Time Difference: -17 hours (from Brisbane)
Soundtrack: Joni Mitchell, kd Lang, Beastie Boys, Mozart
Stacks: None!Agent Rejections Received: 12
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| Does anyone need me to caption this? |
I tried to cram everything I still had left to do into my
last few days in New York, and almost succeeded. Ultimately I’m happy with everything I saw,
and spent my last full day in Manhattan just wandering around, saying goodbye
to my midtown and downtown haunts, having one last lobster roll, taking the
Staten Island Ferry past the Statue of Liberty and enjoying the crisp autumn
air. Does anyone else ever feel
discombobulated at the change of seasons?
I was already feeling quite jittery and unsettled at the thought of
leaving (my subconscious was grabbing onto the sidewalks and kicking her legs
in the street) and the change of weather added to it. As a result in my last 24 hours in the city I
veered wildly from devastatingly sad to nervously excited and touched pretty much every
point in between. It was exhausting! I was glad I got to have my one last date
with New York though. Our relationship
has been turbulent but always passionate, and I think of late I’ve been taking
it a little for granted. It was nice to
get back that surge of love and affection I felt for it when things between us
were still new and exciting. I will miss
it.
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| Headliner comedian |
The second comedy night I went to was quite different from
the first. I think the comedians were
trying out new material as it was a Monday night, and a few of them read from
notes and had a quite a few jokes which fell flat. That’s always awkward isn’t it? The headline act was a mixed race guy and told
quite a few racist jokes – he asked all the people from different nationalities
in the audience “Who are your Mexicans?”
There were Swedes, English people, Germans and others there, and they
all answered various other races when he pointed to them until he got to the
Norwegians and they said “the Swedes”. It
was actually quite funny. Then he went
off on a spiel about Indians and how the domestic violence rate there is about
70% (true I understand) and was making a variety of jokes about beating women that which I
won’t repeat here. Interesting, the
personal lines we draw, isn’t it? I
believe that stand up comedy is one of the last bastions of free speech and
comedians should be allowed, nay, encouraged – to joke about any subject under
the sun. I retain my right to find them
unfunny or offensive (on topics such as domestic violence, rape, paedophilia
among others), but this is why TVs have off switches and clubs have exit
doors. In other words I like that the
freedom to be horribly offensive and inappropriate in the name of humour exists,
even if I don’t like the humour myself.
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| Egg Cream |
Finding someone to take me to a Yankees games proved to be a
more difficult task than expected. I
eventually managed to twist a friend’s arm and we booked it in for the Tuesday
night before I left, and then the weather decided to play sillybuggers that
afternoon, cancelling the game. I was
not available for the postponement, so I ended up leaving NYC without ever
setting foot inside Yankee Stadium or seeing even one second of baseball, which
is irritating. I’ll take it as the universe’s
way of telling me I shall have to return for a visit. On the plus side I went out for dinner that night and got to try my first ever "Egg Cream", a weird kind of milkshake with seltzer water in it. I don't think it contains any egg actually, or much cream, if any. But it was a NY thing apparently I *had* to do.
Really leaving things to the last possible minute, I took my
seven snail mail writing queries to the post office on my final afternoon and
sent them off to the agents. Thus far
out of 49 queries I have received 12 outright rejections and 2 follow ups, from
whom I have heard nothing back. A lot of
the agents say that they simply don’t contact you at all if they aren’t
interested (like, they don’t even acknowledge receipt of your work! So rude!)
so I can safely presume after a decent amount of time that the others from whom
I haven’t heard are also a “No”. This is
fine as my expectations have always been realistic on the first novel
front. I have already started writing my
second…
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| At the restaurant |
My leaving dinner was a blast. I decided to try Ethiopian food for the first
time, and it was a great experience, although would have to be one of the worst
looking cuisines I’ve ever seen in my life.
Afterwards we went to a local bar and tried to sing (most of us were
barbershoppers) but got shushed by the waitress as apparently some of the other
patrons had complained. That’s a first
for me! Interesting. Still, I had a great night and was really
happy I got to spend one last evening with just about everyone I had hung out
with in my time in the city. You can
click here to see my pics from the last date with the city and my leaving do.
