Ahh! John Wayne | 19th April 2011 | 16:12 PDT

The place where I experienced what I thought I experienced before I experienced it

I've just had déjà vu, even as I wrote that I knew I was going to write it, but seriously just before I wrote that I thought I was going to write a series of actions I had thought I thought I saw previously being played out right in front of me, like how I thought I remembered.

So, as yesterday was wasted working, well I wouldn't say wasted I was handsomely rewarded with sliced apple, sliced salami and giant salted Shreddies! Today I felt like a walk, I decided to go to a store called “Ahhs!” that I was recommended that may have my balls (juggling)

Wow, it looks so magical!

This place was incredible, well it was full of crap, but to the brim of unique and wonderful crap, such as life-sized cut outs of William and Kate, costumes, toys, everything branded was like Glee Magic Eight Ball, Spiderman Golf Clubs, Two and a Half Men chairs and Hannah Montana Condoms. Maybe not those exact items but my point being, this place is just full of shit. Absolutely shit.

Oh, maybe not

I ventured in anyway, if anywhere were going to have my balls, it would be here and after 20 minutes of being mesmerised by the fact that the majority of these fine items had a place on this Earth and wondering why all this go back straight into recycling.

I failed there and couldn't find my balls anywhere, I noticed a sports store next door so I thought I'd give it a go... but, they didn't have the balls I was after, but they did have many other fine balls for me to choose from, cheap ones too and after much deliberation, umming and ahhing, I decided to take ownership of three small white softballs that are used in the little league over here, result!

I skipped all the way to the beach via the house and walked about 100% of the way as the beach was 3 miles away from my then, current location.

En route back, I passed a cancer clinic called “John Wayne Cancer Institute” - after my initial thought of, surly that's a character name and not a real guy, my brain kicked in and I researched into it more and yes, he was a real person. He died of stomach cancer in 1979 and put himself forward for research to find a cure... My only issue is the logo choice of the institute, which is a silhouette of him walking away presumably towards a sunset.

(via centerwatch.com)

This says to me: If you come here, you're on your own, in the middle of the desert, and your demise is almost certain

Uplifting stuff.

I'm currently devouring a tuna sandwich on the beach, then I'm going to play with my balls for a few hours and I may juggle as well.

Composed: Perry's Café, Santa Monica

We return after these messages... | 18th April 2011 | 21:34 PDT

Why watch TV, when you have this on your doorstep?

Health

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This has leather!

It has real horses in each tyre!

It does 10 MPG on the highway!

It is cheap at a mega-dollar price!

It's the new sports sedan mini-van!

And it's American!

Toys

Teach your kids to be a success in life with this American football themed glow-in-the-dark sand!

Just put it in the supplied steel cauldron and microwave it until super-rad-awesome flames spew out everywhere, hand to your child to play in the yard by the pool and they'll learn, Math! Art! DIY! Taxes! Democracy! Baking! Child Care! And first aid!

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Composed: Back at the house, Santa Monica

Bus Ride | 18th April 2011 | 17:29 PDT

This is a bus. It is blue.

My first bus ride in LA today! Boring.

Composed: Back at the house, Santa Monica

My Californian Castle | 17th April 2011 | 10:41 PDT

Reenactment of my escape also, that's not my house

I needed to escape the house.

Which is nice (the house, not the escape) – it's in a great location 3 minutes to a park (strip of grass with sculptures on it it next to a main road) 10 minutes to the beach down the bluff (a green cliff) via a load of stairs.

The house itself is a ground floor apartment an is spacious... If it weren't for all the consumable debris everywhere, this house is simply full of crap memories. To be fair to my landlady (very friendly, easy going, chatty and scatty) did say she hates holding onto things and that most of this stuff that has been exploded all over the house was her daughter's who was coming back in June to take it or chuck it. Just a few months of swimming through the apartment then.

The rest of the apartment is pretty much how you'd expect an apartment to look like after 15 years of living with minimal upkeep, kitchen is kept clean but its organisation can only be described as... Perturbed. It's a walk in wardrobe that you throw things into that happens to house a fridge and cooker.

Bathroom's good, again messy with a thousand chemicals, lotions, and some other things, typically a bathroom and it does the job. It's also yellow! - yeah, it used to white (I imagine/not hoping)

My bedroom/sanctuary is big, tidy, the hub of calm in the house. Recently painted white, new bed, I feel like a king, especially as the landlady sleeps on a sofa in her room with a shit load of shit everywhere and as you'd expect a water feature in the middle of the room in the form of a dirty bucket of liquid.

It's not as bad as I described it, it's loved, homely, looked after as much as it can be and a very sociable house. My only gripe with it (other than the mess)is the lack of communal space as landlady's son (not met him yet) has set up base in the front room next to the front door, so everything is kept within your room, but the room has TV, wi-fi etc. so can escape from it all without any hassles.

My sanctuary from one end

My sanctuary from the other end

UPDATE: The house has now been cleaned and is indeed spacious, landlady's son is friendly and the communal area is the kitchen and landlady's room so no gripes any more!

Composed: Starbucks, 3rd Street Promenade, Santa Monica

MOCA's Art in the Streets | 17th April 2011 | 00:03 PDT

What a great day! Met up with a new friend here in LA, found on rent a friend off Twitter (friend of a friend) who also helped me find some accommodation over here.

We went to an Organic Café in Venice called Urth Café (which I guess is a really pretentious way of saying Earth) huge queue, huge menu and ended up being served by someone talking at a thousand words a second, or so it seemed.

