3 States

The day after I got into Santa Monica, September 7th, it was my birthday! It was not ideal as having just arrived alone in a place where I didn't know anyone, it wasn't exactly the crazy wild booze fueled day and night of excess and celebration in LA (like I planned and you would possibly imagine) as a 24th! But I did meet up with a guy Martin from my room and we went to Hooters (something I'd looked forward to - until they called me up to dance on a chair to of all things, Nelly! I couldn't deny the fit girls though) and then we went onto "a club".

One thing you immediately notice about LA is how bloody massive it is! Its impossible. Trying to navigate the place by bus is like torture, you need a car. The lay-out of this "super-city" caters only to those with one. However, because everyone drives everywhere (including almost every store with its own parking lot) the roads are rammed and apart from the VERY valuable factor that you are in your own environment whilst sitting in traffic (don't ask why), its speed of progression is often not much greater than the damn bus. So, the cheaper option was the bus. It took over an hour to reach Hollywood from Santa Monica on the bus! A total distance of only about 15 miles. After meeting Cameron from New Zealand at the hostel, we spent the next 2 days checking out Hollywood and the surrounding area. Doing the tourist thing: The Chinese Theater, Walkway of the Stars, Kodak Theatre (where the Oscars were held), the Hollywood sign and most importantly Hooters Hollywood (damn, there is ALOT of Hooter to be seen its too much to take in). We also went to the Baywatch beach in Santa Monica and Rodeo Drive, Beverly Hills. It was good to get the tourist stuff out the way quickly anyway. Tourist attractions hold no real short or long term value to me on such a trip, they are about the only element that I want to get over and done with.

On Sunday 10th it was time for the first of my 4 gigs in LA. Willie Nelson and Ryan Adams at the Hollywood Bowl. I had booked the ticket, primarily to see Ryan Adams but always wanted to see Willie too. Not to mention visiting the Hollywood Bowl (a legendary venue in the music world, you name 'em, they've played there). Ryan Adams has such a prolific talent and way with good melodies. He churns them out constantly, its amazing. He can have the most random and out-and-out weird lyrical content but coupled with this knowledge and feel for melody the songs become amazing pieces of music. Even when just played acoustic and solo. And this leads me to analyse songwriting styles. You can go with the standard widely used method of following the notes to discover the melody or go the way Ryan will often (and lately) go which is to work out the melody using the vocal rather than the main instrument. Becoming a songwriter, rather becoming a better to good songwriter, I think is all about understanding other music and to do so it appears that all you really need is to just have to be a massive fan of music. Constantly listening to music. Another thing about Ryan I love is he will openly admit that he uses the formula and idea from other artists songs, styles and melodies to write many of his own songs. He'll say "this song is a copy of the Doors" for example. Also, he will explore and record a number of different styles and genres. Never fully fitting into a "category". Some (the media) feel this is being disingenuous but those in the know, know otherwise. He is, in my opinion, one of the greatest modern-day songwriters alive today. Playing with his band "The Cardinals" every moment of the (too) short set was so special (I suppose he was officially-speaking 'supporting' Willie). It cracked me up when I read a recent interview where when asked how a nasty broken wrist last year (suffered from falling off stage) changed the way he played guitar, his response was "Now I play guitar like I'm touching a girl. I used to play it like I was touching myself." As for Willie, oh he can still kick it too! He is doing well for 72 or something. He can still find his way around the guitar too and on a couple of tracks you could hear that he still possessed that powerful voice of his. The Hollywood Bowl is a particularly legendary venue but my seat (which was one of the better ones) was too far from stage. It felt like the artists on stage were on the distant horizon. This goes against everything I normally enjoy about live music (seated + far away). The venue is too big, plus you have to have big bucks to afford a front row "enclosure" seat. There were like another 200 rows of benches behind me and their view would have been diabolical. It was a good gig all in all though.

Next day it was time to check out and pick up another rental car for road trip number 2...

We're off to Vegas, Baby!

