My Life

For Valentine’s Day this year I enrolled my girlfriend and myself for a class at Los Angeles’ coolest cooking class: hipcooks. Our class was “The Surprise Guest”, the only one available when I registered. We made an endive appetizer, roasted honey pear salad with tarragon dressing, pistachio-crusted swordfish with a light curry sauce, herbed couscous, and for dessert a chocolate bark with poached pear decorated with raspberry coulis. Our instructor, Alison, was wildly perky and made the experience incredibly bouncy. We had a deliciously good time and I would gladly do it again.

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After last night’s 6.7 mile run — Death by Doheny, I call it — my girlfriend and I headed to Hollywood to catch The Perfect Victim (previously mentioned here) at The Knitting Factory. These kids put on a damn good show. The lead singer is energetic and bounces around the stage like a young Billie Joe Armstrong. The songs are slick and powerful, with a ton of punk-hard rock guitar riffs. I could have done without the drunk girl sprawled in a pool of her strawberry-daiquiri vomit outside the front door, but that’s just life in Los Angeles. If you get a chance to see them, go.

When the future finally arrives, I think one of the things I’m going to appreciate the most is the digital shower. (Does anyone make one now?) I think being able to simply digitally set the water temperature will revolutionize my morning ablutions beyond belief. Fumbling the faucets for five minutes trying to achieve the perfect shower combination of hot and cold water is so old school. I imagine a world in which I can use a fog-resistant touch-screen to find NPR or ESPNRadio, alert me when I’ve been in there too long, and deliver the exact temperature to make me happy.

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I added my house to Hotspotr. If you are desperate for free WiFi in Los Angeles, feel free to sit in my driveway and use some of my bandwidth. I have had a Linksys WRT54G Wireless-G Router with no password for years and I’m also broadcasting with the free FON wireless access point I got a few days ago. I’m glad to see LA ranked #8 on the list at Hotspotr. Wireless internet access should be free.

Seeing celebrities in Los Angeles is still pretty cool, even though I’ve lived here for 6+ years now. It seems like they’ve been coming out of the woodwork lately. Here’s a quick summary of the last week or so:

• On President’s Day I saw Chad Lowe at the Coral Tree Cafe in Brentwood.
• On Friday afternoon I went to DecadesTwo on Melrose to buy a present for my girlfriend. (I had read at Caroline’s site that they were having a big sale on Christian Louboutins, and I know those are my girl’s favorites. I didn’t like any of them, though, so I got her a sexy pair of Prada high heels instead.) The paparazzi was outside in full force because Nicky Hilton was there shopping, too.
• Saturday morning we had brunch at Hugo’s on Santa Monica and Taylor Kitsch — Riggins from Friday Night Lights — walked past our table with his mini-entourage.
• After brunch we were killing time in Hollywood and crossed paths with Dennis Rodman who was apparently getting his car washed.
• This afternoon I passed Lance Armstrong jogging on Santa Monica while I was on my last ten-mile run before next weekend’s LA Marathon.

On Saturday morning I ran a quick 7 miles at 6 am, came home, and told my girlfriend to get ready for an adventure. We packed the truck and headed for wine country (photos). The President’s Day traffic was brutal so it took us almost 3 hours to go what should have only taken an hour and a half. We had a terrific time, though. The Santa Barbara vineyards — of Sideways fame — are just as much fun as going to Napa and they’re only a short drive from Los Angeles. First we hit the Firestone Winery and its sister vineyard, Curtis Winery. Tastings are rough for me because I don’t like any reds, but Firestone had some wonderful whites. I bought a delicious chardonnay and two awesome sauvignon blancs for less than $50 total.

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There is a point on San Vicente while running West when one rounds a corner and is confronted with — shockingly — what appears to be the entire Pacific Ocean. It is an awe-inspiring sight, even at night. It is at this point, during what is more or less a fifteen mile run, that I usually realize I’ve forgotten to do something to protect my nipples. Aside from the Marathon, this route is the longest I’ve ever run. On little three- and six-mile runs I don’t need to do anything about my chest. On a fifteen mile run, though, thousands of thumping strides will cause a man’s t-shirt to chafe and rub against his nipples until they bleed. The adrenaline and runner’s high will prevent you from realizing how much damage you’ve done to your vestigial mammary glands until you finally arrive home and toss your sweat-drenched clothes into a heap in the bathroom floor. The blisters on your feet, the near-unbearable soreness of your legs and lower back and even arms, the inevitable lingering desire for water … none of these things the next day can compare to the burning pain of having basically rubbed off your nipples. File under: Ouch.

I really like my gym, LA Fitness. It’s inexpensive, it has lots of great amenities, and there are enough of them scattered around Los Angeles that I never have to travel very far to find one. I have a laundry list of complaints about the place, of course: one of the ergs is almost always broken, the hinges on the doors of the lockers are constantly malfunctioning, the sauna seems to be out of order every few days, stuff like that. But in general I like the place.

