so I have a website now.
http://www.laureldailey.com
So predictable, huh? laurel dailey dot com. It's dot awesome.
check it out.
3.31.2006
click that mouse!
3.28.2006
and 550 more
"Here it comes! Here it comes! Here it comes!" Galloping across the paved trail and shimmying under a fence, we came to rest on a craggy point, a rock wedged into the weathered face of the canyon.
I tugged at my skirt and hunkered down on the very edge of the rock. The air was frigid--among other things I didn't expect--and the wind whipped in fits and starts against anything blocking its path. We were jutted out over the perilous depths of the canyon but from here it felt like flying.
The sun was a shade behind the jagged horizon line, ready to crest the peaks and sting our eyes with its brightness. We crouched. We waited. It was coming, and it was coming fast.
I felt a kind of fever sitting there, everything felt like it was funneling into a mysterious climax, and it was somehow intrinsically tied to the immense void in front of me. Rocks were painted in layers and layers, depicting plains and peaks, depths and crevices that hid a million secrets from a million minds strung out over the void.
The tourists were huddled in little packs, straining against the guardrails on the bludgeoned end of a lookout point. They middled around, snapping photos and chattering their teeth in friendly conversation with the cold. As for us, we climbed over the guardrail and blazed our own trail that ended staring that blazing sun right in the face.
It was a vastness imperceptible to our eyes. It was a flat picture, a movie screen, a painting on a wall. You couldn't see the depth, nor could you separate one peak from its countpart, 14 miles behind it. But you could feel it. Standing there at that guardrail the night before, watching the faded t-shirt bluish sky plunge into inky blackness--a veritable sinkhole, sucking all color, all light, all things with it--I could feel the dizzying vertigo, like something was sucking the very life out of me. That's what it felt like.
It felt like it was moving, but it wasn't. A conductor of energy, frenetic spats and spurts, sustaining an entire nation of tiny shrubs and mangled trees. I thought that if I closed my eyes and opened them again, it would have changed completely. It felt temporal, transient. I realized then that my own frantic, breakneck perception was shorting out under the pressure of this immovable giant. For this I blame the media.
Everyone has something to blame, I suppose. The Grand Canyon has water to blame for its undulating entropic flesh, and I had lack of water to blame for the way my lungs sucked for air in the 6,000+ foot altitude. What I couldn't reconcile, though, is the way human history seemed to reflect itself in the twisting, gnarled trees, in the way birds would float in mid-air, and in the tempestuous switch-backs that snaked down the canyon wall. There are no words for that.
I tugged at my skirt and hunkered down on the very edge of the rock. The air was frigid--among other things I didn't expect--and the wind whipped in fits and starts against anything blocking its path. We were jutted out over the perilous depths of the canyon but from here it felt like flying.
The sun was a shade behind the jagged horizon line, ready to crest the peaks and sting our eyes with its brightness. We crouched. We waited. It was coming, and it was coming fast.
I felt a kind of fever sitting there, everything felt like it was funneling into a mysterious climax, and it was somehow intrinsically tied to the immense void in front of me. Rocks were painted in layers and layers, depicting plains and peaks, depths and crevices that hid a million secrets from a million minds strung out over the void.
The tourists were huddled in little packs, straining against the guardrails on the bludgeoned end of a lookout point. They middled around, snapping photos and chattering their teeth in friendly conversation with the cold. As for us, we climbed over the guardrail and blazed our own trail that ended staring that blazing sun right in the face.
It was a vastness imperceptible to our eyes. It was a flat picture, a movie screen, a painting on a wall. You couldn't see the depth, nor could you separate one peak from its countpart, 14 miles behind it. But you could feel it. Standing there at that guardrail the night before, watching the faded t-shirt bluish sky plunge into inky blackness--a veritable sinkhole, sucking all color, all light, all things with it--I could feel the dizzying vertigo, like something was sucking the very life out of me. That's what it felt like.
It felt like it was moving, but it wasn't. A conductor of energy, frenetic spats and spurts, sustaining an entire nation of tiny shrubs and mangled trees. I thought that if I closed my eyes and opened them again, it would have changed completely. It felt temporal, transient. I realized then that my own frantic, breakneck perception was shorting out under the pressure of this immovable giant. For this I blame the media.
Everyone has something to blame, I suppose. The Grand Canyon has water to blame for its undulating entropic flesh, and I had lack of water to blame for the way my lungs sucked for air in the 6,000+ foot altitude. What I couldn't reconcile, though, is the way human history seemed to reflect itself in the twisting, gnarled trees, in the way birds would float in mid-air, and in the tempestuous switch-backs that snaked down the canyon wall. There are no words for that.
