Getting in the Groove Here in El Segundo

I just spent my first weekend up here in LA.

Oh, I've spent lotsa weekend up in LA previously, but this was the first one I spent up here while "living" up here to.

My consulting gig in Huntsville wrapped up in mid-November and since the start of December I've been doing another gig.  This one in El Segundo.

For a lot of reasons, I spent each of the last two weekends down in San Diego.  I had a lotta stuff I needed to get done 'round the house.  Not the least of which was making another bookcase for myself.  This is the fourth such and my previous three are all stuffed to the gills.  So, those were weekends well spent.

I figured this third weekend in December though to be the one I'd spend "local."

To start with, Friday the 19th there was the "Bondage Ball Hollywood" to attend.  Couldn't do that ere I be down in San Diego so I parked it up in LA proper for that event.  Saturday night I wound up at the Lair for their weekly play party, and Sunday afternoon I wound up over at the Faultline for their Sunday beer bust.  A good weekend for me.

The "Bondage Ball Hollywood" was new to me.  I'd been to various "fetish balls" up in LA but this was different.  Those were held at a fantastic venue in LA's old downtown.  The name of it escapes me, but it was a multi-story old movie palace type of place that had the main stage downstairs, a couple of levels in between, and another dance floor several stories up from the lobby.  That venue was packed and had more eye candy than you could imagine!

This event took place at the Henry Fonda Theater - a.k.a. The Music Box - on Hollywood just west of the 101.  That had but two levels to it.  The ground floor and the roof.  The venue was smaller but was put to good use.  Even though it was rather nippy due to being in December, the action inside was still pretty hot and the outfits showed lots and lots of skin.  There was eye candy aplenty.  Most of it was of the female variety but there were a few good looking menfolk there - of various chosen genders!

I caught up with some folks I knew and met a buncha new folks as well.  This was my first major LA kink event since being out on my own and I viewed it as something of an investment who's dividends would pay off later as more folks recognized me and thus see me as "OK" to invite to the more private and intimate parties.  It was also good to just be out and about seeing the fine fetish attire on display.

I figured I might not want to drive all the way back down to El Segundo after the Ball so I had secured a hotel nearby.  In this case it was very nearby, perhaps a tenth of a mile to the east of the theater there on Hollywood.  The Vibe hotel is the name of the place and I chose it solely due to its proximity to the venue.  I figured if I found a place close enough to it that I could walk there then I wouldn't have to worry about parking nor would I have to worry about being to drunk to drive back either.

The Vibe turns out to be a former hostel that has since upgraded itself into being a "real" hotel.  The place was clean enough, looks to have been freshly renovated, and was making a good attempt at being a "real" hotel.  Its guests however, had not been upgraded to "real" hotel folk.  They were still the sort you'd expect to see in a youth hostel - youths.  Specifically, youths with lotsa backpacks, foreign accents, and little understanding of personal space nor the need to quiet down after Midnight.

I'd brought some earplugs with me for the Bondage Ball as I knew the music would be outstandingly loud.  It was.  Both outstanding and outstandingly loud.  The earplugs served me well there.  And, back at the hotel, they continued to do so.  I did get a kick out of one of the signs on the door in the hotel.  It was pretty specific in advising the guests not to smoke nor burn any substance in the room.  Ah, the modern age!

Saturday came round and I was soon out of the Vibe.  I shan't be back.  It was okay, but the other guests were a bit to off for me.  Next time 'round I'll stay at a hotel that doesn't need to be upgraded to be "real."

I puttered around El Segundo during the say Saturday and discovered how small it is and how just about everything that makes up downtown El Segundo is arranged along its Main Street and on but just two or three blocks of it at that.  Very compact and efficient.  Modern, but still a tad quaint.

That night I decided to go check out the Lair up in North Hollywood.  I'd been there several times for LALC meetings back in 1999 and 2000.  I'd also been there once with Julia to play.  This was the first time there on my own.  Of course I'd not brought my old membership card with me as I'd not planned on hitting the place up.  But, Leonora had been at the Bondage Ball and suggested I check out the Lair the next night.  So, I did.  I was rewarded by getting to watch her wear herself out playing with her bottom girl.  The lass would just giggle to what Leonora was laying down!  Typical bottom!

Getting into and out of North Hollywood wasn't complex and I was glad that El Segundo was as close as it is to do so.

Sunday I drove off to a hobby shop off the 91 in Orange, and found it very well stocked.  Then it was back across on the 91 and up the 110 into the bowels of Los Angeles itself.  I got to the Faultline at just about the right time to hit their Sunday afternoon beer bust.

The Faultline has changed over the years.  There's now a big concrete cinderblock wall to the south of the "patio" and they rearranged the insides as well.  The place still packs up with men in the afternoon.  And that's what I was there for.  Typically, to many of them smoke but that's the way things are.  I got a kick out of watching one guy go through his routine up on the stage next to that cinderblock wall. 

