Culled from The Motley Fool discussion boards:

“Hey, at least I have the pleasure of saying ‘monkey boy’ for four more years.”

“Last time the Republicans had to lie, cheat and steal to win the election. This time they only had to lie. So consider it an improvement.”

“President Bush received more votes than any candidate in history.
So did John Kerry.”

“I’m not happy about the Prize the American people are getting, but they won.”

“In some sense, there are no winners either way. We’ve got a divided country.”

And finally…

“The old dems dominated this country for MANY years by doing one thing but doing it VERY well, We LISTENED! We listened to what john and jane average american were saying. We werent so busy shouting AT them as ya’ll appear to be. We were in touch with what they actually believed and wanted. And we figured out ways to give it to them. We had an actual partnership with the people of the country.

“We didn’t SNEER at the opinions of the working public but treated them with respect. Whether Bush wins again or not is moot. The very fact that he is as unpopular in some ways as he is and that he has given Kerry everything he can handle and more, proves that ya’ll just don’t get it. PLEASE fix this in the next four years as I really have had all the neocon politics that I can tolerate….ok?”
[this last one by a poster named bundoriyagyu]

Here’s something I learned this week. When someone goes to vote in the USA, there may be people at the polling station who can question your right to vote, voting challengers. Anybody can do this. It’s not an official position. Imagine. You’re on the electoral roll, you’ve lined up to get your ballot paper and just as you’re about to collect it, someone comes up and says to an official, “No, this person can’t vote because…”

This law allowing challengers to get in someone’s face and stop them voting differs in each state. In Ohio, for instance, a challenge may be made on the basis of citizenship, residence or age (ie. too young to vote). It’s then up to the official in charge of the polling station whether you can vote on an ordinary ballot or a provisional ballot which is then sent off elsewhere to have your legal status checked and confirmed.

The official presiding at the polls can throw a challenger out if they interfere with the voting process by issuing too many challenges or slowing down the process. But, remember everything is politicized in the USA, so whoever’s running the polling station may have a vested interest in allowing partisan challenges. It’s all up to that official in charge at the polling station.

In some states, this whole challenge thing can be an effective form of intimidation and harrassment, enough to put people off going to the polls in the first place. Think about who’s in charge of the polling stations in some of the southern states where black voters are predominantly Democrat… Of course, that doesn’t mean the Democrats won’t try it too, if they can, and Secretary of State Colin Powell has already invited international observers to monitor this presidential election.

Meanwhile, the Kerry campaign is providing teams of observers and lawyers of its own to ensure laws are upheld on November 2nd. You can’t help thinking that these sorts of ideas–electoral challengers–may have all been a good and practical idea once upon a time but now we’re living in the 21st century. It’s the information age. Computer technology. The internet? Facts like citizenship, residence and age should all be easily checkable at the time of registering to vote, let alone at the polling station.

Claim, counterclaim. Checks, balances. Passions and opinions. This is the US Presidential election. It’s like being stuck in traffic for weeks and discovering the reason is everyone’s stopped to gawp at an incredibly pointless and preventable car wreck.

First off you have to understand something. America is big. Now you think you already know that, but if you’re in the UK it’s hard to grasp. America is big. So when the high school football team plays an away game, they travel a long way. Sometimes it’s like going from England to somewhere in Europe to play another school. Therefore it makes sense to play several away games in row. And that’s why they have homecoming. It’s the return of the football team.

Laura took me to her high school reunion at the weekend. Glenbrook South. This was the 20 year reunion held on a Saturday to coincide with the homecoming parade down the main street of Glenview, which looks to me like a beautiful suburb of Chicago. Tree-lined streets with proper shops (not just boutiques), bars and restaurants down the main street and a recently re-done train station for light rail (commuter transit).

We met up with a few of Laura’s former classmates on Friday at Grandpa’s, a pub with an Irish feel but without the over-the-top theme pub thing. There were a few hundred people in Laura’s graduating class and many of them came to the pub. They smiled hopefully as they scanned the pub for long-lost friends and, to my amusement, I found that simply smiling back meant they would come over and shake my hand. Yes, I was that long-lost friend they never knew.

