One reason I don't buy the concept of your right to smoke

NP: "All I Want for Christmas," Dirty Boyz, All I Want for Christmas - EP

Lucy's Drive In

During the Great L.A. Walk down Pico, I heard it claimed that Lucy's Drive In had the longest menu in Los Angeles. I don't think that this is true, in fact, I don't think it even has the longest menu on Pico since I'm pretty sure that Nick's near Corning and Pico has a much longer menu.

But the question is, is the food any good? Last Saturday Nalleli and I needed to get something to eat and too many of our usual suspects were closed so we decided to try the Lucy's at La Brea and Pico.

It was a definite mistake. She had the taquitos and I tried a combo platter which featured a chile relleno, enchilada and taco. The enchilada and my wife's taquitos both featured a mysterious meat which was somewhere between pork and beef. The taco was like an extra-greasy version of the sort of drek served at Taco Bell and its ilk. And the chile relleno was overwhelmed by a really thick eggy batter which turned my stomach. And then of course there were the chips which were served without salsa (we had to ask for some which the girl behind the counter grudgingly fetched for us).

Curiously, the drive-through was backed up and there were even a bunch of ludicrously dressed twenty somethings who stopped in for a quick bite, but then it's rare that you see an empty McDonald's as well. It's no indication that the food is any good.

Lucy's Drive In. 1373 S La Brea Ave, Los Angeles, CA, 323-938-4337.

NP: "New York Minute," Don Henley, The End of the Innocence

$20 project: Hair transplants

Over at blogging.la, they've been doing points in their "$20 project" to see what a Jackson will buy. As my contribution, I offer 10 hair grafts.

NP: "MacBreak Weekly 68: The Waffle-Making Robot"

Quote of the day

Quote of the day:

I used to get pulled out of a line at customs every time I said I was a writer. They'll dump out everything in your suitcase if you say that you are a poet. The last thing they want is another poet in their country. They apparently have enough trouble dealing with their own domestic population of poets.

Heather O'Neill, "Putting Together a Robot Without an Instruction Manual"

NP: "It Came Upon the Midnight Clear," Mannheim Steamroller, It Came Upon the Midnight Clear - Discovery Download

Skate in Santa Monica

Downtown has its Downtown on Ice in Pershing Square, but for those on the west side, there is now ICE at Santa Monica.

The base price is a bit steeper than the Pershing Square rink with admission running $10 for 90 minutes as opposed to $6 for an hour, but skate rental is included in the price (it's $2 at Pershing Square) and let's face it, this is southern California, who has ice skates here? Plus by not driving downtown, you'll help keep the polar bears from dying (unless you live closer to downtown and you should skate there because otherwise a polar bear will drown because of you).

The rink is on the corner of 5th and Arizona, across from the post office. The rink is open until 6 January and you can save even more polar bears by taking the bus. Nearly every Big Blue Bus comes within a block of the rink as do the MTA 4/704, 20/720/920, 33/333 and 534.

And never fear, the operation of the ice rinks won't hurt the polar bears (much): It's not real ice, but rather a synthetic ice substitute which requires no refrigeration. The makers of this stuff claim that it is, in fact, superior to real ice for ice skating, although I'd hate to think of my hypothetical kids clamoring to go plastic skating at some point later in the twenty-first century.

Hours of operation for the Ice Rink:
Monday thru Thursday 11:00am – 9:00pm
Fridays 11:00am – 10:00pm
Saturdays and All School Holidays 10:00am – 10:00pm
Sundays 11:00am – 9:00pm
Christmas Eve 11:00am – 7:00pm
Christmas Day 11:00am – 10:00pm
New Year's Eve 11:00am – 9:00pm
New Year's Day 11:00am – 10:00pm

NP: "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)," California Guitar Trio, 10 Christmas Songs

This week at the Beverly Hills Farmer's Market

Many of the regular vendors, including the chilaquiles guy and the lettuce lady were absent. Add in the fact that we got there a bit late and the farmers' market looked quite barren indeed. Loads of squash and roots which are to be expected, but also some giant stalks of celery and plenty of green beans.

