hollywood rant #2
so hollywood is great for people watching, and even moreso on halloween, as we discovered last night.
the streets were flooded with people in costume. like, i've had to push my way through time's sq on new years eve to get to a concert, i've been to the thanksgiving day parade in ny, but last night was just intense.
neither ethan or i got dressed up. we went to a parking lot a block away to see a free rob zombie concert (meh) and afterwards we went home, made dinner, dressed the dog as jesse pinkman, undressed the dog, and took him for a walk. somehow in the short amount of time between leaving the concert and then going back out, the population of hollywood increased tenfold. the dog, oblivious to the serious risk he had of being stepped on by some drunken asshole, was thrilled...but it quickly got to the point where we had to pick him up as the crowds were just getting thicker (and drunker), and duck down a side street to get out of the chaos.
usually i feel pretty safe in hollywood at night. most of the violence that happens is either gang related or nightclub related and since i am not in a gang and don't go to nightclubs, i've got my invisible and perhaps unwarranted invisible wall of invincibility around me. last night, that wall crumbled in like, 5 seconds. at one point, we were walking and this group of 5 or 6 guys aggressively pushed past us. i noticed them because i liked their really heavy makeup (they were done up like the cast of dead presidents), but for whatever stupid reason, i remember thinking, "you could seriously fuck someone up and possibly get away with it because you'd be impossible to identify without the makeup". they made me uncomfortable, but i brushed it off since at that point i felt like anything would make me uncomfortable.
we walked the dog, but the whole walk just felt...it felt intense and hurried and weird. there were obviously thousands of people having a great time, but there were a lot of angry or drunk messes out there too, and for whatever stupid reason, i seemed more keyed into the vibe they were throwing off. (though i've increasingly realized i just have little to no patience for people who feel like the only way to celebrate is to get drunk. while at first my sobriety wasn't a choice, at this point is completely is, and i just find it so incredibly pathetic and tiresome to see people incapable of figuring out how a bike, a crosswalk, or a door works) I was just completely over crowds and shoving and wanted to go home.
we got home and i was looking at twitter and saw a picture of the guys who had pushed past us, having been arrested for beating some stranger to a bloody pulp, apparently very shortly after we'd seen them.
i set down to do some work (i tape hoops for hoopnotica) and about an hour into it realized that in the background i'd been hearing sirens and helicopters for at least half an hour. i went back to twitter (there's a feed that updates from an LAPD scanner) and it turned out there'd been a 700 person riot at a club 5 or 6 blocks away. of course no riot in LA is complete without people getting shot, so that happened a couple times. overall i think something like 80 people were arrested by the time i went to bed around 4am, the sky still thick with the sounds of helicopters and police sirens. i still felt safe, but wearied by the whole experience and just wanting to not deal with society for a little while.
then i woke up today to find out that someone had freaked out in LAX and shot up one of the terminals.
there are times where i feel like i am not cut out for la. where i miss the simplicity and tininess of boston, and this week is SO ENTIRELY one of those times.
the streets were flooded with people in costume. like, i've had to push my way through time's sq on new years eve to get to a concert, i've been to the thanksgiving day parade in ny, but last night was just intense.
neither ethan or i got dressed up. we went to a parking lot a block away to see a free rob zombie concert (meh) and afterwards we went home, made dinner, dressed the dog as jesse pinkman, undressed the dog, and took him for a walk. somehow in the short amount of time between leaving the concert and then going back out, the population of hollywood increased tenfold. the dog, oblivious to the serious risk he had of being stepped on by some drunken asshole, was thrilled...but it quickly got to the point where we had to pick him up as the crowds were just getting thicker (and drunker), and duck down a side street to get out of the chaos.
usually i feel pretty safe in hollywood at night. most of the violence that happens is either gang related or nightclub related and since i am not in a gang and don't go to nightclubs, i've got my invisible and perhaps unwarranted invisible wall of invincibility around me. last night, that wall crumbled in like, 5 seconds. at one point, we were walking and this group of 5 or 6 guys aggressively pushed past us. i noticed them because i liked their really heavy makeup (they were done up like the cast of dead presidents), but for whatever stupid reason, i remember thinking, "you could seriously fuck someone up and possibly get away with it because you'd be impossible to identify without the makeup". they made me uncomfortable, but i brushed it off since at that point i felt like anything would make me uncomfortable.
we walked the dog, but the whole walk just felt...it felt intense and hurried and weird. there were obviously thousands of people having a great time, but there were a lot of angry or drunk messes out there too, and for whatever stupid reason, i seemed more keyed into the vibe they were throwing off. (though i've increasingly realized i just have little to no patience for people who feel like the only way to celebrate is to get drunk. while at first my sobriety wasn't a choice, at this point is completely is, and i just find it so incredibly pathetic and tiresome to see people incapable of figuring out how a bike, a crosswalk, or a door works) I was just completely over crowds and shoving and wanted to go home.
we got home and i was looking at twitter and saw a picture of the guys who had pushed past us, having been arrested for beating some stranger to a bloody pulp, apparently very shortly after we'd seen them.
i set down to do some work (i tape hoops for hoopnotica) and about an hour into it realized that in the background i'd been hearing sirens and helicopters for at least half an hour. i went back to twitter (there's a feed that updates from an LAPD scanner) and it turned out there'd been a 700 person riot at a club 5 or 6 blocks away. of course no riot in LA is complete without people getting shot, so that happened a couple times. overall i think something like 80 people were arrested by the time i went to bed around 4am, the sky still thick with the sounds of helicopters and police sirens. i still felt safe, but wearied by the whole experience and just wanting to not deal with society for a little while.
then i woke up today to find out that someone had freaked out in LAX and shot up one of the terminals.
there are times where i feel like i am not cut out for la. where i miss the simplicity and tininess of boston, and this week is SO ENTIRELY one of those times.