You know you’re on a Foreign Exchange to America When... You Try to Figure out Which America You’re Living In.

Last week Americans made a big choice. They chose who they want to represent their country for the next four years. Slightly more important than ‘Ranch or Italian’, me thinks.

However, this decision doesn’t have the instant gratification others do. It’s like the country has been given that toy they always wanted for Christmas. They know they’ve got it, they can see it right there under the tree but they can’t open it until January 20th. Until then they only have the old one, with a wonky wheel. It used to be fun but since it ran into that brick wall (Iraq? The economy? Take your pick.) it has never been the same.

And let’s not forget that there are a lot of people who didn’t want the new toy at all. The Deep South and of course, Alaska wanted Mr. Potato head with the special military attachments and Barbie doll wife. They can’t quite understand why all of a sudden everyone else preferred basketball.

The obsession with the new toy has led a newly election starved media to leap on the idea that Obama’s presidency will lead the country to unity. Suddenly, with this half Kenyan, half Kansas, Christian/Muslim, moderate/socialist cultural icon, demigod at the helm America will somehow become a homogenous mush of goodness. We’ll all be having hippy love-ins by March.

Everyone seems to have forgotten that just a few weeks ago there were stump speeches that referenced a ‘real’ America and by inference a ‘fake’ one.

These two Americas seem to lead separate lives like divorced parents living in the same house. They continuingly argue over the kids but neither has the nerve to simply leave. Each has their own population base, their own demographics and their own interpretation of the constitution. Their capital cities of New York and Wasilla are as far apart geographically as they are in ideology and yet their histories have been entwined together since the very beginning.

Those capitalist idealists of the South must have been pissed when that boat load of freedom loving do gooders landed. They even got the Indians on their side simply by starving half to death.

Nowadays, it appears easy to know which America you’re in. Small town = ‘real’, city = ‘fake’, farm = ‘real’, organic farm = ‘fake’, check shirt, trucker hat and own teeth = ‘fake’, check shirt, trucker hat and no teeth = ‘real’.

Being in California I thought I was safely in ‘fake’ America (my other favorite places being New York and Chicago, I’m clearly on that side of the divide). However, then Prop 8 passed. The state known throughout the world as the land of the liberal, home of the hippy, has passed an amendment to its constitution denying loving couples (who just happen to like kissing people of the same sex) the right to tie the knot. Florida? Of course. Arizona? Obviously, but California? A persons gaydar would breakdown from overuse in San Francisco and don’t even get started on Hollywood…There isn’t a state that loves queens more, except, well, us.

The irony is that it was partly the new Black and Hispanic vote, brought out by Obama’s nomination that were to blame. Young voters from all communities voted overwhelmingly no on 8. Older minority and immigrant citizens went democrat but are also staunchly Christian/Catholic and voted to pass the measure.

The lesson here is that even with an inspirational leader voted in by a high majority and winning in states that haven’t turned blue since the heady days of LBJ, division still rules. It’s just that the players have swopped.

Hope only really lies in changing not only policy but people’s minds.

See The Daily Show's take on this here.

Ichi Maki

Sushi is most definitely what people refer to as an acquired taste. The very thought of raw fish, vegetables and rice wrapped in sheets of reconstituted seaweed would be enough to send a lot of people running for the nearest golden arches. But for those of us who have enjoyed discovering the complex joys rendered by such jewel like treats as nigiri toro or ikura gunkan maki, Sushi has become the fast food of choice.

When a friend invites you to a ‘mom & pop’ sushi joint you may wonder what to expect. However, Ichi Maki is no greasy but oh-so-good corner diner with a Japanese twist. It is, instead, a clean, faux modern, airy restaurant. As soon as you enter, the chefs, imprisoned behind their bamboo conveyer belt, and wait staff, dressed in lime green t-shirts with long black aprons, chirrup their greeting in unison. The decor is an interesting mix of what is deemed de rigour (i.e. actually restaurant fashion about 5 years ago), traditional Japanese pieces and a few too many plants. There is also a sports bar element with huge widescreen TVs both above the bar and on the back room’s wall. Unfortunately, on possibly the most important election night in the history of America, neither was tuned to CNN so I was missing my Anderson Cooper fix.

