eric has a lot to say:
Chapter 1: Friday, the beginning of Shabbos. Plus, Ellen and Molly come to town...
Been feeling pretty down lately. The dwindling bank account doesn’t really lift my spirits. And rain every day for a week doesn’t either. So, I wasn’t in the best mood on rainy Friday. Ellen was coming into town with her law school friend, Molly. Despite my lousy mood, I was excited to see Ellen. She was really a close friend during my senior year of college (and roommate) and she always comes up with the kind of compliments that make me feel like a superhero. Which, in turn, inspires my 11th New Years Resolution: Tell my friends regularly how great they are and not in a bullshit way. Friday Night rolls around. I eat an early dinner, get in my car, and drive to LAX to pick up Ellen and Molly. Ellen’s flight arrives at 9:16. Our embrace is a megahug where time slows down while ribs are crushed. Ellen and I go to my car. I tell her that I have a special gift and proceed to play the M.C. Nuggets “Do You Wanna Party With The Big Girls” CD for her. She guffaws appropriately. Since Molly doesn’t arrive for an hour, Ellen and your handsome narrator drive around LAX for awhile. We chat, and joke about the weird fast-food choices surrounding LAX. While my favorite was the sign for 1 dollar Chinese food (p.s. Mosco Street in New York has 5 fried dumplings for dollar. Even if it’s feline flesh in those dumplings, a dollar for such goodness is a deal/steal); Ellen laughs at Rally’s sign for Unbelievaburgers. We skip fast food as I assure Ellen that the late night meal I have planned is even more unbelievable than the burgers. We head back to the airport and park the car. Molly’s flight is running late, so Ellen and I sit in the airport. I text message her new boyfriend some weird text. Yes, Ellen has a boyfriend right now. Sadness, huh boys? Anyway, I hope he’s an amazing, wonderful person, ‘cause she sure is. He’s amused by my jokey text message which is a good sign. Ellen and I have incessant funnytalk and then Molly’s flight arrives. Molly, who I’ve never met before, is nice from the get-go. We all jump in the car and drive off into the rainy California night. By the time we get to Zankou Chicken (of garlic sauce and Beck’s “Debra” fame), it’s closed. So we head to El Gran Burrito (on Santa Monica and Vermont). EGB, as I don’t like to call it, is a restaurant with a large covered outdoor area. Here are the steps to getting your food at EGB:
1. You walk up to the cash registers and order your food.
2. You pay the cashier for your food. He/She gives you a ticket.
3. You take the ticket and hand it to a man in the assembly area. He asks
what sort of meat you want. So if you got a burrito or taco, you just tell him what meat
to put on it. It’s always a man, from my experience, doing the assembly.
4. You are handed a plate with your food on it.
5. You take your food to a sauce/vegetables section, where I usually load up on onions, cilantro, and sauces too spicy for a cowardly tongue such as mine.
We get our food and sit down. Al Pastor is the way to go, that is, if you don’t want an Offal taco. Ellen and Molly are super happy with the food. They don’t seemed sad at all about the weather, even though I’m nervous about them having a boring weekend. Ellen, Molly and I drive back to the Alex/Eric Crib-On-Clayton. The girls think the house is great.
You’ll never guess who comes to visit next.. Guess? Give up? Okay, I’ll tell you... My old friend - Royal Royal Crown Crown. The girls both have R2C2s. Alex comes in, in a good mood, and we all chat. I set up the Aerobed and head downstairs to my bedroom where i begin reading Orringer’s “How to Breathe Underwater”. Holy Shit! What a great short story collection. I’m up much too late reading. It’s raining. Morning comes quickly.
Chapter 2: Sabado Gigante, Museo Extrano, Koi Ridiculo...
Everyone wakes up. It’s still raining. We get our ourselves ready and head to brunch at Eat Well on Sunset in Silverlake. Outside, Alex and I run into an old friend, Jesse, from the college days. It’s great to see him, so I hug him for 15 minutes. At Eat Well, We all play glutton and order gargantuan breakfasts. Eat Well’s horoscope always seems to turn out right. For me, it says that the day is going to play out like a ballad in a good way. This is vague enough for my liking. Eat Well scrambles eggs tremendously well. Smiles on our faces, breakfast in our bellies, love in our hearts, we
head back to the house.
I take the girls to Fred Segal on Melrose. The clothes are ridiclous. There is a 2200 dollar cashmere sweater with a skull on it. The cars in the parking lot are also ridiculous, ‘though I do have to say the new Bentley Continental is really pretty; much bolder looking, ‘though not as elegant as the DB9, an impressive looking ride that I’ll consider when I win the lottery or get that elusive record deal.
