Thirty Day LA

It’s Captain Melo again. I must confess, I have a blogging addiction. In the month of September, when I wasn’t doing Thirty Day LA anymore, I found myself a new outlet for external validation: Yelp. For those of you who don’t know what the hell Yelp is, it’s a website that's like a mashup of Friendster and Citysearch. You write reviews and create lists about the places you’ve been to so you can share your experiences and expertise on the best spots in town with other Yelpers. Based on those reviews people can rate your reviews, add you as a friend, send compliments, which all trick you into believing you’re a valued part of the online community. Considering that I mostly just went to new places during my thirty days, transitioning to Yelp was quite natural. It’s so easy to get sucked into this damn online world. I need to start going out more again.

Anyway, enough about Yelp, and back to The Plastic Highway. He’s been busy, so he wanted me to fill in some details. First, an exposition on the nature of a topic dear to our hearts: pimping.

Now all of us single guys (and non-single guys too) have our own ways of operating when it comes to running game. Some guys exude charisma and confidence and can instantly make any girl feel comfortable and talkative. Some guys are cocky assholes who always find girls to feed their ego. Others use alcohol as their courage juice. Despite their differences, all these guys share a common experience early in their pimping careers. It’s when the young wannabe pimp is still shy and unsure of himself, but on one magical night, he manages to strike up a conversation with a pretty, friendly, nice, talkative, engaging, and interesting girl. She shows interest and smiles a lot. He’s surprised that this girl is actually talking, laughing, and even flirting with him. There’s this incredible rush of not caring that he’s dripping sweat, his breath smells like dead rats, and his income doesn’t even come close to the six figures that her ex-boyfriend was pulling down. A couple hours flow into mere minutes. But then it’s time to go, so he says it was nice to meet her, and leaves. And then he realizes something. He forgot ask for her number. He berates himself, "You goddamn shit-fuck dumb-shit fucking motherfucker," walks around in a few confused circles, and finally lets out a deep groan, knowing the window of opportunity has closed. And this is Stealth Mode, when your game is so sneaky that you fooled even your own damn self.

I’d say my modus operandi is drunken-courage slash defeatist-overcompensating-dork. The Plastic Highway, on the other hand, hasn’t picked a game style yet because he’s never felt the inclination to become a desperate loser. So a couple Thursdays ago, we hit up three bars we've never been to before in Hollywood so he could conquer his self-conscious fear of getting rejected by women.

Our first destination of the night was The Well, a popular local bar near the Arclight in Hollywood. We went inside, found the place full of sausage, and took a seat at the bar and tried to figure out what to do. There were all of two girls in the place. The Plastic Highway tried to warm up his game by asking the cute bartender if the place was always full of douchebag guys, to which she laughed. Then he spotted a group of three girls walk in, and after some prodding, went over to talk to them. After they got their drinks, both of us went over to the couches where they were sitting and we talked to them. The Plastic Highway had his eye out for the very cute Asian girl in a red dress while I tried to run an obvious wingman and proceeded to get nothing out of her friend. So with nothing left to say and the Plastic Highway's game running smoothly, I excused myself to get another drink. After a while, he found me and told me that we were going to go check out another bar. We went outside and that’s when I learned that he had been scared off by a group of three guy friends that had showed up and forgot to ask for her number. Instead of a powerful impact from the cannon, all he did was take a little pistol gun with a silencer and shoot himself in the nuts. Damn.

After that, we went to Beauty Bar. The theme of the place is a beauty salon, and the DJ was playing a song that The Plastic Highway really liked. He found a girl to chat with for a while. It was her birthday and she wanted to get drunk and she seemed happy to talk to him. But he wasn’t interested, partly because she said she hated the music. Then we went down the street and to complete our Hollywood Bar Trifecta and found ourselves at Citizen Smith.

