Thirty Day LA

I hoped that by taking on Thirty Day LA, not only would I have some memorable experiences but I would also get some useful ideas for things to do that others might find useful. By request, here are my top ten free summertime activities in LA.

• Getty Museum Off the 405: free music, cash bar, great atmosphere. Get there early to pick out a table in front of the DJ stage
• Griffith Park Night hike: every Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday nights starting at 7PM sharp in the upper merry-go-round parking lot. Bring water and hiking shoes.
• Outdoor activities: Shakespeare by the Sea performances, Burbank’s Dancing in the Streets on Thursday nights, Dance Downtown on Friday nights
• Bike to work: Map out your trail with Google Maps or Google Earth, get some buddies to bikepool, and check out the bike-commuting website Roll With It
• Midnight Ridazz: Every second Friday of the month a gang of bikers in the hundreds take over the streets in a safe but thrilling 15 mile ride
• Hammer Museum: Modern art exhibits and music performances in the courtyard at night, free during the summer only
• Nike training runs: starting at 6:30PM every night of the week in different locations throughout LA, these 3 and 5 mile group runs are great for staying in shape, meeting people, and exploring LA by foot
• Karaoke dive bars: if you BYOFlask, you can have fun belting out tunes in your best drunken voice for free all night in any of these places: Backstage, Tattle Tale Room, Gas Lite, Liquid Kitty (Mondays), The Hideout (Tuesdays)
• Music Festivals: Sunset Junction now charges $15 admission, but there are other free music festivals: performances at The Grove, Central Avenue Jazz Festival, Santa Monica Pier Twilight Dance series, Grand Performances, Henry Mancini Institute concerts, Culver City Summer Sunset Music Festival
• Go to the beach: bike to Malibu, surf at Zuma Beach, hike in Santa Monica, get burnt at Paradise Cove, play volleyball/Frisbee/football in Manhattan Beach, run in Hermosa, catch the sunset at El Matador, have a bonfire at Dockweiler, do a midnight swim at Playa Del Rey.

Yes, there is some overlap with my other list Top Ten Things to Do By Yourself in LA, but there they are. I know summer is almost officially over, but the great thing about LA is that it feels like it never ends.

Posted by CaptainMelo at 11:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (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)

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.

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Normally, I’m not inclined to do anything spontaneous. I will think the hell out of something before doing it, list all the reasons why I shouldn’t do it, and then end up not doing it because the opportunity has already passed. But this time, I was feeling slightly bored and so I said to myself, stop thinking and just do it.

Just Do It was one of the slogans that dominated television airwaves when I was growing up. Say No To Drugs was another one. I was always confused by the contradictory messages. I blame the advertising industry for my indecisive nature.

Last week, my friend ShopGirl sent out an email to go to the Getty Museum for their Off the 405 Event on Friday, which featured DJ’s spinning outdoors for night of dancing and fun. After much self-debate, I said I would go. My other friend Lefty said he was also going. He happens to work with ShopGirl at a big ad agency (IRONY ALERT). Anyway, with Lefty going, I knew it would be an excellent night filled with alcohol.

I got out of work early that day because my manager unwisely left me in charge, so I just went home. ShopGirl said she was off early too, so we went to our favorite store, Trader Joe’s, and bought food and snacks for everyone and headed off to the Getty to stake out a table. We hung out, snacked, checked out the views, and waited for everyone to show up. I told ShopGirl about my plan to do something new everyday for thirty days. She endorsed the plan. When Lefty got there, we headed straight for the cash bar. I told him about my plan, but he had already begun filling his liver with toxins, so I quickly joined in. I spent the rest of the night mostly hanging out, watching my roommate LazyBoy dance in the crowd and talking to ShopGirl’s and Lefty’s friends.

My plan was in motion. I had told two people about it already, so there was no way I could back out of it. I went home after the Getty and called up my high school buddy’s girlfriend’s best friend, ObligatedGirl, who we had all hung out with in New York. She was back in LA, so along with my roommates LazyBoy and GuitarHero, we decided to check out a karaoke Dive Bar in Culver City called Backstage.

From the outside, Backstage looks like a typical seedy dive bar, except that it’s the only bar in the neighborhood, on the backside of Sony Pictures Studios. We went in, and the place was packed full of screeching, drunken yuppies. It took me about half an hour to get a drink, but at least the drinks were cheap. I sat down at the table with my friends and watched the performances. Two really drunk guys butchered Bohemian Rhapsody, an older black woman belted out At Last, and a tall skinny black guy sang Kiss and Say Goodbye. GuitarHero put in a song for LazyBoy to sing, but we didn’t wait around long enough to hear his name get called. We left when a tall, thick Asian girl threw herself all over the KJ and went up to sing and tried really hard to be alluring.

I might go back to the place another time, as long as I get roaring drunk first so I won't have any qualms humiliating myself in front of a hostile audience. I might have to go by myself though, because my friends didn’t seem to like the place too much. Oh well.

We went back to our apartment, and LazyBoy introduced ObligatedGirl to the video game Guitar Hero, which I am actually better at than my roommate GuitarHero. He is awesome at real guitar, so it’s not much of an accomplishment on my part. While they were playing, I researched more events and almost persuaded ObligatedGirl to do a team triathlon with me and GuitarHero. She said she’d think about it.

The first night of my adventure, and it was a night of music. Many more to come.

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