I'm a 30 year old born and
raised in Los Angeles

Now a Designer
turned Information Architect
turned Design Director
at a .com in London
with my new wife Leyhsa

Archive:
Apr - Jun 01 | Jul- Aug 01 | Sept- Dec 01 | Jan- Apr 02 | May- Jul 02
Aug - Sep 02 | Oct- Dec 02 | Jan - Feb 03 | March 03

Bus SS Officer then says, 'You need to get a ticket before you get on the bus.'

So I say, 'As you can ascertain, I am already on the bus and am happy to pay you now the 70p.'

'But you have to pay before you get on. You now need to pay a £5 fee.'

'Five pounds! What are you nuts?! Since when can I not pay for the fare once I'm on the bus?'

'This bus always requires you to pay before you get on. You should have asked the driver.'

'Now how the hell would I know to pay beforehand? I take a bus everyday and have always paid a collector while riding on the bus. Do I need to join some Bus Secret Society to find out your wonderful new rules?? The bus driver wasn't even on the bus when I got here! I'm not paying you 5 pounds. Let me off now!' By this point everybody on the bus is staring at me and I am ready to start swinging at this guy, especially as I see his co-hort SS Officer next to him starts smiling at me like she had her brain erased.

'You have to pay for your journey. It says you have to pay before you get on along the side of the bus. And since you didn't buy one, you now need to pay 5 pounds.'

Now I decide to try my campaign message to him; 'This freakin city SUCKS.'

Moron smiling co-hort Bus SS Officer then pipes in, 'You're not on New York public transportation now.'

To which I reply, 'You're right, they actually go to work every day.' (Okay, I need to warn those out there who have sensitive eyes, I usually KGB cussing on my site. But here, it is important I be faithful to the event, so I am about to use some. You will have to read on with the warning that my Mayoral Campaign of Love is about to tailspin.)

'You know what, FUCK YOU and don't patronize me. And fuck your shit rules and your stupid jack off strikers. Just get me the hell off of this fucking bus. You both are morons. I just told you there was no driver to pay or to find out to pay beforehand. SO FUCK OFF ASSHOLE. '

(I walked the rest of the way to work) JASON FOR LONDON MAYOR, YAY!

I have learned much after spending a weekend with the lively group of twelve about the psychology and inner workings of the male Briton. If I had only three words to use to describe all of the complexities, ambitions, amusements and driving force behind the British it would be these: Pint of Beer. The consumption of beer leapt to staggering proportions and I was amazed at the tenacity and extent of intake they were able to endure.

The festivities started with meeting at a pub on Friday night where we had Pints of Beer for a few hours before taking a sleeper train to Penzance. Tom's friends are great people and I really enjoyed meeting such a lively and diverse group. The train ride was a combination of beer, whiskey, learning from me the American Art of Poker, wine, discussing my Campaign Platform, and Vodka. I luckily was fighting off a cold and had a good excuse to avoid all but one beer. My new campaigners though did their part in my stead.

We arrived the next day at Penzance and took a cab ride from there to St. Ives, where we stopped at an old Pub called the Sloop built in 1315. We had breakfast of a Traditional English Fry Up (which is basically a large plate of fat, cholesterol, and oil) washed down with a Pint of Beer.

St. Ives itself is a peninsula with a very quaint harbor nestled with narrow streets crowded with rough stone buildings that have moss growing on the roofs; looking much like what you might expect a sleepy seaside town would look like. To give you an idea how sleepy it is, the harbor is very shallow and at low tide, the water recedes and leaves all of the boats marooned in sand - which includes the docked Lifeboat which apparently is only able to save lives during high tide.

We then went to the beach after checking into our hotel and played rounders (its essentially a sissy version of baseball for those who don't know). Tom's younger brother, who was an excellent host, got us all lunch while we sat on the beach with some wine (only since there was no Pint of Beer to find close by). I had my first real Cornish Pasty (pronounced PASSED-TEE and any other pronunciation makes people laugh at you as I sadly found out) which is a baked roll stuffed with steak, onions, potatoes, and Beer. It was so nice being at the beach again and it really made me miss home. They even had surfers desperately trying to take on the 3 foot waves, poor guys.

Later on that night we hit four or five pubs, of which Pints and Pints of Beer were consumed at each stop. By this time I started thinking that these guys were going to all of a sudden start screaming as their livers busted out of their bodies and exploded, but that somehow never happened. The Briton is indeed a man to be feared. I had gone alcohol-free since early in the evening but they staggered on and by 3:00 am we finally got back to the hotel only to get up the next day to have a Pint of Beer before heading to breakfast where we (the we meaning that I participated only in watching kind of we by this point) had a Pint of Beer followed by Bloody Maries.

