Pacific Trip: Entry One LA... ENTERING FROM THE REAR

ENTERING FROM THE REAR

Los Angeles Day One

Saturday Dec. 1, 8:18 probably Central Standard Time: The map in the seatback in front of me puts us over Kansas, 2 hours 54 minutes from LA. I've got a window seat... no one crawling over me to get out to piss. No baby screams behind me. Out the window, faint lights from the town below make an outline somewhat reminiscent of the Misfits skull logo.

Behind me there are two empty seats. In the middle one is a woman with a tubercular cough. I've already offered her a Fisherman's Friend .^® She rejected my offer. Maybe because it was unlabeled and unwrapped. .

Her cough continually worsens. And while I'm not a gun-control advocate, it's times like these that I feel lucky in not carrying one. The woman behind me still has her cough... and her head.

“It's just an allergy,” she tells me... as if that's a good enough excuse... Same excuse I used in Mongolia when I tried to pick up girls in the midst of a bronchitis attack. I forgot how to say Yeah right! in Mongolian... but I used to know.

I got to the airport, as usual, 4 hours early. Spent most of it in a facebook spat about sexual harassment® where I was called a shit, an idiot, and warned don't hurt your knuckles as you scrape them along the sidewalk when you walk. I love the intelligence facebook brings to discussions, don't you?

My travel reading is a thick book called A Gentleman in Moscow. It's got about 500 pages, and I'm about 10% through it. So far, an older aristocrat has befriended an 8 year old girl who want to be a princess. It's set right after the Russian revolution. Today, it would probably get the protagonist thrown in the clink for pedophilia. But so far, if there were a writers clink for boring the reader that's its crime.

I know. I know... I'm putting myself in a precarious position writing about writing.... but I've spent 70 years putting myself in precarious positions... what's one more?

December 7 I sit at gate 156 at LAX airport, closer to LA than Kennedy Airport is to New York. Of course, gate 156 is at the end of the gate path. The last gate. I remember a Jewish comedian (Jackie Mason?), who said that he had heartburn from childhood.. When, it once went away, he thought he was sick. So too, it would be if my gate were NOT the furthest one. I'd worry that something's wrong.

My pacific journey is 1/6 over. One week out of six. My looooong term pal, Julien Nitzberg has couched me for the entire trip. He's chauffeured me around in my Hertz Car, taken care of the dinner invitations, and dealt with my intestinal and sanitary peculiarities.

I've been treated to dinner by Julien's Dad. 4 nights of Oriental delight (nope, not THAT kind... I mean food) were orchestrated by Julien and attended by people I've known for longer than my beard has needed Just For Men.

Right now, I sit comfortably-though-slightly-chilled in the airport. There was a screaming baby-- suddenly silenced. One can only hope it was thrown to the tarmac. In the meantime, Los Angeles burns. What was a faint gray tinge on the horizon, has changed to half a skyful. What was a trickle of people leaving the park to escape the smoke, has changed to an evacuation of tens of thousands.

People stream out of LA to friends, relatives, Red Cross stations less comfortable even than airports. I wonder how the burbs will treat the refugees. Will they be deported into the flames? Meanwhile, against this outward flow of panicked Los Angelens, I drove my Hertz-Hyundai INTO LA, toward the airport... entering ...what most were leaving.

The first night is Thanksgiving. No... it's not thanksgiving, but somehow Thanksgiving was postponed and reincarnated. This being Los Angeles, the food has to accommodate, vegetarians, ovo-lactoites, vegans, non-glutens, organics, recovering alcoholics, feminists, turkifiles.

So, what's the food? Milk-free cheese, gluten-free crackers, meat-free pate, AND a bunch of terrific good stuff! Hooeeey! A friendly party! I brought the beer... a collection of weirdstuff from a beerstore with a bar in back. (What a great idea!) Here's one of my contributions.

The beer wasn't as bad as it sounds.

The party people weren't either! In fact, I had a great time. The food was good... though I skipped most of the vegetables. The crew was fun to talk to... laughed at the same things I laughed at. 

There were more girls than boys... for some reason that never happens when I host something. 

Among the conversations, several people talked about an era when I was in my 50s. They referred to that time as back in the day.

Oh yeah, the Turkey! Get a load of this!

Yeah it's a real turkey, but topped with.... CHEETOS AND DORITOS. Ho ho!

Great night ONE! No jet lag.

Postscript: I'm writing this from the library in a small town on Waiheke Island. (Google it!) Internet is spotty, and sooooo much has happened. It's December 10... I'm sunburned... spent the day so far washing... plastic drapes... in my bathing suit... (I was in my bathing suit. The drapes were not.)

Just 10 days out and the stories pile up... more later

PLUS: If you're interested in my contrarian opinions and other things, check out mykelsblog.blogspot.com.

More to come!

--Mykel