So yesterday night after the “anh” mix, my girl and I drove down to OC to hang out with gocubbies [one of my best homies; am I latino or what??] to meet his dog and grab some grub. His new black lab’s name is “Coltrane” and he reigns like the Love Supreme. Super happy dog, and a good life he will have, I can promise you that.
Went to an eatery with really good steak and that bastion of suburbia, the “all you can eat salad bar.” So, for those of you who have figured out that the pile it on your plate method is never effective(because you never have room for the main course) do you ever notice that invariably your plate looks like 4 leaves of romaine, six garbanzo beans, half a table spoon of carrot-raisin salad, bean sprouts, alfalfa sprouts, 4 pieces of cukes and some cheese, shredded? It ends up looking like airplane food!
On to Sunday:
One trip to TOYS ‘R US. 10 minutes.
Drive to and finding parking in Venice Beach. Surprisingly short too, about 30 minutes. Follow that with a nice 3 block stroll to the beach.
It was a pristine day by any account, about 2 PM, by my guess. There were people of all shapes and sizes on the beach today: homies straight out of the “bizlats” on The Shield, 9 piece horn section band, with the band leader arguing with some super angry latino about the fact that his Venice gig of banging on pots and pans has been drowned out by the quite good Venice version of the Tower of Power. The Muscle packed jocks were there with their homoerotic garb, revealing much too much landscape. People playing squash, people just walking around, chillin’ with their dogs [canines, you fool]. Some stoned out hesher had his guitar and a little amp playing the intro riff to Paranoid…over and over and over and over again. But he was no match for…
Perry!!!! The rollerblading mulato rasta-man turbin wearing, guitar playing freak who has been on Venice Beach since you or I could speak, I’m sure. Sure as shit, there he was. And his riffs, as usual, were incomprehensible.
But, back to the reason for the story:
The kite was assembled in about 5 minutes.
The wind was perfect, maybe 5-10 mph, and the 1st attempt was up up up… and SLAM! to the ground.
2nd attempt was much better as “Heckle” (or Jeckle; it looked like an evil crow with yellow eyes and a red nose) maintained its high flying ways for the better part of an hour. We eventually laid down on the sand, and just stared at it, floating & omnipresent. It barely did anything and I gotta tell you, it was just…relaxing.
Some bloke was off to the side showboating his stealth bomber looking kite. The kind with 2 master controls so you could dive bomb the m*therf*cker. Not for us, man, not for us. We just chilled.
It was just a nice day. I should say also that we punctuated the day with one slice of pepperoni which was too thick but surprisingly tasty. Oh yea, cheesecake ice cream with caramel and strawberry topping. Brian would have been proud.
The XB got washed later in the evening, and a couple walking by asked to sit in it. An opinion you can take to the bank: sometimes you HAVE to use Sundays to sharpen the saw.
I shall go to sleep tonight dreaming of the next time I will fly a kite….
