2001-03-07 - 4:06

Carbon filtration

Okay, as promised, I have a recap of my recent California trip. For starters, I'll point out that a lot of my vacation pictures are now on my Jambalaya site. Yes, even the Bootmobile is there. Of course, I couldn't take pictures of the TV tapings or the Rollins show; but the rest of the trip is fairly well covered.

And yes, this will be a mssive entry; but consider it a week's worth of material condensed as best I could.

The main thrust of the vacation was hitting southern Cali from Monday to Friday, with the weekends spent in San Fran. That worked out well, since I got to see the full crew on the weekends, which was fun. Unfortunately, I didn't really have time to hook up with Mandeep this trip, so if he asks, I was never there. Shh.

Okay, here it is, day by day:

Saturday
My flight arrived about an hour late, so it was past midnight before I hooked up with Liam. I chilled at the new place that he and Kirk have; and we found out that their cable package includes soft core porn on Saturday nights. It just didn't seem right for that to be on TV in English. Heh.

Sunday
This day unexpectedly set the theme for the trip: comedy. The lease was up on the guys' old place, so I ended up there while they were clearing out. Each of us was certainly unprepared for the soon-to-be legend that was John Seaman, carpet cleaner.

This guy was a nonstop bullshit artist. It was beautiful to see him in action. "I'm the best--nobody can do what I do. That's a sixty thousand dollar truck out there. The imitators show up and turn their truck off and power their cleaner with a lawnmower engine." I'll skip his explanation of carbon filtration and "negative electrolysis" and his discourse on "the broads" in Palo Alto. I can assure you, though, that if the landlord tries to withhold the damage deposit because of the carpet, John'll take care of it. "Every judge knows me. If your landlord tries to be an asshole about it, I'll leave the judge knowing that he's the disease and I'm the cure. I'm a cobra." Too much.

Monday
After the weekend, Liam and I drove to Los Angeles. The long trip gave us plenty of chance to try some new CDs on each other, with good results. Once we made it to L.A., we found a hotel, which, as it turned out, connects to the Hollywood Hills Coffee Shop, as featured in one of Liam's favourite movies, Swingers. Cool. It was somewhat late by the time we got settled; but we did pop up to the Griffith Observatory, for a great look at the city at night.

Tuesday
For the early part of Tuesday, we hit Santa Monica. The weather put a damper on things, since it was always overcast and sometimes rainy. Still, we got to see a few cool places.

That evening, we caught a taping of The Late Late Show. That was fun, especially since one of the guests was William Shatner. Afterwards, we snagged supper at Toi on Sunset, which kicked ass. Smoking food, the fastest service ever, an Ozzy poster on the wall, and a table with a big picture of Frank Zappa on it . . . what more could you want?

Wednesday
The centerpiece of the whole vacation was seeing Henry Rollins give a spoken word show in San Diego. We left L.A. fairly early, and we had time to check out Seaport Village. Aircraft carriers in the distance, sea lions swimming around . . . not too shabby.

The Rollins gig itself was stellar. In fact, I plan on writing a seperate review of just that show, so I'll skip the details here. I will say that it was two and a quarter hours of kick-ass material. When Liam first mentioned the San Diego show, I wasn't sure if I wanted to go, because I already had tickets for the Toronto stop on the tour. However, I'm very glad that I went. For one thing, it's not a memorized routine, so I expect to hear some variations.

More importantly, though, it was just a different experience catching the show with Liam than it would be with anyone else. We've talked about Rollins and his work often enough that certain facets of the stories take on greater significance. I laughed a little harder at the "I've got responsibilities" bits; and I expect that Liam found the obsessively alphabetized record collection funnier because I was there. Great fun.

Thursday
We managed to wake up early (wow!) and make our way back to L.A. with enough time to hit the Hollywood Walk of Fame and then Griffith Park. The Walk itself wasn't so exciting, although it was fun to bomb around the crowds a bit. Every once in a while, I'd see a star for James Brown or Johnny Cash or somebody cool like that, though. Griffith was great during the daylight; and I snapped some nice pictures.

Afterwards, we hit our second TV taping: Politically Incorrect. Liam and I used to watch this show a lot when we were roommates, so it was fun to see it live. We got to see the taping of two episodes, each of which I thought generated some good arguments. We were also (barely) on TV for this one, on the Friday episode, at least. Out-of-focus and back in the third row, but still there.

Friday
Liam had arranged for the tickets for the shows; so I guess that my main contribution to our plans was suggesting that we hit Vasquez Rocks. This park in Aqua Dulce is, among other things, where Kirk fought the Gorn in Star Trek, so it tied together with seeing Shatner. We spent three hours climbing over the rocks, usually with nobody else in sight, and we took lots of pictures. Very cool. Vasquez and Rollins were the two highlights of the trip for me.

We capped off our stay in Los Angeles by attending a taping of Norm. Norm Macdonald is awesome. He's definitely my favourite talk show guest; and I even saw Dirty Work in the theatre (with a total of 7 people watching, including Liam and I). The taping was interesting to watch; and the warm-up comic was easily the best from the three shows that I saw. Even when the taping dragged on near the end, he kept things funny. He even got Liam up to do some juggling and (eventually) gave him an autographed picture of the cast.

Saturday
After the fairly lengthy drive back to San Fran, I ended up crashing at Joe and Tayze's place. I got to screw around on Joe's new acoustic guitar again, which was fun. As usual, Tayze and I were up past 5:00 AM playing cards. Oddly enough, though, I lost. Terrible. Heheh.

Sunday
A day for sleeping in, chilling out with Joe, Tayze, and Liam again (Kirk was away), and getting my bags packed for Ottawa.

So, all in all, it was a smoking time. Rollins, Shatner, Bill Maher, Craig Kilborn, Norm, the Swingers coffee shop, as well as some great scenery. How awesome is that? And let's not forget the Bootmobile. Hell, I didn't even mention being shown the comic beauty of Jackass or getting a ton of positive feedback on my green hair (not counting being selected for a "random" search by Customs); but I still think that I captured how much fun I had.

The L.A. vacation was the last hurrah of my joyous unemployment; but it was a kick ass way to end my time off.

J.