We’re a day behind again. Oops!
Before I get into yesterday (Aug 22), we’d like to advise you that today (Aug 23/Day 28), we’ve hit a small snag: At about 4:30pm, Katja advised us that her right rear tire was showing a pressure loss. We pulled over (in not the most savoury of LA neighbourhoods) to check it and yup, it was lower than the other three by about 8 or 9psi. We added some air provided by a local garage owner and continued on our way to the AirBNB where another check showed that it had lost another 3psi. Ugh. Tomorrow’s first order of business will be getting the tire patched. Now to our Day 27 report…
C-P-T, L-B-C, yeah we hookin back up
The Next Episode, from Dr. Dre’s 2001
And when they bang this in the club baby you got to get up
The highlight of the day was the LA Hood Life Tour, which we found on TripAdvisor. The tour takes about three hours an involves being driven through south central LA, and the rougher cities of LA County, including Watts, Long Beach, and of course Compton, made famous by N.W.A. and their breakthrough album, Straight Outta Compton. Click here for some context if you’re unfamiliar with the genre/history.
We saw the childhood homes of Dr. Dre and Eazy-E, where various movie like, White Men Can’t Jump, Boyz ‘n the Hood, Rush Hour, and Training Day, were filmed; and where Suge Knight killed Terry Carter.
We also saw some amazing murals honouring Tupac and and Nipsey Hussle, rapper and activist, who was killed in March 2019.
Our tour guide, Steve, had the bona fides to deliver the tour. A former gang member, Steve had spent 13 of his 45 years in prison and had flirted with death five times in gang related violence. Despite that resume, he was nothing but polite, kind, informative, as well as good humoured. Turns out he spent some time in BC as a child and has fond memories of Canada. For those interested, the tour is 420 and alcohol friendly. In case that wasn’t a given.
Aside from the obvious idea of getting to see a part of LA that one might not want to wander into alone, it was interesting to see the condition of these cities, the bars on the windows of literally everything, and the very different vibe vs. Hollywood or Santa Monica. Yes, we got out of the van. Once at a liquor store, a gas station, and at the Compton Store, where I got a T-Shirt.
Before heading to dinner, we thought we would try to hit some of the roads in the Los Angeles National Forest, but the traffic was too much. We had to turn around and leave it for another day.
Santa Monica for dinner… the opposite end of the socio-economic spectrum from our earlier activity. On they way there, we saw this sign:
We had a great dinner at the bar inside Hillstone restaurant where we ended up chatting with John O’Grady, a film producer who was Associate Producer on The Shape of Water, among other things. He was very friendly and open, happy to answer my million questions about the entertainment industry, the functions of the different positions listed in the credits, the economics of the industry and the impact of screening services. Our chance encounter with John allows us to leave LA with a celebrity sighting under our belts!
We then proceeded to the Santa Monica Pier where we enjoyed our second bag of cotton candy of the trip (first was in Seattle) and checked out all the noise, lights, and rides. It’s like having a mini SuperEx everyday!
Oh and they also fish on the pier, even in the late evening. As we left at 10PM, new fishermen were arriving.
Driving back to Hollywood, we were pulled into a DUI check. I was truthful about my one drink and passed the “follow-my-finger” test with flying colours!
That’s it. Stay tuned for the next one!