We all went to the Tate Museum and saw a little modern art and then going back to the Sloop for one more Pint of Beer before heading back to London on the train for some Bloody Maries and Beer. That Sunday night when we arrived in London, it was only fitting that we all went to a bar for a round of, you guessed it, a Pint of Beer. This phenomenon can only be explained by the fact that the British do not have normal blood like other people but instead have some viscous Barley and Hops mixture coursing through their veins.

I have learned many new and wondrous things while participating in the Jason for London Mayor Stag Party weekend. First off, that I like the British- they are a very funny and warm people. Second, a scone with Cornish clotted cream and jelly on top is probably the greatest food to ever exist in the history of bread. Third, I also learned that I have solidified my bid for Mayor. And lastly I learned that I don't like Pints of Beer.

And just as you kids have been asking, yes, there are NEW entries inBig Mike's Corner as he has fended off more attacks on his more or less offending nature. He also will be announcing soon the winner of the big drawing. All you have to do is write to Big Mike (usually because he pisses you off) and you are guaranteed a response, sticky french toast and an entry in the free CD drawing.

Q: Jason, do you really think that an American would truly have a chance to win a Mayoral race for Britain's capitol?

A: If George Bush can win the presidency with only 30% of eligible voters actually voting for him (by the way, that's why you should vote and not stay at home), then I certainly have a chance. If you look at the independent study I conducted, I already have a better chance of getting more of a percentage then 30. Of the 23 people who have responded on my website, all of them said they would vote for me. Even if you subtract out the ones that aren't London residents, that's still a100% approval rating. Now that's some numbers!

Q: What will be the first thing you do in office?

A: On my first day I promise to fire the tube workers followed by handing out assault weapons to the police officers. My second day I will take it easy, and maybe drive into town and mock my old boss, The Soulless One. By Wednesday I will eliminate the germ warfare threat in the city by closing all Garfunkels restaurants. We'll have to see how Thursday goes, I guess I'll play it by ear.

Q: Who do you admire and look up to?

A: Well those are two completely different answers. I look up to Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols. Here's a guy who had a face that looked like somebody used it for an ashtray with absolutely no singing voice but led one of the most important cultural and societal revolutions of the past twenty five years. Now that kicks. Though their first album's title, 'Never Mind the Bollocks' made absolutely no sense to me what that meant but at least I now have a crack in the code, in that bullocks means testicles.

Q: Um, okay. Er, thanks. So who do you admire then?

A: George W Bush, that's who. Now here's a man that was a straight C student. Where the majority of his businesses failed aside from a successful coincidental selling of Kuwaiti oil stocks just before the Iraqi invasion. A man who when growing up would be told by his mother Barbara that he wouldn't get to play tennis if he was bad. A valiant savior who served during the Vietnam War by being stationed in Texas. A guy who at age 30 was convicted of drunk driving, was known to have abused cocaine and alcohol, and STILL can become our 43rd President of the United States of America, the most powerful human (used loosely) being on the planet. Now that's a success story that I can admire. If he can do it, then anyone with a powerful and rich family that controls business and government can do it too!

After that, everyone started to applaud and I got a piece in the paper right next to the story about how London Bus Drivers are talking of striking next. So onto other things- Leyhsa is over the nausea for now and seems to have bounced back from the pregnancy fatigue, so we celebrated my birthday by going to the Royal Academy of Arts and seeing a fantastic exhibition on the use of color in Impressionism and Expressionism. My birthday present to myself was to become a member of the Museum, where we got to go into the exclusive, 'Friends of the Royal Academy Room' and have tea and crumpets while rubbing shoulders with other members. The membership has already paid for itself by relaxing in the most comfortable couches I have ever had the pleasure to sit on.

To stay in style of last year's Lego Land birthday, we then went to the Arcade in Piccadilly afterward and played pinball and air hockey, followed by slurping on soup at Wagamamas and catching Spiderman on the IMAX screen. All in all, a good number 31.

And Lastly, there's more mud slinging and more name calling then ever before- as Big Mike is challenged with even more scrutiny as the festival continues with his beloved readers at Big Mike's Corner.

He had made up for it retroactively though by taking us out to a great restaurant and being a superb house guest (including never complaining about sleeping on a tiny cheapie Ikea love seat even though he's over 6 foot tall), but he still deserves your spite for those who felt destitute without the dose of Limey Logic normally regularly provided. We did lots of stuff and conveniently avoided seeing too much of what Leyhsa and I already have done. Including this new exhibit at the Tate Modern of this HUGE 508 foot long and 10 stories high installation, and the Somerset House featuring several masters of the past 300 years, plus the play we saw in SOHO featuring Woody Harrilson and Kyle McLaughlan. Lotsa stuff lots to do.

