Beans & Broads (aka A Tale of Two Lexi’s)
There are times in one’s life when the inexplicable happens. This turned out to be one such time. [We would try to explain that, of course, but … you know.] I would be flying over to L.A. for the Erotica Los Angeles convention on a flight that had the number 007 in its flight number, and I would be bringing two cans of British Baked Beans too. Last time I checked, James Bond wasn’t on this flight and I was hoping to bring two cylindrical metal containers through U.S. Customs! [Naturally as D.Minion, Uncle Gibby, and I waited over an hour for Dear Maverick to finally clear customs, we had a great deal of time to discuss the foolishness of such an attempt. Then, naturally, we considered that the rationale behind this bizarre decision basically boiled down to the typical male unwavering devotion to pussy – and then we spent the rest of the time more purely relenting our fate.] … All things considered, the flight went without a hitch and the U.S. Customs waved me through.
Lucky, D.Minion and Uncle Gibby were waiting for as I exited the airport. [Yeah, and we said something pithy, as I recall, like, “Men are stupid.”] We all headed into Los Angeles and checked into the hotel where we would be staying during our time at this year’s convention. [Well, we tried checking into a much nicer hotel, but they seemed to have no record of us. Drat.] I was straight away blamed for the overcast weather in L.A. [Hey, at least we didn’t hurl the cans of beans at him. Look at the bright side.]
Lon would be arriving the next day, so today once we had checked in, we headed to the hotel bar. Over a few drinks we worked out our plan of attack for the convention. [Sometimes you just need to go with tried and true techniques, after all.] We basically worked out that we’d get as many pictures, video and audio as we could in the two days we would be attending the show. In addition to that plan, I had been chatting with Lexi Love in between our last encounter at AEE and had offered to bring her a couple cans of English baked beans. [See?!! I told you a woman was to blame. … I don’t even know Lexi, and I was mad at her.] She had been over in England the year before and had tried them and loved them. [No. She had been over in England the year before, a fact Mav elicited at the AEE this year, and while being nice to an enamoured fan she said she liked the beans. … She had to say she liked something, and it clearly wasn’t the blood sausage … or the weather.] Being the English gentleman that I am, I promised to bring some. [Let’s just put the emphasis on the “man” part of that analysis, shall we?] These must have been the most photographed and well-traveled pair of baked bean cans in the history of the world!
I just about managed to get through the jet lag (and stay up for 24 hours to adjust to L.A. time) but I did take a nap after we’d gone out to have some Stromboli as Uncle Gibby had never tried it. Gibby got the risqué tour of Hollywood, and I slept in the back seat of the car. All I heard was “Hollywood Sign” and “We’re back at the hotel.” [So here’s a lesson you might take away from this account: Should you want to vilify your foreign friend for thinking with his little head, thus creating massive amounts of waiting time in your personal life, and you wish to do this in his presence, you merely need to overload him with carbohydrates after an international flight and then place him in a comfy automobile during a long ride. He’ll fall right asleep, he will. … I wanted to pull Maverick out of the car and leave him on a street corner in the gay prostitute section of Hollywood, but D.Minion said it wouldn’t be nice. … To me, nice seems way overrated sometimes.]
Back at the hotel, there was a wedding celebration going on that had literally taken over the entire hotel. The wedding hadn’t even been had, as it was an Indian wedding and they celebrate the bride and groom meeting each other for three days. [ … after which time, as with all weddings, the groom has certainly been had.]
With my backpack loaded with my cameras and not forgetting the baked beans [naturally], I turned in for the night. I still managed to wake up at 4 a.m. … then 5 a.m. … and then finally at 6 a.m. – before finally getting up for the day. [When Mav let us know about his half-baked baked beans plan, all I had to say was, “You’re carrying your own damned beans around the convention hall, dude.” … Boys will be boys, but you don’t have to make it easy on them. … Next year if he plans on bringing more suspicious-looking gifts through customs, he’s taking a cab ride to the hotel while the rest of us go off to a fancy steak dinner – which for the four of us should cost about as much as that cab ride from LAX to the Valley.]