Amoeba Music - Los Angeles, CA

Let’s talk about L.A. Well, let me talk about L.A. as this isn’t an interactive blog (save for the voting right there on the right…get in your votes, as the polls close soon!).

I don’t live in L.A. I never have and I can say with conviction that I never will. I’m sure I’ve mentioned this in other posts, but every time I go home to WI, inevitably someone will say, “Hey, how’s L.A.?” or “This is Moe, she’s from L.A.” This is irritating for the fact that Orange County is nothing like Los Angeles. For my WI friends, it’s like saying you live in Milwaukee when you live in Madison. For everyone else, it’s like saying you live in Toronto, Canada when you actually live in Buffalo, New York. I’m not saying Los Angeles is horrible and awful and I could never dream of living in a place like that…quite the opposite actually…it’s just different. It’s nice having L.A. fairly close because there’s so much going on there, even if it’s a pain in the ass getting around.

LA is not Orange County

I recently got it into my head that I wanted to drive up to L.A. one afternoon and go to Pink’s for hot dogs. I’m not sure who even told me about Pink’s, but they are apparently famous. They don’t make their own hot dogs or anything, but I guess the toppings they offer plus some weird potato pancake bun Mari was talking about are really really good and would be well worth the hour long car ride to get there. Southern California experienced a bit of a heat wave this past weekend and what’s better in heat then a good ole American hot dog? Plus my car has air conditioning and our apartment does not.

Kevin’s not a big fan of hot dogs (or mac & cheese for that matter, I don’t think he’s a real American)(ha!) so I was kind of shocked when he said he’d come with. I wanted to make the trip worth it for him so I planned a stop at Amoeba Music and a cocktail at Tiki Ti after the (hopefully) delicious dogs.

...and I used to get so excited over the Hollywood sign...

True to form, traffic getting to L.A. was murder. Kevin spent the time making fairy princesses out of the signs and traffic in front of us. I asked him to stop making fairy princesses and just take some pictures, but between the giggles of fairy princess Hollywood 101 sign and fairy princess CoExist car, he said he didn’t know how to take the frame off.


After an hour, we finally made it to Pink’s. Well, we made it to the corner Pink’s was on anyhow, and got to witness the line that not only went out the door, but around the entire building and even a bit down the block. Damn, those must be some good hot dogs if people are willing to wait an hour in line to get one. I personally do not care if a hot dog is made out of solid gold; I’m not waiting in line for one. I’m sorry I didn’t get a picture of the line…it was truly incredible.

The line at Pink’s left us in a bit of a conundrum. We had just spent an hour in the car for hot dogs only to be disappointed. Kevin suggested that we just go to Carney’s for dogs but I knew it just wouldn’t be the same. We decided just to go ahead and go straight to Amoeba Music and grab something to eat after.

Every time I come up to L.A., I always end up on Sunset Blvd. and will always past Amoeba Music. You really can’t miss it. I had never been inside though. It was one of those things where Andrea would say, “Amoeba is great, you should go there some time” and I would think, “yeah, I should go there sometime” but I never actually do.


Walking into Amoeba Music was like having a full on circus show of music just exploding right in front of you. It was a complete total overload of the senses. The building itself takes up most of a city block and it has an upstairs and downstairs, and a couple of side rooms. It’s L.A. and its Sunset Blvd. and there are people everywhere. Music is blasting, people are bumping into you, and there are signs and posters and neon lights, and lines going everywhere. Kevin and I walked in and kind of stood there in disbelief. We honestly didn’t know what to do, I’m sure we gave the appearance of a couple country folks seeing the big ole city for the first time look. When our eyes were able to finally focus on something, we headed over to the used CD section. I was pretty amazed at the selection. I know for a fact that if I had lived around a place like this when I was in high school, I never would have had any money. “Grandma gave me $20 for my birthday! Let’s go to Amoeba!” In the end, Kevin and I got 5 CDs for $36 which isn’t that bad.

I didn't take this picture, I got it from the web...the day we were there was 10 times busier.

After Amoeba Music we started to walk down the street heading to the Cat & Fiddle for lunch. At this point we noticed that Amoeba had their own parking garage. I’m telling you this (with photo) so you don’t end up spending $6 for parking at the Public Parking garage on the next block like we did.

Lunch turned out to be OK and drinks at Tiki Ti were even better. Have I mentioned I want to marry Tiki Ti? Oh yeah, I think I have. Anyhow, we headed back home (another hour sitting in traffic!) and finally met up with Patrick, Michele, Mari, and Gunter at the American Legion on the peninsula….where I had a hot dog. Patrick had heard our tale of Pink’s and made sure I got one.

So, to recap:

• Orange County is not Los Angeles.
  
• Pink’s supposedly has hot dogs so good that people are willing to camp out all night just to get a taste of the salty greasy goodness.
  
• When going to Amoeba Music, make sure to bring a flashlight and a bag of stale bread to leave a trail with.
  