I know. I am a bad bunny. Obviously the accent was a dead give-away though, so I couldn’t string them along enough to insinuate myself into any reunion photo’s. I did get to meet a real live former homecoming queen and I can report that she was actually, well, a normal friendly person in her late thirties. I don’t why I thought former homecoming queens would be anything other than normal except for the fact I’ve watched too much television. Okay, she was normal with a degree and an MBA. They really value the whole education thing out here.

Saturday, we watched the parade. There were three bands, all of whom played well, by which I mean they played in tune–none of that painfully flat horn section I remember from filming in UK schools. There were some floats, including a large papier-mache dinosaur, animated by kids pulling on ropes and enlivened by sampled sound effects played by more kids on the back of a pick-up truck ahead of them. And there were a lot of sports teams, more than one squashed into their parents’ soft-top sports car. Or in some cases, into their own soft-top sports car.

On the whole, it was very small town America, like I was expecting from the movies and TV, and I liked that about it. It was regular folks living their lives. The homecoming queen and her attendants were the only major difference from the films. Not so much the girls, but the fact they were just sitting in the back of cars with their partners, waving and wearing sweats and slacks. I was expecting big floats carrything them with them all teeth and ballgowns. Well, it was a chilly day, so you can’t blame them, even if it wasn’t freezing Chicago-style–ie. cold enough to make body parts burst and fall off. It was just chilly. About 30º.

We went over to the high school next–Glenbrook South–for a tour of the building. Welcome back, Pointers. The first place we went was the amphitheatre. Yes, a full sized theater, with fixed seating, raked, and a stage with a hydraulic section that moves out for an orchestra. 2700 kids go to this school and most of their parents have money. I commented to one guy about this. He said, “Yep. We were a bunch of spoiled brats.” Spoiled smart brats. With lots of money. I gave him one of those ‘You should be my client’ smiles.

Our tour took us through the radio and TV studios. This is the high school TV studio. Before they start applying to go to film school. Can I have my education again, please? Oh, and they had a brand new Apple iMac G5. The one that’s just a flat screen with the computer inside. They only came out last month. We came out into the art block, walking past the Jewellery Studio as we entered the humanities wing. Upstairs, we could see the football field, soccer pitches and the student parking lot (yes), and around to the science wing.

Corridors were lined with lockers like every TV series you’ve ever seen. The dining room was a generic American TV school dining room. It all lived up to my media-biased expectations as we checked out the basketball court (on a par with Dacorum Sports Centre court where national UK games used to be played), and finally we ended up in an aircraft hanger where they obviously built Zeppelins. This, our guide pointed out, was home to the indoor running track and various other sporting facilities including about a dozen more basketball courts.

In short, it’s a big school. A nice big school. A very very nice big school. I should mention that I discovered that winning isn’t everything, by the way, for the average American kid. You are expected to take part and there’s a whole thing about “Earning a letter” which is the big letter that’s sewn on to the baseball (or other) jackets. To get ‘lettered’ high-schoolers need to be members of the band or take part in a sport. Not everyone wins but everyone who takes part can get their letter. I guess that’s kind of like getting a blue ribbon at university level in the UK.

Oh, and I learned that ‘varsity’ level sports refers to high school sports played by the best teams from each school, usually the seniors but it can include younger members of the school if they’re really good. Varsity is not the same as university sports, which was confusing. And, oh again. Not every school is like Glenbrook South. But a lot of them are.

So that was my American high school experience. For now, at least. Until Jack and Sam are a bit older. Laura and I went to the reunion and dance in the evening, although there wasn’t much dancing but, hey, there was a free bar and I didn’t know anyone. I built a fine rapport with the barman, downed more vodka tonics than I can remember and somehow seem to have collected a lot of blue and yellow mardi gras beads…

All our CD’s have now been ripped into the computer and songs spew out at random thanks to the miracle of iTunes. Right now it’s Blondie. 11.59 from Parallel Lines. Which reminds me of Italy and the school trip where I learned to drink beer at the tender age of 15.

We discovered The English Pub which made pizza in a brick oven just outside Venice and served pints of lager. Our history teacher eventually discovered us, all inebriated, swinging on the lounge chairs. He duly rounded us up and shepherded us back to the hotel, where we ran amok and the hard kids painted Paul Jarrett’s glasses with toothpaste as he slept.

