“Man, today was so fucked up.”
I glance to my right to see that the stoner with the long black hair tied in a ponytail is talking to me. He’s wearing a shirt listing about two-dozen different types of cannabis. I don’t know this guy. We’re staying at the same hostel. I live on the second floor; he lives on the first. Our only contact we’ve had with each other is in passing.
“Oh, yeah?” I think to myself—because my day has been pretty erratic, too. It started when I went to the ATM this morning to withdraw money out of my dwindling bank account so I could pay for another week’s hospitality at the hostel. While I was there, punching in my PIN number with one hand and covering the keypad with my other hand (as is suggested by a sign on the machine), a man walked down the sidewalk.
No, walked isn’t the right past tense verb. Limped is more like it. This man limped down the sidewalk. But that wasn’t what caught my eye. It was the man’s hair. It was very blonde, sticking straight up off his head in all directions, and it looked as though the front half had been shaved. To get a better idea of this image, look at yourself in the mirror. Now, imagine all of your hair missing from the front of your left ear all the way over to the front of your right ear in a clean-cut line. That was what was going on with the limping man. But it didn’t stop there. The man was also wearing a pink and black nylon jump suit—the kind Susanne Somers would wear in a Thigh Master commercial. But clearly, this man had made some alterations to his workout ensemble, as his number also sported pink frills like you would find on a traditional ballerina costume.
I watched as this hybrid fashionista clomped past me and into the bank. Having dealt with people like that in the past at previous jobs, I wished the good people at the bank the best of luck in dealing with this character and scampered off to my hostel.
After paying my rent, it was time to get ready for the second round of the interview that I’m dangerously under-qualified for. Another trip to Santa Monica later, and I was back in the Internet savvy, hipster bordello. I snuck a quick peak at Paul’s super cool office and then took a crash course on how to load information onto a website. It had something to do with modules and string theory and table making—all things I’m either a little rusty on or know nothing about. Eventually, they set me loose to try doing it on my own. It took a long time, but I think I finished doing what they told me to do. I’m left to assume if I did finish I did it wrong, because as of this writing, it’s been over a week and they have yet to call me back. But I was pretty confident I wasn’t going to get the job as I left the parking garage, so I’d already decided to hop back on Craigslist and apply for more jobs as soon as I got back to the hostel for the second time today.
Even the best laid out plans go awry. The first thing I did when I got back to the hostel was check out my email. In my inbox there was a message from the good people at Weezer HQ with more info on the music video I’m trying to get involved with. This one was asking for people to specify what they wanted to take part in. I could be in either Weezer’s World Record Hootenanny, Weezer’s World Record Dodgeball Game, Weezer’s World Record Custard Pie Fight, Weezer’s World Record Air Guitar Performance, or ALL EVENTS. Seeing as how I don’t have anything better to do, and because I’m a whore, I signed up for ALL EVENTS. Hopefully, they get the details all ironed out soon—the shoot is in two days.
Another sweltering hot California day was complimented by an easy, breezy California night. I went outside to enjoy the cool calm. For whatever reason, I walked past Sait, Marko, and Hiro, and sat down at a picnic table next to Gweat’s who was smoking a blunt. Baked out of his mind, he started telling me about raccoons or something. Not being able to follow his train of thought, I just listened and occasionally did a head nod.
Our one sided conversation was interrupted by the stoner with the long black ponytail. This pot dumpster’s radar must’ve been set off by the Grape Ape smoke wafting through the air. He approached Gweat’s and I, asking, “Would either of you happen to be California Medical Card carrying members?”
This is slang for, “Do you have any weed?” Gweat’s knew where this was going. The stoner wanted a hookup. Gweats, being an actual California Medical Card carrying member, is always asked to share his stash by everyone that gets a whiff of him. Understandably, Gweat’s hates being the go-to guy, so he headed for the hills. Not the Hollywood Hills, mind you. Rather, back upstairs to our room.
Everyone knows a stoner’s vision is based on movement, so I decided to sit perfectly still and silent, waiting for him to go away. After all, I don’t know this guy, and I don’t have weed, so there’s no reason he’ll wait around. He’s got pot to find, dammit!
“Man, today was so fucked up.”
Shit. It didn’t work. “Oh, yeah?” I thought to myself.
“Yeah, man. Oh, man. I can’t believe what I did today.”
Wait, what? Did this stoner just read my mind? Are they evolving? How can I avoid them if they can pick up my brain patterns? This is not good. My paranoia eventually subsided and I realized I said, “Oh yeah?” out loud. The stoner continued:
“Dude, I was in a porno today.”
Had I of been drinking a Gatorade the way I am recollecting this encounter in my memory, I would have done a spit take. As it were, I was not.
“What?” I asked to make sure I heard clearly, even though I very much knew that I had, because porno doesn’t sound like too many other words. “Dude, I was in a borno today,” or “Dude, I was in a norno,” are rarely uttered sentences and even if they were, they would mean nothing.
The stoner with the black ponytail put his porno face in his porno hands and muttered, “Oh man, I can’t believe I did a porno today.”
Without asking, he started telling me all about how it happened. Apparently, this ugly, greasy, overweight stoner with long black hair’s old girlfriend is an up-and-coming porn star, and she got him the gig. Before he could do the shoot, he had to get checked to make sure he had a clean bill of health. This process involves going to a special porno clinic where they check for STDs, which I’ve heard is a painful process to go through. If you are clean, you state your name to someone on the set of the shoot. That person calls in your name and gets confirmation the talent has been given the go-ahead. With everything in the clear, the talent halts their conversation on how Dostoevsky resonates in a postmodern society, shake hands, and get to fucking!
From what I gathered from the stoner, it didn’t sound as though this were a high profile shoot. It was probably done on a Circuit City-bought DV camera, and outside of the talent, consisting of the stoner, his ex-girlfriend, and some other girl, and possibly a director, the only other crew on hand were probably unpaid interns getting college credit for their time. Chances are, if it shows up anywhere, it’ll probably be on some obscure South Korean website. One thing’s for certain, though—wherever it ends up, Dallas will find it.
Continuing on, he told me he got paid $450 to do it. Not a bad haul for a day’s work. Personally, I charge twice that, but this was his first day. You’ve gotta start somewhere, right?
I could tell something was nagging him. Maybe it was a new strain of the herpes simplex virus that went undetected at the clinic. I egged him on, and eventually he admitted he went ATM.
ATM? Not knowing what ATM was, I inquired further. The stoner dropped his face back into his hands, obviously embarrassed of going ATM. Come on, man. Earlier today you were in a porno—you’re a little long in the tooth now to be getting bashful.
“It’s Ass To Mouth.”
