Continental Breakfast    

We drove to Paris the night before we flew to L.A. and stayed near the airport.  This was a brand new hotel with tiny box rooms, everything sort of mod but the end result was more like tomb of the global traveler.  Cold.  I had to use the hairdryer to heat up the bathroom.  Not too difficult as it was smaller than a broom closet. I still can’t get over how spacious US hotel and motel rooms can be in relation to European ones.  Here, you couldn’t open the bathroom door if someone was sitting on the bed. 

Remember when chain hotels tried to look classy with floral prints and fake antique furniture?  Nowadays, it’s a lot cheaper and easier to make things “spare” and “clean,” but sleeping in an Ikea room display is a lot less restful than admiring one in a catalogue.

On the super space age flat TV was some Victoria Beckham comes to L.A. reality show, dubbed into French.  Hearing “C’est mignon!” and “Ooooh, j’adore!” squealed repeatedly by what sounded like an effeminate French man made me fearful of France, England and America all at once, so it was kind of hard to sleep.

In the morning we were the sole diners at breakfast. I feel like I’ve become the Ancient Mariner of the continental breakfast buffet. Even though it’s never satisfying, wherever there’s a tray piled high with baked goods, a stack of styrofoam cups next to a coffee pot, and rancid watered-down orange juice out of a machine, I’m doomed to be there.  I know I should just go buy something decent to eat but I can’t resist.  In Europe, where the breakfast often costs extra, it’s not all that much better.  Inevitably I walk out the door of the hotel to see the best bakery in town sitting right there. Someday, I tell myself, I won’t wrap stale pastries in paper napkins and stick them in my bag “to eat later” (usually in about half an hour because I'm already starving). But I’m just not ready yet.

The long term parking scheme we’d found online was economical but bizarre - we pulled up to an old house/barn in the village of Roissy, near the airport. Some gates swung ominously open and a young woman attendant appeared and proceeded to drive us to the airport, in our car.  After complaining that there was not enough room for our luggage and the three of us.  It actually beat having to move 4 guitars and some very heavy suitcases in and out of a shuttle bus (we’d neglected to send our merchandise on ahead and were toting it in our luggage).  She insisted on dropping us off by a traffic barrier, thirty feet away from the rest of the departing passengers. Her comments on the receipt re the condition of the car: “Vielle voiture, sale +++” Old car, extra dirty.

Check-in was difficult, with all the guitars and the oversized baggage.  But I guess the main reason that check-in was difficult was that we were flying United.  I’d forgotten just how angry and disgruntled their employees are, meaning their customer service approach runs the gamut from“I don’t care” to “Let me show you just how much I don’t care” to “I’ve been cheated by this %$&# company but I can’t afford to quit and look for another job so I will get what little joy I can in life by making all of you aware of the misery that is my life as a United employee.” In the words of one worker we caught in a non-combative moment, “I hate my job.   I hate this company. I would love to quit.” If you are bored at your desk sometime, check out www.untied.com.

There was a terrible movie on the plane called “No Reservations” about an uptight female chef.  You know something’s gone really wrong when Catherine Zeta Jones looks dull and drab and unappealing.  It was the perfect film to fall asleep to.

We flew through Chicago, which was tough for me because I knew my daughter was just miles away from the airport and yet I couldn’t get together with her.  But I waved out the window as we took off in a snowstorm.  At least I’ll see her at Christmas.

The air was much warmer in L.A.  We got to the car rental place and as we were finishing up the transaction, the woman asked where we’d be going.  Uh oh - I’ve had this happen before with certain rental companies.  No taking the car out of state.  They told us it was because there was more likelihood someone would steal the car if it went to Nevada or Oregon.  Now why hasn’t this idea ever occurred to me before? I think the truth is that Enterprise sells the cars they rent and don’t want people doing something insane like driving from L.A. up to Seattle and back and putting over 2500 miles on the car in 4 days.  Which is exactly what we were planning to do. We decided to take a car, book something elsewhere tomorrow and bring this one back.  We chose the ugliest gangster car in the lot, an aggressive looking cruiser I enjoyed for about five minutes and would be very happy to get rid of the next day.

Funny, once we were in Hollywood it wasn’t so different from being in a small village in France.  By eleven most of the streets are deserted, with just the occasional car going by.

The next day was a complicated one.  We needed to gather one bass, one keyboard, 2 amps and a few other things we hadn’t been able to fit in the luggage from all over the city, and exchange the vehicle.  But first we took that always interesting drive over Laurel Canyon and into Studio City, where I stayed when I was making my first two albums.  Art’s Deli is a classic, although like everything else around here it has just recently been renovated. The deli patrons were that colorful mix of weirdos, good looking youngish people, shady business types and the eccentric elderly that you get in Southern California, with Eric and I falling somewhere in between one or two or all of those categories. 

We spent a small fortune on breakfast.  But the orange juice was incredible.