What is there to do in LA?

[Himu]

Just ordered tickets for my scouting trip.

Today I requested a two days off during Labor Day weekend. Perfect time to go is a holiday to see what kind of culture is there. Guess I'll rent me a car at LAX and check the city out.

I haven't flown in years and I'm surprised by these ticket prices. I thought it'd be $1000.

[demi]

That seems absurdly expensive. How did you order those?

[Himu]

I'm seriously starting to reconsider Silver Lake or Los Feliz instead of NoHo. Is that stupid?   With NoHo I could bike to Burbank daily whereas as Silver Lake and Burbank are 30 minutes apart. On the other hand, it's close to downtown and hollywood. But on the other hand NoHo is cheaper. But I also want to live in a place with a teeming social life and culture. But then Silver Lake looks like a white hell hole that I would need rescuing from by a brave, brave knight. Is Silver Lake diverse? On wikipedia, the relevant data is from pre-hipster gentrification. FUCK.

This seems to make the best case for Silver Lake:

http://www.immovingtola.com/things-to-do-guide-silver-lake/

[chronovore]

Biking in LA? I don't know what it's like lately, but the LA that I remember, you'd end up Raban'd in the first week.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

SORRY, RABAN! 

[close]

[Steve Contra]

Silver Lake and Los Feliz is great, you're going to hear a lot of blahblahblah too many hipsters etc. but I think you'll be plenty comfortable there.

[Brehvolution]

Holy shit at that ticket price. Is that 1st class?

[Himu]

Fuck no. I clicked the cheapest option.

[Himu]

Silver Lake and Los Feliz is great, you're going to hear a lot of blahblahblah too many hipsters etc. but I think you'll be plenty comfortable there.

But NoHo has the red line metro with easy access to Downtown (Historic Core, Staples, Little Tokyo, Chinatown, arts district), Hollywood, Koreatown, Culver City, and Santa Monica (end of the year).

[Steve Contra]

Holy shit at that ticket price. Is that 1st class?

Labor day prices.

And Himu, I'll probably be down there Labor Day as well.

[etiolate]

LA sucks.

That's OK. I lived in Santa Cruz for years and held the same opinion. However, SC is beginning to suck as well, with the increase in crime -- isn't it higher than San Jose's crime rate now?

I didn't dig Santa Cruz much either. I don't know about the crime rate though. The most I saw there while I was there was graffiti and broken windows from protests.

[Himu]

Contra:

I don't mind hipsters so long as there's more than the white kind.

Holy shit at that ticket price. Is that 1st class?

Labor day prices.

And Himu, I'll probably be down there Labor Day as well.

Cool!

Also disappointed no one dropped this site:

http://www.discoverlosangeles.com/

[Raban]

Biking in LA? I don't know what it's like lately, but the LA that I remember, you'd end up Raban'd in the first week.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

SORRY, RABAN! 

[close]

[Pickles the Firecat]

Biking in LA? I don't know what it's like lately, but the LA that I remember, you'd end up Raban'd in the first week.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

SORRY, RABAN! 

[close]

Nah, dunno when you left but it isn't like that now. Especially not in the Valley. A few of my friends are dedicated, hardcore cyclists. She'll be fine.

I'm seriously starting to reconsider Silver Lake or Los Feliz instead of NoHo. Is that stupid?   With NoHo I could bike to Burbank daily whereas as Silver Lake and Burbank are 30 minutes apart. On the other hand, it's close to downtown and hollywood. But on the other hand NoHo is cheaper. But I also want to live in a place with a teeming social life and culture. But then Silver Lake looks like a white hell hole that I would need rescuing from by a brave, brave knight. Is Silver Lake diverse? On wikipedia, the relevant data is from pre-hipster gentrification. FUCK.

This seems to make the best case for Silver Lake:

http://www.immovingtola.com/things-to-do-guide-silver-lake/

Silver Lake and Echo Park are super good areas to live in. Both are currently undergoing gentrification but there is still a strong sense of the original community there. My friend group abuses the privilege of knowing someone down the street from Dodger Stadium and uses his house as a staging ground for all of our stuff.