Then time stopped. I tried to hold back a laugh. I don’t know if I was successful. This asshole had eaten out of someone else’s asshole. And it’s on film. Do you think he’s brushed his teeth since?
From a distance, I tried to console him in his time of grief, reminding him that he got paid $450 to wear a shit-eating grin around for the rest of the day, and that sometimes, in order to get money, you’ve got to hit up an ATM. He didn’t get the joke. That’s okay. It wasn’t funny.
Then the guy insisted I could do porn. “Dude, you could totally do it, you could totally do it,” he said. “If you want, I could hook you up.”
I tossed the idea around in my head. This might be my only chance in life to have intercourse with someone that is conscious or of age of consent (that’s a joke. I just wanted to go there before Jay did). Then I thought of my heroes—John Holmes, Ron Jeremy, and Dustin “Dirty Sanchez” Diamond—and how I would be carrying on their legacy. Then it occurred to me those three porn stars aren’t my heroes at all—my heroes are Martin Van Buren, the FDNY, and Batman. Then I reviewed my lifelong dreams, which are to fly into outer space, coach a little league team to a championship, and to not be in a porno. I could never accomplish the last one on the list if ever I appeared in a porno. Trying to be polite, I told the stoner I’d have to get back to him on that one.
It was time to put the kibosh on this conversation, so I bid the stoner adieu, and wished him the best of luck on finding pot and a guiltless conscious. He’ll probably find one of them, but not the other. This is California after all.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Do the Mario!
Today started out like any other day—I woke up. Today is going to be fairly busy. I have a job interview for a proofreading position for some company I’ve never heard of. So I have to find a Target Shop and buy a striped polo shirt to compliment my brown corduroy long pants—the perfect attire for a business casual interview, and I have to shower. If I accomplish even one of these, it will be more than I have done the past few days.
I threw on some clothes and left my room. Passing the bathroom, I heard Gweat’s on the other side, singing/yelling. I could smell the blunt he was rolling halfway down the hallway. California medical marijuana is potent stuff.
At Target, I had to ask one of the workers which polo shirt to buy because I was worried I would pick the wrong color of brown that went with my brown pants and brown shoes. It’s a good thing I did, because she told me the one I picked out wouldn’t work.
Newly clothed, I returned to the hostel. With the bathroom now open, I took my trademark forty-five minute shower, dried off, and waited for the interview.
The office building I was to be interviewed at was in Santa Monica, less than ten miles away, so I left forty minutes early, and arrived with ten minutes to spare.
The office was on the top floor of a building with many other companies inside it. As I walked past one office, I saw a table with about a dozen Emmys lined up. I wonder what company that was?
The office I was to be interviewed in wasn’t nearly as nice as that one. That’s not to say it was run down or dilapidated—it was just that it was a new company that had yet to move in. The office decor was still images with quotes from movies like Office Space and Anchorman. The receptionist had me sit down on a posh couch to wait for the person that was to be interviewing me. While I sat, I watched a muted flat screen TV that looped the different shows this company had a hand in. One was, “Lil’ Bush,” a web series turned Comedy Central show. Another one was a Flash based animated show starring Iggy Pop. Probably my favorite was a show called, “Meet the Cruises.” The cast, as you can imagine, was Tom Cruise, indentured servant Katie Holmes, L. Ron Hubbard reincarnate Suri, and some woman called Oprah. Yeah, I could work here.
Eventually, my interviewer, Paul, came to greet me. We walked to his office, because they were waxing the moving sidewalks and the Segways were in the shop for repairs. Going past the rows of desks and the people behind them, I realized I was overdressed in my collared brown polo shirt. Even dressed down, the employees looked like their clothes cost more than mine. Not only must they work in Santa Monica, they must shop there also.
We sat down in Paul’s office, and right away I had trouble concentrating. He had Super Mario Bros. wall decals. There was Mario, a Goomba, and a Piranha Plant coming out of a warp pipe. Awesome. Then I spotted some framed Street Fighter II drawings. This guy speaks my language. Maybe when the interview is over we can talk about guard cancels or the underappreciated parry system.
Paul looked over my resume and informed me I wasn’t qualified for this job at all. Wait, what? I majored in English. The one thing outside of working at a bookstore that I can do is proofread. As it turns out, this job was a little more involved than that. What the job description on Craigslist didn’t tell me was that the majority of the work would be in web design, as opposed to “a background in web design recommended,” but Paul wanted me to try and give it a shot anyway, in part because he really liked my sample writing I gave him and requested I do another. We scheduled for me to come back the next day to see if I had what it takes to handle the job. I already know I don’t, but what the hell? They already wasted my time having me come in for a job I’m not going to be able to do. I might as well waste their time training me for a job I’m not going to get. Who knows, maybe all my inadequacies with computers and as a human being will dissipate overnight? Maybe I’ll wake up and discover I didn’t really waste four years of my life in college and instead took that time to learn a viable skill. I won’t.
I threw on some clothes and left my room. Passing the bathroom, I heard Gweat’s on the other side, singing/yelling. I could smell the blunt he was rolling halfway down the hallway. California medical marijuana is potent stuff.
At Target, I had to ask one of the workers which polo shirt to buy because I was worried I would pick the wrong color of brown that went with my brown pants and brown shoes. It’s a good thing I did, because she told me the one I picked out wouldn’t work.
Newly clothed, I returned to the hostel. With the bathroom now open, I took my trademark forty-five minute shower, dried off, and waited for the interview.
The office building I was to be interviewed at was in Santa Monica, less than ten miles away, so I left forty minutes early, and arrived with ten minutes to spare.
The office was on the top floor of a building with many other companies inside it. As I walked past one office, I saw a table with about a dozen Emmys lined up. I wonder what company that was?
The office I was to be interviewed in wasn’t nearly as nice as that one. That’s not to say it was run down or dilapidated—it was just that it was a new company that had yet to move in. The office decor was still images with quotes from movies like Office Space and Anchorman. The receptionist had me sit down on a posh couch to wait for the person that was to be interviewing me. While I sat, I watched a muted flat screen TV that looped the different shows this company had a hand in. One was, “Lil’ Bush,” a web series turned Comedy Central show. Another one was a Flash based animated show starring Iggy Pop. Probably my favorite was a show called, “Meet the Cruises.” The cast, as you can imagine, was Tom Cruise, indentured servant Katie Holmes, L. Ron Hubbard reincarnate Suri, and some woman called Oprah. Yeah, I could work here.
Eventually, my interviewer, Paul, came to greet me. We walked to his office, because they were waxing the moving sidewalks and the Segways were in the shop for repairs. Going past the rows of desks and the people behind them, I realized I was overdressed in my collared brown polo shirt. Even dressed down, the employees looked like their clothes cost more than mine. Not only must they work in Santa Monica, they must shop there also.
