Letter from Los Angeles: Hollywood Boulevard, Beverley Hills, baseball and The Arsenal all here in LaLa Land
My latest despatch from the City of Angels includes my take on attending a baseball game at the LA Dodgers as well as reporting on The Arsenal in Los Angeles
Happy Friday!
Greetings from madcap Los Angeles. Truly one of the most exuberantly bonkers cities I’ve ever been to.
If you’re a regular reader, hello, hope you caught my exclusive player ratings from Arsenal vs Bournemouth at LA Galaxy on Wednesday evening (US time).
If you’re new to my daily postings, thanks for signing up, I plan to post daily Arsenal content from my view from the press box, and from weekly press conferences at London Colony, as well as news, views, strong, informed opinion, not to mention, player ratings, things we learned, the occasional Q&A, as well as interviews before and after every Arsenal game during the forthcoming 2024-25 season. Which we all hope will be a momentous one for the Gunners.
I’ll also be posting travelogues from reporting on Arsenal over land and sea, which this week includes utterly zany but mesmerising Los Angeles. And from time to time you might even get my take on music, dogs and cricket.
LaLa Land. Hollywood Boulevard. Los Angeles. California. CREDIT:
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After a hectic and sometimes gruelling four weeks on the road with England I’m really excited about covering Arsenal during the 2024-25.season.
One that I deeply hope will finally see the Gunners lift the league title for the first time in 22 long years.
I plan to cover every single game home and away and all over Europe, not to mention plenty of the women’s matches as well as academy games, as well as the majority of pre and post match press conferences including London Colney in my role as a sports journalist for the Morning Star newspaper -so I hope you’ll join me in what will be a rollercoaster ride.
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My view from the LA Galaxy press box before Arsenal beat Bournemouth 5-4 on penalties after a 1-1 draw over 90 minutes. CREDIT:
Layth (@laythy29)
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Dodgers Stadium. Los Angeles. CREDIT:
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Take Me Out to the Ball Game
So. On Tuesday evening I went to a baseball game.
The LA Dodgers, owned by a certain Stan Kroenke (now where have I heard that name before) hosted the San Francisco Giants at the iconic Dodgers Stadium.
I loved every minute of it.
Mind you I didn’t have the foggiest what was going on. Well, as a cricket lover, I sort of understood the basic rules, but the raft of engaging nuances left me nonplussed.
A wise, sports-loving person I know once told me that to understand baseball, you have to understand the scorecard, or the box score as the Yanks call it.
Alas, without the aid of a personal baseball aficionado to guide me through the card at the Dodgers Stadium, I sadly couldn’t decipher the raw details of Tuesday evening’s game.
However, that’s not really the point.
Unless you’re a die-hard Dodgers fan or passionate about the MLB in general, if you attend a baseball match in the States, certainly as a visitor to this fine country, then it’s simply about watching the crowd.
The big screens are the focal point. Televised entertainment that basically lasts from the first ball, or pitch, to the last, not to mention people-watching in the seats, or bleachers - as well as studying those in the queues for food and drink, or at a push, even observing the players.
Why? Well, an American sporting event is a chance to conduct an anthropological study. Because at any given moment, a percentage of the crowd will be in a state of constant flux.
And not only that but it feels like there’s a sensory overload coming your way after every pitch.
The view from the cheap seats at the iconic Dodgers Stadium. CREDIT:
I found it absolutely fascinating.
It feels as if the crowd have to be entertained at all times. And if that rhythm is broken they become restless or disengaged. They even had a stretching break. Where everyone is encouraged to stand up and waggle their limbs.
Not to mention offering a platform - via the big screens - for you to dance. Or even simply stare at yourself, as 52,000 people watch you fight the urge to jump up and point vigorously at yourself on the big screen, micro-seconds before the camera pans to the next willing applicant for their vastly reduced 1.5 seconds of fame. And to think Andy Warhol estimated 15 minutes. Not at the baseball, for a quarter of an hour is a lifetime.
But I don’t want to sneer. Every sport has its vicissitudes - and, as an ignorant baseball layman, I simply found people watching at baseball was almost as intriguing as the sport itself.
The view from the cheap seats at the iconic Dodger Stadium. CREDIT:
Whether it be the multitude of food vendors plying their trade with their edible, portable wares, which included stacks of bright blue candyfloss (the same colours as the Dodgers jersey), hotdogs in foil that were hurled at unsuspecting, soon-to-be customers who simply couldn’t turn them down - nor being asked, and acquiescing to an uncalled for tip either; or how about the pillow-sized bags of yellowing popcorn, that looked as unappetising as bad teeth. Come to think of it the two were not mutually exclusive.
