HEY SUMMER

AAAAAND IT'S ON. Or, I jinxed it and weather will suck tomorrow. Whatevs. Bottle opener please!

MAD PLANET arrives.

DO I HAVE "JACK ME" ON MY FOREHEAD? Yesterday the Coffee Bean cashier tried twice to sell me a muffin before taking my order, then threw my five cents change in the tip jar, three and a half inches from my open palm, which a lesser man might have not wasted on her face. Maybe she read Coffee Bean Is A Crock. Later that day at the 88-cent store where nothing is 88 cents, I gave the Pakistani (Bangladeshi?) guy a buck and a dime for a $1.07 purchase, and he slammed the register shut and looked at me with the kind of expression that usually marks the end of a transaction. Now I know why I started a Facebook fan group for Exact Change, although the reason why it languishes in obscurity with 20 fans while groups like The First Time I had A McFlurry, I Thought The Spoon Was Also A Straw have fans in the hundreds of thousands remains uncertain.

Any damn way, last night I caught Mad Planet's release party for their new album All Elephants. Mad Planet is a duo comprised of longtime Saints & Sinners bartender and current Thirsty Crow manager Cooper on bass guitar and vocals, and her boyfriend Greg on drums. The Portishead whiff was a tad overpowering last time I saw them live. What a difference a year makes. The Mad Planet sound trashes all but the essentials, turns them up to 13, and uses repetition and catchiness to engulf and melt you down like you're an ice cube in a drink. Greg captivates. Cooper captains songs effortlessly without trying to outshine them. They puke chemistry. Ditto the venue, Three Clubs on Santa Monica and Vine, a very dark, very loud bar that I may have to commandeer for a release party too.

Saints & Sinners tonight! 10899 Venice, near Sepulveda in West LA. I deejay ten till two. No cover, no non-drinkers, no Pitchfork. I'll have CD copies of the Saints episode of The Palms Weekend Radio on me. And surprisingly, I'm in a drinking mood, so lets barter.

Mad Planet | site | facebook | twitter | myspace

Three Clubs, 1123 Vine St. [yelp]

Exact Change Facebook group

LOST & FOUND: MORE COCKTAILS THAN DANCING

WE WERE HEADING TO THE BAR IN THE MAR VISTA LANES BOWLING ALLEY LAST NIGHT when Franamami besmirched my worldly stature by intimating that I should try more new things, since I attempted earlier to rent ace British gangster movie The Krays (starring the two guys from Spandau Ballet of "True"/PM Dawn fame), which I've seen not a few times. So to punish her, I immediately changed course toward Lost & Found on Barrington and National, which I had heard was real divey, and not in an endearing way. My mental Mini-Me rubbed his hands with glee before the saloon doors swung behind us. From the triple-chinned hillbillies clustered beside the jukebox stuffed with country albums, to the people by the restrooms blowing cigarette smoke which still didn't mask the hot foot stench, Frana's eyes begged departure. I almost felt bad leaving a black girl with dreadlocks in a redneck dive bar when I popped out to find an ATM (cash only) until I saw a cash machine by the jukebox upon returning, and realized the joke was on me. As if that wasn't already shit on my dress shirt, minutes later she was having a ball chatting it up with Phyllis, an L&F regular sat next to a Fred Durst lookalike. Fortunately my thwarted attempt at satisfaction was assuaged by all the TWO DOLLAR BEERS and TWO DOLLAR SHOTS. At those prices, the place can smell like tyrannosaurus burps for all I care. Phyllis got hugs and kisses and "hi Mom"s from young guys who definitely weren't her sons. She told us about the owner, an 81-year old dead ringer for Mr Burns who makes a mean corned beef & cabbage for customers on holidays. I noticed the immaculate part in the elderly yet sprightly bartender's hair. And thoughts of revenge began to drift away as I ordered another MGD. Think I'll be back. Phyllis says Mr Burns is cooking on Memorial Day.

Lost & Found, 11700 National [yelp]

THE NEIGHBORHOOD IDIOT. A story by Francesca Dunn.

