On the morning of July 9, 1948, in the seaside suburb of Coney Island, a vitally important moment in history occurred that was to have a lasting impact on the world as we know it.
Meanwhile, in another part of the neighbourhood, my father was born.
For the first twelve or so years of his childhood he and his parents lived in a modest one-bedroom unit in Coney Island, a suburb of Brooklyn, which in turn is one of the five boroughs of New York City. His father, a Polish immigrant, was a key figure in the New York Garment Workers Union and his English mother also found a job in the clothing industry. It was not a prosperous environment to be raised, by all accounts, but it was comfortable enough. At any rate, it could not have been more different to the childhood I experienced, which is why I'm looking forward to my father's self-styled "Brooklyn Roots Tour" today. It is purely a happy coincidence that the epicentre of American Hot Dog culture, Nathan's, also happens to have its origins in Coney Island.
"I've always been meaning to go to New Zealand", says Steve, but he's never made it. Steve is the partner of Linda, my father's high school girlfriend, and he and Linda have kindly agreed to drive us to Brooklyn and accompany us on the Roots Tour. "I met a lot of Kiwis when I was stationed in the Philippines in the early '60s. They were absolutely crazy, we hated 'em. Every morning they'd be up at dawn making us go for six mile runs. All we wanted to do was sleep!"
I explain to him that New Zealand Armed Forces have always prided themselves on high levels of fitness. It helps make up for our other shortcomings, such as a lack - or total absence - of weaponry, ammunition, and troops.
"Well, those guys were nuts. We hated 'em because they made us look so damn lazy. Which we were".
Steve grew up in neighbouring borough of Queens, a more affluent and socially harmonious area of New York, and he's happy to admit as much. "Yeah, we didn't spend much time in Brooklyn or hang out with Brooklyn kids. We had a couple of guys at school go on to make pretty big names of themselves. One of my good friends at school is quite a big name actor now. Ever heard of James Caan?"
Have I ever heard of James Caan?!
"Yeah, me and James were good pals. Boy, was he crazy though. That kid was insane. My mother always used to say to me, 'stay away from that Jimmy kid, he's nothing but trouble!', and his mother would say to him, 'Stay away from that Steve kid, he's nothing but trouble!' Boy, did we have some fun".
We arrive in Coney Island to discover that, as my father had earlier predicted, it has regressed a long way from its halcyon days of the early twentieth century. A hundred years ago, it was a resort area frequented by wealthy city folk on weekends. Even during my father's childhood it remained a popular leisure destination. But the last amusement park closed in 1964 and with it so did the visitors, whilst middle class homes were torn down to make way for housing projects. The neighbourhood now displays telltale signs of urban decay: tattered apartment blocks, empty lots, boarded up shop fronts, young delinquents glowering on every corner. Now I understand what my father meant when he used to say, "if I'd stayed where I grew up I'd either be dead or in jail now". If I stayed where I grew up I'd be dead too; but through boredom rather than misadventure.
My father has already arrived in a different car by the time we pull up on a tired looking street a block back from the main road through Coney Island. He's standing next to a barbed wire fence that protects a vacant, overgrown lot, with a nostalgic smile on his face.
"The house where I grew up", he says brightly, pointing to a heavily graffitied shipping container surrounded with weeds as tall as a man. "Well they've knocked it all down now, but here's where it was".
Turns out they've knocked everything on the street down except his old primary school, the imaginitively named PS-188. My father leads us through the back gates into a small courtyard. "Here's where I used to play handball", he says, and we all pause for a moment to take in the mental image of my father as a youngster, running into walls and tripping and grazing his knees on the asphalt".
Two black children, possibly brother and sister, stop from the task of pushing drink trolleys down the street to stare at us in wide-eyed amazement. We must look pretty funny, all six of us, standing in the courtyard of a primary school dressed like uncool honkies and gazing up at a brick wall.
"I went to school here!", my father says to the girl. "A long time ago. Fifty years ago".
She stands there for a while longer, then says "that's nice" and resumes pushing her trolley down the street. Her brother lingers a while longer, then eventually plucks up the courage to say, "if you want to go inside, the main entrance is round the front". We don't want to go inside, but thanks anyway, young man.
A walk along the main avenue takes us past blocks of run down shopfronts and vacant lots where casinos were once planned but were never built. The locals are predominantly Russian now - many of the store window signs are in Russian - but there is also a large Caribbean community. No one looks very wealthy or very happy. That is, of course, until we come up to a busy street corner and catch a glimpse of Nathan's for the first time.
Nathan's Famous hot dog store has been a fabled part of the Coney Island community for over a hundred years now. Although it now has franchises throughout the country, this site is the original and the best, proudly consuming an entire city block with its vast flashing neon facade. My father lets out a gasp of delight upon discovering that they still serve his childhood favourite, lobster rolls. Otherwise the menu is limited but quite deliberately so, because the only reason anyone would come here is for a hot dog. So much so that the world hot-dog eating contest is held here every year, where eating champions the world over converge in a bid to eat upwards of 50 dogs in ten minutes.
I'm just going to settle for the two dogs, I've decided. But there is a seldom-seen feature of the menu that has me rather alarmed: right next to each food item it displays its calorific content. The news is bad, I'm afraid: my hot dog, chili dog and small fries comes to 1359 calories. Factor in the bite I took out of my dad's lobster roll, and the fries I stole off Joey's plate when he wasn't looking and I'm close to hitting three-quarters of my daily recommended intake in one hit. Is it worth it? Hell yes. The dogs are meaty and wholesome, especially doused in American mustard and washed down with a guilt-free diet coke.
On the other side of Nathan's is the world famous boardwalk, probably best known to New Zealanders as being the setting for the Harvey Keitel Steinlager P*** advertisement. On the boardwalk there is little sign of the malaise that has taken over the rest of the area: children on school trips are running about on the beach, people are playing handball on special courts, a reasonable queue of people are waiting for their turn on The Cyclone, an 80-year-old wooden roller coaster (I'm not among them. Bit of a belly ache from lunch, you see).
This is the boardwalk that the Drifters sang about making love under in the 1964 song, and just standing on it I feel I'm part of a history that stretches a long way further back than that. It has seen booms and busts, good times and bad times, communities coming and going. It has sustained the city during heatwaves, been a staging point for vicious gang warfare and latterly, may represent a lifeline for the down-and-out community. A $1.5bn cash injection for the adjacent Astroland theme park and the successful establishment of a local minor league baseball team, the Brooklyn Cyclones, has provided a glimmer of hope that with a change of attitude, one day the area may recapture its former glory.
