We Needed to See Brian.
LOS ANGELES
This is how I - in the company of friends Troy, Kyle and Meghan - spent my previous week:
SUNDAY
We left Flagstaff in the afternoon, via I-40. After several stops in shitty, stranded desert towns, we made it to LA. There, we helped clog the veins of Hollywood and Sunset boulevards. The businesses along these famous streets are much like the stars who flocked there before stardom: Most try to shine brightly and many often break down and get sold in pieces.
In an attempt to find a place to park the van and sleep, we drove out of the city and ended up settling in a beautiful mixture of a crackden and meth lab after several other failed locations. We were tired.
MONDAY
We returned to Hollywood, this time on foot. We wanted a closer look; we wanted to poke at surgery scars and wipe off layers of make up that covers deep crevices of wrinkles and decay. We did and it was more beautiful than we could have imagined.
Everybody there is selling an image, and every image is an effigy to glamour and success. Unfortunately, every role requires a costume, and it was easy to see past the curtains and into the individuals and corporations that just want to "be somebody" and make enough money to pave a street gold with stars.
People paying homage to themselves.
We continued down the streets, determined to see everything but not really sure what to look at. The night before, we had seen the store front of the "Museum of Death," so we decided to make that our destination. In the heat, we were easily sidetracked. Soon we became hungry and ate at the first place we saw that was reasonably priced and not stand-offish: Sharkey's. From what I recall, it was an oasis and we all fell in love. That may have been more as a result of the air-conditioning rather than the food - except, no one could deny the pico de gallo was heavenly. We decided while eating that we would stay out of the sun the rest of the hottest hours. A local theater was playing Moon, which Troy and I had wanted to see for a while but would never play in Flagstaff. We made our way, hurrying the few blocks to get there, but when we arrived, Moon was not playing; 500 Days of Summer was. If you expect a review, here's a link.
After the movie, we went to Amoeba Music, a two-story collection of media and annoying fucking hipsters. Everyone except for me bought a few things. We met up with a fellow NAU student with whom Kyle and Troy are kind-of friends. His girlfriend was in Europe, so I think the spontaneous road trip was his way of taking his mind of missing her. I don't know him really well, though, and am probably wrong. I want to believe that's what was going on because that would be cute.
Once we left the store, we renewed our mission of [the Museum of] Death. On the way, we said goodbye to lonely NAU heart and continued staring at the sidewalk stars, which were starting to get repetitive.
The Museum of Death, we found out on arrival, was $15 or so, which we weren't willing to pay. Though it boasted of the "world's largest collection of serial murderer artwork," a guillotine-severed head, collections of instruments used to deal death and handle the aftermath, etc., it looked like an amateur Hot Topic from the outside, even less convincing (as a museum) than the Creation and Earth History Museum we went to in San Diego later in the week.
This was the anti-climatic end to Hollywood. Like the night before, we drove around looking for a spot to sleep. In the end - in a yogurt shop in Little Tokyo - we decided that we wouldn't stay in the van unless we could get to a travel station or truck stop; neither were within 30 minutes of driving. It made more sense to drive instead to San Diego, to Brian's house. He was, after all, the reason we were on this trip. We needed to see him.
[Continued...]
This is how I - in the company of friends Troy, Kyle and Meghan - spent my previous week:
SUNDAY
We left Flagstaff in the afternoon, via I-40. After several stops in shitty, stranded desert towns, we made it to LA. There, we helped clog the veins of Hollywood and Sunset boulevards. The businesses along these famous streets are much like the stars who flocked there before stardom: Most try to shine brightly and many often break down and get sold in pieces.
In an attempt to find a place to park the van and sleep, we drove out of the city and ended up settling in a beautiful mixture of a crackden and meth lab after several other failed locations. We were tired.
MONDAY
We returned to Hollywood, this time on foot. We wanted a closer look; we wanted to poke at surgery scars and wipe off layers of make up that covers deep crevices of wrinkles and decay. We did and it was more beautiful than we could have imagined.
Everybody there is selling an image, and every image is an effigy to glamour and success. Unfortunately, every role requires a costume, and it was easy to see past the curtains and into the individuals and corporations that just want to "be somebody" and make enough money to pave a street gold with stars.
People paying homage to themselves.
We continued down the streets, determined to see everything but not really sure what to look at. The night before, we had seen the store front of the "Museum of Death," so we decided to make that our destination. In the heat, we were easily sidetracked. Soon we became hungry and ate at the first place we saw that was reasonably priced and not stand-offish: Sharkey's. From what I recall, it was an oasis and we all fell in love. That may have been more as a result of the air-conditioning rather than the food - except, no one could deny the pico de gallo was heavenly. We decided while eating that we would stay out of the sun the rest of the hottest hours. A local theater was playing Moon, which Troy and I had wanted to see for a while but would never play in Flagstaff. We made our way, hurrying the few blocks to get there, but when we arrived, Moon was not playing; 500 Days of Summer was. If you expect a review, here's a link.
After the movie, we went to Amoeba Music, a two-story collection of media and annoying fucking hipsters. Everyone except for me bought a few things. We met up with a fellow NAU student with whom Kyle and Troy are kind-of friends. His girlfriend was in Europe, so I think the spontaneous road trip was his way of taking his mind of missing her. I don't know him really well, though, and am probably wrong. I want to believe that's what was going on because that would be cute.
Once we left the store, we renewed our mission of [the Museum of] Death. On the way, we said goodbye to lonely NAU heart and continued staring at the sidewalk stars, which were starting to get repetitive.
The Museum of Death, we found out on arrival, was $15 or so, which we weren't willing to pay. Though it boasted of the "world's largest collection of serial murderer artwork," a guillotine-severed head, collections of instruments used to deal death and handle the aftermath, etc., it looked like an amateur Hot Topic from the outside, even less convincing (as a museum) than the Creation and Earth History Museum we went to in San Diego later in the week.
This was the anti-climatic end to Hollywood. Like the night before, we drove around looking for a spot to sleep. In the end - in a yogurt shop in Little Tokyo - we decided that we wouldn't stay in the van unless we could get to a travel station or truck stop; neither were within 30 minutes of driving. It made more sense to drive instead to San Diego, to Brian's house. He was, after all, the reason we were on this trip. We needed to see him.
[Continued...]