the poet-philosophers of venice beach
Jason posted on April 17th, 2008
When my old roommate Brian, with whom I lived in NYC for four years and hung out with for six, moved to Los Angeles in December, he almost single-handedly destroyed our little social circle/happy family. When Brian left, his roommate and our friend Corinne disappeared to New Jersey. Around the same time, another friend of ours got laid off with seven months severance (!) and I rarely hear from him now - our last contact was an email I received from him at 3:30am on a Tuesday telling me he was writing a song and asking me for a chord that would make his song/chord progression sound more "up." And our friend Jeremy is rising in the music industry, which means he’s almost constantly at concerts or parties or the like, featuring bands that 99.9% of the population has never and will never hear of, as he desperately searches for the next Strokes. The result? After years of sitting in my apartment with these guys (and a rotating cast of others) watching VH1 Classic and pregaming until 12am, now I’m drinking Bud bombers alone and watching tivo’ed episode of "Wildboyz" until I realize how pathetic I am and force myself to go out.* Yes, it is a glamorous life I lead. [*I watch "Wildboyz" or "Jackass" or other mindless but entertaining shows because I can't bring myself to watch VH1 Classic alone. I've tried, but it's extremely depressing to scream "Yes!" to no one in particular when the video for Def Leppard's "Photograph" comes on. Good lord. Why don't I just look at my parents' pre-divorce photos or troll MySpace/Facebook for ex-girlfriends' profiles while I'm at it?]
Brian was - and is - a true "glue guy." No matter the circumstances or the time of day, he was down for anything (and I mean that in the broadest, most gender-bending sense possible). But that doesn’t mean that Brian played second fiddle. This is a man whose roster of stories includes being bombed and chatting for an hour with a Catholic priest after stumbling into a church in Times Square post-day-drinking binge, and once after a work Christmas party, waking up in a co-worker’s bed, not realizing she was his co-worker, and being told that during the night he pissed on her floor. Also, the co-worker was a female bodybuilder. The point: Brian is no one’s Robin. God, I miss him.
Before he left for LA, I mentioned in his goodbye party email that he was leaving in order to pursue his dream: to become the real-life Dude. I didn’t realize how true these words would ring until the last time I was out in LA (two weeks ago) and I finally was able to spend a significant amount of time with Brian. While not totally transformed into El Duderino (I’m not into the whole brevity thing), Brian lives in a studio apartment in Venice in a complex with a pool and a hot tub, in which he regularly drinks beers after work. He has a bed and a lawn chair in his apartment and a 19" TV with the box that it came on as his entertainment center. And he drives an army-green Jeep Wrangler, often with the top down, always blasting Van Halen. So he’s definitely Dude-like.
[I'm ragging on Brian a little too much here. The poor guy had three weeks notice to drop and/or sell everything and move across the country for a new job, so it's understandable for him to take some time to get his shit together, which I have no doubt he'll do soon. And hey - last week, he got silverware. So he's on his way, baby.]
I especially get a kick out of Brian in the context of the LA bar scene, which I’ve written several times is packed with stunningly gorgeous people of both sexes who rarely have thoughts that do not involve the gym or coke. Brian and I were out in the middle of this one night, drinking our draft beer and reveling in the fact that we were easily two of the five ugliest dudes not just in the bar but possibly in the entire zip code, when I asked him what he thought of the city, particularly the bar scene and its people.
Brian’s always been a sort of poet-philosopher, with a habit of producing some tremendous rubrics of wisdom. There are several, but one of my favorites was when he told a girl I was dating - without a hint of irony - "To me, music is divided into two parts: before ‘Silent Lucidity’ and after ‘Silent Lucidity.’" I started our discussion on this evening, saying that I’m a statistically inclined person and therefore a big believer in odds. Yes, we are ugly, and yes, the women in LA are really hot, but if we keep trying, eventually, something has to break our way, with a result that at least partially involves premature ejaculation. Without risk, there is no reward, and without effort, there is no return.
Brian’s take was slightly different. Brian’s a sensitive soul and he mentioned, perhaps with a sigh, that he misses the women of NYC. Then he said, "The girls in New York, I mean, you want to have a relationship with them. The women [in LA], you just want to beat off to."
Bingo.
