We Went to LA

I watched The Birdcage on the way to LAX due to the countless recommendations I had received from a coworker and found it far less funny than she had promised. Colin and Rylan wouldn’t land for another two hours, with Liam arriving an hour after that. I accepted my fate and walked to Rylan and Colin’s gate. The deskworker warned that it was about a forty-minute walk. 

I called my mom, which I do far less than I should, and told her what I was seeing around me. It was less than 24 hours since the Dodgers’ World Series victory, yet the airport was already riddled with celebratory signs, merchandise, and people. Being a Mets fan, I’ve long hated the Dodgers and tried to make both my mouth and mind silent about the disgust I felt. The people in the airport walked slowly and without much direction. There was a pseudo-mall at one point that had any designer clothes store you might feel compelled to shop at in an airport, with enough people in each store to justify it.

By the time I reached Colin and Rylan’s gate, I saw their flight was landing an hour early, leaving me about thirty minutes to kill. Cevi had an article ready to post, so I went looking for a place to sit down and get everything in order. I stopped into the LAX Rolling Stone Bar & Grill, which is about as ridiculous as you’d imagine. It’s situated in a round portion of LAX with a diameter of 100 feet. The ceiling is a skylight, which at 11 AM casts a heavenly glow on the Rolling Stone Bar & Grill. The Bar itself is open-air and also round, with tables interspersed around the main bar in the middle. A giant Rolling Stone logo hangs above, however thats all the branding you get. The menu items barely even reference bands or music. At the time I arrived, it was populated with salarymen all on Excel with a large beer in front of them. I sat down next to a long-haired salaryman and asked if I could use his computer charger. He offered it up and asked if I too was struggling with plane delays. I said no, that I was here for work, and he asked what I did. I told him I was a plumber from Denver, and he shrugged and went back to his beer and spreadsheet. I drank a beer, published Cevi’s article, and closed out.

Colin and Rylan landed, and Liam soon after. We left the airport, headed to our hotel, took a shuttle to the metro, to a bus to the metro again, realizing very plainly that transit on the West Coast is a different ball game than on the East Coast. On the bus ride to the other Metro, I sat next to a small man who kept his eyes close to his phone, which was playing videos explaining that Thomas Jefferson was actually a lizard. I was glad to see that the schizophrenics here don’t change much.  We were here to play a show for Independent Project Records’ forty-fifth anniversary, an outfit we signed a physical rights deal with about a year before. Basically, they own the rights to make physical media out of our first album and any song we made before that (I think?). If you’re as confused as me and think I should probably know more, you’re right. 

There was also some confusion about why they’d gone through the trouble of flying us out. With the four of us living in three different cities and needing two hotel rooms, the cost definitely outweighed any profit we could generate. We’re a small-fry band in a large-fry world. We assumed these guys must really be in it for the love of music, an idea I espouse regularly, yet one I seem to criticize subconsciously. 

Our hotel was situated in East Hollywood, which is an area of not much note, and can be described as ‘think of LA and that’s it’. Liam and my balcony was covered by trees, but Colin and Rylan’s had a beautiful view of the Scientology Building. Additionally, there were copies of the Epoch Times in the lobby, which is written by the Chinese religious cult I met at the Times Square Palestinian March. On the television was local cable, which consisted of televangelists, low-budget right-wing news, and Scientology ads. Liam and I took a particular liking to Newsmax, which features mainly men in ill-fitting suits ranting about the most recent culture war. The one this week was that Kindergartners are too woke, or something like that.

We had dinner plans with the founder of IPR (Independent Project Records), Bruce Licher. A man we had spoken to on Zoom for almost two years, but had never met in person. He let us choose where to eat, and we settled on ‘Islands’, a chain restaurant that was suggested to us by Mike, the hotel front-desk agent who spent ten minutes checking us in while giving us song titles for our music. Off the top of my head, he suggested ‘Rooftop Margarita’ and ‘Sideways Coupe’, neither of which we will be using.