Odd food of the week (to the right): Arkansas black apples.

We bought eggs, goat cheese, cherry tomatoes, cilantro, and onion.

NP: "Home For Christmas," Kate Bush

Gardens of Taxco

In the mood for an upscale Mexican dining experience, my wife and I decided to go to Gardens of Taxco (Taxco rhymes with "Bosco" should you wish to read this post out loud). Parking is scarce in the neighborhood, so plan on using the valets. We stepped in and were seated immediately. We were surprised that no one brought us a menu for a while until we learned that there are, in fact, no menus. This is a prix fixe restaurant, and although there's a selection of entrées, which runs contrary to my own experiences at prix fixe places (OK, I've only ever been to one place in the Netherlands), it ended up being a surprising and pleasant experience. It does help to come hungry since there will be a seemingly never-ending series of courses, all quite tasty. And we walked out at $25/person after our KCRW discount.

There were some oddities. The original Taxco is a silver mining town in Guerrero and doesn't appear to have much by way of gardens, and the waiter claimed that a menu-less presentation was typical of restaurants in Mexico City, but neither I, nor my chilanga wife have had that experience. But that won't take away the wonderful taste of succulent chicken in a crema-cilantro sauce. We definitely shall return.

Gardens of Taxco, 1113 N Harper Ave, West Hollywood, CA 90046. 323-654-1746

NP: "Christmas dragnet (Yulenet), Part 2," Stan Freberg, The Very Best of Stan Freberg

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Now that Thanksgiving is over, it's time to begin the Christmas season. And what better way is there to declare the beginning of the holiday festivities than with the ceremonial decorating of the Davids.



But because this is the blog which always gives you more than you expected, here are some shots from inside the House of Davids at the launch of Norwood Young's CD.

First, the man himself, and his dogs. Yes, that's an over-sized chair he's sitting in. If you've seen the video, you know the chair.


And of course, what wealthy eccentric doesn't have a marionette of himself:


Or a newspaper machine in the bathroom with a story about yourself on the front page of the newspaper in the machine:


A view of the back yard. The pool, with a mosaic of Norwood's face at the bottom was covered so no picture of that.


High Maintenance 90210 was still on the air, so Norwood's butler was on the scene.


Here's a shot of all the entertainers who came that morning.


And a shot of Norwood's infamous custom-painted SUV. If you see one this color on the streets of L.A., it's Norwood's. There is no other like it.



NP: "Adeste Fideles," Bing Crosby, White Christmas

Happy Thanksgiving

So is it better to just not post or to post a mostly empty post wishing people a Happy Thanksgiving? Maybe I should have done the other one.

NP: "NPR: 11-22-2007 Most E-Mailed Stories"

Buying a car part III: Selling the old car

The last part of our car buying experience involved dealing with the old car. For general reference purposes, the price that you'll get from CarMax is apparently going to be quite a bit more than the dealer will give you for the car (in our case $2500 vs $1500). I ended up selling it to a co-worker for $2700, mostly because of the Arizona DMV screw-up which meant that we couldn't just walk out of CarMax with a check. I probably could have gotten more if I'd actually gotten around to posting the car on craigslist and cars.com, but at that point, we just wanted to get rid of it.

NP: "Too Late For Goodbyes," Julian Lennon, Valotte

Further proof Santa Monica ain't what it used to be

Not too long after I graduated college, I stopped at the library, photocopied the used bookstore pages from the West Los Angeles-Beach Communities yellow pages and drove to Santa Monica where, I had been told, a bibliophile's paradise awaited.

And indeed it did. On the Third Street Promenade, there were at least half a dozen bookstores, none of which were named Borders or Barnes and Noble. New books were only available at Hennesy and Ingles, which has since been priced out of the promenade and onto Wilshire, and Midnight Special, which has since been priced out of the promenade and into oblivion.

On that first trip, I ended up filling the trunk of my car with books and racking up about a thousand bucks on my credit card bill.

Needless to say, the booksellers loved me.

These days, the promenade is filled with the same chain shops which dominate every high-end mall. No more animation cell store, no more pesto postcards, no more used CDs. And that nice Italian place at Arizona? You do know that it also has an outpost at the Grove, don't you? (Although, despite having matching menus, if not names, the food at the Grove location is rather bad).

