(12.02.08) Recommends:

Signs You'd Probably Rather Not See.

So we recently visited Santa Monica with a friend. We were on a seafood eating excursion. Our destination was to be Enterprise Fish Co. It should be noted that there was a general reluctance on our part to visit this place because it contains some sketchy info on its website. If you don't click through the link, just know that it advertises a portion of the restaurant that offers "bottle service." Question Mark. Bottle service? At a seafood restaurant? Really? How can that possibly be necessary/justified/non-completely-obnoxious?

We were skeptical.

We were in the mood for oysters.

We gave it a try.


Here's a look at the place from the outside:





Now. We happen to love seafood. But we know a lot of otherwise reasonable people who do not. Some of these people don't like it because they don't like the "fishy smell." We can understand that, we just happen to be fine with the smell. The smell of raw sewage and/or possibly feces, on the otherhand? That's pretty much been universally discredited as an acceptable culinary aroma by now. It's unclear, however, whether Enterpirse Fish Co. ever received the memo, because when we went to open the doors, we saw this:




Yes, shut down because of a "sewage" violation. Yikes. Here's a copy of the code for those interested.

Bottle service was strike one. We're afraid sewage violations are strike two and three. Sigh.

(12.02.08) Recommends:

The Hackensaw Boys.

It's been a rainy/misty/foggy start to the holiday season here in Los Angeles. And, for some reason, rainy/misty/foggy holidays makes us want to listen to bluegrass and drink beer with friends in a setting that features lots of wood, or fake wood paneling if wood is too expensive (and what with the economic crisis we're in, this is probable). We're completely serious about this. We're not sure why we feel this way, but we do. Sort of like how listening to the Strokes' album Room on Fire makes us think of driving around Kansas City with a gentle snow falling.

Well, as an aside, now that we think about it, we actually understand that Strokes connection. We were in the year between graduating college and moving on to our next adventure. We lived in a part of town that was ostensibly hip and as a result our car was broken into three times. The first two times, during the fall, just the windows were smashed but nothing was taken. We actually took this somewhat as an insult because we had hundreds of CDs strewn about the car and not a single one was taken. We figured the thief thought we had bad taste in music and were deeply offended. The third time was during the early winter, and apparently wanting to preserve energy during the cold season, the thief got tricky/steathy. We entered the car. Started it and headed to work. Silence. This seemed weird so we looked down at the car stereo. Only to see that the car stereo had been stolen. Again, all of the CDs we had were entact, but we happened to have the aforementioned Strokes album in the CD player so that one was lost. And in the interim, rather than just going to buy a new car CD player and a new Strokes CD, we would drive around with our laptop open, playing the CD through our laptop speakers (we happened to have, cough cough, downloaded the album prior to purchasing it). Because the part of town we lived in was more ostensibly hip than actually hip (we mean seriously, if this was an actual hip part of town the thief would have left us a goddam thank you note for allowing him/her to behold such an impressive CD collection; at the least s/he would have taken them all to look cool around friends. Not that we haven't gotten over the snub or anything), there were many nights were we'd have nothing interesting to do. So we'd drive a long loop around the city, listening to the Strokes Room on Fire as a light snow fell. The end.

Anyway. Moving on. Here are some pictures of a show that the Hackensaw Boys recently put on at the Redwood Bar & Grill, a random pirate-themed bar downtown. Pirate bar, of course it is. The Hackensaw Boys are a rowdy countrypunkbluegrass band and they put on a very entertaining live act.






















We also recorded some sound. We like this first song because it's about The End Times Coming. And with transformative American authors commiting suicide, and worldwide financial meltdowns, and major/historic elections, and stories of pirates hijacking ships appearing with near daily regularity in the NY Times, and bad-action-movie-plot style attacks in India, all occuring within months of each other, it kinda sorta seems like this song might be on to something.



We like this next song because the band announces they're from Virgina, and if you listen closely, you can hear people in the crowd saying, in a nod to the McCain/Palin campaign and a nod to the memory of George Allen, "Welcome to America" and "the realVirgina?"