In the afternoon we drive a couple of miles to the more affluent neighbourhood of Sheepshead Bay, where my father spent his teenage years. For a man who frequently gets lost in shopping centres, he has a remarkable memory of the neighbourhood he left over forty years ago. There's his friend's dad's diner, there's Larry David's house, there's where he got ice creams after school every day, and there, finally is the house he lived in. It looks much as it did in the 1960s, a brick terraced house in a long row on a quiet, leafy street. A few kids playing hockey on the street stop and stare at the few old farts who have got out of their cars to stop and stare at an apparently featureless house. Everyone has gone into a bit of a nostalgic silence, so I say the only thing I really can say - "fuck it's hot" - and get back in the car.
The last stop on the Roots Tour is my father and Linda's old high school, PS-52. My father was able to deftly balance his time between going here and playing ping pong for cash in Manhattan, although I don't think his parents ever knew this. The school itself looks much as it did in my father's day, except that now almost every student is black. In the 1960s every student was called Rosenberg, Greenberg, or Rosengreen, but times have changed in Brooklyn. Driving down a main road to our dinner venue, almost everything is Russian. At one point I see a Georgian restaurant, an Azerbaijani restaurant and a Ukranian restaurant on the same block. There's even an Armenian "Beer Bar", which makes me wonder what they would normally serve at bars in Armenia.
Fiorentina's was recommended to us by a jolly fat man in Aspen - and if a jolly fat man can't point you in the direction of a good Italian restaurant even in this day and age, the world is in far worse shape than anyone dared think. We enter the restaurant and are immediately glad we took his word for it. It's an unpretentious, old school, proper Italian eatery; one big carpeted room with lavishly wallpapered surfaces and waiters who have been there as long as the decorations have. I'm sure I've seen this place somewhere before, probably The Sopranos. It's that authentic. Certainly the well dressed gentlemen at the far table could be mobsters, but they've got their families with them so the chances of a shootout appear low. "I was in an Italian restaurant in Queens once when there was a shooting in the carpark outside", Steve kindly volunteers.
On my way down to the bathroom I pass small but fierce-looking old man talking into a mobile phone to a person almost certainly named Tony. "Look, don't worry about it, it's done", he says in a broad New York Italian accent. Oh God, what am I about to walk into in there? Two dead Russians with their brain matter sprayed all over the lurid white bathroom walls? I take a deep breath and enter, and am tremendously relieved to find no bodies, just a couple of toilets and a washbasin. Unless there's another mobster hiding behind the door, ready to blast any foolish interloper who walks in on the shooting at the wrong time... which there isn't.
The food is delicious, uncompromising, no-bullshit Italian food as the chef's grandmother would've intended it. No side salads or fancy garnishes that you'd get at newer Italian places. My father and I share a veal parmigiana and a lasange (which was not on the menu but prepared anyway at our request). I figure I'm at about 2,450 calories for the day, at an extremely conservative estimate. But anything under 2,500 is fine, surely? Elvis was eating 94,000 a day when he died. That's over 285 Nathan's hot dogs a day, in case you were wondering.
The waiter, a kindly little man who has been working there since 1968, suggests I try a cannoli for dessert as they are the "best in town". Does a cannoli hold less than 50 calories? I doubt it, since it's all butterscotch and cream, but what the hell, I eat one anyway. It's terrific. And besides, when am I going to be back here again? I can't see the need for another Brooklyn Roots Tour any time soon.
On the long drive home I find myself looking ahead forty years to when I take my kids to show them where I grew up in the dreary Auckland suburb of Epsom. If there was an annual award for world's most boring suburb, Epsom would have a monopoly on it. It is the kind of nondescript middle-class Waspish suburban nightmare that inspired American Beauty. Nothing has ever happened there, in total contrast to Brooklyn, where just about everything has happened at some time or another.
I lived on Bishop Street, the most boring street in the most boring suburb, until the age of 12. It was a short, wide cul-de-sac of ten or twelve houses. I can only remember two things ever happening there in my lifetime. Firstly, an Asian family moved in across the street from us, causing mild consternation. "There goes the neighbourhood", said some of the older members of the street - or at least that's what I imagine they said in the privacy of their own homes, while eating roast lamb and watching Country Calendar.
The other thing that happened was a tour bus full of Japanese tourists, for reasons unknown, turned into the street and then found itself unable to turn around again, owing to its considerable length. Over a period of an hour or so, most of the street came out to contribute their opinions on how the bus might best extricate itself, and eventually it did, at which point everyone went back inside and resumed knitting. I won't pretend it wasn't a good place to grow up, because it was, but it sure as hell was not an exciting place. That's why I really worry about the quality of stories I'll have for my children when I go back with them.
"And there - see there? - that's where the bus backed into the hedge and flattened it a bit. Of course, it's all grown back now, but imagine how it looked when it happened, heh, heh".
"Nice one, dad".
Of course I'd take them to my alma mater, Royal Oak Primary School.
"And here's where I hurt my knee a bit while trying to do a Zinzan Brooke impersonation. And see that grubbly patch over there next to the art room? That's where Louise Newbury slapped me after she found out I had a crush on her".
In some ways, I envy my father for growing up in a time and place where everything was happening at a million miles around him. It would've been an amazing time to be a youngster, with the world rapidly evolving around you, from both your own perspective and wider society's perspective. One thing is for sure, when my son sits down to write about an Insipid Journey about his Epsom Roots Tour, it won't be half as bloody long as this.
Friday, July 18, 2008
New York City, NY
"The Yankees? Who the hell would support the Yankees? The Yankees are an easy team to support. I've been a Mets fan my whole life, I hate the Yankees. Wouldn't support 'em against anyone, except the Red Sox of course. And maybe the Braves and the Dodgers. I hate those bastards"
The bus driver is a dead ringer for George Costanza, except for being a little thinner, and moustachioed.
"You get much baseball in Noo ZEEE-land? That's a shame. Beautiful place, New Zealand. Or at least that's what they say. I've always been meaning to go there, but never made it". I've heard this line a thousand times already. They always say they "never made it" to New Zealand as if they'd attempted to make the journey via sea kayak, and failed. Somewhere on the west coast, a scheming bastard is making a killing selling unworthy seacraft to gullible, geographically-challenged tourists.
"It's just a twelve hour direct flight from LA, you know", I say.
"LA? The Dodgers? I hate those bastards. You know who I'd like to win it this year, if the Mets don't? The Cubs. Yeah, those guys are due a World Series".
Like all bus drivers, Costanza boasts an intimate knowledge of current events from Iran to faith-based charity funding, and feels qualified to lecture, dispassionately and in detail, on any and all aspects of the human condition, which is why he decided to become a bus driver. Still, he is a fascinating man and is very pleasantly-disposed once you get over his his very New York manner of speaking that makes it seem like he's condemning you to hell, even when he's only advising you on the correct stop to get off at.
