Los Angeles: Part Two

In my last couple of days in L.A., I got to catch up with one of my closest friends from law school, David, who I hadn't seen in 12 years.  I'm ashamed at my part in letting the friendship fade away, although he graciously acknowledged it takes two people to let a friendship fade like that.  He still looks great (certainly not 12 years older!) and has the same deadpan humor and calm demeanor I remembered.

We started with dinner at his home, where I met his wife and daughter.  His wife Melissa is an actress and has been in a some things you might have seen, like this season's Desperate Housewives.  Very neat!  David and I then went to the Santa Monica Pier, which is a smallish amusement park.  We didn't ride on any rides, but we stopped occasionally and closed our eyes and imagined we were riding.  We faked it once or twice too.

At the Pier:  Dave's so good at pretending to have fun that he can do it with his eyes open.

Pretending like this was a fun and terrifying ride.

Then we strolled down Venice Beach, which was pretty deserted, chatting and playing on playgrounds and grabbing our second dinner of the night.

The monkey bars are almost as scary as that tiny little car.

Overall, it was the kind of evening that doesn't make for good writing (at least, not from an amateur like me) but it was a lot of fun for the two of us.

The next day, the other Dave and I went to the Getty to meet Nicky and Brian, who were in town for a wedding.  I neglected to mention it in my last post, but Dave is also an actor.  I gather he's done a lot of "extras" work, which isn't listed on IMDB.  [Update: link to Dave's IMDB page added.]

Dave, Brian, Nicky

At the Getty, we took the architectural tour, which was all outside and which talked about how the building was designed (duh), how the colors were chosen, etc., etc.

The Getty

The Garden

It's not funny!  It's art.

In fact, we saw very little of the art inside the building, but that was fine with me as I thought the building itself is a work of art.  One of the few pieces we did see was "Gray Column" by De Wain Valentine.  I'd seen another one of his pieces at the Des Moines Art Center (at least, I'm almost certain it was him, or else there are two artists doing the exact same thing).  It made me feel like I knew what I was talking about when it came to modern art.

Gray Column, reflecting Brian & Nicky