Venice

After all the recent news, I thought of Venice. I had booked a flight to LA and a hostel near Venice Beach. When I arrived in Los Angeles at night, I had no idea how to get to the hostel; it was deserted. All I saw was a lot of concrete and empty roads, not a single taxi. But then, a bus came, and everything turned out fine.

In the morning, it turned out my hostel was on the boardwalk. During my first outing, I immediately encountered a hippie behind a decorated walker with artificial flowers. A little further on, someone was playing "Band of Gypsies" on a guitar. I had landed in a version of Woodstock, but a bit later in time. Extremely peculiar but super relaxed in atmosphere. People I met there told me I could move there. I had that impression myself too.

I had brought some drawing supplies and almost daily made a little drawing with watercolor and ink, while on the beach, people who, judging by their outfits, were clearly concerned with their health, were exercising vigorously. A nice contrast to the hippies on the boardwalk who, from what I could tell, had very different views on the matter.

As a freelancer, I had often worked in the set design world, where we made complete Sagrada Familias out of styrofoam. I really wanted to see Las Vegas with its copied architecture. It was impressively made, all those fake monuments with casinos inside. Outside, it was 40 degrees, inside the casinos, there was carpeting à la Tuschinsky. There too, I encountered walkers, though this time at the slot machines. Strange world.

Back in LA, I took the train along the coast to San Francisco. During a visit to the harbor, I ended up in a fish shop. They were playing Zappa there; my day couldn't get any better. See, then you're really doing something!