I woke up relatively early this morning, Wendy's house is sparsely furnished, and has huge widows that look out on to Hollywood Blvd. Jen would have little to say about the Feng Shui of this house, meanwhile my car's Feng Shui is totally fucked right now. There is garbage all over the place, even in the center of my proverbial Pa Kua.. I guess there is more stuff in the car with Emily with me, but maybe I'm just lazyÉ

I picked Emily up a the Catholic Church that Aaron sings in on Sundays, this was the closest I've been to a catholic church in a long time. I sat outside for a while and enjoyed the LA sun waiting for Emily to find me. The church stood out in this neighborhood of abandoned strip shopping plazas and empty parking lots.. It was the only building for blocks that was more than one story tall. Emily looked pretty happy to see me.. I bet two days in LA with this guy was enough, but she's pretty nice so she just told me that she had a nice time. But when I asked her if she wanted to spend another day with him, she quickly said that she'd rather go on the tour with Wendy and I.

Well when we got back Wendy had called all of the rental car places in Hollywood and had found one that had a Grand Marquee available, room for 6, air conditioning, black, tinted windows. It was a super boat, just the kind of car you needed to drive around LA in on a Sunday afternoon automobile tour.

We met up with John and Ginny just after noon and started out tour. At first we just drove around Hollywood looking at the early theaters and Motels, and then we started to head out into LA proper stopping in front of what used to be the offices of Hanna Barbera.

The building looked like it was from a Hanna Barbera cartoon the decorative concrete block fa�ade, the pastel colored walls, such an amazing building that they occupied for 40 years. Its abandoned now, Disney or ABC or whatever giant multinational media corporation who bought them out, moved all the offices to a modern office park somewhere near the corporate offices.

I always believed that your surroundings influence the types of work that you do.. I wonder what the animators of Hanna Barbera will be inspired to create within the surrounding of a cookie cutter office park, instead of their former place that looked like a building straight out of the Jetsons.

John English has such enthusiasm for all of the buildings that we looked at. Even the ones that are slated for demolition, he knows who built them, who resided in them for the last forty years and what the developers plan on building on the ruble. Usually the plan is to raise the neighborhood coffee shop or bowling alley and put in a Walgreen Drugstore, across the street from the Eckart Drug on the Corner and the CVS store down the block.

John works with the Los Angeles Conservancy's Modern Committee (or ModCom) to save these old buildings, and for the most part it is a battle against the city, the current owners, and the developers.. The only real way to save commercial architecture is to make the space commercially viable. Historic Preservations Societies have little interest in saving the run down drive-ins down the block, they are more concerned with getting their own homes on the historic register and preserving neighborhood property values. In many cases preservation societies would love to see the crass neon signs and chrome sided buildings replaced by more "historic looking" buildings that conform to their new zoning standards.

We visited one of John's (and ModCom's) success stories, the original Bob's Big Boy in Burbank, a few years ago the son on the original owner decide that he was going tear it down and put up a new apartment complex. John fought them step by step and eventually got the site listed on the state historic register. The owner and the developers tried repeatedly to get OK to tear the building down, and explained that the building was in disrepair and was a financial drain on the family.

Well ten years later the original Bob's Big Boy is the most profitable Big Boy restaurant in the country, and the original owner's son annually grosses twice the what he would have made from he singular sale of the property. Instead of tearing the property down he renovated it, expanded the seating capacity and re introduced car service on the weekends. He even put a historic register plaque outside, the same historic register that he and the developer's lawyers tried like hell to prevent Bob's from being listed on in the first place.

The developers have moved on to other great places soon to be replaced with a Pet Co. So you will soon be able to get your dog or cat one of 10,000 different toys to play with instead of going bowling with you neighbors or sharing a cup of coffee in your neighborhood coffee-shop.

We drove to Pasadena to see what Macy's has done to the Pasadena landmark Bullock's Department Store. The plan so far is to build a parking garage in front of what was once a landscaped curvilinear drive up fa�ade, and apparently they plan on expanding street facing walls and building an assortment of store fronts. Leaving nothing of the architects' original vision of the place. The inside remains amazingly the same except that the 40-year-old teashop was recently closed to accommodate the furniture department. The children's barbershop is still in operation.