I found the hapless Jarrett character asleep in the hotel lobby the next morning. I’d taken the precaution of not sharing a room with the mental cases but was rooming with the Mods, Paul and Andrew, who wore green parkas all the time and listened to The Who. There was one other guy too. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? No, the name’s gone.

Anyway, we hauled our hungover selves into the tour bus…

In the past seven days, I’ve been handed the secret of getting free beer at a rock concert, appeared on National Public Radio, learned swing dance from a Russian and taken my first steps towards being a motion graphics guru.

Sunday: Sumo East and West at the Michigan Theater. An opportunity to meet filmmakers, friends of Nancy’s who have made a feature length documentary. I liked the filmmakers more than the film. Tara, who is front of house manager, sorted me out a staff card after I said the door person always gives me a funny look when I just walk in there. Back home, I started my new After Effects training book intending to work through every chapter until I am a guru.

Monday: Brian Wilson, also at the Michigan. Last of the Beach Boys. We always play the Beach Boys when we go to California (Laura has a very eclectic taste in music). So, Brian Wilson. Full house. Three middle aged dudes bobbed their balding heads in time to the music in perfect unison one row in front of us while their teenage son tried to hide inside the hood of his fleece. Somehow they kept it up for the whole show but the kid left in the interval.

Can’t decide which bit I liked best, although free beer thanks to flashing the new staff card was a bonus. Good Vibrations was awesome, with that combination of rock, electronica, close harmony singing and the wall of sound quality. Brian’s new stuff from the new album was “out there”. We bought the album anyway, although it wasn’t as immediately appealing as the David Byrne latest.

Brian looked completely spaced, like his band was holding him together, but they still gave an excellent two hour show. Surfing USA was a tear to the eye moment, not overdone, not schmaltzy but like you can understand this nation if only fleetingly, just for that moment. Oh, and they sang Barbara Ann, which is probably only funny to me and my sister because our neighbour in Mayflower Avenue used to be Barbara Chan. Guess what we used to sing. I texted Elizabeth to share this high point with her.

Tuesday: Laura at WBO dinner, me taking Sam to soccer then keeping boys from killing each other and stressing out (them, not me) yet still doing their homework. They really do seem to get into the whole “performance art” thing whenever possible. Jack was in full Drama Queen mode having left his homework at his dad’s yet he’s still unable to drag himself away from TV long after to pay attention to his problem. Problem resolved by getting him phoning around friends to get the questions.

Wednesday: Leadership Ann Arbor, first day induction at Chamber of Commerce. Talked to loads and loads of people. Network network network. Out for dinner in the evening at The Earle, one of A2’s finest restaurants. We used one of our few remaining ‘newcomer’ coupons and were suitably well fed.

Thursday: woke up to the sound of me. Yes, you’ve all said, “He’s got the face for radio.” Well, now it’s proven. Russ and I recorded Cinema Chat, the weekly NPR film feature, with host David Fair a couple of weeks ago and my program went out this week. I liked me more at the beginning of the show than me at the end. I was more dynamic to start with, then meandered a bit (much like these blogs) although I didn’t lose the plot entirely.

Thursday evening was the visual effects guru talk at Rackham auditorium at the UofM, mentioned elsewhere. Rackham interior looks very much the learned academic institution, by the way. An instant movie set. Marble floors everywhere, art deco touches and the urinals are so classy, they have a pedal to flush them. Which is nice.

Friday: private swing dance lesson in Saline (pronounced “Celine”) with waif-like Russian instructor, Adriana. Learned three-step, three-step, rock step and some turns. Still don’t feel confident about this new dance as I’m totally concentrating on my footwork and trying to keep that in time to the music but it’s a start. Should feel fitter, sleep better and all those good things if we keep it up.

Presidential debate in the evening. Bush and Kerry looking far more alert. It was style versus substance as Bush played to the bread and circuses crowd, Kerry appealed to the intellectuals. Yes, they’re all politicians, therefore they must be lying. One blog noted that Bush came across as surly and spoiled. Funny, that’s how the rest of the world sees the USA. Funnier, most people here aren’t actually like that at all. It’s not funny at all, is it.

