We may be in the final rainy throes of winter, but in the rear parking lot of Cinema Secrets in North Hollywood, Spring’s eternal harbinger is peeking out a window, assessing the terrain.

Gentlemen! Are you looking for a fab Valentine Day gift for that special zaftig someone in your life? Always wanted to buy her sexy lingerie that you know SHE (and you) would like? Ever feel kinda creepy walking into Victoria’s Secret – alone?

Jenette Bras is here for you.

This Thursday, Friday and Saturday Jenette Bras is hosting Men-Only evening events from 6pm to 8pm. From their invite:

We’ll pour you a drink, then get to work helping you select the perfect gift: beautiful brassiere and pantie sets, slips, corsets and gift certificates for a custom bra fitting. And if your honey is already a Jennette Bras gal, then we’ve got her stats and you’ve got it made. Painless.

If your special someone a gorgeous, curvy gal, this is the shop for her. And you.

At Jenette Bras, the Alphabet Starts at D — ask your woman, she’ll know what that means.

(Full disclosure, I’m a very satisfied customer of Jenette Bras so I know what I’m talking about.)

Jenette Bras
4308 Melrose Ave.
323-665-7490
Right around the corner from Scoops!

So, one of the things I love about living in L.A., about having some of my family here in L.A., about spending the Holidays in L.A., is the Soothing Peace of there being an almost complete lack of Traffic over the Christmas Holiday.

Now that the Holidays are behind us, I thought it might be a good time to reflect upon how that was completely fucked up this year and totally not the case. Thanks 2009, there’s another thing you couldn’t get right.

And in keeping with the spirit of the times, in a effort to flow with the popular zeitgeist, much as many of our politicians and mainstream news figures and media outlets do, I fully intend to blame something that pisses me off on the economy.

However, unlike most talking heads and pundits, I not only know that I have no real idea what I’m talking about, but I’m fully copping to it. Right here in front of folks.

I have no formal training in economics. The closest I’ve come to a college education is having driven through Westwood. Most of what I know about String Theory comes from reading XKCD, but I intend to share my theory that Christmas Traffic in L.A. is an indicator of the general economic state of our fine city, as much or more than sales receipts on Black Friday.

If that sounds like fun to you, if that’s your kind of Train Wreck, follow me over the Jump: Read the rest of this entry →

The annual Tournament of Roses Parade is easily one of my favorite Southern California holiday traditions. This year I got the opportunity to experience it in a totally new way – actually watching the parade.

These lumps of blanket are actually people (mostly) sleeping at 5:30 this morning

As I write this, I am camped out on Colorado Blvd. (in front of the Apple Store for easy WiFi, natch), having braved the chilly night with a friend with whom I’ve marched in five Rose Parades. It wasn’t enough to just watch on TV or pay for a seat for our first time on the sidelines; we decided to go all-out and spend the night on the streets of Pasadena, finally experiencing this ridiculous tradition we’ve so far only known by the aftermath seen in the morning. I thought by now I’d be an expert in all things Rose Parade, but as a n00b, it turns out I had a lot to learn about this “spectator” thing.

Lesson #1: Getting a good spot is much less stressful than you think it will be.

The City of Pasadena says you can start staking out your spot at Noon on the 31st. You don’t need to be there that early. I got here at 9:00 PM, which was good for people-watching while Old Town was still full of restaurant- and bar-goers. Even at my pretty prime location near the beginning of the parade, There was still space for a few people to set up camp. Lots of people had set out dozens of folding chairs, though, which still have yet to be filled (turns out nobody really enforces this supposed “no seat-saving” rule). Lots of parade viewers start to arrive after 3:00 AM, after they’ve celebrated the New Year elsewhere, and after many of the parking structures open for parade parking only. And though I thoroughly enjoyed the company of the fellow Apple nerd and his Chihuahua sitting next to us, I felt kinda bad that he had been sitting there a whole 10 hours more than us to get pretty much the same view.

Read the rest of this entry →

I know, it’s only three days after Christmas, but it’s the most wonderful time to discuss Christmas Tree Recycling in the City of Los Angeles. Let’s prepare for 2010 by doing the right thing with your tree.

First of all, if you live in a house with a green bin, the best thing to do is saw the tree into pieces that fit easily into your green bin. Remove all lights, tinsel, decorations and the stand before hand. Then the tree gets collected, composted and mulched as your normal yard trimmings would. Think of the sawing portion of the recycling as a jump on your New Year’s Workout resolution. The key thing is: don’t leave the tree standing next to your green bin on pick up day — it won’t get picked up and we may take pictures and post them here.

If you live in an apartment building, you are encouraged to place your spent tree curbside on collection day. Again, take all lights, tinsel and decorations off first. Visit the City website: www.lacity.org or call 311 for collection day information in your area.

If you prefer to take your tree to a drop off location, there will be only one weekend only of LA City tree collection this year and that is this weekend:
Saturday January 2 from 9:00 to 4:00
Sunday January 3 from 9:00 to 4:00

Click here for a full listing of drop off sites. Please note some sites from last year are closed and there will be no tree or light bulb give-aways this year.