As with most sushi places the menu was vast. It included well over what seemed like 100 kinds of maki as well as lists of various specials, side dishes and sushi combos. These included sushi boats, where a selection is served in bamboo boats of various sizes depending on the number in your party. Our party opted to go for individual dishes, partly due to funds, partly because the female majority could never have decided what to include.

While we deliberated, Ester, our perky waitress, soothed the process with free miso soup and endamames, which was a nice and very welcome touch. The soup, which can often simply taste like it’s been made up from oxo cubes, was of full, warming bitterness. The endamames
were steamed to a good al dente crunch, perfect for soy sauce dipping.

Eventually, we came to our decisions. Our order was delivered in quick time, sailing out from behind the counter on a silver serving trolley. All the meals were beautifully presented, shapes created by deep fried crab’s legs on squared, patterned monochrome plates that highlight the bright, fresh colours.

Apart from getting two of the dishes mixed up, which nearly resulted in me receiving a huge, spider crab roll instead of the modest asparagus maki I had actually ordered, Ester coped well with a consistent smile. My light meal of the maki and ginger kadame, a cold seaweed salad, felt intense intimidation from the bulk items on others plates but managed to hold its own. The asparagus was fresh and tender to the bite. The salad was an interesting mix of greens with flashes of pink pickled ginger and a scattering of sesame seeds. As with most seaweed dishes its chewy texture and flavorful undertones are immediately reminiscent of the ocean. The sesame and ginger helped temper and take the taste buds in a new direction.

Once the main event was over, we were presented with cleansing orange segments and then the bill which was satisfactorily low. Others paid around $20 and my lighter version only $10.
The blandness of Ichi Maki’s decor and its uninspiring atmosphere are more than made up for by their extensive menu and good service. In short it may not be the best sushi place in the world but in the vast ocean of California’s favorite Japanese export it manages to rise above the pack.

“Miso please!”

Ichi Maki,

11291 Folsom Blvd, Rancho Cordova, CA 95742, United States+1 916-635-8880

You know you’re on a Foreign Exchange to America (in the autumn of 2008) when ... You Dare to Feel Change Approaching.

Politics in America is changing. I don’t mean ‘Real Change’, ‘Change You Can Believe In’ or any other political slogan using the ubiquitous word for this election period. I mean it’s changing, the way it’s being fought, the personalities, the press, the voters. Everyone seems to feel it even exchange students. There is a wave approaching. What will be left behind can only be guessed at.

Cynics would say that this change is fuelled by the media in haze of sound bites and political personality but there’s more to it than that. There is anticipation, an unmistakable tingle running through the whole process. Surely, even John King’s magic map can’t cause that.

First a word of caution: In March, 1997, there was the same feeling in Britain. Having had a Conservative Government for the past 18 years that practically ran the working class into the ground, when a newly moderate Labour Party burst onto the scene led by a charismatic, young leader the media leapt on board. However, there was also that pervading smell of change in the air. People started whispering of a landslide, an unprecedented win for Blair and his team of promise writers. And so it was, on a bright, sunny, perfect British spring day that we voted and made our mark on history. It was as if the entire country breathed. This may sound pretty dramatic and certainly Labour’s base supporters had their doubts about the amount of compromise the party had gone through simply in order to be elected (only later to be confirmed) but for that day and a good few months after Britain felt light, as if a weight had been suddenly lifted.

The weight of the past 8 years in America still hangs heavy. The country is involved in 2 wars, its human rights record is fast unraveling, Reaganomics has finally come crashing down, the national debt is out of control and anti-American feeling is rife throughout the world. Under this kind of cloud it is not surprising that vice-president Cheney decided not to run, instead leaving the race to those claiming to be mavericks and Washington outsiders, threatening their own status quo with cries of ‘pork barrel’ and ‘fat cat’.

The Democrats have fared much better. After their mid-term gains they managed to have one of the closest primary runs in history with two of the best candidates ever to hit the stump. Hilary was the archetypal politician though and this was not a year for them.

Obama, having succeeded where few thought he would, has become the first African American presidential candidate and most polls now have him to win. To put this in perspective, only 40 years ago he wouldn’t have been able to drink from the same water fountain as a white person.

Make no mistake: this is history.

But it is not simply the racial context of his nomination that has initiated this feeling of expectation. Like Blair, he is young and charismatic. He oozes presidential credentials despite only being in the Senate for only 3 years and unlike Blair he was opposed to the Iraq war. He has undoubtedly had luck on his side too. This timely economic crisis has been manna for the Democrats as since FDR they have been seen as America’s party to the rescue. He is consistently compare to John F. Kennedy, for his charm and speech giving but has managed to become a cultural icon through careful ground level recruitment just as McGovern did in ’72.

