Stuff I’ve done
<!– @page { margin: 2cm } P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm } –>
Becky arrived with her friend Anushia on Thursday night which was very exciting. Anushia was just as friendly as Becky and we got on instantly well. They had ridden around all day on bikes that I lent them from my house mates. On Friday they chilled by themselves around Santa Monica, and Friday night we all went out to see some crazy musician guy play. He did some loop stuff where he plays something on the piano, records it so it plays over and over again, then goes to the drums and records a beat which does the same, then he plays the guitar and sings over it. It was all very interesting, but not necesarily fun. He did do some good covers – two of them – I kissed a girl and a Nirvana one, and he also played with a pretty good band with an amazing singer. This singer looked really awkward – he was a larger chap and dressed in a suit, the sort of suit that people dress in to draw attention to himself. He looked visibly awkward standing on stage when he wasn’t singing, and it made me feel awkward, but then when he would sing it would really justify him being there – he was amazing. The show ended with the main guy who we came to see playing random notes on an electric guitar for about 8 minutes – it was really funny because we’d all paid $25 to see this chap, and he was making this noise that not only did not sound like music, but was actually really unpleasent. Although, I then realised that he plays here every week and fills out a decent sized room, so it must be me who has the problem with the music, because he is certainly popular enough. The next day we went for a really sweet hike – Becky, Anushia, Ryan and I and then that night we went to a fellow intern’s Aunt’s place for dinner. It was in West Hollywood at a really nice spot. The house was really trendy and cool and out the back they had a heated lap pool. We sat around for a while, I drank a fantastic Apple spritzer or two with lime juice and talked about travelling, then had a fantastic meal, played some table tennis and had a nice old dip in the pool. It was just such a great experience – hanging with cool people at a great location and just feeling really good. After a while we all went to a hotel in Hollywood. Behind the bar there, they had ‘living art’. Which was a girl lying on a matress behind glass. Apparently at this particular place they have a girl there 24 hours a day. The girls can do what ever they want, but can’t interact with the audience. When we were there, this girl (decked in singlet and undies) was looking at facebook and listening to music. Crazy eh? So we hung at the hotel for a little while, do a bit of dancing and then I drove us back in Kate’s car. It was about 3:30 when we finally got to sleep. The next morning we woke at a quarter to 8 to go to Disney land, but Joe slept in so Becky and I had another nap for an hour, while Anushia got caught up with the internet, then Joe was a bit late again, there was lots of traffic getting to Disney land, and once we finally got in, Joe had to update his pass which meant more waiting – so it was about 11 or so before we were actually in Disney land ready to go. By this time I was starting to think that the day couldn’t go any worse – but my mood changed very very dramatically. We went on ride after ride, and because we were all so lacking sleep, we got sillily excited about things. In between rides we skipped and danced, and on the rides we sung and yelled and the whole day we surfed the waves of extreme happiness and excitement. We did though all have our lows where we needed a break and some food to eat. But all in all I probably haven’t had so much fun in one day, possibly ever. It was just the right group of people, the right time, the right place and the right mood. At one point, I think the second time that we rode Space Mountain, my voice was so saw from screaming and I was just thinking, ‘I wish I knew other ways to express my happiness, I feel trapped in this body’. So I just started pounding the air with my fists as hard as I could. The whole day was soooooo much fun.Another highlight of the day for me was meeting Mary Poppins. We saw her from a distance and rushed over, and then she came straight up to me, passed the other people that were lining up and introduced herself and asked for my name. We shook hands, and she asked me in her proper english accent if I would mind doing a favour for her. Well, I would have walked on coals for her to be honest, she was so pretty, proper, and in control that I had a massive crush on her in that instant. She asked me to put up my hand and tell everyone that I was the last in line to see her. I took my role very seriously and she thanked me when we got a little closer, and also told me that I could put my hand down. I was initially a bit scepticle as Disney is such a large brand, I thought the whole thing was just a money making venture, but at the bottom of the Walt Disney statue there is a saying that he said once ‘I just wanted to make a place where children and their parents could have fun’. And my word, he really nailed that.
