Los Angeles, round two

…And once again we find ourselves in Los Angeles. The original plan had been to go from Vegas straight to Toronto, but nothing was booked yet, as I was holding out hopes for a certain L7 reunion concert being announced. Happily, it was to be (although unhappily, at scalper prices), and given that one of Sam's favourite bands Wire also turned out to be playing in LA a few days later, I had no trouble convincing him that it was imperative we back-track. Toronto and getting jobs could wait….

Not learning my lesson from our 2013 trip, I was once again lured into booking the slightly cheaper bus from Vegas to LA. My glee at the $14 saved quickly dissipated when we boarded the bus (at 8am) and it all came flooding back; the TV screens playing D-grade movies with subtitles, the radio blaring simultaneously… We were back on the ADHD bus from hell! Once again, I gladly would have paid the driver more than $14 to turn it all off so I could go back to sleep. There would also later be a singing child… Oh, and the driver: when loading our bags, he asked where we were from, and I told him New Zealand. After some more small talk, he said “You guys are from England right?” and I was like “No, New Zealand.” He was then like “Yeah, but New Zealand in England?” Confused, we explained that no, New Zealand was a different country, and not at all part of England. He eyed us suspiciously like we were having him on.

This time we were staying in Downtown LA, an area that we felt we hadn’t explored adequately a couple of weeks earlier. All in all, it was great being close to the subway, and we definitely found some cool places, but on the whole, it gave off a bit of a vibe like it was trying too hard to be New York and failing spectacularly. East Hollywood/Silverlake/Echo Park for the win. After arriving in our Airbnb place and doing our usual scope of the area for vegan chicken wings, we found ourselves, surprisingly, at the Yard House for dinner. I say surprisingly, because it was a sports bar that was part of the LA Live complex (stadium where lots of their big basketball games etc are played). But hey, it was a five minute walk away, and they gave us vegan, who were we to argue? Later that night Sam went to see Conflict (we’d already seen them play the day before at Punk Rock Bowling, and I’m not quite the huge fan that Sam is, so I elected to sit this one out). What was meant to be a productive night at home writing a blog entry quickly went out the window when I discovered we had TV access for the first time in quite a while, and I spent the evening succumbing to the ultimate in American television; a reality show on botched plastic surgery disasters, followed by a Cops-style programme focusing on serial killer couples. Yep, this is what being in the US is all about….

The view from our Downtown LA Airbnb apartment

Downtown LA....sorta like New York, but with palm trees and less character

Mural in progress over a few days on our way to the Yard House. I was surprised and intrigued that they would actually hire artists to paint an advertisement like this for a movie rather than stick a pre-printed thing on a billboard. Pretty impressive. Oh, and the Downtown Car Wash, a world famous skate spot.

On Wednesday we found two of the aforementioned cool places in the downtown area and devoted a lot of the day to them; the Last Bookstore and the Hive. The Last Bookstore was not only book paradise (they had an entire room dedicated to art books, including a huge selection on lowbrow artists) but sold records as well. I think we ended up making three visits there. The Hive is an artist collective that has a gallery at the front, and then about fifty little artist studios at the back, which are open to the public. For Sam and I, it felt like being kids in a candy store. The stand-out artist for me was Naoshi, who creates images from coloured sand (a practice called ‘sunae’); watch out for her, I predict I will regret not having bought one of her pieces…

After a couple of drinks at a dark little dive bar called the Golden Gopher (all their light fittings were golden – well probably not made from actual gold – gopher figurines), it was time for takeaway pad thai, laundry, and then finally catching up on Game of Thrones, which we had missed while in Vegas.

Los Angeles Theater; a visual highlight in the DTLA landscape.

Sam gophering for gold... It was at this point in the trip that I decided my rubbish photos may be improved by a switch to black and white. It was not to be...

L7 concert day! In honour of the occasion I washed my hair for the first time in a number of weeks, and spent longer than  I should probably admit faffing about and deciding what to wear. Once suitably attired, we walked to Bulan Thai for dinner, but I was too excited to eat much, and for the first time ever couldn’t finish those vegan chicken wings. All the more room for beer I guess… It took us another half hour to walk to the Echo, and we were uncharacteristically early; the venue was only about a third full, and I was pleased to see that it was indeed a very small space, so there would be no problem getting within spitting distance of the band. Given that they hadn’t all played together (or apparently even been in the same room) for like fifteen years, it really could have gone either way, and from their online posts leading up to the show, I think even they were pretty nervous about how it was all going to go down. After a surprise introduction from a not overly eloquent but super enthusiastic and cute Brody Dalle, any doubts were thoroughly put to rest with their opening song, the glorious ‘Andre.’ They were so incredibly heavy and solid, thundering through one classic after another, and completely killing it. For the first few songs we stood on benches at the side, but despite having a great view, I wanted to be up the front, so weasled my way in to second row right in front of Jennifer, where I was too short to see much, but indulged in a lot of fist waving and dancing. Post-show, I made my way back from the bathroom, and Sam had managed to strike up a conversation with Suzi the guitarist. She was lovely, and we hung out and had quite a long chat with her, and got a couple of photos too. Later on, as we were standing outside the venue waiting for our Uber ride to arrive, a car sped by with who else but Suzi from L7 hanging out the window and yelling “See you guys in Toronto!” at us. Awww… Guess I better buy us some tickets for their upcoming show here.

L7 skeleton hands banner! By the time I get home, this may be tattooed somewhere on me :)

The one photo I took while L7 were playing; didn't wanna be that snap-happy jerk annoying everyone with their phone... 

Suzi! We love you Suzi!

      

Friday involved repeat visits to the LA Café, the Hive and the Last Bookstore, and then a short Metro trip to Olvera Street. Known as the birthplace of LA, it’s a Mexican marketplace with colourful street vendors and stalls, selling mainly food and souvenirs (most of which took the form of Mexican wrestling masks). After some photo ops but no purchases, we headed to Amoeba Records, where Sam managed to sell a couple of Gravemind LPs, and then it was back home for blogging and casjhing out.

Olvera Street fountain posing. Would have been enhanced by Mexican wrestling mask.

Union Station, on the way back from Olvera Street. We'd caught trains and buses from here on previous trips but had never actually paid attention to the building. Whaddya know, it's kinda cool when you're not stressing about travel arrangements.

Eager to do some more LA sightseeing, but being very budget-aware at this point, on Saturday we did the – thankfully free – Griffith Observatory. I’d almost been inclined to walk there since it was a lovely day, but we were relieved we went for the lazy option of the fifty cent shuttle when we saw how steep the hill was. At least this meant that we were afforded spectacular views across LA and of the Hollywood sign. It being a Saturday, unfortunately the place was infested with children, so we probably spent less time looking round the exhibits inside because of this. Also, most of the displays were inevitably space themed, and for some reason - Futurama aside - space just doesn’t really appeal to me that much. This may be because of a recurring dream I’ve had throughout my life where, against my will, I’m bundled into an extremely tiny capsule which is then launched into space. You couldn’t offer me enough money to want to go there. So yeah, apart from some very impressive murals, the inside of the building was pretty much space + children = ugh, so I preferred being outside with the view. The rest of Griffith Park is apparently known for its good hiking and biking trails, but predictably we did not avail ourselves of them. It seems that surfing will be the only out-of-my-comfort-zone thing I’ll attempt on this trip.

Being observant in Griffith Park.