Finally, this last clip we like because, well, because the singer insists on making "Pirate noises" as the band looks for its missing fiddle player, and because the banjo player -- we've got a rather large soft spot on the banjo -- seems to get a little bored waiting and breaks into some killer banjo soloing. Yes, we went there: we just said killer banjo soloing.



Now, if you've gotten this far you may be saying to yourself: Man, it's kinda strange that you're into bluegrass music played in a manic style. Or: Man, it's kinda strange that there's a pirate-themed bar so far away from the craggy coastline of Somalia (Note: we think it's some sort of rule of AP Style that the NYTimes cannot draft an article about pirates without mentioning said pirates' proxmity off the "craggy coastline of Somalia," craggy being a word I've seen used in print perhaps never prior to Pirategate '08).

However. We submit that the strangest thing to come of all of this is that when we took the subway home -- from Union Station to the Hollywood/Vine station -- we noticed the top of the inside of Union Station is covered with hanging -- strategically or otherwise -- male manequin/blow up dolls -- or, omg, is it possible that they're Real Dolls; oh yikes, please say no. We're not kidding around:

(10.08.08) Recommends:

This American Life's Exploration of the Financial Crisis.

We've extolled the virtues of TAL on the blog many times. Most likely we're just preaching to the choir when we say it's one of the most important cultural voices coming out of this country. But their handling of the current economic crisis -- breaking it down into understandable terms -- exceeded even our expectations of what we thought the show was capable of producing. We don't think it's hyperbole to suggest that these two episodes might be the most important pieces of journalisms we'll consume this year. If you haven't listened already, you really need to hear these.

The Giant Pool of Money. This is the original episode; originally aired 05.09.08.

Another Frightening Show About the Economy. The follow-up episode, created due to the overwhelming popularity of the first episode; originally aired 10.03.08.

(09.24.08) Recommends:

Thoughts Ahead of President Bush's Address to the Nation Regarding Our Current Financial Crisis.

Okay, so we just heard that the President is going to address the country tonight. Obviously he's not known as the most articulate and/or thoughtful president that our nation has ever produced. So who knows what he'll say. But for some reason we now have a particular section from the Andrew Bird song Tables and Chairs stuck in our heads. Can't you just picture an episode of the Simpsons where an animated President Bush addresses a weary nation with the following:

I know we're going to meet some day
In the crumbled financial institutions of this land
There will be tables and chairs
There'll be pony rides and dancing bears
There'll even be a band
Cause listen, after the fall there will be no more countries
No currencies at all, we're gonna live on our wits
We're gonna throw away survival kits,
Trade butterfly-knives for Adderall
And that's not all
Oh, there will be snacks there will
there will be snacks, there will be snacks.

Maybe tonight, when the president begins to speak, we should turn down the volume on him and listen to this song instead.

(09.23.08) Recommends:

Remembering David Foster Wallace.

I didn't know Dave Wallace. I never attended a reading of his. I still haven't even gotten through Infinite Jest. But hearing about his death 11 days ago was like a punch in the gut. I've never before really experienced the sadness that I felt when I heard about his death, from somebody that I did not know. But for a few days the world seemed very heavy. I think Peter Sagal, the NPR personality, touched on why I felt such sadness, when he wrote:

one of the things DFW wrote about, pretty constantly, especially in his more informal commentary, was the experience of us all being alone in our heads, and desperately trying to break out of it. I remember reading one comment he made (wouldn’t even know where to begin looking for it) that the whole point of fiction, maybe writing in general, was to send a message from one isolated head to another, with the meaning: you are not as alone as it seems.

I spent those first few nights after hearing the news going through my bookshelves, reading short stories he had written, and interviews he had given, and lamenting that I once loaned away for life a book that included an introduction by a well-respected writer that was essentially just a comment on an interview he had once given (such was DFW's ability that other well-regarded writers were eager to get to write simply about his interviews).

Like I said, it's been 11 days now. And a sense of normalcy has returned, at least for me. But I won't soon stop reading, and responding to, his writing. So I thought today would be a good time to put up some of his work in this space, for my resource, and hopefully for yours, too.


