Los Angeles - DMW cut out of work early on Friday to go check out the scene and queue up at an AT&T Store in L.A.'s Koreatown for the iPhone. After the jump: The full story, including a DMW Interview with 14-year-old Darren Rankins, who arrived at 3:00 a.m. on Friday to be the first in line.

3:00 a.m., Friday, June 29

Darren Rankins, 14, of Lancaster, Calif. arrives at the AT&T Store on the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Western Avenue in Los Angeles' Koreatown neighborhood, and finds himself the first to arrive at the store before the release of Apple's iPhone. The doors are scheduled to open fifteen hours later at 6 p.m. The city has a decent number of AT&T stores, and several Apple stores as well, but Apple was impeccably tight-lipped about just how many iPhones were being shipped for launch, let alone how many would be allocated to each store, so the faithful and the enterprising alike dutifully showed up early -- some days earlier, at other stores in several U.S. cities.


1:40 p.m.

This particular AT&T Store was unassumingly situated in a storefront at an L.A. landmark, the striking 12-story Pellissier Building, a blue-green, terra cotta Art Deco structure that also houses the historic Wiltern Theatre (so named for its situation on the corner of Wilshire and Western). This was also the first store on my list of iPhone locations to check out, once I was able to get away from work and go jump in line somewhere at around 1:40 p.m. Not only for its relative obscurity in relation to the Apple stores in Hollywood and Century City, where hundreds were massing, but also for the rather convenient coincidence that I also had tickets to see Grizzly Bear and Feist right there at the Wiltern on Friday night. One flat fee to park for most of the day and night, with such easy access to both events, in a location without much parking aside from 2-hour meters, constituted a perfect storm of traffic aversion and discounted parking that could not be missed.

Shortly after I sat down in my camping chair, the 30th person to arrive in line -- thankfully still close enough to be shaded by the narrow awning of the building on an 82-degree, sunny day -- and dug into my lunch, a young woman in her twenties wearing a black dress and aviator shades walked up to me and asked what we were in line for.

I had just taken an enormous bite of my dry, mediocre turkey sandwich on an enormous bun purchased at Ralph's on my way to the line, and knew that if I had opened my mouth at that moment, all that would have emerged was an excited, "Off-arrgph." The guy next to me engrossed in his Nintendo DS did not chime in to help, so I tried to pantomime it, as if she would understand if I just put one hand out, tapped on the invisible touchscreen with my other hand's index finger, and held it to my ear like a phone. The girl still looked puzzled, so I gave the international "Sorry, I'm chewing" gesture and the mystery lingered in the air for a couple more seconds, before the guy playing Nintendo blurted out "iPhone" without looking up from his game.

"Ohhh," the girl said, not quite condescendingly, I don't think, before turning and walking into the door of Opus, a restaurant next door.


1:55 p.m.

The 31st person in line shows up behind me. Monica Ceja, 26, is originally from Michoacan, Mexico, but lives now in Beverly Hills and has just arrived from Long Beach, where she was doing field work for her Master's in early childhood Special Education. Ms. Ceja has been kind enough to arrange getting off early to come wait in line for her boyfriend, Ethan, who showed up several hours later.

The near-continuous rumble of double-long buses along Wilshire Boulevard, a pair of them stopping every four minutes directly in front of us on their way downtown, creates a din above the conversation of those in line. Some are chatting, some are texting away on their (inferior) phones, some read books, and the guy next to me has found another guy down the line who also has a DS, and in a snap they are engaged in combat over the ether.


2:00 p.m.

A film crew consisting of two guys in purple polo shirts gets up from the middle of the line to interview fellow line-standers. Turns out they are from TriggerStreet.com, actor Kevin Spacey's online film site, and have been producing a video blog leading up to the iPhone launch.

2:15 p.m.

A thirty-something man walks up to the end of the line, asks myself and Ms. Ceja, "Is there a list?" (We don't know.) He says he'll be right back, and soon emerges from the store with a yellow legal pad and post-it notes, and begins gathering signatures of those assembled and doling out numbered post-its -- in case someone has to go to the bathroom, etc., he says.

Josh Krane, 32, of Los Angeles, had just done the same thing at an AT&T Store down the street, where he was #82 in that line. Mr. Krane also happens to be part of a video blog crew, for G4TV.com's "The Feed." He takes his considerably more appealing place as #32 in our line.


2:30 p.m.

The media mini-circus continues. Gary Leonard, a veteran L.A. photojournalist whose weekly photo-column "Take My Picture, Gary Leonard" appears in the alternative newsweekly Los Angeles CityBeat, shows up to snap some shots of us. Leonard was also among the parade of gubernatorial candidates in California in 1994's recall election -- along with the likes of child star Gary Coleman, Hustler publisher Larry Flynt and adult film star Mary Carey -- that eventually installed current the state's current governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger. From here, Leonard will head over to the Apple Store at The Grove shopping center in Hollywood.


3:00 p.m.

The DMW Interview with 14-year-old Darren Rankins, aka #1 in line. Rankins had arrived at the store 12 hours earlier, and was joined by three compatriots with matching shaded lawn chairs. One of them, 33-year-old Chigaru Gooden, dubs the group the "iFour."