Some pre-flight ruminations:
In the cab, on the way to the airport, I passed so many shitty, little places (Chinese restaurants, Laundromats, delis etc.) with the grandest names imaginable: Olympic Cleaners, Great King Chinese Food, Excellent Deli and so forth.
At some point, I’d like to open these types of establishments, but name them things like Pretty Good Chinese Food, Not Filthy Cleaners and Won’t Give You Leptospirosis Deli.
There was, or maybe still is, a place in the 80’s on Madison called “Ok Market” and there used to be a deli on 98th and Madison called “Just Another Deli”.
I dug the truth in advertising.
Ever since college, every flight I took departed from La Guardia, which meant I would pass through Queens and that massive cemetery flanking the road.
Some part of me always felt better for having done it because it was as if, by passing through that graveyard, I’d been exposed to a lot of death and that, for some reason, meant that my plane wouldn’t crash.
Or something.
I’m sure that other, people have reflected on that, probably better than me, but, whatever.
I’m also usually up way too early on the days I travel and am sleepy; so, take that into account as well.
While flying over the galaxy of glittering lights that make up Memphis, Tennessee, I reflect that, every one has its own story and that I could not give a fuck about any of them.
Great thing about airports?
No homeless people.
All right, now to The Account.
From Thursday the 26th to Monday the 30th of January, I was in Los Angeles, staying with my good friends, Will and his wife, Diana.
Both legs of my flight went excellently, as I was able to get exit rows on each for my dainty, five foot long legs.
The layover in Memphis went as beautifully as anything can go in an airport: I walked off my plane from New York made a pee pee in the toity, walked up to the friendly, heavily accented lady behind the desk who gave me my new seat, then walked on to the plane.
Seamless as a baby.
I then spent most of the flight watching Moneyball, a movie about things with the framing of baseball.
Much like Black Swan, which was also a movie about things, but framed by ballet, it didn’t win me over to the framing device.
I still don’t give a shit about ballet or baseball (although my interest in celebrity lesbian sex scenes has increased a thousand fold).
Between the two flights, everything went so swimmingly, I ended up arriving in LAX (which stands for Los Angeles Xairport…the ‘x’ is silent…) a half hour early.
But LA traffic did a splendid job of fucking that right up.
Eventually, Will picked me up in his Prius, which is capable of launching small satellites, a feature only granted to graduates of the International Space University.
Which is a real place.
We arrived in his home in Glendale, at which point I freaked out his dog, Sampson (or maybe it’s ‘Samson’, I never actually asked the dog…) by being taller than his master and having longer hair than his mistress.
He barked until I sat down and then we were fast friends.
Soon after, Diana arrived home and we all went to accomplish the first item on my short list of things to do in Los Angeles; namely: eat a Zankou Chicken.
A quick aside: all of my LA goals had been gleamed from movies (The Big Lebowski) and music (Beck’s “Debra”), so don’t be surprised when I don’t make a point of going to the Hollywood sign.
Once we arrived and ate at Zankou Chicken, I had a much better understanding of not just Beck’s “Debra”, but the entire Midnite Vultures album.
Their garlic butter was, however, without equal.
We returned to Will’s and then, around 11 o’clock our time and 2 o’clock Phil’s time decided that Philip had to know, via caterwauled guitar/ukulele song, that there was no water on mars.
So we called him, twice, since we didn’t know if he had maybe already found out and panicked or whatever.
He later told us that he was too busy sleeping to answer his phone.
One thing I will say about Phil…he is a professional grade sleeper.
Then, we slept.
Another quick aside: because of my idiotic sleep schedule here in New York, I was able to play it totally normal in LA, blending in like a ninja in a ninja costume factory.
I, infiltrator.
Friday morning, I awoke to find an e-mail from TransPerfect asking if I could record one final line for my on-going Lenovo voice over session I’ve been recording on my home studio stuff. I informed Emily that I was in LA until the 30th and if it was possible to get it to her by the 31st.
