Sorrowful Jones

Russ and I have taken up this bad habit of slumming around bars on the fringes of skid row (it started with our "haunted tour" at the Cecil Hotel and we said to ourselves:  "Selves? This isn't so bad, screw the ghosts and let's come back for the cheap drinks and shady characters"). You'd think it would be depressing, but it's like a New York adventure with the excitement some hobo might fuck me up for my fake Breguet. We aren't the only ones, artsy snobs are doing the same who have lofts and art galleries around the area. You haven't lived until you've been served a $2 drink by a miserable old woman who sounds like she's been smoking chimney stacks for the last 53 years with someone dead passed out next to you at the Kings Eddy Saloon. Downtown Los Angeles is the epi-center of black men in wheelchairs asking you for cigs (cigs are like currency over there) and the atmosphere feels like something is about to go down. It's weird seeing a middle aged white woman who didn't meet a plastic surgery she didn't like walk her 3 chows passed a rotting black man peeing on himself.  $5 haircuts (L.A. Barber College), going to the Hotel the Black Dahlia was seen at (The Biltmore), it's all here.

I've noticed this ugly trend in gay mags, blogs, of gay men who write down their back and forth banter like it's so entertaining to hear two fags hash out what they thought about the latest movie they've just seen. I'm sure witless straight people get a kick out of what two gay men burp out to each other, but most of it is idiocy and stereotypical from fags who should know better:

Mark: Did you see how hot Adrian Brody was in "Smiley Face?"
Mike: Oh you crazy bitch! And yes I did.
Mark: I'd give Brody a smiley face when I make him my same-sex hubba hubba hubby.
Mike: Oh you crazy bitch.
Mark: It's homemade mimosa time you crazy bitch!
Mike: That last part was my line you crazy bitch.
Mark: Who you calling a crazy bitch?!!!


Can you imagine if Russ and I did this shit?

L.A. spooks

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Blood latkes

Burbank used to have a Jewish/Chinese Deli named "Chow's Kosherama" (they had the best lox and Peking duck) that was written about in a novel called "Indecent Exposure: A True Story of Hollywood and Wall Street" by David McClintick. It closed years ago and left me with an aching hole in the wrong kinda place, but my itch was scratched when The Gorbals plooped into my hungry world with chicken skin sandwiches and Kosher couscous pudding with bacon brittle.

Bacon wrapped matzo balls at The Gorbals .

Leaving Cali

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esoteric

I'm taking this tour because I can't get enough weird crap and tasty dumplings.

I get mine at Hop Louies

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black bean bennies

I'm hitting Chinatown tomorrow, I'm getting shrimp har gaus, assorted shaomais, leek pancakes, a whole Peking duck with the head still on it, and 3 orders of chicken feet in black bean sauce with strawberry cake from the Phoenix Bakery. Russ is happy with a carnitas burrito with extra cheese extra sauce from Olvera Street because Mexican food sustains his life blood, assorted Dulces de leche for my mom and my sister is getting a little chinese windup toy that spins around and falls on the floor, but she'll thinks it's cute as Hell.

Oki Dog

Everyone goes for the Pinks hot dogs in L.A. A tourist trap that thinks putting watered-down guacamole and water-logged sauerkraut on a hot dog will take away from its "so-so" surprise after the first bite. My dog has to be an Oki dog. Two grilled hot dogs, house made beef chili, fatty pastrami, and American cheese rolled up in a tortilla big enough to stuff with a crystal ball. It's a meat bag abomination to behold, a joking sexual innuendo to eat, and scary to the round Russian babushkas living in the area who whisper about it in quiet tones. It's mentioned in a book ("Weetzie Bat"' by Francesca Lia Block), Darby Crash made a song about it ("I'll See Ya All At Oki Dogs"). The first location was on Santa Monica started by a skinny Asian guy who looked at his customers like dirt, it was the hangout for drunk punkers, male hookers I knew on a first name bases (the girl hookers were on Sunset), and me. I used to drive back from the beach and stop at Oki's when the sun started to come up during my bachelor existence. It closed it's orange doors after neighbors complained of all the hookers blowing johns on their lawns, at least that's what I like to think. They have a location on Fairfax and I only went there once. I went for the dog back then, but I also went for something else I can't quite put my finger on, a space in time? A part of my life cut out and served to me with a side of ash topped chili fries? Who knows and I don't care any more.

I probably won't go back to Oki Dog the place and it's not just because it's out of the way, that something else, just isn't there for me anymore and I'm not talking about the greasy goodness you could oil your pistons with.

