Tastes Great & Fits in Your Sock

Little Tokyo is a neighborhood in downtown LA that has blossomed in the last seven years or so. It is the go-to place for everything Japanese, including tofu and the Tofu Festival, where incidentally, I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Tofu, the man who singlehandedly brought tofu to America. What a feat! He told me the whole story too. How he had to smuggle the first blocks in past customs, who of course would assume it to be some kind of chemist ploy, by stuffing them into socks lined with wax.

"No officer, that's just my special anti-fungus sock," he had to explain. 

Of course, not even the bravest customs agent would dare venture his hand into that. And so, the first squares of white, squishy Japanese tofu were to make it into the US to be discovered only by the adventurous and brave. 

The 405 (A river of cement)

Once the number 405 was just a number, but not anymore, not in LA.  It is a headache, a nightmare, an eyesore, a congestion, a stage for accidents and for exercising frustrations. 

You might ask, what better place to have such a grandiose stage than in a town over-spilling with actors? But this nightmare should not be wished upon any human being, not even an actor.

I have seen many a people completely lose it on this road, but by far the most impressive was a nun driving a horse of a pink Buick last July. (I can’t vouch for her authenticity, but she was dressed in a habit.) As steam rose from the cement between the stagnant cars in the hot summer sun, the nun seemed to claim divine intervention and started splitting the sea of cars by honking and swerving like a madman possessed. Such aggression might go ignored coming from just a regular joe in a regular car, but the nun bit worked like magic. Cars inched one way or the other to give her room, and progress was made. It wasn’t until she reached a school bus that she was stalled in her tracks. The bus driver refused to budge no matter how much noise she made.

I couldn’t help wondering, had God failed her? But it wasn’t over yet.

She got out of her car and walked up to the bus driver’s window, while all the kids hung out their heads and stared at her in disbelief. I was too far away to hear what was said, but a heated discussion took place and when she did go back to her car, the bus moved to let her go by. I strained to watch the pink progress for as long as I could curious to find out where she was going, but eventually I lost her in the sea of gray, the mystery forever unsolved.

Squirrel Sex in the City

Usually the entertainment on the boardwalk comes from the plethora of afro-urban-circus acts that crowd the surrounding open plots of cement, but not today. Well, at least not for the five angst-filled minutes when two grayish-brown rodents (yes, rodents, don’t let their bushy tails and innocent demeanor fool you) decided to get their mating on right in the middle of tourist way.

The whole event might have gone unnoticed if it weren’t for the high-pitched screeches coming from the female, which even stopped a nearby piano player in mid-key…Maybe, he thought it was his piano. But for those of us that were close enough, it was far from a bad chord or a broken string, it was the rawest form of animal utterance that had ever filled our urban ears. And let me assure you that this phenomenon spanned the cultures. Tourists from Europe, Asia, and Australia, all stopped in fear and awe to see this copulation. One little girl even shrieked back at it, although I wasn’t sure if it was because of the noise or the act itself.

“Do you think it’s in pain?” one onlooker asked. A roller skating queen straight out of the 80’s, decked out in satin shorts and a braided headband, laughed in response and replied, “It’s been a long time, eh?” And she backwards-skated away.

Not Your Average Trail of Breadcrumbs

A foggy morning last June, referred to as "June gloom" by witty weather personalities, forced me to wade through the maze of crippled sidewalks as I walked my eager dog. I remember wishing I had the ability to pluck out half his energy and throw it to the wolves so I wouldn't have to deal with it, but instead I just continued to let him tug me. 

Everything managed to look very mysterious, what with the low, thick marine layer blanketing the path. Garbage and forgotten dog poo were shrouded in mist making the place look damn near like a pristine fairy tale. Which is why it didn't strike me as odd when I saw the first bits of Fruit Loops sprinkled on the ground. 

As I continued on, the Fruit Loops were replaced by lollipops. Then gobstoppers.    

I was so intrigued I had to keep following to see what would come next. And I wasn't disappointed. There were Peeps, after the gobstoppers. And candy necklaces, after the Peeps. But what came next, stopped me in my tracks.

It was a teenager laying face down on the ground in a total sugar coma. 

I tried to revive him, but nothing but time was gonna bring him back. So, I retreated the way I came—grabbing a couple Peeps for myself on the way.

  

 

A New Use for Strollers

In Venice, and probably any other area in LA where poor latinos comingle with the more fortunate, you may see a person pushing a stroller, but I warn you, DO NOT assume it has a child in it. I made that assumption one day and I paid the consequences. 

