Travel Biography - Week 68.

A Recap from Last Week.

All the photos here are my own, taken in 1995.

Having arrived in Santa Monica from San Diego, I stumbled upon two sites where filming occurred. After coming home, I didn't give any more thought to these instances, and they were practically forgotten, except that a record of these events was preserved in my photo album. While I was reminiscing on these incidents while writing the biography, I promised to post a couple of photos I took of one of the sites. This has enabled me to do thorough research for the past week, especially that of Charlie Grace, a detective drama.

But first, to cycle past a filming setting on a public right of way at the Baywatch Headquarters seemed very odd, as I would expect the area to have been roped off to prevent public intrusion. This week, I gave it a serious thought for the first time in 28 years. Rather than filming a drama, I now believe that someone, possibly a member of a cast, was interviewed. If the BBC news bulletins are anything to go by, interviews often take place in the open street with passing traffic and pedestrians. Furthermore, if I recall, the camera was pointing away from the cycleway, enhancing my idea that an interview rather than a movie shoot was taking place.

Research on Charlie Grace revealed that it was not a film made for the cinema, as I first thought, but a TV series of just nine episodes spanning the year 1995. Although this might have been on par with Starsky & Hutch (1976-1979: 4 seasons, 92 episodes) or The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964-1967: 4 seasons, 105 episodes) - both having made their way across the Atlantic Ocean to appear on our screens, Charlie Grace had never reached our TV screens and therefore virtually unknown here in the UK. Here, I mention the TV series, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (an acronym for United Network Command for Law Enforcement) after the death, earlier this week, of one of its star actors, David Keith McCallum, at the age of 90.

Last week, I promised to post a couple of photos of the Charlie Grace shooting, I took on the beach. For a bonus, I posted three:

Filming of Charlie Grace at Santa Monica.

Mark Harmon talks to Leelee Sobieski during filming.

A close-up view of the camera.

The shoot is of actor Mark Harmon who plays Charlie Grace, talking to Leelee Sobieski who plays his wife, Jenny. The filming was already underway when I arrived. I was able to watch the process without being told to move on or to get out of the way. It was as if I was instead welcomed by the camera team.

Visiting Areas Outside Santa Monica - Downtown L.A.

Santa Monica is one of the coastal districts of Los Angeles, the home of Hollywood Studios. Hence, it came as no real surprise that on this stretch of beach, the sight of a TV camera shouldn't be so unexpecting. Although I did visit Hollywood Studios in 1977, and I was set for a revisit in 1997, which would be twenty years later, I was intrigued by how the skyline of downtown Los Angeles had changed dramatically over those past two decades. One example of this redevelopment was Pershing Square in the heart of the city. In the seventies, its layout consisted of an English-style garden featuring a circular pond with a fountain in the middle. By 1995, it had changed dramatically. Fully concreted over, the area now features a large undefined structure from which a small waterfall cascades into the circular pond below. The square is also surrounded by shimmering new office blocks I didn't remember having been built in 1978.

Not far away, a couple of skyscrapers I remembered from the seventies had now been dwarfed by several taller skyscrapers, all forming a cluster of tall buildings that can be seen from far off, hence, anyone familiar with the city would know where the financial centre stood. 

Pershing Square, Downtown Los Angeles.

Financial District, Los Angeles.

Unlike London whose street sidewalks are busy with pedestrians, whether they are smartly dressed bankers or shoppers out on a spree, tourists on their way to an attraction, or families on a day out, the sidewalks lining the streets of Los Angeles seemed far less busy, as if the car was the sole means of urban transportation, along with a fleet of buses. Due to the threat of earthquakes, during 1977-8, hardly any underground lines existed. But it was during the nineties and into the new millennium that new lines were built and opened. For example, the Expo Line Light Rail from Atlantic Station to Santa Monica Terminus wasn't fully completed until 2016, nineteen years after my last stay in Santa Monica in 1997. 

I did little in the city except stroll through the streets and wander into the financial district. The atmosphere was quite different from that of the coastal district, Downtown was very quiet and sedate compared with the hustle and bustle of the resort's 3rd Street Promenade. Getting Downtown from Santa Monica was made much quicker and easier after learning at the hostel that there was an express bus service connecting the two at a faster, non-stop pace.

Disneyland - Third Visit.

Imagine a Victorian explorer who managed to travel in a time machine instantly from 1850 to 1995 and, after spending a couple of months trying to get to grips with modernity, he then spent his time watching my travel schedule. If I were to ask him how I would compare with him as a world traveller, he would burst out laughing! Me, a world traveller? Pull the other one!

