I awoke like always on a twin mattress in a flat on Viale Matteoti. As I arose I saw on my nightstand (that was actually just a stool) my pay by the minute Italian phone and a half full liter of wine that I had purchased for 1 Euro on my walk home last night, or rather this morning.
I took a swig as one is wont to do 5 days after their 21st birthday at 8am on a Saturday before checking my phone. I had a message.
-Carnivale?
I put my phone away not knowing what to make of it. I stepped out into the common area where 2 of my 9 roommates had awoken. We had no internet or TV but we had boxes of DVDs our parents had sent us. I think Jack was on the couch watching One Tree Hill on his laptop.
'Do you guys know what Carnivale is?'
'It's a party in Venice.'
'When is it?'
'Today. A girl in my wine class said Coolio is supposed to play.'
Now I've never lived my life by many rules, but I think if you have a chance to see 'Gangsta's Paradise' performed in Italy, you have to take it.
Within 15 minutes we were walking to the train station. We hadn't even been in this country for a full week and we were already going on an adventure based on a rumor.
The day, like so many around that time, was full of possibility.
Upon arriving at Venice Santa Lucia it was raining, it was cold, most of the locals looked miserable. But not us, we purchased 2 Euro Zorro masks and disappeared into a crowd of likeminded heathens.
For those that have never been, Venice is a truly ridiculous city, a never-ending labyrinth of logjam pedways and eerie canals. I understand why it has such a bad reputation among tourists. Once you get past the water taxis and gondolas the town is a logistical nightmare. But for three twenty somethings in search of a good time, it was paradise.
We had no map, no plan, no place to stay, just a positive attitude and a general inclination to follow the crowd in front of us. When we finally found St Mark's square we purchased 4 bottles of champagne and began to look for Coolio. Our version of a road trip film, a poor rip off of Harold and Kumar go to White Castle.
Along the way we met other travelers who shared our goal.
"I heard he's performing from a gondola."
"I think it's rained out."
"No he's just playing at a random bar."
At some point I slipped and fell into a canal, a right of passage I assume. I drunk dialed my mom because for the first time in my life I was halfway across the world from her and when I could handle no more of Venice's mysterious twists and turns, I demanded that we go for pizza. We were in Italy right?
After a day of pointlessly wandering around a city drinking wine straight from the bottle we decided we better catch the last train back to Florence lest we be forced to pass out under a bridge.
As I waited in line to buy a cup of Sangria from a 10 year old boy outside the train station I finally ran into my friend Amy, the one who had sent the text that started this whole journey.
"Hey, did you guys ever find Coolio?"
"No, turns out he played LAST week."
Of course he did.
***
I was at an Apres Ski at Breckenridge Brewing Company when I found out we had lost our apartment in Venice. We had such high hopes for 2346 Pacific. We were going to put a couch on the roof so that we could watch sunsets over the ocean.
Our future landlord informed us that we had been outbid. But how could we be outbid? We signed a lease.
"Well then i suggest you find a place to live during the 9 months of litigation."
Bluff called.
My roommates and I had 2 days to find a place to live. I had recently moved out of a hippie commune in Encino and they had been evicted from a place in the Hollywood Hills for um...excessive noise.
The Venice Beach experiment was over before it had even started. We would have to do like we did in the Summer of 09 and live in a combination of fraternity houses and 1 star motels.
But then at the 11th hour Jack found an ad on Craigslist for a 3 bedroom unit at 627 Westminster. With myself and Nick at work, jack was the only one that could tour the apartment.
"We have a place to live. The landlord gave the unit with the front yard to this girl, but she seemed cool."
I didn't care about a yard, or a shower or anything. For really the first time in my life I was going to have an apartment with my own room...something everyone should experience by 25. The Venice experiment was back on.
That first night I laid on the floor, I had no mattress, no chair, no desk. I had one suitcase full of everything I owned but I had a 100 square foot bedroom that was all mine. And that's all that mattered.
Things were interesting in those early days. There was a body found on my block the first three months that I lived here. I soon learned to check the Twitter account Venice311 to find out if the 'fireworks' I heard were actually gunshots. Venice was changing. The old guard that had spent their entire life here was being forced out due to rising costs and gentrification.
Crack was openly dealt two doors down from me and I had the general idea that this really wasn't a safe place. But I never cared. I was paying $800 a month and I could walk to the beach. I made a deal with myself the first year that I would go to the beach every day so that I would never take it for granted.
People would visit, I would show them the colorful people on the boardwalk, the serene majesty of the canals. I would dazzle them with tales of Abbot Kinney the developer who gave us Venice Beach. Show them maps before 'Venice of America' had any roads. Point out the old racetrack for which 'Speedway' bears its namesake and even show them where the old pier had burned down that had given rise to Skateboarding.
Walking past murals of The Doors, Arnold and his muscle beach cronies, down Windward under the glorious 'VENICE' sign tracing the famous steps from the opening shot of 'Touch of Evil' I sang the praises of this strange Bohemian paradise to friends new and old.
Over time the small beach cottages were torn down in favor of large post modern townhouses. Abbot Kinney (the street) became flooded with high end menswear stores and chic dining options from the Pacific Northwest. The long haired surf bums gave way to guys named Chad that work at Google, Snapchat took over my favorite bar and it seemed a place I loved was taking a turn for the worse.
But Venice endured.
For every Silicon Beach bro that moved into town a VNC member would work twice as hard tom preserve our neighborhood's unique history. Development would boost property values for existing owners, reinvigorate long dormant patches. Rose and Washington exploded, rumor is that Lincoln is next.
So while some people 'don't get it' I understand. Perhaps you feel unsafe walking down 3rd at night and seeing a tent camp. Perchance it annoys you that you have to pay a 50 cent tariff to the homeless man that stands outside the 7-11. Maybe you think the streets are too narrow and the character too colorful. It's a bubble they say. Once your friend moves to the west side, they're gone forever. Always West of Lincoln.
Well I would argue that I never leave is because this is where I want to be...where I'm meant to be.
Not a Sunday goes by that I don't crave a slice from Abbot's or at least casually suggest a group outing to Mao's. I knew about the Canal Club/James Beach stamp trick YEARS ago and wrote a television pilot entirely based on Townhouse.
I bike to the Santa Monica pier every Thursday of the summer taking full advantage of the lack of open container laws and I still never miss a chance to catch that sunset in the spring when it dips over those gorgeous mountains.
Ya, Venice is an amazing place with more in common with its namesake than we give it credit for. It's this really odd piece of the world that just so happens to call out to a unique few, and when I'm walking home down Sherman Canal after a turkey burger from Hunan's I understand how lucky I am to be one of those people called Venetian.
I'm coming up on five years here, still at 627 Westminster. Some of the faces change (cycled through 8 roommates!!!) and while the set dressing may change a bit, the city really doesn't,
I still wake up every day and walk down 6th to get a coffee with the same wonder I did when I first showed up in 2012 or when I got off that train 6000 miles away. This truly is a marvelous place. I told myself when I moved here from Indiana that I would not get to LA and stop 5 miles short of the beach.
Well I didn't...and on a clear night sometimes when I'm alone with my thoughts I'll go for a little swim and talk to the moon.
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