Thelma, Louise and That Girl, Part 2. Decorated Lightpoles

(repost from The Ark and Vloggerheads)

Thelma, Louise and That Girl
June 1998
Decorated Light poles
Venice and Echo Park, California

Hitting the road at the ass crack of dawn put us at the California state line at breakfast time. For the obligatory ‘crossing the state line picture’ of course. I also recall stopping in a parking lot full of fake dinosaurs and equally fake turquoise jewelry. That Girl was duly impressed with this odd assortment of tourist attractions and insisted on seeing the whole thing. Later adorning herself in the kind of gear that screams, ‘never traveled to the southwest before!’....I’m surprised she got out of there without buying a DiGrazio.

We arrived in Echo Park around lunchtime and after a quick greeting to my ex father in law (who is the kind of man that doesn’t bat an eye when the overnight guest count suddenly triples) and made a beeline for the beach. Venice Beach. There is something to be said for being 27 years old. It was a period of time in my life where I could wear a bathing suit under my clothes, walk to a spot on the beach, remove said clothes without a second thought and drop to the sand for rays. It was a few years later (and another child) when I discovered the joy of needing to change in the bathroom, double checking that all loose bits are squarely tucked in, and bemoan the ass to stomach ratio that a faltering metabolism suddenly brings about. Alas, on this day, no such worries occurred to me. And while the beach was beautiful and the sand castles plentiful, Laura and I both agree that it would have been so much better with weed.

So, as a substitute we decided to scope out the Muscle Beach section of the boardwalk and contemplate new body decorations to commemorate the trip.

We played, ‘Who get’s the first phone number?’ - which was Laura by way of a Fabio look-alike that found forming numbers to be quite the intellectual challenge (but he gladly posed for pictures). Then we played, ‘Let’s get pierced’.

I thought I was going for the height of daring when deciding to get the belly button bejeweled, but That Girl would not be outdone (which came to be another prevailing theme) and announced that she was going for broke and getting her tongue done.

I’ve watched a lot of horror movies in my life, but none quite so profound as being within a six foot proximity to a tongue piercing. That linguistic muscle looks like steak tartar when pulled out as far from the maw as it can go and then held firmly with forceps. (Also a great reminder to brush the back of ones tongue more often...as shit tends to accumulate). That’s still not quite as bad as the jabbing stick going through at what appeared to be super slow motion speed and That Girl attempting to scream without benefit of the vibratory conduciveness of her tongue.

Ten minutes later, two professional piercers and one person sitting on her legs, they managed to get the barbell in place. She stood up stiffly, the swelling in her throat already apparent, shaking her dignity together and announcing, ‘That wasn’t that bad’.

Returning to Echo Park, the belly buttons presented to the awaiting family were pronounced, ‘cute’....the tongue then presented was rebutted with, ‘please put that away, we don’t know you that well.’

Fortified on a healthy organic meal and an interesting conversation with the lady of the house on the merits of going Buddhist, we decided to pick up the mission of the earlier hours and find out if weed was to be had.

A few cheap bottles of strawberry wine and aimless walking over the hills that echoed with a Dodgers game several miles away, we found a rave pole. A light pole festooned with streamers, ribbons and whatnot to indicate an underground party was occurring somewhere. The problem is that rave poles don’t come with directional signs ....the perk is that Echo Park has great acoustics and the bump and thump of the music wasn’t too difficult to track down.

Having never been to a rave before, I assumed a seedy underground dance floor, sex, drugs and latex clothing (see what movies do to you, kids)....instead we found a bunch of college students sitting on their front porch, dressed in military camo, with their boom box going and smoking dope. Yeah, maybe a little Charles Manson for my tastes, but a party is a party.

Wine was easily traded for smoke, introductions were plentiful (well except That Girl...the tongue had grown to twice its normal size). We came to find that the host of the party had acquired some kickin’ night vision goggles to which the group wanted to play hide and go seek. We all played, we all laughed. Especially at the part where That Girl didn’t want to be outdone and proceeded to put on the night vision goggles and stand in front of a Rather Bright Light.

She stopped seeing spots about the time we tumbled back to base camp and crashed.