The Big Bing by Stanley Bing

Author:Stanley Bing
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins

And it is good.

1998

The new Lincoln Town Car. I get to LAX and there it is, gleaming at the curb. A complete redesign of the basic box Dean Martin rode in. A rounded snout. Heavy duty grillwork. My driver isn’t a talker. After the mandatory comment about the weather, which is excellent, by the way, we respect each other’s space. There’s a cellular phone I can dial without screwing with an access code, and mucho big-time air-conditioning. I get on the horn, and I can practically see my breath in the icy cold of that big backseat.

Did I mention the weather? Really terrific weather. Bright sunshine. A little heat, but dry, you know? Makes you glad to be alive. All in all? Great weather.

The freeways. They get you nowhere, real . . . slow. Why not? It’s later in your head by three hours, and you don’t need complete immersion in the L.A. thing just yet. You want to hang a little. So you get on the 405, and you just sit there, man. Chill.

Getting places. It’s a very big deal. You arrive where you’re going to, and you’re . . . there, baby. But where? Are you south of where you were before? How close are you to that little tower that was on Dragnet and Perry Mason? Where is West L.A.? West of here?

It also rains very little, incidentally. The sunsets turn the canyons to bronze. People have pools where they can sit and enjoy all that weather.

Max’s Jaguar. Out in L.A., people judge you by your car, and I respect that. At least you know where you stand. My friend Max has a black, twelve-cylinder Jaguar that he drives from place to place. It’s a very cool car in a land of cool cars. Where I live, everyone has an off-road vehicle that combines the feel of a small, well-appointed truck with the power of a four-cylinder subcompact sedan. I like Max’s car better.

Polo shirts. People wear them to business meetings all the time. And khakis. And comfortable shoes. I had a meeting the other day with a guy on reengineering. He was wearing moccasins. We didn’t come to any conclusions. Good!

The roof of the Four Seasons Hotel. There’s a pool up there. A few years ago I watched the L.A. riots get closer and closer from that vantage point. “Wow, lookit that!” says this guy next to me as we watch the smoke and fire moving up Doheny. You know who it was? Harvey Keitel!

Fruit. Everyplace you go, people have fruit. You can just go up in your polo shirt and unstructured sports coat and take, like, a plum. And when they give you coffee? It’s espresso.

Pasadena. You have to travel by limo for a long time to get there, and after a while, there you are. There’s a good Chinese restaurant there and several bookstores.

Venice Beach. You travel on one of the boulevards for a long time, and suddenly you’re in this extremely quaint little beachside town that has real authenticity.

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