Amazingly, I didn't realize that I was being a bad host until after I rousted Allison out of bed at 7:00 a.m.
We were to head for Los Angeles that morning, December 15.
I can tell I'm going to have a hard time writing this. Already my mind is wandering. The Gods Themselves is gleaming at me from my nightstand (curse you, Isaac Asimov), my flashcards from bartender's school are tantalizing me from one corner of the bedspread, and the wind is howling outside my window. Plus there's something embarrassing that happens in this story that I have to tell you about, and I don't wanna.
But here goes anyway:
Yes, I'm a bad host. The one thing I hadn't counted on when planning Alli's visit was how early we'd have to get up every morning to actually make it to the marvelous places we intended to see.
Why'd we have to get up so early? I'm glad you asked. It gives me a chance to complain.
I live only 60 miles or so from Los Angeles. That's it. That's maybe an hour's drive. Less, seeing as the speed limit's 70 miles per hour on the freeways.
There's just one little thing that prevents me (and everybody else) from reaching Los Angeles in an hour. It begins with a "T."
Traffic.
That's it.
Traffic is the thing. There are about 90,000 people living in the Apple Valley, Victorville and Hesperia areas alone. Odds are, any given day, that some of them are going to want to go "down the hill" (south on Interstate 15 through the Cajon Pass). And of course, once you get down the hill, you are in the L.A. Basin, which, as of last year, has nearly twenty million people in it. More than half of them are in Los Angeles alone.
And all of them want to go somewhere.
Usually right when I want to go somewhere.
Dammit.
So, in order to get anywhere in Los Angeles on time, you must tack an extra half-hour to an hour (or more) onto your travel time.
We had no set time for our arrival at Universal Studios (thank God) but we hit the road about 8:00 nonetheless. Things weren't quite as bad as I'd feared, but still pretty clogged. It was the middle of the week after all. There were only 700,000 people on the roads instead of the usual 20 million.
Long story short, we made it. Alli was a champ yet again. I had appointed her my navigator, and she never missed a turn. She also kept me abreast of the route at least two turns in advance, which I appreciated immensely. We pulled up to Universal Studios, parked (our lot was adorned with many blown-up images of Woody Woodpecker), and walked into the outdoor shopping center.
Unsurprisingly, there weren't too many people about at 10:00 in the morning. The Hard Rock Café was the quietest I've ever seen it, even with the blaring guitar music. None of the shops caught our eye, festooned as they were with amazing paint jobs, life-size cutouts of King Kong, neon lights, and other assorted foofaraw.
So (after a brief stop back at Roger for my camera), we adjourned to the park proper.
Down the sidewalk, turn right at the big spinning steel globe and the mist machines, stand in line for 30 minutes while the Eastern European tourists try to haggle about ticket prices, and then go in through the blue gates.
(That's how you get into Universal Studios.)
The first thing that confronted us as we entered was a large bronze statue of a director, a script girl, and a cameraman, who were busy filming everybody who came in. The director was crouched down in a most ridiculous position, his index fingers making twin L's as he framed the shot.
We started meandering through the ever-thickening crowd. If we'd thought that the shopping center outside had been glitzy, we got a real wake-up call inside. The place was off the hook. The most astounding collection of shops, boutiques and souvenir stores lined the crooked alleyways, leaning this way and that, and covered in the most outrageous assortment of protrusions and add-ons. The effect was intensified by the Christmas decorations which had been laid over the structures. Various movie cars were parked here and there, including the Bluesmobile from The Blues Brothers.
You know I couldn't have resisted getting a picture in front of that.
After satisfying our curiosity on the streets, we headed for the rides. The first one we took was, logically, the grand Universal Studios tour.
That was a piece of wonderfulness. We drove through movie set after movie set, past movie car after movie car, through sensation after cinema-caliber sensation. I won't spoil it, of course, but I will say that we had a close encounter with Norman Bates, from Psycho; rode out a massive earthquake in a subway station; barely dodged a flash flood and some vicious dinosaurs; and even sneaked along Wisteria Lane while they were filming Desperate Housewives (quiet, please!).
There weren't too many shows we were interested in. I did notice, however, that they were going to have a 30-minute "stunt show" at the Waterworld stage. I'll be the first to admit that Waterworld (that apocalyptic Kevin Costner movie) is a piece of crap. But it's a fun piece of crap, sort of. So we said, "What the hey!"
