Forty dollars in gas and five hours to the town of Glendale between Burbank and Los Angeles on Highway 5 the traffic starts to snarl but I exit Colorado Ave and find my Rodeo Inn ($65/night with my AAA card). I walk a few blocks to the 24 Hour Fitness (I am an "all club" member) and find that the grittiness of Colorado Ave is offset by the oasis of the Glendale Galleria, a hip, upscale mall with a central park and several stories of balconied apartments above the stores. It was apparently designed in the style of an Italian Piazza, a burly security guard tells me when I ask what's going to happen on the stage that's
set up in the middle of the lawn. He's a buffed version of Will Smith in Men in Black with his suit, sunglasses, and earpiece. "How much do you think that T-shirt cost?" he asks me, grabbing a guy who's walking by and making him model it for me. "Uh… $80?" I guess. He releases the guy, smiles, and says, "150, maybe 250 dollars." The released T-shirt wearer runs toward the stage in the middle of the piazza where there's a dreadlocked hip-hop artist pacing back and forth rapping intensely. "He's the dude," says the guard, whose name is Derek. He raises his sunglasses so I can see his eyes. "I've always wanted to visit San Francisco. Tell me three things that I should do in a weekend." I tell him Biscuits and Blues in Union Square, Haight-Ashbury and the hippies, and a local favorite: shopping on Polk Street with lunch at Swan Oyster Depot. "Maybe I'll see you walking in the street there, Carla. I never forget a face." And the fashion show begins.
No Italian Piazza I've ever seen has all these chain stores but the idea is nice. Everybody is just so. Lots of women walking around in high falutin fashion. A gorgeous forty-something in a black minidress speaks rapid-fire Arabic into a cell phone next to a Twiggy-esque platninum blonde and a Japanese man with long black hair and designer sunglasses. Everyone has designer sunglasses and perfect clothes and shoes–the shoes alone, well . . . Me, I'm in my gym clothes just gawking at it all. Sure, we have ultra-hip areas in the SF Bay Area but it's nothing like this. Southern California floors me every time.
After the gym and a stroll back through the piazza to window shop I drive 15 minutes up Highway 5 to a restaurant in Sun Valley called Big Jim's where the sidecar rally banquet is held. About 80 people, Doug Bingham orchestrating. Doug is the well-loved former sidecar racer and designer and founder of the event. I meet Perry King, the actor with the chiseled features you might remember from the the movies and TV shows like Hawaii Five-O, Melrose Place, Will and Grace. He's an avid motorcyclist and former sidecar racer, his gorgeous girlfriend Suzy is his sidecar racing "monkey" — the person who leans out of the sidecar to balance it around curves. That, and jumping out of an airplane, are just two of the things I have no desire to try.
And characters like Scotty the Glaswegian sidecarist–who later piled in Perry's sidecar later donning a toy German helmet while Perry strapped on an antique Polish helmet made just of leather and padding, shaped like a cone. Not sure if they actually took Highway 5 like that but what cop would really give them a ticket. I mean, a warning only for originality, right.
I'm looking forward to the rally tomorrow. Hundreds of sidecars will be exhibited in the Crystal Springs area of Griffith Park, and they expect 15,000 or more spectators. If you're local, catch it this year. Next year it's likely to double. More in a couple of days….
The 37th GPSR was my first year driving my hack to the Griffith Park Sidecar Rally. Amazing the variety of hacks. Mine was the only hack with a ladder on the car and box in the car representing equipment I use for work. I use this hack daily for my computer job when it’s not raining. The ladder is used to reach network equipment usually 7′ above the floor.
I was next to a couple Chinese hacks on the grass side of the concourse and lots of folks looked at those because they “looked classic”. Cheeze Louise I’d never buy one of those because of parts problems and too slow speed for modern SoCal freeway speeds 🙂 Heck, even more modern old-BMW-copy URALs, tho cool for 2WD on fireroads, are too slow for SoCal freeways (getting rear-ended in the slow lane).
Wish I would have seen you there!