But all of this pales in comparison to his message, a message he first gave on a National Stage at the Democratic National Convention in 2004. ‘Red state, Blue state’ has become one of the most famous political speeches of recent years and in the last days of the campaign there has been a resurgence of the bi-partisan, hoped up message of unity for one of the most culturally divided countries in the world.

Whether Obama wins tomorrow will depend on one cold November day. Whether his message of change is achievable will depend on the American people breathing.

Vote.

You know you’re on a Foreign Exchange to America When... Every time you see a Cute Guy Estelle’s ‘American Boy’ Runs through Your Head.

For years now teenage girls throughout the world have had pictures of American men adorning their walls, covered in greasy lip balm kisses that have worn away some of the colour. It seems that the unique gene pool formed through an almost completely immigrant population has managed to produce some of the most exportable totty the world has ever seen.

It’s not that British boys don’t have their charms. It is just that they are all around you. The American male is a pop sensation, a successful actor, a star. He is something alien, unobtainable, mythical even.

Then you get here and you soon realize that those guys represent the cream of what America has to offer. The milk is much more varied. However, in the weeks I have been studying the new fish pond I find myself in, several species have appeared. Some of these are stereotypes we have grown up with watching Molly Ringwald navigate the same waters 20 years ago. Some seem to be an evolution of those stereotypes and others are new, strange creatures that need to be investigated more thoroughly. Here are the results of my research:

1) The Tappable Geek
Back in the day these were elusive, hanging around by their lockers and in the library, mentally preparing for the next time the school bully singles them out for that days games. They were always there but hardly recognized by greater girl society. Now, intelligence is no longer a dirty word and with fine examples from TV such as The OC’s Seth Cohen and Pushing Daisies’ Ned the Piemaker, the nerd has hit back. They can still be found in any number of computer science classes but in recent years they have grown in confidence, knowing that girls will now take the chance that the bespectacled comic reader in front of them may become the next Bill Gates.

2) Boy From Another Decade
Imagine, if you will, that the 90s had never happened. We would all still be wearing graphic tees, mooning over Johnny Depp and dancing to Madonna. Hang on... Whether or not we have slipped back a decade, it is a strange sensation when you witness a man who appears to have been sent through a wormhole from 1985. It’s not even the cool side of the 80s. Rather than picking up a Smiths fan or a member of the New Order fan club, this time tornado has randomly chosen a Rob Lowe look-a-like, all gelled hair with floppy bangs, suit slacks and button down stripped shirt. He looks like a reject from the set of ‘Wall Street’ and has the opinions to match. Greed is never good.

3) Hipster or Hobo?
Can you tell the difference? He could be the lead singer of a cutting edge local electro band. He could be an artist who shows his work on a street corner every Second Saturday. He could have read slam poetry at whichever independent coffee shop in currently in vogue. Or he could collect cans in order to get jacked up on some cheap vodka and live under a light rail bridge. The trouble with wearing ironic clothing is that sometimes you get a little too close to the joke.

4) He’s On the Team
The jock. The ultimate stereotype. And yes, he still exists. He has diversified and is no longer carried through the school system on his ability to catch a ball. But you can still spot them a mile off: cap, sports jersey, standing head and shoulders above most of the other people around him. Yet when he tells you he’s on the team, even the most cynical of chicks gets a little flutter in her stomach.

5) Republicans: The Ultimate Bad Boy
It used to be that the bad boy was from the other side of the tracks. Now they could be from the other side of the political divide. Hey, it worked for Marie Shriver. Imagine the ‘Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?’ scenario she had to go through. What we should remember in these divided times (for the next week and a bit anyway) is that Republicans are people too. They can laugh, cry, field dress moose and, yes, even love. Still not sure I could date one though.

You know you’re on a Foreign Exchange to America When... You Feel Like a Dirty Red.

In recent weeks I have noticed a disturbing trend. It started with subtle policy differences but has ended with blatant racial slurs. There are connections to the radical 60s and a dictatorial governmental system whose communist ideals are slowly but surely creeping into America.

Duck ‘n’ cover, keep the kid’s away from the windows, the British are coming! (Back!)