"Boy, it's an oven out there already. Make sure you drink plenty of water. And remember, it's much hotter in the city because all the concrete and asphalt soaks up the heat", he says, implicitly suggesting that he could've been a meteorologist or urban geographer had he not decided to become a bus driver.
The name "Manhattan" comes from Dutch sailor Peter Stuyvesant, who, upon first sighting the island in 1608, named it after his home town of Manhattan in Holland. The Dutch established the island's lower tip as a trading settlement and in 1624, Henry Hudson, who worked for the Dutch East India company, purchased the island from the native people in exchange for roughly $16 worth of rosary beads and rum. In 1690, the British purchased the island from the Dutch and renamed it New York after the town's first governor, Sir William York.
Another interesting fact is that not a single word of the above paragraph is true, which just goes to show that you should not take my historical ramblings at face value. And you'll just have to take it on faith that my following description of Manhattan is accurate and truthful.
In all honesty, it's pretty hard to describe the scene that confronts me when I step out of the bus terminal and onto the pandemonium of 42nd Street. Every cliché about Manhattan, every movie scene, appears instantly and irrevocably true. Everywhere I look taxis are honking, policemen are lurking, vendors are hustling, businessmen are bustling, beggars are begging. It's a microcosm of the whole city and I haven't even made it one block yet.
Manhattan represents every aspect of humanity crammed onto a narrow, ten-mile long island. It's a virtual Noah's Ark of mankind: over 200 languages are spoken here and its passengers come from every place you've ever heard of, and lots of places you've never heard of too. The population density of Manhattan is 27,267 per square kilometre; by contrast, New Zealand's is 15. 1.6 million people live on Manhattan and millions more commute here to work every day. Busy doesn't even begin to hint at it.
For the first half hour or so I wander about dazed, suffering from a serious case of sensory overload. Famous landmarks keep popping up all around me: Times Square, Carnegie Hall, the Empire State Building, Rockefeller Centre, Columbus Circle, Grand Central Station. At Radio City I pause to check the upcoming events. The Steve Miller Band and Joe Cocker are playing tonight, Steely Dan next week. The Dalai Lama is giving a talk later in the month. And look who's coming in August: "Sting and The Police - Last Ever Concert!". Let's hope so.
Thomas Wolfe once wrote that “one belongs to New York instantly, one belongs to it as much in five minutes as in five years” and I can already understand what he means. The city is an endless swarm of people of all ages, colours, sizes, backgrounds, creeds and races, and I have been immediately subsumed into the melting pot. On each street corner is a different combination of New Yorkers but the component parts are essentially the same. As I stand on a busy corner gazing up tourist-like at a skyscraper, a yuppie speaks assuredly into his phone, an placard-brandishing evangelist preaches to no one in particular, a bum stumbles past saying "the black man don't like this. The black man's had enough of this shit!". The combination of sounds, sights and smells is intoxicating.
Wayne's daughter Susan has promised to show Joey and I around the East Village this evening and with a view to intoxication in a more literal sense. I may already be a New Yorker but I still have no idea where I am, and the size of the city creates the impression that I could roam the streets for weeks and never wind up at the same two spots twice.
New York's persona changes at night - the businessmen go home and the party animals come out - but the streets are equally packed with people going about their business. Some are out walking their dogs while others are hailing down taxis, and younger folk are beginning to mill around outside bars. We take a seat outside a bar on Avenue A and spend the best part of an hour people-watching, which in Manhattan is an endlessly fascinating activity.
At one point, an obnoxious Australian male in a Queensland Reds jersey nearly provides some entertainment by stumbling obliviously into the path of an oncoming taxi, but unfortunately the taxi stops just in time before hitting him and honks loudly. The Aussie meekly makes way and does the fingers to the cab as it disappears down the street, then resumes his attempt at spading the two girls he's with, who may or may not be his sister. There's nothing like moronic Queenslanders to make all the other guys (including us) look respectable, regardless of the venue.
Our journey through East Village takes us through various increasingly blurry-looking bars until we stumble upon Union Square at about 2.30am. Like everywhere else I've been today, it is a swarming hub of activity, even at this late hour. Skateboarders and roller bladers are coexisting happily with sleeping bums and young lovers. In the middle of the square, a group of three or four black guys are having an impromptu blues jam session, armed with a harmonica and a drum. They have decided upon a song named "Phone Bone Blues", about the perils of pursuing the opposite sex via text. Amused onlookers are invited to sing a verse, which many of them do, with a remarkable level of skill if I may say so myself. Within a few minues a crowd of a hundred people or more are huddling around to hear the song, complete with obscene and absurd lyrics, which goes on and on until after 3am.
So far every cliché I've heard about the Big Apple has rung true, and here's another. It really is the city that never sleeps. It never even dozes by the looks of it.
The bus driver is a dead ringer for George Costanza, except for being a little thinner, and moustachioed.
"You get much baseball in Noo ZEEE-land? That's a shame. Beautiful place, New Zealand. Or at least that's what they say. I've always been meaning to go there, but never made it". I've heard this line a thousand times already. They always say they "never made it" to New Zealand as if they'd attempted to make the journey via sea kayak, and failed. Somewhere on the west coast, a scheming bastard is making a killing selling unworthy seacraft to gullible, geographically-challenged tourists.
"It's just a twelve hour direct flight from LA, you know", I say.
"LA? The Dodgers? I hate those bastards. You know who I'd like to win it this year, if the Mets don't? The Cubs. Yeah, those guys are due a World Series".
Like all bus drivers, Costanza boasts an intimate knowledge of current events from Iran to faith-based charity funding, and feels qualified to lecture, dispassionately and in detail, on any and all aspects of the human condition, which is why he decided to become a bus driver. Still, he is a fascinating man and is very pleasantly-disposed once you get over his his very New York manner of speaking that makes it seem like he's condemning you to hell, even when he's only advising you on the correct stop to get off at.
"Boy, it's an oven out there already. Make sure you drink plenty of water. And remember, it's much hotter in the city because all the concrete and asphalt soaks up the heat", he says, implicitly suggesting that he could've been a meteorologist or urban geographer had he not decided to become a bus driver.
The name "Manhattan" comes from Dutch sailor Peter Stuyvesant, who, upon first sighting the island in 1608, named it after his home town of Manhattan in Holland. The Dutch established the island's lower tip as a trading settlement and in 1624, Henry Hudson, who worked for the Dutch East India company, purchased the island from the native people in exchange for roughly $16 worth of rosary beads and rum. In 1690, the British purchased the island from the Dutch and renamed it New York after the town's first governor, Sir William York.
Another interesting fact is that not a single word of the above paragraph is true, which just goes to show that you should not take my historical ramblings at face value. And you'll just have to take it on faith that my following description of Manhattan is accurate and truthful.
