L.A. Story, Part I

I went to graduate school in California, and hadn't been back for nearly 14 years. All of that changed last Friday.

Merujo and I went to L.A. for the weekend. If we lived in Reno, that might sound like a perfectly normal thing to do. Spending a weekend in L.A. when you live in Maryland is another story. Covering 6,000 miles in 48 hours had never really sounded all that appealing before. However, I was sufficiently motivated by the prospect of seeing Thomas Dolby play live in L.A. Coupled with a screaming deal on JetBlue and excellent company (Merujo and Gonzomantis), there was no way I could pass it up. (Her version of the tale appears here.)

Friday

I got about 3 hours' sleep, and then I was up to face the trek to Dulles. Merujo was due at my apartment at 0500. I was her wake-up call, so I knew I would definitely be up and about on time. Our flight was leaving at 0720, which meant we had to be at the airport around 0530. Thankfully there isn't much Beltway traffic at that time.

The ride into the airport from the economy parking lot was enlivened by a woman on the shuttle who was applying pressure to a profusely bleeding head wound. She wasn't screaming in pain, and she wasn't passing out, so I figured she'd live. I was so tired I didn't really care.

Once we got checked in and cleared security, it was off to Mordor (otherwise known as "Walking to Concourse B"). When I remarked to the TSA guy that this was the quickest I'd ever gone through security, he said that between 0900 and 1100, you could fire a shotgun at the security checkpoint and not hit anyone. I thought it was a curious choice of image, considering his job. Maybe that's just me...

We schlepped our carcasses onto the plane (an Airbus 320), where we'd both intended to catch up on our lost sleep. Fat chance. Oodles of channels of DirecTV and an MP3 player made that a lost cause.

After 5+ hours of winging our way across the country, we arrived at Long Beach. The airport there is decidedly old school, and smells like it. While I made a brief pit stop in the also decidedly old school men's room (think grade school of 1950s vintage), Merujo saw a guy from Project Runway. It figures that she would have the first celebrity (or quasi-celebrity) sighting. She's that way.

Cool, no?

We picked up our rental car (an awesome Chevy Impala) and then headed north to LAX, where we were to fetch the lovely and talented Gonzomantis. On the way, we passed the Goodyear blimp. It was on the ground, which is the first time I'd ever seen it that way. Also, I got to experience road cookies again, which made my day. If you live in a climate where snowplowing is a regular occurrence, then you don't have road cookies. In California, though, they're everywhere.

What's orange and sleeps four? A CalTrans truck

Gonzomantis' plane was about 45 minutes behind schedule (due to technical difficulties in Minneapolis), so Merujo and I sacked out in a parking garage while we waited for him. In this case "sacked out" should be read to mean that we chatted and ate Hershey's bits and listened to music. I had left G a message on his cell phone that told him where we were, and he eventually made his way to us. (Part of me wants to say that "there was great rejoicing," but that would be cheesy.)

La Cienega, our salvation

Due to regular traffic on the 405 (note the proper Californian usage there—it's not simply "405," but rather "the 405"), we bailed out onto La Cienega ("The Swamp") for a much more interesting drive (and one that was actually moving) to our hotel on Sunset. On the whole, navigating through L.A. was very straightforward. Normally I tend to get rather tense when driving in unfamiliar territory, but that was not the case in California. Again, maybe I was just too tired to care at that point.

Thankfully I'd just had my aura cleansed and my chakra ballanced [sic] before I left Washington

We made it to our hotel at bit early, but no matter—we went for Uzbek food. Uzbeks may be the weak link in the Communist chain, and quite possibly you shouldn't give them money or matches, but they make a mean plov.

Once we got checked in, I was looking forward to an hour's nap. However, I was dismayed to find that a bottle of Lectric Shave had exploded in my suitcase, rendering a good portion of my clothing unwearable—unless I wanted to reek of "soothing green tea complex" the entire trip. So I ended up washing a good portion of my clothes in the sink and shower, eating up 45 minutes of my nap time. After 15 minutes of power dozing, it was time to head down the Strip to the House of Blues for dinner.

After taking a risk with the HoB jambalaya, M, G, and I made our way to the "pass-the-line" line. If you have dinner at the HoB, you can get into a line ahead of the regular line, and you get into the main room first. We were the second group in line. While we waited, we could hear Thomas making final adjustments. When the doors opened we ended up right in front, slightly to stage left. It was the first time I'd ever been in the front row for anything, and it was fantastic. What wasn't so fantastic was the gig hadn't sold out, so the HoB was trying to milk as much drinks revenue as possible out of its captive audience by delaying the show start by an hour. Dolby hit the stage at 2130, fully an hour behind schedule. I don't really know what I was expecting, but I was thrilled to be there for it.

Dolby's set consisted of:

• Leipzig
  
• I Live In A Suitcase
  
• Flying North
  
• Europa and the Pirate Twins
  
• Science
  
• Hyperactive (his purportedly ad libbed encore)*
  

The man

While I'm not a huge fan of "Science," I did appreciate his intro: "Now I'd like to play you a medley of my hit." Classic. I would gush a bit more, but suffice it to say that the entire trip was worth it to hear him play the six songs he played.

The headliner was Dramarama, and the English Beat were supporting. However, the next band to play was Dramarama, much to our dismay. (Headliners should go last. It's a fact.) Dramarama sucked, and sucked hard. It was bad enough that the ambient music prior to and in between bands was loud enough to require earplugs, but I regretted that I was going to be wasting my hearing on these yahoos. They had their fans—several people nearby knew every word to every song. Fair enough. However, conventional wisdom has it that the headliner plays last, which was exactly what I wanted. Dolby, *then* the Beat. We survived the Dramarama experience, although this meant that the Beat weren't going to take the stage until well after midnight. We listened for a while, managing to hear "Mirror in the Bathroom," "I Confess," and "Rough Rider." Good stuff. But the fatigue finally began to take its toll, and we ended up leaving before the set ended. Those who soldiered on and heard the end of the show reported that Dolby came out to play "New Toy" with the Beat. It's not my favorite song, so I don't feel like we missed out on all that much.

To be continued with Saturday: Brunch with Javi; Into the Pit-t-t-t-t-t; An Hour (and $5) I Want Back; The Western Sea; A Margarita With A Lifeguard; and An Observatory Unobserved...

——————
* I have been informed by the man himself that the encore was indeed built on the fly, and that the word "purportedly" should be stricken from the record. Consider it done. I was hoping that it was built on the spot, as it made it all the more impressive.