Category Archives: Travel

Travel

ROAD TO NOWHERE—BIG MOUNTAIN

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The email from Tilly on facebook said something to the effect, “I think you may know Paula Greenstein. And if you’re in Montana, anywhere near Whitefish, I think she owns a restaurant there called Wasabi—it’s supposed to be really good.” I read the email again, amazed at the Lord’s hand in all affairs. I had just found a former Camp JCA counselor named Gary Rappaport on facebook and while I inquired as to the whereabouts of Eric “Rico” Abrams, I could not for the life of me think of Paula (Plunger) Greenstein’s name—so I just asked about Eric and made a mental note to think of the name of that vivacious girl, who always wore green.

“Paul “Plunger” Greenstein, that’s her,” I thought to myself as I examined her picture on facebook. “It’s been thirty-five years old-friend, I wonder what you’ve been doing. And how did you come to live in Montana?” I decided that I would do some writing in the morning at City Brew in Kalispell and then continue up 93 to Whitefish.

Perhaps a reader of this arranged assortment of letters is wondering why I could so easily make a plan to find Paula Greenstein? And this very question is a testament to inspired human thought. Because the human mind intrinsically knows that all of life is a story. Even creation is a story in which God used the power of letters, to make words, which in someway beyond human comprehension caused matter to continuously congeal into the world as we know it.

Three Days Earlier

Subsequent to taking in the beauty of Flathead Lake from my balcony vantage point I ventured down the staircase. The sound of rustling dogs reminded me of my valiant protectors, who apparently feeling profoundly guilty about the mountain lion incident, would not budge from my side unless locked up—in this case in the laundry room. So I freed Thing One and Thing Two, as I call them, since I did not and still do not know their given names. Happy, as only a dog can be at the sight of a master, we strolled across the lawn to the lake and sat. And this, after eight hours of sleep, would be the end of my seclusion. Leaving the dogs to guard the cabin I fired up the Black Beast (Suburban) and made a right onto 93 for Lakeside and then Kalispell.

Kalispell, a nice little town at its center, is the home of several well-run establishments. Norm’s News is a must first stop for all travelers through this town—my father’s name was Norm (a sign). The hundred-year-old building features a soda fountain counter manned by two adorable teenagers who are the kind of kids I hope my daughters might be one day, if I ever have children. And, although the residents of Kalispell are not aware of it, the ancient “Los Angeles style” bar behind their soda fountain counter holds mystical powers. Continue reading ROAD TO NOWHERE—BIG MOUNTAIN →

Travel

ROAD TO NOWHERE PART VI

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Although I’d become accustomed to the forward motion of a life lived on wheels, a few days in Missoula were an extraordinary detour into the Land of Normal. True, this was not my idea; indeed it was Mike who thought it best to give my old-body a few days of healing time before moving on. (refer to the Road To Nowhere Part V, the mountain lion fight, if you are a new reader) And since I was finding it difficult to move without a variety of pains formerly unknown to me—I acquiesced.

Interestingly, as I settled into life in Missoula and watched all of the normal people go about their normal lives the pain of my spectacularly failed life began to hurt more than my body, cut and bruised from head to toe. Husbands, wives, and kids everywhere seemingly happy and content. Not a single one bothered by Osama bin Laden’s still being alive and well, his hands dripping with the blood of our fellow Americans. The national debt? It doesn’t exist for these people with bright eyes and warm smiles.

And I gasped for air, suffocated by this reality—that for a plan beyond my understanding is not my own. My escape, the written word, only because of this life source does my heart beat. And I sat at Break Espresso for as long as my body would allow the pen and I to do our dance. There are several stories, which spawned from these days, Heather the most interesting, but her story, quite involved it is, shall remain for another occasion. 

Nightfall came on the fourth day, the black beast was saddled, and the comforting lines, which I fever for, passed at seventy-miles-per-hour. Continue reading ROAD TO NOWHERE PART VI →

Travel

ROAD TO NOWHERE PART V

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I slept in the belly of the black beast, the moonlit field aglow all around—Mike slept on top of the trailer next to his blower motors, which had been loaded with a forklift and crew whose requested remuneration was a half-rack. Because the request was so little for such a large favor I urged Mike to buy a full- rack and he did. And not to worry, Mike did not know that a half-rack meant a half-case of beer either, for those readers pondering what all this means. But once the trailer was loaded electrical problems curtailed any idea of a night journey. Good news, as I had required some time to myself to deal with the problem of the old woman and her soon to be foreclosed upon home.

