I wasn't looking for trouble. I never am. I am rarely confrontational and never physically so. But at Citywalk, trouble has a way of tracking me down. My intentions for the night were entirely wholesome, even innocent. I wanted to see the new Pixar movie, Ratatouille, so that I could write about it for this column. A quick study of the day's show times reminded me that in greater Los Angeles, Disney allows its films to be shown only at Hollywood's El Capitan, which it owns, and at assorted AMC or Pacific theaters that don't cut into El Capitan's business. Apparently, Universal City's Citywalk is one of those. With its assaultive neon signs, cartoonish chain restaurants and thuggish clientele, it's a venue I've never enjoyed very much. But a new billboard near my house bragged that Citywalk was now better than ever, with Way more NEW. Way MORE to do! as the ad claimed. The time seemed right to give the place another chance. It's not like I'm a gangbanger. I don't seek out fights or even arguments. But what can I tell you?

Citywalk brings it out in me. It seems to bring it out in a lot of people. If Disneyland is known as The Happiest Place on Earth, then Citywalk, surely, is A Place to Scrap.

Citywalk at Universal City. Gotta get my stab on...

So on this night a week ago, I was determined that I was going to get in and out of Citywalk for the first time in years without so much as raising my voice, much less my heart rate, my ire, or my boiling hatred of authoritative stupidity.

If there was a defining moment that gave Citywalk its shady reputation and let troublemakers know that this was the place to be, it was in 1991, before Citywalk was even open (that happened in 1993). Back then, the hilltop overlooking Universal Studios boasted only two hotels, Universal Amphitheater, the theme park and the Cineplex Odeon megaplex (at the time, the largest in the country). The film Boyz N the Hood came out, and on its opening weekend, a gang-related scuffle erupted in one of the theaters. Gunfire and panic sent the patrons running for the street. I know. I was there.

Well, not in the theater. I was living in Hollywood at the time. My roommate and I, broke and with nothing to do, heard about the melee on TV and decided to drive five minutes up the 101 and check it out. All the roads up the hill were blocked by police. But we were undeterred. Getting up that mountain and witnessing some "serious cop shit" became our goal. We slipped into "Commando mode" just like we were fourteen again, terrorizing the neighborhood with bottle rockets. I distinctly remember at one point squatting low and scurrying up a downward moving escalator. We reached the top undetected and made it into the Cineplex building where the last of the moviegoers were leaving their theaters and finding the world's largest megaplex bizarrely empty. Only the Boyz theater had been evacuated, so they had no idea anything had happened.

My roommate found a man who looked in charge--he was in a tie--and plied him for information.

"Excuse me, sir. Some friends of ours were seeing a film here tonight and we wanted to make sure they were all right."

"Let me ask you this," the manager began, his eyes bleary from a rough night. "Are your friends gang members?" My roommate shook his head. "Then your friends are fine."

And so was ushered in a new era in thuggery, or at least a new venue. Westwood, long the local epicenter of weekend shoving and chest-bumping, had lost its appeal as the place to cruise for a fight. I remember a night in Westwood, back in '89, when a car full of menacing young black men lowered a tinted window and asked ominously, "Hey kid, where the skinheads at?" I blurted out that I hadn't seen any and fought off the urge to wet myself, grateful that my Midwestern mullet had just saved my ass.

Universal has its own security guards. But those wide-brimmed Dudley Do-Rights are more ornamental than functional. They are also unarmed, putting them at a severe disadvantage. Real security is subcontracted to the Los Angeles Country Sheriff's Department. Shortly after the Boyz N the Hood fiasco, the Sheriff's department realized the need for a permanent sub-station up at Universal. The special detail assigned to patrol the area operated out of a trailer until a permanent office, complete with holding cell, was opened in 1993. While assaults, weapons charges, and other violent crimes are the main focus, there are plenty of lesser offenses to keep the guys in green busy too. Theft is always a problem. Cars get broken into, purses and wallets disappear and stores get shoplifted.

But with so many overpriced stores filled with garish, useless merchandise, what is there really worth stealing at Citywalk? Imagine getting tossed into Universal's mini-jail for shoplifting from Magnet Max. If that doesn't get you kicked out of the 18th St. Posse or the Rollin' 20s, I don't know what will.

Meet me at Popcornopolis, yo!

Of course gangs are a problem, but let's be realistic. The odds of getting capped in a gang shootout at Citywalk are pretty slim. Most of the people who go there are not criminals. There are tons of families, couples on dates, and countless children frolicking in that stupid fountain every night of the week. The Boyz N the Hood shootings were sixteen years ago. But just the possibility of violence, no matter how remote, tends to get everyone's guard up.

The parking garage especially sees its share of dust-ups. The structure itself is not terribly well designed, which is part of the problem. And after you've shelled out ten bucks for parking you're already amped up enough to lay on the horn at the first asshole in a Hummer H3 who clogs up the traffic flow waiting for a mother to load two kids and a double-wide stroller into her car so he can take up two spots near the escalator. It's all about you, isn't it, buddy? At least turn your goddamn turn signal on so we don't think you're dead up there 'cause that would break my fucking heart! You see? There I go. There's just something about that place.

One night in '95 my friend Mark and I went to a concert at the Universal Amphitheater, which shares the parking garage with Citywalk. As we were waiting in the line of cars to exit the garage after the show, a woman tried aggressively to cut in front of us. Mark honked at her and edged forward to keep her out--a dick move, sure, but she had it coming. The woman slammed on her horn and yelled something through her open window.

My friend's response was a pure dose of knee-jerk, schoolyard nastiness. "Shut up, you four-eyed bitch!"

Her surfer boyfriend was out of her car instantaneously and flip-flopping his way over to us with the single purpose of scraping Mark's face across the pavement. Mark instinctively reached onto the floor of the back seat for his "car weapon," a baseball bat.

For the record: unless you plan to get out of the car and do some damage with the bat, a full-sized Louisville Slugger is a terrible choice of car weapon, because swinging it within the enclosed confines of a Dodge Omni is a geometrical impossibility. Mark got the bat as far as the window when the guy grabbed it. There they were, both gripping the bat, but not much more. Keep in mind, we weren't coming from a Snoop Dog concert or a Metallica gig. It was a Counting Crows show. I sensed the chance to dissipate the situation.

"It's over, dude, just let it go." And he did. He had made his point. He couldn't just sit by and let his woman get disrespected like that; he had to at least make a show of it. But neither man really wanted to kill someone, which, despite what you see in the movies, is what a baseball bat does to you.

It's true that a lot of the people who frequent Citywalk are people you wouldn't let into your home. These are the same people who made going to Raiders games at the Coliseum some of the most frightening experiences of my life. But for the most part, the sensible patron of Citywalk knows whom to avoid and whom not to pick a fight with. But there are those folks who have to deal with the troublemakers--the employees. And they have been poisoned by the hostile environment.

In fact, most of my run-ins at Citywalk have not been with visitors, but with employees. In Part II, we'll look at how a "siege-mentality" ruins things for everyone else. In the meantime, if you find yourself at the Scrappiest Place on Earth, keep your eyes down, your mouth shut, and maybe, just maybe, you'll survive brunch at Bubba Gump Shrimp Company without getting knifed.

To Be Continued...