At first, we had no idea what kind of place it was, but the friendly hostess assured us that the kitchen was open until 1AM. She seated us in the back outdoor patio, and we got a good view of some of the hoochies standing around vying for the non-existent attention that was being dished out. The place itself had a classical gothic architecture theme going on. The bar area in the back was pretty packed, but the rest of the place was rather empty for a Thursday night. The coolest part of Citizen Smith was the giant sliding door that would open and close with a gentle nudge. Anyway, our server was very attentive and friendly, and he told us the place had just opened sometime around March. The food was delicious. I ordered a plate of three mini-burgers with caramelized onions and The Plastic Highway got a giant chicken burger/sandwich thing. So over our food, The Plastic Highway and I analyzed his performance for the night. Not bad, considering he talked to two strange girls in one night, and up until that point it had only been one in his entire life. But he was still hung up about being in Stealth Mode, so he decided he was going to go back to The Well and ask for that girl’s number.

We went back, and the girl was still there. He waited around, not sure of what to do, and then we saw her walk by shit-faced and being half-carried by her two friends. I told The Plastic Highway to go after her. He tapped her on the shoulder, but she didn't respond, and he let her go. She went outside, presumably to barf all over the ground outside or something attractive to that effect. And so the night was over.

Welcome to the humiliating, depressing, but always memorable world of dating. This got me to thinking what kind of game style The Plastic Highway could adopt to increase his chances of success. Over the years I’ve witnessed a few unorthodox styles that were amazingly effective:

• Sleeper Pimp – fall asleep at house parties and have girls lie all over your comatose body
• Bold Liar – make up elaborate lies about who you are and never talk to them again after you drop them off the next morning
• Cockblocker – Swoop in to save the girl from your game-less friend, but end up with zero friends
• Brash Pimp – ask the girl what color her panties are and she’ll be happy that you’re giving her attention
• Dancing Pimp Face – walk around the club asking girls to dance and then put on a pimp face while you’re gyrating knee-to-crotch

Yeah, on second thought, maybe not. Whatever his style ends up to be, I’m glad I was there to witness The Plastic Highway’s entrance into Stealth Mode. Hopefully he’ll get out of it soon.

The Well
6255 W Sunset Blvd Ste 115
Los Angeles, CA 90028
(323) 467-9355
Google Maps Link
Cost: Free cover, $7 for drinks, $10 for strong mystery concoctions

Citizen Smith
1600 N Cahuenga Boulevard
Hollywood, CA 90028
(323) 461-5001
Google Maps Link
Cost: $8 for mini-burgers, $9 for chicken sandwich

Posted by CaptainMelo at 4:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It's me again, Captain Melo, and no, I'm not making a standard slut mating call. I'm here because The Plastic Highway has asked me to write a guest posting. So before he gets to his Adventure Part 2, I'm going to take this opportunity to pontificate on how the transition from 30 Day LA back to regular life has gone.

The last few weeks I’ve spent most of my energy getting back into the good parts of the routine that I had established before I started 30 Day LA in August. I’ve been cooking more, eating healthy, and trying to sleep more -- things that were pretty difficult to keep up with when I was on my adventure. I also revisited some of the places I went to last month. When I went to The Other Room with Lefty last week, he noted that I seem much more positive since I started the project. I do feel a greater sense of optimism in knowing that I can control my satisfaction with my life with this door to a world of new experiences now open to me. My approach to tackling challenges at work and play has been more aggressive and confident. However, I can’t say I’ve completely changed. One constant that I have steadily maintained, before, during, and after 30 Day LA, is my alcoholism.

This past weekend I organized a group Hollywood Bowl outing for the Fireworks Finale, which featured the LA Philharmonic playing Tchaikovsky and a performance by Kermit and Miss Piggy. The whole month of August I tried looking for concerts that I could go to at the Hollywood Bowl, but the good ones were sold out and I didn’t want to go by myself to a classical concert. So I was excited that I would get to make up for it in September and catch a fireworks show on top of it. We got there early on Saturday afternoon, and with our bags of food and alcohol in tow, raced up the steep path of the upper picnic area past some old people and snagged the last available table. Don't worry, those old people already had a table of their own. Over Lefty’s pasta salad, our old friend MissCount’s fried chicken, SatanNumberTwo’s array of home-made delicacies, ShopGirl’s watermelon, and 8 bottles of wine, the 9 of us spent the afternoon talking shit about life, people, and sex. We watched the sun set over the bowl and headed in to catch the performance.