It would probably be more expensive for a lesser apartment/condo/house in Silver Lake/Echo park than NoHo. And you can always commute to those areas to hang out. That's something you should be ready to do a lot--LA is a very commute-centric city (I assume Houston is as well). Never looked in the Los Feliz area but I would imagine it's expensive as shit.

[Himu]

Houston is heavy on commute but the only cool part of town is midtown, montrose district, museum district. all of which are in the same area and since we all mostly live in the burbs that's 30-40 minutes away. The Galleria is cool too, I guess. But it's mostly mall culture which is shit. LA, from all I'm reading has much more interesting things much more spread out. Most cities have one area that's cool, and that's usually downtown. But La downtown is just recently booming and EVERYWHERE is seen as cool, so it won't be too much to find something g to do. I look at NoHo's culture and activities and shits on Houston suburbs in terms of stuff to do and that's considered the uncool part of greater LA.

[Mupepe]

The actual Galleria area is terrible, but the areas West and South of it (which are now starting to consider themselves in The Galleria) are hot, hot, hot.  So much good food and small bars/clubs.  West down Westheimer or Hillcroft near 59 and Westpark is becoming completely awesome. 

But yeah, besides there and the Montrose and surrounding area, Houston blows.

[Pickles the Firecat]

P.S. Animal Collective DJ set from 11 to 4 at Los Globos tomorrow

[Himu]

The actual Galleria area is terrible, but the areas West and South of it (which are now starting to consider themselves in The Galleria) are hot, hot, hot.  So much good food and small bars/clubs.  West down Westheimer or Hillcroft near 59 and Westpark is becoming completely awesome. 

But yeah, besides there and the Montrose and surrounding area, Houston blows.

Westheimer is but again, that's not far from the area I'm talking about. And yeah, that's what I meant by Galleria, not just the mall. But the mall is the main attraction.

Again, this is considered a boring part of LA:

http://m.discoverlosangeles.com/blog/getting-know-noho-arts-district

[Himu]

Do these fuckers really have something cool to do everyday? Jesus Christ, LA.

http://nohoartsdistrict.com/events-in-noho#.U4kHyYm9K0c

[Himu]

Thought you'd like this pickles:

http://laist.com/2014/05/29/your_guide_to_free_outdoor_summer_c.php

[Pickles the Firecat]

Just wrote something for an NHL-GAF member who's taking a trip through California, went over some stuff that I'm not sure made it in here. I'll just copy/paste it.

Los Angeles Food:

Bottega Louie is up there with the best bakeries in the country. Also has a fantastic kitchen for sit down orders and a decent beer list. They are very much known for their macaroons, so definitely get a box if you swing by. It's in downtown LA, which makes it a convenient place to eat if you're exploring the area.

Porto's is another fantastic bakery with a few different locations (Burbank and Glendale would be the most relevant for you). Amazing desserts, decent food otherwise. Might be out of the way for you depending on what your itinerary looks like.

Mexican food is a lot better in San Diego, but the best tacos in Los Angeles are at Guisados out in Echo Park/Silverlake. Delicious. Consistently the best tortilla's of any Mexican place in the state.

Intellegentsia is the best coffee in LA (and likely the same for every city they're in). And you can take in the fully glory of Los Angeles' hipster community.

If you do end up in Echo Park you might enjoy stopping by Sunset Beer Company. Great place to try beer, constantly rotating their collection and adding new bottles weekly. As a bonus you can order pizza at the place next door (Los Angeles Pizza Company) or from a few blocks down at Two Boots and have it delivered to a table there for your drinking session. Awesome staff, too, they really went out of their way to help a me and a friend set up our homebrew station.

Best ramen in the city is at Hakata Ramen Shin-Sen-Gumi or Daikokuya. Both are in Little Tokyo. Best Thai food is Srisiam but is out in the ass end of nowhere (Arcadia).

