It was one of those weeks, where nothing on the social front seems appetizing. Sure, there were a lot of things going on as most of my friends and social networking pals seemed to be buzzing with events. I heard about the LA Food Fest truck extravaganza, and though the idea of a parade of trucks at your eating disposal is a good one, I also thought, just how much could I eat and what could I really get out of tasting food from a truck? Gourmet trucks are certainly a trend and I do appreciate them and their efforts but a festival centered around eating from a truck?
There was also the big Decade 2 sale; designer shoes for $150 buck a roos! Lines around the corner would have been a barrier to get to this sale, I mean who could pass this up (I guess me); I didn’t feel like checking out shabby designer shoes. Don’t get me wrong, for a $150 I am down for this kind of stuff, but another year, another time. I guess the thought of hanging out in lines with crowds of people just wasn’t suiting my style for the week. Maybe the gloom has made me more fickle, or the fact that some of these events seemed cool, but then reeked in a general public sorta way. I guess without sounding like I had my nose up in the air about joining the hundreds doing the cool hipster thing; I wanted to stay close to home with the company of my nearest and dearest, and so I did.
Here’s my post-weekend round up:
Thirst for Thursday
Thursday night, our crew headed on bikes to the new bar in town, the basement tavern at the Victorian in Dogtown. News of this bar caught on like wildfire. It had been open nearly a week when I got the tip on the happenings. Heard about it on Monday, and by Thursday the bartenders were serving a more than packed house. And they seemed to be scratching their heads, wondering how in the heck all these people found out about this low key bar! They claim to have had no press, but there were write ups in blogs, an LA Times review, and plenty of facebook walls status updates. The times referred to it as speak easy bar. In my heyday, speak easy bars were dive bars in hard places to get to, down an alley and across bridge or something to that effect; some well know musician would be performing with an acoustic guitar and a disguised name, and you felt lucky to be experiencing that moment. To sum it up, it was a very cool bar and I did love the chandelier décor (I have a soft spot for bars designs with chandeliers) but, speak easy... not so much. it was at least an hour wait for drinks and people were crammed like sardines. It wasn’t an enjoyable experience waiting in a crowded spot, but the vibe was nice and there certainly were a lot of good looking people. Months from now, this will be a great bar to be had. Go if you feel brave and inclined. GO...
tip: I did learn one very cool trick via @ Niles Harrison...the text bomb trick. If you want someone to come play—the best way to get them out—is to do the text bomb. Everyone texts the same phrase all at the same time to one person, sending that person a text that will buzz accordion style... They’ll feel the love in one hot second.
Friday Fever
While I am usually up on the weekend happenings... mellow sank in like a comfy old recliner on Friday. The mood and the vibe was telling me just to relax. Friday became an evening walk to get cones at Nice Cream on our block, it’s not the most decadent of ice cream parlors, but I like it’s simplicity in flavors. I will say that our Netflix rental of Hot Tub Time Machine was pretty awesome. The movie is just ridiculous, over the top and completely nostalgic, but it’s definitely clever, humorous and completely good fun movie watching. So, if you are feeling like a night in and you want to watch something completely effortless and silly but great, rent that movie.
With an evening of rest, we felt rejuvenated but still needed to feel mellow— we thought we’d start off with a little brunch, and set out in motion down the bike path. It was a choppy day, clouds scattered, winds muffled, and the sun barely peeked out. We brunched at an old stomping ground, The Figtree , one of the better dining experiences on the board walk. It’s been there over 30 years and earned its legacy as a tried and true mainstay of the Venice boardwalk. The cooler dining is inside, the outdoors can seem very touristy but the food will over shadow that. They also serve Groundwork coffee , a good choice for supporting local business.
Then we biked down to the theater to see SALT... the new Angelina Jolie action flick... Surprisingly it was pretty bad ass; it had great action, girl power fighting sequences with mega twist and turns. It was definitely worth the matinee fee! After the movie we headed on our bikes back to our hood, we were meeting up with friends to go to the Getty for the Off the 405 concert series. I’d been hearing that there were great musicians performing in this series, and I was excited to finally get a chance to see a live performance. The fact that it was a Cumbia style music performance was just the tip of the ice berg; singer Liliana Saumet’s Bomba Estéreo fierce dance hall vocals made for some seriously exhilarating beats stuffed with electronic riffs that connected her rhythmic style into euphoric exposition. We sat under the moonlight with a brilliant view and music in our ears. Not to damper the draw of these events but getting there is a whole other story. And go figure that after trying to avoid “crowds and waiting,”… We ended up sitting in traffic waiting a few beats. To make a long story short— there is no easy way to get there, either sitting around in traffic or walking for a couple miles. We chose to walk, normally I would be so up for it, but I had heels on! I made it, and only with the smallest whimper.
Gotta love Sundays...lying in bed then biking to the main street farmers market, where there is Valet for your bikes. That’s right, a bike Valet! I had some decadent crepes and sat on the lawn listening to African funk beats. It’s a great way to kick off summer Sundays... Later, we decided to put out the BBQ spread with our closet pals. Personally, the way I look at it, we Sage’s like to throw down with our food and adult beverages— we like to feed our peeps well. And that sums up my extremely mellow week!
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