I wish I could tell you how the performance was. Unfortunately, I missed the whole thing. I was only buzzed by the time we took our seats, but then Tiny and LawyerBoy pulled out their bottle of wine and passed it to me. I started swigging like it was beer. Big mistake. By the end of the concert I had managed to pick a fight with two gay guys who were telling me to shut up (I didn’t realize they were gay until later), spend a couple hours on the toilet barfing all over my shoes while hearing the fireworks and cheers exploding outside, then pass out on the curb as people were filing out of the Bowl. LawyerBoy found me on the ground and wondered aloud what kind of person gets trashed at an LA Philharmonic concert. I was acting like it was my birthday or something. So while Tiny and LawyerBoy were carrying my drunk ass back to the car and I pretended to fly through the air and do a Liu-Kang bicycle kick in front of the all the cars jam-packed on Highland, I realized that even 30 Day LA didn't change the fact that I’m a stupid drunken asshole.

Which makes me happy that one of the goals that The Plastic Highway has set for himself is not just to become a different person in these thirty days but more like the person he wants to be. It’s something I should have made a more conscious effort to do last month. But I do have one saving grace: I don’t need to be on a 30 day adventure to make changes for myself.

So instead of doing something new everyday, I’m going to make it every week. And instead of going to some place new, I’m going to set a goal for myself to work on. This week, it’s going to be: Stop Being a Stupid Drunken Asshole. I figure this way I won’t miss out on stuff like a Hollywood Bowl concert that I’ve been looking forward to for a month by spending the whole night barfing in the bathroom. It serves me right though, and at least the two gay guys got to enjoy the concert without me yelling in their ears the whole time. As far as how I’m going to implement this goal, I’ll look for an activity where I can meet people and appreciate being sober. The Abbot Kinney Festival this weekend looks like a good bet.

I already tried to address this issue last night, when I accompanied The Plastic Highway on his Hollywood Bar Trifecta. I’ll let him tell you about it, but it involved me not drinking and him addressing one of his biggest fears. Sounds like a terrible night, right? It turned out great for both of us.

So in the meantime, while The Plastic Highway is busy blasting through his activities, I hope some of you who read this website will try out a thirty day adventure for yourselves. If there was ever a time when you thought, "Damn, I need to stop doing that shit" or "I should try that out sometime," now is always a better time to do it than never. As fellow blogger DieselGirl says, “LA is a terrible thing to waste.” So is your city. And so is my liver.

Posted by CaptainMelo at 1:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

One thing I should have done more of was set goals for myself on each of my Thirty Day LA outings. Since I didn’t have many more opportunities, when I went to do my new thing of the day on Tuesday night I thought about what goal I would try to pursue that night.

I went with GuitarHero and ObligatedGirl to karaoke Tuesdays at The Hideout in Santa Monica, which is about twenty yards from the beach. Yeah I do love me the karaoke, but I don't really like to sing. I’ve never sang in front of people completely sober, especially not in front of a crowd of white people who danced and sang country and honky-tonk like they were doing at the Hideout. Then I realized my opportunity. I did a trial run of just getting on stage first. ObligatedGirl and I pretended to do backup for GuitarHero on a Queen song but just stood there in the background. The KJ was really into GuitarHero’s singing, as was a loud drunk girl that we were talking to earlier. Four songs later and it was my turn. I conformed to the environment and chose No Rain by Blind Melon. I felt rather uncomfortable and stood there with one hand in my pocket while ObligatedGirl and GuitarHero made it a point to stand off the stage and behind me. When the song started and I sang the first word, the big group of people near the front of the stage me started screaming the song along with me. They did some crazy dancing/ hopping all over the place, closing their eyes with each pained yell of the song. I looked back at my friends and they were getting into it too. By the end, I seriously thought that I had become a rock star. The group cheered as I smiled sheepishly and shuffled my way back to the couch. I felt emboldened and knew that I had to sing one more song. I put it in the queue, which was actually a bunch of napkins, and waited my turn. Then the KJ announced that it was the last song of the night, and it was for me. Where before I was nervous, this time I was ready to go all out.