The view! DTLA where we were based is the cluster of tall buildings behind me to the right.

Murals are better than space.

The trusty shuttle dropped us off on the corner of Vermont and Sunset, where we’d spied some vintage clothing and record stores on earlier visits which always seemed to be closed, but were finally open. In the best of these clothing stores, where I easily could have dropped a few grand (there was a genuine Michael Jackson Thriller-era roadie tour jacket going for $800 and about a million gorgeous 1950s dresses), instead of giving them my money, I rewarded them by nearly killing their tiny dog. Seriously, why do you have a dog that looks like a rug and is the same colour as the carpet sitting in the main walkway of your very cluttered store where customers with steel-cap boots and not great eyesight are likely to tread? After an “Oh shit I’m so sorry!” from me and a disgruntled squeal from the dog (I think I just got part of its tail, it seemed pretty unscathed), it turned out this was actually an effective way to make friends with the owner, who didn’t seem too fussed about the threat to her dog but more intrigued by my accent. Once she saw my Rancid shirt, we bonded over mutual crushes on Tim Armstrong (he used to live in the neighbourhood and according to her, everyone, female and male, had a crush on him because he’s super awesome; just as I suspected…). At this point Sam made an entrance, having exhausted the record place next door, and got talking to the other store girl. Twenty minutes later, after swapping email addresses and being told we were the best people ever, to come stay if we were ever in the area again and that “we just really have such a connection”, we were on our way. I love hyperbolic Americans. P.S. No emails have yet been exchanged. It’s that whole “we’ll do lunch,” “the cheque’s in the mail” mentality. Which I’m totally guilty of too. Maybe all that separates the rest of us from those successful people doing things right is that they’re the only ones who actually follow up on and pursue these random connections…

In a few hours’ time, we were due at the Wire gig in Echo Park (I hadn’t originally planned on going, but since Sam was fizzing about it and it was a Saturday night in LA and what the hell else was I gonna do on my own, I gave in and bought a ticket on the day of the show), so thought we’d casually wend our way there having some beers and hopefully dinner along the way. On our visit to LA back in 2013, there was this infamous tiki bar called Tiki Ti I’d really wanted to check out, but on the day we tried to do so it was shut, and then when I looked it up online this visit, it said the bar had been closed down for some months, so I gave up on the dream. Either that wasn’t true, or it had just re-opened, because we walked past and despite it being about 5pm, there was already a huge line outside. Although I generally refuse to stand in line to get into a bar – unless it’s for a band – I was super keen on this one, so convinced Sam it would be worth the wait. And wait it was, 35 minutes I think. We killed time by chatting to two girls behind us in line, and I inadvertently may have gained the University of Otago a new prospective PhD student; one of the girls was talking about how she wanted to go overseas to do her PhD in Psychology, and had considered Australia, but after my ranting and raving and enthusiastic recommendations for NZ, Dunedin and our world-class Psychology department, she had typed the details into her phone to look into the next day. Perhaps I should be working on commission while I’m over here….

Tiki Ti proved worth the wait. It’s a very intimate space (ie: room for maybe 30 – 40 people tops, and the US fire regulations are surprisingly well-enforced here; every bar has a clearly posted sign stating exactly how many people are allowed in at once, and often the bouncer will have a clicker to track this. Even when the limit is reached and you have to wait for someone to leave so you can enter, all the US bars I’ve been in have not been wall-to-wall packed in an uncomfortable way like NZ bars sometimes are), and the décor is tiki to a ti (haha). I can’t remember what drinks we ordered, but they were curiously named and curiously strong. The fun of Tiki Ti though is that there are certain drinks on the menu that trigger rituals at the bar. I don’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved that our particular selections did not result in anything that turned all eyes in the bar on us, but we did witness a couple of other people fall victim to this. There was the drink which, when ordered, induced the barman to yell “Ooga booga, ooga booga” at the top of his lungs, and then the entire bar followed suit until the person had consumed the drink. The other one was slightly more sedate, with a wind-up bull figurine being placed on the bar which then walked the length of it and back, and you had to make sure to get your drink out of the way in order not to be ridiculed by the whole bar (I learned this one the hard way when I wasn’t paying attention).     

Tiki Ti. I aspire to having a bar that looks like this in my house one day.

Ooga booga, ooga booga!

Well liquored-up and in good spirits (hehe) upon leaving, we stumbled towards Echo Park and the gig, and Sam had the excellent luck of walking past a record store and noticing through the window that the members of Wire just all happened to be in there doing a record-signing, so he raced in, bought the new album and got suitably autographed. Even luckier, we then got pizza before the gig, and the Wire guitarist happened to be eating at the same restaurant. Sam was fanboying all over the place. There was also a fancy beer at a hipster bar called El Prado (their only barsnacks were expensive plates of roasted walnuts; you can just imagine the moustache and douchebag levels), and then it was gig time. Wire were playing at the Echoplex, the venue downstairs from the Echo where we had seen L7 a few days earlier, but which was a lot bigger. I had a decentish time, but preferred the set we saw Wire play in NYC, which I felt was more energetic. This would be sacrilege to Sam, but for me it was kind of like watching a bunch of Dads jamming and experimenting with their new pedals (to be fair, they’re hugely talented Dads with expensive pedals). Sam was right up the front and enjoyed the show immensely though, so it’s probably just me being a musical philistine as usual. If I can’t dance to it (and in my defence, ‘dance’ can encompass a vast array of definitions), I ain’t interested…

After the show we wandered towards the bus stop, and ran into David along the way. David was a homeless guy I’d given some change to and chatted with after the L7 show, and he recognised me (a nice feeling, being in the US and knowing no-one, to have someone make eye contact and be like “Hey!”) We hung out with him for a while, and took him up on his photo-opportunity-with-choice-of-two-cardboard-signs-for-a-small-fee entrepreneurial enterprise. He’d been interviewed earlier that day on a local radio station as an ‘Echo Park character’ and was now awaiting his big break; wishing him well, and assuring him that his camp acerbic wit would hopefully serve him well in this regard, we said our goodbyes and finally made it to the bus stop. The bus took us to downtown, but about ten long blocks north of where we needed to be and where we thought it was going (it turned unexpectedly and headed west, so we hopped off as soon as we could; in hindsight, it may have then looped back around and dropped us where we were meant to go as per the bus schedule, but in our drunken state we were all “Alarm bells! Get off the bus before you end up on the other side of LA and have to walk ten times further than you would now!”) At least we got to see some more of downtown; the Frank Gehry-designed Walt Disney Concert Hall for one, and a bunch of fancy looking hotels in an area that was decidedly more upmarket than the bit in which we were staying.     

Hustling with David. I haven't seen an acrostic poem since primary school...

The Walt Disney Concert Hall. My colour photos of this were even worse. You'd think someone who likes art and drawing could also work a camera, but no...