In all honesty, it's pretty hard to describe the scene that confronts me when I step out of the bus terminal and onto the pandemonium of 42nd Street. Every cliché about Manhattan, every movie scene, appears instantly and irrevocably true. Everywhere I look taxis are honking, policemen are lurking, vendors are hustling, businessmen are bustling, beggars are begging. It's a microcosm of the whole city and I haven't even made it one block yet.
Manhattan represents every aspect of humanity crammed onto a narrow, ten-mile long island. It's a virtual Noah's Ark of mankind: over 200 languages are spoken here and its passengers come from every place you've ever heard of, and lots of places you've never heard of too. The population density of Manhattan is 27,267 per square kilometre; by contrast, New Zealand's is 15. 1.6 million people live on Manhattan and millions more commute here to work every day. Busy doesn't even begin to hint at it.
For the first half hour or so I wander about dazed, suffering from a serious case of sensory overload. Famous landmarks keep popping up all around me: Times Square, Carnegie Hall, the Empire State Building, Rockefeller Centre, Columbus Circle, Grand Central Station. At Radio City I pause to check the upcoming events. The Steve Miller Band and Joe Cocker are playing tonight, Steely Dan next week. The Dalai Lama is giving a talk later in the month. And look who's coming in August: "Sting and The Police - Last Ever Concert!". Let's hope so.
Thomas Wolfe once wrote that “one belongs to New York instantly, one belongs to it as much in five minutes as in five years” and I can already understand what he means. The city is an endless swarm of people of all ages, colours, sizes, backgrounds, creeds and races, and I have been immediately subsumed into the melting pot. On each street corner is a different combination of New Yorkers but the component parts are essentially the same. As I stand on a busy corner gazing up tourist-like at a skyscraper, a yuppie speaks assuredly into his phone, an placard-brandishing evangelist preaches to no one in particular, a bum stumbles past saying "the black man don't like this. The black man's had enough of this shit!". The combination of sounds, sights and smells is intoxicating.
Wayne's daughter Susan has promised to show Joey and I around the East Village this evening and with a view to intoxication in a more literal sense. I may already be a New Yorker but I still have no idea where I am, and the size of the city creates the impression that I could roam the streets for weeks and never wind up at the same two spots twice.
New York's persona changes at night - the businessmen go home and the party animals come out - but the streets are equally packed with people going about their business. Some are out walking their dogs while others are hailing down taxis, and younger folk are beginning to mill around outside bars. We take a seat outside a bar on Avenue A and spend the best part of an hour people-watching, which in Manhattan is an endlessly fascinating activity.
At one point, an obnoxious Australian male in a Queensland Reds jersey nearly provides some entertainment by stumbling obliviously into the path of an oncoming taxi, but unfortunately the taxi stops just in time before hitting him and honks loudly. The Aussie meekly makes way and does the fingers to the cab as it disappears down the street, then resumes his attempt at spading the two girls he's with, who may or may not be his sister. There's nothing like moronic Queenslanders to make all the other guys (including us) look respectable, regardless of the venue.
Our journey through East Village takes us through various increasingly blurry-looking bars until we stumble upon Union Square at about 2.30am. Like everywhere else I've been today, it is a swarming hub of activity, even at this late hour. Skateboarders and roller bladers are coexisting happily with sleeping bums and young lovers. In the middle of the square, a group of three or four black guys are having an impromptu blues jam session, armed with a harmonica and a drum. They have decided upon a song named "Phone Bone Blues", about the perils of pursuing the opposite sex via text. Amused onlookers are invited to sing a verse, which many of them do, with a remarkable level of skill if I may say so myself. Within a few minues a crowd of a hundred people or more are huddling around to hear the song, complete with obscene and absurd lyrics, which goes on and on until after 3am.
So far every cliché I've heard about the Big Apple has rung true, and here's another. It really is the city that never sleeps. It never even dozes by the looks of it.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Northvale, NJ
Of the many legendary stories to have emerged from the American War of Independence, few are as poignant as that of John André. Born in London in 1750, he joined the British Army in 1770 and achieved the rank of Lieutenant at the age of 24 and Major at age 28. In 1779, he was appointed head of the British Intelligence Service and went to America to broker a deal with American General Benedict Arnold over the surrender of the key fort at West Point.
On the night of September 20, 1780, André met with the traitorous Arnold on the banks of the Hudson. Arnold provided André with a US passport and civilian clothes that allowed him to pass through American lines unprotected. His luck ran out just three days later, however, when he came upon three armed men and made the fatal mistake of assuming they were British sympathisers. They weren't, and André was promptly marched to the nearby American HQ like a schoolboy who knew he'd overstepped the mark once too many. His fate was already sealed.
André was held at the Old '76 House in Tappan (which was, and still is, a restaurant) while a hastily-arranged tribunal, headed by George Washington himself, investigated the matter. On September 29, André was convicted of spying and sentenced to death by hanging. On the morning of October 2, he was marched up what is now known as André Hill, slipped the noose around his own neck, said "I pray you to bear me witness that I meet my fate like a brave man", and then met his fate like a brave man. He lay buried on that very spot until 1821, when the British government successfully petitioned to have his body exhumed and returned to England, where it now lies in esteemed company at Westminster Abbey.
André was a popular and much loved figure, renowned for his wit, artistic talent and good nature, and his death was greeted with sadness from all sides. Washington wrote that he was "an accomplished man and gallant officer" and claimed that he was "more unfortunate than criminal". Alexander Hamilton wrote that "never perhaps did any man suffer death with more justice, or deserve it less". American army doctor James Thatcher, was who was present at the execution and called it "a tragical scene", claimed that during his time in captivity André "exhibited those proud and elevated sensibilities which designate greatness and dignity of mind".
I tell this story not because it is one of the few historical examples of an Englishman conducting himself with any honour and dignity, but because his grave is less than 30 yards from where I'm staying in the unassuming suburb of Northvale, New Jersey.
Clearly a great number of people have been moved by André's plight, and I can't help but feel the same way too. I find myself wishing I'd been there on that fateful day of his capture, yelling "don't do it John, it's a trap!", but alas. It is the Fourth of July, I suppose, a day on which patriotic sentiments on all sides are magnified tenfold. I'm standing at André's memorial now, a circular lawn about five metres across, at the centre of which stands an impressive obelisk lined with flowers. The inscription reads:
Here died, October 2, 1780, MAJOR JOHN ANDRÉ of the British Army, who entering the American lines on a secret mission to Benedict Arnold for the surrender of West Point was taken prisoner, tried and condemned to death as a spy.
His death, though according to the stern code of war moved even his enemies to pity and both armies mourned the fate of one so young and brave. This stone was placed above the spot where he lay by a citizen of the states against which he fought, not to perpetuate the record of strife but in token of those better feelings which have since united two nations one in race, in language and religion with the earnest hope that this friendly union will never be broken.