Room 5721 Riviera Casino and Resort

Its hard not to love Vegas. Although alot of it is pretty downmarket in parts (typical of a "resort town"), full of old fat Americans from middle-America like Utah and Iowa dressed with little or no style, and everything of any quality costing big $$$ (a ticket to one of the main shows is $150 upwards!) - the purpose of this town is nothing but drunken debauchery and gambling. 24 hours, 365 days. The beauty is that, unlike any other place (probably in the world) there is nothing to feel guilty about laying in after a big night out. There is nothing to see during the day, you are in the middle of the Nevada desert! The nearest major town is like 500 miles away. Pretty much every other holiday destination in the world has some beautiful scenery or a famous landmark to haul your ass out of bed for, for fear of missing the opportunity. For this reason its the perfect location for debauchery and thus the perfect holiday destination. All you need to worry about is getting up to go lay by the pool and fry in the 103f heat (with disgusting humidity!) which can't be stood for too long as the sweat is rolling off you. You just wait for the evening again and do the same. Thats why you came after-all!

I got myself a room in the Rivera Casino and Resort located on the main strip (thanks to cheap mid-week deals), a pack of 36 Budweiser (stocked on ice as soon as I checked in) and no plan but to drink them all and see what happened. I rented a car in Santa Monica to drive to Vegas along the Interstate 15 highway. The drive is one I've always wanted to do. I'm a big fan of the book "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" by Hunter S. Thompson and this trip warranted it (plus I love a road trip, nothing beats it). Driving through the Nevada desert wasn't as desolate as I'd expected but it was really awesome. There is just something about driving fast through the vast open desert with some good tunes blasting out that I love. There was a fair bit of fear and loathing to be had over the next few days. By the time I got the hell out of LA I'd been on the road for 2 hours (damn traffic, on a Monday lunchtime!?? Oh i forgot I'm talking about LA!). By the time I had arrived the tripometer was already reading 300 miles and I had the Hoover Dam, the Grand Canyon and Area 51 ideally all to fit in over the next 7 days!

For the 127th time on this trip, its such a shame that I didn't have a mate or two with me (I can just imagine us all: Jon, James, Dave, Andy) we'd have endless, endless fun 24 hours. But I had my 36 Buds for 3 days, 12 a day + casino drinks + seeing what mischief I could get myself into = my visit to Vegas. Although for most of it I went to bed no earlier than 5am, got up after 5/6 hours sleep with the odd hour by the pool until I'd sweat 90% of my bodily fluids and then repeated again. I had neither the money nor requisite knowledge to gamble so it wasn't my top priority, but resistance is futile and I found myself placing the odd bet and winning a little then deciding to bet it all and loosing. I've realised that trying to live a healthy, sober and clean life is futile. There's nothing to eat except fast food. Well that or nothing at all. I'm living in a hotel, I don't need to care about cleaning the place. I managed to break the chair last night (not by sitting on it either). Drunk far too much last night - had 17 Budweisers!!!! 17! Then decided to have a whole big Denny's meal at 3am. How I didn't puke, I have no idea, I nearly did this morning the next morning thats for sure. Been living like a rockstar in this room, total mess, got woken up at 2pm today by the maid after that night, fully clothed passed out on bed!! My head hurts, I probably shouldn't disgrace myself anymore.

My objective on this trip was to collect tacky souvenirs from each place that I visited, in the form of cheap, nasty, tacky t-shirts. In Australia this was impossible it seemed, even in Hong Kong. They were all tacky but trying too hard to be classy, they did not fit the bill. I was seeking genuine tack. But as soon as I came into the USA there was too many to choose from! This country is the land of the tacky souvenir t-shirts and thrift stores. Expect my fashion sense to get alot worse when I return! Ha, I know, you thought that wasn't possible!

After 4 nights in Vegas, I had been into pretty much every casino on the strip, bet a little money in a couple, went downtown along the road where all the 24 hour "drive thru" wedding chapels sit next to the electric pink honeymoon motels which sit next to the run-down strip clubs. Downtown itself is not a particularly nice place when you get past them either! It was time to move on! Vegas is definitely one of those places one wouldn't want to spend too long in. 4 days is way more than enough! Any longer would drive you crazy, doing damage no rehab could fix.

