Not exactly Friday Night Lights
Los Angeles. Friday, May 7. After half a day at work, I fly out to join the team in LA, where they trained this morning. I watched several episodes of Season 3 of Friday Night Lights on the plane, so I missed part of my semi-annual study of greater Los Angeles from the air. It never ceases to amaze me, though. Dense sprawl. Seemingly contradictory yet present in LA. Crowded neighborhoods, but neighborhoods nonetheless – not apartments or high-rises – surrounding beat-up, worn-down athletic fields. It's somehow different from the other major cities - its own brand of city, perhaps. I love spotting fields from the air. Baseball, football, soccer, and everything in between. Wherever I fly, they always catch my eye.
When we arrive, I get my bag and hit the Super Shuttle waiting area – I’ve saved the team money by booking a spot on a shuttle instead of getting a taxi. So I start waiting for my shuttle, watching all the different shuttles and buses and cars go by. The Parking Spot has buses for UCLA, USC, the LA Kings, and presumably the other sports teams in town, too, but I didn’t see them. Every few minutes, a navy Super Shuttle bus pulls up with a placard in the window showing the list of its destinations: an unbelievably endless supply of LA neighborhoods whose geography is a mystery to me. Palos Verdes, Hollywood, Westwood, Pasadena, Santa Monica, Thousand Oaks, Chino Hills, Ontario. I don’t know these places, although I’m pretty sure my brother has lived in half of them. Finally, after a good 45 minutes, South Bay shows up, and I’m on my way.
The Marriott is a familiar place by now, this at least my seventh stay here in the last two and a half years. I immediately run into my counterpart from our opponent, who hands me packets of notes, and then our TV broadcaster, one of those receiving the notes. I’m also on my blackberry texting a friend from New Jersey – I must look very busy, very disorganized, or perhaps both to the woman checking me in. I go upstairs – I swear I’ve stayed in this room several times before – crash, watch TV, and head out to find dinner.
I cross a street where I’ve crossed in years past but notice much more anti-pedestrian signage than in the past. Maybe it was darker the other times I was here. At any rate, I cross half of the lanes and stand awkwardly on a median waiting for the light to turn red in the other direction. I have a sneaking suspicion some teenagers are laughing at me from a van waiting to turn – what would I have thought of me 10 years ago? The restaurant I was aiming for appears to be mobbed on this Friday night, and I awkwardly walk past an outdoor table of our guys – they don’t see me because of some plants and stuff. For some reason, this further intimidates me from taking on the possibility of a wait – I don’t want to make it awkward for them or me if they see me eating alone – so I wander on, unsure of my destination.
After crossing another pretty big street – legally this time – I go into a grocery store, make a complete circuit of the store, almost run into a cart or two, and leave. I still don’t know where I’m going. I walk back past the restaurant – it’s still crowded – and back toward the mall near the hotel, greeting and passing another one of the guys on my way. I eventually wind up at a barbecue restaurant. That’s right, I flew from Texas to California and wound up eating barbecue. Doesn’t make a lot of sense, right? I sit at the bar and ask the waitress if she can change the NBA game to an NHL game. She says some of the other people asked for the NBA game, but even after they leave, she keeps it on. Does she not remember? Does she secretly love basketball? Or does she just figure I don’t care? Let’s be honest, it doesn’t really matter.
I talk on the phone with CPL, back from halfway across the world, sit and talk with one of our staffers, hanging out in the lobby, and head back upstairs for some more TV time, trying to stay awake long enough to be on a semi-normal schedule tomorrow night, when I’m scheduled to be on the air almost until midnight in my natural time zone. Just another glamorous Friday night on the road.
When we arrive, I get my bag and hit the Super Shuttle waiting area – I’ve saved the team money by booking a spot on a shuttle instead of getting a taxi. So I start waiting for my shuttle, watching all the different shuttles and buses and cars go by. The Parking Spot has buses for UCLA, USC, the LA Kings, and presumably the other sports teams in town, too, but I didn’t see them. Every few minutes, a navy Super Shuttle bus pulls up with a placard in the window showing the list of its destinations: an unbelievably endless supply of LA neighborhoods whose geography is a mystery to me. Palos Verdes, Hollywood, Westwood, Pasadena, Santa Monica, Thousand Oaks, Chino Hills, Ontario. I don’t know these places, although I’m pretty sure my brother has lived in half of them. Finally, after a good 45 minutes, South Bay shows up, and I’m on my way.
The Marriott is a familiar place by now, this at least my seventh stay here in the last two and a half years. I immediately run into my counterpart from our opponent, who hands me packets of notes, and then our TV broadcaster, one of those receiving the notes. I’m also on my blackberry texting a friend from New Jersey – I must look very busy, very disorganized, or perhaps both to the woman checking me in. I go upstairs – I swear I’ve stayed in this room several times before – crash, watch TV, and head out to find dinner.
I cross a street where I’ve crossed in years past but notice much more anti-pedestrian signage than in the past. Maybe it was darker the other times I was here. At any rate, I cross half of the lanes and stand awkwardly on a median waiting for the light to turn red in the other direction. I have a sneaking suspicion some teenagers are laughing at me from a van waiting to turn – what would I have thought of me 10 years ago? The restaurant I was aiming for appears to be mobbed on this Friday night, and I awkwardly walk past an outdoor table of our guys – they don’t see me because of some plants and stuff. For some reason, this further intimidates me from taking on the possibility of a wait – I don’t want to make it awkward for them or me if they see me eating alone – so I wander on, unsure of my destination.
After crossing another pretty big street – legally this time – I go into a grocery store, make a complete circuit of the store, almost run into a cart or two, and leave. I still don’t know where I’m going. I walk back past the restaurant – it’s still crowded – and back toward the mall near the hotel, greeting and passing another one of the guys on my way. I eventually wind up at a barbecue restaurant. That’s right, I flew from Texas to California and wound up eating barbecue. Doesn’t make a lot of sense, right? I sit at the bar and ask the waitress if she can change the NBA game to an NHL game. She says some of the other people asked for the NBA game, but even after they leave, she keeps it on. Does she not remember? Does she secretly love basketball? Or does she just figure I don’t care? Let’s be honest, it doesn’t really matter.
I talk on the phone with CPL, back from halfway across the world, sit and talk with one of our staffers, hanging out in the lobby, and head back upstairs for some more TV time, trying to stay awake long enough to be on a semi-normal schedule tomorrow night, when I’m scheduled to be on the air almost until midnight in my natural time zone. Just another glamorous Friday night on the road.
posted by Jon at
01:26
1 Comments:
This seems to be written in a different style than you have written before. Feels very... existential... or something. Good stuff.
By
Eric, at 2:13 AM
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