You'll have to forgive me for finding this all rather profound. Suddenly it seems unsurprising to me that Americans go so over the top in celebration on their national day. After all, they have a lot to celebrate. As New Zealanders we are incredulous of their seemingly over-the-top fanfare and dismiss it as cringeworthy jingoism, which to a degree it is. But it is also a celebration of America's rich and fascinating history, upon which our friend André left a small but enduring legacy. It is no slight on New Zealand to say we don't have nearly as much history to celebrate, because we simply don't.
So what do New Zealanders do to celebrate their national day? Bugger all. Unless you happen to be in London, in which case you team up with your Aussie and Saffer mates and stagger blind drunk through the streets singing "Slice of Heaven" loudly and out of key. The fact that 12,000 inebriated backpackers urinating on the Houses of Parliament is the most spirited display of nationalism that we can muster speaks volumes about our impoverished history. When it comes down to it, we don't have all that much to get excited about. Not compared to the Yanks, anyway.
After a staunchly home-cooked American dinner of barbecued steaks and sausages, we sit out on the balcony and watch the neighbouring town's fireworks show. It's still raining though and our view is obscured by a tree, so we head inside and watch the Boston fireworks show on Wayne's high definition TV with surround sound instead. I'm sure that's what Washington, Jefferson, Hancock et al would have done if they were here. John André would be there too, sipping Pimms and rolling his eyes at America's enduring penchant for excess.
The fireworks show, with musical accompaniment from the Boston Pops Orchestra, goes on for over half an hour. Finally it comes to a head and dies down and the camera cuts to the host, looking wet, bedraggled and worringly post-orgasmic. He's surrounded by delirious revellers bearing the same telltale signs that some deviant sexual act has just taken place off screen.
"Well I don't know about you folks, but I think I just went to the bathroom a little!", says the host, implying a fetish that the folks at home really didn't need to know about. "The city of Boston spared no expense this year... but you're worth it America!". The channel then immediately cuts to the late night news. "And tonight, we've got all the highlights of tonight's Fourth of July fireworks show!".
And so we spend the next ten minutes watching the televised highlights of the show we just watched on television because it was too much effort to watch it outside. It's not until after the first ad break that we get the real news of the day: this year's Nathan's Fourth of July hot dog-eating competition was won, which was won for the second year running by that skinny white guy. This year he was forced into a playoff by that skinny Japanese guy after both men consumed 68 hot dogs during the allotted fifteen minutes of regulation time, with the skinny white guy (real name Joey Chestnut) prevailing in a sudden-death eat-off.
My mind still buzzing over John André's story, I ask Wayne sceptically if many Americans outside of the neighbourhood know anything about him.
"Oh yeah", he says, "we get people driving up the street all the time to have a look at his memorial. The 225th anniversary of his death in 2005 was a really big event. They did a full historical re-enactment and everything".
Well, why not eh? Everyone loves a dress-up party.
"We had some friends round for brunch", Wayne continues. "Then we went down into town to watch the whole re-enactment. It was great. They had real actors playing André, Washington, and the rest. Authentic 1770s garments, real muskets and everything. And they followed the whole story according to historical detail. Right up to the hanging and burial, anyways". A bit anti-climactic, but there you go.
"Yeah, it was a hell of a show. A few of the mock British soldiers stood around in the driveway before the hanging and had a chat. Real muskets and everything. Then when it was all over, everyone came back inside and we had lunch".
What a country.
On the night of September 20, 1780, André met with the traitorous Arnold on the banks of the Hudson. Arnold provided André with a US passport and civilian clothes that allowed him to pass through American lines unprotected. His luck ran out just three days later, however, when he came upon three armed men and made the fatal mistake of assuming they were British sympathisers. They weren't, and André was promptly marched to the nearby American HQ like a schoolboy who knew he'd overstepped the mark once too many. His fate was already sealed.
André was held at the Old '76 House in Tappan (which was, and still is, a restaurant) while a hastily-arranged tribunal, headed by George Washington himself, investigated the matter. On September 29, André was convicted of spying and sentenced to death by hanging. On the morning of October 2, he was marched up what is now known as André Hill, slipped the noose around his own neck, said "I pray you to bear me witness that I meet my fate like a brave man", and then met his fate like a brave man. He lay buried on that very spot until 1821, when the British government successfully petitioned to have his body exhumed and returned to England, where it now lies in esteemed company at Westminster Abbey.
André was a popular and much loved figure, renowned for his wit, artistic talent and good nature, and his death was greeted with sadness from all sides. Washington wrote that he was "an accomplished man and gallant officer" and claimed that he was "more unfortunate than criminal". Alexander Hamilton wrote that "never perhaps did any man suffer death with more justice, or deserve it less". American army doctor James Thatcher, was who was present at the execution and called it "a tragical scene", claimed that during his time in captivity André "exhibited those proud and elevated sensibilities which designate greatness and dignity of mind".
I tell this story not because it is one of the few historical examples of an Englishman conducting himself with any honour and dignity, but because his grave is less than 30 yards from where I'm staying in the unassuming suburb of Northvale, New Jersey.
Clearly a great number of people have been moved by André's plight, and I can't help but feel the same way too. I find myself wishing I'd been there on that fateful day of his capture, yelling "don't do it John, it's a trap!", but alas. It is the Fourth of July, I suppose, a day on which patriotic sentiments on all sides are magnified tenfold. I'm standing at André's memorial now, a circular lawn about five metres across, at the centre of which stands an impressive obelisk lined with flowers. The inscription reads:
Here died, October 2, 1780, MAJOR JOHN ANDRÉ of the British Army, who entering the American lines on a secret mission to Benedict Arnold for the surrender of West Point was taken prisoner, tried and condemned to death as a spy.
His death, though according to the stern code of war moved even his enemies to pity and both armies mourned the fate of one so young and brave. This stone was placed above the spot where he lay by a citizen of the states against which he fought, not to perpetuate the record of strife but in token of those better feelings which have since united two nations one in race, in language and religion with the earnest hope that this friendly union will never be broken.
You'll have to forgive me for finding this all rather profound. Suddenly it seems unsurprising to me that Americans go so over the top in celebration on their national day. After all, they have a lot to celebrate. As New Zealanders we are incredulous of their seemingly over-the-top fanfare and dismiss it as cringeworthy jingoism, which to a degree it is. But it is also a celebration of America's rich and fascinating history, upon which our friend André left a small but enduring legacy. It is no slight on New Zealand to say we don't have nearly as much history to celebrate, because we simply don't.