And now we have more new visitors, Shannon (also pictured)and his new bride Pam. So we'll be taking them out on the town and I'll tell you how that goes.

So though my entry is scant in size, I can however provide you with the latest replies Big Mike has prepared to his recent reader's comments (I think the vitriolic anger he has sparked in the past may have tamed him a little, but I don't know, you be the judge).

Also today we had a fire drill at our office. You might be asking, 'Gee, how exciting is that Jason, is your life really that boring?'. Well piss off then- here's the thing, its the third drill they've had this year alone and it makes it the fourth one I have participated in since moving to London just a short 18 months ago. And this is where the strange part comes; I used to work in downtown LA on the 24th floor of a 45 floor high-rise for two and a half years and never once was involved in a fire drill. Not once, and that's in a building completely made of glass in the middle of earthquake country. (And I don't mean the front-page news 'frightening and hair-raising' earthquakes they have had here in England that barely hit 3.0 on the richter scale, kind of earthquake country, no the real earthquakes where things collapse and people die kind of earthquake country).

This made me wonder, and the answer I got from a colleague was because of the historical threat from IRA bombings making fire drills a regular necessity. Which made me piece together another thing that bugs the heck out of me about London -there's never anywhere to throw away trash because there are barely any public trash cans and there are literally none in the tube stations. The reason is that the Irish Republican Army would commonly plant bombs in trash bins, making bins too big of a threat to keep around. Which makes tossing litter in the streets a common thing you see people do because there aren't that many bins around to put garbage in. So when Shannon asked me why my new home I now fondly consider 'My City' is a dismal dirty awful mess, I tell him frankly its because of the Irish. (Which was fun to do considering he is half Irish and as you know I like annoying people) So here is my epiphany:

TERRORISM = LITTERING

In a city where terrorism had been a common occurrence, including three bombings in London since I have lived here, you realize how much of your freedom you take for granted. The fear that we all feel about our security and safety since 9-11 has been existing in some form for thirty years here. This paranoia and fear I see happening in the US seems to be tenfold because the sacrifice of our homes under threat was never as real and in our face until now. Walking on my block here in London you would see 8 beautiful Victorian homes in a row and then all of a sudden the 9th would be an ugly 60's concrete apartment complex. Why a hideous turd of a building between such lovely Victorian architecture? Because the previous residents were on the unlucky landing spot for a German WWII bomb. A terrible consequence of war that destroyed 40% of London. Destruction has been so common place in the last century throughout Europe that the notion of safety is just not as naive as we as Americans have been lucky enough until now to live in. The people in Jerusalem for sure know that fear, having to live through it all the time, not ever knowing who might end your life that's on the bus with you.

So the next time you see garbage on the street, pick it up, hold it defiantly up to the sky, and yell as loud as you can, 'I hate you Mr. Bin Ladin because trash is stinky godammit and its all your fault!'

On other news, there's another entry over in Big Mike's corner. You can tell he's doing his best to toe the line, but it sure seems to me he's more stomping on the line. I emailed the winner of the contest who has not responded to claim his prize of a custom British Funk CD, so the contest is back on! Write to Big Mike and you are entered in the drawing. Oh, and the views stated on Big Mike's Corner are solely the expressed views of Big Mike and may not necessarily be the views of Limeys Everywhere, Limeys Everywhere husbands, or the Jason for London Mayor Campaign. (Leyhsa reads this site so I need to cover my butt as I like the fact that I am not sleeping on a couch).

And finally, the answer to the what's wrong with this picture quiz:
George Bush is President

Sunday, November 17, 2002 :CAMPAIGN DAY 48

The firemen are rightly upset at their salaries but this is where the stupidity factor comes in: they want a 40% pay raise- no more and definitely no less. Forty percent breaks into being such a huge sum of money and an incredible manifestation of extortion that public funds as well as the economy just cannot rationally support it. That's like me walking up to my boss and saying, 'Hi, will you please fire two people so I can afford to get a big screen TV? If not, I am going to set fire to the company and say its all your fault.'

So even though the firemen are threatening to cause even further and more dangerous disruptions and are putting a serious risk to public safety with an upcoming 8-day strike, plus are demanding a ludicrously unrealistic ransom which could bankrupt public funds, the good people of this country seem to be duped into supporting them.

