Friday, June 15, 2012

IT'S A WRAP

Los Angeles, CA
(April 7, 2012)


We woke up relatively early on our first official day in Los Angeles, partly because we were still on New York time so our brains believed it was three hours later, and partly because we scheduled brunch plans with a friend of ours.
We got ourselves ready, waved goodbye to Sal as he headed off to work at Soul Cycle, a popular New York-based spinning studio, and headed out to Hollywood to meet our friend Lori.
Lori was originally a friend of Miriam’s sister, Beth, but because of our mutual interest in show business, we three had become close, so it was a no-brainer to meet up with her during our stay in LA.
We agreed to meet at The Hudson, a bar/eatery in Hollywood and, conveniently, walking distance from Lori’s apartment. Well, walking distance for a girl like Lori who used to live in Boston and walked everywhere-- a proper LA person would NEVER walk anywhere, or so she told us. Side note: We also, amusingly, discovered how unwilling people are to travel from neighborhood to neighborhood, especially our NYC friends who should have been used to a lot of travel time getting from place to place, but, no, having to travel over 20 minutes somewhere was a bit out of everyone’s comfort zone. That amused us.
Anyway, we, luckily, found street parking right outside the restaurant, went inside, and found Lori waiting for us at a table. Everything on the menu looked delicious, but we were so busy catching up that it took us a while to place our order. Near the end of the meal, Lori pointed out that the restaurant was actually built up around a couple of 50-foot -plus trees, meaning that, literally, there were trees growing in the restaurant. How in the world did we miss that?? Especially the giant tree. Across. From. Our. Table. Doh!

Lori, Miriam, me, and the tree
Our meal came to an end but we weren’t ready to say goodbye to Lori just yet, so we kidnapped her. Obviously. Actually, it was pretty easy to convince her to come with us. All we had to do was tell her we were on our way to a shop in Burbank called It’s a Wrap, a consignment shop used by the movie/television studios. Everything in the shop was purchased for and/or used in television shows and films, and each item has a tag with a code telling for which studio or, more specifically, which show it was purchased. Once the studios no longer need the costume item, they sell it to It's a Wrap on consignment, and people like us can purchase them for cheap and then have the honor of saying, "These pants were used in [insert movie title here]."


We were having a field day perusing the merchandise and figuring out the various codes. I ended up finding a steal of a deal! A Zara trench coat used in “General Hospital”, originally retailing for $200, was on “winter” clearance (because in LA, a spring trench coat is considered a winter coat...*ahem*) for $30! A ridiculous steal! I was super excited because I had been looking for a cute spring trench coat, and this one practically fell in my lap!
We finally exhausted ourselves and made our purchases. I ended up scoring not only the trench coat but also a scarf for my mom from the short-lived television show “Detroit 1-8-7” and a beautiful tie for my brother from the reincarnated television show “Melrose Place”. Miriam walked away with a cute summer dress from the Warner Bros. Studio, stellar earrings used in The Green Hornet, and amazing, sparkling black heels from 21 Jump Street. I can’t remember at all what Lori ended up getting, but we were all really happy with our purchases.
Bob Odenkirk
After dropping Lori off at her apartment, we headed down to Sunset Boulevard to hit up my favorite—and the world’s largest—independent music shop in the world, Amoeba Music. We originally discovered Amoeba Music when visiting San Francisco in 2006, and when we drove down to LA later that same trip, we made sure to visit their Hollywood store. It’s a huge warehouse-sized store with new and used CDs, DVDs, LPs, and memorabilia. On my last visit I found a very hard to find import title by one of my favorite artists, Keri Noble, for über cheap (plus a ton of other music that filled up a good portion of my carry-on luggage…). This time around we searched for all our favorite artists, couldn’t find anything we didn’t already have, and headed to the classical and musicals sections instead. Jackpot! We loaded up on a bunch of used operas and musicals, and I even found the recording for Cirque du Soleil’s Wintuk—which is only available through Cirque—for one-third the price. Woo hoo!
At this point a charity auction started up at the store’s main podium, led by comedian/actor Bob Odenkirk, so we amused ourselves for a while listening to him auction off crazy and stupid things. It was fun. Then it was time to check out, and the cashier loaded us up with free bumper stickers, magnets, and hipster pins. We were golden!

