ELO in LA

Oh hello my fine boy, how are you?

So we. Just got home from out L.A. adventure. It feels like three long days strung together in the car. But there was a lot of cool stuff in the middle. 

Before I give you that game recap, let me tell you something. Do I love the Utes? Yes. Will I always be a Utah Man? Of course yes. Is Utah good this year? No, they are resolutely bad. They lost 17-14 to the worst team in the conference—Houston. I do have an excuse for not updating you, we were driving around the Los Angeles area. But to recap: Wilson started, got hurt, came back in, got benched for Rose, Rose to Kuthie for a 70 yard touchdown. Then our defense let’s Houston score on a 78 yard drive. The Utes drive to go up 7. Rose throws an int. Houston wins with a field goal with seconds remaining. Utah drops it 4th game in a row. Wow, just wow. I’m not going to speak of football again for two weeks. We have a bye then we play BYU. I have no delusions of victory. BYU beat UFC convincingly, even if UFC was favored.

So the main story of the week is obviously our trip to Southern California. Friday was our travel day. We were on the road by 5:30 am. We stopped for gas and McDonald’s in Fillmore, then again just past Las Vegas at one of those new giant gas stations. This one was called Terrible’s. 

I have no dad jokes about this, it was fine. The had a White Castle burger place inside. I’m not sure if you’ve heard of that place. I’ve seen it on the east coast when I’ve traveled there. They serve little sliders. It was really hyped in the 90s, but I thought it was fairly average. We made it all the way to Beverly Hills on that fill up.

Yes, Beverly Hills. Your brothers wanted to do a Hollywood thing while they were there so they found this old theater, owned by Quentin Tarantino, that screened old movies. We had some time to kill before they could line up so we drove through Beverly Hills to the Los Angeles Temple. I had been there before, but I was shocked by how large it is, it’s a massive temple. We went through the visitors center, which is like every other visitors center. 

We had more time to kill so I had seen a really old school Mexican restaurant across the street from the theater called El Coyote. It’s over 100 years old with a ton of movie history. The food was pretty good too. Ben and Jake had to line up for the movie an hour before it started. It was a screening of the old horror movie The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Your mom wasn’t interested and I had seen it before (I found it more gross than scary as I recall), so we left you brothers to their own devices. 

Mom and I drove around Hollywood. We wanted to tour the Hollywood Bowl, but it was just closing. Then we drove down Hollywood Boulevard and saw the walk of fame and the famous Chinese theater where they premiere all the big new movies. It even looked like there was a big premiere happening with the red carpet, photographers, tourists and possibly movie stars, but we couldn’t see anyone famous, but it was possible that there were movie stars there.

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I started that first part last night, I was really tired as you can tell. So I continue.

So mom and I got to the hotel in Hermosa Beach. It was nice enough but not fancy. I chose that place because I didn’t want to stay in some sketchy place near the Forum, which isn’t in the best neighborhood. Turns out the beach was half-a-mile form the beach. So even though it was dark we went, you know how your mother loves the beach. There’s a pier there that goes over the ocean. It was like walking into a dark void at night. But there were a lot of people there riding electric bikes, walking on dates, and fishing. They only seemed to be catching little fish, and most of the fishermen were speaking Chinese, so I didn’t ask. At the entrance of the pier was a little area with restaurants and bars and stores and stuff. People were dressed up having fun together. It was a neat atmosphere. The World Series is on and the LA Dodgers are playing the NY Yankees in Los Angeles. Back in the late 80s those two teams played in the World Series and mom remembers her family being really excited about it. We had been listening to the game on the way to our hotel and the Dodgers, moms team, was behind. When we were out on the pier we here a large roaring cheer come from the entertainment area. The Dodgers had hit a grand slam home run, which apparently, is a big deal. Mom was genuinely excited about it. When you get to our age, nostalgia drives a lot of what makes you happy, it even happens to your mother. Mom wanted to walk on the beach so we took off our shoes and walked to the waters edge. I am so awkward and uncomfortable in that environment, even walking in the sand is weird. Not your mom, she is so natural, graceful, and happy there. When you look at the pictures you can tell, she just seems happy. We got back to the hotel and I was tired so I got ready for bed. Your brothers had taken an Uber to the hotel. Mom was kinda worried about that, but they are both Uber pros by now.

