Day 7: Austin
Hey there's a reason it just says mostly at the top besides the fact that I watched Aliens last week. On my last day in Austin, I was the only one left from my crew for the five days I was there so I pretty much did nothing and didn't want to be dead on the flight to LAX the next day. I've been sick or tired on airplanes and I've almost thrown up so I just stayed in and wrote or something, I don't remember. I said bye to a few people and decided to try Gus' Fried Chicken, recommended by nobody more prestigious than Bill Simmons himself.
Well, I went down there and got it and brought it back to the Firehouse. Then one guy decided to talk to me the whole time I was trying to eat it before I got cold despite my one word and nod answers. I felt bad, but I had to run away before it got cold and nasty. My second mistake was getting a chicken breast as one of my pieces. How good can chicken breast really be? So I think my experience at Gus' was tainted by my stupidity.
I don't think I did anything really for the rest of the day outside of laundry so hey fun times.
Day 8: AUS-LAX
Hey it's another day of me doing pretty much nothing. I had to be out of the hostel by 12pm and the only thing notable that happened before I left was a conversation with the Swedish girl in my room about taking off my pants in front of her. Then she fell off her top bunk. This was not a very interesting day to start.
Then I decided, since I had a few hours to kill before I had to go to the airport, that it was barbecue time finally. Franklin was open that day after their summer vacation, but I wasn't sure I could make the plane if I had to wait 5 hours for brisket. La Barbecue was closed on Tuesdays, who knows why. So I went with number 3, Stubbs, which was recommended by Tom, a British guy in my room.
It was pretty good. The pulled pork was the best I've ever had, though Ohio and NJ pulled pork probably just are awful. The brisket wasn't as good as the Salt Lick brisket I had at the airport, but was still good. The mac and cheese tasted worse than Kraft, but I can't turn down mac and cheese. And the fries were fries. I couldn't finish the whole thing it was so much. I miss BBQ already.
Then I got frisked at the airport! I forgot to throw out my mini laundry detergent bottle and the TSA went berserk. They unpacked my whole bag, patted down my ass and man region and wouldn't even let me put my belt back on so I was walking around holding up my pants. Yay weight loss. Luckily I got there early enough to the point where this didn't matter ultimately, but jeez just throw away the Tide.
So the plane was delayed about 20 minutes because it had the equivalent of its check engine light on but the thing went off without a hitch and I got to LAX just 15 minutes later than expected. I had to find whatever a FlyAway bus was and ride that to Union Station and then take LA's subway to Hollywood Boulevard. I didn't know LA had a subway but it was fairly useful. The FlyAway bus made you put in luggage so you couldn't get it unless you paid when you got out. I got out and went in line to pay, but the driver just left our luggage there, so I took my backpack without paying. I still paid anyway since I'm very #honest, but jeez, step your game up, FlyAway bus. I had no problem with the subway since it was just one line basically to the stop I had to get to. From there, I just had to walk west down Hollywood Boulevard and turn left and boom there was my hostel. There were a bunch of people out front but I just wanted to go to bed, especially with the two hour time difference from Austin. So I read about Robert Evans in his book. This would be a continuing theme in LA.
"Loser? Baby that's the one thing you KNOW I'm not!"
Day 9: LA Day 1
On my first day in LA, I decided to just explore Hollywood Boulevard and go visit the famous places like the Chinese Theatre, the Egyptian Theatre and walk the Walk of Fame. I missed the hostel's Hollywood Sign walk, but you could see it from a couple blocks away, so hey at least it was something. I took a bunch of pictures of the celebrities' handprints and stuff like that and Tony Danza's star on the Walk of Fame, but after that I couldn't really figure out what else to do on Hollywood Blvd since it was like walking Times Square and I wanted to run and hide.
So I went back to the hostel and laid out on the outside common room couch. I read Evans' book again. Eventually Australians showed up and since we had a bar crawl that night, you can probably guess where this is going. I left it early to go to bed, but I was the only American on the crawl which consisted of only three bars total apparently. Whoops.
I also made my first pilgrimage since January 2011 to In N Out. It was as amazing as I remembered.
Day 10: The Hollywood Museum
I started off Day 10 by making my second pilgrimage in two days to In N Out. The line was out the door this time for whatever reason but I didn't really care. And since everyone in LA just drives everywhere, there was still ample seating inside. It was only about 85 that day too, so even outside eating would've been ok. It was paradise compared to Austin literally preheating you.
On my way back, I went to the Hollywood Museum just off of Hollywood Blvd in the old Max Factor building. It's a total tourist trap, but hey it was pretty interesting and there's nothing on Hollywood Blvd that isn't a total tourist trap. There was a whole floor of Marilyn Monroe stuff, which is interesting I guess, but I don't know why sickos want to stare at her like this, as if she was some kind of awesome hero who changed their lives. People actually put flowers on her handprint at the Chinese Theatre. I don't get it. Shrug.
They also had a whole floor of horror movie related items, including the actual set of Hannibal Lecter's jail cell and the hallway outside it from Silence of the Lambs. There was no mention of Miggs' cell though. There was also an Elvira exhibit because why not?
