Choco-Chocolate Rain

RIP DJ Screw.

Los Angeles, I'm yours...

We went to the Getty in LA on Sunday, which is a giant complex on top of a hill that holds all kinds of beautiful art. The exhibit we wanted to see the most was by LA artist Tim Hawkinson, whom I only know of because of the booklet in Beck's Mutations. At the entrance to the Getty, his piece, the Uberorgan hangs, which is a giant organ created from enormous balloons, cardboard, aluminum foil, and an accordion-like "computer" that reads music that he wrote. It supposedly plays recognizable pop songs, but when we heard it, it sounded like a bunch of loud farts. That does not, however, make it less awesome.

This:

is the Uberorgan as it hangs in the Getty, and this:

is the Uberorgan in NYC at the IBM building. It's pretty huge.

There's one particular view from the second floor of one of the buildings in the Getty that comes equipped with signs that tell you exactly what you're looking at. From this particular balcony, you have Santa Monica and Venice to the right, downtown LA proper to the left, Hollywood and Beverly Hills to the far left, and the 101 directly in front of you.

After feeling particularly lost at the Getty, we decided to check out Aaardvark's, a notoriously awesome thrift store that started in San Francisco and now has two locations in LA. To get there, we drove through Beverly Hills (which is really surreal) and West Hollywood (which is really cool). The store is located on the more hip section of Melrose Avenue, near Fat Beats. it's filled with moderately priced vintage clothing as well as a rack full of really amazing, but really expensive pieces for the vintage collector. Think tour t-shirts from the 70s for $60.

Walking back to the car, I nearly ran into this guy:
.
His name is Simon Rex, and he's in a bunch of parody movies, including Scary Movies 3 & 4. I heard him telling some dude outside of a bar what he was filming next.

Yesterday we went on a beach walk in Malibu, which was really beautiful. We couldn't park really close to the entrance because there was filming taking place, so we navigated around it and began our walk.

The beach was beautiful. The water was a bright greenish blue color that you could see straight through. There were surfers out not really catching any waves, but looking content enough to be there at that particular moment. Allison and I climbed up on a rock while Anna, Alice, and Susan watched from the rocky beach.

On our way back, we noticed that the filming was still going on and we asked a tech who was walking our way. He told us we'd stumbled upon the set of Heroes, and Anna claimed she recognized the actress. I don't know whether I believe her, but it's still pretty cool.

Later in the day, I saw the most amazing sunset I've ever seen while walking the Santa Rosa mountain trail with Samir and Allison. I can't really describe it other than breathtaking.

Today is Allison's last day, and I'm about to go for another walk on the trail. Tomorrow, Alice, Anna, and myself are spending all day in LA for a David Lynch themed extravaganza. Topping off the day is a showing of Inland Empire and a Q & A session with the man himself at the Hammer Museum of UCLA.

Until tomorrow, my friends.

It's a really good book.

As read by Tay Zonday.

Entertainments!

I almost forgot to mention an important part of the Venice trip.

We saw this:


It's the Next bus, the integral part of MTV's dating show, Next. A single person gets to ride around LA in the Next Van and go on up to 5 blind dates with the the bachelors or bachelorettes who ride on the bus. If he or she doesn't like one of the dates, he or she must say "Next," and someone else comes off the bus. Wicked.

Today was a low key day. I didn't really do much but read, write songs, and eat In-N-Out burger. The Simpsons movie was excellent, the sunset was breathtaking, and this bed feels great.

Tomorrow, we're all going to the Getty Center. On Wednesday, Alice, Anna, and I are all going to UCLA to see Inland Empire and participate in a Q and A session with David Lynch. For real.

Until tomorrow.

These people are going to die first when California falls off the earth.

The third day was the Fashion District...

First, an amendment to the Venice post:

We drove through Malibu to get there. Malibu is the home to Pepperdine University, The Getty Villa, and one of the most beautiful drives along LA's stretch of the PCH. It's also the home to Mel Gibson. As we passed by the expensive houses that overlook the Pacific (at which point I revealed to my companions, "the ocean scares the shit outta me"), we saw the restaurant where Mel got infamously trashed. I think it's right near where Lindsey Lohan got pulled over. That made Malibu way more awesome.

