Capitalism
I’ll give you $100 if any European property owner who isn’t a drug addict, an alcoholic or saddled with mental issues has a backyard like this. But this is more or less par for the course in Bedford-Stuyvesant, the Brooklyn neighborhood that reeks of degeneracy and fatalism and anti-social asshole teenagers and a lack of soap and regular toothbrushing and deodorant and decent take-out food.
Backyard of 190 Pulaski Street, Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.
I waited 45 minutes to get my passport stamped last night — me and 260 others being served by three shlubby guys. “Look at this way — at least there won’t be any waiting for the luggage,” I said to a guy I’d been on the same jet with. A 45-minute wait would never happen in Europe. There are lines, of course, but nobody waits that long for something as simple as a passport stamp.
The bottom line is that no system in Europe is quite as pathetic as New York City’s — their pride and respect for others won’t allow it. I love the really cool parts of this town as much as anyone else, but you don’t want to fly back from a really nice burgh like Munich and be suddenly wrestling with this wheezy, borough-accented, under-air-conditioned armpit of a town. It’s like “what“? They live better over there. They really do.
Jeff, I’ve easily waited that long in Europe, but I do agree we have some of the worst customs in the world here.
Nope — I’ve waited for passport guys in many, many countries….NEVER has it taken any more than 15 or 20 minutes, tops. Okay, 25. But 45? Get outta here.
Come on Jeff, you’re only a few blocks away from a cafe that makes an outstanding cold-brewed iced coffee. And a Home Depot. Go buy yourself a weed-whacker and get to work!
Yeah, but they don’t have HBO to Go or the new Sorkin, so we win. USA! USA!
The last time I flew into the states, I stood in a long passport line in New Jersey for half and hour. They had a TV playing pretty loud. It was a speech by Sarah Palin during the 2008 campaign. It was the worst introduction to America ever.
Depends which part of Europe. If you ever find yourself in Rochdale or Coventry or Burnley or any similar town in England you’ll see “gardens” exactly like that. And you only have to take the train to the airport in Paris to see the filthy banlieus which are like something from the Third World.
“They live better over there” . The good ‘ol USA has almost 400,000,000 people who need a large governmental bureaucracy to support their needs and interests. Add in countless visitors and undocumented residents and you have a population five times that of Germany. We border two oceans at our east and west and two land masses north and south. Germany is only a speck to our size. To paraphrase the old bromide – Give the people what they want and they will beat a path ( a very long one ) to your door. Welcome Home. Those resin chairs in your neighbor’s yard will still be there in 1000 years.
Get back to Los Angeles STAT, Jeff.
You’ll feel better.
…but the view from that white plastic chair is FANTASTIC.
Well, I travel internationally fairly frequently, and I have waited in customs lines for 45 minutes in Europe. Sorry to burst your European bubble.
But, as I said earlier, the customs in the US do generally suck the worst.
And the point about how crappy the outskirts of Paris are above is dead on.
Hey, quit photographing my back yard, pervert!
I’m proud to be an American and I feel this is a beautiful country that offers the world a great deal. At the same time I’m a dual citizen of both America and Italy and I’m seriously considering a permantant move to Italy. Europe is so much more exciting in so many ways. I feel like Italians truly care about each other whereas Americans can be very indifferent towards each other. Even the ones who claim to be great friends with each other. Even something as trivial as ‘how will I keep up with great American TV shows?’ can be solved with torrents these days.
* Permanent*
In other LexG related news…Katie Holmes is back on the martket.
“I’ll give you $100 if any European property owner who isn’t a drug addict, an alcoholic or saddled with mental issues has a backyard like this. ”
How do we know the Bed-Stuy property owner isn’t a drug addict, alcoholic or saddled with mental issues?
Or simply, a renter? To paraphrase, no one ever washed a rental car.
Besides, LOTS of Europe looks like SHIT. That photo captures roughly half of the backyards in the U.K. or Ireland.
“A 45-minute wait would never happen in Europe. There are lines, of course, but nobody waits that long for something as simple as a passport stamp.”
For a post entitled “Capitalism” one would think the author would appreciate that the U.S. Customs service is NOT a private company.
Are you kidding, FlashDust? Katie’s 33. Practically ready for a cane and walker in LexLand.
Tell that to my then-girl friend, who waited in line at Heathrow for an hour and twenty minutes. She almost missed the shuttle to Southampton for the cruise. (I came on a different flight, got through in 15, and spent the remaining 65 freaking out.)
So, I’m guessing that the 5-year marriage contract which Katie Holmes entered into to be Mrs. Tom Cruise just expired and she decided that it wasn’t worth it professionally or personally to renew it.
I’m kind of with Jeff here, in that I feel just being in New York is stressful, and I lived there for 15 years. The noise, the filth, the overcrowding, the attitude – and don’t get me started on what the city is like on a hot as hell day like today.
I couldn’t wait to get out of there.
“Besides, LOTS of Europe looks like SHIT.”
Seriously, have you seen “Shoah”? Poland looks like a toilet.
Imagine how many people live in shitty parts of Munich come to NYC and spend their visit in Central Park, the Museum Mile, the West Village, etc, etc.
They are thinking THE EXACT SAME THING. “People live better here!”
Didn’t you sort of express a certain disdain of getting off the beaten track anymore when it came to… Prague, I think? Get out of the tourist zones, make a bit more of an effort to get off the grid, and you’ll see normal people with backyards of all kinds in any country.
And for far more banal reasons than drug addiction and mental illness.
Nobody is saying that you don’t travel extensively, but I think this offers a little bit of insight into what kind of traveller you are. Which isn’t a bad thing, per se, but it doesn’t really lend weight to the “State of the Union through the lense of a backyard in Bed-Stuy” thesis at work here.
Because when we want to see beauty, Bed Stuy is the go to place.
Why is this even titled Capitalism?
I do love coming to the U.S. – I have plenty of friends and family there.
But I do hate going through immigration. The U.S.A. is the only country treating her visitors like criminals.
First you have to go online and tell at least 3 days in advance that you’re coming. For that privilige you have to pay $14.
When you finally arrive you stand in line for up to 3 hours (3h happened to me at least 8 times), than your fingerprints are taken and your eyes are scanned. Makes you feel very welcome…
I just wish that the European Union and other countries would just replicate every harrassing procedure for visiting Americans in return – but they’re cowards…
What’s preventing you from becoming an expat to the UK? Outside of California, there isn’t a state in the US I’d want to live in, too weird for LA as is, I have a friend in Canada who promises me it’s actually better there than Western Europe.
Haven’t you ever heard of you get what you pay for? I mean I manage 20 “kids” between 23-30 and not a single one of them would live in Bed-Stuy. No one.
I love the cranky old man act, but this one, you brought it on yourself.
Was Jeff at the open house?
http://tinyurl.com/88ubn86
Hey, I was staying at a hostel for the last 7 days about 2 blocks south from there. WE WERE ALMOST NEIGHBOURS.
In other news, I wouldn’t recommend going to a hostel in Bed Stuy if you’re visiting New York, even if it’s $10 cheaper per night than every other option.
Not every place is perfectly designed the same way we expect it to be. Some situations may happen unexpectedly but the most important thing is we must always be ready to face and accept it most of the time.