29.09.2010

Biking in LA

"You bike here from Santa Monica?" - a question spoken in disbelief from our new flatmate Jack when I arrived home one day from work wearing my trusty Italian helmet and shoes. A very common reaction from every single American I've met so far when they realize I bike to and from work, a trip of around 13 km or 8 miles. I'm reminded of a quote from "American Beauty", when the daughter of the protagonist announces to her friend Angela that she intends to walk home from school: "You're gonna walk? That's like ... a mile!" It's a prejudice I brought with me from home; Americans will only travel from A to B in automobiles, and that has certainly proven to be true. Perhaps this is one explanation why this country is so fat?! In Denmark a lot of people use their bike as a means of transportation, thus turning transportation into exercise instead of having to go to a gym or go running to burn calories - another explanation is right here, but I just enjoy and take pride in the fact that I burn 1200-1300 calories every day (according to my new best friend Cyclemeter). Also I'm saving money and taking my part in preventing global warming.

So what's the deal with biking in LA? People who know me from back home know that I insist on taking my bike everywhere no matter how rough the conditions are as long as the distance is less than 30km and my bike doesn't suffer from a mechanical problem I can't immediately fix. Therefore I started studying the city maps of LA even before coming here to find out where I could live in LA if I wanted to bike to work every day. I've heard the horror stories from a lot of people about how it is absolutely impossible to go anywhere in LA without a car, and I've also been to big cities in Brazil where it was physically impossible to go to certain places without a car. But it's actually pretty good over here - for one thing the weather makes it possible for people even less insane than me to go by bike all year long. And they actually have bike lanes - miles and miles of wonderful bike lanes. Living where I live right now, I can actually take Santa Monica Boulevard all the way from my home to my work, and it works out perfectly. So I though I'd take the opportunity to share some of my experiences with whomever might be interested in knowing what it is like to Bike in LA.

Once again courtesy of Cyclemeter I give you my route to work. The route back is almost the same, although I tend to take a couple of detours if the sun has set, since parts of Santa Monica are a bit unsafe after sunset. Not because you get mugged, but simply because it can be hard to spot the giant holes in the road where the road is poorly lit. But check out the map in the link and I'll run you through my route to tell you what it's like - the route is marked with milestones, and I'll use those as reference.

The route

0-2 km: The first couple of kilometers have a bike lane, so this part goes pretty fast. There is always a lot of traffic in the morning, and this makes it possible to actually pass through some of the stoplights, even if it's red as cars are blocking the intersection in the direction I'm going. This particular stretch of Santa Monica Boulevard is also the home of a long strip of gay bars, making it a very fun and colourful ride if you take it after dark.

As I cross the 2 km milestone I enter Beverly Hills and the spot for the first regular: "Homeless sleeping on Lawn guy". The Beverly Hills stretch has a very well kept lawn of front, and this regular guest likes to sleep here when I pass it in the morning. I guess he knows the schedule for the sprinklers that constantly irrigates this lawn making it very green and healthy looking for this very dry part of the world ...

2-5 km: The next stretch can be a little bit more challenging, as the bike lane ends. But again, traffic is pretty heavy in the morning, so I'm simply passing by the cars on the inside. Only challenge is avoiding the grates in the road that show up occasionally - you have to make sure to go around those, as the holes in the grill are pretty big, and I don't want to put the very slim wheels of my road bike down there.

5 km is also the spot of one of the regulars I meet on my route. I call him "Homeless sleeping in camping chair by his shopping cart guy". He's been there every single morning, and he has all his worldly belongings in his shopping cart and sleeps sitting in a plastic chair beneath a parasol. He's always tugged in nicely in a big jacket with his head bent forward in a very awkward looking position and his hands in his pockets. I guess there is a lot of shade in this particular spot.

5-8 km: The next couple of kilometers take me through Westwood on yet another lovely stretch of really fast bike lane. This is the fastest stretch on the way, and it takes me past the very grim looking Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saint. The picture in the link was taken in full sunlight, but going past this place at night, especially on a gloomy night, can be pretty intimidating. The architecture reminds me of the Lenin Mausoleum - I wonder if this was done intentionally?

