Ghost Bikes

When I visited Preston in Chicago five years ago, he was highly involved in the city's bike scene and told me all about it. Apparently, unsafe drivers had killed a number of cyclists in recent months, so he said bike activists would put a painted white bike at the scene of the accident as a rogue memorial of sorts.

Unsure of what he meant, I decided to look out the window as we rode in the car to see if I could witness any of these "ghost bikes" for myself. It was only seconds later that I spotted the first one. Not long after, I spotted a second, a third, a fourth, and a fifth…

"Oh my god, you're not kidding!" I said. "I've seen so many white bikes already!"

I prepared to plead with him to stop riding his bike in the city since the roads appeared to be a literal slaughterhouse given the number of white bikes I was seeing, but then things were finally cleared up for me.

"Ghost bikes", it turns out, are literal bikes painted white and locked to street signs to commemorate the cyclist. I didn't actually see any of those. Instead, I was looking at bikes painted on the road in white…

… in other words, symbols for the bike lane. I honestly thought for a bit that cyclists were getting plowed down by cars every 100 yards or so.

Guys, I'm kinda the smartest person I know.

Which Mode of Transportation Does God Use?

A lot of people have existential questions about God, but my main query is a bit more focused: How does God get around? Helicopter? Boat? Rollerblades?

Rather than going to The Bible, I consulted the same source I use for all of my religious-based inquiries: the pop/rock hit songs of 1995. Here are the three ways that God stays mobile:

   

1. BUS

Song: One of Us - Joan Osborne

Lyric: "What if God was one of us? 

 Just a slob like one of us? 

 Just a stranger on the bus

trying to make His way home?" 

Like any good stranger on the bus, you can bet that God avoids eye contact, puts his belongings beside him on a seat so no one can sit next to him, and fumbles with his change when paying the fare.

   

2. TRAIN

Song: Everything Falls Apart - Dog's Eye View

Lyric: "I met God this afternoon

riding on an uptown train.

I said, 'Don't you have better things to do?'

He said, 'If I do my job,

what would you complain about?'" 

Though it seems like a step up from the bus, God appears pretty snippy while riding the train. Telling a dude that he's shirking his deity duties because humans are just going to be unhappy regardless is hardly the act of a courteous passenger.

   

3. CAR 

Song: Counting Blue Cars - Dishwalla

Lyric: "We count only blue cars, skip the cracks in the street,

and ask many questions like children often do.

We said, 'Tell me all your thoughts on God

'cause I would really like to meet her.'"

The big reveal here isn't that God drives a blue car, but that He is actually a She. God or not, it seems a little unsafe for her to be operating a motor vehicle given what we know about female drivers. Stick to public transit, sweetie!

Who Are the People In Your Neighborhood?

I encountered some awesome people just before getting on and then again just after getting off the train yesterday.

First, Christine pointed out a woman walking ahead of us that she called "Ariel". Indeed, the woman with red hair - not like orange "let's call it red" hair, but straight up dyed scarlet red hair - and a flowing teal dress looked straight out of The Little Mermaid. Obnoxiously, we started singing "Part of Your World" behind her.

As we got even closer to her, however, she didn't smell fishy. She smelled… skunky. I got a big whiff of pot and then noticed she was lighting a bowl right there on the street. Forget "Under the Sea", she was Under the Influence… in public. Gotta love a Disney princess who willfully defies the law.

The train ride itself was pretty normal, other than the fact that we sat beside a stunningly beautiful woman. "She is way too pretty to take public transportation," Christine noted.

Right off the train, however, we encountered a fight. A black woman and a Caucasian man were getting in each other faces and shouting for the whole block to hear. The woman screamed, "I'M A REAL N*****! I DON'T OWE YOUR HOMELESS ASS ANYTHING!" The man was offended. "Whoa! One: I'm not homeless! Two…"

I didn't get to hear point two because I was laughing too hard. He might not be homeless, but appearance-wise - and I say this as someone with compassion for the homeless - he could have fooled me.

More than anything, I wanted to know the context of the fight. Like why did she have to state that she was a real [racial epithet]? Did he somehow offend her by not calling her the n-word?

Even though she seemed to be the aggressor in the altercation, in a subsequent game of "would you rather", I decided I'd prefer to be the woman's friend of the two. Better to be a real n***** than a fake homeless, am-I-right? Of course, I reckon they could both be pleasant if they took some time to mellow out with the Little Mermaid.

