Back to LA
Trip Start
Oct 08, 2006
1
4
6
Trip End
Feb 04, 2008
Los Angeles,
California,
United States
Saturday, November 11, 2006
So we finally get back into LA, I got about 3 hours sleep in the car on the way. We find our new Hostel and check in, just as the free Sunday night BBQ kicks off. Managed to down a burger and a couple beers, said bye to Damo, played some pool and went to bed for some well needed rest. Got up at 8 the next day, as we had to return the rental car or be charged extra. We got there and sorted it out in no time. Andy had to go to the british Embassy, so we googled it and it looked like it was only a couple of blocks away from the car rental place. We decided to walk it. Bad idea. LA is big. Really fucking big. Still hung over from Vegas, unshowered, wearing jeans and the shirt I wore yesterday, the temp hits 90+ (like 35 celcius) and we walk for about 2 hours to get to this fucking place. I get in there white, panting and lathered in sweat like a racehorse on meth, security are looking at me very dodgily. The fucking Embassy is closed (they work 8.30 - 11.30am...fucking poms.) So we bus back to the Hostel. There we meet Boogie Fever, the head of entertainment at the Orbit Hostel - he is sensationally good at his job. From singapore, we can only assume he moved to London or was taught English by a cockney, as he has a beautiful concotion of Americana and South London in his accent. He tells us the "Key Club" is the place to go. So we clean up, have a few beers and then start to look for a taxi. We meet two Canadian girls who are also looking for a taxi to said club, so we decide to split it. The girls are all done up in their clubbing gear, and Andy is looking very metrosexual. I am wearing my jeans and my new ACDC shirt. We turn up and there is a $15 cover charge - I was ready to bail but thought "well, it's an LA club, should at least see one while I'm out here". We get in and I hear Skynard pumping out on the speakers. I am waiting for the remix part to kick in but it's the original, followed by some Zeppelin. I can't beleive it. I take a look around me, and everyone is dressed in black - not gothic, but black faded t-shirts with Nirvana, Offspring, Def Leppard etc on them. Its a rock club. I look at Andy and the Chicks, shitting themselves as they mill around by the door in their fashionable wear. I look down at my ACDC shirt and jeans (unfortunately not stonewash) and think, this is gonna be a good night. The big screen above the stage comes to life as a guy comes on stage with a camera, and scans the crowd. The blokes start throwing the horns around (pinky and index finger) and most of the girls lift up their top and jump around. Like Madonna, I say a little Prayer and hit the bar, grinning like a maniac. The bartenders are all hot with low tops and DD's, the JD and coke is a triple with a dash of coke, I'm almost crying with happiness. I rock out in the mosh pit for a while, then the band come out. They are all full on glam rock, leather pants, mullets, torn shirts, snake tatts, and very funny. They make some banter about each others mums, with Blink 182 kind of comments about dads, abuse all the "sluts" (Their word, not mine) in the audience, get the camera guy to pick out a few girls and tell the crowd they did very dirty things to that chick last week. Then they kick off the set with a kickass version of walk this way. The show goes on for 2 hours - I found out later the band gets 10k for this performance. They finish up and Steve-O comes out on stage. He is fucked up on something, and not speaking english. He mumbles into the mic for a minute or two, then drops his pants and waves his cock around at the crowd. We cheer, and then the night is over. On the way home me and Andy get hot dogs from a gas station. I have a bad feeling as I watch the hot dog spin around on the grill, knowing full well it is probly old enough to be my grandfather. Tasted fantastic though, with no ill effects. We get home and crash out after a couple more beers.
