So I left Bali. There is only so much rice, tuna, and beer which a boy can consume before it starts, well, to get to him just a little, ya know? My last few days in Bali were quite nice. Karen and I had several incidents of quite astounding mental telepathy. It kept happening over, and over, and over; we’d be thinking exactly the same stuff at exactly the same time. And of course, Karen and I bought Ubud. Liam continued to amaze and entertain; I was looking after him in the market while Karen went into a shopping-buying trance. He really made me laugh, because he was running around grabbing all kinds of stuff – it was a real task to keep an eye on him – and then suddenly he picked up a bunch of carved wooden spoons, held them up to me and said “These are stunning, Peter!” Now, where does a little kid, age 2 ½ learn the word “stunning”? I nearly fell over I was laughing so hard. I also went one night to a Kecak dance, which thankfully has no gamelan orchestra, but instead a musical accompaniment of 120 men chanting in harmony nonstop. They have a priest on hand as many of the chanters fall into ecstatic trance while doing their thing, and have to be revived from the spirit world carefully. Really fantastic, and just perfect for me being only 1 hour long. I have a short attention span.
The flight from Bali to LA? You don’t want to know. Ever stopped in Taipei? Ugh.
And now I’m in North America, staying with my friends Perry and Juan in West Hollywood in Los Angeles, that most plastic and somehow unreal of cities. Perry and Juan have a bulldog named Lola, who thinks that she is a person. Something in the LA air, proximity to Hollywood and all that, made me crazy – I believe it affects all Los Anglenos – and for the first day I kept serenading this poor dog with “Her name was Lola, she was a showdog, etc.” Also very interesting: Perry and Juan keep a box of Wet Wipes on the kitchen counter to clean Lola up after she comes back from her morning and afternoon poo perambulations. Question for circulation list recipients: do any other dog owners do this? While staying in West Hollywood, I went to a gym which charged me a $23 drop in charge! I also saw my friend Keith, whom I met years ago when I first moved to London, and who had a baby with a lesbian friend two years ago. He said it is wonderful now that his little girl is old enough to have a real relationship with, but in the first year he kept thinking “Oh my God, I’ve ruined my life.”
Then I moved on to stay in a different suburb of the plastic-fantastic city, called Los Feliz, with my friend Kate, whom I met while kayaking in Malawi a few years back. Kate’s special: she can cook. Last night at dinner she forced me to drink mojitos, my new favorite drink, a Cuban concoction of fresh limes, mint, sugar, rum, and soda water. She cooked scallops and black rice and Asian salad in rice vinegar, while I hung out her kitchen window looking for my new, as-yet-unintroduced-to-me, Cuban boyfriend. I love Kate because she told me that when she receives my e-mails, she always stops what she’s doing and makes herself a fresh cup coffee before she reads them. She has a musician friend from across the street who is currently jamming on the accordion (!!!) in her living room, while I write.
LATER: It’s later in the evening and as I write (this is real in-the-moment reportage, folks) our house – well Kate’s house actually – is being buzzed by a police helicopter doing circles over the street. Also, there is a police car right outside the house, parked in Kate’s driveway, and policemen at the bottom of the street with guns. The helicopter search light is sweeping the street and coming in our windows, and the megaphone says “You are surrounded, come out with your hands up”. The noise is so mechanical, unhuman, etc that I feel like a hunted homo sapiens in some apocalyptic future where machines have taken over, aka Terminator. Where is Arnie when you need him? Kate says she’s going outside to put her hands up and shout “Please, how long does it take to cook scallops?” The noise is deafening, and it’s a little unnerving since one tiny pilot error, and we are toast; the helicopter is flying REALLY low. Kate has just made fresh tea – herbal no caffeine cause we’re already a bit worked up – and we are settling in to watch the spectacle. Clearly, we have criminal in our midst. I keep hoping for someone to run up the street, gun-in-hand, and for the police officers to give chase right past our front door. The police force presence is truly awesome. I’m thrilled, as I feel I’ve had a real LA experience. This is NOT Canada. The next morning we are so excited by this experience that Kate has decided to take me to the LAPD coffee shop for a doughnut, where I can sit amongst many burly police offices, who are “all packing heat” – Kate knows how to turn a phrase. There is also a souvenir shop right next door where I can buy things like LAPD sweatpants, or a T-shirt which commemorates a very violent street shoot-out a few years back, with a score card (bank robbers versus police) on the back of it, with various categories of scoring: rounds fired, weapons used, injuries, and, yes, even deaths. So this is LA! I think I finally “get” this city.
But in addition to policing, LA is also something else for me: food! America has the BEST snacks in the world. Crans – sundried and lightly sugared cranberries – yummy! Taro chips – taro root cooked like a potato chip and seasoned lightly with Asian spices – delicious! And the restaurants! We’ve been to a wonderful Mexican restaurant, which served heavenly guacamole and burrito, and a Japanese restaurant where we ate salted soy beans, glazed sea bass, albacore and yellowtail sashimi, and miso soup with special mushrooms (just tasty, not hallucinogenic, thank you very much). Baskin Robins Ice Cream Store has also received some patronage from us. We’re going for Cuban food tonight, I think. Kate mentioned a Peruvian restaurant too. More to come after our next meal…
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