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Published: June 24th 2008
Saturday 14th June to Wednesday 18th June "The organisational system is also an important concept to understand. The PMBOK Guide (America's Project Management Book of Knowledge) defines the operational system as; An integrated set of regularly interacting or interdependent components created to accomplish a defined objective and having defined and maintained relationships among it's components and where the whole produces or operates better than the simple sum of its components."Huh, you what !?. Can you repeat that please. !?."
This is just one tiny paragraph on the portal based
F & G University but also a perfect example of the textual content that I have now spent the last three weeks studying. As if familiarising myself with new names, faces and cultural changes isn’t enough to contend with the unfamiliar procedures, roles and titles of my new career path have to be described by some smart arsed Yankee scribe who feels that a sentence simply isn't worth putting to print if it isn't constructed using the longest and most mind numbing words imaginable. Hopefully that goes someway to explaining why after a day reading this stuff on a LCD screen that measures 10" x 8" I am usually completely
Lost in Hollywood
???!!!! Is there such a thing ?shagged out.!
Things aren't helped by the fact that despite recent receipt of my beautiful new bed I am still waking at unearthly hours of the morning, six o’clock is the usual, and am usually unable to properly get back to sleep due to a myriad of things constantly racing through my mind. This would be okay if the early to bed, early to rise adage was being applied but of course me being me it isn't. Consequently, I awoke on Sunday morning following one of Dan and Lisa's apparently legendary barbeque's on the roof terrace of their ocean front home the previous evening not just early but feeling as though I'd been trampled by a herd of charging bull elephants. As a general rule hangovers don't usually bother me but Dan's infamous Mai Tai, a mind warping cocktail of rum and fruit juices that kept arriving by the pitcher for a full eight hours ensured this particular morning was an exception to the rule.
Sunday night was seeing an appearance of the Great Gonzo, the Motor City Madman aka Ted Nugent at the legendary House of Blues in Hollywood's Sunset Strip and of course I just had
to be there and so at noon I promptly headed for the hills. The plan was to dine with the Kirby's who would then return to Long Beach leaving me to me my own devices and I was to be accompanied in the Jeep by Marisa who had volunteered to be my companion for the journey. As she climbed into the back seat I turned and asked why she didn't sit in the front. I was completely unaware of the legal requirement that says front seat passengers must be a minimum twelve years old and told her not to worry and that she'd be okay. As she was fastening her seat belt we were both stunned into silence by her father’s roar of 'Marisa. Get in the back' in a tone of voice I hadn't heard since the dogs, Harley and Bart were around and had been up to no good.
Long Beach is situated in the south west corner of this vast metropolis, Hollywood the northwest so after forty miles and almost an hour of following the others I had no idea of our location when we passed a sign that read ‘Little Ethiopa’ and seconds later pulled
Lost in Hollywood
BBQ. Olivia, me, Lisa 2, Marisa, Phil, Stuart, Nigel, kim and Dan. to a halt at the side of the road. Little Ethiopia is just that, an area of Los Angeles inhabitated by African nationals most of whom still wear national dress and always being one for trying anything once I was pleased when we soon found ourselves sat al fresco at one of the many restaurants that lined the street. Ethiopan cuisine ? Never even knew there was such a thing but this would sure as hell be interesting. If you were to paint a picture in your mind inspired by the words 'cuisine' and 'Ethiopia' you would probably come up with an image of a group of tall rangey women wrapped in sheet like dresses sitting huddled together pesstling an array of bird seeds and kneading huge lumps of elasticated dough on rocks against a background of dry, barren wasteland and needless to say one hour later I had tasted confirmation of why Ethiopia is one of the world’s most famine ravished countries, not because drought and floods regularly destroy their already limited crop harvest’s, purely because the food looks and tastes like boiled giraffe shit.
The menu consisted of a variety of Tibs and Wats, spicy stews and
dices made with a selection of meats (beef, malnourished chicken and lamb bearing more resemblence to billy goat gruff) that came served with Injeva’s, large rolled up sourdough flatbreads made with fermented Teff flour obtained from a species of lovegrass native only to Ethiopia. These things had the look, texture and, unfortunately taste of corrugated cardboard that had been rolled up and left to soak overnight in a bucket of dish water and their purpose, we soon learned from observing other, obviously more seasoned diners sitting around us was to scoop up the stew by the cricket ball sized hand full and stuff it as neatly as possible into your mouth. As is always advisable in these situations we asked the waitress for recommendations, took her by her word and ordered a selection of dishes from the menu, firstly an platter of starters and then a selection main courses. She looked as though she had a genuine desire to please as she quizzed us of the things we did and didn't like although in hindsight she really should have just told us to get up, get out and head for the nearest Denny's Diner.