Eating with Cannibals

I'm currently watching a documentary called Eating with Cannibals on a friend's Netflix account because I apparently have little shame. In truth, I'm probably less embarrassed that I've given into morbid bloodlust-y curiosity than I am about the fact that the people who share the account are going to see that title as recently watched and exclaim "Kevin!" I can only imagine what Netflix will see fit to recommend to us after my interest in this flick.

The National Geographic host/narrator who is venturing into remote Papua New Guinea villages where cannibalism has occurred is so fucking smug. He can't help but be condescending and a little grossed out by it all. Like, dude, you came to these people specifically because you knew they'd tell you about incidents of cannibalism - don't act so shocked when they tell you exactly what you expected to hear. Also, would it kill him to spend some time asking them other questions about their culture before getting right into "So, how do humans taste?" It just seems a little rude.

Best fact I've learned so far: men and women taste the same.

Apparently, they only eat people they suspect to be sorcerers… and occasionally for revenge. But pretty much everyone says they haven't eaten a person in a long time. The host, meanwhile, is like LOL, yeah right, liars, I can smell it on your breath.

Oh great, now he's speculating that if missionaries hadn't come to the villages and spread Christian values, they'd probably just be eating each other left and right. If I had swallowed any human recently (and I've pretty much copped to the fact that I'd try it not too long ago), I'd be gagging on it right now.

The only way this documentary ends well is if these Papua New Guineans eat this nosy, judgmental host guy. It's not every day a hunk of white meat wanders into town and asks mouth-watering questions about how you would cook him, so seize the opportunity!

4 Notable Things That Happened While Flying Last Week

4. Look, at this point, it's cliche to say that the TSA molests you. I know that. But also: the TSA molested me. I went through that x-ray thing, and when I came out they said my right shoulder and my left pocket had been "flagged". At first I got what kind of felt like a brief shoulder rub/massage, which, I won't lie, was kind of nice. Then the dude felt up my thigh and smooshed my testicle against my leg. So I guess my ball was the threatening thing they saw in my pocket? Wouldn't be the first time it terrified someone, truthfully.

3. Waiting for a red-eye at an airport is tiresome, but waiting an additional hour and a half because of a delay is downright exhausting. Thankfully, there was a dude who took out his guitar and sang songs at the gate. Normally, this could be annoying when you're just trying to nap, but he was legitimately good. Great, even. Me and the people nearby just kind of quietly sang along. I even applauded at one point to show we were appreciating it.

Only after he was done playing and some fellow passenger asked him his name did I realize I actually knew who the singer was: Tim Urban, a finalist on American idol from a few years back. I actually used to vote for Tim… not because he was good, but because he was notoriously bad. As a fan of VoteForTheWorst.com, a recently defunct website with a mission of keeping the worst singer on the show.

It's a little surreal to sit there and genuinely enjoy a singer only to realize he's someone you once thought was laughably bad, but, you know, consider me a convert.

Oh, and the older guy who asked him his name? He kept misunderstanding and calling Tim "Keith Urban" because he didn't know who he was. But he still asked for a picture with him anyway. Reality TV fame must be the worst.

2. And speaking of reality TV fame, Tim wasn't the only reality star on my flight: Gervase from the first season of Survivor sat a couple rows up from me. The reason this is particularly noteworthy is because he's (more than) rumored to be on the upcoming season of Survivor. In fact, I looked it up, and filming apparently JUST ended, so it made sense that he was now flying back to Philadelphia.

Later, I wrote it up with some pretty pertinent details for a Survivor spoiler message board and got called a liar and troll. Fine, guys, fine! Don't trust me!

Also, thank goodness our plane didn't go down, or it would have been a sad day for reality television junkies.

1. Okay, but the craziest thing of all was this granny/awkward ~25-year-old grandson that sat immediately behind me on my connecting flight (or rather the flight I got put on 5 hours later after missing the next two connecting flights thanks to the first flight's delay). Granny was blind or at least legally blind, so her grandson was reading SkyMall magazine to her. Except instead of reading the provided captions (which some copywriter worked hard on!) he was just interpreting the stuff based on the picture.

The shit in SkyMall is extravagant and bizarre, and to have someone sum up all the goods without a hint of irony was absolutely trippy. Part of me wanted to turn around and tell him to shut up, while the other part of me wanted to take out my phone and record it because it's the kind of WTF nonsense that should go viral.

