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shake, rattle and roll An earthquake in Kent? A few months ago it was a tornado in Kensal Rise, now the ground trembles in Kent. I remember the first time I ever came to the US, in 2002, expecting that I'd feel a quake at some point in the Bay Area, visiting the infamous San Andreas fault, but not a dickie bird. then a couple of weeks after geting back to England, rrrrrummmbbllee, the house shakes a bit. Hmm, thought it was the neighbours. Then ten minutes later, on the radio, "hey, there was just an earthquake in the west midlands!" You sure? Straight up. Now, I've been living in seismically active California for almost two years, not a squeak, and then England gets one. Wow! Not that I'm saying I want one, of course. The idea of the earth swaying from side to side and unsettling the foundations of all the buildings around me isn't exactly on my christmas list, you know. I'm lucky too in that Davis isn't on a fault line, all the biggies are down in the Bay. But it just goes to show. I wonder if it has anything to do with Mr Blair's imminent departure from Downing Street, ten years on from the quake which caused New Labour's massive landslide in 97? Plate tectonics, mate, shifting sands and all that. |
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1.5.07 12:50 |
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the happiest hotel on earth At this very moment I'm at Disneyland - well, the Disneyland Hotel, actually, not the park. I'm attending a conference for academic advisers, one in which they have so far given out lots of prizes, randomly. At each breakfast and lunch and 'keynote' event (this is vocabulary I've not used before) (i don't mean breakfast or lunch), they give out prizes at the end in an effort to make people stay to the finish. The prizes are fairly lame and useless - gift cards to shops found nowhere near where you might live, parking upgrade passes for your own campus (for people like me who don't drive, anyway), a year's online membership to a website I've never heard of, huge gift baskets that you will not want to bring on the plane - hardly inspiring. Well to make sure everybody stays until tomorrow afternoon, they are promising to give out big prizes, ipods, laptops, cd players. But we got to see Mickey Mouse at breakfast. He came onstage and did his typical stand-up routine, "so what's the deal with donald, who stole his knickers?" before disappearing back to the office. Last night was better - i met Goofy, and he cooked me dinner. Well, I went to Goofy's Kitchen, the restaurant at which he is, so they claim, the chef. I wondered if he was like Gordon Ramsay in the kitchen, all four-letter tirades at the little bluebirds doing the washing up. He came to my table, though, and introduced himself by signing the table. What a gent, Jamie could learn a thing or two. The food was nice - I began with dessert, because it's disneyland, and I can - and I had to try Goofy's special Peanut Butter Pizza. It was as bad as it sounds - my mouth felt like it was glued together. So I fixed it with a margarita (the drink, not the pizza). The human staff were a bit gruff, but I met some of the other characters - Chip, Dale, Mulan, and i got chatted up by Minnie Mouse. Well I say chatted up, she didn't actually speak, but pointed out the empty chairs at my table and did the 'oh so sad' gesture. Yeah, thanks, I'm eating alone and it's being pointed out to me by Minnie blimming Mouse. Yeah, well where's Mickey then, eh? Out walking Pluto, yeah. Off in the cheese shop. The room and the hotel in general are very nice though. everything has those little mickey ears on it, and the pool area is based on Never Land, and full of over-excited kids (oh please, you automatically think Michael Jackson don't you). I might catch a quick swim though before the throng of kids all start to arrive back from the park, and then go and do some drawing. The conference finishes tmorrow, and then I'm off across LA to Santa Monica, on a weekend of urban and beach sketching. That's All Folks.
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4.5.07 00:33 |
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the happiest place on earth
Never mind Disneyland, mate. I spent a couple of days in gorgeous Santa Monica, beside the Pacific Ocean, and was walking around with a big grin on my face for most of the time. Everybody was so friendly, the atmosphere was so laid back - was this the big scary LA I'd heard so much about? I thought LA was, in an overabused word, awesome. I got back yesterday evening, still giddy, armed with digital photos (how many times can you shoot sea, sky and sand?) and a now almost complete sketchbook (I'm saving the last page for burnt oak). It wasn't cheap, but it was worth it. I'll write more tomorrow when my head has returned from the ocean. Yup, found a new favourite place. |
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8.5.07 04:47 |
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downtown disney blues
pen, at the espn zone bar in downtown disney. I'd just had a meal at the House of Blues (where apparently Britney 'oh god not her' Spears played a short gig the previous night) - service was awful, took almost an hour until we were called to be seated (only to find it wasn't even that full), waitress took forever, they brought my main course just two minutes after bringing my starters, and my main course (a po' boy) was very po' indeed. And it was nearly an hour between stopping eating and actually finally paying and leaving. I wondered if I was wearing Harry Potter's cloak of invisibility, or whether you had to have a fast-pass to get served. The House of Blues? House of Lose, more like. So I went for a beer (expensive, $6.50!) in ESPN Zone (who had far better service) and watched the footy, and drew the picture above. The picture below is of a mexican street band playing for the tourists.