Look at the evidence: A single party government in power for over ten years with a new leader recently installed without election, a large percentage of workers pay taken to benefit the masses, a national TV station paid for by the people without the comforting capitalist intrusion of adverts and not one plumber called Joe. Stick a big mustache on the queen and we are mid century Russia!

All this used to be a joke within my group of American friends. ‘Kate’s a Communist! Ha, ha, ha!!’ (Coming from Chicagoans, a city clearly now proven as the crucible of radicalism on this continent, it seems a little pot-kettle-blackish.) But it wasn’t until Wednesday night’s debate that I realized what a threat we’d become.

During a discussion on health care McCain accused Obama of putting patient choice in the hands of bureaucrats. “If you want that then you can go to England or (worse) Canada”. He spat out the names like they were poison, red poison. This attitude, that somehow a national health system is the gateway to totalitarianism, stems from the 50s (we actually went commie in 1946) and particularly a 1961 recording by the Gipper condemning national health as a socialist “foot in the door” conspiracy. Watch out! The Reds are on the way and they’ve got stethoscopes!

By association with this insidious plot to put American workers (including Joe the Plumber) in the Gulag, Obama and the Democrats have now been tarred with the scary socialist brush, you know, the one actually made out of Lenin’s nose hair? They keep it in the glass coffin with him so it’s covered with those rampant ‘power to the people’ germs. This lunchtime I watched as Glen Beck, a ‘journalist’, visited his sister station, the ‘unbiased’ home of ‘the best political team on television’, CNN to proclaim “They’re all Marxists!” when asked to give his opinion on the Democrats. But higher taxes and socialized medicine won’t make America Communist. It’ll just make you British.

Obama is being vilified for his promise/threat to ‘spread the wealth’ and his successful trip to Europe was seen more as a joke than an asset to his foreign policy experience. But if the only alternative to this is a self-proclaimed maverick and a hockey mom with an unqualified plumber as their figurehead then maybe it’s time you guys did look towards us for some influence. And come November if you continue to decide that even mildly social policies a too stronger pill for America to swallow, send our brother Obama back over. We’ll be glad to have him.

Diablo Cody: Honest To Blog

“Cody is a fad writer - she will disappear in a poof of smoke and sulfur odor when her 15 minutes are up. Like the writer of Reality Bites, which was simmilarly oh-so-hip 15+ years ago. Do you remember her name? Exactly.”

This was a comment on Diablo Cody’s first Entertainment Weekly column in December 2007. It is one of many ‘hater’ comments left condemning Cody as, among other things, “phoney”, “self-indulgent”, and “pretentious, completely unoriginal, and singularly pointless.” Cody retorted the only appropriate way, in a blog.

“I am middle-class trash from the Midwest. I'm a competent nonfiction writer, an admittedly green screenwriter, and a product of Hollywood, USA. I am "Diablo Cody" and if you're not a fan, go rent Prospero's Books again and leave me the fuck alone.”
Is the stripper turned blogger turned Hollywood darling over the hill already? Or is it yet another example of humanity’s inability to deal with another’s sudden success?

There is no doubt that the last couple of years have been incredibly lucky for Cody. In fact, turning to the skin trade as a form of income (a job that for most people is a slippery slope to further degradation) after becoming bored with her day job may well have been the best move she could ever make.

Born Brook Busey, a name she describes as “so not heavy metal”, Cody led an uneventful childhood in suburban Chicago and graduated from Iowa with a Media degree. She claims to have had an epiphany while typing copy for a Minneapolis ad agency. “This sucks. I’d rather be naked.” So she signed up for amateur night at a local strip club. Within a matter of weeks she had given up her day job and started blogging, with accounts of both her private life including cameos from then boyfriend Jonny and her new “anthropology” project, documenting her new chosen career path from stripper to peepshow object to phone sex operative.

This occasionally pornographic but surprisingly mundane diary is punctuated with sharp criticisms/glorifications of pop culture, a passion for which Cody uses as the basis for most if not all of her subsequent writing. The blog, now provocatively titled ‘Pussy Ranch’, would swing wildly between these subjects throughout the collection of stories told that day. On December 19th, 2003, for example, she first chastised Kid Rock for hooking up with Pamela Anderson, then described an uncomfortable situation during a peep show and later ran through her favorite music videos of the day.

