a reason to celebrate and get absolutely sloshed today

my two homes b-town and LA celebrate the 40-year anniversary of their glorious city partnership today. and i do think that many other relationships, especially between humans, could also get to that mark if they just stayed an ocean apart from each other. anyway, i decided to come up with a list of great things specific to each town. and as it's a very personally colored list, feel free to add your own stuff in the comments section!

LA:

the hills and the ever-present opportunity to crawl up one of them and get an instant view of the mayhem beneath. the classier alternative for a view is from the observatory, of course. and the laziest of people can always take the elevator up to the top of the arclight cinema parking structure. but it doesn't really matter where you do it, but when. and the best time is between 6 and 8 pm when the lowering sun wraps the city into a golden light. never seen a light like that anywhere else. maybe it's filtered by the smog?

i'm also still rolling around in my bed every night panically shouting: joe... joe... where are you, joe? where's my beloved trader joe's? which is german-owned by the way and still nobody has ever complained of a german supermarket invading the american market. but even the most beautiful trader joe's couldn't compare to the hollywood farmers' market on selma and ivar. it's got fruit and veggies, cheese, cut flowers and handmade gift articles. the soundtrack is delivered by some jazz musicians. and the best of all is that it never stinks. no fishy smell or else. which could be caused by the absence of fresh fish on the market or maybe it's just all absorbed by the smog?

the fairfax farmer's market.

great sushi. everywhere. the breakfast quesadilla at backdoor cafe. the mishmosh at canter's. the burrito ultimo w/ shrimp at baja fresh. any ice cream at mashti malone's. the pad thai at natalee's. yum...

old movie theaters like the egyptian or the mann's chinese. in places like those you can always take the risk of a movie turning out to be boring. after all, you can always admire the amazing ceiling for two hours.

nightly pool parties.

the LA times, especially the sunday edition. it's not a paper. it's a book. it takes you two hours to dig through and i can't imagine a better way of relaxing. plus, it's got an amazing calender section, the steve lopez column and dear abby. which is probably the best place to learn about the pitfalls of being a human being.

also, i do miss Us Weekly. the german edition of In Touch just doesn't cut it.

forever 21. urban outfitter t-shirts.

the buzz of the oscar season. well, i pretty much lived on the red carpet for the past 5 years. so besides shaking my head about the campaigns and banging my head on the coffee table by the end of the show-marathon, i also got to see the physical build-up. first it's just the bleachers. they usually arrive ten day early. then they lay out the carpet and arrange the flowers. the big statues follow about five days before the show. this is usually also the time that you get really angry at nicole, reese and denzel for taking over your hood and causing you to miss the bus every morning due to not knowing where the bus station moved to. but all of that is forgotten by the sight of the TV reporters on the day of the show. all dressed up in tuxedos or glittery gowns - at 8am. and of course, as a resident of the area you pretty much have an all-access pass with security. "here's my ID, sir. see that? cherokee 1733... thank you and keep up the good work." if there was just something that could be done about the swarm of daily helicopters over the house. like the smog will devour them.

amoeba records. it's got cute boys. and of course, you feel automatically cool when you enter.

ucla. i had a teacher that had worked with marilyn, audrey and judy garland. can't top that. oh, wait. there was the other teacher that told us about liz taylor and how she would only show up on set every morning if she was given a gift. a purple git.

the movie history in general.

wasting countless hours, reading in the aisles of Borders.

sneaking into hotel pools. which of course is so much easier when you've got an accent. but let's talk openly here. i've had been swimming at the roosevelt hotel way before lindsay discovered it. actually i would add the roosevelt hotel here on the list, but it was so much cooler before they renovated it and put a pool table into the lobby. like greta garbo would approve of that...

non-judgmental people. when somebody in LA speaks about his dreams, he's actually encouraged to do so. nobody says: "you can't do that." of course, people might encourage and then crush that person later on. but that's another story.

target. ultimately the greatest thing about LA.



part 2 with my observations about b-town follows underneath.