Summer Drive
05 Sep 2011 Leave a Comment
in Favorite Things, Los Angeles Tags: driving, Los Angeles
the best part about driving in LA
Sunrise
19 Aug 2011 Leave a Comment
in Culture, Los Angeles Tags: dirty gold, Los Angeles, music
Adding to the not so sad anymore theme, I love this song. A lot. I guess it’s still kind of sad, but a really smooth, lovely kind of sad.
Nueva
18 Aug 2011 Leave a Comment
in Culture, Los Angeles, Places I Go Tags: cumbia, dancing, el conjunto nueva ola, la cita, Los Angeles, malabomba, music
I love Los Angeles for nights like last night. Malabomba at La Cita started out my evening with dance music from the Balkans which got everyone shaking things, and slowly but surely there was more cumbia and the cumbia was getting us excited. And then this band started playing. I danced and shook and jumped and spun and must have looked like a maniac. My ears are sore and ringing today. The bassist was strange and fuzzy. Everyone in the place spoke Spanish and could understand what they were spitting out into the microphones. I could not, but who cares. Mexico meets Eastern Europe meets dancing feet in the heart of downtown LA. I could not be happier.
Covell
10 Aug 2011 Leave a Comment
in Los Angeles, Love, Places I Go Tags: beer, date, Los Angeles, wine
I went to Covell on Hollywood the other night on my second date with a doctor I met on the internet. It was lovely, dimly lit, and I had a very nice glass of pinot noir. He had some sort of Austrian beer that had sweet flavor to it.
The date wasn’t bad. He’s a very nice, smart doctor. I’ve never been on a date with a doctor before. I appreciated his droll and dark sense of humor. I found him very handsome. But I guess I don’t feel like I need to go out of my way to see him again.
I do think I’ll go out of my way to have a drink at Covell very soon, though. It’s a fine establishment. Very fine indeed.
Lotus
07 Aug 2011 Leave a Comment
in Los Angeles, Love, Places I Go Tags: buddhism, little tokyo, Los Angeles, love, metro
I met this woman on the train today. The whole exchange reminded me of the way a friend of mine described what it must be like to be me: “you must live in this imaginary world and it must be hard to reign you in sometimes.” I suppose she’s right.
I had an armful of groceries from Marukai market: a bag of rice, somen noodles, miso paste, some bright pink packages of candy for a friend’s birthday. I had decided to catch the train to the market in Little Tokyo from Los Feliz: it would be my Saturday adventure.
As I was walking down the steps to the trains at Union Station, I heard a heavy accent from one of the Metro workers. He was trying to explain to a flustered woman which train to go on, only she was becoming more flustered and confused. The more confused she got, the louder the man spoke. She asked him, “Which train to I get on? The one that comes on the left of the platform or the right?”
“You going to Hollywood? You get on either train! I don’t know which one, it switches! The purple and the red line comes here.”
“So which train? The left or the right?”
“They switch! They switch! Just make sure you get on the one going to Hollywood!”
Earlier in the day, I thought I’d make it part of my adventure to be as kind to as many people as possible. I do that sometimes. With hilarious results, occasionally. Disastrous results on other occasions. It’s all an experiment of mine. I spoke up and I told her that both the red and purple line trains come to either side of the platform, so you just need to look for the signs at the front of the train and make sure to get on the red line. The accented man was annoyed that I’d stepped in, he seemed to be taking some kind of pride in his “ability” to explain things.
The woman breathed a sigh of relief that a calm person was giving her instructions. She walked over and stood next to me, finding a safe place amidst the storm of the Los Angeles Metro. We got to chatting and she revealed that she was visiting Los Angeles to reunite with a sweetheart of hers from when she was twelve. “And after the divorce I just went through after 27 years of a bad marriage, and another painful relationship right after that, I just wasn’t sure I should come. I felt like I needed to heal my heart. But you know, here I am!”
“You only live once,” I concurred. “Go for it!”
She blushed, “He told me it was his birthday wish to see me again. I’m meeting him at Hollywood and Vine.”
We sat next to each other on the train and we chatted about her life and her excitement about seeing this man again. On one hand, I really hoped that it would work out for her, and that she would meet this guy, they would fall in love, and she would find happiness for the rest of her days. On the other hand, I thought, “If this was my mom, I would ask if she had googled him, is she sure he’s a good guy, how many ex-wives has he gone through, does he have any food allergies, all of that. I need to know these things.”
After she’d explained just how excited she was, I put out my hands as if making a very important point, and I said, “Have fun.”
Before I got off at my stop, she told me that one of the greatest things she’d discovered in her life was Buddhism. She gave me a card for a meeting, and it had a website on it. She said that once she discovered Nichiren Buddhism, she saw proof of good things happening to her and she was able to escape a deep depression in her twenties.
