Zenobia teed up a taxi for me to JFK Airport. It was black and shiny and arrived ten minutes early. I gave her the chocolates I had bought at the Brooklyn Flea and wished her well. She’d been a great, accommodating host, and I promised I’d visit if ever I came to town again.
The security at JFK was fairly intense. By the time people had removed all potentially threatening articles of clothing, the line at the metal detectors resembled a queue at a beach kiosk. I managed to make it through without setting off any alarms, but my backpack (for the first time in any country) caused some trouble. I had a water bottle in there, you see, and it contained more than the permitted two micrograms of liquid.
I walked some distance to the gate lounge and sat for a while, admiring the view of the tarmac. Only when I went to buy a replacement bottle of water did I realise that at some point my wallet had vanished. Trying not to give way to panic (and more-or-less succeeding), I tried to think where I had last seen it. I knew I’d definitely had it at the security check because I’d placed it in a tray…that was it! In the hubbub surrounding the threat to national security posed by my water bottle, I’d neglected to collect my wallet. I walked back to the screening station and asked one of the lady guards if anyone had turned in a wallet.
Another lady guard overheard my request and said, “Timothy?” to which I answered, “Yes,” and she summoned me to follow her. “I put the call over a half hour ago,” she explained, dour and disapproving. I hadn’t heard a thing. Most airports, from what I could tell, had somewhere between two and twenty concurrent audio streams flowing through their speakers: some deafeningly audible (usually in foreign languages), and some audible only to dogs and infants (usually the ones asking you, in English, to come and collect your wallet).
Anyway, she handed over the wallet without too much further chastisement and order was restored. Until I got on the plane.
Being a Sunday, with Jewish Shabbat over, my American Airlines flight was full of young Jewish couples and their children, mostly babies and toddlers. There were at least ten such families in the back half of economy class, many of whom had not purchased seats for their young ones. As a result, the cabin had something of the feel of a maternity ward.
But it was not so much the children who disturbed me as the parents, easily the most active flyers I had yet encountered. Though the flight was only five hours long, they seemed to need regular strolls. One man in orthodox Jewish garb would literally climb over the seats every time he needed to get out, usually bumping his back on the ceiling. Apparently it would have been too much to ask one of his children to move aside.
Similarly, the man sitting in front of me spent little more than half an hour actually seated, preferring to walk around with his babe in arms, often passing me with an expectant look in his eyes, waiting for my oohs and aahs. Of course, he still needed to keep his seat fully reclined the whole time, so as I could do little but scratch away at my crosswords at painfully close range.
To make matters worse, the middle-aged couple in the seats behind me (one of the few without children) was deeply disturbed by having to sit in the back row, especially as they’d ordered their seats months in advance. “Naht happy travellers, naht happy travellers,” the woman kept repeating as she loaded her bags into the overhead compartments, again seeming to expect my sympathy. “We’ll just have to hope that the people in front don’t put their seats back,” she said to her husband, but more to me. I couldn’t understand why they were so frustrated. Their seats functioned in the same way as everyone else’s. If anything, it meant they were further removed from the pediatric clinic’s waiting room the cabin had become. I would have gratefully swapped.
Later, I bought a sandwich. It cost US$10. I understand that American Airlines has debts, but charging that much for a basic packet sandwich seems immoral to me.
Then the inflight movie started and it was The Blind Side. Having sat through the movie once already of my own volition and finding it risible, I had no desire to rewatch it, but often found it difficult to look anywhere other than the overhead screen.
‘Spoiler’ alert: There is one moment in the middle of the film where our large young hero is driving around with his surrogate brother – a little brat somewhere between Macaulay Culkin and a Garbage Pail Kid – singing along to Young MC’s ‘Bust a Move’, and we’re thinking how cute and precocious it all is, then they somehow crash into the back end of a lorry, sending said brat jolting violently into the dashboard airbag. It all happens in slow motion, adding up to the most ridiculous but most oddly satisfying scene in the whole film.
Every time someone on a flight was watching this movie on a personal screen, I would be sure to peer over in time to catch that scene; even without sound it never failed to raise a titter.
I was thrilled to land at LAX where it was sunny and warm and the sky was clear. When planning my trip, I had decided that my two nights in LA would be an opportunity to wind down and gather my thoughts before taking the 15-hour flight back to Melbourne: catch up on some sleep, take it slow. I had been to LA once before and had an idea that there wasn’t really much I needed to see. And I’m pretty sure I was right.
On the taxi ride to my hotel, it felt as though little had changed since my visit fifteen years earlier. And even in 1995 it had felt as if Los Angeles was stuck in the ‘80s. Having recently rewatched Altman’s The Player, released in ’92, I could see no reason it couldn’t have been filmed today, with slightly deflated hairstyles. Perhaps, I thought to myself, everyone was just too caught up in making movies (read: money) to worry about the city itself. Or maybe I was just a judgemental tourist making baseless accusations? Wouldn’t be the first.