We sat down in Paul’s office, and right away I had trouble concentrating. He had Super Mario Bros. wall decals. There was Mario, a Goomba, and a Piranha Plant coming out of a warp pipe. Awesome. Then I spotted some framed Street Fighter II drawings. This guy speaks my language. Maybe when the interview is over we can talk about guard cancels or the underappreciated parry system.
Paul looked over my resume and informed me I wasn’t qualified for this job at all. Wait, what? I majored in English. The one thing outside of working at a bookstore that I can do is proofread. As it turns out, this job was a little more involved than that. What the job description on Craigslist didn’t tell me was that the majority of the work would be in web design, as opposed to “a background in web design recommended,” but Paul wanted me to try and give it a shot anyway, in part because he really liked my sample writing I gave him and requested I do another. We scheduled for me to come back the next day to see if I had what it takes to handle the job. I already know I don’t, but what the hell? They already wasted my time having me come in for a job I’m not going to be able to do. I might as well waste their time training me for a job I’m not going to get. Who knows, maybe all my inadequacies with computers and as a human being will dissipate overnight? Maybe I’ll wake up and discover I didn’t really waste four years of my life in college and instead took that time to learn a viable skill. I won’t.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
A Conversation I Had Today
The part of I will be played by me, and the part of Her will be played by Old French Whore. I, and by I, I mean me, am not sure what Her real name is, but the name I gave her suits Her.
To set up the scene, I sits at a table, looking and dressing exactly like me, listening to music and writing a blog. Her, a tall girl with frizzy black hair, freckles and a tattoo on her hand, sits down across from I.
I: My music isn’t bothering you, is it?
Her: Oh, no not at all. What are you listening to?
I: David Bowie.
Her: (looking at I quizzically) Isn’t he old?
I: Yeah, but I’m listening to his earlier work.
Her: (still perplexed) Have you heard the new Coldplay?
I: I’m not really a fan of Coldplay. I hate to admit it, but their album, “A Rush of Blood to the Head” is legitimately good, but—
Her: (interrupting) What’s that?
I: “A Rush of Blood to the Head?” It was their really big album from two thou—
Her: (interrupting) I don’t know anything about that. But you need to hear their song, “Viva La Vida.”
I: Is that their newest single?
Her: Huh? Oh, I don’t know. Just listen to “Viva La Vida.” If you don’t like that song then there is something wrong with you.
I: (thinking) Noted, girl I just met at the start of this conversation. Is there any other music you can recommend to me since taking an interest in music this morning on your way to work?
(says aloud) I’ll have to check it out.
I exits the scene as if he is actually going to listen to faggy Coldplay music, when really, he goes to look for an out of life, because anything would be more desirable than listening to a Coldplay song. Yes, even a rattlesnake colonic. End scene.
To set up the scene, I sits at a table, looking and dressing exactly like me, listening to music and writing a blog. Her, a tall girl with frizzy black hair, freckles and a tattoo on her hand, sits down across from I.
I: My music isn’t bothering you, is it?
Her: Oh, no not at all. What are you listening to?
I: David Bowie.
Her: (looking at I quizzically) Isn’t he old?
I: Yeah, but I’m listening to his earlier work.
Her: (still perplexed) Have you heard the new Coldplay?
I: I’m not really a fan of Coldplay. I hate to admit it, but their album, “A Rush of Blood to the Head” is legitimately good, but—
Her: (interrupting) What’s that?
I: “A Rush of Blood to the Head?” It was their really big album from two thou—
Her: (interrupting) I don’t know anything about that. But you need to hear their song, “Viva La Vida.”
I: Is that their newest single?
Her: Huh? Oh, I don’t know. Just listen to “Viva La Vida.” If you don’t like that song then there is something wrong with you.
I: (thinking) Noted, girl I just met at the start of this conversation. Is there any other music you can recommend to me since taking an interest in music this morning on your way to work?
(says aloud) I’ll have to check it out.
I exits the scene as if he is actually going to listen to faggy Coldplay music, when really, he goes to look for an out of life, because anything would be more desirable than listening to a Coldplay song. Yes, even a rattlesnake colonic. End scene.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Let's Have a Beach Party
While Ruby was busy at school today, Rose and I decided to take a trip to Santa Monica for reasons of shopping, beaching, and to get out of the hostel. Previously, our days have consisted of sitting on our respective computers—Rose watching YouTube videos and I applying for jobs on Craigslist.
We took a guest with us. Andre, Ruby’s boyfriend, came to visit for a week. Since I did not mention him in the last blog, a little rundown of the one they call Andre:
1. Andre is of Russian descent. Meaning, he can’t be trusted.
2. He not so-secretly is in love with me. I can’t blame him.
3. He’s a smart kid. He scored some 5’s on his advanced placement exams.
4. He’s a stupid kid. Andre blew up a toilet in high school, got suspended, and was forced to do 70-some hours of community service. I commend blowing up the toilet, but not at the expense of doing voluntary work. That’s for losers.
5. He has a fear of falling. Not heights, mind you, but of falling. How ridiculous is that?
6. Activities and events Andre cannot comfortably partake in: skydiving, tripping and falling, jumping off a diving board, autumn.
I’ve just spent more time on Andre than anyone ever has in his life. Go me.
But hey, weren’t we going somewhere? Oh yeah, Santa Monica. Come on gang. Let’s go!
For those unfamiliar with California’s geography, Santa Monica is west of Los Angeles and sits on the waterfront. South of Santa Monica is Venice Beach, which will be discussed in greater detail at a later time in another blog. To paint a better picture of Santa Monica, let me use this analogy: if the Los Angeles County area were a high school, Venice Beach would be the hippie burnout clique, and Santa Monica would be the preppy kids with letter jackets. For the record, Korea Town would be Math Club.
Everything in Santa Monica looks new and expensive looking. We walked into a few stores that sold $80 t-shirts. My entire wardrobe costs less than one Santa Monica shirt. Even the farmer’s market set up there on our visit had too-expensive potatoes and psychedelic mushrooms for sale. At a newsstand, there was a $15 magazine.
While passing all the pretty people in their $500 casual wear, as they went into their boutique shops to buy more stuff I do not know how they can afford, I took pictures of bush sculptures that looked like dinosaurs on my cell phone. It would sure be great to share these with you fine people, unfortunately, my pain in the ass sister wouldn’t let me bring my digital camera to California, because there are so many wonderful things to take pictures of in Iowa that she simply had to keep it with her. I still don’t know how to upload pictures from my phone onto the world-wide-web, so no one gets to enjoy.
