typical la weekend
Faced with nothing to do during the day, after an English muffin and some tea, I decided, in light of the seventy-something degree/not-a-cloud-in-the-sky weather, that I would take a walk. I was in a diet competition recently and got into a bit of a fitness kick, but running for 60 minutes on a treadmill five days a week can get kinda old. The weather, combined with my realization that I could potentially see some nice boobies, made an outdoor walk an easy choice. So I drove to my second home in Santa Monica, parked there, and walked from Santa Monica south to my buddy Brian’s place in Venice. From there, we walked further south to Marina del Ray. I got a smoothie and a macaroon, said goodbye to Brian, and then walked back to Santa Monica. All told, it was just under nine miles.
When I got home, I masturbated. Then I ordered $34 worth of barbeque and absolutely, totally, 100% demolished it, to the point of feeling ashamed of myself as I hovered over the detritus of the meal on the coffee table (bones, mashed sweet potatoes, paper towels, plastic utensils). I watched two murder shows, took a Xanax, and was asleep by 11:30pm. Typical Saturday/Saturday night in Los Angeles.
The next morning, I “slept in” until 8:30am, mostly because of the drugs. Again, I had absolutely nothing to do, but when I looked in the mirror, I found something: while walking from SM to MDL the day before, the sun shone brightly on the right side of my body. On the way back up to SM, it shone on my left side, but cloud cover prevented any coloration. Therefore, I was now looking at a very solid half-sunburn. It wasn’t quite “children stopping me in the street, pointing, and crying” bad, but it was clearly noticeable, my right side definitely redder than my left. The only way to resolve it was another walk on the beach, this time going south to north with the sun shining on my left side to even me out.
My roommates Mark and Selena and I took a cab from our home (1.5 miles inland) to the pier in Hermosa Beach and then walked together about 2.5 miles north along the strand to the pier in Manhattan Beach. Once there, we stopped for “a beer” at the Manhattan Beach Brewing Company. The MBBC is a sister brewery of the Redondo Beach Brewing Company, which has one of my favorite all-time beers, their Rat Beach Red, which the MBBC also carried. That one beer turned into five and some nachos, and two hours or so later we decided we couldn’t walk back to Hermosa (I didn’t want to uneven my burn again, since the left side seemed to have finally caught up to my right), so we hopped a cab in Manhattan Beach to take us back to the Hermosa pier for more day-drinking.
When we got in the cab, Selena sat between Mark and me. The cab was tricked out: there was a camera, two TV screens behind the headrests of the driver’s and passenger’s seats, and three microphones. The cabbie asked if we wanted to be recorded, and without even knowing exactly what he meant, I let out an emphatic “No”. Without saying anything else, he hit some buttons, and soon Kelly Clarkson’s “Since U Been Gone” was blasting from the sound system, and the words were scrolling on the TV screens. Unbeknownst to us, we had gotten in the karaoke cab.
Selena immediately took off singing; Mark and I wanted no part. The cabbie, an Eastern European man in his early 50’s whose picture could likely be found in the dictionary under the entry “summer teeth”, started singing right along with Selena, adding “Yeah, baby” and “Do it, baby” when she hit the high notes. This left me convinced of two things: 1) This cabbie was indeed filming; and 2) This cabbie was going to rip his penis from his body in masturbatory delight in the privacy of his studio apartment in Torrance five hours from now, while watching the video of Selena sing Kelly Clarkson. I should have been angry at such sexual depravity, but to be honest, I kinda respected him. Pretty good idea, really. Might want to remember that for later.
The song wrapped up just as we got to Hermosa. At that time, the cabbie gave us all his card and told us that he was trying to pitch a reality TV show called “Rockin’ Cab.” He then proceeded to show us videos of several customers – ranging from meathead dudes to smoking-hot 22 year old girls to middle-aged couples – singing along in his cab. In one such clip, I noticed a familiar face. It took me a minute, but then I asked, “Wait a minute – is that Rick Reilly?” Sure enough, it was former SI and current ESPN columnist Rick Reilly. The cabbie said they were buddies and showed me text messages from Reilly, asking the cabbie to pick him up here or there or whatnot. Rick Fucking Reilly. He loves him the karaoke cab.
The first bar we went to in Hermosa was the Poop Deck. It’s a dive-ish bar with potential, but alas, this potential goes unrealized. There is good, cheap beer for sale and the bar itself is dingy, but the clientele is littered with surfer dudes and it all feels a little forced. Also, behind the bar is the dirtiest fish tank you’ve ever seen, with three giant fish trapped inside, barely alive. I’m the first person to say that God put animals on this earth for us to eat, wear, use, ride and teach to occasionally smoke cigarettes, but watching those giant fish in that small, dirty fish tank…it’s kind of a bummer.