You should grab In-N-Out at some point just because it's California and that's kind of a given. You want a Double-Double, possibly animal style, with fries light well done (or also animal style). Whatever you do, absolutely skip Pink's Hotdogs. Horrifically overrated tourist trap. Not worth a five minute wait, let alone a half hour one. If you're dying for a hotdog try Fab's. They just opened a Westwood location that might be convenient.

Los Angeles General:

If you're a music fan and are here on a Wednesday you should go to Low End Theory, which is a weekly event. Almost all of the Alpha Pup/Brainfeeder crowd (Flying Lotus, Tokimonsta, Nosaj Thing, etc) started at Low End. Same with Odd Future, and a lot of the newer Stone's Throw guys. It's a struggle to even call it an underground institution at this point. Doors at 9:30, line gets pretty packed around 10:30ish.

My concert calendar doesn't have anything noted for the period you're here, but I'll give a heads up if any shows are scheduled between now and then.

Huntington Library and Garden is a fantastic place, but will take the better part of your day. A little bit out of the way as well, and not a "typical Los Angeles" thing to do. It has a fairly extensive private art collection with a few traveling pieces, one of the best original manuscript repositories on the west coast, and a really, really, really cool series of botanical gardens. Apparently has a pretty dope Japanese teahouse as well but I've never been. Along those lines, you can never go wrong by heading out to the Getty Villa and LACMA. I would prioritize the Getty Villa over LACMA, and shockingly enough now that I think about it I've never been to the standard Getty museum.

Walking around Venice is fun, as is walking around Santa Monica (Third Street Promenade and the Pier). There are a lot of outdoor concerts that time of year, and you can get a schedule here.

Amoeba Records is a must-visit either in the Bay Area or in Los Angeles. If you hang around the store stoned all day looking at records and asking people for recommendations, you'll have experienced roughly 30% of my highschool life. The San Francisco location is in the Haight, and the Los Angeles location is in Hollywood. Both are areas you can walk around afterward for fun.

[Pickles the Firecat]

^^^ I mispoke in that post above, the best coffee isn't at Intelligensia, it's at Bourgeois Pig. Awesome place to kick it, too. Great vibe. Pretty solid bar down the street as well.

I really need to just throw all this shit in Evernote so I can recall it on demand.

[Himu]

Check this shit out.

http://la.listofcity.com

[chronovore]

Just wrote something for an NHL-GAF member who's taking a trip through California, went over some stuff that I'm not sure made it in here. I'll just copy/paste it.

Los Angeles Food:

Bottega Louie is up there with the best bakeries in the country. Also has a fantastic kitchen for sit down orders and a decent beer list. They are very much known for their macaroons, so definitely get a box if you swing by. It's in downtown LA, which makes it a convenient place to eat if you're exploring the area.

Porto's is another fantastic bakery with a few different locations (Burbank and Glendale would be the most relevant for you). Amazing desserts, decent food otherwise. Might be out of the way for you depending on what your itinerary looks like.

Mexican food is a lot better in San Diego, but the best tacos in Los Angeles are at Guisados out in Echo Park/Silverlake. Delicious. Consistently the best tortilla's of any Mexican place in the state.

Intellegentsia is the best coffee in LA (and likely the same for every city they're in). And you can take in the fully glory of Los Angeles' hipster community.

If you do end up in Echo Park you might enjoy stopping by Sunset Beer Company. Great place to try beer, constantly rotating their collection and adding new bottles weekly. As a bonus you can order pizza at the place next door (Los Angeles Pizza Company) or from a few blocks down at Two Boots and have it delivered to a table there for your drinking session. Awesome staff, too, they really went out of their way to help a me and a friend set up our homebrew station.

Best ramen in the city is at Hakata Ramen Shin-Sen-Gumi or Daikokuya. Both are in Little Tokyo. Best Thai food is Srisiam but is out in the ass end of nowhere (Arcadia).

You should grab In-N-Out at some point just because it's California and that's kind of a given. You want a Double-Double, possibly animal style, with fries light well done (or also animal style). Whatever you do, absolutely skip Pink's Hotdogs. Horrifically overrated tourist trap. Not worth a five minute wait, let alone a half hour one. If you're dying for a hotdog try Fab's. They just opened a Westwood location that might be convenient.