I fly again Friday. Undoubtedly, more stories to follow.

I TURN 30 IN TWO DAYS.

THAT’S ENOUGH REASON FOR ANYONE TO HAVE AN EXISTENTIAL CRISIS SLASH DEPRESSION, BUT NOT ME, I’M DOING GREAT. LIFE IS SO GREAT.

I MEAN, IT’S NOT LIKE I LOST MY JOB TODAY. OUR WHOLE STAFF WAS SACKED AND NOW I DON’T HAVE A STEADY INCOME. I WAS JUST GETTING USED TO HAVING MONEY. GETTING USED TO NOT SECOND-GUESSING WHETHER I CAN AFFORD TO GET A DRINK AT A BAR OR GOING OUT TO EAT WITH MY FRIENDS. IT SEEMED LIKE A PRIVILEGE THAT REAL GROWN-UPS, REAL 30-SOMETHINGS EXPERIENCE. BUT NOT ME, NOT ANYMORE.

MY BOSS (WHO WAS ALSO LET GO) TOLD ME HE COULD HAVE TOLD ME ON FRIDAY, BUT HE DIDN’T WANT TO RUIN MY WEEKEND. SO SURE, RUIN MY BIRTHDAY INSTEAD. WAIT UNTIL AFTER I SPENT A LOT OF MONEY TRAVELING. AND WORSE, WAIT UNTIL AFTER I TOLD OFF THIS WOMAN WHO PAYS ME A LOT OF MONEY THAT I WAS DONE DOING BUSINESS WITH HER. FINANCIALLY, IT WAS STUPID, BUT I HAVE MY PRIDE! EXCEPT NOW IT TURNS OUT I NEED THE MONEY, NOT THE PRIDE. WHOOPS! 

MY WEEKEND WAS KIND OF RUINED ANYWAY SINCE MY BUILDING WAS BEING FUMIGATED FOR BED BUGS. I DIDN’T HAVE BED BUGS, BUT ANOTHER UNIT DID, AND THEY TENTED THE WHOLE FUCKING PLACE, WHICH MADE ME TEMPORARILY HOMELESS. MY LANDLADY NOT ONLY KICKED ME OUT TO DO THIS BUT ALSO EXPECTED ME TO BE THERE WHEN THE EXTERMINATOR ARRIVED BOTH TIMES AND WAIT AROUND FOR THE GAS MAN TO HOOK UP/DISABLE THE GAS TWICE BECAUSE SHE WAS “BUSY” AND I’M THE NICE ONE. I LOVE THAT PEOPLE KNOW THEY CAN EXPLOIT MY REPUTATION FOR BEING A PUSHOVER. MAKES ME FEEL GREAT. AND 30!

EVEN THOUGH I ASKED TO BE COMPENSATED FOR MY TIME/INCONVENIENCE, MY LANDLADY ONLY GAVE A SMALL PORTION OF A RENT REDUCTION. IT WASN’T ENOUGH TO COVER A CHEAP MOTEL, SO I TRAVELED TO ARIZONA SINCE I’D HAVE A PLACE TO STAY. I WASN’T ALLOWED TO BRING MY LUGGAGE OR ANY CLOTHING OR WHATEVER, SO I PACKED MY STUFF IN A TRASH BAG. MY CARRY-ON WAS A TRASH BAG! THAT’S NOT SOMETHING YOU SEE IN AN AIRPORT EVERY DAY. BY THE WAY, IT WAS 111 DEGREES IN ARIZONA. UGGHHHH. I’D RATHER BE AT HOME INHALING POISONS AND CUDDLING WITH BED BUGS, THANK YOU VERY MUCH. 

BUT OTHER THAN THAT, THINGS ARE GREAT. IT’S NOT LIKE I’M LOSING MY HAIR AND GAINING WEIGHT. IT’S NOT LIKE I’M DESPERATELY IN NEED OF HEALTH INSURANCE. IT’S NOT LIKE I HAVE NO DIRECTION IN LIFE. IT’S NOT LIKE I’M REALLY ANGRY ABOUT THE WORLD AND FEEL HELPLESS TO DO ANYTHING. BEING 30 IS GOING TO BE SO FUCKING GREAT!

