LA’s pecking order, by Bill Kay

The Los Angeles working world is quite unlike anything else.
I’m not talking about jobs in fast-food restaurants, dry cleaners or on the threadbare public transportation system. Employers in those areas simply treat job applicants like trash - so, not surprisingly, they often behave like trash.
My experience, naturally enough, is in the media business and I have quite a few friends with much broader experience than I have.
This is no mere chattering-class clique, as it is in London, say, or Manchester. The film industry employs an estimated 10,000 in LA and you can add varying amounts for journalism, book publishing, the blogosphere and entertainment.
No wonder hopefuls pour off the trains, planes and buses, as hopeful as they ever were in the 1920s, 1950s or the 1990s. Most of them end up waiting table or working in shops – elbowing many of the less photogenic but probably more skilled sales assistants – and a high proportion buy the return ticket to Nowheresville, Noplace County, somewhere in the midwest.
The LA version of Craigslist makes a handy living out of this rose-tinted optimism. I got fed up churning through job after writing job, gig after writing gig, offering no pay but ‘a byline for your resumé’ or ‘exciting start-up, share in our success once the money starts to flow’.
Business plans and even PhD theses are regular topics, often accompanied by the giveaway ‘at least two years’ experience required’. That means that if you have more than ten years under your belt, don’t bother: they can’t afford you.
Hollywood looms over this whole scene. The big studios are cutting back now, postponing some pre-Christmas releases until next year, laying off scene-shifters and researchers, but they are still the big players, the ones most people want to get into bed with one way or another.
To cut their overheads they often prefer to rent studio time to independent producers, who therefore take the risk. They of course brag that they have ‘a deal’ with Paramount or Warner, when all they mean is that they have an option on some space.
Options are the currency of LA. Everyone from studios to property developers buys or sells options, most of which lapse. Meanwhile, though, they are pregnant with hope value.
No one is more hopeful than those actors who take part in the cattle market known as the audition. These usually take place in draughty old rooms miles from the bright lights. Candidates sit for hours on backless wooden benches, like some immigrant resettlement centre, awaiting their turn. A generous employer will provide drinking water to stave off the heat – it’s cheaper than air conditioning.
An hour’s journey each way, with a three-hour wait, can earn ten minutes in front of the cameras and/or microphone and an assurance from the director that ‘You were great!’
So many people turn up on the offchance of stardom that a central agency now logs everyone and gives them a barcode, like a box of cookies in Safeway.
Happily, I’ve so far resisted the temptation to pitch for an audition – I know my limitations – and, as in Britain, most journalistic jobs come via word of mouth and personal recommendation. Maybe that’s why my gigs have been few and far between, and they have certainly dried up since the credit crunch started biting.
But every Monday night I go to a diner in Pasadena where a bunch of us meet to chew the fat. I’m the only journalist; the others are writers, singers, voice artistes (including one talented chap who did the voice of Tigger for 17 years, nice work if you can get it), singers and radio show hosts.
Only three of us, though, have a regular income – me, a singer-cum-entertainer-cum-actor-cum writer, and a rehabilitation nurse at the local big hospital. Others have the odd scrap of royalties but most are living on their savings from previous careers.
What links us all, though, is that none of us is idle. For there is a definite pecking order in LA.
What you must never do, or admit to, is nothing. You must always have a ‘project’. LA being what it is, this means doing something for no pay, just for the chance to write, talk, act or sing. That gives you a show-reel, DVD, CD, even a book, to hand round in the hope that it will be picked up by someone with money and clout. It happens more often than you might think.
I’m working on a novel. It will probably never see the light of day, but the rejection letters are yet to come. This is the writing stage, when the flame of hope burns brightly. You can keep that going through several novels before you give up, so I’m told.
Then there are those with a contract. They are earning, however modestly. Money is changing hands and being banked, which merits anything from respect to jealousy. It means your work has a value and could lead to something even more valuable, You are on the upward path, which might take you who knows where,
Above them are the successes, which can vary from people you have never heard of but are constantly employed and are driven home each evening to a discreet spread behind a set of gates in Beverly Hills.
At the top are the few stars earning megabucks, anything up to $50 million a picture, with homes in several US states and foreign countries. Like that chap in his sixties with the dyed hair and toned-down Liverpool accent, who turns up from time to time at Mijares, one of our local Mexican restaurants. Says his name is Paul McCartney. Never done an audition, though, or so I hear.

An evening with Ernie by Bill Kay

Scene: the community hall attached to South Pasadena Public Library. A long, high ceilinged room, windows high up on the left as you look at the stage, capacity around 200.
Doors open 6.30 for 7pm start. At 6.25 there is a polite, quiet line stretching from the door down the steps and out into the path through the greenery, maybe 30 people waiting. Our friend Jim Dawson is sitting in one of two curving stone seats either side of the entrance, so we take the opportunity to join him and probably jump the line a little. Edgar Bullington joins us, standing and chatting.
Dead on 6.30 the doors open and we file in firmly but in an orderly manner. We grab half a row of seats and another couple for Bobb Lynes and Barbara Watkins.
At 6.48 a side door opens - and there is the star, Ernest Borgnine himself, with that trademark wide gap-toothed grin, wearing a powder blue safari shirt. He milks the applause, which lasts about half a minute, then walks to the stage. He clearly intends to get started, but an official whispers in his ear that there is music first.
'Do you want to hear some jazz?' he yells. The audience, realising the situation, agrees.
So Borgnine's real appearance is delayed by 20 minutes or so while a young girl sings a few jazz classics such as All of Me, to a piano accompaniment. She sings well, but is too young to be credibly singing songs designed for someone with more life under their belt.
We are next given some clips of Borgnine hits, including Marty, which won four Oscars - Best Film, Director, Screenplay and Actor.
Finally Borgnine reappears, as cheerful as before, but flanked by fussing aides and a so-called moderator who is to handle the Q&A. An English-accented video company executive who ploughs through the career credits of Borgnine and his inquisitor. Happily, the star brushes aside all this nonsense and does his own thing, brilliantly and with real rapport with the audience. He is a natural star - as he should be, after more than 50 years on camera.
Recounting his Oscar win, he couldn't remember who gave it to him - 'that actress who became a princess'. 'Grace Kelly,' fans prompted. 'That's right,' he said, 'look - I'm 91, what do you want?!'
He didn't get on well with the director Richard Brooks, who dismissed Borgnine as 'one of those Goddam thinking actors' when he suggested how to play a scene. Next day Brooks began: 'OK Mr Borgnine, what do you have in mind for this scene?'
He beat Frank Sinatra to the Oscar, as well as James Dean, but he and Sinatra became friends and he recalled how the legendary singer paid for the actor Lee J Cobb to be taken to Sinatra's house in Palm Springs. 'Why did you do this?' asked Cobb. 'Because I like the way you work,' Sinatra replied.
The Poseidon Adventure, one of the biggest films of all time, nearly didn't get made because of a newly-promoted Paramount executive who tried to block it and was later sacked.
Borgnine has just finished shooting Another Harvest Moon in Harrisburg, PA - he said 'It's the state capital, you don't need to go there!'
On 3D: 'You just sit around longer for all the set ups and that's good, because you get paid for the extra time.'
Yes, it's true he used to get on a horse in westerns by climbing a set of steps - 'Bring on the horse, bring on the stairs!' adding that John Wayne used to do the same.
On the second day he was filming Marty, on location in the Bronx, someone asked him 'Are you the guy who killed Sinatra?' After many explanations that it was just only a film, Borgnine (real name Borgnino) was in danger of getting seriously beaten up, so in desperation he said 'I'm Italian!' and was swamped with pizza and salami, etc. But the original thug muttered 'I still think we ought to beat the he'll out of him....'
He is a great fan of Abraham Lincoln, and told us how he picked up a painting of Lincoln for ten dollars off a street market. The next day the stallholder tried to buy it back 'for a museum', he said.
Borgnine shrewdly held on to it, and was subsequently told it could be worth as much as $5 million. He has a room in his house devoted to Lincoln, whom he regards as a great source of 'calmness'. It is a rare solemn moment in an evening that was full of fun.
And no one asked him about his latest appearance on youtube.

LA theatres: Hollywood v Downtown by Bill Kay

It's a punishing schedule, but someone's got to do it: on Friday I went to the Kodak Theater, home of the Oscars, to see British comedian Eddie Izzard, and last night I was at the Million Dollar Theater in Downtown for tenor Michael Kleitman's Tribute to Pavarotti. Two very different experiences, and not just in what was happening on stage.
The Kodak, is next to Grauman's Chinese Theater and is set into the Hollywood and Highland shopping centre, one of LA's biggest tourist traps. It takes the modern approach of fleecing the punters for all it can get, so best to eat and drink beforehand. The full house was a mixture of Angelenos, tourists and Brits who live in the area. Izzard made few concessions to American ignorance, but most of his more obscure jokes were enthusiastically received. Mind you, he was wise enough to lay into Bush, which got some easy applause, and came out surprisingly strongly for Obama - but again, he had got his audience right and they loved it.
The Million Dollar, which was built for that price in 1918 by Sid Grauman before he moved westwards and built the Egyptian and Chinese on Hollywood Boulevard, is an old-fashioned theatre which the LA mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, hopes will lead a revival of Broadway - something which I don't think will happen without driving out his fellow Latino shopkeepers. Meanwhile, though, this theatre is not yet into full ripoff mode: the front stalls tickets cost about the same as for the balcony in the Kodak - around $55 - and the charmingly unadorned snacks counter was selling bottled of Pepsi for a not too bad $4. Oddest of all was a sweet stall in the men's loo, presumably a Latino custom as they run the theatre: bar of chocolate with your loo paper, sir? It was more surreal than anything Izzard could invent.
Russian-born Kleitman has been touring with his Pavarotti show for some time, so it was surprising how badly presented it was. To save on an orchestra, he relied on recorded music which was sometimes as crackly as an old phonograph. And Pavarotti he is not: his voice is much thinner and has less range. The contrast was starkest in his attempt at Nessan Dorma. Kleitman fell way short of Pavarotti and indeed is much more in the style of Jose Carreras.
But the audience lapped it up. They were, as you would expect, much older than Izzard's, few tourists, plenty of Russian supporters. I don't think they filled the theatre, judging by the 30% off promotion they were running last week (to my annoyance, as I got only 10% off about a month ago).
Thankfully we were spared any standing ovations until the very end. Instead, from half-way through the first half, there was a regular flow of middle-aged ladies waddling to the front of the stage with bouquets which Kleitman seemed genuinely surprised and embarrassed to receive.
I'd have loved to see what Izzard would have made of the Million Dollar.

