The city of angels

I gotta keep this short as there is much to do and if I leave posting any longer it might not happen. So, the rest of my stay in Los Angeles was amazing. After two nights with the lovely Whitney, I was picked up by Greg and taken to his place in Santa Monica. I met Greg on my trip to San Francisco back in July. I was on the BART train on my way to see Daft Punk in Berkeley and was sure the lads across from me were going to. As is my style we got to talking and I ended up spending the rest of the weekend living it up with Greg, Justin, Dan and their friends. They truly made it a trip to remember. To see the pictures from my trip to San Francisco go HERE.



Right, well, as things turned out Greg lives in a rather nice house. In fact let me be more accurate. Greg lives in possibly the most incredible house I've ever been in. A four floor beach front property in Santa Monica. Views of the sea every morning, the sunset every night. It's simply incredible. Two minutes stroll to the Pacific Ocean everyday. You just can't go wrong. Anyway, I've landed on my feet like crazy and Greg is such a sweet host. The place actually belongs to his family and Greg lives there while he plugs away at his acting career. Greg grew up in Santa Monica his entire life so is the perfect host as he demonstrated the next day.







I knew LA was huge but nothing could really quite prepare me for the view of the city Greg shared with me after driving us up to the Santa Monica mountains (they may be hills, I'm not sure). The view over Hollywood, Santa Monica, downtown LA, Beverley Hills is astounding. Seeing the sea front stretch on and on and on was quite something. After climbing down the hill Greg and I went driving all over town. Sunset Boulevard, Mulholland Drive, Hollywood's walk of fame, Bill Cosby's house, Celebrity Scientology Castle. It was awesome. I was totally in awe. I'm not even sure why really though. I guess because it was truly a alien world to me. Streets lined with Palm Tress, millionaires whizzing past me at every intersection. I loved the whole entire bizarreness of it all.













Oh, and I saw the Jim Henson Company, which made me particularly happy. We couldn't find a good place for photo opp of the Hollywood sign, but I did see it. I'll save the stealing a letter plan for another time. It's not going anywhere just yet.



After this there was more hanging out in LA, checking out the town etc before I finally got to see Thea who got back into town on Monday. It was awesome to see her and she was equally blown away by Greg's place by the way. Anyways, Thea took me surfing for the first time. I loved it. I wanna surf more. Loads more. It kinda completes my trilogy of board sports (I've always seen myself as a completist). And yes, I caught at least one wave and got to stand up. I was rather proud of myself. That said my rib cage is still hurting. Don't know when that is ever going to heal up since Tahoe to be honest.





And now I am back in San Francisco with Justin and Dan, staying with Dan and his housemate Emily. Seven/eight hours on the Megabus turned out to be not nearly as painful as expected. $35 wasn't too bad either, course if I'd booked earlier it would have been much cheaper (possibly a dollar). But either way, I am here, got very excited traveling across the Bay Bridge into a rainy San Fran. Tonight is Justice. It's going to be a barnstormer.



By the way, I need a job when I get back to Austin. Cash in hand. Keep your eyes peeled folks.

Aaaah, Venice

It felt weird coming back to California again. This is my third visit to the Golden State since I came to the US back in March. San Francisco (the trip I failed miserably to blog on) left a huge impression on me and I was keen to make a return visit. But the main reason for coming this time was the opportunity to see my friend Thea in Santa Monica and knock LA off my list of places to go. Knowing that Justice were playing in San Francisco also meant a short (7 hour) bus ride north and I could do the things I didn't get to do before (Alcatraz) and see the lads I met at the Daft Punk gig who also effectively adopted me for remainder to my time in San Fran.

Course, the best laid schemes usually gang aft agley, and so it was that Thea found out one week before my arrival that she wasn't going to be LA at all. Hmmm, hence a lot of head scratching and pondering what to do. Luckily Chris Shea was able to put me in touch with a friend from college who was willing to put me up my first nights in town. From tonight I should be staying with Greg, who I met at the Daft Punk gig, in Santa Monica for a couple of nights. It's all a bit slap and dash now, but should be a lot of fun.









You need a car to be in Los Angeles so the proverbial warnings go and it is not a word to a lie. This place is huge and its vastness is only overpowered by the sheer number of cars that appear to be on the road. I, however, am a public transport kinda guy and have so far found the number 333 bus just grand at transporting me to and from Venice Beach, which is a mere 10 minutes down the road from my host Whitney's apartment. The climate in this part of California is incredible. LA enjoys something like 325 days of sunshine a year. The daytime is warm, often with a gentle breeze rolling in off the Pacific Ocean, while the evenings are cool. It's a far cry from the constant sweatiness of Texas.

