The Gurly Life

Exploring the city on a bike without getting run over

Have you ever heard of this cool thing called CicLAvia? It just happened, on Sunday, April 15. Not the first one, apparently. They closed off 10 miles of city streets from 10am to 3pm, and only bikers and pedestrains and skaters could use them. It was the most fun I've had in a very long time. I rode mostly on my own, surrounded by several thousands of my closest friends. I of course had my camera, and stopped a bunch of times to take pictures. Exploring LA city streets without all those damn cars is really something else. I was on my bike for almost 4 hours. It's gonna hurt in the morning -- no, it's hurting now, and it's gonna hurt bad in the morning. Totally worth it.

Bikers milling about close to 10am, ready to take the roads. At 10 on the dot, shouts and cheering started us off. I started at the Bicycle District Hub, at Heliotrope and Melrose. It is less than 2 miles south of where I live, and down the hill. So, I got on my bike and rolled on down there.

Riding through a residential neighborhood. Look, no cars! I didn't even know this street was there.

Around a corner, and there's downtown within sight. Did not take long at all, especially since it's downhill almost the entire way from my place to downtown.

The Park Plaza Hotel. Did you know this was here? I didn't! They were shooting something. In retrospect, I should have asked them to let me wonder around for a few minutes.

The pond in the background is MacArthur Park.

View of the 110 freeway from the 7th Street bridge.

Coming to downtown off the 7th Street bridge.

An ironic statue at one of the fancy corporate buildings downtown. The security guards were staring slackjawed at all the bikers, they just ignored me. Usually I get shooed off a property if I'm taking pictures.

Downtown buildings.

Bikers in downtown LA.

A building downtown. I love the fire escapes on these older buildings.

I rode all the way east past Alameda, and through a neighborhood that was all food stalls and pinata shops. Loud music blared, and every food imaginable cooked on outdoor barbeques and cooking surfaces of all kinds.

And then, on Central Avenue, the Coca Cola bottling plant. For real.

Which looks like a ship.

This is a hand-made bicycle. It says "I'm a bad-ass, but I care about the environment." Lots of shiny skulls.

This is bike polo. Polo, on bikes. Yup. What will they think of next?

Railroad tracks and the LA river from one of the bridges.

Since the way back was shaping up to be one long uphill ride, and since I needed to get back to go swimsuit shopping (yeah, I know!), I decided to take the subway back. I had run into a couple of people from my meetup group, and one of them very gallantly escorted me safely back to Union Station.

Finally, I get to sit at the cool table

On Saturday night my mom and I attended the Brown Club of Southern California's Lunar New Year dinner. Yeah, it was a bit late, but there were scheduling issues. The dinner was at a restaurant called Shanghai No. 1 Seafood Village, in San Gabriel. That whole area, San Gabriel, Monterey Park, Alhambra, is a huge Chinese area. Hence, Shanghai No. 1 Seafood Village.

Let me begin by shattering the "Asians drive slowly" myth right here and now. The Asian drivers in San Gabriel are rabid crazy people who will flatten you, your car and themselves just so long as they don't have to ever slow down or wait for you to pull over somewhere. When we arrived at the restaurant Brian, the organizer of the event, confirmed that a good day is getting out of the area alive.

The restaurant is completely amazing, and just our room sat about 200 people. Comically, the restaurant owns one water pitcher. The whole restaurant, which probably seats 400-500, owns ONE water pitcher. One. Apparently no one drinks water with their meal there, just hot tea. Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore.

At our table we had a really fun mix of people, and about half of us were young alumni (and by "us" I mean them, not me). We had a couple of dragons at the table, and since I'm a monkey, we figured that if we team up it would give "monkey on your back" a whole 'nother meaning. Not to mention the lethal flaming poo that we could swing our enemies' way!

The great thing about Brown alumni is that we have a baseline of commonality so it doesn't matter at all if we are out of school 1 year or 30 years, we have fun together, discuss important issues of the day, gossip, and make friends on the spot. It's really something to be at a table with several generations of people who are intellectually curious and, let's face it, different.

Ah, it's good to be a snob.

The menu included what felt like 30 courses, but apparently it was less than that. Here's what we had:

*Chef's 8 Item Cold Plate (this was 8 different appetizers)
*Hot and Sour Soup
*Sauteed Green Beans
*House Special Shrimp Fried Rice
*Spicy Chicken
*Cuttlefish and Braised Pork
*Lobster with Ginger and Onions
*Shrimp Two Ways
*Black Pepper Diced Beef
*Beef Chow Fun
*Chinese Sponge Cake

One of the appetizers looked like it could have been brains. I ate it. While I thought it was brains, I made an agreement with the guy sitting next to me that if I turned, he would take me out (double tap to the head, natch). He looked big enough to be able to handle it. It turned out to have been cooked gluten. EEEEK! Brains would have been preferable. Thankfully, I did not start farting at the table. I did get a mild stomach ache this morning, and last night my feet itched, but other than that I'm none the worse for wear.