And no, I’m not referring to myself. The person, or rather the thing, I speak of is my dog, who most of you know as Zoggie - or Bamboo, as Janet likes to call her - and is occasionally seen being walked around the neighborhood by none other than our good neighbor Josh (post soon to come [it fucking better - Ed.]). Now, you may be wondering - or, you may not - why she is nicknamed The Neighborhood Idiot. Well, first let me run through a few names she’s picked up over the last two years.


BAMBOO. The day this little ten-pound chi-weagle was laid off on me and my sister, the easiest way to pick a name was to look out of our bedroom window. And what did we see but… Bamboo Restaurant (story).
JESSIE. After Bamboo wore off, we decided she actually looks like a Jessie, and used the name of a dog my mom, dad, and brother had in England before I existed. After choosing this name, it was time for her first vet visit, so now, two years later, the vet still calls her Jessie.
LINDA. We eventually decided against Jessie (for reasons unknown) and began calling her Linda (also for reasons unknown).
GLENDA. One sunny afternoon, the Westwood Block was blessed with the prescence of neighborhood favorite Nikiya, who mistook the name Linda for Glenda after stating that the dog looked like the goon from The Neverending Story. So Glenda stuck for a while.
MANGO. After having her from somewhere between eight months and a year and becoming fully attached, we decided that she is as sweet as a mango, and wanted everyone to know.
MINGU. Calling out “Mango” repeatedly gets boring after 30 calls, so that name got molded into this one.
TANDORI PINGU. Josh came up with this one after spending countless hours bathing, training and grooming her over the last two years and deciding she looks like a little tandoori chicken... and Pingu comes from same reason as name 6.
SCHMEIGEL. One of my personal favorites. What other name is so perfect for a dumb little schmeigel?
ZOGGIE. This name came about by saying different variations of the word “doggie”, and finally deciding that Zoggie flys off the tongue well and is easy for my Persian relatives to pronounce, since “Zogghee” means happiness in Farsi. And seems to be most people’s favorite.
IGGIE. same reason as number 6, but now using the name Zoggie.


Surprisingly, all have stuck in one way or another. At least a handful of five people know her by each name. Now that you know the names of the idiot in question, let me tell you why an idiot is what she is.


1. Napkins are her favorite food.
2. She spends her nights (and probably most days) chewing on her own foot.
3. She sniffs the house that she has lived in for two-plus years over a hundred times daily, and treats every sniff as if it’s her first.
4. She fails to recognize (and be comfortable around) people she has seen every day since her birth two years ago.
5. She is afraid of most things such as brooms, cups, spoons, wind, forks, utensils in general, shoes, and some string.
6. She huffs and puffs quietly to herself when she sees other dogs and only barks in their direction once they are gone.
7. She greets me excitedly every time I enter the house, regardless of if I’ve just returned from a two-week vacation or from a 30-second trip to the trash can.
8. She nervously licks her lips every time (without failure) Malky holds her snout shut for longer than one second.
9. Despite her size, she continues to think she can push people of +100 pounds away from her while trying to wiggle her way out of their forced grasp.
10. She nervously waits by the front door of people’s homes where she feels uncomfortable, anxiously waiting to leave, as if her tiny brain has the capacity to make rational decisions.

Despite all of these things, somehow it is easy to love her, as we all do. As much as we - and when I say we I really mean I - hate her, I just don’t remember what I ever did before March 2008 without her. So who is the actual idiot: me or her?

BABY DOG JUSTIN BIEBER LOST

I HATE WASTING TIME MORE THAN MOST THINGS. Longtime Palms Weekend readers may recall all my stories about being drunk before lunch on weekdays and doubt the veracity of this statement, but freeform time is vital to my process. Hemingway I'm not; half a beer and I can't write for shit. But ideas fall out the sky, which I jot down to revisit back on Earth. It's obviously also arguable that I need to stop coming up with more ideas I don't have, and start taking the ones I do have somewhere special. So, before I spend the next year continuing to post blogs and cross my fingers as a marketing strategy, lets see if we can't ramp up traffic to this here Palms Weekend some.