Besides shops and running backs, Santa Monica also has a pier with a ton of restaurants, attractions, and an amusement park. Andre talked big about riding the Farris Wheel, but since he’s Russian and can’t be trusted to do anything he says, he never did.
For lunch, we went to Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. This was exciting for me as much as something can be exciting for a cynical bastard that’s not impressed by anything, because I love the movie, Forrest Gump. If you and I are sitting around, flipping through channels on the television set, and we happen to stumble on Forrest Gump, no matter how far into the movie it is, we will sit and watch it until the credits roll. No exceptions.
Inside, Bubba Gump is just a glorified Applebee’s. Instead of a bunch of random crap on the walls, Bubba Gump just has Forrest Gump-themed crap on the walls. I’ve always wondered where these stores find their decorations. Is there a Chile’s catalog where they can choose which ornaments to hang on their walls or what? They usually represent the local color, so in Des Moines, you’ll have a Hawkeyes or Cyclones football jersey on display and then pictures of Sammy Davis Jr. and Marilyn Monroe on either side of them, but still, what about the Nicaraguan license plate and English Beefeater hat? Those have to come from a catalog.
Lunch was lunch. Andre dropped a piece of shrimp and peed his self, our waitress came around and gave us Forrest Gump trivia (I got 4 out of 5—later that night, I cut my inner thigh repeatedly with a dinner knife), and we left.
On our way out of the restaurant, I saw tourists taking their pictures in front of Bubba Gump as if they had reached their Mecca or Medina on some great pilgrimage. People, it’s a chain restaurant. There are over thirty locations around the world. Granted, that’s pretty sparse, all things considered, but you wouldn’t take a picture of yourself in front of the McDonald’s in Toluca, would you? No you wouldn’t. Your local Mom & Pop burger joint is more rare than Bubba Gump. Take pictures of that.
I really wanted to go swimming. The Pacific Ocean is right there, teasing me, but no one had swimming suits, so the Pacific Ocean escapes my scissor kick this day, but not for long.
Returning to the hostel, Rose and I continued our daily routine. Andre did something no one cares about, and thus ends another underwhelming blog entry. Stay tuned for more.
We took a guest with us. Andre, Ruby’s boyfriend, came to visit for a week. Since I did not mention him in the last blog, a little rundown of the one they call Andre:
1. Andre is of Russian descent. Meaning, he can’t be trusted.
2. He not so-secretly is in love with me. I can’t blame him.
3. He’s a smart kid. He scored some 5’s on his advanced placement exams.
4. He’s a stupid kid. Andre blew up a toilet in high school, got suspended, and was forced to do 70-some hours of community service. I commend blowing up the toilet, but not at the expense of doing voluntary work. That’s for losers.
5. He has a fear of falling. Not heights, mind you, but of falling. How ridiculous is that?
6. Activities and events Andre cannot comfortably partake in: skydiving, tripping and falling, jumping off a diving board, autumn.
I’ve just spent more time on Andre than anyone ever has in his life. Go me.
But hey, weren’t we going somewhere? Oh yeah, Santa Monica. Come on gang. Let’s go!
For those unfamiliar with California’s geography, Santa Monica is west of Los Angeles and sits on the waterfront. South of Santa Monica is Venice Beach, which will be discussed in greater detail at a later time in another blog. To paint a better picture of Santa Monica, let me use this analogy: if the Los Angeles County area were a high school, Venice Beach would be the hippie burnout clique, and Santa Monica would be the preppy kids with letter jackets. For the record, Korea Town would be Math Club.
Everything in Santa Monica looks new and expensive looking. We walked into a few stores that sold $80 t-shirts. My entire wardrobe costs less than one Santa Monica shirt. Even the farmer’s market set up there on our visit had too-expensive potatoes and psychedelic mushrooms for sale. At a newsstand, there was a $15 magazine.
While passing all the pretty people in their $500 casual wear, as they went into their boutique shops to buy more stuff I do not know how they can afford, I took pictures of bush sculptures that looked like dinosaurs on my cell phone. It would sure be great to share these with you fine people, unfortunately, my pain in the ass sister wouldn’t let me bring my digital camera to California, because there are so many wonderful things to take pictures of in Iowa that she simply had to keep it with her. I still don’t know how to upload pictures from my phone onto the world-wide-web, so no one gets to enjoy.
Besides shops and running backs, Santa Monica also has a pier with a ton of restaurants, attractions, and an amusement park. Andre talked big about riding the Farris Wheel, but since he’s Russian and can’t be trusted to do anything he says, he never did.
For lunch, we went to Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. This was exciting for me as much as something can be exciting for a cynical bastard that’s not impressed by anything, because I love the movie, Forrest Gump. If you and I are sitting around, flipping through channels on the television set, and we happen to stumble on Forrest Gump, no matter how far into the movie it is, we will sit and watch it until the credits roll. No exceptions.
Inside, Bubba Gump is just a glorified Applebee’s. Instead of a bunch of random crap on the walls, Bubba Gump just has Forrest Gump-themed crap on the walls. I’ve always wondered where these stores find their decorations. Is there a Chile’s catalog where they can choose which ornaments to hang on their walls or what? They usually represent the local color, so in Des Moines, you’ll have a Hawkeyes or Cyclones football jersey on display and then pictures of Sammy Davis Jr. and Marilyn Monroe on either side of them, but still, what about the Nicaraguan license plate and English Beefeater hat? Those have to come from a catalog.
Lunch was lunch. Andre dropped a piece of shrimp and peed his self, our waitress came around and gave us Forrest Gump trivia (I got 4 out of 5—later that night, I cut my inner thigh repeatedly with a dinner knife), and we left.
On our way out of the restaurant, I saw tourists taking their pictures in front of Bubba Gump as if they had reached their Mecca or Medina on some great pilgrimage. People, it’s a chain restaurant. There are over thirty locations around the world. Granted, that’s pretty sparse, all things considered, but you wouldn’t take a picture of yourself in front of the McDonald’s in Toluca, would you? No you wouldn’t. Your local Mom & Pop burger joint is more rare than Bubba Gump. Take pictures of that.
I really wanted to go swimming. The Pacific Ocean is right there, teasing me, but no one had swimming suits, so the Pacific Ocean escapes my scissor kick this day, but not for long.
Returning to the hostel, Rose and I continued our daily routine. Andre did something no one cares about, and thus ends another underwhelming blog entry. Stay tuned for more.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
We Have a Hostel Situation
It’s another bright and sunny day in California. How depressing. It’s always so sunny here. Do they not believe in overcast days and rain here? What can you do? Wipe off the superficial makeup of grass and green trees not indigenous to the area and you’re left with a desert.
