Valley of the Angeles
Stepping between our two favourite worlds
It was wonderful to be away, but it’s wonderful to be back in the Valley of the Stars – reinvigorated by a few weeks of adventure and ready to plunge back into the madness with renewed vigour.
The builders have been busy while we’ve been away, the animals were almost as pleased to see us as our neighbour Daniel who’s been managing the menagerie solo for a week of torment by Simon & Garfunkel and the relentless Val Kilmer thief-cat and her kittens.
We were amazed to see most of our saplings have survived the summer (so far) and that everything was far tidier than when we left courtesy of our work-obsessed house sitter pals the Gledsons.
And what a trip – to London, California and Lisbon – to meet up with old friends and family, spending time with our wonderful daughter Oda after too long apart and going on what for us is now a rare overseas expedition.
Jumping on planes was once our way of life, but there’s far too much to do these days in remote rural Portugal and a whole new life to invent.
A wildfire alert the day before our return, the remnants of an aircraft cold and a couple of welcome-home wasp stings didn’t even dent the excitement of being back at Vale das Estrelas.
In summary, we embraced the Barbenheimer weekend in LA, saw two amazing Derek Day concerts, ate “the world’s largest shrimp platter” washed down by Mexican micheladas, tasted our friend’s award winning wine and met one of America’s most Alentejo-obsessed wine masters.
I re-engaged with the journalistic world at a Stanford University JSK fellowship reunion delving into Artificial Intelligence and Disinformation.
We headed up into the high desert to double down on California’s heat wave, and our Joshua Tree AirBnB had a cowboy saloon complete with swing doors, honky-tonk piano and cowboy pool – a theme we extended with a trip to Western film-set Pioneertown.
We ate the best tacos, dim sum and sushi, got our fix of In-N-Out Burgers, went the full lobster while outlet mall shopping and heard ourselves telling everyone how amazing life is in Portugal...and realised just how right we are.
Apart from starting to write a new monthly column in the Portugal Resident magazine (greetings to our new subscribers!) it was a total break – a reset and a re-evaluation ahead of a re-launch as we work hard re: the opening of our eco-lodge in the Spring.
Crazy California is a wonderful world apart from the peace and serenity of Alentejo, but it excites and invigorates us almost as much.
The two places in the world where Ana and I would most like to live are a city of nearly 10 million people and a valley of five.
So this week’s despatch is a window into our old world – the four years we spent living in Los Angeles, our year studying in San Jose and the fabulous craziness of the other west coast we call home.
And I’d like to begin with an equally unlikely combination: Barbenheimer and the buzz around a double-movie opening weekend which broke records and packed cinemas with people dressed in pink.
Fuelled by memes and marketing, watching the films Barbie and Oppenheimer back to back became a thing and Hollywood embraced it as only Hollywood can.
Oda drove us from cinema to cinema scrambling for the last tickets as foyers ran out of Diet Coke and popcorn jalapeños and rubbish bins and car parks were crammed to overflowing...it was the biggest movie weekend she or boyfriend Derek could remember.
By the time we settled in for our first big-screening in three years complete with popcorn and refill-popcorn, we’d already timed out on the double and would have to leave Oppenheimer for another day.
If you haven’t seen Barbie yet it’s a great film, but in the crazily polarised and parallel worlds of America I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised that some Republican Grand Old Party extremists burned Barbie dolls in protest at its “woke” feminism.
Really? Ana follows US politics far more closely than I do, but these are worrying times.
As the New Yorker’s Andy Borowitz put it: “Trump only a few indicments away from clinching GOP nomination.”
At the brilliantly named, dog-friendly bar Boozehounds in Palm Springs, Oda complemented our server on her pink nails: “thanks, I’ve had them done for Oppenheimer,” she said.
It was a rare moment of sarcasm in a country known for its irony-deficiency.
It was so hot in LA we decided to embrace the heatwave and head to the desert – the one place that definitely does really good air conditioning.
I’m not sure what 114 Fahrenheit is in real money, only to say the streets of Palm Springs were mostly abandoned and the city’s hounds – boozy or otherwise – were either wearing booties or were safely air conditioned indoors.
Echoes of the Barbie film’s Ken-dom manosphere were thriving in the Huntington Beach dive bar where Derek Day played a Saturday night set...and set the place alight.
After watching his Classless Act band play in San Diego the week before (and after the launch of their live video recording of a track with 80s early rap icon DMC) it was great to hear some of his original songs again alongside rock classics.
The characters in attendance at the bar included an aging rocker with a black spotted head, pink tambourine man, a grim-reaper look ruined by the guy’s aluminium stick (rather than a black cane), and a gold-lamé outfit-collage was only eclipsed by our friend Susannah’s long sequinned dress.
But it was the cockroach scuttling across the dance floor which gave Perqs the legendary dive bar status acknowledged by the punters spilling out into the street while rocking to the sounds of Mr D.Day. It had everything.
A couple of back to back birthday bashes in London with silent disco headphones and the best British Indian curry ever, some quality time with old friends and some successful wine project meetings made for a great get-away.
But now we’re back...the buildings have new walls, their water and electrical connections are being cemented in and a long line of meetings are already stacking up.
We have water, power, waste treatment and landscaping to resolve, all the interiors to design and build, and budgets to balance...and we hope to open by Easter.
We have a podcast to finish, a load of wonderful pals lined up to visit...and some amazing beaches to remind ourselves of.
But for now our funding is back along with our mojo. It’s exciting, it’s fun and it will only be stressful if we let it.
Let the good times management roll...
Oh dearest Al, you sound so upbeat after your fabulous, very hectic week away. It was obviously what both you & Ana needed. A real burst on the old Banjo 😀 You can now start again with renewed vigour. You will now achieve whatever you want to. Looking forward to hearing all about the progress.
Loved this positive account of your travels!!