LA Kings vs. Carolina Hurricanes at The Staples Center

Hockey on TV is sooo boring. The players always seem far away, you can't really see the puck, no one scores and the players don't have much facial personality. But after my beloved basketball, hockey is by far my favorite sport to watch live. There is just so much excitement- big burly bodies crashing into each other, players gracefully jumping on and off the ice, said ice flying everywhere, power plays and goal attempts and most importantly to us mammals- the constant promise of a good old fashioned beat down.


When our fight finally came in the 3rd period it was like Christmas had come 2 months early. Seriously, the crowd was euphoric. And what a crowd it was. The Staples Center was surprisingly packed with mostly beefy guys in hockey jerseys who clearly love their Kings. Lots of kids were there as well and it was a very family friendly activity.... as long as you weren't sitting with us. Because behind Lonnie and me were three of the most obnoxious frat court fratties who ever lived. And they lived for starting "you suck" chants, throwing out every hockey term they could think of, and even uttering the comical phrase, "I could do so much better than this PROFESSIONAL ATHLETE THAT I AM NOT."

It was so much fun!

The LA Kings' organization put on a great show. There were all the usual halftime gimmicks- little leaguers playing a half court game, men with frosted tips who look vaguely like Ryan Seacrest throwing out t-shirts and handing out coupons. The players also skated out of a mock castle (they are the Kings), and there were hot, ice girls who scraped up the ice during breaks, sad looking "celebrities" riding kick-ass painted Zamboni's and a crazy mascot named Bailey, the Lion who seemed to have forgotten his meds.

The Staples Center is an amazingly efficient machine. Four professional sports teams play there, not to mention the countless shows, yet everything is neat and clean. There are tons of bars, yummy food that is relatively reasonably priced, a smoking patio that overlooks LA Live, where we definitely smelled weed and the staff is pretty friendly. We had awesome lower seats, thanks to my dapper and lovely friend Kevin. Parking is an easy five minute walk away and only $10.00 per car. It was just a very smooth time.

The night reminded me how much I love sporting events and how I hope in my old age to just have lots of season tickets in cushy chairs. My husband and I will drive up from our beach house in our golf cart and stay in one of our children's houses....anyway. It also made me a little sad because I feel like we Angeleno's don't go to nearly as many sporting events as our friends in smaller markets do. Travel is always a bitch, the tickets are often too expensive and parking is often a nightmare (I once had my tires slashed at a Dodgers' game). So here's my challenge to LA teams- have a "hipster night." Make tickets half off, print up some ironic t-shirts that fade easily, serve Pabst Blue Ribbon and say the night is "green" because you are using recyclable water to make ice for the drinks.

They'll be fans for life.

Travel: B-
Ease: B
Content: A+
Subjective Coolness: A+
Overall: A-

Directions: Come on, it's the Staples Center. You can figure that one out.

Hours: Home game schedule is here- http://kings.nhl.com/club/page.htm?id=51898.
Price: Tix range from $30(nosebleeds) to $135.00 and above. Parking and drinks add up but not exorbitantly.

Thanks for the awesome video Lonnie!

The Brewery Bi-Annual ArtWalk(scroll down for pics)

Once upon a time in 1902, in the Lincoln Heights section of Los Angeles, a power plant was built for the Edison Electric company. Later, the complex became a Pabst Blue Ribbon Brewery. One chuckles to imagine what the hard-working men and women who worked at this temple to the orderly would have thought, when in 1982, many strange and avant-garde folks took over the break rooms, the boiler rooms, the bosses' office and the infirmary and filled them with paint thinners, art books,mannequins painted gold...

and from what I could smell...lots of weed.

The Brewery is often called "the largest art colony in the world." The spaces range from two-story carriage house style places with a patio area to tiny little concrete rooms up the stairs and around the whitewashed corner in the main building. The co-op who runs The Brewery claims to only rent to artists, which begs the question- would my bubble head doodles count?

The vibe at The Brewery is amazing. When we went it was packed with people drinking beer, children playing, teenagers on bikes and incense galore. It was happy and New York edgy and filled with hipsters of all ages. The grounds are beautiful, with trees growing around the industrial buildings, statues made with found objects in drainage ditches and murals on the side of old brick walls. A Bruce Springsteen song meeting Ani DiFranco.