Islands was just Margaritaville, like seriously, it was Margaritaville. 

We woke up early the next day to rehearse. Our time slotted for 10 AM-4:30 PM, and given that none of us (sans Rylan and Colin) live in the same city, there was a lot of practicing to do. We were fortunate enough to be given studio space in Gold Diggers, where we would also be playing the show. Gold Diggers somehow functions as a bar, hotel, and recording studio, and at no point in the four days we spent there did anyone question that. The studio space itself was a huge wooden room filled with equipment and soundproofing. Being openly non-gear heads, we were pretty ignorant of the actual gear we needed and allowed the sound guys to handle our setup. 

At this point, it had been around four months since we were all together, with a half a year between that and another half a year between that. Distance most of all separated us, and none of us had fought much against it. We are all in our early 20s, now preoccupied more with the next day and less with the band. Not to admonish our behavior or decry some forgotten feeling of ambition, we are just much older now. Liam works a full-time job that has been explained to me enough times for me not to be able to explain it back. Colin and Rylan are finishing up college. But as we played together, we fit into familiar roles. Colin, whose earnesty and can-do attitude seems to get on my nerves as many times as I admire it. Liam always sensible and realistic with outcomes and predictions, wrangling in the incessant noise the rest of us create. Rylan with a maturity that has always outpaced his youth. It feels strange to write about them from an outsider perspective, but in a lot of ways, that is what I am to them: a person who has experienced them for years and learned to appreciate their being. At lunchtime, we stopped into a sandwich shop where we would eat for the next three days in a row. 

We headed back to the hotel after practice, and got ready for a concert we were going to by drinking three beers. The band we were seeing was called Feeble Little Horse; I had been trying to see them for the past four years, and as luck would have it, they were in LA at the same time as us. We each had two tallboys at the concert, costing $16 each. At the end of the show, we were working on a strong buzz and decided to get a nightcap around the area.

The locals we asked suggested a bowling alley that also had food. Rylan, Colin, and Liam gave their IDs and got in, while I was held back. The bouncer assumed that my South Carolina ID was a fake and held onto it while I continuously asked for it back. He argued that the holograms were off and that, well, it just looked plain fake. This isn’t uncommon for me; I printed my signature and am smiling in the picture, but in a drunken state, I left my usual grace at home. 

We left the bowling alley, ID in hand, and ended up in another bar. I found out the bartender had an English degree too. He asked me what I was doing, and when I said I ran an online publication, he laughed and told me to get ready to be a bartender. I tried not to take it personally.

At the bar, we talked about the band, how a joke idea from 2018 had somehow led us here, and for the first time, I felt a little gratitude for what I was doing. For weeks, I’d been shooing off people who told me how great an opportunity this was, how lucky I am. In my mind, the band isn’t huge and definitely isn’t profitable, so what was there to be happy about? But surrounded by friends I’ve known since I was 14, in LA, playing music, I forgot all about those criticisms. I still struggle to not see any of the guys in the band as I did when I was young; they all look the same, withholding retrospect. I thought of meeting Liam on the first day of high school, Colin as a tiny third-grader, and well, I can’t remember where or how I met Rylan, but he, too, was young once. I try not to be overly sentimental, especially when it comes to friends, but in moments like these, it’s hard not to avoid some nostalgia for the present.

The next day we woke up, rehearsed, and got lunch at the sandwich shop. We walked to the Walk of Fame and took a picture with the Rodney Dangerfield star. We stopped at the Chinese Theater, where a man tried to give me his rap album, but I declined. He screamed at me and told me I wasn’t a serious person before walking away. I asked Colin what that guy’s problem was, and heard a voice behind me saying that business is slow. I turned around to see a 5’ 2” man in a Spider-Man costume who spoke in a Hispanic accent. He told me of the woes and troubles plaguing the Adjacent-Chinese-Theater-Street-Attraction-Business, and I thanked God I wasn’t on mushrooms. 

