Despite the drama that was unfolding in Louisiana, the past couple of weeks have actually been pretty nice. In fact, just days after the hurricane hit, my good friend Walter was in town from San Francisco. Despite being in the same state, Walter and I have seen each other very little since I moved to the west coast. A mucho-talented artist and musician, he divides his time between San Francisco and Singapore, and has the distinction (among my friends) of having visited some of the most interesting places in the world. That's saying quite a bit considering how much we all travel.
His travelogue of Iceland was marvelous.
He's also a great inventor, and has created a line of unique instruments called phonoharps that are combination string instrument and turntable. The music he creates with them is amazing...definitely not your typical DJ:
Walter had spent very little time in LA, only having been here for a couple of shows. When he told me he was coming down for a few days to visit, I was very excited to give him the tour of the city. He had given me a similarly impressive tour of San Francisco several years earlier, and I wanted to return the favor.
As is always the case, fate initially conspired against us. On the day I had devoted to showing him around (my little guy was with his mom that day), I got called in for a reporting/writing assignment (of course) and ended up spending the entire day in Long Beach. With his flight leaving early the following morning, I felt bad that I couldn't follow through on my promised tour. Fortunately, he was able to delay his departure until late the next afternoon, which meant we would have at least a portion of the day to hang out. Even though I was going to have Mingus with me all day, I was determined to show him at least some of the city. It was going to be three fellas on the town!
Now, I take my travel guide duties very seriously. Back in New York, I volunteered as a Big Apple Greeter, and took out of towners (mostly foreigners) on public transit tours of the outer borough neghborhoods (particularly Queens and Brooklyn). But LA poses unique challenges, because almost everyone who visits has major negative preconceived notions about the city, usually based on very limited experience (or none at all). Walter was a rare clean slate, who knew little about the city and had no judgements about the place. I definitely wanted to show him a nice time, so I had to choose our activities very carefully.
He had stayed the evening before with a friend on Mulholland Drive, so Mingus and I drove there at the crack of dawn to pick him up. Don't let the picture fool you. Mingus was in good spirits, but he was throwing on one of his "serious" faces for the camera.
After briefly getting lost on Mulholland drive, which provided some surprising vistas of the city, we headed out to Venice. I continue to preach the gospel that Venice is best to visit on weekdays, when it is nearly empty, and this day was no exception. Plus, Walter was packing his Canon S-1, a really nice digital camera that enables him to take cool pictures like this:
His camera also has one of the most incredible zooms I have ever seen. As we stood on the sand at the beach, he was able to zoom in and get great close ups of the morning surfers:
What felt like a few minutes on this beach was actually several hours, and ate up the entire morning. We stopped at Groundworks, my favorite Venice coffee shop, for a couple of Cafe Au Laits. It's hard to get a good cafe here, and the combination of Groundworks' Organic Black Gold coffee and steamed milk is the perfect pick me up. Then we had to jet.
Rather than spend all of our brief time on the West Side, I decided to completely flip it on him, and we went downtown to the Grand Central Market, one of the best places in the city for a cheap lunch. We had empanadas and steak sandwiches at El Gaucho Argentinian restaurant (my first red meat in weeks...yes!), then did a quick tour of Broadway, a street that evokes a South American downtown. That one blew him away. It is pretty shocking to go from the surf culture of the beach to a walled-in skyscraper valley full of people speaking Spanish. Amazing how few Angelenos (who aren't Latin, that is) have ever been to Broadway. While there, we also stopped in at the Bradbury Building. That's the building from the film Blade Runner where Sebastian lived. Just an incredible place to behold. Then we stopped at RedCat, where Walter surprised another friend who worked there. We had planned on taking in the MOCA exhibit on Basquiat but, just our luck, the museum is closed on Wednesdays. We drove by it several times making sad faces instead.
After that, it was time to head back to the airport. I took the long route and drove down Sunset through Silverlake, Los Feliz, and the Sunset Strip before jumping back onto the freeway and getting him to his gate...30 minutes early!
I was disappointed that I had so little time to show him around, but was surprised when I spoke to him later that evening and he explained how much he loved LA. This brief trip had exceeded his expectations. Good to hear, mission accomplished.
It's always nice to see old friends, and we agreed that he would come and crash for a more extended stay in the next six months or so. Then I'll be able to give him the grand tour.