The highlight of the Tour for me was our stop at a Tiki Lounge called the Bahooka in Rosemead. The place is overflowing with nautical stuff and there are something like 200 separate fish tanks, one between nearly every single table. The place is really dark, mostly lit by small ambient lights and the light of the fish tanks. We didn't really have time to eat anything but I had to have at least a beer there, so we sat for a while at the "fish tank" bar and watched the fish swim under our parasol filled drinks.

Wendy and I started to plan the chartering of a jet filled with all of our friends in NYC and a bus to the Bahooka for dinner and drinks and then back to NYC with the only stop on the trip having been to the Bahooka. Ready to sign up? It seemed like such a good idea only three or four hours ago?

We had to end the tour a little early b/c I had planned on eating dinner at Alex's house in Simi Valley, so the Bahooka was the last stop on the tour. I guess we will be leaving tomorrow. I kind of want to stay in LA a day or two more and just hang out with John and Ginny. But I guess I should get going soon.. I'll never get to Florida if I keep staying in places for extra days.

Cordelia bought my Ruby Red Chair from me early on in the project, but it took a while for us to figure out how to ship it. The first chair I sold cost more the $40 to ship and as it turns out Cordelia is in High School, so paying that much for shipping didn't quite fit into her budget. So I came up with a compromise.

I told her that I would try and ship the chair unwrapped and see whether or not my friends at the Post Office would take it. They were pretty used to me shipping strange items, in fact I think the kind of liked asking me what the hell I was shipping today. They especially liked the time that I shipped a sweet vadalia onion.

Well, I addressed the seat of the chair to the address that Cordelia sent me, and brought it to the Post Office to find out how many Stamps I would have to put on the back of the Chair to get it from Iowa to California. They sold me $16.50 worth of stamps and placed the chair in one of those canvas package carts. I highly doubt that they would still take half of the shit that I mailed earlier this year, now, after all of the recent anthrax mail scares.

But according to Alex, the chair arrived the very next day and his mail carrier had put the font door mat over the chair as to keep the "package" safe from mail thieves. Too bad he didn't take a photograph of how it arrived. The chair is in his bedroom with another 50's style chair that he found at the Salvation Army, apparently he has started collecting old chairs. His family room has one or two other thrift stores finds with clear plastic backs and space age cone shaped bases.

Alex also collects polyester clothing and I have to say he has the finest collection of bowling shirts I have ever seen. Every shirt in his closet! I may have had some nice old shirts at one time but most of what I owned were far from collectable. He's got shirts from Japan, local body shops, even some with his own name on them.

We had Steak dinner with His mom and Dad and his best friend Vander. It was kind of funny b/c he asked me if there was anything that I didn't eat? What if I said I was a vegetarian? I guess I could have had some potatoes. You can't go on the road and depend in the kindness of strangers and custom order vegetarian entrees.. I was happy to have steak b/c I am still in the middle of a self imposed "Fish Attack".

After dinner Alex marked my height on the Door to their garage, apparently everyone who has ever visited them has had their height listed on the door. There are multiple entries for many of Alex's friends, Vander @ 10 years old, Vander @ 14, Vander @ 16. How much will my height have changed by time I visit Alex and his family again?

Brad bought my Mid-American energy bill just to own something from my project. I had listed the bill three separate times on Ebay and only received on bid, Brads.. Of course the first two times I listed the bill I made the minimum bid $466.97 which was the total about of the bill itself.. No bidders on those two postings.. Brad paid $1 USD and the price of a first class stamp.

He was the first person to call me back when I sent out the mass e-mail to all of the high bidders in the Los Angeles area. So he got to pick the best time and place for me to visit.

Yesterday morning I received a phone call from someone that sounded like Brad, but instead it was a guy from a TV talent agency. He kept saying "John, John, John this thing that you are doing is so god damned funny, So out of the box.. I think that there are 13 episodes of you visiting your stuff, a reality TV seriesÉ. You are so far out of the box its not funny"

I tried to tell him that I was being invited into the privacy of peoples homes, and I highly doubt that people would invite me to stay at their house, if I was traveling with a network television crew complete with Kraft services outside..

But he kept telling me the reality TV is really happening right now and that 13 episodes were possible.. I guess he hasn't been reading my travelogue.. For the most part I have been staying at peoples houses and simply having a meal with them.. I asked him if he had seen "My Dinner with Andre"? Can you imagine watching 13 episode of "My Dinner with John"?

