Don't Do The Crime If You Can't Do The Time

I’m a New Yorker’s New Yorker.  Or at least I like to think that I’m a New Yorker’s New Yorker.  Give me a subway or walking over a car any day of the week.  Needless to say when I found myself walking the Sunset strip in LA I was as out of place as humanly possible.  I was walking around with some other east coasters who were also used to riding the rails or pounding the pavement rather than being in automobiles.  The glaring looks we received from each and every passing car would make you think we picked some locks and escaped the leper colony.  Despite the stares our spirits were undaunted as we wandered with several destinations in mind but none in particularly pressing. I wanted to look for sneakers as per my usual modus operandi.  Mike wanted to search out Mutato Muzika the production house of Devo’s Mark Mothersbaugh.

We headed what I think was west down Sunset blvd with the sun high in the sky and our skin starting to cook even though it was a Friday afternoon at the end of January.  The iPhone gave us an address and reassurance that we were headed in the right direction.  We knew to look for a weird looking green building but we that’s all we knew.  As we walked our clothing started patch with wet spots from sweat.  It should be noted that half of us had just wrapped up a ten day, cross country tour where we slept primarily in Walmart parking lots and showers were a commodity.  Mike had wrapped up another tour and flew in for the final show of tour.  Not factoring in the rapidly appearing sweat stains, we looked like a group of recently homeless men who met each other under a remote underpass of the 405 and decided to brave the daylight for the first time despite their better judgment. 

After a few more blocks and more sweat stains we arrived at a green rotunda of a building.  Mike’s excitement was visible.  We walked to what given my experience when it comes to buildings in New York, should have been the front door, only to discover that it was locked and probably a fire exit.  Why in the world would you have a door that faces the sidewalk that isn’t the entrance to the building?  LA, that’s why.  We walked around the building seeing ramps on either side of it which were the entrance and exits for cars.  Descending the first ramp we found another door and I was convinced that it had to be the entrance.  Yet again we were locked out. 

My patience started to wane.  How many doors could this stupid building have?  I noticed a sign that mentioned you could park in the building’s lot on the weekend if you were going to the space next door.  We continued around the bend making our way to the second ramp.  Finally a door with an intercom!  We hoped that maybe they would give us a tour or at least see the inside of the lobby. 

As we walked towards the intercom two people walk up behind us asking if we parked in the lot in a pointedly negative tone.  I turned and caught Mike’s face frozen in what can only be described as “the OH face.”  You know the face.  Mouth forming a perfectly round circle, eyes locked in, voice non-existent.  I complete my turn to see a woman in her late 40’s but well maintained and an older gentleman with a white and silver mane.  My next thought was, oh shit, that’s Mark Mothersbaugh.  In full disclosure, I’m a causal Devo fan.  I’m a bigger Rugrats fan than Devo fan.  In full disclosure, Mike is a huge Devo fan.  The man has an energy dome tattoo.  Need I say more?

I wait for Mike to take the reigns here since he’s vastly more excited than I am.  I wait.  I wait.  Easily an eternity has just passed.  I decide to speak up and answer the woman’s question.  I respond that we don’t have a car, which is the most accurate sentence and also the sentence that most makes you look like a crazy homicidal maniac when the person standing across from you sees a group of disheveled, unwashed, men who have just come off of tour.  For some reason I don’t think the woman’s fears where put to rest by my response.  I see her quickly move towards the door in hopes of getting inside to safety and locking out the lunatics.  I quickly spit out,

“We are big fans!”

“You sound like a fire engine man.” says Mark Mothersbaugh.

In an hilarious twist of fate, a fire engine sped by just as I tried to assuage their fears of being stabbed or at minimum mugged in their own parking lot.

I mutter a half hearted repeat of “we are big fans.”

The woman, now feverishly pressing the intercom button, says, “well this Mark.”

“Umm, yeah we know.” I said in a non creepy voice, or at least a non creepy voice if you are privy to fact that I have no intention of physically hurting anyone.

“Don’t do the crime, if you can’t do the time.” Mark says to our rag tag group as he moves towards the door avoiding any possibility of shaking our hands. 

Those are words to live by, especially if you fear for your life from a group of apparent homeless maniacs with nothing to lose.