Ellen and Molly agree to go to a museum with me that I’ve never been to. DE-L recommended The Museum of Jurassic Technology to me... DE-L, much thanks. Little did I know that the MOJT was going to be one of the more interesting and entertaining museums I’ve been to in my life. I’m not going to talk too much about the museum, because part of the museum’s charm is going knowing as little as possible. It takes a couple of hours to get through. If I had to describe the museum, I’d say it’s a museum that acts as a celebration of museums. The museum is bewildering and wondrous. At first, it seems very small inside, but as you work your way through the dark rooms, you come across exhibit after exhibit. I think the museum works best if you go with a small group, two or three people in total.. Upstairs they have a very nice theater and free tasty tea (with a tip cup, mr. cheapo). Upstairs for some reason was even stranger than downstairs. Go to http://www.mjt.org/ for hours and directions. Do no research and go. There is an In-N-Out burger a block away in case you get the sudden urge for fast food. The museum is hard to find, but worth the search. We saw a movie there that made no sense and gave me silly dreams of miniature robots living in a forest cottage.
Afterwards, we headed to Zankou Chicken. We went home and shared half a chicken for a late lunch, and then we all napped. At 8pm, I woke the girls up. We all got dressed and Alex rejoined. We headed to Koi, where I’d never been, but Alex thought Ellen and Molly would be entertained. It’s been raining all day.
Koi is fucking insane. Even if celebrity sightings didn’t happen there (We saw 3: Chazz Palminteri, Puddle of Mudd Lead singer (who I thought was Jason Mewes of Silent Bob and Jay fame), and some football player (Marcus Allen, who sat with some guy in sunglasses), it’s still a place to go to look around the room. Why? Because the most artifically beautiful people you’ve ever seen eat at that restaurant. Wonderfully amusing to see such lovely surgical enhancement. Koi really does show what this ridiculous part of L.A. is like. Some guy passes by wearing the dumbest jacket I’ve seen in a while (it says “Eros” and “Erotic” all over the jacket)... I can’t talk for most of the meal, because a. I’m self conscious about being in a roomful of people who look like this, b. I can’t stop looking at these pretty people and c. cup after cup of sake hits me hard... Anyway, the food is better than you’d expect at a hip loungey-feeling eatery. No, it’s not the best japanese food I’ve ever had, but it’s surprisingly good and not wallet-destroying-expensive. I’d take Mori sushi over it if I wanted to eat well, but if I wanted to have a fun time surrounded by Us Weekly’s idea of what beautiful is, I’d go to Koi. Our waiter was amazing. I throw down a lot of Sake. Luckily, the sake stays down. What’s next? Chateau Marmont? Nope. We jump in the car and head to the Smog Cutter (a dive bar in the opening credits of “Barfly”) for some late night karaoke and to meet up with Alex’s classmates, Beej and Brooke. Beej’s sister and sister’s friend are also there. Alex, the girls and I become the fab-four for one awesome rendition of “In My Life”. Alex’s voice is wonderful. Beej sings. Beej’s sister sings. After shutdown of karaoke, (I don’t get a chance to do Young MC justice), we all head back to Beej’s apartment. I’m drunk at this point. My head starts sweating for no reason at all. We have a great time. It’s still raining.
Chapter Tres: Sunday, just another manic fun day, whoa whoa...
The next morning, Ellen sleeps in and Alex goes to church. Molly and I head to breakfast at Fred 62 on Vermont in Los Feliz. Breakfast is delicous. I have a great time speaking with Molly. She’s an awesome girl and it’s good to know she and Ellen are friends. We bring back a behemoth of a b’fast for Ellen. She seems pleased. It’s still in fact raining. It’s cold. I turn on the heat in the house. Ellen, Molly and I sit down and watch 2 episodes of “Freaks and Geeks”. We then drive to the Moca museum downtown (one of 3 locations) and see drawings by some dude (Ed Rocha) that I don’t find particularly interesting. But the museum is nice and some of the text in his work is funny. Just not sure how it’s art. The rain outside is intense. We drive back to the house and watch another episode of “Freaks and Geeks”. Then we get ready for an early dinner. We drive to “Soot Bull Jeep” in K-Town for some Korean BBQ over hot coals. Cooking over hot coals in a restaurant with poor ventilation is much more fun than it sounds. Alex took me there for my birthday back in August. The meat is, as always, great. After dinner, We all emerge smiling, our eyes stinging from the smoke, our clothes smelling of a burnt sacrifice to a god. We drive to the Arclight and watch “Million Dollar Baby”. Can give my review some other time. I like the soundwork in the film a lot. On the way out of the movie, we see Elisha Cuthbert (sp?). Ellen misses, but the rest of us see Justin Timberlake. I think Alex and I are in full agreement that “Cry Me a River” is a incredibly enjoyable piece of music. Only wish Joey Fatone was still having that level of success. We head back to the house and go to sleep. In bed, I listen to the rain for a while before falling asleep.
Chapter 4: Monday: They’re leaving on a jet plane. Don’t know when they’ll be back again...
Yes, it’s another rainy day in normally sunny or at least smoggy L.A. In the morning, Alex goes to class. Ellen, Molly and I (most popular phrase of the post) head to breakfast at Fred 62, and then onto the airport. I drop them off at the airport and hug them both before they go inside the terminal. I had a great time showing them around Los Angeles and hope they visit again soon when there is sunshine and we can swim in the ocean, spraypaint Disneyland, go to Mexico, etc.
And with that, “My Superb Weekend of Rain, Food and Drink” comes to a close.
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