One of the things that keeps me motivated while I’m there is the music. It’s some sort of cable system, like “LA Fitness Radio”. There weren’t any commercials until a few months ago, and even now it’s just a short promo for the gym about once an hour. (This makes little sense to me. I’m already a member! Why are you trying to convince me of how great the place is?) They play seriously great music. The last time I was there I heard “Panama” by Van Halen, for example. Sure, they play a ton of Top 40 bubble-gum garbage, but it’s nothing obnoxiously bad. And they somehow manage to squeeze lots and lots of deep cuts into the mix.

A few days ago I heard “Get Off This” by Cracker. The album Kerosene Hat had one hit — “Low” — and, as far as I know, I am the only person on Earth that actually bought the CD. It’s one of my all-time favorites. (The entire CD is great, by the way. If you don’t have it, go buy it.) Hearing a track like that while lifting weights was quite a surprise and, like I said, one of the reasons I dig LA Fitness.

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When the LA Marathon first announced its new point-to-point course last summer, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa spoke to the significance of transporting participants for free on the Metro on race day. Yesterday, L.A. County Supervisor Gloria Molina, in her capacity as MTA Chair, said in a committee meeting that marathoners should not be provided with free race day transportation and withdrew the agenda item from next week’s MTA board meeting. Mayor Villaraigosa plans to take this matter directly to the MTA board meeting on February 22, 2007.

Please email Supervisor Molina and ask her to explain herself. Let her know that runners are going to be making traffic hell enough already without taking away this free pass!

Update: I sent an email a few hours ago and recently received a very interesting response. Continue reading for Supervisor Molina’s email reply.

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Generally I am sitting at my desk by five-thirty in the morning. I am always completely startled by the alarm at 4:45, as if it’s the first time I’ve ever had to get out of bed. “What the hell?!” I think, although I’ve been waking up at quarter to five since I graduated from college. I chug a glass of orange juice, throw on my gym clothes, and hit the road. I get to the office by 5:15 or so, boot my laptop, and decide if I should go directly to the LA Fitness a block from my office or reply to email for a little bit first. It’s a good way to start the day. Except for a few times when I’ve fallen off the workout wagon for a week or so (or, like, all of 2004), I’ve been doing something along those lines ever since I rowed crew at the University of Florida from ‘94 to ‘96. This morning I had to be somewhere in Westwood at 7:30 so instead of going to the gym I took Buddie for a run around the block. But most of the time I have the same routine.

It’s a rare day that I’m not the first one in my office. I am also, interestingly enough, almost always the last one in the office. So not only do I turn on all the lights every day, but nine times out of ten I have to roam around this huge building turning off all the lights every night. Turning on the lights in the morning never bothers me. I enjoy it, to tell you the truth. But when I’m tired and I want to go home, I hate — I loathe — the fact that nobody else ever turns off the lights when they leave a room. The conference room light is almost always left on. All the lights in the main sales rep area are left on. There are two or three managers who leave the lights on in their office every.single.day. The lights in both of the ladies’ restrooms are always always always left on.

It’s not huge. It’s not the end of the world. I don’t even care so much about the wasted electricity. I just hate having to walk through the building every night. When it’s time to go home, I just want to leave, y’know? </rant>

Last week my girlfriend and I had dinner at Cucina Paradiso. It’s a great little Italian restaurant that shares a building with The Palmer Room on Motor Ave. The Palmer Room is a bar / club with a tiny stage for live music; Their website is fairly bland, but the bar itself is quite cozy and a perfect spot to catch a show. We were there to see Landon Band perform. We got to the bar a bit late and only managed to catch the last three or four songs, but I liked what I heard. The lead singer has definitely got some pipes and she put on a helluva good show even though there were only maybe a dozen other people in the audience. It’s tricky because the whole thing is done in Flash, but if you work at it you can download three of the seven songs from their debut album from the official band website.

You have to get out of bed pretty early to pull one over on the local coroner in Los Angeles.

Southern California kicker Mario Danelo was drunk when he plunged over a cliff to his death, but the cause of his death was “undetermined,” according to a coroner’s report released Monday.

He’s a football player in excellent physical health. He got really, really drunk. He climbed a large wall and fell over 100′. I don’t see the mystery here. Tragedy? Yes. Mystery? No.

We found yet another fabulous restaurant last night: Memphis. (map). This “Southern Style Dining” establishment is located in Hollywood in “the last remaining residential house … left on this highly commercialized street.” It’s quirky and fun to eat in a restaurant that used to be a house. The lighting is very romantic and the food was excellent. I had the jambalaya appetizer and the fried chicken and ribs combo and — I have to tell you — it was the best piece of chicken I’ve ever had. Dinner for four, including appetizers, plenty of libations, and a nice gratuity, came to about $300, which is really not that bad for a good place in LA. The service was only so-so, but I think the place was a bit understaffed; it was a slow Wednesday night. If you have a hankering for a taste of N’awlins and you’re stuck in SoCal, I highly recommend it.

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Postings will be sparse for the next few days. I’m in Vegas with my dad. We golfed today and will be golfing again tomorrow … and the next day … and the next day … This is my third or fourth trip to Las Vegas since I moved to LA in 2000. I’m not much of a gambler, but I think I have finally deciphered the game of craps. I turned $20 into $225 and had a blast hanging out with my dad at the new Hooters Casino. I’m taking a ton of photos and will update when I return to the City of Angels.