Back in ol' blighty after a whirlwind trip to the States. You forgot just how polite and courteous the Yanks are. Really quite remarkable. Old world charm, I guess. And the lovely accents...when C said: "are we all set here?" your heart nearly melted.
Stuck at the ungodly Newark for eight hours. A very old black woman, bespectacled, chicken-necked, looked at me and said: "looks like you is stuck here, baby!". The problem was, of course, that you looked at everyone through the prism of tv. memories. So, for instance, the taxi driver at NY was really Gene Wilder. One degree or two to the side and you could have sworn this was Lukas, your German friend. You were half expecting Starsky and Hutch to show up...
Also, everyone wanted to talk to you, to confess to some failing or heartbreak. I think that's less to do with the naive gullible look I have and more to do with the fact that a considerable amount of Americans are slightly unhinged in my opinion.
Past Chicago, the lovely blazing reds and deep bronzes of Fall. The bus driver of the Lincoln Express said he'd take me right up to the hotel for "less than a taxi". When we got there I said, trying to scam him, "I'm truly overwhelmed by your generosity, Sir"(If I'd had a southern accent it would have gone down a treat). He just looked at me and said, "That'll be five bucks". Anyway, I only had two and some change and poured them into his outstretched hands. Well, there you go...East End cunningness always beats Yankee gullibility hands down. Felt quite sorry for him, actually. He looked like an old Paul Newman with his clean half-sleeve white shirt and two-shade brown sunglasses. The driver on the way back, Mr. Lewis, was a real character. Genuinely funny. I was gonna do my Paul Newman from Cool Hand Luke there...gen-u-wine
At Newark airport, outside Dunkin' Donuts, where I spent 4 hours gulping down sweet coffee, a man wearing light blue jeans, sneakers, and baseball cap started talking to me. Here he was, the quintessential "loser". He was "on the run". He was "hot". Had left his uncle's funeral where the money from the safe had gone missing. "Family, they mess ya up". I was going to tell him the famous line from Larkin but it would have been lost on him. He delivered newspapers for 27 years and was now in Phoenix. "And what do you do in Phoenix?"
"Not'ng..ain't much to do out there"
~~~
The talk itself went okay. Met a Mr Wang who told me this old Chinese line: each child is born to be kind. "That's lovely," I said.
"Oh no, " he replied, in a thick Chinese accent. I and my wife ah baptist for 27 yeah..we Baptist...everyone born in sin! And we both laughed.
~~~
Stuck at the ungodly Newark for eight hours. A very old black woman, bespectacled, chicken-necked, looked at me and said: "looks like you is stuck here, baby!". The problem was, of course, that you looked at everyone through the prism of tv. memories. So, for instance, the taxi driver at NY was really Gene Wilder. One degree or two to the side and you could have sworn this was Lukas, your German friend. You were half expecting Starsky and Hutch to show up...
Also, everyone wanted to talk to you, to confess to some failing or heartbreak. I think that's less to do with the naive gullible look I have and more to do with the fact that a considerable amount of Americans are slightly unhinged in my opinion.
Past Chicago, the lovely blazing reds and deep bronzes of Fall. The bus driver of the Lincoln Express said he'd take me right up to the hotel for "less than a taxi". When we got there I said, trying to scam him, "I'm truly overwhelmed by your generosity, Sir"(If I'd had a southern accent it would have gone down a treat). He just looked at me and said, "That'll be five bucks". Anyway, I only had two and some change and poured them into his outstretched hands. Well, there you go...East End cunningness always beats Yankee gullibility hands down. Felt quite sorry for him, actually. He looked like an old Paul Newman with his clean half-sleeve white shirt and two-shade brown sunglasses. The driver on the way back, Mr. Lewis, was a real character. Genuinely funny. I was gonna do my Paul Newman from Cool Hand Luke there...gen-u-wine
At Newark airport, outside Dunkin' Donuts, where I spent 4 hours gulping down sweet coffee, a man wearing light blue jeans, sneakers, and baseball cap started talking to me. Here he was, the quintessential "loser". He was "on the run". He was "hot". Had left his uncle's funeral where the money from the safe had gone missing. "Family, they mess ya up". I was going to tell him the famous line from Larkin but it would have been lost on him. He delivered newspapers for 27 years and was now in Phoenix. "And what do you do in Phoenix?"
"Not'ng..ain't much to do out there"
~~~
The talk itself went okay. Met a Mr Wang who told me this old Chinese line: each child is born to be kind. "That's lovely," I said.
"Oh no, " he replied, in a thick Chinese accent. I and my wife ah baptist for 27 yeah..we Baptist...everyone born in sin! And we both laughed.
~~~
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