'Bred Crumbs

L.A. Incidental

10:12 PM

Characters encountered during my weekend trip to L.A., in order of appearance:

Wai-tor, Master of Tables: During our first dinner of the trip, in an Argentinean restaurant (fun fact: two-thirds of all restaurants in L.A. are Argentinean) (OK, not a fact, just an appearance), one of the waiters was a massive, cut bodybuilder poured into blue jeans. He was not our waiter, which was bad, because our waiter wasn't so great, but which was also good, because the fact that the muscleman was not our waiter let me see his denim-skinned legs and titanium buttocks more often. We instantly wanted to make a comic book out of him.

The Nice Waitress at C&O: Sunday was glorious, the perfect day to fight the crowds and take in the Marina del Ray-Venice megalobeach, starting with lunch, delicious lunch, at C&O Trattoria.

Robbie, in his first visit to the wonderful Italian eatery, couldn't decide what to have. Torn between chicken and a sausage sandwich, he appealed to the waitress for advice.

"Get the sausage," she said. "It's fun."

Couldn't argue with that. We never did figure out what exactly was "fun" about the sausage sandwich, but it was tasty and that's all that mattered.

Retarded Vermin Feeder: Near the weight pit at Venice Beach, an oldish man was digging food out of trash cans and feeding it to the seagulls. We hated him instantly. Some of the lifters noticed him and started pointing him out to each other, and yelling at him to stop. He seemed not to hear them. I wondered if any of them were going to get in his face. They probably could have crumpled him to the ground with a flick of the fingers. But they probably realized, as we did, that he had legitimate mental problems, and wasn't just an air-rat-feeding idiot.

Boxing Guy: He would pound on a punching bag for a while, walk away briefly to chat with someone or do exactly three pull-ups, then go back to punching. Boy, he sure liked to punch that bag.

Studio Rent Boys on Stilts: A bunch of young men were apparently desperate enough for money that they agreed to walk around on stilts, carrying 2-by-4s, and chant things that somehow were supposed to make everyone lose their mental faculties and decide to see The Rock's thoroughly unwarranted remake of Walking Tall.

This reminds me of a story from my hometown.

Back in 1977, when Star Wars entered its 12th week at the downtown theater, it broke the Paducah record for longest movie run. And yet, the owner of the theater told the local paper, he still didn't think it would prove to be as popular as Walking Tall.

Aggro, Camera-shy Sk8punk: Also at Venice Beach, I took a lot of pictures of skateboarders. Buying a digital camera has returned my picture-taking to journalistic mode, meaning, I often take several shots of one thing to ensure getting a good image. (See also: Boxing Guy.) So I obsessed over this artistic backlit image of one guy who kept trying to ride a wall, but his falling kept wrecking the shot and I eventually gave up. As Robbie and I walked away, I heard behind me, at the edge of the skating area, a young voice say "Hey" three times. Against my better judgment, I finally turned to see if the voice meant me. He did.

"Quit taking our picture," a previously unnoticed skater-boy ordered.

I do not dig confrontation, not even with wiry, possibly drug-addled Los Angeleno teenagers. But in strange situations like this, I only get upset or concerned later; my first reaction is simple surprise. This time, the surprise was compounded because I had not been taking pictures of this guy. He hadn't even wandered into the shot. So I answered the kid's demand with a puzzled look and the question, "How come?"

"Because I said so."

When faced with logic like this, one has little choice but to comply – as long as complying means doing what you were going to do anyway. I was done taking pictures, so I cheerfully answered, "OK."

But it turned out his demand was multi-part. "Erase them," he said.

And I was done. We turned and resumed our previous path away from his idiocy. He kept yelling behind us, "Erase them!" which might have attracted attention had this not been the circus that is Venice Beach. I think I turned once and gave him a what's-your-deal look, but otherwise we just walked off and braced to see if he was going to turn out to be not just a baby bully, but a psychotic baby bully.

But he did nothing to enforce his ignored edict, or to answer my unvoiced questions:

Is he an O.C. son of privilege, and thus used to getting what he wants, however ridiculous? Or was he a poor latchkey kid, bitter because The Man kept running him and his God-given skateboard out of parking lots? Is he afraid he's going to wind up on the Internet with his head pasted on top of Janet Jackson's boob? If he's so scared of being watched or photographed, what's he doing at Venice Frelling Beach? And does he know, thanks to his stereotypical example, how little slack I'm going to cut skateboard kids from now on? And how much I hope he winds up in prison, where he'll wish that all that was happening to him was his picture (not) being taken?

When it was over, I wished I'd had a punching bag. Or a 2-by-4. Or stilts.

But maybe from now on I'll abbreviate my photographic efforts, just so I don't make anyone, you know, nervous. Sheesh.

The Parade of Heads: Eventually, the wonder of the day made me forget about aggro-boy. That, and the fact that every restaurant and bar in West Hollywood has $2 margaritas on Sunday.

For dinner, we stumbled upon a cute little Mexican place with a patio. Our table was right next to a hole in the patio wall, along the sidewalk. On the other side, a line was already forming, at 8 p.m., for a club next door. Through our porthole, cute heads would appear, stop for a while, then move on to be replaced by different pretty heads.

It was surprising how few of the heads looked in through the hole. The first one who did, we offered to feed a chip. He accepted. Deliciously.

The Nice Waiter at the Mexican Place: Unlike most of West Hollywood, he was cute in a real way: not gym-sculpted, just a normal body topped with a sweet smile and a naturally blond, product-free wave of hair. Plus, he shared our enjoyment of the Parade of Heads. When he came to bring us more margaritas, he asked if we'd picked out a husband for him yet.

Without missing a beat, Robbie answered: "None of them have been good enough for you."

You see who has the quick wits in the family.

The Pushy Go-Go Boy: After dinner, we hit Micky's, where we had the best of our three consecutive nights out. There were dancers (on a Sunday!); there were bartenders even hotter than and nearly as nude as the dancers; and the DJ was playing Songs Everyone Knows, from early Madonna to "Such Great Heights."

After acquiring Margarita No. 5, we sat at a table just to sit. It happened to be right next to a platform that was soon occupied by a dancer. This guy, rather than do things that would make us want to give him money, instead pulled out a dollar bill and exhibited it in front of us in a weird, bossy way, as if we were required to stuff his basket. We ignored him.

I wouldn't have taken his picture if he'd asked me to.

And speaking of pictures, sitting randomly on the end of a stone barrier back at Venice was this collection of objects:

And a belt.

I can't imagine.

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