The thing is they are duped all the time taking a hit left and right and still stand quietly taking it. For example, the petrol prices here work out to be over $80 for a tank of gas- and not because fuel costs are more to import (most of it is drilled offshore in Scotland) its because whenever the government needs a little extra money, they add on additional tax upon additional tax onto the price making for every $1 they spend on petrol, its only 20 cents that's actually paying for the gas. And nobody complains about it. When the tube strike forced people to spend an average of an additional 4 hours commuting and the city losing £200 million a day just so tube drivers could pad their already bloated salaries even further for a service that was recently rated by an international report as the most expensive and most delayed transportation system in Europe, there was very little said of how unfair it all was.

From what I have been told, this is due to the before mentioned cultural composure of the 'British Stiff Upper Lip' which dates its origins back to the sacrifices made during World War II. The British faced heavy fatalities, rationing and devastation during the war, with the people undertaking sacrifices under bleak odds rather than giving up to the Nazis. This continued even after the war and reached a point in the 70's where they instilled a 3 day work week due to power and fuel shortages.

What I am getting at is that because of generations of accepting strife and not fixating on it and complaining, the British have an incredible endurance (in part because of their heavy lager drinking capabilities) to handle anything thrown at them. The problem though is that since they don't complain about it, they get screwed. That is why Americans here are seen as so annoying. We don't like getting screwed, in fact we don't want any part of it and we will get in your face if you try to (unless of course when it's a subversive type of 'bollocking' like Dubya getting into power). So we put up a stink when gas prices go up 2 cents, we sue when McDeath serves crap food, we boycott and hold demonstrations when TV stations air 'bad for the public' shows. ('Bad' of course meaning not in the 'Jerry Springer' kind of bad way but in a '6 Feet Under' men kissing on TV kind of way bad)'.

So as part of my Jason for London Mayor campaign, I plan on adding an American style format of whining in order to safeguard the public. The solution is to air the Oprah Winfrey Show, shown 24 hours a day on a free public station, so people here can learn about complaining. Her show has more whiners, complainers, its so-and-so's fault and not mine guests that the British will undoubtedly learn to let that lip loose and start bitching like their cross-the-pond cousins. Okay, say it with me now, JASON FOR MAYOR YAY!

This week, I met Richard Branson at a party for Virgin Mobile. It was at this ultra-hip club called Heaven. He was very nice, shook my hand, pointed to where the bar was, and from that I think we can safely infer that Sir Richard Branson, the demagogue of British commerce, has ENDORSED ME FOR MAYOR. I might need to make some small concessions which in no way will compromise my ethics, but if Bush and Cheney can have oil businessmen on their White House cabinet, then a small thing like renaming the city to 'London brought to you by Virgin' shouldn't be much of a problem.

At the party, they had one of the music industry fabricated bubblegum pop bands called LibertyX play. It was really funny because it was so obvious that they were lip synching and it got better when this one guy in the band that plays the bad boy part (as all prefab bands as a rule have one 'bad boy' in them e.g. has a benign looking tattoo, or a well trimmed goatee, wears an Armani leather jacket or maybe an ear ring on occasion, etc) had not only one of those headset microphones on but also a microphone in his hand- and despite such extreme measures, coincidentally when a song ended and he tried to say something to the crowd, you couldn't hear him. Hmmmmm... coincidence? The party itself was a fun yet surreal experience, as if being inside of a Pepsi commercial for an entire evening.

There's lots of other things going on over here in Limeyland HQ- first off our Jason for Mayor of London brought to you by Virgin campaign offices (my flat) has been sold and Leyhsa and I will be kicked out as of the end of December and will be moving yet again. We have found however a new place in the same neighborhood that is in this beautiful converted mansion with a huge communal garden with lots of windows and is closer to the tube station (not the windows mind you but the flat is closer- just in case I confused you). The place kicks but it's a studio flat this time, which will make the living space a little smaller. This will mean that in a short two year timespan, I will have lived in a grand total of SIX places and had FOUR jobs. I feel like Bill Bixby from 'The Incredible Hulk' just wandering around from place to place turning green.

Other news is that after my latest project finishes, I am going to cash in on my free Virgin flights that I get and all of the vacation days I have been harboring and go to Florida with Leyhsa for a week to visit my grandparents and then to Cape Town for two weeks. If any of you have suggestions on what to see or where to stay in Cape Town, please e-me. While there, I'm hoping to see if I can get Nelson Mandela to join my mayoral campaign. As a Nobel Peace Prize winner and leader against human injustices, I believe he will embrace my politics and bring the windfall I need to win an election.

Lastly, Big Mike has responded to your emails and they are now posted over in his Corner for you to check out.