What was vaguely appetising, were the huge portions of bright orange chicken wings, slathered in a luminous sauce that appeared radioactive.
As a taxi driver told me here in LA, ‘you Brits seem to be obsessed with our junk food.’ He was right.
I was also intrigued with the oversized cans of Mexican lager on sale for an eye-watering $17 a pop. Or how about $24 for a Margherita cocktail in a (small) can?
The Ballgame
The baseball itself was compelling. Passionate Dodgers fans, with the majority clad in club colours (what I’d call Portsmouth blue) cheered their side to a 5-2 victory over the Giants.
I was asked an interesting question as to how it stacked up against cricket.
While the spectacle would knock T20 - and the infernal Hundred - into a cocked hat in terms of relentlessly engaging off field entertainment, I also felt that top level fielders in cricket would be superior to the outfield guys in baseball.
Despite being aided by a large catchers mitt, I saw a number of errors, or relatively slovenly fielding that would not only be punished in T20, but mocked too.
As for the pitchers, well, the fact they are essentially throwing downhill, stood as they are on a mound, is helpful. While being able to bend their arm is a huge advantage when pitching - meaning that they can throw the ball far faster than a bowler who is forbidden from bending his bowling arm more than 16 degrees.
I really couldn’t make a comparison regarding the batters, as to me, it seemed there was no footwork, just an essential hand to eye coordination, which is what all great sportspeople in all number of different sports require.
But, again, it’s not about comparison, it’s about taking each sport on its merits.
And I absolutely loved the spectacle of baseball.
Next year, maybe I’ll start to pick up on the nuances, but I would most certainly recommend a visit to a baseball match for the sport, for the spectacle, and for witnessing America at play.
You certainly won’t be disappointed at the sheer, life-affirming exuberance of it all.
Dodgers Stadium
As a stadium aficionado, it was a privilege to attend a baseball match at one of the world’s most iconic sporting venues. Dodgers Stadium was everything I wanted it to be.
Opened in 1963, it is the third oldest in the US - after Fenway Park in Boston, and Wrigley Field in Chicago - and, because it’s California, is also said to be earthquake proof.
Built on top of the historic neighbourhood of Chavez Ravine in Solano Canyon, the stadium overlooks downtown LA, and provides views of the city to the south, the green tree-lined hills of Elysian Park to the north and east, and the stunning San Gabriel Mountains beyond the outfield pavilions.
While it was built at the convergence of several freeways in the Elysian Park area of LA, the area is now actually called Dodgetown, and even has its own zip code.
Architecturally interesting, not least with four large packed stands at one end, framed by evocative palm trees as another sultry Californian sunset hit, the stadium is the largest baseball ground in the world at 56,000.
On the night I was there, the attendance was announced as an impressive 52,000. Not bad for a Tuesday evening. In the middle on three home matches in three days.
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Hollywood tour
Well, when I say a Hollywood tour, it went far beyond the reaches of simply Hollywood Boulevard. If ever this fevered city had a centre, it lies in this beating heart of history and genuine star quality amid mesmerising tackiness, sleaze and startlingly gross disparities.
Hollywood Boulevard is London’s West End writ large - and then some.
This main thoroughfare contains all the facets that make the centre of London such a day out. Think the tacky shops on Oxford Street, stylish West End theatres, extravagant designer shopping on Bond Street and Long Acre, the latest cinema releases in Leicester Square, along with a never-ending succession of expensive sports cars, loudly revving, all while you size up where to eat along the strip.
Hollywood hills
Normally, I’m not one for vacuous celebrity. But when in Rome and all that. And nowhere does celebrity quite like, er, Hollywood. And the hills surrounding Tinseltown.
Taking a tour in a bus without windows - the breeze was welcome, but it’s more so you photos of stars’ huge mansions won’t look like they’ve been taken through a bus window - was a real eye-opener.
We saw Elvis’ mansion, where he lived when shooting all those really bad films that the Colonel made him film. Ironically, literally opposite was the house of his son-in-law. In other words Michael Jackson. As our tour guide added, with an all too eager hint of macabre, "it is also the house where he died.”
I’ll add some pictures to illuminate the trip in our next post. Suffice to say the trip was $20 well spent. I’ll also mention The Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard and the Dolby Theatre. The latter you might know as the place where they hold the Oscars. But that’s for tomorrow.