Being welcomed from studio to loft with artworks, music and sometimes cookies fostered a sense of community one rarely feels anymore. The artists were there to talk to you and though everything was for sale, no one pressured you to buy anything. It was a privilege to be allowed to see where the artists sleep, create, eat, and if some of the works are any indication, have kinky sex. Someone should do a documentary about this place. It feels like Melrose Place with a dirty beard (for you North Carolinians- imagine Carrboro dropped in an old cigarette factory).

Unfortunately, the awesomeness doesn't quite extend to the art. Most of the works had a handy-hobby quality that made them seem amateur and almost cheap. There were a few standouts I really enjoyed: Mike Pedersen, Jill Sykes, Teale Hatheway, Sam Kopels and the delightful Amy Lynn. But honestly my favorite thing was seeing how these aesthetically gifted people had arranged their living spaces. It was like a home and garden tour for this poor hipster, and what can I say? I am still titillated by folks' bathroom cabinets. I guess at heart I'm just a big old snoop.

TRAVEL:B
EASE: B
CONTENT: A-
SUBJECTIVE COOLNESS: A+
OVERALL: A

Directions:Take Sunset East into Downtown Los Angeles. Turn Left on Alameda. Turn Right onto Alpine Street.Turn left onto Main Street. Take Main Street about a mile, turn right on Moulton Avenue (located two blocks past Lamar St.). 2100 North Main Street.
Hours: Semi-Annual, Spring and Fall. Check out website for more info: http://breweryartwalk.com.

Price:Free, free, free like the artists who live here.

Pictures of The Brewery ArtWalk

GLOW

Oh Saint Monica, patron saint of difficult marriages, disappointing children, victims of adultery and unfaithfulness (too good, right...look it up), I didn't think it would be this way. As a writer, and someone who has a rather difficult time living in the moment, I have a confession to make. I often have an idea of what I am going to say about one of my destinations before I even go. Never was this truer than with GLOW. I was prepared to give A+'s across the board. I mean it combines three of my favorite things- the beach at night, installation art and walking outside with an alcoholic beverage.

The first and only other GLOW was two years ago, and it was extraordinary. Conceived as an all night, interactive art festival featuring local artists tightly spaced on and around the Santa Monica pier, my friends and I were among the thousands who marveled at glowing orbs in the water, a tower made of glow sticks, florescent tunnels one could run through and conceptual pieces performed by fantastical creatures on stilts. It captured the magic and mystery of the shore and the city on the shore. My friends and I thought we had died and gone to a heaven filled with Gatsby's elusive green lights. Apparently the city of Santa Monica thought it was more like a Fellini-esque hell filled with rollers, drunkards and trippers.

So this GLOW ended at midnight and had the stifled, corporate feel of a half empty municipal art museum that just happened to be on the beach. The pieces were spaced ridiculously far apart (wet sand+food and drink=exhausting) and designated by great white lampposts. Many of the works were lackluster, appearing to have been designed by a committee of landscaping drones. Something called "the battle of earth and the moon" turned out to be two hippie dudes dancing around in head dresses while someone played a drum. Another exhibit was just a light shining on the water.

A car's headlights would achieve the same effect.

Children running around thrilled to be up late were a charming sight, and there were a few lovely works. There was a giant white orb high in the sky that projected a participant's face so that he or she became the man in the moon. Of course, one man in the moon proposed to his girlfriend. There was an architecturally precise bridge of light one could walk through that looked like a ship leaning towards the water, and a mass of bubbles frothed out of a pale blue lifeguard tower. Another piece used a projector to magnify participants' hands and arms in full color across the sand.

So there were some impressive experiments, but the joie de vivre, the anarchist spirit of the first festival was missing. Instead, there were orderly, looooonnnnngg lines to actually get to participate in anything and cops policing, some on horseback, at every turn. The best thing about the night was the communal joy of sitting in the damp sand, bs-ing with friends while waiting to meet or find other friends. No matter what the occasion, that always seems to be the thing that makes me glow the most.

P.S. Note the orbs all over my photos. I know it is light pollution, but the southerner in me thinks it's lots of art world ghosts with a few lost sailors and surfers thrown in for good measure.

