Los Angeles Thread #8: Strong and Prouty

Cypress Hill, Tha Dogg Pound, The Egyptian Lover, Kid Frost, King T, Mellow Man Ace, Public Enemy, Sir Jinx are getting together to play a FREE show for a cause. "Occupy Skid Row" has been put together by Skid Row activist General Jeff and Chuck D going down on Sunday, Jan. 15 on Skid Row in Downtown Los Angeles from 1:30pm - 5:30pm according to AllHipHop.com.

I was about to say, Remy, return to the light.

Also I know there were vague plans for something this weekend but I'll have to bow out; my good friend Y has just come home from major heart surgery and Ms. S and I, being her nearest neighbors, are pitching in to help her and husband as we can.

the vague plans are so vague it's likely not gonna happen. it's so hard to get people together in one place in los angeles! especially with all these damn grownup responsibilities. i have such a love/hate relationship with this town.

I would've been hard pressed to do this weekend as well.

Putting in a new water heater this weekend, so I'm out for Saturday

washing my hair

i want to come back and visit. i love l a. my bf thinks it's all freeways and hollywood and wants to move to portland which is just not an actual city imo.

I would love to come back, but gf is in school here for 6+ years more, and I can't afford a vacatino right now. maybe this summer. i was really happy for the first four years i lived there; only the last one sucked

i want to come back and visit. i love l a. my bf thinks it's all freeways and hollywood and wants to move to portland which is just not an actual city imo.

i've had a couple friends from nyc come out here and visit me and i think they all had that same initial characterization of "ehh you have to drive all the time and LA ppl are super obnoxious." but i'm 95% certain everyone i've hosted here has had a really good time. (the trick = stuffing people with all the amazing food options here)

also it helps to remind them that people in nyc are pretty horrible in their own ways. (he says with love)

everybody's horrible everywhere.

I've only lived here for a few years but it doesn't really strike me as a city you should really visit

really

it's intimidating. you have to have good organizational and navigational skill. and not try to do the whole area at once -- pick a part of town and stay with it, save the stuff that's 20 miles away for another visit or another time.

i love love LOVE los angeles!!!! tbh i was totally prepared to hate it, but i was blown away by my first visit. probably helps that every time i visit, i am in the company of someone who lived there for almost 10 yrs and loves the shit out of it.

i'm a corny hipster fuck but to me northeast l.a. (and the upper hollywood/los feliz/franklin hills area just west of it) is some really great natural/architectural beauty and i'd take tourist friends there if i wanted l.a. to blow them away. the view from the gold line around mt. washington is like woah.

l.a. takes awhile to love, i know few people who came here and loved it right away (and most of them burned out on it kinda quickly.) i have a love/hate relationship w/it myself, maybe b/c i lived in nyc and chicago and miss them both.

i took 6 months to love it, but i never looked back. boston is great and all, but food is too expensive and there's not enough of it that's good.

the "car culture" part (along with the sheer sprawling size of the place) is the only real barrier to true love. it's not just a pain in the ass, it's cognitive dissonance -- i come from a really different place.

the traffic has gotten markedly worse since when i moved here in 1999(!), slowly but in a retrospectively alarming fashion.

Yeah it's easily reaching tipping points at many spots. At a certain point freeway expansion won't cut it and you'll either see people going "Okay, fine, mass transit for real" or sheer insanity on top of the already present cognitive dissonance. Speaking especially of OC here.

it used to be "oh nice i'm leaving work at 1 PM, no traffic" and now that's not the case. 1 HR from santa monica to silver lake. not to mention random horrible traffic jams on weeknights at 11 PM and almost constant jams on the freeways on weekend afternoons.

fuck 1am traffic jams

On the plus side, even with all these extra cars the air is much cleaner than it used to be.

my own experience is that i lived here for a month on an internship in 2009 (first time ever in LA) and then moved back 'permanently' last september. during that time in between, finishing up school in nyc and then moving back home for a spell, i honestly thought about one day moving back to LA rather often. and then i did! and i am mostly very glad i did. i still miss things about nyc (mostly my friends who are still there) but the idea of moving back there at this point seems totally unreal to me.

noooooooo

Just move out here, Stevie.

So! This is happening March 2:

http://www.attheecho.com/2011/12/07/friday-03-03-12-natural-history-museum-first-fridays-with-zola-jesus-natural-history-museum/

That also happens to be my birthday. Plots are being hatched.

zomg (more for EMA than ZJ admittedly but still)

this opens tonight:

http://theboxla.com/exhibitions/index.html

you may see me there.

i just came here to post about that! i may also swing by

there is also a six-mile route 66 walking tour tomorrow at 8am

https://www.facebook.com/events/343897635621838/

that LAFMS exhibit linked above is GREAT, go see if you are at all interested in weirdo '70s LA experimental weirdo culture

sounds cool

i loved the organ with the dildos threaded through the footpedals, sustaining a single chord endlessly.

also, there was a really tiny christmas-themed red toy piano -- like keychain-size -- that said "paino" on it. (i.e., "piano" in low-budget engrish.)

'weirdo '70s LA experimental weirdo culture'

lol drunk

we tried playing some of the instruments and then one of the musicians told us "you can't play the sculpture"

the view from the gold line around mt. washington is like woah.

This is my daily commute! It is beautiful, I bike it now.

so how about that dexter episode thats playing out in real life by the hollywood sign? lots of crazy ass murders going on as of late..

