ozhansean
01-24-2010, 06:25 PM
Hay guys... I am attempting at writing a non-fiction from a very personal perspective. This is sketchy and it is mainly aimed at me trying to write simply as some of you had asked and also to see if any body would read something like this. Just an Idea. Would you want to continue, or boring? What do you think.
Secrets Out
Being ushered into LAX isn’t anybody’s first impression of America. Everybody has heard about America and knows a little, sometimes a lot, about her. And that is how the Unites States of America has come to be unofficially known around the world, America. In schools and street corners, private conversations to heated debates from one corner to the other of this suspended rock she is referred to as America.
America initially came to me in the form of Audio and video cassettes, she came in when I was just beginning to see the apparent generational gap in my own family, just old enough to understand such a thing exists. She came in, larger than life, as the site of my brother, the rebellion’s, first guitar, his Guns N Roses and Michael Jackson tracks to my mother’s musings of Kenny Rogers and Elvis Presley. She came in as my brother’s obsession with Terminator in his small room on the roof of our Tehran house and the constant replays of The Sound of Music in my grandparent’s lavish living room across the yard. But moreover America came in as Cinderella and Mickey Mouse, wind-up toys, Kit-Kat, Ray ban Aviators, mother’s Marlboros and the moonwalk. And if you couldn’t afford anything with a Made in USA printed on it then you would hope to get a Japanese remake of it. Yes, America came to me in the 80’s.
To me America slowly came to be, symbolically, the ultimate frontier in the serge for human prosperity, America to me was endless possibilities, America was future, and Iran was the past. America was good and Russia was evil. Russia was dying and America was the ever present, hovering over everything, even your daily life, your thoughts, hobbies and work, good or bad, America was everywhere.
America as I understood it was made up of a people that were different from the rest of us. This is no exaggeration. It was common to catch a group of kids my age while they praised America totally unprovoked; it was never out of context to talk about America. The Americans do it and it must be a good way to do things, and it often was. “My uncle says, the American government will support their people even outside of America. “ one would say, feeling proud of the fact that he/she had not only had some knowledge of America but also actually knew someone that had been there. “What are you stupid, of course they will, they are not like us, they care about their own people.”
Every claim of connection to America was viewed with suspicion, and if you claimed that you had been to America you were immediately challenged, as if you were insulting the group’s intelligence. “Nobody that sets foot in America will ever come back to this, what do you think I am? A donkey!?” And even if your family was trying to go to America you never spoke about it. First off you would immediately spread rumors and such rumors were plain-dangerous in Iran, secondly you would be ridiculed for daring to consider that YOU would ever be left to enter America the great… Blasphemy!
And all in secrecy, behind drawn curtains, within small, well knit families the same dream was being weaved differently. The American government organized and still does a lottery of the sorts and the winners get to go to America. Nobody I knew ever won, but people did occasionally, so I heard.
I also often heard jokes about people that got lucky and made it to America, and this was a joke because we felt that they would act stupid to the point of even shocking the Americans and embarrassing themselves. That is how we felt about our own ways. As youngsters we made up imaginary circumstances of such and laughed about it. “My uncle said that this poor guy, he tried to bargain at a fancy American store as if this were a bazaar in down town Tehran or something! Hah… Poor guy what does he know” And we found that to be hilarious. My friend said… I read…I heard…That’s all there was, hearsay.
And of course we all grew up, a generation that never forgot how we felt about America. Our fashion, sense of music, hair, philosophy, sex and thoughts, private thoughts was influenced by America. We saw sun spotted pictures of our parents with bell bottoms and side burns, and we laughed. And oh, we wore everything related to the Chicago bulls for a while, everybody knew Michael Jordon. “Your cap is a fake. Probably made in Taiwan or something, the authentic ones have seven stitches all across the front, on the shade. They fooled you, stupid” As I said America was everywhere.
And the fact that we hated our Government somehow gave us a mischievous sense of camaraderie with America. We were in some way on the same team. We didn’t share the same mistrust our previous generation had for America; the religious right who were in power and are, believe that the Shah’s evil King dome was a pony to the Americans, the Pro-shahs and intellectuals on the other hand believed and continue to believe that the current regime was secretly set up by the Americans and the English.
We were not as immersed in the politics of it, we were caught in between Michael's dance moves and Kirk Hammett’s lead, between Robot and Head banging. Yes America came to me in the 80s, and it did to everybody at some point. America was always in the pipelines.