We didn't regret it, either. There were explosions, and people falling dozens of feet into water, and fireballs, and shootouts, and hand-to-hand, and some of the most judicious use of zip-lines that I've ever seen. Those explosions and fireballs were the real kicker: loud, flashy, and so big that you could feel the wave of heat 50 feet away in the stands. There was even one point where they hurled a complete replica of a seaplane over the wall and into the water, where it skidded across the arena, in flames, and fetched up against the fence, practically in the faces of the people in the front row.
That was...neat.
The stuntmen (and stuntwomen) were really well-trained. Nobody missed a fall or failed to take a punch realistically enough. Jet-skis figured highly in this show, and some of the stuff they did with them was absolutely incredible. It was hard to believe they were doing it all live, right in front of you. I'm talking jumps, and dives underneath the water, and dodging explosions, and all that cool stuff.
It was a good show. Better than the movie, I'll warrant. Better stunts packed into less time. Plus the leading lady was cuter.
Eventually, we satisfied our curiosity with the upper lot, and descended to the lower lot via the Starway. This was an extremely long escalator, covered by a glass tile awning.
The lower lot is where all the rides are.
Including Jurassic Park.
Oh heck yeah.
We went straight for the dinosaurs. I was giddy with glee. Of all the theme rides in the park, including The Mummy, I was the most anxious to ride this one.
I mean, come on! Dinosaurs, for Pete's sake! Dinosaurs!
It was everything I'd hoped it'd be. I got into the car, and we started off down the jungle river. It was hard to believe I wasn't in the movie (or rather, the book...the literary version of Jurassic Park, which is a million times better than the movie, actually has a river segment that presages the Universal Studios version). The sun was shining through the trees and ferns and fronds overhead, forming golden beams that fell onto the swiftly flowing water below...the effect was cinematic as well as beautiful.
I won't spoil the ride, but man, is it ever a gut-wrencher. Allison and I clambered out of the car thrilled, our shoulders soaking wet, our hearts thudding, unable to keep the grins from our faces. We had survived.
We had to take pictures to commemorate the event.
That was about it. Neither of us were much interested in the other rides, and we'd seen the rest of the park. So we wandered lazily out (stopping for a few minutes to get surveyed), and got back on the highway for the Walk of Fame.
We had a nice stroll down Hollywood Boulevard together, even despite the grunge, and the whiskery black blues musician singing at us, and the kinky lingerie shops every hundred yards. We ate lunch at Combo's New York Pizzeria, where the slices were about this size...
...then got back into the car and began heading in the direction of the La Brea Tar Pits.
Or, we attempted to. We soon discovered that I was going the wrong way. We need to pull a U-turn, head back down Hollywood to Vine Street, and hang a louie.
But where to pull a U-turn? Hollywood Boulevard doesn't generally allow U-turns in turn lanes, and there aren't too many streets leading off, just narrow alleys. Unwisely, I picked one of these alleys to turn around in. This one had a couple of decently tall buildings on either side, one of which was a youth rehabilitation center with several cars parked outside. The other looked like some official building of some sort, with a few men dressed in business casual on the stoop. I pulled into some van parking, began to reverse, and—
BAM.
The Jeep jerked. There was a sickening sound, a sound I knew all too well: blunt metal meeting blunt metal, hard.
I'd backed into somebody.
I lost my head. I twisted around in a desultory attempt to see if I'd caused any damage to the other car, and, seeing none, pulled forward and out.
As I was driving past the other building, one of the semi-formally-dressed men raised a hand and yelled "HEY! You hit that woman!"
My head was still in the clouds. I was scarcely aware of what I was doing.
"Bad?" was the only thing that came out of my mouth.
"You'd better see," the man said, not aggressively, but not passively either. He pointed back at the other car.
My head began to clear. It began to feel like the inside of a dry, dusty Egyptian tomb, in fact. So did my gut.
I reversed, made sure I was as out of the way as possible, got out, and took a look at the other car (coincidentally, another white Jeep Cherokee).
What I saw made my stomach plummet through the asphalt. There was a misshapen dent the size of a ham in the other Jeep, right where the driver's side door met the front panel. My mortification compounded a hundredfold. It was bad enough that I'd backed into somebody. It was worse that Allison had witnessed it (let alone been in the car when it happened). Worst of all, however, was the fact that I'd almost run for it. The self-recrimination began immediately. I was a cheating, sneaking coward.
And now Allison knew it.
I wished that all of hell's fire and heaven's fury would come whirling out of the ether and smite me dead.
Outwardly, I remained calm. Not even I know how. I waited while the neatly-dressed man sent one of his friends inside the rehabilitation center to fetch the owner of the other Jeep. (He knew her personally, and knew this was her car.) While we waited, the man told me, "I'm just trying to help you, man. We've got cameras all around here."
He made a circular motion with his index finger. I looked up. There were indeed traffic cameras pocking the alleyway. It was a fortunate thing the man had stopped me, I realized later. If he hadn't, and I'd driven away, I would've been a whole heap of trouble.
Presently, the woman came outside. She was short, middle-aged and blond. She was not angry, but she did express regret that I'd punched in her new panel. (She said that she'd just gotten it redone.) I did not admit fault, as I'd been instructed to avoid doing, but instead made my apologies and willingly supplied the woman with insurance information. I dutifully copied hers down also. Her insurance card was expired, and she got a bit miffed when I asked for further proof of financial responsibility ("You hit me"). But in the end, we completed the transaction. She went back inside, and I folded up my insurance cards and got back into my own (completely undamaged) car.
I pulled back onto Hollywood Boulevard wanting nothing more than to melt permanently away into sludge. I couldn't even bear to look at Allison. Throughout the whole thing, she'd sat calmly in the passenger seat of my Jeep, passing me paper and pens like a helpful angel, even cracking a few jokes about the whole thing. She was marvelous. But I still felt awful. I felt bad that I'd subjected her to being involved in such a hassle, and worse that she'd witnessed my attempted escape.
And then, as I was thinking these things, Allison placed a hand on my shoulder and said, bracingly, "How ya doin'?"
I told you she was wonderful, didn't I?
The accident had taken up some of our time, enough that the La Brea Tar Pits were too close to closing to visit. More's the pity. We went to LACMA instead. You know, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. After a few missed approaches and go-arounds, we made inside the parking lot, and took the elevator up to street level.
The ticket seller told us that, if we waited 15 more minutes (until 5:00) we could "pay whatever we wanted" for admission—that is, make a donation. To kill the time, we toured the museum's current outdoor exhibit, "Urban Light":
It's just what it looks like: a bunch of iron streetlamps stuck close together and set alight. Doesn't seem to qualify as "art" to me, but it was beautiful, and I guess that's enough. The ironic thing is that Allison and I had had a rather spirited debate on what should and should not qualify as "art" that morning as we ate breakfast at IHOP. As soon as we came in sight of this particular exhibit, Allison turned to me and said "There, does that qualify as art?"
And I said, "Maybe if they turned 'em on."
And then, mere seconds after turning away from the ticket booth, the lights came on.
I turned to Allison and said, "That's better."
There remains little to tell. We toured the museum, discovering some of Picasso's little-known sculpture, and admiring Luis Meléndez's vivid and massive collection of still-life paintings.
Finally, we piled back into the car, fought our way out of Los Angeles on I-5, drove to San Diego, spent a few fruitless minutes searching for our hotel (which didn't seem to exist anymore), gave up, found a Howard Johnson, got a couple of rooms, and went to sleep.
I lay on my bed in my pajamas, watching Robin Williams opine profanely about politicians, mulling over the disappointments of the day. Both Allison and I were disappointed that there had been so little to do at Universal Studios. I was disappointed that we hadn't seen the La Brea Tar Pits. As for my disappointment in myself for what I'd done that day...well, that was nowhere near subsiding.
Allison, too, was likely disappointed in my driving skills...to say nothing of my irresponsible cowardice.
I could only hope to to give her less cause the next day.
You know I couldn't have resisted getting a picture in front of that.
After satisfying our curiosity on the streets, we headed for the rides. The first one we took was, logically, the grand Universal Studios tour.
That was a piece of wonderfulness. We drove through movie set after movie set, past movie car after movie car, through sensation after cinema-caliber sensation. I won't spoil it, of course, but I will say that we had a close encounter with Norman Bates, from Psycho; rode out a massive earthquake in a subway station; barely dodged a flash flood and some vicious dinosaurs; and even sneaked along Wisteria Lane while they were filming Desperate Housewives (quiet, please!).