I got back on stage. The song title popped up on the screen - Nuthin’ But a G Thang by Snoop and Dre. I said into the mic that I was going to bring the streets to the Hideout and dedicated the song to all the people there who had some G in them too. The KJ cheered. The song started and the lyrics were from the radio-edited version, so I ignored them and rapped as many motherfuckers as I could. ObligatedGirl and GuitarHero would yell the last word of every phrase loudly and left me to fill in the rest. I tried to change lower my voice when Dre’s part came on and tried to sound sleazy and whiny when it was Snoop’s turn. When I finished, GuitarHero cheered into his mic, and I looked up and saw that there were only two people left in the whole place. It was great. I had not only accomplished my goal of becoming a rockstar, I had also helped the establishment get people out the door so all the workers could go home and sleep. I was feeling quite proud of myself. Unfortunately, the rich white beach-dwellers didn't seem ready to rock out to music from C-O-M-P-T-O-N and Long Beach yet. Maybe someday.

The Hideout
112 W. Channel Road
Santa Monica, CA 90402
Google Maps link
Karaoke starts at Tues 9PM, $2 off all drinks

Posted by CaptainMelo at 11:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

On Monday night, after my first photo 2 class of the semester at SMC, I went with ObligatedGirl on a tour of Third Street in West Hollywood near Beverly Center or whatever neighborhood it is and then Third Street in Santa Monica.

West Hollywood 3rd Street

Went to The 3rd Spot, had a Leffe Blonde and a Fat Tire, ate some food, people watched a huge party of hipster-looking industry people. I sat at the table next to the sexiest woman ever, Leanne Tweeden, and her ordinary-looking male companion. Personally I think Leanne Tweeden is the number one most stunningly hot female celebrity (in a distant second comes Kate Beckinsale), but I didn't want to act like a horny teenager with her FHM spread in hand, so I played it cool. She only saw me looking at her twice. She's just as gorgeous in person as in pictures, with great style and a beautiful smile. I spotted this other slightly older but very attractive woman the moment I stepped in the place and made eyes at her the whole time I was there. Everytime I looked over, I saw her look back, and she even walked by me with her chest one foot away from my face. But for some reason I still didn’t bother to talk to her. For the food, the good selection of beer, and the amazing eye candy, I give this place my highest endorsement of ten inches up.

Santa Monica 3rd Street

Brittania Pub, Harvelle’s again, Yankee Doodles. Nothing too interesting happened there except that the dude at Yankee Doodles hooked us up with two free games of pool.

Then capped off the night at Norm’s where we had chicken tenders. I asked for BBQ sauce and the server announced with pride that they had the worst BBQ sauce known to mankind and had to ask me twice if I was sure I wanted to try it. I was warned, but I still wanted it, so he gave it to me and waited for my reaction. If ketchup had an asshole, ate rotten vegetables and took a dump, that’s what the BBQ sauce would taste like. We shared jokes with the server about how bad it was but I still used half of it.

So there it is, on a tour of Third Street I had my first celebrity sighting of Thirty Day LA, and it was a doozy of a floozy. Time to go take a cold shower.

Posted by CaptainMelo at 11:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Harvelle’s and the Blues

On Wednesday, I went with GuitarHero to Harvelle’s in Santa Monica. The place was extremely loud and extremely dark. The band playing was Ass-Pocket-Of-Whiskey. GuitarHero spotted the influences of the two lead guitarists/singers: the white guy was the controlled smoothness of Stevie Ray Vaughan, the black guy was funky wildness of Jimi Hendrix. Their soloing was quite impressive and varied. They made it look so easy, but I knew if I went home and tried it, my solos would sound like a squealing monkey. While watching a bunch of tiny white girls dance with their boyfriends in the front, I noticed the cute waitress and how she had the speed-walking thing down, handling the entire room with ease. We didn’t even ask for it, but she gave us each a plate of sausage and waffles. Apparently the food comes with the $6 cover, but it was cool nonetheless. We also ordered the $5 swamp juice: pineapple, cranberry, blue cacao, and Parrot Bay. Very sweet but pretty strong as well. I got slightly buzzed on swamp juice and talked to the waitress, who said that the best night to go there is Sunday. She only works on Wednesdays and Saturdays though. Guess one of these days I’ll have to spend an entire weekend at Harvelle’s.