She then suggested I record it in their studio in Culvert City.
Less than 12 hours in Los Angeles and already I was booking gigs.
Good. Omen.
I bounced the idea off Will and he agreed.
But, first…I plugged Will’s Beatles Rock Band mic into his Mac in order to make something amazing with Garageband.
Mission accomplished.
Throughout my time there, Will and I (and our supa-produca, Samson…I’m pretty sure it’s Samson…) worked on an original piece inspired by our urgent messages to Phil entitled “Water On Mars”.
Expect it some time Q4, 2013.
Will was able to avoid work for the remainder of Friday and we hit In & Out Burger on our way to Culvert City.
Burger = 8
Shake = 8
Fries = - 6
What…the…fuck…is wrong with their fries?*
After this bipolar lunch, we headed over to Culvert City, but not before Will drove me by the “Times Square of L.A.”.
We passed the tourists and maniacs out in front of Grauman’s Chinese theater and, you know what, I could handle never going there again.
There was something just so…greasy about it…
Anyway, we arrived at the studio, I met Emily, said my line (“Eastern Standard Time”) three times in fourteen seconds, racking up the most money for the smallest amount of work done in my career thus far…and then we left. Back to Will’s to continue work on “Water On Mars” and to await the advent on one Mister Dan Delgado AKA “Blades” Delgado, the notorious highwayman and chemist who was to join us that evening for Jay and Silent Bob Get Old, which records every Friday night at Universal City Walk at the Jon Lovitz Podcast Theater.
He arrived and, after a short discussion involving the September 11th attack on New York City, hurting animals and a smattering of other awful stuff, we left.
But not before I imbibed a delicious ginger pear cider.
Nummy num!
I was dazzled and disgusted by the garish nature of the place which made the Universal City Walk in Orlando, Florida look like an abandoned monastery.
After sitting down and shocking our heavy-drug using tablemate into silence with a TOTALLY HETERO discussion about jerking each other off in the parking lot in order to relieve tension so as to better focus on the show, Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes took the stage.
Then came a thirty minute monologue about how Kevin Smith’s 14-year old dog, Scully, the lynchpin of his family, is dying and, further, how his inability to deal with it is negatively affecting his marriage.
But it was still funnier than Jersey Girl.
I was praying for Mewes to interject something, anything, but this really wasn’t a back and forth kind of situation.
Eventually, Smith lightened the mood (slightly) with a story of how his daughter’s big tortoise, Snappy, has taken to raping her little tortoise, Snipper, by mounting it and making a high squeeing noise.
Yeah.
Then, Mewes told a story about shitting himself while working with a personal trainer and the results of said shart.
Finally, as they do at the end of every Jay and Bob Get Old, they played a game.
Sometimes it’s Let Us Fuck, where Kevin Smith will call out some geeky sexual position (the Boba Fetish etc.) and you and Mewes have to discuss then demonstrate said position, sometimes it’s Acting With Youse and Mewes (where Smith will direct you and Mewes in a scene from a popular movie) and, a few times, it’s been Do You Remember More About The 90’s Than Jason Mewes? (a very simple trivia game which Mewes almost always loses as he was totally fucked on heroin, oxycontin and crack for most of the 90’s).
This evening it was Do You Know More About the View Askew Movies** Than Jason Mewes?
Smith asked for a player from the audience and people started pointing at their friends and yelling at him to pick them, but, at Dan and Will’s urging, I merely stood up and was consequentially called up on stage.
I shook Smith’s hand and told him it was an honor, then did the same to Mewes, who, upon seeing how tall I was, bent over the table, imitating Snipper, the dominated tortoise.
So I fulfilled my role as Snappy and dry humped Jason Mewes while making a high pitched squeeing sound.
Happy Birthday to me.
We were then instructed, since there were no buzzers, to hit the table in front of us with our hands in order to “buzz in”.