SORRY FOR ALL THE CAPITAL LETTERS, I JUST WANTED TO MAKE SURE I WAS PROPERLY EMPHASIZING HOW MUCH I HAVE IT TOGETHER. 

Fried Chicken

On my commute home today, I was starving. I hadn't eaten any solid food all day, but I had groceries in the car, so I was looking forward to having an early dinner. Then, as is usually the case in LA, there was a traffic jam. The cars were barely moving, inching forward at best, and my stomach wouldn't stop growling. So I reached over to the nearest grocery bag and grabbed hold of some fried chicken.

Can I eat fried chicken in the car? I wondered. It seemed a little unconventional, but my hunger pangs won out and I started gnawing on a drumstick. I was so caught up in finally eating food, I was initially oblivious to the fact that passengers in both the cars to my left and right were watching me. And it wasn't just like, "Oh, look at that guy eating fried chicken in his car." Their stares conveyed more of a "Oh my goodness, there is a guy eating fried chicken in his car!" I was suddenly the poster child of American obesity.

If I weren't so hungry, I probably would have felt too self-conscious to grab a wing and continue snacking. I wanted to roll down my window and ask, "Jealoussss?" but my mouth was full.

I felt intensely judged, but in that moment, I mostly felt relieved that I'm not a black person. As disgusting as they thought I was, you know that old white couple next to me would be calling their friends to say, "They can't even sit in traffic without eating fried chicken!"

Eating chicken on the freeway might be a trite example of my white privilege, but it is an example nonetheless.

Your Cheapest Champagne

So apparently the bars in small-town Connecticut close at 11pm even on a Friday. This wasn't something we were aware of, and so we rudely sat secluded in the back corner until 12:30am, unaware that the place had emptied out. At one point, the bar started playing Ben Folds Five's "Brick" and I joked, "Are they playing an abortion song to get us to leave?" - but maybe it was intentional after all. (Also, I blew my own my mind when I shorthanded Ben Folds Five to "BFF" and realized that was already a familiar acronym.)

Again, oblivious to the time situation, Austin wanted to order drinks to celebrate one of our friends getting engaged this week.

Austin: How much is your cheapest champagne?

Waitress: We only have one kind of champagne, it's $69 for a bottle.

Austin: Oh boy. Uh, how much is your cheapest Miller Lite? [At another point, he would clarify that Miller Lite is the "champagne of beer."]

Waitress: We don't sell Miller Lite.

Austin: Okay, then just bring us something that we can pretend is champagne.

Waitress: Ummm… what?

Austin: Something bubbly. Anything with bubbles.

He then asked her to take a picture of us and referred to her as a "nice waitress", which I know he meant sincerely, but came across as utterly sarcastic because of the context. The wine she brought us did bubble briefly, but given how irritated she must have been with us, I wouldn't be surprised if that was because she had farted in it.

Fuck Off, US Airways

Deep Blue Something is not considered oldies. I'm not only insulted at the implication, but I'm feeling really insecure about my age now. The thought of turning 30 doesn't scare me, but having my favorite song from when I was a preteen dubbed an oldie made me more emotionally distraught than I was prepared for. Next time just crash the plane if you want me to be less upset. 

Sandy's His Name If You Please

I wonder if a whole song went into naming this hurricane Sandy?

I've never been part of naming a hurricane, but I have been part of naming a hurricane-focused essay. When Heather needed a title for her undergraduate thesis on the gender politics of Hurricane Katrina, I suggested, "Why Don't They Call It a Him-icane?" I don't know whether she went with that title, but let's assume she did, and let's also assume it's the sole reason she was given an honors distinction. You're welcome, Heather.

Watching all of the Hurricane Sandy footage on television, it's easy to forget that I'm not actually hiding inside from a hurricane. Then when I go outside it's like, "Oh, yeah, I'm in sunny Arizona."

I'm here visiting with a couple of people who have business jobs on the east coast, emphasis on the coast. They are NOT happy about how Hurricane Sandy is disrupting their jobs. "They better not close Wall Street, we have important trades that need to happen!" One wanted to make sure his office stayed open anyway, because no flooding would affect the employees on the thirty-somethingth floor anyway. Easy call for you to make on the behalf of other people when you're thousands of miles away from the problem.  It seems to me that - every once in a while - it may be useful to indicate to your employees that you value their safety over additional profits, even if it winds up just being a symbolic gesture.