Griffith Park Night Hike

On Thursday, I drove an hour and a half through LA traffic for the Griffith park night hike. It’s a free hike sponsored by the Sierra Club held every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday at 7PM sharp. I got there late and missed the announcement that if you are a first-timer at the Griffith Park night hikes to go on nothing higher than a level 3 hike. There was a big group of about 200 people who broke off into smaller groups for their respective hikes. I followed a group of people and asked a guy what level hike they were on, and he wasn’t sure. Then he said found out it was level 4 and he didn’t want to go with them because they stopped too much. So he started running uphill, and I thought, all right, might as well run too. We barged up the trail past all the level 4 hikers, a couple of whom yelled at us to stop running. Undeterred, we ran past the group and just ahead of them was the level 4-plus group of about 15 people. The guy stopped running and joined up with his friend. He introduced himself as Gabriel, and his friend's name was Frank. Frank had introduced Gabriel to the Griffith Park night hikes. Gabriel had just been going for a couple months, while Frank had been going on the hikes every week for five years. Gabriel looked no older than 30 while Frank looked like he was around 50. I figured Frank must be in awesome shape if he went hiking every week. I was right, as Gabriel and Frank were the fastest hikers in our group.

At first I thought the hike was kind of weak, but the view of the sparkling city lights of Glendale and downtown LA was worth it. The red smog layer sat on top of a clean blue layer of sky as the sun was getting ready to set. Then we hit a steep hill and by the time I reached the top, I was breathing hard and covered in sweat. Our hike leader was a stocky guy named Andy with dyed red hair and booty shorts. We hiked up a little higher until we hit the bigger paved road, then went into a small trail that I wouldn’t have been able to see even if it was daytime. The sun had just set, and Andy told us that we were about to start our climb. Here I really struggled, since I was the only one without hiking boots. Everytime I slipped I had to put my hand down, and I would get stabbed by these tiny spiky needle things that I couldn’t even see. We climbed to a radio tower and stopped briefly to rest. Everyone was in good spirits, joking and laughing about possible death and needing a helicopter to rescue us. A few of the dudes climbed the rock instead of using a big pipe as a handhold. I tried climbing the rock but got stung by the damn needles again. By the time we hit the top, it was completely dark. As we hiked back down, I talked to Susie, who had also been going on the hikes for a couple months with her sister, who had problems with her night vision because of Lasik surgery. We found about the hike from the same source: Los Angeles Magazine. I don’t really like the lack of depth in the articles of that magazine but it does uncover a few gems once in a while. At the end of the hike, I talked to Frank and Gabriel again. Frank said he was glad I enjoyed the hike and he’d look for me next time.

While LA is extremely diverse, it's also very segregated between the Westsiders, the Eastsiders, the hipsters, the Chicanos, the Asians, the rich white people, the ghetto black people, the lifers, and the recently adopted. But at the night hikes at Griffith park, the walls come down. People come from all different backgrounds and neighborhoods to form their own kind of community. You hike in darkness with reckless abandon, knowing that if you slip and fall, you'll be helped back up because you're with friends. I'm definitely going back.

Late Night Driving Tour of Torrance

My high school friend PimpFace just recently bought a townhouse in Torrance. He’s the first of my friends to buy a house, so I thought I’d visit him and give him a housewarming present. His townhouse is very new and on a quiet street. He gave me a tour of the place and I was impressed. Big kitchen with granite countertops, built-in surround sound system, a huge balcony, hardwood floors, and decent sized rooms. The kid is younger than me, and I wonder how many decades down the road it will be until I can afford a place like the one he just bought.

After hanging out and watching TV, we decided we needed some late night grub. Knowing that Torrance is full of Asian people, he wanted to find an Asian restaurant that was open. We drove around for almost an hour and saw that Torrance has every American restaurant you could ever want. But we still couldn’t find an Asian place that was still open at 12:30AM. The Korean BBQ places were even closed. I was on a mission to find someplace still open other than In-N-Out, even though we were no longer hungry and ready to go to sleep. Finally at 1AM, after combing the streets of Sepulveda, Hawthorne, Crenshaw, and Western, we gave our search. I dropped PimpFace back off at his deluxe townhouse and headed home. As I made a turn back onto Hawthorne, I looked to my left and saw a small Japanese restaurant still open with a few customers inside. What a fucker. So if you’re ever in Torrance with a late-night Asian food craving on a slow Friday night, go to Yamabuki Restaurant & Bar two blocks north of Hawthorne and PCH.