So what do New Zealanders do to celebrate their national day? Bugger all. Unless you happen to be in London, in which case you team up with your Aussie and Saffer mates and stagger blind drunk through the streets singing "Slice of Heaven" loudly and out of key. The fact that 12,000 inebriated backpackers urinating on the Houses of Parliament is the most spirited display of nationalism that we can muster speaks volumes about our impoverished history. When it comes down to it, we don't have all that much to get excited about. Not compared to the Yanks, anyway.
After a staunchly home-cooked American dinner of barbecued steaks and sausages, we sit out on the balcony and watch the neighbouring town's fireworks show. It's still raining though and our view is obscured by a tree, so we head inside and watch the Boston fireworks show on Wayne's high definition TV with surround sound instead. I'm sure that's what Washington, Jefferson, Hancock et al would have done if they were here. John André would be there too, sipping Pimms and rolling his eyes at America's enduring penchant for excess.
The fireworks show, with musical accompaniment from the Boston Pops Orchestra, goes on for over half an hour. Finally it comes to a head and dies down and the camera cuts to the host, looking wet, bedraggled and worringly post-orgasmic. He's surrounded by delirious revellers bearing the same telltale signs that some deviant sexual act has just taken place off screen.
"Well I don't know about you folks, but I think I just went to the bathroom a little!", says the host, implying a fetish that the folks at home really didn't need to know about. "The city of Boston spared no expense this year... but you're worth it America!". The channel then immediately cuts to the late night news. "And tonight, we've got all the highlights of tonight's Fourth of July fireworks show!".
And so we spend the next ten minutes watching the televised highlights of the show we just watched on television because it was too much effort to watch it outside. It's not until after the first ad break that we get the real news of the day: this year's Nathan's Fourth of July hot dog-eating competition was won, which was won for the second year running by that skinny white guy. This year he was forced into a playoff by that skinny Japanese guy after both men consumed 68 hot dogs during the allotted fifteen minutes of regulation time, with the skinny white guy (real name Joey Chestnut) prevailing in a sudden-death eat-off.
My mind still buzzing over John André's story, I ask Wayne sceptically if many Americans outside of the neighbourhood know anything about him.
"Oh yeah", he says, "we get people driving up the street all the time to have a look at his memorial. The 225th anniversary of his death in 2005 was a really big event. They did a full historical re-enactment and everything".
Well, why not eh? Everyone loves a dress-up party.
"We had some friends round for brunch", Wayne continues. "Then we went down into town to watch the whole re-enactment. It was great. They had real actors playing André, Washington, and the rest. Authentic 1770s garments, real muskets and everything. And they followed the whole story according to historical detail. Right up to the hanging and burial, anyways". A bit anti-climactic, but there you go.
"Yeah, it was a hell of a show. A few of the mock British soldiers stood around in the driveway before the hanging and had a chat. Real muskets and everything. Then when it was all over, everyone came back inside and we had lunch".
What a country.
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Continental Flight 629
"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard Flight 629 from Denver to Newark. Our flight time today is approximately three hours and twelve minutes and we're heading towards a cruising altitude of 33,000 feet. In a few moments our in-flight entertainment will commence, as a baby a few rows behind you begins screaming persistently for the first half of the flight. We will be serving light refreshments this afternoon, after which another unseen baby will scream right up until landing in Newark. Enjoy the flight".
I'd be prepared to accept screaming babies on planes as an unfortunate fact of life if it weren't for a couple of strange circumstances surrounding the issue. Firstly, there are ALWAYS two screaming babies on a plane. Never one, never three, never four, always two. What's more, the timing of said screaming implies a sense of coordination and planning far beyond the capability of two infants. The first baby will scream for the entire first half of the flight until subdued, at which point the second baby immediately picks up the slack and brings it all the way home. There must be something more sinister at work here.
The other thing that troubles me is that I've never actually seen a baby on a plane. I've never sat next to, or across the aisle from one, nor have I ever seen one being carried down the aisle by a doting mother. Babies on planes seem to only exist aurally, usually three or four rows behind and obscured by the seats in between. But they're always there. The only conclusion I can draw is that the screaming baby noise is fabricated by airlines to make the experience of flying so unpleasant as to heighten the anticipation of arrival at one's destination. I guess this would be particularly welcome for people flying into Baghdad or Christchurch, for instance, but I'm flying into New York City and I'm already looking forward to it enough as it is.
The actual in-flight entertainment is, as usual, an abysmal sitcom. I don't have sound because no one gave me any headphones; nevertheless just from watching the picture I'm able to make that qualitative judgment. I have no idea what the name of the show is, but the protagonist appears to be an overweight father who has trouble relating to his kids, so that narrows it down to any one of about 75 American sitcoms. I turn my attention to the New York Times Wednesday crossword, but it's too hard to concentrate over the sound of the baby having its toenails removed without anaesthetic, so I just stare out the window at the interminable cornfields instead.
We arrived at Denver airport from Vail three-and-a-half hours before boarding, which at least gave us ample time to weigh up our fast food options for lunch. Every place looked as bad as the next, so we settled on the devil we knew. McDonald's is bad enough at the best of times, but at 11 in the morning it is enough to inspite revolt in one's innards. "At least you know that's the worst burger you'll eat on this trip", I say to Joey as he struggles through a double quarter pounder (which I assume would be a half pounder?). Naturally, on our way to board the plane we stumbled upon a previously unseen foodcourt that displayed an array of enticing sandwiches, burritos and calzones. The Big Mac was haunting me already.
Back on the plane, I'm about to eat my words. Literally. Turns out our lunchtime refreshment is - what else would it be in this country - a burger. Well, calling it a burger is perhaps being a little generous. It has come in a sealed plastic bag, purporting to be "char-broiled", but judging by the sogginess of the bun it seems more likely to have been char-boiled. It comes with the same tired, jaundiced lettuce that I not long ago encountered in my Big Mac, not to mention the same I-cannot-possibly-fathom-how-this-substance-could-be-naturally-occurring cheese. It tastes like... well, I can't even find the descriptive terms to do it justice. Suffice it to say it makes the Big Mac look like haute cusine. I eat it nevertheless, because it's a burger, and that's what I do.
We're now 135 miles east of Newark in what the pilot has just called a "holding pattern". What does Gavin Larsen have to do with air travel, I'm thinking, before realising that he means we're stuck in traffic. That doesn't often happen on approach to Dunedin. I start to wonder how Gavin Larsen managed to keep creeping into my subconscious before the second baby's screaming cuts me off as it climaxes into a riotous crecendo.
It now sounds as if the baby is being dealt to with a blunt hacksaw. Each scream is more desperate and more blood-curdling than the last. How on Earth do babies do it? At sporting events, I always seem to lose my voice from shouting abuse at opposition players before the game has even started. These little pricks can just go on for hours and hours and hours. Ominously, I'm beginning to see the human side of Chris Kahui.