Having immediately gone down to the famous after dropping my things off at Whitney's I totally forget my second thoughts about coming to LA and allow myself to wonder at the weirdness that I've found myself immersed once again. Ocean Front Walk is filled with the usual seafront tourist stalls you expect by any popular stretch of beach. But Venice has much more than this. As part of the area that makes up the infamous Dogtown, it is in many ways the spiritual home of skateboarding. The basketball courts (as featured in White Men Can't Jump) are one of the most famous streetball courts in the world. Then there's Muscle Beach, which is just downright odd.









Similarly to what I experienced in San Francisco at Golden Gate Park, Venice Beach is also odd in the blend of locals, tourists and homeless people. The locals themselves make up one of the oddest blend of people in themselves. Harry Perry is one such character, famous basically for roller-skating on the beach front in a turban whilst playing electric guitar. Another roller-blading oddity I saw yesterday was some muscle bound California dude with the tiniest and most well-groomed dog running alongside him. Ok, not so weird perhaps, until you see him swinging his dog around in the air before catching it perfectly standing in the palm of his hand all the while still weaving amongst the tourists on the boardwalk. Don't worry, the dog lead was a body one, not a neck one.

I feel like I'm digressing here. Let me give you a couple of my early impressions of this part of LA. Beach life clearly lends itself to the good life. I don't think I've ever seen so many super fit people in my life - between surfers, the bodybuilders, the joggers, the yogateers, the skaters and the all rest. My first day here I watched the sunset over the Pacific, it was gorgeous. But while I sat there watching with the hordes of sun-kissed spiritually inclined Californians, I wondered if the whole body image thing was actually in fact part of something a little deeper. Something closer to achieving physical atonement with the concept of healthy body healthy mind. I've only just got here so it's hard to say. What I can say is that I'm now desperately keen to learn how to surf and if I leave here without having ridden at least one wave I'll be extremely disappointed with myself.

Tales of the city: Pt1

I had been going somewhat stir crazy in the weeks leading up to my trip to San Francisco. I mean, Austin isn't the biggest town on the map and even though there is so much to do here, my(car-less)self can get stuck in the mud easily. Days are wasted sitting cruising the internet, reading, watching movies and planning next big adventures when there is a whole world of now to be living in. Course, I had a hope, a suspicion, a will for things to take a turn for the active upon my trip to San Francisco that was to incorporate seeing Maximo Park, Haight and Ashbury, the Golden Gate Bridge, Daft Punk and, of course, my golden birthday...

UPDATE:

Here are the pictures from my first visit to San Francisco. I will allow them to tell the story of how I met Justin, Dan and Greg on my way to Daft Punk; the birthday weekend I then spent with them; my first baseball game; crossing the Golden Gate Bridge at 5am; the kids I met on the other side and other adventures in the city that stole my heart...

The Wolf

Apparently I am not a reliable blogger, but then the past month has been quite grim here in Texas. The skies opened in June and thus spring showers became a summer storms. I have rarely experienced such rain in my entire life. Texas hasn't since 1924, the wettest June since records began, and even then there was only half an inch more rain. As a result an outrageous amount of my time has been spent stuck indoors and stuck in the mud. Yes, I allowed that unique British miserablism to overcome - even though I was somewhat enjoying the rain and the pensive thoughtfulness mood it lured me into for so long. As the humidity has risen, and sunlight interchanged with lightning, my moods have shifted more frenetically than an ADHD suffer on speed.

But it hasn't all been soulful starring out the window. I got to see Wolfmother at Stubbs BarBQ, which was a great fun. In fact, now that I come to think about it, it was the Friday most my friends were all up to their pert nipples in mud at the cold and even wetter Glastonbury (seems most thought the boundaries between Heaven and Hell had truly been blurred). So it was some much needed rock to take my mind away from where I wasn't. Travis, Chris and Mike were all there to thrash their air guitars, Chris in particular to thrash his ever expanding Puerto-fro (that's his Puerto Rico fro, not Pervert fro - just incase there's any confusion). Travis and I battled our way through two mosh pits to get to the front, which was pretty awesome and I couldn't resist crowd surfing out, albeit only 5ft. Afterwards it was the usual carnage, I bumped into my friends Nick and his girlfriend Bobby, cruised around a couple of bars doing shots and mixers with the adrenaline of the gig keeping me standing. Travis and I met back up to get a cab home, which I may or may not have been obnoxious to the driver before declaring that he'd ruined my cab ride and that I'd walk the rest of the way. Of course that only occurred after I'd tried to make best friends with the guy. Oh, and I came home with a walkie talkie, which I believe was procured at the bar Mohawk.