We walked to In-and-Out. It wasn’t that good, but I did get a paper hat. And then ubered to the Griffith Observatory. The Griffith Observatory, perched above the LA Skyline, looking down on the city, is actually a very good time. The inside is a pseudo-astronomy museum, and the outside should give pretty good views of LA, but it was foggy that day, so we didn’t get to see much. We walked from the observatory back to our hotel, which took about forty-five minutes. The first part of the walk is down the mountain? that the observatory sits on. We remarked on how green the grass was. I, coming from Charleston, was reminded that there were hills, and thought about how different these views look compared to Connecticut and South Carolina. The colors felt much more vibrant, and I wondered if that was true or a placebo effect seeping into my brain from David Lynch movies. 

We walked into a neighborhood of beautiful, yet quaint houses, and assumed they must be two million dollars or more, and owned by C-list celebrities. Upon the comment of C-list celebrities, Liam used Lawrence Fishburne as an example, which resulted in a long-winded discussion on what tier of celebrity Lawrence Fishburne is in. We finally got to walk past the Scientology building. A tall, blue, very plain-looking building that washes a feeling of discomfort over you. Liam said that there are certain things in this world that you can feel evil seep out of. 

We got ready for the IPR dinner and shook hands, meeting a lot of the staff who had been working on our vinyl and CDs. They served a cheese plate, chicken fingers, and scotch eggs, which are boiled eggs wrapped in sausage and deep-fried, surprisingly good. Additionally, I had a pumpkin beer for the first time, and questioned all the hate it gets. We left and went to a bar near our hotel that was a genuine dive bar. No girls with micro bangs and boys with mustaches here, just men with missing teeth, piss drunk on a Tuesday night. The floor was scraped in spots, showing wood under the covering. The bartender had blacked out, I assume, a couple of hours before we arrived, and at the end of the night, she accused Colin of not paying for his drinks. There was a pool table, though, so good enough hang. 

While playing pool, my left-handedness got in the way, and I was forced to step off the ground, placing my bottom on the pool table. One of the toothless men came over and yelled at me for cheating, saying that I needed to keep one foot on the ground. He pointed to Colin, Rylan, and Liam and told them I was cheating once again. In a just world, I assume the boys would beat the fuck out of me for cheating in a friendly pool game, but we do not live in a just world. I threatened in my mind to talk back to the man, but summed up that a drunk-toothless man who cares enough about pool to come over and tell you that you’re cheating is not one with much to lose. As we walked out, he told us to get lost and never come back. Rylan said we’ll see him tomorrow.

The next day, show day, we rehearsed, ate at the sandwich shop, and napped. Rylan, Colin, and Liam all brought button-up shirts to wear, and I realized we weren’t kidding around when that idea was floated around. We arrived at Gold Diggers, played our show, and tore the roof off the place. In moments like these, I genuinely enjoy playing music. While rehearsal and fine-tuning minuscule parts of songs is nothing short of exhausting, there is something beautiful in the finished product. If I were a smarter, more alert man, I would use this as an exercise in patience, but I am not smarter and am only occasionally alert.

There was no hug after the show, where the four of us looked into each other’s eyes and saw the world behind them. Nor was there a pop of lucidity to explain to us just how special this time will most likely be in our lives. Colin had to catch his flight right after, so we enjoyed one post-show-beer and talked about the show. We talked about how much we love playing together, how we wish we could do it more often. Despite sharing a room with Liam and being surrounded by Colin and Rylan for the better part of a week, in this moment, I felt a strong connection that only in retrospect one can feel. To sit slightly tired with a half-full glass surrounded by friends who know far too much about you and like you despite that. Colin left shortly after the beer. Rylan and I left the following morning. Liam left shortly after that. My flight home was boring and meandering. I don’t remember what I watched, saw, or thought. I arrived home, finding two glasses of water I had left on my nightstand, and cast them both into the sink.