Thursday 8 March 2012

LA, the end... and going to see the doctor!

On we rocked, and rocked we on... shutup. Harbouring up in Malibu after the short drive from Santa B we got a quick mcdonalds and headed to the beach! Finally letting getting some use of the surfboard we had been lugging around in the van aimlessly for the whole trip, suffice to say Dave was delighted! Finally reaching the beach we were still all pretty spent from our antics in SB the night before and took the first chance we could to lie down. However this didn't impede Farzo, taking off down the beach without prior warning, disappearing on the horizon and not returning for a considerable period. Drowsiness and things not really worth remembering happened and next thing you know we were in LA!

We spent a nice majority of the evening driving around the city looking for a hostel and eventually settled for another dodgy motel towards the end of Hollywood Blvd. Two of us went into the check in desk and talked with the chinese guy behind the counter who seemed a bit sketchy but eventually let us stay! We had noticed a lot of trucks and camera gear in the parking lot of the hotel but we didn't really think anything of it. On the way into the room however we bumped into another guest of the motel who told us that Fergie was shooting a video over the next day or two in the same motel we were staying in! Suppose we were in Hollywood afterall :) None of us could claim to be huge fans of her music or anything but still lads, she is daycent!

We went into the rooms anyway and balmed for a small bit. Then got brushed up for another night on the tiles but on the way out we passed between two cars and a curly haired character wearing sunglasses who looked vaguely familiar. It eventually took Jamie to pose the question while we were leaving the parking lot "Lads, was that Slash?" (ie slash from guns n roses!) We got talking to one of the camera crew and he told us all that was going on, himself and fergie from the black eyed peas were filming a video for some new song they were bringing out!! The guy told us they would be around for the next day or two and said he would try his best to get us a meet and greet or whatever with the two! Totally unexpected but still pretty unreal!

Anyway, we bought copious amounts of some cheap vodka and headed towards the other side of Hollywood to The Viper Room, the club formerly owned by Johnny Depp and the one famous for River Phoenix overdosing and dying on the door step right outside! Dave had booked us all tickets for a gig that was going on there that night for a band called 'warner drive' (I think! Memory is getting hazy) After a fairly long stroll and taxi ride we got there and all I can say after going to the show is that rock n' roll certainly still exists! In California anyway. The night just had a real essence of 'fuck you i'll do what i want about it'. The main singer of the band, during the build up for the solo in 'whole lotta love' by led zeppelin, started tripping majorly on the stage.. Licking the guitarist while writhing on the ground in agony doing the 'ah ah ah ah ah ah' bit
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXKboDqiSbE <-- about two n a half minutes in]
for the two minutes. Then proceeding to go absolutely spastic for the rest of the performance! There was a massive fight in front of the stage between two absolutely cracking women tearing lumps out of each other and afterwards the scrawniest drug addicted looking performers in the band had some of the best looking groupies I have ever seen completely HANGING off them. The vibe in the place was just immense (definitely nowhere near Bandaoke in reardens on  wednesday though).

Afterwards then outside was just manic. Again, you had the best looking women in Hollywood absolutely hanging off these tattooed punk rocker type dudes who drove really strange muscle cars converted from really old models. It was all just a bit surreal! I felt like I was overdosing outside of there and the drink had well and truly been sweated out of me at that point!


 Dude doing his "having sex with the ground and orgasming multiply" act

Ja Biys

It was about this point we were starting to get narky and tired and wanted to go home so we taxi'd it back to the motel! (lies, that was just me being a tired unenthusiastic negative prick)


So we got back to the motel and as it just happened; Fergie and Slash had just finished filming and were going  for a drink afterwards in their famous person truck. We bumped into the camera man who we were talking to earlier and we got to party with both Slash and Fergie and their respective entourages for the night. Seriously living it up!! (Lies, that last paragraph never happened....ever)

Heres the video they made anyway... dont think it was particularly successful... but anyway

If you squint you can see our white van at some stage (also lies)

