USC frat boy hell -OR- My trip to California

"Let me serenade the streets of L.A.
From Oakland to Sacktown, the Bay Area and back down
Cali is where they put they mack down, give me love..."
-Tupac Shakur ''California Love"

My experiences with international departure lounges at airports are pretty miserable. You're either sad about seeing somebody leave or sad to see somebody stay, and either way you're surrounded by kids screaming because they don't know when they're going to see their mum/dad/uncle/baggage clerk again. the only thing worse is a 14 hour flight to LA from Melbourne when you realise that you've left all your good music at home. With your sleeping tablets. These things make for a painful flight.. but we got to LA eventually.

I didn't see anybody put their 'mack down' in California as Tupac had once observed, but one of the locals we met told me did tell me how his car broke down in the precinct of Compton in the previous week, causing him to leave it there and get a bus ride home an hour away. When he came back for it several days later, it was 200 metres further down the street - stripped, windows broken and blood on the seats... he left it there and got the bus home again, as you do.

California is a place that is governed by SUVs (Special Utility Vans) as much as it is by a slow drawling Austrian. If you can imagine everybody driving around in black vans that look like the truck they used in "The A-Team" TV show then you're halfway here. If you're still wondering, see them at www.hummer.com. Hummer make not only military vehicles for the US Army, but are a popular domestic SUV manufacturer and have just launched the new highly sought after SUT. It's a tank, minus a gun turret. Everytime one of them pulled up next to us at the lights, I half expected Mr T to wind down the tinted window (chewing a cigar) and say 'I pity the fool!' Spooky? You bet.

After a few days in the city. Amanda, Donna and I hooked up with Heather, a very gracious local Los Angeles girl with whom Amanda had travelled through Europe with. After staying in the concrete jungle of West Hollywood, it was a interesting change to drive an hour out of town into the manicured suburban lawns, housewives and lifestyles of suburban northern LA (Laguna Niguel), where Heather was living. This gave us a chance to do some surfing at San Clemente (pronounced San Clemenny by its constituents) - one of the kindest surf beaches i've ever been to. Sitting up on my board, I called over to Heather to ask why there were so few people out in the water. She pointed behind me to a massive powerplant based on the beach and said "Most people are like, kinda freaked out by that thing."

I haven't started glowing in the dark yet, but give me time.

The beach at San Clemente also afforded me the rare pleasure of realising a lifelong dream. As a largish wave got the better of one of the surfers and tumbled him in the white wash, I shouted out "Hey! Go back to the valley, man!" - re-enacting flawlessy a scene from the the classic LA surf film "Point Break." Understandably, he gave me the finger and told me what i could do to myself.

Heather also took us to the island of Catalina, a fantastic and surprisingly clean place just off the coast of LA. We were introduced to her old University of Southern California (USC) college fraternity group - a group of guys who were on a dedicated mission to drink the island dry of cocktails. Unable to match the liver punishing frenzy that followed, I largely watched as these guys ran from bar to bar in Hawaiian shirts and leys drinking fishbowl sized cocktails and performing devastatingly bad karaoke. We did manage to escape and see the rare orange fish that only live in the waters of Catalina and swim in the pristine beaches there.

LA was a lot of fun. Pretty seedy in the city, but i now know why the Beach Boys gave it props.

Coming soon:
- Republican convention in NYC and 10,000 cops eating donuts
- The ghost of Joey Ramone steals my camera

California: Bogus or Totally Awesome? I make the call...

Totally Awesome #1

Surfing is like, a way of life here dude. This girl must only have been 9 years old and she carved up a tube like a pro. What's more, her mum was out there with her. As i have always maintained, a family that surfs together, stays together..

Totally Awesome #2

This was a bona fide surfer graveyard just off the beach from San Clemente. Crosses were supported with surfboard tombstones and little notes and flowers. I didn't get close enough to see the inscriptions but i imagine they read like "Johnny K: Now surfing the big tube in the sky. Bad wipeout dude, the sea was angry that day - RIP."

Totally Awesome #3

Girls in LA have heaps of tattoos. Only one has the sleeve art from Duran Duran's Rio album on her shoulder. I asked her to marry me, but she said no.

Bogus, dude #1

The only time my high school was cordoned off with police tape was due to a student prank. I got the feeling that Fairfax High School in West Hollywood had less funny stuff going on..

Bogus dude #2

Attention window dressers everywhere: If you want to give your Summer ensembles that extra eye-catching flair, stick a Colt .45 down the front of the pants. It gives the model that 'thug chic' look..

Totally bogus #3

If you look closely you can see the lyrics to 'Total Eclipse of the Heart" by Bonnie Tyler in the background. Enough said.

Goodbye for now, or as Keanu Reeves said in Point Break.. "Vaya con Dios, Brah"

-sammyd