No York Pity - Part 3

The story of one New Yorker's first visit to Los Angeles. Part One here. Part Two here. And now the final chapter:

We actually set an alarm for Saturday morning, but we didn’t need it. One good thing about being on New York time in L.A. is that your body can sleep til noon, but you’re still awake by 9. It was Tourist Day, and I had quite a list. First stop: Enterprise.

They handed us the keys to our PT Cruiser – I looked longingly at the convertible, but we decided against the $150 upgrade. By 10:15 we were cruising down Sunset Boulevard toward Santa Monica.

We had coffee and breakfast on the Santa Monica promenade, and then headed to the Pier. We walked the length of Santa Monica Pier, and I took it all in. The homeless people, the pigeons, the strange men gutting fish...

“Santa Monica Pier – check!” I announced.

We hopped back in the car and headed for our next destination: The Getty Museum.

I put the address into Google maps, and handed my iPhone to TightLips.

“Just follow the purple line,” I explained. “The blinking blue dot is us. It has GPS.”

Soon, we were winding through narrow streets, going up steep hills with beautiful houses on either side.

“These houses are ridiculous,” I observed. “They must cost millions.”

I watched as the road narrowed, and the curves became sharper.

“This can’t be right,” I said.

“It is!” Tightlips replied, scrutinizing the iPhone.

Soon were had slowed to about 20 miles per hour, going around curves so sharp that mirrors had been nailed to the trees so that you could see if a vehicle was approaching from the other side. And we always seemed to be moving uphill.

“This CAN’T be right,” I insisted.

“We are exactly on the line!” he said adamantly.

Then we went up another steep incline, around one final U-shaped curve, and suddenly were facing a huge metal fence with a locked gate that went right across the road.

“What the??” I stopped the car.

I looked to the right, and saw nailed to a tree a black box that looked like a mailbox. On it was a large printed sign: DIRECTIONS TO GETTY MUSEUM. Your GPS is Wrong.

* * *

30 minutes later we were out of the hills, on highway 405, and then pulling into the parking lot of the Getty Center. We didn’t really know what to expect, and the surprises started with the tram that takes guests up the mountain side from the parking lot to the museum. We felt like we were entering Jurassic Park. The Center turned out to be a campus of buildings with stunning architecture, beautiful gardens and fountains, and extraordinary views, even on an overcast day. We saw some of the exhibits, including a great photography display by Irving Penn called The Worker, and then strolled though the stunningly landscaped gardens.

“Getty Museum – check!”

We got back to the hotel around four, and changed into our Saturday-Night-Out-In-L.A. Outfits. A client of mine was hosting an event at the Grammy Museum in downtown LA, and had invited us to attend. We left early, as we had a few stops to make on the way.

The first stop was In-N-Out burger. Tightlips was salivating as we pulled in to the parking lot. I looked over the menu, which only listed four items, and ordered a double cheeseburger and fries. The burger was pretty fantastic. The fries, however, were a little soggy – I didn’t really like them.

“Maybe you’d like them better Animal Style,” said TightLips, pointing to a woman near us whose fries were covered with chili, cheese and who knows what else.

“That’s not on the menu!” I said to him.

“You just have to know,” he replied.

“That’s fucking ridiculous,” I exclaimed. “It’s a fast-food chain, not the Skull and Bones Society.”

He shrugged. I handed him the rest of my fries, which he gladly started eating. I made the obligatory fat joke.

“Hey,” he replied, “You’re lucky I didn’t order a four-by-four.”

Again I looked at the menu, then back at him questioningly, as of course no such thing was listed.

“You just have to know.”

“Secret Society of the In-N-Out Burger – check!” I said sarcastically, and we were off to Hollywood Blvd.

We covered the Walk Of Fame, scratching the rest of our Must-Sees off the Tourist list: Grauman's Chinese Theatre, the Kodak Theater, the Hollywood sign. We decided to each pick our favorite Star and take a picture. TightLips immediately chose Paula Abdul, and after only 20 minutes of searching, we found her. Mine was more difficult.

