KEY POINTS:
What could you possibly get out of Los Angeles in two or three hours? What are you going to do if you hide in the airport? Hang on to the cliches, I guess: plastic city, plastic people. Well, you might be surprised.
LA from the air is a monster. I look out the window as the aircraft comes in to land and am confronted with the famous smoggy brown matrix.
It strikes me as a piece of grainy, expansive, moving sculpture. The coastline looks warm and inviting against the blue water. I see tiny waves lapping the shore at Venice Beach and decide to head there.
Without too much effort, I find a friendly cabbie ("Only here for a few hours?") and a few minutes later, I'm dipping my fingers in the Pacific Ocean at Venice. It's Sunday morning, 9am, and hardly anyone is here yet.
I sit on the sand and watch the surfers - the light is so different over here and looking one way down the beach there is a lovely, early morning haze and a beautiful sunlit clarity looking the other way.
The surfers - needing a fix of adrenaline - are bobbing in the water like little drunk sharks.
A surf-lifesaver drives up and starts setting up his flags.
I smile at the Venice Beach police station with the banner across the front door: "Now hiring." I'm tempted to walk in and ask for a pamphlet, but Rodney King lingers in my memory. No need to be nervous here though - we're all getting along.
I walk off the sand towards the famous Muscle Beach area, with its chin-up and dip bars. No posing, oiled pretty boys yet. Nearby, a group of guys are playing basketball, silhouetted against the buildings. The ball hitting the concrete makes a fat, thudding sound, and calls of "shoot!" ring out.
After watching for a while, I head off down the boardwalk, parallel to the ocean and find several of the famous R. Cronk murals, which adorn various walls.
His tribute to Van Gogh, Starry Knight, is fun - a swirling mix of blues and greens.
It's a good climate for standing outside with your easel. Vincent would have enjoyed the light. The light in Los Angeles is intense, desert light that has inspired many. Even the smog can have a strange appeal. Little details like these - for instance, the deep, dark, long shadows that fall in the hot morning sun - give a little thrill to the senses, transcending the ordinary.
David Hockney visited here from dank and dingy Bradford, England, and the light and sunshine blew his mind. He returned home - but only to paint - and remained in the US to produce his world-famous art.
Cronk's large, beautiful rendition of Jim Morrison which faces down a little side street, catches me by surprise as I watch a surfer come back off the beach with his long board. Jim looks wired, as he stares intently, challenging, ready for anything.
The Venus de Milo (on roller-skates) is funky. Part of a large, complex effort, she is thinking ,"History is myth." Other statements that appear within the mural include: "Culture atones", and "Nazis Raus".
Beside the boardwalk, the beachfront stall-holders are setting up, preparing for the Sunday hustle. I saunter past, checking out their wares, something different from the bona fide shopkeepers and the normal retail scene.
I'm perusing a folk-art stand, studying pieces which typically depict black musicians playing guitar, as a slightly shabby old black guy finishes setting up.
"I like your stuff," I say. "Is this your work?" He looks at me, sums me up in one second and says theatrically, "No, ah stole it."
The crystal sculpture stand is run by a guy dressed like a classic version of a flower child/hippie-hustler, exuding fake peace-loving vibes.
He tells a woman who expresses interest in a particular piece of work: "That's the first piece I ever made." A cracking lilt in his voice is hilarious.
There's a little bit of theatre everywhere.
A few metres on, I'm fascinated by an unarranged pile of cardboard boxes, sleeping dogs, and a wooden "sage" sign.
Off to the side is a group of crusty, unsavoury looking gentlemen, with a kind of Vietnam-vet/street-bum vibe, in a huddle about something. I snap a photo of a pile of bric-a-brac and immediately one Rasputinesque fellow points at me, takes exception and proceeds to call me names in a very agitated manner. I discreetly shuffle off stage left. Whoops.
I have another disconcerting moment with a kind of bag lady on a bicycle, who circles me several times with big, wide, slow-motion loops and mutters things under her breath. Too much LSD? Wrong medication or too much processed food? Just mad?
It is funny how these kinds of people all appear like crazy, burnt-out links to the 1960s.
I head off the boardwalk and grab a Diet Coke at the Cafe Collage, complete with the beautiful, classical Italian faces that adorn the pillars.
Venice, California, was modelled, after all, on the Venice of canal fame - even having some real live canals.
I am here for a couple of hours and feel rewarded by the Venice experience.
Still, I cannot help but feel pulled towards the famous Hollywood sign. After all, this is LA.
I love walking along Sunset Strip in the bright hot sunshine. You can have the whole footpath to yourself for miles.
People really do not walk in LA. If you try it, the only pedestrian you're likely to see (the one who's given up) is some crashed-out longhaired neo-hippy bum facedown in a bed of flowers, shoes lost or discarded long ago. His only possession a battered guitar with druggy lyrics scrawled all over it. I think about asking him: "Were you eaten by the film and music business?" They should make a tourist attraction out of him. What is he seeking?
The answer probably is lying with the palm trees that seem to sigh as evening arrives. The kind of question you can contemplate as you eat a US$3 dinner at some diner on Highland Ave, and count how many greenbacks you have left.
Of course, you can easily get a taste of the truly seductive, dangerous pull of Hollywood by going to the beautiful garden at the Chateau Marmont Hotel.
It's a long, long way from tarot-card readings on the sand at Venice. And a long-time destiny of the famous, dead and desperate-to-be-famous. List of names anyone? I am sure you can feel a few ghosts here.
Sit in that divine garden and drink a Corona from a wicker tabletop beside the perfect carpet of fresh green grass and watch the light moving across the walls.
It is wonderful and stinks of fame, money, and deals. And sex and drugs. A few minutes of magic near the finely honed flame. Do the waiters have agents? Is every young woman an actress? Can they tell I am not rich?
Well, is LA really all so plastic and soul-less? Tell that to Jack Nicholson or Frank Lloyd Wright.
And it's kind of funny to think of people like Tyrone Power or Johnny Ramone - great surfers of public adoration - riding out the earthquakes, six feet under.
So why do I recommend LA? It is more than just rock'n'roll, movies and art, or envy for success on a miracle level.
It is also something to do with the seedy beauty of decay. Looking around here, it is almost like wandering through some modern-day Greek ruins, except everyone still lives here.
CHECKLIST VENICE BEACH
Getting there
Air New Zealand has a daily direct service to Los Angeles with airfares starting from $2106 a person (excluding airport departure fee).
Air New Zealand Holidays offers a range of holiday packages to Los Angeles starting from $2015 a person, twin share.
To book flights or holidays see airnewzealand.co.nz , call 0800 737 000 or visit an Air New Zealand Holidays Store.
Further information
The Los Angeles Convention and Visitors Bureau is at visitlosangeles.info/index.jsp. You can get information about Venice Beach - and watch it by webcam - at venicebeach.com and laparks.org/venice.
