Venice Beach – April 4,
2014
The weather on an average late winter, early spring day in Venice Beach is like heaven
anywhere else. April 4th and
the high is 62 degrees the low 52, southwesterly winds around 14 mph. The ocean is deep blue. Wispy clouds dance across a sky so
clear, you seem to be able to see forever. The mountains of Malibu act as a
backdrop encircling the snow white sand with their darker purple hue.
It is an absolutely beautiful day and it is Friday. How anyone gets anything done on a Friday in
Los Angeles is beyond me.
But Kat bounces off to work and around 11:30 Loo Loo and I
decide to take a walk down Venice Beach.
We jump in Kat’s car to first drive to the iconic Venice sign just to
get a picture. This sign that is
suspended above Windward Avenue that spells out Venice. It is actually a replica of a sign that was
first hung there by Abbott Kinney, the founder of Venice, when the town opened
on July 4, 1905.
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| Venice 1930 |
Strangely, the sign
just disappeared sometime in the 40’s or 50’s.
No one knows when it disappeared, who took it down or why. It simply vanished. It was not restored to its present
configuration until 2007. The folks who restored it were faithful to the
heritage of Venice. It looks like an
old-fashioned 1920’s resort sign with its plain round white light bulbs and
block lettering, just strung out there over the street with the beach and the
ocean in the background.
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| Venice Beach Today |
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| Mollusk Surf Shop |
We take a quick picture in the car and then head to our next
stop Mollusk Surf Shop. Kat tells me it
is an institution in Venice. I am
surprised to find it to be a very nice shop with no sand on the floor or grungy blond surfers lounging about. Mollusks
features surfboards and clothes along with the occasional piece or art, music
or books all related to the California surf lifestyle, tucked into a small,
well organized little shop. My goal was to find a bathing suit that Kat
wanted. Thanks again to Steve Jobs I was
able to take a
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| Rejected suit |
picture of the suit I thought she was referring to, send it back
to her and receive a rejection all within two minutes. So off to Venice Beach the two of us went.
Venice Beach. Can
words describe? Venice Beach is three-mile
visual and auditory cacophonous assault on the senses which takes place on a
cement sidewalk in front of one of the widest and prettiest beaches in the
world. What takes place is a spontaneous
yet surprisingly well orchestrated demonstration of American freedom,
California free spirit and calculated bizarreness acted out by homeless
vagrants, street performers, cardtabled spiritual advisors, temporary tattoo
artists, multi-racial skateboarders, bleached blond teenage girls with exposed
stomachs, medical marijuana charlatans, and amateur rappers with their pants below their hips. If you want to know why the Arab world hates
us spend a Friday afternoon on Venice Beach.
The show which actually has no beginning and no end, heats up in earnest on Friday afternoon, grows in intensity on Saturday
afternoon where the bombardment of the senses reaches a level that can cause
fear in the average person. That fevered pitch keeps on going until Sunday at sundown. At its height I know it is just too much for this boy to take. That
is why Loo Loo and I decided that noon on Friday would be enough exposure for
us.
As we strolled down this sidewalk circus I am struck by
several aspects of the Venice Beach scene. That is, apart from the unlimited number of homeless people who
dominate the beach side of the sidewalk.
First, being stuck in the 60’s, it seems
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| "How much for the James Bond door fella?" |
I have lots of company. The most frequent image you see on the
boardwalk are 60’s rock and rollers. On
t-shirts, posters, artwork. We stopped
to photograph a man who paints on old crates and shutters. The pictures are all rock stars of the 60’s
except of course, James Bond painted on a door. (What did I tell you. Rock & Roll and Movies). Who
buys these things, I can’t imagine. Are
there that many baby boomers interested in owning a yellow window shutter with
Jerry Garcia’s picture on it? Can it be
young people? What’s the
attraction? I can’t for the life of me
envision when I was sixteen wanting to have a door with Benny Goodman’s picture
on it or a shutter in Spencer Tracy’s likeness.
So who buys this stuff? I don’t know but you can’t go ten steps in
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| Light My Fire. |
Venice without
being haunted by the ghost of Jim Morrison on a wall, t-shirt or poster.
T
he second notable oddity among all the oddities is that
many people sell the same thing. My
initial impression when our walk began was these were artisans selling their
wares. I see a table of small laminated
surfboards and think they were pretty cool and wondered how long it took the
guy sitting in the beach chair under the pop-up tent to make them. Walking fifteen feet down the sidewalk there
would be another guy selling the exact same surfboards. Then I would think, maybe they are imported
from
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| Huge market for fake painted Mexican skulls? |
Mexico. I soon realized there are
only three or four things for sale. Some
wholesaler must sell the “item du jour” to these guys who take a mark-up and
sell them to the suckers walking the boardwalk.
