• Did a “Stars Of Hollywood” tour, mostly because it was the only half day bus tour I could find that actually went to a decent number of locations. We did the classic walk of fame (pretty lame to be honest, it’s 18 city blocks of essentially stepping stones) and got harassed by poorly dressed Spidermen looking more like the Dolan memes of old than anything from Marvel.
• As part of the tour you drive past lots of famous people’s houses, but they’re all fenced off. For all I know they’re just houses owned by some bloke called Bob who works in corporate accounts at some joint in the city and the tour guide just invented the owners. I don’t care about celebrity culture as such, but the houses are cool and Beverly Hills is pretty swanky.
• Best part of the tour really is going through the places like Korea Town (biggest Korean population outside of Korea apparently!) which is where the famous rooftop Koreans were defending their stores with guns from the looters during the LA riots. Also their stadium is named “crypto.com stadium” which is laughably bad. They’ve paid for the naming rights for 20 years(!!!) which is far longer than crypto is going to last.
• Went past the house from Fast & The Furious. A Corona spontaneously appeared in my hand and family family, family family. Family family – family. Also the shop where Brian got a tuna sandwich is just around the corner for real and they’ve had to barricade off the roundabout to stop people drifting it in tribute. Apparently the shop doesn’t sell tuna sandwiches either 
• Had a bearded and one shoed homeless person come by doing the classic “rarghbagarble rhagerhar RGAHSHGRR ragagar” mumbling while he went through bins. Such a classic stereotype that I did wonder if he was an actor paid to enhance the ambience right up until he ate stuff out of the bin. Could be a method actor I guess.
• Got a pumpkin spiced latte mochachino or whatever it’s called from Starbucks so that’s another item ticked on the American fine dining list. Also had a Rueben sandwich, a root beer, and an Arnold Palmer. Embracing the culture.
• Went to the Peterson Automotive Museum which is incredible. So many rare cars, and all in ridiculously good condition. If you like Porsche, they’ve got all the Porsche you can handle. Also have a whole floor dedicated to Tesla which they (rightly, IMO) describe as the biggest innovation in the automotive world since the Model T… which, unless I’m being all Alanis Morissette, is actually very ironic because the Model T is what killed electric cars originally. It’s a pity Musk is turning out to be such a dickhead because Tesla itself is amazing. I took a photo of an exploded view of one just in case Luke pulls his apart and forgets how to put it back together.
• People in LA love to talk on the phone. Often on loudspeaker, but always LOUD. Bus, train, taxi, public space… it’s discussion time for everyone. On multiple occasions we’ve walked past someone discussing their “anxiety” issues with a therapist in the middle of a public place, at full outdoor voice volume, on loudspeaker. I’m no psychologist but I’m calling bollocks of those blokes having “anxiety”. This morning we got woken up by some lady in the room next to ours at 4am, cause she decided that was a great time to FaceTime some other idiot. In another moment of Alanis Morissette, she said the words “I didn’t want to call you earlier because it would have been too early your time and I didn’t want to wake you up”. Also she struggled for the rest of the conversation with time zones, using the term “your time or my time? My time? Ok yeah my time. Oh… your time, ok your time” dozens of times. FWIW the person she was speaking to had an audition recently, and it went very well. Also the conference they went to served alcohol, but they didn’t drink any of it. They’ve just landed in Phoenix and will meet up on Monday to see their friends. Ask me how I know all this…. Move to LA Hln, everyone here is rich and mentally unwell!
• We found a pipe outside our hotel, and a homeless camp, and a waxing place called “Cooch Waxing”. It’s currently my favourite snapshot of this place.
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