My teeth and I have this mutual arrangement: I don’t bother them with difficult, crunchy foods like vegetables, and they don’t bother me by hurting. The same goes for dentists: I don’t make them take time out of their busy schedules to fiddle around in my mouth; they don’t drag me off the street and perform Marathon Man-styled tortures on me. All very equitable. All very friendly. Until last week…
I wouldn’t have been so miffed, if I had been breaking my rules, but the offending delicacy was not a breeze block, rolled steel joist or Stealth bomber. It was a slice of pizza, hardly the most challenging foodstuff known to man. But it was enough. At first, I thought I had merely got something stuck in a back molar on the left-hand side – but when I tried to dislodge it, I discovered a yawning gulf where the back of the tooth used to be.
The odd thing was how it didn’t hurt at all, and continued not hurting, despite my prodding at it sporadically with my tongue for the next couple of days. It was kinda therapeutic, like a dental version of scab-picking, but I tried to control myself for fear of all 32 teeth (well, 31.5 now) cascading out of my head in some bizarre domino effect. [I had a dream like that once: psychological interpretations of this found elsewhere on the Net were so radically different as to be useless – everything from “an archetypal image of the dreamer’s sense of confidence and competence” to “fear of sexual impotence”!]
Lacking in dental insurance, I briefly considered flying back to Britain for treatment on the good old NHS – even though my last regular dentist, in Scotland, died suddenly in circumstances that were never really explained to my satisfaction. However, wiser council (that’ll be Chris, in her usual role as calming influence!) prevailed, and I booked in with the family practitioner. After an initial consultation, it was decided to patch up things in there temporarily until the (hastily-acquired) dental insurance kicks in for large-scale treatment like this next year.
The actual patching was a lengthy and rougher affair, necessitating two shots of Novocaine, the first proving not enough to stifle my wriggling as the drill ground out what was left of the tooth. It was weird, feeling someone drilling away inside your mouth, seeing smoke rising from your face, yet the expected agony connected with such events was conspicuous by its absence. The anaesthetic left the entire left hand side of my face feeling as if it belonged to someone else – whose tongue is this, and what is it doing in my mouth? – but the amusement to be had hitting yourself in the face and not feeling a thing is significant.
Was pleasantly surprised by the cost – at $225, it probably wasn’t much more that I’d have ended up paying on the NHS for similar treatment. They’re muttering about bringing me back in for some fillings they discovered while they were in there, but I am already ahead of them, anticipating loading up on “da bling bling”, as I believe it is called by modern urban youth, and acquiring a mouthful of gold. Otherwise, I will be more than happy to return to our previous arrangement of mutual non-interference.
Los Angeles may be the ultimate American city: sprawling, polluted, ceaselessly bustling, capitalism distilled to its highest degree. Unlike Las Vegas, which is fun to visit, but you’re always grateful to leave, Los Angeles is a chore, but a strangely seductive one. The cause this time was ScreamFest, a horror movie festival in which Cradle of Fear was screening – we (in our role as American ambassadors) were there to flagwave, pick up the print afterward, and hopefully sell the theatrical rights to Miramax for $3 million.
Step one on arriving at LAX is always: hire a car. Los Angeles has a public transport system befitting its role as the quintessential American metropolis, i.e. it sucks. On a previous trip, we naively tried using it to get from the airport to Hollywood Boulevard. This is not a mistake we will repeat, after a tortuous, lengthy, tense journey through some highly scenic parts of South Central LA, during which this poor, transparent-skinned Scot (a veteran of 10 years on London Transport) felt particularly touristy.
While waiting for your courtesy bus to the car hire place, you can admire the ‘Theme Building’, an unimaginative name for a bizarre architectural feature which dominates the centre of the airport. Rising on spidery buttresses 135 feet off the ground, it resembles something out of Thunderbirds, or perhaps the lair of some Bondian supervillain, cunningly hidden in plain sight at an international hub – there being no dormant volcanoes to hand. No surprise the architect’s brother was art director on War of the Worlds; it’s now a space-themed restaurant.
Once automobiled, you then have to cope with LA’s notorious traffic, and you begin to see why…well, why you can’t see, the Hollywood sign being invisible from downtown due to a haze of smog. Even the carpool lanes are choked more often than not, and at times the traffic approaches London standards of sloth. Which is akin to blasphemy in a city – and indeed, nation – dedicated to cars with such zealous ferocity, that our daughter believes it is her constitutional right to be given a car on her 16th birthday. You could kill the time by listening to the radio, but LA radio is about one-tenth as diverse as here in Phoenix, unless you’re a devotee of thirty different flavours of Mariachi music.
