The Great American West Trip - Day Four

Starting on the fourth day, we decided that we were going to be making smaller assumptions in how far we could travel in one day. So we decided that if we left at 11 AM we could make it safely to LA by 8PM. We decided that both of us had serious issues with being late that needed to be remedied immediately, so I decided that the best way to not be late, was to add a few hours of delay into whatever place I was supposed to be. Since we were scheduled to arrive in LA by about 3 PM if we drove non-stop, I decided to give a good five hours of delay so that there was no way I could be tardy to anything I was planning. So after packing up and heading out we headed back on the Highway One and didn’t stop until we hit the lovely town of Ventura, CA. Tiffany had seen the town of Ventura in a magazine and thought it would be a cute place to stop for lunch. Once we got there, we learned that it was closer to being uppity than cute, but overall was a nice town. After walking about two blocks, we saw a store that read, yes it really said. “The Retarded Children of Ventura’s Thrift Store: Owned and Operated by Ventura’s own Retarded Children.” Now Tiffany, who has worked for several years with Developmentally Disabled persons, found this to be shocking and politically incorrect. I more so thought it was funny and politically incorrect, but either way it spoke to the feel of the town. It felt like one of those places whose people consider it a charity to build their ‘retarded’ residents a store to make themselves feel better. Now being in Southern Cali, we were shocked to see that there was a town with no Asians, Blacks or even Hispanics, but I guess rich white America is the same everywhere. But we really liked the look of the place so we stopped to eat at a South American styled restaurant. After realizing that you never get served when you are the only ones sitting outside, we decided to move back inside where the rest of the customers where located. As I was walking into the restaurant, I bumped some rich white lady’s purse that was hanging from her chair, and the glasses that were dangling on the purse string fell to the floor. Naturally, I immediately picked the glasses up and apologized for accidentally knocking over her glasses. This lady had the nerve to look me in the eye, sneer, grab the glasses back, and then dismiss me as if I never had said a thing. After making a mental note of this woman’s behavior, I went about having my lunch. But it did not help my opinion of the little beach town of Ventura.
So from Ventura we started on the trip down the most famous stretch of 101. This stretch incorporated Malibu, Santa Monica, and finally LA, but the thing that all these places had in common was that everyone was exceedingly wealthy. We drove amongst all the mansions of the stars that dotted the hills and beaches of Malibu but chose not to dwell too long for fear of being tempted to conduct a break in. Since it was about sunset time, we pulled over and caught the sunset on the Malibu pier, and actually ran into the people that were in charge of funding the Malibu pier. After answering all the questions they had for us, we got to enjoy the sunset all by ourselves. Then it was back to LA for meeting up with our friends. Now I was planning on staying for the night in that area (Brentwood) because I did not want to impose myself on Tiffany’s friends, but also because I did not want to stay in Compton (which is where Tiffany’s friends said they stayed). I had been joking with Tiffany (well-to-do Chinese gal) that she was never going to survive the night in Compton, because that’s where all the dangerous black people stayed and they like to shoot people. So after sufficiently scaring Tiffany about staying in Compton for the night, she called her friends and asked if it was safe for her to stay there. From the sound of their voices, it seemed they were white, now I am no expert, but I just didn’t see any white people choosing to live in Compton. So after some further investigation we discovered that they lived in a fairly safe area between Long Beach and Compton, but associated themselves with Compton. After Tiffany learned that she was safe for the night we met up with some of Tiffany’s friends in Santa Monica at about 5:30 PM and had some drinks at a bar so we did not have to get stuck in LA traffic. Once drinking in the early afternoon got old, we hit up the sushi bar across the street that was advertising its grand opening by having all sushi half-off. About twenty pieces of sushi later it was time for me to run off to dinner with my friend in LA, Melat, so I went and picked her up from UCLA.
After learning Melat’s latest set of Grad school problems we went to California Pizza Kitchen and chilled out for a few hours. Now one of the one draw backs of being black and appearing to be nice (due to my frequent smiling) is that you get a lot of attention from people that usually do not mess with other people. In this case, I am referring to crazy homeless black men. After giving this man some change, he literally refused to leave me alone for about five minutes, or however long it took for him to explain his life story in one long discontinuous rant. I try not to be rude in those situations since you never know when the last time he had a proper conversation could have been, but I definitely was glad when he moved on. Afterwards, I took Melat home and decided to go back to Tiffany’s friends place to sleep so we could leave uninterrupted in the morning for San Diego.
Getting to Tiffany’s friends gated house, I quickly discovered that this was going to be a long night. There were open bottles of wine and a big bag of Cali’s finest implying that the night was just beginning. Now there were plans for Tiffany’s friend (who aspires to be a producer) to produce a demo for an aspiring local rapper that night. I was assuming that all that mess would be done by the time I got there so I could go to sleep, but it turns out that they had not even started, and were not even in the house to start anytime soon. They were out getting some tacos, munchies I assume, so by the time they returned to the house it was about 11PM. This dude Abde/Abdi/Aubdee (who the hell knows how its spelled) put down one track for the next three hours. The guys stayed in the recording room (Tiffany’s friends bedroom) while the women tended the babies and watched Sex in the City. I was tied between the increasingly monotonous rap session and the very friendly pitbull that they owned, but once the pitbull got loose and rubbed itself in a bunch of poo, my decision was easily made. So amongst the stench that the dog brought into the house, I watched this man spit his verses over and over and over again. Needless to say, this guy will probably not be the next Jay-Z but the track was alright and Tiffany got to witness her first ever rapper recording session. Things eventually calmed down at the house and we finally got to go to sleep on the little love seat that me and Tiffany somehow had to squeeze onto. Those of you who know I love sleep could tell I was fairly cranky. Overall, it was a good day.