Tuesday
Got up fairly early with a reasonable hangover and woke Andy up. There was a Danish girl in there - Louisa - who was ok for a Dane. Apparently Andy had come in last night and hit her over the head with his pillow, then asked her if she was going to jump into his bed or if he had to move over to hers. The boy is all class. We decided to go and see Borat the movie, so after getting dressed (always helps) we all headed off for some more walking. Got to the Beverley Centre, a 7 story mall and had a potato for brekky. Not bad, and a terrific view of LA from the top of the food court. The cinemas in this mall were not showing Borat, so me and Andy decided to head on down to the nearest cinema while Louisa watched some chick flick. More walking, it was fucking miles in fact, but we eventually got there. Once again I had neglected to have a shower and was wearing jeans with a hangover on a 90+ day, and I punished those poor souls sitting near me in the cinema. 4 1/2 stars from Gaz out of 5, excellent film. We wandered back to the hostel, showered and then headed for the 20 min walk up hill to Hollywood Boulevard - Grauman's chinese theatre, walk of fame, all that crap. Andy's credit card wasn't working, so we stopped while he spent half an hour on a public phone trying to sort it out. During this time I was propositioned by a hooker (thanks, I'm flattered that you think I have money to spend on contracting VD, but I'll pass for now bye then) and attacked by a crazy mofo. I had seen plenty of madness in the crazy fuckers that are interspersed with the rest of LA's homeless population, but this guy was a hands down winner. Bigass white beard, Einsten-esque big hair, wanders across the road yelling "I goddamm told you you shoulda never been in there" I didn't realise he was talking to me, so ignored him. He threw a few more expletives from his throat as he walked past eyeing me off and I didn't react at all. He wandered on, then turned around and came back toward me.."Is that it huh? You too good for me now? You don't even gotta listen to me! Well FUCK YOU!" and he starts to come over. I figure the best thing to do is show that I am not to good for him, that I was in fact listening to him rant and that I did agree that I shouldn't have been in there in the first place, wherever in there was (we were on the street). So I very calmly take a more upright position leaning against the wall, and reach up with all the outward calm in the world to take my sunnies from my face, lest he smash them into my eyes. As I do this, I try to say very coolly "Sorry mate, is there a problem?" I get the words out fine, but in the pitch of a six year old girl. I kind of did a double-take at my own voice shaking my head and looking confused, and he stopped, feet away from me, teeth gnashing, eyes promising murder and body odour offending. Then he just walks away and tries to pick a fight with some other dude. I beleive I outcrazied the crazy dude, if only by accident. I think I will use that next time I have a run in with one of our less mentally aware brothers. Walk of fame was kind of ordinary, so I very shortly got a bus back to the Hostel. Was sitting there playing pool with Cesar, supposedly a TV producer from Portugal when I hear an aussie accent say "G'day Mate" I'm thinking "fuck, all I am meeting over here is aussies. I need to make some foreign friends. I sink my shot and look up - if it isn't fucking O'Really O'Rielly. We hug and kiss a little, and I compliment him on his fine ass. Not really, we shake hands and catch up on latest travels. Then we go to find out how to get to the Staples Centre, as we have tickets to the Lakers game against the Timberwolves that night. Cesar, the guy whose ass I am handing to him in pool says "Oh I have a car and I know LA really well, I'll take you.". Sweet as fuck! So me and Reilly go get some beers and return then Cesar takes us for a ride. He has no fucking idea where we are going - we have to make one right turn from the Hostel to get to the Lakers stadium, and he makes a left! Couldn't beleive it. It is becoming apparent that Cesar is a bullshitter to put Luke Thompson to shame, as he tells us he is a TV producer, has 3 girlfriends in LA but got tired of them so booked into a hostel for a fortnight. Apparently worth several millions, he tells us he was doing lines of coke with Downey Jr and Paris Hilton last night...but tonight he is playing chauffer to a couple Aussie boys. He also drives like he is playing mariokart, it was frightening. Anyway, we got there ok and got to our nosebleed seats in good time, missing the first minute or so of the game. Kobe Bryant was back on after his knee injury kept him out for the first part of the season, I beleive he hurt it giving love. I say giving love not making love, cos Kobe loves to give, regardless of whether you want it or not - a great man. Game finished, we won free tacos because the Lakers kept the Timberwolves to under 90 pts, and then me and Reilly went our seperate ways on the Metro. Took me two fucking hours to get home, and we drank in the party room at the hostel me owning the chess board there from all people from all countries....what a party, chess and beer. Well I enjoyed it. I left Andy trying to pick up some bitch from Sydney (no I have not taken to speaking like a gangsta, this chick really was a full on bitch) and went to bed.
