Moral Turpitude

Moral Turpitude arrived by train at Union Station, downtown Los Angeles, feeling hungover, exhausted and pretty much ready for the flight home. However, they still had six days to survive in one of the most dangerous cities in America.

Their first stop was the township made infamous in song by Dr Dre:

“Yeah, Inglewood…
Inglewood always up to no good.”

The boys had mentioned to the girls who they had befriended on the train that they were to be staying in Inglewood and the girls’ shocked expressions, coupled with passionate exhortations for the boys to reconsider, played upon Nick, Pete and Doug’s minds. But no matter, this was an adventure and there was nothing for it but to brave the ‘hood with chests inflated and chins up.

The metro ticket seller at Union Station was not very good at his job. Upon being asked for three tickets to LAX airport (near to Inglewood), he simply said “no”. It was his opinion that we would not make it alive and that we should instead take the express bus to the airport. This concerned the boys even more but we were assured by Doug’s friend Ashley, who we were to be staying with, that there were very few shootings in her neighbourhood and that most of them were gang-related.

This cheered the boys up no end and they hopped onto the bus light of heart, with hardly a care in the world. Inglewood itself failed to live up to its reputation. The boys never got up to “no good”, nor did they see anyone else attempting to achieve this. In fact, it seemed to be a relatively typical area of LA, sprawling into the distance, with wide streets, far too many cars and liquor stores on every block.

The next day the boys made a well deserved visit to Venice Beach, where they could relax, free from the worry of being in one of the most notorious gangland areas of LA. Here Doug learned how to play ’60 seconds’, a game every good English schoolboy (mis)spent their childhood perfecting. Having been hit in the face, stubbed three toes and taken a thunderous Troen volley to the balls, Doug decried this “wretched” game and declined to play any longer, even going as far as to refuse to have the football anywhere near him.

That afternoon, with Doug still waiting for one of his balls to drop back down, MT arrived at Santa Monica. They were staying in a one bedroom flat with Nick’s friend-from-home Kate. This was to be a tight squeeze, made even tighter by the presence of the two Ollys, also friends of Kate, who had apparently been insisting for the last two weeks that they were soon to be moving on. So it happened that five boys were to be living in the poor girl’s living room for the night.

A good evening of bonding over gin-and-tonics was soon under way and pretty soon MT’s number was increased to 5 (the largest yet) as Olly and Olly agreed to join the other three in their trip to the OC on the morrow. This was especially good news as the Ollys in fact had a car, and so MT’s road trip was to be resumed once again after the train hiatus. After this was arranged, and with everybody enjoying themselves thoroughly, Nick decided that not enough carnage had been created and that he needed to try to ruin the night for someone. So he did a cluster bomb.

He claims to have done it because he thought that the barman was looking at him funny and that he wanted to show said barman that he was a man and could drink lots. I will allow you to decide for yourselves whether or not you think that this was a good reason or not; I will, however, describe the consequences of Nick downing a pint of white wine with four shots of tequila in it (he did four instead of the usual three because an American pint is slightly smaller that a British one).

Nick sat down and claimed to be fine. He then got up and began to sway. He stumbled forward and fell over. He went to the bar and ordered a glass of water. He crashed around some more and then sat down and promptly fell asleep. He was then asked to leave the bar as it was closing. Half-an-hour later he finally left the bar, supported by Doug. He then walked home slowly, pausing to lie on the pavement or to run into the road in front of cars. He then lay down in front of the apartment and refused to move any more despite Doug’s exhortations. Doug then carried him upstairs. Nick then woke up, shouted “There are no girls here Kate, this just won’t do” and then passed out for good.

In the morning, the Ladmiral returned from the lair of a Californian Cougar to find Nick still pissed off his face and abusive. Breakfast was needed and a suitable pancake house was found. After eating, the entire party, having just seen Super Troopers, turned the most enormous peer pressure on to try to get the Ladmiral to down a pint of maple syrup. Now the Ladmiral is strong-willed, but when his manliness is brought into question any other considerations go out the window so he downed it and felt sick for the next 6 hours (video to follow).

With the Ladmiral feeling decidedly under-the-weather, MT set off on the road once again. The prospect of going to the OC fair and then onto an American ‘white trash’ themed house party was terribly exciting. Upon arrival, the wonderfully named Jessica Timberlake met the 5 boys with great warmth and enthusiasm. They set off for the OC fair where they went on some real carnival rides and saw a giant horse with an even more giant knob.

The people at the white trash party were so in character that the English boys were unsure as to whether they were putting it on at all. On reflection MT are pretty sure that there was no theme at all and that they were in fact at a white trash party. The boys headed home after a good night out, the eager Jessica making at least two of them feel very at home in Orange County!