If you’re truly interested in the outcome of this titanic battle, I’ll direct you to the recording of said podcast, which should be up around the end of February on Smodcast.com.
Here’s a hint, I was fucking shocked and worried for the majority of my time on stage.
That junkie knows a lot more about the movies he co-starred in than I had thought…
The three of us then made our way to Roscoe’s Chicken ‘N Waffles (another L.A. food staple) where we were joined by Diana.
I was informed by both Will and Dan that the choice wasn’t to have chicken OR waffles, but whether or not your chicken would be served “smothered”.
It was…unnaturally good.
By which I mean bad.
My only problem was that the chicken wasn’t served ON the waffles.
We had an enlightening conversation about the meaning and state of being “mad dogged” and then we retired for the evening.
Saturday morning, Will, Diana and I met up with a friend from Fordham who I wish I’d gotten to know better during our time there, the ever-salacious Graham Slipper.
We were also joined by his silk-dancing assassin girlfriend, Jordan and his absolute pussy magnet of a dog, Mustafa.
Graham has suggested a pleasant little place called Home which provided me with yet another amazing meal.
More excellent food and more excellent company.
Stuffed, we made our way to the Arclight Theater (a Los Angeles landmark) to pick up tickets for the new Mission Impossible then Will and I headed across the street to Amoeba Music (another landmark).
This place made me roll a tear, bringing back all the wonderful memories I’d had at various Tower Records/Video during my time in college.
This place was the fucking Platonic Ideal of Tower.
Sadly, crushingly, now that I’m a filthy deadbeat music downloader, there was nothing I was looking for.
I was thinking how impersonal and unexciting things have gotten with regards to new music these days…
There’s no more lining up at a Tower at midnight on a Monday in order to be one of the first fans to hold in your hands the new thing from your favorite artist/band.
Now it’s all about trawling the torrents sites for the earliest leak with the highest bit rate.
*sigh*
Will, however, had no problem whatsoever finding a panoply of physical media to bring home.
The lucky dog owner.
Then, off to the movie and fresh caramel popcorn.
Even though the movie was pretty straightforward action pap, the experience was pretty great.
I wish I’d seen The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo or something else where the sound was more than just explosions.
Not a bad movie though.
Once the movie had ended, Will and I dropped Diana at home and headed out to UCLA for They Might Be Giants’ thirtieth anniversary concert.
If you’re truly interested in this, I direct you now to scroll down a few inches and read my full review.
Overall, while it was a solid concert, I felt they could have made a bigger deal over this marking thirty years of them playing live together.
Plus the energy felt a bit low, probably because it was a seated venue and they’d done a family show earlier that day.
God damn do I hate seeing them in seated venues when they’ve performed a family show earlier that day…
One thing I will mention, as it has me utterly flummoxed and managed to truly shake my world view: after Jonathan Coulton had finished up and Will and I were waiting for TMBG to take the stage, Will asked me how many times, at this point, I had seen They Might Be Giants live.
I told him it was between 55 and 60 since my first show in March of 1998 in Orlando.
He balked and said that was a huge number.
I countered that there were people there tonight who had seen them more than that, much more, 300 times, at least, maybe more.
He scoffed, did the math and said I was insane.
I then put my money where my mouth is and bet him five bucks that, if he went down to the front row and asked how many times the people sitting there had seen TMBG, that he’d get at least ONE person in triple digits, closer to 300 than not.
I figured since we were in row V and those folks were in row A, well, yeah.
So, Will went down and, a few minutes later, returned, demanding his money.
I asked for the total and he said, after polling the first AND second rows, the highest number of shows seen…was fifteen.
Fifteen.
So, it appears that I am somewhat obsessed with They Might Be Giants.
Who knew?
We got to Will’s and, as the three of us were feeling a bit peckish, whipped up a delicious little meal that included magic sauce for potatoes and fresh guacamole and fajitas.
