Late Night Surprise

Last Saturday night I went to a party in Santa Monica, Liami Lawrence's 50th birthday. I didn't know anyone in the room, I just went to be nice and give Liami a hug. At one point I decided to go for a quick walk around the neighborhood. I found this beautiful music shop still open at 11 pm. It's called Mccabe's (very interesting punt on the Jewish rebel army of the second century BCE). It's amazing! It has instruments of all shapes and forms and 2 thousand dollar classical guitars and sitars on the walls.
A few minutes after I got in I realized why this vintage jewel was open till so late. There was a concert going on in the back room and the music the electrifying music they had playing in the shop was from that concert. I still caught the end of the concert. Apparently they organize concerts with guitars every weekend.  The funny thing about LA, in this case Santa Monica is that wherever you are you are always next door to something amazing.

Beautiful classical guitars.

A sitar and a Chinese ehru to show a certain eclecticism.

The crowd after the concert in the back.

Beautiful but expensive. 2000 bucks a piece.

They even had washboards. A typical jazz instrument that is very hard to come by in Europe.

Anatomy of the Wet Burrito

I met my friend Benjamin Weiss at his Glassel Park maison and we went out with the loose plan of drinking a beer, grabbing dinner and catching the latest Wong Kar Wai movie at the local theater. We started with the York Bar on York Street.
Benjamin was telling me how he is growing a bit tired of America and the Americans and he gave the bar around us as the example of the "same old". I understood his point but I thought how we always speak with a "full belly" about these things. York bar is just like any other bar in LA but bars in LA are great, service is fast, variety is great and decoration and environment are top. I was last year in Europe and to get into a bar like that I would need to pay 12  euros (14 bucks) for a crappy beer I could get anywhere else. When you spend a lot of time in LA you start to take these things for granted.
Then we went to this really small Mexican restaurant still in Glassell Park that had both hipsters and Mexican families for clients. "Always eat where the locals eat" goes the saying and this restaurant was great in that sense. It was small, not fancy and service was not the best, but it was cheap and the food was great. Me and Ben got the burrito mojado, literally the "wet burrito" and we asked for both salsas (sauces). The burrito is the Mexican answer to the hot dog, easy to prepare and with the typical ingredients of Spanish America and Brazil - beans and rice. The wet burrito works on top of this tradition, it is a Mexican francezinha of sorts. The salsas have two colors red and green which I took as an homage to the Portuguese flag.  The burrito itself is rich and spicy.  I drank water to take the hotness away but Benjamin drank this great lime and cucumber juice.
 In the end we were so satisfied we couldn't get to the theater for the Wong Kar Wai movie so we dragged our overfed butts back to Benji's where we watched the horrible World War Z. Goes to show you can't have everything.
Benjamin is living in Carmel till January so I won't be seeing him any time soon. Safe trips my friend!   

York bar at Glassell Park

Small but cozy Mexican restaurant at Glassell Park

Sorry for the bad quality of the pic but here is the big star "burrito mojado"

Transvesty, transsexual, transylvanian night!

Yesterday I participated in a genuinely unique American tradition.  In this country there are multiple ways to watch a movie, and unlike Europe, being passive is not the only one. There are the sing along viewings in which you sing along the movie's soundtrack - I went to a sing along of Glee in a multiplex, two years ago, that was really funny. Then there are the act along in which the audience acts the film out.
The Nuart movie theater in Santa Monica boulevard organizes every Saturday night an act along of the 1976 release The Horror Picture Show. I had never seen The Horror Picture Show and I had never been to a sing along, but it was great. It makes the European cinematheque experience as exciting as watching paint dry.
The environment in the room is crazy, the film starts at midnight and the audience comes dressed like the characters of the film (lots of girls with nothing but their underwear on) and props are sold to the audience so that they can act out the film (in this case a rubber glove, a balloon, a newspaper, some playing cards and some toilette paper all wrapped up in paper bag). A troupe of actors warms you up, there is an oath of allegiance and if it's your first night and you are a virgin you are called up on stage to be symbolically fucked (and I was!).
Then the movie starts. The Horror Picture Show is a insane musical that only makes sense when you act it out with a hundred people next to you.  It was one of Susan Sarandon's first movies (where she was already showing off her boobs!) and a tour de force by Tim Curry, an actor I gave nothing for since he played Richelieu in the Disney debacle The Three Musketeers, but that shows up here as a magnificent "transvesty, transsexual, transylvanian from another planet". The film is a gay extravaganza that makes any Broadway show look macho.  The story is insane but in the context of  an act along it couldn't have been better. 
I know, there is in the American culture of the last 10 years a certain tendency to glorify mediocrity, picking up crap art from the 70's and 80's and say it's great because it's bad, and I admit there is a bit of that going on in this "sing along, act along culture" but one thing's for sure you have a great time when you are there! I advise it!

There is dancing on stage before the film begins.