Los Angeles General:

If you're a music fan and are here on a Wednesday you should go to Low End Theory, which is a weekly event. Almost all of the Alpha Pup/Brainfeeder crowd (Flying Lotus, Tokimonsta, Nosaj Thing, etc) started at Low End. Same with Odd Future, and a lot of the newer Stone's Throw guys. It's a struggle to even call it an underground institution at this point. Doors at 9:30, line gets pretty packed around 10:30ish.

My concert calendar doesn't have anything noted for the period you're here, but I'll give a heads up if any shows are scheduled between now and then.

Huntington Library and Garden is a fantastic place, but will take the better part of your day. A little bit out of the way as well, and not a "typical Los Angeles" thing to do. It has a fairly extensive private art collection with a few traveling pieces, one of the best original manuscript repositories on the west coast, and a really, really, really cool series of botanical gardens. Apparently has a pretty dope Japanese teahouse as well but I've never been. Along those lines, you can never go wrong by heading out to the Getty Villa and LACMA. I would prioritize the Getty Villa over LACMA, and shockingly enough now that I think about it I've never been to the standard Getty museum.

Walking around Venice is fun, as is walking around Santa Monica (Third Street Promenade and the Pier). There are a lot of outdoor concerts that time of year, and you can get a schedule here.

Amoeba Records is a must-visit either in the Bay Area or in Los Angeles. If you hang around the store stoned all day looking at records and asking people for recommendations, you'll have experienced roughly 30% of my highschool life. The San Francisco location is in the Haight, and the Los Angeles location is in Hollywood. Both are areas you can walk around afterward for fun.

Thanks, Pickles! I have this weird feeling I'll be in LA again this year, so I've saved this list.

[a slime appears]

Hey Himuro, I didn't read the whole thread so you may have already answered this but:

Do you have an animation portfolio? I'm good friends with a bunch of top-level ex-Disney animators. If you've got something decent I could ask them to review it. No promises though.

[Himu]

I'm not looking to be an animator. I'm not fully trained in that area. I am looking storyboard. I will send you stuff over when I think it is good enough to.

[a slime appears]

I'm not looking to be an animator. I'm not fully trained in that area. I am looking storyboard. I will send you stuff over when I think it is good enough to.

Yeah, animator is a bit of a vague term these days. Some of them are classically trained 2D animators, storyboard artists, FX dudes, etc.

But cool, lemme know dude. I have a friend out there right now doing the same thing you're doing and it's a rough market right now. If you're going to fly out to LA to chase your dreams I'll help out if I can.

[Pickles the Firecat]

Went to Joe's Falafel recently and it was super good. These shawarma wraps brehs.

[Himu]

Fuck you Pickles. You're in LA, asshole.

I wish I were in LA NOW.

http://m.laweekly.com/publicspectacle/2014/06/13/5-free-things-to-do-in-la-this-week

[Himu]

Pickles take pics of the low end theory fest

[Pickles the Firecat]

I'll try and get some tonight

unreleased jonwayne beats 

the new Flylo record debuts and smashes the building 

Nosaj on a murderous vibes spree 

[Pickles the Firecat]

Check it out, a Day One video recap

#t=193

[Himu]

[Himu]

Pickles, what do you guys do for ice cream in LA?

Blue Bell isn't in LA.

http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/861034

People can bitch about traffic, people, and heat, but this is the first thing I've encountered to make me question this move! But maybe there are good substitutes! Pickles?!

[Himu]

http://www.whippedla.com/Ice-Cream-Selection-Los-Angeles-CA.html

[Himu]

Going with a mazda 3 sedan and not yet.

[Pickles the Firecat]

Mazda 3 is a solid car, I was between it and a Kia Forte for my next one in fall.

[Pickles the Firecat]

lol Himu, you're going to love this city. There's a weekly weed farmer's market that opened up in Boyle Heights this Friday.

http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-0706-pot-farmers-market-2-20140706-story.html

The line stretched hundreds of people long down an industrial stretch of Esperanza Street, as throngs of Angelenos endured the baking heat Saturday to get into a Boyle Heights warehouse.