I arrived at my hotel in Hollywood, the Villa Delle Stelle, easily the most expensive lodgings I had taken on my trip, and easily the most luxurious. My apartment was magnificent: twice the size of any other I’d stayed in, and with a full kitchen, nicely fitted bathroom and a bed so big I didn’t even need to sleep on the diagonal. A loaf of delicious pumpkin bread and a bottle of very nice apple cider awaited me on the kitchen bench. I took them out to my little courtyard in the shade and kicked back, taking in the warm Californian air.
After an hour or two of working on my blog and responding to emails, I headed out to grab some dinner. Feeling fairly tired, having had my day extended by three hours, I settled on the first place I found, which happened to be a Denny’s. The last time I had been to a Denny’s I was in Grade Four and the toasted cheese sandwich I ordered arrived as a toasted fish paste sandwich. Things, it seemed, had gotten ever-so-slightly better, but it still felt like the kind of place jail parolees might be sent to work. That said, the only waiter I could see was a friendly and incredibly efficient Chinese woman who seemed to have control of the whole place.
I ordered one of the menu’s healthier items: grilled chicken with Cajun barbecue sauce, but had to scrape off the inch-thick layer of sauce before I could actually get to the chicken. It came with fiesta corn, mashed potato ribboned with cheddar cheese and free refills of Coke. At least the chicken was grilled, not fried, right? And I could have had the chocolate cream fudge marshmallow volcano (or something like that) for dessert, but I didn’t.
I slept in the next morning, and worked on my blog until midday, after which I resolved to take a walk up Hollywood Boulevard, passing a CD store or two on the way. The main one I had set my sights on was called Amoeba Music, just minutes from my apartment. When I stepped inside I knew I had found nirvana. The place was the size of a shipping warehouse and sold both new and secondhand stuff. Once I located the soundtrack section, there was no turning back. I was stuck in its vicelike grip, obliged to look through every single CD in the enormous inventory. It took an hour. In the end, I only purchased three, all at bargain basement prices, including one I had only ever seen listen online at $160 (here $7). Score.
I stopped for a very cheap and satisfying lunch at Kung Pow Kitty (again with free refills on the Coke) and walked up the main tourist drag of Hollywood Boulevard. It was just as I remembered it but, this time, being a little more attuned to the fact that all Hollywood is illusory, I had a much stronger sense of its grimy underbelly. I was struck, as others must be, that it mustn’t take a whole lot to get a star on the Walk of Fame; for all the Orson Welleses, Jean Renoirs and Lumiere Brothers, there are plenty of Pee Wee Hermans, Kirstie Alleys and Ryan Seacrests. (And don’t message me telling me how much you love Kirstie Alley. I don’t care.)
The other thing that struck me were the sheer number of buildings devoted to all things Scientology: not just rooms or offices, but entire buildings. I counted at least five. Perhaps the strangest was the L. Ron Hubbard Gallery, outside which stood a life-sized fibreglass (?) model of a buxom female pirate. Her huge sword, along with the sense that there may have been insane people inside, was enough to put me off going in.
I was also interested to see the lavish headquarters of ABLE, the Association for Better Living and Education. Ostensibly the charity arm of the Church of Scientology, ABLE, by its own claim, “has the purpose of resolving the social decay that threatens our societies by resolving the worst problems that plague man today – drugs, crime, illiteracy and immorality”. (War, poverty, natural disasters and environmental degradation are, apparently, not so bad.) What this means, in reality, is that they rehabilitate people who are involved in drugs or crime according to the 21 precepts of a “common sense moral code” set out in a “secular” book called The Way to Happiness, written by none other than Mr Hubbard. I imagine, also, that they might keep a copy or two on hand when treating illiteracy. How convenient.
Anyway, I don’t have the money to deal with a lawsuit right now so I’ll stop here.
I braved the tourist circuit around Hollywood and Highland, snapping a picture of the Kodak Theatre on my way. It occurred to me that, even though I hadn’t yet seen the Oscars telecast, I had seen Alec Baldwin, this year’s co-host, on the street in New York and had visited the Kodak Theatre, so technically I’d been closer to them than ever before.
Before heading home, I dropped into the Rite-Aid on Sunset for some nuts, beer and a box of sleeping pills, the combination of which seemed to raise no eyebrows at the checkout. I also saw this:
I went home, took my beer, cashews and laptop out into the courtyard and tried to arrange dinner with the friend (Yana) of a friend from home (magnificent Maggie, whose online Scrabble games had kept me so grounded). It turned out to be too difficult, so I stayed in, writing my blog, channel-surfing and eventually falling asleep.
