| Coming from a particularly harsh stretch of Canadian winter, a good lungfull of humid, temperate air sure feels good. Even if it's a bit smoggy.
Standing curbside at LAX, Mrs. Listener and myself are soon whisked away to Santa Monica by our hosts for the next week. "In some respects this is one of the worst places to holiday," says Lyle Grant, former Fast Forward Mr. Smutty illustrator. "This city is begging for people not to come visit it. It makes it too difficult to get around." Grant and wife Lauri, former Calgarians, spend a good chunk of each workday commuting. The mega-city formed by Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Hollywood and surrounding municipalities is famed for its endless traffic.
Although we'll be chauffeured to and fro for the next week, we'll spend a lot of our tourist time on foot. And, like the song says, nobody walks in L.A. Even pedestrian crosswalks here are notorious for being deathtraps. Frightening and enlightening, our foolhardy footwork will reveal a unique side of the metropolis.
Office buildings bracket our first stop – the La Brea Tar Pits. Here black goo still burbles through cracks in the sidewalk, and is then tracked in every direction by unwary office workers on their lunch breaks. The bones of numerous prehistoric mammals unearthed from the pits are reconstructed in a museum here. They include sabre-toothed cats. "They're still arguin' about how they used those fangs," explains a woman to her kids. Some grade schoolers swear to God and hope to die that those things are bum-stabbers, while quibblesome classmates say pants-pokers. The debate rages on.
From ancient history it's off to the modern. Numerous architectural walking tours convene at L.A.'s Biltmore Hotel. As our guide explains the history of the former Edison Building and its art deco design, a guy wearing headphones struts up behind her. "How y'all doin'? Outta towners?"
No one replies to this obviously threatening, provocative taunt, so I nod, "Mmm hmmm."
Outside Grand Central Market, a bustling Hispanic food fair, we observe a man urinating on a newspaper box. Historically, this box was used to vend papers. In the early part of the 21st century its function changed, although it did remain a place of "business."
Day two is all sand and palm trees. Strolling along the beach from Santa Monica to Venice Beach, there is a message etched into the cement walkway. "The beet [sic] goes on… and on… and on." I make a stop at a public washroom. As there are no doors on the stalls, I'm confronted with a seated, red-faced, fat guy masturbating. "The Beet," I presume?
We continue on (and who wouldn't?). There is commotion as we reach Venice Beach. Joe Millionaire and Seinfeld's Jason Alexander are being filmed for a KFC commercial. "Wah ha ha ha!" laughs Alexander as he sprints for a sushi platter between takes. The fried chicken, sadly, does not receive a necklace and is asked to pack its bags. If only its breasts were bigger.
Speaking of celebs, the following day we walk Hollywood Boulevard, stopping at Grauman's Chinese Theatre. Famed for its cemented foot and handprints of great movie stars, it’s a zoo even in the tourism off-season.
"All the expensive rich people came here to see movies in the 1920s," explains a young woman to her boy pal.
"Cool," says he. Presumably, all the inexpensive rich people spent their evenings at Wal-Mart watching those little yellow price tags roll over.
Our trip wraps with a visit to the Getty Museum. This hilltop marble attraction is filled with art and antiquities. Dazzled by the scale of the place and its extensive collections, we reluctantly leave at closing time. We decide to skip the shuttle and walk a short distance along Sepulveda Boulevard to the main bus stop. Part way, the sidewalk narrows to a wide curb. Light standards block it every few metres. The bushes fill with trash. I step on a broken bottle. The sidewalk ends. We frogger across four busy lanes and walk more curbing to a major intersection unlit for pedestrians. A stretch of sidewalk, a dirt path, and we arrive at the bus stop under a dark overpass. "We will not get mugged here," deadpans the wife.
As the bus winds through pounding traffic, we conclude that there are some pretty good reasons why people don't walk here. City lights form an asymmetrical, twinkling carpet stretching through the night. A guy wearing a dirty brown leather cap loudly proclaims, "Could be heaven or hell! I dunno!"
The City of Angels is hell on wheels. |
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