For the third time since moving into the hostel four days ago, I switched rooms. This time, I have to carry all my personal belongings (two suitcases, a backpack, and a shoebox) upstairs where I’ll share a room with three other tenants. The room is the same size as my previous two rooms, but this one has more bunk beds and more people. It’s worth it though because I’ll be literally saving three dollars a day on my rent. My inner Jew never ceases to amaze me.
Now would be a good time to introduce the new cast of characters that will show up in future posts. I know this, because I have already written those blog entries. So it would be wise to give you a little information on them so when they show up, you, the reader, can go, “Hey, I remember him mentioning them. Hooray exposition.” Some might even recognize their own name, assuming Rose is still reading this.
Ruby & Rose:
Ruby and Rose are sisters from Ohio and very cool people. They might be the coolest people in Ohio, for all I know. If someone else would like to contest this statement and provide circumstantial evidence that would make he or she cooler than Ruby and Rose, by all means they may. But until that time, Ruby and Rose will be known as the coolest people in Ohio. Ruby is going to school here for the next six weeks, taking classes in makeup for film and theater, and Rose is here to make sure Ruby doesn’t get hit on by creepy bloggers such as myself. So far, she’s doing a good job at her job. We’ll end up hanging out a lot together. I will be sad to see them go and lost at the hostel when they leave to return to Ohio.
Matt:
Matt is one of my new roommates. He does post-production work on a variety of media projects, and is very good at what he does. Originally from Utah, he comes to California to make large sums of money doing contract work. Matt is a worldly traveler. He has a girlfriend in Peru and spends a good part of the year traveling the globe, much like I assume Christian Bale’s father did.
Gweat’s, a.k.a. Buckwheat, a.k.a. Pass’ta Weats, a.k.a. Brent
The first conversation I had with Gweat’s (pronounced Gweet us) had something to do with helicopters flying overhead and how you have to wave flares around all willy-nilly like in Jurassic Park, throw them in one direction so the helicopter follow them like a T-Rex, while you take off in the other direction. Don’t believe this conversation took place? Ruby can confirm that it did. Considering the future conversations I’ve had with Gweat’s, I can also say this is probably the sanest conversation we’ve had together. Ruby can attest to this, too.
Hiro Nakamura:
My third roommate, I actually don’t know his real name. I asked Matt if he knew and he didn’t. I asked Gweat’s and he started crawling on the ground yelling something about ocean jellyfish. So I call my fourth roommate Hiro Nakamura, because he looks exactly like the character Masi Oka plays on the show, Heroes.
The Hipsters:
I won’t describe the hipsters, because if you know one hipster, you know them all. Their style and personalities are completely interchangeable with one another. They all have poorly colored hair, tattoos, too tight of jeans, and drink Pabst Blue Ribbon. I hate hipsters. There are two of them living in my hall.
Marko & Sait:
Marko and Sait live on the first floor, but come upstairs to use the Internet, so I see them a lot. Marko is from Greece and Sait is from Turkey. They both moved into the hostel at the same time and just hit it off right away. Everyone thinks they are gay because they do everything together, and because Sait oftentimes wears a pink shirt, and sometimes Sait wakes up to find Marko sleeping in the same bed as him. But I assure you they are not gay.
There you go—a quick rundown of the cast of characters to appear in upcoming blogs. You might want to consider printing this page off so you can return to it for easy reference later.
Sorry we’ve spent the past few paragraphs not talking about me (again, I apologize), and have probably isolated the majority of my blog’s audience (me) through this controversial decision, but I’m going to make it right to you (me) now by talking more about me and what I’m up to.
On this Saturday, I looked at another apartment—this time in North Hollywood. After seeing the place and meeting the potential roommates, I have a pretty good feeling about this one. It’s a nice neighborhood, the price is right, the roommates are really swell people, and I desperately want my mailing address to be North Hollywood. How cool would that be? Unfortunately, a few days from when this blog took place, I will find out one of the roommates wants another female roommate, so it’s a no-go. Clearly, they don’t know my mannerisms too well.
However, not knowing that, I was feeling pretty good about California and things in particular. The prospect of not having to live in the hostel was enough to be elated by in and of itself.
Later that night, I drove up to Burbank to meet up with Ben, who, to refresh your memory, is my friend I graduated college with. After getting lost due to a fork at an exit leading to Burbank Blvd., Ben, Ben’s roommate Matt, and I went to see the comedy troupe, “A Side of Fries,” show.
A little about, “A Side of Fries”:
They perform in a small theater in downtown Burbank. A few hours before the show, they decide which scripts they are going to perform, build any sets, costumes, or props they might need, and then rehearse with the time that is left. They have a teleprompter to look at if they forget their lines, but doing so results in heckling from the crowd.
At the show, they handed out free Pabst Blue Ribbon. As always, anywhere there is Pabst, hipsters abound. Fortunately, when the house lights go down, you don’t have to look at them—all you have to do then is listen to them jeer the performers.
Aside from that, the show was okay. There were a few funny skits, but I was mostly underwhelmed. Ben and Matt assured me past shows had them busting guts right and left. However, the musical interlude was performed by an artist whose music will be featured in Target commercials this fall the nation over. It was pretty good. That’s one nice thing about Los Angeles—the musical acts don’t suck. It’s not the Midwest screamo-shitty bands that have for some reason become so popular around Iowa. I blame it on the Midwest being so desperate for a musical style of their own they’re willing to settle for awful music that anyone with an instrument and a penchant for the taste of paint thinner can produce. California, not lacking from a drought of musical talent, sets the bar pretty high and doesn’t stoop this low—although by nature, most musicians do love to sip paint thinner. It’s just a character flaw.
After the show, everyone took to the sidewalk out in front of the theater to finish off the rest of the Blue Ribbons. Imagine everyone just standing outside, drinking. Some bike cops drove by, fully aware a crowd was standing on a public sidewalk drinking, and didn’t bat an eye. They just kept pedaling. I can assume this is because cops in California have bigger things to worry about than public intoxication.
Ben, Matt, and I said our goodbyes for the evening. I drove back to the hostel, and then past the hostel, because there was nowhere to park close by. Parking three streets away, I walked back to the hostel and my new room, which housed my new roommates. Everyone was asleep when I got there. Gweat’s hangs sheets up around his bed, making it look like he sleeps in some pneumonia patient’s opaque group tent. This is not important information—just something you should know about Gweat’s.
For the third time since moving into the hostel four days ago, I switched rooms. This time, I have to carry all my personal belongings (two suitcases, a backpack, and a shoebox) upstairs where I’ll share a room with three other tenants. The room is the same size as my previous two rooms, but this one has more bunk beds and more people. It’s worth it though because I’ll be literally saving three dollars a day on my rent. My inner Jew never ceases to amaze me.
