In February of 2001, shortly before running screaming from my job at Time Out, I ran away to Los Angeles. My hosts Kerry and Sean reintroduced me to the wonders of the west coast.
There was a series of ads running on billboards all across LA – this one particularly amused me. The thing I can never get over about Los Angeles is the sky. After a while in London you completely forget it’s there.
On the left we have the immortal Kerry Bailey, looking a little the worse for wear. He also looks like he’s barely tolerating my photography. Which is almost certainly true. On the right we have the Texan Sean Nadeau. The picture on the right is most notable for the small street sign that appears to be hovering permanently by Sean’s right ear.
Just in case you haven’t realised, Kerry and Sean are gay.
LA isn’t really the kind of place that you just go wandering around in on foot. But I didn’t have a car, and to give my hosts a break I wandered off every so often. This picture pretty much encapsulates LA for me -the sky, the tress, the grid of cables. Maybe I’m missing the point. Perhaps the following pictures are closer to the reality of LA life…
One of the best days I had in LA involved meeting up with some of the freaks from Barbelith. It wasn’t an entirely easy meet to arrange, and when I finally found the bar that we were to meet at, there was no one there. I wandered off and sat in a net café for a couple of hours. When I returned there were several weirdos to talk to. Excellent. These pictures that follow are from the rest of that day…
And here’s Anna and Ralphy:
Also on that day I saw this store:
Near the end of my stay with the Bailey-Nadeau’s, Kerry took me to the Sony lot to spy on what was going down. On the way back to the car I took a couple of photos that I love, but can’t really explain why…
