Coastal Traveler - Fall 2008 - (Page 68)

The scoop on valet parking dings, drugs & shin splints By Jonah Lamb The huge awning outside of the Beverly Hills Hotel casts a broad shadow onto the hot pavement of Los Angeles. Within this block of shade, three black limos line up like long ink blots, soaking up the light. Hovering around each vehicle is one of the hotel’s five valets. In red coats and tan T-shirts, their movements are a frantic dance: sneakers squeaking across pavement, keys jingling, engines groaning, tires crunching at the loose ground and bills crinkling from palm to palm. It is the audible register of valet parking. There is also an aroma: leather interiors, tropical air freshener, marijuana and a strange smell of rot from between the seats. And of course, there is the upturned nose, the blank stare, the nod and the smile. This is the texture of daily life for the people who work, as one valet dubbed it, in the business of “glorified human herding.” Dave Kirkpatrick doesn’t drive a Maserati, so when he first climbed into one, he was understandably nervous. Not only because the car cost over $100,000, which was four times a valet’s annual income at the Beverly Hilton, but also because of the Maserati’s delicate transmission. All he had to do was move the car several hundred feet, but to him the car was like a spacecraft. He didn’t know what to do with the stick shift. Kirkpatrick managed to steer the car into the parking lot, but at that point he had to call for help. “These cars used to scare me,” he acknowledged, rocking on his heels as cars rolled past him into the hotel’s circular drive. Old Porsches, he said, have touchy transmissions. BMWs sometimes have such difficult clutches that they resemble a joystick; all you do is “kind of pop them into gear.” “I had a few accidents at first,” he said. “I’d get jumpy.” The valet key is made expressly for its namesake; it opens the doors and turns on the car. It does not open the glove box, nor does it open the trunk. It is the symbol of the enormous mistrust that car owners feel toward the people to whom they hand over their automobiles. “The common misconception is pretty much what you see in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” one valet told me. A central part of the film revolves around a red 1961 Ferrari GT California. Bueller convinces his best friend to take his father’s car to Chicago for the day and leave it with a valet. As soon as Bueller and friends leave, the Ferrari rolls out of the lot with the valet at the wheel. The next thing we see is the car in slow-motion as it launches off a rise and flies through the air. Despite bad press and lasting stereotypes, a glimpse into the world of valet parking opens a portal into the relationship between people and their cars. In a country in which car culture represents so much, it’s no surprise that peering into others’ cars approximates peering into others’ souls. Symbols of sexuality and power, cars—especially sports cars—have always held a primary place in modern American culture. The car to modern America is what the horse was to the Wild West. What is the cowboy without his steed? Cars 68 coastaltraveler fall

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Coastal Traveler - Fall 2008

Coastal Traveler - Fall 2008 Contents Coastal Connoisseur Coastal Picks Coastal Flyer Coastal Driver Coastal Eco Coastal Sociologist Coastal Biker Coastal Snaps Coastal Valet San Diego La Jolla Laguna Beach Malibu Santa Barbara San Luis Obispo Big Sur Carmel Monterey Santa Cruz San Francisco Sausalito Mill Valley Stinson Beach Bolinas Sebastopol Olema Point Reyes Station Fairfax Inverness Marshall, Tomales Petaluma Sonoma Coast Redwood Coast

Coastal Traveler - Fall 2008

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