On our last day in LA we did a final lunch at the Yard House sports bar. I was even getting used to the sports constantly playing on TV here (as in 'everywhere in the States,' not just this particular bar), and began to take a slight interest in the basketball, mainly on account of the fact that Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors kept on popping up on every screen and was rather attractive. This pisses me off though, because I attempted to place a bet on his team through my NZ TAB account, which refused to let me do so from the US, and then they ended up bloody winning the whole thing and I would have made a bunch of money! Grrrrr). The rest of the day was spent lounging around by the pool. The pool had unfortunately been somewhat elusive during our stay; we knew there was one in the building, but left it a few days before trying to find it, and then were unsuccessful in our attempts, ending up in weird fire exits, on the roof and in the gym. And there was never anyone on the front desk when we tried to go and ask. Finally, we happened to stick our heads around the corner from the parking lot (which of course we hadn’t used since we don’t drive), and lo and behold, the pool! I basked on a lounger drinking beer and read three weeks’ worth of LA Weekly while dipping my legs in the water now and again. Why had we not found it sooner?! To top off our afternoon of sports bars and pool lounging, it was pizza for dinner, and then relaxation mode (ie: Game of Thrones) for me. Sam was more intrepid, and braved the long trip on public transport to go and see Jello Biafra play a DJ set at the Cha-Cha Lounge in Silverlake. I usually would have been ultra keen on such an adventure (Biafra! Dive bar!), but had reached peak party at this stage, so Nana’d out with Tyrion and co and was quite content. Tee hee hee, Sam found himself peeing at the urinal with Jello… There’s always room, etc….

Okay so we've been in Toronto for nearly six weeks now, I really need to catch up on this whole blog thing... Squirrels, raccoons, poutine, so many people saying "aboot"... Tune in soon for Canadian rants!

Las Vegas

Is there any good reason why someone needs to visit Las Vegas three times in four years? I’m not quite sure how or why I’ve found myself in this position, but each time has involved much the same experience: losing money, seeing Rancid, and both loving the place and getting incredibly sick of it at the same time. On each occasion I’ve left there, it’s with a palpable sense of relief, but also a yearning to go back almost instantly and throw more notes into a machine. Vegas is a strange beast… And it was even stranger on this visit, given that we were there primarily for the 17^th Annual Punk Rock Bowling Festival, a four day and night extravaganza of bands, beer and bowling (or, to put it more accurately, of people trying to outdo each other in their quest for the silliest hairstyle, most obscure band patches and of course, to see who could get the most obnoxiously drunk on PBR). I’m happy to report that my Blistering Tongues back patch seemed to be suitably obscure enough, getting both comments from and photographed by strangers; in a sea of Turbojugend, I was a proud army of one. Need to work on my obnoxiousness though, American punks outdo everyone on that…

#Tonguesjugend

Looking out over Vegas to the mountains from the Downtown Grand

For people who knew they would be partying intensely for four nights to come, you’d think we may have taken it a bit easier on our first two nights in Vegas, but alas. We had a room on the twentieth floor of the Downtown Grand Hotel with a perfect view over the city and surrounding areas for the first two nights (in hindsight, we should’ve stayed there the whole time, because there was no escaping the madness when we moved to the Golden Nugget, which was the official hotel of Punk Rock Bowling), and we proceeded to make the most of the downtime before the festival doing – what else? – gambling and drinking. After a lot of ups but then some very large downs - but endless free Heinekens while we remained attached to the slot machines – our money at least was eaten up by some cool machines (that damn Michael Jackson one again, along with a Beetlejuice and a Mad Men themed one).

Day two began with coffee across the road at the Commissary, which would become our usual starting point for the day while in Vegas; coffee is always a necessity, and the free wifi was an added bonus. Honestly, I have no idea how people used to travel in the days before internet; how do you figure out such important details as bus routes, where to find fake chicken wings, and reloading money onto your card once you’ve blown all your US dollars gambling? I’m glad the world has progressed beyond traveller’s cheques and fold-out paper maps.

We spent a couple of hours exploring the downtown area east of Fremont Street, which has been revitalised noticeably since our last visit in 2013 (and almost unrecognisably so since our first trip, where it was pretty much a no-man’s-land full of drug dealers and the like that every guidebook told you to avoid). In a fit of gentrification, heaps of cool little bars and shops have sprung up, and they now have a snazzy new container park as well (sorry Christchurch, theirs is better; they have vegan hotdogs). I even ended up buying a new pair of glasses (in a rare act of forward-thinking and organisation on my part, I had remembered to bring my eye prescription with me to the US for precisely this situation), at what must be the world’s raddest glasses shop; it’s called Monocle Optical, and is run by a young guy who was inspired to become an optician because he only has one eye and as he described it to me, wanted to be known as the ‘one-eyed eye doctor,’ hence the monocle of the title. They had the best range of quirky and unusual frames I’ve come across, and of course monocles too. Despite being sorely tempted to get a monocle, I came away with a pair of (admittedly kind of hipster-y) glasses in a style I’d been after for ages. And I didn’t even end up losing and/or breaking them at Punk Rock Bowling, bonus! I then took my newly-spectacled self for some hang-time and blog writing at our hotel’s pool, which was mighty pleasant until it began to rain. Granted, it only lasted for about five minutes, but come on, it never rains in the desert, what’s with this weather curse we seem to be bringing everywhere with us?

Yes please, we would like a PBR that size thanks

The entrance to the Vegas container park, complete with giant attacking insect

Container park awesomeness

Soon it was time to catch a bus down to the Strip to meet up with our New Zealand friends Betty and Jamiane (also in town for the festival), and to finally go and see Mad Max: Fury Road, which you’d all been talking up on Facebook since it reached NZ a day earlier than here, and which was either going to be utterly mind-blowing, or the most over-hyped movie ever. Hooray, it was the former! And there was something extra cool about seeing it in Las Vegas, it must be said. Although if you think the previews are annoying in NZ, try the US; first they have the short previews, then just when you think the movie is about to start, it’s time for the long previews. A good half hour later, we finally got started on Mad Max, which if the other previews were anything to go by, is the only film I’ll bother seeing this year. 

After a long bus ride back to downtown, the four of us then grabbed dinner and beers at Mickey Finnz, trying our best to tolerate the terrible covers band drowning out conversation. From there we checked out Insert Coin(s), a huge nightclub with a bar in the middle and retro arcade game machines around the perimeter. Much fun was had knocking back rum and coke while playing Frogger and Dig Dug (yay for 80s Atari childhood memories), but it was kind of weird putting coins into machines in Vegas without the possibility of a payoff at the end (not that that ever seems to happen anyway). Back on the Fremont Experience, we bought some cheap and strong but incredibly disgusting premixed drinks at a convenience store – actually Betty’s mango-rita was passable, but the rest of us regretted our choices – and I forced everyone to stand round and watch a Michael Jackson impersonator for a while. Not content with having lost some money the previous night, we went back for more and this time it was a Sea Monkeys machine that was my downfall (I’m not surprised, those things were a disappointment when I got them as a kid as well).

Apart from that orange one, the ultimate drinks of disgustingness on the Fremont Experience...

Terrible photo, but this MJ impersonator was epic, he went through like three costume changes

On Friday morning we checked out of our first hotel, and then had four hours to kill before we could check in to the next one. Just as we were sitting drinking coffee and wondering how to entertain ourselves without gambling, Las Vegas rewarded us with an earthquake. I thought Sam was shaking the table we were at but no, it was a 5.4 quake, certainly enough to feel, but over fairly quickly at least. We’d seen the preview for the disaster movie ‘San Andreas’ the night before, and I definitely don’t want to be in that neck of the woods if/when it ever goes off… I hear Dunedin also had a bit of earthquake fun and games recently too, and flooding as well; how very apocalyptic of you all, I hope there’s still a city for me to come back to next year. 

