Top: Michelle and the Toyota on Mulholland Drive, LA, March 2008.
Middle: Stephen and Jot-Billy outside PantyRaid (his idea), Silverlake, LA, March 2008.
Bottom: New York, New York, Las Vegas, March 2008.
No alarms and no surprises, we wake late the next morning and drive down to Farmers Market for brunch. We check mail at the Apple Store (while I drool over all the lovely shinny things), buy too many things at Gap and then call Richard, our guy with the Foos tickets, from a payphone, and confirm arrangements for the next evening. We call my pal Jot-Billy, who is busy, and decide to drive down to Santa Monica and have a walk along the beach. We call Billy again and have a long chat, arranging to meet up in a couple of days time, before eating at Barney’s Beanery and driving back home into West Hollywood.
The next morning we breakfast at Mel’s on Sunset (which has valet parking – it does feel strange just walking away from your car while some guy gets in and drives off) and then drive up to Runyon Canyon in the Hollywood Hills. The canyon is a popular exercise route with a number of different paths heading up into the hills, and even late morning is teeming with joggers, walkers and dogs (on leads, of course). There is a fair smattering of yummy-mummys pushing their jog-along three wheelers, but very few tourists, and we reckon they’re all missing out when we reach the top of the long climb and are rewarded with a view across Los Angeles, the Pacific Ocean to our right, and the Hollywood sign to our left.
Back in the car we go up into the hills and do my favourite drive, along Mulholland, which runs from near Universal Studios along the top of the hills all the way west down to PCH by the ocean. We stop and look out over the San Fernando Valley, which is still a bit of a mystery to us and should be on the list for exploration next time we visit, and wind back down the hills through Laurel Canyon to the hostel to get ready for our night out.
The Forum, where we are heading to see the Foo Fighters tonight, is the old home of the Lakers, the city’s basketball team, and is now the venue of choice for bands who have hit that level of popularity. It holds 18,000 people, and is slap bang in the middle of Inglewood, South Central LA. We plan our route and turn onto the 101 from Melrose at 7 in the evening, which slowly becomes the 110 and we average around 20 mph on a 6 lane freeway which turns into 12 lanes as we head through downtown. For me it’s exhilarating driving in this (at one point we have about a ¼ mile to get across 7 or 8 lanes to reach an exit), for Chelle it’s the worst roller coaster ride she’s ever been on, and it takes us an hour and a bit to get to the end of the queue to park at The Forum.
The building looks a bit like a smaller version of the old Wembley, and we do two circuits of it before spotting our ticket guy, Richard (his description was spot on). We chat with him and his wife Angelica and she tells us that she has been reading the blog, having followed the link from one of our initial mails. We pay for the tickets, thank them, and go inside to get a drink and find our seats. The support bands are nothing to write home about, so I won’t, but while they are on we play text tennis with James and Kayce, who are somewhere over the other side of the arena.
The Foo Fighters are amazing. A hometown gig, they play for nearly three hours and generate such goodwill amongst the almost feverish crowd that Dave Grohl could stand for President and have a bloody good chance of getting voted in based on this. As the encores echo around, we step out of the arena and straight into James and Kayce, and their friends Tracy and Don. They had walked round the long way on the off chance of bumping into us, and it almost literally worked! We hug, chat, hasty plans are mad to meet up and we split up in the car-park, as the search is on for the car.
It takes around 20 minutes to get back to Melrose Ave at 2.00am, but as we drove the mile or so along Manchester Ave in Inglewood towards the freeway, I have to confess that I was pleased that the lights were all green. I think I might have kept going even if they had been red, it all looked a little too much like Skid Row in Downtown LA for my taste.
After bagels, coffee, and a little light shopping at the Beverly Centre for breakfast, including getting to do my first bit of shouting at someone from the car (“Hey! You can’t just stop there!”), we park back at the Orbit and wait for Jot-Billy to come and get us. He’s taken the day off work to show us around Silverlake, but we get much more of a tour thanks to a missed turn off. We end up going all the way down to the San Fernando Valley, and through Van Nuys before finally pulling up outside Rockaway Records a while later.