Then there was disc golf at Pease Park... in the rain. Pease Park is located in the centre of Austin, not far from downtown and enjoys the added feature of a river running through it (to steal a movie title), which on this occasion was flowing at around 4 feet in depth and with a fury. Needless to say I did go arse over tits trying to cross it for the fourth time.

Naturally a month of rain has also meant a host of movie watching, at home and at the cinema. There was Ratatouille, which proved a real hit. As funny and as touching as most all the Pixar films before it, once you could allow yourself to overcome the inherent creepiness of seeing rats run around a kitchen - no matter how clean they are. Live Free Die Hard finally landed, albeit after jumping from an F35 fighter jet in decidedly ridiculous fashion. Still, it was passable, Bruce brought his best John McClane-isms to the screen, kicked copious amounts of ass - although the circus act henchman using parkour is getting really tired now, though not as bad as Harry Osborn (James Franco) flying on a fucking snowboard in the tragically bad Spiderman 3.

Then there was a little documentary called Lost In Woonsocket.
It was a film that I missed at SXSW despite the fact I'd met and made friends with much several of the people involved with the film (Malcolm, Thea, Ashley, John). Chris Tilly had caught it and had lots of good things to say about the film, so I was chuffed to pieces when Thea contacted me to tell me they were all coming back to Austin with more of the team for another screening at the Alamo Drafthouse. I promised to be there and was true to my word. By the end of the film I can't fully contextualise quite how I felt, but I know I'd been touched quite deeply. Lost In Woonsocket is a film not just about random acts of kindness - in this case taking one homeless, alcoholic man off the street and getting them into rehab. Rather it is a film about the consequences of an act of kindness - how the smallest of gestures can lead to the greatest of successes, often in the most unexpected of corners. It is about human spirit, its vitality and its potential to change, grow, and ultimately overcome. For me it was also a timely reminder of my good fortune, my family and my friends. That I'm not now, nor will I ever be, alone in this big adventure called life. It also reminded me that behind every face there is a story, and quite often those stories are well worth listening to.

On a sad note, however, this was to be my penultimate visit to the Alamo Drafthouse downtown. The 10-year old Austin landmark is moving to a new home on the highly commercial and townie-centric 6th Street. I hope it retains its old magic at the new location (what used to be Austin Ritz theatre years ago). The Alamo is by far the best cinema I have ever been to. These people know and love film like few proprietors of cinema screens anywhere in the world. The theatre is set up like this: each row of seats has its own bench in front, and every other seat has a menu. Once inside, you take your seat, pick what food or drinks take your fancy for the evening, write them down on a piece of paper, which then sticks up in a bar on the bench. A waiter comes by, picks up your order and 15 minutes later delivers it right to your seat. My favourite has been the Smokey Bacon and the Bandit BLT. Delicious. Anyway, the theatre always plays old cartoons and commercials (Fred Flintstone smokes Winstones don't you know). It also has its own unique warning for anyone who uses their phones in the cinema, I can't do it justice, suffice to say it involves zombies and and lots of blood.

So anyway, the Drafthouse is know for its screenings of lots of older films, obscure films, and outright classics (I'm still not doing this place justice). And so on the Drafthouse's penultimate night, and my last one there, I got myself a ticket for the 'thank you for smoking' screening of Breathless. Joined by a couple of friends I made my way there for some heavily nicotine infused movie-watching and even wrote a little summary for a local website, Slackerwood. Feel free to check it out, though it is far from one of my better written pieces.

In other news I went to Houston, but not to NASA, which was hugely disappointing. Did get to see Travis' dad (Larry) again, who is just one of the loveliest people you could hope to meet. Larry took myself, Travis and Chris out for dinner on our last night there and all I can tell you was I had no right being in this joint, but could certainly get used to it. Fine wine and serious fine cuisine. Steak all the way for me - in typical fashion though ordering white wine with red meat (see what I mean by not belonging). Also I got myself a ticket to see the San Francisco Giants play the Atlanta Braves (that's baseball folks) while I am in the Bay area. I'm so excited about this trip now it's ridiculous. Oh, and my birthday is in a mere matter of 2 and half weeks while I'm there. Can't wait for Daft Punk.

Oh, and then there was my discovery of Ann Coulter: the insane, pathological fascist-cum-political pundit. Words cannot do justice to how much I despise this woman. She is a horror to behold. I would direct you to one of the many youtube videos I've watched of her recently, but I just can't do that to you - if you want to find out more you can look her up yourself as I will play no part. However, if I do finally perfect the Nobhead Bomb I've been working on all these years, I believe she could well be the strongest candidate yet to be ground zero.

With once again promises to try to post more, I bid thee all adieu - oh, and the fact that I'm also considering potentially watching The Sound Of Music. Something that will have several ex-girlfriends shouting expletives in shock and disbelief should they happen to read this.