Western and Olympic

James M Wood and Vermont

It’s been a brutal summer to drive around for me, as my 1999 Subaru hasn’t had a functional air conditioner in many years. The heat seems intermittent now at best, and I will be glad when the forecast doesn’t include any days in the mid-90s.

Parking at The Grove

An interesting thing I notice: the majority of people who park at The Grove drive around the mini-maze of turns to find a space as close to the escalators as possible. It’s sort of normal human behavior. But the way this particular garage is designed, the path to the exit ramp is across the garage from the escalators and so it takes a few minutes to drive.

The other option is by where I park. It’s just after the entry ramp and before the exit—making me walk an extra half-length of the garage, but not having to drive around for parking initially or driving through the winding path toward the exit after. It’s an extra 30 seconds of walking that saves a few minutes of a crawl of a drive.

It’s just an example of behavior, but I do wonder how many people actually think about where they park in these situations. Granted, some parking garages solve this by design, but in this particular one, it’s kind of funny to me that everyone spends so much time finding a way to have the shortest walk possible, no longer how much extra time it takes in their car. The American spirit of competition knows no bounds.

Saturday night vibes

Pretty sure they call it Echo Park because when you drive there on a Saturday night you circle blocks in outward patterns until you can luck out and find a spot.

Santa Claus is coming to town. At The Home Depot, save up on getting ready for the season …

That’s all I heard. It was 11:32 PM, I was driving on the 110 and the first ad for the Christmas season was on the radio. In the span of ten seconds, I checked the time, tried to clock the date (at first I couldn’t remember if it was still September because this was so surreal), and, after waiting to see if this was actually a real ad and not just some late-night joke by a DJ, I changed the station immediately.

I don’t even know what to write about this. Just that it’s October 10 and to be hearing Christmas promotions on the radio—for Home Depot, no less?—just feels wrong. I couldn’t tell you why. Maybe it’s because this feels like further evidence that nothing really matters anymore. All of life in the US has just become some sliver of existence between an advertisement and abject violence. And Christmas, apparently.

Sunset Junction in Silver Lake

One of the maddening parts of LA culture is that some restaurants are hot spots to be seen in, and so they probably get more business than the food actually deserves. When you don’t know this before making a reservation, you end up overpaying for a mid meal just because the place is on a trendy block off Sunset. Whoops.

(Then there’s always the later part of the night where driving becomes a competitive sport while street signs and traffic lights are largely disregarded and double parking and careless pedestrians crowd every other street. Sometimes I think the 2028 Olympics should feature a special LA-based contest called Taking Your Life In Your Hand By Driving Down The 110 From Highland Park To The 10 West After Dark.)