Out into the Wild West

Next morning, hitting the road I had the long drive to the Grand Canyon ahead, situated around 5 hours East of Vegas in Arizona, its not quick. The first (and only) thing you reach after about 40 miles is the Hoover Dam, which was typically boring. The most exciting thing there for me was the sign saying that just past there I was entering the state of Arizona. I stopped at the largest (still small) town of xxx on the way for lunch, around 2.5 hours from the actual Canyon (but for me to say the only reason for heading into Arizona was for that would be a lie, as I wanted to see some real 'wild west' towns just as much). The typical born-and-bred-in-the-desert waitress, who owned the diner, would get every foreigner to leave a message in her visitor-guestbook. I looked back through the reams of comments. Every single one said something along the lines of 'Still 3 hours driving till grand canyon, thanks for food. Michiel, France." I wrote just 5 words in that A4 spiral bound notebook - "Embrace That Which Defines You". I had seen it written on the screen of my motel television set at the end of a program the previous night in Vegas. It is a phrase that will stay with me forever. I hoped that someone, somewhere would look back in that book one day and will see that comment among the hundreds of pleasantries, and maybe it will cause them to think about it as much as I did.

Back on the road and the final half of the journey passed quickly. My destination was the small town of Williams, 50 miles north of the Grand Canyon national park. After securing an Econolodge motel room for the night, I decided I would blast those further 100 miles there and back to catch the Canyon at sunset, and I am glad I did! It was so much more spectacular than when I visited once again the following day. Stepping out of the car after driving to the park is a weird experience. You have just driven hundreds of miles into the middle of nowhere and you walk past some trees and there it is. This massive hole in the ground. It looks like the backdrop on a film set, as though its not quite reality. It is pretty breathtaking, but quite quickly this effect wares off. I suppose because by the end of the 5 to 6 hour drive to get there, you expect alot (but NOT the McDonalds sat there. Disgusting!). I could imagine that hiking through the canyon would be pretty amazing. This brings me onto the subject of popular "tourist" attractions. Having been away for the best part of a year now, the novelty of seeing a tourist attraction has very much worn off. To be honest I've never been a major fan in the first place, I prefer to get a real understanding and experience of the place itself, what it would be like to be a part of the culture. This you can never do at a tourist attraction. They are never as good or spectacular as I hope. Always over crowded and over priced, they always seem to leave me with an empty feeling and normally an empty wallet. But the only thing that draws me is the fact that I can't go all that way and just bypass it all, its like I never want to miss what might be just around the corner.

I went back to the Canyon the next morning (mainly due to the fact that I had come all this way and it was $25 to get into the park). I went for a walk around one of the sides mainly to get away from all the tourists. When I left the park I was so indecisive as to whether to go back to LA via Pheonix that when I got to the crossroads I had to pull over and make a snap decision. I decided to take the road towards Pheonix, which ended up taking me past a strange old Indian settlement with wigwams and a shop with animal heads adoring the walls. It felt like I was really in Arizona. Then, further along the road to towards the town of Flagstaff I pulled up to the only documented place in the world to own and have bred 100% pure White Buffalo. The woman who owned the place kept reminding me of that fact, and that they had been in the papers and on national news. To get a white buffalo is like 1 in a million normal buffalo. They had 6! I decided it was worth the $5 to see. By the time I left, if I could have felt any more like I was beginning to get the real 'country ranch' taste of Arizona it was when I hit Flagstaff and saw my first gun shop. It was closed as by the time I passed through it was about 9pm. Due to this fact I decided to retreat back to Williams for one more night and then drive straight back to LA the following day. Williams was a typical wild west town which sat on Route 66. I think it had been refurbished in order to please tourists wanting to see what an authentic wild west town looked like. After another night in a different but equally cheap motel it was time to head back to LA. And I did just that. All in the same day. All 480 miles of it. This was real desert driving with about two small trucker towns the whole way. It was great until I begun to approach the colossus that is LA once again. People in LA drive like psychopaths on acid. Nobody sticks to any lane rules, everyone drives 10 to 20 mph over the speed limit (even in heavy traffic) and I felt the most unsafe I have that entire time until I reached my destination. I had a coupon for a cheap hotel near Hollywood but when I arrived I discovered that it was more of a hole in the wall than a hotel, plus it had been shut down for some reason. So I started my hunt for a 'reasonable' place to stay at a reasonable cost at 5 on a Sunday evening in hot, polluted central LA. But, as I discovered, the only way one has any chance of achieving this objective of reasonable cost is to head into (what is in an ideal world) a no-go area: East Hollywood. Eventually, after trying several establishments, I came across a motel named the "Del Air Motel". It looked like a shit hole from outside, like something straight out of a Tarantino movie, but I had since decided by this point that if I was to stay in Hollywood, especially East Hollywood, this was the only way it could be authentically done - by slumming it like the rest of them. As I stepped through the office doorway which displayed the sign "No drug use on premises. No prostitution." a mere $55 later I opened the door to dirty, dusty, hot, sticky, insecure room 110. I couldn't help but feel as though in this little room, it personified everything that was the 'real' Hollywood in low class, low quality accommodation. It was everything I secretly wanted therefore. The room had seen, without a doubt, more action than Paris Hilton in its time. The lock on the door didn't work, there were more ashtrays than (dirty) towels and whilst flicking through the television channels upon arrival there was free, unlimited hardcore porn on channel 3 which was barely possible to be made out due to terrible reception. You could kind of make out two fuzzy characters going at it, doing what you could only imagine would be things you wouldn't relay to your mother. There was a bottle opener on the door frame (which usefully allowed me to finish my remaining Budweisers) and the dark bed-sheets were fake silk with a Navy paisley patten to undoubtedly disguise illegitimate stainage. The complimentary book of matches that sat on the table bared the name of another (better) hotel; "The Four Points Sheriton". Dust that had failed to be cleared from the carpet after various wall fittings had been installed covered areas of the carpet and the chair in the room has been badly repaired using six inch nails. It was so bad it was great! However it was only at around 11pm that loud gangster rap began to emanate through the walls, causing the water level in my Budweiser to ripple. Next door sat a concrete building that looked like a portacabin. It was a 'niteclub' named "The Study" and from around this time till the very late hours of the next morning cars would pull up behind it (via the motel car park) full of what must have been gang members from the Compton and Inglewood areas. A haze of weed smoke followed them into the building after they had been fully searched shoes and all for weapons by the bouncer. Funnily enough I got a good nights sleep with my iPod on to mask the sounds of gunshot in the track the dj kept playing over and over. I was unsure whether it was real or not, especially after hearing nothing but sirens for half and hour. However, it was alot better than sleeping in another hostel!

