fresh n juicy chunks of oyster :: RTW travel blog

I left Mexico after three more days of excellent partying and flew into the Land of the Free. I swiftly breezed through Los Angeles immigration - mindful that in a few months I too would be welcomed by the handshake of fingerprint-scanner and a mugshooting webcam - and stepped on a public transport bus. I felt as though I was still back in Mexico: almost every person who stepped on spoke Spanish: there were couples, mothers with children, grandparents and restaurant chefs coming home from work. I felt at home and wanted to tell them that I was in their boat, I was from South of the border too and I loved how they were preserving their culture here.
Instead I ended up involuntarily saying gracias and por favor everywhere, especially in restaurants. I have stopped now. I am used again to 'civilisation'.
One unfortunate side effect of 'civilisation' is that I again have constant access to television and news and I seem to have chosen the precise moment of when the shit is starting to hit the fan for this exposure. Possibly, unbeknownst to me, the shit has been steadily dripping into the fan all this time but irrespectively I currently find myself standing right underneath it.
It ain't pleasant there.
I punch the air in frustration as though I can spur on the media to fix the world.
Then I see a Bush-Cheney '04 election broadcast convincingly hammering home Kerry's 'weakness' to the American heartland, still shocked and in fear of 9/11.
I fear everything will stay the same or get worse very quickly.
I want to see the President stand up and shout with as much pathos as when going to war, "This is disgusting and I am deeply ashamed of what has happened in Iraq. I am so terribly sorry and wish I could take away the suffering that has been inflicted. It is the most important thing in the world to me right now to make sure this will never happen again." Then he could symbolically sack his Secretary of Defence, tear down Abu Ghraib and dismantle Guantanamo or at least allow independent observers in (I don't even want to begin to imagine what we would see if soldiers had digital cameras there).
Maybe some of the above would repair a little damage or at least demonstrate some goodwill to the world.
But I am afraid of the future. I am afraid of just how angry and furious the world and its people may be. I fear that the only gesture of goodwill that could repair anything would be a parade through Baghdad's streets of the stripped-naked and hooded GI perpetrators. I fear nothing will be repaired in a long, long time.
And then I started hoping in the people's anger. I started hoping that they will rise up wanting to make the world a better place.
But then I watched Fox News for ten minutes. I saw that there probably weren't enough people who are pissed off or worried about the world being pissed off. After a ten minute dose of Fox even I caught myself having stopped worrying.
Oh what a frightening world.
But the good news is that in Los Angeles you don't have to worry. The sun is shining reliably every day and the world's beautiful and famous are around you.
I have been staying with family here, eating well, relaxing and having fun: it is an easy life.
So exactly what right do I think I have to complain about the world and torture you all with my rants? None at all, indeed, but I think getting it off my chest helps in not letting the shit that's sprinkling down ruin my mood too badly. After all, I'm on holidays. So, apologies and thank you all for being my therapists.

[Click here for Albums Mexico 2 for pictures of the party and Album USA 1 - LA for pictures of not much yet.]