usa

I have been moved to think about my American visits of the past. My first visit was 1986, just over half my life ago. In fact, I turned 21 in Portland, Oregon, the day I 'nearly stepped on' (i.e. saw) a rattlesnake in a cemetery. That was an excellent day anyway, driving around the boondocks (whatever a boondock is) with Calvin and Lois. I think it was probably my best birthday, at least in adult birthdays, because of the novelty and the sense of possibility. I introduced my new northwest friends to the music of The Verlaines and The Go-Betweens. Just previously, I had spent time in SF with my friends Patty and Alan and had formally met for the first time Steve and Katherine, who were my publishers then and whose publishing company I am still working with now, so that '86 visit was plainly very formative and important. And the US then was a weird parallel universe, with the funny money and the 'to go' and 'regular' and the incessant, almost pathological, politeness (whereas Australians feel they really care).

I was crazy about the States, particularly in light of my ambivalent British experience (in truth not entirely Britain's fault). So it was hardly surprising that I agitated for The Cannanes to tour there, though I can't quite remember when this was. '91 perhaps? Surely earlier? How funny, I knew the year at the time. Well, there were a few visits around this era, because I also brought a girl to the States who won a competition to see New Kids on the Block - I remember the NKOTB show,* it was hot, and I remember going to SubPop in Seattle, and I don't remember much else. This must have been after the first Cannanes tour. Maybe not. I also came to the States in '89 or something with a former girlfriend - that was a debacle I think I must have been nuts. I am pretty sure I was nuts, actually. I was certainly a very unpleasant person who should have been punched. That was the time I played on one of those Go-Team records. I really should work out timelines before I blog rampantly, don't you think? Oh, there's always the opportunity to fix it later should I come to care. I think that time I stayed totally on the west coast and had a petit nervous breakdown in Patty's beautiful apartment near Haight. So there are a few visits late 80s-early 90s.

Then there was 96, another Cannanes tour this one my last, then there was 01, the Huon tour. All these rock tours, driving for very long periods of time and going to amazing places for no time at all so they are just jumbled memories of streetscapes and strange conversations. It's no use saying I wish I'd written it all down at the time because I did but then I lost it.

I still think you don't understand the US until you travel comprehensively within it, which I didn't really do until... actually, I probably still haven't, though the 01 tour was quite extensive and strange, passing through all those fine places like eastern California and New Mexico etc... in hindsight, wonderful things to see/experience. But I think the best way to experience the US is probably to do so underwhelmed, which is probably only what I'm managing to do now, and whether that's to do with the fact that it's my 7th trip or my 43rd year or the 2008th year of AD or I don't know what. I'm still overwhelmed by things I've seen - I loved eating plantain chips at Pullman, don't get me wrong please - and I still can't get over the Wrigley building, and there are people in the States I am very fond of. But the overall construction is as negative as it is positive, and that is, let's face it, a cancelling out. Or am I letting egalitarianism turn me into a cipher.

*I recall one funny moment. My friend Candice Pederson was there, and she said of the fireworks and the thousands of adolescent girls at the end of the show, 'I heard there were fireworks the first time you had sex'. This was a very, very good line. I also remember the bouncers for NKOTB on the stage at the end of the show picking girls out of the audience to meet the boys backstage. Dead set.