3.21.2006
950 miles
I used to want to live in Celebration, Florida.
In Celebration, Florida the mist rises off the grass in calculated droplets. Every tree has been arranged and planted in a configuration that is not only aesthetically ideal, but also maximizes oxygen production for the residents of Celebration, Florida.
But instead of Celebration, Florida, I moved to LA. For some reason, in my mind the two were one and the same; pretty, upbeat places to work and play. This is because I knew absolutely nothing about LA before I moved here. I think the following observation sums it up:
between 2:28 and 2:38 pm, there were 13 traffic accidents on southland freeways. Six of them occurred within a few miles of each other on highway 118. Like dominos on the vein that skitters across Simi Valley, they went down quickly: 2:36, 2:37, 2:38 (two at that time). It makes me wonder if they were somehow intrinsically linked, or if each and every one was arbitrary and unrelated.
That's how LA is. A series of accidents and collisions that half the population believes is arbitrary and the other half believes is somehow related. For example, LA is constantly reassigning itself into bite-size pieces: neighborhoods that make the unbelievable diversity somehow believable, even palatable. Yesterday it was Silverlake, today it is downtown, tomorrow it will be Cahuenga. Is this transcendental shakedown the effect of the movements and moanings of a native tribe? Or is it the cause of a concerted effort toward a new identity? Again, the opinion is split half-and-half.
This city suffocates. I don't mean in terms of the smog or the pinched bar code of skyscrapers, or even in the precise squirm of traffic. I mean this city has a chokehold on my ideas, constantly spinning my perspective into a honeyed whorl resembling the mean, old sun under which we bake constantly. If I could close my eyes and squeeze out every last fleck of light, as well as any remnant of my LA-mind, when I opened my eyes again...
I'd wake up in the passenger seat, in the morning, as the car speeds on, with the sunlight capping the hills and yesterday's bag of chips serving as a pillow.
It's not advisable to drink from the wanderlust of a thousand discontented souls, but sometimes it's all we can do to survive. To be mentally engaged in the Here and Now is the smart decision, I suppose, but it's also the unavoidable one. If I could block out every last staccato beat of the helicopter's propellor against the sky, I'd emerge from the silence at the Great Divide, crossing that invisible line where the barometer begins to drop and the clouds hang low, drifting slow.
The feeling nags me even as I wander aimlessly over the mysteriously empty countryside. It follows me across, beneath and beyond those hills that look like knit green fabric stretched over a transient grid. I feel guilty because I know I've been conditioned to believe it's easier to dissect what's directly in front of me: those buildings. those thoughts. that predictable pattern.
It's easier to understand that than it is to understand the implications of the neverending ribbon of road that connects wandering patches of farmland, a stitch in time, save for nine palm trees punctuating the horizon--quarter notes and a half-rest. How do you read music like that?
But for now, the sun was judging me only on the length of my shadow and I surmised that maybe that neon perspective isn't so bad, after all. There was chatter today of a road trip to the Grand Canyon. That idea, like our most carefully laid plans, won't likely come to pass. So I'll keep to myself and affix my attention to the anchor of my desk and my computer and the binary code that serves as a reminder that living in LA is probably better than Celebration, Florida, anyway.
In Celebration, Florida the mist rises off the grass in calculated droplets. Every tree has been arranged and planted in a configuration that is not only aesthetically ideal, but also maximizes oxygen production for the residents of Celebration, Florida.
But instead of Celebration, Florida, I moved to LA. For some reason, in my mind the two were one and the same; pretty, upbeat places to work and play. This is because I knew absolutely nothing about LA before I moved here. I think the following observation sums it up:
between 2:28 and 2:38 pm, there were 13 traffic accidents on southland freeways. Six of them occurred within a few miles of each other on highway 118. Like dominos on the vein that skitters across Simi Valley, they went down quickly: 2:36, 2:37, 2:38 (two at that time). It makes me wonder if they were somehow intrinsically linked, or if each and every one was arbitrary and unrelated.
That's how LA is. A series of accidents and collisions that half the population believes is arbitrary and the other half believes is somehow related. For example, LA is constantly reassigning itself into bite-size pieces: neighborhoods that make the unbelievable diversity somehow believable, even palatable. Yesterday it was Silverlake, today it is downtown, tomorrow it will be Cahuenga. Is this transcendental shakedown the effect of the movements and moanings of a native tribe? Or is it the cause of a concerted effort toward a new identity? Again, the opinion is split half-and-half.
