There are no boring cities

[muckefuck]

The best part of my "trip to LA" is how little time I spent in LA. Overall, it was about eight hours south of the San Gabriels (mostly at LAX) and six in North Hollywood. The day we arrived, we had hours to kill before the remaining Brit Twits arrived and Father Chauffeur could drive us all back to Erema Vallis; poor monshu had to wait around the airport to ensure our rendezvous whereas I got to run off to Venice Beach with the fantastic ladytiamat, who could transform a trip to Bakersfield into a good time.

Nevertheless, I spoke up in the city's defence when someone tried to say there was "nothing to see there". princeofcairo has done the legwork to confirm what I kind of figured out during my tour of Europe: It's all a matter of knowing where to go and being open to what you find. If you decide in advance that nothing there is interesting, nothing will be. You won't find any photos of the Arc de Triomphe or London Bridge in my albums; you will find a mailbox set inside a brick wall in Bangor, a street sign for "Needless Alley" in Birmingham, the unimaginably long escalator down into the Prague subway.

The only other time I've been to LA, I had the good luck to go with Nuphy (born in West Hollywood, raised in Sherman Oaks) and get ferried around by his cousin, bartender to the Elks. The drive down Sunset was a trip back in time--I even saw the newstand where he bought his first pornography! We ended up dining among bulemic chiasaurs of Santa Monica and among his crazy relatives in the Valley.

It would've taken more creativity than I think I had to invest to make Friday's trip to Palmdale--a sprawl so anonymous that the streets are numbered and the avenues named with letters--into a highlight. But the presence of Boon, monshu, Mater, and Pater made it more fun than it had any right being. Pater was craving Mexican food, so we got a recommendation at the Rite-Aid and ended up at El Toreo on 35th & S chowing down on carnitas and chiles rellenos (and paying for it later). And the presence of the Lads at a Bennigan's clone called Coco's for dinner our first day was almost alchemical (though equal credit belongs to the efforts of our waiter Rosemary, a Korean woman who thought she was Hispanic).

Comments

[gopower.livejournal.com]

I've wondered about the lack of creativity of places with "A" Street, etc. They could accomplish the same goal -- presumably easy navigation by following the alphabet on a grid -- by using names that begin with consecutive letters, thus adding a little more character.

My favorite street name scheme remains Gary, Indiana which named its N-S streets for U.S. presidents in the order they served and E-W streets for states in the order they were admitted to the union (or ratified the constitution).

I don't know why the Loop, which follows a similar model (presidents for the E-W streets) does not have a Jefferson St. (though there's a N-S street by that name outside the Loop) or a John Adams Street at all (the Adams St. is for John Quincy).