The day is overcast and cool, a welcome change after four days of sun, sun, sun and high heat. I am back in Los Angeles after twenty years. The plan is to drive west to the Pacific Ocean. We start out at 10:00 a.m. Our route takes us to Hollywood and Highland, the entertainment center for Los Angeles, replacing Hollywood and Vine as the mecca for tourists.

 

Lines for movies, lines for coffee, lines for trendy shops, lines to cross the street, lines with no beginning or end. Weaving between the lines — people sauntering, hurrying, standing still to pose and gawk. A conglomeration of people. A Bruegel painting waiting to be put on canvas. Glamour and glitz.

Hollywood Boulevard

forward "into the breach"

to shoot a selfie

 

At La Brea we turn left, down one block, turn right. The Sunset Strip. The place to be at night. Comedy clubs, live music, restaurants, cafes, shops, hotels, apartment buildings, people. Always people, day and night.

 

We pass Whisky-A-Go-Go. A ghost memory from younger days, dark and sleeping on a Saturday morning.

 

come do the twist

cringing

at the thought

 

My eyes keep looking up, above the buildings. 

 

oversized billboards

tinsel town

in your face

 

What to see, where to go, what to buy. Signs that need no glasses to read. We reach Sierra Drive, leaving Los Angeles and enter Beverly Hills. Manicured and quiet. Mansions behind walls and high shrubbery, with the occasional glimpse of a house or garden. One hundred year old palm trees along the streets. No walkers. No parked cars, except for one. A garishly painted vehicle with a young man standing near it, waving and calling.

 

movie stars’ homes

get close and personal

with dots on a map

 

We continue along Sunset through Westwood, Brentwood, Pacific Palisades and reach Highway 1 and what I came to see . . . the Pacific Ocean.

 

low clouds

slate gray waves

shatter on the beach

 

surfs up!

Newton’s law proven

with a splash

World Haiku Review

  Autumn 2020