This city suffocates. I don't mean in terms of the smog or the pinched bar code of skyscrapers, or even in the precise squirm of traffic. I mean this city has a chokehold on my ideas, constantly spinning my perspective into a honeyed whorl resembling the mean, old sun under which we bake constantly. If I could close my eyes and squeeze out every last fleck of light, as well as any remnant of my LA-mind, when I opened my eyes again...
I'd wake up in the passenger seat, in the morning, as the car speeds on, with the sunlight capping the hills and yesterday's bag of chips serving as a pillow.
It's not advisable to drink from the wanderlust of a thousand discontented souls, but sometimes it's all we can do to survive. To be mentally engaged in the Here and Now is the smart decision, I suppose, but it's also the unavoidable one. If I could block out every last staccato beat of the helicopter's propellor against the sky, I'd emerge from the silence at the Great Divide, crossing that invisible line where the barometer begins to drop and the clouds hang low, drifting slow.
The feeling nags me even as I wander aimlessly over the mysteriously empty countryside. It follows me across, beneath and beyond those hills that look like knit green fabric stretched over a transient grid. I feel guilty because I know I've been conditioned to believe it's easier to dissect what's directly in front of me: those buildings. those thoughts. that predictable pattern.
It's easier to understand that than it is to understand the implications of the neverending ribbon of road that connects wandering patches of farmland, a stitch in time, save for nine palm trees punctuating the horizon--quarter notes and a half-rest. How do you read music like that?
But for now, the sun was judging me only on the length of my shadow and I surmised that maybe that neon perspective isn't so bad, after all. There was chatter today of a road trip to the Grand Canyon. That idea, like our most carefully laid plans, won't likely come to pass. So I'll keep to myself and affix my attention to the anchor of my desk and my computer and the binary code that serves as a reminder that living in LA is probably better than Celebration, Florida, anyway.
3.16.2006
...
To preface this, don't even get me started on the myriad of things wrong with KROQ. I'm just going to say it, because in what follows I must do my best and restrain myself from following that rabbit trail, which would undoubtedly lead to me sobbing uncontrollably while pounding my fists on the floor, so DON'T EVEN LET ME GO THERE, okay?
And let me also preface my preface with this: I don't even know why the following subject should even be given the time of day. I think I'm just bored. So let that be known.
Okay.
In a string of events that may or may not begin with my aforementioned fear and loathing of a certain radio station (that may or may not rhyme with K-ROQ. Or, in fact, may or may not actually just be K-ROQ), and are also directly linked to the fact that I spend at least 2 hours of every day of my life in my car (that's 728 hours, not counting traffic accidents where the average time is exponentially longer, or random road trips where, by virtue of being mostly pleasurable experiences, don't really count as time spent in a car)...
Where was I?
Oh, yes. So in a string of events that I can blame directly on A) traffic and B) K-ROQ, I spend way too much time scanning the radio for tunes to feed my insatiable hunger for the perfect life soundtrack.* For some reason, as I chase those elusive gems all over the radio (the Beatles, the occasional Floyd, anything that reeks of indie-rock arrogance, and, okay, occasionally Kelly Clarkson), I keep running smack into That Kid. That Kid, of course, is the kid in the pool, on the playground, in the street, who--for whatever reason be it unfortunate genetics in the reflexes department, or an over abundance of happy meals, or what have you--is just in your way. You're running, hellbent for Tag! You're It! or Goose! or MarcoPolo! or whatever, and this kid is just clumsily in the way. You collide with a shockingly dense THUD and where you were once flying across the asphalt on your way to playground Victory, you are now a tangled pretzel of skinned knees and bruised egos on the pavement with That Kid.
And okay, I may have been That Kid from time to time, so I can empathize. But still.
In this case, That Kid is the song that you just can't escape. Every station seems to be playing it with irritating frequency, as if the zombie-like radio-listening public morbidly feeds on its sonic waves for survival. And to its credit (and it's a credit of + .00001 on the scale of negative 3,000, mind you), K-ROQ has never played this song. All the same, I'd likely suspect The Rapture as the culprit if I went through an entire day without hearing this song at least three times.
So transport yourself with me, if you're willing (and you've made it this far, haven't you? So you really might as well), to my car. You're in traffic. The cars are inching forward with grating precision (we can't accept defeat and just stop, no, we must press on, even if we are going at a rate of four miles per hour), and you're methodically beating your head against the headrest of your forgiving (and ridiculously hip) Volvo. Sadly, this is real life--the minutiae, the nanoseconds, the overwhelmingly banal everydayness of it all. And over the radio you're aware of the plaintive British whine of James Blunt as he opines, "You're beautiful. You're beautiful, it's true."