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9.5.07 07:53 |
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postcards from main street
watercolour, pen, on main street santa monica. I fell in love with this area as soon as i arrived, full of nice little shops and restaurants and cafes and shit, and i liked the look of this place, so i sat opposite (beside the edgemar - not edgware - arts center) and painted it. I got a lot of smiles from people passing by, and it felt nice. Even the drunken bum (pictured staggering beneath the tree, there) wandered over and muttered some indecipherable gibberish. One guy though said that he owned a shop down the road and would really like to sell my drawings as postcards, that restaurant is a local favourite etc, people love that stuff, and gave me his email. Cool! Later that night, having watched some excellent jazz band in a cafe (as the only spectator) and eaten the best pizza in LA, and popped into the Galley for a quick (but expensive, again) drink, and walked down to the pier at night and watched the waves crash in, I went for (another expensive) beer at a local Irish pub on main st, finn mccool's. I was cream crackered, but still managed to draw the picture below.
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9.5.07 08:12 |
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saturday in santa monica
watercolour, micron pen; i spent saturday morning wandering about santa monica, up third street promenade, along the palisades on the seafront, beneath the palm trees, looking out at the ocean. took several pictures of that famous blue sign that stands over the entrance to the pier "yacht harbor, sport fishing boating, cafes" (kinds buggered up the small drawing of it though), didn't see any yacht harbour though (but lots of cars in a parking lot). Listened to some great music wile drawing, this urban rapper and his band (supa lowery bros), excellent lyricist, none of your commercial rubbish.
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10.5.07 07:39 |
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westwood ho! or the search for enchiladas on cinqo de mayo
I passed through Westwood, LA, while changing buses to go to the getty center. Westwood is where UCLA is located, and I really fancied a sketching trip around campus, but didn't have all that much time. It's a nice area, very swanky. Did the picture below while at the bus stop, and the night-time picture above in the evening after the getty. I had wanted to eat in westwood, but being cinqo de mayo, i wanted mexican food. Onmmy brief skirt of the streets i found no mexican restaurant, and it was starting to get late. Could it really be that i could not find mexican food in los angeles on cinqo de mayo? What a sad case i'd be. So I got onto a bus back to santa monica and went to a place called Lula near the motel - very nice, but pricier than i'm used to for mexican. Duck enchiladas, plus a berry margarita, oh yeah! By the way cinqo de mayo, a mexican festival to mark when they defeated the french many years ago. Always held on the same day every year. May the fifth be with you.
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11.5.07 01:22 |
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Yr 2, Wk 84: He's Considering a Move to LA LA is a great big freeway, a famous song once said, and northern California was a place you went to escape its smog-filled alleys and valleys. The idea of this city - and I have been there before - to a non-driver such as myself was anathema to my very ideals. It was just too big (and this coming from a Londoner), too sprawling, too unfocused, too reliant on the dreaded automobile, too balkanised between violent ghettos and super-wealthy media-types (again, this from a Londoner). A terrible public transport system you'd only take if you were too criminally insane to be allowed behind the wheels of a car. A city that would swallow you alive. I'm glad I went down there for a visit by myself, because I think that finally my perceptions have shifted, just a bit. Of course, the experience of getting from LAX to Disneyland didn't help much. Stuck on a mile-wide freeway in a small shuttle bus in a vast densely populated plain south of the yellow-tinged hills and the tall towers of downtown LA that looked like so many tombstones. Lookng at the map, I was passing through areas of legend - Inglewood, Compton, South Central, Watts - it may as well have been, if popular imagination is anything to go by, Beirut, Gaza, Baghdad, Darfur. The freeway couldn't get us away quickly enough. The only part of these areas I actually got to see however was a Taco Bell parking lot, while the bus driver was taking a leak, and to my surprise it wasn't filled with boyz in the hood shooting each other on sight. I remembered when I first heard of drive-by shootings, and imained people going up to a little booth, winding down the car window, a gun coming out and shooting, then being handed a drink and some fries. Well they don't do fries at Taco Bell, so no chance of that here. I came back this way on the way from Anaheim to Santa Monica, where I was basing my little solo excursion to LA. I'd heard it was nice, one of the nicer parts of California, and being by the Ocean there was less chance of me getting lost. I got a public bus, through Marina Del Ray and Venice, and there was a guy on there I thought I recognised, conversing loudly with a couple of tourists about the hidden beauties of the area. after he got off, the other passengers excitedly said that he was from TV, he'd been in that show Deadwood (it wasn't the Lovejoy guy, though), and that you get that sort of thing all the time. I, however, thought I'd