Jitlada Thai Cuisine

Tai (from Scoops) recommended this place to me and Ben. We had the Coco Mango salad, the steamed mussels, and the dry beef curry. All were awesome. When I mentioned this place to my Mom, she was like "Oh, I have their recipe for steamed mussels". Guess I'm still playing catch-up.

Los Angeles Plays Itself

The documentary I've wanted to see for so long has finally been posted to YouTube.

Room of One's Own

Following in the footsteps of Ben and Danielle, I've started playing a song that relates to the topics in the philosophy of mind that we're discussing, first thing every morning in class. After we listened to the Beach Boys' "In My Room", we made a list of the similarities and differences between our relationship to our own minds and our relationship to our own bedrooms.

Sausage Fetish Party

Had another BBQ tonight, this time at Scott's place in Marina Del Ray. It started out with me, Danielle, and Scott, hanging out on the back patio of his apartment building, right on the marina. This was a far smaller turnout than I originally expected, but we were eventually joined by Sunny & Robin, and Sunny's dog, then Steve & Jessica, Gabe and his girlfriend, Eliot & Rob, Chris, one of Eliot's classmates, and Tamar.

Summertime

Just a pleasant scene at LMU.

Construction at the LAWA Encounter

The Encounter Restaurant and Cocktail Lounge at the Los Angeles World Airport is under construction. Kind of reminds me how cool the Washington Monument looked when it had that Michael Graves scaffolding over it. Whatever happened to that scaffolding? I had heard Walmart bought it and was going to reconstruct it as a self-standing monument somewhere in the Midwest.

Scoops BBQ

It took some work, but we put together a pretty awesome BBQ at Scoops this weekend. I pretty much just went to Smart & Final and bought a shitload of hot dogs and buns. And Tai marinated some steaks, which were yum yum yummy.

How relaxing is this?

Water Fountain at the Charles Von Der Ahe Library at LMU from Charles Everitt on Vimeo.

The Big Blue Bus

Took the Big Blue Bus from LMU to Westwood today. It was a pretty good time, because the weather was nice, the traffic wasn't too bad, and I listened to "It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back" en route.

When I got off at Veteran Ave., I saw this poster on the back of a city bus. I hope you can see his mustache.

Tiki Ti

Finally went to the Tiki Ti tonight with Danielle, Josh, Robin, and Sunny. When we first got there, we bumped into a friend of a friend, who happened to be there with an internet celebrity.

The decor was first generation Tiki bar and the drinks went down smooth. The internet celebrity joked that all 86 of them just taste like rum & pineapple, which is probably true. Every half hour or so, someone would order a Blood & Sand, which led to a surprisingly charming ritual, albeit one that would probably get old with time. Here's my footage of it.

Charles Von Der Ahe Library

LMU's building a new library and one of the small things that's going to be lost in the process will presumably be this rather nice sign hanging above the entrance to the old library.

Moses

Drawn by Fuzz

Mr. Snuggles

Valley Girl (1981) at Cinespia

Photo from Flickr.

So I finally made it to Cinespia last night. First the movie, then the experience.

'Valley Girl' itself was surprisingly good. Nicholas Cage and Sonny Bono were both great, there were too many good Valley Girl-isms to remember ('scarf and barf' for instance), the music selections were choice, and there were awesome locations. A bunch of restaurants and movie theater facades in the valley and Hollywood, as well as several Mulholland Dr. shots at night.

The Cinespia experience was also just wonderful. Robin, Mathilde, John, and his girlfriend (whose name I don't remember) all staked out a place for us when the doors opened at 7:30, and I got there around 8:30. Sunny arrived soon after I did. The fact that it's in a cemetery turns out to be completely irrelevant. It's just too damn nice out for it to matter. You're surrounded by palm trees, the weather's perfect, and the wide expanse of the sky is just beautiful. The crowd is a scene, admittedly, but in a fun way. For whatever reason, although every other person looks like they've just escaped from an American Apparel sweat shop, there wasn't any attitude and everyone was just having a good time.