Whether Hurricane Sandy winds up being as destructive as predicted is yet to be seen. But if the storm is over-hyped, it's at the hands of the corporate bankrolled politicians and corporate owned media. If Wall Street is upset at how it is being impeded for no reason, it only has itself to blame. Sometimes, it's okay for rich people to not make additional money. Sometimes.

Unless you're US Weekly, in which case, by all means, reference a tragedy flippantly, then carry on with business as usual.  

2.5 Beers

I recently posted about bumper stickers I used to own, but I neglected to mention this fourth bumper sticker I also purchased.

A decade ago when I left for college across the country, my sister essentially inherited my first car. I still considered it my car when I came back home, but she definitely saw it differently. She would shriek about how it was her car now and many arguments would ensue.

Finally, she marked her territory. If she were a dog, she would have pissed on the vehicle, but as a teenage girl, she did her own variation on that theme by placing a pink Tinkerbell sticker on the car. I consider myself pretty forward thinking, but I wasn't wild about riding around with a pink fairy on my rear window. 

I demanded that the sticker be removed, but my parents refused to take a side on the issue. And so Tinkerbell continued to survive -- but you can bet I wasn't clapping to make sure it happened. Consequentially, I drove to my summer job every day - a little bit humiliated - with Tinkerbell in tow.

After a while, I decided that two could play this game. While in Las Vegas, I stumbled upon a terrific bumper sticker: "CAUTION! I can go from 0 to HORNY in 2.5 BEERS". If my sister could put an embarrassing sticker on our shared car, why couldn't I? 

It was a bluff, obviously, because how would I be any less mortified to drive around in a vehicle with that thing? But my reputation for being usual worked to my benefit in this instance. My sister was dubious about my intentions to put it the sticker on our car, but also freaked out that I might actually do it. Initially, my parents found it funny, but soon my mom worried I would follow through and declared that my sister would take the Tinkerbell off the car.

It never happened, though. The "horny" bumper sticker was really just meant to illustrate a point. Besides, by then, I was barely even driving the car anymore anyway. But I do wish I knew where to locate that sticker now because I think it would be the perfect thing to put on a nemesis' car. That's right - don't piss me off. I may be pretty affectionate after 2.5 beers, but you wouldn't believe how vengeful I get after 4. 

Curing Deafness with Alternative Medicine

I lost the hearing in my left ear last week. I think it was the consequence of things backing up because of this sinus infection I've been fighting. It was really poor timing because I was about to leave for a trip to catch up with some old friends in San Francisco. I thought it might be a sign to just stay home, but I decided to leave anyway. 

On the drive up, just fifteen minutes from my house, I blew a tire. AAA got me to an auto repair shop, and the mechanic was like, "You must have hit something," showing me some damage to not just the tire, but the underside of my vehicle. "I didn't see anything on the freeway," I explained. "Well you definitely would have heard something," he responded.  I didn't feel like getting into the fact that since I could currently barely hear, I had turned the music up so loud that it was possible I might not have heard whatever I hit either.

Somehow, I decided not to take my broken car as a sign to abandon the trip either. Hours later, I finally arrived and, let me say, it's weird to try to catch up with people you haven't seen in over a year when you can only sort of hear them. I pretended to understand a lot more than I did, and did my best to stand or sit to their left side to have my 

At night, my yoga loving friend suggested I purchase an ear candle to try to regain my hearing. We were waiting for a bus and I asked where we would even find such a thing at this time of night. She pointed to the nearest corner store, and I followed her with a whole, "Yeah right," attitude.

Amazingly, she was right - they DO sell novelty alternative health items like ear candles at a random corner store in San Fran. The employee knew right where they were, even. I should have been so doubtful, as San Francisco is a totally different culture. Earlier in the day, we stopped into a bodega, a 7-11 type store for the bohemian set, and it had organic produce. Convenience stores in Los Angeles don't sell any fruits and vegetables, let alone organic. Then I spied flaxseed waffles in the freezer section, and I wondered aloud - probably unduly loud so I could hear myself - "What IS this place?"

I'm not sure how I feel about ear candles. First of all, the box said the candle was "for entertainment purposes only" and that the company was not liable for anyone who decided to use the candle in ways not typical of a normal candle, which made me feel really confident about the process. But putting a giant candle in your ear is pretty entertaining, so I guess I was still abiding by that rule.

It made my ear tingle and my face heat up. At the end, I think it kind of worked? It definitely drew some waxy residue out. I was still hearing impaired for a few more days, though.

