Ian Fowles

4-10-07

TDNY 401 – LA

            When it came time to go to Los Angeles, I found that a friend named Jenn from London was in town, so I thought I would bring her with me to get an outsiders view of the city. She was in America to attend a close friend’s wedding and had thus far seen New York City and parts of Idaho and Utah. However, it was her first time in the city of Los Angeles and she wanted to see Hollywood. She expressed how spread out she thought the city was. She wasn’t sure where it started and ended, especially when flying in on the plane. We discussed the fact of the poor public transportation system and lack of cabs made it hard for a foreigner to be able to see things on their own in LA. Jenn also observed that the serving portions at most restaurants in America were much larger than in the United Kingdom.

            Jenn is an avid music fan, so the first logical stop was Amoeba records on Sunset Blvd. She was excited because, for her, the prices of CDs were really cheap because of the exchange rate and the strength of the British Pound. After spending some time and money there we moved on.

            Next stop was Hollywood and Highland. We took a look at the stars in the sidewalk on Hollywood Blvd. and the hand prints of famous actors in front of the Mann’s Chinese Theatre. There was quite a hustle bustle of tourists around this area, perhaps because it was probably spring break for most of them. Not only were there tourists, but there were many types of people wanting your attention and money. I was stopped by a man who put a CD in my hand and asked me if I liked hip hop. I replied “kind-of” and then gave me headphones to listen to his CD. He gave me a pitch and expressed that he was trying to make it to MTV. When I wasn’t interested he walked away angrily. A man approached us about giving to charity and we gave some change. When he found that Jenn was from England, he proceeded to show us his drivers license to show his name was Benny Hill, the same as the famous British comedian. He comes in from Long Beach to try to get donations. There were lots of people dressed up like different movie characters from Star Wars, Pirates of the Caribbean, etc. We had our picture taken with an Elvis Presley impersonator. While walking down the street we stopped in a few souvenir shops so Jenn could get some post cards. This is when I started to notice that there was way too much Elvis memorabilia. I can understand the proliferation of Marilyn Monroe and James Dean souvenirs in Hollywood a lot more than Elvis ones. I know Elvis did star in numerous films, but in general he is remembered more as a musician, not an actor. Perhaps Hollywood is trying to appropriate all quintessential American icons for their profit. Before moving on, we stopped in a drug store so that she could pick up some Peanut Butter M&M’s for her friends back home. They don’t make those in England and her friends wanted some.

            We then took a drive down the Sunset strip to look at some famous concert venues like The Whiskey and The Roxy. We stopped at the Guitar Center on Sunset to look at the “Rock Walk” which is basically the hand prints of famous musicians much like those at the Chinese theatre. As we were walking we noticed a CD shop. When we went inside it was actually a tuxedo shop that also sold CDs. There were shelves of CDs that lined the walls of the store and continued on into the stock room and a back room. From the little I could get from the teenage hired help is that the store was originally a tuxedo shop and the owner decided to also sell CDs. Not a bad idea considering most CD stores that sell nothing but the music are dropping like flies in LA. With this arrangement, the CDs only augment the income of the Tuxedo shop. As we continued on to the Rock Walk, we entered a small gift shop attached to the Guitar Center which was full of instruments and memorabilia from famous musicians, including of course Elvis Presley. The girl named Claudia who was working there came up and asked us where we were from and I told her my friend was visiting from London. This excited her, because she was from England as well. The girls began talking about bands from the UK that they knew, and found out that they had both been at the same exact same show in London in December. What a small world. Claudia had moved from London to New York City and then here to Los Angeles and began telling us how much harder it had been for her here in LA than either of the previous cities. She said that she had experienced many more personal crises here, and felt like she was naïve and that as a woman she was a target. She has learned not to be as trusting. She said most people think New York is worse as far as that goes, but she claims LA has been harder to live in. She found out what band I was in and asked me to sign her personal guestbook. She says she is trying to get into a band and make it, and this job has been good for her to network with other musicians.

            At this point, we took our journey out of Hollywood because I had to give my friend a taste of tasty authentic Mexican food in LA, so we drove down to Olvera St. for dinner. We drove on surface streets through different neighborhoods to get down there. We walked around Olvera St. and admired the Mexican crafts. Again, we ran into Elvis souvenirs in these little Mexican run shops. We ate at a place called El Paseo Inn. It was spectacular. We then drove through Bunker Hill and downtown to make our way to Wilshire Blvd. which we took across to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

            Along Wilshire we passed a couple more concert venues like the Wiltern Theatre and The El Rey Theater where people were lined up outside. LACMA is free after 5 pm, so we walked through the galleries and enjoyed some live Jazz that is performed there every Friday night. Fittingly, there was an exhibit on images of the American west. It mainly focused on landscape photography and paintings, but was very good. By this time we were pretty tired and decided to call it a day and travel home on completely different freeways than we came in on. Luckily we didn’t experience much freeway traffic, just some street traffic. Overall it was a fun day and especially interesting because of our run in with another person from London.