So the next day we got up, shook off the hangovers and took a trip down to venice beach! Probably one of the coolest places you will ever go... All sorts going on down there. Dudes selling rap cd's while playing it on their boombox. Girls walking around with snakes on their shoulders. About a million and one places to buy medical marijuana, not being advertised very medically! Basically its a pretty cool place with a lot going on! Myself and blake had a game of paddle tennis practically on the beach on these cool courts they had there, the game got so intense blake had to take off his shoes to keep playing. results of that can be seen below.. the lads took a sconce inside muscle beach, one of the most famous gym's in the world! There was also one of the coolest urban skate parks Ive ever seen down there with skaters doing absolutely ridiculous tricks. This place is just a hotspot for seeing weird shit. It was definitely one of the most eye-opening places I have ever been to. A place where the most artsy and creative people of LA meets gangster rappers in a pretty cool backdrop! Heres some pics anyway..











From Venice beach we took our travels back inland and said we would go get a look at the Hollywood sign while we were at it and it was still bright! Driving in LA is pretty hectic but we got through all the traffic etc. and on the way swung into the wildcard boxing gym owned by Freddie Roach. This is the gym where the (disputably) best pound for pound boxer trains and condition, Manny Pacquiao! We threw our heads into the gym on the off chance we might see either of them but to no avail. All we got was some pretty mean stares from ridiculously well built fellas hammering into punching bags and each other. So we left fairly briskly! Pretty cool to see the inside of the gym though which looks like it could be anywhere in the world. Just a normal day-to-day gym with people working out inside. Weird to think how Floyd Mayweather probably has a multi million dollar strength and conditioning facility in his own home where he trains and Pacquiao trains somewhere you could find off Blarney street. Thats us here anyway in the token group photo..


After that we went rambling around Beverley Hills looking at all the rich houses and doing the norm thing. Had a look at the hollywood sign, turns out its smaller than you would think. Still better than the Dingle one though.. 

Cant really remember anything particularly exciting happening after that so we went back to the Motel and got dressed and stuff for drinking again!


Blakes socks after his demolition by Roger Keverer

Rose and shone the next day after a pretty uneventful night wandering up the hollywood strip looking at all the stars on the ground and all that craic. Today was a poor day though as we were losing another two of our crew. Jamie and Scott were flying home :( So we packed up the van, yet again, for another adventure off somewhere else! The lads flight wasnt until the late afternoon so we took a cruise through compton just to see what all the fuss was about. No shootings or gangster related activity detected we headed towards Inglewood and tested our luck a bit further. Still with a few hours to burn we parked up in Inglewood and got the hurleys out to have a bit of a puckaround. A stupid idea? Yes, Had to be done? Of course. Pulling out our camáns in a dodgy, dodgy black neighbourhood of LA definitely wasnt one of our better moves! Wonder what Dr.Dre would make of that if he saw it! Probably would incorporate it into his next tune....

On that note we got our last picture of the hols as scotty owned the camera so no more visual aid from here on in!..

Dropping the lads off we decided to take another spin down to venice beach for a look around! It was here we managed to somehow blag our way into being in the audience for a Dr. Phil show being filmed the next day! That in mind we decided to kip up in the car that night and chance our arms at being on the show the next day! Cue some dodgy characters freaking us out, a strange man designing an imaginary recording studio for us and assigning us a band name and what our roles in the band were (crystal meth must be a hell of a drug), an encounter with a very dodgy fear dúbh on a bicycle and the James Bond incident! Way too much detail involved in that to explain at half 2 in the morning... So after running away from a couple of suspicious people we parked up in what we thought was a safe spot and eventually got some shut eye. Awaking in the morning looking forward to going on Dr. Phil we realised our parking spot hadnt been that safe, with police cars coming and going left right and centre! We managed to park outside the hollywood police station. 