Things started suspiciously with a
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Captain Morgan proved he is more than capable of inflicting serious damage. bottle of Ethiopian beer that, when deposited into the glass resembled the contents of a colostomy bag in both appearance and taste and basically veered rapidly downhill from thereon in. A basic salad of lettuce, tomato and cucumber was served. Lovely, I thought, if all else fails at least I can fill up on this. I placed a fork full of green into my mouth and squirmed in the realization that Ethiopian salad dressings consist purely of water mixed with rock salt in a 1:5 ratio. Next came the starters followed a short while later by a huge plate arrived covered in five or six of the various stews of which one alone was edible, just. Needless to say the Injeva’s remained untouched other than the first exploratory mouthful and we left almost as hungry as when we’d entered.
After dinner I left the K’s and headed for Hollywood. Fortunately, it was only ten minutes away and I started by locating Sunset Boulevard and then the House of Blues venue to buy a ticket for the show. Next door to the H of B was a large screened building in the midst of undergoing a face lift that was
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Ethiopia ? Cuisine ? Pah ! Marisa looks gobsmacked by what's just been stuck in front of her. being entered by a procession of gorgeous looking women and on the way back to the Jeep I asked one of the several handsome, linen suited valet’s opening car doors as they arrived what the place was and why all these dolly birds were going in. He told me it was The Mondrian Hotel and that they would be going in to use the pool. By this time it was about three o’clock and Ted wasn’t on until ten so I had a few hours to kill. I queried if anyone could go in which he somewhat reluctantly confirmed and asked if I could take a look.
A look on t’internet the following day told me The Mondrian was a regular hang out for illuminaries such as George Clooney, Christian Slater and Leonardo Di Caprio, that its interior was devised by the world famous French interior designer Phillipe Starck and that Miramax pictures were currently in negotiations with management to host their next Oscars after party. Entering the lobby told me it was something special. All the staff wore the same linen designer gear as the car parker’s, none of the normal stuffy shirt and tie formality of most
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Sign on the back of Ted's tour bus of their contemparies and all looked as though they’d been cloned from the same Adonis like template. The lobby was sparsely furnished in impressive chic and unique designer furniture and it was immediately obvious that this place was special but it was only once outside that the realization dawned on me that I was actually in the midst of the Hollywood we only read about in the gossip mags.
Poolside furnishings consisted of a mix of cushioned sun loungers and several large tastefully covered king sized bed mattresses come cushions that were occupied by a mix of sprawled out, middle aged, obviously wealthy director type looking men smoking cigars the size of table legs, handsome younger men, probably off duty valets waiting for the evening shift to start and scantily clad nymph like wannabe’s who outnumbered them both by two to one. All around more of the same stood drinking, chatting and grooving to the hip hop sounds that were booming out of the speaker system and beyond the pool stretched an exhilarating aerial view of Los Angeles. I surveyed the scene for a full five minutes attempting but no doubt failing miserably dressed in my shorts, tee and
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The legendary House of Blues flip flops to give the impression I felt at home and was looking for someone and then spotted a free lounger on the far side of the pool. I made my way across, stretched out and spent the next hour and a half drinking a ten dollar beer bought from the fake chested Barbie doll waitress texting pictures to Phil of the bizarre situation I’d found myself in.
When I finally managed to drag myself away I headed for the nearby Hollywood Boulevard and found it to be exactly the same tacky, tourist swamped hellhole that I remembered from twenty years ago. Excited kids posing for snaps with movie star lookalike’s and Japanese tourist’s, who outnumbered everybody else tenfold photographing everything that moved and a hell of a lot that didn’t. I didn’t last long and “I won’t be back” was my main thought as I made my way back to the car.
I’d bought a map of the stars homes for just two bucks and wanted to see the gates of the Beckham’s pad but when I opened it up it gave no idea of which way to head from my current location so instead I followed
Lost in Hollywood.
The Kirby's Abbey Road. my nose up into the Hills for an exploratory drive and to get as near to the famous 'Hollywood' sign as possible before making my way back to The Mondrian which whilst I was away had been transformed into a cool and trendy candle lit nightspot.
Eventually I made my way to see the purpose for my visit, Uncle Ted, and he didn’t disappoint. There aren’t many talented musicians who you watch with an almost permanent between song grin on your face but sixty year old Teds’ rants about subjects as diverse as his dislike of Country and Western music and his love of hunting, the US military and more often than not himself had me and the rest of his audience grinning like Cheshire cats. I left at midnight after two hours and before his main set had even finished as I had a forty five minute drive ahead of me and work the next morning but wasn’t too bothered. He was playing closer to home in Anaheim on Tuesday and my ticket was as good as booked although my mood was tempered slightly by finding a sixty five dollar parking ticket slapped on my screen as the
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Mickey didn't impress this little girl. arse end of my oversized vehicle had dared to extend over a short length of red kerb painted purely because of the presence of a manhole on the footway. I knew I should have got a Golf !
Footnote: The video is especially for my bro', big Jon. Wish you were there Jerry.
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boultz
non-member comment
control
you have more self control than me my friend by the look of the view i would have forgotten all about 'uncle Ted'