If you're anything like me, you roll your eyes and flip the station because, honestly, who pines away like that? It bears about as much resemblance to reality as JLo (circa 2001) reminding us all that she's still Jenny from the Block, but we can't see her because we are momentarily blinded by the colossal glare from her giant diamond bling. (Yeah, I just said 'bling,' I know. I know).
But, what's this? I flip the station and again, there he is! "And I don't know what to doooo, I will never be with youuuu!" Part of me really just wants to buy this guy a drink and pat him on the back.
But here's the thing. James Blunt represents not an entire subculture of Lovelorn Guys Who Just Can't Catch a Break, nor is he the spokesperson for Poetic British White Guys who Spin Perfect Romantic Lyrics Like They Were Grandma's Afghans. No, James Blunt occupies none of these specialized spheres. James Blunt isn't your Everyman. He's not your John Cusak. Or even a poor man's Chris Martin.
And yet, females everywhere (and, I suspect, a few males as well), are clearly lovedrunk on Mr. Blunt's particular brand of lyrical drivel. The reasons behind this are, quite frankly, beyond me, but I can probably trace it back to our culture's insatiable hunger for the never ending orgy of fake love songs currently running wild on the billboard charts. What is it about "My life is brilliant, my love is pure. I saw an angel, Of that I'm sure," that convinces anyone anywhere that this bears even the faintest reflection of reality?
I should note, of course, that I'm not cynical. Because when I blast Mr. Blunt for bearing no resemblance to reality, the reality I'm speaking of isn't a bleak, arid landscape of hopelessness. However, it's not Angels and True Love on (predictably) a Subway, either. And yet I feel the pulse of the public's wounded heart beating fervently in this amorphous, irrelevant fantasyland where lonely British guys are strumming their guitars and writing shallow love songs just for them. My problem with this song (and this could be the whole point of this post, who knows) is that it completely polarizes and simplifies how infinitely nuanced and complicated love (or even like) actually is. When I choke down another tasty morsel of Bluntism in the form of "You're beautiful. You're beautiful. You're beautiful. It's true," I can scarcely handle the overprocessed artlessness of it. On the other hand, attempting to understand the ever-present relevence when E.E. Cummings speaks of 'such small hands,' I am reminded of the delicate distinctions, the layers and layers upon layers of implications that good writing lends to the all-too-real reality of Love. Capital L.
But far be it from me to criticize the public for its deferential acceptance and hopeless embrace of pop-culture Love. My point is this: blast it in your lonely apartments with the vanilla-scented candles burning. Smear the salty tears across your cheek as you weep along in your cars. But don't, for one second, expect that this sort of sentimental fiction is going to be galloping your way any time soon. And if you need (as we all do) to feel the sting of someone else's pain and frustration, at least experience it through the filter of a song whose lyrics are honest. (And if you think I'm stupid enough to offer up my own biased, sentimental and hypocrisy-tinged picks, you've got another thing coming...I may be venting here, but I know when to keep my mouth shut).
But if you're really wondering, I'm listening to Casimir Pulaski Day by Sufjan Stevens.
*I could just burn a whole bunch of CD's and never, ever have to listen to the radio ever again, but this is not a perfect world. Because I could also be superfit and running a 3 hour time in the LA Marathon on saturday, but again...I'm not. This world is not perfect.
And let me also preface my preface with this: I don't even know why the following subject should even be given the time of day. I think I'm just bored. So let that be known.
Okay.
In a string of events that may or may not begin with my aforementioned fear and loathing of a certain radio station (that may or may not rhyme with K-ROQ. Or, in fact, may or may not actually just be K-ROQ), and are also directly linked to the fact that I spend at least 2 hours of every day of my life in my car (that's 728 hours, not counting traffic accidents where the average time is exponentially longer, or random road trips where, by virtue of being mostly pleasurable experiences, don't really count as time spent in a car)...
Where was I?
Oh, yes. So in a string of events that I can blame directly on A) traffic and B) K-ROQ, I spend way too much time scanning the radio for tunes to feed my insatiable hunger for the perfect life soundtrack.* For some reason, as I chase those elusive gems all over the radio (the Beatles, the occasional Floyd, anything that reeks of indie-rock arrogance, and, okay, occasionally Kelly Clarkson), I keep running smack into That Kid. That Kid, of course, is the kid in the pool, on the playground, in the street, who--for whatever reason be it unfortunate genetics in the reflexes department, or an over abundance of happy meals, or what have you--is just in your way. You're running, hellbent for Tag! You're It! or Goose! or MarcoPolo! or whatever, and this kid is just clumsily in the way. You collide with a shockingly dense THUD and where you were once flying across the asphalt on your way to playground Victory, you are now a tangled pretzel of skinned knees and bruised egos on the pavement with That Kid.
And okay, I may have been That Kid from time to time, so I can empathize. But still.
In this case, That Kid is the song that you just can't escape. Every station seems to be playing it with irritating frequency, as if the zombie-like radio-listening public morbidly feeds on its sonic waves for survival. And to its credit (and it's a credit of + .00001 on the scale of negative 3,000, mind you), K-ROQ has never played this song. All the same, I'd likely suspect The Rapture as the culprit if I went through an entire day without hearing this song at least three times.
So transport yourself with me, if you're willing (and you've made it this far, haven't you? So you really might as well), to my car. You're in traffic. The cars are inching forward with grating precision (we can't accept defeat and just stop, no, we must press on, even if we are going at a rate of four miles per hour), and you're methodically beating your head against the headrest of your forgiving (and ridiculously hip) Volvo. Sadly, this is real life--the minutiae, the nanoseconds, the overwhelmingly banal everydayness of it all. And over the radio you're aware of the plaintive British whine of James Blunt as he opines, "You're beautiful. You're beautiful, it's true."
If you're anything like me, you roll your eyes and flip the station because, honestly, who pines away like that? It bears about as much resemblance to reality as JLo (circa 2001) reminding us all that she's still Jenny from the Block, but we can't see her because we are momentarily blinded by the colossal glare from her giant diamond bling. (Yeah, I just said 'bling,' I know. I know).
But, what's this? I flip the station and again, there he is! "And I don't know what to doooo, I will never be with youuuu!" Part of me really just wants to buy this guy a drink and pat him on the back.
But here's the thing. James Blunt represents not an entire subculture of Lovelorn Guys Who Just Can't Catch a Break, nor is he the spokesperson for Poetic British White Guys who Spin Perfect Romantic Lyrics Like They Were Grandma's Afghans. No, James Blunt occupies none of these specialized spheres. James Blunt isn't your Everyman. He's not your John Cusak. Or even a poor man's Chris Martin.
And yet, females everywhere (and, I suspect, a few males as well), are clearly lovedrunk on Mr. Blunt's particular brand of lyrical drivel. The reasons behind this are, quite frankly, beyond me, but I can probably trace it back to our culture's insatiable hunger for the never ending orgy of fake love songs currently running wild on the billboard charts. What is it about "My life is brilliant, my love is pure. I saw an angel, Of that I'm sure," that convinces anyone anywhere that this bears even the faintest reflection of reality?
I should note, of course, that I'm not cynical. Because when I blast Mr. Blunt for bearing no resemblance to reality, the reality I'm speaking of isn't a bleak, arid landscape of hopelessness. However, it's not Angels and True Love on (predictably) a Subway, either. And yet I feel the pulse of the public's wounded heart beating fervently in this amorphous, irrelevant fantasyland where lonely British guys are strumming their guitars and writing shallow love songs just for them. My problem with this song (and this could be the whole point of this post, who knows) is that it completely polarizes and simplifies how infinitely nuanced and complicated love (or even like) actually is. When I choke down another tasty morsel of Bluntism in the form of "You're beautiful. You're beautiful. You're beautiful. It's true," I can scarcely handle the overprocessed artlessness of it. On the other hand, attempting to understand the ever-present relevence when E.E. Cummings speaks of 'such small hands,' I am reminded of the delicate distinctions, the layers and layers upon layers of implications that good writing lends to the all-too-real reality of Love. Capital L.
But far be it from me to criticize the public for its deferential acceptance and hopeless embrace of pop-culture Love. My point is this: blast it in your lonely apartments with the vanilla-scented candles burning. Smear the salty tears across your cheek as you weep along in your cars. But don't, for one second, expect that this sort of sentimental fiction is going to be galloping your way any time soon. And if you need (as we all do) to feel the sting of someone else's pain and frustration, at least experience it through the filter of a song whose lyrics are honest. (And if you think I'm stupid enough to offer up my own biased, sentimental and hypocrisy-tinged picks, you've got another thing coming...I may be venting here, but I know when to keep my mouth shut).
But if you're really wondering, I'm listening to Casimir Pulaski Day by Sufjan Stevens.
*I could just burn a whole bunch of CD's and never, ever have to listen to the radio ever again, but this is not a perfect world. Because I could also be superfit and running a 3 hour time in the LA Marathon on saturday, but again...I'm not. This world is not perfect.
3.08.2006
Spidey sense
Hollywood has its perks.
For one, Hollywood the destination (as in, Melrose, WeHo, NoHo and the like) is chock full of variety to pique even a jaded cynical's waning interest: Trannies and shopping and Swingers, oh my!
