Well, here I am back in New York. My last week of my ‘travels’ was spent back in Sri Lanka where my Mum came and met me for a week’s holiday. We stayed in a beautiful villa and drank wine every night with our wonderful English friends who we were staying with. I was, in a way, already back in civilization as far my living conditions were concerned. It was a real treat to have fresh clean sheets on my bed and loo paper in the bathroom, even if we did have to watch out for the occasional scorpion that wondered round the house in the evenings.
I then flew back to London where I stopped for two nights before coming back to this crazy and wonderful city. My point is that I weaned myself back into first world society progressively, which I think helped a lot as far as ‘culture shock’ goes. It’s been GREAT getting back and seeing all my friends, all of whom I missed while away and appreciate even more than I did before, now that I’m back.
It’s been quite strange though I must say… I mean I wasn’t gone for all that long, but I was in a different world on my travels, and now I’m back here and everything is very much as it was before. I don’t know what I was expecting… did I think the man in the deli would suddenly have blue hair?, or that all the buildings would all be ten stories higher? Ummm.. no. But here’s the thing: In life, you experience something new everyday - even if you don’t necessarily notice or acknowledge it, you do… but when you travel, especially if alone, you discover new people, new places, new attitudes, new kinds of foods, new types of transport, new animals, new streets, EVERY DAY, and you notice them all. You’re eyes are open wide and you are a sponge sucking in every new thing that is around you. So when I went into the liquor store to buy a bottle of wine, and I found myself reaching for the same Pinot Grigio as I always did before, and the man behind the counter asked for my ID in the same tone, with the same small smile as he always did before, I felt in a strange way as if I’d just woken up from an amazing dream (you know when you have one of those really long story telling dreams that you can’t believe your brain was clever enough to make up? – a bit like that). And now I’ve woken up, and here I am, back in my life in New York, and everything is (to use the invaluable Asian expression), “same same, but different!”
That is NOT to say that there isn’t a hell of a lot going on in this ever evolving city. I mean, actually there is SO much going on everywhere around you its almost too much to take it all in… no wonder people rush down the street looking down in front of them as if they have blinkers on… it’s all a bit much really! All sorts of people are everywhere, all around you, all of the time, and there is a hell of a lot to think about and concern yourself with. What to wear, how to do your hair, your first meeting of the day, whether you should go to this event or that, whether you should renew your gym membership even though you’ve only used it about ten times in the last year, relationship problems (yours or your friends), rent / mortgage, taxes, plans for the weekend, and as if this wasn’t all enough to set your head spinning, how many different kinds of bloody toothpaste can Colgate produce?! Max Fresh burst Flouride, Sparkling White Flouride, Total Flouride, Total Whitening Mint gel… I mean for fucks sake! - I just want some toothpaste! Too much choice can be overwhelming.
Anyway, that’s enough of my traveler-come-back-to-reality spiel! Now for New York; I love this city. And I realized last weekend just how diverse it is here. A friend of mine’s company was sponsoring a party last weekend for Bobby Konder’s birthday bash. It was held in a club called Mars 2112, on 51st Street and Broadway, a far cry from the Rose Bar at the Gramercy I can tell you that. It was a hip hop / funk party, catering to a massive following of African American ghetto living people… ‘Massive B,’ ‘Funkmaster Flex,’ and ‘Reggae Boyz’ (I’d never heard of them before) all performed, and it was quite an experience! The queue outside curled around two blocks, and the security at the door was rigorous. “Stand there!” “Ladies this way, men over there..!” We were herded from one spot to another until finally we were let in through the doors of the club. The six of us were the only white people there, literally, and the only ones who didn’t know every word and every move to every song that boomed from the speakers.
