Venice Beach: You Can Have It

Venice Beach looks lovely, when you just look at the water.

Plot stayed at his friend Dave's apartment on the beach last night, right on the beach. It's kind of amazing -- one of those old, beat-up buildings with a trillion dollar location. Dave doesn't even live there anymore -- he moved into his new wife's house down the road, but he has kept his apartment and makes a small killing renting it out to tourists.

But the thing is, Venice Beach, which used to be sort of fashionably seedy, has now become pitifully so. There is a medical marijuana shop every fourth building with the patrons calling out to you like racetrack touts to get you into their shop so you might sample a joint for your to-be-decided medical condition; this wouldn't be so awful except the low-lifes hanging around the pier in front of the pot stores now make it almost impossible to walk down the boardwalk. The sand is covered with wet sleeping bags, homeless stoners screech guitars and yell all night long, piles of garbage are everywhere and some of them have people inside them. 

Maybe it was always this way -- but, no. Venice was always one of Plotnik's favorite SoCal hangs. Now he'd rather be sleeping in the furnace room at Mummy P.'s. That's where he is right now. The Duck flies in tomorrow because Schmekl and Little Bear's party is tomorrow night.