Stopping by the store I picked out a bottle of Aus red to give to my dinner host that evening. As I scanned the aisles a song was being played. It was live there in the supermarket bursting with produce and youth. Produce me a song young man worthy of such a captive audience as this. Tins of tomatoes, bags of spices and herbs and now all I can hear blocks my vision. The boy is all of 16 with his bravado and swagger. Maybe he was hoping for a talent agent to spot him, girls and boys to swoon, maybe he was playing for the sheer love of it. Whatever it was it needed some fine tuning. Tuna, salmon, artichokes, ah that's it, more tins of stuff and that young boy. Where am I again? Yes, yes, on the corner of Hollywood and Vermont possibly. The hire car just drove this way and here I am with my soft accent that makes people here ask me to repeat myself.
With the wine and loot (just your regular candy bars and the like) I head out and down to Sunset where I take a right on the red (all legal here people) and from the corner of my eye I spot a looker. A looker in this case is some one that looks at you for long periods of time. Others may like to refer to them as a stare bears considering that a looker in Australia is someone that looks alright and the use of the word 'alright' in this context means that they're BLOODY ALRIGHT. Wink wink nudge nudge…Ah, a looker, I can feel them burning holes in my temple from their car that is pulling up beside mine and so I look over and see two men grinning at me. Beckoning with his arm, the main looker asks me to wind my window down. At this point I'm thinking I'm either getting in trouble or invited out. Curiously I raise my eyebrows in a "what's this all about buddy" type of way and something in his look makes me anxious. Tentatively I reach across and wind the window down slightly. He wants to tell me something. In his Californian accent he cooly exclaims, "Hey lady, your trunk is up!" I respond by jerking my head right around to see if this is true or a scam and to my horror I see nothing but grey trunk through my back window. What a fuck wit! Here I am drivin' down Sunset with my car boot up and oh baby was it up! Hello LA, yes I am from out of town, yes I am driving a hire car, yes I am a loser, please rob me, savage my body and leave my lifeless remains under the Hollywood sign to make it really memorable. Following on from receiving the news flash that my trunk was up, I went into what can only be described as a laughing/snorting attack that bellowed from me uncontrollably as I stammered a "thanks for letting me know." Blushing ferociously, I got out of the car and raced to the back, closed the boot then back to the confines of my national lampoon vacation drivers seat.
Outside the night air was warm, I picked up my travel companion Maryanne from our hotel and headed to a BBQ at our mate Abby's house. Abby BBQed up a storm, we ate outdoors and it was the perfect way to spend the evening. Maryanne and I met some lovely folks, multiple bottles of wine were consumed and Maryanne and I got our dog fix thanks to Sadie. With the wind in our sails (or so it seemed at the time, the terminology reflecting the nostalgic mood and my drunken state) we set off for home with Maryanne at the wheel, trunk down.
At the Vibe Hotel
Thump thump thump, time to get up. Bloody hell, one of the backpacking bunch at The Vibe (our hotel on Hollywood Blvd for our 3 weeks in LA) were up playing basketball outside my window. The day beckoned as did another day of Musexpo. It went along as expected; panels of industry 'dudes' (getting with the lingo, like, it has to be done) talking about management, where to find managers as an indie artist? Apparently a good artist manager doesn't just act as a secretary and pass stuff on and co-ordinate info on that comes to them, they instead "think outside the box" and come up with brilliant, ground breaking ideas tailored to their artist and they work on it 24/7. Show me the money was the part they left out.
Things take a terrible turn.
What was to come in the days that followed rocked my travel companion Maryanne and I to the very core. Her blue roan cocker spaniel had gone missing back in Australia and had been gone now for 2 whole nights! Speed Racer, Indiana Jones, Trixie…the billboards were all around LA when we received the news. Ironically, Maryanne's spaniel's name is Trixie and seeing these billboards was enough to almost shatter the heart into irretrievable pieces. The Musexpo rattled on but the spark and fun had been shaved away in our collective minds and guts so that now we were listening to people talk but we were listening with one ear to the ground, all the while listening for the little patter of paws that might start thudding gently towards home but we were so far away and so was Trixie, so far from home we all were. GO HOME TRIXIE! PLEASE GO HOME! "So, lets look at publishing opportunities in today's market", the expo continued on in the background but the foreground was filled in with images of Trixie snared in a trap, bitten by a snake, rolling down a mountain the size of Everest in the freezing cold and lost to the world in the dark of every night that passed. We couldn't assist in the search along the coast line and fields, we couldn't call out and have her hear us, we were in other words, praying for Trixie to GO HOME, GO HOME TRIXIE, GO HOME!
Will Trixie return home? Will Monique become comfortable using the word "like" inappropriately in her sentences? Will the girls hook up with their Aussie muso mates outside the House of Blues? Will they be chauffeured around San Francisco by their lovely new friend Dan? And will they visit the OC with their rocket scientist mate Risty? All will be revealed……..and more!
Stay tuned for part 3 of LA Adventures…