To him, a world traveller would sail the stormy oceans to far-away lands, inhabited by primitive tribes with a risk that cannibalism is included as part of their cuisine, especially making a meal of a foreign invader. In addition, he would risk the possibility of disease. No hotels and the only accommodation is his own tent. He might be a missionary out to evangelise a primitive tribe of animal worshippers, or a doctor tending to the sick and the infirm. Or simply an explorer cutting a trail through thick, virgin jungle, crossing a desert, or conquering a mountain and encountering harsh weather or dangerous wildlife.

Therefore, to fly across the ocean in a comfy plane to visit a family theme park would be too cosseted for the Victorian explorer to rate me as a traveller. Then, he asks me,

Why did you fly to the USA in the first place?

To which I would have replied,

I flew to the USA from England specifically to hike the Grand Canyon.

He then responds,

Did you succeed?

I answer,

Yes, I completed the hike with a heavy rucksack on my back. Furthermore, towards the end of the hike, I went down with severe leg cramps. I thought I might even die, as I was alone on the trail and the night was drawing in. After completing the 23-mile hike despite the pain, I found out that the malady was hyponatremia, a thinning of the blood due to drinking excess water without an adequate salt intake.

The explorer gasped and then took back everything he had said.

I'm so sorry. I now see you as a traveller. Go and enjoy yourself.

From the hostel, I took the express bus service into the city, and here I had to change buses to Disneyland. I was told that there were buses destined for Disneyland from the stop I was waiting at. I waited for a surprisingly long time before one finally arrived with the logo Disneyland displayed on the front.

At Disneyland, 1995.

New to me - Toontown.

The bus pulled into Disneyland stop shortly after ten in the morning. To my surprise, the park had only just opened and there were not so many people around, unlike the summer of 1978, my last visit there, where queues had formed at the entrance pay booths. It was at that moment I realised why I had to wait for so long for the bus to arrive. Arriving at the gates before opening times would have been pointless.

By checking out all the facilities within its grounds, I noticed some definite changes. For a start, the People Mover, or as I prefer to call the Sky Buckets, had disappeared. This overhead cable car system, sponsored by Goodyear Tyres, passed slowly and silently through the Matterhorn roller coaster and then through Space Mountain, moving slowly along a level platform as the fast, indoor roller coaster whizzed along inside the dark, starry chamber. The cable car also passed by Inner Space, a slow-moving carousel where each rider was miniaturised to the size of a snowflake, then right down to the water molecule, then finally to the size of the atom, with images of protons and electrons whizzing around in their orbits. Then quickly, we had to expand to our natural size as the snowflake was starting to melt.

That was in 1977 and 1978. By 1995, this educational attraction had also disappeared. Too much like school for the children, perhaps. However, other facilities such as Adventureland, Fantasyland and New Orleans Square were as I remember them. The railroad that runs around the perimeter of the park was still there with its climax at the rim of the Grand Canyon, as it is now and as it was at the time of the dinosaurs.

One of my favourites was the Submarine ride. In the seventies, it was painted a battleship grey, in 1995, it was bright yellow. From inside, I was able to photograph from an underwater window.

By 1995, new facilities were added. This included Mickey Mouse Toontown and Indiana Jones' Temple of Doom roller coaster ride. Various other rides and amusements I also enjoyed, like the Runaway Train, another new addition since 1978 - after all, as I could have explained to the 19th Century Victorian explorer, this was a holiday, or vacation, and not an expedition or missionary, quite likely he too would have seen the lighter side of his travels.

Yellow Submarine, Disneyland.

An underwater scene from the sub.

Again, similar to how I felt at Mission Beach, San Diego, a few days earlier, I wondered whether enjoying these rides as a lone forty-year-old was prattish. Would I have gone to Legoland, Thorpe Park, or Chessington World of Adventures, all within a few miles from where I live, alone and in my forties? Very unlikely. But when Steve, the son of one of my customers, agreed to take me to Thorpe Park in the spring of 2014, we enjoyed ourselves to the full, without the slightest of embarrassment. And I was 61. And that was the secret. Such experiences are meant to be shared, regardless of age.

By six in the evening, the park was closing for the night. This was a vivid contrast to the seventies when Disneyland stayed open until midnight, climaxing with a massive fireworks display. As the park emptied of people, I watched how the submarines were parked in its hangar, and how an almost eerie stillness hung over the whole park. A bus took me back to the city where I changed buses for the express to Santa Monica. Somehow, for me, the passing of summer also took away the party exuberance of Disney.

Back at the hostel, the kitchen awaits.

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Next Week: On to San Francisco.