The Weasel, Twelve Monkeys And The Shrub. (abridged version that he read on This American Life here)

Consider The Lobster.

Federer As Religious Experience.

(09.04.08) Recommends:

Favrd.

Favrd might be the greatest website ever. Seriously, go there now.

(09.02.08) Recommends:

Scenes From a Long Weekend.

With the holiday on Monday, we had a chance to get out and do some exploring.

Traffic. Downtown.





Market. Echo Park.





Utility box. Echo Park.




Paint store. Echo Park.





The following picture nicely captures two truths about Los Angeles. One, LA has a reputation that its citizens are health- and image-obsessed. Whether there is truth in the sterotype, the fact is, there must be more donut stores in LA, by any measure you wish to use, than any place in the US. Probably you can't go more than 100 yards without seeing a donut store. Two, LA does have a staggering amount of diversity; it's really a wonderful thing. Off the top of our heads, we can think of Thai Town, Korea Town, Little Armenia, Historic Philipinotown, Little Tokyo, Chinatown. And those are just the ethnically named neighborhoods. But that doesn't mean the city is always harmonious and coming from Kansas, there's a kind of cognitive disonance when you witness racism here. In LA, which is less than 50% white, discreet ethnic groups throw blame at other discreet ethnic groups. There seems to be tension between Korean people and Black people, for instance. Other groups seem to have a problem with the increased influence of the Hispanic population. Etc, etc. On the other hand, racism in Kansas is more likely to manifest itself in some kind of abstract form: the place is 90% white, so somebody might carry around a notion about "colored people" or "immigrants" in general destroying the country, but in this world view Koreans, Blacks, and Hispanics are all the same and they're all the enemy. I guess it just proves a universal rule: with enough time on their hands, humans have the capacity to complain about anything and lay blame on anybody.





Cafe Was -- still can't figure out if the sign is clever or cheesy. Hollywood.






Qat, it's a Scrabble word you really need to know. Hollywood.






Stormwater ordianance sign. Hollywood.






Of course you would expect palm trees to line the boulavards in a neighborhood that calls itself Country Club Park.






Ice Fade is a pretty awesome name for a barber shop. Slauson Ave.






City bench.






Stencils. Hollywood.





There's something about the way "human" appears on this sign that mezmerizes us. Washington Blvd.





Utility pole art. Hollywood.





The Los Angeles City Council recently enacted a one year moratorium on opening fast food restaurants in South Los Angeles. The story got national coverage, including this NY Times piece in which Jonathan Gold notes that South Los Angeles is the home to the best barbeque in the city and wonders how the ban will effect on that culinary tradition. We thought of the article as we waited nearly 90 minutes for our order from Phillips on Crenshaw Blvd.





Doorway entrance art. Hollywood.





We should just mention now: we ate lots of barbque over the weekend.





You can't make it down Melrose without being inundated by MBW artwork. Some of it we like, some of it we think is overload. We like this one.





Car wash. Inglewood.





MBW stencil. Hollywood.






We love this sign/advertisement/artwork. Not sure if it should be interpreted to mean that the car lot caters to a religious clientelle, or the car lot is suggesting that you'll need to rely on some kind of religious miracle in order to prevent your purchase from being a lemon.





Building. Hollywood.




No, seriously: holidays are made for eating.





Less talk, more rock. LaBrea Ave.





It turns out that it's not just neighborhoods called Country Club Park that are lined with Palm trees. Miraculously, almost every major street has them. Mid City.






The truth about Hollywood (we report, you decide).





Evidence #1:





The original street artist?





Industrial building. Compton Ave.





School days. Slauson Ave.





Motel. LaBrea and Slauson.






Valentine to Los Angeles.





When in Rome.







Old economy.






Fruit cart. Echo Park.






Market. Beverly Blvd.






Political pundits keep saying that Labor Day is when the electorate begins paying attention to the general election season in earnest. If elections were won on window signs, this thing would be a blow out.






Water. Wilton Pl.






Palm trees, blue skies, donuts. We came. We saw. We conquered. Los Feliz.






The clouds rolled in as the hills ate the sun, and as quickly as it came, the long weekend faded away.