LAX is massive, it is impressive. But only if the people designing the interior to that faithful gateway knew any of the kids from the 80s circle, they would have designed it differently. But then America is missing that touch all over her massive landscape.
To be continued
Secrets Out
Being ushered into LAX isn’t anybody’s first impression of America. Everybody has heard about America and knows a little, sometimes a lot, about her. And that is how the Unites States of America has come to be unofficially known around the world, America. In schools and street corners, private conversations to heated debates from one corner to the other of this suspended rock she is referred to as America.
America initially came to me in the form of Audio and video cassettes, she came in when I was just beginning to see the apparent generational gap in my own family, just old enough to understand such a thing exists. She came in, larger than life, as the site of my brother, the rebellion’s, first guitar, his Guns N Roses and Michael Jackson tracks to my mother’s musings of Kenny Rogers and Elvis Presley. She came in as my brother’s obsession with Terminator in his small room on the roof of our Tehran house and the constant replays of The Sound of Music in my grandparent’s lavish living room across the yard. But moreover America came in as Cinderella and Mickey Mouse, wind-up toys, Kit-Kat, Ray ban Aviators, mother’s Marlboros and the moonwalk. And if you couldn’t afford anything with a Made in USA printed on it then you would hope to get a Japanese remake of it. Yes, America came to me in the 80’s.
To me America slowly came to be, symbolically, the ultimate frontier in the serge for human prosperity, America to me was endless possibilities, America was future, and Iran was the past. America was good and Russia was evil. Russia was dying and America was the ever present, hovering over everything, even your daily life, your thoughts, hobbies and work, good or bad, America was everywhere.
America as I understood it was made up of a people that were different from the rest of us. This is no exaggeration. It was common to catch a group of kids my age while they praised America totally unprovoked; it was never out of context to talk about America. The Americans do it and it must be a good way to do things, and it often was. “My uncle says, the American government will support their people even outside of America. “ one would say, feeling proud of the fact that he/she had not only had some knowledge of America but also actually knew someone that had been there. “What are you stupid, of course they will, they are not like us, they care about their own people.”
Every claim of connection to America was viewed with suspicion, and if you claimed that you had been to America you were immediately challenged, as if you were insulting the group’s intelligence. “Nobody that sets foot in America will ever come back to this, what do you think I am? A donkey!?” And even if your family was trying to go to America you never spoke about it. First off you would immediately spread rumors and such rumors were plain-dangerous in Iran, secondly you would be ridiculed for daring to consider that YOU would ever be left to enter America the great… Blasphemy!
And all in secrecy, behind drawn curtains, within small, well knit families the same dream was being weaved differently. The American government organized and still does a lottery of the sorts and the winners get to go to America. Nobody I knew ever won, but people did occasionally, so I heard.
I also often heard jokes about people that got lucky and made it to America, and this was a joke because we felt that they would act stupid to the point of even shocking the Americans and embarrassing themselves. That is how we felt about our own ways. As youngsters we made up imaginary circumstances of such and laughed about it. “My uncle said that this poor guy, he tried to bargain at a fancy American store as if this were a bazaar in down town Tehran or something! Hah… Poor guy what does he know” And we found that to be hilarious. My friend said… I read…I heard…That’s all there was, hearsay.
And of course we all grew up, a generation that never forgot how we felt about America. Our fashion, sense of music, hair, philosophy, sex and thoughts, private thoughts was influenced by America. We saw sun spotted pictures of our parents with bell bottoms and side burns, and we laughed. And oh, we wore everything related to the Chicago bulls for a while, everybody knew Michael Jordon. “Your cap is a fake. Probably made in Taiwan or something, the authentic ones have seven stitches all across the front, on the shade. They fooled you, stupid” As I said America was everywhere.
And the fact that we hated our Government somehow gave us a mischievous sense of camaraderie with America. We were in some way on the same team. We didn’t share the same mistrust our previous generation had for America; the religious right who were in power and are, believe that the Shah’s evil King dome was a pony to the Americans, the Pro-shahs and intellectuals on the other hand believed and continue to believe that the current regime was secretly set up by the Americans and the English.
We were not as immersed in the politics of it, we were caught in between Michael's dance moves and Kirk Hammett’s lead, between Robot and Head banging. Yes America came to me in the 80s, and it did to everybody at some point. America was always in the pipelines.
LAX is massive, it is impressive. But only if the people designing the interior to that faithful gateway knew any of the kids from the 80s circle, they would have designed it differently. But then America is missing that touch all over her massive landscape.
To be continued