Janey Godley's Blog

My trip to LA wasn’t all glamour and gloss as I took a trip to Venice Beach down on the coast. If you took the gritty maverick side of London’s Soho, a smidgeon of Amsterdam’s coffee houses and soupcon of Camden Market, whisked them altogether with some high jinkery, medicinal marijuana and full on sunshine, then Venice Beach is what would emerge from that hotpot and I loved it. There is a sub-culture in Venice Beach. It’s a bit like a layer cake, the top is all decorative, expensively hand finished, funky and eye catching and at the very bottom of that sweet alcohol soaked sponge, are the homeless, the mentally affected and the Californian beach burn outs. There are ‘grab’ tables which are usually full of hand made trinkets and various knick-knacks for sale. After a while the tables all kind of blend into one, but the sellers are full of character and worth having a natter with. Surrounding the grab tables you will see various local ‘dudes’ some famous, some trying to get famous and some plain crazy. There is a lovely black bloke on roller blades with a big white scarf around his head, there is the oily muscle guy who wears the teeniest stars and stripes g-string and entertains by rolling a metal ball all over his tanned muscles and there is the Chief who looks like an Indian chief and has the brownest, crinkliest skin texture that advertises why sunscreen is absolutely imperative. On spotting him I sprayed factor 50 on my face again. He is amazingly lovely though and can dance like the wind. The Chief is usually in the middle of the big drum circle and their beating serves as a constant thudding backdrop to the ocean vista. People come from miles carrying drums, trash cans, plastic bins and anything that can be banged to make a noise and they play for hours. Apparently the police tried to disperse the drum circle but the Chief won that fight and the locals were split in their opinion about it. I stood at the circle as the sun was slowly dipping, the noise is amazing and you cannot help but dance, it really does entrance you. There are hordes of people playing, all classes, all colours, all ages, just beating and banging away, it is worth seeing if you ever go there. The Police and local homeowners are desperate to dispose of the pill popping, hashish smoking, beer drinking bongo dancers, but it is those very people who make Venice so bohemian and hedonistic. Without them, it’s just a bunch of rich queens, spoiled dogs and a few long haired rich folk who recalled The Eagles before they were famous. Venice thrives on it’s patchwork of cultures. I made friends with Talon and Puck, two homeless beach dudes. Puck honed wooden varnished walking sticks from driftwood and Talon made toy cars and the sold them on the concrete beach front. Talon is the typical tanned long haired, broad smiling beach boy; he had been in Venice for 15 years now. He is so congenial, chatty and very welcoming, but around 6pm as the sun sets and the beer and dope kick in, he gets rather agitated, screaming and basically abusive to the polystyrene head that displays hair wraps at the next table to his. That white blank face gets some verbal shit, but it sits stoically on a spike with coloured plaits streaming over its eye-less face as Talon points and screams about its lack of understanding of his issues. Apparently that body-less head just won’t let Talon drink more Joose. Puck was 42 years old, sober and had been homeless since Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, so he made his way to Venice. He smokes some grass but avoids booze. As we chatted on the grass a big topless bloated man in his early 30s, with blood splattered trousers and bare feet came towards us. He was glazed looking and had a haunted face that slightly scared me. He asked for a ciggie then ran off. “He is Vinny, he picks his hands till they bleed, and he wanders around begging in his bare feet, he will get bullied by the other guys because he has too many mental problems and can’t negotiate or make friends. He is one of the invisible people Janey, if that bloodied half naked man was in Downtown LA, an ambulance would be called, people would scream at the sight of him, but down here he is just psychiatric wallpaper, it’s horrifying and I worry that I might end up like him. The Christians will get him later, they will wash him up, give him shoes, try to force God on him and then kick him back out onto the beach and that will happen till he dies here” Puck explained. There was a whole parade of drugged, drunk and deranged came past me that day. Two lessons were quickly learned by this naïve Glasgow lass. One- You can buy any drug from a man dressed as the Matrix on a bike but don’t ever smoke a cigarette on the grass at the boardwalk, as that can get you a $170 fine from a cop. Two- Learn quickly that when someone shouts the words FIVE-O, you can guess that’s the police coming. FIVE-O was shouted about three times and all the sunburnt guys sidled onto the pavement giving me sympathetic looks as an LA cop caught me and screamed at me for smoking on the grass. “Look mate, people are smoking crack over there, men are buying dope, two people are practically having full on sex, a transvestite is hustling a woman in a wheelchair, but if I smoke a ciggie on the grass suddenly I am offensive?” He let me off after I apologised. The amazing thing about the homeless people is their dedication to keeping their environment clean. They throw every single piece of litter into the bins, they recycle cans and plastic and left over unwanted food doesn’t reach the litter bins, if the homeless spot you throwing food away they ask for it immediately. They scour the grass picking up things aimlessly and constantly chuck stuff in the trash cans. They shout at tourists who drop stuff, it amazed me, but then again, if the open ground is your home, then you treat it well. The local shopkeepers sell a beer called Joose, which is neatly disguised in a big colourful can and looks like a fizzy drink, but it contains 10% alcohol and is only $3 a can, which keeps the boozers well oiled. The sun beat down on Venice but as it set a cloak of menace descended on the place and it did get rather seedy. Puck made me leave at 6pm making me promise never to return when it was dark. “It can get dangerous Janey, I am being serious, go now” he insisted. Venice beach was a real eye opener to me, the guys were so welcoming and I will truly miss Talon and Puck, my tour guides for the weekend.