Which reminds me, our new wheelie bin was delivered by the city this week. It came with instructions. And I don’t mean a sheet, I mean a manual. What kind of people need an instruction manual to operate a wheelie bin? Really. You can see why so many people in this country have problems selecting a leader.

Saturday: Sam soccer game in the morning. Spoke to Colin, former Brit who just became US citizen so he can vote against GW. Colin thinks dancing is just for dating. I disagree. Sam’s team lost but it was a good match and only one goal in it, ending 3-2.

U of M football–The Wolverines–versus Minnesota in the afternoon. Wolverines won with new freshman quarterback, Chad Henne, and there was much rejoicing. Hard to believe how big this sport is here, college football that is, when the kids are so young. They really are just kids, some of them were only in high school last year.

Swing dance at the Pittsfield Grange in the evening. Another lesson beforehand, not private this time and no Russian. Instructor got us doing more of the three-step thing, then taught the timing of leading (which is good to know) and then kind of dropped the three-step thing so it all becomes shuffling but keeping the rock step. Rock step seems to be the key to swing. We danced for a good two hours or more, until my legs ached. Various speeds, various songs. Can’t help counting the beats in Russian accent now.

Sunday: legs ache a bit. Finished second chapter of AE book, feels like I’m make some kind of progress. Went round the corner to see Will Smith do the I, Robot thing on the big screen. Not much there from the Asimov books. On the other hand, it was a reasonable action movie and, frankly–aside from the famous ‘three laws of robotics’–Asimov wrote a lot of boring crap. No wonder they changed it.

House is looking particularly beautiful as the trees change colour and provide this red, gold and green backdrop. Squirrels chatter and continue to gorge themselves on our windfalls. Next weekend: Chicago for Laura’s high school reunion. I’m looking forward to this, for many reasons, not least of which is the nosiness factor of seeing inside US schools and comparing to many many movies. There’s also a homecoming parade, football game and dancing. In Russian, natchwarly.

Out here in the midwest, it’s all lawn signs and bumper stickers proclaiming themselves as either right-wing nut-jobs or liberal weeners. New York, I was expecting something similar. But no. I didn’t see one bumper sticker or a single sign in anyone’s window. I didn’t even see a badge (or button as my new compadres like to say).

In fact, I only saw two political comments other than the pro-Kerry T-shirt I wore on Saturday. One was another T-shirt with George senior and George junior sporting the caption “Dumb and Dumber”. The other was some graffiti up on a subway poster for a new TV series.

The poster shows a dad holding a kid up and someone has added a speech bubble to make it look like he’s addressing his son.

“The neo cons have killed more than 1,000 Americans in Iraq”. Someone else has added the word ‘Jews’ so it says “The neo Jews…”. A third person has added, “That’s only a quarter of the Americans killed on 9/11.” [As if those facts–Iraq and 9/11–are actually related, which sadly many Americans actually seem to believe.] A final fourth graffiti contributor has added simply “Grow a brain” although it’s not sure which of the others they’re talking to.

So there you have it. That’s the extent of grass roots, ‘in your face’ political posturing I witnessed in the Big Apple.

Only another 34 more days until the Presidential elections…

“When Americans finally reach Mars, they’ll find a group of Australians already there, running a bar.”

I’m not sure who made this astute observation or even what time it was. I do know we were in a bar, in Manhattan’s Chelsea district, and it was some time after 1am on Saturday morning. It may even have been after two. The bar in question was the Chelsea Commons, a local’s local kind of place, just around the corner from the apartment block where we were staying with my writer friend Sybil.

“We” in this case was me and Pete. Pete had flown over from the UK to buy a laptop and a new camera. The money he saved on this deal was more than enough to pay for not only his flight, but mine too, and still have change. So there we were, in a bar right in the heart of Manhattan.

Pete got in to Penn Station at just after midnight. I flew in from Detroit and arrived in Newark at 11.30am. By the way, we–that’s the royal we–loved the automatic upgrade to first, a big leather seat and a free beer at 10am. Online check-in, so no waiting in a line at the airport. Elite security line, elite boarding. Thank you, Continental. Yes, I’ll miss all the perks when I’m no longer an elite passenger next year.

