Monday , November 16, 2009
Best of Five: LA/CA VIA LJ
To call Los Angeles a CITY is a stretch; I think it is way apt-er to simply call it a PLACE. New York and Toronto and Boston and Chicago and Paris are cities: grey-ey, jam-packed, sardine-style urbantropolises, locales wherein you walk out your (or somebody else's) front door and are immediately bombarded with approx. seven trillion cafes, twelve H&Ms, thirty bars, around nine hundred Starbuxxxes and maybe nine hundred-and-ten crappy Japanese restaurants. Maybe there is some neighbourhood of Los Angeles that feels like that (like, where Ari Gold works?), but if there is, I didn't go there, and I never felt it. I felt a lot of things, but one thing I can safely say I never felt was like I was in A City.
Now that all is said and done, I did it, and thusly can officially say: LJ LOVES L.A. Los Angeles is at once weird, tough, hazy, magickal, flighty, and totally badass. Los Angeles is not a city; LA is a Place, or, maybe it'd way apt-er to say that LA is A Hundred Places. I spent a scant nine day in Shangri-L.A; over the course of those nine days, I lived a hundred lives. I sat atop Laurel Canyon and told a camera how to live its life. I got stoned with a beyond-adorable green-hoodied so-so-SoCal dude in Silver Lake, staring dumbfounded at fairy lights and types of trees I've never seen before. I lived on a boat and I tried on complexgeometries at Creatures of Comfort. I drank wine and I drank Corona and I drank Boone's (hells yeah, boy!). I charmed the Madden brothers (for reals!); I rode a grimy-as-Helter-Skelter city bus through parts of town that made Bushwick look like the goddamned Ritz. I stuck my shoes in Cary Grant's footprints and bought new shoes and killed my feet and shopped 'til I dropped and dropped 'til I shopped.
I came to L.A. for a lot of reasons, but the best reason to go to a place is, in my opinion, as follows: I wanted the shit of it to get shook up, and it did. I grew and I changed. I did a lot of somethings, which, as always, is a whole lot better than a lot of nothings, or even just one (nothing).
Au revoir, my sweet L.A. See you soon I hope!!!!
LJ'S TAKE-AGE OF LA: IT WAS THE BEST (OF FIVE) OF TIMES:
The best things in life are always happenstancical. You can be your silly little self, sitting in your icy-cold Toronto bedroom a week before flying to Los Angeles, imagining how great it'll be to go to all your best friends' and/or John Lennon's favourite bars- they all ended up being pretty great, of course- but, in the end, nothing beats chancing upon some place really adorable and magical that you had no idea existed. That was Froma for me. Froma is a nookish, teeny-tiny Franco-Italo bistro/cafe/wine bar/food shop conveniently located across the street from Creatures of Comfort. Right after my jaunt to C of C- and right before celeb-spotting Ryan Phillipe (sans his little bitch daughter) at the Santa Monica Boulevard Whole Foods- I sat at a barstool by the Froma window, gazing out at palm tree-y hills against a pink, orange and black sunset, reading John Lennon: The Life, and sipping at a glass of the most delicious white wine I ever did drunked. Then I walked up Fairfax Avenue (only the tiniest, sweetest bit tipsy) and took the #704 bus up to Sunset Boulevard en route to Chez Liz Barker, which dropped me off at the corner of Alvarado Street, at the precise location of...
The Burrito King, and its precious logo! I never actually ate at Burrito King, and probably wouldn't, because it looks kind of gross. BUT: if I were one of those people who has like eighteen trillion hundred tattoos and will get pretty much anything inked permanently on their body forever, I obvsduh would've gotten a tattoo of this sassy lil' snookums to commemorate my legendary take-age of L.A. This is my favourite logo of all time, I think- I'm pretty sure it was designed by Paul Rand in secret. It's probable.
My favourite thing about this logo, besides everything about it, is how it reminds you that the word "burrito" means "little donkey" in Mexican, I mean Spanish (ha ha ha!). It also reminds you that baby animals are cute, and that you are five minutes away from Chez Liz Barker. Which are always good things to be reminded of, LA-style.
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On the one hand, I consider it highly tragic that I do not live in Los Angeles, California, and therefore cannot attend The Melrose Trading Post every single Sunday of my life. On the other hand, I think that if I lived in LA and actually did attend the Melrose Trading Post every Sunday, my life would become a literal (as opposed to facetious) tragedy, because I would spend every last penny I earned there, and then would lose my home and die of starvation, which would suck for both me and my loved ones.