Earth Café, though in LA it's spelled U R T H

After that bombardment of the senses my confidence levels were running low of what I actually ordered, until the food arrived and I'm pretty sure it was what I ordered but I wasn't expecting the Olympic pool sized cup of coffee.

A few hours of shooting the breeze with a blend of immature jokes, we said our goodbyes and I went on a hunt to find some juggling balls and no where stocks them, the amount of times I had to demonstrate what I was after with my hands, I could've re-learnt how to juggle 3 times over. The only person I didn't have to do that to and understood what I was after was a deaf guy running a market stall on Venice Beach, though I think it helped that the yellow shirt I was wearing was so loud.

It's not until you wear something so bright you realise that many people here wear black, white or brown.

After unsuccessfully finding my balls on the streets, I decided to eat my feelings with the best cupcake I've ever had, from a place in Santa Monica called Yummy Cupcake on Wilshire Boulevard – simply amazing!

Later on, I was working, sort of and I received a text from my friend from earlier inviting me to Downtown, LA for an art party.

These buildings are taller than most. Taxi is the size of a car.

Driving from the coast to in and around LA and towards the skyscrapers was pretty ace, I'm a big fan of high-rises their architecture and basically everything it encompasses, it took about 30 minutes to get there and about 20 minutes to find the place and about an hour to find a car park that wasn't full, this place seemed popular...

Entrance to Art in the Streets at MOCA

And with really good reason, it was the “Art in the Streets” being held at MOCA | The Museum of Contemporary Art and it was essentially about graffiti, its meaning, its history and modern artists displaying their works with a good blend of live art, DJing, dancing and drinking outside. This was an amazing exhibition and it was huge, massive, gigantic, huge... again!

DJ spinning the wax to the invisible dancers, they were so good!

After the hassles of parking we only really had an hour to enjoy it, but it was a visual feast, creative obesity, photos, information, sprays, images, interactive, videos, signs, cut and paste, stencils, everything.

Kook as a massive cut n paste piece

Think we'll definitely be going again if we can, you'll need at least a few hours to a day to see and appreciate all its offerings, it was busy as well which was a shame, as tonight was the Saturday of opening weekend and was filled to the brim with hipsters being “experts” on street art (though they never cared for it until, it was taken off the streets put under a roof and get charged to see it in all it's synthetic glory) and every hipster trying to spot Banksy, ROA, Saber, Mr. Cartoon, Jaime Reid, Phase 2, Kaws or the other 50 contributing artists... More often or not you don't know what they look like.

I may go back with a “I'm Banksy” t-shirt on and see how many gullible people I can fool.

Small sample out of a huge collection of sprayed subway cars

Sprayed bus by the entrance

Composed: Back at the house, Santa Monica

Another Australian | 15th April 2011 | 18:40 PDT

Walking by a yard sale.

“Hey, how you doing?”
“Fine, thanks, you?”
“Good, are you another Australian?”
“No, I'm English”
“Ahh, I was close though, right?”
“haha, yeah!”

  -  No, you weren't and what did he mean by “another Australian”? There was no one on the street except you and me, surely not everyone who walked by you today could've been Australian... could they?

A typical me compared to a typical Australian

I guess I will never know, nor never care, will just assume he's a crazy red neck who took a wrong turning to New York and ended up staying.

Composed: Palisades Park, Santa Monica

Life's Ambition | 15th April 2011 | 16:58 PDT

Maybe my life's ambition is to drink margaritas all day and learn Mexican

“Wake up and smell your life's ambition”

This what I woke up to this morning from a take away coffee sleeve, it was an advertising by Docker's Pants with a khaki arse looking at me as I laid there in the ditch with a banging hangover induced from a Jack Daniel's binge from the night before...

This is cooler than the truth and it would also imply I left the house during darkened hours, as f yet I've had no reason to die, so I don't.

Instead I lie there in my comfortable bed, clear mind and well rested and two thoughts enter my mind as I read that advertising opportunity from Docker's Pants.

My First Thought

I've packed way too many brown clothes, 3 brown shorts, 1 pair of brown trousers/pants, 5 brown t-shirts, 1 brown shirt and a pair of brown flip-flops... This is ridiculous I think I am going to have to have some of laundry accident with tie dye or buy some really crappy clothes from Wal-Mart or TK Maxx/TJ Maxx (though, I chose the latter I'd spend so much time looking for something not brown and not XXL that my holiday/vacation would be over)

Types of brown (from: azizaizmargari.wordpress.com)

It's also worth noting, I hate brown as I own too much brown and thought I packed only non-brown items, perhaps the brown rot spread from my flip-flops during the flight, like rotting apples in a fruit bowl.

My Second Thought

was my need for a new shoulder bag, now I didn't want to buy one because I have loads at home so I thought I'd be resourceful in an A-Team/MacGyver sized proportions and make one from random bits of debris that seemed to have littered my floor already, I scooped up a belt and long-sleeve t-shirt.

And I accidentally made a tank.

So, I tried again and made a bag, no sewing required just full on genius spreading all over this bag, looking awesome and me being in LA, I thought I'd show off my new fashion item to the world that matters and well, no one noticed nor cared. They were probably too absorbed within their own sponge bubble to realise my bag was a t-shirt and awesome, ahhh fuck 'em.

Composed: Park Bench, Opposite Cabo Cantina, Santa Monica