[DISCLAIMER: This right here is long...but don't be scurred...it's all about that.....]
“WESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSYDE”
I just returned from Los Angeles. And let me tell you…that place is something else. And not something else in the Halle Berry fine something else, as in “that damn Halle Berry is something else!!!’ More along the lines of “this Michael Jackson color/shape shifting phenomenon is something else!” You know, strange and hard to understand in most cases and yet it pulls you in for no apparent reason.
That is LA to me. Now, this is the first time I’ve been to LA…well aside from flying through there on my back to DC from Las Vegas. And if I may, I’d like to give a shout out to the homie Misty from the CPT and Ethel from every where else in the LA area for their well-wishing on my venture to their homestead.
As this was my first time in LA, I saw a lot of shit that made me go…hmmmmmmmmmmm. (You remember that song?? Isn’t it amazing how something so damn dumb could become so popular?? Oh wait…Nelly sold how many million albums??? Shit…what was I saying again??)
So as an ode to the city of LA, and as a way to chronicle my trip, I’m going to do a sort of good, bad, and ugly of LA. Here are the rules…there is no particular order. I’m not going to go- good: food, bad: food poisoning, ugly: my friend almost died on the way to the emergency room after choking on a chicken bone from El Pollo Loco because the traffic on one of them gotdamn highways was ridiculously backed up on a Sunday.
Nothing like that…and by the way, in case you are wondering, that actually didn’t happen.
First a little background. When I went to Vegas, I went with like 13 people. Well to LA, one of my boys, who is currently educating Brooklyn’s Finest in Bedford-Stuyvesant (somewhere in that statement lies an oxymoron and similarly social commentary on where not to live when you are grown if you can help it), came with me and we stayed with two of our homegirls from college who live in LA. One native, one not. Big-ups to my peoples from college, I love y’all…one more trip for the record books.
LA Confidential: Panama Peeps the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Let’s start with something good. Basically, LA is beautiful. We ventured (I love words like venture, they make you sound like you’ve read books and shit) to Bel Air, Beverly Hills, Baldwin Hills, Venice Beach, and a few other areas I can’t think of right now that were just downright pretty to look at where everybody was rich and wasn’t the hood…
…too bad my friends didn’t live in any one of them areas. So my first REAL impression of LA was one of…why does this shit look like my neighborhood in Atlanta??? And for the record, in Atlanta, I didn’t live in Buckhead…I was closer to Bankhead. And for those folks who’ve never been to Atlanta. Nobody will ever recommend you go to Bankhead, and if they do, they aren’t your friend and you should take note if they start overly admiring your personal property and saying shit like, “I could really use a car like yours.” I was so hyped to be in LA that it completely never dawned on me that the LA you see in the movies is not necessarily the LA that exists in real life…at least not all over the place. BUT…I didn’t ever hear any gunshots! (That’s good!)
Hmm…Bad…so it seems that everything in LA takes fuckin’ forever to get too. We spent more time in the car than we did at the clubs we went too!! And I don’t mean in general to include sight seeing (though we did spend forever in the car sightseeing, but that was expected)…I mean, we spent more time in the car on the way to the club than we did inside the club. That’s bad. But wait…this shit gets ugly.
I’d like to send a special fuck you out to LA for having the audacity to have every club shut down at promptly 2AM. And that includes lights coming on at 145AM mufuckas! Without fail. What does this mean in the grand scheme of things you might ask??? Well, it means that if you are from a city like NYC, DC, ATL, or hell any other major city that people frequent OFTEN and can leave the house/hotel/brothel after 11PM…you’re ass better find a house party if you think showing up late is gonna work. You can’t show up at midnight, pay $20 bucks to party til 145AM and feel like you got your money’s worth.
But wait…this gets even uglier. I just so happen to live in DC. Also affectionately known as Chocolate City…though Detroit and Atlanta can REALLY give DC a run for its money. Either way, seeing black people is kind of the norm for me. I don’t get surprised or even excited about it. Apparently, seeing black people standing in line to get into a club in LA is akin to a spiritual experience. As in…it doesn’t happen often and is cause for celebration. As in, there are no black clubs or some shit. Cuz while we were driving looking for some club to to go to, we happened to come across this spot called Joseph’s that had a line of black people and our hosts damn near lost it. It was already slightly past 1AM and do you know we stopped, parked, got out of the car and were about to go up in this joint…merely because there were black people there!!!!!!!!!! This KNOWING that shit shuts down at 2AM!!!!
Must be how white people feel in Atlanta…
And this aint like it was the professional looking crowd. There were cats with tennis shoes on and jeans…while me and my peoples were dressed up and looking so so sexxy. Ladies and gentlemen…that’s ugly!
