If it’s Wednesday, this must be Venice…

Snake Charmer!

Beach that is.

OK, our Southern Cal traveling heroes (Jen and Oni DUH!) were actually there on Monday not today.

Venice Beach is the one California locale that I’ve ever wanted to see and, as yet, haven’t. I grew up with the idea that it was this wildly magical, far away, beachified version of Greenwich Village—a place filled with artists, scribes, musicians, street performers and a lot of romantic film noir-ish crime. Venice Beach also had body builder’s and skaters—it was extra special funkified cool.

I remember watching the Rockford Files as a teen (LOVED James Garner) and thinking “I AM gonna live on that beach and Rockford will be my neighbor.” Honest! ...sorta....

How is it that, in my great long life, I’ve not been there yet? That seems all tragic-like—ya know?

Maybe, once my bud Heike’s a West Coast babe (three weeks until the big move!), she can fly down to meet me for a little Venice art vaca?

Here’s the thing, Jen tells me that a lot of the vendors along the boardwalk are selling cheap, mass produced, made-in-China type crap versus their own handcrafted offerings. I need to NOT expect that I’ll be stepping into Venice Beach of the’50s and ‘60s when the West Coast Beats, The Doors as well as known, lesser known and legions of flat out unknown artists flourished.

Still, it’d all be worth it to see Rip Cronk’s big beautiful murals. I wanna get up close and personal with Emily Winter’s work as well as Chase and Logek’s funky stuff .

Venice Beach—a warm, sunny, sandy version of Reykjavik with all it’s killer street art?