Inside, cannabis growers offered up their crop from glass jars labeled with gauzy names like "Blue Dream" and "Banana Kush." Shoppers sniffed each musky container discerningly. A dizzying assortment of marijuana-infused wares beckoned from dozens of booths: balms and sunblock, organic waffles and soft pretzels, chai tea, cooking oil, lollipops in salted caramel, watermelon or key lime flavors.

Many shoppers were wowed by the bargains: A 62-year-old military veteran raved about the prices, showing off a plastic bag loaded with fluffy buds as he waited in line for another vendor. "Fifteen dollars for this?" he told a young woman standing behind him. "Now where are you going to get this for $15?"

A market where marijuana growers can talk directly to customers "is absolute genius," Brown said. "We can find out what works for them and what doesn't" and recommend the right strains, he said.

[Himu]

I read about that in the weekly. Seriously need to be there now so I can buy weed without criminalization/discrimination.

[Himu]

"The dispensary is so last decade," quipped Los Angeles-area grower John Moreaux.

Omg

[Tasty]

Probably not the place, but jesus christ SF (or Oakland, rather, but still.)

http://sfist.com/2014/06/10/two_toddlers_hit_by_bullets_in_sepa.php

[Himu]

lol Himu, you're going to love this city. There's a weekly weed farmer's market that opened up in Boyle Heights this Friday.

http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-0706-pot-farmers-market-2-20140706-story.html

The line stretched hundreds of people long down an industrial stretch of Esperanza Street, as throngs of Angelenos endured the baking heat Saturday to get into a Boyle Heights warehouse.

Inside, cannabis growers offered up their crop from glass jars labeled with gauzy names like "Blue Dream" and "Banana Kush." Shoppers sniffed each musky container discerningly. A dizzying assortment of marijuana-infused wares beckoned from dozens of booths: balms and sunblock, organic waffles and soft pretzels, chai tea, cooking oil, lollipops in salted caramel, watermelon or key lime flavors.

Many shoppers were wowed by the bargains: A 62-year-old military veteran raved about the prices, showing off a plastic bag loaded with fluffy buds as he waited in line for another vendor. "Fifteen dollars for this?" he told a young woman standing behind him. "Now where are you going to get this for $15?"

A market where marijuana growers can talk directly to customers "is absolute genius," Brown said. "We can find out what works for them and what doesn't" and recommend the right strains, he said.

Read the comments in this. Truly makes me non smokers

[tiesto]

Going with a mazda 3 sedan and not yet.

I bought a 2014 3 recently and absolutely love it so far. Feel free to PM if you have any questions about it.

[Pickles the Firecat]

More music scene stuff within the small niche community I'm a part of. A trailer for Looking For The Perfect Beat is up. It's essentially a look at the LA beat scene through the lens of different artists that are important to it. It'll be really, really good and the trailer gives a good sense of the vibe I've tried to lay out before. Debuts at LA film festival this weekend, not sure when distribution kicks off otherwise.

'Looking for the Perfect Beat' is a cinéma vérité immersion inside the unique Los Angeles "beat scene" music community, centered around the world famous Low End Theory club night. Filmed over the Summer of 2013, we are given the opportunity to elegantly lift the veil on the personal creative processes of the internationally-acclaimed pillars of the scene. Indie music luminaries such as Thundercat, the Gaslamp Killer, TOKiMONSTA, Jonwayne, Baths, Daedelus, Ras G, Teebs, D-Styles, edIT of the Glitch Mob, Astronautica, Free the Robots, and Matthewdavid are all featured in vivid detail. The soundtrack for the film creates itself live on camera as the film elapses. This avant-garde visual angle on each subject in their respective creative spaces provides for an introspective glimpse into what would otherwise be unseen.

