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L.A. Magazine - Best of WHOSE L.A.?
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4673 Reads
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 Griping about Los Angeles Magazine's lack of relevance to the real Los Angeles is a bit like bitching that Dockweiler State Beach is noisy.
Sunbathe under the LAX glidepath, and your eardrums get shredded. Riffle through L.A. Mag, and you'll get a slicked-out, perfume-fingered dose of too-rich-for-you neuse and entertainmente about a surreal slice of Los Angeles populated only by people who can afford walk-in closet makeovers and Benz 500SLs. Caveat emptor.
I exaggerate, of course. Some of the stories are gritty (Jesse Katz's homeless expedition), sharp (the just-departed Amy Wallace's profile on Industry beast Peter Bart) and cool. But the annual "Best of" exercise just hit the stands, and you have to ask - "Best of whose Los Angeles? "
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How many Angelenos really need to know where the best taxidermist, orchids and antique watches can be found?
Most of us just don't wander the streets wearing holes in our Pradas, wondering "Oh, dear, wherever could the best archery lessons in Los Angeles be?"
No, we're busy struggling through the morning commute to jobs we're trying to escape so that we can get to better-paying jobs with better co-workers so we can stand to work there long enough to cover mortgage or rent or car payments or groceries and so that we can afford fripperies like the occasional beer or glossy magazine. (Full disclosure: I got an L.A. Mag subscription for 10 bucks - it's a tax writeoff in my line of work. Interesting that they're so hungry for subscriptions that it's going so cheap ...)
But I digress.
Anything slower than a daily newspaper in this town somehow feels a need to create a vast, sucking vortex for ad dollars by putting out a "Best of Los Angeles" issue. The Weekly usually manages to make it stylish, useful and entertaining to read - (although there was that truly strange metaphysical one not long ago and I think I enjoy the List Issue a helluva lot more).
I'm digressing again.
Listen: the truly useful items in this year's L.A. Mag BofLA ...- Children's Bookstore (Children's Book World on Pico)
- Comic Books (Meltdown)
- Record store (Amoeba
- and hot dog (Pink's)
are low-risk, no-duh slam-dunks.
The really interesting and useful items are just puzzlingly wrong.
Soul food - Flossie's in Torrance? Man, I guess they never made it to Aunt Kizzy's Back Porch or Angel Lena's Soul Food Kitchen.
Roasted Chicken - they chose Lola's in Van Nuys over the legendary, head-bangingly good Zankou because they decided not to include the garlic sauce in their calculations. Sure, and Dockweiler's a better "urban" beach than Rose Avenue if you don't count the 747s screaming overhead every 10 minutes.
Offbeat guide to L.A. - L.A. mag picked the broad, sprawling Southern California edition of Tours for Free California. Probably because the Lonely Planet Los Angeles was too "edgy." You want edgy, go for Pleasant Gehman's Underground Guide to Los Angeles, which packs more piss, energy, raw interest and just-plain useful info into its 240 pages than the usual businesslike fluff from Fodor's. Or the L.A. Mag pick.
And the rest of it feels like a transdimensional window onto the Planet Money, where everyone is too rich to have time to work.
Oh - you want me to address them on their own uppercrusty turf - Okay, here goes: They chose as the best place to buy vintage bathroom fixtures - Square Deal Plumbing & Heating? Have they never heard of Liz's Antique Hardware? Dug through the bins and found that one perfect chrome art Deco drawer-pull?
Ahhh, all this is just stressin' me out.
Hey, Kit? Babe? Brah, dude, sir? Really need to dig a little deeper next year. It's a bigger city than you're letting it be. More items, more risk, maybe, hmm? The advertisers are getting a lovely, charmingly designed ride and all (not sure about the pull-out index, which I had to DIG through a Hummer ad to find, because I really needed to know the address for your Best chocolates store - I need to impress that certain someone) but it just ain't the best of Los Angeles ...
Now, catch you later. I've got to got remind Jorge - again - not to put so much wax on the Cayenne this time. I might just be taking a little salmon-frittata picnic up to Tahoe this weekend if I can put off the appointments with my colorist, my ab-trainer and my meditation coach.
Ciao, sweetie. Don't change, you're beautiful.
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| Posted by: mack_reed on Friday, July 16, 2004 - 09:00 AM
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