I somehow managed to live in LA for six months without seeing a single celebrity. Actually, that’s not true, I saw the brown-haired girl from Baywatch, but I didn’t recognize her until someone behind me said, “Wasn’t that the brown haired girl from Baywatch?” All my grandma asks when she calls is if I’ve seen any celebrities. That’s why I decided to go straight to the source: the paparazzi, also called the paps. In this case, my friend’s friend Chris, who, like David Beckham, came from Manchester to LA to carry on the fine British tradition of tabloidery. So I tagged along for one dayon a ride that turned out to be not so fast and sadly involved neither wigs nor big sunglasses, just a whole lot of waiting.
What, it's Saturday and you're in Los Angeles and it's 3:27 AM and you need an anchor at the bottom of your stomach so you don't drift away on your own sea of vomit when you get home? We know you already know about Brite Spot, but check our Places to Go Late at Night, today's feature in our guide to Eating in Los Angeles for some other suggestions. As an extra bonus we're also tossing in South Central's culinary recommendations, just in case you actually wind up there.
There's nothing like Beverly Hills to make you think having money is the lamest thing you can do with your life. It's the land where men wear their clothes oversized and play poker and golf, everyone's played God with their faces, and no one wears all black. Actually, there are so many hideous things in that part of town chances are you'll be the most attractive person in the whole neighborhood. So resist the urge to play Johnny Appleseed with molotov cocktails, heed the Westside chapter in Vice's guide to Eating In Los Angeles, and chill the fuck out over a burger or something.
Today’s installment of Vice’s Los Angeles guide to shoving food down your gullet includes where to do that in Hollywood, which is pretty much the same neighborhood as another section we’re putting up called Places to Go When Someone Else Is Paying. And since it’s Thursday and you’re a grownup who can handle sensory overload, we’re also offering up Places to Go When You Want to Get All Historical, one of which is called Clifton’s, a diner inside a fake forest frozen in 1938. It feels like the yellowing set for a kinky animatronics goldrush porno, only instead of Smoky the Bear and busty blondes with pickaxes it attracts geriatrics with oxygen tanks and malnourished blobs stuffed into wheelchairs, a surreal refuge after a nightmarish caper in which my date drunk-drove me down a sewer tube, whipping beer bottles out the window, splashing down right into the L.A. river.
RAQUEL ALLIANCE
Hey Johnny Ryan stalkers, we’re gonna make it real easy for you this Sunday. He’s selling his stuff at Felt Club, which is about as un-depressing as a craft fair gets, along with Steve Weissman and some other bigshots. Then he’s heading over to Family for the Kramers Ergot 7 art show and book release party, an enormo-indulgent, mega-broadsheet-size hardcover issue including works from Chris Ware, Paper Rad, Jaime Hernandez, Blanquet, Matt Groening, Daniel Clowes, Mat Brinkman, Kim Deitch, Anna Sommer, Anders Nilsen, C.F., Adrian Tomine, and Kevin Huizenga. And that’s not even close to everyone. We heard the strip they included from Johnny Ryan is real respectful of the book, which hasn’t started slipping toward precious or anything.
Our second West Coast edition of Soft Focus sees Ian Svenonius spending some serious face time with ex-Minutemen/ex-fIREHOSE/current Stooge/perpetual bass god Mike Watt and Royal Trux/RTX heroine Jennifer Herrema. It's 100% free and it will be 100% more interesting than any conversation you are capable of having with your friends. Mark it on your wall calendar or iCal or Oujia board or whatever you use to keep the days from blurring into one another. It might turn out to be the best Monday of your life. RSVP here.
Good morning ladies! Last night I spent the best $14 of my entire mid-20s, no shit. The old lady and I went out for a night on the town and we stopped by the Australian Center for the Moving Image (ACMI) or "where all the film buffs hang out in Melbourne". I didn't see that many losers there but I guess if they say it's true it must be. Anyway, we caught a movie call The Hunger. I wasn't too sure of what to expect besides the fact that it was a vampire movie starring some poof named David Bowey or something, so my expectations weren't too high. Well, let me tell you--my fellow gothic little boys and girls--that from the second this movie started my bell tower was fully engorged and the bats were ready to spill forth something fierce!
Since I've been down under I let the concerned American in me wane considerably. I thought I probably wouldn't vote via absentee ballot in the upcoming election because I just didn't really relate to any of the Presidential candidates. I really started to lose faith in the whole process. Well, FUCK THAT, I know I'm voting for now, motherfucker, and I think it's crystal clear right here in this campaign video! STIGMA 2008!
New Yorkers love to shit on LA but guess what, I just went there for my first time to curate the Vice 2008 Photo Show and it was awesome. I officially call bullshit on East Coast/West Coast wars. But I guess I had an advantage because I was staying with my kooky pals Mr. Hodgepodge and Miss Lizzi—who are both featured in this awesome new book, Vintage LA, so I basically got a whirlwind tour of all the fun and kitschy stuff that author Jennifer Brandt Taylor writes about in this handy guide for sightseeing weirdos.
There are bands that can trick the fuck out you while you're faced. Yeah, yeah, the list is too long to mention but there are certain bands that are seriously ONLY tolerable while snorted or stoned to the bejesus-belt. I'm not talking about seminal drug-dork bands like The Stones or The Dead. That garbage is too obvious and a waste of time to talk about. I've met enough coked up pussies with Stones tattoos whose fathers hate them or 20-something office workers who swear the Dead had "some killer bootlegs" to choke a sperm whale. I'm talking about bands that you hear for the first time during a good bender and think are the musical equivalent to the taste of Siousxie's brown eye but when you go back and give them a go straight it sounds more like Dennis Rodman's. Dead Meadow are a great example. White nerds who can afford Orange amps sounds great when you're blazed and like a cheese grater to the dick when you're not. Basically, these are a few bands that only diluted dorks will say are good sober.
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