Harvelle’s
1432 4th Street
Santa Monica, CA 90401
Google Maps link
Cost: $6 cover, $3 shots, $5 swamp juice, $6 drinks

Yamabuki Restaurant & Bar
23863 Hawthorne Blvd
Torrance, CA
(310) 791-0388
Open until at least 1AM

Posted by CaptainMelo at 8:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

On my twenty-fourth birthday, I got carded when I was buying alcohol at the store, and the cashier guy was surprised that I was 24. When I asked him how old he originally though I was, he said 18. So not only did the guy remind me that I look like a little boy, but also that I was already 24, which made me feel old. On my birthday this year I was glad that I wasn’t reminded of how young I look, how old I actually am, and that I didn’t have to buy my own alcohol.

I haven’t been planning my activities lately, resorting to doing everything last-minute. It was 10AM on a Tuesday morning. I had the day off, which meant a day of opportunity ahead of me. I knew I wanted to drive somewhere away from the city, preferably by the beach. Then LazyBoy told me that the guys were planning to take me out to dinner. I told them I didn’t know if I would be around, but I’d call them later. I busted out the door with full intention of taking a day trip to Santa Barbara. I never made it that far.

UPDATED: Pictures from the Beach Tour, after the jump.

Continue reading "Birthday Beach Bash" »

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Monday, August 21, 2006
What: Gas Lite, Liquid Kitty, Tattle Tale Room
Where: Santa Monica, West LA, Culver City
Cost: $24 for 3 drinks
Rating: 3 out of 4 stars

The day I decided to tackle Thirty Day LA, I went online and planned out my first two weeks of activities. On my fourth week of adventures, I was getting a little burnt out. Not from all the fun, but from all the planning. I didn’t really want to spend time looking for stuff to do anymore. The only thing that kept me going was a strong desire to burn more money on alcohol. Technically, once the clock hit 12, it would be Tuesday night, which would be my birthday. I thought I would go revisit one of the places I had fond memories of from my birthday last year, Liquid Kitty. I vaguely recalled that there was a karaoke machine. Might as well make a tour out of it and visit as many karaoke dive bars as I could stand.

Gas Lite
2030 Wilshire Blvd
Santa Monica, CA 90403
Google Maps link
(310) 829-2382
Cost: No cover, $6 drinks

This entire bar area at Gas Lite smelled like vomit. Despite this, it was pretty packed on a Monday night. The bartender was really cool and immediately noticed me and asked for my drink order. When I went to Backstage on the first day of my adventures, I had to stand around, staring directly into the bartender’s eyes and wait, but she kept ignoring me, even turning her back and counting cash from the register just so she wouldn’t have to serve me. This dude was much cooler. I found an open bar stool near the front and watched people sing. An Asian girl at a table full of dudes gave me the stink eye, and I looked to my right and saw a couple cute girls. They looked over and quickly looked away, horrified that I had made eye contact with them. Then the KJ announced she was having problems with her mouse and that it would take a while to restore the music. Since I was out to hit up karaoke bars and not girls who had no interest in me, I got up to leave. As I was leaving more attractive girls filed through the door. I didn’t indulge my urge to turn back and stay a little longer.

Liquid Kitty
11780 W Pico Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90064
Google Maps link
(310) 473-3707
Cost: No cover, $7 mixed drinks, $9-10 martinis

Liquid Kitty is known for its strong martinis and comfortable atmosphere. I took an empty seat at the bar, and there was an empty seat on each side of me. The bartender made me a strong rum and coke, but I only tipped him a dollar, so the second one I ordered was decidedly weaker. I gave him two bucks to make up for it. I like doing things backwards. The place was pretty empty, which was on par with what I remembered from the last time.

This is another one to add to my collection of barfing in the bathroom stories. After getting drunk on sake at my birthday dinner last year, my friends and I headed over to Liquid Kitty in West LA. Because I was a very wise person back then, I proceeded to have three martinis. This resulted in me spending an hour on the floor of the bathroom puking into the toilet, while the stall door kept trying to close on my ass. The workers told me to leave, and I spent another half hour puking into the planter outside. They were nice enough to let me stay there until I could move again. Good times.

This year, I thought I would be a little tamer. Relaxing with my drink, I watched someone sing a rock song when I saw the dudes sitting next to me doing the air-guitar-hero.