There weren't too many shows we were interested in. I did notice, however, that they were going to have a 30-minute "stunt show" at the Waterworld stage. I'll be the first to admit that Waterworld (that apocalyptic Kevin Costner movie) is a piece of crap. But it's a fun piece of crap, sort of. So we said, "What the hey!"
We didn't regret it, either. There were explosions, and people falling dozens of feet into water, and fireballs, and shootouts, and hand-to-hand, and some of the most judicious use of zip-lines that I've ever seen. Those explosions and fireballs were the real kicker: loud, flashy, and so big that you could feel the wave of heat 50 feet away in the stands. There was even one point where they hurled a complete replica of a seaplane over the wall and into the water, where it skidded across the arena, in flames, and fetched up against the fence, practically in the faces of the people in the front row.
That was...neat.
The stuntmen (and stuntwomen) were really well-trained. Nobody missed a fall or failed to take a punch realistically enough. Jet-skis figured highly in this show, and some of the stuff they did with them was absolutely incredible. It was hard to believe they were doing it all live, right in front of you. I'm talking jumps, and dives underneath the water, and dodging explosions, and all that cool stuff.
It was a good show. Better than the movie, I'll warrant. Better stunts packed into less time. Plus the leading lady was cuter.
Eventually, we satisfied our curiosity with the upper lot, and descended to the lower lot via the Starway. This was an extremely long escalator, covered by a glass tile awning.
The lower lot is where all the rides are.
Including Jurassic Park.
Oh heck yeah.
We went straight for the dinosaurs. I was giddy with glee. Of all the theme rides in the park, including The Mummy, I was the most anxious to ride this one.
I mean, come on! Dinosaurs, for Pete's sake! Dinosaurs!
It was everything I'd hoped it'd be. I got into the car, and we started off down the jungle river. It was hard to believe I wasn't in the movie (or rather, the book...the literary version of Jurassic Park, which is a million times better than the movie, actually has a river segment that presages the Universal Studios version). The sun was shining through the trees and ferns and fronds overhead, forming golden beams that fell onto the swiftly flowing water below...the effect was cinematic as well as beautiful.
I won't spoil the ride, but man, is it ever a gut-wrencher. Allison and I clambered out of the car thrilled, our shoulders soaking wet, our hearts thudding, unable to keep the grins from our faces. We had survived.
We had to take pictures to commemorate the event.
That was about it. Neither of us were much interested in the other rides, and we'd seen the rest of the park. So we wandered lazily out (stopping for a few minutes to get surveyed), and got back on the highway for the Walk of Fame.
We had a nice stroll down Hollywood Boulevard together, even despite the grunge, and the whiskery black blues musician singing at us, and the kinky lingerie shops every hundred yards. We ate lunch at Combo's New York Pizzeria, where the slices were about this size...
...then got back into the car and began heading in the direction of the La Brea Tar Pits.
Or, we attempted to. We soon discovered that I was going the wrong way. We need to pull a U-turn, head back down Hollywood to Vine Street, and hang a louie.
But where to pull a U-turn? Hollywood Boulevard doesn't generally allow U-turns in turn lanes, and there aren't too many streets leading off, just narrow alleys. Unwisely, I picked one of these alleys to turn around in. This one had a couple of decently tall buildings on either side, one of which was a youth rehabilitation center with several cars parked outside. The other looked like some official building of some sort, with a few men dressed in business casual on the stoop. I pulled into some van parking, began to reverse, and—
BAM.
The Jeep jerked. There was a sickening sound, a sound I knew all too well: blunt metal meeting blunt metal, hard.
I'd backed into somebody.
I lost my head. I twisted around in a desultory attempt to see if I'd caused any damage to the other car, and, seeing none, pulled forward and out.
As I was driving past the other building, one of the semi-formally-dressed men raised a hand and yelled "HEY! You hit that woman!"
My head was still in the clouds. I was scarcely aware of what I was doing.
"Bad?" was the only thing that came out of my mouth.
"You'd better see," the man said, not aggressively, but not passively either. He pointed back at the other car.
