For lunch today a few of us walked next door to the new Brazilian restaurant that opened this week. It is literally in the building next to my office, so the bar at The Sampa Grill was the absolute closest place we could go to watch the second round of the Masters. The style is Churrasco, which basically means a tremendous amount of fire-cooked meat. I had pork, chicken, some sausage, and three different flavors of beer beef (typo!). I also had a salad and a bowl of soup. Even though the food was fantastic and all-you-can-eat, at $22 (including a Coke and the tip) it’s a bit pricey to become a lunch-hour standard for us. But it was definitely a nice Friday afternoon treat. Too bad Tiger didn’t seem to be doing so well.

On Saturday night Kelly and I played in a “Nite Lite” golf tournament at Porter Valley. One word: Awesomeness. The format was a Texas Scramble, which basically means everyone hits a ball and then decides who had the best shot. Then everyone hits from there as if that was his shot. We got to use two or three of my drives and several of my other shots, so that was heartening. The sun was gone from the sky by the time we started the back nine and it was just about pitch black, so we had glow-in-the-dark balls and neon necklaces and little glowing ropes on the carts. It’s quite amazing that nobody was killed.

Because there were so many groups we started on the 5th tee. Every fourth or fifth hole had a theme. The first tee was margaritas and fajitas and tacos. The fifth was ribs, chicken, and rum drinks, etc. The best was probably the 10th hole, with chocolate brownies, scotch, and cigars and coffee. One of the holes was cheese and crackers and wine. Our last hole was, if I remember correctly, fourteen; we finished the night with Italian sausages and beer. This was not an evening for the intestinally weak. Lots of photos, of course, posted to Flickr.

If you’re looking for the best fish and chips in Los Angeles, head to The Gardens on Glendon. Tricia and I had dinner last night at this little place in Westwood — basically on the UCLA campus — and the simple fried cod and shoestring potatoes dish once again shocked me with its awesomosity. Yes, it’s a $24 entree and yes, everything at the restaurant is magnificently overpriced, but I’ve had fish and chips from one side of America to the other (and in London, too) and theirs is the best. (You can get the exact same dish at their sister restaurant, Kate Mantilini’s.)
Read the rest of this entry »

On Sunday I ran the XXIII^rd Los Angeles Marathon. My goal was to beat my time from last year, when I ran it in about four hours and forty-five minutes. Unfortunately I was felled by a wicked flu bug about two weeks ago which knocked me on my ass for a while. I didn’t start training until the end of January and taking a forced ten-day break right before the race didn’t help. I managed to murderize the 26.2 miles in 5:40, about an hour worse than last year (but about ten minutes better than two years ago). I swore that this would be my last one, but I can’t live with that time, so it looks like I’ll be back for 2009 …

allison: did you know i also get earthquake text messages?
allison: anything over 4.0 in so cal
allison: bitchin
GatorDVG: so when the big ones comes and you’re lying under a pile of rubble, like five minutes later you’ll get a text message
GatorDVG: that’s great
allison: yeah well i’d like to know how bad it was
GatorDVG: you’ll be able to tell by simply counting how many of your limbs were severed
allison: totally
allison: but in numbers

One of my wife’s friends died a few weeks ago. He was only 41, a manager in the music industry, and he had battled cancer for a long time. His wife held a memorial service — a Catholic mass — on Saturday night, and hundreds of people attended. The mass was held at a smallish Church in Westwood, just a few blocks from our house. It was in all respects a traditional Catholic mass, with one notable exception: Instead of a choir, the Polyphonic Spree performed all the music. Before the service started they played John Lennon’s Imagine, and, after the eulogies at the end, they played a few more songs, including their hit, Light & Day. It was incredibly moving.

On November 4th I entered my local Starbucks and laughed when I saw the entire store was decorated for Christmas. There happened to be a manager and a “barista” working the counter, so I mentioned that it was a bit early for Christmas decorations.

The manager replied, as if I was daft, “No it’s not. Thanksgiving is next week!”

I told him that Thanksgiving wasn’t for three more weeks and he seemed surprised. He said, “Really? I don’t know why I thought it was next week …”

MAYBE BECAUSE OF ALL THE CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS?!?!?

