: :The road to Sedona: :

Well, two weeks in the land of opportunity and, until last night, I had not had a shower (it’s ok, there was a bath) watched television or been picked up by the police…and then I got to Flagstaff, Arizona.
A famous town of the Wild West – cowboys (on their Chevy horses), injuns (bumming cash for booze at the Greyhound bus stop) and saloon bar (closed at midnight).
Twenty Six hour commute to get there? Yep.
Missed bus and stuck in downtown LA? Ditto.
So I finally get to Flagstaff at 3am, it’s 10 degrees Fahrenheit, nowhere to stay. So I skate down main street – yes folks, that’s Route 66 – with bags on board, snow and ice everywhere, looking for a place to crash until dawn.
Siren, lights, damn. Eventually had a laugh with the copper, let me off with a warning— skating without a permit? Kept rolling.
Hotel run by Indians (sub-continental variety) lit like a beacon up ahead. $30 bucks— with cable. Happy as a cheerleader, slept like the dead. Up earlyish, check bus times to Sedona.
No bus.
Thirty miles in cab - $50. Bags back on board, ride to outskirts of town (its illegal to hitch, apparently) make a sign and thumb it. Hours – and about a thousand cars – pass me by. Paranoid hicks, me thinks, thank God for the Ginger Nuts Jennifer gave me before I left. Warm in the sun, freezing out of it.
The desert. Tumbleweed says hello. Late afternoon, 'bout to give up, and who picks me up? Stewie from Beaumaris. Typical. He LOVES the Ginger Nuts. Nuts about 'em. We're NBFs. Left Oz 5 years ago for a broad from Phoenix on matchmaker.com , I think to avoid child support payments. I forgive him, we drive. He works as a cable guy (he says computer tech) and drops me off half way to Sedona, in the middle of downtown nowhere.
Cheers.
Even takes photos of us at some grandish canyon – not that grand. Getting late, dusk approaching. I ask him to send the photo to Mom, tell her I’m sorry…then Stewie gets a rush of national pride (and possibly guilt) and offers to take me all the way – after fixing some cat’s cable in a gated community somewhere ‘over there’. The house had seven (7) TV’s, a fat kid not unlike Ozzy Osbourne’s progeny, and every labour-saving, fattening, depressing mod con available.
Stewie thinks he’s da bomb.
I go for a walk. Scenery exceptional, houses like the Truman Show !goes native, not another soul to be seen, except security. They take a long look. I take a long look back.
Absolutely still, absolutely silent.
Back in car, part company with Stewie; Hello Sedona!— home of the famed spiritual vortex, Indian spiritual grounds, and a whopping dose of spiritual consumables.
Whopping— and definitely consumable.
Every New Age crank and crook seems to have made their way here, and – magnificent rocks/cliffs/scenery notwithstanding – have sold the lot to the passing cavalcade of the desperate, demanding soul-searchers on their RV trek to anywhere else. Land sales have everything but the race on horseback (now on credit card) to the point where tour maps tell of mystical places – that are inaccessible due to private land. My arse, me says, they’re just over this fence…
See y’all in NY. ssr.

: :Lost Angeles: :

So what, I says, I have at least three or four good friends in town…I’ll be fine. Not a great deal of cash – but hey! This is LA. This is Stevie Rey! We’re great together!…
Two planes, a bus and three trains later, no sleep since (?) and at the bar of Hollywood Billiards staring at several of their thirty-two (32) tv screens simultaneously and wondering why I hadn’t actually told ANYONE I was coming.
Some moved to London, some had houseguests already, several said wrong number and others were having children in half-renovated chaos.
So, tired and emotional (yes Mum, drunk) I take my trusty skateboard (well, Tommy Lec’s trusty) and roll down to Sunset Boulevard - where the dreams aren’t broken, but they’re sure walking with a limp.
Hotel St Moritz, which makes the Ritz look like….well, the Ritz. Weekly boarders on welfare, hookers on the early shift, some guy asleep in the hall - with his shopping still in hand. Room 203, sharing with the cockroaches, and every room’s got a bath if you dare.
...I dare.
Mattress with springs that’ll take an eye out. Sheets with cigarette burns forming a most elegant pattern. Guy next door coughing up the other lung (I could tell he’d done it before).
It felt like home- someone else’s, judging by the band-aids on the wall. The ceiling obviously had open-heart surgery (gone terribly wrong).
Time for a drink, I say. So I saunter down in Sunday best to the supercool bar next door, which – though obviously not connected with the hotel – was actually underneath ol’ room 203. Hear more AC/DC than at the Tote on classic hits night, spend more on three beers than I spent on the room, and sit next to Frodo Baggins - drunk and lamely chatting up some poor hobbit girl. Them Bagginses! (someone tell Gandalf).
No smoking indoors, I’m told – unless you’ve had yer name above the title, it seems. Just a matter of time, I say to myself as the bouncer shuffles me outside. So much for California weather! I look up and see my open window, and realize this is going to be a long night. The speakers were actually, physically attached to my floor – making it louder in there than on the lame dance floor (please, no-one dances to Back in Black).
So I sit in the bar and wait to be discovered. Or kicked out at closing time, which is what happened as it transpired. That left me exactly four hours before the service station next door began practicing for the next Indy 500 wheel-nut change. I really believe in those boys, if only for their intensity and singular commitment to the wheel-nut.
Next morning I stagger out the front door and into Santa, depressed (well, deflated at least) and looking a bit worse for wear. Kinda lifts my spirits, though, as I set off in search of arts and the galleries they adorn, unaware that the Hollywood sign – and all it stands for – was the opposite direction.
Ah... found in Lost Angeles.

: :bad santa: :

In Hollywood, even Santa has trouble hacking the pace... 

: :takin' it to the streets, yo: :

East Hollywood, December 2004 

: :like, hi: :

Bathroom LA style, 2004. 

: :inspiration: :

The storm clouds gathered at Growling Frog golf course Yan Yean on Melbourne Cup day 2004 

: :Snoozin': :

Snoozing in Carl's van after a hard day of.... GOLF! 

: :I love LA: :

landed safe.
2 plane 1 bus and 3 trains...
stepped onto hollywood blvd and headed west- skate and pack go great.
staying in hotel in east hollywood. hope to make contact with some mates-
we'll see.

: :welcome: :

ssr is winging his way to the US of A as we speak.
you have been warned!
we will shortly be cranking this blog up to full speed.
ssr will be blogging on a regular basis as he travels around the US, then on to the UK and beyond.
for those of you interested in purchasing some works, we will shortly be posting some pics of available works. these will be available for purchase in $AUD and $US.
in the meantime, check out the follwing:

Australian Centre for Contemporary Art