recognised him because he looked a bit like my uncle Eddie when he was younger, so kept quiet. Anyway, at only a dollar, the public bus was perfect and finally got me away from the insulated reality of cars and freeways, taking me to the streets. I instantly felt a little bit at home - apart from the golden sunshine and the abundance of palm trees, I could have been in London - except people were friendlier. Santa Monica hit me instantly. I see the world in pen and paint and every sight I saw I wanted to draw, every house, every tree, every shop. My motel, while still in Santa Monica, was probably more correctly located in Ocean Park, on a vibrant little stretch of Main Street, a couple of blocks from the immense perfect sandy beach, Venice to the south, Malibu to the north, and Japan many leagues to the West. Everybody I met was friendly and local, and yet I still got that big city feeling I've missed. I had a slice of one of the best New York style pizzas I've ever had from a little place where I overheard conversations between animators and designers, before going to a little cafe I'd seen where a small and seriously talented jazz band played incredibly soothing music to me while I ate a day-old croissant. I was the only customer - it was true don't-get-too-popular jazz (and the guitarist had almost the same Ibanez as me). I followed this with a walk to the tourist-and-light-filled pier, before strolling back to try some of the Main St pubs recommended by locals. The only thing I could say agianst this place at the end of the day was that the beers in the pubs were too expensive. It's probably an LA thing. I took a bus to the posh Westwood, home of UCLA and on the cusp of Beverly Hills and Bel Air, from where I took another public bus up to the Getty Center. I had worried that my accent would be misunderstood when I got on and that I would end up in the centre of the Ghetto, but thankfully that didn't happen. The Getty was incredible, overlooking Los Angeles like an acropolis. I saw only a small part of the actual collection - it was the building and the grounds that held my interest, especially the labyrinthine gardens. I took the bus back, and for a moment I was in north London, on the 210 going through Highgate across Hampstead Heath. It was a little jarring. The rest of my time, though I'd planned to venture inland again, was spent clinging to the Ocean. Santa Monica's sunday morning farmer's market was right opposite my motel, and while so many of these markets have disapponted me with their smugness, this one felt happy, sunny, with its aging Mamas-and-Papas type band, and though it sounds incredibly corny, I felt as though at last I'd found the mythical place called 'California'. The place made me feel like a friendlier person - I started to let people watch me sketch (which I never ever do), and even realised I was singing aloud to my headphones as I was walking down the street, but it didn't matter - it seemed like everybody else was, too. I only saw a tiny glimpse of LA as an auto-less traveller, but it was enough to dispel a few myths (and to be fair, a few realities), and while we won't be moving to LA any time soon, at least now I see it as a place to consider.
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11.5.07 14:30 |
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getty blaster
watercolour, micron pen; the getty center was awe-inspiring, nestled in the hills above LA. And, like my favourite London art haunts, completely free to get into. I went in the late afternoon, knowing that I'd catch that glorious pacific ocean evening light. The grounds were spectacular, and while I spent a lot of time in a dark room reading medieval manuscripts (a special exhibit, i couldn't miss it, and was pleased to understand a lot of the old french), i didn't really look at the collections so much as the space. Though this one hug piece called Uberorgan was pretty mental. I sketched, and allowed people to watch, which is unusual for me. Normally I say, 'no, please don't', or practically close my book to outside views, but this day I felt good. One guy did ask me if I was to be exposing myself at the getty center sometime. You what? i responded. He meant exhibiting, of course, and didn't understand how i could think anything else. |
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11.5.07 14:49 |
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santa monica farmer's market
i got up on sunday morning, left the motel, and straight opposite there were all these people, music, stalls - it was the farmer's market, and proof that it was not the snobby or at least smug 'oh look at me aren't i clever for shopping here' type of farmer's markets you get in places like, well, davis (where i'm told they sell more t-shirts and bags advertising the market than actual produce, and i believe it too) was the fact that i spent a couple of hours here and thoroughly enjoyed it. There was fun beautiful californian music, people sitting around picnicking on crepes and tamales etc, a general happy atmosphere. I did a few drawings, soaked it all in, decided that a trip to beverley hills was not worth the effort when santa monica is so cool. that statue looks a lot like alec guinness with a big long beard in real life (i couldn't quite capture it), but is of senator john percival jones; i guess this is right next to his old house. I strolled down colourful main street and drew the new orleans building (bottom picture, with the clock), before heading a couple of blocks west to the ocean, where i stayed the rest of the day. |
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13.5.07 21:22 |
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