Posted by James LAngelle on August 25, 2012 - 9:45pm
(Photo: Dunes Inn, Sunset Blvd, Hollywood)
NORTH TO LONG BEACH--Wasn't too long before the scene in Laguna got stale and it was time to get out of Dodge. The first thing required lightening the load which was done at Tom Williams' "My Laguna Store" where the cassette players, tapes and other unnecessary items were dumped into a foot cubic box at a cost of about $12 and Tom, a tough store operator but very professional, helped me cut the load down to the quad core and whatever clothes I didn't ship from Reno.
Went down to Starbucks and entered a couple posts into Peace Eye blog then went to the beach to get a break. I had been on the road without sleep since 1330HRS the day before having woke up at about 0600AM. It was then about 1100HRS so it was easily well over 24 hours without sleep; except for a nodoff somewhere up on the Grapevine and between Santa Ana and San Clemente.
A quick splash into the ocean and I came out covered in slimy kelp and that ended Operation Laguna Beach. it was time to get on with Operation Sunset Blvd. At the public bathroom next door to the Laguna bus depot, mirrors. Wouldn't be necessary to attempt suicide by shaving like the guy at the stinky, overflowed transit center bathroom in Oceanside. With a swim and a shave, a new day had dawned and the rest was easy. Walked out to the Laguna bus depot and OCTA#1 northbound pulled up a minute later, headed toward Long Beach. From there the Blue Line to the 7th St. Metro center in L.A. and the Red Line to Hollywood.
A long freezing bus ride in OCTA1, since I had wet cutoffs and the air conditioning on the bus was set to subzero, I hopped onto Long Beach transit#94 down 7th St. into town and got out at the Fifth St. Blue Line track.
It was here I found what is known as "Tap" and did that require thinking, and money. First, buy this plastic; next, put some money on it and validate it. I'd done similar things on the Tube in London and even bypassed a beat line of American tourists at the Da Vinci airport in Rome over similar train tickets, but they were easily explained in British and Italian.
The Tap was a completely different item with incredibly confusing instructions that required feeding good money after bad like Marge dealing blackjack at Harold's Club in Reno. Asking for help proved futile, it was dog eat dog out there on Fifth as one train after another whisked by headed into Long Beach, only to loop around and head back into L.A. I, of course, was looking the other way, expecting to see the Metro Blue Line coming back only to find out later that the trains took the loop.
I finally did what I could to get the Tap system to where I thought it might function and hopped on a train headed into town. What the Hell, nobody would bother to check tickets anyway.
Wrong; I decided to hop off the Red Line at Hollywood and Western and at the gate, two big railroad bruisers were checking tickets, stopping everybody that came off the train and headed out to the sunlight from the underground. I flashed the Tap ticket at the bruisers and they signalled me toward the turnstile, I tapped the card on the turnstile and it opened without a hitch, I was free, headed up the stairs into the sunlight and away from the freezing busses and trains.
NORTH TO LONG BEACH--Wasn't too long before the scene in Laguna got stale and it was time to get out of Dodge. The first thing required lightening the load which was done at Tom Williams' "My Laguna Store" where the cassette players, tapes and other unnecessary items were dumped into a foot cubic box at a cost of about $12 and Tom, a tough store operator but very professional, helped me cut the load down to the quad core and whatever clothes I didn't ship from Reno.
Went down to Starbucks and entered a couple posts into Peace Eye blog then went to the beach to get a break. I had been on the road without sleep since 1330HRS the day before having woke up at about 0600AM. It was then about 1100HRS so it was easily well over 24 hours without sleep; except for a nodoff somewhere up on the Grapevine and between Santa Ana and San Clemente.
A quick splash into the ocean and I came out covered in slimy kelp and that ended Operation Laguna Beach. it was time to get on with Operation Sunset Blvd. At the public bathroom next door to the Laguna bus depot, mirrors. Wouldn't be necessary to attempt suicide by shaving like the guy at the stinky, overflowed transit center bathroom in Oceanside. With a swim and a shave, a new day had dawned and the rest was easy. Walked out to the Laguna bus depot and OCTA#1 northbound pulled up a minute later, headed toward Long Beach. From there the Blue Line to the 7th St. Metro center in L.A. and the Red Line to Hollywood.
A long freezing bus ride in OCTA1, since I had wet cutoffs and the air conditioning on the bus was set to subzero, I hopped onto Long Beach transit#94 down 7th St. into town and got out at the Fifth St. Blue Line track.
It was here I found what is known as "Tap" and did that require thinking, and money. First, buy this plastic; next, put some money on it and validate it. I'd done similar things on the Tube in London and even bypassed a beat line of American tourists at the Da Vinci airport in Rome over similar train tickets, but they were easily explained in British and Italian.
The Tap was a completely different item with incredibly confusing instructions that required feeding good money after bad like Marge dealing blackjack at Harold's Club in Reno. Asking for help proved futile, it was dog eat dog out there on Fifth as one train after another whisked by headed into Long Beach, only to loop around and head back into L.A. I, of course, was looking the other way, expecting to see the Metro Blue Line coming back only to find out later that the trains took the loop.
I finally did what I could to get the Tap system to where I thought it might function and hopped on a train headed into town. What the Hell, nobody would bother to check tickets anyway.
Wrong; I decided to hop off the Red Line at Hollywood and Western and at the gate, two big railroad bruisers were checking tickets, stopping everybody that came off the train and headed out to the sunlight from the underground. I flashed the Tap ticket at the bruisers and they signalled me toward the turnstile, I tapped the card on the turnstile and it opened without a hitch, I was free, headed up the stairs into the sunlight and away from the freezing busses and trains.