I’m a sad person. It doesn’t mean that I’m not kind or self-destructive. I’m just sad. Sometimes I wonder if religion will give me the relief I’m looking for. I hear it often does… maybe it’s worth exploring.
Back in the Swing
17 Jan 2011 Leave a Comment
in Culture, Los Angeles, Places I Go Tags: Los Angeles, shout out louds, synchronicity
Getting ready to go out on the town tonight and this song popped up in my iTunes.
I think there’s something incredibly magical about the way moments just sort of fit together. This song is kind of perfect, the vibe, the rhythm of the way I feel, the conflicted agreement I have with the lyrics. Sometimes I’m driving in my car, and there will be a young man in fancy vintage shoes and skinny jeans walking on the sidewalk next to my car on his way to Starbucks. I’ll look over at him, and watch as his footsteps match each downbeat of the song on the radio. And I’ll grip my steering wheel, amazed, at how synchronous seemingly unrelated events can become.
Tonight I go to Bordello, where I will listen to lovely ladies squeeze their accordions.
Los Angeles: A Love Story
11 Oct 2010 Leave a Comment
in Los Angeles Tags: city life, Los Angeles, love
Every love story starts when two unlikely people meet, often by chance. Typically, it goes like this: Boy meets girl. Boy loses girl. Boy self-flagellates, discovers meaning of life, boy gets girl back. Coitus ensues. Human race continues.
My love story starts with my city. It is the unattainable dream, this place, that makes it so desperately romantic in my eyes. Many people write about falling in love in New York. It’s easy to fall in love there when you’re young and everything is big and new and exciting. Your dreams are spelled out in the concrete, a message in chalk left by an artist for you to discover and take with you for the rest of your life. When I was sixteen, I stood on the sidewalk in SoHo and took a picture of the message written out just for me to find. It said, “LIVE YOUR DREAM.” New York is the icon of dream attainability. The Statue of Liberty lit the way for immigrants hoping for a new and better life, as if to say, “Here is the way! You will find what you are looking for beneath the light of this torch.”
Los Angeles is not such a beacon of hope. People seem to land here because they were hoping for something else. They were hoping for New York, but this is what they ended up with.
I found a way to love it. I love this place. I do. I love it for its grit, its grime, its hollow glamour and its eternal empty promises, a lover who always kisses you like he means it, but is already thinking about his next kiss with someone else, someone better. I love it because it is constantly reinventing itself as a potential bastion of culture and identity, but doesn’t seem to succeed with the authenticity it had hoped for. It is well meaning, but loves itself too much to pay much attention to the areas that need improvement.
Los Angeles is a character in my life’s novel, it is the Humphrey Bogart of cities. Sad, handsome, desperate to find love and validation, but only finds it when it has to let it go. Los Angeles is what it lacks, not what gives it integrity. Not a lot of people think about it as a contributor to culture, as much as it’s a suck on humanity, attracting fruits, crazies, gangsters and vulnerable, superficial women.
Los Angeles was my second choice, but I was woo’d by this intangible sadness that I tend to find attractive in men, also. The unattainable dream factor. Something always to chase. That means that I’m also the type of person that doesn’t really like commitment. I don’t value what is stable as much as I value what is exciting. Otherwise, I would leave, move to a small town where everyone likes me, get married to a providing sort of man that lacks a lot of passion, and sleep comfortably in my bed, without ever questioning a thing.
I love it here for the smoggy sunsets, the beautiful miserable, the hopeful broken. The oxymoronic nature of the city that loves ton save trees as much as it loves big, fast cars. I love the dichotomies and I love the weather.
Come for a visit. Stay a while. Get your nails done. Have brunch. You may see what I mean after all…
Hawaii for the Holidays & Why I Love LA
28 Dec 2009 Leave a Comment
in Places I Go Tags: family, food, hawaii, Los Angeles
I find myself in Hawaii, where I was raised, for this holiday season. Boy did I get the bum end of the stick. Let me tell you about some of the horrible things I’ve been subjected to while I’ve been here.
First of all, the weather is perfect. Isn’t that just miserable? Believe me, you’re not missing out on anything here. The sun has been shining since the morning after my plane landed. Might I add that my plane was loaded chock full of attractive, single men – I’m assuming they were surfers here for the monster swell. I asked my mom when she picked me up if Hawaiians are ordering up young Caucasian stallions like mail order brides.
On Christmas Eve, my family had a big potluck dinner. It was a spread that stretched 20 feet long, and included several different fish dishes (I come from a family of fishermen). A lot of family members from my generation have started to settle down and have babies. There were newborns and toddlers giggling and cooing all over the place. An uncle had dressed up as Santa Claus and passed out gifts to all the kids. One little girl, wearing a red velveteen jumper dress fell in love with Santa Claus. She was positively enthralled by his presence. All of those joyful children, and all of that seafood filling my belly on a balmy Christmas Eve… GROSS!