By the same token, 'Hollywood' the verb* carries with it the forceful cultural zeitgeist of something we'll refer fondly to in our old age when the new cultural norm has all gone to the pits.**
For me, Hollywood in all its various incarnations has lost its magic. I can trace this disenchantment with the first time I visited Hollywood as a teenager. 'Copters circled overhead. Bums hunkered down over the stars that triumphed the ingenuity of a person's ability to pretend to be someone else. The Chinese Theater was majestic, no doubt, but its majesty was somehow lessened by the gray piss-stained walls of the strip malls and strip clubs that flanked its muscular arms.
Walking down Main St. downtown around 7pm, I was only idly aware of the movie production going on around me. Suddenly emerging from the silly, cluttered Hollywood Brouhaha was a crew member, clutching a headset like it was the Hope Diamond. "You can't walk here!" He announced breathlessly.
Of course not. It's a sidewalk, after all.
Somewhere in the distance, there was a stunt double playing the actor who was playing Spiderman (or Venom, or who even knows, but the costume was black, so jot that down in your geek-books). Swathed in his black spandex, he flipped through the air, gliding on tentacle-like cables. All of this was taking place in the intersection of 4th and Main, which just happens to be one of my favorite intersections in DTLA (that's a nod to Gary Jules, if anyone is paying attention).
Here's the thing with Hollywood types. You have to speak very slowly. You see, they are nervous creatures--always one step lower on the ferocious food chain than they'd like to be, and therefore always answering to (or waiting to be eaten alive by) an over-inflated higher-up who is suffering the same evolutionary Survival of The Fittest complex. Their thoughts flitter about like space ships in a badly produced Lucas film, so you can't make any sudden movements around these Hollywood types, see, or they might die of a brain aneurysm.
"Well where can we walk? We're trying to go around the corner," I explained calmly, pointing (it's always good to use expressive hand gestures. Just don't make eye contact--they see that as a challenge).
"Oh...well...okay, but keep walking, no stopping!" And poof! like a hummingbird drunk on sugar water, he was gone (to, no doubt, wrap Spider-Venom-Stunt-Double in an emergency blanket since it was dipping into the frigid low 60's tonight).
Here's the reason 4th and Main ranks so highly in my mind. You could spend an entire evening in that one single intersection and never have to set foot anywhere near Hollywood (unless, of course, the entire festering swarm of production decides to follow you and infiltrate where you work--see the Mission Impossible III trailer--AND play).
Hence, (and you knew this was coming, didn't you? You were just waiting, tapping your little fingers together and smacking your lips in anticipation)...a list.
I'm titling this one:
How to Dodge the Proverbially Mind-Numbing Bullet of Media Influence.***
1. I've mentioned this place before (predictably on another list, in fact--am I in a rut? Does one have the wherewithal to know when they are in a rut?), but I'll raise my voice to the high heavens and sing to God Himself about this one. Pete's Cafe on the corner of 4th and Main has the most devilishly decadent and delicious death-by-heart-attack-they're-that-bad-for-you-and-yet-oh-so-good Bleu Cheese Fries. All caps. I'd e-shout about it if I didn't think e-shouting was the computer equivalent to selling your soul to the devil.
Although I might consider it if Bleu Cheese Fries were involved.
Yes, they really are that good. Start your night-o-fun at Pete's with Bleu Cheese Fries (can I call them BCF's? Can I go there? I'm going to go there). It's like eating dessert before your meal. Except this isn't dessert, it's salty and smothered in dairy-licious nectar from the gods.
Okay, enough with the celestial analogies. Get thee to Pete's, post haste! (Pete's Cafe, 400 S Main St, 90013)
2. If, after noshing on BCF's, (I know, I purposely structured that sentence so I could insert BCF's in there. Oh, look I did it again) you're not twitching from a food coma, waddle up 4th to Rocket's (The Rocket Pizza Lounge, 122 W 4th St.) and order the BBQ chicken pizza. The decor is swank and dimly lit and the place is usually empty--which means you're in for undivided attention from the waitstaff and a welcome vacation from the LA 'scene.'
3. Over the river and through the woods (or around the corner and down the alley) from Rocket's, Lost Souls Cafe awaits you. Hidden from view at the end of Harlem Place Alley, which is lit by a swag of lights traversing a zig-zag overhead. Inside is the typical coffee fare--ice blended whatevers, steamed soy hoohahs, half-and-half la-dee-dahs. There is live music most nights, or ambient noise provided by the DJ that spins in the corner, as well as plenty of couches to lounge on. (Lost Souls Cafe, 124 W. 4th Street)
4. There will be no clever transition here. I'll get straight to the point, being that scattered on the walls of the loftster-packed Bar 107 (so named for the influx of hipster Loft inhabitants from across the street) are various forms of taxidermy: deer, a moose, and maybe even a jackalope.
