Sticky Situation

The next day was a big one for Mike - he had arranged a meeting with a life-long concept art hero of his: Scott Robertson. Mike strode off confidently into the crisp morning sun, KARAKTER portfolio in hand, leaving Tom perched at his bar stool to catch up on the latest Premier League action screened on the bar's plasma TV.

Mike arrived at Spot, who was in a state of shock. Holding back the tears, Spot explained to Mike the events of the previous night. Alone, he had braved the tough LA streets while the lads had been in the hostel. Mike walked around the side of the near hysterical Spot to discover he had been attacked by some mindless vandals. His metallic skin had been branded with profanities by some (really crap) graffiti artists. Mike tried to be sympathetic, but was quietly pleased that Spot now looked a bit more hardcore.

Mike explained to him about how tough he looked now he had some tattoos, and how he could tell fellow vans (especially those self-righteous Ford pickup trucks) about his “Gangsta” urban background. Spot mulled over the idea, attempted a deep grunt of agreement (which was still just a squeak) and the two set off to Scott’s office.

After some serious “business” talk, Mike became the proud owner of the first ever copy of Scott’s new limited-edition book, DRIVE, to leave the Design Studio Press office. Mike clutched the expansive catalogue of vehicle designs made by Scott, Annis Naeem and Daniel Gardner and skipped back to Spot!

Back at the bar, Mike explained Spot's ordeal of the previous night to Tom who was barely paying attention as he viewed the football results on the screen above. The necessity of being reassuring to Spot clearly wasn't understood, as on wandering outside and seeing the graffiti, Tom began sniggering. A harsh elbow to the ribs from Mike subdued Tom's laughter, but Spot was already giving out a whimper of embarrassment We climbed in, gave Spot the "gangsta" talk again, told him how cool he looked now and set off.

Despite the reassuring speech we had given Spot, we were slightly concerned that our new cryptic graffiti markings would make us a target in some kind of local gang rivalry. We quickly headed out of Venice Beach towards downtown LA. We were going to meet a friend of Mike's - international DJ, James Talk. An arduous drive through heavy traffic on a 12 lane highway was soon forgotten as we joined our host next to his rooftop pool to watch the sun going down over the city's luxury apartment towers. A quick tour of his lavish flat served to fan the flames of jealousy that had been steadily building up in us since we had entered the building. Savouring the view, our thoughts turned almost immediately to our equivalent living conditions as we looked down on Spot on the street below - suddenly his cramped, dark, and smelly interior didn't seem like such a welcoming option

James took us on a quick tour of downtown LA, taking in the bright lights of the basketball-crazy LA Staples Center, and the immensely addictive light installation, which is like a light-up dance floor from Tron, placed somewhat strangely as the entry area to an insurance company. Leaving us with some insider's tips on where to find cheap food and a few beers, James made his exit to join his girlfriend in some suave LA dinner scenes.

With Spot safely stowed in a 3 dollar overnight parking lot, we struck out into the gridded streets, in search of the places James had given us. First off was Blossom; a Vietnamese cafe (on 5th and Main, if you're ever in LA). Due to our awesome navigational ability, we instantly found the restaurant and stepped into the bustling, steamy interior. As we slurped up our chilli-laden soups, Mike was strangely distracted, not even reacting to Tom's usual razor sharp banter. A couple of failed in-jokes later, and with Mike's gaze locked on the middle distance over Tom's shoulder, Tom was forced to ask what was up. Like a deer hunter, having spotted his prey, Mike leaned silently over to tom, without unlocking his gaze and whispered: 

"I think the people on the table behind us are making a porno."

It seemed like a bit of a public setting for such activity, but as Tom subtly glanced over, he saw what Mike meant. Two Hollywood exec-type characters and two aspiring 'adult actresses'  were sharing and discussing photos of the girls on a handheld camera. The pictures revealed all sorts of compromising scenarios. This was LA gold! We briefly tried to sell a few film ideas to them, including one with Mike, Tom and the two girls in Spot's cargo bay. Unsuccessful, we left.

The plan now was to return to the parking lot, stealthily evade the security, hook up with Spot and dive into the back, unnoticed for an undisturbed night's sleep. We rounded the corner in full stealth mode and hid behind an inconspicuous dumpster. We surveyed the scene: the coast looked clear. Just as we were about to break cover and sprint across no-man's land towards the safety of the van, a loud blast of Police radio echoed across the parking lot. We were instantly alerted to a previously unnoticed white car, which on closer inspection was a fairly poorly disguised undercover Police car. He must have seen Spot’s new paint job, and assigned some drug trafficking/ pimp/ gangster status to his owners (us).

Not wishing to draw attention to the fact we were sleeping rough overnight, we set off on a few laps of the neighbourhood, sparking a game of cat and mouse with the squad car. After what seemed like hours, we gave up on walking around aimlessly and returned to Spot. The Law was still there. Now bored, and pretty confident the stakeout probably wasn't for us we whipped out a a crappy football that we remembered had previously been attained at a camp site the previous week. We figured we would launch into a late night inner-city footy session to kill time until the dude left, so our illegal sleeping setup wouldn't be noticed. 

Artist's Impression (camera battery dead)

After a while, the dude drove off. With all the excitement of our nocturnal operations, the adrenaline was still coursing through our veins as we finally settled down for a night in the car park. Neither of us could sleep and after a frustrating hour, we decided we'd seen enough of LA...we were going to Vegas!! We jumped into the front, Spot roared into action, clearly as excited as we were at this daring midnight escapade. The chain-link fence of the car park's perimeter buckled and twisted under Spot's weight as his headlights lit our path to freedom. We blasted out of LA.

Vegas Bound!!

We didn't get far beyond LA's outer city limits before the adrenaline wore off and we were forced to park Spot in a deserted service station car park, have an ICOP and hit the sack. Downtown LA had held our attention for a mere evening, and now we were excited by the intellectually engaging activities of Sin City!