Whoa. I felt that one. A nice 4.5 right under my buddy’s house. At first I thought that one of the cats knocked over a lamp or something. Scary. I can never remember what I’m supposed to do. Hide under a table? Stand in a doorframe? Jump in the bathtub? Stop, drop, and roll?

Last night Tricia and I went to see Tamar at the Hotel Cafe in Hollywood. She played a great set and we had a good time. We didn’t get home until after 11, and I couldn’t get to sleep.

I was up until 1:30am reading Dark Tide: The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919. What a crazy story! Can you imagine seeing a 50′ tall wave of molasses barreling towards you at 35mph? And the ten-year legal battle that followed was one of the country’s first major class-action lawsuits. Truly a fascinating tale.

Tonight is our big engagement party at the Viper Room. We’ve got the club reserved for the night, which is pretty flipping cool. (Give me a ring if you want to get on the guest list.) Our good friends Von Cotton play at 9pm and our other good friends becky start their set at 11pm. It should be a pretty wild time.

Chewbacca Assaults Marilyn At Kodak Theater

Are you wondering what media I consumed this weekend? I knew you were. And so I shall tell you.

• Heat ****
• Sopranos *****
• Oh the Glory of It All, by Sean Wilsey ****½
• Oceans 13 ***½
• John from Cincinnati ***½
• A Prairie Home Companion, featuring Martin Sheen, Randy Newman, and Paula Poundstone (live at The Greek) ******
• Saturday Night Live (rerun) ***½
• SNL Tribute: Chris Farley ****

On Sunday night we had dinner at The Lodge Steakhouse on La Cienega in Beverly Hills. The place was almost empty and for the better part of the night we had the entire large dining room to ourselves. For some strange reason this dark, rustic, wood-grained, hunting-outpost-themed restaurant was blasting hair-band hits of the late 70s and early 80s from a speaker inconveniently situated directly above our table. Aside from that oddity, though, the meal was delicious and the service was good. I’ll assume that there were so few other diners because of the holiday, because the steaks were perfect, it wasn’t that expensive, and it’s in a great location. Give it a shot if you’re looking for a nice New York strip.

Note: Just before chocolate desserts arrived in the nearly-deserted room, the hostess sat a party at the table right next to us. It was — coincidentally — the former neighbors of my fiancée’s parents: Hilary and Haylie Duff, along with Kevin Connolly (”E” from Entourage).

A few days ago a friend from a long, long time ago recently reinstalled AIM and contacted me out of the blue. While we were chatting I started to mention something about a road trip I’d taken in another life. I was going to say that I had once gotten lost in Washington D.C. on my way to Philly via I-95. What I found interesting was that — after years of living in Los Angeles — I almost referred to the East coast’s massive superhighway as “the” 95. My brain caught my fingers before I’d typed it that way, but it started niggling at me. In LA we honor all of the highways with the definite article. It’s not just 405. It’s the 405. You’d never tell someone, “Take 101.” You tell someone, “Take the 101.” Nobody — afaik — on the East coast refers to “the 95″. The only highway in Florida that gets a the is The Turnpike. In LA every highway gets a the.

And how about this? In Florida if you’re telling someone how to get from Jacksonville to Tallahassee you would say, “Take I-10 West until you smell the Seminoles.” But in California if you’re explaining how to get from Century City to Santa Monica you would say, “Take the 10 west until it ends.” Same road.

Anyone else ever notice that?

Last night we celebrated the birthdays of Aly & AJ with a big bash at Les Deux in Hollywood. My girlfriend fiancée and her cohorts planned the whole thing and it was pretty rad. The girls made a grand entrance on a caravan of roaring motorcycles, the Plain White T’s performed, and I spent most of the time eating sushi from the Geisha House and visiting with Frankie and Becky. MTV was there filming for “SuperSweet 16: The Movie” (debuts July 8 on MTV), so the paparazzi was out in full force. (I posted some photos to my flickr account, but there are a ton more at wireimage.)

“The cheap stuff” in LA right now is creeping up to $4.00/gal. It’s ridiculous.
17.478 gal x $3.65⁹/gal = $63.95