American dreams

“Woo-oooo, there’s trouble in America…”
- Razorlight

I’m very excited - we‘re heading for America! (Hence the all-too-predictable title).

The United States of America provokes in me a reaction like no other country on earth. It’s a mixture of amazement, excitement and envy with distain, disgust and just downright pity.

I last visited this incredible country in 2001, returning to Blighty a jumble of mixed feelings.
I was wowed by its cities (the buzz of New York; the buildings of Chicago; the harbour of San Francisco), enthralled by its natural beauty (the Great Plains of South Dakota, the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, the forests of the Pacific North West).

But while I was impressed at what the States had to offer I was also appalled at what people had to give. It seemed as if the whole country had been sacrificed to the pursuit of making money, that anything and everything was knocked down, the soul sucked out of it and given over to the corporations.

The result was an unthinking standardisation of everything, a mundane uniformity so that life was reduced to the lowest common denominator. Whether Washington or Milwaukee, Denver or Seattle it was likely you’d have a similar experience - the same shops, the same burger, the same same.

How could it be that this huge nation, with so much potential, such ability, so many aspirations - the ‘land of the free’ - had willingly surrendered its soul, all in the pursuit of a quick buck?

Did this help to explain all that made me recoil in America? The dominance of huge ugly shopping malls and junk food outlets, the fat lardy people, the crap public transport and the dominance of the car, the apathy and the helplessness of common folk versus the naked greed of the suits and the cynical venality of the Republican administration.

Perhaps, but it seemed to me a place which was had gone simply too far. It was tragic to witness the gross and obvious extremities screaming out across the land.

Flags festooned every front lawn yet many people I spoke to had little idea about the world outside their own state, let alone country; the rich pratted about in flashy gas guzzlers and barricaded themselves in palatial fortresses whilst the poor pushed all their worldly goods through the streets in shopping trolleys.

I’ll never forget the ghettoes, where you seemed to be left to rot with little help from the state.
America is a paradox. One of the richest countries on earth, where anyone can supposedly ‘make it‘, yet you can also lose it. Like nowhere else in the developed world.

Seven years on, after another seven years of Bush and Cheney, I fear what I might find.
But I also hold out hope. This is America, after all, the country towards whom the rest of the world still often turns.

Will Barrack make it better? I hope so, though I’m not naïve enough to expect it (I recall similar feelings of jubilation and relief back in 1997, with the ascendancy of a certain T. Blair).

But the past can be a deadweight: I’ll leave my memories at the border and enter with a clear mind. The good, the bad and the downright bizarre: bring them all on.

I expect to find them all, cheek-by-jowl in the first of our destinations, Los Angeles.

We’re staying with a chap with a crazy name who lives in Hollywood, describes himself as a comedian and communicates like Bill and Ted - “I’m, like, totally cool with you guys crashing”.
Can’t wait.

Los Angeles is our first starting point - home to Hollywood, Ram It and the worst of American excesses.

As LA marks the start of our trip, I’ve been inspired to follow in the best traditions of this city and set myself some good ol’ ‘attainment goals’ for my time in the USA.

My list so far reads:
Meet someone called Chuck or Randy (particularly if their name also includes the suffix ‘Jr’ )
Eat a Corndog
Visit a High School and look inside the students’ lockers
Go to a live recording of a chat show
Watch an Ice Hockey match
Visit a space centre
Get admired for my accent and asked if I'm from 'Scotsland' / Denmark etc
Persuade someone I am Prince William’s cousin
Collect bizarre questions about my home country, e.g: ’Do you still drive a horse and carriage?’
Hear some Mississippi blues, preferably on a rickety old porch, in the rain
Hear something referred to as ‘aloadabaloney’
Eat pizza in ‘Noo York Cidy’
Buy a ten gallon hat
Meet a stressed-out, coffee-guzzling cop like the fat one off ‘NYPD Blues’
Go to Mardi Gras in New Orleans

High-brow stuff indeed.

And I’m, like, totally looking forward to it.