Already my soul has found a place to rest in the fantastically kitschy-coolness of any stuffed animal with antlers. Bask in its beady-eyed glow, I tell you! And if that doesn't tweak your inherent love of ephemera, the photobooth waiting in the dark corner of the adjacent dance floor most certainly will.
I should also mention that the DJs spin pretty good dance music here, as my coworker and I both nearly passed out from shear excitement when our current guilty-pleasure obsession blasted in the form of Madonna's "Hung Up." (more on that below)****
Lastly, I fear that perhaps I've lead you all astray in the way I ordered my list (isn't that Cardinal Sin #1 for Listmakers?). I'd probably place the chilled-out atmospheric Lost Souls at the end of the night after a few good hours of rump shaking at Bar 107.
Now that all our ducks are in a row, I trust that next time Hollywood decides to bring its mini-kingdom and superfluous kingdom-politics to your place of work or play, you'll know where to go to get away from it all.
*"That's so Hollywood." Snooty voice. Wrinkled nose. Air of self-importance. Repeat as needed to feel self-actualized.
**Funny how reminiscence basks in its own peculiarly delusional peach glow. When I think of falling down as a child, I remember the feeling of flying down the street, hellbent for an afternoon of Red Rover--and not the sting of ripped pants and flesh.
***Or, "The Fab Four" if you prefer succinctness.
****I would be remiss if I didn't take a moment of pause to laud this song's magically dance-tastic perfection. Surging from the speakers with the force of a disco-revival tidal wave, Madonna delivers what she built her empire upon, and then some: Purely perfect thumping dance-pop.
And hearing this track played in its native environment (as opposed to hearing it from my pathetically tinney ipod headphones) is like seeing a lion and realizing that you're not at the zoo but instead are standing in the middle of the Serengeti next to a limping antelope. I couldn't stop from shaking my hips and shimmying with the best of them, I admit it. My coworker admonished me at the end of the night, in fact, by telling me I'd used up my "dance minutes" and to stop bobbing my head, please.
For one, Hollywood the destination (as in, Melrose, WeHo, NoHo and the like) is chock full of variety to pique even a jaded cynical's waning interest: Trannies and shopping and Swingers, oh my!
By the same token, 'Hollywood' the verb* carries with it the forceful cultural zeitgeist of something we'll refer fondly to in our old age when the new cultural norm has all gone to the pits.**
For me, Hollywood in all its various incarnations has lost its magic. I can trace this disenchantment with the first time I visited Hollywood as a teenager. 'Copters circled overhead. Bums hunkered down over the stars that triumphed the ingenuity of a person's ability to pretend to be someone else. The Chinese Theater was majestic, no doubt, but its majesty was somehow lessened by the gray piss-stained walls of the strip malls and strip clubs that flanked its muscular arms.
Walking down Main St. downtown around 7pm, I was only idly aware of the movie production going on around me. Suddenly emerging from the silly, cluttered Hollywood Brouhaha was a crew member, clutching a headset like it was the Hope Diamond. "You can't walk here!" He announced breathlessly.
Of course not. It's a sidewalk, after all.
Somewhere in the distance, there was a stunt double playing the actor who was playing Spiderman (or Venom, or who even knows, but the costume was black, so jot that down in your geek-books). Swathed in his black spandex, he flipped through the air, gliding on tentacle-like cables. All of this was taking place in the intersection of 4th and Main, which just happens to be one of my favorite intersections in DTLA (that's a nod to Gary Jules, if anyone is paying attention).
Here's the thing with Hollywood types. You have to speak very slowly. You see, they are nervous creatures--always one step lower on the ferocious food chain than they'd like to be, and therefore always answering to (or waiting to be eaten alive by) an over-inflated higher-up who is suffering the same evolutionary Survival of The Fittest complex. Their thoughts flitter about like space ships in a badly produced Lucas film, so you can't make any sudden movements around these Hollywood types, see, or they might die of a brain aneurysm.
"Well where can we walk? We're trying to go around the corner," I explained calmly, pointing (it's always good to use expressive hand gestures. Just don't make eye contact--they see that as a challenge).
"Oh...well...okay, but keep walking, no stopping!" And poof! like a hummingbird drunk on sugar water, he was gone (to, no doubt, wrap Spider-Venom-Stunt-Double in an emergency blanket since it was dipping into the frigid low 60's tonight).
