Favorite New Neighborhood that I live -2010

Favorite New Neighborhood to Live

Downtown LA

Tis no secret to anyone that knows me, even on a peripheral plane, this past February, my roommate Olsen and I moved to Downtown LA. I’m not sure that “Downtown” is supposed to be capitalized when merely describing geography, but in this form, the form describing an almost living, organic entity, it is most definitely capitalized. Before we moved downtown, I didn’t know how the grid system worked, I didn’t know the layout of the neighborhoods, and I certainly didn’t know what to expect with the people I would be calling my neighbors. At first glance, after observing the surface of downtown, particularly my neighborhood, The Historic Core, one could imagine a pretty standard gentrification army or artists, skinny jeans, and big plastic glasses. The homelessmen begging for change, the Mexicans parading up and down Broadway, and the old, worn-down architecture are all certainly consistent with that type of white person. And to a man, these people are around. But they are well ingrained into a minority, a minority that co-exists well with the dominant, but certainly does not drive the aesthetic or culture of the neighborhood.

And to me, it is that fact that makes the current Downtown, the Downtown that I live in so special. As of now, and I’m sure this is very likely to change in the somewhat near future, there is no truly dominant aesthetic. There is no real way to categorize the people of Downtown, particularly those east of Broadway. Sure, there are definitely large pockets of artists, and pseudo-artists, and the lofts around the core, the warehouse district, and the arts district obviously lend themselves to accept the scenester type, but look around; in my building there are artists, professionals, bartenders, families, whites, blacks, Mexicans, Asians, people grilling on the roof, people ordering chili burgers at 2 AM, everyone lives here. And then you walk outside.

Outside my building is an insane amalgamation of people walking to the bank, walking to their cars, walking to ask for change, walking to the store. There are people eating lunch at LA Café, and people riding their bikes to and from work all over. On my block alone, we have two bars, a nightclub, a café, a Mediterranean grill, a dry cleaner, a convenient store, a juice store, and a dessert place. These businesses cater to so many creeds, walks, and ages of people that it’s impossible to locate who exactly makes up our culture. Of course if you go one block west, the beats and drones of mariachi music pollute the air, and thousands, literally thousands, of working class latinos are walking to and from unknown destinations. Furthermore, a few blocks east, and you’re literally on skid row; a tent city filled with so many homeless shelters that the neighborhood has developed its own aesthetic of homelessness.

So here is my little pocket, specifically bordered by Broadway to the West, 2^nd to the North, Main to the East, and 7^th to the South. A total of ten city blocks makes up this impossible to place, difficult to comprehend, collection of people, businesses, and apartment buildings.

A lot of people try to compare it to New York City, specifically the lower-east side, and there are definitely some similarities. The lower-class grifters co-existing with twenty/thirty something artsy set; the ancient buildings converted into classy lofts, I get it…but to me, the biggest difference is that Manhattan has been developing its culture and aesthetic for a century-and-a-half. Sure, there have been iterations and radical moments that have changed a particular neighborhood at a particular time, but all of these moments have merely enriched the already dynamic culture of Manhattan. Every Armory Show, or Beat Movement, helped create the neighborhoods we think we know today. DTLA is different. DTLA, especially this neighborhood, has been sitting pretty abandoned for much of the second half of the twentieth century. Only in the last decade did this part of Los Angeles really start to develop any aesthetic at all, let alone the one it’s trying to form right now. And so you have so many competing cultures, still not ready to stake claim to the ground, but definitely not ready to just move out and make room for anyone. Despite the opening of more than a handful of nice bars in the neighborhood, the grifters haven’t exactly slowed down, and most importantly the people in those bars don’t at all represent some sort of categorical archetype. The only thing we have in common is that we found this somewhat secluded corner of the least secluded city in the world, and we also found parking. That’s it. There is a common sense of irony shared by a lot of the people walking around, but that ironic mindset merely comes from the age, level of education, and level of pay that the city accommodates down here. Some are wearing plaid button downs, others are wearing dress shirts. Some girls are wearing high boots and carrying purses, others ride their bikes and roll up in long-sleeve t-shirts. Downtown can’t be placed. Downtown can’t be described, or authenticated, or confirmed. It can merely be romanced and mythologized.

To that last point, I have noticed a trend outside the confines of DTLA. When I encounter people, particularly those older the age of 35, but not always, that don’t really know downtown outside of the LA Times and the film 500 Days of Summer, they almost inevitably have the same reaction. “It’s supposed to be really cool down there now, do you live in one of those lofts?” It’s become like the church bells at Notre Dame…right on schedule, every time. And let me tell you why: Because it’s still a tiny bit, but just enough, intimidating to try to understand the complexities of what exactly is going on down here. Sort of like when a music movement begins to occur and those on the outside, without the ability or thoughtfulness to begin to try to understand the origins, complexities, or foci of the movement, they concentrate on one visual aspect of the mythology. To this day, flannel shirts are associated with grunge, almost more than the music. Spiked hair was punk. Backwards caps with early hip-hop. And with downtown LA, it’s these precious “lofts” they read about in the LA Times two or three years ago. These lofts have become our flannel, our spiked hair, our metonym for what it’s like to live downtown. There is no visual or aesthetic trait that binds the state of downtown together like skinny jeans of echo park, or the beach cruiser of Santa Monica; they don’t bother mentioning the pre-prohibition era cocktail movement that is now beginning to spread out of downtown, nor the incredibly vibrant arts scene; just the fact that people are living in old banks converted to lofts. I guess that’s good enough mythology for me. We aren’t hipsters, or artists; we don’t dress a certain way or behave like each other; we don’t all line up at the same restaurants because we’re too dim to think for ourselves (my obligatory subtle jab at the west side, not in caps); we just all live in lofts.

Well except Olsen and I. We have an apartment.

My interpretation of the Inception ending

I don’t think that I’m going too far in saying that Christopher Nolan’s last two films were very heavy on themes of philosophy. In fact I can say that this is actually a flaw in the Dark Knight as he spent so long trying to dial up the difference in Harvey Dent’s carnation of Kantian rationality with Bruce Wayne’s Hegelian reasoning that the film ran twenty-five minutes too long and knocked it out of Oscar contention. I think that Heath Legder’s Joker, not unlike his best supporting actor predecessor (Bardem’s Anton Chiggur); act as a point of reference for amorality, which actually earns some minimal sympathy from the audience as both the Coen’s and Nolan illustrate the difference between amorality and immorality. But the Dark Knight’s best moments come not during Nolan’s explorations of moral philosophy, but the sweeping panoramas, the tensions (particularly the game theory exercise on the two boats), and the great performances by everyone not named Christian Bale. Furthermore it was a technical masterpiece that won several technical Oscars while being shut out of the marquee nominations.

Inception is only somewhat different. Instead of an action movie with themes of philosophy, it is an all-out exploration of postmodern philosophy with some great action scenes. And I think Nolan even one-upped himself making a film even more technically breathtaking with this one. Analytically, despite several smaller themes throughout the 148 minutes, the over-arching theme, to me, is that of blurring the line between perception and reality. Cobb’s sub-conscious projection of Mal, a character who appears in almost every dream, is obviously not real in the sense that she is a living breathing organic organism, but she is “real” in the sense that she is involved in almost every plot turn, and more pertinent to this discussion, she is real in the sense that Cobb treats her as if she exists. He makes decisions based on how they will affect the not-so-real Mal.

To take this one step further, real Mal was consumed by the idea that her perception was not reality, so much so that it eventually killed real Mal, only to spawn “real” Mal who has accepted her perception (limbo) as reality and is comfortable with that. I think what Nolan is using “real” Mal to do is show Cobb’s subconscious struggling with his own grasp on reality.

Inception explores this question. Unlike the Matrix, which, based on Beaudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulation, argues that nothing is real and one cannot truly be free until they learn that, Inception merely asks the question “What makes real?” To me, this question comes from the ideas of Juan Luis Borges, which not-so-coincidentally was the primary influence on Beaudrillard’s philosophies. So, instead of coming outright like Lawrence Fishburn’s Morpheus in the Matrix who illustrates that despite perception, your reality is not real, Nolan is asking a simple question: If one perceives reality to be real, does it even matter if it’s not? Or in other words: at what point does perception become reality? See, real Mal questioned reality and paid for that with her life, but in Nolan’s world, she didn’t so much die, as change worlds. In one world she questioned her own perception of reality; in another she had no choice but to accept her perception as real. This theme is the overarching theme of Inception.

