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!