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| My blackboard |
On Thursday I spent a looong day travelling to San
Francisco, as due to this part of the trip being a change to my flight home, I
had to go via LA. As a result I didn’t
arrive at my hotel until late, and my tired eyes brightened when they landed on
the room. It’s like a little writer’s
haven! There is a beautiful desk and
lamp which sit next to black venetian blinds, through which the streetlamps
glow in saffron lines across the furniture.
A blackboard and chalk sits patiently waiting for your waffle. The walls are beautiful VJs up to about head height, over which is white
wallpaper with Jack Kerouac’s “On The Road” printed on it in old typewriter
text. A book of Alan Ginsberg poems, The
Great Gatsby and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas hard copies sit on a retro
black lacquered table, and a huge comfy green paisley armchair finishes the
room off. It’s just divine, and I don’t
want to leave! I could live here easily
(if I could afford it). San Fran is
really expensive, and my four nights here are costing more than a month’s rent
in New Jersey, if you can believe it. It
was partly my fault for forgetting until last week that I had to actually book
myself somewhere to stay.
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| Steel drum band |
People have told me a
lot about San Francisco in the past.
They told me about the hippie culture, the great food, the wharf, Golden
Gate bridge, the freaks, architecture, dot com millionaires etc. And they were right! It has all of those things, and it’s a really
fantastic place (I’ve been calling it San Fabulous). You know what no one told me though? How much MUSIC there is everywhere! I’m surprised no one thought to mention it,
really. On my first night there was a
lone saxophonist playing under a streetlight near my window, and I have been
rarely without some kind of soundtrack since.
There are buskers on every street corner – really good quality
ones. This morning I stood and listened
to the most stunning soprano sing Ave Maria until I actually got a tear in my
eye. Yesterday, among others, I passed a
steel drummer group, an amazing black vocalist who sounded like Otis Redding, a
young kid in a white suit and hat playing trumpet interspersed with tap
dancing, a willowy electric violin player and an incredible keyboard player and
singer. All these people belong in clubs
and on albums. I have heard several
people just singing as they walk along the street or take the train. Of course there are a decent number of people
who just stand there and rave to a captive audience of thin air, as well, so
you sometimes need to listen for a minute to figure out which group they belong
to.
You can click here to see my first tripping around San Fran
album. It has seals in it! Loads of seals!
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| The famous chowder. |
Highlights here so far were definitely Lombard St (the
crookedest street in the world) Haight & Ashbury (hippie central) and The Golden Gate bridge. Also being able to eat an entire Dungeness
crab - only slightly smaller and less tasty than a mudcrab - for $16 was pretty
sweet. The famous fresh Bourdin sourdough
breadbowls filled with steaming chowder are an absolute delight, as was the
shop full of every possible flavor of saltwater taffy under the sun. I went mad, and have since made myself feel ill
three times after overeating the stuff.
Someone take this damn sugar away from me!! I was doing so well! I’m glad that as well as crooked streets, San
Fab also has an abundance of hilly ones. Much exercise is needed.
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| Land rights for gay whales! |
I have never seen so many penises in one place. San Fabulous really… err… embraces… the human
form. On a tour around yesterday (I took
a bus in disappointment and at a loose end after finding out that trips to
Alcatraz were booked out until after I left the city) we passed a group of
naked men standing near City Hall. I
think maybe they were protesting their right to be naked in public, although they
were all quite clearly naked in public and I didn’t see anyone arresting them
so I’m guessing they probably just could have gone about their daily business. Today the nakedness was a little more
expected, as I went to the Folsom Street Fair, a gigantic leather and fetish
street festival. Still, it was quite the
visual overload, and I found myself shaking my head occasionally to clear it of
something I had just seen. I have taken many
photos but can’t post them all to facebook because they violate the nudity
guidelines. Still you can see the rest
of my San Fab photos and the ones that pass muster by clicking here.
I have also recently added some food to my food album, so
you can check it out here.
Tomorrow I am catching a bus to Santa Barbara, in the hope
that it will be warmer than here and I can actually spend some time on a
Californian beach before I come back.
Thursday night I fly out from LAX, and I land in Brisbane at 11 on
Saturday morning. You may have seen my FB invite to the Welcome Home Party that Dad is throwing me at his place on the 13th October. If you haven't, you are welcome to come, just ask for details.
Til Next We Speak
*LOVE*
N