The mural outside the building.


Going to In-n-Out Burger is required when visiting LA…or so we like to believe. Our appetites being ravenous, we decided to get the required visit out of the way and searched for any In-n-Out Burgers in the area. Our search pulled up a plethora of In-n-Outs to choose from—you could practically throw a rock and hit three at once. So we picked the easiest one to get to and had one heck of a time trying to park in their ridiculously built parking lot (you would think a city filled with drivers would have better parking lots...you would be wrong). The place was crazy crowded, but we managed to snag a table and enjoyed our quick bite to eat.

Inside Aroma

Having nothing else planned that afternoon, we decided to hit up the other It’s a Wrap store, located in West Hollywood. It was farther than we anticipated, so we only had 15 minutes to look around before they closed, but I was able to find a brand-spanking-new Drew Brees Saints jersey for Miriam for only $9 from the Warner Bros. Studio—it still had the tags on it! Then we hit up a nearby Target to get a few things we needed for our stay and headed back to Sal’s apartment in the not-so-bad rush hour traffic.

Back at Sal’s apartment we freshened up and prepared to meet up with my little cousin, Autumn, who moved out to LA right after she graduated from high school a few years ago. We rarely get to see each other anymore—it’s rare that we’re all at home in WI at the same time—so it was a nice treat to be able to see her on our trip.
We met at one of her favorite hang-outs in Burbank called Aroma Coffee & Tea Company, a cute little café offering a wide variety of teas and coffees, as well as amazing looking desserts and a fabulous array of savory dishes. Miriam and I settled on a fresh hummus platter and a beautiful salad, and the three of us grabbed a table in Aroma’s ultra-cute backyard, where we chatted about life and waxed philosophical before we all started getting tired.
After saying our goodbyes, we headed back to Sal’s, camped out in his living room chatting, and then hit the hay. We had a big day on the morrow-- a TMZ tour awaited us!



Me with my cousin Autumn
My favorite table at Aroma

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

LOSING OUR VIRGIN AMERICA VIRGINITY


(April 6 & 7, 2012)


I had been rehearsing for Damn Yankees! for two months, and it was high time for a vacation. Recently we’ve had a large number of friends move to Los Angeles, and we hadn’t been to LA in six years, so we figured it was a good time to hit up the West Coast.

We were getting nervous during the planning stage because the time we were going was Passover/Easter/Spring Break, which meant flights were escalating in price. Not cool for people who like to travel on a budget. Then luck befell us, and Virgin America had a fabulous sale. Awesome! We’ve always wanted to travel Virgin—their commercials are fun, you can order food directly to your seat through your personal TV, and they have pink and purple mood lighting. What?! Crazy talk. And we wanted it.

Our plan was to be there just shy of a week, staying with our friend Sal, one of the NYC escapees, who lives in North Hollywood. Our hope was to visit as many of our friends as possible whilst still having a banging time hitting up all the fun spots in LA.

I had been so overwhelmed with rehearsals that this was the first trip in a long time where I didn’t plan a thing. I threw caution to the wind and figured we would find things to do once we got there. Miriam found a good car rental through Budget, and, instead of renting a GPS (for almost the same price we paid for the car, mind you), we opted to finally (!!) upgrade to the much-coveted iPhone and download a free GPS app. A much better idea!
I grabbed the maps and my DK Top 10 Los Angeles guide book (seriously my favorite guide books—I get them for every city I travel to) from six years ago and just crossed my fingers that everything was relatively the same.

We had an 8pm departure out of JFK on Friday, so we sauntered there after I finished work. “Sauntered” because we were already checked in, weren’t checking any bags, and would have two hours to get through security once we arrived at the airport.