[***Sidenote: Since I mentioned a song just now (So Sexy by Twista and R. "Hey Kids, I got a Big Wheelie" Kelly)...let me share with you all my disdain for one "Goodies" by Ciara. I do not like this song. Period. And the fact that LA stations tended to literally play the same 3 songs OVER and OVER again, to include "Goodies" didn't help this cause. In fact, when it came on in the club...I refused to dance. I stood in place with women dancing around me trying to make me move to the smooth gyratious sounds of "Goodies" and I refused. However, Snoop's "Drop It Like It's Hot" just can't ever get old...thank you!***]
Good…Now despite what it sounds like…I really liked LA, a lot. We went to Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffle (I think once again in Hollywood) which was good. I mean this place is famous. Everybody’s heard of Roscoe’s. AND we get inside and then Fredro Starr shows up. Who’s Fredro you ask??? Ya know from Onyx…no, not Inxs, Onyx…the group from back in the day with the song “Slam!” No, he’s black!!!!!
Fuck it. I know who he is.
Then Kenny Lattimore and Chante Moore show up. So Roscoe’s was cool and everybody seemed to like their food…except me. I had a damn chicken omelette. Listen every carefully…NEVER NEVER EVER think that frying some chicken and then cutting it up and putting it into some damn egg and cheese omelette is a good idea. In fact…it is a fucked up (bad) idea for which its creator should see some hell time for! It tasted like shit.
[***Another sidenote: Since we are talking about food. Let's talk about drinks right quick. Gin and juice usually consists of orange juice and gin. Well, we didn't have no orange juice...but we did have pineapple-orange-strawberry juice. Man...that's some good shit right there. That combo and overdoing it on the gin...got me fucked up in the game! I suggest that to anybody!***]
Let’s see…good. We cruised through the black sections of town, complete with the necessary viewing of Martin Luther King Blvd and Crenshaw. Since I’m kind of ghetto…that’s good. And you know what…this is how a muhfucka from out of town can die easily in LA. That’s bad. See…in LA, all the neighborhoods that aren’t rich look the same to me. They all look like its Boyz N Tha Hood all over again. With that being said, these neighborhoods don’t LOOK like bad neighborhoods. In fact, they all look like the suburbs to me or rather neighborhoods out here that people would be moving TOO.
On the east coast…there’s usually no denying when you done stepped into a “less than stellar (read bad)” neighborhood. Shit just looks that much different. So, I’m out here like…man, I could live here!!! Until you get stares from others around you like you done lost your damn mind. Basically…always travel with a tour guide who knows where the hell they are or you could easily find yourself in the harm’s way. On the flip side…your last view of life could be of a nice-enough (read good) looking neighborhood.
Just for kicks…we also saw Arnold “The Governator” Schwarzenegger riding a bike with his kid on Venice Beach (good). I don’t care who you are…seeing Arnold is big shit to me. But this also reminds me of the fact that since he is larger than life, I’ll know who he is. I had a few moments of saying…”DAMN…that’s what’s her face…you know the white chick from that show…” and then realizing, I don’t know too many white entertainers names if they aren’t on NBC or in movies with black people (who cares?).
Bad…traffic. Living in Atlanta, you get used to traffic. Living in DC…its a way of life as well. I have a newfound respect for road rage after seeing some of the traffic and road congestion in LA. Who in the shit mandated a traffic jam at 6pm on a Saturday??? Why I ask?? That just isn’t right! (It’s ugly as a matter of fact!)
Good…the people out in LA are literally on some other stuff. I mean, liberalism and free will seem to have found their haven. With that said, we also saw 4 black people being hemmed up by the LAPD in handcuffs facing a wall on Sunset Blvd. (If they did something, good, if not bad…either way, the shit was ugly!)
Basically…it’s just like the movies except everybody drives BMW 745’s or Bentleys or Benzes.
Well since this is getting long…really long…I’ll end this with a good note. And one that I think merits mentioning and might be more important than anything else I learned this whole weekend. The women in Cali are absofuckinlutely ridiculous. I have never seen such a collection of fine women. Well, that’s not true. There is a special place in Atlanta that comes to mind…Spelman…quite a lot of beautiful women there. But for real…there is a whole new level of fine out there. Shit is henceforth known as: Cali Fine.
There were good lookin’ women workin’ in the restaurants, good lookin’ women in the club, good lookin’ women in the streets, in cars (really nice cars too…in fact, that will be another good). We went to a comedy club, The Laugh Factory (where we saw Jim Brown), on Sunday nights for Chocolate Sundays. And while that Chocolate part might be somewhat of a misnomer (there were lots of other folks there, including the comedians), the women in there were off the hook. Me and my Bed-Stuy Bredren were amazed…literally. Short tall, slim, thick, all shades…the black women were gorgeous.
One more time cuz I don’t think you heard me…gorgeous. Now I see why dudes from Cali never want to leave…it all makes sense now.
(BONUS: This shit was ugly right here…I saw a blind woman dressed like a hoochie walking down Venice Blvd. Walking cane, daisy dukes…strutting like she was crack! My comments might have increased my Hell points…but you can’t miss the opportunity to talk about a blind hoochie!)
All in all…I had a damn good time and had an especially good time because I got to hang out with my homegirls from college who live all the way on the Left Coast…which basically means…we never see them. LA is what its cracked up to be…outside of the hood. Big ups to all my folks in LA…
…especially the women…
…please please please come this way. The East Coast needs you…
…beautiful women, nice weather, rich people everywhere, Crenshaw, and blind hoochies…
…only in LA.