That debacle behind us we parked up and threw in the best clothes we had left; soggy, wrinkled jeans and shirts that hadnt been touched since vegas. Suffice to say they put us at the back of the audience! Queueing up to get on the show we were delighted waiting with our free capri suns and ryvitas. We went into the studio and took our place at the (very back) of the audience and watched an episode on cyber bullying being filmed right in front of us! The initial thoughts of jeering everyone that came on were kind of blown out of the water when all of the guests were crying and talking about this sensitive issue we left a tad disappointed. Also disappointing was the hampers and DR. Phil memorabilia we were promised wernt given to us. The guy who said we would leave with "bags of stuff" and that it would be "just like christmas" was clearly a spoof... Either way we were on Dr. Phil which is still pretty cool! 

It was with that in our heads we took to the road back to San Diego and the last leg of the journey :( the road trip and J1 as a whole was coming to a very realistic end. On the way we swung by Huntington beach and Newport for one last ride on "the wedge". A spot up the coast from San Diego we had fell in love with over the course of the summer! It's basically a (slightly) man made wave that because of the dip in the sand and refraction from the wall next to it jacks up to a huge height just as it approaches the shore and becomes a massive wall of a wave. Waiting to absolutely destroy you! Heres a video just to give you an idea... 


What an unreal spot!.. I seriously fell in love with this place the couple of times we were here and would recommend anybody in cali to have a look. Its free and time consuming. Happy days!

Blake n myself there at the early stage of july!

Blake on driving duties we got a couple of cans for the final 2 hour furlong back to SD. (I still owe ya for those cans farzo)... Trip over. The car was returned to hertz and we were left to survive out in San Diego for another week or so with absolutely nothing to our names! 

Some unbelievable few weeks though, better than any holiday I have ever been on and definitely comes highly recommended!


14 comments:

  1. Not a bad trip, just bumping into Fergie and going to Johnny Depps old nightclub suppose you could have had worse trips. Pictures are class aswell

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    1. Cheers man. Yeah true, aload of things just fell into our laps to be honest! Pure luck!

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  2. Pictures are unreal!!! Those socks are hilarious!!! Sounds like an unreal trip!!

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    1. It really was! Shame it had to end but sure life goes on...

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  3. venice beach some spot alright! did ye join in with the locals for a friendly game of basketball?

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    1. There was a huge game goin on at one stage actually! Didnt fancy joining in though, it was a bit like the game goin on here... from about 2 minutes in..

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zymcff8KNhs

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  4. Sounds like a very eventful trip :) Cant believe you kept the Fergie/Slash/Dr Phil thing quiet! Ye were mixing with all the celebs! What was the Viper room like??

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    1. Cheers jen! Viper room was cool.. I always wondered why the majority of big music and musical "scenes" are in places liek Hollywood and London!.. Places like the viper room are the reason why! The small local band playing that night were being absolutely adored like gods! They had such a huge and dedicated fan base at the gig that were probably from the local area... It created such a cool atmosphere that would really nurture musical talent and give it a brand.. So yeah.. it was cool :)

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  5. Every time I read this blog it makes me want to get away. Im way to broke for that though!
    Any chance you want to write about a terrible time somewhere so I can appreciate Cork?

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    1. Haha thats my next blog post so... a horrible time I had travelling! Just to show that everything in my life doesnt always go so rosy! Cheers for the suggestion :)

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  6. What was the viper room like? I was dying to go there when we were in LA after seeing it on The Hills but we didn't make it there :(

    What did you make of LA as a whole? Outside of Hollywood, I found it to basically be a complete kip!!

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    1. Viper room was class! Its not a club like havanas unfortunately though modf... No chance of black and yellow being played so dunno how that would go for you! :P

      I honestly thought LA was pretty cool, would love to spend a couple of weeks there... none of the other lads said the same but I thought venice was worth a week of checking out alone! Hollywood was pretty cool and beverly hills aswell.. Think alot of this love for LA was borne out of watching entourage though! What a show :)

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYhbUyzUUrA

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  7. Cant believe you were on Dr. Phil! Did you get to see yourself n tv after? or was the episde even aired?

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    1. We looked online for the episode but you had to spend like 30euro on the tape. Wernt that bothered after seeing as we were shunted to the back to keep us out of sight :P

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