Sunday 28 October 2012

Dad and Dave's US adventure, part 1

It's Sunday night, 7:24, I'm sipping on a Bookers bourbon over ice with my feet up, the past two weeks have been amazing.

The idea for a trip to the states came about a few months ago, in fact it was before June because Dad and I had already booked our trip to Bali, and there we were planning our next trip. Not sure why, I think he said "I want to see the Grand Canyon". Funnily enough it turned out to be a bit of a let down for him, but more of that later, fussy prick.

We took off at midday on Saturday the 13th of October, and landed in LA at 8:30am on Saturday the 13th of October. That enough was enough to fuck with dads mind.
We found the courtesy bus to get to the car rental company, we got all the sorted, I had booked a Mustang Convertible, I wanted to be a clichéd as possible you see. I was told 'second row to the right, keys are in it.'
So I take a right down the second aisle and look for my Mustang.. hmm.. I don't see any.. I see 3 Chrysler 200 convertibles.. then I realise, I'm not getting my clichéd Mustang. Meh, no big deal, I'm on holidays.

Let me tell you something for free, the Chrysler 200 convertible is a piece of shit. Underpowered with no room in it. It's rubbish. Don't ever hire one.

I call my mate Aaron, he lives in Portland, Oregon, a place that we'll end up in soon, and who's agreed to come on the trip with my dad and I. This is not our first adventure together, we met in Bali in 1998 and have stayed mates since, we've met up in Bali, Thailand, the US and here before. So he'll feature in this story quite a bit.
He'd flown down the day before, and was staying a cheap joint on Hollywood, from there we'd head out to Studio City for a couple of nights, that's out near Universal Studios, north of the airport.
We check into our hotel, it's a retro joint called Sportsmans Lodge. Very basic, but full of old world charm and a bit of history going by the pics adorning the walls. We dump our gear and get down to the pool for a few drinks. Dad and I have been up for for around 22 hours at this stage, and with adrenalin flowing, we're doing just fine.

We move to a table in the shade as the sun was bearing down with some vitriol and I didn't want the old man to cook up to the point of ruining his first day. It was at that point Aaron motions to another table in the shade and says, 'isn't that the guy from Breaking Bad?.. what's his name?' I turn to see a familiar face, but the name escapes me, we both reel off movies and TV shows he's been in, "Wasn't he the landlord in Ace Ventura Pet Detective?" I say.

We google those shows and find Mark Margolis. He plays Hector in Breaking Bad for those that watch it.

Dunno what he was doing there, but it was kinda cool that no one blinked an eye at the fact that he was there, doing whatever he was doing by the pool. Did he live at the hotel? Was he waiting for someone? We never did figure it out. Although I did speak to him briefly as I passed him in the hall, He noted my accent and asked if I was Australian, "I've just been working with an Australian, do you know Russell Crowe?". I said I did know of Russell, although I've never met him personally. "We've been doing a movie, he's not actually Australian, he was born in New Zealand", yes I'm aware of that "He's a really nice guy, some people say he's a bit abrupt, but ya know he just doesn't suffer fools gladly that's all"

Someone else introduces themselves to him, a real gusher fan, so I excuse myself and head back to the table where dad and Aaron are. We move on to bourbons, a bottle of Bullet that Aaron had brought along, not sure if we were supposed to be pouring our own by the pool, but we did. We anarchists can not be told what to do in the city of the angels. We're rock stars. Isn't every one in LA?


to be continued..

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