(Clarification: While God did indeed put animals on earth for us to wear, humanity has evolved to the point that we no longer need to use animals as clothing. We here at jasonmulgrew.com are against real furs and all that crap.)
We left there and went to what I consider the true gem of the Hermosa pier: the Mermaid. But perhaps I should provide a little context of the pier itself before continuing.
If there is a hell for out-of-shape guys and ugly girls, it is very likely the Hermosa Beach pier. On the pier are a ton of restaurants (that aren’t very good) and bars, filled to the brim with fit, good-looking, tan people. I admit that I’m not a great-looking guy, but let the record show that in 2005, I was one of People’s “50 Hottest Bachelors.” Yes, it was so long ago that I should be embarrassed to even bring it up, and yes, it was a fluke in the first place, but it happened, so there. And when I go out in almost any bar on the Hermosa pier, maybe I’m not the single ugliest guy in the bar, but I’m certainly among the bottom 5% – and that’s only if there is a Hermosa Memorial Hospital Burn Victim Unit social going on. Otherwise, I’m in the bottom 1% or lower. I’m ok with this – at least it affords me to opportunity to stare at women who I will only get to kiss me if I morph into George Clooney or become a serial killer. I actually feel much worse for women who are not hot in these bars; if a 10 from Kansas or anywhere else is America is a 7 in LA, what’s a 3 from Missouri or Georgia going to do? Three words: more Haagen Dazs.
(A 10 in LA being a 12 in NYC, an 18 in Boston, and a 49 in Philly.)
(Just kidding, Philly girls – you know I love you. I’m just bitter none of you made out with me when I was 14, beating off on the bathroom floor, and wishing for a sniff of your hair.)
(Man, that got creepy kinda quickly, didn’t it?)
Anyway, so this is the pier. When it comes to dives, you have only the Poop Deck (already discussed) and the Mermaid. And the Mermaid is far and away the better of the two.
If my grandfather were still alive, he would likely frequent the Mermaid enough to have his own barstool. Hell, my grandfather still might frequent the Mermaid. When the three of us walked in, we were the youngest people in the bar by a good 20+ years (note: this is not an exaggeration). There are no TVs in the bar, which is small and surrounded by deep leather booths. The bartender is over 60, speaks unintelligibly (though I am 98% sure English is his first language) and pours the heaviest drinks I’ve had outside of my neighborhood Philly bars. In short, it is the closest to home I’ve felt since I moved to LA last June. And if when I walk into the other Hermosa pier bars I am acutely aware that I am ugly and unfit to be made love to, it is a rare, empowering feeling that I get when I get when I walk into the Mermaid: I can f-ck anyone in this bar that I want (female or male, probably). It is quite a rush.
We bellied up to the bar and went about our boozing and taking in the scene. It was not long before a old guy in a wheelchair came into the bar. There was a hush, perhaps fear, perhaps awe, that confused my friends and I. The old guy looked like your average old guy – about 60 or so, white hair, white beard, wheelchair, with no tear drop tattoos or spikes in his wheels or anything like that. Yet he was greeted by many of the bar patrons, all just as old as he was, with respect and fear. Perhaps we had discovered the Godfather of the Mermaid (which, might I add, is a pretty good band name).
It was then that the man on the stool next to Selena leaned over and asked us, in a hushed tone, “Do you know who that is?” When we said no, he huffed and said, “That’s Ron Kovic.” When we said, “Ron who?”, he huffed again and took a sip from his beer, shaking his head, reacting as if we had asked “Lebron who?” He turned and looked and said, “Have you ever seen ‘Born on the Fourth of July?’ That’s Ron Kovic.”
So it was not the Godfather of the Mermaid, but the writer of the book which later spawned the Tom Cruise movie “Born on the Fourth of July.” I’ve never seen the movie – I try to limited my movie watching to comedies, mob/murder movies and those that feature hardcore nudity – but I can say that I don’t think I’ve ever had a more random celebrity sighting: the guy Tom Cruise played in a movie about Vietnam in a bar for grandparents on the beach in Southern California.
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Walking along the beach, then overeating, then sleeping pills; red beers, then Rick Reilly’s favorite karaoke cab, then the guy from “Born on the Fourth of July.” LA, man. Weird fucking city.
