The weather in West Hollywood was great! There wasn't much rain and the temperature in the winter months while I was there was always in the mid to upper seventies. The people of LA were of all nationalities. Like everywhere else, some of them were friendly and some weren't. It was a totally new experience for me. Just riding on the city bus was an education in itself. Even though everyone was packed in tightly together with people standing up from the front to the back in the middle isle, nobody talked to anybody. Nobody looked at anybody... There were so many weirdo's that no one dared to take a chance at trying to talk with anyone. That was the way it was in the middle of the city on an LA bus. A lot of folks came there from all over the country to make it big with their musical talents, or acting abilities. It looked as though the majority of them didn't succeed and ended up sleeping on sidewalks, especially in doorways of department stores and boutique shops.
The peoples car of LA and West Hollywood was the Mercedes. West Hollywood consisted of artists, would be artists, and actors of all kinds. About the only nice way to describe the cultural tone of West Hollywood that I can think of is that it seemed to be a breeding ground for any particular life-style that isn't socially acceptable anywhere else...
I wasn't unfamiliar with prostitution or rape which I saw in Vietnam, and I wasn't unfamiliar with people living on drugs. Masochism, which I hadn't known to be very common anywhere other than in a private dwelling, was quite common in West Hollywood. Homosexuality was basically the norm. The immorality there exceeded by far, anything I'd ever witnessed in all of my travels. I thought I'd just about seen it all until being stranded there for three months...
I was happy just to have a decent place to stay until I got my bike fixed. My cousin was very gracious and let me stay in a back bedroom of his place for the time it took me to get the finances to fly out. His life-style was basically the opposite of mine, but his house was large enough that we didn't have to bother one another. My mother had always been close to his mother and the rest of the family. His dad was my uncle, my mother's brother, so regardless of our differences, we had a closeness that simply stemmed from pleasant family memories. We were able to have some laughs and a few good times together while I stayed there.
I had disability checks coming in each month from the VA that were supposed to be mailed to me by the friend I'd been seeing for the past few years. She somehow sent them to the wrong address, and so I had to make due without any money coming in whatsoever. Needless to say, it was a very long three months.
I helped him with what ever I could do to earn my keep while staying at his place including, stripping wall paper and painting the inside of his house for a few days. There wasn't much that he needed help with other than doing a little remodeling for him. He wasn't getting a fair shake and I was definitely creating a bit of a burden for him. He went the extra mile for me when he could have said, hit the road...
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