Saturday: We arrived in sunny Los Angeles, California at 1:40PM. After a quick shuttle trip to Alamo, we're burdened with the task of choosing between a mini-van and a mini-van. This would not do in our conquest of Hollywood, so we (Jimmy Tits and I) journeyed upstairs to find something sportier. Ah, there it was. A small, bright yellow chevy of some sort, it looked bad-ass, in a hippie sort of way. With bags loaded and the air conditioning located, we sped away, right up until we get to the gate where guards told us we'd pilfered the wrong rental lot. Heartbroken, we gave back the keys rather than face grand theft auto charges. When we went back downstairs they had just returned a Pontiac Vibe. With a name that ridiculous, we couldn't pass up the wagon. It was kind of cool, for a wagon.
Off we went down the 405. I had heard that it's eight lanes of traffic were a bit scary for country bumpkins such as ourselves, but it didn't have shit on I-65 after a rainy day. Our first destination: Hollywood Boulevard. After driving a mile down HB, and passing the famed Hollywood & Vine intersection, we found a parking lot and shelled out our first eight dollar fee. Getting out of the car we were exposed to the a-typical Hollywood white male. Teased up long black hair, white fluffy long sleeve shirt, unbuttoned for all his chesty glory, black leather pants, chains, cowboy boots, requisite tattoo of dragons. My my, it looked like the 80's were still alive and well. I thought maybe this was a one-off lucky break, seeing a fellow dressed like that. Then I got to the street, where he was but one of many leather-clad-rockers. The only other variation of "white guy" we saw while there would be of the biker/tattoo lover/punk rocker type. The girls nearly hurt your eyes after a while. Everywhere you looked there was some drop dead gorgeous girl, with a snarl or a frown, chatting on her cell phone covered in stick-on-bling. It was almost nauseating, and after an hour my neck hurt. I'm sure we saw at least two porn stars, five hookers and three drag queens in the first Halloween store alone. What a town!
Sunset Strip was a street over, and it could only be described as "grimey". I discovered the famed LA Guitar Center, where I held a 1957 mint Stratocaster. It only cost $128,000. Cheap! On down the street we found the old school bar scene, which included The Whiskey, The Roxy, Johnny Depp's Viper Room and a few others, like Mel's Diner. We didn't have our hair teased up and my chest is far too hairy to be wearing an open shirt, so we didn't attempt going in to any of them. At this point it was getting late and the jet lag was biting our asses hard.
We found a shithole of a motel, the Sunset Hollywood 8. Don't let the name fool you, it bears no relation to any national chain. We parked the "Vibe" in the narrowest parking lot I've ever seen and made our way to the lobby. I say lobby, but it was actually an outdoor window with four inch thick glass. A man of foreign descent asked us for 65 bucks and we slid the money under the hole. The window displayed a sign with the rules, which included: No Prostitution, No Drug Dealing, No Smoking. Well, Jimmy was let down by the last one at least. I walked into the room with my car key between my fingers, ready to shiv a crackhead if need be. The room was small and musky, most likely decorated sometime around 1973. We turned on the tv to find a hardcore sex flick playing, apparently included with the room. There was a blood splatter on the wall and someone had drawn an eerie silhouette of Nosferatu on the other wall. With one eye open I laid down and passed out on a pillow that may as well have been a brick. To be continued...
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