Around the 8km milestone is where we find the next regular: "The Preacher". This is yet another lovely homeless guy wearing a green raincoat. And where the first 2 regulars have been sleeping, this guy is very much awake. For the last couple of days he has been relatively calm, but I've gone past the guys a number of times where he is either blessing the passing traffic or throwing horrible curses at us. He also seems to have some pretty intense arguments with all the voices. But perhaps his medicine has started to kick in lately, as he seems to have calmed down some.

The 405 Freeway is passed at 8.5 km. This is the most annoying part of the route, as there are a lot of traffic lights where I can't seem to find the rhythm, so I always end up stopping at red lights at all of them. The more daring cyclists exploit the pattern that allows a brave cyclist to cross the Sepulveda intersection right between the point where the crossing traffic is stopped and the approaching traffic taking a left turn north on Sepulveda are let through on a green left arrow, but while recognizing this pattern I also find it pretty disrespectful to everybody else in the traffic; I'm on a mission to introduce cycling culture in LA, and this kind of behaviour isn't really earning us the respect of the automobiles and their drivers.

8.5-10 km takes me down the last part of Santa Monica Boulevard for my morning and afternoon commute. This stretch doesn't have a bike lane, but parking in the left lane is prohibited in the morning hours leaving plenty of room for me and my fellow cyclists. At Brockton / Santa Monica I make my way into the "go left" lane of the road and take a left down Ohio to take me onto Broadway. It is actually legal to use the car left lanes in the road, and while this can be pretty intimidating at first, especially in the very large intersections, it actually saves you a lot of time. You have to be quick though, as the green left arrow isn't there for long, and you don't want to get stuck in the middle of a giant intersection because you're taking to long to click into your pedal.

10-goal take me down Broadway, where the city of Santa Monica have been nice enough to include yet another wonderful bike lane. There are a couple of 4-way stop intersections in the beginning of that section, and while it takes a little getting used to the "First come, first served" system they use in these intersections in America, it's actually pretty convenient when on a bike, as you're almost always first served, since you're not waiting in line behind a row of cars.

The trip home is pretty much the same, although I sometimes take the parallel road of "Civic Center Drive" some of the way, as this has a lot less traffic and a better lit stretch of road with fewer holes in it than the parallel part of Santa Monica Boulevard. I also don't meet any regulars on my way home, which makes it a bit less entertaining.

But all in all I really enjoy commuting to work this way. Let me list a couple of advantages. Besides the obvious advantage of the hours of exercise I get every week I also enjoy a much more stable means of transportation than going by car: No matter how heavy the traffic is, it always take me roughly the same time to get to and from work, and the tempo is completely up to me, not to the traffic jams on the 405, the accidents on the 10 and the closed lanes on Santa Monica.

31.08.2010

A musical journey back to the late eighties

This weekend my colleague Stevie and I had decided to go the Sunset Strip Music Festival. A jolly music festival where a large portion of the Sunset Strip had been blocked to host 2 outdoor stages. A number of the clubs along the strip were also part of the party, including the legendary Whiskey a Go Go. Headlining the festival were a number of acts from very small to huge international names - the one thing they all had in common was they weren't exactly the most contemporary of artists.

My main reason for going there was Smashing Pumpkins who closed down the bigger of the 2 outdoor stages at 8.20 pm. It's never been my fortune to see them live before, and although I wouldn't claim to be a fan of theirs I have to admit I'd simply forgotten how incredibly powerful their music really is. It was a walk down memory lane with a band led by a Billy Corgan who was really on fire that evening. He was charming and fun, and even played his guitar with his teeth at one point. I managed to record him giving a speech listing his musical inspirations followed by one of their many great rock songs "Cherub".



We actually missed some of the other big acts in the street like Common, Slash & Kid Cudi, but that wasn't too important, as the big thing was Smashing Pumpkins, and that concert in itself was well worth the $65 dollar entry.