Somehow (and I’m really not sure how) I manage to come out with only four CDs, Billy has a pile of around 15, and Chelle had retired to the coffee house across the street hours ago. Given more luggage allowance, and a lottery win, I could have cleared the place out. The coffee shop is great, very cool, and when we ask where to eat they suggest a Thai place down the road. Turns out to be next to Spaceland, the legendary venue, it has great food and while there we get to chat with Billy’s ex, Tina, on the phone. She’s busy setting up her first art exhibition, we wish her luck and then head back to Melrose, and our local, the Snake Pit for a beer .
It’s been great to see Billy again, he’s a lovely fella and we promise to meet up next time – with us driving! We walk home to the Orbit a little drunk.
Our short LA visit is over, and the next day we pack and load the car, check out, walk over to a nearby café and check our mail at the next door cyber-dog café. Soon we are driving east along the 10 and then north-east on the 15 towards Las Vegas. It’s Friday, so the road towards the gambling mecca of America is pretty busy, but not quite the M25. We stop along the way for lunch and end up in Subway – which really is the only place to eat vegetarian – and a little later on stop at a discount village which isn’t even on our 2007 map, such is the rate of new building along this road. After 5 hours we see Vegas in the distance, and it’s getting dark as we turn off the 15 and hit real traffic. Eventually we turn right onto ‘The Strip’, before realising we should have turned left. 15 minutes later we get the chance to turn around and finally head the right way. It has gone dark during our navigation blunder, which means we get to drive passed all the famous neon landmarks of Las Vegas, and, partly thanks to the volume of traffic, get a chance to have a good look.
Our room is booked at The Sahara, one of the older Casino/hotels, situated at the north end of The Strip. Once parked in the huge multi-story garage, we make our way to reception and join the check-in line. Once we found the end of it, anyway. Friday evening seems like a popular time to check-in, and we pass the time chatting to a couple from Utah, who get through four bottles of Budweiser and a pack of Marlboros in the time it takes to get to the head of the line.
Dorothy, we’re not in California now…
Our room is on the 17th floor, and we have a lovely view of the afore-mentioned multi-story garage. Still, it’s about £35 a night. Our search for suitable food outside CA continues into the evening, with it being a struggle to even find an Italian place that does something other than steaks. We walk back to the hotel and have a drink while watching a couple of 80 year-olds - the guy with a zimmer frame, I kid you not - dance to the house band ‘Area 51’ as they play ‘Black Magic Woman’. Only in Vegas.
We have breakfast in one of the bars in our hotel, and it’s served by waitresses in their 60’s, from the 60’s, and wearing uniforms from the 60’s. Seeing a show is part of the Vegas experience, and the only one I’ll consider within our price range ($120 to see Cirque de Soleil!) is a Beatle tribute called FabFourMania!! Tickets are booked up the road at one of the numerous booths along the Strip, at half price. The woman in the booth (yes, in her 60’s too) tries to up-sell us with a meal afterwards but backs down pretty quickly when the ‘vegetarian’ word rears it’s head. The rest of the day is spent by the pool, reading, drinking and trying to hold on to everything in the strong wind.
Our tickets are in the front row, and the theatre is half full. When the band take the stage (“no tapes are used during tonight’s performance, everything you hear is live and played by the people on stage”) we have a shock – the ‘Paul’ looks, and sounds, remarkably like one of our friends back home. That can’t be Shevlin, surely… It’s a great show, follows the Bootleg Beatles formula and by 9.00pm we’re outside dreading the food search again.
The bus is crammed, and after a few minutes we have to get out and walk. Planet Hollywood is a new hotel on the south of The Strip, and boasts a ‘Miracle Mile’ of shops. We’re not sure what is so miraculous, maybe it’s the sight of Americans walking a mile, but we do find a burger house that does very nice veggie versions, and very nice beer. That night we both struggle to sleep, and finally doze off in the early hours. We wake up at midday and Chelle decides to go and get coffee, which takes over an hour thanks to the fact that it’s Sunday, and checking out day. 17 floors is a lot of stairs to walk down, and back up with hot (well, lukewarm!) coffee.
Another snooze by the pool is followed by a trip on the Monorail and we have a wander around the MGM Grand, New York, New York and check out the aquarium at the Monte Carlo. Noodles and beer (yup, we’re classy, huh!) while watching the fountains at the Bellagio followed by a stroll through the Wynn Hotel, and I’ve never felt so out of place. I was convinced someone would ask us to leave at any moment, but they never did. The one thing Vegas has going for it is the fact that they really don’t care who you are, or what you look like – as long as you have money, and until they know that you don’t, you’re welcome everywhere. Just in case.