This brings me to the ending (or at least my own interpretation). I’m fairly certain Nolan wanted to leave the question as to whether or not the top was still spinning ambiguous. It definitely looks like it’s going but there are several clues that it might not be, in particular sound designer Richard King’s audible clues that it might be slowing down. It should be mentioned that King won one of those aforementioned technical Oscar’s for the Dark Knight for sound design in that film, and could very well win again for Inception. King is obviously a master and it’s not a coincidence that the audience hears SOMETHING happening to that top as the camera cuts swiftly and without mercy to the title card. Nolan wanted us questioning what was happening. However, there was one very conspicuous person unconcerned with the fate of the top and that was Cobb. He spun the top, not unlike he had done several previous times, but unlike those previous times, he walked away not bothering to question his own perception. And this, I believe is the coup-de-grace: IT DOESN’T MATTER. Whether or not that top falls and Cobb is truly home to his same-exact-age-as-the-were-before-he-left children, or if he is in a dream created by Ariadne to believe he’s home is irrelevant. He is home because he perceives he is home. Unlike The Matrix in which perception is merely a figment of someone’s imagination, Nolan is saying that Perception=Reality. What we believe to be real is real not on the merits of its existence, but it is real because of our acceptance of it as “reality.” It’s a question that seems to be asked throughout the film and I think he doesn't use the ambiguity to leave the audience guessing, but instead to illustrate that any conclusions the audience come to are irrelevant as Cobb has accepted this perception as reality.

I get a boner for this type of philosophical exploration and I think this is one of the reasons I find myself thinking about the film more and more as the days go by. Of course I could be way off and trying to inject my own overly-academic mental masturbation into a 160-million-dollar action flick, or I could be onto something. At this point, I think I’m onto something not for any other reason that I perceive things this way, hence—at least in my own deranged consciousness—it is real.

I'm a mess

Dear Future Matt,

First off, I want to make sure this letter gets to the right person. When I say future Matt, I don’t mean fifty-five-year-old Matt, getting prostate exams and trying to lower my cholesterol Matt. I mean near future Matt. I mean the Matt that will start tonight, and exist forever Matt. Now that that’s out of the way, one more disclaimer: I’m not OK right now. I’m not drunk, I’m not high, I’m slightly delusional, but I’m definitely not “right.” My heart rate is over 120, my mind is doing triple axels around itself as we speak. The last place I should be right now is at a keyboard typing my thoughts, but I’m doing it for posterity. If I don’t have a memoir of the innocence right now, I might forget it as quickly as it disappears tonight. So I might misspell some words, or say something that doesn’t make sense, but I want to have said some things. When I say innocence, what I mean is that a potentially life-changing moment will be occurring in 120 minutes, and yet I don’t know what it will be. In fact, I have no clue as to the degree that I will be affected by it. But as of right now, as far as the fate of my life as a sports fan is concerned, I am innocent.

Which brings me to my point: to anyone who thinks that the admiration of a sports figure to the extent I have engaged in over the past seven years is shallow, or trite, or even foolish, I need you to take a step back and understand some things. For one, about two years ago, I was published for the first time in my academic career. The paper was a thesis on Midwestern regionalism in which I hypothesized that the character of children of the rust belt, particularly those in my generation, have the curse of Cleveland area sports ingrained in them. The narrative of our story, the lifeblood of our character, the common bond in all of our consciousnesses is, unfortunately for all of us, intertwined with the fates of the Cleveland Indians, the Cleveland Browns, and the Cleveland Cavaliers. It’s not something I woke up one day and chose to dedicate massive amounts of time to, it is in my fucking blood. Secondly, this athlete, is not one I merely chose to admire because he was good, or the way he wore his hat, or he batted like me or something. This athlete is someone I first watched playing against my brother when he was fifteen years old. I watched him fucking grow up. Unlike Kobe, or Favre, or Jordan, he was already one of us. We had the same friends, we went to the same mall, we braved the same fucking atrocious winters, and the same disgusting summers. We rode the same roller coasters at Cedar Point, at the same wings at the Winking Lizard, it was like watching a friend or family member “make it.” There is something intimately special about that relationship. He was fighting for us, because he was one of us. And finally, and perhaps most applicable, it should be mentioned that for nine months a year, the equivalence of a school year, I, my friends, and my family have spent our evenings with Lebron James. Not in an intimate setting, and no, he doesn’t know, and obviously doesn’t care for us. But anyone that doesn’t understand the emotions of participating in the roller coaster (first time I’ve ever used the words “roller coaster” in the same paragraph twice) of a professional sports season, can’t really get it. You care, you give, you rejoice, and you cry. And then when it all comes crashing down in the cruelest and most twisted of ways, you shrug your shoulders, say “We’ll get em next year,” and get ready to do it all over again.

Until Now.

This time is different because this time there may not be a next year. This time there may not be a relationship. And that’s why this is so important. There is a decent chance that tonight, he comes on TV with Jim fucking gray, and says “I’m coming home.” If that is the case, then the last two months will merely be another memory to add to the growing banks. Seriously, this “decision” will merely be a slide in the powerpoint presentation. But if he chooses to end the relationship, to go off to some bigger city, then this is the only thing we’ll have. The bitterness of tonight will envelope the shot over Turk, it will eat the 25 in a row, it will destroy the first Wizards series, the triple doubles, the SI covers, the draft, the lottery, the “You see, we’re gonna light up Cleveland like it’s Vegas” promise. It will all be for naught. And that’s really the magnitude here. The memories can live on, or they can explode in our minds on national television. And here we are, innocent as a child, and yet shaking and guessing and hoping and trying to reason with ourselves that tomorrow the sun will rise, and same goes for the day after that, and reminding ourselves that there’s oil in the sea, and there’s lunatics screaming for the president’s head, and this fucking guy isn’t one of us anymore. But in ninety minutes, we’ll know. We’ll no longer be innocent, no longer be left to wonder. It’s either wait til’ next year, or fuck him in the ass.

By the way future Matt, at 4:26 PDT on the day he makes his decision, my guess is “STAYS.”

Sincerely,

Fucked up, crazy, wants this all to be over so I can laugh about it Matt.

P.S. WYLD STALLIONS RULE

Lebron is no Curt Flood

I think Lebron has really misjudged the sports landscape. This whole thing, start-to-finish, was more than a ploy to garner attention, to “build his brand,” to do what’s best for him and his family; no, this is too much, this is too heady, even for the most doted-over superstar of the times to think is ok to do. I don’t think that even he thinks that hijacking the sports media and his home city for the sake of his “brand” is morally comprehensible. Nor do I think that Lebron is a selfish maniac who doesn’t understand the havoc he has created. On the contrary, I think he is one of the most self-aware athletes of the time, a child of the post-Jordan, post-ESPN News, post-internet sports landscape. I think what Lebron is trying to do here, is to change the power structure within the world of sports. I also don’t think that this is necessarily a nefarious motive. Not only that, but I also don’t think this is the alpha moment of this plan, but actually the culmination of what he thinks he started several years ago by jettisoning his management team to make way for his own creation.

Several years ago, Lebron came into a power structure that was, let’s face it, somewhat outdated. In the mid-1980s, David Stern, Michael Jordan, David Falk, and Sonny Vaccaro literally changed the way that we view individual athletes. Furthermore, they augmented the limits to what the individual athlete can accomplish. Jordan actually absorbed more of a “bigger-than-the-team” backlash than we would care to remember. Jordan was often criticized for being selfish and losing sight of the concept of “team.” Six rings later, everyone seemed to forget how selfish this immature ball hog was. But what Jordan and Falk couldn’t accomplish in one generation was the structure of how the money and power was distributed. Jordan still answered to Nike, still was somewhat of a politician, unable to fully capitalize on his own brand without the support of the league or Nike. Jordan’s recent purchase of the Charlotte Bobcats speaks to this: he wanted to be the one that not only scored the touchdowns, but also the guy that called the plays.

Enter Lebron. Lebron is not merely a product of the Jordan era, but an honor student. He has studied and remapped everything about the Jordan era to fit this new post-Jordan landscape, and he has, from day 1, been interested in building on Jordan’s legacy. He is the Plato to Jordan’s Socrates, or the Lennon to Jordan’s Elvis. Lebron wants not only to be the guy that shows up on the Wheaties box, not only the iconic silhouette (whether he is flying through the air or throwing up chalk), but he wants to be the guy who makes the cereal, names the shoe, and calls all the shots. Why should he merely be an admittedly extremely-well-paid tool to make other people money, when he can do it himself? I really think this is, and has been, Lebron’s thought process during this whole thing.