We were sufficiently recovered from the earthquake enough to enjoy a short nap as soon as they let us in to the Golden Nugget though (punk rock HQ, I’m sure all the other hotel guests wondered what was going on with all the strangely-dressed folk taking over the hallways and pool), and then it was time for a quick dinner at Red Sushi and then the first gig of the weekend. The actual main festival shows didn’t start until the next night, but they had smaller club shows in bars downtown on the Friday, and we had managed to get tickets to one at the Beauty Bar, with Los Creepers, the Hangmen and The Humpers playing (there were other shows I wanted to go to more, but they had sold out months ago, almost as soon as they went on sale. You’ve gotta be quick with ticket-buying over here, as I’m learning). We arrived early enough to catch all three bands, and it turns out I even knew one of the songs from a compilation album I’d had as a teenager. The venue was very cool; we’d been there on our last visit, but hadn’t realised then that in addition to the front bar (decorated like a kitsch beauty salon, complete with sparkly blowdryers), there was also an outdoor stage where the bands played, open air but hemmed in on all sides by tall buildings which were decorated with street art pieces. My photos were a blurry dark mess though, so I can’t do it justice, but it was a pretty awesome venue. Post-gig, it was midnight snack time, and we got a second dinner at a diner in our hotel that was open 24 hours. I’m ashamed to say that this was not the only occasion on which a second dinner was to occur…

The outside stage at the Beauty Bar

Alexis Dias street art piece, Downtown Vegas

D-Face street art piece, Downtown Vegas

Saturday was the first official day of the festival shows, starting at 3pm. Of course, we didn’t have our act together by then, and weren’t particularly desperate to catch any of the early bands anyway, so faffed about having a late lunch, coffee and engaging in a frustrating search for wifi for most of the day (of particular importance, since it was my Mum’s birthday in NZ, and so an email was in order). We meandered along to the parking lot that was the site of PRB around 6.30ish, as TSOL - the first band we wanted to catch - were on at 6.55; oh how naïve we were. It suddenly all came flooding back to me that I actually hate festivals, somehow having blocked previous experiences from my mind…

The entrance was on 7^th Street, and as we approached, we saw with dismay the line to get in snaking back further and further, and we finally joined the end of it back on 6^th Street. Needless to say, we missed seeing the first band (although could at least hear them playing); the line progressed at a snail’s pace, and it took us over an hour to get in. Guh… But happily, we met some friendly Canadians in front of us in the line, who ended up giving us some of their beer and tips for Canada. A shame they were from Vancouver and Edmonton though and not Toronto. One of them had her eight year old son with her, who had a mohawk and proclaimed himself to be the biggest Rancid fan ever; I thought it was probably best not to get into a fight with a small child over this… Once we were in, I do have to admit that it was the most effective festival set-up I’ve come across – yes, the usual gross portaloos and long waits in lines, but they had some amazing food trucks (vegan beer battered avocado tacos for dinner!), heaps of stalls (everything from guitars, records and skateboards for sale, to a punk photography exhibition, to every kind of band merch you could ever desire) and the beer wasn’t as hideously over-priced as I was expecting. And unlike every big festival/concert I’ve been to in NZ, the promoters hadn’t oversold it, so you could actually move around comfortably rather than being packed in like sardines. We saw Sick of It All, then had dinner and looked at stalls during Mighty Mighty Bosstones (I may like ska, but I have some standards!), and then were raring to go for Rancid.

From the opening strains of ‘Maxwell Murder,’ it was clear that Rancid playing all of their classic album ‘…And Out Come the Wolves’ was going to be amazing, and they did not disappoint. I guess I’m a control freak, because I really liked being at a show and knowing exactly what order the songs were going to be played in (timing my toilet and beer-buying breaks accordingly). My only quibble was that they played a number of extra songs at the end in addition to AOCTW, and only one of them was off their new album, which I really like and wanted more of. I wonder if bands will ever get to the stage of playing not just a classic album in its entirety, but their whole back catalogue; I could totally go 7+ hours of Rancid. At some point we met up with Betty and Jamiane (quite a feat in a crowd that big, without phones or wifi to facilitate things), although as this was only the first of the three festival nights, we restrained ourselves from hitting the town, and I think made it to bed around 2am; admittedly very boozy, but at least the sun wasn’t coming up like most of our previous post-Rancid partying experiences.

Arty legs shot; eating dinner at PRB

Yep, I wasn't up the front this time, but they were still good from a distance

I’ll spare you all the blow-by-blow account of the rest of the festival, which generally took much the same format as the first day (we arrive later than we should, wait in line, drink some beers, see some bands). By the second day I was already feeling the accumulated effects of so many nights of partying before PRB even started, but I soldiered on, and we made it to all three nights (I had secretly planned on piking for at least one of them, but couldn’t bring myself to do it in the end). On the Monday we went back and visited the Vegas Strip during the day, and it was refreshing to get away from the Fremont area and it’s constant punk party to somewhere comparatively more calm (who would’ve thought that the Strip would ever be the place you’d go to escape the chaos). The bus tickets we bought had to be used for the return trip within two hours, but after lunch at Diablo’s Cantina which included margaritas in glasses the size of fishbowls, time got away on us a bit; there may also have been some gambling (OMG! Kittens). I don’t feel bad about this though, having managed not to touch a single machine on either the Friday or the Saturday, so feel I earned a little irresponsibility.

How could this not lure you into gambling?!

Pirate ship ahoy, outside the Treasure Island Hotel on the Strip

Sam taking the piss when I forced him to model for a photo in front of the Beatles thingy on the Mirage Hotel on the Strip

This is me in front of a fountain at the Forum Shoppes that I've had a photo taken at each time I've been to Vegas. I'm going to Photoshop them together for some kind of 'watch Andy get older' sequence, hopefully culminating in me hunched over a walker with a brandy in hand, still gambling in Vegas in my nineties....

When we decided to try our luck getting back on the bus with long expired tickets, we had the misfortune of hopping on to one where there was a guy actually checking tickets (we had thus far not encountered the fabled ticket-checker). He either had no idea what time it was and that our tickets were now void, or did notice, but doesn’t get paid enough to care, and we were safe. Back at the hotel, there was time for a brief pool excursion before the final festival show, and while making our way there, we got talking to a guy in the elevator heading to the show who had a full box of PBR (the beer, as opposed to PRB, the festival; this kept confusing me too) who didn’t want to carry them all with him, so we ended up scoring some free beer for poolside consumption.

Many of the festival goers must have partied themselves out by the Monday, as there was no huge line to get in this time, and the show had a decidedly more laid-back atmosphere. Also notable on our last night; finally, a gambling win! For Sam, not me… After the festival, we came across a Batman machine (retro, Adam West Batman, the best kind), and Sam managed to win back all the money he’d lost, plus about an extra $40. On that happy note, we met up with Betty and Jamiane for goodbye drinks, and high roller Ovens shouted us all margaritas (definitely what you need when you have to get up at 7am to catch a bus the next day).

Betty, Jamiane and Sam with 'last night in Vegas' margaritas. Those lucky jerks got to sleep in the next day though!

Until next time, Vegas (yup, let’s make it four visits)…

Punk Rock Bowling highs and lows:

Bands we saw: Los Creepers, The Hangmen, The Humpers, TSOL (well, heard while waiting to get in), Sick of It All, Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Rancid, Jello Biafra and the Guantanamo School of Medicine, Turbonegro, Murder City Devils, Refused, The English Beat, The Skints, Agnostic Front, Conflict, Dropkick Murphys. 