Now, my hearing is back, but I'm even more mucus-y. I bought a neti pot this evening, and I'm not sure I like that any better than an ear candle. "Shove a kettle up your nose" sounds like an act of aggression, not doctorly advice. But I'm ready to not be so sick anymore, so if setting my head on fire and nearly drowning myself with salt water are what it takes to get healthy, bring it on.

Everything You Did Today

For a crowded train, the car I'm on is relatively quiet outside of this semi-PDA couple (no kissing, but a lot of unnecessary stroking of body parts) sitting near me. She asks him to tell him "everything" about his day, and he takes that question to heart, blathering about any and every mundane detail of his life. When he finally finishes, he asks her "what did you do today?" "Everything I did? Okay…" she says. I find it funny that she adds the "everything" part when he didn't say that, but I soon find out why. If I thought he was sparing no detail, she really put that notion to the test when she listed everything short of "I took a breath". Here's her monologue:

"My alarm goes off. I press snooze. It goes off again. I get out of bed. I get dressed. I brush my teeth. I make coffee. I watch some videos on YouTube. I read pretty much all of ESPN.com. Sara calls. I drive to Sara's house. I stop for gas. I get to Sara's house. I walk through Sara's door. We sit on her couch. Then we go to [some restaurant I don't remember]. I want breakfast, but it's past when they serve it. I ask them for breakfast anyway. They say they only have breakfast burritos left. I say "perfection". I pay for the breakfast burrito. I eat the burrito…"

"Oh, I forgot to mention I had a burrito today, too," he interjects. "That was part of my lunch, though, not breakfast. Sorry, I interrupted. You were eating your breakfast burrito…"

As she continues her list that brings dull to a whole new level, I actually get up and move to another part of the train. For crying aloud, it had been a few minutes and she hadn't even got past breakfast! I'll put up with a lot, but I have little patience for someone who thinks "I get out of bed" "I stop for gas" and "I walk through Sara's door" are sentences that need to be mentioned! 

If they enjoy each other's company, though, more power to them. May their relationship last as long as their pointless stories. 

What About Me?

While waiting at a traffic light in Hollywood, we notice a guy a couple of cars ahead of us leaning out his window trying to chat up a female in a nearby car. I wasn't aware that guys actually hollered at girls from vehicles outside of old TLC music videos, so it's amusing to hear him try to run some pretty un-smooth game in the 60 seconds he has before the light changes. Even better is when we hear him say, "No, not you, I'm talking to your friend." It seems to me that if anyone is responding to your catcalls, you should take what you can get.

After I make that point to my friend Lizzy, without warning and in an act of brazen insanity, she gets out of our car and runs at him. "What about me?!" she screams as she approaches. He gives Lizzy a quick look over before deciding to ignore her (I mean, who hits on someone in traffic?) and then badgers his original target for her phone number repeatedly, to no avail.

She returns to the car and declares, "He didn't want me!" I still have no idea what possessed Lizzy to pull that stunt, as that's pretty out of character for her, but the way she made an even bigger mockery of the scene is commendable. I'm not sure what would have happened if he responded to Lizzy in a positive manner (other than praying for a green light ASAP). Perhaps this is what Rihanna is referring to when she sings about finding love in a hopeless place.

Uh, Happy Valentine's Day?

My Suggestions for Visiting LA

Thanks for the kind words, I genuinely appreciate hearing from readers.

At the same time, I also question whether you’re thinking of the right person! I live in LA, but I don’t think I’m too complimentary of it on my blog. Don’t get me wrong, I like it here, and I’m positive you’ll thoroughly enjoy your overdue vacation because there’s so much for tourists. That said, I’m broke and prefer dive bars and vaguely dangerous hangouts; Molls would be a better person to ask about the trendier aspects of the city.

I know I recently said that the LA tourism board should hire me after referring a visitor to our interactive homicide map, but that was a joke. When I browse back through my blog, I mostly see things that would scare away tourists. In fact, my blog kind of reads like recommendations from SNL’s Stefan.