Travel: D (parking was a nightmare).
Ease: D
Content: B-
Subjective Coolness: C+
Overall: C

Directions: At the Santa Monica Pier (who the heck knows if they will even do it again).
Parking: Just had to find it, cost anywhere from $10-$30.
Hours: 8pm-12pm.
Price: Free, besides the soul disappointing disappointment.

Autry National Center

Hadley's newest hit,
WENT TO THE AUTRY MUSEUM
only available on Please-give-me-a-book-deal records.

(to the tune of Gene Autry's "Back in the Saddle Again")

Went to the Autry Museum
Wax statutes of cowboys with big chins
Indian baskets made of grass
Fake towns that are a gas
Went to the Autry Museum

Wanted to ride the fake horse
You say that's for kids, I say of course
Heritage center just for tots,
where they can touch clay pots
Went to the Autry Museum

Dirty-drinking ho's
kind of white washed, I suppose
Went to the Autry Museum.

Feces-covered dudes
not so stoic, I presume
Went to the Autry Museum.

Lots of neat western curious
tiny cards, golden scales, mementos
Guns abound for boys
for girls, suffragette toys
Went to the Autry Museum


Tough saloon girl I'd like to be
just hope I don't die of dysentery
Made me want to play Oregon Trail
and get some cowboy tail
Went to the Autry Museum

Travel: B (dang Los Feliz Blvd. trail)
Ease: B
Content: A- (Surprising, I know)
Subjective Coolness: B
Overall: B+

Directions: Take Los Feliz Blvd. and turn on Riverside (right before the 5), take all the way through Griffith Park and you will see signs. Actual address:

4700 Western Heritage Way

Los Angeles, CA 90027
Parking is on site and free. Across from the LA Zoo.

Hours: Tues.-Fri. 10-4, Sat. and Sun. 10-5
Price: $9 adults, $5 students and old uns, $3 chillins.

Classic Car show at Bob's Big Boy

Usually when I say that something is so suburban or totally middle American, I am paying that thing a nostalgic and heartfelt compliment full of secret admiration and quite open city girl self loathing. In fact, in the nine months that I have been writing this blog I cannot think of one time where I in anyway disparaged the great tyrannical majority. I like malls... I like perfectly manicured lawns... I like kids playing sports... I loooovvve men playing sports...

But I have learned that I hate men at car shows. Men at car shows remind me of the worst men in bible yielding, gay bashing red states. The men at this car show were almost all three of four things- old, mustached, fat and/or sexist. Be they leaning over car hoods or sitting in folding chairs with their posse, be they beefed up Tom Selleck types or pale flabby geriatrics in bowling shirts, they all craned their necks for a good look. Many made comments, and some of these comments were disgusting and made by those years older than my long departed granddad.

The classic car show has been held for years in the parking lot of Bob's Big Boy, a 1950's car hop chain famous for the statue of a devious, dip-cone colored, burger wielding toddler that guards it. Every Friday night, from five to ten, the aforementioned creepsters, along with some women, many of the biker persuasion, join together to show off old cars, sell old cars, drink inconspicuously (your loose lips and red noses give you away boys!) and sit...they do lots of sitting.

I get it. There is no greater heaven than sitting somewhere scenic, b.s.ing with friends you love in the early evening. But they have to be your particular crowd or else it is boring and uncomfortable as hell, and the classic car and fried food set isn't exactly my cup of tea. The actual lot is pretty small and filled with about 30-50 cars, a few spiffed out beauties, a great many older models that I could discern nothing brilliant in. But keep in mind that the only brilliant thing I ever notice about a car is a brilliant color and a hot owner.

But if I am trying to have an expert's eye, I would say I have seen much cooler cars at countless state fairs. Unless you are really a car aficionado, a quick one minute walk through on your way to tuna melts and a shake is probably all you'll need. Cool idea though. Cool idea, wholesome theory...but like some of America, pretty scudzy in practice.

Travel: C(rush hour, 101, Friday night...need I say more?).
Ease: B-
Content: C
Subjective coolness: C-
Overall: C

Directions: From Hollywood take the 101-N to the Barham Blvd. exit. Turn right on Barham. After about a mile continue on West Olive. Turn left on North Pass, turn left at West Riverside. Bob's will be on your right at 4211 West Riverside. Ironically, it's street parking only, because the parking lot is filled with...cars!
Hours:Every Friday 5-10pm.
Price: Free, excepting your female dignity.