By the time I hit that dodgy flea hole of a East Hollywood motel I had driven 1238 miles in 5 days, across 3 different states and the next day I was due to move back to Santa Monica.

Seven (more) days in LA

The next day in Santa Monica I took the bus past Beverly Hills to West Hollywood's "The Troubadour". Another legendary venue on a much smaller scale (500 capacity) than the Bowl. It was time to witness the live experience that was Ray Lamontagne. I had been looking forward to seeing him for a year. Waiting for an hour to get in, then another hour till Ray and co got onto the stage, it was so worth it. What I saw was a painfully shy and quiet man who clearly only felt it possible to translate his emotion via his music. He wasn't there for the audience, he had probably never written a song for any other reason but as self-medication to just get it out to save it eating him up. I knew exactly where he was coming from. Playing almost the entire new album it was so special, he wouldn't count into a song until he felt ready and 'in the setting' he needed to be. He performed two encores as we just couldn't get enough, he warned the crowd that he couldn't play all night. Ray began to open up as the night got later. One memorable moment was when during this last encore sat there on his own, just his acoustic and a microphone, many people were shouting requests. It was ridiculous. Then over the top of everyone the distinctive voice of an afro-american, who was apparently actor Lawrence Fishborne, said with relaxed authority "You play what you wanna play man". It shut everyone up. I got it on video on my camera too. I left feeling I had really experienced something special.

The next couple of days were spent hanging out with a nice Australian girl, Tara, I met who lived on the Gold Coast. She was hanging around waiting for a tour, so we both had some time to kill. We visited the Getty Center (LA's art museum), checked out the squalid downtown area and hired beach-cruiser bikes and cycled along the beach side bike path to Hermosa Beach and back (34 miles in total). I also met a couple of English guys Mark and Kes from Croydon who were over on holiday in the hostel. We had a couple of beers and met up in Hollywood. We had a beer in the infamous Roosevelt Hotel on Hollywood Blvd where we met many 'on their way up' actors. The penultimate night was spent seeing Ani DiFranco in concert (details in next post). On my last night I met a guy in my room, Joe, who was in LA to play some gigs. He was a typical young independent artist trying to make it somewhere from Illinois. We chatted about the whole thing and I got some tips off him. Early next morning it was time to leave for LAX, as I was heading East, to New York City.