In addition to miniature surfboards, there are Mexican decorative skulls
(A very popular item for reasons I can not fathom., small reproductions of the
British graffiti artist Banksy and, of course, sun glasses (how sturdy are sun
glasses when the retail price is three for ten dollars?)
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| 3 for $10.00? |
The third mind-boggling aspect of this entire spectacle is
in spite of the fact that the boardwalk is full of people there is virtually no
one on the beach. Empty - Absolutely
deserted at 1:00 pm on a glorious Friday.
When Californians saw they are going to the beach I think they really
mean, “We are going to the sidewalk to look at bizarre people.” I did live
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| Noncomformist, conformist on the boardwalk |
for a year in Northern California
and I know that many Californians would say, “Oh , you don’t go to the beach in
the winter,” which always dumbfound me. Being a Chicago kid living on Lake Michigan,
when the temperature broke 50, cut school, drop the convertible top and cruise
to the beach with our teeth chattering.
It can be
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| Cruising the scene. |
75 degrees and Californians won’t go to the beach because it’s
the “winter.” The peril of living in
paradise, I guess.
Loo Loo and I settled in next to a group of young people who
were obviously all together. I noticed
most had Spacex jackets or sweatshirts on and from their conversation
immediately understood that they worked for Elon Musk’s, private space
exploration company.
“Is this a Spacex staff meeting?” I asked as Loo Loo and I
took our seats. Turns out they were all
playing hooky from their Compton headquarters after a hard week and treating
themselves to a beer laden lunch on a sunny afternoon. The spell was broken with the group when
after only ten minutes one of the guys looked up, over my shoulder and said in
a startled voice, “Brandon. What are you
doing here?”
“I took the day off,” said a voice behind me. It turns out that Brandon was the Executive
Vice President at SpaceX. There was a
moment or two of awkward exchanged pleasantries and Brandon sauntered off.
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| The people that will get us to Mars. |
“Hey, Brandon. Can we
expense this?” one of the braver engineers joked in a modified stage whisper to
a chorus of hushed giggles. Brandon
responded with an over the shoulder smile as he knowing lifted his chin towards
the group and continued on his way.
As much as they tried to resist it the rebellious mood of
the group changed to submission. Within
ten minutes the bill was split and the head of the group who had to be all of
30 announced, “Do me a favor and send me an email of what you worked on this
week, what you accomplished and send it to me before the end of the day.” It made me smile to think in spite of all the
changes in corporate America over the last forty years, things have changed
very little. No matter how independent employees
seem today, busted by the boss, is still busted by the boss. The group quickly left, obviously headed back
to the cubbies and computers leaving the patio to Loo Loo and me.
The Spacexers are immediately replaced by a nice couple. The man, maybe 35 is a handsome guy and strikes me a Spanish - not Mexican but European - Castilian in his accent. Not that I am an expert. I am surprised to find out that they are from Minnesota, currently living in Las Vegas. So much for my ethnic radar. Turns out she is a college professor, teaching, ironically in my case Family Therapy! They moved to Las Vegas so she could take a job at U.N.L.V. They freely admit that they are burned out on Las Vegas which I tell them I totally understand. She is applying to different colleges around the country. I mention University of North Texas. Up until we moved I had never heard of the school and assumed it was some sort of junior college in the Texas system. It turns out they have over 40,000 students which puts UNT as the second or third largest school in Texas, tying University of Houston and beaten only by the University of Texas in Austin. My new friend immediately warms to the conversation. As luck would have it, his sister lives in Plano, Texas. Plano is a rapidly growing suburb of Dallas, almost single handedly invented by millionaire and former Presidential candidate Ross Perot when he moved his company EDS and later Perot Systems to Plano. My Minnesotan Castilian pronounces Plano it like it is spelled Plano, rather than the actual pronunciation, which is wrongly pronounced Plain O by Texans. I let it pass. He is egger to be near his sister. His "partner" (I was quickly corrected when I referred to her as "wife", seems cool on the idea of Texas.
By this time Loo Loo and I have finished our hamburger which was wonderful. For this first time I strayed from the B.A.T.A., which stands for Bacon, Arugula, Tomato and Avocado with Chipotle Aioli on Ciabatta bread. When you are munching on a B.A.T.A. on the patio of the Venice Ale House with the sun warming your shoulder you have no doubt that you are in Southern California. This Friday, however, I return to my beef centric Midwestern, Jimmy Buffetian roots and enjoy what has to be called a Cheeseburger in Paradise. With the sun warming my back and a glass (or two) of Pinot Noir warming my tummy if this isn't paradise it is a reasonable enough facsimile for this boy.
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