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Sings your free hotel magazine may be a front for Scientology |
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Other than a 15-week lack-of-emplyoment-induced vacation in 1998, I have not had a long-term vacation since I graduated from Colorado State in 1993. I had to go to California anyway, so I figured why don't I just drive up the coast, take the PCH, enjoy some nice leisurely driving. So, pack my stuff and I'm on my way.
I learn very early on in the trip there are three things that you will never be able to do in life:
When I arrive in L.A., after a 5 hour flight and at least a 20 minute wait in a Budget Rent-a-Car line. I go into my wallet, there is not a driver's license to be found. Not anywhere. So, on a 14-day driving trip, there's no car for me. I was able to arrange a ride and at least get away from the airport. And after a couple of frantic calls, my license was found (thank you Kevin) and I would be able to get it the next day, since FedEx's TelePort service just wasn't worth the cost. So after a night of light theatre at J. Keith's Van Straaten's What's My Line live show, it was off to my hotel room in Pasadena, courtesy of Burbank Dave.
My license would be at LAX at 11 AM Thursday morning (Day 2), so I had to get from Pasadena to LA. I could either pay a cab maybe triple digits to get me down there, or take the hidden gem of the L.A. area, the Metro. L.A. actually has a train system, and its final Northeastern stop was just a 10 minute walk from my hotel room (the Best Western Pasadena, complete with an in-room free Ethernet connection). But, in true L.A. fashion, the trip to the place on public transportation is also an Art Fern skit, as I have to take four trains and a poorly marked bus to get to the station. I started on the Gold Line for a 35 minute journey from Pasadena to downtown L.A. on the Gold, then a short trip on the Red to a different part of downtown L.A., then a trip on the blue to a stop just north of Compton, and then finally the green line to an area near the airport. Finally, I got on the LAX shuttle (which was not marked where you were supposed to pick it up, so some running was involved) and was finally at LAX just a mere 2 hours and 25 minutes after I started my journey. And all that for $3. What a bargain.
Since I couldn't get my nice price deal from Budget due to the cancellation, it was off to Alamo. A nice little temporary scare there when they couldn't find my reservation (when I say B-U-R-G-E-R, I say it for a reason. I really just need to change my last name to "Burgerwithayou"). Alamo's excellent inventory control system involved them giving me the keys to a car and saying "just keep using the panic button until you find it." I found my car, complete with it's Québec plates and metric odometer. Je suis entré dans ma voiture et j'étais sur mon chemin à Hollywood. J'ai rencontré Matt dans Hollywood près de Studio City et nous n'étions pas en ligne à UCLA. Pardonnez-moi? Fine, I'll go back to English. The car just does that to you.
The rest of my time in L.A. was pretty much game show related, from talking to game show people, to seeing tapes after tapes after DVDs of rareties (in order to update The Game Show Pilot Light, to doing The Game Show Round, to meeting the Hispanic Monty Hall. Unfortunately, my hopes of getting on Trato Hecho, which involved dressing up as a border guard to clear out the studio, didn't come to pass. I later found out that this is actually a problem with the show, since so few contestants want to fill out the IRS paperwork necessary to appear on the show (I wonder why?) I also recommend that if your tribute dinner is running long, pray that Shelley Berman is one of your speakers. He basically did the game show version of the infamous William Shatner Saturday Night Live speech, but it was so funny everybody was in stitches. To answer your question ahead of time, he played Judge Ira in Meet the Fockers and plays Larry David's father on Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Since this is L.A., I managed to travel 1,000 km despite leaving the county just once. I did have Sunday dinner here, complete with a lobster-shaped pager to tell you your table is ready to celebrity shots of Earl Warren on the wall. Other oddities included a two story Target in Pasadena, a sign on a telephone pole offering "accent elimination" and a fight between a motel employee and his girlfriend, which wouldn't have been so problematic except I was trying to check-in at the time. And always be wary of free publications.
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