Forget the staged photos in an Airbnb listing. They won't tell you as much about your host as his bookshelf. Although in Darren's case, I suspect they're the only original items from a condo he flipped for vacation rental purposes. The first three titles suggest the former owner was a gay man even older than me with a literary bent. I hadn't known that Ernest Hemingway posthumously published a novel about androgyny until I googled The Garden of Eden.
Although pre-fabricated art decorated every wall of Darren's spacious two-bedroom, two-bath apartment in West Hollywood, it completely lacked personality.
Along with ice trays and a pitcher. I had to fill all the glasses in the kitchen with my tea.
The farther we got away from Santa Monica Boulevard, the prettier the neighborhood became. I had hoped we'd be staying in a place as charming as this.
The neighborhood has certainly changed since my visits in the late 70s including one with David when we stayed at the infamous Tropicana Motel. We barhopped (I'll never forget a sign posted on the door of the Blue Parrot that said "Be 35 or Be Gone"!) and cruised Griffith Park for hours in my father's VW Scirocco. It's almost impossible to park there any longer. Tourists and school buses mob the observatory made famous in Rebel Without A Cause. I suspect today's visitors are more interested in astronomy than James Dean or hooking up.
I joined Thom, who had been staying at a hotel in downtown Los Angeles where he had been fitting dresses for a week. We dined the first night at Frankie's on Melrose, a culinary crypt. At least the pizza was tasty.
Although the place had a Rat Pack vibe, the waiter told us it had first opened in the late 80s.