It's a gas gas gas says Bill Kay

One of the features of Southern California that I find most appealing is its child-like ability to go into obsession mode at the drop of a hat - or anything else that happens to be in their hand at the time. Currently it’s gas - petrol to Brits.

I know, it’s still half the price it is in Britain, but we have had a severe shock over here. When I landed just under two years ago, a US gallon (the British Imperial gallon is 20% bigger) cost $2.50 or less. It was recently as high as $4.40, although it has declined a little with the oil price.

So it’s the speed of the jump that has sent Americans into overdrive, so to speak. The price has been creeping up in the past decade, but not at a pace that most Angelenos noticed. You filled a tank for may $50, grabbed the receipt so you could claim it against tax (many more can here than in UK) and hit the freeway without a care in the world.

Now, though, you’d think we were in the middle of a world war with rationing just around the corner. TV news runs stories about a gas scam that you would think a 10-year-old would see through. Crooks steal credit cards then stand around filling stations offering petrol half-price, taking cash using the stolen card to pay for the fuel! I suppose people reckon they will be miles away before the villains are arrested, but they have clearly forgotten about CCTV and the fact that their number plate identifies them as accessories to a pretty obvious crime.

Back on the legit side of the fence, it is amusing to see Americans adopting British ways of coping with high fuel costs. People are walking their dogs instead of driving them to the nearest park. Others boast of going in for “Euro-style shopping”, which means they buy a carryable bag of groceries on their way home every couple of days instead of driving 30 miles to Costco and filling the Hummer with bulk quantities of pap. Farmers markets are booming, as are neighbourhood restaurants.

The LA Times today leads its Business section with first-person reports by two of its staffers who have moved into flats downtown, within walking distance of the office. Amazingly, they are saving money! They are losing weight! They are talking to neighbours!

My hunch is that it won’t last. Like the stories in London about middle-class people shopping at Primark, the novelty will wear off. Downtown LA is like a graveyard at night and at weekends - full of spooky people. I bet those flat-dwellers will be bumming invitations off their pals in the valleys for BBQs and pool parties. The lure of the SUV will be simply too strong.

The best tip is to tip by Bill Kay

You’ve reached the end of a satisfying meal. You are nicely full without bursting. The couple of glasses of wine have gone down nicely. You may even have indulged in a liqueur. Life has dissolved into a pleasant haze. Then the bill arrives.

You knew it was coming, of course, because you almost certainly asked for it. All the same, this is the moment of sobering reality, when that blue or black folder lands, containing the business end of the evening.

Let’s assume that you haven’t been charged for anything you didn’t receive, and that the total is not wildly out of line with what you expected. The question remains: do you tip, and if so how much?

This is a world-wide question. Providers of service expect to be paid over the odds, often for doing no more than their job. After all, unless you are remarkably flush (or pretentious) you don’t tip the chef who produced your meal - so why tip the flunkey who walked it maybe ten yards?

This is an increasingly tricky issue in LA, where everyone who can is getting in on the act. It poses particular problems for an expat like myself, because it is not always easy to be sure whether you are being taken for a ride or confronted with a genuinely different custom.

I don’t know about you, but in London I never tip if I am collecting a takeaway meal from a restaurant. As far as I am concerned, I’m the one doing the waitering. I also hated the aggressive attitude of some of the people who delivered meals to my door, so I eventually stopped ordering that way. But in LA, in both cases you are politely presented with a bill which, surprise surprise, leaves room for a tip and the total blank.

Is it the local practice to tip then? So far I have stuck to my British habit and no one has given me a hard time as a result, but the only way to find out is to ask friends. The answer, so far, is to ignore the tip.

But, coming back to the end of our excellent restaurant meal, the moment the bill arrives can be deeply divisive. I go to dinner most Mondays at a scruffy diner in Pasadena, where a floating group of anywhere between 4 and 24 friends pitch up and at the end we get our own bills.

It’s not a fortune, $10 to $20 a head for burgers, salad, steak and chips, that sort of thing, and the same smiling waiter serves us all. But we discovered that some tip generously, some meanly, some a nominal $1, and some not at all.

After reading the latest US book on tipping - Waiter Rant by Steve Dublanica -I would think twice about not doing so, especially if you are intending to return to the scene of your crime. Dublanica was a waiter in New York, where restaurants notoriously take no prisoners.

I have been chased to the door by a Manhattan waiter who had calculated that I left less than the “minimum” of double the sales tax: on US menus the prices are shown net of tax, which is usually around 8.5%. Doubling that to 17% sounds a lot, but it works out very close to the 10% UK diners add to a bill already inflated by VAT.

There are basically six reasons people don’t tip:

They think the service was bad
They aren’t returning to the restaurant, so see no reason to be nice to the waiter
They object to tipping in principle, as demeaning to both waiter and customer
They think it’s a ripoff that they should pay on top of the menu prices
They think why pay when I don’t have to?
They’re mean
Personally I normally prefer to tip the standard amount, and a little over the odds if I have had good service. I scrub the tip completely only if it is obvious that I have had a bad meal, and the restaurant knows it.

But how you tip, or don’t, tells you a lot about yourself - as does a lot of discretionary spending. Know thyself before thou risketh ye serving lout spitting in thy soup.

I am a camera by Bill Kay

This week I've seen more of camera lenses than I have for years, particularly if you exclude the sort that inhabit mobile phones. In fact, they didn't feature at all.
On Tuesday I appeared in the pilot for a new community TV show, Altadena Tonight! It couldn't have been more informal. The studio was the back room of Altadena's Coffee Gallery, which has long been a great local meeting place. The back room is used regularly for concerts and shows. It holds about 50 people plus a small stage, big enough for a band - plays would be a bit limited unless they were conversation pieces. You'd have to use your imagination to enjoy a version of Star Wars there, or even Henry V.
This time there was more lighting than usual, and three fixed cameras were discreetly installed right, left and centre, together with a mobile camera. The show wasn't structured for broadcast, instead the raw material was recorded for editing later. It consisted of a series of songs by Ian Whitcomb and the Bungalow Boys, Will Ryan and others, interspersed with Ian interviewing people such as the manager of the Gallery.
That was where Lynne and me came in. Ian, a long-time expatriate himself, asked us about why we emigrated to US, and why Pasadena and so on. We talked about my Sunday Times column and what I thought of the LA Times (I was as polite as I could be, blaming its troubles on the internet and Sam Zell).
It added up to a very pleasant evening. There were no calls for silence and the breaks every hour or so were an opportunity for the audience to load up on a free buffet outside - we had already eaten at Chandra Thai with our friends, Pat and Elaine.
It looks a very promising magazine show, very localised but very professionally produced. Whether it generates enough of an audience, or even gets aired on a channel anyone can get hold of, are open questions but I felt it deserved to succeed. I think they'll play around with it until it does.
Although I didn't think they'd come together in quite the way they did, for about a month the Sunday Times has been talking about new byline photos for all columnists as part of a massive colour-driven redesign which began with the July 6 issue. However the picture desk has been trying to save money by using old shots of me - hard to see how that would work, because the new design demands a new format for byline pics, three-quarter length, outlined and so on. But they persisted and the editor duly complained about the pic of me that appeared last Sunday, so the new shots had to be taken in a rush this week.
They used an agency in New York to find a photographer near me, and the girl probably thought that West Hollywood was pretty near Pasadena - it's a 40 to 60 minute drive, depending on the traffic.
It was fixed for Thursday afternoon, but as my car was out of action the photographer, Danny Rothenberg, kindly agreed to have me picked up and returned home. The shoot was great fun, in his patio, with lighting equipment and reflectors, and we got on well, with me going through several changes of clothing, pink and white collared shirts, a navy blue t-shirt, velvet jacket. Danny plays an unpublished John Lennon CD in the background. After an hour he decided he had enough and I was taken home by his assistant Emily's boyfriend, Sam, an engaging companion for two longish journeys.
At 6 the next morning an email and text message arrive from Danny. The Sunday Times aren't happy. They wanted the pics shot in a studio, against a white background, with 3/4 length as well as portrait.
In a flurry of phone calls I persuade Kathryn Cooper on the Money desk to let me put the cost of a return taxi fare on expenses, anything up to $200. And we do the whole thing all over again, although this time I only have the pink shirt and blue velvet jacket, with a tie as variation. We still make it fun, but the atmosphere is noticeably more subdued. I hang on until we get word from London that the Sunday Times are happy: I did not relish a third journey to West Hollywood.
I enjoy being photographed. I wasn't at all aware of the camera in the Coffee Gallery show, more concerned about the mike I had to hold. But for stills the big preoccupation is to inject life into the shots by moving around, twisting your body, looking in odd directions, closing your eyes to rest them, changing expression. It's fun, satisfying but quite exhausting - for those on both sides of the lens.
An interesting week, but I wouldn't want to do it for a living!