Anyway, I had the best part of a day to hang out. More than enough time to get in a couple of hours of walking in the afternoon. More than enough time to have a substantial lunch–substantial by normal standards, that is. I’m sure it’s just a regular lunch for a regular New Yorker. I walked. I did lunch. I still had time. More than enough time to take in a couple of movies.

First Wimbledon–Kirsten Dunst moving energetically in a short white skirt and providing all the momentum in a British rom-com based around tennis. It’s a reasonable matinee film, just nothing extraordinary as the cast, including Sam Neill, easily surpassed the formula script. No doubt, though, this will be billed as “a huge hit in the States” when it reaches UK cinemas. Well, I’m sure the half-dozen old dears I sat with in the multiplex were suitably impressed and will be babbling about it at bingo for the rest of this week, Alzheimer’s permitting.

Then The Forgotten. Nothing to do with Alzheimer’s, this is Julianne Moore hanging on to the memory of her son, killed in a tragic accident. One day, she wakes up and friends and family deny the son ever existed. Maybe she has lost her marbles, after all. Julianne chases after the truth. We chase after the point. It’s like a long episode of the Twilight Zone without Rod Serling. Nothing overly cerebral although it’s entertaining, pacey and sometimes unintentionally funny. It provides a couple of great “Holy shit!” moments and one, “Kill her already! Now! Now! Now! Sheesh…” when a police detective offers to help.

Fast forward several hours and I’m at Penn Station meeting Pete. New York Penn Station turns out to be larger than Heathrow Airport. An underground rabbit warren any self-respecting first-player VR gamer would be proud to have created. Pete and I play “Brit Hunt” using our cellphone tracking devices until we eventually hook up. Pete buys some cigs and we take the C train down to Sybil’s.

Next I thought going out to the bar for a couple of quick drinks would be a good thing, so we went round to the Chelsea Commons. I was thinking, “Well, maybe just til one o’clock. Two at the latest.” I hadn’t counted on James, the barman, recognizing me. “Hey! I know you! You were in here a few years ago.” Yes, yes it was me. They can’t get that many Brits there. James had had more than a few shots of Maker’s Mark and was on top form. We were introduced to several of his friends, including Frank who runs a craft services (film catering) firm with his brother.

Frank describes his job as being in charge of morale on set and he has an endless stream of stories about films he’s worked on. Spider-Man, Meet Joe Black, 15 Minutes, Devil’s Advocate… The list went on and so did Frank. So too did the beers. Frank was a fascinating, funny guy and the three of us swopped stories way beyond the wee small hours. James kept the CD’s spinning and the banter flowing as generously as the liquor. It was like being at a friend’s house where you know you should really be getting home but the music and atmosphere keeps getting cooler until your brain simply bails.

Our brains had opened the trapdoors in our heads and bailed long before when all of a sudden it was twenty past four and James was locking up, so we headed down to the Empire Diner, an NYC landmark and location for various films itself. Great burgers, root beer floats and more chat. We eventually headed for home at five and Frank headed back to Queen’s. It was 5.30am before we got to bed yet we were up at 7.30, woken by bright sun streaming in through the windows. Well, if you’ve only got one weekend to see New York, you’ll have to skip something–in our case, sleep.

The rest of the weekend was spent doing more walking. We walked until I got a blister on my heal. We found double decker tour buses at the Empire State Building and bought 48 hour hop-on, hop-off tickets. Much easier on the feet. Our guides showed us what was cool and we got to see a whole lot more, including the Lower East Side, Hell’s Kitchen and Harlem, none of which I’d ever seen before.

Pete took a ton of pictures–hey, it’s what he does!–but still not enough to fill a new 2GB memory card (holds 599 raw images). We took the ferry out to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island but didn’t get off because it took so long to actually get on the boat. Tip for other visitors: if you just want to photograph the skyline, get the Staten Island Ferry which is free.

The Circle Line, which runs out to the Liberty and Ellis Islands, not only costs $10 but seems to be running some kind of graft with the street performers. They build the waiting line to hang around for 90 minutes while an acrobat guy performs and then holds out a hat. He must be making one or two hundred bucks an hour. He’s good but it’s quick and meanwhile the Circle Line ferries are leaving two thirds empty with just the upper deck full and two below devoid of passengers.