Taking advice from one of those Compuserve-era how-to sites featuring stars twinkling in the background and spelling mistakes only Russians make, I spent a couple of hours submitting the Palms Weekend to Google, Yahoo, and a bunch of cut-rate search engines with names like Burf and BufuList until I imagined one of my web programmer friends smacking me in the back of the head for wasting my fucking time. Thereafter, I came across a program boasting a $29.95 price tag that supposedly submits each post across the web automatically, which I then stole on Demonoid. I'm going to guinea-pig the program with this post, which I have cunningly laden with references to the most popular search phrases of the day (Justin Bieber and "Lost"), and, of course, the undisputed kings of the Internet: dogs and babies. I've also submitted my blog to blog rank site Technorati, which requires me to post a code for site verification. So, here it is. YNX8E6NM7ADN

Until now, commenters received my rapt attention. Now you'll be lucky if I even notice your puny comment amongst the deluge of replies from sexually frustrated Indian men, spambots and 800-lb women trapped in their homes. My post picture is a dog dressed as a baby, goddamnit. I hope Blogspot's servers are strong.

The Palms Weekend Radio presents THE SAINTS & SINNERS FRIDAY NITE LIVE MIX.

I WAS BORN FOR MANY REASONS. To change rap. To have pretty babies. To keep the Bushmills Distillery in business. And I was born to deejay Saints & Sinners on Friday nights.

Saints & Sinners is in Palms, one of the mostly densely populated and ethnically diverse neighborhoods in Los Angeles, one of the most ethnically diverse cities in America, easily the most ethnically diverse country in the world. So it's my job to titillate the ears of one of the most mixed-up collections of people you will find in any bar anywhere - rockers, hip-hoppers, old schoolers, latins, and so on - in one night. My dad raised me on the blues. My mother's family raised me on Persian music. Living in England put me front row center for the '80s U.K. pop explosion. Moving to Los Angeles in 1992, the year of The Chronic and the riots, put me front row center for the '90s hip-hop explosion. And tracing those rap records back to their old school source samples opened me up to galaxies of music of all genres. After three years on the decks, a decent amount of local music lovers know that if you come to Saints & Sinners on a Friday night you're gonna hear it all. At once.

Click to episode 4 on the music player to your right to hear me in the mix at Saints & Sinners.You can also download it from the link below the player. We recorded the full four-hour set, then condensed it to my favorite segments. I kick off with an old school flurry, dip into reggae for a spell (which is normally the part where I point at the dancing women before eating the note Kate just handed me saying "no more reggae please"), tagteam hip-hop with some originals (props to QZR for hitting me with that Asha Puthli/Biggie record), turn '70s disco-rock into '80s R&B pop-cheese, and then go out diamond in the back, sun roof top style. Expect more Saints & Sinners mixes on subsequent episodes of The Palms Weekend Radio, which will premiere every Saturday and Sunday on soulpublicradio.com from 3 to 4pm, and live on forever here on the player at thepalmsweekend.com, the site that solves your music problems with one click.

And remember, if you're complaining about my mixing skills, you're not drunk enough.

Show #4 tracklist:

1. Bruce Springsteen, "Born To Run"/Parliament, "Flash Light"
2. Albert King, "Born Under A Bad Sign"
3. Little Richard, "Lucille"
4. Bootsy Collins, "I'd Rather Be With You"
5. Tonto Irie, "It A Ring"
6. Barrington Levy, "Teach The Youth"
7. Ini Kamoze, "World Of Music"
8. Alton Ellis, "I'm Still In Love With You"
9. Bob Marley, "Could You Be Loved"
10. The Heptones/N.W.A./Charles Wright & The 103rd Street Rhythm Band, "Express Yourself"
11. Asha Puthli, "Space Talk"/Notorious B.I.G., "The World Is Filled..."
12. Nas, "Street Dreams"/Tupac, "All Eyez On Me"
13. Mos Def, "Life Is Real"
14. Barry White, "Never Gonna Give You Up"
15. The Clipse, "Ride Around Shining"
16. U.G.K., "Good Stuff"/Jay-Z, "Hard Knock Life"
17. Fab 5 Freddy, "Down By Law"
18. Kiss, "I Was Made For Loving You"
19. Rod Stewart, "If You Think I'm Sexy"
20. Jermaine Stewart, "We Don't Have To Take Our Clothes Off"
21. Pebbles, "Girlfriend"
22. Janet Jackson, "What Have You Done For Me Lately"/"When I Think Of You"
23. Aaliyah, "One In A Million"
24. Prince, "Kiss"
25. Hall & Oates, "I Can't Go For That (instrumental)"
26. Isaac Hayes/Al Green, "Lets Stay Together"
27. William Devaughn, "Be Thankful For What You've Got"

BAMBOO: GREAT FOOD, BUT THEY'LL STEAL YOUR WEED.

Bamboo, 10835 Venice Blvd., WLA [yelp]

I TRY TO CELEBRATE AS MANY NEW CHECKS AS MY FINANCES PERMIT AT BAMBOO. $20 plates make it the most expensive restaurant in the neighborhood. The waitresses are all pretty Latin girls. The seafood pasta and the paella put my seafood itch in the ground every time. The bar has Bushmills whisky, a sugar cane press for mojitos and makes me want to book a flight somewhere Catholic, as does the tropical patio. This all means that the mere sight of Bamboo makes me feel broke, turned on, hungry as Dom Deluise, and thirsty as Dean Martin all at once. And since it's across The Parking Lot (story) from my mayoral compound, it's a feeling I know intimately. So blowing a week's grocery money on sea cockroaches and sugary drinks is a relatively easy way for me to feel more like the wealthy jetsetter I try to convince myself I am. Who cares if the older waiter seems to think a caipirinha is a mojito without mint, and always looks at me like he wants to pummel me with a straw chair? So what if that one waitress who I tried (and failed) to holler at on the block a few years ago won't stop trying to upsell us, and wouldn't credit Nikiya's debit card back for a month after overcharging her by $40? What's it to me if I ask the new waiter for a spoon and he gives me a knife? It's Bamboo. You want customer service? Go to an Apple Store. I want prawns.

Now, what you don't do is steal someone's half a joint. Even if it was hidden in a pack of Dentyne that I left on the table when we walked out last night. They even had the balls to give it back to me the moment I came back for it ten minutes later. He didn't even dig around in the trash or anything.

Saints & Sinners tonight! 10899 Venice, WLA. Down the block from Bamboo, actually. I deejay ten to two. No cover. No AA members. No Evanescence. And if you can't make it, tune into soulpublicradio.com tomorrow and Sunday 3pm-4pm PST for the next best thing: a recorded broadcast of me deejaying at Saints in all my triple-distilled, oak-aged glory.

COFFEE BEAN IS A CROCK

Venice & Overland

CAUGHT THIS ON THE WAY BACK FROM COFFEE BEAN THIS MORNING. Marcy Wino-Grad wants homes before banks, eh? I bet. How about whisky before breakfast?

On that note, if pennies are important to you, don't go to Coffee Bean if you only want coffee. Everyone knows CB thrashes Starbucks on the shmancy drinks front: lattes, ice blendeds, tea. But when it comes to straight joe, Starbucks rules. This is common knowledge, so where does Coffee Bean get off charging twenty cents more ($1.70) than Starbucks ($1.50) for a small coffee? Another CB tip: tell the cashier you want your drink 'to go', or they'll charge you some silly seventeen-cent tax. This might sound trifling, but if you're the type of person who drives twenty extra blocks to save 68 cents on gasoline, you have no excuse to ignore this.

The 'Bean' gets points for liquid sweetener though.