Philippes

So Russ and I are in downtown L.A. for court and we decide to lunch at Philippes for lamb dip sandwiches. Right before we walk up to the restaurant door, Russ gets a phone call and tells me to go ahead (it's his mom maybe falling off the sober wagon again) This transient walks up to me right before I go in and asks me for change thinking I'm alone. I say; "Sorry man, didn't bring my wallet," I didn't bring my wallet because I knew Russ was paying (I know, I know, Russ always bugs me to have my wallet, but I keep it in the front pocket and it looks like I have two dicks when I do), so he gives me this smile like he doesn't believe me and wonders off. Russ comes in from his phone call and we order our lamb sandwiches with 3 sides (one macaroni salad to split), a jar of chili peppers to take home and a coke for him and lemonade for me. We sit next to a window. Russ says he needs to go take a leak and leaves, guess who wonders past the window, stops, and looks right at me with a "I thought you didn't bring your wallet you fuck" smile? I smile back and he wonders off again just as Russ is coming back with our sandwiches on the way from the bathroom. He puts both sandwiches in front of me because his cell is ringing again (mom definitely fell off the sober wagon) and he wants to take the call outside so the surrounding people won't hear his up-coming lecture to mom. Who do you think wanders past the window again with Russ nowhere to be found? Now here I am sitting with not only one, but two sandwich in front of me with 3 sides, two drinks and a whole jar of chili peppers. The guy gives me this "not only are you a lying fuck, but your a pig too, you, gluttonous thing you" smile/wave. At this point I'm pissed, I don't know if I'm pissed at the coincidence of Russ being gone every time this guy sees me, pissed because it looks like I'm going to stuff my face with all these lamb sandwiches and not giving him my lose change because I needed that 3rd macaroni salad side or pissed because he's going out of his way to make me feel guilty with what he perceives as me not having charity, falsely. Russ comes back in and I explain the whole thing because the entire idiocy of it all isn't funny anymore. The guy comes to the window again because he probably doesn't think my conscious is seared enough with guilt, but not only is Russ with me this time, Russ gets up and walks out of the restaurant to have a "little chat" with the man who hasn't had enough of wanting me to feel like shit for not giving him a nickel he thinks I have. The guy waves back to me with a "sorry" wave and Russ comes back in to finish his lamb sandwich and flat coke like nothing happened. To this day Russ will never tell me what he said to the guy.

Philippes wasn't that great if you expected this to be a restaurant review and those old bats over the counter look like they'll turn to dust if you blow on them.

River Cats

When I was a little boy I use to drive down the 5 freeway with my mom to visit my grandmother and my uncle David in East LA. Looking out to the LA river were the river cats, graffiti cat heads painted on the lids of the storm drains. Later I found out the artist was a man named Leo Limón. I don't miss my grandmother, she always pretended not to understand my spanish and favored my dip cousins, but I miss the river cats.

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Dirty Angels, Dirty Me

I was born in the City of Angels. What is called “Hollywood” is a manufactured ideal of glitz and showbiz sheen than an actual place. I always get asked “Where are you from?” Since most people here come from everywhere else. I told this one girl I was from L.A. and she said “No, where are you REALLY from?

The freaks you most associate with Southern California, I guarantee you are from someplace else. Every normal, boring, man or woman I ever came apon are always from here or places like Inglewood or West Covina. I once told a waiter I was from Colts Neck, Minnesota (made up on the spot). The ruse didn’t hold up when he said his grandparents lived in Minnesota and asked “Colts Neck? Where is that near?” I should have told him I was a drug mule from Guatemala.

It’s great to be able to ski (Mount Baldy) and surf (Malibu) all in one day and I like to think the thick layer of smog protects me from the sun’s UV rays, but I’m realistic with this place. I know no one will ever say to me “Baby, I’m gonna make you into a star!” before making me cry “Uncle!” on the casting couch. And when the big one seismologist say will one day destroy us (all agree it’s not a matter of if, but when) hits? I won’t care to see it coming. It’s all this sunshine you see, it’s like eating your favorite ice cream every single day, you get sick of it, but you still prefer it to any other flavor being shoved down your throat. It all starts meshing into a smoggy haze of palm tree rows, mini-malls (Thank You Bob Hope), store bought sun burns and hanging ten to the tune of the Mama’s and Papa’s “California Dreamin” bangin in my one note head, but I still love my city of fool’s gold and vanities, It’s all I know.