He has my number and I didn't really say no.. So who knows maybe three years from now when you ask "Whatever Happened to that Guy who sold his life on Ebay" you'll hear.. "Oh he's got a late night show on cable where he's be visiting all the people who got outbid on items from his AMLFS projectÉ"

But I digress, which is why my updates take so long to get posted.. Brad has the best collection of skateboards I have ever seen, from the early clay wheeled runners, through the early dogtown decks and the like. When I got there we talked a little about a certain un-named documentary that was recently filmed in the area, and he may or may not have told me that there was a video-tape copy of that said film somewhere in the neighborhood. A copy that I may or may not have watched during my visit.

I watch films so differently now a days because Sasha is a documentary film maker, and I kind of watch things with her along side me, noticing the high paced editing that I know that she would hate, or the shaky camera stuff that shakes for no reason. But it was really interesting to watch what used to be a marginal counter culture viewed through the gaze of a pretty standard documentary formula. Its kind of like watching a behind the music documentary on the Sex Pistols and interviewing the surviving members today.

Well I promised Brad that I wouldn't tell anyone watched it, and I'm not sure if I've said I did, in fact I didn't watch anything.. Brad had a one eyed dog named appropriately Jack, I kind of wished I still had a skateboard so we could have gone skateboarding. I almost bought a board in Salt Lake City, but then decided not to add another thing into my now nearly filled car.

Now which reality TV episode would feature me hanging out watching a skateboard documentary? Out of the box?

In the first year that I was at the University of Iowa I was getting a little crap for making work only for the web. I kept being asked if I was every going to make anything? Make objects? So at one point I came in to workshop with packages of dish scrubbies filled with Temporama related photographs. Although most of my workshop were less than impressed, I kind of liked them, and besides the work that I really do takes place on the web, so who gives a shit if my advisors like it or not. (they did not, my transcript that semester will attest to a less than interested advisory committee)

Rachel however quite liked my little scrubbies, so much so that she paid in the neighborhood of $30 for one on Ebay, framed it in a shadow box and then invited me to visit. She is a photographer and makes here living as a portrait photographer in Los Angeles. She actually lives about two blocks away from Brad, and had I followed the directions that she gave me, I have been then there in three or four minutes.

Instead I drove halfway to the ocean and called her only after I had made three or four corrective turns further disorienting myself in this giant city of strip malls. This is where I decided that Los Angeles and Omaha had quite a bit in common, endless streets after streets in an ever expanding grid. Most western cities look alike when you are lost.

What a difference a day makesÉ Last night I had not one but two meals in what I believe could the worst restaurant of this entire trip, Jerry's Famous Deli, (a restaurant that Aaron eats in regularly). Tonight Rachel took me too her favorite noodle house in her neighborhood. It was ridiculously cheap, and was one of the best meals that I have had thus far. I was supposed to go out with Rachel and her friend Taina to their favorite bar Tom Bergin's where soon they will have their very own mugs hanging on the wall.. Three Shamrocks to go.. But I had made evening plans.. This happened to me in NYC too. I went from not having a place to stay one day to having to meet up with four or five people in one dayÉ all offering a place to stay if needed

One of the people I franticly called last night was Wendy Smith who is one of Bekah's Best friends from Hamilton.. She returned my call this morning and invited me to a play that her friends were producing. Wendy has lived in LA for what seems like forever occasionally moving away for a month or two here and there. She always seems to find a pretty good place to live and works enough to pay her rent.

It's crazy I have seen here once or twice almost every year since she moved to LA but I've never seen her in LA.. We always seem to be in NYC at the same time.. Well she invited me to crash at her place in Hollywood proper, it is pretty nice to be staying with someone I know pretty well. It not that I don't like staying with strangers, its just nice to ask favors of people you know.

Trey and I used to send random crap to Wendy through the mail, the last thing that we collectively sent was a package of home made donuts in the shape of the word DONUTS, when I arrived at her place tonight she pulled them out for me to seeÉ Still in the tin foil we sent them in.. She's had them for the last five or six yearsÉ

Emily spent the day hanging out with Aaron.. She just called to tell me where to pick her up tomorrow morningÉ I wonder if they ate another meal at Jerry's Famous Deli today? I'm pretty excited about the "Googie" tour tomorrow. Wendy and Emily are going to come along, and Wendy said that she would call the car rental places tomorrow to see if we can rent a giant air-conditioned boat to drive around in.