Oh, and for a free latte, just unscrew the tops off the chocolate and vanilla powder jars at the creamer station and apply to taste. The manager will get visibly angry, but there's nothing he/she can do about it.

I'M A PUNK ASS BIATCH

THE VENICE & WESTWOOD PARKING LOT WARS INTENSIFY. Yesterday I saw DOINTBIG (story), the joyless, silver-haired Arabian owner of Habib's market, staring into a Mustang parked in the lot behind my mayoral compound, which he also owns. It had been there at least a day, and I'm confident I saw someone sleeping in it at some point, although I can't be sure, since almost every car in that lot has a family of eight living in it. That was yesterday. I took this picture an hour ago. So it's official: this fucking fax machine salesman will harrass my friends when they park there for a few hours, but the homeless are free to set up camp like this was some Rwandan U.N. settlement for weeks on end while Crips slapbox underneath my little sisters' apartment window. For a good example of what a piece of shit this lot is, yesterday a camera crew parked a garbage truck in there and filmed a scene featuring two garbage men. If I had any spine I would boycott Habib's. But then I'd starve.

Shortly after I took this picture, I walked past Casper. Casper is an ese in his early thirties who lives in the halfway house beside my compound. He's about as wide as he is tall, and it's all beer and muscle. I knew I knew him as soon as I laid on eyes on him, but it's my cousin Ben who remembered him from our youth at Emerson Junior High, where he caused a fair amount of terror, jackings and random mouth-mushings. I pass him almost daily these days, but it was only today that I had my good camera on me, and caught him walking toward me from the kind of distance that wouldn't jeopardize shot quality or my chances of not getting beaten about the head and face with fists of fury. So what did I do with this golden opportunity? I kept my camera in my pocket and walked right the fuck past him, that's what. I'm already mildly apprehensive about a woman in her early forties (story) finding out I've been discussing her on the Interwebs without her consent, let alone a man living in a halfway house next door to me who used to call himself Casper. We pass each other so often that I'm sure it's a matter of time before he and I talk, so I'm confident that I'll have Casper-approved shots of Casper at some point. But until then, I guess I will just have to settle for being a punk ass biatch.

NILELLA

AT LEAST SIX TIMES OUT OF TEN WHEN I'M CROSSING VENICE AT GLENDON (story) on my way to or from Culver Plaza, that nearby wonderland of food, finance, exercise and high-end bongs, I'll walk past Nilella. I'm certain that's not her name, as we've never spoken so I wouldn't know. Moreover, a cursory googling of "nilella" yields approximately 4,350 results, mostly for horses and Sri Lankan estates. Actually, she could pass for Sri Lankan. Or, I could pass for blind and daft. Nevertheless, I call her Nilella because she reminds me of our buddy Niles (story), who, to my knowledge, is no more related to Nilella than I am to Quincy Jones, but, as you'll see from the picture I've hyperlinked his name to, could pass as a distant relative, at least if you ask me. Which you didn't.

She's tall and pretty, but seems melancholy. Heavy Gothic vibe; sunglasses, dark, functional clothing and a Trenchcoat Mafia jacket that flaps behind her like a superhero's cape. But every now and then she'll do it up, as the photo above illustrates: a flowing print dress, earrings, necklace, buoyant amble. She was even swinging her keys around on her keychain when I spotted her like a gazelle in the wild, fumbled as surreptitiously as possible for my camera and feigned a sudden uncontrollable urge to take a picture of a nearby electricity pole. I half thought she might pick me up by my throat and fling me against the Habib Market wall. That's not to say she won't crush my head like a macaroon if and when she finds out I've been writing about her on the Internet, not to mention what Niles may do when he learns that I've insinuated some kind of family connection between them. Two extremely tall people after me, one of whom is a three-hundred-and-twelfth degree multiple mauve belt karate master. Not bad for twenty minutes of writing.

