Distance Traveled: 59,760 kms (BNE-MEL-SYD-BKK-PKT-BKK-CNX-BKK-PP-SR-BB-PP-HCMC-NC-TH-HA-H-L-MR-AG-SV-TF-AC-LL-ML-CZ-TF-CZ-SV-L-BP-ZG-SP-LJ-VN-PG-SZ-MN-ZR-GV-ML-FC-RM-FG-MN-VC-CT-RM-PDX-NYC-DC-PH-NYC)
Time Difference: -14 hours (from Brisbane)
Soundtrack: Random
Celebrities Spotted so far: Alec Baldwin, Michelle Obama, Carson Kressley - STILL JUST THESE THREE! I must have had beginner's luck.
Currently Inspired by: Nothing :-(
Stacks: None!
Words written: 95,532.
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| One view from Empire State |
I wouldn’t go as far as to say my love affair with New York
has actually ENDED. We’re more like a
couple in a relationship that has had a fight and neither of us is sure whether
or not it’s the last straw. Forced to
continue living in the same space, we circle each other warily, each waiting
for the other to make a move before the final decision is made. For my part, it’s mainly the air I dislike. I don’t know if I was so excited in my first
week that I didn’t really notice, or if it took a good couple of weeks of
summer for the stench to really set in, but the fragrant leavings of piss and
garbage are a little more than I can deal with.
I cannot believe that residents in a western city this size are
still required to leave their rubbish out in bags on the street. More than that though, is the air quality in
general. New York has some of the most
polluted air in the states, and I just generally feel like I can’t breathe
properly, like the air is thick and grungy. I have an almost constant frog in
my throat. I really don’t understand how
so many great singers can live here!
They must go on regular holidays.
Either that or they have just adapted to it and have lungs of steel. I wouldn’t want to adapt to it. Craving clean air.
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| I love the East Village |
That being said, NY remains one of the most exciting places
I have ever been, and I’ve been having a wonderful time in all other
respects. My Broadway experiences now
include Chicago and Jersey Boys, two fun, slick, colourful romps that were packed
to the brim with the most extraordinary talent.
Jersey Boys in particular I found memorable, and if I get the opportunity
to see everything I want to see before I leave and have the time and money
available, I will see it again. Chicago
has ended, so I feel fortunate that I got to see it at all. Last Broadway Day (Wednesday) I got back from
Philadelphia in the morning, too late to line up for same day matinee tickets,
and in the evening I went to the rehearsal of a male barbershop chorus called
the Big Apple Chorus, who had a director I really admire, so I didn’t see any
shows. Next week I am hoping to see
Avenue Q or Rent off Broadway.
Click here to see my album Manhattan: 2.
I was in funky little Philly because I decided to stop there
for 24 hours on my way back from Washington DC, where I had a good time with my
friend Jay but not such a great time doing the touristy thing. In hindsight, I probably should have expected
what happened. I farted around for my
first two days there and suddenly had to get everything seen on my last day, so
I signed up for a six hour bus tour of the city, and ended up spending the day
with the kind of people who take six hour bus tours of cities! Almost foreshadowing the day to follow, I
went to a cute little all-American diner and bought myself some take away breakfast
before the trip, walked back outside and it was raining. As I fumbled around getting my umbrella out,
I dropped my steaming food all over the sidewalk! :-/
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| The Big Penis ( aka Washington Monument) |
I presume because we were visiting the political heart of
the US, the tour guide felt free to share his personal political and
religious beliefs with us, “God Bless”ing us regularly, and there was a great
deal of hand-on-heart, pro-war, teary-eyed sentimentality and jingoistic
nationalism being spouted all over the place that made me cringe and want to crawl
away. DC contains many glorious war
monuments slathered with pithy brainwashing propaganda like “Freedom Is Not
Free” just in case its citizens dare to forget for a second that the USA is
always righteous and its wars have been necessary actions they took in order to
protect the sacred American way of life.
Last time I checked freedom was one of the few things that was actually
free on this planet! It is war that is massively expensive, both in the
financial cost and in the number of young lives that are unnecessarily wasted. In
case you aren’t sure what propaganda is, here are two more examples that were
bandied about regularly on that day: “Ministry of Defense” and “Operation
Enduring Freedom”. Ugh. I began feeling quite stabby after a while.
