Lake Powell National Golf Course, Arizona, an 85. That is 49 done. Just the Golden state to go. I’ve got plenty of time up my sleeve so I decide to go to LA LA land via Vegas. The second night in, I’m at a whiskey and bourbon bar at the Stratosphere. I’m the only one in the joint and the bar staff have plenty of time on their hands. A couple of manager types drop in and five of them go about inventing new drinks. Eventually they decide (after an hour or so) on two cocktails that are good enough to go on the options board. I ask the barman, after the others drift away, how often does this happen? “Oh about twice a week. Staff from the other bars come in and grab the recipes and use them in their bars”. “It is the second best job in the world”. “The best?” “You know the one Woody Allen had in what’s new? Pussycat.” “Remind me”. “He is in a strip club and a friend comes in and asks what he is doing there? Woody “I’m working ” Friend “What do you do” Woody “I help the strippers put pasties on their nipples” . Friend “And how much is that worth?” Woody “$20 a week” Friend “That is not much.” Woody “It is all I can afford”. Hey I managed to get another incestuous paedophile into the blog. Anyway I decide I best try some of their infused whiskeys, whiskys and bourbons. “So what is your best bourbon?” “Best scotch?” and so on and so on. “So you would say this is your ninth best bourbon”. I can’t remember facetiming the enchantress. I can remember a bill that started with a 1 and a 9, but didn’t end there.
So LA. The City of Angels has 11 million people and I don’t have a clue why. It seems to be just a mass of freeways with a couple of nondescript buildings here and there. I decide to go to downtown Hollywood, Hollywood and Vine. A woman approaches. “A two hour tour normally $55, I’ll do it for $35″. This should have set off alarms bells. Open top deck of a two decker bus. 12 Ukrainians up the front, 15 Venezuelans down the back and an Antipodean in the middle. Our tour guide arrives. Jerry the Jewish cowboy is what he calls himself. He has on a cowboy hat with a yamaka under it. Jerry explains that he has a great deal of sympathy for the Ukrainian people and their problems with Putin. He then talks about his concerns for the Syrian refugees and how he admires Angela Merkel’s attitude towards them. He says this all in English and then in Spanish (I think). This goes on for about for about 15 minutes. I not sure what this has got to do with Tinsel town, but we have all got to experience what an urbane humanitarian Jerry is and we have only just started. Whenever we come to what Jerry decides is a Photo op. Jerry says “Foe-toe, Foe-toe, Foe-toe, Foe-toe, Foe-toe, Foe-toe, Foe-toe, Foe-toe, Foe-toe, Foe-toe, Foe-toe, Foe-toe”. He says this about 50 times at the 20 or so spots he considers photo ops. Jerry says the house below was Marilyn Monroe’s home.
I’m pretty sure he is just making this shit up.
“Do you people know the song, the piano man” Silence. “Oh you are kidding, the piano man! Billy Joel!” Apparently Billy wasn’t big in Kiev or Caracas. I feel as if we have all let Jerry down. “Anyway down that street there is a club where he wrote that song. You can’t really see it from here.”
Whenever there is a lull, Jerry fills it in by pretending his hand is a trumpet and he plays tunes just using his mouth. I’m convinced Jerry would knock Simon Cowell on his limey ass.
We go down Rodeo Drive which is full of shops such as Zegna, Bvlgaria, and Hermes being frequented by people you would gleefully help into a wood chipper. We see this car.
Jerry insists it is his car and all these people have to get away from it. He manages to keep this running gag going for the rest of the trip and it never gets old. As we go around Jerry tells how they often see Tom Cruise or Cameron Diaz or a couple of dozen Kardashians carrying Caitlyn about. As we go down another main drag he yells out “there is Jay-Z, there is Jay-Z”. Now, I could be wrong, but I am pretty sure Jay-Z wouldn’t be getting into a 1995 Toyota fuck’n Corolla. Again, I could be wrong, because I didn’t get a good look at him, but I’m not even sure the dude was black. At one stage, Jerry comes and sits opposite me. Him “Are you having fun?” Me thinks to self, well I could being held captive by ISIL. Would that be worse? Me says “It is fun”.
- Who doesn’t like the Gilmore Girls?
- Bartlett for America
50 States of golf 