We spend most of our time up near Hollywood, as that’s where most of the stuff we’re there for (concerts, film festivals, etc.) takes place. Accommodation-wise, there are two kinds of hotels to be found up there: extortionate, and recently condemned. The latter are perhaps more fun: not to occupy, heaven forbid, just to poke your head round the door for a look-see. There are places which look like the DEA will be storming in any second now. There are places which look like the DEA just left, and didn’t bother to tidy up after themselves. Others aren’t so well-kept.
Shining out like a beacon among all this is the oddly-named Farmer’s Daughter – which made more sense when we realised it’s beside the Farmer’s Market. We never actually stay in any hotel much – what’s the point of travelling if that’s all you’re going to do? So the Daughter has everything we need in a hotel room – a bathroom (for Chris), a TV (for me) and a bed (for both of us) – without requiring co-funding from three major film studios to stay there.
It also had the advantage of being just down the road from the ScreamFest theatre. Though we didn’t spend much time there either; despite the fact we had paid out of our own pockets to have the Cradle of Fear tape FedEx’d there, the reaction we got was of the “air-conditioning on full” version. We were grudgingly added to the guest list…for our own movie. Whoopee. Took a program, to see if there was anything we wanted to pay them $10 to see, but it was entirely devoid of information on the actual films. The organiser did devote half a page to her own biography, however, which probably says more about things than we should. The movies we had heard of, were either elderly (The Hills Have Eyes) or sucked (Kolobos – a film which had already been stinking up Blockbuster shelves for a year before the festival showed it!).
Fortunately, what ScreamFest lacks in friendliness, information and good movies, the rest of Hollywood has in abundance. Well, except for the friendliness bit, perhaps. Phoenix may be the sixth-largest city in America, but there are maybe a dozen screens that aren’t devoted to Hollywood blockbusters. Everything plays in Los Angeles – even if it’s only for a week. Where else can you get to see bizarre Japanese horror-musicals on the big screen? Pick up one of the free papers, such as LA Weekly for full details, and to mop up the drool.
Certainly, as cinemas go, the Cinerama complex on Sunset Boulevard is impressive, albeit one of the most expensive – $14 for a Sunday lunchtime screening! Seen in the pic as it was in its heyday in the 1960’s (it opened with the premiere of It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World), it’s now the focus of an arthouse multiplex, where you get the feeling they take the “art” part Very Seriously – it’s one of the very few cinemas I’ve been to in America which has assigned seating. Over-loud confectionery crunchers are likely taken outside and summarily shot, but you’ve gotta love a place which warned us sternly that if we were five minutes late for the movie, we wouldn’t get in.
Between screenings, we like to spend our time in Amoeba Music, a cavernous second-hand media store on Sunset Boulevard. Particularly fine is the upstairs selection of DVDs, though you have to watch your shins. Bin after bin of sub-$10 discs lurk on the floor, and you must gingerly pick your way past the other browsing shoppers sprawled down there. Better yet, join them…
Mommmmm…Helllllllllpppp…
Also worth a visit are the La Brea Tar Pits, still sucking in local fauna (and getting a nod in Ice Age). If, like us, you’re a fan of Miracle Mile, you’ll probably just want to meander around the area, sobbing gently to yourself about diamonds. The diner from the movie is nearby, on Fairfax, but is no longer open – one of my treasured possessions is a menu from when it was still functioning, albeit without a phone booth outside.
Man cannot live by film alone, however. Getting sustenance can be a time-consuming task, with one place quoting us a ninety-minute wait for a table. Even the Bar-B-Q establishment next door quoted us 45 minutes, but that was nothing a couple of alcoholic beverages couldn’t handle. One rule we liked was that all restaurants must post their health inspection scores in the window: A, B, etc. Keep an eye out, see if you can spot any D’s…
There are certain animals that eat their own young, and I’m really quite surprised the rate of this isn’t higher among humans. Children are like war – every now and again, it’s good to have a small one, albeit only to remind you of why they’re not a good way to live. At the moment, we are doing pseudo-parental duty, in that we are taking care of two small proto-humans belonging to Chris’s step-daugher, who is off looking at houses.
This is, of course, the royal “we”. I did ask if there was anything I could do to help, but Chris, bless her heart, pretended not to hear me as she inserted the bottle, plugging a mewling infant. But if a wriggling package ever needs to be held at arm’s length, for perhaps as long as 30 seconds, I’m your man. Though do have to say, all is, for the moment, calm and quiet on the child front, and that’s without the need for the application of duct-tape.
It’s amazing the power that a Disney movie can exercise, and there is rapt attention in the room. I think they must insert subliminal messages on the tapes: “be calm…look at the cute animals…purchase the merchandise…” If only there were Matrix-like vats, in which babies could be inserted, with a continuous stream of animated features piped in until the subjects reached maturity, and could be popped out into the world as fully-functioning adults. Even I might be prepared to contemplate having kids then.