So I was rather excited to see Kulturas, a new bookstore in Sunset Park, attempt to open an outpost on 4th Street. Unfortunately, the experiment in expanding their base turned out to be a failure. About a month after I first spotted them on 4th street, the moving sale signs went up and last week the store was emptied. I guess there will never again be quite the bibliophile zone on the west side that there once was.

NP: "Fresh Air 11-20-2007."

New at the Century City Mall

Some sort of freaky restroom for exhibitionists?


No, they're selling electronic bidets. They even have a dryer.

What's more environmentally friendly? paper or water.

NP: "Take On Me," a-ha, Hunting High and Low

This week at the Beverly Hills Farmer's Market

This week's entertainment was a brass quintet. Alas, they were playing Christmas songs 5 days early.


I discovered that I have a "usual" at the tacos place. It's the veggie chilaquiles with medium salsa (I don't care for the taste of their hot salsa).


One vendor had Buddha's hand for sale. There was mold between the fingers and I wouldn't know what to do with it though.


We bought eggs, bread, tomatoes, eggplant, asparagus and corn.

NP: "The Power of One," Bomshel, Power of One

Great L.A. Walk II: Pico Blvd

The pre-walk
The walk began at Central and Pico in downtown L.A. This is a part of Los Angeles which is eerily devoid of public transportation (all the better to isolate the residents of skid row from the rest of the universe). But there was a potential route: Take the 720 Rapid down WIlshire to 6th/Central then transfer to a southbound 53 to within a block of the starting point.

Only one problem: The 720 doesn't stop at Central. It turns out that there is no stop between Main and Soto, and having missed the Main stop, I got the driver to let me out a bit early at 6th and Mission and I walked back across the 6th Street bridge and got back to Central just in time to catch the bus. I picked up a schedule so that I could provide better info to the people who would be replicating my route to return to their cars and after meeting a few other walkers on the bus, we gathered at the Coca Cola distribution center where a crowd had already gathered.

Although the official story was that we would be leaving precisely at 9, Mike's sign-in for everyone including those arriving right at 9, along with Newtonian mechanics (a body at rest tends to remain at rest), meant that we didn't quite get on the road sidewalk until around 9:30.

Downtown
The first stretch of the walk was through the warehouse district of downtown. Many years ago, I used to work at the Iron Mountain offices near 6th and Alameda where I had a great view of the produce warehouses below and the amazing manouvres the truck drivers were capable of. But on a Saturday, though, the only real activity was amongst the security guards posted to keep overflow from Skid Row from making a mess. I wonder what they made of the vast expanse of walkers who made their way through the neighborhood.

In short order we found ourselves heading through the fashion district where we were crowded by street vendors along the way. Out of that, we entered into the area surrounding the convention center and then under the Harbor Freeway to Pico-Union.

Alvarado Terrace
After passing the first of two locations of Lucy's Drive-in ("the longest menu in Los Angeles"), we stumbled upon what was, to me, the great discovery of the walk. Alvarado Terrace, a stretch of half a dozen historic homes just off Pico Blvd.

Information on the terrace is hard to come by on the net. Even the otherwise omniscient wikipedia is silent on the subject. But of course in typical Los Angeles fashion, across from the gorgeous Victorian homes is a nondescript 1950s rectangular box of an apartment complex.

And of course, this being close to the ever-expanding Koreatown, there's even a bit of Korean graffiti on the back of the obelisk identifying the historical district. No translation yet... I can find some of the characters on the Korean keyboard on my mac, but not in the introduction to Korean book I have on my shelves.

The Byzantine-Latino Quarter
So it turns out not that there are Latinos who are Byzantine, but rather that there are both Latinos (predominantly Central American) and Byzantines (in the form of Greeks) in the neighborhood. There are oodles of Salvadoran Panaderias here, and plenty of sidewalk vendors, including one with some really nice-looking reddish avocados. We spotted one really nice tiled building here which was a nice thing to see.