Downtown LA's Mohican haircut by Bill Kay

Downtown Los Angeles is a graveyard at weekends - with one exception. While office blocks slumber and the cafes and newsstands that serve their worker ants are shuttered, one street bustles with the roaring engines of buses and trucks, and the steady chatter of eager, alert shoppers.
LA's Broadway is a provincial shadow of its progenitor in New York. But, ever since the rich folk abandoned Bunker Hill for Beverly Hills more than 50 years ago it has been reclaimed by the Mexican-Americans who founded and named the city. They keep it busy on a Saturday when, apart from the wonderful public library and a few Starbucks, the rest of downtown is dead. It is as if the district has had a Mohican haircut, with a bushy middle and bald sides.
And among the rows of shops selling souvenirs, clothes, electronics, large-screen televisions and DVDs, a dozen faded, once-grand buildings stand proud, like so many dowager duchesses at a fiesta. They are one of the saddest sights in America: Broadway LA's theatres.
Today I joined the LA Conservancy weekly tour of the theatres. As it is booked solid two months ahead, there is plenty of interest in what has happened to these architectural relics and why.
The tour begins promisingly enough at the Million Dollar Theatre on the corner of 3rd Street, now given over largely to Latin singing stars but still preserved in a condition that would be recognised by Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and the many film giants who attended its premieres.
From there, however, the tour sinks into a depressing succession of theatres darkened or converted irrevocably to one form of retail or another. The best-preserved we saw, the State on the corner of 7th Street, is now leased by a Portugese religious group. Some, such as the Orpheum, burst into life occasionally for a one-off show and they are all available for conferences, movie shoots, weddings or whatever legitimate purpose can justify the hire fee.
The saddest was undoubtedly the original Pantages at 534 Broadway. The Pantages name lives on in a highly successful Hollywood theatre that has hosted the Oscar ceremonies and, currently, the hit show Wicked. The Latino manager of the TV store politely showed us through to his store room, which was the auditorium of this 1910 building. A walkway has been built between the tiered rows where seats used to be. The walkway leads up on to the stage, which still has the remnants of lighting and curtains. The proscenium arch and balcony are intact. It is possible to picture the old vaudeville singers, dancers and comedians doing their turns in front of an audience which could not have numbered more than 1,000. In its later years it fell foul of 24-hour film shows, when hobos would pay the nickel entry fee just for somewhere cheap to sleep at night. Next to the Pantages, later renamed the Arcade, is the former Clune's, which became the Cameo and is in a similar state.
The contrast with New York is stark. There, the theatre district has 39 active auditoria. LAs has 17, none operating full-time. Another 14 have been demolished.
The virtual collapse of Broadway LA as an entertainment centre is normally blamed on Sid Grauman, who opened the Million Dollar but a few years later whipped the rug from under Broadway by opening the Egyptian and the Chinese theatres in Hollywood, backed by film premieres that had tremendous headline-grabbing razzmatazz. But Broadway's is also closely linked to downtown's transformation from a wealthy residential area to one that is almost entirely commercial, bar some lofts and apartments. Less publicised but just as tragic has been the closure on the street of a string of huge department stores, now totally overtaken by the modern shopping malls.
A succession of plans have been advanced for the revival of downtown and in particular Broadway, but it is hard to see a future for the theatres unless thousands more people move into the area to live. That will require a transformation that would take a minimum of ten years and cost billions of dollars, quite apart from raising the political snakepit of having to drive out the Mexican-American retailers and their customers. It is, I fear, a lost cause.
The former League of American Theatres and Producers is now known as simply the Broadway League - and that does not embrace LA's Broadway. Life has moved on.

Which Wrecking Crew? by Bill Kay

The name Wrecking Crew is so attractively aggressive and edgy that it has been snaffled by many creative groups over the years, from a hip-hop band to a film production company and loads of others in between.
It therefore comes as a surprise those who are not pop music historians that the term was first applied to a group of people who could pass for the claims department of an insurance company. They were dubbed the Wrecking Crew by their drummer, Hal Blaine.
But this was not a headline band, rather a loosely organised group of session musicians in the 1950s, 1960s and even as late as the 1980s who for long periods dominated the recording business in Los Angeles. According to a new documentary film about them, made by the son of one of the leading lights, guitarist Tommy Tedesco, the name alluding to the way they were seen by their more conventional contemporaries, who saw this bunch of upstarts as breaking up the then cosy session-musician trade on the west coast.
Their 'crime' was to be young and ambitious at the time rock 'n' roll was coming in, and actually contributing to the development of that style. It didn't hurt that they were extremely professional, and as they worked together more frequently and got to know one another's skills, they could produce inch-perfect backing - in a day, if necessary - to whole albums of the biggest singers and groups of the period, from Frank and Nancy Sinatra to Sonny and Cher, the Beach Boys, the Byrds, the Righteous Brothers, Sam Cooke and Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass - a list that pins the Wrecking Crew firmly to a well-defined and now long-gone era.
It was a time when the music was new and the record companies only concerned about the product, not how it was made. So it was not regarded as important that a band couldn't play their music, as long as someone could. The result was a succession of highly produced and technically excellent songs - typified by the Phil Spector Wall of Sound - that were the final take of umpteen versions, often with ideas, riffs and twirls introduced by the Wrecking Crew. Carol Kaye, another guitarist, seems to have been particularly good at adding little segments that lifted a record and helped it become a hit - but were very difficult to reproduce on stage.
I watched the documentary last night in the open air at the California Plaza in downtown LA, as part of a series of free events called the Grand Performances. The arena, really the piazza of an office complex, was packed with plenty of regulars - seats were first come, first served, and many brought their own folding chairs along with cool boxes and picnic baskets to produce a lively atmosphere.
However, once the sun went down at about 8 pm - much earlier than the more northerly Britain - the temperature dropped and there was a chilly breeze that felt more like London than LA. Luckily I had a jacket, but I was reminded of a very different event - a classical concert in the main courtyard of Hampton Court - when I was extremely envious of those who had had the foresight to bring blankets. It didn't get quite that bad, but it was too close for comfort.
The documentary, which has taken 12 years to make, was introduced by Danny Tedesco and was clearly conceived as a tribute to his late father. It was therefore uncritical and portrayed the Wrecking Crew as a group of fundamentally good people who happened to be in the right place at the right time - and earned good money but never collected the huge royalties of the singers and bands they backed.
We learned a little about the difficulties of combining the irregular hours of a session musician with having a family, a familiar problem to most journalists. And it struck me that the Wrecking Crew had the mindset of newspaper sub-editors - talented people working largely beneath the surface, not making the megabucks (though enough in some cases to afford yachts and Rolls-Royces) but equally not taking the risks of being a headline act. One of the few who rose from the ranks was the singer Glen Campbell, parallelling the career of the rare sub-editor who becomes a by-lined writer. The gallows humour was very familiar to anyone who has worked in newspapers.
The Wrecking Crew era ended because groups and bands took over, and increasingly provided their own backing music. What the public didn't know, with the exception of the Monkees, was that as well as the solo singers few groups played their own music on their records and often mimed to their records in concert. Some couldn't play a note.
I had come across this phenomenon in Britain. John Allason, a Scot who had played with a band called the Marmalade in the 1960s, told me that the more successful Trogs couldn't play. Instead of miming to their records, however, they mimed to a live version of their songs played and sung by the Marmalade behind the stage curtain!

Bill Kay salutes the Queen

Clothing is one of the constant themes of life in LA - how casual to be, how formal is formal, and just what is appropriate on any given occasion.
At Edgar Bullington Snr's funeral on May 30, there was a mixture ranging from dark suit and black tie to jeans and t-shirt. No one was being disrespectful, it was just that in this part of the world, in the early 21st century, there are no rules and if there were many people would claim their right to flout such rules. In one sense dress is dismissed as unimportant, but in another it is vitally important.
Two occasions in the last few days brought this home to me. On Thursday, June 12, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences held a celebration to mark the 100th anniversary of James Stewart.
It was a memorable occasion, consisting of extended clips from a dozen Stewart films spanning his 50-year movie career. It was by no means a formal occasion, thus giving maximum opportunity for self-expression - dangerous in this neck of the woods. I was seriously overdressed, wearing a jacket and collared shirt. Par for the course (well, I am watching the US Open) was fairly smart casual, the sort of gear a lot fo guys would wear to play golf at a moderately posh club.
Then there was the tubby old chap with the white beard, fat gut and skinny legs - sort of Colonel Sanders's uncle on a night off. On his head the almost obligatory baseball cap topped with a pair of sunglasses. Striped shirt, khaki shorts, blue socks and trainers completed the outfit.
Then, on Saturday, there were the very different sartorial temptations offered by the Queen Elizabeth II Grand Celebration Birthday Ball, a black-tie event at the California Club, one of LA's most exclusive venues. It's where the old money meets the old power.
The invitation said that military mess dress and medals were acceptable. Some vets wore a suspiciously large display of hardware, the sort that suggested the wearer had had a valiant civil war and had maintained a ferociously gallant battlefield career in every conflict since.
But the real curiosities were those Americans who chose to wear Scottish dress. A member of the British Consulate staff told me he had asked one of them exactly what connection he had with Scotland. 'He told me his family had come over from Scotland in 1600, which is a fairly tenuous link, don't you think?'
Then there was the black gentleman in full tartan rig, giving rise to irrelevant and totally tasteless cracks about his supposed links with the Black Watch regiment.
But the Golden Haggis Award for unlikeliest Scottish heritage was the extremely tall diner with a black goatee beard. He had gone to the extent of wearing a tartan sash as well as a kilt. Sadly they were different tartans which, as each tartan is a sign of clan membership - and no self-respecting Scot belongs to more than the clan of his or her birth - was a bit of a giveaway. I'm sure there was a perfectly reasonable explanation, but I didn't get the chance to find out what it was.
The evening itself was a dinner-dance reminiscent of the sort I used to attend with my parents as the Ladies' Nights of British masonic lodges - reception, piper to summon us to dinner, speeches, dancing, raffle, 'carriages' - time to go home. It all seemed so reminiscent of the 1960s.
Oddly, the pre-dinner champagne was included in the $175-a-head price of the ticket, but if you wanted water you had to pay extra.
The dinner was fine unless, like Lynne and me, you were vegetarian. Our entree was a plate of the vegetables that were being served to the meat and fish eaters - no attempt at a specially concocted dish. We had a careleslly arranged plate of boiled courgette, carrot and squash which, for the price, I thought indicated a lack of professionalism and even enthusiasm on the part of the kitchen.
It can be tough to be master of ceremonies at a dinner-dance. But with just ten words - 'I'm not going to continue until you focus on me' - the Master of Ceremonies, Bob Edmonds, reduced the diners to stunned silence.
the hundred or so guests were not being particularly noisy, let alone rowdy, and Edmonds had hardly lost control of his audience. In my opinion MCs should issue threats only in the most dire circumstances, for it risks souring the mood of an otherwise highly successful evening.
Unfortunately Edmonds persistently misjudged the occasion, speaking for too long several times, repeating himself and making irritating errors of fact, such as declaring 'We are now going to enjoy dinner': I don't particularly like being told I'm going to enjoy something, I'll make my own mind up about that, thanks.
He harped on about the 'significance' of the evening and how we were having a 'wonderful' dinner with 'wonderful' service, repeated so often that people were praying under their breath for him to hand the microphone to someone else. It became embarrassing.
The evening had begun with the Loyal Toast, but Edmonds left such a delay before the actual toast that several people were left standing for some minutes after taking the trouble to get up straight away. They were not the last to be caught unawares by wayward advice from the podium. At least one of the speakers was not called to the platform when he expected to be.
As we left the piper was recalled to the floor to give us a medley featuring such classics as 'Daisy, Daisy, I'm half-crazy.' By that time, so was I.