Come to LA and see…

• a large transvestite clown art installation on a drug store
• a gallery featuring a woman crawling around with a butt plug and a giant man portraying Jesus in a diaper who gets crucified on a nine-foot tall vagina
• the Nazis who run the Museum of Tolerance
• a public liberry that doubles as a insane asylum
• a secluded warehouse party full of underage drinkers that dozens of cops come to shut down
• a scary American Legion Hall with a lone cot for veterans (those who can still get it up) to fuck on
• a rollerskating rink under totalitarian rule
• porn star karaoke, where real adult entertainers sing to you and grab your penis
• turtle races that serves as a front for objectifying women
• a gross bar full of aged meth addicts who forbid dancing and consider disabled men to be women
• scientologists in disguise
• a hair salon with some secrets

In case you need clarification, please don’t try to see any of those things. They will ruin your vacation. Now if you’re a local looking for a little adventure, I’d be happy to hook you up with the addresses of some of these places.

Since you asked so nicely, allow me to step out of Stefan/my normal blogging mode to give you a few genuine suggestions for those visiting LA:

1. The Griffith Observatory is my favorite place in LA. You can drive to the top, but I’d actually suggest hiking to the top on one of the trails in the late afternoon. Bring a picnic dinner/take-out with you and stay until nightfall, so you get to see the stupendous view of LA from both vantage points. You can also see the Hollywood sign well from there, so you can check that off, too.
2. LA actually has some great museums. The Getty is an experience (and on the coast if you want to double up on a beach trip) and is free other than parking. I like the Natural History Museum, too. And if you’re in the mood for something odd, give the Museum of Jurassic Technology a try. Just promise not to google it for anything other than its address because it’s something best experienced blindly.
3. Since you’re not from LA, you might be a person who actually eats/eats meat (we have a lot of beautiful anorexic vegans here.) One dining experience I’d recommend is Wurstkuche. It may sound dirty, but it’s actually a trendy (so go on a weekday) place with exotic sausages. And if you enjoy eating A LOT of meat, I’d say go to for authentic all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ in Koreatown. And in all honesty, eat at least one meal from a truck. Food trucks are locals’ preferred mode of dining, and you can find trucks with not just Mexican food, but grilled cheese, mac & cheese, sandwiches, lobster, etc.

A lot of the best events will be time specific, so grab a copy of LA Weekly when you’re out here to make sure you’re not missing anything exciting! Have fun!

Los Angeles Homicides

Sasha is planning on moving out to LA in a matter of months, but is hesitant because of all the murders that happen here. So what do I do to help? I send her a link to the LA Time's Homicide Blog. Sure, it only seemed to scare her even more, but if she had just listened to my suggestion of finding a spot on the interactive map where people don't get killed, I think it might have given her some peace of mind. The LA Tourism Board should hire me for awesome ideas like this!

How could you not find the statistical breakdown helpful? There's a lot of good advice to be inferred! Be alert for guns, but don't fret too much about strangers with large hands: only 31 people have been strangled in the past four years. Stay at home on Sundays as that seems to be murder day in LA, but feel free to go out partying on Wednesday: hump day is the day you're most likely to stay alive. To avoid being gunned down, try to appear Asian rather than Latino. And finally, get older as fast you can. Sure you might get closer to death as you age, but you're less likely to be murdered, and a natural death seems way preferable to one by way of stabbing.

If you're feeling especially morbid, you can click on the photos of the victims, see their murder stories in detail, and then even peek at the comments that their friends and family leave for them. Okay, doing that might not help you feel more secure, but for real I have used this site to inform my own life decisions. I walk alone at night quite often and my friends will say, "Stop that! That's not a safe area!" and then I'll show them the site and be like, "Look, only one dude has been shot there in the past couple of years, it's probably fine."

Also, big ups to my friend Clare who used to maintain this site. I feel really sorry for present day homicide victims who will never have the honor of having Clare chart their demise for them.

Part of Your World

Ugh ugh ugh. A half hour stay on the plane layover in Las Vegas is cruel beyond words. I really relate to Ariel right now.

Love Is in the Air

"You realize he's gay, right?"
- 13-year-old girl next to me on a plane to her mother who was shamelessly flirting with the flight attendant. He did give mom an extra bag of Wheat Thins, so her effort wasn't entirely futile.