Cool views but it all took three hours before we got back to the bus. We met a New Zealander in the bus line–another antipodean travelling the world. Travel was broadening all our minds and the chance of finding an Aussie bar on Mars looked ever more likely. At the same time, an endless stream of street salesmen plied us with Prada handbags, Rolex Oysters and Oakley sunglasses for $5. A remarkable price for such an indispensable fashion item, Pete had to have a pair, so we parted with some cash.

Six or seven full buses came and went in the meantime until eventually the guy let us on to sit on the lower deck. Not ideal, although we smelled the fish market and caught glimpses of the Brooklyn Bridge. We got off the bus outside the NBC studios and walked around to Rockefeller Plaza, where there’s lots of cool art deco incorporated in the buildings and a weird new sculpture depicting life-sized people walking up a 60 foot pole into the sky. We did burgers at Burger Heaven around the corner then worked our way back down to West 23rd via a couple more bars.

It was a long day. It wasn’t over. We crashed for an hour then went over to El Quihote for steaks. Twenty ounce steaks. That looked like a lot given that we were already stuffed with large burgers, so I opted for sole broiled in bananas instead and Mr Stevens wound up with a whole saucepan full of chicken roasted in garlic. “Most people would take some home and have it for lunch tomorrow,” I told him but he scoffed nearly the whole pan leaving just one small carcass before we headed back to the Commons.

It was midnight.

For some reason, I thought we’d just stop for a quick beer with James and Frank, while settling up anything outstanding from our bar tab the night before. Pete had given James $50 at 4.30 but we’d never had a bill and the register was closed when we left. Oh, the reason I thought we’d just do a quick beer was this strange notion that we could maybe sleep before getting up really early to avoid long lines to go up the Empire State Building. I thought we could have maybe just one pint, be asleep by one. We left at 2.30am…

Sunday. Yesterday. 8.10. I’m awake. Pete is snoring in the bed opposite. I get up. Get dressed. I prod him. He snores on. 8.15: I open the blinds and light up the room. Still snoring. 8.20. I open the window and loud bus noises can be heard more clearly. Pete wakes up, bleary eyed. “Time to go,” I tell him and Sybil appears with coffee. Somehow we manage to get out the door and up to 34th and 5th to join the line: “15 minutes from this point”. The sun hasn’t yet burned off all the haze but we have our tall building experience, lots more photos are achieved and we do the Yellow Cab thing back down to West 23rd for breakfast with Sybil.

Our hostess is writing a book about Berlin while simultaneously planning a Zen Buddhist film festival. We eat eggs, bacon, French toast and strawberries at the Moonstruck Diner then call in at the video shop next door which turns out to be an Aladdin’s Cave of movies. Sybil knows someone there who’s involved with Rooftop Films–a short film screening program, along the same lines as Cinema Slam–but they aren’t there so Pete and I head off for more bus rides.

Our next tour guide has a microphone failure and shouts at us with trivia about Hell’s Kitchen, lately renamed Clinton, a name which is ignored by the locals. We wait for a new microphone and a couple of Chinese people get out and order pizza at the place on the corner. They’re back in time for the replacement bus and we go up, around Central Park, past Yoko’s apartment, Julliard, the opera house, Carnegie Hall, Raquel’s apartment, the new Time Warner building, Times Square, Bill Clinton’s offices… an endless list of sights, sites and sounds.

We duck overhanging branches on the open top bus as our guide explains that Broadway doesn’t fit the grid because it was the first road, built over the old Indian trails and extending 170 miles from beginning to end. We do the whole circuit then ask our guide where to get the best burger. He sends us to Island Burgers, a tiny place up on 9th and 51st. We’re having lunch in Hell’s Kitchen. It’s a last taste of New York, medium rare, and then we’re done. Cooked to perfection and more than a little toasted.

I manoeuver the burned out husk of what used to be Pete Stevens to Newark Liberty International Airport and ship him and his toys back to Britain before heading to the bar in Terminal C for a pre-flight Sam Adams’ October special “with a hint of roasted pumpkin”. The sun sets a brilliant scarlet splash over the dramatic skyline before I board the plane and settle down to finish reading National Geographic’s dire warnings about the impending global warming catastrophe. Pete phones. “How do I get a DVD to play in the powerbook?” I explain where the program is and he finds it. Now he can watch Contact on a reasonable sized screen while Virgin hostesses cater to his every whim.