If none of those things sound appealing and you have a minimum of $25 to spend, click here for a tree removal service. They donate part of their fee to Tree People.

Get those trees recycled and all the best in 2010!

With nothing to do and two small children, we decided to give them their first ride on the Metro today. It was also my husband’s first time, which made it even more special. We boarded the Gold Line in Chinatown and wound up at Hollywood & Highland to take pictures of the tourists.

Waiting for the Gold Line from Union Station, I heard sounds of shock through the crowd. It was Santa Claus!

Santa Claus with my kids

Needless to say, they were both thrilled beyond imagination. Santa asked them if they liked the gifts he got them. They both showed him their new watches. My daughter asked him why he didn’t eat the gingerbread house and he said it was because it was too pretty. Great response as earlier in the day she said it he didn’t eat it because it was ugly.

Thank you, Mr. Claus for capping a perfect day for my kids.

Though I’m presently up in Yosemite enjoying my first visit to that magnificent place as well as my first white Christmas since I was in single digits, thanks to the magic of blog post scheduling it’s like I’m still in L.A. bringing you, at last: the final installment of this series, in which I pedaled around town on my evening bike commutes home pixelizing houses of varying elaborations of festivation in order to present one for each day this December from the first of the month to Christmas. This time, instead of the usual one-per-day image I’ve filled out the gallery template with nine offerings including shots, as promised, of the infamous Youngwood Estate aka “Norrywood” aka the “House of Davids” at 3rd and Muirfield in Hancock Park, decked out in all its outrageous don’t-giva-fig-wuttha-neighbors-think glory. Joy to the world.  All the boys and girls.

Week One • Week Two • Week Three

I am writing to you today, not from Los Angeles, but from my ancestral home in the frozen north.  While it’s pretty easy to feel festively inclined with all of these piles of snow around, the cold is getting me down (apparently 2.5 years in Southern California has made me weak! ) and I’ve kinda been missing L.A.  Last year, I spent my first ever Christmas in Los Angeles, and, as I’m sure many a non-native has felt, found the combination of palm trees and Christmas lights to be a little surreal, but wonderful in its own weird way, and rather enjoyed my snowless holiday.

So, partly because I miss home and partly because I want to show my family what the holidays are like in L.A., today I went searching for Christmassy or generally holiday-themed movies set in L.A., figuring that there had to be at least something…and the only thing I could come up with was Die Hard. And, yes, it takes place in Los Angeles, at this time of year, but is not exactly the heartwarming holiday film I had in mind (although I think it does have, like, explosions and fire in it which are, well, warming, at least). So does anyone out there have a lead on any good L.A. holiday movies?

In answer to Travis’s query below about Jewish recreation on this most Gentile-ish of holidays, Heeb Magazine’s “Heebonism” Dec. 24th event in Palm Springs’ Ace Hotel sounds like an epic party.

It’s spendy if you rent a room, but if you decide to fly low & crash in the car or some cheap motel, which isn’t so bad in that post-party-Palm-Springs haze (um, not like I’m speaking from experience or anything) , the charge for the party is only $18, $36 if you want dinner along with partying. There’s strip dreidel hosted by porn stars and DJs from local “Afro-Hebrew” band Fool’s Gold.

Just don’t blame me if you wake up in the back of an El Camino on blocks in suburban Indian Wells with your yarmulke stuffed in your shoe and the lingering flavor of Hannukah gelt and Manischewitz cocktails in your mouth…and you’re not even Jewish.

andydr's photo used through Creative Commons license

One of the joys of living in L.A. as opposed to, say, Arkansas, where I wound up spending Christmas 2001, is there are lots of non-Christians here. In 2001, I had to drive the entire state of Arkansas to find a single, sad Chinese restaurant within which to have Jewmas dinner along with a handful of pagan Arkansans, including a table of adorable goth youth trying really hard to be rebellious. I truly believe that the Jade Pavillion restaurant in Fort Smith and the Waffle House in West Memphis were the only two establishments heathen enough to remain open in Arkansas on the birthday of our lord.

But here, in Los Angeles, with a disproportionate number of hellbound, there are a wealth of options for Christmas dining. Might I suggest the bacon-wrapped matzoh balls at The Gorbals? (Honestly, I have no idea if they are open on Christmas but the idea of dining on Manischewitz-braised pork belly does appeal.) Me, I am leaning toward the traditional movie and Chinese food in an as-yet-undetermined location. I tried Hop Li one year and the crowd out front alone was like a Bar Mitzvah on steroids. Any recommendations for the Jewmas dinner are welcome.

Here’s my favorite personal Christmas story: One year when I was very young, I got a package of cheap off-brand glow-in-the-dark action figures. They had no faces and chintzy vinyl capes. For reasons I still can’t explain, I loved these guys — I played with them until their capes frayed and their joints (I think there was a grand total of, like, four on each figure) loosened.

Years later, when I was out of college, my single mom mentioned to me that her hardest Christmas was the one where she had just lost her job and was forced to go on welfare. She hadn’t been able to afford Christmas presents for me, so as soon as she got her first welfare check she went directly to the toy store and made the entire thing stretch as far as she could. That was the year she got me the glow-in-the-dark action figures. I don’t think she ever knew that I loved them so much.