As I pulled my jacket snug around me, Driggs Idaho gets chilly at night, I fought fiercely the desire to withdraw my trusty MacBook Pro and begin penning this part of the tale, but something about this felt wrong—very wrong. It seemed the Road To Nowhere needed to pause for me there, in the dirt driveway of the defunct Bergmeyer furniture factory, next to the expansive field growing something. I reclined in the front passenger seat and thought about why this might be. “Simple,” I thought. “There must be at least one mourner for what had once been.” And then terrified I contemplated my reason for existence. “I write about life. I want to write about life…Have I become a eulogist? Please let not my reason for breathing be to tell the story of a dying land…” And as stated previously I drifted off with these thoughts in the belly of the black beast, ironically called a Suburban, in the driveway of a place once called industrial—now a wilderness at the edge of a field…

A few hours passed and before the sun came up I relieved myself in the field, picked up a stick, and gave the sleeping bag heap a good whack. “Get up little girl it’s time to go.”

There was a moan then some rustling. “Why are you always lashing out? It’s your own fault that you don’t have a wife and kids…”

“Maybe so,” I said getting into the beast and closing the door. “Maybe so,” I said to myself before Mike opened the door and slid into the driver’s seat.

The drive from Driggs Idaho to Missoula Montana is as beautiful as one could possibly ask for. Continue reading ROAD TO NOWHERE PART V →

Travel

ROAD TO NOWHERE PART IV

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My sleep had been deep and restful. But I awoke somewhat disappointed that nothing had come to me. No dream, no vision, nor epiphany that would change my course in life—I was hungry…

The big, black Suburban, with not even two hundred thousand miles on it yet, headed down 800 Street, Salt Lake City, towards the great mountains that make Salt Lake such a special place. On the right side of the road about two miles into the wilderness is Ruth’s Diner. Mike who has seen much of the world nodded his approval. They had renovated since last I had been fortified there, but quite smartly they had restored, rather than remodeled—Larger kitchen and bathrooms had been the primary goal. The rear patio, where one can imagine what it might have been like to have coffee and biscuits in Eden—was untouched.

The ride to Idaho Falls featured my thoughts on the economy: Continue reading ROAD TO NOWHERE PART IV →

Travel

ROAD TO NOWHERE PART III

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Just as the Road To Nowhere is a time and place to relax in the present, it is also a time and place to have a blast from the past. The device I used to advance this objective, an ipod, was considerably different than the Eight Track player of my original road trips, ohhh, but the music was the same! “We are stardust and we’ve got to get ourselves, back to the garden…By the time we got to Woodstock we were half a million strong…Can I walk beside you? I have come here to lose the smog…” And I plugged in the ipod filling the cabin of the big, black Suburban with timeless music and memories.

The rock formations in the land somewhere between the states of Nevada, Arizona, and Utah, for those who have not traveled the 15 past Las Vegas, are mind tingling beautiful—cliffs, valleys, streams, escarpments of every kind. And there is no doubt to the thinking man who sets eyes upon this terrain that the Earth itself has a soul. These massive protrusions are not monuments, but a quest by the Earth to reach out and be close to God. The struggle is so similar to our own; the Earth like the body of man anchors the soul so desiring transcendence from the physical realm back to the spiritual reality of all creation. I cry at the sight of these mighty boulders stretched by such an epic struggle…And I feel sorry for myself because of the futility of my own struggle…Surely if the soul of the mighty Earth, which can shift tectonic plates and create mountains can’t…

A stop for lunch in Cedar City, a nice little town with an abundance of Mexican food, a University, and a Wal-Mart—and up the road we continued. From Cedar City to Sandy the topography is that of an enormous, green valley, the surrounding mountains of which, are green as well, seemingly more content with their lot than those encountered earlier—there is a tranquility about them…Even the grazing cattle is happy. Yes, these cows that graze the natural grass are happy not mad.

And the conversation that transpired originating a few miles before St. George and lasting to a click past Beaver went something like this:

“I almost built a factory over there,” Mike nodded the direction of Colorado City. “But when they told me I’d have to meet with the elders I decided not to.” Continue reading ROAD TO NOWHERE PART III →

Travel

ROAD TO NOWHERE PART II

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The black Suburban rolled down the highway with the mean rumble of a venerated work vehicle. I raised the cappuccino, which I held in my hand, to my lips and took the first soothing sip. Given the distinctly not stylish clothing being warn by Mike and myself and the rugged “Road Warrior” appearance of our vehicle my choice of a cappuccino, as my early morning sustenance seemed a strange juxtaposition—black coffee would have been the appropriate beverage of such a portrait.

