So, my Hummer mates are black, their car dances with the bass, it’s only 5pm. Some of my best friends are white.
They track me back to the Harley depot, I ask them to shot their guns in the air because I’ve ridden 600 miles in 36 hours. Just for me, dudes.
it wasn’t a very clever thing to say, almost blew it. Got it back over a cigarette and a story about the bass player in an acid jazz band, a man who i’d never met, but had taken my previous girl from me. As a mate, who also cut her hair, told me in Nepal… ‘Monty, you’ve got fuck-all, he had a speeedboat”. Yeah, fair enough.
So, me and my mates leave as friends. `i made my last gag about the Ouuzi, nah, still mot good. But I have the Harley back, it’s a bit dirty, but I get most of my deposit back, so `i have cash. i ring up Amy, she says to come round, I can stay there.
BUT FIRST.
I have to go to DAn Tana’s restaurant in West Hollywood. he used to be the chairman of Brentford FC, my team. The Observer Spots magazine had Cameron Diaz looking sexy on the cover with a SPEECH BUBBLE in her mouth saying’ there’s something about Brentford’…. I still have that magazine.
So, the article says that Drew Barrymore, Jack Nicholson, James Woods (James fucking Woods!), Beniciio Del Toro, the aforesaid Diaz and another famous actor who I can’t remember are all Brenford fans. So, I go to Dan Tana’s from the Harley hire shop to see IF THIS IS TRUE.
Being next to Compton, it’s not easy to get a cab, being America if you are on the street, you have zero chance of being picked up unless you hitch-hike and then speak loud monkey, but I got a cab in the end.
I arrived at Dan Tana’s. i ordered lobster and champagne because I hadn’t reckoned on getting the deposit back on the bike, but it’s true, this restaurant has EIGHT-FOOT pictures in black-amd-white of Brentford’s 1978 promotion-winning team.
(Two years later I went back to this restaurant with Microsoft and my new company and was praised by Drew Barrymore for my ‘sweater’ and kissed on the cheek by her, but THAT, motherfuckers, is another story). Brentwood, you sllaaaaaggg? BRENT – FORD.
So, I have my fill and get a cab to Amy’s gaff. She’s a nice girl, her friends are wankers, no interest in anything else apart from a very big TV in somebody’s house. They smoke big bongs, they are very beautiful but I’v done 600 miles in 36 hours and they can fuck right off… I’m the cool dude.
We go to the Disney party, everybody was dressed from Star Wars, I wanted to drink as much as I could for the day red-eye to London via St Louis. I was missing my wife and nine-month-old son, I figured he’d be proud of me i the future for living my Easy Rider/Dylan/Brentford dream, but he’s ten-years-old now and supports Chelses, so i fucked up somehow.
I remember walking downhill to what I thought wss the main drag, drunkish, struggling with my laptop and bag, wishing i’d got a cab from the party. Again, i got a cab in the end and got the plane to Saint Louis. I didn’t sleep on that flight or the ensuing one to London.
I was never going to go to sleep, because I’d had an American adventure. I’d been to Vegas for the first time, I got lost in the Mojave Desert, I hung out with Harley Hogs, I’d been caught up in a forest fire, I’d been to the world’s biggest horserace (lost money), met bad boys in Compton, had laid the framework to talk to Drew Barrymore tow years later, I’d seen the Hoover Dam, had got my biking reputation back, had done those 600 miles and I came home to my family, stinking a bit of Califorinia, but, by fuck, it was a really, really benign and memorable adventure.
It still is…
Monty Munford has more than 15 years' experience in mobile, digital media, web and journalism. He is the founder of Mob76, a company that helps tech companies raise money and exit. He speaks regularly at global media events with a focus on Africa, writes a weekly column for The Telegraph, is a regular contributor to The Economist, Wired, Mashable and speaks regularly on the BBC World Service.
