When The Wheels Came Off

Reporting from Mill Valley, CA June 8, 2025

I still love L.A. Absolutely and unironically. I’m off the Villa Vie Odyssey for a few weeks, seeing old friends, having various medical profesionals put their fingers in my mouth and jam needles into my knees. Not, I should probably point out, at the same time.

Anyway, I had another couple of perfect days last week, coffee with friends in Burbank, many beers in Silverlake (while watching Knick fans suffer), a late night in a downtown speakeasy and then — the part I love the most — winding my way back to the Valley via familiar freeways; The 110 to the 101 to the 5 to the 134 to the 2, through Hollywood and Echo Park, Atwater Village, Glendale, Highland Park, Eagle Rock — past food trucks and low riders and Goth kids, beggars and hookers and people at Von’s that you’re pretty sure you’ve seen on sitcoms but you can’t remember their names.

L.A. is a sprawling, frustrating polyglot of a place, filled with this whole mess of fucked-up, self-conscious outlandishly creative people that to me ARE Los Angeles. They’re my people. I’ve missed them all.

I have a theory that Los Angeles feels different because so many of the inhabitants — — or their parents or their grandparents — chose to be here. They are escapees, some from places with oppressive governments and literal death squads, some from small towns where they just felt different from everyone else. They came to L.A. because they wanted more than their home towns or countries could provide. Because something was lacking in the place where they were born. Because they were too different or outspoken. Or maybe just restless.

My old neighborhood: Echo Park, Los Angeles.

Most of them failed, at least when compared to the dreams that brought them here. They didn’t become rich or famous. They didn’t avenge the injustices that drove them from their homelands. Many of them did, however, have sex with Warren Beatty. So, that’s something.

(Some of you may be thinking that this is a gross overgeneralization and/or pontifical bullshit and also that I have no idea what I’m talking about, which I don’t. I may be thinking that you should fuck off because I’m on a roll, goddammit!!)

My point, as if I had one, is that I’m always happy to be here, even when I’m stuck in traffic or jousting with waiters who expected to be movie stars and could not give less of a fuck about me or my order of jalapeno poppers which should have been here a half-hour ago, goddammit.

The Minus 5, starring Scott McCaughey, Peter Buck, Llnda Pitmon , Kurt Bloch and a couple of Bangles at the Zebulon Cafe.

I lived here for nearly 30 years — known mostly for being that one guy who didn’t have a screenplay he’d like to show you — and being back on land for a few weeks while the Odyssey goes to Hawaii, has been wonderful. I’ve seen a million friends, drunk a million beers, gone to a million great shows — including the Minus 5 at the Zebulon Cafe (featuring guest appearances by 2 Bangles and a Cowsill), Drive-By Truckers & Deer Tick at the Fonda Theatre, a gig to which I was transported in a Waymo robot-driven death car, which turned out not to be frightening at all and, after getting used to the steering wheel steering itself, not even all that weird. The future is here. Uber is doomed. As are all human drivers.

Waymo in the wild in Los Angeles. Freaky and yet not. Which is in itself freaky.

Not to say that life in L.A. doesn’t have its challenges (wildfires, mudslides and unexpected Ryan Seacrest encounters among them). As an example, I was staying with a friend in Echo Park last week, parked my rental car in front of his residence on a Friday night and when I went back to the vehicle — a 2024 Nissan Altima — on Saturday afternoon, it was gone. Oh, shit.

Other than “How drunk was I?” only two possibilities enter your mind at such moments: that the car was either stolen or it was towed. You hope it’s the latter because then at least you can get it back. Theoreticaly. I went back to my friend’s place, plopped down on his couch and started making calls.

Yes, LAPD told me, they had towed the car. No, they couldn’t tell me why. Perhaps I’d inadvertently blocked someone’s driveway and they’d filed a complaint? Perhaps the car had been there for more than 72 hours? (It hadn’t.) They gave me an address of an office that would be closing soon. No, they explained, the car wasn’t there. It was at a second location, the address of which would only be revealed after I’d paid the impound/towing fee at the first location. No, they couldn’t tell me how much. And, no, I probably wouldn’t get there before they closed.

Instead of worrying about it, I called a Lyft and went to a bar, watched the Pacers eliminate the Knicks and decided I’d take care of things the next day, on Sunday. I still expected things to go smoothly — expensively but smoothly. I was wrong.

My friend gave me a ride to Impound Office #1 early Sunday afternoon, where I paid the impound/tow fee of $376 and was given the address of the lot (Impound Office # 2) where the car had been towed. I waited there for almost an hour, on a sidewalk outside a locked gate, until the only attendant who works on Sunday showed up in a golf cart to take me to the car

“There it is,” he said, burying the lede. “You know the wheels are missing, right?”

A Nissan Altima (not the one I rented) with its wheels missing.

No, sir. I did NOT know the wheels are missing. Why had no one mentioned this before? Where are the wheels? What am I supposed to do? Why is my voice getting higher?

“I guess you could call someone to tow it,” he said. “But you can’t stay here to figure it out. I have to go.”

The missing wheels, front and back on the driver’s side, had apparently been pilfered some time Friday night. A cinder block had been jammed under the vehicle long enough for the wheels to be removed. Nissan wheels, it turns out, are easily resold and in high demand in Los Angeles. There is even a Tik-Tok tutorial on how easy they are to steal.

So that’s why it had been towed, why I had to pay the City of Los Angeles $376 and jump through a number of insurance-related hoops before the rental company — on Monday — agreed to give me a replacement vehicle. I met them at the impound lot. (#2, again) They’d brought new wheels. Yay! Everyone lived happily ever after. Except my friend, whose street is now a crime scene where he will never sleep easily again.

Meanwhile, over in Hawaii, the Odyssey was being inspected by U.S. Coast Guard and Public Health officials to determine if it was safe enough to continue sailing in U.S. waters. I am pleased to report that Odyssey met the minimum standards — somewhat buoyant and no live mice in the pantry — and is now legally allowed to pick me up in San Diego next Sunday and continue up the Pacific coast to San Francisco, Seattle, Vancouver and Alaska’s Inside Passage. This is a notable achievement, about which Villa Vie is doing much boasting and a fair amount of chortling aimed at those who questioned whether they’d pass. By which they mean me. Upon my return, certain cheerleader types will be insufferable.

But I’m sincerely glad they passed. Because most of my stuff is still on board and if they’d been banished to Pago Pago or somewhere I don’t know how I’d have gotten it back. I look forward to getting back on board, cruising into Seattle and San Francisco. I’ll go back to sitting in my usual hallway chair, smoking cigars on the aft deck as we leave ports and — my favorite thing — complaining about the shitty beer. It’ll be fun!! But I will also be — absolutely and unironically — missing L.A.

Warren says hey.

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