The place had a bunch of typos on a bunch of the signs and some were missing spacing and words were misspelled repeatedly. This bothered me. Oh well, at least I got to see Clarice's chair.
That night there was a free standup comedy show in the lounge. They said there'd be some of the best LA comedians coming over to try out new material. Well, it wasn't open mic night bad, but a couple of them were horrible. I didn't like the Native American guy and the Mexican guy just had one joke he kept doing over and over again. Ok. I liked the girl, Jackie Gold, from New York, and Leo Flowers was pretty funny.
The last guy, Donald Lacy, is a certified crazy person. He was picking on and making fun of everyone in the crowd. He thought my Growhio State shirt was about pot and I didn't want to explain Bro Science to him. A guy from Oakland a couple of German girls got it even worse than me. At least he learned their names though. I was just "Growhio State." Since I was one of the first ones there, I had to sit up close and just hoping this guy didn't kill me scared the hell out of me. At least he was pretty funny because he was insane.
Day 11: Universal Studios Hollywood
This was probably my busiest day in LA. I got up at 9:30 and went right to Universal Studios Hollywood to try to beat the crowds and lines, especially for the famous Studio Tour. I took the subway one whole stop and got on their little weird shuttle thing and was in by 10:15.
I tried finding the Studio Tour as soon as possible and had to go through the replica of Downtown Springfield they built and jeez, if the Simpsons hadn't been horrible for the last 15 years, this would've been Mecca. They had a Kwik E Mart selling merchandise (like the Bort keychain I bought), a Krusty Burger that had a real live dead roach in it, Moe's with actual Duff, a Duff beer garden and even King Toot's next to Moe's. There was also a Cletus Chicken Shack but if that was in the show, it was probably from the bad times.
I then went to the Studio Tour, and it was awesome. They take you around on the backlot and you see sound stages and it just seems like a normal behind the scenes tour. There's a special King Kong 3D part that's pretty cool and interesting, but 3D is still annoying so it wasn't great. They took us to places like the Three Amigos set of all things and showed them blasting out water to make it flood and rain out of nowhere. The famous Jaws shark coming up on the cars was there, but I was on the opposite side so I didn't really see it.
The best part, and it wasn't close, was the new Fast & Furious Supercharged ending. They put you in a fake F&F movie where Owen Shaw is after a fake witness on the tour and then Dom, Letty and Roman have to save you and you go through a motion simulator flying off cliffs with cars exploding around you. It's amazing and hilarious. It just needs Statham.
After that, I wanted to try to go on as many of the rides as I could. I probably wouldn't have time for the shows because of the up to 80 minute wait times. The first one I went on was the Jurassic Park River thingy and they had a single riders lane so boom I only had to wait about 15 minutes to get on and get soaked with a bunch of strangers.
On the Mummy ride, which was probably the best one, you ride basically a Space Mountain rip off except faster, and I only had to wait about 2 minutes for that one. Transformers' single riders line was enormous for some reason and I had to watch the same Michael Bay produced intro video about 50 times. That one was cool though since you're riding around on the back of a Transformer while Megatron tries to murder you. Optimus Prime is incompetent like in the cartoons and can't hold him off. Then you somehow kill him without much explanation and his severed head is coming through the ceiling. In between, you're flying off buildings and jumping through signs and a bunch of crazy stuff.
The Simpsons ride was a 90 minute wait all for getting to go through a computerized, not drawn, Sideshow Bob murder wet dream. So dumb. The new stuff written for the ride was horrid and giant mutated Maggie was depressing. At least they showed clips from seasons 1-10 while you waited so that was fun.
The only ride I didn't go on was the Minions one because I don't hate myself and love #brands.
So after I went home, I found the Australians again for our second bar crawl in three days. This one ended at a club recommended by the leader, who was too busy groping a Khal Drogo looking guy from the hostel to lead us anywhere. It ended with me and a New Zealander trying to find a smoke shop so she could buy herself smokes at 3am. Ok.
I also got to explain the off the menu items at In N Out to a British girl and this all blew her mind. I also brought up McDonalds' McGangbang and she was horrified. Welp. However, we did agree that when we're 45, I'm going to be a trophy husband and she's going to be someone else's trophy wife and we're going to both marry into gravy fortunes and then buy expensive garbage together on Rodeo Drive. Ok again.
Day 12: Escape from LA
Today was about as boring as it gets. I got kicked out of the hostel at 10am and then got down to Union Station early so I could find the Bolt Bus stop. I had Subway. It was boring. There was a woman who never had Subway before and couldn't comprehend how it worked. She asked the cashier what was good. The answer is nothing. Nothing is good.
Then I rode a bus for seven hours next to a Michigan fan. I had my Undisputed Champs shirt on so point me. She showed me how to put the chair back so point her. Even.
After going through San Jose, seven hours later I walked the mile and a half through under construction San Francisco and found my hostel and now I'm writing this. I saw Zynga's HQ. Do I ask about Farmville and how to fix it? Plz?
Anyway, hopefully San Francisco will be all gravy, baby (hat tip, Louise from London).
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