We got up reasonable early and got the hotel breakfast. It was average but there was plenty of it. Then we went back to Hollywood. Jacob found out about this museum. It was the Motion Picture museum. It was pretty cool. They had a whole installment on the making of the Godfather movies with sets, props, costumes and stories. It was really fun, your brothers are really into the Godfather these days. There was another museum across the street, the Petersen Auto Museum. I’ve always wanted to go to that. Your mother knows this. But I don’t really like to go to museums with people that aren’t into in, I know that your brothers and mother wouldn’t be into it. Well, you know that your mother is very nice and she kept insisting that we go, I got a little upset that I didn’t want tog o. That was my fit for the trip.

Ben wanted to go to his dream guitar shop, Norman’s Rare Guitars. Its in what’s known as the valley in Southern California. The Valley is kinda the socal version of our West Valley City. It was about an hour away, everything is an hour away down there. It was a hop tucked away in the corner of this ratty strip mall in a town called Tarzana. The towns there, lime everywhere now, are all crammed together. Anyway, the store was medium size and baked with guitars of all prices. I know nothing both them, but by your brother reaction and by the people in there, it looked legit. After a while I started to feel very out of place so I just let Ben take his time. He played a couple from what Jacob said. All he ended up being was a hat, but it’s a cool hat.

We looked up a local Mexican restaurant to try, and it was decent. By then it was afternoon and new could decide what to do. I looked up one of the original old Spanish ranches that wasn’t too far away, but it was about to close when we got there. Mom decide that she wanted to go back to Olvera Street, that same old place that we went to when we went to the Rose Bowl.

We got there and they were having their Dia de los Meurtos celebration. It was kind like a crappier version of Coco with the plaza and the singers and the offrendas. But it was a lot busier than when when we were last there. There’s this bread that they make for the celebration so mom paid $10 for a loaf. You know your mother, so you know that’s big deal. Jacob said it was his favorite bread, and he wasn’t wrong. It was so good. We bought you a couple of postcards, so they’ll be showing up in a few days. 

By then it was time to go to the concert. This is when the Utes game was on and we were streaming it. Dude, if you have to miss a season, this is the one to miss. its was a pretty long drive to the concert venue through a fairly sketch part of the area. I had bought a parking pass so that was fairly easy. The Forum is the old place where the legendary LA Lakers played when they won all of this championships in the 80s. That is the most 70s style place I have ever seen, and weirdly, it still smells like a gym. 

There was an opening act for ELO, called Rooney. They were okay but I hadn’t heard their stuff before. ELO had a really cool looking stage set with their big UFO logo all lit up in the middle. There were 13 people in the band, all masters, including a vocalist that could sing those operatic parts and two cellists, a violinist, three keyboard players, two guitarists, a bass player, another backup male vocalist, and of course Jeff Lynn, the master. Every song they played was amazing, the sound was really good and they were really accurate to the recorded songs. I don’t know if it’s just because it was the most recent one, or because it was one of my favored bands. It was the first band I liked that wasn’t influence by my brother. They used to play them at the Jr. high stomps they have after School. (A stomp is a dance with a DJ after school on a random Friday they had for all of the awkward junior high kids.) The only thing I liked about those was that they played music loud, and I was just discovering what music I liked. Our hotel was only about half an hour from our hotel, and your brothers were all hyped up so we went back to the beach to get a slice of pizza. It was really fun, but I was tired.

We got up on Sunday and got back on the road. We had hotel breakfast and took off. Mom’s car has a problem where the gas tank doesn’t fill all the way, so we have to stop for gas a little more often. We made it almost to Vegas, and stopped back at the giant gas station Terrible’s. This time we got there right before two giant school busses full of teenagers got off. Ick. We got out of there as fast as we could. Our next stop was Cedar City in Utah. We stopped at Maverick and I took a huge dump there. I am grateful for a decent gas station bathrooms. Mom wanted yet one more Mexican food meal so we found a local place to try. It’s one of those place run by real Mexicans and it was really good.

We got home by about 8 or so, we unloaded and I went to bed, I was really tired.

This is the last week before the election. I’m really glad it will be over. I’m mildly optimistic that Harris will win, but I have some fear that it will go to trump. I’m going to put this ere fore all of posterity (This is going on my blog after all). I do not like Donald Trump. In my mind the Book of Mormon has stories of these corrupt kings and leaders as a warning gains people like Donald Trump, he’s as bad as King Noah or any of the others. I fear that even if if he looses he will cause problems. I think I’m equally looking forward to not hearing his whiney, lying voice. It’s been so bad for our country, her brings out the worst prejudices and meanness out in people. If he does loose, he’s going to cause even more problems. I’ve never been more sincere in my prayers for our country than I am now.

Well, that’s all I got. We are going to see Leonid and Friends tonight, the Russian cover band. I tell you about that in the next letter.

I love you kid. Have a happy hump day.

Pops