“I call these my American jeans” I quip loudly. “One Yank, and they’re off”.
My friend from London and I collapse into Jack Daniels-fuelled giggles, while various San Franciscans look on with glazed expressions.
“Oh, cool,” offers one of them, giving me a California Cocktail smile, but its too late. Yet another of my comedy gems has gone over their heads, and a tiny tremor on the Richter scale of life, just widened the chasm between ‘us’ and ‘them’ that little bit further.
We salvage an eggy moment by clinking glasses, and saying cheers for the American booze measures (which involves tipping a bottle of hard liquor into a large glass of ice and counting to double figures). At that moment, it’s all we are grateful for.
I
wasn’t exactly overjoyed at 11 hours of hurtling through the sky in a
fuel-driven box with wings, so perhaps getting myself to San Francisco had
put me in a strange mood to begin with. I’m not a long-haul kinda guy.
I arrived feeling disorientated, nauseous, and curious to discover how many
of my T-Cells had survived the trip. I’m surprised they didn’t
make me declare my CD4 count on my customs form, and tax me accordingly. They
seemed to tax everything else.
San Francisco’s architecture makes it an extremely special part of the world. When indulging in typical tourist activities, I was happy. From the stunning Golden Gate Bridge, to the wonderfully depressing Alcatraz, I loved it all.
But as for that famous San Franciscan freedom...I’m afraid I failed to find it. It saddened me to see somewhere once associated with liberal thinking and ‘flower power’, to be in the throes of a regime that can only be described as Nazi-like. Ok, they haven’t actually started gassing people yet, but there was a nasty moment in a club when I evilly tried to hold on to my Bud Light at 1.01am. Everyone seemed to have taken on law enforcement as a hobby.
Apparently it’s even a punishable offence not to give up your seat on public transport to an elderly lady (I know because the sign told me - Federal Law 3756B). If I surrender my seat to another human being, I would like it to be down to my own compassion, not because George Bush thinks I should. I trust my own judgement a ‘helluva’ lot more.
The saddest part is that the locals appear to have bought into this regime. When we visited a sex club, we were read the riot act at the front door.
“No fucking without condoms, and we have monitors, so we will catch you. No urinating, no talking in certain areas, no alcohol allowed. I need to see photo ID and that will be twenty-two dollars.”
“I have to fart, do I need a permit?” I retorted in the thickest Scottish brogue I can muster.
I appreciate how scared they all are. Bar owners will lose their licence as quick as you can say “sodomy”, should two men be found together in the ‘restrooms’. A big slice of sexual guilt with a hefty dollop of homophobia appears to be sweeping the whole of the US, and it ain’t pretty.
When we have to abide by silly laws in this country, we do it with a sense of the ridiculous. Like the “Beans on Toast - £9.99” sign that used to hang in one of the leather bars, so they could have their late licence. Of course, no one ever bought them. If that were a leather bar in the US, they’d be charging you twenty bucks and forcing the beans down your throat before you were allowed to even show an ankle. The Yanks could have read us the rulebook with at least a knowing wink. Instead, many of the people we met appeared to enjoy the rigidity and the enforcement of ridiculous regulations.
I have some wonderful American friends, and I realise I’m generalising terribly, but I can’t deny that I came home feeling so utterly proud to be European.
If Jim Royle had written this article, it would just contain one sentence: “Land of the Free, My Arse”. I hope I’ve been a little more tactful...