My Continental Express jet thunders down the runway and once again, I’m lifted magically up into the heavens, racing over houses, roads, buildings, then floating up to a void where a full moon looks down with enigmatic indifference. Behind me, the neon lights go down on Broadway and a thousand showtunes ripple out across the Hudson.

My brain is full. I look out in wonder at the millions of gold and silver jewels sparkling up from below, beautifully blotting out the stars from those on the ground. The effect is gorgeous, like a luminous tapestry, all thanks to fossil fuel. Exquisite destruction brings forth something spellbindingly aesthetic in a blip on the cosmic timescale. And it occurs to me that half a globe way, the sun is rising on a group of unambitious surfers as they recover from one pint of amber nectar too many and all too-lucid dreams of brewing in low gravity.

It’s a Wednesday afternoon and I’m out in the front garden (or ‘yard’ as the locals like to say) picking up apples. Maggot-ridden, squirrel-bitten apples. They’d be pretty good if it weren’t for all the wildlife eating them or living in them. Anyway, there’s a ton of apples and I fill up three cartons. While I’m doing this, a few more drop off the tree. These are half eaten. The squirrels are sitting up in the tree trying to drop them on my head.

The squirrels fail and I get all the apples picked up. I had to get rid of them so I could mow the lawn. I have to mow the lawn so I can treat the grass with a combination of fertilizer and weedkiller. Hiawatha, our neighbour, is hanging out at his backyard bar with a couple of friends. I wave. They wave back. Hiawatha is the lead singer of the Cult Heroes, a Detroit rock band. He’s having an afternoon beer or two. He saunters over.

“Hey, Keith! How’s it going?” “Pretty good.” “Hey, that’s Patti Smith’s bass player over there. Why don’t you come over and say hi?” “Sure.” So I wander over and am introduced to Patti Smith’s bass player. He smiles, shakes my hand but I can’t quite make out the name. “Larry?” “Gary.” Great. “Well, I’ve got to get this lawn done. I want to do the weed and feed thing today. You can see all the bare patches where I’ve used Weed-B-Gone.”

Gary looks over, laconically. “You know, if you water that, the grass will come back.” “Yeah?” “Yeah. And I’ve done that weed and feed. The best time to do it is when the grass is wet.” “Okay.” I turn to leave. Hiawatha shakes my hand again and then strokes my fingers like they’re sacred objects. The squirrels are mocking me and I’ve just been given gardening advice by Patti Smith’s bassist. My day has taken a surreal detour. “Okay. Well, I’d better get started. I’ll see you guys.”

I stroll back and rev up the gas mower. I saw the kid across the road racing through the long grass and I know I can do this quickly if I go for it but in the end I only get as far as mowing the lawn, front, back and side. It took two refills of gas in the mower and two hours. It wore me out. That was yesterday. Today we’ll do the weed and feed thing. Bonus: the grass is wet.

Laura took us out to a “downtown network” party tonight. Not so many people there. In fact, about five to start with. They had the coolest DJ, tho, and he had a projector. I’m thinking I’ll get a projector and set myself up as some kind of audio visual VJ guy. This is the third bright idea I’ve had this week. The others were filming back screen projections for worldwide video editors wanting shots of the USA and sock calligraphy.

More about sock calligraphy in a moment. First I’ve got to tell you about Larry. Larry isn’t his real name but we never found out what his real name was, so Larry is as good a name as any. Larry came over and chatted to us at the network party. We were drinking diet Faygo orange. Caffeine free. Sugar free. Grey Goose vodka free? I think not.

So Larry’s telling us he works in construction, supervising a lot, when he isn’t doing various other jobs. So I ask him, “Why is there always a white guy with the Mexicans? They do all the work while he hangs around. Is that the translator?” Larry laughs. So I guess it’s true, although I think he denied it. I followed up with, “Do you speak Spanish?” while Laura tried to hide in the leather sofa.

Larry was a really nice guy, tho, like most Americans I’ve run into. Very personable, easy to talk to. Apparently he used to run a motel here in Ann Arbor. Good idea, you might think with all the students in town and their parents visiting from all over. Good idea, too, with all the football games and other college sports. Except Larry only filled the rooms 30 days of the year. What about the rest of the time? Grey Goose asked: “Did you rent by the hour?” Larry laughed again. Larry’s our new friend, although we don’t know his name.