Not only that, but he has anticipated this backlash. He thinks of himself as a modern-day Curt Flood, absorbing the brunt of the force so that those who come after him will not have to. Existentially, there is something radically unselfish about those motives. However, paradoxically, his motives are to create a world where selfishness is more acceptable. It’s weird that many in the media, and millions of bloggers and commentators have called him selfish and a glory-hog because they think he is merely doing this for attention. That he is losing sight of his own mortality and trying to become some sort of post-modern media demi-god. I’m sorry, but after watching him for the last ten years, and observing him as one the most self-aware, cold-blooded characters to come to the stage in this media era, I find it hard to believe that he, only now, needs to create some sort of stratospheric “buzz” around his brand. He knows what he’s doing, he’s just wrong.

You see, the landscape that he has perceived as in need of fixing is not broken. I will agree that it is not entirely fair. We still live in a world where NFL Owners make gross profits by limiting guaranteed contracts to the players and exploiting the fans. We still live in a world where baseball players have it in their best interest (often their only interest) to abandon loyalty to teams and cities that reared them for greener pastures elsewhere. And we still live in a world where even the most successful athletes owe answers and money to agencies, management teams, ownership, and sponsors. But Lebron trying to knock down these barriers with one fell swoop, in an attempt to remodernize the power structure of athletics by hijacking the media and the hearts of the millions of northeast Ohioans who have adored him for the better part of the past decade is not only disingenuous, but it is downright mean.

Tonight, when Lebron announces on national television that he is leaving for Miami, he truly believes he is changing the way athletes are seen. He is thinking, why should ESPN, the news-media conglomerates, and a league made up of Donald Sterlings and Clay Bennets get to break this story, sell ad time, and put up the marquee for the biggest news of the summer. Why can’t he? And to some extent, he’s not wrong. But, unfortunately, he has left many Ohioans, most notably myself, sleepless over three days. He has created far more of a shitstorm than he ever could have anticipated in the national media, and he has altogether destroyed his precious “brand.” He set out on a mission to change the sports landscape, and for all intents and purposes he actually may have succeeded. Unfortunately it was at the cost of millions of fans, and years of dedication and admiration. I will now go put the finishing touches on my rooftop launching pad.

I love Kobe, kinda

This entry will be both a defense and an indictment (something he's not foreign to) of Kobe Bryant.  Angelinos seem to come after me, calling me a hater; telling me that I support Lebron in some non-existent dichotomy.  I have defended Kobe many, many times, and yet these cries go unheard.  I have called Kobe the greatest player ever but to no avail.  This is going to be the final time I make this defense.  Please, refer to this from now on.

 

In his Bulls career, including playoffs, Micahel Jordan played 1,109 games and logged 43,361 minutes.  Assuming his short-lived Wizards run never happened, we'll call that his career.  Comparably, Kobe Bryant has played 1,162 games and logged 42,873 minutes.  Pretty similar number right?  However, after Jordan hit the 1100 game mark, he quit.  He hung em up.  He stopped playing (at least until he became GM of another team and drafted himself).  Kobe will finish this current season somewhere near 1200 career games played.  He will (undeservedly) finish second in the MVP race, and most likely lead his team to the NBA Finals.  So, 100 games after Jordan retired, Kobe Bryant will still be near his peak.  This is a stat that no one has bothered to mention in the media.  This number is fucking staggering. 

 

Added to which, Kobe already has four rings, with a really good fucking chance at five or even six.  Which would equal Jordan's total.  However, Jordan's six rings came sandwiched in a transition era of the NBA, an era without another transcendent star playing in his prime.  An era when the style of basketball that Jordan spearheaded was still in its infancy, and Jordan's last ring was won when Kobe Byrant was in his second year,  Tim Duncan was a rookie, Dwayne Wade was a sophomore in high school, Carmello Anthony was in 8^th grade, and Lebron James was in 7^th grade.  The superstars that have made the NBA more competitive today than any era other than the mid-1980s were not stars yet.  The stars of the old guard were all retired or playing out the string.  Jordan was left alone to win ring after ring after ring with arguably the greatest coach of all time, and arguably the greatest second banana of all time.  Kobe has a chance to match Jordan's ring count, and do so in an exponentially more difficult era.  To not mention Kobe in the greatest players of all time discussion is fucking ludicrous.  He can defend, he can score with the fucking best of them, and he is arguably second only to Jordan in the competitive drive department.  Jordan's mythology will always outweigh Kobe's, much to Kobe's very visible chagrin—but mythology does not make history, and Kobe's career is second to none.  I mean that. 

 

But on the other hand…

 

This season has to be considered one of Kobe's strangest seasons.  Let me preface this by saying I am about to throw out numbers or "stats."  A certain Kobe apologist currently reading this seems to think that while stats are important, relying to heavily on them is unwise.  He has taken to calling me "a stat guy," as if my reliance on science, math, and numbers is some sort of political alignment akin to being pro-choice or pro-gun control.  Let me set this record straight.  We are all "stat guys."  Every one of us.  Yes you can learn a lot from watching and observing, but honestly, all you're doing is keeping your own stats.  When Kobe makes a long jumper with a hand in his face, it does not count for more points in the stat book, but nor does when he misses an open jumper.  Stats will show that Kobe makes less shots with a hand in his face, so the successful jumper probably happened with a frequency consistent with how often Kobe makes well-defended jumpers.  The stats refuse to lie.  I am not a stat guy.  Stats are simply numbers that tell you what happened.  You can't argue with them.  They're fucking science. 

 

In 55 games this season, Kobe has shot from the field less than 40 % fourteen times.  To put that in perspective, Lebron James has done so seven times.  Kobe has shot less than 35% eleven times, Lebron has done it twice.  Kobe has shot less than 30% six times.  Lebron hasn't done that all season.  I'm not trying to draw a dichotomy here, I'm simply arguing that a guy whose name is being mentioned for MVP ahs had six games in which he shot respectively: 5-20, 7-24, 4-21, 4-19, 2-12, and most recently 3-17.  That's 88 missed shots (essentially turnovers) in 6 games.  That's almost 15 MISSED shots a game.  Now I will concede that these six games represent the worst games he's had all year, and in those six games, his team managed to go 4-2.  I will also concede that for two of those games, he was hurt.  However, I am not arguing that Kobe Bryant doesn't have unfathomable ability to score the basketball.  I am arguing that in those six games, his team won DESPITE his horrible shooting night.  I am also arguing that those missed shots (the second worst result of a given possession) are products of Kobe buying into the same belief that Laker's fans continue to buy: that Kobe is the best player in the NBA.  Perhaps if Kobe did not have this maniacal drive to prove himself INDIVIDUALLY, he wouldn't have games in which he missed a staggering seventeen shots. 

 

I have to go to work now, and I will continue this tomorrow, please read tomorrow too..

#1 The Hills

#30 Hollywood Walk of Fame
#29 Yamashiro
#28 Hollywood Billiards
#27 Genghis Cohen
#26 Piano Bar
#25 Shmutzville
# 24 Loteria
# 23 The Griddle
# 22 Proximity
# 21 Hollywood Freeway
#20 Kitchen 24
# 19 The People
# 18 Sushi Eyaki
#17 Raymond Chandler
# 16 Jumbo's Clown Room
#15 Skooby's
#14 The Arclight
# 13 The Well
#12 Runyon Canyon
# 11 Canter's
#10 Hotel Café
#9 Body Factory
#8 The Troubadour
#7 Barney's Beanery (The Real One)
#6 Thai Food
#5 The Jukebox at Café 101
#4 The Lights
#3 Village Pizzeria
#2 Amoeba Music

#1 The Hills

And now, the time has come. I have been deliberating over this entry for a week (actually six weeks). Do I make this funny, nostalgic, whimsical, romantic? How do I draw this thing up? I feel that I'm a pretty good writer, and I could throw this blog entry down any way I want. I feel like I can take all of my emotions and put them into writing and make them ache, or I could ignore them and make a really cynical and funny list of things I will miss about the geological idiosyncrasies in Hollywood. I'm just going to start writing. This is how I will miss the Hollywood Hills.

Technically, my neighborhood was called Whitley Heights. But the Hollywood Hills, the not-so-tall, not-so-beautiful change in altitude in between Sunset and Ventura was still one of the more majestic hills I have ever crossed. Everything good about Hollywood either owes itself directly or indirectly to the eastern expanse of the Santa Monica Mountains.

