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As I approached the Beverly Hills city limit today, the dog you see approaching here had to be vigorously restrained by it's owner. It was growling and drooling and pulling hard on its leash. It wanted my ankles for lunch like there was no tomorrow.
I saw this book in a basket by the side of the road on Fountain Avenue by Fairfax.
---I'm doing three separate posts for todays videos so that those subscribing through rss feeds can view them all - so don't forget to keep on scrolling after you've finished reading this.
The biggest news is that I ran out of couches when I got to Beverly Hills.
I had to come home and I've decided to do Beverly Hills and Bel Air via commuting - driving to the neighborhood and walking in a big circle back to my car at the end of the day to drive home again at night.
It's not what I envisioned doing when I started this project but it's better than stopping altogether. I'm going to give it a try and see how it goes. The couch thing has been pretty exhausting. The project is becoming whatever it needs to be.
Of course, when I got home and tried to drive my car, I found out that the water pump is broken and that I need to fix it before I can drive anywhere. A painful $200. I'm doing that tomorrow though so I should be back on track soon.
And that's pretty much it for now.
I lasted almost a month this time without running out of couches.
I walked from Echo Park to Downtown to Highland Park to Glassell Park to Atwater Village to Silverlake to Hollywood to Miracle Mile to West Hollywood. I figure I've done pretty well.
Perhaps the commuting thing will work out for the best and enable me to post more often. As usual, I can only take it moment by moment.
I'll fill you in whenever I figure out each next step.
Check in more often as I'm going to attempt to at least do a text blog most days.
Al saw me taking pictures of the freeway in the driveway of the apartment building he manages.
Al likes taking pictures too.
Al likes to go to the national parks when he takes his pictures.
He wanted to know if I'd like to go with him.
Al was disappointed I'm not a Buddhist.
Al has a brother who can get me a good deal on a mortgage.
Or a computer.
Al gave me his card.
I took a walk down Vermont today - from Franklin Avenue to Beverly Boulevard, skirting some of the edges around it too.
I've been taking a few days off to rest up and rack up more couches. Staying at my friend Marisa's near Vermont and Beverly.
Tomorrow I'm heading back to Miracle Mile to walk to West Hollywood.
I just can't find any places to stay in Beverly Hills. I guess I don't mix in the right circles.
Here is a photo diary of this afternoons' walk.
Yes, I like taking pictures of my feet. I cringed when I watched Lost in Translation and the Scarlett Johanson character said that all females end up taking photos of their feet at some point. I've been doing it for years. I like seeing them in different contexts.
I took most of these pics whilst still walking. They are in order of direction, starting at Hollywood Bl and heading south.
Click Here to Watch Video Diary 1
I've been in Hollywood since last Sunday night. Click on the pic above for some stuff from my day walking along the main stretch of Hollywood Boulevard.
(Cheers Talia for helping me edit this one).
In Highland Park I spoke with loads of people - only most of the time they didn't want to be on camera. I bumped into a civil rights lawyer who was familiar with the case the panhandlers near Olivera Street downtown were making against the security guards in Olivera Plaza. The guy said that the security guards have their own stories too of what goes on down there. I never got to hear about it in full because he had to be somewhere. It was interesting though coz it's another case of one person's story building upon the next.
Also in Highland Park, I spent about an hour with a veteran from Iraq and Afghanistan - only a year or so older than me but with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. He came across as a bit psychotic and yet kind at the same time. He said that the best years of his life were in Iraq. All day, people had been talking to me about how dangerous they feel LA is and then this guy, the veteran, pipes up when we're talking, 'LA's not dangerous! IRAQ'S dangerous! AFGHANISTAN'S dangerous!!!' It was interesting to hear his point of view. Unfortuneately, my mic broke during the interview so I don't have any sound on tape. It took me 3 days to stop reeling from that one.
The group walk was fun. We walked from Mount Washington to Chinatown and back again. There are a couple of pics from that below.