Best band: Rancid, no contest. Jello Biafra and the Guantanamo School of Medicine second, Agnostic Front better than I expected. Of the club shows (which admittedly we didn’t get tickets to many of), the Skints were the stand-out.

Celebrity spotting: Oliver Peck! OMG! Who would’ve thought that a judge from a reality TV show about tattooing would invoke such excitement?! I was too scared (or sober) to run after him and ask for a photo at the time though, and then didn’t see him again unfortunately. Honorable mentions to Natalia Fabia - my favourite artist - getting into the elevator as we were leaving it in our hotel; Greg Hetson (from Bad Religion and the Circle Jerks) just casually manning the photography exhibition at the festival; and Vinnie Stigma from Agnostic Front (accosted by and getting photos with some punks in the hallway of our hotel, and then still being stuck in the same spot getting accosted by a different group of fans when we passed by again half an hour later).

Biggest disappointment of festival: The secret special guests at one of the club shows turning out to be the Mighty Mighty Bosstones a-freaking-gain; they already played earlier that night at the main festival, no fair! I’d been absolutely convinced it was going to be Tim Timebomb and Friends (to the extent that if I was a gambler – ha! – I would have put money on it). Much lame...

  

Interesting new friends made: A group of crust punks from Albuquerque, New Mexico. While we whine about the fact that all anyone ever thinks of when they hear New Zealand is Flight of the Conchords, they had the same complaint about Albuquerque and Breaking Bad. Apparently they don’t have a meth problem (not even a blue meth one), and there are now fans flocking to their town in droves to do RV tours. It’s been so long that I’ve since forgotten all of their names, apart from the guy who called himself Yucky; the power of a memorable name I guess. We also hung out with a lovely couple from Baltimore (hi Jax!), for whom – yup, you guessed it – it was the Wire everyone commented on.

Biggest jerks: The girls staying in the room next to us at the Golden Nugget. Rising routinely at 7.30am each day, and with the loudest and most piercing voices in the history of annoying, high-pitched girls, they alternated between shrieking and talking earnestly about themselves: “I just wish he would look beyond my beauty and see what else I have to offer.” I did have a hopeful moment one afternoon when they had a screaming match because one of them hadn’t texted the other that the situation would implode and they would pack their bags and leave, but it was not to be. We ended up sleeping in way later than we should’ve each day, because we were forced to lie awake between 7.30 and 9.30 each morning (usually after a late night) listening to their drivel, and even earplugs couldn’t help the situation.

Biggest idiot: The guy in the room directly above us who started running a bath, then promptly passed out. Sam suddenly noticed water leaking through our ceiling onto his stuff, and we called hotel maintenance, who discovered the passed out guy and his flooded bathroom (and likely gave him a hefty damages fee upon check-out). It was unfortunately not significant enough for us to be moved to a different room away from the shrill girls though…

Palm Springs

 Oh how pleased we were to arrive in Palm Springs, where the weather was warm, the desert scenery was gorgeous (sidenote: even the bus journey through all the windfarms was oddly mesmerising; I reckon Graeme Sydney’s art could actually be improved by adding a few of those things!) and everything was within walking distance. I know it has a bit of a reputation as a retirement village on a grand scale, but perhaps I’m old before my time, because I really liked it there. Even the Uber driver who dropped us off at Union Station in LA to catch our bus warned us that four nights would be too long, but he was wrong, I would gladly have endured at least another week of poolside happy hours, tiki bars and the retro ratpack vibe that characterised this little oasis in the desert. 

The City of Palm Springs...

....harnessing the power of wind!

A huge part of it was due to the hotel we stayed in, the Del Marcos, which was a mid-century modern dream come true (I justified the expense because hey, mid-century modern design and architecture is what Palm Springs is all about, and I wanted to live the dream). Built in 1947 by the architect William Cody, it was all orange and seafoam green, with genuine vintage furnishings, cacti gardens and a stunning pool. Best of all, it was R18, so it was actually possible to relax in the pool without screaming kids cannonballing into you, and there was a ban on talking on cellphones in public hotel areas (a continuing annoyance for me in the US; no bus trip is complete without at least one person – often multiple people – talking unnecessarily loudly about inane nonsense, sometimes for hours on end).  A complimentary amazing breakfast was served each morning until 11am, and then they had a happy hour from 4pm to 6pm, where they basically just put out jugs of sangria, wine and a cooler of beer by the pool, and you could drink as much as you wanted for 2 hours. This hotel has ruined me forever.

Someone please buy me this hotel, I'll let you all come stay...

The glorious view from our balcony

Palm trees, pool, perfection...

Yup, I could totally get used to this...

Only thing missing is kitty... And I've been getting so much sun that she's starting to freckle up!

On our first afternoon, we went for a walk and photographed some cool buildings, ate lunch/dinner (there needs to be a word for this, the late-in-the-day equivalent of brunch, which we seem to keep doing; linner? Dunch?) and undertook a much-needed visit to the laundromat. We missed the hotel happy hour that first night without realising (we would not make such an amateur mistake on the other three nights!), so went out later on and hit the town, in the form of a local tiki bar called the Tonga Hut. Strong drinks (too strong?), but friendly bartenders (a guy called Parker from a band called Say Anything gave us some good recommendations for Vegas) and eccentric bar flies with whom we got into an in-depth tattoo show-and-tell.

Take me to your architect...

Even God sounds pretty cruisy in Palm Springs

Day two was when we discovered the extent of the free breakfast (coffee, juice, fruit, cereal, bagels, eggs, yoghurt), and I decided that if this was put on for me every day, then maybe I could become a breakfast person after all. We then explored downtown Palm Springs and the design district. There were many impressive mid-century modern vintage furniture stores, but of course the prices were astronomical, and most of them also had prominently displayed signs warning that you could not take photos either. Boo. Linner/dunch was at a cool little spot called Ruby’s Diner (although it actually turned out to be a chain, which made it slightly less cool), where the servers wore candy-striped retro outfits (dresses for the girls and those little hats and bow-ties for the guys; Sam and I decided we wouldn’t mind working as servers in Canada if we could be similarly attired) and a toy train circled the restaurant on tracks above our heads. We were back at the hotel well in time for happy hour and indulged accordingly, then devoted the rest of the night to Game of Thrones and fake chicken wings (not a patch on the ones in LA, although they delivered to our hotel room, thus getting full points for the laziness factor. And it seems you can’t escape people wanting to discuss sport wherever you go; the delivery guy was Indian, and as soon as he found out I was from New Zealand, there was much animated one-sided talk of ‘cricket world cup,’ ‘two great sporting nations’ and ‘that Brendon McCullum.’ Sigh… Still, living in the US, it was probably the only chance the guy got to discuss such matters, so I nodded and smiled along with him).

Ruby's Diner; spot the train...

This cool retro building is a branch of the Bank of America. I'd never do online banking if I could go here instead!

Even the cars are cool in Palm Springs. Like Ghostbusters if it was made in the 1960s...