Maybe Larry will become the first owner of my new sock typeface, the one I’m working on in my head. When I go to bed at night, I often remember something I’m supposed to do the next day. I can’t be bothered to go and find a pen so I make an initial out of the socks I’ve dropped on the floor. Like yesterday, it was “P” for “paint the wall where Sammy dented it” and “make Postcards for Cinema Slam”. This gave me the idea to make a typeface based on socks.

Or perhaps it could be based on all kinds of underwear. You could easily make a B out of a pair of knickers, or an O if you made the leg holes overlap. I think ‘Underpants’ would be a good name for this typeface. It could have variations too, like Underpants Bold and Underpants Light. I bet Underpants Black would be popular with deviant typographers. Or if it was just socks, then we could have Socks Extended and Socks Condensed. Laura rolls her eyes. I don’t think she’s convinced of my genius. Well, we’ll just see, won’t we.

While the “girlie men” are busy talking politics, I’ve been getting to grips with the reel world in Real America.

This past couple of weeks there’s been the whole saga of getting The Car to the LA Shorts Fest, a complete nightmare. I’d written to the Rhode Island Film Festival to give them the shipping info and let them know it was urgent. The deadline was actually August 26th. I called August 26th; no film in LA. I called Rhode Island; it’s been shipped.

Laura and I picked up our new Malibu Maxx on Thursday. Still no word from the festivals, we went away for the weekend. Toronto. We had tickets for the Bluejays playing the Yankees at the Sky Dome and these were good seats, right up behind home plate. We met up with Gail Harvey, a director friend of Simon Cozens, and her family. The Yankees wiped the floor with the Blue Jays: 18-6. We left for Greek Food. Back at the hotel there’s an email from LA, the deadline is pushed back to August 31st. But that’s it.

I call RI, I email RI. No response except the phone call I’ve already had to say the film’s been shipped. I figure, well what the hell, it must be en route. Wednesday arrives. Wednesday September 1st. 5pm. I check the mail. There’s a parcel. From the Rhode Island Film Festival. It’s The Car. I am absolutely 100% fucked off. The postmark says it was sent August 25th. I call LA and someone (?) says there’s a 90% chance of it getting shown. I drive at high speed to the other side of Ann Arbor so I can Fed Ex it overnight. $57.51. I get home and email an invoice to Rhode Island.

Then I go to the pictures.

While I’ve been busy in Michigan, Tom Cruise has been working his nuts off in California and has released a second feature film in the time I’ve barely completed a short. Collateral. It’s about a taxi driver (Jamie Foxx) who winds up with a hitman (Cruise) in his car. Laura declines to see this, although it’s okay, just a bit too long for an action film with only one character developed (not Cruise).

It’s a quiet night at the Quality 16 Showcase Theater. Various people with disabilities are down at the front. Thirty minutes into the film, one of them empties his bladder on the floor. It’s not quick or subtle. They needed the big weewee. The person who brought him sits behind him and ignores him. Why? God alone knows. It’s like going back in time to somewhere very primitive. Perhaps this is what the Wild West was like; cowboys just peed wherever they felt the urge, like a Manchester clubber on the way home. Who knows. All I know is it needs blogging about.

Back home, an email arrives from the RIFF director to say he’s looking into what happened with The Car. Two more days go by before I finally get through to the Filmmaker Liaison at the LA Shorts Fest. She’s really sweet. British, I think. Yes, they have got the film and it’s at the ArcLight Cinema, ready for screening. I make a mental note to get an extra copy made to take with us when we fly out on Friday. I can’t tell you how relieved I am, although not enough to pee on the carpet.

Finally, I finish the intro video for Artrain USA and burn it on to a DVD. I pick up another carton of insect-bitten and squirrel-munched apples and apple remains shed by our tree and put them out for the trashmen. Then we go and see Hero. It’s very beautiful, slow-motion martial arts, a simple story that unfolds with wonderful photography and actors flying dreamlike while they attack each other with swords. No one pees this time (Laura tells me this is actually really unusual behaviour) in the half-full theater and we both enjoy the movie.