Spring Break or How To Make It On The West Coast Day 2 (West Coast Trip Recap)

Sorry folks, I know I said this was coming out yesterday, but one thing led to another…. I picked up a new hard drive, paid off one of my creditors (thank goodness!), and even made a rare appearance at the grocery store, picking up my favorite hot salsa in the world, Xochitl.

But back to why you’re here. Day 2 started off extremely early in the morning as Kevin and i were making our 2 trip to Cleveland Hopkins International Airport. THIS time, it goes off without a hitch, and we’re LA bound!  We get into LAX and I already feel more mellow, warmer, and smile uncontrollably. We head to the shuttle that’s going to take us to Thrifty car rental. It took us less time to take the shuttle to Thrifty in Los Angeles than it would in Cleveland… I’m appalled. Now rental car people are very shifty for the record, and this was further reinforced when the total became some outrageous number that wasn’t even CLOSE to the number that I was quoted when i booked it. Then I take a closer look at the bill and there are several “opt in” charges that the girl just threw in there… Asshole. The rental car corral was super packed, and we prob sat in line waiting to get out of there for about 20 minutes. I was ready to get this trip started NOW! The XM radio we had though would prove to be a serious ally later on in the trip.

We start driving around looking for something to eat and there are so many non-chain places to eat, stacked up on each other, that it’s really hard to decide. First it’s chain or non-chain, then it’s mexican vs asian vs burgers vs pasta vs the world, but Kevin had been making mention of In-N-Out burger for a bit, so I figured i’d use my trusty Google Maps app on my blackberry to navigate us to safety. Considering I don’t have a license and all, my job was pretty much to navigate and change the radio station if need be. Oh, and switch our phones on the car charger, lol. Here’s the video as we drive through Inglewood, CA and give Kevin his first experience of California (he even went “Animal Style” on his first time…. veteran move!).

Tell me you don't remember this

Well fed and ready to get a move on, I suggest that we roll to Marina Del Rey to hang w/ my man Cory… Cory is a co-founder of a clothing line called, Endemic. They are makin waves on the west coast, so be on the lookout for their stuff. The place dude lives in is simply incredible… We get to check out the Cavs game (great since we’re all from Cleveland), and I take a look around HQ to give you a sneak peek at what’s goin on in their minds (just a small sneak peek). The place was obviously built in the late 60’s, early 70’s w/ the shag carpet and mirrors galore, but that kinda gave it some character. Feel like you can get your Hugh Hefner on.

Marina view

Inland view

Our impromptu visit over, Kevin said his buddy Jacob and his girl were riding bikes down to the famed Venice Beach, so we were all about seein the freaks, nerds and wierdos that it had to offer. We head off, but being spring break and a very nice day (on the weekend), parking was a bitch and a half. But we finally reached our destination.

Venice was pretty interesting right off the bat (Check out me looking for Mitch Buchanan here).  Here’s a little survey of the Venice Beach recreation center?!? It was all outdoors which was pretty cool…. There’s handball courts, a pretty sizable free weight facility (muscle beach), as well as ample gymnastics equipment, and of course the courts where ‘White Men Can’t Jump’ was filmed. Take it all in.

There was this community wall that had so much dope graffiti on it… I didn’t get it all, but here’s a sweet piece.

Some other notables was the Venice Beach skate park, as well as this group of people that were dancing…. on ROLLER SKATES! Now, I have been known to strap on a pair of skates from time to time as a kid, but I couldn’t even imagine doing some of the things these guys were up to. They should have been in that ‘Roll Bounce’ movie, lol.

Unreal right? The backflip and all! We hear this beat coming from the area between the boardwalk and the beach and we come across…. the infamous Venice Beach drum circle! Now, I’m assuming that you have to be on drugs to get dressed up crazy, and beat on a drum for hours at a time, not saying a word… but that’s just my opinion. After watching these videos, you make up your own opinions…. Venice Beach drum circle pt. 1 and pt 2. Thoughts?

You see that right... They are telling you that you have to go INSIDE to see the freaks... I can only imagine

The sun set on a beautiful day in Venice, and what better way to top it off than pitchers of beer with your friends? The day was ending, but the night was just about to heat up.