After we returned from Venice, we kicked it at the house for like ten minutes and decided to head over to the local farmer's market. I got a tamale. It was good.

Now, the Fashion District, followed by Atomic Bowling.

The Fashion District is in the heart of Downtown LA. It includes the famous Orpheum and United Artists Theaters, as well as buildings like the California Market Center, which is twelve floors of fashion designers' offices. Retail buyers, wholesale buyers, and stylists for studios and celebrities alike come to these offices to view samples of the designers' work and potentially walk away thousands of dollars short of what they came. Every last Friday of the month, the designers hold sample sales, where (mostly) girls sizes 5-9 can buy normally expensive, exclusive designs for really cheap. My kinda party.

It really wasn't a bad time, actually. Allison and I didn't really have much interest in going into the buildings with the sample sales, so we kicked it around the outside shopping areas which were full of really small shops selling things like tremendous fabric rolls for 99 cents. There was also a shop that specialized in Zoot suits owned by a man in a Hawaiian shirt who shouted "ZOOTS!" at anyone who walked by.

We walked around for a little while, stopping in a couple stores, but mostly navigating our way around downtown LA and checking out the weird buildings and people. There is a line of buses that run downtown called D.A.S.H. I got really excited and almost ran out in front of one, but then I didn't.

We finally met up with Anna and Alice and went to one of the office buildings to hang out in the air conditioning while the two of them went scrounging for samples. In the elevator I was cornered by a man trying to sell his printed tee shirts who told me that my Western shirt showed my excellent taste in clothing and that I should totally come and check out his prints cause like, his showroom was the first on the twelfth floor and there's not much guy stuff in the building. As soon as I walked in to his showroom, which was a table and a bunch of shirts laying about on the floor, I had several of his prints thrust in my face and rapid fire back stories of how he came up with such genius ideas spat at me. Some of the prints were actually cool, but the fact that he wouldn't get the hell outta my face to let me look at them was annoying. That and he kept telling me that the Bette Davis print was totally at Barney's and doing really well and I should like, get in on the ground floor of this amazing baggy v-neck print.

He told me he wouldn't judge me for whatever print I picked out, and then gave the exact same spiel to a girl in a baggy v-neck tee that unknowingly walked into his trap. Allison and I snuck out as his attention was diverted.

The sample stores close at 3 pm, so we all met back up and started what would become an almost two hour excursion back to Alice's house. LA is a mess of highways and traffic jams, and getting turned around is really easy.

We all kinda crashed once we arrived, but decided that our night should be occupied by something awesome.

Atomic Bowling.

Atomic Bowling is held at Harley's Simi Bowl, the bowling alley where The Big Lewbowski was filmed. A giant video screen hovers about the alleys, playing the worst iTunes playlist, ever. It ranges from videos by Bob Seger to the Black Eyed Peas (Will.I.Am. and Fergie seem to be the only key players in the musical aspect of BEP; what do those other two dudes do?) to Papa Roach to Devo at egregiously loud volumes.

There's also the black light aspect, which makes everything more atomic.

So Allison stayed home and read Harry Potter while Alice, Anna, and I played the worst games of bowling ever. Anna started bowling like an old man, Alice dropped the ball, and I was really consistent with my gutter ball game.

Tomorrow: Anna's birthday!

Day 2...Venice

Venice Beach, CA, is like no other place I've been. It's where artists, street performers, tourists, and bodybuilders all come to form one giant community freakshow. The beach is beautiful, the people are hilarious, and the shops range from glass stores to high-end sunglasses retailers. It's a little hard to pin down the exact vibe of Venice, but weird is the word that comes up the most often in my mind.

This:

is one of the street perfomers. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a video of him doing his act, but he rolls that silver ball fluidly all over his body. It's weird.