The one thing I'd do differently next time is I'd bring a lawn chair. Even with a blanket and a pillow, lying on the ground gets pretty uncomfortable, so I was rolling around like Mutesa's wife for most of the movie.

California Waiting (Song List)

Side One
Side Two

California Waiting (Side Two)

More on the same theme as yesterday.

California Waiting (Side One)

Here's hoping for another day in paradise.

The Rocket Pizza Lounge in Downtown L.A.

Went to dinner here with PJ and Sunny before the Neon Cruise last weekend. It's right next to the new location of the Museum of Neon Art. The cute part was that after we fought over what toppings to get for a couple of minutes, I hazarded the revelation that I like Hawaiian pizza. I normally never bother revealing this because most people tend not to share my affection for pineapple and ham on their pizza, and they tend to make fun of it. It turned out, however, that PJ and Sunny are both fans of Hawaiian pizza as well but hadn't shared their affection for it for similar reasons. So we had a rather mediocre Hawaiian pizza.

The Volcano at Monte Alban

To be honest, it's just okay. It looks more impressive than it actually is.

Neon Cruise

Went on the Neon Cruise again this past weekend with PJ, Sunny D, and Robin. The Chinatown stop had a new surprise: they've managed to relight some of the rooftops! Originally, all of the rooftops had a neon outline. But in previous years only the entrance arches were lit up. Now, however, a row of buildings inside is lit up as well.

Hollywood Reservoir

Went here on Sunday with PJ and Clare. It's pretty, and the location of one of the dam scenes in Chinatown, but you never really feel like you're communing with nature, since the whole time you're there you're walking along an asphalt path that is separated from the trees and lake by an eight foot tall barbed wire fence.

Hollywood

Filming Location: The House from 'Double Indemnity'

"It was one of those California Spanish houses everyone was nuts about ten or fifteen years ago. This one must have cost somebody about thirty thousand bucks."

That's how Fred MacMurray's character describes this house in Double Indemnity. PJ, Clare, and I went and checked it out this afternoon, with the help of PJ's GPS device. It's in the Hollywood Hills and as long as they can see over the house across the street, the view from inside must be pretty awesome.

The DJ Booth at the Lounge

After a few months of spending every Friday night in the DJ booth at the Lounge, which actually wasn't very social, it was nice to go out last night in downtown L.A. with a handful of old friends (Ben, PJ, Robin, and Sunny D).

Last Remaining Seats at the Orpheum Theater

July 2008

Mr. Curtains

I went and saw three silent comedies tonight at the Orpheum on Broadway in downtown L.A. The best part wasn't the movies, though. It was (a) bumping into both of my L.A. Conservancy friends, (b) listening to an 86 year old collector of theater curtains (pictured) talk about the five vintage curtains he hung on the Orpheum stage tonight, and (c) listening to the organist demonstrate some of the many, many sounds their Wurlitzer can produce (including the sound of the ocean, produced by rolling a bunch of marbles around in a wooden box).

Favorite Places: Nijiya Market

This is a Japanese supermarket on Sawtelle in Los Angeles. It's the first, and still one of the only, places in the States that I've seen those little seaweed-covered rice triangles that I like so much.

Ten Best L.A. Movies

Here's my current list of the ten best L.A. movies:

1. Annie Hall
2. Big Lebowski
3. Blade Runner
4. Chinatown
5. Decline and Fall of Western Civilization
6. Fast Times at Ridgemont High
7. Heat
8. Jackie Brown
9. Slums of Beverly Hills
10. Sunset Boulevard

Touch of Evil Filming Location?

I think this might be the location of the final shoot-out in Touch of Evil. But I'm not sure. If this isn't it, it was somewhere very near here (i.e., in some other part of the original Marina del Ray canal).