Sunday, June 15, 2008

Venice Beach, California







PHOTO CAPTIONS: 1. Andre cruising along Venice Beach, 2-3. Andre playing basketball with a 6'11" British guy who just learned to play basketball a few years ago, 4. Andre and me at Muscle Beach Club, 5-6. The beach at Venice, 7. art.

Andre and I drove along the coast from Ventura down to Venice Beach. It was hard not to stop along the way in Malibu, but I promised him he'd like Venice, which he did.

I love the people watching, but Andre liked the sports most. We played 3-wall racquetball and he played three-on-three basketball. It started out when Andre pointed to a 6'11" guy practicing by himself and said, "Now that guy can play." As it turned out, he's from England and never played basketball until a few years ago. More and more people showed up, including a mother and son who joined Andre's team.

A Senegalese CD vendor yelled out to Andre as we walked by, "Hey, African man!" It couldn't Andre's clothes that would make him stand out as a foreigner, so it must be something about his face and maybe his haircut. They spoke in French a bit.

I couldn't believe when we saw the same guy jumping onto a pile of broken glass who I first saw probably 20 or 25 years ago at Venice. Same spiel, same laughs. He also used to do the limbo, but we didn't stick around long enough to find out.

2 comments:

LivesInPOP said...

We're still reading! Glad to see you both seem happy and are having fun!

......Mystery man

Carole Chelsea George said...

Hola Mystery Man,

Thanks for following our reports. We still don't know who you are. We found your house in Costambar, but by the time we got the nerve to say "hi" you all had left town. I hope someday you'll reveal your identity and how you know us.