• Tiki Ti has not proposed yet, but I’m thinking it will be any day now.

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Oh, I forgot I wanted to show you where Tom Cruise hangs out:

4 new things for the price of 1, Hollywood, CA

This week’s new thing brings us to the 2nd most populous city in America, Los Angeles. Ah, Los Angeles, the City of Angels. (Whoever came up with that name obviously didn’t have the foresight of 150 years of L.A.-ness.) And what would Los Angeles be, really, if it weren’t for Hollywood? This week Kevin and I ventured to Hollywood in what we thought would be a simple night of karaoke with some friends, a couple beers, and midnight hot dogs at Carney’s.

We never did make it to karaoke.

Karaoke in Hollywood was the supposed new thing. Even without the karaoke, we did a slew of new things that I’m tempted to say Hollywood itself was the new thing. But that would be cheating, since I have been to Hollywood before. So I leave it to you to be the judge.

Oh? Did I mention that this was going to be a long post? Get comfy.

Kevin and I headed up to Hollywood at 2:30 on Saturday afternoon. By 3:30 we were still in traffic as you can’t go anywhere in L.A. and expect to get there on time. By 4:30 we were booked in our hotel (the Hyatt on Sunset Blvd – thank you Priceline.com) and started to get ready.

New Thing 1:
By 6, we were out the door. Our first destination of the night was Tiki Ti. I have to say that I am officially in love with this place. If Kevin and I don’t work out, I might marry the Tiki Ti…if Kevin doesn’t marry it first. Small, dark, smoky (you can smoke here!) and incredibly fun (OK, seriously, check out their site – the Tiki Ti Survival 101 is a great read) you have your choice of 86 Tiki drinks. All drinks come with a complimentary kiwi slice, pineapple, and cherry. Bob Marley played non-stop. Snacks were free. Did I mention I loved this place?



Kevin in awe of the Tiki Ti


Inside of Tiki Ti

New Thing 2:
A bit later on, we parted ways with our newfound love to meet Andrea and Roland for dinner. We had decided that not only were we going to try a new restaurant but to try a new type of food as well. We headed down to Fairfax and tried our palettes at an Ethiopian restaurant. I will have to admit that I really did like the food itself, very curry-like. You eat with your hands and I’m not sure this is normal or not, but we also did not have plates. I enjoyed the food save for the ‘bread’ which I was told by the waitress was made out of wheat flour but as Roland accurately described it, was “like a shammie.” I wonder how Ethiopian would be with naan.


Kevin, Andrea and Roland. No plates.

New Thing 3:
After dinner, Andrea and Roland headed home as they have a young-un to attend to. Kevin and I dropped off the car and took a taxi down Sunset to go to Daddy’s. The cabbie almost got in an accident and to make matters worse, after paying $20 fare we found out that Daddy’s was now closed. A group of hipsters (which is what I’ll refer to all L.A. residents from this post on) were lingering outside also quite dismayed to find the place closed. They very generously offered to let us follow them down the street (what kindness these hipsters have!) to another place called Well. Please don’t ask me if that’s ‘Well’ like a watering hole or ‘Well’ like, “wellllll…maybe I’ll try the salmon.” Well was, well, full of hipsters. We grabbed a corner couch and had a couple cocktails. We got the stink-eye from a few hipsters as we just happened to be on the corner of their reserved section and decided to move on.

Just down the street from Well was the Cat and Fiddle, which I have been to before. It was getting late so we had our last drinks here and headed back.

But not before stopping at Carney’s. What I love about Carney’s is not only are they an excellent source of late night bar food, Carney’s just always happens to be right next door to the hotel I’m staying at. It’s a train! It sells chili cheese dogs! Yay Carney’s!


Nothing says drunk like a hot dog at Carney's.

A chili cheese dog later we were finally in bed.

But wait, there’s more!

(Have I mentioned the long post thing?)

New Thing 4:
The next morning was Sunday. If you have been paying attention at all you have to know that Sunday is football. Packers football specifically (if you are Kevin). So at 10 in the morning we left the hotel and heading to Burbank to go to…a Packer bar. I have always heard that Packer bars existed but it wasn’t until I walked into the Park Bar that I was convinced. They showed the Packer game on every one of their TV’s. The SOUND was even on. When the ball was in play the place was deathly silent. When the Packers did some thing good (which wasn’t often on Sunday’s game) the place went wild. My only regret about the place is that it’s too far away for Kevin to go to every Sunday.

I’m sorry I didn’t get a picture of the Packer bar. I was afraid of the flash going off and 40 Packer fans kicking my ass as it was right in the middle of an important play. I did, however, get this picture of a really nice Corvette that was parked outside.



And that my friend was Los Angeles\Hollywood\Burbank. Since I have absolutely no money left over from this very expensive new thing next weekend’s new thing will have to be of the cheap variety… like begging for money at the end of an off ramp type of thing.