Koreatown south
We spotted an interestingly named church along Pico. It turns out it's not a odd pseudo-Englishism, but rather a reference to 2Cor 2:15.

Mid-city
We broke for lunch once we hit La Brea with people splitting up to savor the flavors in this stretch of town. We get an interesting mix of cultures with African Americans moving north from South L.A. who aren't quite affluent enough to move to Ladera Heights but who want to move out of South L.A., a separate community of Ethiopians (who are responsible for the cluster of Ethiopian shops and restaurants along Fairfax), clusters of northern Indians drawn by the Sikh temple on Robertson, plus assorted spillover from the Miracle Mile and other nearby areas.

Groups stopped at Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles, Oki-Dog. I led a small group to Sky Taco, a business owned by a member of the South L.A. wave of immigration. It's Mexican food with a bit of a soul food twist. Most of us (myself included) had the chicken torta which is served on pan enchilado, bread soaked in a chili sauce. It makes for a messy but delicious meal. A few people tried the morel lemonade--a hibiscus-lemonade blend, but since I'd tried it previously, I went with the straight lemonade which made for a more pleasurable meal. After lunch, a few of us stopped off at Bloom Cafe to try their mint lemonade and take a quick bathroom break before continuing westward.

We passed a quince años ceremony at Holy Spirit church (yes, some of you know it as a quinceañera, but my Mexican wife points out that this refers to the girl, not the ceremony).

A little further down is a tall mysterious windowless building. What is it? It turns out to be an oil well.

The crane
Pico was closed between Crescent Heights and La Cienega when a crane toppled into a building. The closing was still in effect at 8pm when we got home, and the crane incident apparently even made TV news (although this was far from downtown. KNBC should know better). Unfortunately, there were some injuries to a woman and her baby attending a class inside the building.



Pico-Robertson
As you get past the crane, you enter the heart of Persian-Jewish Los Angeles. One pizza joint here made the poor attempt a year and a half ago to build its business by having the pizza served by bikini-clad waitresses. But between cold weather which made the waitresses wear poofy coats and a sexually conservative populace in the area, the experiment came to a swift ignominious end.

Kosher restaurants are frequent, primarily of the Glatt Kosher variety as are synagogues. I'm reminded of the joke about putting two Jews in a room and getting three opinions. Also in this stretch is the world's first and only Kosher Subway. As Pico-Robertson gives way to Beverlywood the shops get a bit more upscale as do the synagogues and we eventually passed the closed-for-shabbat Museum of Tolerance and the Simon Wiesenthal center.

Century City/Rancho Park
Things get a bit hilly as we get into Century City and the north end of Cheviot Hills. In one of the valleys was the former course of a tributary to Ballona Creek. There had been an artifical lake formed by damning the stream that was part of the Fox backlot sold off in the deal that created Century City. When they drained the lake, they found numerous cars dumped into the lake during assorted movie shoots.

Pico and Sepulveda
There's more than one song about Pico, Mike:

We did watch part of the video on my iPhone while when we got here.

West L.A.
Bounded by the 405 and the 10 on Pico, chunks of this are actually unincorporated L.A. County. In the twentieth century, this led first to a concentration of Japanese residents who were able to avoid race-restrictive covenants by moving here (which is why there are so many Japanese businesses on Sawtelle). And later they were followed by a similar group of businesses seeking to avoid other restrictions, those being the assortment of strip clubs also clustered in the area.

One day, Paradise Island will be at an Expo line stop. Maybe that will make the people who paid too much to buy condos right next door feel a little better about moving in next to a strip club.

Further down is Major League Trim which has an even creepier vibe to it, to me, than does Fantasy Island. Maybe it's because the first time I noticed it, I saw some dad bringing in his 12 year-old son for a cut. Not to be a prude, but that just doesn't seem appropriate to me.

Santa Monica
We celebrated our entrance into Santa Monica with a step at Unurban Coffee Shop, where we had assorted beverages (some even cold), and serial trips to the bathroom and a group photo of our smallish subgroup which had formed after lunch (which I may someday get a copy of). As we trekked the last 30 blocks to the beach, conversation trailed off, although there was the obligatory Hail KCRW when we passed by and exhortations to volunteer during pledge drives (yes, folks, it is fun).

