Our friend Alex lives next door to a monastery/convent up on a hill in Hollywood. The nuns there make a Secretly famous pumpkin bread that they use to keep the place running. We ended up getting a loaf of it and it was delicious. Also, we could see Jesus from our window.
We were also a block or two from the UCB Theater. (improv theater with roots in Chicago) We decided to investigate. The show involved three groups: a large team of eight, a beginning group of two people, and a middle group that would be composed of three audience members who put their names in the hat. Shelby and I put our names in the hat. The first name they drew...Shelby Burton. The second name...Joe Burton. What!? So we ended up playing in this show. The hosts were curious why we had the same last name and we told them the whole story and they thought that was nice. Then we did some improv with this UCB student who was also in the audience. It was fun.
The next morning we slept in and met Alex later in Griffith Park. We walked the wrong way so getting to the park was about 30min longer than it needed to be. Oh well, it was a fun walk. Alex had been doing a yoga retreat with her friend and drove us up to the observatory. it was a little hazy but still a beautiful view of the city.
"Cat and Fiddle"
We had Mexican food for dinner with Alex and another old Chicago friend Rachel and headed to the Cat and Fiddle. This was a bar where we told all of our LA friends to meet us if they wanted. We spent most of the night there left around 12:30am. I also got to see my friend Dele from high school and her husband Jon. They are both as it turns out, entertainment lawyers with NBC and Disney respectively. They tried to assure me that it sounded more impressive than it was, but I was still impressed. We were talking about staying an extra night and they offered to let us stay with them.
The next day, Alex took us to the LA farmer's market and I pretended to be a Dutch tourist. I had been joking around with this Dutch accent and Alex and Shelby named me Gregor. Every time they would ask me,
"Gregor, what do you think of this?"
I'd say in a brilliant Dutch accent.
"Oh it's very nice. I like it. Yes. We do not have these in Nederlands."
A roving vendor tried to sell us Michael Jackson Incense, so as Gregor I asked if it smelled like Michael Jackson.
"You be the judge."
"I have never gotten clothes enough to smell him."
"You've heard him though, right?"
"So, you say it will smell as he sounds"
"Yeah, man."
As I smelled it, i noticed the crudely xeroxed pictures of Michael that he had stapled to the top of his incense bags, and wondered if his sales had increased. He's probably been carrying around that MJ incense for years, with everyone giving him weird looks. Now is the best time for him to unload it, I bet. he was obviously really torn up by the loss of his brand namesake.
After, I smelled a few of them and decline the offer to buy any, he asked me where that accent was from.
"Is that Australian or Brit?"
He has obviously never met anyone from the Netherlands, or else he would have known right away. So I said,
"Neither actually, I'm from New Zealand."
It's probably not that great of an accent, but I had fun.
Shelby decided after buying homemade soap from a vendor there that she wanted to make her own soap. So, if anybody knows how to make soap...?
As we were walking, I spotted Michael Jackson's Star on the street. Not THE Michael Jackson the other, fake Michael Jackson from a long time ago. I kept taking pictures of it and various good Samaritan's kept telling me that it wasn't MJ's star. I insisted that it was the real Michael Jackson's star, and that I was a fan of the old radio announcer. It was strange that, I guess once people found out that wasn't the REAL MJ's star they felt like they could destroy the things that people left there. Flowers and candles, etc. that had been left there were crushed and broken. Curious.
"If I lived in Yogurtland I'd be happy ALL the time"
So, I guess, frozen yogurt is a big deal in LA. Like hot dogs or pizza or in Chicago. Alex took us to yogurtland a self-serve pay by the pound Yogurt joint. Gregor loved it.
That night we stayed with Dele and Jon. None of us had ever seen The Groundlings, and our old Chicago buddy Laurel is in the Sunday cast so we thought we go check it out, it being Sunday and all. Sadly, Laurel was not playing that night. We got to read her bio though. So that was cool. The show was really funny and it's always fun to compare the different styles of sketch and improv in different towns.
We ate breakfast at the 101 and took the 101 out of town headed for the Grand Canyon.
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