If you would like to e-me or provide a contribution to my Mayoral Campaign (so far £12.85 has been accrued in the coffers) I'm at perfectpixels@mac.com

Speaking of stress, the British handle the pressure chamber fantastically better then I have seen in my experiences with Americans. Americans seem to panic and get the itchy trigger for blame shifting. The British that I have worked with have a surprisingly positive attitude when facing unrealistic odds and just plow on without the panicking, blaming, grumbling, or passive aggressiveness (in other words, like me). I firmly believe that this is caused by three unique British phenomena melding together. It is based on the following constants that provide the determinants for the British psychology:

1. It's just work and there is always a much more interesting trip to focus on instead.
2. Nothing gets better no matter how much of a huff put into it. Just look at the weather.
3. The world is just a better place when there is a Lager in your hand.

All the British seem to know these important truths of life and fend off stress and worry of the work world like no other culture (aside from maybe Buddhist Monks, Rastafarians, and most Pacific Islanders). With this knowledge now in my able hands, I believe if I too can adapt this mantra, in conjunction with my American savviness, I SHALL BE MAYOR OF LONDON brought to you by Virgin

Leyhsa has been having for over five months incredible pregnancy cravings for things you can only get in the US and was finally able to indulge herself and el Presidente in all of them. She consumed Taco Bell like it was her last ever meal plus Wendy's Frosties, Cheesecake Factory Chocolate Mousse Cheesecake, Jamba Juice Smoothies, and even a special order of my grandmother's special recipe stuffing for good measure.

The shopping took a little bit of patience from my grandparents as they watched perplexed to see us giddy to buy the stupidest of items. We felt like refugees salvaged from an oppressed Soviet Bloc country seeing free commerce for the first time, being able to buy a 3-pack of saline solution for only half the price it normally costs behind the iron curtain in Boots Pharmacy for just a measly single bottle. I as an American never had the perspective to appreciate just how good we get it in the States. The cost of living for us blokes in the UK is extraordinarily high where even a ticket to a movie is over twice as much. The people here have to muddle their way through having to stretch their money so much further on essentials leaving so little room for disposable income. We walked around in this ultra-super-mall with my grandparents where there were hundreds of stores where almost anything for sale from underwear to CD players are usually half the price you can get on our little island.

Unlike the London we left, Miami was breezy, warm, blue skied, sunny and extra-double super sized. It felt like we had left the land of Lilliput and arrived in Gigantore Land. The streets are bigger, the portions are bigger, the waistlines tend to be wider, but especially the trucks are bigger. They are like gigantic buildings on wheels and each one we saw thundering along on the road seemed to be bigger than the last one. All the SUV's (Sports Utility Vehicles) have very manly testosterone-masculine names. Names like the Mountaineer, the Yukon, Trailblazer, the Avalanche, etc, all signifying the iconoclastic outdoor mountain man; which is ironic considering that Florida is completely flat and the only hill in any direction will be the local garbage dump which I very much doubt somebody in their $60,000 Cadillac Escalade with all leather interior will be doing much off-roading in.

Sports Utility Vehicles have been a growing market in the past few years but have enjoyed skyrocketing sales in the past 12 months as they have been primarily the only vehicles sold. Picture 2002 was to SUVs as 1984 was to sequined silver gloves. This is despite there being quite a bit of negative press regarding SUVs as they require much more natural resources to build and get one third the gas mileage as a mid-sized car. They are also deadly as they have a high center of gravity with soccer moms driving them the same way they would drive a normal car leading to many flipping over, as well as the bumper height is much higher compared to regular cars leading to a dangerous tendency to crush people in cars when they get in accidents as the SUVs plow over them. And then lastly, thanks to Big Businessman Bush, who has pushed the requirements of SUVs complying with emission standards to beyond 2014, they emit more pollutants then a 1974 Buick Skylark missing its muffler.

So why are they bought more often lately? I have a theory like always and it is that Americans are scared. The news since 9-11 is full of lurking menaces around every corner helping a nationwide paranoia grip its cul-de-sac streets. And what better way to protect yourself when you are scared then buying the biggest, meanest, and most gigantic-ist monster truck on your block! The UK does not seem to follow in suit as smaller is better with gas prices being insane and parking spaces being a hard to find commodity. Just look at the difference in tone and language between the American Ford website and the UK Ford website. The UK Ford site is almost testosterone free and even a bit girlie while the American one has a big giant monster machine towering over a hill with text boasting of its power. And how many times do you really think you need to tow away timber in Suburbia? For other comparisons, I have put together thissmall group of photos demonstrating the penis envy going on in the auto industry.

My feeling is that even though life on this island is cold, miserable, expensive and harder, the Limeys don't indulge in excess and I am pretty proud to see that. Maybe I will run for Mayor of the USA next...