Finally, around 5.30, as the sun set, we reached the beach. My wife joined me and the rest of the walkers for dinner at Cha Cha Chicken where she had the Spinach Quesadilla and I had the Jerk Chicken Enchiladas and one more glass of lemonade, this time with a dash of watermelon juice.



Many thanks to our subgroup for making things fun, Joni, Jeff, Denis, Kali, Michael, Hillary and David. David came up with a great name for our little tribe, but I've sadly forgotten it.

Elsewhere on the net
The Franklin Avenue mothership
Will Campbell's account of the walk
Scott Trimble's recap

NP: "Orange," Blame Sally, Severland

Arizona: The Fuck You State

Arizona, apparently being an especially cheap state apparently only reports the most recent vehicle record to carfax et al, but doesn't worry about whether the milage they report makes sense for that. So they reported the milage at the time that we bought my wife's old car at the date that we paid off the loan. But since we moved to California in between, that milage was less than the milage reported on California registration (California, incidentally, reports every time the car gets smogged, changes of registration, etc. and only gives a milage number if they have one for that event).

So the carfax report ends up indicating a possible milage roll-back.

After a long on-hold with the Arizona DMV (which they call MVD because of a case of institutional dyslexia), I was told that they didn't have any problem with what they reported and it was just that people didn't know how to read the report, and no, they would not give me the letter on DMV letterhead that carfax wants to correct the report.

Throw in the fact that Arizona is a "Right to Work" state (which in Orwellian fashion means that employers have the right to fire you for being in a union) and that its laws in general are skewed towards screwing over the little guy and it's clear what Arizona's motto should be: "Arizona: The Fuck You State".

NP: "Day Too Soon," Sia, Day Too Soon - EP

It is accomplished

Or at least draft two is accomplished. Of the novel that is.

Next up is to print it, write an outline (so that I can approach draft three with more purpose, although I'm sure that the characters will continue to surprise me) and character list (so that I can make sure that Karel and Pavel don't swap names in the midst of this draft). Drafts three and four will be written somewhat in parallel: As each chapter goes through my crit group, I'll revise it for draft four. The word counts when they re-appear, though, will be for draft three (until that's finished, then they'll get to be draft four word counts).



NP: "Twist and Shout," Booker T. & The MG's, Green Onions
WC: 63,015.

Quote of the day

"It is completely impractical to treat needle phobia with an injection." (Wikipedia article on Trypanophobia.

NP: "Echo Train," Chad Van Gaalen, Infiniheart.
WC: 62,349, ECD: 2 May 2008.

Car shopping, part two: the dealer experience

I ended up hearing back from all three dealers who I requested quotes from. One of them, Toyota of Santa Monica actually called in addition to e-mailing me, but then he refused to give me a quote over the phone. Dude, that's not how cars.com quotes are supposed to work. You made it really easy for me to buy a car from another dealer. The other two dealers I had to call back from the e-mails. Of these, Diane from Manhattan Beach Toyota gave me both the best service and the best price. It shouldn't surprise anyone to find that she's who we bought the car from.

While the time dealing with her at the dealership was a bit busy, our interactions with her were quite pleasant and she made a point of showing us some of the parts of the Prius operation that we might not have figured out easily on our own. Plus they washed the car and filled our tank. Apparently we also get a free oil change once a year and a free car wash once a week.

Of course, then we had to sit down with the finance guy to finish the deal. This is where the relationship turned sour. While Diane was wonderful, this guy was awful. He really was pushing the LoJack on us (must be a really high margin item--they were going to charge $850 for it). He went so far as to claim that the Prius is one of the most stolen cars (a fact that we could find no back-up for). My wife objected to the fact that he kept trying to show us the difference in cost on the car payments. My advice, when you talk to the finance guy is to just tell him no on everything (we did get the pre-paid maintenance, but I'm beginning to regret that decision).

More to come (I've got some catching up to do).

NP: "Hollow," Steve Ball, Live 2007
WC: 62,318, ECD: 13 Dec 2007.