Here's the reason 4th and Main ranks so highly in my mind. You could spend an entire evening in that one single intersection and never have to set foot anywhere near Hollywood (unless, of course, the entire festering swarm of production decides to follow you and infiltrate where you work--see the Mission Impossible III trailer--AND play).
Hence, (and you knew this was coming, didn't you? You were just waiting, tapping your little fingers together and smacking your lips in anticipation)...a list.
I'm titling this one:
How to Dodge the Proverbially Mind-Numbing Bullet of Media Influence.***
1. I've mentioned this place before (predictably on another list, in fact--am I in a rut? Does one have the wherewithal to know when they are in a rut?), but I'll raise my voice to the high heavens and sing to God Himself about this one. Pete's Cafe on the corner of 4th and Main has the most devilishly decadent and delicious death-by-heart-attack-they're-that-bad-for-you-and-yet-oh-so-good Bleu Cheese Fries. All caps. I'd e-shout about it if I didn't think e-shouting was the computer equivalent to selling your soul to the devil.
Although I might consider it if Bleu Cheese Fries were involved.
Yes, they really are that good. Start your night-o-fun at Pete's with Bleu Cheese Fries (can I call them BCF's? Can I go there? I'm going to go there). It's like eating dessert before your meal. Except this isn't dessert, it's salty and smothered in dairy-licious nectar from the gods.
Okay, enough with the celestial analogies. Get thee to Pete's, post haste! (Pete's Cafe, 400 S Main St, 90013)
2. If, after noshing on BCF's, (I know, I purposely structured that sentence so I could insert BCF's in there. Oh, look I did it again) you're not twitching from a food coma, waddle up 4th to Rocket's (The Rocket Pizza Lounge, 122 W 4th St.) and order the BBQ chicken pizza. The decor is swank and dimly lit and the place is usually empty--which means you're in for undivided attention from the waitstaff and a welcome vacation from the LA 'scene.'
3. Over the river and through the woods (or around the corner and down the alley) from Rocket's, Lost Souls Cafe awaits you. Hidden from view at the end of Harlem Place Alley, which is lit by a swag of lights traversing a zig-zag overhead. Inside is the typical coffee fare--ice blended whatevers, steamed soy hoohahs, half-and-half la-dee-dahs. There is live music most nights, or ambient noise provided by the DJ that spins in the corner, as well as plenty of couches to lounge on. (Lost Souls Cafe, 124 W. 4th Street)
4. There will be no clever transition here. I'll get straight to the point, being that scattered on the walls of the loftster-packed Bar 107 (so named for the influx of hipster Loft inhabitants from across the street) are various forms of taxidermy: deer, a moose, and maybe even a jackalope.
Already my soul has found a place to rest in the fantastically kitschy-coolness of any stuffed animal with antlers. Bask in its beady-eyed glow, I tell you! And if that doesn't tweak your inherent love of ephemera, the photobooth waiting in the dark corner of the adjacent dance floor most certainly will.
I should also mention that the DJs spin pretty good dance music here, as my coworker and I both nearly passed out from shear excitement when our current guilty-pleasure obsession blasted in the form of Madonna's "Hung Up." (more on that below)****
Lastly, I fear that perhaps I've lead you all astray in the way I ordered my list (isn't that Cardinal Sin #1 for Listmakers?). I'd probably place the chilled-out atmospheric Lost Souls at the end of the night after a few good hours of rump shaking at Bar 107.
Now that all our ducks are in a row, I trust that next time Hollywood decides to bring its mini-kingdom and superfluous kingdom-politics to your place of work or play, you'll know where to go to get away from it all.
*"That's so Hollywood." Snooty voice. Wrinkled nose. Air of self-importance. Repeat as needed to feel self-actualized.
**Funny how reminiscence basks in its own peculiarly delusional peach glow. When I think of falling down as a child, I remember the feeling of flying down the street, hellbent for an afternoon of Red Rover--and not the sting of ripped pants and flesh.
***Or, "The Fab Four" if you prefer succinctness.
****I would be remiss if I didn't take a moment of pause to laud this song's magically dance-tastic perfection. Surging from the speakers with the force of a disco-revival tidal wave, Madonna delivers what she built her empire upon, and then some: Purely perfect thumping dance-pop.
And hearing this track played in its native environment (as opposed to hearing it from my pathetically tinney ipod headphones) is like seeing a lion and realizing that you're not at the zoo but instead are standing in the middle of the Serengeti next to a limping antelope. I couldn't stop from shaking my hips and shimmying with the best of them, I admit it. My coworker admonished me at the end of the night, in fact, by telling me I'd used up my "dance minutes" and to stop bobbing my head, please.
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