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California: The madness that is Palm Springs and LA |
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Written by Stephen Baines
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Tuesday, 15 June 1999 |
The porter who took me to my room last night when I arrived said that Palm Springs "Is perfect for 9 months of the year. Absolutely perfect. For the three Summer months, it's mad. No one with any sense comes here, even the locals move out of town to somewhere cooler." Well, here's one mad person in Palm Springs...
I'm not sure yet who is the maddest, the people who visit in the summer (and there are an awful lot of British here), or those who decided to fight against nature and turn this arid landscape into a town to live in. The town is a place of vivid contrasts. The cruel imposing mountains which crowd in on the city, the beautiful blue skies which go on for ever, with no sign of them ending, the temperatures which even in the night are in the 80s, the teracotta buildings which have sprung up and contrast so vividly against the sky.
I got up reasonably early this morning to try and take in some of the city before the temperatures started to climb. It was 8am when I went down to breakfast, and went for the lightest option on the menu - the continental breakfast. Unfortunately the continent was America, and so on they brought bagels, rye bread, pastries, muffins, soft cream cheese, fruit salad, yoghurt...
After making a good stab at breakfast - not aided by the heat - I went out into the sunshine. It was nearly 9, and already the temperatures were in the 90s. Today the temperatures would hit 120F according to the weather forecast. I turn on CNN each morning with a mixture of excitement and fear, as now these far off places they talk about are all around me, including the cop who was shot in Orange County whilst walking by a liquor store that was being robbed.
The city of Palm Springs is very imposing, and the streets are lined with shops and hotels. Many of the stores have shut - for even though Palm Springs is a millionaires playground, there is a limit to how many nail studios, clothes shops and pottery shops can survive. The stores that survive are quirky and total extremes. At the one extreme their are the clothes stores for the retired gentry of America who have come to spend their time like lizards under the baking sun. At the other extreme are the shops for the young who come to play on vacation, and spend their times becoming lobsters under the ferocious sun. Burn time is measured in minutes, and no one in their right mind would even consider going out in the midday sun.
On the palm lined streets strange sights await you, if you keep your wits about you.The streets round about Calle El Segunda are Palm Springs own walk of fame, for under your feet are their own stars to the rich and famous - many of whom have spent their days in Palm Springs, and most unlikely to be known by their names alone. Of all the "stars" that lined the street, the one that I recognised was not even human, but a star to Cheeta the chimp, described as a star of stage, film and tv. The concierge at the hotel thought I was mad to even attempt to walk around the town - going by car is common in the states, agreed, but almost an necessity in Palm Springs. The streets don't have AC.
The temperatures started to soar as the sun rose in the sky, I admitted defeat and decided that factor 6000 wouldn't be enough to protect me from such a fierce sky, and made my way back to the hotel, down the beautiful Tahquitz Canyon Way, past fountain after fountain, with hotels of magnificent splendor to keep them company. Along the street at the retirement apartments, the lizards were coming out to play...
I drank many, many glasses of water and then I checked out of the hotel - the guide book had warned you lose upwards of a gallon of water a day in the desert - and then found my way out onto the Interstate-10, and back through some of the most beautiful yet savage landscape I have ever seen in my life. I didn't mind in the slightest seeing this road twice. The latter half of the journey, however, was new to me. My road in had took in the March Air Force Base, whilst the road out was I-10 all the way to LA. The air condtioning was working overtime in the desert which was now hitting 120F according to the radio reports. I decided to ignore the radio, and put on the tapes instead. As the desert fell behind me, the car started to get chilly. Oops, turn down the AC...
The beauty of the desert was now long forgotten, as the sides of the roads changed from sand to car lots and shopping malls. Baccarach and David had it wrong - you don't even need to put $100 down for a car - at least one outfit would let you drive away for $50. Some 90 miles after setting off - and still unable to work out how the cruise control works - the turn off for downtown LA arrived. I take back all I said about American drivers being courteous and laid back - downtown LA for the first time made me scared behind the wheel of the car.
Neverlost continued to bark out his instructions - "Left then right....". OK. Can do. "Perform legal U-turn". What? Help! What's the difference between a legal and illegal U-turn? And in this much traffic would I want to? An LA cop is at the side of the road, dare I try it... My brain gets the better of me, and I deliberately don't do it, and force the blasted jumped up map to find some other option for me. It does, and hopefully takes on board my reluctance to do any sort of U-turn, legal or otherwise. I pull up outside the hotel, and give the keys to the concierge. I take in my cases, and check in. The Kawada Hotel... Sounds very nice in the brochures and the web site, with kitchenettes and so on. The reality is somewhat different, with a rather small room, a table with a sink and a fridge (the kitchenette) and no wardrobe. Also the room smelt.
I got changed to fit in with the locals, and left the hotel for a wander. When the books said that the hotel was on the border of Plaza, City and Little Tokyo, they were not kidding. Opposite the hotel is the mightily impressive Wells Fargo building, which casts its' shadow over the whole of S Hill Street. I make a mental note of the landmarks and names - corner of 2nd and S Hill Street. OK, let's wander... I decide the most sensible thing to do is just stick to one street and try not to wander off it. So I kept to S Hill Street and count the number of junctions - just in case. Then it dawned on me that the roads I'm passing are all numbered - all I have to do is count back down to 2 again on the return leg. The right hand side of the road features sky scrapers almost piercing the clouds - each named after banks and notables. The left has a vast array of eaterys and parking. Parking must be a rare commodity in LA - the prices would make even an NCP blush - the best value I saw was the $2.50 for 15 minutes...
I was soon in the (sic) Jewelry District. If ever a district was well named! Both sides of the road were lined with shops selling ready made jewellery and shops selling diamonds. Little men with atache cases scuttled in and out of the shops, looking all around of them as the dived into a car waiting outside and back into the LA madhouse. I looked at the signs, and saw I'd walked about 10 blocks, so I decided to return via the other side of the road. Of all the traffic stuff to get your head around the two things that have me beat most often are
1) When a light is red, you can still turn right if it looks safe.
2) When turning right or left - even if the lights are green - there is a fair chance that it says "walk" to pedestrians and you'll have to stop.
I made my way back up along Hill Street, and up towards the hotel. I then saw something that I truly wish I hadn't seen. On the pavement sprawled out was a man, cup of soda sploshed out, his eyes staring upwards, I couldn't see him breathing... My heart told me I should do something, my head told me that all the safety advice I'd been given was ignore and walk on - it could be a set up. I went with my head, but I still feel very, very uneasy about it. I'm still thinking that I should have done something, but what I don't know. The hundreds of other people walking by did just that - walk by. Clearly an everyday occurance in LA, but one I'd find very hard to get used to. After the calm and relative quiet of Long Beach and Palm Springs, Downtown LA was a culture shock.
I eventually got back to the hotel, and then it struck me - the smell I'd smelt in the hotel room was all around me. The smell was LA. |
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