TravelBlog #2 - A Day in LA

My LA experience was limited to a red convertible, driving around aimlessly and almost exclusively eating either drive thru, or burgers, or both. Cousin Stephanie and I did it Britney Stylee!!!

We landed in LA to Fog which is definitely out of character for that city (they prefer Smog) and caught the bus to Budget rent a car. This was the beginning of what was to be, many "in jokes" which you had to be there for, and when we told the lady we were staying at the "Hotel Roosevelt" she immediatley assumed we were way more upper class than we looked and wrote down a whole host of celebrity hot spots that we should visit around our hotel and engaged in some really funny conversation that involved a personal commentary on the Musak they had playing.

On the first of many aimless drives around LA we passed some really seedy motels like the Sunset Motor Inn or the Shady Pines Motor Inn and worked these into theoretical interactions with the Budget Rent a Car Lady:

"So, where 'bouts y'all staying?"

"Sunset Motor Inn"

".........Oh... I...*shrug*...I dunno it - have a nice day now!"

We drove seriously aimlessly around LA but I got to see some topical celebrity hotspots such as Kitsons, Cedar Sinai Medical Centre (ominously, George Burns Road leads into it), Fred Segal ($400 t-shirts - not), the studio where Dr Phil gets filmed, Amoeba Music and the Hollywood Sign (from a distance).

First up, we had to have something to eat and my cousin said I was in for a real surprise. I honestly thought we'd be going to a celebrity hotspot like Koi or The Ivy but for us that fateful morning, it was ROSCOES CHICKEN AND WAFFLES. Thats right - that is all they serve.

The place is an institution in LA and the food is truely gross and still turns my stomach just thinking about it. It could be the killer hangover i'm nursing or just the gastric recollections of digesting half a chicken covered in batter, deep fried, served with a huge waffle covered in butter and maple syrup. Honest to god!!!

I would not even dream that up in my most stoned of stoner fantasies nor would I wish it upon my worst enemy even if i spat in the maple syrup.

Regardless, I put that food away like it was going out of fashion, despite that combination of food never really being in fashion in the first place, and felt slightly more cultured and less like a tourist because there is no way in hell Lonely Planet could find any reason to tell you to go there.

You need to go and see it for yourself - "soul food" - perhaps because you will be bloated into your next life?

After that experience, we drove up to Griffith Observatory which was kind of cool and involved going up onto one of the many hills that surrounds LA. My first impressions were that they would be lucky to see *anything* out of their telecope because I could not see any of Downtown LA which was a few miles away, due to the smog.

By this time the fog had lifted and we were up high enough that you could clearly see where the smog ended and the clear blue sky began. It was unsettling to say the least, but hey, its America and given that LA is all about driving around aimlessly, there really isn't much that can be done in the short term, but this is one place that the High Price of Oil ("a new record!") can only mean good things.

They have "Smog Check" stations everywhere for peoples cars, which appeared to be as effective as relying on Alka Seltzer and a tabloid magazine from 1991 to relieve and distract a woman in the throes of childbirth.

Full Disclosure: I was chainsmoking at this point and can't place the entire blame on the cars for the smog, but in my defence I was trying really to pass the Roscoes and was using any and all methods to speed up nature!

Griffith was cool and we did all the free stuff which included using a public toilet (Hooray!) and viewing some really cool exhibits like the Foucault Pendulum which set about proving the earths rotation by knocking a pin down every 10 minutes. It was just like bowling, but the swinging pendulum did not deviate from its course and it was the earth that was rotating and causing the pins to be knocked down. That was WAY cool!

I actually found some of the imagery which adorned the building to be quite confronting, as they were images which evoked the Illuminati conspiracy; the "all seeing eye", the pyramids and the masonic square and compass symbol. If you've ever seen a US $1 bill you'll find the same images there and some latin stuff about new world order. I'm almost loathe to mention any more incase I have trouble with the Department of Homeland and Security - but suffice to say, I noticed these images and it made my hair stand up a little bit. I've found that the foil cap i've taken to wearing kind of stops the hair from sticking up which is totally cool, but a total nightmare when passing through the TSA at any airport.