When I look at a baby, I can’t help wondering what it’s thinking about. There’s clearly nothing being wasted on survival work – finding stuff to eat, keeping warm, avoiding enemies – so I think there’s a great deal of unused brain capacity rattling around. Maybe we should wire a couple of hundred infants together in a neural network and see what comes out. Possibly nothing more than a gurgled musak version of Girl From Ipanema, the brain’s equivalent of being kept on hold for the first three years, but just possibly we might discover the source of that expression of absolute and beatific calm.
I think it’s the long-term responsibility that puts me off having kids. Gazelles have it right: twenty minutes after birth, you’re galloping across the prairie, and if you’re not, here come the vultures with their tickets to the all-you-can-gobble buffet. For the human race, it’s at least a dozen years before they can safely be left at home to their own devices, and until then it’s like having a ball and chain tied to your leg, that needs to be fed three times a day.
We were at the local wrestling federation last night, and a woman in the front row was carrying her new-born in her arms. To misquote Reese Witherspoon. “Look at you, you have a baby! In a brawl!” I was hoping that at some point, one of the participants would grab it and start hitting his opponent over the head with it. This probably explains why I have never been asked to run a wrestling promotion. Hey, I’m not cruel, I’d have used a stunt infant…
The journey from Munich to Zurich was phenomenal. Never, in my wildest dreams, had I ever imagined a train with seat-back televisions showing “in-flight” movies. Der Deutsche Bundesbahn rules! I have, however, grown horribly used to this first-class travel thing, and am extremely glad I now longer have to deal with Thameslink on a daily basis. Or, indeed, any basis.
The train sneaks around the edge of a lake, and pops its head into Austria, meaning that a) we needn’t have bother going to Salzburg to tick that country off, and b) in the space of 30 minutes, we’ve been in Austria, Germany and Switzerland. Chris is impressed, coming from a land where you can drive for six hours and still be in the same state.
We arrive in Zurich and for the first time since leaving home, have to change money, since the gnomes aren’t part of economic union. Though Switzerland being Switzerland, they would probably accept any form of currency: diamonds, unwanted kidneys, gold teeth pried from the heads of Holocaust victims, etc. They have a refreshingly up-front approach to capitalism, and wandering down Bahnhofstrasse, the main street, we notice there are probably as many banks as department stores.
We also notice in the supermarket, that prices are significantly higher than the rest of Europe. I recall that in my backpacker days, I largely survived visiting Switzerland on a subsistence diet of bread and chocolate. Thankfully, the budget is not so restricted on this trip, but anyone planning to stay any length of time in the country should bring a big bank-roll.
There isn’t actually that much to do in Zurich, though we are impressed by the massive underground shopping complex by the train station. The only place we’ve seen anything similar is Montreal, presumably serving a similar purpose, saving consumers from having to brave the winter snows. We relax on a boat cruise round the lake, which is remarkably cheap and passes the time nicely. I have another flashback to backpacker days, having to consume rapidly a box of chocolate wafer things, in order to prevent serious meltage. All I needed to complete the picture was a bottle of Orangina and I’d have been right back there in 1986.
Our hotel is at one end of the Niederdorfstrasse which is, effectively, Zurich’s nightlife. Bars, restaurants, strip-clubs, cinemas, discos and venues of uncertain but likely highly-dubious purpose line the pedestrianised street for about half-a-mile on both sides. We settle on a Swiss restaurant, and discover the national cuisine doesn’t stop at fondue. There’s also raclette – though this also involves cheese and a similar do-it-yourself approach to cooking. You get a little grill on your table, for you to melt your own cheese, then chuck it on top of potatoes or other vegetables. With a diet apparently consisting of dairy products, quite how the Swiss have half the heart-disease rate the British do, escapes me. Must be all that yodelling.
Having more or less exhausted the entertainment potential of Zurich, we opt to spend the next day – the last “proper” one of the holiday – in Bern, capital of Switzerland, and home of the famous bear-pits. Readers of a certain age may, like me, fondly remember the Mary Plain books from their youth, about a bear who lived there. The reality is slightly different – they don’t talk, for starters – but they’re still undeniably cute, nonetheless.
You can buy bags of fruit to lob at them, and these large, slow-moving creatures are remarkably adept at plucking them out of the air, like furry goalkeepers. Beside the pits is a gift-shop selling plush versions in every conceivable size and pose. More interestingly to us, there is also a micro-brewery in an old tram garage. Despite what seems to me an obvious opportunity, it is not called the Beer Pit. 🙂
Swaying slightly, we make our way back through town. It is a very pretty place, with a lot of 16th century, etc. buildings and most of the pavements are covered galleries – presumably a medieval version of Zurich’s underground malls. We are particularly grateful for this, when it starts to chuck it down with the sort of intense work-ethic you only find in Swiss precipitation.