However, I did notice that all it takes is one big meal for my stomach to expand. It literally felt like a balloon being inflated so that more food could fit. And I've been hungry all day. I think it will take several days for it to shrink back to normal. Damn.

Hanging out with Michelle

The bestest part of my weekend on the central coast, of course, was hanging out with Michelle.

Michelle and I have been friends for 16 years, since back in the day when we both had aspirations in the entertainment industry. I was working at the time at a below-the-line talent agency, and Michelle had just moved to the US from England to be married to her first husband. She was living in the OC, but was interning with us. Back then, I was one of those LA people who packed extra water, camping supplies and flares in my car whenever I had to cross the Orange Curtain. I'm only slightly kidding.

There are a lot of things I like about Michelle, such as her brains, her determination, her talent, her loyalty and her integrity, just to name a few, but there are some things about her that stand out for me. For one thing, Michelle finds humor is just about any situation - I mean, life is serious enough as it is, right?

I admire her greatly for setting up her photography business. Not just for doing it, because anyone can pick up a camera and "be a photographer." But not everyone does it right - Michelle is constantly working on her craft, learning, and challenging herself.

Michelle is a strong, opinionated person who can and does consider other people's perspectives and in some cases changes her mind and even her ways.That takes real intelligence. So anyway, you get the idea. We're friends, she's awesome, and you wish you were her. She's also beautiful.

Yes, this is the gorgeous Michelle. And before you go all googly about what a great picture I took, I will tell you that it's only because I follow directions. We were walking along a cute little creek near the Mission in San Luis Obispo and Michelle marched out into the fabulous light with the fall colors behind, turned and said, "Take a picture of me here." So I did. I may have mentioned a few times that Michelle is a photographer. You can see her photos on her website, Memories by Michelle, and I recommend you do. If you click on the Blog tab, you can see her posts about this trip, with photos.

Michelle always takes great pictures of me, so I tried to take some decent ones of her.

I really like this one, too, you can see the sultry side of her. She is likely to point out the imperfections in her face, but I think her face is perfect just the way it is.

Michelle has the travel bug. Pretty soon, she will be traipsing around the world taking photographs, husband Joss and daughter Daisy in tow. Daisy is the cutest, smartest little girl, and boy is she high energy. The thing that cracks me up the most about her is that she will run in circles around and around and around for much longer than anyone thinks possible. I don't know about you, but I don't remember having so much energy, even as a kid, that I had to just run and run and run and run. I did wonder where the circles came from, and this weekend I got my answer. This happened on the beach while we were standing around waiting for the light to go down.

Michelle and I make a good team. We inspire each other with our cameras, and the really awesome thing about traveling with a photographer is that she doesn't get annoyed when I take 20 minutes to get a shot. Usually I can't take photographs and be social at the same time, but with Michelle the two things are one. Bliss! We like to play on the internet, so more than once we found ourselves sitting together in the living room with our feet up in nap socks, laptops on our lap, editing photos and Facebooking, and tagging each other in our FB posts. Bliss!

Out photo trips were slow meanders punctuated by breathers, cups of tea, lemonades, and chats. Bliss!

Here we're chilling out at Hearst Castle, Neptune's Pool. It was chilly but the sun was lovely and warm and the little couches were too tempting.

I took a few more pics of Michelle, which you can see here. Mayhap you will prefer different photos of her than the ones I chose.

We stayed in Cambria, in a rental two bedroom cottage, only a hop skip and a jump from Harmony, Pop. 18. Brilliant idea. Very restful. Here's our little cottage, though I didn't take many photos of it. If you go to Michelle's blog post, Day One, you can see some lovely photos of it inside and out.

Here's our quiet little street, followed by some berries and some trees. Just because.

One evening we went into downtown Cambria and Michelle did a wine tasting for me so I could pick up some wine for a friend who had asked. What a trooper she is! During the wine tasting I believe I got hit on by a firefighter from Ventura - at last, you might think, what she's always wanted! Only, well, said firefighter was a woman. Close, but no cigar.

At the wine tasting we also chatted with a woman who said she teaches at a university training terrorists, and I thought, mmh, that seems unlikely. As it turns out, she trains therapists. Glad I asked before I ran out and called the FBI and caused everyone (me) a lot of embarrassment. No one wants to be put on the FBI's Most Annoying list (less notorious that their Most Wanted list, but it's the kiss of death if you're trying to be even a tiny bit cool, which is of course one of my goals in life).

Next up: Hearst Castle. Stay tuned for tedious tales of port-a-potties and imaginary bugs on my lens.

