Suze.

A couple of hours later, I woke her up. We grabbed a Wendy’s (quite good) and managed to get our room about 30 minutes early. After another well-needed nap, we headed out to find the famous Chinese Theatre and the Walk of Fame. We found both, but it was really weird, very quiet, and almost unimpressive. They say never meet your heroes as they often disappoint. I think this was kind of the same thing. I don’t know what I was expecting, but there was no excitement, no real fanfare, just some pavement on a pretty empty street.

We grabbed a massive pizza and sickly sweet ice cream at a parlour and headed back to sleep off the rest of our jetlag.

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