The real power of this period of her writing, and I suspect why she was plucked from obscurity by Mason Novick, her manager who managed to secure an autobiography for her at the age of 24 after discovering the blog while surfing for porn, is her ability to show the reality of life as a stripper. Instead of being an erotically charged, glamorous lifestyle, Cody’s account is more akin to the hyper reality of ‘The Office’ than the fake glorification of ‘The Girls Next Door’.

Of course, the reason Cody is able to cast such a critically witty eye over her life is that she has chosen to enter that life. Unlike most of the other girls working the bars, she is more than capable of moving on, a future most of the others have little chance of. Her descriptions of other strippers, such as the aptly named Tassle, only accentuate her own detachment. She is studying them and hence herself and her own desire to be part of what they can never escape from. Through this self examination she becomes the poster child for generation X, someone desperate for rebellion but finding only boredom and disappointment and ‘normality’, whatever world she inhabits. She is most successful in her writing when she strikes at the very heart of these fears. “I'm trying to figure out why (how?) some people hit their twenties and automatically begin cultivating roses, making polenta, committing fully to jobs and functioning” (Pussy Ranch July 30th 2003).

The problem now is that her recent fame has taken away the normality of the different she was so able to comment on. She now has a new reality, that of a fully fledged Oscar winner, celebrity and journalist. Perhaps before blaming her for being successful we should allow her obvious talent to realign with her new life and see if she can once again bring an objective eye to another life few of us will ever live.

You know you’re on a Foreign Exchange to America When... You Want To Vacuum Pack Your Clothes.

Some adverts make you laugh, some make you aware, some make you cry (anything with puppies and kittens for me!), some make you want to get in your truck and race to the nearest mall and some make you just go ‘Huh??’.

These are a particular breed, clearly made with a budget of around $6 a minimum of 3 years ago but still being shown night after night as you tap your fingers waiting for the next segment of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (another thing guaranteed to get me reaching for the Kleenex). Just as your stealing yourself for Ty revealing a new home for a disabled war widow and her five blind kids, Vince comes on.

For those of you not in the know (or who have a life) Vince is the Shamwow guy. Shamwow is a shammy cloth and Vince wealds it like Indiana Jones with his bull whip. If he wasn’t on TV he could be in a circus sideshow. ‘Roll up! Roll up! See the google-eyed freak and his magic towel! Marvel as it drinks up twenty times its own weight in liquid!’ Vince talks at the speed of a freight train, eyeing you through the screen like a crazy person while running the Shamwow through its paces. He informs us it’s made by Germans, “and you know they always make good stuff”. Yep! He’s actually comparing a fancy dishcloth to a BMW.

The next ad features some guy asking you to send him your scrap gold. Scrap gold? Isn’t that an oxymoron? The advert also features some really sentimental women who have sent in gifts from their ex’s, even their first wedding ring in order to get a check they’ll probably put toward a new face rather than a new man. Now that’s emancipation.

Have you ever been to church and had difficulty hearing the sermon (Isn’t that the whole point?)? Do you annoy your cow of a wife by having the TV too loud? Do you want the birdsong to be even louder? Then you need ‘Listen up’! Yep, you too can look like a complete dork while you hold up the handset in order to better hear the word of God.

But at least you’re not wearing a blanket with sleeves.

It is bad enough that they recommend wearing the ‘Snuggie’ in your own home but camping? If you came across that family your first thought would probably be “cult!” than “ooh, I really need one of those!” And if anyone wore that at Wrigley Field we’d laugh them out of the park (along with all hope of ever winning anything ever). By the way, if the last thing your mom said to you before you left for college was “Don’t forget your Snuggie” you’ve got way more serious issues than passing midterms.

These adverts are all disturbing in their individual ways but there is another kind that really freaks me out, drugs. Every time they go through that long list of side effects such as suicidal tendencies, constipation and anal bleeding, I start to wonder whether you’re better off just sticking with what you have already. In a country where health care is a commodity and one of the presidential candidates describes it as a responsibility rather than a right it obviously requires promotion. Otherwise how else would you know what to tell your doctor to give you?

So as I pull my ‘Snuggie’ further around me, get my ‘Shamwow’ ready to soak up the tears and turn on the ‘Listen Up’ to not miss a single word of Ty and co, I wonder if I’ll ever even get some gold I’ll want to get rid of and get really homesick for the NHS.

Shamwow ad

Snuggie ad