where the turf meets the surf. before i journeyed home, i spent monday at venice beach with helen and her friend liz. i've been to venice beach a few times before but never when it was in full bloom. aside from random pockets of places that smelled like shit, venice seems to be a very cool place. it personifies the california that television and postcards are constantly pounding into your heads. everyone is all bum and chilled out, street vendors sell assortments of use(ful)less colorful things. people are balling, music is blasting, crowds are crowding.



there is the famed muscle beach, where we saw the one the only hulk hogan. he looks smaller in real life. but maybe that's just because in my imagination he's the biggest baddest man ever. this guy body slammed andre the giant and he's only maybe so-so big. but oh well, another childhood dream dies when tear gassed with reality. and then we saw some really weird super muscled people. it's sick how big these people are. why do this to yourself? then again, why work out in full view of the public? oh right, ego. in the thirty minutes we were watching the guys and gals of muscle beach i think i saw three people actually even bother to lift weights. everyone else just waltzed around topless and flexed alot. woohoo.



the coolest thing at venice beach was watching the skateboarders and the roller skaters. not bladers mind you, roller skaters. there's a little concrete cul de sac where roller skaters gather and they kind of shimmy around, skate and dance to a dj. apparently the roller skating experience is not about speed but more about rhythm, spinning and gyrating. everyone crowds around, sitting or standing, on the grass and it's kind of mesmerizing to watch. the scene is straight out of an eighties movie. palm trees and imported beach framing the people who were super cool maybe ten-twenty years ago. you've got your ballerinas, your flashy gay men, your old yet still physically coordinated balding men. this could possibly be the last place on earth where day glo is still kinda cool. everyone in that cul de sac is convinced that they are the prettiest little roller skater ever. one girl was, we swear, either the inspiration for roller girl or a sad derivative. she hardly skated, she just bopped around and tried to get into the spotlight. at certain pre-coordianted times, one large group of roller skaters would start doing some choreographed routine shit. *ungh, ungh, hand flip, hand flip, skate shimmy right, skate shimmy left.* they were pretty organized these roller skaters. it was kind of like watching breakers or something, when everyone gets into a semi-circle and flashes their moves.



venice beach is kind of a trip. if it weren't for the ridiculous parking, i think i would like to hang out there more and take some pictures or you know, make more stupid inane commentary on the side.