After the concert we went to a couple of the bars along the way, starting with a double Jack Daniels on Whiskey a Go Go, enjoying a show by the Greek/American rock vocalist Electra and band. That performance seemed to set the theme for the night, as it featured a geeky band with a really slutty lead singer doing late 80's metal with high pitched screaming and singing. It was very hard to say for sure if they were for real or not, but it was certainly great fun. The lead singer and the band all were excellent musicians, but it sure was tacky ...

We went next door to the Cat Club, which consisted mainly of a scene where you could get really close to the artists. We saw the end of the concert with Dirty Sweet, and they were actually pretty good - although the lead singer did use quite a large amount of time explaining how they really couldn't stick around after the concert, as they were moving on to play a charity gig at some church.

Next up was Prohibition Rose, and the fun was starting to peak, as the slutte lead singer / geeky band combo was taken to a whole new level. Unfortunately I had a computer crash today, and my iPhoto images weren't recovered with Time Machine, so I can't document it, but the lead singer certainly compensated for her lack of vocal skills in her sexy and scantily clad performance on stage. Stevie and I were all the way up front during the beginning of their show, and it got pretty intense at points, especially since Stevie insisted her mom was in the audience. This time I'm pretty sure the band was dead serious about their attitude, so I simply have to admit I don't get it.

The next band were simply too cool to be true. Diamond Lane have the coolest hair, the coolest late 80's heavy rock and the coolest logo. Not to mention their on stage attitude, which was absolutely hilarious.



They even had a their own crew of groupies with enormous tits and goth makeup directly in front of stage. At the end of the concert, one of the guitar players threw his plectrum out into the crowd. I found that kind of funny, wince it's impossible to see a plectrum in a dark concert hall. When a drummer throws out his drumsticks, you can at least see it, but how can you ever hope to catch a plectrum? Nonetheless I held out my hand, and the plectrum landed in my hand - a perfect 2 year wedding anniversary gift for my wife the next day.

After that amazing show we went back to Whiskey a Go Go. There were a huge crowd gathered at the time to listen to some Guns n' Roses cover. I really hate cover bands, but after having listened to this for a while I had to admit that they were doing a pretty fucking amazing job at covering Guns n' Roses - being the GnR ignorant that I am I was soon to learn the reason for that. The cover band were Adler's Appetite led by former Guns n' Roses drummer Steven Adler, and they did a fine job. I did actually go after one of the drumsticks this time, since that would be legendary, but the fight proved too much.

An incredibly funny journey back to the late eighties and early nineties was completed with a killer version of "Welcome to the Jungle", and I have to say that the music scene in Los Angeles is certainly proving itself. I love it. Next up is (hopefully) Big Boi, House of Pain and Eminem at the Epicenter Festival in late september.

27.08.2010

The music scene in the America

So, one thing I've really been looking forward to is the concert scene over here. We've already seen a bunch of really good concerts, and they certainly are plentiful over here. Also concert tickets are really cheap, so we get to see a lot.



On the first weekend I had my wife over here, we went to Hardfest 2010 in the Los Angeles Historic State Park in downtown. A 1 day electronic festival featuring a pretty impressive lineup of US and UK electronic acts. And 1 headliner from Belgium. It was my first opportunity to see both Diplo, Major Lazer and Caspa, and all at the same time. And a lot of other cool acts on top of that. Great atmosphere, lots of people and great music too. Oh, and my first really annoying encounter with a pretty flawed US alcohol policy, but that's a topic for a later post of it's own - still need to research some more. Here is a little bit of the Diplo concert recorded on my iPhone:



Lots of kids dancing with too little clothes on - Also a topic to be covered in a later blog post. But here is a sneak peek:




We live in Marina del Rey close to Venice, and Venice is full of all kinds of live music all the time. We went to Danny's Deli on Windward Avenue on a weekday night, and had the pleasure of seeing a very traditional jazz orchestra. After the concert this lovely couple gave a duet.