I passed through Atwater Village and Silverlake to get into Hollywood.
Jay, who I stayed with in Atwater, showed me this most amazing stretch of the LA River around there. Unfortunately I was so distracted by it's awesomeness that I didn't think to take a picture. Just imagine a setting from Huckleberry Finn but with concrete, trash and grafitti.
I thought I'd put up a few pictures of signs I've been taking that have resonated with me in one way or another...
Chinatown
Chinatown
In a park near Mount Washington
Highland Park
Highland Park
Between Highland Park and Cypress Park. This one could be a subtitle for part of what I'm trying to do with this project...
On the group walk we explored inside an old prison for women near downtown. This was the recreation area on the roof. In that room you can see in the background, they filmed parts of Nightmare on Elm Street and did really crap fake Hollywood grafitti inside to make the place look 'spooky'.
This is from inside that room - some of the 'Elm Street' decorating.
This was the view from the roof looking down.
I’m sitting outside the 1st street lofts as it gets dark downtown and I feel I’m getting to the end of the first episode of my as yet unwritten/unknown story.
People have compared what I’m doing with Forest Gump and with Falling Down and (if anything) maybe it’s a mixture of the two. But personally, when I was planning this project, the main movie reference that always came up for me was Samuel L Jackson in Pulp Fiction when he says to John Travolta that he’s ‘Just gonna walk’.
I also remember Harvey Keitel saying to Quentin Tarantino something along the lines of that he should move out of the styx (Inglewood).
Anyway, right now, writing this, I feel more like Doogie Howser than Michael Douglas. Like how he used to type on his computer at the end of every episode.
- Here is the lowdown on the run so far.
I got my first ‘pull’ on Friday when I arrived downtown and was walking along Broadway. Calvin, the man in this video, wanted to know what I was doing and when I told him he said he’d walk with me for a block or two. This video entry is in honour of him being the first taker, as it were.
Click Here to Watch Calvin on Broadway
Saturday was a pretty full day. I walked around downtown and with a family from Monrovia and also with two sisters who have taken a walk together near Chinatown for an hour or so, every night, since 1991.
Later that day I headed back to Selah Artistic Giving Center. They had an opening that night and there was also a street festival outside. Below is a video showing some of that.
Click Here to Watch Street Fest and Kerry
On Sunday, I walked past ‘Our Lady of Angels’ Catholic Church on Spring Street and met David. He approached me when he saw the camera and said he had a lot of stuff to say that he wanted people to know. We spoke for 40 minutes and his story is cavernous. I struggled to put together a short piece out of the huge amount that he communicated.
He’s going to trial right now with the security guards on Olivera Plaza because he says they beat him up for panhandling. He told me about a non English-speaking lawyer from Mexico who is homeless here in LA and who is currently lying in hospital after being beaten so badly by the security guards that he may not live. He said that people need to know why other people panhandle. That the truth is not simple. That if you look at the truth, you realise how impossible it is to point the finger at other people. And he said a lot more too. Some of it is here, in the video below.
Click Here to Watch David Outside 'Our Lady of Angels'
On Sunday night we had a BBQ and Felix told me about the dead body they found outside the lofts he lives in (and I’ve been staying in) early Sunday morning after the street festival.
Click Here to Watch Murder Story
On Monday, me and Marisa hung out and took it easy – it being Memorial Day, downtown was like a ghost town. We wandered around the deserted factories and warehouses where all you could hear were the cars on the freeway and the sparrows singing madly.
I’m heading out to Mt Washington and Highland Park tomorrow. In many ways downtown has been a great place to start, to see the rest of LA in juxtaposition to. I guess other than the beach areas, it's the place where most people walk in LA also.
More, later.
If you want to come on a group walk on Sunday (more details later) be sure to sign up for the mailing list. Just send me an email with 'subscribe' in the subject bar to lisa@walklawithme.com .
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