Then on Tuesday Becky and Anushia left and I got right into my last assignment for my online course. It took up all of my free time but I think I got it done to a pretty good level. Turns out that I didn’t actually need to do any of it in order to pass as I’d done well enough in my other assignments to garantee that. I got a distinction in my last paper, which I was stoked about. Yesterday I submitted my paper, and when I told Ryan that, he said that we should have a graduation. So he found the music on youtube, I put on a hat, sleeping bag and towel as a gown and we walked around the house, I shook everyone’s hand, recieved an envelope and a drink bottle from them and then through up my hat in the air to everyone’s applause. It probably meant alot more to me than they might think. The significance of finishing Uni and graduating from Newcastle doesn’t actually mean that much to me. But I know that when Hay graduated the whole fam and Phil’s fam went there to see her and we all got pics together and it was very lovely. So now at least I have a pic of my graduation that can go up on the wall next to Hay’s. It seems pretty silly, but I’m really gratefull for it.
It’s fun how some things just seem to work out the way they do for a reason. When I was just about to start work on that last assignment the internet wouldn’t let me access the university web page on my computer. So I asked my friends here and their’s wouldn’t let it happen either. So I thought I’d go for a walk down to Deandra’s house – the girl that Ryan and I were introduced to by the lady who we randomly bumped into twice almost two weeks ago. I haven’t talked to Deandra since then, but I thought it would be worth a shot. I also didn’t know where she lived, and was just planning on walking down the street and knocking on the door of the house that had a brown Prius infront of it. There was no Prius to be seen as I walked down the street so I kept walking. When I reached the end of the street, low and behold I saw the Prius parking and it was timed so beautifully that when I was walking up to it, Deandra was just getting out. We started chatting, I told her my predicament and we walked into her flat, which was actually behind one of the houses. I jumped on her internet and did my thing as we chatted about her job and then topics leading off from it. She’s a therapist and also teaches pilates. It was really cool, and I wanted to play it right – not necessarily for any sort of romantic intensions, but just because I’ve never been in a situation quite like it. I sipped the water that she offered me, she folded her laundry on her bed and we chatted about life, LA, travelling and facebook. I was conscious that I really shouldn’t overstay my welcome as I really was the one who invited myself in, so I said thanks after 20 mins or so and went to leave. But we just kept chatting for another 10 mins or so after, so I’m pretty sure that I wasn’t intruding too much. She is 29, which is a funny age really. It really hinges on the line for me of being a real adult, or being a peer. We’re now facebook friends and email buddies, and she invited us to go out with her and Paige (the girl we ran into) and some of her friends next Thursday for Paiges birthday at an African themed bar. That sounds quite nice, but really I’d like to go and chill with her in her unit. I think that part of the appeal there is that I’d be doing it by myself, seperate from my interning friends and friends that I’ve had before. Also maybe because it is fun and interesting talking to her – and exciting.
How not to make a good first impression
Today was the first day that us interns and vagabonds were introduced to the CEO and founder of the company. Now in one way we are already very familiar with him – his face is on every box of shoes, he was the runner up on an American reality TV show, he dates a movie star, has been written about in People and Time magazine and has many famous friends and admirers such as Bill Clinton. But in another way we know him very little. Of the whole four weeks that we have been working there, he has only been in the office for one or two days.
So it was with some excitement that we would finally get to meet him, and the introduction had it’s own climactic build up – first being shifted from Monday at 12:00 to Wednesday at 2:00 to Wednesday at 4:00. Now, upon meeting someone who is of such importance it would sort of be nice to make a good first impression. I was just planning on keeping what I had to say simple and consise – relying on my charming Australian accent to make me memorable enough to one day land a full time job. I didn’t want to flounder my words up and make a goose of myself – couldn’t get any worse than that right? Wrong.
As it turns out I made him look like a bit of a goose and me look like a dry witted cocky twat. We started off naming who we were, where we were from and how we heard about the company. After I mentioned I was from Australia, he said that he’d recently been to Cooper Pedi, I said that it was a bit of a hole. He said that he’d stayed under ground, and there was an awkward pause. I could only fill it with ‘that was a joke’. Everyone laughed and he apologised for being slow.
Later on he mentioned that a certain website was Australian, I said ‘oh’ (what else can you say) this prompted many laughs from everyone as it sounded to them like I really didn’t care.
These two instances would have been alright, but this third one just popped out of my mouth before I could really think it through, and I sort of feel a little bad about it.
Adam asked what it was like to live on a boat. He replied that he thought it was great and that it was really cleansing letting go of lots of material posessions and living in a more basic fashion. I then asked where he parked his Porsche. Everyone laughed, including my direct boss who tried to keep a straight face. He then answered the question (in a garage) without giving me any eye contact. Oops.