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My trip to Los Angeles was amazing. I was staying up in Studio city which is in West Hollywood and pretty much separated from the main downtown area by a valley. Though I did love Studio City it was a bit suburban for me and taxi cabs were about $70 a trip into the main city area, so public transport was high on my agenda.

 

The buses are awesome but regular Americans don't ride the buses, apparently only ‘Mexicans and mental folks' use the service according to one rather obnoxious person who advised me to avoid them. Strangely that comment made me want to go the buses even more, so I did.

The first step is finding the buses in your area; they are very well hidden so the Metro website is a must. BUT...the problem is...the website is very complicated to work out. Finally I located a bus stop near the house where I was living. There is no real info on the bus shelter, so you do have to stop every bus and ask the driver for help with your trip, which annoys people and I did get in the way of the Mexicans and mental folk who pushed me about a bit. But, I was determined so I finally boarded a bus with the intention of going to Santa Monica beach. It would take about 2 hours, as there are no dedicated bus lanes in Down Town La, so you get stuck in the traffic all the time.

The next obstacle is that most of the bus info is written in Spanish on the buses, how racist is that? Even the TV that plays on the bus is mostly in Spanish and it made me realise there is a real class divide to contend with. You see in London LOADS of people of ALL classes ride the public transport, in LA that really doesn't happen.

Then there were the poor mentally affected who seem to LIVE on the buses full time and the sheer numbers of them startled me, it was atrocious that these poor folk just wander the streets with gigantic balls of rags, bags of cans wrapped about their bodies, usually accompanied with voices and various facial ticks. I have never seen so many of these damaged people in my entire life. EVERY single bus had at least five shouters, screamers or body pickers.

The scary thing is, you can't help but watch them. One wee Oriental woman dressed in three sweaters and no shoes had a particularly awful affliction she seemed compelled to bend down and touch a spot on the bus floor in a certain pattern. The bus kept shunting her about and she had to start all over again, people were getting pissed off at her as she pushed them out of the way till she reached her ‘special touching spot' beneath their feet.

On that same bus one big black man who smelled like a bad kebab screamed and pulled the wire to stop the bus every five seconds, this in turn drove ‘touch the floor woman' to distraction and they had a wee scream at each other.

Just when they got off a young blonde female in her early 20s with a scruffy young guy climbed on board. She was wearing a cropped top and kept pulling it up and sticking her tongue out and dancing provocatively.

The girl was so beautiful but looked damaged and was overtly outgoing to people. We all ignored her, but she got more outrageous and started to talk to strangers, the young guy with her giggled but looked embarrassed.

A big homeless grizzly bearded bloke climbed on board and the girl made a beeline for him. She wiggled her bare tummy at him, he in turn screamed at her.

"That's one Pandora's box she shouldn't even begin to open" I whispered to a Mexican woman beside me. The woman nodded at me and we both looked at the girl with concern.

Just then the blonde girl made eye contact with me, sniggered and said "Do you know any titty bars in Santa Monica?" She looked at me challenging an answer.

"Do I look like the kind of woman who frequents titty bars, or runs titty bars or knows anything about them?" I laughed.

She didn't expect me to take up the challenge, but smiled back at me. She was staring at me cautiously and I could see she was trying to work out the accent and the vibe.

She then explained to me that she was 19 years old and she was living on the beaches on LA and was homeless but did ‘anything' to make cash for her and Todd her boyfriend. He smiled and nodded as he stroked her back. I told her I was Scottish and visiting LA.

"Are you married?" she shouted over the bus engine noise.

"Yes" I replied, rather perplexed at the change in conversation and the level of intimacy she was aiming for in this short exchange.

"Are you happy?" she asked.

"Yes I am, why?" I asked.

"Well, I was going to say you could give up Scotland and come live with us on the beach, we can steal you a bicycle and we could live in LA till the winter came along and then we could move South, what do you say?" she shouted. Todd thought this was a great idea and nodded furiously as he picked scabs on his hand.

I obviously took too long to answer this as they both leapt up excitedly and hugged me. "Come with us" she screeched.

"It sounds fabulous but I would miss my daughter and husband" I smiled.

"Do you love your daughter?" she asked me.

"Yes, very much and I would be devastated if I didn't see her again" I answered.

"She is lucky, my mother hated me" she said.

She then lapsed into silence and stared out of the bus window, she didn't speak again for ages. When the bus reached Santa Monica harbour we all got off. They got their bikes off the front of the bus, hugged me, laughed loudly and pedalled off into the sunshine. I felt so sad for them and couldn't quite shake off the depressing feeling it left me with all day.

The beach was awesome; I got some food and a cold drink and sat by the ocean deep in my own head, just listening to the wave's crash on the sand. The heat was stunning, I had to completely lather myself in sunscreen as I burn in a minute.

The day past quickly, I loved the place and wandered about aimlessly watching the families, the homeless and the well heeled all enjoy the sunshine.

My beach day didn't end there; I have heaps to tell you all about Venice Beach and will do so in my next blog.

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