Why beer is as bad as bullets by Bill Kay

Brits routinely sneer at the American gun laws, cheered on by America's chattering classes through such liberal, "thinking" media as the New Yorker. The exact meaning of the Second Amendment to the US Constitution, regarding the right to bear arms, is examined minutely by those for and against banning guns, to grab what comfort they can to support their cause.
But I believe the British sense of superiority is seriously misplaced. It has been commonly observed that anyone who wants can get hold of a gun in Britain, although illegally, and everyone admits that it is difficult to control knives, though again the law is in place to enable the police to stop anyone and confiscate knives. Indeed, there is no legal excuse for carrying a knife, other than to transport it from a shop to your kitchen or toolbox.
But I think the nature of the weapon is a smokescreen. Far more relevant, and a factor in which Britain is in a far worse position than the US, is alcohol abuse.
Nearly all killings in Britain are fuelled by alcohol, whether by murder, manslaughter or accident. Cars are far more widespread as lethal weapons than guns or knives: all you have to show is evidence that you know how to handle them.
And one of the big differences between Britain and the US is that in America alcohol is far better controlled, not by the police but by drinkers themselves. Sure, Americans get drunk. But it is far more isolated, and tends to involve individuals rather than large groups.
Contrast that with the centre of any small to medium-sized town in Britain on a Friday or Saturday night. Whether it is Chippenham in Wiltshire, Oxford in Oxfordshire or Canterbury in Kent, drunkenness is rife. It can be peaceful, people falling asleep on benches or holding their heads. But too often it turns into anything from a rumble to a riot. Injury is common - alcohol is by far the biggest single cause of admission to hospital emergency departments. And death is a regular consequence.
The latest example was last Saturday night's riots on the London underground, to 'celebrate' the last day on which travellers were permitted to consume alcohol. Through Facebook, several parties were organised, mainly on the circle line. No one was killed, but that was more through luck than judgment. Several people were injured and the whole evening got ludicrously out of hand in a way that would be hard to imagine in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles or any other US city that has an underground train system. Whole stations, such as Liverpool Street, were beseiged by drunken mobs in what was simply an excuse for mass anarchy. For the full flavour, see http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1023417/Pictured-Chaotic-scenes-alcohol-fuelled-Facebook-party-mark-end-drinking-tube-ends-violence.html. See also http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1023923/Country-faces-crisis-drink-violence-MPs-told.html.
I am indebted to Steve Lamb, the Sage of Altadena, for pointing out that in America too most gun- and car-related deaths involve alcohol, and alcohol underlies most visits to US emergency rooms. The difference is Britain's tendency to go in for drunken mob violence, often at a low level of vandalism and fist fights but sufficient to drive non-drinkers off the streets of otherwise blameless towns, as well as causing damage and injury. Pedestrian precincts offer a convenient arena for these exhibitions, and Lamb reports that American planners are nevertheless leaning towards pedestrianising central areas.
Just as many Americans are in denial about guns, or say the risks are worth it, and are supported by an influential manufacturers' lobby, so the giant alcohol makers resist any attempts to curb consumption of their products in Britain. Indeed, during the past 30 years alcohol has become far cheaper there, partly in a misguided attempt to bring UK duty into line with the rest of Europe (where, as in America, drinking is handled far better), and bar opening hours have been widened so booze is available round the clock. And the British attitude to alcohol, and behaviour while under the influence, is totally different - see http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1024051/The-worlds-worst-Britons-tourists-hoteliers-nightmares.html.
Neither US guns nor UK alcohol can be curbed, let alone banned, overnight. They are complex long-term problems. But both should be seen in the same light - as outdated phenomena that blight their respective countries - and tackled with the same determination, no matter what big business says.
Drink-driving reduction campaigns have saved measurable hundreds of lives as the message has gradually sunk in that drivers' control of vehicles is significantly impaired by even minimal alcohol consumption. US law must be tightened state by state to ensure that only responsible people with good cause are allowed to possess guns, backed by gradual confiscation of existing ownership. And British alcohol consumption, especially by the under-40s, must be radically curbed.

Funerals LA style by Bill Kay

Rose Hills is vast. To call it a mere cemetery is to belittle it. Laid out on rolling hills near Whittier, just east of the 605 freeway, it makes Forest Lawn look mean by comparison. And this was where I yesterday witnessed my first American funeral.
They may do things differently in other parts of the country, I wouldn't know, but there was a peculiarly LA feel to the place and the event. I was attending the funeral of Edgar Bullington Snr, father of Edgar, a good friend from the Monday night gatherings at Conrad's diner. I had never met his father: Lynne, Ian, Jim and me amounted to a delegation from Conrad's to lend support to Edgar at this difficult time. His father had suffered a massive heart attack at 83 and lingered for an agonising few days that look brief in retrospect but must have felt like forever while they were unfolding.
The first indication of the size of Rose Hills is the line of cars asking the information post where their funeral is being held. Most received a large sketch map marked appropriately in yellow marker pen. Even then, we went round in circles and had to ask another cemetery official exactly where to go.
From a high point on the hill, activity is everywhere. Like Forest Lawn (but not the Hollywood Forever cemetery behind Paramount Studios), there are no gravestones, or even mausoleums that we could see. Instead, graves are marked with flowers, ribbons, balloons, personal keepsakes, dotting the rolling green fields. Like most large cemeteries these days,Rose Hills allows only ground-level stones so that the vast area can be mowed more easily. But the sod where we were was so spongy and uneven (one nearby marker was a couple of inches higher than one right next to it) that cutting the grass could be a problem. Still, somehow it was kept remarkably trim.
A few chapels dominate the landscape, presumably for the grander funerals. For most, a bare purple awning near the graves protects two rows of folding chairs from the midday sun.
After losing the way, we arrived nearby at about ten minutes before the scheduled 1 pm start time. No one was there. Eventually people emerged from cars and made their way up the steep, grassy slope to the graveside. A young US Navy petty officer in white uniform was a sign of things to come.
By about ten past one around a dozen people were sitting and standing chatting, making the usual stilted conversation that loosely connected strangers attempt on these occasions. Black was very much an optional colour. Some men wore suits and ties, others didn't. Some women were formally dressed, others much less so. A baby cried. Several of the more elderly mourners breathed heavily from the ascent.
Last to appear were the white hearse and six white-gloved pallbearers, led by Edgar. I felt for them, and fervently prayed for their sakes that there would not be an Evelyn Waugh moment as they slowly carried the coffin, draped in the Stars and Stripes, up the grassy slope. Thankfully, they laid their burden to rest without mishap and the service began.
The military honors came first, led by a naval officer with the petty officer as bugler. The officer read an imposing but impersonal account of Old Glory, the flag, which he invited us to imagine was being spoken by the flag. After Taps, Old Glory was folded into a triangle and presented ceremonially to Edgar. The US government provides this free of charge to veterans as a way of showing the nation's gratitude. For more details, see http://www.militaryfuneralhonors.osd.mil/.
The pastor then took over, reading a description of the deceased provided by his son and calling for impromptu oral contributions from the mourners. While this part was inevitably disorganised and disjointed, it had the virtue of heartfelt honesty and allowed those who wanted to a last formal opportunity to express their emotions. Like the service as a whole, it was untidy and lacked shape but fitted the occasion.
Times have changed. Pastors, priests, vicars, no longer tell their congregations what to do but act instead as enablers or conduits. The first consequence of that is that those congregations (or, in this case, mourners) no longer feel obliged to dress or behave in a rigid style, and services no longer follow a predetermined shape beyond the bare minimum. Whether this leads, in funerals, to less respect for the dead is a matter of personal judgement. I don't think it does. Families and friends still mourn their loss, and modern funerals still let them do so in a dignified and satisfying way. All societies mark the passing of their members in their own way, and none more so than at Rose Hills.
The need to give vent to pent-up and suppressed emotion is universal, whether it be called a wake, a funeral breakfast, a repast or, as yesterday, just plain lunch. We drove to Edgar Snr's favourite restaurant, Chris & Pitt's Bar B Q in Whittier, and let the food, drink and talk flow for about three hours. Result: catharsis, a cleansing of the emotions and a platform for Edgar Jr and family to move on.