San Dimas: Home of the Bar Brawl

I moved to Los Angeles proper a couple of years ago to add some excitement to my life, but I still believe that the best adventures take place on the outskirts of Los Angeles county. A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of visiting Sam Dimas (home of Bill & Ted!) to see my friends' band play at a bowling alley bar, and the experience was delightfully trashy. The place was full of twenty-year-old bros and hos and a few eccentrics. I'm guilty of not paying too much attention to the band because the people-watching was so ripe. Let's start with the eccentrics:

* Boat Guy: an middle-aged, short gentleman with a ridiculous picture of his boat embroidered on the back. Not sure how he found his way into this bar, but he had a lady friend (twice his size in each direction) who must have had a thing for boats considering that she kept putting her tongue in his ear. Things got so amorous that they fled for the parking lot before even finishing their drinks.

* Golf Hat Guy: a dude who was doughier and a bit more preppy than most of the buff bros in the place, but he still managed to bag one of the bleach blond girls. (Every girl in the bar had the same fake color hair.) As he danced with his new friend, he couldn't wipe the "how-did-I-get-so-lucky" grin off his face and would clench his fist in victory when she'd rub her butt against him. Occasionally, she'd pull her top down to show him (and a hundred other people, whether she realized that or not) her boobs and he'd wriggle with excitement while pointing at his Titleist hat. "It's the hat, it's the hat!" he'd brag to everyone.

* Cowboys: a group of dudes with cowboy hats, buckles, and boots, looking just short people in bad costumes. I wasn't close enough to hear any of their conversations, but REAL cowboys, guys!

* Over-Sexual Grandma: Probably the oldest person in the bar, she came in making out with a man, then proceeded to flirt with every other younger guy in the room. After freak dancing with a few gentleman, she asked if I'd like to take her for a spin, but I declined, pointing out that her man-friend, who had been glaring at her, seemed a little jealous. "He let's me do what I want, he knows I'm young at heart!" she insisted. Except that she ended up dancing with one too many dudes, because they were soon in a fight and all of her apologizing and cheek kissing wasn't enough to placate him and she left in tears.

But again, the real excitement was just the sea of bros. They were mere feet from us, so I had to routinely cover my face so they wouldn't catch me reacting to every dumb thing they said and did. It was like watching a National Geographic special on assholes, except that I could reach out and touch them... or they could touch us, as it wound up transpiring.

Michael called it well before it happened. A chick (blond, obviously) had come in with her boyfriend, but then was spending a lot of time talking to another dude. The boyfriend start fuming and rather than expressing his displeasure with words, he went right in with a fist. One punch spurred dozens more, as there were at least 20 bros that wound up getting involved in the fight. A sad excuse for a security guard tried to come break up the fight, but against that many buff dudes, he just ended up getting attacked, too. Organically, the brawling mob started moving across the bar. Someone would try to flee and another guy would chase and soon they'd all be moving as some uncontrollable pack. Unfortunately, the scene went from funny to dangerous when the fight came crashing into our table. Allison had dudes land on her, another guy got his head slammed against the table, and we all had to get out of our seats and back away to avoid being injured.

Finally the fight stopped, thanks in no part to the ineffective security guard. The management tried to kick them all out, but they wanted to stay and have "one more shot" before leaving. They found it incomprehensible that the bartenders refused to serve them, got livid, and finally stormed out not because the police had arrived, but because they couldn't get a drink. I couldn't get served either because for some reason I had been lumped in with the bros until some fellow patron was like, "Come on, does he look like one of them? Give him his drink!" and finally I got my $7 pitcher.

The funniest line of the night came from my friends in the band: "Looks like we can't play Sheryl Crow anymore." In the past, they've had to stop performing Rage Against the Machine at certain bars because it riles the crowd up too much, but in this instance they were playing a Sheryl Crow cover when the violence erupted. Who knew she had the power to provoke a twenty-person brawl?

For obvious reasons, this is now my favorite bar. I don't care that it's a half hour drive, if anyone wants to make the trip to San Dimas, I'm game.

NEW FASHION TREND: Double Sunglasses

No really, there's no better way to look fly than to wear TWO pairs of sunglasses at once.



Don't even try to tell me you couldn't see that look in Vogue. It's MAJOR!

But how do we have so many pairs of these sunglasses? When Michael Michael moved to Miami a few years ago, Alex said he was going to turn into "Miami Mike", which Michael Michael objected to. But when he came back to visit California wearing white pants with corresponding white sunglasses, there was no denying the Miami Mike transformation was complete. After laughing at Miami Mike's getup, best believe that fifteen of his friends promptly went and bought the same white sunglasses to mock him further. But double sunglasses aren't mocking. Double sunglasses are pure fashion.