An upside to not having a 24 hour run-of-the-mill diner a thousand feet from your front door…
Then, more much needed sleep.
Sunday morning was spent with our friend from high school, Hillary who lives in L.A. and brought along her husband, Alex, and her suspiciously adorable kids, Finley and Nico.
Hillary has been doing well in L.A., to put it mildly.
It was truly great to catch up with her and Alex, who I hadn’t seen in about six years or so.
We talked about being handicapped in the industry and how stupid people are and whatnot.
Good times.
Yet another great meal with great conversation.
Things were beginning to feel a bit scripted at this point…
Soon after, Hillary, Alex and their unnaturally cute kids left and the three of us unwound with Memento.
Guy Pierce sounds like it should be a porn actor’s name.
After that, Will and I left to see Eddie Izzard at the Coronet, something that popped up at the last minute a day or so before.
We swung by and got our (amazing) seats then Will took me to the final, insane dinning experience of my trip: a little place called Milk.
After several days of meat and meat and meat, I decided to have a nice, light pasta dish with pesto and other things that weren’t meat…and some chicken.
I’m not a fag, okay?
Then (and this is what the place is known for), I got some dessert, Coffee Toffee ice cream, to be exact.
Haven’t had ice cream that good in quite a while.
Then, off to the Coronet to have my brain blown out the top of my head by the one and only Eddie Izzard.
His set covered why God doesn’t exist, the whole of human existence and why Latin is a dead language.
My two favorite moments were the Latin thing and his joke about picky badgers (which included an amazing impression of bok choy…yes, he did an impression of bok choy…the Chinese cabbage) which culminated in a delicious and truly awful pun.
I’ve decided that I need to see him every single time I can from now on.
I saw him once in Philly with Lauren and Trevor, but he was sick and we were tired (still, an utterly amazing show).
There is just SO MUCH packed into one of his sets that you can’t help but find something so funny that you can’t breathe.
I think I’m ready to declare Eddie Izzard, Patton Oswalt and Stella my favorite comics.
Call someone.
Tell the others.
With that, ostensibly, my trip to Los Angeles was over.
I packed, slept and then, the next morning, bid Will and Diana goodbye as the Super Shuttle pulled up.
On the way to the airport, I began talking with the only other person on said shuttle, a postal worker named Sabin, who waited for me to stop talking long enough to interject stuff I really had no interest in hearing…except for one thing.
I commented that the burgers at In & Out were pretty good, but that the fries were awful.
He informed me that it was because they were natural.
“They fry them in veggie oil, add salt and that’s it.”
An interesting possibility, and yet…no.
These fries were really fucked.
Aside from the typical airport shit and a delicious pulled pork sandwich in Memphis, that was it.
My very first time out there and I can’t imagine anything else living up to it.
I mean, amazing food at every turn, getting on stage with Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes, seeing They Might Be Giants and Eddie Izzard, booking a (hilarious, weensy) gig, collaborating on a hit song, not to mention the amazing friends and the weather and everything else?
Come on!
The only things I didn’t do on this trip were coke, experience an earthquake and punch a supporter of Proposition 8 in the genitals while screaming “THIS IS WHAT YOU’RE DOING TO THESE PEOPLES’ HEARTS!!!”.
The one issue I could see if I ever ended up out there would be the lack of transportation.
Or rather the abundance of shitty transportation.
I don’t want a repeat of Florida, which utterly stripped me of my independence when I was at my most independent.
One of the main reasons I’m in New York is that one does not need anything more than a pair of legs to get oneself around.
And, god DAMN are my legs beautiful…
But, I suppose I can burn that bridge when I cross it.
This was an exceptional weekend, populated by exceptionally friends.
California truly does know how to party.
Yes they do.
* I would meet an unlikely someone during my last hour or so in Los Angeles who would posit an answer to my query…
** Namely: Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma, Jay and Silent Bob Strike back and Clerks: the Animated Series.
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