Told as a 24-hour tour throughout the city, the fly-on-the-wall perspective of 'Looking for the Perfect Beat' archives each artist's studio at this moment in history, revealing something not only universally humanizing about the scene's stars, but also telling of the diverse community in which this group of inter-related artists interact. Directed by seasoned music documentarian Matthew F. Smith, and produced by Low End Theory club founder Daddy Kev, 'Looking for the Perfect Beat' provides a holistic view of L.A.'s key players in this generation's electronic music landscape while instilling hope for the future of cross-cultural creative unions.

[Himu]

Thought this is relevant to peoples interests.

http://buildinglosangeles.blogspot.com/2014/09/the-ultimate-measure-r2-fantasy-map.html

[Pickles the Firecat]

idk how I didn't think to show you this earlier. This time next year you could be at Bent-Con, a LGBT pop-culture/comic book convention. Headed over for work in a bit, it's a lot of fun.

http://bent-con.org/

[Himu]

How'd the latex smell?

[Himu]

This worries me.  Reminds me NYC.

[bluemax]

My apartment has gone up $100 every year I've lived in it. I currently pay $1750 for 2 bedrooms, 2 baths and 2 parking spots. I tried to move a few years ago but I would've saved at most about $100 a month for something half the size. I had a roommate for awhile this year but I didn't particularly enjoy it. However if they up my rent again this year I'll probably have to get another roommate as right now I spend nearly an entire paycheck just for rent.

[Himu]

Currently planning for my scouting trip in January/February. I'm going to try to take take a 4 day weekend off. Saving vay cay time for that. Here's hoping I don't get sick.

Since I'm going to try to get as authentic an experience as possible during my visit, I'm going to fly to LAX and not Bob Hope. Then I'm going to rent a car, and drive over to Crenshaw and visit my family. I haven't been there in years and I miss it like fuck. Then I'm going to drive to NoHo and check into my hotel. I'm going to spend all of Friday night and Saturday morn in NoHo. NoHo has a huge music/theatre scene, which is totally me, so I plan on checking out some live venues and a few plays, try some of the food, check out apartments in the area, and drive to Burbank and see what the commute from NoHo to Disney is like so I can have an idea of what my every day hustle will be like when I'm there. I'll toss my portfolio at Disney while I'm there in the mean time.

Saturday, I'll leave NoHo at noon and drive - not take the red line; remember, authentic experience - to DTLA and then Hollywood. What are some good things to do in DTLA on a Saturday? I guess I should visit Silver Lake? I don't know. After that, I'm driving to Santa Monica. Yup. From the Valley to the west side. I need to know what i'm getting into and experience the bad with the good. Lord help me. On Saturday night I want to go to a concert or some shit. We'll see what's on the schedule then.

I have to say, though, that I'm running into some problems with Sunday. Though I'm not Buddhist, I do practice Buddhism and on Sunday, I want to give the red line a whirl. I was thinking of riding to Little Tokyo and checking out a Zen Buddhist Temple, but the temple I'm interested in visiting, Zenshuji, is on 123 South Hewitt Street. Never mind that the Zen Center of LA, my other choice, is alllll the way west of the 110 and 101 (923 S Normandie Ave). So, both are quite a distance from the Red Line. What to do? I was thinking after that, I explore Little Tokyo a bit and have some authentic ramen and buy some Man for a snack, and then head back to the hotel and drive to Griffith Park and hike and get some views and some air. Struggling on Sunday because that's the day I'm trying to see what it's like to live in LA without a car and some of the places I'm interested in are a decent distance away from each other.

Monday, I was thinking explore NoHo more. I don't know. Any ideas? I wanna do something outdoors. Again. But something close by to North Hollywood.

[Himu]

I guess I'll check out los end theory on Saturday night?

[Pickles the Firecat]

Not really sure how I missed this before but I'm glad I had the thread saved in mobile.

DTLA on a Saturday you should go to Bottega Louie for lunch, maybe go to a comedy show, check out a few different spots. Definitely go to Silverlake/Echo Park. Get Daikokuya for Ramen, and I would def. hike somewhere other than Griffith (it's a walk more than a hike).

Low End is Wednesday only, but there will for sure be something going on Fri/Sat/Sun when you're here. Just depends on when that is. When you get a time frame ironed out let me know and I can give some better advice.