The United States of America

Population: 300 million plus!
Located: Between Canada and Mexico.
Known for: Beer pong.


I watched Vicki Christina Barcelona last night. I remembered hearing that it was nominated for some awards, and that it was written and directed by Woody Allen, and that it starred the fantastically pneumatic Penelope Cruz. I assumed it was good.

I was wrong.

For those who haven't seen it two American females in their mid twenties, I assume, decide to visit Barcelona and spend a summer there. We are informed, by the fucked narrator, that they have different ideas about love, yawn.

They take a cab and arrive at their summer lodgings, the casa of a friend of a friend of Vicki, or Christina, I don't care. Their lodgings are amazing, they dine on the terrace, they are served by a South American maid. They explore the town, they dine out, they go to art exhibitions, they meet a man, a mysterious and sexy and overwhelmingly creepy man.

He is an artist. He comments on their eyes and their lips, he invites them to some town near Barcelona, they leave in an hour. He proposes a threesome. He just proposes a threesome, after finding the cajones to approach these two dining strangers, the gall of the man, declares the prude of the duo.

But the slut is into it, so he flies them there in a plane he borrowed from his friend. He can fly a plane and his friend has one. Catalunya isn't so large, but he wanted to fly, so they fly. They stay at a beautiful hotel. They eat in more fancy restaurants, he fucks on, he tries to fuck one, they listen to some bearded arsehole play guitar in a garden.

I am furious, I am nearly asleep. I know if I fall asleep furious I will have bad dreams. I press on.

They visit the artists father, he is a poet. He has never published his work, as a protest. He lives in a fine country house.

It is then I realise why I am furious. None of these people work. They float through Barcelona, dining when they please, indulging themselves in their respective arts, attending cultural events and sleeping in nice beds, and drinking fine wines.

These things cost money, and none of these cunts work.

I am watching this from my shared room in Barcelona. My clothes are strewn over the floor as there is no cupboard. My room is nice, but spartan, very spartan. I can't find work, I have no money. I want to work, but I can't find any. I am hungry, I stole pasta from the supermarket. I rely on my girlfriend. I can't fly a plane, nor can I envisage a time when I will be able to fly a plane.

The Barcelona portrayed is a million kilometers from the Barcelona I am living.

I realise that this is a movie, that it need be fantasy. That the story is a love story and where it is set and the circumstances of the characters are all aesthetic. That it is entertainment.

My stomach rumbles. There are some three hundred plus million humans in the United States. The majority lead fucked lives. The majority can't discern between fantasy and reality. This majority is led to believe that the fantasies presented on the small and large screens are potential realities for them.

So they toil. They fry food in the hope that one day they'll buy those Manolo Blahnik shoes that horse face from Sex in the City wears.

I deal with many Americans in my summer job. They are lovely, friendly, trusting. They talk alot, but it's mostly positive. They want to like you, you become a crazy Aussie. They have white teeth and their parents' credit cards. They study business and they live on campus in houses full of people exactly like them.

I meet them and I have faith in America. These people voted in Barak. They cannot be bad. This makes me happy, as I prefer wide eyes and white teeth to slanty eyes and communist teeth.

I am a racist in this respect.

The Americans I come across are studying abroad, doing a semester in Europe. They have passports.

They are a minority, by a factor of 7:3.

I am still hungry, Penelope Cruz materialises. I explain to my girlfriend that she was a contract partner to Tom Cruise. She inquires and I explain, I explain that in order to be a Hollywood sex symbol, Tom couldn't be gay. So he stopped being gay and dated women. His first was a red head from Australia, she emerged from the marriage ten years later, considerably richer, the most famous woman in the world, pretty much.

Penelope Cruz has a beautiful breast, but she is angry. She screams and her face distorts. I hate this Penelope. I hate Woody Allen.

He makes love stories. He married his adopted daughter. Love stories.