The guy killed by the guy randomly shooting at cars in Hollywood was a good friend of my co-worker. So crazy.

oh geez :/

Changing the subject...who has eaten somewhere good and interesting recently? I need a resto rec, can be anywhere from hole in the wall to swanky. I was running down the J Gold list but actually found it a bit limiting and overly familiar.

Im going to the gorbals tomorrow which I hope is good.. I can report back.

Scottish and Jewish food, yeah - it's like they knew I was coming.

How about any of these from J Gold - Akasha, Kiriko, Mayura?

i ate half a pig's head there (and the eye)

have you been to ramen jinya

I really liked the food at Palate, and actually thought it was kind of awesome that it was on Auto Row in Glendale. Pretty old, bourgie crowd though.

Speaking of which - we have this new-ish Italian place Maximiliano in Highland Park and it seems to attract the strangest people. I do see Marc Maron there a lot, though. It is Andre Guerrero (Oinkster) and the food is good, a little too homestyle at times but tasty. But the people are WEIRD.

xp-no, tell me

very good noodle place in studio city (two other locations too, one near wilshire and la brea and another on sawtelle by olympic.)

http://www.jinya-la.com/ramen/index.html

Cool, I put it on the ARList. I don't have a good noodle place.

it's by no means fancy but i liked mr. ramen in little tokyo when i ate there a few days ago. i don't eat out here as much as i'd like to.

Huh. So it does. If you can't trust a music website run by a car company, what can you trust?

I know, right?!!!

we're going to the faust thing at calarts after all -- i will keep an open mind about the calarts orchestra playing sunnO))), even though it's pretty lol.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/posts/la-et-ms-cecil-taylor-redcat-postponed-20121018,0,6154313.story

the big gay ice cream truck is doing a pop-up in l.a. this week. it's outside the sherman oaks guitar center tonight, with kogi.

On related ice cream truck news, I heard Koolhaus is opening a bricks and mortar store in Pasadena.

awesome! i'm a fan.

i was just in sherman oaks the other night

Arrr... Prince is playing secret club shows this week and I found out about it too late.

found this album today at mount analog:

http://www.israbox.com/uploads/posts/2011-04/thumbs/1303725890_folder.jpeg

yet another intriguing show at the echo: lydia lunch with algis kizys, bob bert, and weasel walter:

http://www.theecho.com/event/166877?utm_source=MEL&utm_medium=15813

checking this out on sunday night -- anyone else?

Seeing the LL/Retrovirus show for free at downtown art walk this Thursday instead: https://www.facebook.com/events/302882416485346/permalink/302882423152012/

I went to the coolhaus store in culver city the other night.. hit the spot after dinner at sushi karen.

From: http://www.cinema.ucla.edu/events/2012-11-10/trip-light-fantastic-tribute-robert-abel-associates

http://www.cinema.ucla.edu/sites/default/files/imagecache/Large/images/pages/robert-abel.jpg

"Trip the Light Fantastic: A Tribute to Robert Abel & Associates"
November 10, 2012 - 7:30 pm
Billy Wilder Theater, UCLA

Producer-director Robert Abel may not be a household name but his production company, Robert Abel & Associates (RA&A), helped to define the look of an era and to change the future of moving-imagemaking forever. A UCLA alumnus who started out working for computer graphics pioneer, John Whitney, Abel pioneered the application of CGI in commercials, broadcast television and film. In 1971, he co-founded RA&A with Con Pederson (Co-Visual Effects Supervisor, 2001: A Space Odyssey) and assembled a team of artists who combined an intuitive understanding of technology, from the optical to the digital, with an innovative—some might say hallucinogenic—sense of style. RA&A’s fusion of art and technology earned it 33 Clio Awards for its iconic work, including spots for 7UP, Levi Strauss, TRW, Benson & Hedges and the Canned Food Information Council. RA&A’s motion graphics for network television transformed the entire look of the medium. In the late 1970s, the company expanded into music videos and movies, contributing ground-breaking effects and animation work on Star Trek – The Motion Picture (1979), Tron (1982) and the video for The Jacksons' “Can You Feel It” (1980). The UCLA Film & Television Archive and the Visual Effects Society are pleased to celebrate RA&A’s work and legacy with an evening of clips and conversation with some of the company’s key artists and producers."

(definitely going to that BTW)

ooooooooooh

I wish that and earthless were one event.

Find out how your precinct voted:

http://graphics.latimes.com/how-la-voted-2012/#9/34.1285/-118.6111

thoroughly blue, no surprise:

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8343/8172755795_5899e647ba.jpg

hi guys, i have a conference in beautiful long beach convention center in january. having seen pretty much all it has to offer in 2008, is there anywhere i can stay that (1) isn't the convention center/queen mary bit of long beach (2) i can reach the convention center from in ~30m on public transport.

hello, rainy angelenos. how are you staying dry today?

a. and i tried to go hiking in fryman canyon, but the light drizzle turned into a downpour.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8062/8193600765_b0ef3f39be.jpg

also: nbd, just enjoying the walnut & fig butter cookies i made.

Whoops, didn't say anything to caek there a few days ago! Let's see, location based on your description -- well my neck of the woods is sadly out, otherwise I'd happily host. Can ask a friend of mine from Pedro for suggestions -- anyone else?

you're reminding me that I keep wanting to go hiking on that trail but never do.

two orders of business:

one, i have a couple of shows coming up with my choral group, both free:

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8479/8205754551_981f7144ea_z.jpg

second, i'm doing a birthday drinks thing on december 1st at cole's (and the varnish, the speakeasy in back) around 8pm. you're all invited. 118 e. 6th st, downtown l.a.

New thead, btw.

LA9