He came back from the bar with two cups of beer and a cup full of ice.  He parked one of the beers behind a box on the stage, set the ice cup down next to it, and then threaded the other beer into an opening on the side of the box.  It fit perfectly as a cupholder for him.  The guy then hoped up on the stage and claimed it as his own.  He walked back and forth on this little ten foot wide strip.  He raised the beer in a toast as he faced south and mumbled some invocation.  Replacing the beer in its "cup holder" he leaned over the box - which turned out to be a small table turned on its side - and stroked the nipples that projected out from this big artwork poster mounted on the wall there.  Then he raised his arms over his head and did a little prancing shuffle thing back and forth on the stage.

All quite harmless and all quite odd.  No one there paid the man any heed whatsoever.  He seemed perfectly content to be doing his own performance art out and about and invisible as he did so.  Local color, I guess.

I spent some good time there at the Faultline.  I got chatted up by some rather amusing guys who's sharp wits made me laugh deeply.  I appreciated that.  I also spied a very handsome lad who had a radiant smile and some truly bedroom eyes.  Hopefully, more will come of the rest of the afternoon I spent with him there in the bar.

All in all, this was a good weekend for me.  I feel I'm getting into the "groove" up here in LA.  Friday, as I drove up from El Segundo, I thought I left early enough to avoid any traffic.  Silly me.  As I rolled up from the 105 to the 110 I realized that I'd soon be in worst part of LA's highways to be in when its rush hour.  The 110 runs, in to quick succession, across the 10, through downtown, and then through the 101.  Even at the best of times, that stretch of highway can resemble a parking lot more than an interstate.  And Friday afternoon was not the best of times.

So, I bailed.

I figured I wanted to learn more of the city where I'm gonna be spending so much more of my time.  That being so, I decided to take some surface streets since I knew the general lay of the land and I had my LA Thomas Guide handy.  I pulled off the 110 at Manchester and headed west.  I figured I'd do so until I ran into a north south street that was big enough to get me up to Hollywood quicker than on the highway.

I originally went north on Vermont but soon bailed over to Western.  Going through that chunk of LA was a pretty intense bit of driving.  Those two north south streets are more "major" than otherwise but they were still pretty narrow for the traffic on them and that traffic was not exactly orderly.  I don't like driving in that sort of environment.  Of the three car accidents I've been in, two of them were the result of such drivers as I was moving along with there on Vermont and Western.  And at Friday rush hour to!

I did accomplish my goal though of seeing more of LA and getting a better feel for its composition.  All of which reinforces my view that I do not want to live within Los Angeles, proper.  To crazed, to little civic virtue, and just the wrong pace for me to thrive in.  Somewheres out in a place like El Segundo, Manhattan Beach, Santa Monica or its ilk will do.  Not within LA though.

Of course, once I'd checked in to The Vibe, I turned right 'round and drove back down Western into that mess to have dinner with a friend of mine, Mark, at El Cholo's.  Rush hour had somewhat subsided but Western is always a rush to drive on.  His company was, as always, excellent.

I'll be exploring LA more in the coming months.  This weekend however, was a good start for me.

Combine that with the bike riding I've been doing down along the beach bike path each morning, and things are truly getting into that groove I've been after.  This sure does beat Huntsville!

Madoc

Life On The Plantation

This week in the news we learn that President-Elect Obama has chosen Reverend Rick Warren to perform the invocation at his inauguration.

This conservative reverend is noted for, among other things, as being anti-gay and a supporter of Proposition 8 here in California which banned gay marriage in this state.

Obama himself has been very clear that he to opposes gay marriage.  As has also been the Vice President-Elect, Joe Biden.

Gays turned out in record number for Obama.  Nationwide, in the gay community, Obama was seen as the only choice for any thinking, sensible, politically aware gay in this country.

And yet, among his first official acts even prior to his becoming President is to very deliberately and intentionally spit in the face of the gay community.

There are quite a number of other religious figures that Obama could have chosen to give the invocation - figures which have no such anti-gay baggage or issues and which also would have been perfectly appropriate for such a historic event.  Hell, he could have chosen other reverends which would have been about as theologically conservative but who didn't also have published books that damn gays.

Instead, Obama chose Warren.

And gays can damn all to do about it.

Oh, the gay community can whine, it can sputter, it can express its indignation and express its "deep disappointment" but, in the end, that don't mean diddly as Obama - and the rest of the Democrat party - will keep on blithely ignoring the gay community when ever and how ever it wishes to.

Why?  Because Obama and the Democrats know that gays are "chained to the plantation" - the Democrat Plantation - so completely that they can be ignored at will.

This is what comes of putting all the gay community's political support behind just one party.  This is what comes from the continual damnation of any organized efforts within the gay community to spread that political support around - i.e. the Log Cabin Club.

So long as gays continue to play the one party rule game then they'll continue to be willfully and deliberately spurned by the Democrats - who will also turn right 'round and demand the gay community's support or else!

Yes folks, this truly is "Change We Can Believe In!"

Madoc