Now would be a good time to introduce the new cast of characters that will show up in future posts. I know this, because I have already written those blog entries. So it would be wise to give you a little information on them so when they show up, you, the reader, can go, “Hey, I remember him mentioning them. Hooray exposition.” Some might even recognize their own name, assuming Rose is still reading this.
Ruby & Rose:
Ruby and Rose are sisters from Ohio and very cool people. They might be the coolest people in Ohio, for all I know. If someone else would like to contest this statement and provide circumstantial evidence that would make he or she cooler than Ruby and Rose, by all means they may. But until that time, Ruby and Rose will be known as the coolest people in Ohio. Ruby is going to school here for the next six weeks, taking classes in makeup for film and theater, and Rose is here to make sure Ruby doesn’t get hit on by creepy bloggers such as myself. So far, she’s doing a good job at her job. We’ll end up hanging out a lot together. I will be sad to see them go and lost at the hostel when they leave to return to Ohio.
Matt:
Matt is one of my new roommates. He does post-production work on a variety of media projects, and is very good at what he does. Originally from Utah, he comes to California to make large sums of money doing contract work. Matt is a worldly traveler. He has a girlfriend in Peru and spends a good part of the year traveling the globe, much like I assume Christian Bale’s father did.
Gweat’s, a.k.a. Buckwheat, a.k.a. Pass’ta Weats, a.k.a. Brent
The first conversation I had with Gweat’s (pronounced Gweet us) had something to do with helicopters flying overhead and how you have to wave flares around all willy-nilly like in Jurassic Park, throw them in one direction so the helicopter follow them like a T-Rex, while you take off in the other direction. Don’t believe this conversation took place? Ruby can confirm that it did. Considering the future conversations I’ve had with Gweat’s, I can also say this is probably the sanest conversation we’ve had together. Ruby can attest to this, too.
Hiro Nakamura:
My third roommate, I actually don’t know his real name. I asked Matt if he knew and he didn’t. I asked Gweat’s and he started crawling on the ground yelling something about ocean jellyfish. So I call my fourth roommate Hiro Nakamura, because he looks exactly like the character Masi Oka plays on the show, Heroes.
The Hipsters:
I won’t describe the hipsters, because if you know one hipster, you know them all. Their style and personalities are completely interchangeable with one another. They all have poorly colored hair, tattoos, too tight of jeans, and drink Pabst Blue Ribbon. I hate hipsters. There are two of them living in my hall.
Marko & Sait:
Marko and Sait live on the first floor, but come upstairs to use the Internet, so I see them a lot. Marko is from Greece and Sait is from Turkey. They both moved into the hostel at the same time and just hit it off right away. Everyone thinks they are gay because they do everything together, and because Sait oftentimes wears a pink shirt, and sometimes Sait wakes up to find Marko sleeping in the same bed as him. But I assure you they are not gay.
There you go—a quick rundown of the cast of characters to appear in upcoming blogs. You might want to consider printing this page off so you can return to it for easy reference later.
Sorry we’ve spent the past few paragraphs not talking about me (again, I apologize), and have probably isolated the majority of my blog’s audience (me) through this controversial decision, but I’m going to make it right to you (me) now by talking more about me and what I’m up to.
On this Saturday, I looked at another apartment—this time in North Hollywood. After seeing the place and meeting the potential roommates, I have a pretty good feeling about this one. It’s a nice neighborhood, the price is right, the roommates are really swell people, and I desperately want my mailing address to be North Hollywood. How cool would that be? Unfortunately, a few days from when this blog took place, I will find out one of the roommates wants another female roommate, so it’s a no-go. Clearly, they don’t know my mannerisms too well.
However, not knowing that, I was feeling pretty good about California and things in particular. The prospect of not having to live in the hostel was enough to be elated by in and of itself.
Later that night, I drove up to Burbank to meet up with Ben, who, to refresh your memory, is my friend I graduated college with. After getting lost due to a fork at an exit leading to Burbank Blvd., Ben, Ben’s roommate Matt, and I went to see the comedy troupe, “A Side of Fries,” show.
A little about, “A Side of Fries”:
They perform in a small theater in downtown Burbank. A few hours before the show, they decide which scripts they are going to perform, build any sets, costumes, or props they might need, and then rehearse with the time that is left. They have a teleprompter to look at if they forget their lines, but doing so results in heckling from the crowd.
At the show, they handed out free Pabst Blue Ribbon. As always, anywhere there is Pabst, hipsters abound. Fortunately, when the house lights go down, you don’t have to look at them—all you have to do then is listen to them jeer the performers.
Aside from that, the show was okay. There were a few funny skits, but I was mostly underwhelmed. Ben and Matt assured me past shows had them busting guts right and left. However, the musical interlude was performed by an artist whose music will be featured in Target commercials this fall the nation over. It was pretty good. That’s one nice thing about Los Angeles—the musical acts don’t suck. It’s not the Midwest screamo-shitty bands that have for some reason become so popular around Iowa. I blame it on the Midwest being so desperate for a musical style of their own they’re willing to settle for awful music that anyone with an instrument and a penchant for the taste of paint thinner can produce. California, not lacking from a drought of musical talent, sets the bar pretty high and doesn’t stoop this low—although by nature, most musicians do love to sip paint thinner. It’s just a character flaw.
After the show, everyone took to the sidewalk out in front of the theater to finish off the rest of the Blue Ribbons. Imagine everyone just standing outside, drinking. Some bike cops drove by, fully aware a crowd was standing on a public sidewalk drinking, and didn’t bat an eye. They just kept pedaling. I can assume this is because cops in California have bigger things to worry about than public intoxication.
Ben, Matt, and I said our goodbyes for the evening. I drove back to the hostel, and then past the hostel, because there was nowhere to park close by. Parking three streets away, I walked back to the hostel and my new room, which housed my new roommates. Everyone was asleep when I got there. Gweat’s hangs sheets up around his bed, making it look like he sleeps in some pneumonia patient’s opaque group tent. This is not important information—just something you should know about Gweat’s.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Highway To Hell
A quick rundown of what happened on the third day in California:
I moved to another room with a television and no roommate. Tomorrow I will move to a room with three roommates and no television.
I met with a guy from Turkey who is moving out of his apartment to go back home and serve in the military (he said it is mandatory for everyone to serve 18 months or so. That makes me feel better about our country, where the government only forces lower class ethnic people to serve in the military. Sometimes, I take our freedoms for granted).
