The space is special to me because I used to come when it was the bar formerly co-owned by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon called The Continental. And that was something special you could say about the nearest bar to your first post-college, entry-level job in Los Angeles.
Hokusai now occupies the remodeled bar-restaurant and is [...]
I had driven past Avalon Hotel countless times before. Located at the base of Beverly Drive at Olympic Blvd., it’s a straight shot down from my place. I was always intrigued by the modern façade in the front overlooking a small, U-shaped driveway but had no occasion to visit. What I didn’t know was that [...]
I was at an engagement party over at The Parlor in Santa Monica a few weeks ago when I got “reacquainted with an acquaintance” from my UCLA days. We did the obligatory surfacey catch-up talk, which included where we lived now. He: West LA. Me: East of West LA. I told him my major cross-streets.
[tangent] [...]
SCENE XIV
Location: The main bar at Nic’s - a martini bar on Canon in Beverly Hills
Day and Time: Friday, 11:39PM, summertime
Music: Live jazz
Characters: B – married friend of E; Joe – guy in workclothes
Bystanders: E – friend of B; John – guy in workclothes, friend of Joe
JOE offers a handshake to B.
JOE
Hi, my name is Joe.
B shakes Joe’s hand.
B
Hi, I’m B.
JOE
What [...]
I was on my way to my therapist’s office yesterday for one of those all-revealing, heart-wrenching sessions when I saw an M6 turning left. It looked like my coworker’s car.
I looked as I passed and sure enough, it was him – complete with yarmulka covering half his head. He was the same coworker who had [...]
January 17, 2008 – 10:12 am
My car is a mess. Filthy. In a huge, car-conscious (or -dependent, take your pick) society like Los Angeles, it’s either okay or not okay, depending on which end of the “diversity” spectrum you put your stock in: the overly image-conscious end or the self-important, I-don’t-give-a-rat’s-arse end. You can’t forget it also depends on what kind of [...]
August 30, 2007 – 10:12 am
I’m not one to laugh at another’s expense. Okay actually, that’s a complete lie.
Try again: There are points of amusement that come about because of things people say and they don’t really realize the full magnitude of what they’ve just said. Call it irony. One case in point might be the most recently popular YouTube [...]
Working in the environment that I do–surrounded by a lot of corporate individual greed, it’s easy to get caught up. And it’s hard to remember a time, if it even existed, when money wasn’t the main goal in life. Isn’t it the end result, though? We only hear about how during The Enlightenment this wasn’t [...]
It’s not that I’m obsessed with it. It’s just because the thing is on my block. It’s in my neighborhood, and it’s my business to know these sorts of things. Plus, it’s probably the most interesting fixture-building-thing I’ve seen in quite some time. It’s a trip to see this …gas station… [...]
The danger about living really close (as in 2 city blocks close) to your workplace is that if you’re a procrastinator to the Nth power like me, instead of being late some of the time–or even half of the time–you will be late all of the time, by 5 minutes. Or 10 minutes. But that’s [...]