My head began to clear. It began to feel like the inside of a dry, dusty Egyptian tomb, in fact. So did my gut.
I reversed, made sure I was as out of the way as possible, got out, and took a look at the other car (coincidentally, another white Jeep Cherokee).
What I saw made my stomach plummet through the asphalt. There was a misshapen dent the size of a ham in the other Jeep, right where the driver's side door met the front panel. My mortification compounded a hundredfold. It was bad enough that I'd backed into somebody. It was worse that Allison had witnessed it (let alone been in the car when it happened). Worst of all, however, was the fact that I'd almost run for it. The self-recrimination began immediately. I was a cheating, sneaking coward.
And now Allison knew it.
I wished that all of hell's fire and heaven's fury would come whirling out of the ether and smite me dead.
Outwardly, I remained calm. Not even I know how. I waited while the neatly-dressed man sent one of his friends inside the rehabilitation center to fetch the owner of the other Jeep. (He knew her personally, and knew this was her car.) While we waited, the man told me, "I'm just trying to help you, man. We've got cameras all around here."
He made a circular motion with his index finger. I looked up. There were indeed traffic cameras pocking the alleyway. It was a fortunate thing the man had stopped me, I realized later. If he hadn't, and I'd driven away, I would've been a whole heap of trouble.
Presently, the woman came outside. She was short, middle-aged and blond. She was not angry, but she did express regret that I'd punched in her new panel. (She said that she'd just gotten it redone.) I did not admit fault, as I'd been instructed to avoid doing, but instead made my apologies and willingly supplied the woman with insurance information. I dutifully copied hers down also. Her insurance card was expired, and she got a bit miffed when I asked for further proof of financial responsibility ("You hit me"). But in the end, we completed the transaction. She went back inside, and I folded up my insurance cards and got back into my own (completely undamaged) car.
I pulled back onto Hollywood Boulevard wanting nothing more than to melt permanently away into sludge. I couldn't even bear to look at Allison. Throughout the whole thing, she'd sat calmly in the passenger seat of my Jeep, passing me paper and pens like a helpful angel, even cracking a few jokes about the whole thing. She was marvelous. But I still felt awful. I felt bad that I'd subjected her to being involved in such a hassle, and worse that she'd witnessed my attempted escape.
And then, as I was thinking these things, Allison placed a hand on my shoulder and said, bracingly, "How ya doin'?"
I told you she was wonderful, didn't I?
The accident had taken up some of our time, enough that the La Brea Tar Pits were too close to closing to visit. More's the pity. We went to LACMA instead. You know, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. After a few missed approaches and go-arounds, we made inside the parking lot, and took the elevator up to street level.
The ticket seller told us that, if we waited 15 more minutes (until 5:00) we could "pay whatever we wanted" for admission—that is, make a donation. To kill the time, we toured the museum's current outdoor exhibit, "Urban Light":
It's just what it looks like: a bunch of iron streetlamps stuck close together and set alight. Doesn't seem to qualify as "art" to me, but it was beautiful, and I guess that's enough. The ironic thing is that Allison and I had had a rather spirited debate on what should and should not qualify as "art" that morning as we ate breakfast at IHOP. As soon as we came in sight of this particular exhibit, Allison turned to me and said "There, does that qualify as art?"
And I said, "Maybe if they turned 'em on."
And then, mere seconds after turning away from the ticket booth, the lights came on.
I turned to Allison and said, "That's better."
There remains little to tell. We toured the museum, discovering some of Picasso's little-known sculpture, and admiring Luis Meléndez's vivid and massive collection of still-life paintings.
Finally, we piled back into the car, fought our way out of Los Angeles on I-5, drove to San Diego, spent a few fruitless minutes searching for our hotel (which didn't seem to exist anymore), gave up, found a Howard Johnson, got a couple of rooms, and went to sleep.
I lay on my bed in my pajamas, watching Robin Williams opine profanely about politicians, mulling over the disappointments of the day. Both Allison and I were disappointed that there had been so little to do at Universal Studios. I was disappointed that we hadn't seen the La Brea Tar Pits. As for my disappointment in myself for what I'd done that day...well, that was nowhere near subsiding.
Allison, too, was likely disappointed in my driving skills...to say nothing of my irresponsible cowardice.
I could only hope to to give her less cause the next day.
No comments:
Post a Comment