Thursday, December 29, 2005

LESSONS LEARNED ONLY IN L.A. ON CHRISTMAS

As most of ya'll know, this holiday season I was supposed to go to India, then to Vail, then on a cruise with my parentals. None of that happened which left me stuck in my apartment overlooking a Christmas all to myself.

Of course, I have fabulous friends and everyone invited me to do stuff, from Guvnor and her tri-tip eating movie-watching holiday crew, to the Ardells and their Santa Barbara run. From an almost unlimited number of great choices, this was my Christmas day itinerary.

THE RECAP:

9:30am -- Wake up, head to the Union St. Mission with the Hooper family to feed the homeless.

10:30am -- In the heart of skid row, piling mashed potatoes on plates with a bunch of too many other volunteers while former NFLer Marcus Allen sang Christmas carols to the folks there. (He's evidently been showing up at Christmass there for the past few years)

1PM -- Head over to the Simos for baby's first Christmas.
Brought Simocat Halo 2 and talked about being single with Gretchen's Dad.

8PM -- Head over to Whittier to go see Latin Rock extravaganza with Scott and Carlos.

9pm-Midnight -- Rock out to the best Open Jam I've ever been to.

Carlos' uncle is an audio engineer. Once a year, him and his fellow production buddies (who work with Pancho Sanchez, WAR, etc.) get together every Christmas and form one of the most kickassed jam sessions you've ever been to at a big restaurant/club in the heart of East L.A. We're talking horns, keyboards, and the Tito Puente percussion set with like 4 cowbells, and multiple singers. They don't just cover Blue Moon neither. We're talking the kind of 70's and 80's funk and soul jams that you never can place but you always rock out to. Like Earth Wind and Fire, Billy Ocean, Tower of Power, all that good stuff.

Midnight - Eat Menudo. Yes, as if this jam in the heart of east L.A. couldn't have gotten any better, they served us Menudo with lots of Tripe at midnight. Hell yeah.


Soo. . . the Lessons I Learned for my L.A. Christmas would include:

  1. Helping the homeless is good and a really good way to get some perspective on life. (Yeah, cliche but incredibly true.)
  2. If you're going to volunteer to serve food at a mission (RECOMMENDED) don't do it on Christmas-- That's the dayeveryone wants to go help and the fancy high class volunteer Moms can get ornery if they don't meet their personal 'guilt killing homeless helping quotas' . Also, all the Missions are at like half capacity at Christmas cuz everyone's feeding the homeless that day with good food.
  3. Halo II is fun to play on Simo's big TV
  4. I am still no good at FIFA (but improving)
  5. Dating books from the 60's (Like 'How to Meet Friends & Influence People) basically has the same crap in them as dating books from the 21st century.
  6. 50+ year olds who are trying to score chicks basically can approach 'working the scene' in the same way everyone else does, more or less.
  7. East L.A. is way cool
  8. Tripe soup is good and Menudo heightens your senses
  9. The older you get, the harder you can still rock

1 comment:

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