hell and damnation rains on (or near) Bill Kay

If I were of a more religious turn of mind than I am, I might think that the Almighty had some quibble with the godless hordes of America's west coast.
First there is a sizeable earthquake in nearby Reno, Nevada. None dead, little damage, but a distinct warning for those inclined to heed it.
Then, last Friday morning, a 66-year-old vetinarian is out swimming off the coastline of San Diego when wham! A 17-foot Great White Shark mistakes him for a seal (so we are told, the shark hasn't yet issued its own plea in mitigation) and bites his legs off. Mercifully, he died soon after being hauled ashore.
But on Saturday the fates really move up a gear or two. Unseasonably hot weather, with or without a little help from a local boy scout troop, sparks a brush fire in the San Gabriel Mountains near Santa Anita racetrack, only a few miles from Pasadena. More than 1,000 people are evacuated and the fire service say it will take a week to bring under control.
On the same day, just across the border in Tijuana, two drug gangs or warring factions within one gang engage in a wild west shootout that lasts ten minutes and, at the latest count, kills 15 in a torrent of bullets from rifles and machine guns. This brings the Mexican drug-related murder total to 860 so far this year, after 2,500 died the same way last year.
Amazingly, a government spokesman was quoted as saying he hoped there would be 'more such events', because it was a handy way of getting the drug barons to kill one another, saving police time and manpower. I've heard of less government, but that is going a little far in my view.
OK, I've crossed Tijuana off the list for day trips, I have no plans to go hiking in tinder-dry mountains, I never was keen on swimming in the sea and I'll take my chances that earthquakes don't rumble any closer than Nevada. All the same, it's a little too close for comfort.
The strange thing is how easy it is to get used to all this mayhem. It was the same when the London underground bombs went off in July 2005. I really was close to one of them, the Edgware Road bomb, but if it is on your doorstep it is a local incident. It seems odd that the same event makes headlines round the world, even though I am more aware than most people that all this and more is being pumped across the newswires 24 hours a day, and the receiving media make an objective decision whether to relay it.
As it happens, the Santa Anita fire and Reno earthquake are almost routine and do not merit much coverage outside the region. But the shootout and the shark attack did make worldwide headlines, largely because of their Hollywood echoes - Jaws and the Gunfight at OK Corral, as well as many other westerns.
While America reluctantly comes to terms with some form of gun control after a series of grudge shootings at colleges and supermarkets, gun use seems to be out of control in Mexico.
The statistics on shark attacks suggest that they are pretty rare on the west coast - 98 incidents in the past 80 years, only 8 dead - and perhaps there is no practical way of eliminating them entirely. But it still seems strange, more than 30 years after Spielberg made his name with Jaws, that people are still being eaten alive by sharks.
The rubber shark still leaps out of the water at the Universal Studios Back Lot tour, and I have seen no reports of the stunt being suspended as a mark of respect after Friday's gory death. Doubtless the tour guides are making black jokes about the real life replay of the film.
Talking of black jokes, have you heard the one about the black 7-year-old who stole a car and went for a joyride? 'You gotta keep an eye on him the whole time,' remarked his mother.

Bill Kay meets Merle Norman and a mighty organ

Millions of American women down the years haven't had the slightest idea that when they were reaching for their mascara or moisturiser they were helping to pay for one of California's strangest rituals.
At around 7pm on selected Saturday evenings, a crowd of fairly smartly dressed people, mainly old or middle-aged but some young, congregate outside an unmarked garage door near a factory in Sylmar, a small town nestling in the San Fernando Valley north of Los Angeles.
Without any announcement, the garage door starts rolling slowly up and the crowd moves inside to a basement museum of exquisite classic cars, as gleaming as the day they were built, mainly between 1930 and 1950.
But the regulars have seen these before. They ignore the cars and form a queue at a door inside. This leads upstairs to a startlingly grand pillared hall, brighly lite with huge mirrors and even more impressive old cars, Duesenberg, Packard, Pierce-Arrow, Mercedes and of course Rolls-Royce.
These are merely another distraction, though. The queuers politely jostle their way to the far end of the hall, where a spiral staircase awaits them. On a landing a pianola tinkles, giving the first clue of the evening's real purpose.
At the top of the stairs we enter another exhibition overlooking the grand hall, this time of vehicle memorabilia - statuettes, models, awards, photographs.
Beyond that lies a small door leading to yet another room, darker, again pillared, at the end of which is an enormous Wurlitzer organ, so big that the keyboard stands alone in the middle of the room, separate from the pipes which are housed in showcases along the far wall,
This is what we have come for: one of a series of free organ concerts in this fabulously luxurious setting, which with the car collection is all paid for by the Nethercutt Collection (nethercuttcollection.org), a not-for-profit organisation started by J.B. Nethercutt, who developed the cosmetics business from a cottage industry started by Merle Norman, his aunt.
Like the Huntington Library and Gardens, the Nethercutt Collection simply reflects the passions of its founder, which were cars, mechanical musical instruments and furniture. The museum and concerts are free to those who know about them, but not many do and the Collection hardly advertises.
But no expense is spared in maintaining the collection to the highest standard, and top organists from around America - last night it was Martin Ellis, an award-winning organist from Indianapolis, who played a mixture of mainly middle-of-the-road classics and popular tunes such as de Falla's Ritual Fire Dance, the Star Wars Cantina Parody Song, the Carpenters' Sing and the Petula Clark hit Downtown.
It made me wonder what it is about organ music that exerts such a fascination. Fairground organs are more understandable, because loud music is needed to compete with the din of everything else going on. But organ music was a great attraction on radio in the 1920s and 1930s, and its curious interpretation of music intended for other instruments still exerts a strong pull.
Organs such as the Nethercutt Wurlitzer are essentially computerised one-man bands, where it is almost an additional extra to have someone playing the melody on the keyboard for a live audience - this one could even remotely play a nearby piano as well as drums, cymbals and other instruments. Ellis was a superb performer, though, with the air of an orchestra leader rather than a pianist.
I am no musical expert, but there is something about the ringing chords and rhythms that brook no argument - you take or leave it, love it or loathe it. There is some novelty value in seeing what an organ can do to Downtown, say, but it almost seems an admission of weakness to succumb to the jangly rhythms of an upbeat pop song. Something slower like the Beatles' Yesterday could work well, though.
Maybe that is why older people gravitate to organ music - a more predictable pace, sometimes loud but never harsh, a sense of richness. But I can never get out of my mind the image of Terry Gilliam sitting naked at an organ on Monty Python, a rictus grin plastered onto his face. Yes, organ music can verge on the pompous.

Chris Rock entertains Bill Kay

I was fascinated by the loquacious but pin-sharp Chris Rock and his followers at the Gibson Amphitheater by the Universal Studios LA theme park this week. I enjoyed his 90-minute act, but people around me were howling, gurgling, giggling uncontrollably and they were doing so because Rock was pointing truths out to them that clearly hadn't previously occurred to them.
This is, I suppose, the true role of comedians. They are the modern court jesters. In a sense, that is a statement of the obvious, but Rock takes it to a particularly high and bitter level. He rarely pokes fun at himself, in the manner of a Frankie Howerd or a Tony Hancock. He is the smart guy in the bar making cracks at everyone else's expense, and we admire him for being so accurate even when his weapons are aimed at ourselves. But humble he isn't.
Like many black entertainers, much of Rock's routine is about blacks and being black, and it is a tacit condemnation of America's race relations that there are still so many racial issues that deserve and need airing, from Obama's chances to the observation that the only blacks living near Rock were, like him, high achievers such as Mary J Blige and Denzel Washington "but my neighbour is a dentist - not an award-winning, world-beating dentist but just any old dentist. To do well in this life whites have to walk while blacks have to FLY!!"
Many of Rock's truths were uncomfortable, which made the audience laugh the louder as the mirror was held up to their own illusions and hypocrisy. While he derides whites, his special venom is reserved for black women - their jealousies, their demands, their expectations.
Of course only a black man could point this out, just as Rock observed that only a black man could refer to him and his fellows as "nigger". "Sure, I can use the word 'nigger'," he said bitterly, "but white men can change interest rates. I know which I'd rather be able to do."
Much of what Rock had to say was repetitive, and I felt he relied too much on exaggeration to make his points. Obama didn't just sound black, he sounded like he was wearing a leopardskin and carrying a spear, griding a white man into the dirt. And so on.
But he did make one poignant observation about himself. His children were going to grow up to be rich kids, he said, but he had always hated rich kids. So there was a part of himself that hated his kids.
Mind you, the couple of thousand who attended Thursday's show left considerably less rich than when they arrived. The seats weren't too expensive, $45 to $75, but they all came with trumped-up add-ons such as convenience fees, no matter how they were bought, which added another $15 to the price. And of course Universal charged for parking even though it would be difficult not to take a car to the show. And that was without the overpriced food and soda pop, programmes and merchandise. Then they started the show 20 minutes late to give everyone a chance to spend, and added a completely unnecessary 20-minute interval between the warm-up act and Rock, to keep the concession stands busy all over again. So I hope Rock wasn't too surprised when he gazed out on the rows of empty seats in the theatre. Even in LA, people do notice when they are being royally ripped off, however good the main attraction.

Bill Kay's postcard from pasadena

I published the following today on a British website, www.headlinemoney.co.uk. But as you need a password to access that site, I thought this would be a good way of opening it to a wider audience. Do bear in mind that it has been pitched at a readership of UK financial journalists.

