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April 17, 2003

The Trip: Just Another Social Hour (bustin' in to 225)

What a great trip! Got to see my family, my new nephew, lots of friends, and my old haunts. Spent a good amount of time in Venice, which it turns out, is one of my favorite places on the planet (but more on that in a subsequent blog).

By far, one of the highlights of the trip was the traditional Cnation social hour on Monday at Sunset Bar and Grill on the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica. Social Hour was always one of the best times of the week. I think we started it in 1997 and it continued until Cnation imploded in 2001. The last time I went to LA, almost everyone showed up. This time it was a pretty small group. I felt this was a possibility, but insisted on making the best of it anyway. It would be easy to let the small turnout get me down by thinking the old group was finally really falling apart, but I don't think thats the case. Sarah, Matt and I got there at 6 to find Greg already there. Once we were in to our first pitcher it started to go downhill (in the good way). It began with a discussion on cannibalism where we all agreed we'd definitely eat a human given the chance. Then it went further downhill as we began asking each other embarrassing questions about our various sorted sexual histories. This fell into a dangerous game of who could tell the most sexually embarrassing story about someone else at the table, here-say or not. Then David and Richard arrived. They were immediately dragged down into the maelstrom with stories and questions directed at them.

Another strange thing that happened... In all the years we've been going to Sunset, we were always the strangest people there... until now. While we were at Sunset (upstairs as always) strange people started showing up 1 and 2 at a time. Some had bells on, some looked like magicians. By the time we left there were a good 30 bizaro people upstairs with our small group of 6. Turns out, they represented 3 separate performance groups getting ready to perform on the promenade.

We left Sunset and decided we need to break into our old building (225 Santa Monica Blvd) on the corner of 3rd and Santa Monica. Greg and I had attempted this 2 nights before and knew it could be done (but thats another story for another blog). We broke in, all but Sarah and Richard who went to the bookstore. We had a terrific time exploring the gutted building and sharing memories. "Good Try!" could still be faintly seen where it was written in permanent marker on the wall of one of the Elevators. We explored the empty building, eventually climbing ladders, taking us to the old elevator control room in the clocktower itself. More ladders took us into the heart of the clock of the clocktower itself. From here we could look out over the city and the ocean, it was very beautiful. We called Richard and Sarah and had them step outside of Barnes and Nobles so they could see us sitting on the clock, 12+ stories up. We waved to them. :) Luckily, no one else saw. We then climbed up the fire escape from the 12th floor to get on the roof. Then we explored the roofs of the surrounding buildings, which we could get onto by climbing out of windows. Finally, we all snuck out the way we had come.

It was very fun, lots of memories. I was very surprised that David went with us and did all the things we did. Climbing those ladders, so high up, is definitely not an easy thing to do. I know I'm proud of him.

Posted by wonko at April 17, 2003 01:37 AM

Comments

Gee, thanks. ;-)
I sure felt like a chickenshit that night, but I think fatherhood has changed my perspective on risk-taking...

At any rate, it was an awesome time, and I'm glad we had the chance to do it.

(BTW -- it was Borders that they went to :-)

David

"The sky is blue, and all the leaves are green / my heart's as full as a baked potato!"

Posted by: David Pisoni at April 19, 2003 09:22 AM

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