“But this is one of the strange facts about Stan Lerner that even you don’t understand,” I thought to myself. A profoundly civilized man and wild beast doing battle in the same being…I smiled at this thought, not because there was any humor to be found in it, but because it is this type of self-reflection that makes it incumbent on all us to travel the long and winding road of life.

Soon, the sun began its ascent above the horizon—its rays of light pouring over the sea of sand, so many grains—countless as the possibilities before us. The slope of Interstate 10 toward State Line still excites my body and soul, as I’m sure it does most. Funny and comforting to think that as time passes there are still sights that can excite even the most veteran of travelers—albeit now in a comforting way. Comforting, because there is a sense of freedom that comes with being able to move around one’s own country with such a sense of anonymity. And with so many freedoms nearing extinction it’s pleasant to know that there is still one left—I wonder if in the future children will understand what I mean by this. Or will they say, “A long time ago people used to be able to travel from state to state without being scanned.” Continue reading ROAD TO NOWHERE PART II →

Travel

ROAD TO NOWHERE

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“If anybody would like to join the first downtownster road to nowhere road trip I’ll be leaving Thursday or Friday,” I said to the meeting of the Marketing Round Table. “I don’t know where we’re going or when we’ll get there, but that’s the idea. And uh you could get on or off the trip at any time or place—providing that there is an airport of course.” NO TAKERS

Friday morning 4:30 a.m. the 1996 black Chevy Suburban docked at the curb of my childhood home in Montebello, CA—Montebello is Italian for beautiful hills. And it is from this very spot, that I have departed for many an adventure. I am fortunate to, over an excessively well-lived lifetime, have developed a number of friends who are willing to embark on such journeys. And I should be careful to mention here that some of these individuals were mere acquaintances or even less familiar at the time of departures, but traveling and adventure make for far greater bonds than the songs of fraternity boys in their beer soaked homes.

This particular morning it was to be my old high school buddy Mike Munoz picking me up. Although he went to West Point and achieved the rank of Colonel I still refer to him as my Mexican—I find this term of endearment more special than he does.

“The 15?” he asked. Continue reading ROAD TO NOWHERE →

Travel

SHORT TRIP, LONG BEACH

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Being a writer can be challenging. Being a great writer is a disease. Being a writer with wealthy friends that will let you stay at their vacation homes for free—NICE CONSOLATION!

Some of my earliest childhood memories float through my mind like the fog that rolls toward the California shores, particularly Belmont Shores Long Beach, where my father procured a rental every summer for our family. I was too young to understand that this was not the most tony of beach resorts, but did take note that my father often told other adults that he preferred the weather in Belmont Shores to any other costal city. And my father did have an aversion to big shots and people who fancied themselves chic.

As years passed on, the family vacations came to an end. And as more years passed my connection to Belmont Shores, like so many of the great wonders of youth, became a distant memory relegated to an occasional visit.

I pause to think now about my dream of buying the beautiful brick house that to this day sits on a corner of an island called Naples, which juts into the bay at its most favorable bend. In my lifetime I earned the money many times over to buy this spot so beautifully balanced between the earth and sea, but the foolishness of still larger dreams caused this one to vanish like the sandcastles of children with the rise of the tide.

My friend Ed, EY, Big Ed, or Edward Yawitz, he answers to all cheerfully so, grew up in Montebello a few blocks from I. And his family too escaped the heat of August by family vacation in Belmont Shores—and many other neighbors did so as well, it was the Catskill’s West. Even though many friends of my childhood kayaked in the bay in my company, and broke bread at my wooden table on the patio of The Beach Burger, or stood in line next to me at Woody’s Goodies, it had never occurred to me that their dreams had taken the shape of my own. But unlike my easily corrupted, by greed and grandiosity, vision of existence my friend Ed bought a home on the shorefront of Alamitos Bay, Belmont Shores, Long Beach.

“Why don’t you come down to Long Beach and spend the night? We’ll paddleboard around the island,” Ed suggested whilst we drove around the city smoking Cuban cigars in an American made truck he uses for work on occasion.

“Okay…” said I.

