CRAZY TOWN by Benjamin Carrico

Los Angeles and it's surrounding satellites are something to behold.  LA is like it's own little world where nothing quite makes sense until you discover that maybe it is you that LA can't make sense of.  

In week one of this journey I was harassed by the Mexican Demon Twins, a nightmarish security duo that was securing the perimeter of a 'Prison Break' location shoot at Tequila Jacks in Long Beach.  Although I was simply standing on the dock, drinking a Coke while waiting for a interview at 'The Yard House' next door, the chupacabra of the security world decided that I was causing trouble by simply keeping to myself while watching the film crew set up a shot.  These big, punk bastards surrounded me like the gestapo, demanded my identification and then escorted me off the property.  Perhaps these two dumb ass immigrant bikers thought that I was a 'paparazzi' trying to photograph an awful television show being made for a pictorial in "The Worst Show On Television Magazine" or, maybe I just looked like I could be fucked with.

I always seem to look out of place in Los Angeles.  When I am on Melrose, pedestrians shoot glares at me like they somehow know that I haven't been 'trendy' since I wore a pair of pink Converse All-Stars during my senior year of High School and subsequently gained the affection of at least a few closeted freshman.  While Strolling Robertson Boulevard I am treated like one of the Clampetts in the pilot episode of 'The Beverly Hillbilly's' and at Venice Beach I feel like a young Republican at a satanic cult ritual.  Oh, don't get me wrong, I love the cornucopia of crazies at Venice Beach, especially at sunset when everyone acts like the world is going to end. Yet, there is something quite spooky to me when two-hundred drug- addled homeless teenagers are convulsing around  a drum circle at 5 in the afternoon on a Tuesday.

Sure, you can call me lame but I like the history of this City of broken dreams.  I like to the amazing architecture of days gone by, I can often be seen staring up in awe at some abandoned building on skid row because in my mind I can see how this city must have looked during the boom.  There are a million treasures to be found in this town and I plan to find them all.

 

For now, the closest thing that I have found to time travel is sitting in a place like Cole's Electric Pacific Restaurant in downtown LA and striking up a conversation with an old man that rambles about trains for an hour.  Sure the conversation may get redundant but the french dip sandwiches are delicious.