Me: Guitar Hero?
Dude 1: Yeah!
Dude 2: WOO! GUITAR HERO! YEAAH! (runs over and high fives me)

Dude 2 wasn’t even drunk, he was just that excited about Guitar Hero. So we talked about that, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Supernatural (the rapper not the shitty WB/CW show), and work. Dude 2 told me he owned a post-production facility in Santa Monica and how he would invite clients over and spend a couple hours rocking out with Guitar Hero instead of doing actual work. Dude 1 got up and sang an old rock song that I didn’t recognize because I’m the least musically educated person in all of Los Angeles, and he tore it up. Dude 2 told me to look up his company, I said cool, and they took off. I watched one more singer and then took off myself. I had one more place to visit before the night ended.

Tattle Tale Room
5401 Sepulveda Blvd
Culver City, CA 90230
Google Maps link
(310) 390-2489
Cost: No cover, $3 shots, $5 drinks

I drove over to pick up Tiny and called GuitarHero (my friend, not the game) to meet us at Tattle Tale Room. There was a drunk older guy passed out next to the juke box as we walked in. The lights were pretty bright inside for a dive bar. I asked the KJ if I had enough time to sing a song, and he said he’d try. I told him it was my birthday, and he gave me the same response: he’d try. Tiny bought me some drinks including a fruity and delicious shot. GuitarHero arrived and we decided to sing Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On,” in the style immortalized by Jack Black in High Fidelity. It was last call, and our chances didn’t look good. Then the KJ guy said it was my turn, apologized to the two people who were in line in front of us, and said it was my birthday and the seven or so people who were there cheered. So I got up on the mic with GuitarHero and Tiny and we belted out Let’s Get It On as everyone danced and sang along.

I was rather happy and drunk as we went home. It was a good way to start off my birthday. Satan had given me the next day off so I didn’t even have to wake up early in the morning. Good thing too because after I got back and stormed around the apartment to work off my buzz, it was already 2:30AM. I looked forward to my day of freedom. There’s nothing better than ditching work on a summer day instead of slaving away at something insignificant inside a fluorescent-lit office building. I went to bed wondering how I might find significance on my birthday and in the rest of my life as well.

Posted by CaptainMelo at 5:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

For my entire drinking career, I’ve never been the most sober one at a party. Usually I’m the loudest, stupidest drunk in the entire place. I can name six different restaurants where I have spent a couple hours on the bathroom floor, puking my guts out into the toilet. One of them was Medieval Times in front of several horrified children. Another one was at a bar in Northern California, where I barfed in the toilet until they kicked me out, then crawled through the parking lot blind from my drunkenness, trying to help my friends convince a police officer that I was fine by yelling, "I'm OK! I just needed to... blrbrbbptth." I decided to challenge myself to be sober for an entire night at a bar full of drunken fools and resist the temptation to join them.

It was WrathOfSickness’ birthday and we were going to Circle Bar with a group of mostly guys. I was pretty beat from the past week and wasn’t that excited to go. It was a recipe for an overall shitty night. To make use of my self-imposed soberness I told WrathOfSickness that I would be DD. And this time I would actually do it.

Now the Wrath is normally a soft-spoken, respectful, laid-back kind of guy. He would be the kind of guy you see standing in the back of the bar, chilling by himself. He doesn’t really drink, doesn’t do drugs, doesn’t do anything in excess other than get sick and be dirty. He seems like a good guy to hang out and talk about underground hip-hop with, but probably not someone you would go out partying with.

After reading on Citysearch about how Circle Bar is full of ugly aggressive guys, we knew we would feel right at home. When we got to Circle Bar it was pretty much empty. The guys we went with staked out the table in the back. I bought the Wrath a drink and we stood around talking about mid-twenties life crisis shit. Wrath felt like he should talk to other people, so I went to the front of the bar to get a good view of the waitresses, who were by far the most attractive women in the place. I sat down at the bar with 15 other guys in a row, all stirring their drinks and looking around.

When it started getting packed, the Wrath returned and we continued our existential pontification. We were just killing time until Tiny arrived, knowing he would bring the party flavor with him. Wrath’s other friends bought him a drink. Then another one. Then Tiny arrived and I bought them both a drink. I told the cute waitress to make something really strong, and she obliged. By then, Wrath’s volume elevated from a mute to a full-on yell. I could hear him clearly over the 3 Doors Down that blasted over the bar’s shitty speakers. Then the Wrath made an about-face and revealed his drunken side.