I FOUND AMELIA EARHART

WAS WALKING BACK FROM ROBEK'S WITH JANET LAST SATURDAY when I ran into my neighbor, catching some rays on the sidewalk. She lives in the same apartment building as the guy who had a custom vinyl poster reading 'NO PLAYING ON THE LAWN' draped across his balcony until recently. I'm sad he took it down; Sum and I had big plans to stage a football game there. She's been around here for years, but it was our first (short) conversation. I thought she'd be hesitant to have her picture taken, as most people wearing dark sunglasses, umbrellas and heavy makeup tend to be, but she was all for it. Maybe she's cautious of skin cancer. Or maybe she's the Lindbergh baby.

PEOPLE I'D HURT: Man In Gym Shower.

Pause on this post. Actually, pause on this blog, just to be safe.


I'M RARELY MOVED TO VIOLENCE. It just doesn't seem to help much. If someone hits your girlfriend, and you like her, you'd better swing back, or move to another state. If someone hits you in front of your girlfriend, you'd better swing back, or get a new girlfriend who doesn't know your old girlfriend, which is another reason to move to another state. In those situations, fine. Otherwise, it seems to me like the only thing worse than being disrespected is being disrespected AND catching a black eye, or a lawsuit, or a knife in your head. But last week I met someone who I'd conceivably punch in a real way - not just if he was being held down, and Obama said I could, and I didn't think I'd break my wrist.

Now that excessive running has fucked my left foot up, I swim at Bally. If you don't shower immediately afterward, you will smell like old people for a day and a half, so I do so, in one of the eight stalls in the men's room. I always walk in murmuring "gooo corner shower... gooo corner shower...", hoping the one stall nobody can see into is available. It never is, and wasn't last week, when I noticed from my 'periphrerals', to quote The 40-Year-Old Virgin, the eyes of a middle-aged Asian man in the opposite shower repeatedly wandering in my direction. I understand we all zone out sometimes, and when we come to, we're staring at something we shouldn't be, like the time I almost got murdered on Melrose for staring at a carload of heavily armed 18th Street gangsters. But this guy's eyes would routinely dart away and return to check me out like a guy checks a girl out, except I'm a motherfucking man in the motherfucking shower.

What to do? Shout at him? He'll deny it, and you'll look crazy. Tell staff? You can't prove shit. Fight him? I'm not going to get into the logistics of having a naked standoff with another man in a public shower area. Suffice to say, it's a terrible, horrifically awful idea. But I haven't felt that close to punching someone in the face in a long time. It's actually good to know I can come up with that kind of rage, in case I take my future family camping one day and my unborn children should need protection from bears or other wild animals.

I ended up finishing my shower pressed up against the stall wall where he couldn't see me, like an action hero on the side of a building. This swordswallower is not gonna stop me from getting my Bally membership's worth; believe that. So it's not inconceivable that I will punch an old-ass man directly in the mouth sometime in the next couple of months. But I will definitely dry off and dress first. And wait until he does the same.

Um, Saints & Sinners tonight! 10899 Venice. Ten to two.

WE'RE FLYING TO VEGAS TOMORROW FOR $10

read: Travel Deals - $10 JetBlue Flights [New York Times]

$80 AFTER FEES, ACTUALLY.

When I first heard about about JetBlue's preposterous 48-hour sale about 40 minutes ago - all remaining seats, anywhere, "$10" each - I immediately looked into a week in Bogota, but here's the catch: you must leave AND return between the 11th and 12th for discounts on both legs. And Frana didn't wanna neglect her babies, so Vegas it is - two hours in the air, 15 hours in Sin City. Frana and I leave tomorrow at lunchtime and we're back the following morning in time for her to teach a classroom of tenth-graders the meaning of "hung over". Carry-on bags only, straight out the airport into a cab driven by my boy Frojoe, who will shuttle us to Palace Station for lunch at the hotel's Oyster Bar (yelp), where they cook your gumbo, pan roast or bouillabaisse in front of you. Vegas' best-kept secret. Maybe some poolside sloth, then off to see how much (more) we can drink before my hair goes up in flames like cheap curtains. Really, all I can think about is the Oyster Bar. I've always said that place is worth a Vegas trip alone, and now I'm about to prove it. And one night is really all anyone wants to spend in Vegas. The trip will seem like a dream by Thursday, and I won't come home smelling like the Marlboro Man either. So if you have a Ben Franklin or two and 24 hours to spare, go to jetblue.com now, and maybe we'll run into each other in a jacuzzi or something.