The Santa Monicas are the very little baby-sister to the giant transverse ranges to the very-near north; the San Gabriels and the San Bernadinos. As they travel west towards Santa Barbara, they grow and become a little more "mountainous," but in the city they really are just a series of hills. On the north side of the hills is the San Fernando Valley, flanked by the San Gabriels to the north and the Verdugo's to the east. The Valley is the suburbs of LA, a never-ending string of strip-malls, three-star dining, and inexpensive cookie-cutter apartments. On the south side of the hill is Hollywood, and the hills never let you forget that. Resting on the south side of the hill, Griffith Observatory, Runyon Canyon, the countless lit-up dots that the millionaires call home, and nine gigantic letters, cut and pasted to the hill as a giant letterhead reminding every poor speller in town exactly how to spell H-O-L-L-Y-W-O-O-D.


And everywhere you go in Hollywood, those hills follow. Whatever major north-south thoroughfare you pass—from Doheney to Vermont—they look over you. The lights of Hollywood, described very poorly in my previous entry, are strewn across the greenish backdrop of the Hollywood Hills and it is within that framework, that Academy Award winning lighting scheme that my Hollywood exists.

If you take all of these entries, all of my puff and romanticizing about a mythical place that only exists in my imagination, all of my love for a place known just as much for traffic, parking, and other nuisances as it is for movie stars and swimming



pools, all of my affection for the place that I made Hollywood in my head, all of that, it all goes back to those hills.

Part of me wants to go into the magic and mystique that the hills bring. Part of me wants to get into the geography of Hollywood and mention Los Feliz, Beachwood, Laurel, and Coldwater. Part of me wants to talk about the painted sky that the hills brush every evening as the sun goes down, or the names of the streets whose iconography outweighs their avenues. Part of me wants to talk about what it's like to bike north up the hills, or look down from them. But none of this really matters. You got all of this in my last twenty-nine entries. And that's the point. The point is that while I was talking about bars, and food, and hikes, and parking spots; while I was going on about lights, and homelesses and record stores, I was always talking about the fucking hills. I've already said it all.

OK, I'm going to get this out and then end this project. Hollywood really is a magical place that you can't truly understand until you embrace it. At the risk of turning this into a Travel Channel piece, I say without irony, that Hollywood is as deep and complex a city as you will ever find. It is layered and hard and very difficult to take in without and eye for subtlety, and appreciation for history and literature, and a very keen ability to experience. It can be dirty, dangerous, and pristine all at the same time, at the same intersection. People can be frightening, friendly, and crazy merely while walking by you. Everything I've mentioned in this blog has two sides to it, and I have merely chosen to appreciate the side I have chosen to experience. While I understand why people who live elsewhere choose to hate the archetype of what Hollywood represents, I resent these people for judging a place as complex and layered as Hollywood without ever truly experiencing it from the inside.

My new bedroom looks west towards the city that I have been writing about. I am high enough up, that I should be able to see about ten miles out. But I don't live in Hollywood anymore. My view is obstructed by buildings much taller than my own and my view stretches barely over six city blocks. Ironically, this is the view that I desired when moving here, it is the trump card that makes our new place, Bar 1207, great. But now, with my house, my job, and my view broken off from Hollywood in both literal and figurative ways, I am left merely to romanticize and remember the Hollywood I built in my imagination. I will always look back on the last eighteen months of my life as some of the best, I will always remember Hollywood fondly, but I will always feel as though there was more that I never got to. More fictional smoky bars, more dark and hard corners, and more crazy people that never got to open my mind. Thankfully, I've been able to chronicle exactly what created that reality in my head over the last six weeks. Thank you for taking part in remembering this adventure with me.

Now onto the next….

#2 Amoeba Music

#30 Hollywood Walk of Fame
#29 Yamashiro
#28 Hollywood Billiards
#27 Genghis Cohen
#26 Piano Bar
#25 Shmutzville
# 24 Loteria
# 23 The Griddle
# 22 Proximity
# 21 Hollywood Freeway
#20 Kitchen 24
# 19 The People
# 18 Sushi Eyaki
#17 Raymond Chandler
# 16 Jumbo's Clown Room
#15 Skooby's
#14 The Arclight
# 13 The Well
#12 Runyon Canyon
# 11 Canter's
#10 Hotel Café
#9 Body Factory
#8 The Troubadour
#7 Barney's Beanery (The Real One)
#6 Thai Food
#5 The Jukebox at Café 101
#4 The Lights
#3 Village Pizzeria

#2 Amoeba Music

I am a cynical person. (really???) I tend to distrust authority and tradition unconditionally, and I rarely see the best in things or people until they give me good reason to do so. Contrary to what Conan O'Brien said in his final Tonight Show Speech, I think this is a good thing. If we all blindly trusted authority and went along believing that everyone was true and honest in their words, we would still be living in an anti-science slave economy. We need to question things.

What does this have to do with a records store? Well, if there is one place on Earth I feel that all facets of this country come together and do good together, it's Amoeba. I know this sounds silly, but on the corner of Sunset and Cahuenga, art, business, life, vitality, and love all come together under one giant roof, creating my favorite indoor place in the country. Amoeba is heaven.

Amoeba is the size of three football fields. It is laid out with used cds on the west side, new on the east. Vinyl is in the front, jazz and blues the back, and the DVDs are upstairs. From a music fan's perspective, it is the best place I can think about shopping for music. There are other great stores in this great city—Fingerprints in Long Beach comes to mind—but when I'm looging for something, I know Amoeba has it. And for eight bucks.

But it's not merely the insane selection and prices that I love about Amoeba, it's everything else. The staff is insane. Case in point: about a year ago, I go in there looging for the solo work of Tim O'Reagan, the drummer for the Jayhawks. Unable to find it in either J or O, I ask a staffer behind the info desk. "Bargain CDs under O, should be 3rd aisle on your right." WHAT??? Seriously? I don't know if he's a fan or not, but not only did he know who I was talking about, but that it was in stock and where? Are you nuts?

Or the "Music we Like" catalog that comes out every now and again. In it, staffers from all three Amoeba's (older smaller stores are in San Francisco and Berkeley) offer suggestions around things they dig. So if you find a staffer whose tastes fit yours, you can find new music in brand new ways. And because Amoeba is the greatest place on Earth, there is no better source to acquire new music than from the people inside.

Everything about Amoeba is my favorite thing the world. The free live shows that are there like every night, the music they play while you shop, the layout, the prices, the cheap-ass box sets, the crazy selection of amazing DVDs, the people inside, the FREE FUCKING PARKING, the hours (record stores open til 11 are awesome), the back room, the fact that I once found "Cleveland Browns Greatest Games" there, and then months later found "History of the Cleveland Browns," the walk from my house, the yellow paper bags they give you, the branding, and everything they represent about how great this country can be.

Most stores become terrible in a directly proportional arc with how big they get. Things become homogenized, prices soar, branding becomes intolerable, and the staff becomes robots—Amoeba is the exact opposite. It needs to be big to be great, and it thrives. Prices remain, not only fair, but also the best; the staff is always cool, nothing is homogenized, and they seriously, and genuinely love music. Call me a fucking sheep, but I trust them so much as to say, their mission is not about cutting profits (which I'm sure they do at a remarkable pace) but about loving music. I really believe that.

I have spent close to two grand there in the last two years. As soon as the move and my trips are behind me and I have money again, I will continue to spend it there. I love Amoeba, and despite it being a few red-line stops away, I will be dying that I can't walk there. Amoeba is the greatest thing about LA.

#3 Village Pizzeria

#30 Hollywood Walk of Fame
#29 Yamashiro
#28 Hollywood Billiards
#27 Genghis Cohen
#26 Piano Bar
#25 Shmutzville
# 24 Loteria
# 23 The Griddle
# 22 Proximity
# 21 Hollywood Freeway
#20 Kitchen 24
# 19 The People
# 18 Sushi Eyaki
#17 Raymond Chandler
# 16 Jumbo's Clown Room
#15 Skooby's
#14 The Arclight
# 13 The Well
#12 Runyon Canyon
# 11 Canter's
#10 Hotel Café
#9 Body Factory
#8 The Troubadour
#7 Barney's Beanery (The Real One)
#6 Thai Food
#5 The Jukebox at Café 101
#4 The Lights

#3 Village Pizzeria

"There's no good pizza in LA." Seriously, everyone that lives here will say this. In case you were wondering, there's also no good Chinese food. I have a hard time believing this. I have a hard time believing that with all of the people here, we cannot get pizza as good as New York. Traditionally the response is that the water in New York is so much more accommodating to pizza than the water in LA. Excuse me if I have a hard time believing that. It seems like this is one of those things like "Macs don't get viruses and PCs do" that one person said and then everyone started believing. (I had PCs for 15 years and never had a virus, my mac has worked on and off for three years with the consistency of an epileptic drunk) Water DOES play a role in the texture of the dough. In the beer world, water plays a role in the texture of the beer as well. Beer and dough have several similar qualities, and like every ingredient that goes into making a beer or a pizza, difference in water plays a role. However, despite Germany and California having very different water, they both manage to make very good beer. Somehow, despite differences in the texture of the water—I assume much more drastic than that between New York and LA—both regions make great—albeit different—beer

So I cannot buy the water is different hence good pizza is an absolute impossibility card. I just can't. I think a lot of it has to do with the main goals of restaurants in both cities. By-the-slice places in New York are fucking amazing, but they also have four billion people walking by every day. LA by-the-slice places have 1/50th what New York has, so the best pizza chefs see no reason to put money into a corner pizza place when they could make fifty times more money harnessing their skills in a nicer environment. New York will always have better street food, and it doesn't end with pizza. Why are New York's falafel, hot dogs, and pretzels better than LA's? It's NOT the water.