The Melrose Trading Post is a big open-air market with tons of stalls selling (relatively) affordable vintage clothing, knick-knacks, crap, head shop-style hippie shit, antiques, and all that kinda good stuff that makes life worth living. However, when I talk about My New Favourite Store In The World, I am referring to one particular corner of the Trading Post, pictured at right. This stall consists of a bunch of glass cases, which store countless weird relics from the past: baby spoons, bottle openers, old family photographs, baubles, keys, cutlery, etc etc forevs; its wares are pretty much an olio of everything forgotten and left behind from the entire 20th century.
This stall is owned by a possibly-crazy but totally-rad old man who wears a fishing cap. I found myself fascinated with a little dime bank advertising the US Capitol from the 1940s or 50s (you put in a dime, the bank locks itself, and then opens up when you've filled it with $5 worth of dimes). I asked the dude about it, and he said "It's from a time when money was worth something." That statement was poignant and hit me in the heart, and I told him so. In return, he gave me a free brooch of a naked woman holding a heart ("for being so nice"). My eyes teared up; it was an unforgettable moment. This is why I love vintage so much! It's the midpoint between destiny and capitalism.
Not since Harry Nilsson and John Lennon Lost Weekend-ed it up in the mid-1970s has Los Angeles experienced a drunken duo so utterly bewitching, fascinating, boisterous and well-dressed as Laura Jane Faulds and Elizabeth Barker. It was ridiculous, yo; dudes actually fainted, had brain aneurysms and occasionally even died when we walked into bars and shit. We felt sort of bad, but, like, whatevs: obvsduh bros were just Not Dude Enough For Us. Howevs, the best part about Getting Drunk With Elizabeth Barker is that, post-going out and dude-killing the town red, the twos of us could go back to her place, drink a bottle of Strawberry Hill Boone's Farm, and totally BFF/ngfm out all night long! PAAAAARRRTYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!
It is so obvious to me that I would be a way happier human being if my life took place amid the plentiful, bizarre and, um, jolie-laide vegetation that makes its home in Los Angeles, California. When I arrived at LAX, met up with Emmers, walked outside and saw PALM TREES, I nearly had a coronary (sort of like the dudes that freaked out and Liz & I's hotness later that week). I mean, I knew there were going to be palm trees in LA, but, like, whoa, bro! Palm trees! PALM TREES! Imagine spending you life beneath PALM TREES, as opposed to spending your life beneath falling flakes of dumb ice that annoy you and make you shiver! What a wonderful world that would be.
Tags: alcoholism, baby animals, Burrito King logo, Creatures of Comfort, Emily Richmond, Froma, Harry Nilsson, John Lennon, Laura Jane Faulds, Liz Barker, LJ TAKES LA, Los Angeles, palm trees, Pillz the Cat, vintage
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3 Comments!!
Say something so insightful and witty, it will blow us away. (No pressure.)
Got something to say? We'd love to hear it! Name, email and "type in the weirdo drunken text" thingie are all required to comment; don't worry, we won't email you or anything, we just want to make sure you're not an evil spambot. Keeping in mind the good-times mentality we like to keep going here, we've worked hard to keep NOGOODFORME.COM as fun as possible. We welcome all kinds of comments, but insults/abuse/general bitchery are not tolerated. In other words, we put the smackdown on evil troll posts. If you want to be a hater, please go elsewhere. Now, as Salt 'N Pepa say, "Only the sexy people..."
i'm so excited to try froma! and i added a tag for 'pillz the cat' on this entry - hope you don't mind. pillz has expressed some interest in guest-blogging and i thought this might be a nice way to ease her into it.
By Liz
on January 10, 2009 11:36 AM
aw, glad you like LA (you are one of few and I should know, I live here). It has it's charms if you know where to look.
I just got back from London in all of it's freezingness and It was one of the first times since moving to LA that I was happy to be back here for many reasons including those mentioned in the above post.
next time you visit you should make sure it coincides with the second Sunday of the month so you can experience the amazingness that is the Pasadena Rose Bowl Market. Or better yet, why not so summers in Toronto and winters in LA. best of both worlds I should think.
:)
By tahda on January 10, 2009 4:07 PM
I am so happy that you love LA! Right on about it not being a "city"...often when people have gone & come back confused about LA I ask them where were you-as in what part...it makes all the difference. Quick, Liz, take her for a Tommy's burger downtown. Ideally you're going to the Music Center(probably has some corporate name now)and you're all dressed up & you say F it
I want a Tommy's burger & drip it all over a great outfit...Glad you're having a good time.Chloe C.
By Chloe C. on January 12, 2009 1:14 PM