COME TO SAINTS & SINNERS TONIGHT! then shut up.

A gnat that drowned in a shot glass of Bacardi, a.k.a. me tonight at Saints & Sinners.

TONIGHT AT SAINTS & SINNERS WILL BE SPECIAL. First, because I'll be there. Second, because for the first time I'll be recording my set, which you'll be able to hear next weekend on The Palms Weekend Radio at soulpublicradio.com, provided the mixer at Saints is in a good mood.

On that note, a word. Usually, I love it when people hang out with me in the deejay booth. Now that Sum no longer deejays with me, I cherish a little company, unless you're asking me to play "something good", and/or your breath smells like you've been eating out of ashtrays. But times arise when deejaying requires my focus. A throng of shiny-shirted tunnel crowd types may have just walked in after getting turned down at the Ivar, and I may need to pretend to play something poppy so they'll stay long enough to buy a few drinks, complain about me and leave. Maybe I'm really enjoying myself. Maybe you're about to spill whisky on my equipment. Point is, sometimes I need to be left alone.

I know I look more like I'm checking my email up there, so it's easy to forget that I'm responsible for the sound coming out the speakers. I'm aware I'm sparking conversation as often as you are. Plus, it can be hard to tell that you're boring the criminy out of someone when you're drunk. So, since I'm too nice to tell you myself, if you ever ask me a question while I'm deejaying and you get one or more of the below responses, do the right thing and just hang out looking cool for a minute until you see me order another drink or something.

"Yeah"

"No"

"Sorry, didnt catch that"

"Could you not lean on the mixer please?"

"...."

Oh, Franamami and Janet will be there tonight too. Aaaaaaand a certain person who is definitely not related to me will be on a blind date who is positively not a friend of Franamami's. For sure.

RESTAURANT REVIEW: Tokyo 7-7

TODAY IS THE SECOND DAY STRAIGHT JOSH AND I ATE BREAKFAST AT Tokyo. It sits at the corner of two alleyways, in the center of the block that borders Venice and Culver to the north and south and Cardiff and Bagley to the east and west in Culver City. It's run by a street-tough gang of smiley old Japanese ladies who serve $2.60 French toast breakfasts and $3.85 vegetable yakisoba at portions that will anger the greedy and obese, but will leave everyone else feeling mature and wise. They serve cigarettes and Budweiser, a remnant from the restaurant's early years in the 80s when a meal wasn't a meal without ash in it. Service is warm and prompt. The bathroom is dark and smells like shit. The food is greasy yet clean, unhealthy yet you still somehow feel like you're cheating arteriosclerosis. Their bacon is salty and crunchy. Their chocolate milkshakes are like cupfuls of cold, sweet cloud. Every french fry is a 'bottom fry'. Monk said his home potatoes taste like old people smell. I order the grilled cheese sandwich every time and wouldn't dream of anything else. The pheebs at Yelp rave about its 'amazing decor' but it's not amazing; it's standard-issue truckstop shit you can find across the country. What's amazing is the fact that L.A.'s beautification Nazis haven't turned it into a Gap Kids yet.

If melted Kraft singles on toast still make your nipples tingle, this is the place for you.

Tokyo 7-7 Coffee Shop, 3839 Main St., ste. B, Culver City. Closes at 3pm, shut weekends. [Yelp]

reminder: WU TANG FUCKING RULES.

Fact: balls are round.

Fact: tight jeans make your privates smell funny.

Fact: Wu-Tang Clan fucking rules.

Yes, even after all the sub-par records. Name another group with two digits of classic albums, then maybe I'll humor that argument some.