The Griffith Observatory has been featured in many films like Terminator and is a truely wonderful way to see LA, and it reinforces the reality that California is one big desert - you can see where people stop watering and the ground goes from lush green to dust.

After that we drove back down the mountain and continued our aimless driving along streets like Melrose, La Brea, Robertson Sunset and Santa Monica Boulevard and, rather disappointingly did not encounter a single clusterfuck of paparazzi, so we called it a very early day and checked into the Hotel Roosevelt.

I must say, there is a certain "je ne sais quoi" about rocking up to a celebrity hot spot hotel in a red convertible and having it valet parked. It was kind of "de rigeur" for those parts of town and if you'll pardon my try hard french, we felt less like the F List and more like the D List and it was at this point that we were truely thankful that we forked out the $20 and upgraded from a Budget Economy car (2 door lawnmower) to something with a bit of cred, even if it was a Convertible Mitsubishi.

The Convertible Mitzo had satellite radio which made the ride all the more sweeter - i "sirius"-ly can't wait until we have satellite radio in Australia!

We soon discovered that we did not need to leave our hotel to check out the Chinese Theatre across the road as they had CCTV installed on the hotel roof giving us a birds eye view, which was kind of lazy but cool at the same time.

I decided that I had seen enough of Hollywood on the TV both at the Hotel Roosevelt and on the TV back in Australia so I head out on a solo mission and walked around only a little bit, only to be incredibly annoyed by the black guys pushing burnt cd's yelling "MAKE ME FAMOUS" and some other street performers who defy anything more than a passing mention.

It was very tacky to say the least, so I decided to get some take away food and go back to watching Hollywood on the TV.

This was where I had my first and only real celebrity encounter - I had take-away Baja Fresh (Australian Pronounciation: Bar Jar Fresh. American Pronounciation: Bai yah fresh) and was struggling to work the card reader in the lift, when it stopped on the Mezzanine floor and who should walk in but Seann William Scott!!!!!!!! (of American Pie Fame)

I immediately recognised him but was totally paralysed in fear as I had never met someone so famous before, except maybe Kamahl, but you get what I am saying. Seann (First Name Basis) had trouble working the card too and I nervously showed him how it was done - quite simple in the end, you put the card in the way the arrows are facing and Stifflers mom's your uncle.

I couldn't quite remember his name and I didn't wanna make a vague reference to one of his iconic movies by saying "so, your mama still wanna fuck?" incase he totally misunderstood the situation and I ended up with an eye the same colour and texture as my impending Baja shit.

He knew that I knew and I knew that he knew and I was eternally grateful when he broke the silence and said "hey man, I'm going on Jimmy Kimmel Live in about 45 minutes, why don't you head on down" and so I wrote my name down (with a +1) and got out of the lift and nearly died about a thousand times and ran back to the room to wake my cousin from her slumber (hollywood CCTV was boring) and we made the whole half a block walk to the live studio taping of Jimmy Kimmel Live.

Watching a talk show being produced was a part of My American Dream(tm) and so I really enjoyed the experience and relished in the fakeness of it all, but to Jimmy Kimmels credit, despite being recorded hours before being broadcast, it was filmed in a live format - there was no stopping once it started and no take two's.

Stiffler told a few stories about the toilet and his brother sleeping with a midget, some chick came on and talked about her experiences on Entourage and, the poor little lamb, some story about a crush she had on Lance Bass and then we were all herded outside for an exclusive N.E.R.D concert!!! I mean, i'm not a huge fan of N.E.R.D but they were way cool and they had a full festival set up for maybe 100 people who were totally into him, so I stood back and vibed it out.

It was definitely an amazing way to spend a day in LA with my most awesome cousin. :)

More Soon :)

- How i brought SHAME to my family name
- Why I will never ever be invited to another family wedding

LA in a Convertible!

LA in Smog

LA in Gluttony

Chicken & Waffles

Cousin Stephanie

Griffith Observatory

Jimmy Kimmel Live!

Snuck Backstage!