If you’re reading this right now from the village in Africa where you were born and raised and have never left, what Brian said explains everything you need to know about the women in each city. The women of Los Angeles are fantastically beautiful - in the literal, "fantasy" sense. You’ll see more fake tits on a Saturday night in LA on your walk to the bar bathroom than you’ve seen in your life (note: not including fake boobs seen on TV or the internet). Big boobs, deep tans, hard abs - these are the norms on the California girl. As a pasty, chubby, bearded Northeasterner, it’s enough to send me into paroxysms of bonerization. However, nam nulla venustas/nulla in tam magno est corpore mica salis. Their affectation ranges from off-putting to overwhelming to downright frightening. I’m generally not a fan of girls with hair so blond it’s white, balloons in their chests, and three-inch fake eyelashes - just as I’m sure they’re not a fan of me, since I don’t know how to do a squat but do know the difference between "who’s" and "whose" (I’m actually quite afraid of the squat machine or apparatus or what have you, much like a small dog is afraid of thunder). Instead, I prefer girls who are simplex munditiis, natural, simple in their charms.** "Charming" is one of the best words to describe the women of NYC, who have depth, intelligence and beauty. Also, there’s variety: "hot" girls in LA all look the same, that is, like pornstars. Rarely do you have a porn-star caliber girl in NYC, but you have girls who are hipster hot, preppy hot, waif hot, mom hot, etc. I admit, maybe I’m being so nice about the girls here because I’ve actually had sex while living in NYC city limits, whereas I’m going to have to head about 90 miles south if I ever want to have sex near Los Angeles. But I think I make some valid points.
[**Yes, I've written extensively of my love of boobs, and once when listing qualities I find attractive in a women I included a nice tan, hoop earrings, the ability to dance (at least a lil' bit) and a messy ponytail. Guilty as charged. But I like a natural tan, one that's acquired via a hard day's work plowing in a field; I think girls who have rhythm are sexy, but I think that 104% of the male population agrees with me; and I love the messy ponytail because it implies a both an insouciance and comfort with a woman's attractiveness. The hoop earrings, I have no defense for - I like hoochies.]
[And a quick disclaimer: There are, of course, many lovely and intelligent girls in LA, absolutely, including many of the people I've met. Yet I stand by what I've said, generally-speaking. There is an extraordinary number of women in Los Angeles whose cup size matches the grades they got during their five-years at [insert shitty state school here]. Them’s the facts.]
We explored this topic and bit more, but Brian’s pronouncement left little else to be added to the discussion. So we pretty much just got really drunk. Later, in a display of his versatility, Brian looked around the bar and the legions of meatheads, dozens of really pumped up dudes around us, and said, "I am astonished at the amount of high-fiving going on at this bar."
That would be bingo, part two. If I had to list the favorite things of the LA meathead, they’d be:
1) Pussy
2) Being totally fucking sweet
3) Lats
4) Tie: "Seriously, bro, my hair looks totally fucking sweet right now" and delts
5) High-fiving
If I had to rate the least favorite things of meathead guys in LA, they’d be:
1) Like, Broadway plays and shit
2) Not having Jager
3) The international section of The New York Times
4) The New York Times
5) Words
New York, is not, by any stretch, without its meatheads. As a matter of fact, the top five lists mentioned above could be directly applied to the NY meatheads. But what’s different about the LA meathead versus the NY meathead is actually something I find positive: their very lack of affectation. The LA meathead is the original beachbum. Sure, he has muscles and sure, he thinks Hiroshima is either a shot or that guy on "Iron Chef", but he also doesn’t give a fuck - hell yeah he’s gonna high-five, because high-fiving feels good. The NY meathead, the BENNY (Bayonne-Elizabeth-Newark-New-York) or BHENNY LI (Bayonne-Hoboken-Elizabeth-Newark-New-York-Long-Island)-type that travels to NYC bars on the weekend via bridge or tunnel and clogs the shore bars during the summer, is, like many of the females in Los Angeles, extremely contrived, his true self hidden under gelled spikey hair and his own deep tan. So while I agree with Brian that there is typically a tremendous amount of high-fiving going on in LA bars, at least the meatheads in LA have eyebrows, for Christ’s sake.
But finally, it was another poet-philosopher who also lives in Venice Beach, my buddy Niall, who put it all together. In order to appreciate Los Angeles, he said, you must "embrace the differences." Sure, in LA, you’re probably not going to be able to walk to fifteen different cool bars from your apartment (or be able to stop eating Oreos when you get home from bars because you’re disgusted with yourself and your appearance) or have a conversation with a girl that does not involve a show on MTV or either of those terrible "Housewives of…" shows that seriously make me want to eat poison and/or parts of my body to speed up my death. But you are getting year-round gorgeous weather, proximity to both Vegas and Mexico, relatively affordable housing, the all-around good vibrations of Southern California living, and if you keep trying, eventually a handful of fake boobie.
(See? It always comes back to math.)