Wapping to the west coast of America is not quite the leap into hyperspace that it used to be. After the ten-hour flight British tourists pour out of LAX all year round to throng Venice Beach, Santa Monica, Rodeo Drive and Hollywood, eager to spend the nearly $2 they get for every ₤1 these days.
I was one of those tourists for quite a few years: in my view if you are going to go America (and I know some hate it) then Los Angeles is the most American piece of America there is. It’s brash, it’s in your face, it’s successful and – best of all – there is an un-English feeling that anything is possible.
Instead of my hour-long commute to News International, I now sit in my own office at home, looking out on sun-dappled trees and brilliant purple azaleas. If you do have to commute, the freeways are a lottery but I still prefer them to a No. 15 bus meandering its way down Oxford Street and Regent Street to Tower Hill.
Thanks to phone, email and internet, the 6,000 miles between here and London has been largely abolished as far as work is concerned. Aside from the eight-hour time difference, which means I’m asleep during the UK morning, I’m effectively no further away from London than if I was in Edinburgh or St Ives – or, at times, even Brighton.
It helps that I don’t mind waking at five o’clock several mornings a week. That’s 1pm in UK, so I then have time to read the internet versions of British newspapers and – naturally - the press releases on Headlinemoney before people come back from lunch.
Like any out-of-London freelance, I suffer from being off the press party and lunch circuit, and miss not bumping into people who might give me some work or spark some controversial and commentable idea. I try to make up for that with email phone chats, but it’s not quite the same, so I rely on regular trips to London to keep in the swim.
As a sports fan, I also miss invitations to hospitality boxes at Wembley, Lord’s, Stamford Bridge, Ascot or wherever. On the other hand, US satellite TV is pretty extensive, so I have probably seen more live Chelsea matches in the past two seasons than I did in the season before I left. Rugby and cricket are easily available, and of course I can get golf and baseball on tap locally – but I haven’t yet got the hang of the strange Robocop ritual they call football on this side of the Atlantic, and basketball leaves me cold.
The California lifestyle definitely hasn’t disappointed. Forget the exchange rate, great bonus though that is: the cost of living versus average incomes is much lower, so the standard of living is higher. It really is more laidback than frantic, frenetic, crowded, jostling London. I can get an echo of big-city claustrophobia if I drive the ten miles into downtown LA, but even then it’s nothing like London. People drive all over the road, changing their mind at the last second, so you really do have to expect the unexpected.
And Hollywood is on the doorstep. Billy Connolly, Rod Stewart, Bruce Springsteen, Chris Rock and Supergrass are among the many top-line acts that regularly appear just a short drive away. And there’s always that Beckham chap trying to teach the locals soccer.
Downsides: bureaucracy and job barriers. America may be the land of the free, but that small minority of the population that enjoys running Homeland Security, the Internal Revenue Service or City Hall do go completely to the other extreme. The form-filling can be staggering.
On the job front, the internet is hitting print media jobs sooner and harder than in Britain. The editorial staffs of the leading daily newspapers are huge by the standards of the UK nationals, so there is plenty of fat to trim and they are not hiring.
And I have recently discovered that, despite the internet, I do miss British newspapers: my son arrived with a weekend’s worth in his suitcase and I instantly devoured them.
US personal finance is of course quite different from the UK version because the law is different and, unlike in Britain, it varies from state to state. The writing approach is very different too: much more deferential to advertisers, and usually softer than marshmallow.
So I have concentrated my US freelance writing on covering business and the stock market, which is an international language and was my trade before I became Indy PF Editor in 2001. But, after 18 months, much of my work still stems from London. Consequently my writing style hasn’t had much chance to become Americanised.
In any case an English accent goes down well, thanks to the likes of Simon Cowell’s domination of American Idol, though they do find Beckham’s squeaky tones a little puzzling.
I regularly get Californians saying ‘I just LOVE your accent’ and then being astounded when I tell them that they too have an accent. Rubbing it in, I point out that in fact they have a very good English accent – it’s just that it’s the English of 300 years ago!
It can be tough to be understood in shops and restaurants, though. This is partly a language problem, but it is also a matter of cadence. I have lost count of the number of ways English-speaking Starbucks baristas mishear ‘Bill’ when they want to scribble my name on a cup - I find the answer is to bark the name at them, in caps and italics. They look a little startled, but at least I get the coffee I want.
However, I still have trouble making myself say tomAYto or banannna. Talking of which, I miss the rich flavours of English tomatoes, strawberries, raspberries and other fruit. The food here is virtually taste-free by comparison.
The reason is of course that crops here are parched by 300-plus days’ sunshine a year. The dry season has just started and will run virtually uninterrupted until October. We do get lashing rain and howling wind, mainly when the weather gods divert a storm intended for Canada. But spare your sympathy.

Bill Kay tells the Truth about Diana's Death

Like singers and actors, there is a layer of journalists who achieve fame in their own country but are hardly even heard of elsewhere. Correct me if I'm wrong, but among the Brits in this category is Kate Adie, BBC foreign correspondent par excellence. She is bound to have appeared on foreign television, but each country trusts its own foreign reporters and is never sure of those from other countries, even if they have the BBC objectivity guarantee stamped on their foreheads.
I met Adie today, swinging through LA on a tour of the west coast and Hawaii. She is as tough-as-boots in the long tradition of America's Martha Gelhorn and another great Brit I was lucky enough to meet year ago, Clare Hollingworth.
Hollingworth (long retired, now age 98 and living in her beloved Hong Kong) and Adie are as detached and matter of fact as good journalists should be, especially when reporting historic events of huge emotional pull, but they have very different styles. Hollingworth was a print journalist in an era when newspapers like the one she wrote for - the Daily Telegraph - insisted on a much more formal style, no dumbing down. Indeed, the Telegraph in those days read like a long Ministry of Defence or Foreign Office memo, even when EW Swanton was writing about cricket (in fact he was the most pompous of the lot, but that's another story).
I suspect themore analytical Hollingworth would not have come across as larger-than-life on screen as Adie did - retired from the front line since 2003, now aged 62, but presenting the long-running From Our Own Correspondent from whichever hotel bedroom she happens to be in each week. I don't mean to suggest that she has a succession of sexual partners, just that she travels around a lot, but she has never married and her private life is well guarded. There was a rather odd chap hanging around in the background today, though, wearing a formal shirt with jeans, who had his eyes closed during much of Adie's talk, as if he had heard it many times before.
Adie comes across as very solid, very British, very reliable and no doubt knew exactly what to do when she was dropped into a war zone. There is always a story behind people whose accents don't match their hometown, and Adie comes from Sunderland yet speaks with an accent which the Observer newspaper described in 2001 as "half marchioness, half staff sergeant". It gives her not just a schoolmarmish but a full-blown headmistress air, especially in combination with her stocky appearance and sensible hair and frock.
She has four operational rules:
1. See things for yourself whenever possible, because 'I know, I saw it' is far more convincing than 'so and so told me'. It's a rough and ready business, so approach strangers carefully on a story because you are not going to get the red carpet treatment.
2. Talk to those who are there. Use Your own eyes to gather evidence and check what you are told. People lie to you and everyone likes to claim victory.
3. Verify the facts by asking people questions individually. There will always be missing pieces but you get the major parts of the story.
4. You tell everyone as fast as possible. Being second is rotten but you've got to get it right first time.
As an example of this, she told us about reporting the crash which killed Princess Diana in 1997.
'I was in the tunnel where the crash occurred about five hours after it happened,' she recalled, 'and I was shown around by one of the chief French investigators. He pointed out the damage to the car and the tunnel and said it was clear that the car had been travelling at a very high speed, far higher than the tunnel could cope with. Then we went to the Ritz hotel a few hours later and the barman at the Paris Ritz said Henri Paul, the driver, was "drunk as a skunk". Yet it has taken ten years to establish these facts, against the opposition of Mohammed Fayed.' Note she did not use the 'Al Fayed' form which the man tries to insist on. That is an aristocratic designation in Egypt, like von in Germany, and old hands are scrupulous about insisting that Fayed was not entitled to it.
Adie's explanation of her career was that it 'just happened', and she 'just happened' to be sent to London by the BBC. That contradicts the views of school and BBC contemporaries, who claim she was highly ambitious and determined to reach the goals she set. That is certainly the impression she gives, regarding her career as a long contest in which she could either be a winner or loser, and she was hell-bent on becoming a winner. But then, if she didn't have that attitude she would probably have been killed by now in some sandy shell-hole. However, I don't think she will take easily to retirement, or anything like it.
But, by her own analysis, Adie may be stepping back from the front line at the right time. She shares the growing view that the audiences for TV news, as for newspapers, are declining, mainly because the young are not picking up the habit.
However, Adie has a slightly different explanation from most. She believes people are becoming less interested in news because, in developed countries at any rate, there is less threat or risk of invasion. In other words, many people followed world news out of self-interest, in case they might be directly affected. Fear was a big motivator. But, despite terrorism, people are more relaxed since the end of the Cold War. There is, for the time being at least, little chance of an Orwellian test of strength between superpowers.
I think Adie is being too simplistic. Voting numbers are falling drastically in the US and UK, and that is not purely out of fear. Standards of education and cynicism about politicians play big parts too, and if you are not interested in voting you have less reason to keep up to date with the decisions of those you might or might not be voting for.
I wonder, though, if Adie's point is valid, whether TV, newspaper and internet news audiences will revive as China gets into its stride? This is blog for another day, but my hunch is that once China has become established as an economic giant it will want to flex military muscle. World wars have not been abolished.

Bill Kay bows to the power of cinema

It is truly amazing that so much money is spent on producing blockbuster films. I know that directors find it hard to resis the lure of playing with a new SFX toy, whatever the cost, as long as it creates a big enough splash on screen. And so we are offered the likes of the Spiderman and Pirates of the Caribbean - revealingly, often described as franchises just like Starbucks or McDonald's.
To the credit of the Academy of Motion Pictures, neither Spiderman nor Pirates have picked up any of the major Oscars. And good stories can also be enhanced by the flash treatment: see the Lord of the Rings trilogy or the Harry Potter series. You can and doubtless will quibble about the merits of the Potter books, thanks to Rowling's "evening class" literary style, but there is plenty of meat in the films and they were worth the money spent on effects and the star rosters.
But amidst all the glitz it is easy to forget that there is nothing to beat a good story, and you don't need to spend much to turn it into a compelling movie.
This was stunningly demonstrated last night at Hollywood's Egyptian Theatre, which has become my favourite. As part of the annual film noir season, last night was devoted to a Peter Lorre double bill - Stranger on the Third Floor and Face Behind the Mask.
Stranger was ponderous, interesting mainly as an historical marker. Face unfortunately gives away half the plot in its title, as the Lorre character initially appears maskless. But you could sense the packed theatre falling silent and giving its full attention to the screen for the last half-hour or so, from the moment Lorre bumps into the blind girl. I won't give away the ending, but most of what occurs before that moment is merely foot-shuffling by comparison. The story is so well balanced that we just don't know what is going to happen, and we are totally involved in the dynamics of the characters and their competing forces.
Apart from sticking a plane in a desert, a device that doesn't cost much in this part of the world, there were no great expenses although Lorre might have been able to demand a fairly hefty fee by this stage, 1941. And the plot does not rely heavily on Lorre's distinctive appearance - a major factor in Stranger on the Third Floor.
Both films are based on what I believe were originally radio plays - it's not clear from IMDB about Stranger, but Face certainly was - and this keeps the emphasis on telling the story. And that is what kept everyone in their seats until the final scene last night.

