This Ain't It, Lawrence

I figured out what to do with my next couple of posts on this blog ... I am going to remember the Los Angeles places my "best friend" Zen took me. One thing about Zen - he was everybody's best friend. I only just found out how many best friends HE had.

Though he was born in L.A., Zen died on Saturday, April 10, while visiting his mother in Rosarito, Mexico. We put him to rest here in L.A. (eewwww! The Valley!) near his father Hank on Sunday, and then we had a luncheon at his Uncle Bob's house, and then a rockin' wake-like-thing at Ye Rustic Inn (Hillhurst and Franklin).

The Rustic is where I met Zen. I had just moved to L.A. and I had just seen Roger Waters at the Hollywood Bowl with an icky date I met on the Big Island of Hawaii the previous month. It turns out he had tickets to the same concert for the next day's performance.

Thus, it was Friday, October 6, 2006 when I met Zen. It's so cool that I can pinpoint that.

Anyway, at Rustic on the 6th, the yucky man I was with became sort of aggressive and drunk. I turned to the guy next to me and mouthed, "Help Me!" Zen mouthed back, "Ok!" I got up to go to the gross little Rustic bathroom, escaping the date man, and Zen shouted across the very noise barroom, "Hey! What's your name?" I made him guess, giving him the clue that it's a Rolling Stones song. By the time I got back to my bar stool, which Zen had guarded for me (Rustic on a Friday? That took some work!), he had guessed it, or at least gotten close, and I had his name and number. Bad date dude got the hint and meandered off to squeeze some Barbie's fake tits or something. I never heard from Andy again. :)

I called Zen on my drive home late that night. Bad idea, I know. But I was VERY new to town, and this was pre-GPS and smart phones, and I was accidentally traveling north on the 405, instead of south toward Venice where I lived. Had I not called him, I would have ended up in Sacramento.

That is how ZenZen (what I called him in my head) became my Lawrence of Los Angeles. And so he shall remain. Over the next few days, or weeks, I'll revisit the cool secret LA places he showed me, and I'll take some pictures. He knew this city like no one else, and he made me fall in love with my City of Lost Angels, the city which has embraced me and swept me up in her wings and which hasn't spat me out yet and which yes, taunts me with the glint of gold and the glitter of fame and the sparkle of perfect white teeth and lifted tits and ...

but wait ... the skyline. The huge urban coyote he and I saw together at 4 a.m. in the mist alongside the Hollywood Reservoir. Laurel Canyon and his backstreets he loved. South Pasadena. Abuelitas in Topanga Canyon. Just last Tuesday shuffling through Little Tokyo: ME showing HIM something for once.

A loving passive aggressive vocal competition (how unusual). After he arrives an hour and a half late (HE CALLED):

"What do you want to do?"
"I don't know, what do you want to do?"
"I want to do what YOU want to do. We're celebrating your 5-year anniversary at ABC. And your haircut."
"Yeah, but didn't you just accomplish something too? Like, getting your data in Peru?"
"Well, the f--king sushi place I wanted to take you to is closed now. Let's just go get a beer."
"I don't like beer."
"Fine. Tequila."

Fucking Zen.

We never made love in the colloquial sense - never had sexual intercourse - but when we were together it was like we were making the abstract concept of love into a tangible and sarcastic magnetic imp child that everyone could feel. It made me smile, it made you smile, it made our city smile.

I'm going to try to write it and render it visual.

Shine on, you crazy diamond. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-8PtoSSBDI&feature=related

Querida Jardin: Plants for the Sunny Side

I love Los Angeles for her weather and her soil. While I was in Peru, my lovely subletters watered, so everything's blooming. In fact, they couldn't harvest fast enough, so a lot of my cabbage and all my lettuce bolted before they could use it. They uprooted it, and now I have an all but empty palette on one side of the yard.

Or I did.

Yesterday I spent less than $50 on plants for the sunny side. It's going to bring me a lot more joy than a night at the bars, for the same amount of money! I bought baby veggies and flowers, and I must say, since I have a green thumb like my sister Lisa, so I have great hope.