NOT white elephant gifts (see previous post)

On the other hand, sometimes gifts that at first glance might appear ripe for white elephant regifting end up giving people (me and my mom) hours of entertainment. To wit:

Once again, Willow strikes again! What's kinda sad about this is that we're almost enjoying it more than the fancy new tv. Almost. It does have a huge advantage over the new tv: it is portable, and can be shown off at inappropriate moments at work and at play.

It's the stupid things

On Saturday, my evening plans fell through so my mom and I decided to have dinner at a local  restaurant. The food is good, and the staff are friendly and welcoming. They do everything they can to compete with the other, similar restaurant down the street. Bless their hearts.

Saturday evening was no exception. They had a violin/erhu/piano player in a full-on tux with tails. His hair was slick, and he played with the passion of a concert violinist. The only problem was that he really was not good at all. When we walked in he was playing some Christmas song on the violin, and he was off-key and flat, to boot. At first I thought I was having a stroke and that the auditory center of my brain had melted, but then I realized my mom was hearing the same thing. Let the giggling begin!

The entertainment moved on to the piano, where he launched into a piece by Mozart, messed it up a few times, stopped and started again, and then trailed into nothing. Ditto with Claire de Lune. After that, it was back to the erhu, which sounded ok to us - we assume he can play that one, and he's dabbling in the other instruments. Then again to his forte, the violin. He played several famous pieces, which we were kind of able to recognize - he would begin by keeping it simple, and do ok (not great, just ok), then his confidence would apparently outswell his skills, and he would take it to the next level, where it all went to shit.

While I realize this makes us horrible people, I have to admit we had the best time and giggled helplessly most of the evening, and walked out with big smiles on our faces. Naturally, we clapped at the end of each number. In fact, I enjoyed the bad playing more than I enjoy good playing: I like to chat with my company during dinner and have fun, not be distracted by good music and then feel obligated to pay attention. This was much, much better. We had no trouble telling the management that we enjoyed the evening's entertainment.

More adventures, caught on "film"

This weekend was restorative. I had dinner with a friend on Saturday evening, and hung out with another friend Sunday afternoon. Both people made me feel fuller and more rested by the time I went home, instead of drained and needing to rest. I don't know if that was a function of them, or of me. Things have shifted somewhat dramatically since I took the Queen 2 workshop in October, so it might have been me. Whatever, they get credit.

Saturday night's dinner was particularly special because my friend cooked for me, a fantastic vegetarian Indian dinner. I love Indian food, and what could be better than enlightened, soul-enriching company and home made spicy deliciousness? Nothing, actually. 

On Sunday I hung out with my friend Demian, who lives on Kauai and is swinging through town for a few days. I picked him up at the airport and we were blissfully useless the whole afternoon. We strolled, we chatted, we exchanged life epiphanies, and we went on the Ferris wheel on Santa Monica Pier. This time, I took pictures. So, here are some pictures. I edited them but when they upload they seem to get washed out. Hopefully that does not translate to your computer screen.

This is Arlington West, which can be visited every Sunday on Santa Monica beach, right off the peer.

More iPhone fun

Now that I'm doing a lot of litigation, I'm finding that I'm just not as creatively inspired as I would like. I spend all my creative juices drafting briefs. Which are usually long. Whatever.

This is a photo I took on my phone and played around with, and then turned into a Polaroid. I wonder if over time the ePolaroids will turn yellow and/or fade.

This is me and Wendy, under the fluorescent lights. We look like ghosts. Kinda cool.

This is my friend/colleague, Kathya. She's getting married next weekend. Awwww!

This is Cricket. If you don't know this is Cricket, welcome to my blog!

Here is Maliboo Kitty, photographed with the Hipstamatic app. I don't know, I kind dig it. Note that I have the gall to tag this post with "art." Hah. Who's going to prove me wrong?

Fun iPhone apps

I discovered two fun apps for the iPhone. One is called ShakeItPhoto and it takes photos like a Polaroid. The phone actually makes that Polaroid sound, that KCHIK-Bzzzzzzt sound that many of us who are no longer teenagers are familiar with (who didn't have a Polaroid camera at some point in their lives?). The Polaroid effect took on an artistic flavor as more sophisticated and versatile cameras took its place.

While the sound plays, the Polaroid appears across the screen as if it were being spit up, and has that gray smudgy chemical look until the image appears. If you shake it, like a real Polaroid, the image develops faster. The only thing missing is the smell, but what huge fun! What's cool, too, is that I can apply the effect to photos I already have in my photo stream. Thanks to iCloud, I can now add any photo to the photo stream, so I can add the effect to any digital photo that I have.

Here is a photo I took this morning with the app:

And here is a photo I had already played with and made it into a Polaroid:

One characteristic of Polaroid photos is that they are unflattering and raw. I took one of my mom this morning that I really like, but she doesn't so I'm not going to post it. I will probably try some self-portraits later and post those so you can see what I mean. There's something deeply compelling about the harshness of the medium, it magnifies the humanity of the subject.