Bill Kay says it really is time to worry

I have purposely avoided using this blog series to peddle my bread and butter material - business, finance and investment. But it's time to break that rule, after going to a conference this week that lifted the lid on just how bad the credit crunch is likely to become - and how long it is likely to last.
In case you want to google it, the conference was called the Distressed Debt West Coast Investor Forum and it was held at the Universal City Hilton on April 1-2. As the name suggests it was about distressed debt - money owed by companies in trouble - and the event was aimed at investors who want to find out how to profit from providing such debt by lending money that may or may not tide over these spluttering businesses.
The speakers were mainly investment banks such as Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse, as well as lawyers specialising in this area and loan brokers who pull borrowers and lenders together. The investors were largely very wealthy inviduals or their representatives, often worth hundreds of millions of dollars and faced with the perennial problem of where to put all that money to preserve or increase its value. You don't need to shed tears for people in such a predicament. They do like lending, or buying bonds of one sort or another, because it is not as risky as investing in shares. However the safest bonds - US Treasuries or UK gilts - are not paying much interest at the moment. Bonds issued by companies pay more, but there is a risk that they will miss interet payments and may not be able to repay the bonds. So it's a fine calculation as to how these wealthy investors strike the balance between fear and greed, between getting a higher rate of interest or losing their shirt.
I don't want to get too bogged down in the range of choices they face in these tough times. What was most shocking from the point of view of the rest of us was the bankers' and lawyers' confidence that this crisis is going to last not for months but years.
A brief cameo sums up the mood. The after-lunch speaker began his address by saying “I have been asked which (baseball) inning we are in with regard to the credit crisis. I would say we are still in the first…”
A voice in the hall interrupted: “First inning? They’ve only just thrown the first pitch!”
This is in lurid contrast to the guarded words we have been hearing so far from people like Ben Bernanke at the Fed and his UK counterpart, Mervyn King at the Bank of England. Bernanke has at least begun to mention the dreaded word recession, but is still sticking to the prediction that all this nastiness will be over in the summer and the economy will pick up again in the second half of this year as if nothing had happened.
It's even worse if, like me, you read the outpourings of brokers, fund managers and financial advisers. They have been forced to refer to turmoil or difficulties, but only as a buying opportunity so that they can keep their income up.
To some extent they're right. You may not have the contacts or the clout to get into distressed debt, but shares will get very depressed, even in well-run companies, so there will be big profits to be made for those who have spare cash and are brave enough to invest in the next year or so.
But most people aren't in that happy position, which is only a few rungs down from the wealthy fellow wandering what to do with all his money.
As we know, consumer spending has been roaring away as the stores were about to close for ever, and plenty of people have been borrowing like fury to stay in the game. But that is about to stop, so anyone relying on debt to fund their lifestyle is about to suffer a rude shock. It's not so much that interest rates are about to soar - Bernanke has been cutting them in the US for all he's worth - though cut-price deals are coming to an end very rapidly indeed.
No, the real problem is that banks are calling in many of their loans. They don't trust one another, let alone you and me. They also losing billions from loans that are going sour, so they need to pull in as much cash as they can to make up for that.
If you have a loan deal that you are meeting the payments on as scheduled, fine. They won't cut you off. But miss a payment and you could be in big trouble. And as for taking out a fresh loan, forget it unless you have cast-iron collateral.
The broad rule is to pay off your debts as quickly as you can, even if it means living a quieter life. I know that if everyone does this the economy will tank, but that isn't your problem. Just get yourself in healthy shape and be glad you've got a job - if you have, while you have.
This all still takes some getting used to. Less than a year ago, things seemed pretty fine, the odd cloud on the horizon but nothing too ominous. Now, it begins to feel like last autumn was 1929 and we may not start pulling round for another three years or so. That's right. Three years.
And when a downturn lasts that long, it affects everyone's outlook. People go into defensive mode and everything slows down. It recently took Japan ten years to get over a slump, but that had much to do with the Japanese people's pessimism and introspection. What we need now is a reserve of optimistic and extraversion. We are about to find out how deep that reserve is.

Bill Kay's Life on Mars

This week I sat in the world's geekiest cinema. All it was showing was a continuous strip of thermal images from Mars, which looked like the grainy, grey image you get from photocopying a blank page. Minute after minute after minute.
The good news is that is cost nothing to watch, courtesy of the ever-generous American taxpayer (ie me!). It was on the regular tour of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in the mountains at the northern edge of Pasadena. JPL, as it is inevitably known, is part of Caltech (California Institute of Technology) and is one of ten mainland US outposts of NASA (National Aeronautical and Space Administration), which is responsible for non-military spaceships and scientific projects. Just thought I'd get the nuts and bolts out of the way, because most people are a little hazy about how it all fits together.
JPL is part of daily life in Pasadena, symbolised by the 267 bus which trundles through the town with its distinctive JET PROP LAB route terminus indicator. So it seemed remiss not to have paid the place a visit.
The biggest hassle is booking onto the tours, which take place weekly on alternate Mondays and Wednesdays. No, I don't understand either. Bookings only by phone, no voicemail, email, snail mail or any other form of communication - oh, and take official ID to get through the checkpoint on the road to the campus.
This apparently high security is just a charade. Sure, the man in uniform wanted to see our passports, residents cards, driving licences or whatever else we could sling at him. But there was no attempt to frisk the car for explosives, guns, knives or any other unfriendly implements. A friend who used to walk his dog in the hills above JPL assures me that there were plenty of vantage points from which to fire a rocket launcher or a rifle.
And, although there was plenty of opportunity to slope off to do some snooping - numbers weren't counted as we entered or left buildings, let alone having ID checked - in truth there weren't many secrets to snoop unless you broke into an office and rummaged through a computer or a filing cabinet.
The main problem with a tour of such a technical facility is that the guides have to connect with such a wide variety of knowledge and interest among the public, especially as there were quite a few young children who were quickly bored by the descriptions of what the various probes were up to in outer space.
Plenty of scrap metal to drool over, if that's your thing, and the geeky cinema as well as a genuinely informative film narrated by Harrison Ford. Lots of photos of Moon and Mars landscapes, plus JPL alumni celebrating major events - including a certain Wernher von Braun, who was behind the first launch, Explorer, in the 1950s, and later the Apollo space programme. The guide enthusiastically described him as the father of modern rocketry, omitting to mention that he cut his teeth on rocketry by helping to design the V2 (Vengeance 2) German rockets which killed thousands in Britain, Belgium, the Netherlands and elsewhere during World War II. He was a member of the Nazi party and the SS, but later claimed he joined only to further his rocket research. Once Von Braun realised defeat was inevitable he decided he preferred to surrender to the Allies rather than to Russia. As soon as they got hold of him the US invasion force spirited him away across the Atlantic. He died a garlanded US citizen in 1977.
In terms of what was available to see of JPL's live activities, the tour came down to the mission control room and the assembly hall where spacecraft are built: not a lot, in a three-hour visit, but I suspect that there isn't much more to see.
Mission control is the area where TV always shows shots of JPL executives hugging and kissing when a craft lands. Naturally, none of that was happening while we were there. News to me from the displays on the wall was that the space industry uses Greenwich Mean Time as its clock for scheduling launches and landings - with a difference. On the spurious grounds that they wanted a non-terrestrial name for their flash-sounding atomic clock, GMT has been rechristened UTC - Universal Time Coordinator or Clock. Luckily, Brits aren't quite as childish about such snubs as the French were in 1884 when they lost out on the right to 0 degrees longtitude and therefore the basis of all time zones. They refused to recognised GMT for years afterwards, silly frogs.
There was more activity in the assembly hall, which was supposed to be ultra-hygenic to prevent earthly bacteria being transported to other planets - we tourists were in a sealed-off viewing gallery. But, while the workers were in all-over suits, they weren't fitted with goggles, let alone wraparound helmets, so thousands of bugs a second were falling from their eyes, noses and the rest of their upper faces. But it was fun to see a bit of machinery that will be sitting on the Martian desert in a couple of years. This new craft will be powered by a nuclear battery, technology which must surely have implications for earthbound electric cars.
I referred to JPL as a campus, and it does have a university feel. The inmates all seem very relaxed, as if their jobs are not likely to come under threat and everyone knows what they are supposed to do. It looks a very pleasant place to work, with nice long deadlines and a customer - the US public - which is nowhere near as demanding as it used to be when manned launches were all the rage. JPL has cornered the market in robotic space probes, which don't generate nearly as much interest. Until the day comes when their metal shovels scoop up a pile of dust that turns out to contain a living creature. But there are no little green men or women in out solar system, and I learned that the nearest neighbouring system is 40,000 light years away. Now I wonder if that has a planet as restless, argumentative, questioning and generally ill-behaved as the third rock from our sun?