Next morning, I had to be out by midday, but my plane wasn’t leaving until just before midnight, so I stayed in all morning, making the most of my last hours in the lovely Villa Delle Stelle. I packed up carefully, struggling now to fit all my new CDs into my suitcase. It was a matter of layering them like a lasagne: one layer of clothes, one layer of CDs, and repeat.
The lovely hostess at the Villa Delle Stelle let me store my suitcase until nightfall and I headed off. I stopped for brunch at a place called The Waffle and ordered scrambled eggs and a grapefruit juice, a little tired of refills on the Coke. They came with house sausage, hashbrowns and what appeared to be a scone. I didn’t really know what the scone was doing there but, considering I was in a city where some restaurants team chicken with biscuits, I let it slide.
Of the three tables surrounding me, two facilitated script meetings. The man and woman on my left spoke to each other with the laissez-faire coldness I usually associate with married couples, but I think they were just business partners, probably in a production company. They both spent most of their lunch break reading scripts, the woman saying at one stage, in reference to the script she was reading, “I think it’s perfect,” which told me she was either stupid or a liar.
Considering I was at a place called The Waffle, I figured I’d better order a waffle. I ordered a half-waffle with ice cream, but it came without. Whatever. It tasted just like a pancake, but the rectangular ridges gave it a pleasingly crispy finish.
Resolving to kill the day at the movies (which, let’s face it, are what Hollywood does best), I once again braved the tourist drag on Hollywood Boulevard and found my way (with some difficulty) to the Mann Chinese 6 Cinemas, which were almost completely deserted. I guess everyone was too busy making movies to be watching them. I saw The Hurt Locker, which quite shook me up. When the protagonist gets home from the war to find he really just wants to go back, I was left to ponder my own situation. Would I get home to find things too easy, or too boring? I knew I had enjoyed the challenges this trip had posed, and I knew I had grown from them. Did going home mean I would stop growing?
I rushed over to the Arclight Cinema on Sunset Boulevard and bought a ticket to Polanski’s latest film, The Ghost Writer. It was just what I needed: a clever piece of escapism, with just enough political relevance to be substantial. I was particularly impressed by the score, as I had been with The Hurt Locker, and promptly rushed back to Amoeba to pick up both soundtrack albums.
I stopped at the Magnolia Café and ordered a Cobb salad (which was apparently invented nearby) and a Coke. Once I’d finished my first glass of Coke, I told the waitress I didn’t want a refill, which had the same effect as if I’d told her my hands were made of Corn Flakes. She seemed almost suspicious of me, as if I might be an alien adopting the guise of a human, but eventually nodded her acceptance, leaving the glass firmly in place on my table.
No fewer than three more times did other waiting staff ask me if I wanted a refill, and I began to suspect a conspiracy to wear me down, but I continued to say no, and they continued to leave the glass at my table, while I chewed indecorously on the ice cubes. Finally, the bubbliest, loveliest waitress of all asked me if she could take my glass away and I gave a hearty, “Yes, please.”
I collected my suitcase from the Villa Delle Stelle and took a train downtown, from where the airport shuttle bus departed. It was a pleasant and inexpensive journey.
The plane took off from LAX a little behind schedule, and the throng in the gate lounge was heaving and sweating with anticipation. At least half the passengers were Australian and it was comforting to hear the accent in such abundance. I took my seat next to a Canadian guy named Anis, who readily joked with me about the fact that people usually mispronounced his name for the worse. He was visiting Melbourne and Sydney for a holiday, drawn by the prospect of finding a “hot girl”.
I followed dinner with a couple of Rite-Aid sleeping pills and nodded off. When I awoke, Anis told me I’d been asleep for seven hours. Having never in my life been able to sleep on a plane, such a concept was almost inconceivable to me, but it made the fifteen-hour flight infinitely more bearable. It felt a lot shorter than my twelve-hour flight from Hong Kong to Paris, which I had spent achingly wide-eyed.
Not in the mood for anything too demanding, I watched another Sandra Bullock film, All About Steve, just to see if she really had deserved the Razzie for Worst Actress, and because I often enjoy bad films. While some of her dialogue was in appallingly bad taste (such as when she thanks a truckie for not raping her), I couldn’t see much difference between this performance and the one that nabbed her the Oscar. It was by no means a good film, but at least it wasn’t boring.
Anis, meanwhile, was cracking up next to me watching Couples Retreat, which I put on not long before we were due to land, just to see if was as funny as his hysterics had suggested it would be. It wasn’t. At all. And it was boring. And where did all these overfed losers buy their model wives? Fortunately, the Captain had to turn off the entertainment system before the movie finished.
Landing in Melbourne felt nice, like flopping into a beanbag. All the muscles (intellectual and otherwise) I’d had to keep tensed up for the last six weeks could now relax. I was back in the familiar.
My sister, Jen, awaited me in the terminal. It was unspeakably great to see her. We hugged a few times. It was over. I was home.