So I guess if you make yourself look silly then you feel bad and the other person might feel pity for you, but if you make the other person look silly then they feel bad, and probably aren’t all that taken with you in any way shape or form…
Throw another shrimp on the barbie
What is interesting about travelling overseas is hearing and observing how your own country is represented. I was expecting to be bombarded with references to Australia (the film) which costing $150 million and having a star studded cast and director was sure to be a smash world wide. But word on the street is that it bombed. The only time that I heard any reference to it was when I asked someone who said that they were a big movie buff if they had seen it – their reply ‘yeah – I didn’t like it’. What was surprising was the amount of people that asked whether I knew Summer Heights High. Many people mentioned this to me and say that they really love Mr G. They are viewing it mainly on the internet despite it being shown on one of their many many many TV channels. This wouldn’t be quite as popular as Flight of the Conchords – which everyone seems to love (note that ‘everyone’ here refers to the young, generally wealthy, intelligent, socially conscious people that I’m hanging out with). Now with music I thought that Wolfmother would be big Aussie news as they won a Grammy award beating out Nine Inch Nails and Tool, yet only one person that I’ve talked to has heard of them. However I overheard someone talking about The John Butler Trio, and when I was in a large trendy clothes store Muscles’ ‘Ice-cream’ came on over the sound system. Also I recently heard Missy Higgins playing in a yoga shop where we were doing some pilates, and upon my mentioning this to Zach, he said that he was a fan. It’s unlikely that I’m going to hear any Aussie music like the Presets or PNAU when we go ‘out’ though, as this is purely the realm of Gangsta, wicky wa wa hip hop – the strangest one that I heard being a song about Obama who is inaugurated here in about 6 days – BIG news. Not as big as the American cars here though – my word! They dwarf anything Australia has to offer – although I’ve barely been able to test this properly as I have not seen one of the 18 000 or so Holden Monaros that we exported here as Pontiac GTO’s over the last 2 years. Although I did get a fleeting glimpse of Aussie today when I saw a Commodore dressed as a Pontiac G6 glide around a corner and it did actually look quite handsome compared to the majority of blunt and bulbous American cars.
Other big Australia news is ‘The best job in the world’ which was advertised on many TV stations and had lots of people here talking about it. This would have to be one of the best PR campaigns done in recent times – although it won’t be able to out do ‘throw another shrimp on the barbie’ which people say to me every now and then.
weekend fun.
The full time employees at TOMS just took two days off work to go for a ski trip, while the interns did some volunteering. And I feel sorry for them. We had a fantastic four days. To best encapsulate these last fun few days here are of my happiest moments.
On Thursday I sent this message to Justin Cook a Vagabond on Facebook.
“Yo Danger! What are the vagaplans for this wk end? Superbowl this sunday, I think it starts at Man o’clock – you guys should come around.”
To which he replied
Yo fellow Justin! I’ll have to check my vagalendar for my plans this weekend. Normally at Man o’clock I’m out in the forest drinking whiskey while chopping down sequoias with a blunt axe. I usually only take a break to wrestle a grizzly bear to the death, skin it, turn the skin into a coat, and eat then eat the remainder of the bear. raw. But I’ll see if I can move some stuff around so that Derek and I can show up.
Brill.
On Friday night after a day of going to the taping of a comedy show, us interns decided to chill out in the house. We started out playing really silly drinking games (I drank water) and the post flip cup celebrations turned into an impromptu party in our living room. People danced on the table until it was pushed aside and fourteen of us busted some old school moves for about 2 or 3 hours. Highlights include the macarina, very impassioned ‘circle of life’, and the ‘man from down under’ ( they all knew the chorus). There was a very bitter sweet moment though – Vanessa landed very awkwardly on her ankle during ‘Cotten eye Joe’ and had to sit down – so we continued the party for the next couple of songs all sitting on the ground with her with arms and legs in the air.
This next moment is dripping with Americanness – Ryan and I went decided to play some basketball after yoga. The courts were within 20 metres of the beach and were surrounded by palm trees. After a quick warm up we were asked if we wanted to play a game by a big friendly black guy. He said things like ‘nice shootin baby’ and ‘wanna game playa?. We played a couple of games with various people and I even scored plenty of points – going down by like 21-11 or 21-13. After we finished we did hand slap handshakes and I didn’t make a fool of myself – yah!
I hope the full timers had as much fun…