Bill Kay goes downtown LA

Every community can be judged by its attitude to its past. Naturally, before people realise they have a past, things are discarded as they are finished with. We nearly all do that in our daily lives, dumping stuff without too much thought about whether it might turn out to have historical significance. A few people are squirrels who cannot bear to throw anything away, and end up living in homes piled high with stacks of newspapers, photographs, knick-knacks, old clothes and other memorabilia. Very occasionally, as in Lanterman House which I blogged at the start of this month, furniture and kitchen utensils are stored in an attic and form a snapshot of a moment in time - for which the rest of us are grateful but thankful that we didn't have to put up with all that junk.
It is a different matter with buildings in cities. In the centre of most cities space is naturally limited, and in the rush to make obvious improvements homes, stores, offices, factories are torn down to make way for the new. We don't mourn factories that much so much as the machinery they contain, although there were a few beautiful factories built in the 1920s and 1930s.
It was easy for European cities such as London, Edinburgh, Paris, Amsterdam or Rome to stop the clock and preserve streets that are soaked in history - so much that, for me in London at least, it felt like living in one huge museum crawling with tourists peering at this and that as if we were stuck in glass cases for our curiosity value.
On the other hand, commercial buildings in American cities were regularly pulled down because new techniques made it possible to wring yet more profit out of them. It was with great difficulty that conservationists persuaded the city fathers to stay the wrecking ball.
In the case of Los Angeles this has resulted in a hotch-potch of old and new, good and bad, gleaming glass rubbing shoulders with art deco or beaux arts. Nowhere is this starker than in the downtown district, a square mile or so stuck in the north-east corner of the city. Its theatres and cinemas were abandoned as the Hollywood studios took root, and its Victorian mansions on Bunker Hill disappeared after the wealthy decamped west to Beverly Hills, Bel-Air and other fashionable spots.
Although Bunker Hill was colonised by banks, offices and - more recently - public buildings such as the Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, the shops down Broadway and Main, Hill, Grand and Olive Streets have been taken over by Latinos and the whole area bustles with clothing, trinketry and jewellery shops, with stalls selling newspapers, magazines, cold drinks, nachos and fruit snacks. While the Broadway theatres are used from time to time they preside over the area like so many grades dames who have seen better days and cherish hopes that their day will come again.
I spent Easter Saturday morning having my first close look at downtown, after a series of nibbles over the past 18 months, snatched impressions that didn't hang together in any coherent shape. But Los Angeles Conservancy, a not-for-profit organisation, is dedicated to raising consciousness of downtowns preserved charms and to that end runs a series of walking tours around the area (see www.laconservancy.org).
Chief among these is the historic core tour, which barely touches the theatres but from Pershing Square gives a thorough grounding in the principal buildings, putting them in historical and social context from the arrival of the first settlers in 1781 and explaining why each style of architecture gave way to the next.
The desire of the Disney and Chandler families to immortalise Walt and Dorothy is a long established tradition throughout the world, simply because most buildings survive longer than most people. In the case of Los Angles we know the custom dates back more than 100 years because the Bradbury building was erected by mining millionaire Lewis Bradbury in 1893 with precisely that thought in mind. It is the oldest commercial building in LA and from that date we can say that buildings were put up with a degree of self-consciousness, not to say an eye on history. More recently Richard Riordan, a former mayor of the city, has had the central public library named after him. Of course, such grandiosity was possible only because building techniques increased the likelihood that structures could be made to last an impressively lengthy time.
But I came away from this comprehensive tour, lasting more than two hours and covering more than a dozen buildings from the Biltmore Hotel to Grand Central Market, with a feeling of frustration, of opportunities lost. LA has been a city of stops and starts - it is, after all, only as old as the United States itself - and it still needs to find an identity. Many plans have come and gone, and the latest envisage restoring Broadway to its former glory at the expense of the Latino traders who have in truth prevented it from turning into a dustbowl. There is an undeniable racial undercurrent to this, because it would involve ejecting the Latinos and reclaiming the land for the Wasps - ironically at a time when Latinos have become the dominant ethnic group.
It is hard to tell, from reading the newspapers, what will come of this debate but I have a feeling that it will become another compromise. Los Angelenos may want the elegant boulevards of a Paris or a Washington DC, but they find it hard to stomach the price - of many people's dreams being trampled on.
After the tour, Lynne, Roger, Ian and myself went down Broadway to Clifton's Cafeteria, an institution almost as old as the Bradbury. We queued to pick from a wide choice of good, solid comfort food at a cost of about $7 a head. Will that too be swept away when the whirlwind sweeps through downtown?

Bill Kay says 4 x 80 is more than 320

Dylan Thomas put his finger on it, well before the current obsession with defying mortality took hold.
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
That is the anthem for a generation of people heading towards what used to be called old age, and is in the literal sense of being the final phase of our lives, however defined, but before infirmity sets in - better termed terminal decrepitude.
These musings are prompted by a coincidence which has led me to have a good look at four prominent figures now over 80 years old. Two I have blogged about already - the composer Maurice Jarre and tenor sax player Big Jay McNeely. The third, stock market billionaire Charlie Munger, I have referred to briefly in my column in the London Sunday Times. And last night I was at an evening in honour of, and featuring a career justification by, the prolific award-winning author Ray Bradbury.
That Bradbury needed to justify himself is in itself revealing, although he did so in the guise of advice to the rest of us, especially the young, to do whatever you love doing and never mind whether it brings you money or not. It crossed my mind that, while this was excellent advice to encourage everyone to aim high, in the end someone has to do the menial jobs, cleaning and so on, and few cleaners see it as the fulfilment of a life's ambition.
Never mind: I suppose the moral is that we can't all be winners, hard pill though that is to swallow. What links this quartet is that their lives have been characterised by an intimate intertwining of energy, determination and success. I am not saying that energy and determination guarantee sucsess, although I believe they are the qualities to ensure that you make the most of yourself, whatever that may be.
What is striking is that these four all still have high energy levels, emotional and mental in particular, although McNeely could not have played sax for well over half an hour at the age of nearly 81 without being physically fit, bowed as he was. Jarre was I suppose the nearest to what we might generally consider retirement. He may still be composing but his last entry on the Imdb website is for 2001 and when I heard his Q&A before Doctor Zhivago at the Egyptian Theatre he seemed be looking back on his career with the tranquility of one for whom it is complete. He was serene.
McNeely is clearly working. Munger will never retire, because the stock market, economics and world affairs clearly are his life and much of the time he is simply thinking about it and discussing it with his partner Warren Buffett and others. It hardly counts as work, so he is obeying Bradbury's edict, but he is still making plenty of money. He exuded the serenity of being in control and having no financial worries, rather than of regarding his career as over.
Bradbury is the oldest and most infirm, 88 years old and in a wheelchair, a victim of diabetes. Yet he was still thirsty for recognition, taking a series of illuminated addresses from the representatives of Arnold Schwartzenegger and other minor Californian politicians - only the Mayor of South Pasadena paid homage in person. And when Bradbury spoke he did so with an energy that was startling. He looked back on his career, all right, but with the air of a man for whom it is still a work in progress. As he said, he still writes every day. He was perhaps the least self-aware, not on the surface at least realising what a driven person he still is. And I believe that that is keeping him alive. He arrived at South Pasadena High School's auditorium in a stretch limo - whether his own or sent by the event organisers I don't know, though judging by his plain clothing I would guess a limo would not be his personal style.
The survival and flourishing dynamism of these men reminded me of a fact thrown away in one of the recently dead Lynda Bird Johnson, 30-year widow of President Lyndon Johnson. I think it said that she swam every day, until a few years ago. Whatever stopped her, and whether she realised it or not, that was the day Lady Bird began to die. Once activity becomes boring or somehow not worth the effort, that is when we start to give up. We can't do everything all the time, of course, and we certainly can't keep up strenuous physical activity. But you have got to keep plugging away or, as the great British journalist Rod Gilchrist put it, you've gotta keep on trucking.

snakes alive

Last night I finally struck what many non-Angelenos would regard as quintessential California: a poetry reading evening in an edgy district of downtown LA. It turned out to be both more and less wacky than I expected.
We were on Olive Street, between 7th and 8th, in the highly talented Gary Leonard's photographer's gallery opposite a parking lot. Derelicts slouched or laid around. Shopfronts were boarded up and overlaid with graffiti and outdated posters that were beginning to peel. I parked nervously, but looked around and saw plenty of other cars parked on the street, mostly in good condition.
The gallery was part of a well-maintained condo building that was entirely occupied by Koreans, according to the residents' directory by the elevator. Outside the smartest parts of Bel Air or Beverly Hills, LA seems to specialise in juxtaposing the architecturally dapper and derelict.
About ten of us sat facing a lectern from which most of us took turns to read out our own or (in my case, as I hadn't brought anything) others' work. The standard was mixed, and that was fine as this was an occasion for experimenting, seeing a cross-section of reactions to your writing. Everything merited polite applause, and there was no critical debate; the mood was too gentle for anything more aggressive or invasive.
Undoubtedly the strongest piece was an edited version of an army veteran's recollections of gunfights in Vietnam, encounters where he was close enough to see his opponent stare into his eyes at the moment of death. Ann, the writer, clearly struggled to control her emotions as she read this, which made its imp
act all the more powerful. So much so that I almost forgot about the python sitting on her head and wrapped around her neck.
When I had first sat down and looked across at Ann, I thought she was wearing a scarf with a snakeskin pattern - until I saw it move independently, and the red tongue darted out from its mouth. The effect was startling.
Draco, as it is called (the gender has not been determined), moved around from time to time and sat on or between Ann's two thick wooden hair pins. She paid it no attention, although she admitted later that she did like to stand in front of a mirror so she could see was Draco was up to. He was certainly a conversation piece which Ann must be well used to discussing by now, from how often he needed feeding (7-10 days), what he eats (thawed frozen mice), and whether he bites (apparently not, having a docile nature). Ann did admit that not everyone enjoys the experience, or even the mention of Draco: one man, with whom she had "made a connection" recently, cooled noticeably on hearing about the snake and its role in her life.
But that is surely to be expected. Snakes, along with spiders, rats and fierce dogs, are among most people's pet hates. Some of us can go along with such creatures, as everyone did last night, but it wouldn't take long to find someone who would run a mile at the sight of a live snake round someone's neck.
After the readings, we broke up into general chat over snacks and drinks. I will definitely go again, and bring some of my own scribblings next time - maybe I could read out this blog, as it wasn't all poetry. Or perhaps it's time I found a rhyme.
To finish the evening, Jim Dawson took Lynne and me round the corner to a splendid pub called the Golden Gopher, all black marble and subdued lighting with a small courtyard outside where it was just warm enough to sit. It was an oasis of activity in an otherwise silent stretch on 8th, between Olive and Hill. The pub had a lively atmosphere. A few prostitutes seemed to be on the lookout for Sunday night business. Oddly, there was a photo booth in the corner. Some of the tables harked back to the 1980s, with Pac-man games inlaid in them. An interesting place to end an unusual evening.