The Los Angeles Times Southern California Moment, Day 21

Photo by me! 
 
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/southern-california-moments/

Santa brought me a sweet-ass camera.

Secret: I've always dreamed of becoming a photographer. If I could anything and get paid for it, and being a travel show host wasn't a possibility, I'd be a photographer.

So I've decided to do it. Might take some time, but I'm one step closer. Feel like joining me?

newsmebaby.tumblr.com

For the Classy Boozehound in All of Us

My Main Man, Pulitzer Prize winning Jonathan Gold, is at it again.
L.A.'s Best Cocktails.
This one's self explanatory (but here's a little taste..)

But 55 essential cocktails? Why not 99? Why not 82? Why a number associated with that which Sammy Hagar cannot drive? Because I drive. Because I have a human liver. Because however much you may adore the saketini at that little place in Torrance, it is only essential if you happen to be eating a sliver of yellowtail sashimi there at the time.

http://www.laweekly.com/2011-03-03/eat-drink/l-a-s-best-cocktails/

Bottoms up!

Fan of a Fan

It is a strange progression of events that led me to be sitting on my sister's couch Googling "Today Show guy in Audience" on this fine Sunday afternoon. See, I moved into a very, very small room masquerading as a "guest house" conveniently located as far as possible from any bus stop, and perched atop the main house on the lot, owned by a lovely Indian family who believe the term "electrician" describes anyone with a pick-up truck and a screwdriver.

After enduring 5 months of spotty U-verse, three failed cable boxes, and multiple power surges, my Landlord Family finally gave in to basic cable. Goodbye Top Chef, hello childhood memories of waking up with the Today Show & coffee. The NBC News theme, the lackluster fashion segments, Willard Scott's Happy Jam birthday greetings... the Today Show is a mild mannered cockroach- never offensive, and always there.

Seems I'm not the only one that enjoys the tradition. Every morning, as the NBC Anchors brave the elements to greet the waiting crowd in Rockefeller Plaza, the camera pans past a man (always in hat and glasses of some sort) who stares unassumingly at the camera. Two weeks of watching the crowd for this guy, and my curiosity got the better of me. Assuming he had to be a badly disguised security guard, I turned to Los Interwebs, and though I was seriously pissed that my dream of writing the next "Homeless Guy with the Golden Voice" type story was instantly dashed (the New York Times beat me to it), I did find the info I was looking for.

World, meet Linny Boyette, who is some kind of an Urban Hero. For 18 years, Linny has been a part of the Today Show's live audience. A retired military man who rises at 3:30am to trek from The Bronx to The Plaza,  Linny is the Today Show's Biggest Fan.
I don't know why he hearts the Today Show so much, but I sort of heart him. He's become as much a part of my morning tradition as the awkwardly passive aggressive, slightly sexual quips between Matt & Meredith.

L to R: Ann, Al, Meredith, Matt & Linny

Join Linny's Facebook Fan Page here.

It's here, it's here!

Los Angeles and I have a love/hate relationship. It may be the urban hood I call home, but it doesn't often feel welcoming. This city will Beat. You. DOWN, but then give you a little love tap on the rear, just so you know there's no hard feelings.

One thing Los Angeles has? Food. Lots and lots of food. And the king of the castle: Mr. Jonathan Gold, meandering though the seedy back alleys of this metropolis, scouting the next big taco. To introduce his latest annual list of the 99 Essential Restaurants in L.A., he writes:

"The best enchiladas I've ever tasted were made by a woman whose makeshift stand occasionally pops up around the corner from a more established stand whose location I can never quite figure out. The most celebrated young chef in Los Angeles imports his restaurant into a different kitchen every couple of months, like a soufflé-happy hermit crab inhabiting a new shell. At one of the most popular new places in town, your dinner may be prepared one night by one of the most famous chefs in Mexico; the next by a moonlighting lackey from a place you wouldn't eat at with somebody else's mouth.

Is the restaurant the empty taqueria where the cook watches Lucha Libre between customers, or is it that taqueria's truck out in the parking lot, with lines stretching down the block? Is reality the hamachi with pig's foot that you eat at a famous restaurant, or is it that same hamachi with pig's foot handed over with a smile at a charity benefit buffet?
The mantra of Local, Seasonal, Sustainable, Organic has become so persistent in Los Angeles, and the crush of chefs at the farmers market is so pervasive, that the menus at some restaurants seem almost identical to one another at certain times of the year, and completely different from their own menus in spring. Heraclitus once wrote that it is impossible to step in the same river twice. In Los Angeles, it can be nearly impossible to eat in the same restaurant twice.

This is, I believe, what the economists call creative destruction. And it is not impossible here to experience extremes — restaurants that are born and die in a single evening; restaurants in suburbs so distant that they may as well be theoretical; restaurants so hard to get into that they may not actually exist outside of blogs.
Los Angeles is where the modern restaurant was born, the good, the bad and the ugly of it, and we're too far gone to stop now.

Read The List here, then meet the master, here.

WOW.

Just got an invite for a movie screening at Arclight Sherman Oaks. Umm....tell me this doesn't sounds like the BEST MOVIE EVER.

"Jodie Foster directs and co-stars in this offbeat, emotional film about Walter Black (Mel
Gibson), an executive at a toy company whose mid-life crisis is breaking up his family.
He drifts apart from his wife (Foster) and two sons, at a crucial time in his oldest son’s
(Anton Yelchin) life. After resorting to drastic measures, Walter discovers he is able to
reconnect and communicate with his family with the unusual help of a beaver handpuppet.
But when "The Beaver" starts to take control of Walter’s life, Walter is realizing
that to get rid of the beaver is harder than he thought."

O.M.G.

This is totally un-newsworthy, but set my little heart a-flutter. 

Victoria's Secret PINK! has just launched a Major League Baseball line. Sexy Dodger Gear. My life is freaking complete.

http://www2.victoriassecret.com/collection/?cgname=OSPNKMLBTMS&cgnbr=OSPNKMLBTMS&rfnbr=7212&cm_mmc=di-_-100417PNK-_-v01-_-v17&cm_em=erinholness@gmail.com