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| Lincoln Memorial |
I laughed - alternating between rage and
disbelief - looking at the stunning memorials to Roosevelt and Jefferson, great
orators if nothing else, covered in stirring and beautifully written quotes about
how everyone is created equal and a society’s progress should be measured by how
it takes care of all its citizens rather than how it makes its rich people richer. This, right smack bang in the
midst of a city that has a greater disparity between the haves and have-nots
that I’ve ever seen (with the possible exception of Bangkok). The latest pimped out gas guzzlers drive with locked doors and tinted windows past
neighbourhoods with doors hanging off their hinges and homeless people sleeping
in every shuttered shopfront. This is
the place where the people being paid huge sums to run the country based on
those aforementioned ideals are instead making decisions to go into trillions of
dollars of debt to kill innocent people in other countries, rather than going
into debt or even finding a way to pay for a national health care system. It’s all such sandpit, pissing contest crap
too. My truck is bigger than your
truck! I want THAT toy! I was exhausted at
the end of the day, and not the good kind of exhausted, the depressed kind.
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| Good Ol' MLK |
On the positive side, DC has some beautiful areas, The MLK
memorial is good (someone who actually practiced what they preached) I had some
yummy food, saw cute little Georgetown, tasted the best soft serve frozen
yoghurt I’ve ever eaten (I’m obsessed and have been hunting it down in the city
here to do comparisons) and on the first night my friend took me for a drive
and a bit of a walk through a park where this fantastic band was playing for
free. People were getting up and really dancing
like mad. It was great music so I
decided to join in and jumped around like a maniac for a couple of songs before
hearing a lyric that worried me a little.
I walked back to Jay and said “this isn’t a religious thing, is it?” “Noo!”
he said, but after the end of a song a guy jumped up on stage and started blathering
about the Tribe of Judah or some shit.
EEEEK! is the best way to describe my
thoughts at that point. I grabbed my
stuff and we made a run for it – it must have looked so funny. What I want to know is when did religious
rock music get good? They tricked us! You can
click here to see my pics from
Washington DC.
Here are just a few pics I took in Philadelphia on my way back to NY. I basically just walked around for an afternoon. Seems like a groovy and friendly place, but just another western city for all of that. I was hosted there by some couchsurfers who were very cool people, as most couchsurfers I have met tend to be.
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| One of the Towers |
Other NY touristy things on the menu over the last couple of
weeks were the Empire State Building, Cirque Du Soleil, Brooklyn Heights and
the 9/11 memorial, a large yet tasteful and sobering memorial inscribed with
the names of those that died in the September 11 attacks. I was transported back to 2001, driving to
work and not believing what I was hearing on the radio. Does everyone else remember really clearly
what they were doing when they heard the news?
The new “Freedom Towers” are currently being constructed in their stead.
(Freedom is the most overused word in this country. My friend went to a restaurant where they actually
had a Freedom Salad! I joked that it was
probably a burger and fries.) These new towers would have to be the creepiest
buildings in existence, although they look pretty impressive so far. You couldn’t get me to work in those places
for anything. Not that anyone would ask
me haha! That whole area is banking and
finance central. Suits galore. Walking around Wall Street with a friend the
other day we were laughing “Can you feel the evil?” It’s amazing how different all of NY’s
neighbourhoods are, like separate cities.
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| The famous brownstones |
The Empire State Building gives an amazing view of the city,
but I spent about ten minutes at the top and at least two hours getting up and
back down again, so you need to be patient and also have the time to do
it. After the fact (always the way) I
heard that you get a very similar view from the Rockerfeller Centre and it isn’t
anywhere near as busy. So there’s a tip
for future NY travelers. Zarkana was incredible – my first Cirque du Soleil
actually – and it was in the Radio City Music Hall which has to be the most
beautiful venue I’ve ever seen. Brooklyn
Heights is a writers’ haven and is full of those brownstones and Asian nannies
walking the streets with their little designer clad charges while mum and
dad no doubt work sixteen hours a day in the city. The Brooklyn Bridge is a very impressive piece of engineering, considering when it was built.
Click here to see my Brooklyn album, which
includes pictures of the evening I spent with the Sweet Adelines Brooklyn
Chorus, a lovely and welcoming group of ladies who hosted me overnight and took
me around the next day. I love
barbershop! Insta-friends.
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| I really need to stop tanning! |
Speaking of Sweet Adelines, my Sirens and I hosted a guest
night the other night in conjunction with the boys upstairs (Voices of Gotham)
and ended up out and singing until 3am with a bunch of the prospective
members. I’m having sooo much fun with these
two choruses. It’s going to be difficult
to leave! You can
click here to see some
of my new singing guy and gal pals.
I also have a third Manhattan album as I don't want one album with millions of photos in it.
Click here to see it. I realise
I haven’t mentioned the book. Yes well,
hmm. I didn’t get sufficient feedback
from my first lot of readers to feel like there was much I could do with it, so
rather than read it and edit it myself I’ve kind of lost motivation instead and
have been procrastinating quite badly.
This week I have only a couple of things on (including my birthday
dinner on Friday night! I wish my usual
friends were here for our usual birthday dinner) so I am going to try and force
myself to work on it. It would be a
shame to get this far and then choke at the end. Wish me luck!
Til Next We Speak
*LOVE*
N
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