CHAPTER THREE: The Smell of Exhaust and the 1980’s Never Leave


LA is a strange town and I say that in the most insulting way. It’s not strange and wonderful but rather strange and icky. Outside the smog controls the sky desaturating everything to a depressing gray and if you can go five minutes without your throat burning or your eyes watering then you must be wearing a gas mask. Plus with the palm tree laden sidewalks you think a hot pink clad surfer is going to cut the corner any second and mow you down with a “Shaka Bro” like a character from some retched Lighting Blot shirt.


LA is vast and on our more then often free time we would go and experience bits and pieces. Why we had so much free time is beyond me. The only place we really liked was Venice Beach mainly because that was the only place people were nice and not staring at us. The other spots we saw were less then lack luster, as a matter of fact we could have stayed here to see dirty city blocks. We didn’t even see any movie stars. I thought some business would have the corpse of Marilyn Monroe or James Dean strung up like a marionette for all to see but no. On one good note we did steal Sheky Green’s star on the Walk-of-Fame. We figured he didn’t need it any more.


The previous day found us exploring that ever-popular strip of road known as, well the Sunset Strip. A far from aptly named street were nothing much happened and no one took off their clothes.


We liked LA so much that the majority of our time was spent in the hotel room playing Mario Tennis.