Bart Aloe will prove it this Saturday and Sunday 3pm-4pm on soulpublicradio.com, when he will host an exclusive episode of his famed Dedicated To Wu show for The Palms Weekend Radio. Wu-Tang's music tends to scare the daylights outta people these days, so be sure to turn your stereo all the way up. They'll thank you later. In their minds.

Dedicated To Wu tracklist:

1. Gap Mangione, "Free Again"
2. "Ice Water"
3. "Kilo"
4. "Block Rock"
5. "Poisonous Darts"
6. "Clipse Of Doom"
7. "Lay Your Hammer Down"
8. "Watch Ya Mouth"
9. "Hip Hop Fury"
10. Syl Johnson, "Is It Because I'm Black"
11. "The PJs"
12. "Killah Hills 10304"
13. "10 Bricks"
14. "Wolves"
15. Booker T & The MGs, "Sunny"
16. "The Glock"
17. "Who's The Champion"
18. Judy Clay, "Children, Don't Get Weary"
19. "C.R.E.A.M. (Cee & Gee remix)"

FUMIGATION DAY at the MAYORAL COMPOUND

a Western Exterminator rep talking to a customer

THE WESTERN GUY LOOKS JUST LIKE THE FELLA IN THE DRAWING TOO. Except, nowhere near as slim or well-dressed. I was on the john when this flabby-ass dogcatcher banged a little too authoritatively on my door, and again 20 seconds after I shouted at him to give me a minute. The notice said to empty all cupboards by 9am. My cupboards consist of two chipped mugs I remember drinking from in 1983. I only needed ten minutes, which he was apparently unable to give me, even ten minutes before the scheduled spraying time. "Ain't no ten minutes. We'll have to reschedule yours." He pulled the same shenanigans at Josh's apartment. Maybe he had a date with a roach, or a weight counselor, though I can't imagine how much weight he'd have to lose to lose that stupid look on his face. He was swiftly replaced with another Elmer Fudd lookalike. I guess they do chase varmints after all. Maybe Western is a remnant of the Fudd Dynasty, and the Fudds are actually real people, like Jesus and the Da Vinci Code. Just kidding, that's a fairytale. Jesus, not the Da Vinci Code.

Janet called me from work following what Josh says was a heated phone argument between her and Lesley, our building manager who is best known for not wearing shoes much. The Fudds couldn't get into Janet's place; eventually someone jumped through a window. I could hear Janet's neck vein throbbing through the phone. Lesley was on her Bluetooth talking about paying a mortuary $500 and finding a rabbi when Josh and I bundled Mrs Brown from #4 into my Oldsmobile to take her to dialysis since the senior citizen van was late. The van pulled up as we were pulling out. It took us five minutes to walk Mrs Brown from the car to the hospital lobby, and two hours to get over the sight of the dialysis room. Then I had a chocolate milkshake for breakfast at Tokyo 7-7. Those little old Japanese ladies really know their way around a grilled cheese sandwich.

Ran into E Reece walking the block pushing his brand new son, fresh out the baby factory. Jesse passed by in his A-Team van, which is looking better and better. Now Josh and I are at the Coffee Bean on Sepulveda and Palms waiting for the smell of cockroach holocaust to subside. A cashier just called a lady "sir". Come see us.

FREE SHOES ALERT

AS OF 2:33PM, A PAIR OF PLAID RED ALIFES AND A PAIR OF CANVAS BLUE NIKES ARE SITTING ON THE GRASS in front of my mayoral compound at 3757 Westwood Blvd., just north of Venice. I got tired of looking at them. This has nothing to do with the fact that my girlfriend hates the red "Christmas shoes" or that my sisters cheerleaded their purchase and have been laughing at them ever since. They're a little gang-related, so I can't be held liable for subsequent attempts on your life should you decide to come pick them up. That is, of course, assuming they're still there as of 2:37pm, and Jesse the Parking Lot King isn't wearing some fashionable new footwear with unreasonably long laces that don't match anything you try to wear with them.

UPDATE (4:07pm): Nikes gone. Christmas shoes still available.