A host warms you up, you swear the oath of allegiance, you get "fucked", a stripper does her stick and the cabaret begins!  

 

The Shower Excellence

In 1887 the German partners Ferdinand Claus e George Schweder founded a soap factory called Claus & Schweder in the city of Porto in the North of Portugal. Porto was then an important industrial center. After the First World War the Portuguese brothers Afonso and Aquilles de Brito bought the bankrupted Claus & Schweder. A legend was born, the Ach Brito soaps led the market in Portugal and its colonies for the following decades until technological innovations of the 90's like the bath gel made hand made soaps obsolete. 
In 2008 the Confianca group bought Ach Brito and took the immediate decision to not advertise Ach Brito and its luxury line Claus Porto anywhere. Their gourmet hand-made soaps would be for those who searched for them. It was probably the first time in the history of advertisement that a brand said "this shit will sell itself". The results were amazing, the Scandinavian and Japanese markets began buying their hand crafted soaps like there was no tomorrow. 
The big breakthrough in America came when the queen mother Oprah Winfrey herself did a whole segment about Claus Porto on her show and confessed she used it herself. It was our very humble version of the British invasion. It was the Portuguese invasion and with soap. A truly fresh and wonderful smelling invasion.
When I was in Portugal last year my mom was always buying me Claus Porto soaps, and I brought back to the states a bunch  of Claus Porto's to offer as well as a big bar for myself. My mom always says the way you smell is important for your self-esteem, and she is always right.
Yesterday, someone who came back from New York offered me a "brise marine" flavored Claus Porto bath soap. I am really happy. I just used it. I unwrapped it from its carefully folded paper cover. Claus Porto's are a piece of art. My bathroom still smells like brise marine. A piece of Portugal in Hollywood. All I wanted was to offer Claus Porto to the New York traveler and she ended up offering it to me.

My very own brise marine Claus Porto bath soap bar.

Sub Wars

In the United States the urban legend says that the sub sandwich is a East Coast medium of communication. And it's a legend with good reasons to exist, not only because the Italians who came up with the sandwiches arrived first in the East Coast but because since I arrived in Los Angeles I only had one decent sub sandwich and it was in Bay Cities, an Italian East Coast restaurant.
Nevertheless some brave chains have tried to prove this urban legend wrong, Jersey Mike's comes to mind.
My latest adventure in the dangerous world of the Los Angeles sub was at Fat Sal's a joint that euphemistically calls itself a "deli", and that opened two blocs away from my place.
The menu is daunting, everything involves cheese and the choices range from roast beef, to chicken fingers (whoa! How original!)  I asked for a sandwich called "remarkable roast beef". The remarkable was part of the joke, it was a mayo soaked sandwich with pieces of unpeeled potatoes a peace of unseasoned beef all wrapped with the most mediocre french bread ever produced by a human being. Bottom line, when you come to LA stick to the Mexican food, you can't go wrong there. Otherwise you will eat something that will insult someone's culture.
P.S  If I was Italian I would sue Fat Sal's for all they have.

Fat Sal's, the best reason to miss New York.

  

Rock And Roll

Roller Derby is an American tradition. An exclusively female sport developed mainly in the 30's it makes for good entertainment. Here  it's played in Silver Lake in a warehouse, home of the LA Derby Dolls. This Friday I went to see a game between a team called Varsity Brawlers and another called Fight Crew (I know, I know it sounds menacing) and felt part of a very exclusive American tradition where LA's most pernicious plague, the hipsters meet a classic female sub culture the pin up girl. The crowd is of course more eclectic than that but the fusion of these two groups is clearly present mainly in the players - bad ass chicks with noms de guerre such as Skeeve Jobs and Marina del Rage.
It took me some time to get the rules of the game, where these women on helmets and roller blades chase each other and I didn't understand why men don't play it - girls just seem to be too passive aggressive. But it was an overall pleasing experience that I advise to any LA visitor.
During the 10 minute game break we got some pizza and listened to this hipster band composed by one guy and three girls playing eclectic rock . The guy's hair was an amazing jewfro and his pants were so tight I doubt he will ever have children. When I see acts like that I think French artists must feel proud. All those year's being moked and in the end their look, attitude and mannerisms have triumphed and officially spilled into the zeitgeist.  

The Porsche and the city

Last weekend I got in a Porsche for the first time in my life. My boy Alex got a 76 vintage Porsche. I hate cars and driving but I have to give it to Alex his Porsche is something else. The engine is loud but not particularly powerful and the inside is classy and vintage.
We went to the Hudson we had a few beers and we finished at his brother's Amza Moglan. A car like that only makes sense in a city like LA made for the car. Tickets are stupidly expensive here and the cops are more worried with hunting you down than protecting you, but the highways are big, and all the apartment buildings have garage.
Some say, the bigger the car the smaller the penis. I don't know if that's true, but when you have a Porsche 76 I think your penis size is the last thing on your mind.