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back in LA
Apr. 5th, 2004 03:06 pmSo I'm back in LA (again) - this time for a few days. I'm off to SF on Wednesday evening to meet with the guys at OSAF for the day, then flying back to LA and then out to Melbourne.
New York was... fun. Quite a lot of fun. I managed to get semi-mugged 5 minutes after getting off the train, but got away with giving them $20 to just go away (I was tired from too little sleep and wasn't paying attention). Spent Sat-Sun wandering around NYC and gawking at stuff. For a site that's so very sacred to the americans, Ground Zero really does just look like a great big hole in the ground. If it wasn't for the big signs, flags, and peddlers hawking dodgy merchandise around it, you'd think it was just a construction site.
Amir's place is fricking huge. He's got an enormous apartment right next to the corner of Canal St and Broadway, which is pretty much the heart of downtown. The streets outside are like a giant street theatre, particularly on the weekends. There's dozens of people selling knock-off merchandise, pirated DVDs, "genuine" Rolex watches and the like. They've all got mobile phones, and have people stationed in various directions to keep an eye out for anyone official. When one of them gets a call, it's extremely amusing to see how fast they can pack up their wares and bolt. Most of them had stalls mounted on various sorts of shopping trolleys for ease of moving, or else just a briefcase full of watches. It's all very amusing.
There's not a lot I can say about New York that you don't already know. Yes, it is really that big, and that dirty, and has such a totally stupid number of people in it. The last is both good and bad - good because there's a wide variety of things to do and places to go, and bad because there's lots of other people who've had the same idea.
There's a certain transience to the place, though - everyone here is trying to get somewhere, or be someone, or achieve something. This is definitely obvious in the sunny demeanour of the locals.
Anyway, short version is that I had a pretty damn good time -- probably more than I was expecting -- and after NY, LA seems really... crap. Hell, after DC, LA seems crap. I suspect that some tiny town in Alabama would make LA seem crap. It's that sort of place.
And now back to work.
New York was... fun. Quite a lot of fun. I managed to get semi-mugged 5 minutes after getting off the train, but got away with giving them $20 to just go away (I was tired from too little sleep and wasn't paying attention). Spent Sat-Sun wandering around NYC and gawking at stuff. For a site that's so very sacred to the americans, Ground Zero really does just look like a great big hole in the ground. If it wasn't for the big signs, flags, and peddlers hawking dodgy merchandise around it, you'd think it was just a construction site.
Amir's place is fricking huge. He's got an enormous apartment right next to the corner of Canal St and Broadway, which is pretty much the heart of downtown. The streets outside are like a giant street theatre, particularly on the weekends. There's dozens of people selling knock-off merchandise, pirated DVDs, "genuine" Rolex watches and the like. They've all got mobile phones, and have people stationed in various directions to keep an eye out for anyone official. When one of them gets a call, it's extremely amusing to see how fast they can pack up their wares and bolt. Most of them had stalls mounted on various sorts of shopping trolleys for ease of moving, or else just a briefcase full of watches. It's all very amusing.
There's not a lot I can say about New York that you don't already know. Yes, it is really that big, and that dirty, and has such a totally stupid number of people in it. The last is both good and bad - good because there's a wide variety of things to do and places to go, and bad because there's lots of other people who've had the same idea.
There's a certain transience to the place, though - everyone here is trying to get somewhere, or be someone, or achieve something. This is definitely obvious in the sunny demeanour of the locals.
Anyway, short version is that I had a pretty damn good time -- probably more than I was expecting -- and after NY, LA seems really... crap. Hell, after DC, LA seems crap. I suspect that some tiny town in Alabama would make LA seem crap. It's that sort of place.
And now back to work.