Wednesday
We got up early to take the tour that the hostel offered. $45 for a 5.5 hour journey, and worth every cent let me tell you. 10am sharp we meet as told in the foyer....and our driver MickeyZ rocks up at about 11, as stoned as a blasphemer in biblical times. He looks every part the roadie, and was for 20 years...but apparently only remembers when he was doing speakers for Motley Crue on their 88 tour to the UK, cos thats the only one he talks about. So during this tour MickeyZ talks nonstop, name dropping (yeah me and Ozzie were the first guys to do Ice....Me and Paul Mcartney used to get high...I went to school with Slash etc) constantly but a lot of it is funny stuff. We get to see movie stars homes, which is kind of boring, Venice beach for lunch, various other sight seeing stuff (including the bridge Flea used to shoot up underneath) walk of fame etc, but then we get to the real tour. South Central and Skid Row. South Central is where the LA riots started, and is currently owned by the Crips. Mickey Z gets his weed from the Crips and made some contacts, so he is allowed to take his bus full of gawping white guys through South Central, whereas any other tourguide woud be capped' - or so Mickey informs us. The area is not so bad - it's early afternoon, but apparently the shooting and shit gets started at about 9pm. All the windows and doors have bars on them - the only ones that don't belong to the drug kingpins of the area. Anyway, we are rolling along in one neighbourhood while Mickey chants "WBG for life, ya'll" (WBG meaning White Boys Gang), watching various black people look up from work and yell "Whatdefuckalldemcrackerslookinatyo?" There is not a single white person on the street, it's all Hispanic and Black. So we get toward the end of the street and Mickey Z seems to get excited.."Is that 7-up? It is 7-up! Yo what up 7-up? You holding or what yo?" He says all this with his headset on, the speakers blaring it out onto the street. 7-up gets off the porch and yells for him to shut the fuck up, whole damn neighbourhood can hear him. Mickey Z apologises, turns off this headset and asks where the rest of the crew is. Apparently, they all got busted dealing last night and are in jail until Feb. A rival gang is now looking for 7-up, and Mickey Z tells him to get his ass up in his crib. 7-up takes offense at this, and starts explaining very politely how this is his hood, and no other nigga gonna make him have to hide there, he ain't scared. He punctuates his speech with many West side signs and grabbings of crotch. I should mention now that the entire busload of 12 passengers are leaning to the right hand side of the bus, cameras in hand but no-one has the balls to take a shot. It's like being on safari and everyone is worried that the flash from their camera is going to make the tiger attack the car. So 7-up finishes his speech in defense of his hood, and he still looks pissed off at the suggestion that he should get up in his crib and hide out. With a relaxed but angry look in his eye he reaches slowly into his pocket and grabs something. As his hand withdraws from his pocket, the entire bus shifts as one from the window to the far side of the bus. The seconds pass like hours as we see his hand emerge from his pants, gripping a metal object.....as he puts his mobile to his ear and says "sup" an audible sigh escapes from the passengers. 7-up then asks if any of us want to score some weed. No one answers - although probly everyone likes to get high, we are still a little worried about scoring from 7-up. We go on to see the building that die hard 1 was filmed in, the bridge where the bus jumped from in speed, and skid row where we could watch crack deals going down in broad daylight. Finished up and got dropped off back at the hotel. From there we had a few beers and then went to a bar, Barney's Beanery, which sells pitchers for $8 each, which compared to $5 a pint is great value. So I rounded up a Posse and about 12 of us went down there, including a Welsh guy called Gareth, who also went by Gaz. He had a really hot girlfriend and I hoped that perhaps with copious amounts of beer some confusion may ensue on her part, but alas it was not to be. We got to the bar and wouldn't you know it, this is their one night of the year when they take off all draught beer and do maintenance on the pipes (after years of bar work I have never heard of this but anyway) so all they had was bottled beer. We were about to leave when out of the corner of my eye a contrast of colors leaped to my attention. In the international beers fridge, there sat 2 brown bottles next to each other, a green cirlce as label on one and a red circle as label on the other. I ventured closer to confirm my suspicions, and a manly cry for joy escaped my lips as I recognised Coopers Pale and Sparkling in there. Me and Andy hugged for joy and got a round of reds, but the novelty soon wore off at the price mark. We got a taxi home with Ewen and Nick (who looks like Rowan Pullen) a scot and a pom who were good quality and consistently kicked our asses at pool. We had a few beers and some games of pool, 1 of which we won, and then went and drank in the party room until 4amish. It was ordinary, but I continued my dominance of the chess board in the party room which was nice. Said goodbye to a few and then made my way to bed, arising very seedyish at 8.30 for the shuttle to the airport. Got through ok and after an hours delay I was on my way to NY.