The home, built in 1903, was the first on the peninsula. Originally a Grand Victorian it was the sales office for much of the neighboring beachfront property. Later the first home on the bay laid claim to being the first brothel of the beach. And then came the remodel that converted the magnificent home to an apartment building—with three thousand square feet preserved ground floor, in front, for a hint of grandeur past.

And it is this valuable footage that my friend Ed has turned into a vacation rental. It warms me to think that other families are experiencing the summers as I once did. Ed is a wealthy man, he does not need to rent out such a special place—he won’t admit this. But in his heart I see that he wants others to know what we know about this little part of Earth.

I paddleboarded up and down the bay, after an unfortunate moment in which I attempted to mount the surfboard like contraption—it slipped from underneath and I landed face first in the shallow water. “Warmer than I remember,” I thought to myself, as Ed and several children accompanied by their parents had a great laugh. I chose to make it a teaching moment. And after failing so miserably the first time, I tried again and succeeded excessively.

Post paddle, I took a luxurious hot shower. This particular cascade of pleasure can only be experienced by walking directly from the sand to the shower bath—and even an adult must smile at the sand that washes down the drain after finding its way into the most inappropriate of places.

Ed took Frankie (another of his friends) and I to dinner on Second Street. Continue reading SHORT TRIP, LONG BEACH →

Travel

THERE’S A NEW DON IN VEGAS

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My history in Vegas dates back to the “Good Old Days.” If you know what I mean? And because of this, I’ve met a few Don’s in my time. But perhaps the most interesting of them all has recently come to power in Downtown Sin City, 624 S. Las Vegas Blvd—and that would be the extraordinary Don Vicente of Don Vicente Cigar Co. A robust man, born on the Pinar Del Rio tobacco plantation in Cuba his hands can roll a cigar with the magic possessed only by those born and raised breathing Cuban air, drinking Cuban water, and learning the craft from their fathers.

The story begins with a call from my life long friend Fat Andy. “You’re coming this weekend?”

“I don’t have reservations anywhere,” I replied, feeling a little sorry for myself.

“Stay at Dave The Jew’s,” suggested Andy.

“I don’t know…” Dave is a bad influence on me. And I thought I recalled him mentioning that five or ten attractive young ladies were going to be staying at the house for the weekend…Not easy to explain to my girlfriend.

“Come on.”

“Okay…I’ll leave first thing in the morning.”

 

THE NEXT DAY

 

I pulled up to Dave The Jew’s sprawling single story—I’ve stayed there so many times, it actually feels like home. Fat Andy greeted me at the door and with the help of a couple of servants that Dave apparently traded an ipod for, I was settled in—in no time.

“My boy!” shouted Dave upon entering the living room. “Let’s go smoke some cigars.”

I nodded toward the sliding glass windows, thinking that we’d be smoking poolside.

“No…we’re going to Don Vicente’s,” insisted Dave before I could get a word out.

“Is he related to Gambino?” I asked.

“Not that kind of Don. He opened a cigar factory on Las Vegas Blvd.—Downtown.” You’re going to love this place. It’s the best cigar for the money I’ve ever had and I’ve smoked the best.”

Now Dave The Jew may not work much, but when it comes to the finer things in life, he knows what he’s talking about.

We hopped into the SL and headed for the Strip. Continue reading THERE’S A NEW DON IN VEGAS →

Travel

SOCIETY CAFÉ ENCORE

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Foreword by Stan Lerner: it’s a working vacation in Las Vegas, so while this is a dining piece on http://www.blogsincity.com it’s a travel piece on downtownster—the job has its good points.

Because I was born and raised in Los Angeles it was only natural that Las Vegas became my second home. In 2003 I came for a weekend and stayed for a year—producing the “Night Tribe” show at the Rio Hotel and Casino—I love Vegas. So, when my writing career went on to encompass blogging, I started downtownster.com, I was sure that the next city after LA that I’d be blogging in would be Vegas Baby!

Now every good blog needs some regular characters, so let me take this opportunity to introduce Carlos Harper. I met Carlos when he was a young fellow working at the Rio’s pool. He was arguably the best pool guy at the Rio, which meant I was sure to recruit him to do some promoting for “Night Tribe”—he was good at promoting as well. Carlos went on to college, graduated, worked in real estate, and became a VIP host with Pure Group—a star on the rise. As you can imagine he knows Vegas and even though I used to be the boss I’ve come to rely on him to keep me up on what’s going in this great town.

The call went something like this: Continue reading SOCIETY CAFÉ ENCORE →