My dude, DJ Spider told me to come through to Club Lingerie for the new Dip Dive Sunday party which is pretty much a replacement of Banana Split Sundae’s, after DJ AM passed and LAX closed down.  The lineup would feature Spider, Steve Aoki, and Apl. D. Ap from the Black Eyed Peas… Spider told me it was Will.i.am’s birthday, so boy did I feel like an idiot when I ran into Will and said “happy birthday man!” He was nice, but i’m sure he’s like wtf son!?!  Also on the horizon was meeting up with my friend, Kat. She’s a ball of energy, lemme tell you and she’s also from Cleveland, settling in West Hollywood.

We bid adieu to Kevin’s friends and head to WeHo to meet up w/ Kat, shower the day off and get ready to party at Lingerie. Now we all know how expensive it is to drink in LA, but lucky for us, Kat had a liquor store right across the street. A bottle of Smirnoff and a bag of Flamin Hot Limon Cheetos, and I was pretty much the happiest kid on the planet. Here’s Kat and her place, for your viewing enjoyment.

We have a few adult beverages and head off to Club Lingerie… It’s right around the corner, so Kevin and I drive, but Kat and her friend (can’t remember his name, we’ll call him Jose) decide to ride their bikes (Kat is extremely environmentally friendly). We show up, get right in and the place is kinda like a big warehouse w/ some vip sections, projector, and bar… It’s pretty nondescript, like a lot of spots in LA… Just bare concrete floors in a big space. I kinda like that though. Low maintenance is key at times. When we get there, DJ Spider is manning the tables, playin a great set of some dance remixes, electro, hip hop, mash ups, etc and he even threw in a speech from Rocky V, gotta love that… If you guys don’t know, this guy is one of the sickest dudes in the country… This is a super early set for him, so you don’t get to see him in his full glory, but here’s the first part:

and here’s part 2, where DJ Spider jumps out and Steve Aoki jumps in:

Aoki starts off pretty mellow, but then gets a little more hype for the electronica that Apl.D.Ap was gonna unleash on the crowd… The time here is about 12am.

Then Aoki gets even more uptempo:

I have video of Apl, but youtube wasn’t really cooperating with me, so I’ll have to try again at some other time, but party ended great… I even got to see this little guy, lol.

Niiiicccceeee!!

So we had had our fill of partying, now it’s almost 3am and it’s time to get our grub on, so we head to Swinger’s on Beverly… If i’m not mistaken, this is where they filmed the movie ‘Swingers,’ I have never seen it (don’t hate me), but now I kinda wanna check it out. Btw, if you can’t tell in this upcoming video, i’m totally shitfaced.

I get this fabulous jerk chicken omlette w/ homefries:

Mmmm

and I notice that not only did Kevin not eat, but he’s in the booth asleep! Pic is below, but the video I took of it is here.

So there I am with Kat and Jose, laughing at Kevin for being asleep (mind you, we just got to LA that day and had been up since 7am EST off of one and half hours of sleep, and it’s like 4:30am PST), and then BOOM! I get full and fall into a food coma. Then it’s Kat’s turn to point the camera at BOTH of us!

Kat wakes us up, we pay for the bill, and head back to spend the night at Kat’s place where she informs us that she just got a plane ticket to Austin and will be attending South By Southwest (SXSW), and will be leaving immediately (she’s a spontaneous kinda girl)! So she gave us her garage door opener, house keys, and wished us well on our stay in LA…. She was off for the plains of Texas… So day two found Kevin and I asleep in the same queen sized bed, dreaming of how our trip could get any better than it had started… We had no idea……

Spring Break or How To Make It On The West Coast Day 1 (West Coast Trip Recap)

So I decided that I was going to take a trip to the west coast.  I have a bunch of friends out there and I’m looking to move to Los Angeles ASAP. In the midst of my travel planning, I sent a shout out sayin that if anybody wanted to go, they were more than welcome to roll. It would be a great time and they would meet people and do things that they didn’t think possible!  Lol, j/k on that last part…. but pretty close!.  Kevin says that he’s up for the challenge. I’ve known Kevin since our days of working together at Verizon Wireless… He’s still there, but I had to dip out because as a salesperson, VZW was turning the screws in a direction that I felt I couldn’t turn. Oh well, the rest is history.