After buying groceries at Ralphs, I stayed in my room, looked for apartments and gainful employment, and watched the wall-mounted television. One commercial I saw on Telemundo (Mexican NBC) was for a show called El Ticketero! From what I gathered, it was a show similar to COPS, but it followed meter maids. The commercial showed clips of meter maids with pepper spray dropping chumps that were angry for getting El Ticketero!’d. Another shot was of a different meter maid performing a flying roundhouse kick in an attempt to intimidate and stop a separate encounter from escalating. Quality television.
Now, let’s leave the melodrama that is my California adventure for an entry and look at the long-awaited dissection of driving in Los Angeles. It’s poorly structured and a bit of a hodgepodge house stew of a blog, but so is California’s road system.
As I have alluded to before, driving in Los Angeles is not a desirable experience. Pretty much everything about it is too cumbersome and gimped by poor planning or because this cesspool of a town suffers from overcrowding. Whatever the case, it is what it is.
The roads are packed with traffic—it doesn’t matter whether it’s on the freeway, commercial, or residential areas, moving vehicles, or parked. Anywhere you want to go, there are going to be about a thousand other people wanting to go there too. Lights will change from red to green, and before you can get past the intersection, the green will have turned to yellow, and yellow will yield to red. Rinse, repeat.
A major problem comes from not having turning lanes. One lane can get completely backed up by a motorist trying to make a left turn. Without a green turning arrow, the car wanting to make a left turn won’t get that chance until the light turns to yellow again due to the onslaught of oncoming traffic. Then three or four cars tear through the red light so as to not have to wait on the same red light again. Ironically, they’ll just end up waiting again at the next red light, because nothing is timed. Or maybe the lights are timed, but because there are just too many cars on the road, it doesn’t work. And that’s the most important thing to take away from this—driving in California does not work.
The highway, intended to get you wherever you want to go faster, is really just an excuse to go a different route. The highway is still going to result in a fifteen-minute drive just to go four miles. Again, there are just too many cars trying to take the freeway. Traffic really slows at major exits. If you want to switch from the five to the one-ten (that’s California talk for Interstate-5 and Interstate-110) to get downtown, be prepared to stop dead in your tracks and crawl your way off the exit ramp. Oh, and it’s worse during rush hour.
Speaking of exits, the exits themselves fork to other branching exits. It’s a lot of fun trying to decide on the fly what exit to take at 70 mph (I know I just said you lurch off of exits in the previous paragraph—well, there are some that you don’t have to, so no one call that out as a discrepancy). When I first arrived in California, I got to one of these exits founded off the principles of a “Choose Your Own Adventure” book, stalled in my decision making, and was about killed by a semi. I gather not a lot of people in California know quite where they’re going, because people start taking one road and then jump the median at the last second to get on the right road. Also, a lot of people have GPS navigational systems hanging off their windshields. I use a yellow legal pad to find where I’m going.
A long time ago, I told someone I would never be afraid of left turns. That person responded back to me, “Never say never.”
I merely brushed this cliché’ statement aside. Back then I was young and naïve—not the worldly figure I am today. Now, I can honestly say uncontrolled left turns scare the hell out of me. I will oftentimes find an alternate route so as to not have to take a left turn. Other times, if there is a place I need to go where an uncontrolled left turn is unavoidable, I’ll just not go there. As a result, there are some parts of Los Angeles I will never see. What makes left turns so scary? It’s the cars parked alongside the road. They blind you from seeing any oncoming traffic from the left or the right. What results is you slowly creeping out into traffic, hoping and praying no one is going to sideswipe the nose of your car. Eventually, it’s a leap of faith. You abandon the creep and just gun it around the corner. Sure, it’s risky, but I’ve yet to find a more proven method, outside of abstaining from left turns altogether.
To drive is to park. Any time you drive, it is preceded by a park and ends in a park. Parking is a yummy sesame seed bun and driving is a 100% Angus beef patty topped with cheese and lettuce, but no onions or mustard. Since parking is inevitable in any driving situation, let’s talk about parking, a nightmare in and of itself. Again, due to too many people with driver’s licenses, there are cars parked everywhere—main streets, side streets, on top of other cars, etc. To make matters worse, because so many people live in every home and apartment in Los Angeles, and all of them bring their cars, there is never enough parking to accommodate all of them. That is why on average, I park about three blocks away from my hostel. Occasionally I’ll get lucky, and only have to park down the street, but those times are few and far between. Every once in a while, I will see someone sitting in a parking space while a roommate or parent runs to their car and tears ass to parallel park their auto in the empty space.
Another joy that comes with trying to find a parking space is all of the parking restrictions enforced. There are certain places you can’t park at from seven to nine in the morning or four to six at night. On the street that my hostel is on, you cannot park on one side of the street from noon to three on Wednesdays for street cleaning, and the same hours on Thursday for the same reason. Rendering one side of the street, along with other side streets, unusable for a block of three hours, can make the already scarce parking that much worse. It’s also important to note no one in Los Angeles works, so it’s not like street cleaning happens while people are at their jobs.
Speaking from experience, it’s not a good idea to park in these restricted areas, because you will get ticketed, and it’s a hefty fine. When I first arrived in California, I was not aware of all the different restrictions. Having found a great parking space, and afraid to leave my hostel, I left my car sitting in a particular spot. It was okay for one of the days, because that day did not have a restriction attached to the place I parked. But the next two days resulted in getting two tickets—for $75.00 each. I thought about approaching the meter maid that gave me these tickets personally and try to reason with him person to person, but the maid’s last name was Battle, and having seen what they are capable of doing already from El Ticketero!, I begrudgingly took up my complaint with the DMV.
Oh, and if you want to park near any kind of business, or place where activities happen, like at the beach, expect to pay just to park. There are meters everywhere, or parking ramps that cost anywhere from a couple of bucks to $10.00 an hour. When I went to the DMV to contest my parking tickets, it would have cost me about $4.00 an hour to keep my car in the parking ramp, had it been for anything else.
In short, driving in Los Angeles sucks. However, because everyone knows driving in L.A. sucks, everyone sort of helps each other out. If you need to switch lanes because your exit is on the left of the freeway rather than the right, people tend to let you over without causing a fuss. Also, everyone accepts the fact it takes forever to get anywhere because of the stupid lights system, so they just go with the flow and don’t get in a rage over how long it takes to drive down the block. It doesn’t solve the problem, but it does make it easier to stomach.
One last thing:
Q: What do you call a frog parked in a red zone?
A: Towed.
I moved to another room with a television and no roommate. Tomorrow I will move to a room with three roommates and no television.