“I don’t really have a favorite star,” I told him. “I’m not the celebrity type.”

“You’ll find one,” he replied. We walked both sides of the boulevard, just as I was getting annoyed with the tourists in front of the Kodak Theater, TightLips pointed at the ground.

“Look!”

I gasped. “Absolut Vodka has a Star?!”

Hollywood Walk Of Fame – check.

The event was at the new Grammy Museum in downtown L.A. Although I was still mostly loving the city, I got to experience one of L.A.’s infamous downsides: traffic. After driving an hour for a distance that should have taken 20 minutes, we finally arrived at the museum, which was located in the same complex as the Staples Center.

I thought the Grammy Museum was pretty cool. TightLips was like Charlie in the Chocolate Factory. He ran around, gasping, pointing, screeching.. and when he saw the display of Beyonce’s grammy dress I swear he orgasmed – I was worried he would try to shatter the display case so he could try it on.

The centerpiece of the event was a private performance by Lang Lang, an amazing pianist who, among hundreds of other noteworthy appearances, performed at the opening ceremonies of the Bejing Olympics, where he was watched by over 5 million people. We got to watch him in a room of about 150 people, and he was absolutely stunning.

Following the performance, there was a cocktail reception on the roof of the museum. The space was nice – well decorated with cocktail tables and of course a full rooftop bar. And once again I loved that we were at an outdoor event in the middle of November. But I was underwhelmed by the views. Looking at the few paltry high-rises of downtown LA, I found myself missing the magnificent skyline of New York City.

We left the event and headed back to West Hollywood for our final night out in L.A. We again found ourselves fighting traffic.

“God, it’s 10:30,” I said, “is there ALWAYS traffic here?”

“Pretty much.”

When we finally arrived, we dealt with the next drama: parking. I was definitely missing the ease of public transit in Manhattan.

The club, however, for the second night in a row outshone NYC. We went to Cherry Pop at Ultra Suede, which was a great space with modern-looking décor and bars, as well as a pretty large dance floor. Around the dance floor were three raised stages, which featured rotating go-go dancers. At first I was critical of all three of them: the white guy with Mohawk, the black guy with the crazy outfit (Is that a wrestling belt, underwear, knee-high boots and a jacket that only reaches from shoulders to nipples? Yes, yes it is.) And the girl. A girl go-go boy? But soon they all won me over, ever her, especially when at random points in the middle of songs they would suddenly break into perfectly matched choreography – but only for about 10 seconds. A neat trick.

The music was great, and the crowd was very cute. There were a couple boys I thought about talking to, but that “foreign city” confidence I’d had the last couple nights seemed to be gone. It might have had something to do with the fact that I wasn’t drinking. It was strange not being able to jump on the subway or in a cab. I wondered, did people in LA not drink as much, or did they always have a designated driver, or did they just drive home drunk? All of those options seemed crazy to me, but I added it to my growing list of things in L.A. that just didn’t make sense.

The next morning, we returned the car and walked to Santa Monica one last time for brunch. We considered Hamburger Mary’s, but for some reason they don’t open at 10:30am so we chose Hugo’s, which had a sizable crowd waiting for tables. The GayCities iPhone app described it as “Healthy food to the stars.”

“Do you see any stars?” I asked TightLips as we were being shown to our table.

“That kind of looks like Phillip Seymour Hoffman,” he said, pointing at a man with white hair who looked nothing like Phillip Seymour Hoffman.

“And the woman he’s with looks like Tabitha from that Bravo hair-styling show,” I said.

“Perfect!” he cheered. “For purposes of story-selling, we had brunch with Phillip and Tabitha.”

The food was delicious, and it was another gorgeous sunny day. As we sat in the taxi to the airport, I posted to Twitter that I was very unhappy to leave L.A. and would be back soon. It was true, there was a lot about the city I really enjoyed. But there was also a lot about it I just didn’t get. And when our plane touched down at JFK eight hours later, I had a thought I often have when returning home from a trip: I’m glad to be back in New York, where things make sense.