It was the morning of our weekly trash pick up, and like usual, the passing garbage trucks woke me up, which put me in a shit mood. Bitter at the world and the creator of the combustible engine, I decided to get up and hit my local coffee shop (no, not a Starbucks) for a cup of cheer. On my way I spotted a woman with a stroller about 40 feet ahead of me. She was reaching into someone's garbage can, pulling out glass bottles. I watched her as I approached, and saw her tossing the bottles into her stroller like they were papier mache dolls. Now I didn't hear a cry or anything like that, but my core being just knew the whole thing was wrong, so I ran up to the stroller and ripped back the sun shade to save the innocent babe. 

Not only did I not save a helpless infant, my jerking of the stroller caused the bottles to tumble and fall one by one on to the cement, shattering into a million pieces. The woman, who I only then noticed was way past her child rearing years, started screaming profanities at me in Spanish, and I not knowing what she was saying, but knowing it wasn't good, decided I should get out of there quick. I ran across the street into an alley, and came head on into a garbage truck. Yes, the foul nuisance that caused this whole mess! Before I could starting throwing profanities of my own, the giant mechanical claw came down and grabbed me. The old woman came into the alley just in time to watch me get squeezed. And when I finally was let go, the garbage man winked at her—must have been his abuela.  

Roadkill

I need a job bad, because the unemployment checks based on my wages from Hot Dog on a Stick just aren't cutting it. (Who ever thought people would go unAmerican and eat less hot dogs and drink less lemonade during a recession?!) Luckily, an idea hit me for a new career when I was driving down HWY 5 back from a nudist nature hike over the July 4th weekend.  In between my gazing into people's cars to see what hand position they were using on their wheel and what tech gadget they were fingering, I would look at the road, and that's when I started to notice something: A lot of dead animals lingering on the highway pavement. There were so many really, that it was starting to gross me out, what with the matted fur, cold eyes, and dismembered body parts. But once I got over all that I thought, what a perfect job—picking up road kill.

So, I started looking into it, and it turns out getting this kinda job can be a bit more complicated than one might think. Figures! A person can't even start picking up dead animals without jumping through so many hoops it almost kills themselves. Depending on where you live it can be a freelance contracted job or a state government job. Here in California, we've got Caltrans (praise the almighty), which means I have to take a generic state test before I can even be considered for a position. And meanwhile, all the dead animals on the side of the road are just gonna be ignored, waiting for some last salvation that may never come. What's a worker to do?!

Life

If you want to get a double dose of life, let me tell you what you do. First, go to the grocery store and buy yourself 1 box of the Life cereal and 1 box of Cinnamon Life. Then get yourself home and rummage through your dusty, cobweb-filled game closet until you find the board game Life. No matter if you've lost all those tiny pink and blue stick figures claimed to be people, you can always break up a few toothpicks and stuff them into the car of your choice. Then, you simply spin the wheel and munch away—a guaranteed good time. 

Neighbors (Installment 1)

Apartment neighbors are like roommates, you get to see and hear way more about them than you ever wanted to.   

I've had countless neighbors over the years, and for each one of them I've postulated their life stories with the use of my keen senses. Sure, my time could have probably been better spent, but would I of had so much fun?!

When I lived in the heart of Hollywood two blocks from Chinese Mann theatre, I had the pleasure of living on the ground floor. My never-seen-in-the-daylight neighbor that lived above me would clomp up the cold stone stairs in her stilettos around 1 or 2 am (after finishing her night of turning tricks), and then spend the rest of the evening making, what else—crack cocaine. How did I know this? Well, the water would run off and on constantly throughout the night. This, combined with the sounds of cooking: pots banging, stirring, pacing, made my conclusion undeniable. But, I still wanted to prove it.

It took me a few weeks and no showers to build up some cred on the street, but then the info flowed in like actors to an open casting call, and it was all linked to my building. Even the innocent 12-year-old Juan who played soccer against the apartment's hallway walls was in on it. He'd open the front door for buyers. 

But what could I say, it's just a day in the life...of Hollywood.  

 

I'm so excited

There's nothing better than a fresh lie, and what could be fresher than my first official blog post. Funny thing is, it just happened today, so it really is com-plete-ly fresh. And I swear to god it's totally true... 

I was walking on Venice beach boardwalk eating one of those 99 cent slices of pizza, you know the ones that leave grease stains on your hands for a week, and this old man with a pink and orange striped Rasta beanie and a long grey beard comes running into me on one of those foot scooters. It was like he was the six-year-old who isn't looking where he's going and slams right into you, but instead he was 60. And rather than just looking stunned with a chocolate rimmed mouth from a long gone ice cream cone, he starting doing his best impression of a car horn, which was damn good actually and made me jump three feet high. My grip on my pizza was lost, and a passing lucky ass pit bull caught it in mid-air and devoured it in one gulp.

Now, I'm not dumb enough to mess with a pitbull, so I decided to confront the old man to recoup my losses. 

"Hey, you owe me a slice of pizza," I said. 

He was busy laughing, but managed to hand me a card. As he scootered away I read it: 

"Free pass to heaven."

Not a bad trade, really.