I met with a guy from Turkey who is moving out of his apartment to go back home and serve in the military (he said it is mandatory for everyone to serve 18 months or so. That makes me feel better about our country, where the government only forces lower class ethnic people to serve in the military. Sometimes, I take our freedoms for granted).
After buying groceries at Ralphs, I stayed in my room, looked for apartments and gainful employment, and watched the wall-mounted television. One commercial I saw on Telemundo (Mexican NBC) was for a show called El Ticketero! From what I gathered, it was a show similar to COPS, but it followed meter maids. The commercial showed clips of meter maids with pepper spray dropping chumps that were angry for getting El Ticketero!’d. Another shot was of a different meter maid performing a flying roundhouse kick in an attempt to intimidate and stop a separate encounter from escalating. Quality television.
Now, let’s leave the melodrama that is my California adventure for an entry and look at the long-awaited dissection of driving in Los Angeles. It’s poorly structured and a bit of a hodgepodge house stew of a blog, but so is California’s road system.
As I have alluded to before, driving in Los Angeles is not a desirable experience. Pretty much everything about it is too cumbersome and gimped by poor planning or because this cesspool of a town suffers from overcrowding. Whatever the case, it is what it is.
The roads are packed with traffic—it doesn’t matter whether it’s on the freeway, commercial, or residential areas, moving vehicles, or parked. Anywhere you want to go, there are going to be about a thousand other people wanting to go there too. Lights will change from red to green, and before you can get past the intersection, the green will have turned to yellow, and yellow will yield to red. Rinse, repeat.
A major problem comes from not having turning lanes. One lane can get completely backed up by a motorist trying to make a left turn. Without a green turning arrow, the car wanting to make a left turn won’t get that chance until the light turns to yellow again due to the onslaught of oncoming traffic. Then three or four cars tear through the red light so as to not have to wait on the same red light again. Ironically, they’ll just end up waiting again at the next red light, because nothing is timed. Or maybe the lights are timed, but because there are just too many cars on the road, it doesn’t work. And that’s the most important thing to take away from this—driving in California does not work.
The highway, intended to get you wherever you want to go faster, is really just an excuse to go a different route. The highway is still going to result in a fifteen-minute drive just to go four miles. Again, there are just too many cars trying to take the freeway. Traffic really slows at major exits. If you want to switch from the five to the one-ten (that’s California talk for Interstate-5 and Interstate-110) to get downtown, be prepared to stop dead in your tracks and crawl your way off the exit ramp. Oh, and it’s worse during rush hour.
Speaking of exits, the exits themselves fork to other branching exits. It’s a lot of fun trying to decide on the fly what exit to take at 70 mph (I know I just said you lurch off of exits in the previous paragraph—well, there are some that you don’t have to, so no one call that out as a discrepancy). When I first arrived in California, I got to one of these exits founded off the principles of a “Choose Your Own Adventure” book, stalled in my decision making, and was about killed by a semi. I gather not a lot of people in California know quite where they’re going, because people start taking one road and then jump the median at the last second to get on the right road. Also, a lot of people have GPS navigational systems hanging off their windshields. I use a yellow legal pad to find where I’m going.
A long time ago, I told someone I would never be afraid of left turns. That person responded back to me, “Never say never.”
I merely brushed this cliché’ statement aside. Back then I was young and naïve—not the worldly figure I am today. Now, I can honestly say uncontrolled left turns scare the hell out of me. I will oftentimes find an alternate route so as to not have to take a left turn. Other times, if there is a place I need to go where an uncontrolled left turn is unavoidable, I’ll just not go there. As a result, there are some parts of Los Angeles I will never see. What makes left turns so scary? It’s the cars parked alongside the road. They blind you from seeing any oncoming traffic from the left or the right. What results is you slowly creeping out into traffic, hoping and praying no one is going to sideswipe the nose of your car. Eventually, it’s a leap of faith. You abandon the creep and just gun it around the corner. Sure, it’s risky, but I’ve yet to find a more proven method, outside of abstaining from left turns altogether.
To drive is to park. Any time you drive, it is preceded by a park and ends in a park. Parking is a yummy sesame seed bun and driving is a 100% Angus beef patty topped with cheese and lettuce, but no onions or mustard. Since parking is inevitable in any driving situation, let’s talk about parking, a nightmare in and of itself. Again, due to too many people with driver’s licenses, there are cars parked everywhere—main streets, side streets, on top of other cars, etc. To make matters worse, because so many people live in every home and apartment in Los Angeles, and all of them bring their cars, there is never enough parking to accommodate all of them. That is why on average, I park about three blocks away from my hostel. Occasionally I’ll get lucky, and only have to park down the street, but those times are few and far between. Every once in a while, I will see someone sitting in a parking space while a roommate or parent runs to their car and tears ass to parallel park their auto in the empty space.
Another joy that comes with trying to find a parking space is all of the parking restrictions enforced. There are certain places you can’t park at from seven to nine in the morning or four to six at night. On the street that my hostel is on, you cannot park on one side of the street from noon to three on Wednesdays for street cleaning, and the same hours on Thursday for the same reason. Rendering one side of the street, along with other side streets, unusable for a block of three hours, can make the already scarce parking that much worse. It’s also important to note no one in Los Angeles works, so it’s not like street cleaning happens while people are at their jobs.
Speaking from experience, it’s not a good idea to park in these restricted areas, because you will get ticketed, and it’s a hefty fine. When I first arrived in California, I was not aware of all the different restrictions. Having found a great parking space, and afraid to leave my hostel, I left my car sitting in a particular spot. It was okay for one of the days, because that day did not have a restriction attached to the place I parked. But the next two days resulted in getting two tickets—for $75.00 each. I thought about approaching the meter maid that gave me these tickets personally and try to reason with him person to person, but the maid’s last name was Battle, and having seen what they are capable of doing already from El Ticketero!, I begrudgingly took up my complaint with the DMV.
Oh, and if you want to park near any kind of business, or place where activities happen, like at the beach, expect to pay just to park. There are meters everywhere, or parking ramps that cost anywhere from a couple of bucks to $10.00 an hour. When I went to the DMV to contest my parking tickets, it would have cost me about $4.00 an hour to keep my car in the parking ramp, had it been for anything else.
In short, driving in Los Angeles sucks. However, because everyone knows driving in L.A. sucks, everyone sort of helps each other out. If you need to switch lanes because your exit is on the left of the freeway rather than the right, people tend to let you over without causing a fuss. Also, everyone accepts the fact it takes forever to get anywhere because of the stupid lights system, so they just go with the flow and don’t get in a rage over how long it takes to drive down the block. It doesn’t solve the problem, but it does make it easier to stomach.
One last thing:
Q: What do you call a frog parked in a red zone?
A: Towed.
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