Which leads me to Village Pizza. The original Village is on Larchmont, and I personally think it's better. No, I don't think it's a different recipe, I just think more time and care goes into things over there. The second Village is on Yucca right by our place. It is the best New York style pizza in LA. It is. No, it is not as good as the places on every single NYC street, not even close, but it has nothing to do with the water. As far as LA greasy pizza goes, I'm yet to find a subtitute.

Despite the fact that I swear the other location makes better pie, we have spent a shit ton of money at the closer one. We get delivery almost once a week, and until I started working the twelve-hour shift on Fridays, I ate lunch there every week. I adore pizza. I live for it. My next tattoo is a pizza. And Village has been my pizza place for two solid years.

I'm hoping that downtown offers some sort of pizza solace. Yelp! lists 176 places with pizza within walking distance, and I will attempt to plow through all of them. But I just have a hard time believing that one will somehow eclipse Village. Despite not having New York's water system, they manage to make a damn fine pizza, and I will miss it.

#4 The Lights

#30 Hollywood Walk of Fame
#29 Yamashiro
#28 Hollywood Billiards
#27 Genghis Cohen
#26 Piano Bar
#25 Shmutzville
# 24 Loteria
# 23 The Griddle
# 22 Proximity
# 21 Hollywood Freeway
#20 Kitchen 24
# 19 The People
# 18 Sushi Eyaki
#17 Raymond Chandler
# 16 Jumbo's Clown Room
#15 Skooby's
#14 The Arclight
# 13 The Well
#12 Runyon Canyon
# 11 Canter's
#10 Hotel Café
#9 Body Factory
#8 The Troubadour
#7 Barney's Beanery (The Real One)
#6 Thai Food
#5 The Jukebox at Café 101

#4 The Lights

I've never really lived in a city. I've always wanted to, but since I graduated college I've lived in an isolated little town in Western Washington, I've lived in a suburb of Cleveland, I've lived in Long Beach—which is the closest to big city I've been in—and I've been in Silver Lake. The Silver Lake place is interesting because from our front porch, over some trees and up a hill, you could see a flickering of life. Nightly, as the sun went down, the western sky would start to light up about five miles away. It was like Oz. Whatever was going on down that road looked important.

We had no clue that our next apartment would not just be closer to those lights, but actually a part of those lights. Our apartment is in the center of life in Hollywood—a pain in the ass for sure, but life was bursting all around us. Coming into Hollywood on the 101, you feel as though you are showing up at Disneyland.

That's really how I'll remember Hollywood. Coming north on the 101;, the Capitol Building, the city lit up like Times Square, it just felt like you were entering something important. And coming in the other way, from the Valley, when you round that corner and pass the "Hollywood – Next 8 exits" sign mentioned earlier, it really is a special experience. There is the Capitol Building, and all the other 1940s era "highrises" lit up and flaunting their oversized billboards to oncoming traffic. There are huge swaying spotlights spinning from the El Capitan that can be seen for miles, there's the Patron billboard on top of a building that flashes and turns from one message to another, it's fucking breathtaking.

And off the freeway, the lights don't stop. Driving down the strip you are inundated with giant billboards lit up as though they were LCD televisions. Giant advertisements draping the bigger buildings reminding you to watch the new season of True Blood, the upcoming Academy Awards, or anything that might be new. It's both dangerous and moderately offensive in spirit, but in essence, it's a one-of-kind sight that reminds every commuter that they're not back home. There's something special about it, I insist.

And there are other lights that dominate Hollywood. From almost anywhere below Sunset, the natural compass of the Hollywood Hills directs you north. And those hills are lit up like a starry sky. Million-dollar homes dot the hills like a movie set model. From Melrose, and from Beverly, and Wilshire and 3rd, the lights of the hills guard the northern sky like a really, really expensive and gaudy sentry. They flicker, they remind you that you're not nearly wealthy enough to live up there, they implore you to enter the industry, but most of all, they dominate the northern skyline and constantly tell you that you are in Hollywood. The observatory is lit up like a castle and can be seen from all over the city. The bigger houses are like landmarks along the way. And somehow, all of these lights, these actors in nighttime urbanism work together to light up a city as unique as Hollywood.

My new neighborhood will have a new kind of lights. The downtown skyline will dominate our view, and provide a true urban experience. But what I've learned from living in Hollywood is that those lights that I pined for from my front porch in Silverlake don't just end with the tallish buildings, and aren't just patrons of capitalism. They are the life of the city and they are constantly changing and offering different perspectives. My new urban skyline is in every city in the world. Skyscrapers, theatres, and arenas aren't unique to LA. But the lights of Hollywood aren't found anywhere else in the world, and every time I make my way down the 101 into Hollywood, those lights—all of them—will remind me of how special a place this is.

#5 The Jukebox at Cafe 101

#30 Hollywood Walk of Fame
#29 Yamashiro
#28 Hollywood Billiards
#27 Genghis Cohen
#26 Piano Bar
#25 Shmutzville
# 24 Loteria
# 23 The Griddle
# 22 Proximity
# 21 Hollywood Freeway
#20 Kitchen 24
# 19 The People
# 18 Sushi Eyaki
#17 Raymond Chandler
# 16 Jumbo's Clown Room
#15 Skooby's
#14 The Arclight
# 13 The Well
#12 Runyon Canyon
# 11 Canter's
#10 Hotel Café
#9 Body Factory
#8 The Troubadour
#7 Barney's Beanery (The Real One)
#6 Thai Food

#5 The Jukebox at Café 101

This isn't really fair. It's not just the jukebox I will miss. I will miss the whole place. Everything about Café 101 other than the food. The food at Café 101 is about a step above Denny's and a marathon below Fred 62. It's not inedible, it's just not good, and I won't be missing it in the least bit. I will however be missing going into Café 101 late night and playing that juke box.

For those who are either not from LA or just LA stupid, Café 101 is a coffee house on Franklin just east of the 101. It is most famous for being the coffee shop in Swingers that they eat at four times. It's in a million other movies and TV shows, but it's Swingers that made it legendary. It's built inside of an old-timey Hollywood hotel. It's extremely close to my house, and outside of the food, it's perfect.

On the eastern exterior wall of the place, there is a giant mural with a cup of foamy coffee. The copy reads "Last cappuccino before the 101," as if the 101 represents the end of humanity and cappuccino represents a universal need before passing. Inside, the décor has changed a bit since Swingers but I think it's perfect. Combining googie elements with modern Hollywood, there are very few places in the city that say "welcome to Hollywood" the way this does. The walls are large rocks, the countertop is old-school kitsch, the servers are just cute enough to be in Hollywood, but still normal enough to be servers at a coffee shop. The booths have that tattered coffee shop feeling that makes you feel like you're sitting talking to George and Elaine, and the crowd is self-aware enough to make Swingers references without overdoing it and drunk enough to be up for some hijinks. Then, in the corner, is what has to be the best jukebox in LA.

The jukebox rotates, and this is not a music blog, so before I start naming all of my favorites on the jukebox, let me just say that there is enough on there for me to put in a fiver, and from the moment we sit down, to the moment we get up, the soundtrack is perfect. From old Pearl Jam, to James Brown, Funkadelic, and The Flaming Lips, the jukebox represents everything that is right about Hollywood. Let me try to explain this in better, snobbier, more cynical terms.