One lowlight is the clock near the town square, built up by the guidebooks as a major attraction and masterpiece of mechanised art. Come the hour, and the streets are thronged with tourists and you can hardly hear for the whirring of camcorders. A ring of small statues circles briefly, and a figure at the top rings a bell. The crowd wait excitedly for the main event. And wait. And wait. You can hear “Was that it?” in twelve different languages. Ten minutes later, the more optimistic tourists are still hanging round. It may have been cutting-edge stuff in the 16th century, but that was when stoning lepers was the main competition as far as entertainment goes.
On the up side, the city does have a fabulous range of statues dotted around, depicting various figures of myth, legend and history. Our favourite was the Kindlifresserbrunnen, an ogre shown stuffing a baby in its mouth as a light snack, with further courses dangling from its belt. Whatever the story is behind that one, it is unlikely to be turned into a Disney cartoon anytime soon.
We return to Zurich for a final meal, sitting outdoors at a quite superb Italian restaurant. It’s a somewhat nomadic existence, as we refuse to surrender to the pouring rain which begins almost immediately we sit down. It’s a constant battle involving umbrellas, canopies and our occupying four different tables over two courses, but nothing can spoil the mood. The waitress probably thought we were utterly mad, as we giggled hysterically and built dams of napkins to direct the water away from our plates.
But it’s time to go home. We take the night-train to Paris, and kill a few hours there – emphasis on “kill”, as that’s what the 384 steps at the Arc De Triomphe almost do to us. The views from the top are quite magnificent, however. Once the pink mist has cleared from our eyes, anyway. Then, it’s back to London and (after one last British curry!) a flight back to Phoenix. On the way across, we’d been upgraded to Club World after “subtly” mentioning we were getting married [I think wearing “Jim + Chris – The Wedding Tour” T-shirts may have helped here]. No such luck on the way back; crammed into “World Traveller” with the rest of the economy scum, really brought home that the holiday was over…
The honeymoon, on the other hand, is only just beginning…
A significant step forward has been taken this week in the evolution of our business; we have become employers, rather than employees! Okay, admittedly we’re only talking our teenage daughter, Emily, and one of her friends, but it’s the first time I have ever been actively involved in paying someone to work for me. Even in the dark decade at HSBC, while there were occasional attempts to inflict responsibility on me, these were always resisted strenuously. My laissez-faire approach to such things (summarised as, “I won’t hassle you, you don’t hassle me”) meant I was never tagged for my leadership potential. Which is just the way I wanted it, given the sense of humour removal and frontal lobotomy which seemed to be required once you reached a certain level there.
However, I now find myself the co-employer of a workforce of two, albeit a workforce only there for two hours a day after school. Old habits die hard though, and I have largely avoided the lengthy, tedious and on-going training process, mainly consisting of teaching them the difference between poppy and picture jasper. This is likely because I’m not sure I know the difference, so such things are far better left to Chris, who could likely assemble a fetching necklace/bracelet set, in less than 60 seconds, under conditions of total darkness.
No, my role in this business deals more with paperwork than the gemstones, with the occasional assist in areas like sterling silver letter blocks, where all you need is a working knowledge of the alphabet. I can also cope if the item comes in a box with its name written in marker on the top. I know the limits of my competence, and am entirely content to work within them. It will not, therefore, be too long before my employees’ knowledge (let’s just say that again…”my employees”…cool!) will surpass mine in certain areas. It hasn’t quite happened yet, going by the comment overheard yesterday, specifically, “What colour is black onyx?”
I do like to think we are lenient bosses in most areas, though we did have to forbid the use of their mobile phones during “business hours”, or else we’d never get any work out of them! We also have supreme right of command and control over the CD player; if feeling particularly generous, we may allow them to slip one disc of their choice into the selection. There is, however, only so much Pink we can stand, especially as we struggle to reconcile it with Emily’s avowed (newly discovered, but quite welcome) hatred of pop music. There’s also her belief that punk started with Blink 182; our attempts to enlighten her as to the role of obscure bands like the Sex Pistols have met with little success, but much eye-rolling.
Still, we have been impressed by the genuine work they’ve put in – think it was a stroke of genius by Chris to employ two of them, as it makes it more of a social experience. Previous attempts to employ Emily have terminated after less than 30 minutes in a welter of whining, sighing and suddenly discovered homework, but this seems, so far, to be working. And so is Emily. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some supervisory and adminstrative tasks to perform. 🙂