With luck and love, I'll have cayenne peppers, all sorts of herbs, snapdragons, more petunias (EASY), a creeping flowering vine/ground cover named "superbell," irises that my mom split from her own rhizomes (though I'm quite pissed - I left them for my landlady to plant, and she obviously left them outside all winter, because they're all shriveled up. It's going to take a miracle, friends. Keep your fingers crossed - they're lovely bearded heirloom varieties!), and pansies.

I also weeded, fertilized, and the works (I only use organic fertilizer). We got a lot of rain while I was gone, so the soil was super clay-ey and hard to work.

Tomorrow I will start butternut squash, beets, tomatoes, sweet peas, lettuces, cilantro, and sunflowers from seed. I've never been great at that skill, but I'm going to try. Here in LA we can generally plant all year 'round, so I suppose everything is conducive in the environmental arena.

I've decided I'm going to keep the house rather than moving, primarily for the yard. I'm getting a puppy soon, and hopefully my car will sell soon so I can get a convertible Mini Cooper. I love LaLaLand. I do.

What I'd really like to do is trade the garden food for art or maybe for other things, LA friends! There's no way I'm going to be able to eat all this come harvest time.

Off to make zucchini bread. Much love from Welcome Street.

LaLaList

There's a film I like, which other people don't like, which is not unusual, but hey. The film in question is "A Day Without a Mexican," and the scenario is that all the Latinos vanish from Los Angeles for 24-hours. Needless to say, the city stops dead. What I enjoyed about the film is not just the premise (imagine - you're a racist bastard and you don't know your husband is of Latino heritage, and he and your kids disappear!), but the cute informative subtitles that pop up at the bottom of the screen to sort of chide the audience into mindfulness. For example, one reads something to the effect of: "There are more than 20 countries south of the United States. They are not all named 'Mexico.'"

That rocks. People think Peru and Mexico are synonymous; I risk having to explain the difference each time I say I conduct research in Peru. This is especially the case among ignorant Anglos.

Having just traveled from Peru to Merida, Yucatan, Mexico (with a quick suitcase-changing layover in Los Angeles), I would like to delineate some important differences (barring the obvious geographical distance).

1. While people in both countries speak Spanish, they sometimes use different words. Words for peanut, monkey, avocado, for example, and lots of slang, are different and not interchangeable.

2. In Merida, a touristic Colonial city of about 1 million people, the taxi drivers don't give a damn where you're from. In Peru, they want to know "de donde eres," and all about you, and why you don't have kids.

3. In Mexico, there is no set price for anything. You can't just go shopping for, say, a shirt. It's a big, annoying game. Nothing has a price tag. You ask how much something costs, and they ask how much you want to pay. You have no clue how much you should pay for, say, a guayabera. Should you start at 100 pesos? 500 pesos? Shit. JUST TELL ME HOW MUCH THE SHIRT COSTS. In Peru, the price is marked or at least pretty firm. You can ask for a discount, but no means no and that's ok. Typical bargaining happens upon entering taxis, whose prices are set in Merida. Backasswards.

4. Policemen are NOT your friend in Mexico. They are only slightly your friend in Peru.

5. Don't tell Peruvians you like Mexican food. To Peruvians, all things Mexican are crap.

6. To Peruvians, all things non-Peruvian are crap.

7. Mexican food is diverse. Mexico has 32 states. It is a big country with lots of geographical diversity. There is corn, wheat, mole, chocolate, coffee, habañero, jalapeño, goat, huitlacoche. There is fish. There is beef.

8. Peruvian food is diverse. There is an amazing revitalization of Andean cuisine happening throughout Peru and South America in general. Pre-Spanish contact food included high protein grains, potatoes unlike any you've had before, cuy (guinea pig), alpaca and fish. The flavors are very, very different from Mexico, though now since the Spanish came there are similarities too.

9. The Maya and Aztec were the main prehistoric groups to affect Mexican behavior and language; the Inca were the main pre-Spanish people to affect Peruvian behavior and language. There may have been trade throughout the region before Spain arrived and stole everything from everyone. But the words and the customs and the art and all remain noticeably different.

10. Mexico has Speedy Gonzalez and other completely racist stereotypical ignorant cultural icons. Peru really doesn't.

11. You probably can't name a famous Peruvian person.

12. Peru is a lot poorer than Mexico. Lima is the fastest growing city in South America, though.