Last weekend we went to the Sunset Junction Neighborhood Alliance. A 2 day festival where they close down a couple of streets in Silverlake and have 6 stages featuring a lot of different underground acts. We were only there on Sunday and only caugt a couple of acts. One of them was Meshell Ndegeocello. I didn't know her before, and her Indie/Funk style isn't exactly what I would put on my stereo at home, but in the setting sun with a lot of happy gay people it was a really good experience. I'm definitely going back to that festival next year, hopefuly for both days this time.



This coming weekend features the Sunset Strip Music Festival with the Smashing Pumpkins, Slash, Common and others. I hope I can convince my wife to go, but she claims she is too young for Smashing Pumpkins, which is sad, cause I think they're really good. Also Chemical Brothers are playing Sunday at the Hollywood Bowl, so plenty to do this weekend.

31.07.2010

I'm once again a complete person

Today I picked up my wife from LAX. She has finished her work in Denmark and has joined me in California to begin our new life together. With her here I feel whole again and we can now begin slowly building our lives in California together.

She has been on a long flight - I picked her up around 5 pm, which would be around 2 am in her head, and she was very exhausted from the flight. While I'm writing this I've allowed her to take a 2 hour nap before we go out to have something to eat. Fighting jetlag can be tough but my strategy when I arrived was to stay up till 11pm local time and get a good nights sleep after that. It worked like a charm and I will do my best to have her follow the same strategy. That way the jetlag should be over in a day or two.

There are lots of things we need to do over here - My employer pays for our housing and a rental car until August 20, and by then we need to find a rental and hopefully a car. Depending on where we end up we might not need a car to begin with. I love to ride my bike to work and I've done it a number of times already, but if we're more than 15 km away from my office we will most likely need a car. But to get a car I need a California Drivers License, and to get a Drivers License I need a Social Security Number, which should be arriving sometime next week - oh, and I also need to pass a traffic rules test and a driving test. That should be fun :)

Driving here is funny - most cars have automatic transmission, so it's like driving a gocart. It's also kinda boring not to do the shifting yourself but since you're spending most of your time in stop and go queuing it's less annoying to have automatic transmission. I still haven't found out what to do with my left foot and my right hand - most people solve this problem by texting away on their cellphones while driving, but I'm not a big fan of that ...

Yesterday I drove up in the Hollywood Hills to visit a friend of mine in one of the most scenic locations I've ever visited. His view was like the view Robert de Niro has from his house in HEAT - like a living ocean of lights before your eyes. I'm a sucker for this kind of thing. I tried to take a picture, which doesn't do the view any justice, but check it out below. To get a better feeling check out HEAT in HD on a big screen - or even better: Come to Hollywood and visit me.



Tomorrow is Sunday where I haven't made any plans. The love of my live will decide what she wants to do and I will make sure she feels welcome from the start of her new life in California.

29.07.2010

Back from San Francisco

Now we're talking ...

We went to San Francisco for a 2 day workshop session with Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, and I just got back a little while ago. Tuesday we were awarded a fantastic project doing [super secret amazing project] on [super secret kickass technology] for [super secret world wide brand client], and Wednesday morning we flew out to start concepting with the client and to meet with the vendor supplying the [super secret kickass technology].

As some might be aware I've never even been to the US before starting to work in Los Angeles - my first period here has been somewhat chaotic, as I landed in the middle of wrapping up a really complicated data visualization for [not so secret client] in Australia. I helped wrap up the final details on the implementation and also liaison between various parties in the project. With out team and the agency at the Pacific, the backend team in Stockholm and the client in Australia this made for a couple of busy days spent cursing over time differences and doing 2 AM conference calls. I was pretty beat after doing this, and the morning after it was all done we were on a flight to San Francisco.

San Francisco is one of the most beautiful cities I've ever visited, and I only got to visit a small part of it - but I'm so in love already. The streets are amazing, and driving into the city is a blast + they have some madass taxi drivers. Ours was named Big Dog, and he drove like a maniac. I found myself looking for his "Like" button, but since I didn't actually dare trying to tap him, I'm just gonna say his praise here. Check out how the clouds seem to roll down the mountains like an avalanche - view from being stuck on the freeway.



