Brazil without the bikini waxage

Sometimes the complete lack of culture in LA really gets me down. I know it's out there somewhere, but it's hard to find and traffic makes everything difficult to get to. Also, I don't count movies as being the cultural avatar of our time. There is actually more to life, thank you. So the other night, Glenn and I met some friends for dinner at a Brazilian restaurant with the best name EVER. Zabumba is on the corner of Venice and Overland. I just want to say the name over and over and over again. Zabumba. Zabumba. Zabumba. OK, that's good. We had us some caipirhinas, listened to the samba band and watched the Carnivale parades on an endless video loop.

Why were we all hesitant to get up and dance when the Brazilians on TV clearly had no compunction about shaking their booty in public? We're white and rhythm-free but that's no excuse. It's so easy to get stuck in a wine bar frame of mind. We need more zabumba in our lives. Or at least more regular injections of culture. There's only so many nights of dinner and a movie one person can take.

Dead Wood

Glenn and I are addicted to "Deadwood," the new series on HBO. We walk around the house converting conversation into Deadwood vernacular, sort of like we used to do with Iron Chef: "Sweetie, could you take the fucking laundry down with you? The cocksucker next door has been hogging the washer." It makes me think how much more interesting would LA be if we all talked in Deadwood dialogue all the time. Instead of the incessant schoomzing and ass-kissing that goes on here, people could be straightforward with each other and actually tell it like it is.

"That cocksucker is wearing the ugliest fucking pants I've ever seen in my life!"
"If you fucking go behind my back one more time and pretend like you're working on my behalf, I'll fucking kill you, you cocksucker."
"I want a fucking latte without any goddamn crap in it."
"Your screenplay is a piece of shit. I'm not goddamn paying for it and I'm not afraid someone else will buy it and turn it into a fucking blockbuster."

The only downside is that the number of actual murders would far outpace the professional and social kind. Well, it would make it harder for incompetent people to fail upward, that's for sure.

Calamity Jane and Swearingen could really do some good here.

Once More, With Feeling

I'd forgotten how brilliant the "Once More, With Feeling" episode of Buffy was until I got a copy of the soundtrack and now I've got the entire album stuck in my head. Usually musicals leave me gagging, but the songs and lyrics from this are so good that listening to the CD is like eating just the right number of your favorite candies.

One of the songs sums up parking in this city to a T:

I've been having a bad, bad day
Come on won't you put that pad away
I'm asking you please no
It isn't right, it isn't fair
There was no parking anywere
I think that hydrant wasn't there
Why can't you let it go?
I think I've paid more than my share
I'm just a poor girl don't you care?
Hey I'm not wearing underwear

Higgypiggy's posted some of the funniest Joss dialogue out there.

Even though it's been months since Buffy ended, I still miss the show. Not as much as some other people, though.

Alley Etiquette

There's a peculiar dance that happens every day in the alley behind my apartment building. It's a pretty narrow alley and there's no room for more than one car to drive at a time. This being LA, where cars are a mix of necessity/prized possession/vanitymobile and everyone pretty much leaves for and returns from work at the same time, there's frequently a conflict over right-of-way. Most people are pretty polite about it. The accepted etiquette goes as follows:

--if you're pulling into the alley from the street, particularly from the end that's as steep as a rollercoaster, you have right of way and the other car must pull over to let you by.

--if you're in the alley and someone pulls out in front of you, right of way depends on who has the most space to get by. If the other person has no space, they must wait for you, and vice versa.

--if you try to pull into the alley while another car is exiting, you're a jerk.

--if you park a truck in the alley and block all traffic, you're the antichrist and many people will leave you nasty notes on your windshield. The same applies to cars whose owners allow the car alarm go off for more than 10 seconds.

All of the above is null and void if the ubiquitous garbage trucks are hogging the alley, which is pretty much every morning around the time everyone is trying to leave for work. There are maybe 16 buildings that back onto our alley and every single one of them contracted with a different trash service (or so it seems, judging from the frequency with which the trash trucks go booming by).

In the lovely and extremely apt words of Jason Falkner:
"Garbage man, oh garbage man, why won't you leave my street?
How can this street possibly excrete this much trash seven days a week?"

Can you tell he lives in Hollywood?

Night Choppers

What is up with the helicopters that circle our neighborhood every night? They do regular flybys over the apartment and they are LOUD. The past few nights they've gone by around 11:30pm but earlier this week they did an hour-long tour of duty starting at 3:30am. When I dragged my tired ass out of bed to call the police and complain--earplugs be damned, there was no way to sleep with that droning outside the window--I saw the chopper flying a tight circle over part of San Vicente Blvd. with its spotlight down. Were they chasing someone? Helping out a road crew? Filming something? What's the deal? Something tells me that the corner of San Vicente and Montana is not a high crime neighborhood.