No matter how many times I return to Los Angeles, I always make a point of visiting Venice Beach. The nearly two-mile beachfront walk is the quintessential L.A. experience, and it‘s usually the highlight of my trip. If you’ve never been there I will take you.

Venice Beach is the biggest open-air freak-show on the planet, and it never disappoints. Not even on a Tuesday morning in the dead of winter. I can tell you right here and now that Venice Beach is the best place in the world for serious people watching. Put it this way: if you want to see everything that’s good and bad about Los Angeles in one afternoon, go to Venice Beach.

The Venice Beach freaks are no two-bit poseur freaks, either. Venice Beach freaks are hard-core, big time freaks; the real thing. This is Los Angeles, after all, and yesterday’s freak could be tomorrow’s next superstar. And the entertainment is totally free. Over there is a guy juggling a chainsaw; right here is a man who walks on glass. A little further down the road a mime troop performs a skit nobody can quite comprehend. Street performers nearly outnumber the tourists as we walk a little further.

Stay clear of the Hari Krishnas. Oh, look! A huge black guy dressed as a clown wearing oversized glasses and a rainbow wig. He waves at the camera with his giant, white-gloved hand. It says he’s a starving actor on his sign.

T-shirt stands by the hundreds: Malcolm X, Che Guevara, MLK, Obama, Jimi Hendrix, Nelson Mandela, Bob Marley, Frank Zappa.

Green and blue colored booths, tents, umbrellas and tables of every size and shape line the beach side of the avenue, facing away from the dunes with their backs to the sea. The east side of the path, facing the Pacific Ocean, is lined with imposing cement facades and expensive, walled-in condos. On the street there are a few corner stores, poster shops and the odd microbrewery. People can sit under an umbrella behind some rope or a plexi-glass partition with a twelve-dollar beer and watch the beautiful people go by.

Here, a quadriplegic in a wheelchair paints silhouettes with a brush in his mouth. Next to him row after row of painters, sculptors, vendors and artisans of every sort display their wares. Some of it’s crap, some of it’s amazing, and some of it’s just plain weird. Wood carvings, crystals, clocks, rugs. Look at this Native American woman’s jewelry! The miniature guitars are exquisite.

Down the road is a white guy with a crew-cut who looks like a narc selling cheesy Oakland Raiders license plate holders and key chains. Not worth a second look. There are nine or ten Tarot card booths within a hundred feet: a palm-reader here and there. A Rastafarian guy is using a magnifying glass to examine a woman‘s lifeline, twisting her hand this way and that. She looks bemused. Plenty of folks offering to interpret my aura or discuss my past lives. Here’s a group in white robes, holding hands at a table in complete silence, meditating. I guarantee you that every one of them has a screenplay they’re trying to sell.

Seriously tattooed bare-chested men escort bikini-clad beauties with outrageously large breast implants past me on the right. My wife nudges me: “Oh, my God! Did you see that?“

Venice Beach goers run the gamut from millionaires and celebrities to the scum of the earth. As I pick my way through the oncoming swarm of half-naked, tanned, sweaty bodies I’m bombarded by the sights and sounds coming from every angle.

There is constant stimulation. The sun glares down lazily through the afternoon haze, and every once in awhile I can hear the roar of the ocean churning away in the background over the constant din of the crowd. Kites fly overhead and palm trees sway gently in the breeze like giant scarecrows.

The sea air blows its salty breath as seagulls screech overhead, darting across the sky. I come upon an enormous drum circle with representatives from every race, creed and color known to man – men, women, children – complete with a saxophone player and bassist. For all I know they’re top session men at one of the local recording studios. They are surrounded by many brightly colored, frantically gyrating dancers. I’ve never seen so many white kids with dreadlocks. The smell of sunscreen and patchouli is overpowering. An endless stream of walkers, bike riders and skateboarders drift across the horizon as far as the eye can see.

Music is everywhere; the sounds ebb and flow in waves like the nearby ocean. A red-haired banjo player dressed in tie-dye from head to toe is pretty good. On the corner is a disheveled man playing an upright piano which he somehow hauls around by himself. Guitar players range from utterly incompetent to stunning virtuoso. Here’s a black dude in a straw hat, Hawaiian shirt and yellow pants jamming with a white kid in jeans and a T-shirt. They lay down a serious grove.

Eventually, I run into Harry Perry, the roller-skating guitar player dressed in flowing white robes and a turban who is featured in virtually every movie filmed on Venice Beach. He’s an institution here, playing his red and white striped Stratocaster up and down the beach seven days a week, all year round. He carries a battery powered amplifier in his backpack. Harry plays his own dissonant, meandering songs and croons in a strange warble while he skates up and down the avenue. I approach him as he tunes up and tell him that I see him every time I come to Venice Beach. I thank him. He gives me a hug and hands me a “Harry Perry – Kozmic Warrior” T-shirt.

My life is complete.

[Repost from 2014]