The sound of a heroin addict’s rubber vein-band.
I spend most of the day in the room surfing the internet and trying to write. I shower and make a mental note to buy a loofah. Being loofahless is a good way to blow through your body wash.
Since my tendon feels a little better, Alex and I head out for my birthday dinner, courtesy of his lovely, beautiful, awesome personality-having mother. You rule, Mrs. Wolff. With an iron fist. You despot, you.
We hop on a bus that runs up Fairfax. Our (female) bus driver is lithe and the color of a chocolate Snack Pack. She steers with one hand and talks on her cell phone with the other. She has hair like Usher. A white Ford F-950 cuts in front of us at a red light and she just goes off.
“The fuck is you doing? The fuck you think you is? Muthalfuckal.”
The Ls are somewhat silent in “muthalfuckal”. Just a trace of L. Then she flips the guy off and says this into her cell phone:
“… flick this guy off…”
Now if you know me, you know I’m anti-“flick off”. It’s “flip off”, goddammit. Like you’re flipping the bird. The only things you flick are boogers and retarded children. By the way, I saw my first Indian retard last year. Talk about strange. She looked like a regular retard that had been playing in mud AND drinking chocolate milk at the same time. Dark, dark lip area.
We pass Wilshire and Fairfax. Where Biggie was shot. I try to figure out which corner it all went down at. Alex tells me to just savor them all.
I do.
The bus lets us off at the Grove.
The Grove is basically an outlet mall without outlets. Withoutlets. A pro-LA tourism commercial is being filmed with an obscenely attractive light-skinned black couple – the kind of black people you only see in R&B videos. I ask some lady with a walkie-talkie what’s going on and she says, “Not any celebrities.” Oh, well don’t I just look like the star-fellating type.
We pass an Abercrombie and Fitch and there’s a shirtless model standing in the front of the store next to his big, shirtless picture. A girl walks out and he’s on the bag. It looks like you could fry an egg on his head and he’d just ask for a plate.
Alex and I have dinner at a place called the Wood Ranch, which is what Alex says is like an upscale Logan’s. And it is. Our waiter is wearing those black, box-framed, “I swear I’m creative” glasses that are somehow still in. He’s laconic and efficient – an assassin if ever there was one.
I have a brain fart when I’m looking at the menu and say this:
“Are the mannish in Spanish?”
A “what?” look from Alex. Our steak comes and my dick moves. Perfectly cooked, seasoned. Not the Outback shit I’m used to. And I think this is a chain restaurant, too. Not bad at all.
I don’t really have to use the bathroom, but this place is clean and I figure it can only get worse from here. So let’s go.
This is the best public bathroom I have ever had the pleasure of shitting in. Unlocked, no graffiti. Large. So large. It’s like shitting in a celebrity’s walk-in closet. And look at that toilet paper. Two-ply. I think those are shamrocks, too. Fucking shamrocks. This deuce trip could only have been better if it happened on Saint Patrick’s Day.
We finish dinner and dip.
Barely miss the bus we need to catch. Alex gives me friendly shit for being a gimp. We hop on something that looks like a hotel shuttle. There are two other people on it. The bus driver is a nice lady and points to the Rolls Royce in front of us when we stop at a light.
“Wish someone would drive me around for a change,” she says.
Alex says he’d be glad to. All of us stare at the Rolls and make half-hearted jokes to cope with the fact that we’ll probably never ride in one of them.
Alex and I get off near the Beverly Center and walk down a block to catch the next bus. There’s a middle-aged, decent-looking Hispanic lady with a very banging body who waits with us. She has cleavage like an ass.
I snap a picture of the hills in the distance.
Maybe we’ll see them up close some day.
Shit List:
June 1: Held it
June 2: Walgreen’s on the Miracle Mile
June 3: Best Buy Culver City
June 4: Gold's Gym Hollywood
June 5: Wood Ranch at the Grove
2 comments:
Jeff, this is pure joy.
Describe LA perfectly.
Wonderfully... who needs to go to LA after you´ve been. Your writing is always wonderful.
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