I'm about to tell you about the second half of my LA trip. Catch up on Part 1 of the trip if you missed it.
Laurie and I kicked off Saturday evening in LA by meeting up with my friend Kene at an art opening at the Lawrence Asher Gallery. Joe Davidson makes some truly impressive art out of scotch tape. Says Joe:
"My repetitive and seemingly meaningless actions are explored symbolically as reflections of the passage of time, emotional isolation, and escapist fantasy. The compulsive or obsessive acts required to create the pieces necessitate the omission of other perhaps more traditionally meaningful or useful activities. The viewer is asked to contemplate this notion of what has been lost through the time consuming details of the piece."
This particularly interesting piece represented all the alcohol he drank with his friends over the period of, if I recall correctly, one month. All rendered in scotch tape.
As we walked out of the gallery, Kene asked us if we'd ever visited the La Brea Tar Pits which were right across the street. Neither of us had. I've heard the phrase "La Brea Tar Pits" many times, but I had no idea what they were; in fact, I pictured them as a stinky, desolate wasteland where no one would ever voluntarily visit.
Turns out the La Brea Tar Pits are pretty fascinating! Kene acted as our tour guide as he led us around the grounds, pointing out fun facts about this cluster of pits where tar has seeped up from the ground for tens of thousands of years.
The sticky pools created by the seeping tar could be mistaken for bodies of water, and many animals were trapped in them and fossilized. Excavations have yielded fossilized plants and animals dating back to the last ice age.
New fossils are still being discovered, including dire wolves, saber-toothed cats, bison, ground sloths and mammoths!
Next time I'm in LA, I'll be sure to stop by the tar pits during normal business hours so I can get a better look at everything.
We departed the tar pits in search of dinner. Going off a recommendation from someone who knew we were vegetarians, we ended up at The Hungry Cat. "Where would you like to sit?" asked the hostess. "Just not near that giant bowl of seafood," I responded, gesturing to the jaunty display of ocean life by the open kitchen. She scowled at me and seated us at the bar, where we perused the menu of dishes that all contained seafood. Since when does "I'm a vegetarian" mean "I eat all kinds of fish!" It seems that our restaurant-recommender did not realize there is a difference.
We vacated The Hungry Cat and walked right around the corner to the next place we saw, Cafe Was, where we sat at the bar, talked to the friendly bartender and waitstaff, ate decent food and were serenaded by a guy at a rotating piano in the center of the restaurant. He made the best of the presumably "only play covers" gig by at least keeping the covers unusual: I recognized "Miss Ohio" by Gillian Welch, and he also ran a Nirvana song through his Neil Diamond-meets-Billy Joel filter, interpreting the music beautifully on piano. If that description intrigues you, listen to Corey Landis on MySpace. (Note to Corey if he googles and finds this: describing your new album as creating "a new ground zero for (your) work" is maybe not the image you were going for?)
Apparently Cafe Was just opened recently. I recognized owner Ivan Kane from watching some reality show that ran on Bravo about his burlesque club Forty Deuce. (This is why I don't own a TV anymore, because when I did, I wasted precious moments of my life watching shows like that.) I asked one of the waiters sporting an ironic moustache for the story behind the restaurant's name. Turns out Kane was looking for an old cafe sign, and when he found it the letters of "always open" were burned out to spell "was."
Just as we finished our dinner, our dear friend Fil joined us! Fil, Laurie and I spent many nights together running around the Lower East Side drinking drinks and listening to music. Actually, it was often Fil onstage playing the music and Laurie and me in the audience drinking the drinks. Until he was done and would join us in the drinking drinks part. I love Fil and Laurie.
On Sunday morning, Laurie and I stopped by the real Hollywood farmers market which we loved, and not only because I got to swoon in the proximity of dreamboat Eric Stoltz. Our last stop before I had to leave for the airport was the flea market on Melrose and Fairfax, where we ate food and shopped. Kene met us there with his new dog Charlie.
Isn't Charlie cute?