I have a theory that my generation is unique because while college attendance—and hence the amount of educated people—is at an all time high, we are in one of the worst job markets in the history of this country. So there is a surplus of over-educated, underpaid, kind of lost 26-33 year olds running around bartending, collecting useless graduate degrees, playing in bands, giving acting a really long shot, and refusing to grow up in the traditional sense. We don’t have real jobs, we can't afford families, so there's no reason to latch onto societies norms and start playing along. This is comforting to me because recession or no recession, I'm not working a bullshit job, so this just means more people for me. I have argued that this phenomenon is responsible for the popularity of seemingly inaccessible intellectual type music that has been a little too popular for traditional American music in the last several years. There's no reason that bands like the Arcade Fire, the Shins, Wilco, or the Flaming Lips should be as popular as they are now. Evidence to this is the fact that Wilco and the Flaming Lips put out their best stuff fifteen years ago, and no one noticed. Only now, with a surplus of neo-bohemians does this music work.

And to bring this back to Café 101; the reason that a jukebox, serving young, drunk, Hollywood-types is able to be so good, is because we're the ones eating the gross French dips and tuna melts. We're the jerk-offs coming in, being loud, acting like teenagers. And for us to be happy, we need some good 90s shit, some classic 70s shit, and some cool new shit to distract us from the rubbery eggs we're eating. Go hop over to Swingers in Santa Monica, tell me how many neo-bohemians you see there. The answer will be none. But in this corner of the city, we are the majority; actors, writers, bassists, and other assholes without real jobs, need real music to get us through shitty drunk meals. And so yes, I will miss all of Café 101, but it's the jukebox that represents everything I will miss about Hollywood.

The jukebox at Café 101, to me, is a big fuck you to the young professional set. I know you think I'm reading way too into the meaning of a jukebox, and perhaps in several years I will look back at this entry from my desk in some office with a boss looging over my shoulder, and I will laugh about this, but as a self-proclaimed native anthropologist, I insist that the jukebox at Café 101 is our New York Armory show (look it up), and that we, like the young professionals, need a place to eat late at night. Even if the food is garbage. So, in closing, yes, I will miss Café 101, a lot. Ok, fine I'll ask, excuse me, do you know where the high school girls hang out? Oh, I'm the asshole…right…I'm the asshole, you know I would never eat here anyways.

#6 Thai Food

#30 Hollywood Walk of Fame
#29 Yamashiro
#28 Hollywood Billiards
#27 Genghis Cohen
#26 Piano Bar
#25 Shmutzville
# 24 Loteria
# 23 The Griddle
# 22 Proximity
# 21 Hollywood Freeway
#20 Kitchen 24
# 19 The People
# 18 Sushi Eyaki
#17 Raymond Chandler
# 16 Jumbo's Clown Room
#15 Skooby's
#14 The Arclight
# 13 The Well
#12 Runyon Canyon
# 11 Canter's
#10 Hotel Café
#9 Body Factory
#8 The Troubadour
#7 Barney's Beanery (The Real One)

#6 Thai Food

This entry is not about any particular Thai restaurant. Nor is it merely about the several stops in Thai Town a short drive from my house. This is about the never-ending supply of incredible noodles, curries, and rice that has been showing up at my house far too frequently for the last year and a half.

My apartment is towards the eastern terminus of what you might call "Hollywood." As you cross over the 101 and go east, you'll pass through the relatively boring East Hollywood, and then come across a stretch of roads known as Thai Town. Furthermore, to the west, as Hollywood turns to West Hollywood and eventually Beverly Hills, the streets become chic, wealthy, and noticeably high end. Here, Thai restaurants are in high demand as well. In fact, Yelp! lists 495 Thai places within a five-mile drive from my house. Of these 495, we've probably eaten at about twenty of them. They're all insane. Fucking insane.

This is not a forum to discuss my favorite dishes from my favorite restaurants. If you've been following this entire countdown, you'll know it is about what all of these things mean to me. Because this entry is about an entire ethnic cuisine, it's hard to pinpoint exactly what it is that I will miss, but the easiest way of saying it is that close to once a week for the last couple years, we have ordered Thai delivery, or gone for Thai food so many times, that it has become an absolutely integral part of my life that will be impossible to replace. The standards: Sunset Thai and Pimai will be seeing noticeable dips in their revenue next month. Delivery drivers will be wondering why their tips seem for be five bucks a week lighter. And Olsen and I are going to have to work our way through a new checklist of Thai places without the access to Thai Town or any of the more chic Hollywood places.

Also, I'd be remised if I didn't mention Toi here. Shout out to one of the weirdest, most authentically awesome 7 out of 10 restaurants on Earth. Toi is open til 4 AM and after 1 is an absolute zoo. The food is pretty good, but the décor, the atmosphere, the weird ass movies, the crowd is fucking insane. I'm going to miss Toi.

But most of all, I'm going to miss being able to type in seven random numbers on my phone, and having a good chance of dialing a Thai delivery place that comes to my place. I won't lie, my indulgence is Thai cuisine has not been 100% natural, as I have indulged in PEDs so to say. Taking advantage of my cities loose greenery laws, I have realized that very few things in life satisfy my cravings as well as spicy garlic noodles, spicy bamboo shoots, or chicken prik king.

Living in Hollywood has been a god damn pleasure thanks to Thai food. This next statement is bold, but I think it's fair to say that, despite an upcoming entry being ranked higher, I will miss Hollywood Thai food—not just the food, but the accessibility—more than any other food. I seriously cannot imagine having better access to my favorite kind of food anywhere on Earth outside of Bangkok. 6615 is the nexus of the Hollywood Thai universe. I'm going to end this now before I get weepy. Goodnight LA Thai world.

#7 Barney's Beanery

#30 Hollywood Walk of Fame
#29 Yamashiro
#28 Hollywood Billiards
#27 Genghis Cohen
#26 Piano Bar
#25 Shmutzville
# 24 Loteria
# 23 The Griddle
# 22 Proximity
# 21 Hollywood Freeway
#20 Kitchen 24
# 19 The People
# 18 Sushi Eyaki
#17 Raymond Chandler
# 16 Jumbo's Clown Room
#15 Skooby's
#14 The Arclight
# 13 The Well
#12 Runyon Canyon
# 11 Canter's
#10 Hotel Café
#9 Body Factory
#8 The Troubadour

#7 Barney's Beanery (The Real One)

Before this one gets going let me set something straight. When I say Barney's Beanery, I don't mean all of the Barney's Beaneries. I have no problem with the one in Pasadena, I've never been to the one in Burbank, and despite my patronization of the one on the Third Street Promenade almost every Tuesday during the 2009-2010 Cavaliers season, I despise and loathe that location. I wish nothing but the worst for the staff, the clientele (except me), and the structure itself. As long as it can wait until a Tuesday Cavs game is over, I wish for bad things there. This entry is about the real Barney's Beanery: the legendary, mythical, historical Barney's Beanery on Holloway and La Cienega. (because I don't have footnote capability on blogger, let me explain why I even set foot in the last one: I work until roughly 3:00-3:30 PM on Tuesdays in Santa Monica, and then again from 6:00-1:00 AM. So from 3:30-6 I am free, and there are often Cavs games on at that time and Barney's on the promenade offers a cheap, REALITVELY unobtrusive viewing experience, as long as I can survive the meathead/retard beer conversations that go on at the bar, and the countless assaults on the last three-hundred years of social advancements that seem to occur during every encounter between the half-breeds that hang out on the Promenade. And I implore to you, that Barney's is the best of the worst.)

Anyways, (why do I feel like every entry starts with a paragraph of disclaimers that end in rambling digressions before the second paragraph, without fail, brings us back to focus) the real Beanery is a fucking special place. The food is juuuuust above average. The service is just below average. The clientele is as diverse as Hollywood can offer which can be both a blessing and a curse depending on who's sitting next to you, and who the Lakers are playing. The beer selection is a few steps above standard bars and a few large steps below new gastropubs. (my MS Word doesn't recognize the word "gastropub," probably because when I bought this computer in 2006, the latest version of Office available for Mac was MS Office 1964) On paper, Barney's doesn't really have a lot going for it, but it's the intangibles. It's like Barney's is the Tom Glavine of bars; 89 MPH fastball, four or five quality pitches but no "out pitch," nothing flashy or special, just comes to work every five days, hits its spots and gets people out. That's what Barney's does.

