Carneys on the Sunset Strip.
I had to go to Los Angeles on pressing
business over the weekend; it was all arranged at the last minute so
I didn't have time to contact any of my friends there but I left
London Heathrow at noon on Friday and returned here at noon yesterday
(Monday). So I was out of the country for exactly three days –
wow!! 10,000 odd miles and all air miles.
It's a long way for such a short stay; I
was there forty three hours.
The flight over there was via Chicago
where I had to change planes and I watched a couple of movies on the
way.
One was called Man
on a Ledge; it's
about a cop who has been framed and to prove his innocence stages a
mock suicide attempt on a high building to divert attention from
something that is happening across the street – somebody trying to
prove the cop's innocence. I think the film was okay but it gave me
strange sensations.
It looked very real with the cop
standing on the ledge of a Manhattan high rise about two or three
hundred feet from the ground and me being actually 38,000 feet from
it.
Each time he got near to the edge I felt
a kind of vertigo; I had to convince myself that it wasn't real. As I
looked to my left I was travelling over clouds and in front of me the
movie.
I couldn't get a direct flight, which
would have been about eleven hours, so changing at Chicago made the
whole journey door to door a twenty three hour jaunt – that is
door to door counting the three hour stay at each airport.
But Los Angeles was the same as
usual; I left there on June 30th
last year and as soon as I got out into the street on Saturday it was
as if I'd never been away. I know every nook and cranny, every
stained piece of paving stone and bump in the sidewalk, where the
tree routes push through, and I was welcomed at around six on
Saturday morning by a familiar sound; a low flying helicopter. The
police hovering above the ground looking after their city or a TV
chopper checking traffic. Not a sound I find attractive, I have to
say.
The sun hit me as I got out of my
pal's car on Sunset Blvd and headed north on La Brea; people walking
holding paper in front of their faces to hide the sun; others waiting
at bus stops with the post from the stop between their face and the
sun. It's a local habit but most people wear hats.
Half way up La Brea between Sunset
and Hollywood Blvd a woman who was 'out of it' came walking the other
way; I'd forgotten about that side of things – maybe Christal
Meth?
A bit further up almost at
Hollywood Blvd was a young man fast asleep on the footpath. He had
some kind of blanket over him so only his head was in view. He seemed
to be fairly good looking but out for the count. Maybe he came here
to make his fortune and fell at one of the steps – that's the
tragedy. People killing themselves trying to make a killing in
movies.
There are usually lots of Goths
on Hollywood Blvd but I don't think I saw any and when I passed
Grauman's Chinese theatre the footpath was blocked off so I had to
cross the street.
They usually block the sidewalk
off if it's a star having their hands dipped in cement or a premiere;
but the premieres are usually in the evening and it wasn't a cement
ceremony.
As I passed it on the other side
of the street a woman was taking photos of the place and I asked her
what was going on: I don't know, she said and carried on taking
photos.
A little later I went to one of my
favourite eating places – Carneys on the Sunset Strip. You get the
best chili dog in Los Angeles and that's what I got.
I like to go to Chili Johns in
Burbank too but that's usually for the craic.
Anybody who reads this will know
where I went next! Yes The
Farmers' Market. It
hadn't changed a bit and the Latino girls at Bob's
Doughnuts and
Patsy's Pizza
were just as pretty.
I had hoped to call friends but
with the lack of a cell phone and the scarcity of quarters for the
pay phone it was a pain.
But I was looked after by my very
good friend till I came back to London.
On the way back I had a better
choice of movie – The
Godfather and
Doctor Strangelove
– two classics which brought me back to the smoke.
Awesome my friend.
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