• Screaming at Tiny about the trucker hat bartender guy: “That guy is a douchebag!”
• After talking to two girls: “I’ve never talked to random people before. Who were they? Why the hell was I talking bitches from SDSU?”
• To an Indian guy: “I’ll let you tell me happy birthday, but only because you’re Indian.”

I spent most of the night making sure the Wrath was OK. He had a big grin on his face the whole time as he yelled in everyone’s ear. He spent a good amount of time with his arms wrapped around other people, the life of the party. Later at Del Taco, the Wrath continued his drunken spectacular.

• When asked if we want hot sauce: “I want the one that makes my eyes burn!”
• About the Del Taco worker: “That guy had potential. But now he has three kids and works at Del Taco. It’s not mean, it’s life!”
• To the girl with her man walking in front of our car: “You know what would help is if you walked faster!” Calling after her, “Walk slower, walk faster, you’re still a hoochie!” To us, “That hoochie was in my field of vision for way too long.”

I was laughing so hard that I couldn’t breathe and kept wiping tears out of my eyes. The drunk, mean, screaming Wrath was singlehandedly the best part of my night of soberness. I’m glad he had a good birthday. From here on out, WrathOfSickness’ new name is WrathOfDrunkenness.

It’s too bad I didn’t have a videocamera, or else I’d have some good footage to blackmail him with in the future when he's the CTO of a major health care organization. Happy Birthday, Wrath. Hope to see you drunk again soon.

Circle Bar
2926 Main Street
Santa Monica, CA 90405
(310) 450-0508
Google Maps link

Posted by CaptainMelo at 10:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I got out of work and drove to downtown El Segundo for Shakespeare by the Sea. I needed something to eat, so I walked up Main Street, and lo and behold, I found another farmer's market. Perfect timing, as it was closing in 5 minutes. I picked up a delicious Happy Inkan combo #1. Grilled chicken, red onions, tomatoes, rice, and that awesome green sauce. Sorry, no pictures, I'll leave the constant taking pictures of food everywhere I go to another blog. Then I got some white nectarines and a couple of eggplants. I have no idea how to cook eggplant, but I bet if I use 10 cloves of garlic it will taste pretty good.

I grabbed a beach towel from my car and walked with the other families to Library Park. After a pre-show and 10 minutes of downtime, the show began. It was an admission-free production of Comedy of Errors. I'm glad I read a couple excerpts and the Cliff Notes online, because it was kind of hard to keep up with rapid-fire dialogue and the story. Here's how it went down:

• The actors had to deal with shouting their lines over the planes flying overhead from LAX, so after a while they would just stop and stare at the sky in bewilderment. One of the actors who played Antipholus made a reference to an iron bird.
• For a performance attended by an audience that was half kids, there were a lot of sex and gay jokes.
• At intermission, I heard a woman tell her friend that she had no idea what the hell was going on in the play.
• During intermission, one of the actors who played Dromeo went into the audience and talked with random people. He was holding a prop of a golden rooster on top of a cross. A woman asked him what it was, and in character he replied: "It's a cock! It gives good crows." Or something to that effect.
• A young African American kid told his friend he didn't want to go to the bathroom by himself because he didn't want to get jumped by white people. El Segundo is full of white people.

So in the end, all misfortunes caused by mistaken identity were resolved, lovers end up together happily ever after, and I went home.

I called up ObligatedGirl to go to Father's Office in Santa Monica for a couple drinks. She brought two of her friends along, MedSchool and SocialWorker. The place is nicely decorated, and I heard the food is great, except we got there right when the kitchen closed. It was half empty, but the people that were there were very good looking. Like an ungrateful bastard, I kept looking around the bar while I had three girls sitting at the table with me. I'll just pretend it was my ADD.

I had two beers that were really good. I forgot the name, but it's what the bartender recommended instead of the Fat Tire I wanted but they didn't have. We chilled out for a while and then went to Tommy's for chili cheese fries.

Then I proceeded to fuck myself up.

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Posted by CaptainMelo at 7:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)