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On Saturday, Daniel took Nathaniel dirt biking in the morning. Nathaniel wanted me to take him to Amoeba Records in Hollywood when he got back. I wanted to go to a few spots in downtown L.A. to take some pictures. But there wouldn’t be enough time before sunset if I waited for Nathaniel to get back from dirtbiking to go. So I went into L.A. twice.

In the morning, Elijah and I went to downtown L.A. There’s a building with graffiti that I wanted to get a picture of, and I knew what area it was in, but not the exact spot. I drove down one street thinking I’d see it, but ended up going past the area I knew it to be in, so I turned around and drove back. I ended up driving right through the edge of Skid Row and into the Toy District.

Skid Row in Los Angeles is not like Skid Row in a smaller city like Seattle. When I lived in Seattle, I worked in Pioneer Square, which is the oldest part of the city, and the place where all the homeless shelters are. The old buildings have lots of nooks and crannies and there are a lot of park benches around. I’d get to work pretty early. It wasn’t unusual for me to be stepping around homeless people sleeping on the sidewalks, in the doorways of buildings, at 7am. When I’d catch the bus on the way home, at 5pm, the bus stop was across the street from a shelter, so all the homeless would be lining up for the soup kitchen just across the street. It didn’t phase me—it was just where I worked. Lots of mentally ill homeless people around. Some I got to recognize after awhile. One old guy would talk out loud constantly and make really funny noises—like raspberries, just in the middle of his sentences. I called him The Muffin Man, because he always had a muffin he’d share with the birds. Another guy I’d pass on a certain street corner everyday, when I had my car and would park down along the waterfront. He always had a cup he’d hold out for change but would never ever make eye contact. It was like I didn’t exist to anything but his hand holding the cup out—it’d move towards me as I walked by. I’d try to carry some change in a pocket to give to him if I thought about it beforehand.

Anyway, Skid Row in L.A. is way different. There’s a large population of homeless people there–something like 8,000. I’d seen pictures and seen it depicted in movies, and I’ve been downtown many times, but I had never been into the area before. I wasn’t sure exactly where it was. I only drove through one block, really. But it was immediately recognizable as Skid Row. Garbage and stuff was piled on the sidewalks, and people were everywhere. What’s weird is the Toy District is right there.

The Toy District is an area of toy shops. Pinata stores, used videogame stores, doll stores. They’ll all in these really old run down buildings. Trash on the sidewalk. It’s all kind of surreal.

We parked in the Toy District and walked around a bit, I took pictures. Elijah stopped at some videogame stores to check out the games. We ended up buying some used DVDs–an indie movie called Primer, Animatrix (animated shorts based on the Matrix movies), and I forget what the other one was.

One of the things I love about downtown L.A. is all the old buildings. There are a lot of cool hotels and tons of old theaters. This hotel wasn’t that cool, but it’s right on Los Angeles St:

The main reason I wanted to stop in this part of downtown is I wanted some pictures of a building I’d seen last time I was there. We managed to stumble on it completely by chance. Here it is:

Another view of it:

And another view of it (it’s the building on the right):

The building is abandoned, the windows broken out. I wish I could have gotten up onto the fire escape to take some pictures.

Then we drove over to an area on the edge of Chinatown, where there’s a building covered in awesome graffiti-like murals:

I have more pics I haven’t uploaded yet. After that, I made one more stop, still in Chinatown, but in an industrial area. Basically a junk yard.

There was some junk I wanted to get a picture of to the right of this spot, behind that barred fence, but a semi-nasty looking dog started barking at me. So I turned and headed the other direction, not realizing the dog was not confined by the fence. I took this picture:

And when I turned around, I saw the dog wandering free. It didn’t help matters that I could hear a crazy person shouting and shouting and shouting, but I couldn’t see where he was. All I heard was yelling. It was all rather surreal. So I got in the car and left.

We went back home, picked up Nathaniel, and headed back into Los Angeles. Hollywood this time, to go to Amoeba Music, the biggest indie record store around.

I made Nathaniel and Elijah stand on the other side of the bars (this is the parking garage we parked in) so I could take this shot.

I got (on vinyl):

The Commodores – Midnight Magic ($1)
Modern English – Richochet Days ($3)
Modern English – After the Snow ($4)
Coffin Break – Crawl ($1)
Hammerbox – ST ($1)
Spandau Ballet – Parade ($1)

We also went to this store, and got everyone two bottles of soda (except me, I don’t drink soda). I might have to do a continuation of this post once I’ve uploaded some more pictures.

I love L.A.

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