There's lots of aspiring rappers that stand in the middle of the walkway with burned CDRs of their albums and headphones for you to listen to the album before you buy it. It gets really obnoxious.

One of the funnier interactions I had on the walkway was from a skinny, shirtless 20something dude who came up to the four of us and asked for "a hug from someone beautiful." Anna and Alice declined, to which he responded, "oh, no, not you guys, him." I respectfully declined. I had a feeling he was a pickpocket. As we were walking away, I heard him ask a girl if he could have her boyfriend.

After seeing everything we thought we should see, including the patch of palm trees with graffiti painted half-way up the trunks, we moseyed back towards where we parked and Alice stopped to stock up incense.

As Alice was making her incense mix, a man dressed in all white, including a white wrap which I imagine held his locks in place, and rollerblades appeared out of nowhere. Strapped to him was a beat-up looking guitar and a mini-amp. He turned on the amp and began playing a us a solo worthy of the best 60s psych-rock record you own. He seemed like a self-taught virtuoso who was content to just roll around Venice playing for the passersby. It was a pretty cool moment.

We decided to get coffee on our way back to Thousand Oaks, and stopped at this excellent little shop on Main Street in Santa Monica. If you're ever there, go to Amelia's Cafe. They're really friendly people with really good muffins.

It took an hour to get back to Thousand Oaks because the 101, 10, and 405 were all severely choked with traffic, but we made it.

Now we're chillin.

Drifting through California

Waking up in California is always a little strange for me. I sleep on this really comfortable air mattress in Samir's office, but picking my head up at 9 am is very disorienting. The wind blows through the small open window above Samir's desk, turning the metal blinds into an atonal windchime. I've never had a better alarm clock.

So to start the day, I walk downstairs and get a cup of coffee. Everyone else is already up and going through their usual routines: Alice is on her computer playing Snood, Anna is reading disturbing headlines on CNN, Allison is reading Harry Potter in the comfy chair, and Susan, Alice's mom, is on YouTube. The day has been planned already and I'm informed that we're going to Cafe Aroma for lunch and then to Ventura, Southern California's prettier version of Wilmington, NC. Incidentally, Ventura is just north of Oxnard, home of some of my hip hop heroes, Madlib, Peanut Butter Wolf, and Oh No.

Ventura seems to attract those who love Southern California but don't want to feel beaten down and crushed by the smoggy dreamscape of Los Angeles. There's a lot of hippies there. There's also a lot of beach bums and artists and insufferable coffee-shop waitresses with fake smiles and attitudes.

One of the cooler people we met in Ventura, however, was a man who owned a smoke shop called "Wild Side." Allison and I went in to look at glass and the like and ended up chatting with the friendly owner. He told us of his past as a glassblower, working in a shop in the Valley that could reach temperatures of up to 160 degrees. The way he described the glassblowing industry made it seem to be a hellish one, but owning shops that sold such products was a nice, relaxed way to earn a living. After we chatted with him for twenty minutes and left without purchasing anything, I got the same impression.

Next, as Alice and Anna went to another clothing store, Allison and I went into an art gallery called ARTZworks. A man with a long, greasy ponytail greeted us with a raspy voice that declared that 20 artists' work were on display in the gallery. Three paintings using American flags caught our attention and things began to turn ugly.

The artist and gallery owner was a well-built, scruffy, tired looking man who looked as though he did a lot of coke. David SchwARTZ (he capitalized the "ARTZ" on everything that bore his name) came over and began the sales pitches. He mentioned, in a very self-satisfied manner, that his 12-part series of patriotic paintings on American flags had just been accepted at some shmancy art festival in Italy. He constantly tried to sell us prints of his work and when we declined, he "jokingly" nudged me and said, "Come back some time and bring some buyers with you!"

Somehow he found out that we're from North Carolina and told us of his experience in Thee Dollhouse in Raleigh. He got kicked out. We left.

Oh, he did invite us to his "exclusive, red carpet" art show Saturday night. Bandhu will be providing the probably pretentious music which Alice told us we didn't want to miss.