By saying Barney's excels at intangibles (a sports allegory with no clear-cut explanation) what I mean is that it's kind of hard to describe exactly what makes this place awesome. I'll try, but I think that my abilities as a writer are too limited to fully appreciate Barney's. It's historical, meaning it used to be a stop on the old Route 66. It's more recent history includes stars like Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin drinking there. They got an air hockey table, a pop-a-shot machine, and to quote Garth Algar, they got a pool table, too. The music is always played at a reasonable volume, the ceilings are adorned with license (single hardest word to spell without spell check, narrowly edging out "judgment" and "consciousness") plates from the past, there are TVs in every corner, and the bar is broken up into several rooms. The patio has two TVs and a plethora of people smoking cigarettes (cigarettes at a bar? My word!!) and watching the Hollywood traffic roll down Santa Monica and Holloway. Like I alluded to before, the crowd is pretty diverse, but the atmosphere, casualness of place, and accessibility lends itself to a pretty laid back group. People tend to get along there, not get in each other's way, and exist together unlike most places in Hollywood.

There's another element that makes Barney's special to me, and that's sports, and in particular NFL football. Anyone that knows me (or at least is facebook friends with me and hasn't already pressed ignore on me) knows the only thing I hate more than the NFL, is NFL fans. This is true for every corner of the world except for beneath the roof of Barney's Beanery. Here's what I love:

As alluded to earlier, Barney's is divided into separate rooms. Furthermore, the ceilings are abnormally low, creating an even cozier feeling to each corner of the pretty-large bar. No matter where you're sitting in the approximately 3500-4000 square-foot bar, you feel like you're in a small room. And because there are TVs in the strange, yet incredibly viewable places, you can watch your game from several different places. So on Sundays, small packs of five to fifteen fans of each team congregate somewhere inside the bar and watch their game. The result is a cacophony of cheers and groans immediately following every big play. A first down will be greeted by a shriek of cheers coming from one corner, while a chorus of groans will come from another. And because each part of the bar is so intimate, you can't really see all of these people, there's just an anonymous approval or disapproval of every major event in every major game from all corners of the bar. It's as if each fan's entire fan-base is spread sporadically through one bar, and those cheers represent the fortunes of an entire city. It's incredibly special, and something that only gets better as the playoffs begin. I don't generally like to watch sports at a bar but Barney's is my favorite place in LA to watch sports, hands down.

I'm going to miss this place. I'm going to miss mornings there, and lunches. I'm going to miss eating there, and drinking whiskey there. I'm going to miss one of the best crowds in Hollywood (or WeHo depending on if you work for Rand-McNally or not) and the most comfortable atmosphere at any bar I've been to since I left the Winking Lizard on Miles. I'll miss the drunkards hanging out on the patio on weekday afternoons, and the anonymous cheers after football team A does something they approve of. You can probably tell, this is a tough one for me; I really love this place. Via con Dios Barney.

#8 The Troubadour

#30 Hollywood Walk of Fame
#29 Yamashiro
#28 Hollywood Billiards
#27 Genghis Cohen
#26 Piano Bar
#25 Shmutzville
# 24 Loteria
# 23 The Griddle
# 22 Proximity
# 21 Hollywood Freeway
#20 Kitchen 24
# 19 The People
# 18 Sushi Eyaki
#17 Raymond Chandler
# 16 Jumbo's Clown Room
#15 Skooby's
#14 The Arclight
# 13 The Well
#12 Runyon Canyon
# 11 Canter's
#10 Hotel Café
#9 Body Factory

#8 The Troubadour

I just realized that this entry is kind of bullshit. Technically, I won't really be missing the Troubadour—it is the best music venue in LA and next time a band I like is playing, I will have the same desire to attend as I do living in Hollywood. Essentially, me moving will play little-to-no role in how often I visit the Troubadour. Furthermore, the geographers in the room will be quick to point out that not only is the Troubadour not in Hollywood (it's in West Hollywood), but it's not even in near West Hollywood, it's on the border of WeHo and Beverly Hills. These two very legitimate facts make the statement "The Troubadour is my eighth biggest sacrifice in Hollywood when I move downtown" utter bollocks. I apologize for these two elephants and now plan on moving on as though nothing is wrong and this paragraph—nor the contradictions to the spirit of this blog—exist. Thank you.

Anywho . . . The Troubadour is a fucking legendary venue on the corner of Santa Monica and Doheny. It's special for a million reasons. For one, it's the most intimate venue you'll ever visit. I don't mean coffee shop intimate. I mean rock and roll, loud sound system, grungy bar, a-list performers, right on top of the band intimate. I mean that I have seen Ben Kweller fucking destroy the place and recently saw Rhett Miller dominate an area the size of my apartment with 250 friends.

Secondly, it's been around since the dawn of rock and roll and has always featured some of the best acts in music. Upstairs there are pictures of Tom Waits and Carly Simon backstage. The Strokes played there. Metallica played there. Guns n Roses played on a stage that could be confused with someone's living room. This isn't your father's small venue . . . wait maybe it is—My mom fucking saw James Taylor there. JAMES TAYLOR! As far as legendary venues go, there's CBGB which is gone, and the Troubadour, which is not only still there, but hanging onto everything it was forty years ago.

And finally, it's just one of the most Hollywood experiences you can have. That stretch of Santa Monica features two of the most famous restaurants in town: The Palm and Dan Tana's; both of which are primo celebrity "they're just like us" places. The outside of the venue looks like what an artist would draw if you said to him, "do me a favor and draw me a picture of what you think an awesome concert club would look like in Hollywood." The ticket prices—usually around 15-25 dollars—means that the crowd is fans, not bullshitters with tickets, and the line outside is always a group of people just like you, which dealt with parking just to see the same band you like. And the inside is just as perfect. Exposed wood all over, a small balcony, the front bar, the back bar, the upstairs "backstage," the legendary photos all over, that combination of beer and sweat in the air that is a cloud of cigarette smoke away from being utterly perfect, the sound, the band, the people, the not-to-overpriced drinks, everything just comes together at the Troubadour.

Again, this is hard, because in reality, I won't be missing it. In fact, come March 4th, a mere two weeks after I have moved downtown, I will be going to see Mike Doughty at the Troubadour. Nothing will have changed except the commute, which, though significantly longer, will not really have an effect on the night. So instead of harping on how much I won't miss the Troub, I'll let you know that whenever I do leave LA, the Troubadour will always have a special place in my heart. It is one of a kind, and the greatest place on Earth to see a show.

#9 Body Factory

#30 Hollywood Walk of Fame
#29 Yamashiro
#28 Hollywood Billiards
#27 Genghis Cohen
#26 Piano Bar
#25 Shmutzville
# 24 Loteria
# 23 The Griddle
# 22 Proximity
# 21 Hollywood Freeway
#20 Kitchen 24
# 19 The People
# 18 Sushi Eyaki
#17 Raymond Chandler
# 16 Jumbo's Clown Room
#15 Skooby's
#14 The Arclight
# 13 The Well
#12 Runyon Canyon
# 11 Canter's
#10 Hotel Café

#9 Body Factory

Ok, I have a feeling very few people are familiar with Body Factory, so let me do my best to describe it. Body Factory is a riddle to me. It is a store that sells candles and soaps and kama sutra bullshit, but also makes smoothies and wraps. They are constantly blaring the most annoying and strangest playlists that seem to be pulled from late-eighties work out videos; they have two plasmas inside that show—at least what appears to be—workout stock footage with crazy Japanese-style cuts and non-sequitur messages being given off. It makes absolutely no sense. Furthermore, it is nestled behind the Arclight, directly beneath the Hollywood 24 Hour Fitness, where, as a former member, I can assure you that only Hollywood's best and brightest work out. Quite simply, Body Factory is a vortex within the space-time continuum that should not exist outside of near-future science fiction popcorn movies (think Judge Dredd of Demolition Man). Everything about the place, from the meathead clientele, the obnoxious and offensive music, and the illogical inventory tells me to stay away from this place, but holy mother fucking shit are their smoothies good.

So you know when you go to a regular smoothie place—think Jamba Juice or Juice It Up—they use weird frozen fruits that look like something that came from the spaceship candy aisle? Body Factory skips the pretense and just throws weird ass powders in the smoothies. Yeah, there are some frozen pineapples or bananas or berries, but the key to Body Factory is the space-agey weird ass powders and what have you that give the smoothies a rougher texture and supposedly make them the healthiest things you can possibly put in your body. There's a decent chance that one Body Factory smoothie contains more carcinogens than eating lead paint, but according to their nutritional information, each smoothie contains thirty-five grams of protein. That's fucking insane. So I have been devouring these things like they're the antidote for a year and a half. I can't get enough. I usually stick to the "Body Fuel" which is described on the board as being they're house special and don't ask the ingredients. Ok, I won't. It's the tastiest fucking smoothie ever created. I think there's pineapple, maybe? Maybe coconut? But let's just think about how weird this is: a store, selling soaps and candles and bullshit, playing stranger than strange work-out music, showing non-sequitur bullshit on their two plasmas, selling me a smoothie that may or may not contain gasoline because not only do they not tell you what's in it, but they throw weird powders and things in it and then it tastes better than Filet Mignon and is supposedly the healthiest thing on Earth. To quote Lance's wife in Pulp Fiction "That's fuckin' trippy."

