"A lecturer once said, on the subject of urban planning, that most people in the US have not met anyone who disagrees with them. What he meant was that most people in North America have never encountered anyone who contradicts their view of the world and the opinions they hold. The reason for this is that they travel everywhere in cars, for in a car you are free to choose who is in it with you and what radio station or music you listen to."
this is a quote by alexei sayle, who i think is one of the funniest men alive. (tommy surely knows him -- right?)
the quote was (i think) in earnest and i think sayle is right. do you agree with me? well if you don't, then perhaps PA is not representative of the US.
no disagreement
-
mccutcheon
- New York Scribbler
- Posts: 4996
- Joined: Tue Oct 03, 2000 8:01 am
- Location: NYC
- Contact:
Big Apple better than Los Ass
I agree. But in NYC everyone has an opinion. right or wrong. they talk. or rather yell. And in LA, the biggest town where no one interacts, all they do is drive cars.
and still- these cities are not USA
My friend said to me yesterday as we walked around and drank around New York- they say so many Americans are fat- but not in Seattle (where he has lived for 12 years even though he is a Brit) and not in New York.
I said, yeah, and funny how these places are liberal. No fuckin fat heads.
and still- these cities are not USA
My friend said to me yesterday as we walked around and drank around New York- they say so many Americans are fat- but not in Seattle (where he has lived for 12 years even though he is a Brit) and not in New York.
I said, yeah, and funny how these places are liberal. No fuckin fat heads.
-
Tommy Martyn
- Mile High Club
- Posts: 887
- Joined: Mon May 19, 2003 8:01 am
- Location: a desk
Martino,
don't get me started on A.S.. We come from the same social class and the same city. I've not been this excited since Marky discovered John Cooper Clarke.
Last I heard Mr Sayle was a "serious" writer. I had read a comic novel of his called, "Train to Hell" about 20 years ago. (Phillip Larkin has a poem about aging where he comments about using phrases like a quarter of a century ago etc. and here I am doing the same thing) I'm not sure what he is doing with regard to comedy these days. I could write a book on what he meant to kids like me in times like those.
As you may or may not know. He has done some acting in serious roles. Lots of English T.V. and some Hollywood (He was in one of the Indianna Jones movies for instance.) He wrote an article for the Guardian about one of his experiences in tinseltown. God knows when I read this, fifteen years ago would be as good a guess as any. He was being put up by the studio in some of their properties. He found out that it was the block that John Belushi was in when he took his last ride on the Horse. He made a few calls and learned it was the actual suite. Alexei and his wife started to call it John's room. Anyway, they get stir crazy and decide to go far a drive and find out what is going on in LA. They wanted to go for a walk in (to English people) what couldn't be more perfect weather. After a while of trolling deserted streets trying to find something happening, they realise there are no pedestrians. Eventually they see a guy out walking and decide to pull over and ask him where everybody is...and it's Billy Bragg. Out for a walk, bored of his hotel and looking for the "city."
I hope all is well in your family Martino. I thought of you yesterday. What do you know of Elias Canetti? Clive James has written about him in the NYT book review. As you know, I love Clive James bit know nothing of Mr Canetti.
don't get me started on A.S.. We come from the same social class and the same city. I've not been this excited since Marky discovered John Cooper Clarke.
Last I heard Mr Sayle was a "serious" writer. I had read a comic novel of his called, "Train to Hell" about 20 years ago. (Phillip Larkin has a poem about aging where he comments about using phrases like a quarter of a century ago etc. and here I am doing the same thing) I'm not sure what he is doing with regard to comedy these days. I could write a book on what he meant to kids like me in times like those.
As you may or may not know. He has done some acting in serious roles. Lots of English T.V. and some Hollywood (He was in one of the Indianna Jones movies for instance.) He wrote an article for the Guardian about one of his experiences in tinseltown. God knows when I read this, fifteen years ago would be as good a guess as any. He was being put up by the studio in some of their properties. He found out that it was the block that John Belushi was in when he took his last ride on the Horse. He made a few calls and learned it was the actual suite. Alexei and his wife started to call it John's room. Anyway, they get stir crazy and decide to go far a drive and find out what is going on in LA. They wanted to go for a walk in (to English people) what couldn't be more perfect weather. After a while of trolling deserted streets trying to find something happening, they realise there are no pedestrians. Eventually they see a guy out walking and decide to pull over and ask him where everybody is...and it's Billy Bragg. Out for a walk, bored of his hotel and looking for the "city."
I hope all is well in your family Martino. I thought of you yesterday. What do you know of Elias Canetti? Clive James has written about him in the NYT book review. As you know, I love Clive James bit know nothing of Mr Canetti.
inside every fat git there's a poet trying to get out.
well, he's out...
that's sayle all right, who i think did not mean MC when he said that.
comrade tommy! i am more than glad that you like AS and i am pleasantly surprised that you two go way back. my first acquaintance with the special humor of AS was in 1982 when i heard "hullo john got a new motor" and i couldn't believe my ears, or stop laughing.
in the meantime i have often lost track of sayle because over here, i couldn't see the tv shows he worked on or read the many pieces he wrote in the mirror or in the independant. a few years ago i re-discovered him whilst reading my favorite car magazine (its name was car magazine...)-
in car, sayle wrote a hilarious regular column about being a fat comedian who gets to drive all sorts of fine vehicles. he left car (i think) but he does a similar shtick for the independant, which is where i found the thread starter -- here's a url for you:
http://motoring.independent.co.uk/comment/
and if you want to know what else he has been doing there is a nifty bio in wikipedia.