Brace yourself: Christmas day gets ugly. It began with opening presents with grandma and mom. Then we went to church at an historic Episcopalian chapel that has been standing for more than a hundred years. It was a warm, sunny day and the surf was still pounding at the beach, so mom and I went to watch the waves that were pounding the north facing shores of all islands. There was a gorgeous stand up surfer with a long board and a paddle that was taking a serious beating out in the big surf. He just kept getting back up, all for the sake of some sweet rides. At the end of the day, my hair was wild from the salt air and sand had found its way into the deepest recesses of my scalp. Annoying, right? I told you it wasn’t going to be pretty.
Yesterday, I signed up for a set of classes at the Yoga Center up the street from my grandmother’s house. For an hour and a half, I chanted and stretched my body into nothing but the restorative poses of the Iyengar practice. Seriously guys? Only restorative? How about a little variety, huh? Way to blow it.
All of this just reminds me of why I love living in LA. Wait, what? What am I doing there? All things considered, moving back home may just be the answer to all my problems. If only the Fates would bestow upon me one opportunity to meet a pro-surfer while I’m here on vacation and get knocked up with his baby before I leave. But then, of course, I’d have to kiss all those dreams of fame and fortune goodbye. My life as an aspiring writer and vibrant Angeleno would go right out the window. But who needs all of that when you’ve got an endless supply of beach days and spam musubi’s at your disposal? Oh, decisions, decisions.
Originally posted here.
A Love Letter To The Folks I Meet In Los Angeles
28 Dec 2009 Leave a Comment
in Los Angeles Tags: adventure, Los Angeles, people watching
After reading this post, I felt the need to write a similar letter, considering I’ve been running into such interesting characters recently. Maybe it’s because I’ve been hanging out with a friend of mine from Chicago and through her curious and open eyes, it’s easier to remember the things that I absolutely love about living here.
Dear Mr. Homeless Person Talking to a Lamp Post on Cahuenga on my way to Cinespace: I’ve seen other people talk to inanimate objects before, but it always seemed like they’d reached a breaking point with their psychoses before an argument began. You, however, seemed to be having a very peaceful conversation with your lamp post, like you had accepted the weirdness of your brain and made peace with it. Who am I to say that the lamp post wasn’t responding just because I can’t understand the language that you’re both speaking?
Dear Teenage Spoken Word Poet at the Greenway Court Theatre: I love how much you love yourself. You rock a pair of plastic yellow Ray Bans like no one has ever rocked a pair of yellow Ray Bans before. The amount of swagger you’ve got tells me that you can’t be older than 18. As the years go by, that self-assuredness slips away from most folks, but hopefully it won’t slip away from you. You go ahead with your bad self, girl. You speak your poetry like it’s the dopest thing ever to have been bestowed unto mankind.
Dear Mr. Peacoat at the Cha Cha Lounge. For a straight man, you had the most delicious style. You awkwardly asked me for my number, but never called. It was probably because we met each other 10 minutes before the bar closed and that’s always an awkward moment to meet anyone. I didn’t get to ask you what you did for a living, but I’ll go on imagining that you’re writing a novel somewhere with influences rooted in Jungian philosophy and/or Nitzche.
Dear Actor guy from the Milk Commercials. You’re in a band aren’t you? Yeah, I think you’re in one of the bands that plays at Spaceland with a friend of mine. I see you all the time walking down the street in Los Feliz, but I never have the guts to say hi. I also think we went to college together, but now that you’re in those Milk Commercials, that’s all I can see. It’s really your mustache that does it. You’re like Tom Selleck meets Frank Zappa only blonde.
Dear Asian Man with the PitBull on 5th and Main. You don’t look so tough, I’m not gonna lie. If you didn’t have your dog with you, I’d probably want to mug you because you had a pretty expensive looking jacket on. But your beautiful pitbull puppy reminded me not to fuck with you. Not that the pitbull was so scary looking or anything, it’s just that beneath those doe-eyes I know that it’s still a pitbull. Maybe that’s indicative of who you are. Maybe you look one way on the outside, but you could really tear a bitch apart.
Dear Couple Making Out at the Downtown Art Walk: Half of me is saying, “Seriously?” The other half of me is saying, “I guess all you really need is Love.” I mean, messy PDAs aren’t so fun to watch, but they sure are fun to be a part of, am I right?
Dear Lesbian Woman Who Drew A Moustache Onto Your Upper Lip: “AWESOME!”
Originally posted here.
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