Please, anyone who emailed me between 16-30 May, I lost all correspondence between these dates. Please mail me again.
Los Angeles wasn't even looking likely at one point when on the flight over I fell in with decidedly bad company. While trying to read books and mind my own business I was enticed into serious drinking by a buoyant Geoff Glendenning and Phil Bruderer, flying to LA for - get this - a video games convention. An unlikely story, since I know that no one over the age of sixteen plays video games and these two mercenaries of the arcade demimonde were travelling under full passports. Well, there was clearly too much chortling coming from our row of seats and all I will say is that half way through this long and hitherto boozy flight we were all refused more alcohol by the sadly incorruptible flight attendant. Clearly the cabin crew had us down as tinkers or gypsies about to break into a lusty chorus of The Wild Rover or whatever it is that denotes the imminent onset of Air-Rage. Well, it was nothing of the sort and my protest that I had only just met these two charming hobyahs fell on deaf ears; I consequently arrived in the city of angels enfeebled by the effects of mineral water consumed at altitude.
Hiring a car for LA. Nightmare. Don't bother on the freeway to be so stupid as to signal your intentions to move over into another lane. Just don't. Take it from me, your average American will only get excited and treat it as a challenge.
I chose to stay in Santa Monica, which under the influence of jetlag and mineral water at six o clock in the morning had a nacreous glow (nacreous - now there's a word I would never employ in a novel, but which I feel curiously liberated to use in this column). Yes, a rippling unreality to the place as the abundant homeless packed up their sorry gear and moved on, yielding the turf to the early morning rollerbladers and open-air isometric-bar muscle-maniacs. I did actually go for a stroll between Santa Monica and Venice Beach but all of the frantic narcissistic exercising made me feel like joining in, so I went back to bed until this unpleasant feeling passed.
In the evening I went looking for a bar, but Santa Monica doesn't have any. All the so-called bars are really restaurants, with earthquake-resistant masonry ratios and dire warnings about smoking and drinking pinned up on the walls. Even as a non-smoker this seems to me faintly ridiculous, since the biblical fundamentalists habitually describe LA as Sodom and Gomorra. I mean what's Sodom and Gomorra without an occasional earthquake and a pack of snouts? I instantly decided to quit quitting, just so that I could enjoy the depravity of puffing on a Marlboro Light in the open air. Heady stuff. And the earth quivered slightly.
Anyway, I cringe to admit this, but the only place where I might get a noggin of ale without having to order pan-fried catfish in squid-ink sauce was a truly mingin' hovel called Ye Olde Kinge's Head, a nasty bit of vile English >heritage culture<. This joint is actually recommended in - to its eternal self-flagellation - The Time Out guide to LA. Horse brasses, yellowing soccer pennants and hatchet-faced ill-tempered English - yes, English - barmaids making you wait half an hour before deigning to serve you thin, overpriced London-type beer. Nothing a good earthquake wouldn't improve. I was just about to leave when in came the irrepressible Glendenning and Bruderer on invisible pogo sticks. How was this? Had I in a weak moment >told< them I would be there? I felt slightly dizzy, especially when Glendenning started forcing Tequila slammers on me.
Now listen, I'm not fourteen years old. I know perfectly well what six of these things do on top of a bellyful of rubbishy London beer. But I found myself loudly congratulating Ye Olde Kinge's Folly or whatever it was called for its sly authenticity, noisily recommending it as a terrific cure for British homesickness: namely, that the place was >so< authentically British that you WOULD NEVER WANT TO GO HOME AGAIN<. Well, the hatchet-faced barmaid didn't appreciate the tack I was taking, so for the second time in 24 hours I found my drink rudely snatched from my hands. Naturally I protested in Ye Olde Englishe style, only to be persuaded onto the street by a bouncer with a face like a blind cobbler's thumb.
This was not good. I hadn't come to LA to pretend to be a yob, after all. So I sought refuge in the louche, chilled, fashionable company of the splendid Lou Anders (see escalator reference in Lately # 3) and his terrific pal Stephenson (forename deliberately concealed, hmmm...). At least these two didn't drink like my new, cheerfully psychotic British chums. No, they had other interests, and proceeded to take me to places so stuffed full of handsome women that I began to suffer from a kind of hyperventilating beauty-sickness, and longed to look upon the face of someone quite plain. But it was not allowed, and off we went, along with famous and stunning super-model Jamie Bjorge, who dismayed me by being intelligent and uplifting company into the bargain. I did threaten in this column to describe her as a porn star, but somehow that notion fell away when a >real< porn star turned up at one of the parties we attended. The effect on the men present was quite salutary. The silicon atrocities on offer were of such jaw-droppingly industrial dimensions that every bloke in the room was forced to avert his eyes. Only the women looked, and they aghast.
Shall I regale you with more tales of LA? I think not. It isn't really a place at all. It's a zone. A notion. I was treated to a shrewd analysis of the place by my Hollywood agent Vince Gerardis, who pointed out that 70% of the economy of this enormous city is dedicated to making flickering images, and nothing more material than thin strips of celluloid. So it's a place of the spirit, but mirrored, and where the flesh recalls smoke. That means the city is prey to hosts of angels and flocks of demons on a plane where most people only know what they want to be, not what they are. No wonder I was getting into trouble. I felt like Dante, conducted through the outer rings of LA by a crew of Virgils in dark glasses. LA is truly a phantastic place.
Moreover, everyone seemed to have decided I was an Australian. Life as film? Because I don't sound like the slightly brain-damaged Hugh Grant or a Guy Ritchie bullshit cockney gangster, my boisterous Midlands tones were unnaturally interpreted as Antipodean. Excuse me? Do you see me carrying a fucking crocodile?
Though in Starbucks on Melrose I did find myself standing in line behind a famous actress. It was Renee Zellwegger from Bridget Jones Diary trying to disguise herself under a baseball cap. Fame, Renee, I know, I know. Our eyes met. We had a deal. I pretended not to recognise her and she pretended not to recognise me. Good tea in Starbucks, or anywhere for that matter? Ha! Worse than Belgium.
Finally a big thank you Del and Sue of Dark Delicacies, a truly splendid bookstore, for arranging the signing in Burbank and for treating me so warmly. Thank you also to everyone who had books signed. I left LA to fly up to Seattle, and had hoped to report on the convention weekend, but as there is rather a lot to tell I'll save it for the next update, not least because it will make my life sound more interesting.