...only for the moment do i remain silent about my mum. i thank you for your consideration!
funny that you mention larkin, since andrew sullivan in his blog recently posted some high praise. i like larkin too!, although my relationship to poetry is generally akin to a fat git who is trying to get something into his head, with little success.
that's sayle all right, who i think did not mean MC when he said that.
comrade tommy! i am more than glad that you like AS and i am pleasantly surprised that you two go way back. my first acquaintance with the special humor of AS was in 1982 when i heard "hullo john got a new motor" and i couldn't believe my ears, or stop laughing.
in the meantime i have often lost track of sayle because over here, i couldn't see the tv shows he worked on or read the many pieces he wrote in the mirror or in the independant. a few years ago i re-discovered him whilst reading my favorite car magazine (its name was car magazine...)-
in car, sayle wrote a hilarious regular column about being a fat comedian who gets to drive all sorts of fine vehicles. he left car (i think) but he does a similar shtick for the independant, which is where i found the thread starter -- here's a url for you:
http://motoring.independent.co.uk/comment/
and if you want to know what else he has been doing there is a nifty bio in wikipedia.
...only for the moment do i remain silent about my mum. i thank you for your consideration!
funny that you mention larkin, since andrew sullivan in his blog recently posted some high praise. i like larkin too!, although my relationship to poetry is generally akin to a fat git who is trying to get something into his head, with little success.
Last edited by martino on Fri Oct 07, 2005 7:21 am, edited 1 time in total.
Most Americans only know of the world what they see on television and they live in rural areas, out in the boonies in towns with no more than a 1000 for a population (okay so I might be exaggerating slightly as far as numbers go, but the point still holds). They are poor, undereducated, ignorant. They voted for Bush. Who has somehow found a way to do right by the rich while convincing the poor to vote in their own worst interest. But it won't last. We can all at least see now THAT IT WILL NOT FUCKING LAST MOTHERFUCKERS!!!!!!!! New Orleans and the dragging bloodbath of Iraq have taken care of that. Bush's poll numbers are down in the drumps where they belong. (what the fuck is "drumps"? I don't know - maybe Bush is the only one to actually go that low)
Some in cities have said the answer is to encourage more people to move to cities. That means more density. That's a very hard concept to understand considering we haven't even found a way to build a decent public transportation system here, and the debate has gone on for 8 years at least. You ex-Seattleites might want to know that the monorail has actually just had a nail driven in its coffin after all. The mayor has withdrawn his support entirely, after a few months ago they found out the guy who was running it had this really rickety financial plan, very spendy and unwise insane financing idea. So just when they were trying to save it after that guy left, the mayor snubbed it. In 10 years nothing has been done for transportation improvements in Seattle. The bridges would go in a snap in any kind of natural disaster. You know the one I mean. And the viaduct - how will we replace the structure that will fall on poor dead people when it collapses in the next earthquake and we haven't found a way to pay for its improvement by then because of a psycho anti-gas tax initiative on the ballot crafted by idiot conservative zealots? Yes I KNOW gas prices are insane. But lives will be lost if we don't, etc. etc.
The last I heard the General Accounting Office, a (federal) government agency discovered that Bush had set aside money to pay his own fake journalists for the purpose of covert propoganda. But how do I know THAT isn't just propoganda? Christ, I don't know what's real anymore.
Some in cities have said the answer is to encourage more people to move to cities. That means more density. That's a very hard concept to understand considering we haven't even found a way to build a decent public transportation system here, and the debate has gone on for 8 years at least. You ex-Seattleites might want to know that the monorail has actually just had a nail driven in its coffin after all. The mayor has withdrawn his support entirely, after a few months ago they found out the guy who was running it had this really rickety financial plan, very spendy and unwise insane financing idea. So just when they were trying to save it after that guy left, the mayor snubbed it. In 10 years nothing has been done for transportation improvements in Seattle. The bridges would go in a snap in any kind of natural disaster. You know the one I mean. And the viaduct - how will we replace the structure that will fall on poor dead people when it collapses in the next earthquake and we haven't found a way to pay for its improvement by then because of a psycho anti-gas tax initiative on the ballot crafted by idiot conservative zealots? Yes I KNOW gas prices are insane. But lives will be lost if we don't, etc. etc.
The last I heard the General Accounting Office, a (federal) government agency discovered that Bush had set aside money to pay his own fake journalists for the purpose of covert propoganda. But how do I know THAT isn't just propoganda? Christ, I don't know what's real anymore.
Last edited by marky on Fri Oct 07, 2005 7:24 am, edited 1 time in total.
And yes I am going to mouth off, GADDAMNIT because LAST I HEARD THIS WAS A FREE COUNTRY AND SOME DUMBASS AMERICAN WILL BE LEFT AT THE END OF THE WORLD, ONE STUPID GUY (OR GIRL) DUMB ENOUGH TO FIGHT FOR HIS FREEDOM, AND HE WILL BE FREE. BEFORE HE DIES UNDER SOME SUCH STUPID CIRCUMSTANCE WHICH WILL MOCK HIS IDIOCY.
GOD I LOVE FRENCH WINE!!!
IT'S AUTUMN AGAIN AND NO MORE BEER FOR ME!
GOD I LOVE FRENCH WINE!!!
IT'S AUTUMN AGAIN AND NO MORE BEER FOR ME!