We're doing a killer project, and working with a mastodon like Goodby, Silverstein and Partners is going to be so much fun. I actually found myself admitting to the agency that I couldn't believe I'm getting paid to have this much fun - and fun it will be. The Acne team is fucking awesome to work with, and we supplement each other really well. And it's been interesting to see how things work over here - there is definitely more approval work and more layers of approval than I've been used to. I've sort of moved a step down the food chain, since we're not working directly with the clients, so that obviously adds 1 extra layer of approval, but even within the agencies there are layers to go through - but whatever, we're just gonna roll with it, and to be honest it really doesn't bother me that much - that's what the business is like I guess.

I can't really share any of the work until we actually release it, but I promise you it will be über-cool and one of the coolest projects I've ever worked with.

We went out with the client after the first day had ended. Had a great dinner at a place called Gitane where everything was so "cute" according to the Goodby EP and my boss.

It was a great dinner ending a cool kickoff session. I'm truly pleased with how easy it is to get into conversation with everybody over here, and this dinner with a bunch of people I've never met before really proved that. I'm once again looking for the "Like" button. And this morning demonstrated yet another weather phenomenon me likes:




And my wife is arriving Saturday - just two more days. Can't wait to see her. She had a big farewell party at a friends flat tonight, and I skyped with them during our lunch break, where they were already pretty junk. They put a bunch of stuff on display for the webcam - stuff that I'll miss over here. Like a can of Tuborg, a can of Carlsberg and a bowl of ham salad which they then proceeded to drop into the keyboard of the computer holding the webcam. That was absolutely hilarious, but I had to get off the call soon after that, as I was having it in the agency office, and the drunks on the other end of the wire were starting to get me in trouble being inappropriate on my display.

Tomorrow will be spend with half a day off while I clean up my flat and do laundry before my wife arrives Saturday. And tonight I'll have a full nights sleep for the first time in a while. Looking forward to it and pressing the "Like" button for the third time this evening.

26.07.2010

How to make people feel welcome

One of the really pleasant things about America is how everywhere you go, you always feel very welcome. No matter what store you walk into you're greeted with a warm, heartfelt welcome and what seems to be a genuine desire to want to help you.

One of the first things I had to do over here was open up a bank account. I decided to go to Wells Fargo, since that place had been recommended by my new co-workers. Oh, and they were right across the street. So I walked in there on a Tuesday morning, bringing with me 2 things from Denmark: Banks are only open for a few hours a day on weekdays only, and if you come in without an appointment, you'll have to wait forever.

But this wasn't the case here. Banks are open 9 hours a day and on Saturdays too. And when I walked in, I was immediately greeted by a female employee who said welcome and how se could be of service to me this morning. And then she walked me right through everything and I was able to open a bank account with no problems whatsoever. I even had a chat with her manager about the Laudrup brothers and what the chances were of their sons to follow in their footsteps.

I realise a large part of this good service you get in stores, bars, restaurants and even supermarkets is based on a desire to convert you into a paying customer and often to get tips. But it feels very good to walk into a store and meet people who actually seem like they want to help you. I'm not used to that from back home.

24.07.2010

The Uncle in America

Uncle Martin has left the old world to live in America.

I've recently left Denmark behind to go work at ACNE* Media in Los Angeles. I'm bringing my wife Helena with me, and this is the tales of my adventures.

I intend this blog to be a record of my goings and doings over here, both private and through my work. It's a way for me to stay connected with family and friends back in Copenhagen as well as for me to proces everything that is going on around me.

I left Denmark July 18 2010 and started work the day after. I was actually supposed to have come over here sooner, but my O1 visa took a long time to proces, so this is how it turned out. I have never been to the US before, and I really didn't know what to expect, but now my first week is almost over, and I've had a jolly good time already.

So here is my new boss holding one of the office dogs.



I'll do my best to keep you updated through this blog. Feel free to comment and discuss.