I don't think I've expressed this on my blog before, but I'm too lazy to go back and check: I've lived in two places in SoCal and in someways due to having lived so far from work I feel like I lived in three areas. I feel like in most cities I would just say I live in that city or say in the suburbs of that city (such as I grew up in the suburbs of Kansas City). But I don't think it really makes sense to say you live in the suburbs of LA since practically all of "LA" is really the suburbs of LA (SoCal types feel free to speak up and correct me). So I've come up with a new definition of where I've lived which is "not LA" as I seem to live and hang out in areas that are around LA but really are not LA.
Anyway that was a super long way of getting to me saying I feel as though I haven't seen any of the insanity usually associated with LA. Orange County and Thousand Oaks aren't really known for their kabbalah practicing, fortune telling, beach bums wearing spedos riding around on roller blades. So I decided it was time for a taste. Well if I was only going to get a few hours I figured I should head to the source (no not a room full of TVs with a guy wearing white acting very pretentious) - Venice Beach. Heading out there I was a bit suspicious that since it's so known for being crazy and being a tourist destination that it might just be prepackaged superficial craziness and everyone not profiting from seeming crazy is just there watching the performers. Well one of the first things I saw when I got there was a guy putting on a street show and he was acting crazy and was jumping into a pile of broken glass. Seems pretty crazy, but the one other time I had been to Venice Beach I saw someone (maybe the same guy) doing the same thing about 7 years ago. So I was leaning toward prepackaged and then I looked around and realized there was plenty of the real thing. I think that a guy walking around the street (the area where people walk around is actually a decent distance from the ocean) in a spedo is sorta crazy to start but add a fanny pack and the place starts to feel more genuine. Then of course the line of fortune tellers and kabbalah types were a little crazy, but add the costumes and the super crazy came out. Actually, I got a big kick out of the fact that by far the craziest looking people of the bunch were the ones pushing Christianity. On top of the interesting looking people I find Muscle Beach amusing. I do not understand the people watching people work out nor the people working out where they know there will be a crowd gathered watching. Well I guess maybe if I was super built I would feel different about the being watched part. I really wonder if the people watching are really watching the people work out or just looking at the tourist attraction of watching people work out in muscle beach (I know I was doing the second).
I've occasionally been playing basketball with people at work so I was particularly interested in watching the people play basketball in muscle beach - well from a distance, there was literally no one of my skin color within 20 feet of the courts. Um - they're better than me... By a LOT. I know everyone reading this is very surprised.
Probably the craziest thing was a giant ring of people on the beach from which you could hear drum sounds. Even in my attempt to make up for an insanityless year in a couple hours I wasn't quite up for walking over and seeing what they were up to.
So overall verdict - I'd say that yes the crazy people in LA are crazy and not a disney recreation of crazy. I think it would be fun to be near a bit more of that, but I will say I felt a little more at home when I got back to Orange County. My trip back was actually like jumping from hot water to cold. I went from Venice Beach to the Irvine Spectrum Center which is a giant snazy outdoor mall (think mall, no roof, palm trees and water fountains everywhere, and band playing in main center area) where the first store I saw was the Saleen store where they had their car that does 0 to 60 in under 3 seconds and another car they had cut down the center so you could walk between the halves and see what's inside the car. Well I guess really I just went from one version of craziness to another. At the spectrum center I saw talladega nights which was very funny, although I was a bit annoyed by the over the top product placement. Now I realize that a lot of that probably came from being a story about nascar but it still seemed to pull me out of the movie a bit. Although it still had me cracking up.
2 comments:
You have many questions, and although the process has altered your consciousness, you remain irrevocably human. Ergo, some of my answers you will understand, and some of them you will not. Concordantly, while your first question may be the most pertinent, you may or may not realize it is also the most irrelevant.
pretentious indeed.
I hope you got a Muscle Beach Lemonade in Venice! The craziest is when it's raining and the musclemen are still out there workin' out.
There's a place at the Spectrum that has really good Mango Chicken-- used to be called Thaifoon and now it's something else. That + the ferris wheel = a very nice first date ;)
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