So checking the itinerary, I figure instead of just staying in LA, why don’t we go mobile and check out that the best coast really has to offer.  So I call my buddy Rick and ask if he minds if we come out there to see him in San Diego. He obliged. I call my dudes that play for the Cleveland Indians and ask if they could put us up for a night if we came to Goodyear, AZ to see them play…. they obliged (sorta, but that story is coming later).  In the midst of planning, I also find out that my dude Scott is gonna be in Vegas, as well as Aaron Goldhammer from ESPN 850, AND my dude John is out there w/ a cpl of his boys from Beantown.  I figure btw all those cats, there’s gotta be a rollaway with me and Kevin’s name on it.  So if you haven’t figured it out by now, in an effort to see the best coast on a dime, and use that money towards more frivolous things, I’m trying to work out our 7 day trip so that we don’t have to stay in a hotel.

Finally, after plotting a course, like any good navigator would do, I come up w/ the master itinerary.  We are leaving on a flight on Sat headed for Los Angeles.  We’ll stay in LA until Wed morning. Drive to San Diego for St Patty’s day and spend the night. Head to Goodyear early Thursday to see the Tribe play the Cincinnati Reds and spend the night. Head to Vegas on Friday morning, spend the night. Drive back to LA on Saturday in time to catch the red eye home. Sounds like a lot to do right? Well as we would find out, it was almost too much to handle…..

Friday night before the trip rolls around…. and I decide to take it easy that night. There would be plenty of times in the upcoming week for all nighters, so I figured I’d take er easy, and be rested up for the damage I was about to be doing to my body/mind. I tell Kevin to be at my place by 7:45am so we can catch our flight that leaves at 9. Saturday morning comes… I’m up at 7am cause I can never sleep well the night before I’m going on vacation (sometimes I’m like a little kid, I know). Then the waiting game starts… I send Kevin a txt around 7:30, then wait….. then I call a few times, txt him again, then wait…. Now if u have a blackberry and use bbm, you’ll know that when you send a message, there’s a little, “D” inside the check mark when the message is delivered. It changes to an, “R” once the message has actually been looked at…. I was starin at all D’s   Once 8am hit, I started to have bad feelings, and these feelings were confirmed once Kevin showed up at my place at 8:15, lugging two suitcases and a huge messenger bag. This trip got off to a really bad start.
All loaded up in the car, Caroline is nice enough to drive us to the airport, and I think the girl should sign up for NASCAR training. She’s flying down the highway, and by the time we get to the airport, it’s like 8:35 and we’re leaving at 9:05. Kevin checks his bag, we head to the counter and they confirm the bad feelings that had started at 7:45… We weren’t gonna make this flight. In a very calm manner, I inform the counter rep that my mom works for United, so i’ve missed a flight or two in my travels and understand that there’s nothing we can do. Recognizing my ability to NOT fly off the handle, she informs us that she has rebooked us on the flight leaving the next day at 9:05. Not only that, but she did it for free ($150 a piece saved). We thanked her and proceeded to head back home and regroup. So things got worse for a second, but that kind gesture started a wave of goodwill towards Kevin and I for the rest of the trip.

But this totally worked out, i got to hang out for Caroline’s bday celebration, and Kevin agreed that he was gonna stay at my house that night to make sure that we didn’t have any more problems w/ getting up, lol.  The night started off pretty benign… The pregame was at a friend’s place in Perry Payne, everyone was drinking, having fun, makin new friends…. Wait, I’ll show ya.

I’m really having a hard time remembering the rest of the night, but I do remember that it ended with everyone crashing at my place and I didn’t hit the bed until almost 6am, having to get up in less than 2 hrs. Kevin said it seemed like only two seconds had passed because I went in my room, he passed out on the couch and came right back out to tell him to get up, haha!  So ends day 1 of our “vacation.” Stay tuned for day 2 coming up shortly…