It’s hard to explain how much I love and appreciate what I refer to as the “Venice Safe House”, more accurately described as my cousin Cale’s home. He works in the film industry and is often traveling with movie crews, leaving a quiet safe haven for advantage seeking relatives like myself to occupy ever so briefly.
Sitting mere steps from the safe house door is the Venice Ale House, a bohemian beer house with organic fare, fun waitresses, and a picturesque beachside view into the eyes of some of Venice’s famous and infamous characters, like a lighthouse for the weird and wonderful.
As Jay’s car jetted south on I-15 toward L.A., thoughts of both of my West Coast “houses” eased the hangover rumblings in my head. Tyler was snoring in the backseat before we left the Strip, and I was charged with the responsibility of keeping Jay entertained so we didn’t careen off the road in a three-piece chorus of slumber. This was one of the hardest tasks of the weekend, sitting second to moving from my bed at Jay’s house to the shower ten feet away just three hours prior.
As we approached the California border, a familiar sight rose ominously off the left side of the highway. I started hearing faint screams in the recesses of my psyche. I sat up a little straighter and watched intently as the beast cast its shadow across the hood, the cab, and then the entirety of the car. The Desperado Roller Coaster. It wasn’t just a dream that Kelly Winch and I had driven there from NYNY Casino with a six pack of Tall Boy Budweiser sixteen years ago. That must have actually happened. I remember screaming as much as crying. It was a mind-boggling 90 seconds…Wow, I really need some sleep.
Tyler was staying at a house in Hollywood, while Jay and I were starting at the Venice Safe House and moving to a house in Beverly Hills on Sunday for the two remaining nights. My parents were flying in Sunday to take over our Venice digs and join the party, and with the safe house measuring in at a mere 500 square feet, Jay and I decided to seek refuge elsewhere.
The Desperado disappearing in our rearview mirror, we were on California soil and barreling closer to La La Land. My phone vibrated in my pocket and snapped me back to reality. It was a text from Jessica Trainham, the world’s most entertaining girl. According to her text, Laurel Hardware, a bar in Hollywood, would be the destination tonight. I shoved the phone back in my pocket and updated Jay on the plans. Tyler still wasn’t fit to receive any news.
When Tyler finally did wake up, we were in the guts of the city. He had yet to reach any of his lodging companions by phone, so we would be adopting him for the night. We parked the car in the street near the safe house and lugged our bags into Venice paradise. A quick round of freshening up (cold water splashed on faces) and a change of clothes and we were shuffling down the boardwalk to the Venice Ale House for an organic beachside meal and several craft beers.
We were done with our meals and finishing our third beer when the magical call from Jess came in.
“We’re leaving now,” she said, “we’ll be there in 30 minutes. I have the baby harmonica.”
Just a few weeks prior I was staying in Venice for a brief respite after a week in Vail entertaining clients. I had no plans, so Jess and I got together with some of her friends, which ended in a wild way in a private karaoke room in Santa Monica with bottles of champagne and a baby harmonica, which she blew incessantly until it fell headlong into a champagne flute. Evidently, two weeks is the span of time it takes for champagne to dry out from the inside of a baby harmonica, because when we entered Laurel Hardware, it was all I could hear.
Laurel Hardware was a pretty cool place once you were inside, but you looked pretty silly standing outside waiting for the mighty doormen to grant you entry mainly because it really looked like a hardware store. I just imagined people driving by thinking “man, these people sure are intent on buying a hammer at midnight”.
The inside was anything but hardware. There was a dining area that wound around a shapely wall into a back room with a full bar, booths, lounge seating, and long family-style tables. It was a lively atmosphere. Loud.
Jess and her harmonica conducted the largest of the family-style tables. Twelve seats held Auburn fans I recognized from a span of years on the Plains, all connected to Jess and myself in some way. The evening commenced officially. It was fun catching up with these faces that had once drown on a nightly basis in the sea of bodies at Sky Bar, waited in lines at the hot dog stands, and nursed hangovers at tailgates on the Plains. Laurel Hardware was a great kickoff for us in L.A.
Things got a little hazy as we spilled onto Sunset Boulevard at 2 am. The next thing I knew, we had split with Jess and the rest and were winding up a road into the Hollywood Hills in an Uber car. Our friend Will had joined Tyler, Jay, and me, and our destination was the house where Tyler was to be staying.
“You know all your clothes are in Venice,” I said to Tyler, afraid that may have slipped his mind.
It didn’t seem to bother him, so we trudged upward into the mystical hills overlooking L.A. The house had the typical unassuming look from the outside, as the bulk of the structure was build directly into the cliff below us. You couldn’t get a decent sense of the size of the place until you went out on the balcony overlooking what appeared to be three stories at our feet culminating with a lone hot tub precariously situated at a drop off point with the best view possible of the world below.
Jay and I hung out for a bit, admiring the modern art pieces mixed with classic black and white photographs of Marilyn Monroe. “This looks like a place she might have partied,” I said as I snapped a few pictures. While Will, Tyler, and the few additional guys staying at the house selected their bedrooms, Jay and I used the opportunity to sneak out and started heading down the hill aimlessly in search of a solid way back to Venice. I pulled up Uber on my phone, and was surprised to see a car close. He was there in a matter of minutes, and for the second time in two nights, a few things remained constant: Jay and I passed out in the back of a transfer vehicle, and probably worse, Tyler slept miles away from his luggage.
Good night, Saturday…(Click here to read about the night before)
