Commuting on the Metro, yes, in LA…

When I lived in DC, I used public transport to go back and forth from Laurel, MD to Herndon, VA. The bad news is that it took two hours each way, each day. The good news is that by car that expanded to 2 1/2 hours on most days. So not only was it shorter by rail, but someone else had the “honor” of driving and I could do other things like read and work on my laptop. Now that I’m in LA LA Land, I’m using the Metro, but the distances are much, much shorter. It’s a simple two-stop hop on the Red Line from Universal City to Hollywood/Vine. I was surprised that both had their own signature look, and of course as I’ve used the Metro more often these days I’ve found that the transit authority has gone out of their way to make each stop distinctive.

decor at Uni City station

film cans line Hollywood/Vine

The film cans are EVERYWHERE

The thing that I found amazing was the use of old film canisters at the Hollywood/Vine Metro stop. There must be thousands of them mounted on the ceilings throughout the structure. I suppose that there are scads of them stacked up in storage around town, but it was still surreal to see them used in this way. It’s a very unique approach to industrial art – both a very Hollywood-styled bit of self-congratulation while also making an interesting use of space and architecture.

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Observing Hollywood

So here’s a slightly better view of the Hollywood sign than I had originally posted when the rainbow popped up. This was the first sunny morning since I started working the new job, and even though the limits of the phone camera are annoying, it’s more than nothing.

The real treat here was to see the snow-capped mountains (the San Gabriels, I think) behind the Griffith Observatory. Again the phone cam doesn’t do it justice but it looked like you could almost reach out and touch it – a very nice way to start the week.

Jalapeno Waffles in Hollyweird

Another recent adventure in Hollyweird… my first day at work my boss decided to take the team out for lunch to a restaurant called “Waffles” that’s in bottom floor of the building where we work. It has a kitschy vibe with a bit of downtown funk mixed in. It’s a two-level establishment, with a diner downstairs and a bar/lounge in the balcony area. In a word – funky.

Speaking of funky, they had some genuinely odd items on the menu, and I decided to go for the strangest thing I could find. Here we have a meatloaf sandwich wrapped with a savory waffle, kicked up a notch with a bit of jalapeno thrown in for good measure.

It is by far the unhealthiest thing I’ve eaten in a long, long time. And I know this because of the “food hangover” I woke up with this morning (and evidenced by the rotten feeling during my workout this morning). But as such I was in it for the experience, and well, I’ve had the experience. And while I wouldn’t say I regret it on the level of some other things I’ve done in my life (like eating the worm at the bottom of a tequila bottle), I’m very unlikely to repeat this meal in *this* lifetime.

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Rainbows over Hollywood

I just started a new gig, and on the first day the weather was typical Los Angeles winter-time rainy season fare. Mid-way through the day the clouds broke up and a rainbow popped up for a few minutes.

It’s somewhat difficult to see how the rainbow crosses over the Hollywood sign from this perspective. Between the smoked glass and the raindrops (and dirt) on the outside of the window, the camera phone is simply not able to do justice to the moment. But to the naked eye it was pretty dramatic to see that pop up.

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Carpet Kizmet

In preparation for a series of meetings at my apartment (which also houses my studio) I decided to do some re-arranging. In the process of moving furniture I discovered just how dirty the carpet had become since they were cleaned six months ago. Los Angeles is a very dusty environment, and the fact that I live in-town (between a major surface street to the south and major highway to the north) only compounds the effect. Every time I clean the glass-top table on my porch, the cloth comes up black – not grey, not a dusty brown – but black. Inevitably that works it’s way into (and all over) the place. So with a short week coming up I simply didn’t have time to rent a commercial cleaner or hire a service. I did the best I could with the cleaning equipment I had and moved on to bigger and better things (including some work in the studio that needed attention). I figured I’d look into it next week after the hubbub with the NAMM show in Anaheim was over.

Then lo and behold, I heard a bunch of racket in the hallway this morning. I thought someone was trying to break a hole in the wall – so I stuck my head out the door only to see a guy dragging a huge carpet cleaning apparatus down the hallway. It turns out they’re cleaning carpets in the place next to mine, and I was able to slip them a bill or two to get them to take care of my place at the same time. I’m not a huge proponent of divine intervention when it comes to the mundane things in life. I’m more of a “I should have died in that motorcycle crash, and yet I barely have a scratch on me” kind of believer. But there are times when I feel like someone, somewhere has cut me a break – and this is one of them. Call it a miracle, call it divine intervention, call it kizmet – I don’t care. When the little things break your way – particularly in the context of a very challenging 2009 – it’s hard to ignore.

Maybe I should buy a lottery ticket today…

 
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