It is Saturday night, I am back in London town and have just finished work behind the bar at my shitty little metal pub. That and the jetlag has prevented me from regaling you with what happened over the last 48 – 72 hours of my time in L.A. Already it seems a lifetime away, fortunately I can just look at my right foot for the rest of my life if ever I want to remember it. Let me divulge dear reader…..
Wednesday morning finds us wide-awake at a ridiculous hour again but this time we are ready to use it to our favour. Talita takes us a short walk up the road to Mel’s Diner on the strip for breakfast American style, round 2.We are clearly tourists cause no one walks here, unless it's that stupid power walking thing. This place was in American Graffiti and is totally the epitome of fifties America.
We seat ourselves inside even though it is a beautiful morning so that we can enjoy the full experience, the décor, the staff etc, and boy do they not disappoint. Janet. I think Janet should be called Dolores, so will call her that for the rest of this. She was our waitress and blew my mind. Primarily because as Talita pointed out, she is quite probably me in 30 years time.
How to describe Dolores? Know now that I cannot possibly do her any justice. She is Patsy out of Absolutely Fabulous had Patsy been dragged up rather than brought up, moved to L.A as a teenager to become a ‘star’, got a job at several shitty diners like Denny’s while trying not to stray in to porn. She then would have fallen for a string of ‘wrong’ men, who promised her the world, gave her nothing but took everything. Probably she would have done some go go dancing and made a few infomercials.
Before old age crept in she landed her current job at Mel’s diner and is so enchanting she manages to keep getting loans out to feed her addiction to staying young and beautiful with cosmetic surgery then spends gruelling hours on her feet trying to earn the money to pay the loans off. Probably she has a few men in her life who throw money her way but I suspect she grafts for it. Probably she has grand children she never sees on the other side of the Country but sends them thoughtful cards and trinkets none the less and is thought of fondly if not patronisingly, similar to how I think of her.
What a woman. I am completely entranced one hundred percent. I can’t put an age on her. Her arms are young, mid 30’s say. Her hands, though accessorised with long acrylic talons in dusky pink look about 50. Her figure under her tight trashy uniform says 20’s. Her neck says 60. Her face is caked in make up, she has false eyelashes on, a massive injected pout and a forehead that hasn’t moved since 1992. Dolores is some kind of beautiful tragic. I want to take her home as a souvenir.
Somehow I manage to eat, hard when there is so much to take in. When we are settling up the bill there is a comments bit on the receipt. I get my eyeliner out and write ‘we love Janet’ and we leave. Hope she doesn’t think we were taking the piss, she is a goddess. I mean shit, I just wrote 5 paragraphs on the woman!
We schmooze on back to the hotel, i can feel the weight gain with every passing hour i stay here, and yet again I can’t believe I’m staying in the Riot. Gets me every time. I have been intending on finding some one who works there to fill me in on all the sordid history of the place and have a few names of staff to ask but keep bloody forgetting.Edgar is the man in the know apparently, 35 years under his belt, the man will for sure have some great tales to tell.
We still have a couple of hours until all the boys are turning up to hang out and so hit the roof top again and hang out in the blistering sun, fuck about in the pool, I wee’d in it, much to the horror of Talita who went scrambling out…jeez that’s what chlorine is for, anyway my pee is pretty much pure Jack D at this point! I dry off in the sun and go kick it in the hotel room and do some writing. I have had zero chance to get this done as of yet and this will probably be my only chance till London. I get a couple of hours work done over a 3 hour period, popping back up to the roof to smoke and splash about a couple of times and having posted my writing crash out on my bed, only to wake up when Talita and Erik, guitarist from Whitt Wizzard come bounding in to get cleaned up for the evening.
Worryingly Talita has not had a siesta after all, so jetlag city is bound to be getting her at some point tonight.
Tonight we will be joined by none other than my tour brothers, Bonded By Blood, fucking A. We are all going to eat at a Mexican restaurant on Melrose, I could take or leave Mexican food but this aint my show so tough shit. Erik takes Nick, Talita and myself off up Melrose in his Ford pick up truck and we do some window shopping, have a rake around some vintage shops trying random crap on but not really finding anything to purchase as souvenirs of my L.A adventure. Really we just spend an hour trying on the most hideous things we could find. Fun but a fail none the less. The stuff that I would have bought, like a slutty fur coat that would make me look like a Russian hooker were too expensive. Bugger.
Impulse buy I guess, though it was no shocker, I kind of knew this was coming, Talita too, I ended up getting me a little tattoo to commemorate my first and hopefully not only time in Los Angeles. Only half an hour’s worth cause we were low on time and money but a little tattoo on my right foot none the less. Of an eyeball with wings.
The tattooist I chose because it had a barbershop in it run by Richie the barber who had tatt’s on his face and a gelled gentleman’s moustache. He was dressed in Sweeny Todd type get up and was so fucking cool it hurt my eyes. There he was working away with a shiny blade, he loved my idea and I was sorely disappointed that he wouldn’t be the one doing it. My tattooist Looked like he had maybe had a tough night on K or his girlfriend had just walked out on him and had taken the cat with. Or maybe he was just stoned? Whatever, he did a good if quiet job and bish bosh bashed that bad boy out. I sat reasonably well although my fucking foot did start jumping 15 minutes in. Loser foot. I held it well though I think.
Cling filmed up, Chad had arrived mid tattoo and we all trundle off up Melrose to the Mexican place, and who should I spot across the street but a bunch of Mexicans. Bonded By Blood people!
I haven’t seen these guys since I toured with them and I’m well syked to see them, everyone’s hugging and shit and off we go on mass after introductions between the two bands. The restaurant gives us our own private room with a long table. It’s a very grand room with walls covered in pics of the govenor with different characters and the furniture is all this heavy wood. Mood lighting sets off the feeling that we might be sacrificing some one in here tonight, I think I watch too many movies.
We drink Margaritas and beer and shots of tequila. We eat too much and we take a ton of drunk photos. Then jetlag hits Talita. Bum. So she gets dropped at the hotel for a couple of hour’s sleep and the rest of us pile in to cars and drive to Chad’s place near Hollywood Blvd. Ahh sweet, a house party is always a must on the tick list of things to do in other people’s countries, to get a real sense of their culture right…….
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