Conducive to the name of the club, the ceiling was starry and the walls fake stone. We walked through the bar area onto a huge balcony that circled over the dance floor, and we peered down. I was mesmerized. A heaving body of people danced and stuck their hands up in the air like I’ve never seen before. They were celebrating their culture, their history, their hardships overcome, their music, their way, and every one of them exuded a powerful sense of pride for being part of it. I went to the ladies feeling ever so slightly intimidated, half expecting to get glared at… but oh no – they couldn’t have been less interested… they were consumed by each other, their fellow brothers and sisters, and the energy that together they were creating… they were flying high off the night that they’d been waiting for. The DJs would turn off the music mid song and the whole club would finish it off word for word. The lyrics, in my opinion, left something to be desired… they were mostly about bitches, sons of bitches, hoes and fucking. Never the less, the vibe was exhilarating.
Back on the balcony, I started to observe the flirting tactics of this fascinating culture. Where at the Gramercy, the female species might charm their way into a man’s arms by polite conversation, sexy shoes, the right friends or the right colored lipstick, at Mars 2112, it was all about the bootie. I never knew bottoms could move so much in so many different ways! Looking down from above, I saw how the female species, looking for a mate, would arch their lower backs, stick out their bums and gyrate them around, to the side, up and down, in and out, all in perfect beat to the music. They all wore short skintight dresses or very short shorts with fluorescent skintight tops, just to make sure every curve of every bit of their bodies was on display for the male species to admire. The male would walk around the room, keeping a cool beat to the music, until he found a female whose moves and whose bottom he found particularly attractive. He’d then slide up behind her, and provided the female did not reject him with a flick of the arm or a sweeping step to the side, he’d put his arms around her waste, press his hips into her backside, and then the grinding would start. He’d grind, and grind, and grind, and she’d wiggle and wiggle and wiggle, and there it was.. two members of the opposite sex had found each other. It was a very raw kind of romance.
I spotted two of my friends on the dance floor (it wasn’t hard) and thought I’d better go and join them.. a little voice inside my head was crying out “get into it Jax! Stop gawping and get in there!” I went down the stairs and found them in the middle of a swirling pool of people all funking it out like there was no tomorrow. I felt a little stiff at first, but soon the music and the atmosphere picked me up and carried me to that other place that people go to when they dance like they just don’t care. I fully surrendered myself to the music, I got my ghetto groove on, but only for about five minutes as then an incident happened that brought everyone around us back down to reality. A fight had broken out about twenty feet away from us and suddenly everyone around us paused to gage the situation. The music that everyone had one moment before been so consumed by was suddenly a background noise that no body was even aware of. It was crowded and dark, no one could really gage anything – and so then - panic. My friends and I found ourselves swept up in a rush of people running up the stairs of the club. There was a sudden fear in the whites of everyone’s eyes, as people grabbed hold of their friends and shouted “Go, go, go…” They knew what they were doing. You don’t hesitate when a fight breaks out… you don’t know who has a gun… you get the hell out of there!
The sprawling panic only lasted about five seconds, its amazing how long those seconds seem to last, and how many people can move from one place to another in that short time frame! We made it halfway up the stairs before the DJ told everyone through the microphone to relax, the situation was under control. We all stopped, and let a HUGE bouncer guy carry the aggressor up the stairs, past us, and out of the club. The grooving, the singing, the grinding and the bum wiggling continued into the night, and I left at about 2am feeling as if I’d just been traveling again.
Since Saturday night, I’ve been seeing friends for dinners and coffees, I’ve had a few meetings, had my hair colored, and gone through a meter high pile of mail full of nasty bills and letters from the IRS. I saw my accountant and paid my over due taxes, and spent two hours going through my credit card bills and marking what was deductible – yes – of COURSE Duane Read is deductible! If I don’t buy shampoo, I can’t wash my hair, if I can’t wash my hair, I will look grubby and won’t get booked for my modeling jobs!
It is a very different world over here, a far cry from the villages of Laos and the highlands of Vietnam, but I’m glad to be back, and you can always find an adventure, wherever you are!
Xxxx Jax
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