On day three we followed up breakfast with an extended period of pool lounging; particularly blissful as there were no other guests around for a few hours. We lay on the floaty lounger things (with handy cup holders included) and drifted aimlessly in the water to the strains of Frank Sinatra, Otis Redding and The Supremes while gazing at the palm trees and mountain views. Palm trees aside, a lot of Palm Springs kind of reminded me of Frankton and parts of Queenstown; the mountains looked remarkably Remarkable-like. I had wanted to visit Joshua Tree National Park while we were here, but all the tours online were like $200, so we sensibly decided not to do it. Then, less sensibly, over the course of that same day we should have been doing the tour, I spent $100 on a fancy vintage dress, and then Sam took me out for cocktails in said fancy vintage dress and spent $100 on those. When will we learn… I blame the hotel, it made me feel like a celebrity, so when we found this amazing vintage store called Wonderama, with the most fabulously camp sales assistant in his fifties (in fact all the stores in Palm Springs seem to be run by guys in this demographic, who all make you feel a million dollars and are much more pleasant to deal with than the too cool 19 year old snobby girls who usually inhabit such roles in most other places), I got swept up in the glamour and bought a 1960s Luis Estevez dress (no, I’d never heard of him either, but our friendly sales guy gave me a quick fashion history lesson – Estevez had been Oscar de la Renta’s assistant, and won some prestigious fashion prize when he was young – and assured me that if I ever wanted to resell it, it would not lose its value. I may just have to do that, as the dress fits me perfectly, but may not in a few weeks if I keep eating all these American-sized meals!) After pizza and happy hour by the pool, we caught the bus to another tiki bar, called Bootlegger Tiki. It was a tiny hole-in-the-wall place with incredible décor (puffer fish lights!), and we were the only customers there, which may have been part of the reason we were so well attended to by the staff, and thus ended up drinking waaaaay too many cocktails (yup, the $100 worth I mentioned before). They were so good though, far superior to the Tonga Hut of our first night, and between us we tried most on the menu. Oh dear…

Puffer fish lights at Bootlegger Tiki. Terrible photography to be blamed on wonderful cocktails.

Palm Springs wanderings. The building in the background is actually a KFC if you can believe it...

New cover design for Gravemind stoner rock album...

Which leads me to the next day, most of which was spent in bed groaning. Still, never ones to pass up free alcohol, we did get up in time for happy hour, although were notably more restrained than we had been the other nights. Pool time in Palm Springs is a great hangover cure though, and we were helped along by a meal at a nearby Vietnamese place too. It was definitely time to save money though, and a good excuse for a quiet night in before the onslaught of Vegas the next day. I’m at least pleased that we avoided getting hideously drunk on the night before we had to leave though, as is usually the case. We got an Uber ride to the bus station the next day with an entertaining chap who was a US veteran who kept  insisting at every opportunity that he’d been born in 1912 and thinking it was a great joke. He said that he liked New Zealanders based on the ones he had served with overseas, and said the US and NZ soldiers would always team up to pick on the Aussies. Ah sport and war, always great topics of conversation. One of these days we’ll find someone who limits their small talk to art and music…. Still, he was a kind soul, who offered to give us his cellphone number when he saw that the bus station was literally in the middle of nowhere in the desert so that we could give him a call if our bus didn’t show up. No troubles there though, the first bus got us to Riverside to meet our connecting bus… which was then an hour and a half late. And when it finally showed up, it was one of those buses covered entirely by an ad for a movie (Tomorrowland, which is by all accounts a rubbish movie anyway; perhaps I could have forgiven it if it was Mad Max: Fury Road), which meant that we couldn’t really see out the windows very well. Enjoying the expansive views is generally one of my main reasons for putting up with all the other hassles of bus travel, particularly when it’s beautiful desert scenery, so I was a bit disgruntled, and ended up closing my eyes and listening loudly to Kyuss, so at least I had the desert soundtrack. Also, there was a guy sitting in front of and across from us who had the most well-behaved wee dog ever in a doggy-carry-case thing which made cute faces at us the whole trip, so there was at least something to look at.

All in all, Palm Springs: would trade again, especially the Del Marcos Hotel. Next time, less drinking and more nature-seeing, and maybe checking out nearby towns of Palm Desert, Indio, etc. And Dad, I see they also have a world class air museum, so if you and Mum ever want to visit, I’ll be your tour guide (my rates are cheap; a vintage dress and a cocktail should do it…)         

Los Angeles (Silverlake then Venice)

In which it becomes apparent why our flights to the US were so damn cheap… Turns out that on the leg from Honolulu to LA, in light of it becoming a domestic flight rather than an international one, you don’t get any food and have to pay if you want to watch movies or play games. Fine by me Hawaiian Airlines, it was only a five hour flight and all I wanted to do was sleep anyway. Upon arriving in LA, there was quite the disappointment though, in that the tickets to the L7 reunion show (only 300 available!) I’d been desperately hanging out to get sold out in literally three seconds, and despite being online and clicking the button at the exact designated time, I somehow missed out. I then spent the next few days playing out the whole ‘it’s bad to support scalpers’ versus ‘I actually don’t care, I just want to see L7!’ debate in my mind, and anyone who knows me will guess which side I chose in the end (ugh, tickets on eBay cost me eight times the face value! Remind me of my folly when I’m unemployed, homeless and starving in Canada). But, L7 in a week and a half! I justified it by the fact that if someone had asked me a year ago if I would pay $160 USD to see L7 reunite, I totally would have, no questions asked. I shall add the scalpers to my personal Shitlist though…

We started off our stay in LA with an Airbnb in Silverlake for five nights, and it was totally the best place we’ve stayed through Airbnb; I had thoughts of changing the locks while we were there and ignoring the owners’ knocks when they returned. There was even a guitar, so Sam was able to ease some of his withdrawal symptoms, and so conducive was it to creativity that both of us managed to get some design and artwork done while we were there (a first for us while travelling, I think). On night one I searched for ‘vegan’ within walking distance on Google maps, and there were like five options; this alone makes me want to move to LA. We went with Vegan Joint, and were reacquainted with the joys of the fake chicken wing (Homer Simpson drool face). It was then exploration time, and to our disbelief, as we wandered the streets of Silverlake, we seemingly conjured the weather of Dunedin, and were quickly caught up in a downpour, complete with lightning. What, LA, what? (This would also subsequently mar most of our stay out in Venice Beach too; I’ll dash all your hopes now, and admit that the victorious surfing Andy of Honolulu did not get another chance on the mainland). After a very restrained one beer each at Bar 4100, it was back through the rain to our apartment to get our art on; I believe bedtime ended up being 5am, but it was a productive evening so worth it.

The view from our awesome apartment in Silverlake

Arising at around midday, we kept the arting going (deadlines etc, who would have thought this was an actual holiday?!), and got things done and dusted at around 4pm. We then headed to nearby Café 1950s (old school American diner, burgers and shake style) for a quick dinner. Quick it was, and delicious, with amazing décor, although no booze; feeling rather wholesome, I indulged in a chocolate shake instead. At least there was no twist contest… We then boarded a bus to West Hollywood to go check out our friend Harley’s exhibition opening at Stone Malone Gallery. In a rare move, we were early, and ended up at the Snakepit for a warm-up drink first, the last one we would pay for that night. Free art opening beer is dangerous. The exhibition itself was super cool, with lots of reasonably priced prints (a set of three will be coming home with me), and a piece painted directly onto the wall. In addition to Harley, there were also a bunch of other Kiwis who came out of the woodwork for the opening; apart from a couple of exceptions, every really intimidating looking styley American I got up the courage to talk to turned out to be a Kiwi, and we were soon chopping back the free beer in the true manner of our people. Chur bro or something… We ended the evening with Harley and his awesome friend Mikey at the place Harley was staying, which – joy of joys – had a cat! It didn’t seem to like me much, and had recently been shaved so looked like more of a poodle, but I’ll take whatever kitty interaction I can get at this point.