I'm not exaggerating when I say I devour these things. Rough estimate says that in eighteen months, I've had close to one hundred of these things, and I've never bought anything else at Body Factory. Oh, so there's another weird thing about Body Factory. Every time you go in, they ask you if you're a member. Apparently there's some membership that costs money to get, and you get nothing other than discounted smoothies. Like the membership costs twenty, and the discount is one dollar, so you have to think, "Will I have twenty smoothies from this place" before you sign up. I assure you, I never paid a dime, but for some reason they think I'm a member. But why the membership?!?! It doesn't afford you a newsletter, or special access to things not on the menu—it's just a fucking discount. You have to pay for a discount. Everyone breaks even! What the fuck is going on here?

As you can tell, Body Factory makes no sense at all to me. If you want to pay by credit card you have to pay fifteen dollar minimum for a five dollar smoothie, so they have a thing where if you pay fifteen bucks for a smoothie, your next two are already paid for, so sometimes I roll in, several weeks after my last smoothie, with a five dollar bill in my hand and they refuse it because I've already paid. So strange.

However, they are the best smoothies on the planet, they are supposedly healthy, and they are five dollars after the membership I never paid for. I could walk to Body Factory and did quite often, and now the pain-in-the-ass parking situation could mean no mas Body Factory para mi. This is mildly depressing but could be a good thing if they are putting fucking benzine in my smoothie. Anyways, Body Factory, I will miss the fuck out of you.

#10 Hotel Cafe

#30 Hollywood Walk of Fame
#29 Yamashiro
#28 Hollywood Billiards
#27 Genghis Cohen
#26 Piano Bar
#25 Shmutzville
# 24 Loteria
# 23 The Griddle
# 22 Proximity
# 21 Hollywood Freeway
#20 Kitchen 24
# 19 The People
# 18 Sushi Eyaki
#17 Raymond Chandler
# 16 Jumbo's Clown Room
#15 Skooby's
#14 The Arclight
# 13 The Well
#12 Runyon Canyon
# 11 Canter's

#10 Hotel Café

In nine days, I'll be sitting in my new downtown apartment, so it's a good thing that after three weeks, we're finally creeping into the top ten. I thank all of you for bearing with me as I prod along through things that mean a lot to me, but—most likely—very little to you. You're also notice the return of the em-dash in my writing. After a several month hiatus, and a brief (but torrid) affair with parentheses, I've returned to my grammatical self and have been slowly re-integrating my very close friend em-dash back into my writing. I hope you guys all get along.

So Hotel Café is a place that many—even those of you in Hollywood—may not be 100% familiar with. You may have seen it mentioned in LA Weekly or on a band's website or something, but Hotel Café is as secret as secrets can be in this town. Hotel Café is neither a hotel nor a café; it is a very small concert club on Cahuenga that attracts some of my favorite musicians and is as romantic in it's own dark Hollywood way. Nestled between boom-boom clubs on Cahuenga and sporting the always-cool back door entrance, Hotel Café is dark, the décor is red velvety, there is a bar in the front of the house, and then a double door into a hall that houses about 100 people and a barely-raised stage that fits three uncomfortably. The ceiling is low, the acoustics are surprisingly good, the atmosphere is a thick layer of smoke away from having a speakeasy vibe, and the music is top notch.

I have seen my main man, The White Buffalo, there several times and every time has been better than the time before. Maybe the reason I love Hotel Café so much is because the White Buffalo's crazy-amazing voice works so well in that room, and I have great memories of seeing him there. Seeing him lose his mind in that venue is about as great of a memory as I have about living in Hollywood. If anyone ever gets a chance to see the White Buffalo, jump at the chance, it's so worth it.

But the HC represents a little bit more to me. It represents the club I have been looking for my whole life: A small venue with great singers, a dark, romantic feel, the back door entrance, the front room with a bar and a private room, just a perfect place to go see music. You can always see the band on their way to the stage, share a drink with them afterwards, meet cool people who are into great music, and then walk home. I can't really write anything more about Hotel Café other than that. It is where I want to watch music for the rest of my life. It is the bar I want people to associate me with. Is that weird?

You know how people tend to construct their personalities by what they like? Like "I'm the kind of person who likes Magnolia" or Donnie Darko, or Tool, or 311. You know, people that like 311 identify with other people who like 311. Like "you know Tony, he's that guy who's really into Tool…?" That's how I want to be with Hotel Café. "Hotel Café, that's that place Glassman likes." Yeah…it is.

# 11 Canter's

#30 Hollywood Walk of Fame
#29 Yamashiro
#28 Hollywood Billiards
#27 Genghis Cohen
#26 Piano Bar
#25 Shmutzville
# 24 Loteria
# 23 The Griddle
# 22 Proximity
# 21 Hollywood Freeway
#20 Kitchen 24
# 19 The People
# 18 Sushi Eyaki
#17 Raymond Chandler
# 16 Jumbo's Clown Room
#15 Skooby's
#14 The Arclight
# 13 The Well
#12 Runyon Canyon

# 11 Canter's

Ok, if someone from back home came to visit for two hours, and they said "take me to the place that best encapsulates Hollywood. That is: the place that has the historic and present-day relevance, the place where people from LA actually patronize, the place that captures the LA imagination, the LA color, sound, and feel, and if they were hungry, I would take them to Canter's.

Canter's means so much more to me than 7 out of 10 corned beef. Canter's was one of the few places I was familiar with before I moved here. Canter's is the twenty-four-hour deli with a full bar, on a stretch of Fairfax known for Judaism, drunk people, and the Price is Right. Essentially, a trip to Canter's can be just for a corned beef sandwich, but it can also be an experience, albeit a subtle experience, that to the untrained eye may appear like any restaurant on Fairfax.

The corned beef is fine. Contrary to several of the self-proclaimed corned-beef experts I associate with, the corned beef is fine. I eat a lot of corned beef, probably more than you, and I'm here to tell you that if you want really incredible Jewish deli food, Langer's is the best deli in the US; but if you want a fucking sandwich, and it's late, or you're not looking to venture downtown, Canter's will ALWAYS do. The place is the size of Dodger Stadium, so you'll never have trouble getting a drink. The server's have been there since before any of us were born, and they let you know it too. The menu is fucking huge, the front bakery display is pretty standard, and the crowd is an amalgamation of Hollywood that is so unique to this part of the country that I already devoted an entire entry to it. Depending on the time of day (or night) you're there, you'll see old Jews, rich kids with their daddy's Benz, bands, families, young couples, drunk couples, gay couples, movie stars, contestants from the Price is Right still wearing their name tag, or even myself, my roommate, or my girlfriend. It's just Canter's.

Now, there are two extra elements that make Canter's unique: full bar, open all night. Here's what this means. It means that the Kibbutz room off to the side is actually a pretty cool place to hang out, see bands, and get a drink. Like legitimately. Usually, trips to a Jewish deli are Sunday afternoons, parents in tow, enjoying the atmosphere and mellowing out. But here, it can be different. A trip to Canter's can be pre-going out. It can be after the bars, drunk and hungry. It can be an evening drink and matzo-ball soup. Or it can be like the time Olsen and I played poker at Commerce until 5:30 AM and left and went to get hash at Canter's. It just changes the entire meaning of the entire place.

Then of course there's the location. Canter's is arguably the center of LA. To me, LA revolves around the strip of Beverly from Fairfax to La Cienega. That's the middle, and as you move away from that nexus, you are moving away from the center of the city and towards the ocean, suburbs, desert, or mountains. So Canter's located just above Beverly on Fairfax is right at the center of the city. What this means is that everyone in LA—everyone—has eaten at Canter's. It's just part of the city, and part of the experience. No, Canter's isn't knocking down any walls in the way of deli or rugula, but it is simply one of the most unique and iconic experiences that Hollywood has to offer.

Look, one of the things I'm most excited about moving downtown, is that I will be 1.7 miles from the best deli I've ever had at Langer's. That's a ten-minute bike ride. 7 out of 10 corned beef, is about to be replaced by 15 out of 10 pastrami. But that doesn't mean by a long shot that I'm done with Canter's. Canter's IS Hollywood, and next time I pick a friend up from the airport, and he wants to experience LA in two hours or less, I'm rolling into Canter's; free parking, decent food, and all of LA under one roof.