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: For some reason Virgin America flies out of the international terminal at JFK. Almost all international flights out of JFK seem to leave at the same time. The international terminal is currently under construction, so all passengers have to go through one tiny security gate. If you have an evening flight out of the international terminal at JFK, be prepared for a loooooooong wait.

The gates/security are a level below the departures/check-in area, so while we were making our way to an elevator, I noticed from the check-in balcony a peculiarly long line way off in the distance. I shrugged it off, and Miriam and I talked of grabbing a bite to eat before going through security. Upon getting to the bottom level, we decided we’d skip dinner and just head to the gate. That’s when we truly noticed the security line. It stretched for as far as we could see and then some. As we started walking towards the back of the line (and walking…and walking…and walking), our jaws started to drop. This wait was going to be interminable.
A half hour had crept by slowly, as had our place in line, and we started playing a fun game of watching unaware passengers happily walk past us on their way to the gate and betting on whether or not we’d see them walking past us again—this time to the back of the line. We very rarely lost that game. And those passengers were no longer happily walking past us…

By the time we finally made it into the roped off section of the security line, which meant the end was (kind of) in sight, we had only a half-hour until our flight was leaving. We were trying not to panic but the actual security part looked like utter chaos—there were a number of security agents checking passports and asking questions of every passenger, and then all these security lines converged into three security belts…which, in actuality, was a giant mob of frustrated people—and the belief we would actually make it through in time was dwindling.
Then a Virgin employee came through the line and pulled all of us on the looming LA flight to the “front” of the line—or as close as she could get us, which was about five people from where we were—and then, after the agents had checked our IDs and ushered us to the security scan part, she took every one of us and put us in the longest security line possible. All of us shook our heads at her stupidity, but at least we were all there together so they wouldn’t be leaving without us.
Luckily, our flight was right by the gate, and they were just beginning the boarding process as we arrived, so we climbed on board, happy to be able to sit down and relax. The ambiance was very cool. The purple lighting had a calming effect, which was beneficial to those who had just been through that horrendous security line (aka all of us), we all had personal televisions, and there were plugs at our seats (albeit tucked underneath the seats and hard to find) for all our electronics.
Miriam and I immediately perused the food menu located on our televisions, and a bunch of the food sounded really yummy, but we decided to hold off on ordering anything.
Once we took off there wasn’t a whole lot to watch that we didn’t have to pay for, and since it was such a late flight I decided to try to sleep some.
Here’s where I noticed another problem with Virgin. The aisles are so narrow that every time anybody—flight attendants included—walked passed my aisle seat, they hit me. Every. Time. Needless to say, sleeping was not so easy. It was a pretty active plane. Lots of free beverages and small bladders going around. Ugh.

Anyway, we landed at LAX a little after midnight (3am for our Eastern Standard Time brains…so we were exhausted), and then we waited a half-hour for the shuttle to take us to the rental car place. Talk about exasperating, especially when the other rental car places had shuttles continually passing by us. I guess that’s what you get for taking the cheapest rates… There were other New Yorkers waiting for the same shuttle, too, which turned into an interesting and entertaining time. Never keep a New Yorker waiting—one particular family did not hold back when the shuttle finally arrived.
We then had another half-hour wait for our rental car, since they only had two people working the counter that late at night, but eventually we got our cute little compact car, threw our stuff in the trunk, fired up the GPS, and went on our way.
We made it to our friend Sal’s place in North Hollywood and found him happily working on his computer in his living room. He gave us a quick tour of his place and informed us that we were to take his bed and he would sleep on the couch for the week. What?! We fought that one, but we lost the battle. Such a sweetie, that Sal.
He also introduced us to his prides and joys: Bubbles, Bop, and Fizz, his beloved fish.

By this point we three were exhausted and practically falling asleep on our feet, so off we went to bed. We had brunch plans in the morning, after all, and needed our beauty rest!