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Hollywood Walk of Fame
Amid the panhandlers, the drug addicts, the tacky shops selling everything from fake Oscar statuettes to Bob Ross merch, the traffic, the heat, the noise, the stallholders selling gigantic cups of fresh fruit including fleshy red watermelon and bright yellow mangoes, the Darth Vader lookalikes, the chancers, prancers, and dancers - all brought together on Hollywood Boulevard - is the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
The Hollywood Walk of Fame is made of a whopping 2,783 five-pointed terrazzo-and-brass stars embedded in the pavements/sidewalks along 15 blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street.
Yes, they are naff. And many of them are dirty. But if you have a few minutes to kill they are absolutely mesmerising.
Some pavements even had stars facing both ways, so, to follow all of them, you’re constantly twirling around to read all the names, in a bid to not stop dead in front of other people on the busy boulevard.
It’s the randomness that I love. One minute you could be walking over Mickey Mouse, Woody Woodpecker, and the Simpsons’ star’s, the next you’ve come across Patrick Swayze, Michael Bolton, Liza Minelli, Barbara Streisand and Joan Rivers.
Not to mention WC Fields, Tom Hanks, David Bowie, Michael Jackson, Johnny Depp or Engelbert Humperdinck. Or how about Chuck Norris or Tony Danza?
The list is endless.
As is the fascination with genuine, top-notch celebrities. People and names who have formed the backdrop to our lives, or even our parents’ time.
I tried to understand why I liked the Walk of Fame so much considering my utter aversion to the concept of ‘celebrity’.
Perhaps it was something to do with the fact that the vast majority of names on those iconic Hollywood stars had exceptional talent, and were hugely successful in the field of entertainment. They had genuinely achieved success through their own skills.
This wasn’t some Z-list Made in Chelsea nonsense.
These stars represented mostly true Hollywood royalty.
Or, fittingly, on the street where the Oscars are held, possessed authentic glamour, through reaching the very top in their chosen, acutely competitive fields.
Which is why I think I was attracted to mindlessly following the stars. Quite literally. Because they were stars. Bona fide Hollywood stars.
Either that or I need serious help as I’m becoming obsessed with celebrities.
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Hollywood: A town of disturbing contrasts
In a town where conspicuous consumption is de riguer, while situated next to quite disturbing poverty. I saw a homeless woman screaming and yelling on Hollywood Boulevard without a top on. Topless in fact. And that sight shocked me far more than seeing a homeless man without a shirt. Someone’s mother, daughter, sister, auntie, half naked, staggering across a busy road.
Yet literally 200 yards down were designer clothes shopping dripping in money, where shop window manikins sported casualwear that cost five figures. And where a bright yellow Ferrari was parked outside another store that an actually charged shoppers a cool $1,500 simply to enter the premises. Imagine that, paying the best part of £1,250 just to get through the door. But then I can’t imagine that. Because that’s not the life I, or, most of us lead. Nor would I want to.
But, equally, I wouldn’t want to live in a place where semi-naked female beggars are normalised, accepted and brushed off.
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PS:
Keep on Cybertrucking
I saw a cybertruck in Beverley Hills the other day. No really.
The post-apocalyptic, dystopian vision made me stop in my tracks, primarily because at its core you’ll find ridiculousness, amid its angular design and stainless steel exterior. Think DeLoren for the 21st century.
What do you mean you’ve never heard of a cybertruck? I certainly hadn’t. Until I saw one.
It is essentially an electric battery pick-up truck, with flat steel panels and armoured glass. Said to be inspired by Blade Runner and the Lotus Esprit driven by James Bond in The Spy Who Loved Me, which also doubled as a submarine.
Yes, it’s that mad. I’m not even going to post an image here because I want you to google it.
Driverless cars
Speaking about strange vehicles spotted in LA I also saw a driverless car happily pootling along near Hollywood Boulevard. It was so strange. And completely counter-intuitive.
While it appeared to look quite happy heading in a straight line, I wonder what it would have done if a child had run out into the road. Admittedly a long shot here in LA, as no-one walks anywhere, and certainly not on sidewalks. Or if the lights are about to change to red, would it have tried to rush the lights and make it before the bulbs hit red?
Apparently it could encourage drink driving. Although, to be fair I think I would need a drink to get into any car without a human driver.
Driverless delivery robots
Also spotted in LA: driverless delivery robots that trundle on sidewalks full of takeaway orders. More on that startling discovery tomorrow.
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LAST WORD:
