A TRIP DOWN SUNSET STRIP...
LOS ANGELES
It was a toss-up between making a return trek to the Getty or seeing the County Museum for the first time. My indecision quickly disappeared when I heard about the Hockney Portrait
show at the latter. So Mom drove me up to LA, and we arrived in the center of the sprawling metropolis early, so we had time to make my pilgrimage to the La Brea Tar Pits. After casually strolling around the premises for about an hour, we walked next door to the County Museum. The Hockney show show was amazing - forty years plus of his portraits were on display - from lush, saturated small portraits in line with what I started in on in my own studio
days before to accomplished watercolor portraits and larger works from the past forty years, the show endlessly pleased Mom and left me in awe of the little painter that could.
After spending some extra time snaking through the large galleries, and hooking through the feng-shui inspired Japanese section that didn't contain one right angle, both of us for hungry for more than art. I asked Mom some simple questions - Was she up for an adventure? Did she like waffles? Did she like fried chicken? With affirmative answers all around, we headed up Rodeo Drive to meet up with Sunset Blvd. in search of Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles.
I had recently heard the tales from DMac in his recent visit to LA and thought it'd be a worthy adventure.
As we headed east through Beverly Hills, West LA, and West Hollywood, I soaked up the neighborhoods, geography and layout of LA, while our appetites started getting bigger and bigger. We somehow drove past the Sunset Strip location, and continued on, past L. Ron Hubbard Way, where we stopped off, took some pictures and watched Scientologists enter the huge headquarters of Dianetics.
Undaunted by being somewhat lost and thrilled to be soaking up the LA neighborhoods, I pressed on to keep driving up Sunset Blvd., in hopes of reenacting River Phoenix's death outside the Viper Room. Unfortunately, by the time we passed through Echo Park and Silverlake, there was a large street festival happening that made us detour through some quaint neighborhoods that reminded me of East Austin.
We finally got a location for Roscoe's mere blocks from the County Museum, and headed back east, this time starting from the Gehry designed Disney theater in the middle of downtown. Smaller than I expected, but gloriously constructed, the molded and smashed metal building was a tremendous sight, especially for our weary and hungry souls. A quick detour through Korea town was all that separated us from our fried chicken and waffle goodness.
After a short wait for a parking space, we were seated and the two whitest people to ever step foot in a Roscoe's ordered, but not without Mom asking the waitress what the house specialties were. The busboy, after putting down our drinks, laughed and recited off about nine numbers off the menu, and my mom got the point, when at Roscoe's order the chicken and waffles. Both of us can vouch - its some of the best fried chicken you ever can taste anywhere.
So despite spending just a day in LA, I got a feel for the city, its neighborhoods, and more importantly, its layout. Although its still a gigantic city, one that's seemingly wildly dangerous and ultimately benign, its no longer foreign, and seems like a fertile stomping ground for some serious exploring next time I'm in the California Republic. |
Beverly Hills: The beginning of my trip down Sunset Blvd.
Beverly Hills person.
Roscoe's fried chicken and waffles
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