Paletas

I'm waiting outside the gate of Universal Studios and a Mexican man rolls up with his ice cream cart, a common site around the shitty parts of the San Fernando Valley. He's looking at me thinking; "I'm pushing this cart in a hot burning sun that's holding ice cream and I still don't know how they're not melting, so why don't buy an ice cream from this magic cart so I can go home and watch Luche Libre wrestling?" He's not just selling ice cream mind you, he's selling paletas. The amazing Mexican popsicles that come in flavors like cucumber with mint, sweet corn, tequila with grapefruit, and avocado. I get the Jícama with lemon and chili with big chunks of jicama giving me a chilly/sweet/spicy afterburn down my throat, a popsicle actually turned me on, and like a Mexican Mary Poppins, he was gone on an ill wind before I had a chance to say; "mucho gracias pendejo, ahora me dan mi cambio (thanks a lot brainless, now give me back my change)." Others have found the secret to paletas and ran with it. I know this, if I wish really hard sitting inside of an Ernie's Taco House (the one on Riverside Drive) holding a jalapeno, stem side down, I'll see my little Mexican man and his magic cart selling his chillone delicadezas on a stick, and I'll remember you that Summer.

North Hollywood

North Hollywood has nothing to do with "Hollywood" either geographically or in spirit, it's even cut off from Hollywood by a few cities in-between. North Hollywood is just broken up and dirty, if it were a bicycle it would have chipped yellow paint with gears held together by Saran Wrap and Ron Paul for President stickers. Unlike other cities around it, I don't think it ever did have a heyday of industry, it's always been just there, like a stain in the sink you can't get out or a 3rd nipple.

The one time NH made news was because of a shoot out that put the entire city on lock down. It's wrong for me to say NH has a gang problem worse than other cities, but the High School on Vineland looks like a prison so it's students can have a smooth transition to real prison when they graduate.

Russ and I lived in NH for 3 years, between a Shakeys Pizza and a Supercuts. When we would walk to Shakeys we would have to pass this retirement home you could see in the wall size window and watch the elderly wonder around with looks of either "Kill me now" or "I didn't get my pudding," we could never be sure. To get to the smell of a baking extra cheese pepperoni pizza, we had to walk past the the smell of old souls dying. Needless to say we had alot of pizzas delivered in those years.

NH has a gay bar called "The Rail." The bar is such a neighborhood bar that a typical flyer would read "Come celebrate Ben's B-Day! Corey is bringing punch!"

Toluca Lake, where I live now, is right next to North Hollywood, but anytime anyone brings that up I just dismiss them with saying "Who dear?"


Tonga Hut
12808 Victory Blvd
North Hollywood

Tell Kate to turn on the fountain behind the bar, she never remembers.

Jean-Yves Lemoigne

See the the first unicorn bag lady pic? I eat at Norms, Magnolia Blvd in Burbank.

Link

Burbank

I grew up in Burbank, a suburb of the San Fernando Valley. The "Valley" hit the world's radar with Frank Zappa's "Valley Girl" and with the movie of the same name in the 80's (you see a helicopter shot going over the Hollywood sign into the San Fernando Valley via Burbank in the opening credits) and yes my sister's friends did talk like that, it wasn't strange to US. My city was a middle-classed city with abandoned buildings and railroad tracks going nowhere (the Lockheed Corporation, the once life blood of the city during the war, Burbank's heyday, had moved away leaving only toxic waste under the sidewalks and airplane rivets in the sidewalk cracks), nothing like you see now with the development that started in the 90's after the city's bluebloods died off and development began over their dead bodies. This once ghost town was the butt of jokes for 60's sitcom "Laugh In" with the announcer starting the show saying; "From Beautiful Downtown Burbank!" Burbank was the drop off point before you went somewhere else. It used to be a "Sundown Town," meaning if you were a black man, your ass had to be out of the city limits before the sun went down or the Burbank cops would be nice enough to do it for you. You can always find Burbank's finest giving tickets to teen skateboarders, street spitters, if you stare at them too long or if you drive a jalopy. Our Police answer to no one because Burbank is it's own city so they don't have to answer to a greater Los Angeles Police Oversite Committee who stop the abuses under the badge and that gives them the free pass to abuse their power, and they do in glorious technicolor, but like it or not, it was my smog in a mountain surrounded punchbowl home. I always wanted some kind of mystery associated with the place growing up, even neighboring sister cities Glendale and Pasadena had haunted houses of some fame, but Burbank had the the last laugh on me, because even though I moved away years ago, Burbank still haunts me.

The Pickwick

The city of Burbank, California had a Drive-in theatre called the Pickwick.


I’ve heard of other Drive-in theatres across the country that had everything from car-hop service to a monkey zoo, our Pickwick had a kid’s sandbox filled with mounds of red ants and stale puddles. It was located next to horse stables, so on hot sticky nights it became an olfactory mix of horse manure with popcorn and fry bin grease from the concession stand, you got SMELL-O-RAMA with every movie, even if it was a romance.


I wasn’t alive during the heyday of the Drive-in (50’s-60’s), so I can’t reminisce of a simpler time of going to the Drive-in and getting hotdogs with little Toots McGree and uncle Winifred, but I have my own memories that are just as good, not of movies, but of a place with a picture-screen bigger than life and of dancing food you could eat.

See me in Odyssey

I get my movie rentals at Odyssey Video on Lankershim Blvd. and Vineland in North Hollywood. The place is a great find for serious fans of obscure and little known films, and a shrine for horror movie fans who could tell you who the Foley artist was on the Shelley Winters's horror flick '"Who Slew Auntie Roo?" Odyssey turned me on to a movie that was the closest thing to a snuff film and a good suspense flick made by the Nazi UFA movie studio during the war. Did I say they have the best gay porn from the 80's? Two walls full. You'll find every underground leftist newspaper at the entrance of Odyssey, right next to the Snicker bars with the expiration date of May '84 and the handmade "Return Here" signs someone drew between bong hits. The place smells like dust and vegan take-out. All membership takes is a driver's license, a kind face, and a password. I didn't go for months and forgot my password, they told me it was "Cambodia," I've never said the word "Cambodia" in my life, and why are they telling me my password without my license anyways? Everyone over the counter is under 18 with skinny arms, sleepy eyes, and play in bands with gigs in Silverlake scrum bars, explains "Cambodia."

I can't think of a more appropriate name than "Odyssey Video" for this place, located next to a 3 foot by 3 foot camera store and an occult bookstore filled with bad spirits that go next door and watch 80's gay porn when Odyssey closes for the night.