I also found another app which will be lots of fun, it's called Hipstamatic. I think the name speaks for itself, I mean, who doesn't remember Kodak's Instamatic cameras? If you don't, click on the link, it will all come flooding back to you. This camera was cheap and kinda crappy, but like the Polaroid, it provided a certain effect that can be artfully used. Here's a random photo I took with this app this morning.

I look forward to horrifying friends and family with pictures of them using these apps.

Austin, TX!

I will begin by saying that Austin, TX, is awesome. It's like if Cali and Texas had a love child, and they named that love child Austin. I did not take a bunch of pictures, unfortunately, I was too busy watching football games and marathons as it turns out, but it's hilly and tree-y, and even large developments have some architectural variation, unlike, say, Las Vegas or Orange County (no offense, OC, but you gotta admit: your architecture is boring). It struck me as a young, vibrant city with lots of strong communities. Very cool.

Here we are downtown, near Lake Austin (I'm not clear on whether it's a lake or a river). See where all that dirt is? Normally, it's covered in grass. But as you probably have heard, Texas is suffering a severe drought, so now all that's left is dust.

View of same river from a bridge.

View of the river from the roof of a high rise apartment building.

I went to visit my friend Krista and her family. Here, we are cruising with the top down while it's about 90F out. She is concentrating on driving, thankfully. The weekend was still quite hot, in the 100's, which was a bit of a shock to me.

It was a whirlwind weekend. People with children never stop moving -- it's not at all like having cats! We began with Friday Night Lights. Apparently, Texas takes its high school football quite seriously, Austin included. And it's not just the games, which can draw out huge crowds (GIANT bleechers, completely packed), but it seems like half the high school is involved. If they're not playing, they're in the marching band, which had to be about 60 people, or the dancers or the cheerleaders. The half-time show rivals any Super Bowl, sans wardrobe malfunctions (is she ever going to live that down?). It's all about the peagentry -- who knew?

The next day we caught the kids' flag football game

You can't tell, but it's about 104F here. There is a thriving industry in shade structures, coolers, portable chairs, and the like. Shade structure makers must literally be rolling in Texan dough after this summer - and deservedly so.

Everyone is very polite in Texas. I am told that this is because everyone is armed. Not being either for or against guns, really, I find this a compelling argument for being armed. It's a bit like the nuclear arms thing, maybe - no one wants to press the red button, otherwise we all go kaboom. Or something like that.

On Sunday Krista and her sister Natasha ran a relay marathon, in 1000F degree heat. I flopped around in the shade, drank water, and generally wilted. If I were at all concerned about impressing anyone, this would have been somewhat embarrassing, but since I'm not...

Natasha, post-run, and Krista, ready to go.

And here comes Krista, after 6 miles in the baking heat, and with a cold and cough. Some people are unstoppable! Go Krista!

Here are a few more pics.

The state capitol. Did you realize Austin is the capital of Texas? I had no idea, I kinda cottoned on when I saw the Capitol, and I find it highly ironic that a bastion of liberalism is the capital of TEXAS! Pretty, fantastic, if you ask me. I took this photo as we drove by. By the time we drove past it, it was so hot that I wasn't willing to do much more than roll down the window.

You kinda wanna stay here, dontcha? Well, so does everyone else. See the NO VACANCY sign? That's right. This street, by the way, has weird fish-bone parking. You don't pull in and park, you back into the spot (the "scales" point up the street, rather than down), so then you find yourself with your nose already in the street, and all you have to do is pull out into traffic. They cleverly call this "back-in angle parking," though it could easily be called "ass backwards parking," and it not be an insult.

This is in downtown Austin, South of Congress. Lots of cute little stores and cafes, and this food truck lot. This street is where I bought cowboy boots. I've been contemplating cowboy boots for a long time, approximately 19 years, so being in Texas I thought this might be a good time to get some. We went into a store called Allen's Boots, where a nice man with long hair and the craziest Texas twang you ever heard sold me a pair of tan leather boots. Goat hide. At first I thought he was putting me on with that accent, but there were several people in there with the same accent, including customers, which leads me to conclude that they actually speak that way. If the whole thing was a set-up to get me to buy boots, it really wasn't necessary, but I do appreciate it, it's a sexy twang. The boots are extremely comfortable and I wear them all the time now. Don't judge me. When you have hip issues, you take any comfortable shoe you find, and you wear the shit out of it.

Scott and Jordan play chess in the shade while we wait for the runners. Scott was one of the runners, too, and ran the last leg of the relay.

And what would a trip anywhere be without a couple of fire hydrants?

A good time was had by all, and I really liked Austin. Thanks so much for having me, Krista, I really enjoyed the city and loved seeing your family and getting to know your boys a little better.

Don't you just feel this way sometimes?