Cafe 1950s... What they lacked in beer, they made up for in cool wall decoration

Sam at Harley's opening. The print set I bought are the red ones closest to him.

Look, Harley painted a wall! Cool! 

It was certainly hangover time the next day, and I think I finally crawled out of bed at around 4.30pm, and even then only because we had tickets for the Sonics show that night already. I remember the distinct moment purchasing them online in Auckland Airport and pointing out to Sam that it was the night after Harley’s opening, and there was a good chance we wouldn’t been feeling up to it, and perhaps we should wait? I was overruled (I’m sure he knows from past experience that if we didn’t have tickets pre-bought I would definitely have piked), so had to suck it up and get back on the horse again. Intermittent waves of nausea aside – those are fun on public transport – we made it to Downtown LA on the Metro, and had pizza at a place attached to the venue. The Facebook event page had lied, the first band was not on at 8pm sharp, things didn’t get going until around 9; there’s nothing like being at a gig hungover before even the first band (of three) has played and knowing you’re already feeling like being back home in bed. This was not the ideal mood to be in for the Sonics, and I valiantly tried to get my enthusiasm on, but body was not co-operating. 

The first band was pretty good and I HATED the second band (singer’s voice went right up and down my spine, not in a good way), but somewhere in the build-up to the Sonics taking the stage, I got a bit less nauseous and a lot more excited, and braved my first PBR of the evening. At that point I was standing upstairs in the mezzanine area away from Sam who was on the ground floor, because it was the only spot I could actually see the stage from properly (#shortgirlproblems), and found myself, somewhat reluctantly, befriended by two girls called Priscilla and Sally from a small town outside of LA who, granted, were big Sonics fans, but also evidently strippers. Now nothing against strippers of course, but in any state - let alone a precarious hungover one - I don’t really want to be forced into dancing with newfound friends as they seemed wont to have me do, when said newfound friends are twerking and doing other professional and acrobatic moves I don’t even know the names of, when the extent of my own dancing usually goes as far as waving a couple of token ‘Dunedin party hands’ in the air as I shuffle awkwardly from side to side. We came to a comromise whereby they danced and I took some photos for them and held their drinks. One of them then spotted Fabio (yes, Fabio) emerging from the VIP area and pointed him out in time for me to see him and his people walk downstairs and blend into the crowd; no time for a hilarious photo opportunity unfortunately. Even from quite the distance away, his hair did look really well groomed though. I chose the moment of Fabio distraction to mutter something about needing the bathroom and leaving my friends to their dancing, while I got another beer and reunited with Sam for the rest of the Sonics show, which was rather epic. Still consummate showmen, they came across as dapper bad-to-the-bone grandads, whose suave suit-attired stage appearance was offset by footage of old-school underground street car races projected onto the backdrop in changing monotones. Wayne Kramer from the MC5 came onstage and played guitar on ‘Louie, Louie’ with them, they covered ‘Leaving Here’ (which I’d always thought was Lars Frederiksen and the Bastards covering a Motorhead song, but googling it just now I see it goes back even further) and they saved best-known songs ‘The Witch’ and ‘Strychnine’ for the encore. I’m fairly sure no-one wanted them to stop, and would have been happy if they’d remained onstage till dawn just playing covers. 

At the end of their set, I was feeling alive enough again to agree to going out for another drink, but we weren’t quite sure what was what in DTLA, so asked the bar girl for recommendations. She directed us to a punk looking guy at the bar for help, and he turned out to be from the band the Casualties. Once Sam realised this (apparently because of the guy’s recognisable nose? I’m not sure if this comment endeared him to us or not), rants ensued, but he did recommend a bar to us (Bar 107), that we eventually made out way to. Time for one PBR before they kicked everyone out, then unexpectedly outside the bar we made friends with a group of four local guys who hadn’t been to the Sonics or Bar 107, but seemed to be on our wavelength, and we hung out on the street with them for more time than we should’ve. Thus, when they walked us to the Metro stop at around 3, we realised we had missed the last train, and would have to wait for the trains to start running again in an hour and a half. So much for the early night I’d been craving as soon as I left the house… Deciding that an hour and a half was too long to wait without food, we wandered back in the direction of the Regent (where the Sonics had played) in search of a place that was open, and made it all the way back there without coming across a single option. Luckily there were still people outside the Regent though, and one of the workers there hooked us up with a guy he knew called Austin, who lived nearby on the street and was happy to walk us to a 24 hour place for a tip (kindly paid for by the Regent guy, although we ended up giving him some money as well). Austin was a heartbreakingly friendly older dude who said he really missed having people to talk to because it was lonely being homeless, and it transpired that he had lived in Australia for awhile at some point in his youth, and knew a bit about New Zealand too. He proved a very adept tour guide who delivered us safe and sound to a 24 hour restaurant about a fifteen minute walk away, and shared with us his perspective on the current crop of police brutality and racial profiling problems that have gained recent media attention in the US. It was refreshing to hang out with him and the guys we spent time with earlier in the evening; a lot of your experience as a tourist here is just the perpetually happy and perky greetings of servers in restaurants, or meeting other tourists, but I ended up having one of our best nights so far because of some more genuine kinds of interactions that came about by chance.

New friends!

Having forgotten to collect and take with me the prints of Harley’s I paid for at the exhibition opening night on the Friday night (I blame the free beer), it was back to West Hollywood to get this sorted and have a look at the stores. Sam ended up selling a couple of Gravemind LPs at Headline Records, and I resisted the urge to buy overpriced pretty 1950s dresses at Tatyana. It was particularly hard because there was some mogul type in there with his lady who was trying on dresses publicly, and he was sitting in a seat nearby, all like “Yes, get her one of this, and this, and this” to the sales assistant, and I’m pretty sure she got bought most of the dresses in the shop. Where’s my mogul dress-buying boyfriend eh Sam, you need to pimp those Gravemind LPs harder. It’s probably a good thing that the Dr Martens store was shut… We then found the piece de resistance of all vegan chicken wings, ever; Bulan Thai in Silverlake. I heartily recommend to all should you ever find yourselves in the vicinity, they came with ranch sauce and were the best thing I’ve tasted. We got them again the next night, and then were prevented from continuing our love affair only because we moved to Venice. Oh how I look forward to you again in a week or so fake chicken wings of the gods… Sam was determined to try and sell some Gravemind records to Amoeba, and although we got there half an hour before closing time, the record-buying bit had closed early, so it was not to be this time round. We then hit the Burgundy Room, our number one dive bar of the last trip for a beer, and were easily able to limit it to just the one in the knowledge that we had a newly released Game of Thrones episode to watch upon our return home. Oh the excite! LA may be awesome, but Westeros is better…

The next day was spent exploring Silverlake and nearby Echo Park, hipster kind of neighbourhoods with lots of record and vintage clothing stores. The actual park itself was really amazing as well, and I spent some time sitting there (‘letting it come together in Echo Park,’ having also walked down Hoover Street earlier in the day. Everything is a Rancid reference in America!) waiting for Sam to do the record thing. A bit of an oasis in the middle of LA, it had a lake with a fountain, strange geese and pedal boats for hire. I resisted the urge to do the tourist boat thing and instead sat and finished reading the new Martin Millar book I’d started. My only complaint is that it was quite a short one, so a rereading soon will definitely be in order. The day had started off with a cheeky beer in a bar called Good (purely because we needed to pee), and it ended at another bar called Chavito, where we became quite partial to their very strong happy hour margaritas and potato tacos. Picking up some fake chicken wings on the way home, it was quiet night in time and I caught up on some blog writing and then we started watching Better Call Saul, the spin-off series from Breaking Bad. Unbeknownst to us though, we accidentally watched the last episode first, and it didn’t become apparent until many days later when we went got to the last episode and were all like “Oh they must be repeating the opening scene of the first one.” Nope, we’d just done things back to front. We then went back and watched the first episode and the entire thing made lot more sense and wasn’t as disjointed and flashback-y as we had believed. Dad, I shall never hassle you again for having missed out a Game of Thrones book and not clicking; apparently these things are easily done!

