window of opportunity

I'm not really sure what to say but I thought I should check-in since this is my window of opportunity to blog between work in LA (finished up last night at 11pm) and my disappearance from the grid in Baja later today.

LA is weird. I've been here twice before. Once for 2 weeks in 2000, when I stayed with Alejandro Alaluf (I stayed on his sofa for 2 weeks! que patuda!) and he took to me see all these dream pop bands around the city. I really got a good tour and I *still* don't fully understand that the Valley is North and not South of downtown. That time I visited the Standard, and Hollywood, saw the city from the hills, went to Malibu, etc. I also stayed one night with my dear friend Andrea L'Huillier in Long Beach, and went with her to the Pokemon tournament on the QE. I have a picture with a giant Pokemon somewhere....

The other time was for a little under a week in 2004, when I stayed with Pablo, Becca and Gabe, right before travelling to San Francisco to meet Elvirita. Pablo and Becca lived closer to the Burbank airport, I remember, and I got to see the Chilean band my friend Pablo manages, Lucybell, in LA, with the local fans taking pictures of the boys with their phone cameras. Surreal, to me at least. I've seen Lucybell play 500 times, I'm sure, but I had never seen them being watched by an American audience.

Speaking of Pablo, he was in town this week and we met for a brief drink and "what's up with you" moment. It was great to hear he and the band are still up to their usual antics, including staying at a hotel that caught on fire, and ensuing chaos and door-busting to find missing band members. It all ended well, no worries. It always does. The gang escapes unscathed.

Anyway, this time in LA I haven't seen much besides the convention center. What else is new. But a bunch of us did go to a trendissimo sushi resto somewhere soooo cool, the cab driver thought we were nuts to go there. And the resto was soooo trendy we had to wait 2 hours to get our food served. Very trendy. I guess it's been a long time since I left Santiago because it doesn't feel normal anymore to be at places like that. Sitting in my trendy cardboard chair (yes, cardboard!) I thought that if I was in a place like that in Chile, it would be the opening week and I would know half the people in the room in one way or another, and we'd all be drinking our sake champagne and laughing, "because there's nothing else to do" (Pulp). Trendy, trendy. Oh, it was called R23 in case you're looking for it.

Last night some others of us went to the Figueroa Hotel's pool-side bar. I love the look of that hotel. It's totally eclectic, with something moorish about it. There was a star-lamp behind us, like the one Richi used to have hanging on his balcony. A metal 3-D star with punctures and a light inside. The pool had a floating dish of incensey coals burning. It was great. But it lasted too little.

So now I'm off. 10 more minutes to check-out. Sad that Elvirita isn't going with me to Baja, because she couldn't get the time off work, but happy that I'm going to the beach at last. I so miss the beach. And that man that read my birthchart said I should live by the sea... The owner of the cabins I'm going to is a Swedish lady who has lived in Baja for 20 years. I think too many people think it's too hard to just drop off the grid and move permanently to their dream place, but honestly... I think you can live anywhere you want to. You really can. Well, not me, because I can't divide myself, and that's the only way I could find the perfect place to live: Montreal with a short drive to New England and a short drive to the central and lower north coast of Chile. Impossible.

Amigos, I'll see you when I get back.