Suddenly the plane descends through the clouds and there, for the first time in my life, are all the city's landmarks laid out before me. First the George Washington Bridge, then Central Park, then the iconic skyscrapers of midtown, the Chrysler Building, Citicorp Centre, the Empire State Building, Ground Zero and finally, the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, all basking in the early evening sun. I've seen it through a movie screen a million times. This time, I'm seeing it through an aeroplane window.
Shortly thereafter, we're touching down in Newark. "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to New York", says the air hostess. "As we will be taxiing for a few more minutes, please remain seated with your seatbelts fastened". 180 seatbelts go *click* more or less simultaneously. Then the baby stops screaming momentarily, only to roar back into life as if prodded into action by an unseen airline employee.
Old family friend Wayne is waiting for us at the airport to take us back to his house in suburban New Jersey. Wayne and his family have been kind enough to put up with us for a couple of weeks. The drive up I-95 takes us through miles of industrial wasteland. Unless I'm mistaken, it's the freeway that features in the opening sequence of The Sopranos, but for all I know every road in the city could look like this. I can't help but notice the car being overwhelmed by a foul, unnatural stench. Has Joey farted again?
"Smell those chemical processing vapours? Mmmm", says Wayne, as he is outrageously cut off by an SUV in the lane next to him, very nearly occasioning a 20-car pile up. "Welcome to New York, boys".
I'd be prepared to accept screaming babies on planes as an unfortunate fact of life if it weren't for a couple of strange circumstances surrounding the issue. Firstly, there are ALWAYS two screaming babies on a plane. Never one, never three, never four, always two. What's more, the timing of said screaming implies a sense of coordination and planning far beyond the capability of two infants. The first baby will scream for the entire first half of the flight until subdued, at which point the second baby immediately picks up the slack and brings it all the way home. There must be something more sinister at work here.
The other thing that troubles me is that I've never actually seen a baby on a plane. I've never sat next to, or across the aisle from one, nor have I ever seen one being carried down the aisle by a doting mother. Babies on planes seem to only exist aurally, usually three or four rows behind and obscured by the seats in between. But they're always there. The only conclusion I can draw is that the screaming baby noise is fabricated by airlines to make the experience of flying so unpleasant as to heighten the anticipation of arrival at one's destination. I guess this would be particularly welcome for people flying into Baghdad or Christchurch, for instance, but I'm flying into New York City and I'm already looking forward to it enough as it is.
The actual in-flight entertainment is, as usual, an abysmal sitcom. I don't have sound because no one gave me any headphones; nevertheless just from watching the picture I'm able to make that qualitative judgment. I have no idea what the name of the show is, but the protagonist appears to be an overweight father who has trouble relating to his kids, so that narrows it down to any one of about 75 American sitcoms. I turn my attention to the New York Times Wednesday crossword, but it's too hard to concentrate over the sound of the baby having its toenails removed without anaesthetic, so I just stare out the window at the interminable cornfields instead.
We arrived at Denver airport from Vail three-and-a-half hours before boarding, which at least gave us ample time to weigh up our fast food options for lunch. Every place looked as bad as the next, so we settled on the devil we knew. McDonald's is bad enough at the best of times, but at 11 in the morning it is enough to inspite revolt in one's innards. "At least you know that's the worst burger you'll eat on this trip", I say to Joey as he struggles through a double quarter pounder (which I assume would be a half pounder?). Naturally, on our way to board the plane we stumbled upon a previously unseen foodcourt that displayed an array of enticing sandwiches, burritos and calzones. The Big Mac was haunting me already.
Back on the plane, I'm about to eat my words. Literally. Turns out our lunchtime refreshment is - what else would it be in this country - a burger. Well, calling it a burger is perhaps being a little generous. It has come in a sealed plastic bag, purporting to be "char-broiled", but judging by the sogginess of the bun it seems more likely to have been char-boiled. It comes with the same tired, jaundiced lettuce that I not long ago encountered in my Big Mac, not to mention the same I-cannot-possibly-fathom-how-this-substance-could-be-naturally-occurring cheese. It tastes like... well, I can't even find the descriptive terms to do it justice. Suffice it to say it makes the Big Mac look like haute cusine. I eat it nevertheless, because it's a burger, and that's what I do.
We're now 135 miles east of Newark in what the pilot has just called a "holding pattern". What does Gavin Larsen have to do with air travel, I'm thinking, before realising that he means we're stuck in traffic. That doesn't often happen on approach to Dunedin. I start to wonder how Gavin Larsen managed to keep creeping into my subconscious before the second baby's screaming cuts me off as it climaxes into a riotous crecendo.
It now sounds as if the baby is being dealt to with a blunt hacksaw. Each scream is more desperate and more blood-curdling than the last. How on Earth do babies do it? At sporting events, I always seem to lose my voice from shouting abuse at opposition players before the game has even started. These little pricks can just go on for hours and hours and hours. Ominously, I'm beginning to see the human side of Chris Kahui.
Suddenly the plane descends through the clouds and there, for the first time in my life, are all the city's landmarks laid out before me. First the George Washington Bridge, then Central Park, then the iconic skyscrapers of midtown, the Chrysler Building, Citicorp Centre, the Empire State Building, Ground Zero and finally, the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, all basking in the early evening sun. I've seen it through a movie screen a million times. This time, I'm seeing it through an aeroplane window.
Shortly thereafter, we're touching down in Newark. "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to New York", says the air hostess. "As we will be taxiing for a few more minutes, please remain seated with your seatbelts fastened". 180 seatbelts go *click* more or less simultaneously. Then the baby stops screaming momentarily, only to roar back into life as if prodded into action by an unseen airline employee.
Old family friend Wayne is waiting for us at the airport to take us back to his house in suburban New Jersey. Wayne and his family have been kind enough to put up with us for a couple of weeks. The drive up I-95 takes us through miles of industrial wasteland. Unless I'm mistaken, it's the freeway that features in the opening sequence of The Sopranos, but for all I know every road in the city could look like this. I can't help but notice the car being overwhelmed by a foul, unnatural stench. Has Joey farted again?
"Smell those chemical processing vapours? Mmmm", says Wayne, as he is outrageously cut off by an SUV in the lane next to him, very nearly occasioning a 20-car pile up. "Welcome to New York, boys".
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Vail, CO
This morning we find ourselves atop Independence Pass, a place of great geographical significance. I am standing on the Great Divide, you see. Not the Great Divide in a Scott Stapp sense, but a continental divide that physically splits North America between east and west. If I were to stand on this spot and urinate (hypothetically speaking of course), in a westerly direction, it would filter down into the headwaters of the Colorado River and eventually make its way into the Gulf of California and on into the Pacific Ocean.