Echo Park prettiness

More Echo Park prettiness...

Echo Park prettiness?

Some awesome skateboard furniture we came across on our walk

LA sunset, not quite captured in all its glory by my photo...

It was a shame to have to leave the apartment in Silverlake the next day – particularly as the place we stayed in Venice was more of a 6/10 than a 10/10. Not horrifically bad or anything, but cramped, and with constant noise coming from a neighbour’s TV that seemed to be permanently tuned in to some sort of religious televangelism show. We also finally gave in and got the Uber app after Harley had got us an Uber ride home from his place the other night and we realised how convenient it is (for those not in the know, it’s a sort of replacement for taxis, where people sign up to be Uber drivers and then get paid to drop you places. It’s all pretty safe and regulated, but in most cases you save money, and don’t have the same waits as for a taxi). In this instance, we just weren’t in the mood for wrangling suitcases onto the Metro and then two different buses to get from Silverlake to Venice, so Uber it was. Upon arrival in Venice we had the first of a number of meals at Seed Café (healthy vegan café), and then spent the evening checking out the boardwalk. Or should I say fighting off people trying to sell us mass-produced crap and bad art on the boardwalk. Venice has a reputation for being one of the centres of the 1960s counterculture movement, which it still proudly lays claim to, although it seems these days to have morphed into a weirdly trashy ‘bohemian theme park,’ with medical marijuana stores, henna tattoo stands and stall after stall of the same awful t-shirts and sunglasses, all being aggressively hawked by eccentric hippy types, and street performers of rather dubious talent. Certainly a place to go and check out the spectacle, but it quickly became clear that maybe booking four nights here was a bit excessive, and two probably would have been more than enough to get the Venice experience. This was compounded by the fact that the weather was terrible, and rained on three of the four days we were here, so although the beach was gorgeous, it wasn’t even warm enough to swim. After tiring of the boardwalk, we found an acceptable happy hour at Larry’s near the beach and had a couple of drinks, then went back to the apartment for some Better Call Saul.

Venice, with apparently uncharacteristic cloudy skies

Sam pole-dancing on Venice Beach

A sneaky Dunedin sticker for Venice to remember us by...

Venice skatepark on the beach

On day two there was sun, so did the roughly hour long walk along the beach from Venice to Santa Monica. I’m disappointed not to have seen David Hasselhoff or Pamela Anderson, because I totally felt like I was on the set of Baywatch, with the little lifeguard towers placed at regular intervals along the way, and a number of rollerbladers making it easy to believe it was still the early 90s. We briefly explored the Santa Monica pier (I wasn’t quite quick enough to get my camera out to take a photo as an LAPD helicopter swooped over the iconic ferris wheel, but it would have made a great LA photo!), and then the downtown Santa Monica area, where most of the high-end stores weren’t really of interest to us. We had a beer at a supposedly British themed pub (hilarious their idea of what constitutes British; it was all US beers and food on the menu, with ice hockey playing on the TV. The sole concession to ‘Britishness’ seemed to be that the bar was very dark and had some pictures of ships on the walls). Sam then decided to get a bus to the University area where the record stores were, and I thought I’d instead make the most of the sun while we had it, so we went our separate ways and I walked back along the beach. At Venice I realised I didn’t really want to go hang out in the cramped room by myself, so went back to Larry’s from the night before, had a few beers and did some blog writing, feeling glamourous when some guy asked me if I was a journalist.

"Some people stand in the darkness, afraid to step intoooo the light..."

Santa Monica Pier ferris wheel

Sam-ta Monica

On day three in Venice we awoke to rain, which continued on and off throughout the day. They’re obviously not used to rain or well prepared for it here; the café we had lunch in – Kreation -  sprung a leaky roof, and ended up with about twenty icecream containers placed strategically around to catch the drips, and the staff were struggling to put a tarpaulin over the roof as we left. We found a couple of cool spots on Abbot Kinney Boulevard (namely the awesome pop surrealist CAVE Gallery, where I bought a Young Chun print), and then meandered over to the canals, definitely a Venice highlight. Back when it was conceived by Abbot Kinney (he of the titular boulevard), the town was designed to mimic its namesake in Italy, and thus based on a huge network of canals. Sadly, with the rise of the automobile in the US, the powers that be at some point concreted over most of the canals, and the remaining few only escaped because they ran out of money. The canals went into disrepair, and it was mostly hippies and the homeless who inhabited the area for years, until reclamation efforts in the 1980s and 1990s. It’s now one of the most picturesque and pricy neighbourhoods in the entire US, and was one of the drawcards for me visiting Venice (having seen them in the L Word and thinking they were pretty cool). Incredible houses (Michael, you would have loved some of the designs!), and scenic walkways and bridges, with each house having its own little pier with attached boat of some description; people do actually hop in a boat and paddle a few blocks to visit friends or go to the store. So cool! And totally unattainable, probably even with a Lotto win… 

Venice canals

More canals...

Pretending I live in the canal neighbourhood

One of the more eccentric houses on Venice Beach...

...and its next-door neighbour

That night and most of the next morning was spent booking flights/accommodation/concert tickets and coordinating the finer details of the last leg of our trip, having made the decision to come back to LA after Vegas in order to catch some more bands, and then fly direct to Toronto from there (we’re coming for you on 2 June Toronto!) With that locked in, it was time to enjoy our final night in Venice, by leaving it and heading to West Hollywood instead! Sorry Venice. There was a gallery opening we wanted to attend, and a band Sam wanted to see, so we braved the loooong journey on public transportation (two buses there – an hour and a half – and then two buses back which I think took even longer; we could have made it from Dunedin to Oamaru in the time it takes to get from one suburb in LA to another). Dinner was at Pink’s Hotdogs, and then we headed round the corner to Gallery 1988, for the opening of a solo show by Cuddly Rigor Mortis, featuring small paintings on wood of cute animated food items. I was sorely tempted to buy, but transportation issues with artwork while travelling are not fun, so I restrained myself. Next bus trip of the evening was to Sunset Strip for drinks at the Rainbow. You pay a $10 door charge to get in, but in exchange they give you tickets to get two free drinks. We were in luck when, after offering to move over so a group of people who were standing round awkwardly because there were no other tables could sit down, our kindness was then rewarded by them giving us three free drink tickets when they left shortly after. This did mean we were a bit late for the gig next door at the Roxy, so missed the opening bands, but no matter. We caught Ex Hex, the band Sam really wanted to see, and then it was time to brave the two buses back to Venice again. These ones were characterised by loud snores from a number of passed out homeless people, and I’m pretty sure I came close to joining them at a few points on the trip.

Coming soon: Andy decides to take an early retirement in Palm Springs….