So why am I telling you this? Because there are still plenty of kids out there whose parents can’t even afford the cheapest plastic aliens, and that’s where we come in. There are tons of toy drives and holiday charity events going on all around LA; here are the two I’ve heard about in the past week or so.

Spark of Love. Run by the LAFD, the Spark of Love toy drive collects new, unwrapped toys or sports equipment at every fire station in Los Angeles. Click here to find your local firehouse.

Season of Giving. This is a series of events, all of which take place at LA Live. Each night spotlights a different local charity.

What other toy drives are going on in town? Share yours in the comments.

The Daniel, Courtenay, VerdElf® & Cris at SantaCon (photo courtesy of Daniel Hengeveld)

When I first heard that the forecast called for heavy rain two Saturdays ago, I had serious doubts about participating in this year’s SantaCon. However, despite the imminent threat, I once again donned my VerdElf® suit and joined the red tide.  This was my third SantaCon in LA and by far my favorite, perhaps because more of my friends joined this year than in previous years, but I had so much fun that I was actually a bit sad when it was all over. Below are a few excerpts from my SantaCon journal. For a consolidated look at this year’s event, visit the official site here.

11:30 AM: Met Greg (a.k.a Thomas Refferson) at a bus stop in Silver Lake. We took the #4 bus to the Santa Monica/Vermont Red Line station, hopped the train to Union Station, then transferred to the Gold Line. Until we reached Union Station, we were the only two SantaCon revelers in sight. However, despite a few strange looks, we made it to the meeting point without ridicule or incident.

11:50 AM: As we made our way to the next boarding platform, we discovered our first small contingent of SantaCon attendees at Union Station. Immediately relieved to see our own kind, we all exchanged a few obligatory ho ho hos, dispensed with introductions, which goes something like, “Hi Santa, nice to meet you. This is Santa. Hi Santa,” then promptly headed off to our next stop, the Chinatown Metro Station.

12:00 PM: About 10 of us arrived at the Chinatown Metro Station, the official SantaCon meeting point. From high atop the train platform we could see only a few red and white suited people scattered about. I began to worry that the rain had drastically affected the turn out. However, a few moments later we spotted a thick procession of Santas heading our way. Cheer commences.

All Aboard! (photo courtesy of Cris Dobbins)

12:20 PM: Scores of Santas line up to buy Metro day passes and we are told by a shadowy figure to board the Gold Line train east to Mariachi Square.

12:50 PM: Santa somewhat aimlessly mills about Mariachi Square. There are ponies and a brief ceremony where awards for “Best Santa” are randomly doled out. The clouds part and the sun shines on us, if only for a moment. A female Santa vomits in a nearby trash can.

1:30 PM: The red tide returns to the Metro station, continuing east to Indiana and El Mercadito. Santa begins to get restless and thirsty.

1:45 PM: A sea of Santas descend on El Tarasco for dueling mariachi bands, food and much drink. A conga line ensues.

3:00 PM: A shadowy figure alerts Santa to pay his tab. As the red tide spills onto the street, we are assaulted by protesting clowns and bursts of poisonous silly string.

3:30 PM: The staff at Trax Bar in Union Station, while unprepared, handle the onslaught of thirsty Santas with ease. The clowns have followed us here. No one can be trusted. Read the rest of this entry →

Well, here we are heading through the third turn of this miniseries during this most wonderful time of the year when otherwise mild-mannered home dwellers decorate their domiciles with varying degrees of meticulous or reckless abandon. I love ‘em all; be it a simple string of lights that look like someone’s just tossed them up on a wall, or meter-whirring displays that look as if a structural engineer was involved. It’s been a blast pedaling the neighborhoods I bike commute through and pointing my cam at some (while trying to hold it steady in the looooow light). This time ’round, you’ll find more homes from neighborhoods seen in the first two weeks (Week One and Week Two), such as Crestview, Faircrest Heights, and Larchmont Village accompanied by some supersized holiday-ized habitats I found rolling through Hancock Park. And speaking of Hancock Park, for the final Friday Night Lights submission next week, I will be sure to include Hancock Park’s most infamous example of decoration abomination: Youngwood Court (aka the House of Davids). Until then, click to biggify and happy holidays!

Jesus Juice from Ralphs

Christmas can be a difficult time for those of us who are not Christians and who do not celebrate it. As a result, each year, something invariably causes me to have a Christmas Gripe. Yesterday evening, I found my CG for this year, at my local Ralphs supermarket.

There are two types of Christmas music that Ralphs could have chosen to play. They could have chosen the non-denominational type, which includes Santa, Jingle Bells, sleighs, and the like. Or they could have chosen the heavy-handed religious type, including lyrics along the lines of “Jesus is our Lord and our King.” Unfortunately, Ralphs has chosen the latter. It’s no fun to be pounded with these specific religious messages while strolling Ralphs’ aisles. And given the large number of Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, atheists, agnostics, and other non-Christians in our area, I doubt I’m the only one who feels this way.
what in God’s name should I do about this, after the jump