Now, if I were to execute a 180-degree turn - taking care not to get any on my shoes - and send my precious cargo in an easterly direction, it would join a tributary of the mighty Mississippi and eventually exit into the Gulf of Mexico, to join the Atlantic. Who knows to what extent that spur-of-the-moment decision might eventually come to change the course of history. A hawk circles overhead apprehensively, fully aware of the power I wield in my right hand.
At the lookout, the Aspen Road winds down the mountain far below us. A couple of maniacs on bikes are making the slow ascent towards us, but there is little in the way of vehicle traffic. This road is in fact closed due to bad weather for almost two-thirds of the year. A nearby roadsign is a reminder of this, saying "Icy Conditions May Exist". Interesting. Perhaps the Icy Conditions belong to the same bookclub as the Gusty Winds on the Arizona/New Mexico Border and they're currently reading the works of Sartre and Camus.
For the first time on my journey I am aware of the cold: the temperature gauge in the car shows 14 degrees. But then we are 12,095 feet above sea level, enough to make a man not only shiver but struggle noticeably for breath. By way of comparison, the summit of Mt Cook is 12,316 feet, merely 70m higher than where I'm standing now. I get back into the car, satisfied that I'll never need to climb Mt Cook now, and we set off for Vail.
A couple of hours later, we arrive and pull into a hotel on the edge of Vail Village. I know from previous conversations with people that Vail is to Aspen what Wanaka is to Queenstown: a mellower, less glamourous but more family-oriented ski destination for the not-so-rich-and-famous; and a pleasant, outdoorsy place for a getaway in the summer months.
Turns out Vail is nothing like Wanaka at all - nor is it at all like anywhere else. Walking around the village, I'm reminded of Disneyland crossed with The Truman Show. All the people, buildings and shopfronts are real, but in a completely fake way. I suppose it is little wonder that the town seems artificial, given that it's been built from scratch over the past 45 years, but these concrete parking lots and high rises just seem so shockingly out of place here in the Rockies, surrounded by pristine wilderness and undoubtedly lots of bears.
Vail is modelled on a alpine European village, and to some extent it succeeds. The high rise buildings feature pointed roofs and numerous stepbacks in the European style, as do the chalets stretching up the sides of the valley. Trouble is, most European villages don't have busy transcontinental freeways laden with 18-wheel trucks scything through them, nor do they tend to have massive 200-foot construction cranes spoiling the view. These unmistakably American footprints on the town are rather jarring. Likewise, where you might expect to see Heidi prancing about in a meadow, you see American tourists with the usual t-shirt-and-shorts configuration standing around outside burger joints and scratching their heads. Actually, the hefty Americans are about the less contrived thing about the town.
With a tinge of sadness, I report that Vail represents the ending point for the first leg of my Insipid Journeys. The journey has taken us through five Western states and more than 1500 miles of highway over seventeen days. It has been incident-packed, occasionally entertaining and usually fattening. I have met some real characters on the way, mainly of the human variety. People that could only have come from this special part of the world, with its wide open spaces, interminable sunshine and the veritable melting pot of cultural influences that make the South-West so unique. Truth be told, it has been anything but insipid.
Tomorrow, we drop off the trusty old Mercury Grand at Denver Airport and board a plane for the East Coast. There, lurking in the sweltering midsummer twilight, waits the mother of all cities. The Big Apple, Metropolis, The Big Smoke, The City That Never Sleeps.
New York Fuckin' City.
Now, if I were to execute a 180-degree turn - taking care not to get any on my shoes - and send my precious cargo in an easterly direction, it would join a tributary of the mighty Mississippi and eventually exit into the Gulf of Mexico, to join the Atlantic. Who knows to what extent that spur-of-the-moment decision might eventually come to change the course of history. A hawk circles overhead apprehensively, fully aware of the power I wield in my right hand.
At the lookout, the Aspen Road winds down the mountain far below us. A couple of maniacs on bikes are making the slow ascent towards us, but there is little in the way of vehicle traffic. This road is in fact closed due to bad weather for almost two-thirds of the year. A nearby roadsign is a reminder of this, saying "Icy Conditions May Exist". Interesting. Perhaps the Icy Conditions belong to the same bookclub as the Gusty Winds on the Arizona/New Mexico Border and they're currently reading the works of Sartre and Camus.
For the first time on my journey I am aware of the cold: the temperature gauge in the car shows 14 degrees. But then we are 12,095 feet above sea level, enough to make a man not only shiver but struggle noticeably for breath. By way of comparison, the summit of Mt Cook is 12,316 feet, merely 70m higher than where I'm standing now. I get back into the car, satisfied that I'll never need to climb Mt Cook now, and we set off for Vail.
A couple of hours later, we arrive and pull into a hotel on the edge of Vail Village. I know from previous conversations with people that Vail is to Aspen what Wanaka is to Queenstown: a mellower, less glamourous but more family-oriented ski destination for the not-so-rich-and-famous; and a pleasant, outdoorsy place for a getaway in the summer months.
Turns out Vail is nothing like Wanaka at all - nor is it at all like anywhere else. Walking around the village, I'm reminded of Disneyland crossed with The Truman Show. All the people, buildings and shopfronts are real, but in a completely fake way. I suppose it is little wonder that the town seems artificial, given that it's been built from scratch over the past 45 years, but these concrete parking lots and high rises just seem so shockingly out of place here in the Rockies, surrounded by pristine wilderness and undoubtedly lots of bears.
Vail is modelled on a alpine European village, and to some extent it succeeds. The high rise buildings feature pointed roofs and numerous stepbacks in the European style, as do the chalets stretching up the sides of the valley. Trouble is, most European villages don't have busy transcontinental freeways laden with 18-wheel trucks scything through them, nor do they tend to have massive 200-foot construction cranes spoiling the view. These unmistakably American footprints on the town are rather jarring. Likewise, where you might expect to see Heidi prancing about in a meadow, you see American tourists with the usual t-shirt-and-shorts configuration standing around outside burger joints and scratching their heads. Actually, the hefty Americans are about the less contrived thing about the town.
With a tinge of sadness, I report that Vail represents the ending point for the first leg of my Insipid Journeys. The journey has taken us through five Western states and more than 1500 miles of highway over seventeen days. It has been incident-packed, occasionally entertaining and usually fattening. I have met some real characters on the way, mainly of the human variety. People that could only have come from this special part of the world, with its wide open spaces, interminable sunshine and the veritable melting pot of cultural influences that make the South-West so unique. Truth be told, it has been anything but insipid.
Tomorrow, we drop off the trusty old Mercury Grand at Denver Airport and board a plane for the East Coast. There, lurking in the sweltering midsummer twilight, waits the mother of all cities. The Big Apple, Metropolis, The Big Smoke, The City That Never Sleeps.
New York Fuckin' City.
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