This Ugly Beautiful City

One of the reasons I haven't been writing is that I have been working on a new blog. I have done a lot in my almost nine years here and want to switch focus to a blog about things to do in Los Angeles. So many people ask me for ideas. In the last few weeks of sharing my ideas to friends and friends of friends, I wish that I would have started this type of blog a long time ago.

This year's New Year's resolution, instead of making promises I can't keep like losing weight or something to do with finances is to do a project. Last year it was read a book a month about Los Angeles, this year it is to write about things to do in Los Angeles.

I hope you will take a look and share this with people.  It also has an accompanying instagram account.

www.thisuglybeautifulcity.com

The big day

Our call time was a very early 9:30. Gaga and I left dressed to the nines, you know incase we got some screen time or anyone asked us to accept an award because George Clooney was not attending. I had wanted to take a before picture, but someone had their galloshes on before I could get the soap out of my hair.

I have to say that this was a very surreal experience, yes, it was a lot of waiting, waiting made better with coffee, pastries, free make overs, massages, and photo booths. It was weird to actually be there, It felt sometimes unreal. 

We did have a lot of time with the foreign press before the main event, who had some pretty amazing dresses themselves. When the magic hour hit, it was a flood of movie stars, and fortunately we had a front and center seat to all of the interviews, therefore a lot of great pictures. If.... the woman in front of me didn't have her mall hair bangs waving in the wind. Non bang hair cameo photos to follow with a link to flickr. We saw everybody. Brangelina, Cate Blanchet, Jared Leto, Jennifer Lawerence, Bette, Lupita, Bradley. Yes, we are now on a first name basis.

After the red carpet was over we headed over to the El Capitan to watch the broadcast, but after a few awards we decided that our magical day had come to an end. We loaded up our 2 ton gift bags and walked to the Roosevelt to take a cab back to the house. Sadly all the cabs were too far away, and with some academy award winning acting of our own, we ended up taking the hotel's towncar back. Truly a magical day.

Link to flickr set here

drowned out plans

In keeping with the Hollywood/Oscars theme, I had really great things planned for Saturday. I haven't really taken my family to downtown L.A. before and since living so close for two plus years I had really grown to love it. Downtown Los Angeles has a lot of hidden gems and a lot of history to tell.

At 10:00 a.m. I had planned for us to go on the Art Deco tour that the L.A. Consevancy gives and see great architecture and pass by theaters that used to have grand Hollywood premiers. I had planned for us to visit a French cafe and sipped lattes and snacked on macarons while people watching.Then wander over to the Fashion Distict to the FIDM museum where they had all of the costumes on display from the films nominated in the best costume category.

It would have ended with The Chanel or a McQueen at the Pattern Bar, but instead it rained and we did none of these things.

 

Lunching with "the people"

Another item on the Hollywood list was lunching where "the people" do lunch. Although that can be many places in L.A. There is only one original, the only one inside a hotel a town was named after. The Polo Lounge in the Beverly Hills Hotel.

This was the day it started to pour, and luckily for us, a little rain there, a little shuffle here, and a rogue hostess got us the best table in the house. A green leather booth with a panorama of the entire dining room. We even had our own private piano player. People actually thought we were part of "the people" with that booth. Everytime people passed they looked us up and down, we looked them up and down to see who is who. We actually saw many on "them"

Spike Lee, Sophia Coppola, Catherine O'Hara, Frannie Lebowitz, others that may have been "people" and people difinitely thought Brian was "people."(I may have forgotten some, feel free to leave the people I forgot in the comment section)

Best place to see celebrities hands down is the Polo Lounge on Oscar weekend. Save up, because lunch can cost an arm and a leg, and the food was meh. You are paying for the atmosphere for sure.  I think my arnold palmer was $11. Breakfast on a weekday is a much better buy and you can take the jams home as door prizes.

It was nice to feel like you were part of the scene for the day.

 

Somewhere under the rainbow

If you drive a little south from the Getty, you will start to see a rainbow appear, not because of some atmospheric change, but because of the public art piece at Sony Studios, of the Wizard of Oz rainbow. (pictured) I though to myself  "Self, this would be an excellent place to start the 2014 Oscar tour, since the theme of this year's Oscars was The Wizard of Oz."

TWOOZ (lazy for the wizard of oz) was filmed at nearby Culver Studios/MGM lot located in Culver City. Culver City is a young town, incorporated in 1917 and established by Harry Culver, a real estate man from Nebraska.  His first item on his agenda was to lure movie studios there to Culver City. The Cotton Club and Howard Hughes's aircraft business once called it home. TWOOZ was filmed 22 years after Culver City was born. I live just a hop, skip, and a jump from the studio.

Since I have lived here, I hadn't done a studio tour. I was secretly happy that my family was so into it, because I love being a tourist in my own city.  I really didn't know what to expect, I was ready for something really cheezy, punny, and groan worthy.  I don't know why I set my expectations so low.

And so began our tour with Tony, rhymes with Sony. Who is the best tour guide ever, he remembered every single one of our names, those who gave it, nudge nudge, "the mysterious source". We started with a movie of the history of the studio, from its humble beginnings to what it is now. (That studio made such great movies, ahem robocop redo)

"And we're moving" 

We walked across the street to the lot for a tour that was 2 and a half hours long, filled
with set tours, historical information, and trivia. "The mysterious source" was of course on fire with all of her trivia knowledge, they wouldn't let her take an Oscar home as a prize although she tried.

A friend of mine hooked us up with a walk on after which included a lunch where the power people lunch and some of the best scallops I have ever had.

Again the photos from this day are in mom's camera, which I wasn't able to download when I was in MN.

Celebrities they are just like us-boys night out

A couple weeks ago I was out with a friend at the martini bar were we usually get up to no good at, Nic's in Beverly Hills. You may remember it from early blog posts of me wearing a fur coat in a vodka freezer.

We sitting there, getting chatted up my our waiter, which we probably gave a good tip and in walks in Danny Devito with some guys for a night of martini's.

Celebrities, they are just like us.

Setting the stage

To say that this was a last minute trip for everyone was a bit of an understatement. Tickets to buy, lodging to figure out, days off to request. From notification that I had a guest to them landing was maybe 6 weeks.

The above photo collage was from the place we rented on vrbo (a site I love, especially after recent run ins with airbnb) I am glad that I took those pictures then, because that was before the suitcases unfurled and really the only time it was dry. The rest of the weekend, except for the Sony Picture Tour, it  poured.

The house we rented was just a couple blocks off of Sunset and La Brea, close to Hollywood and Highland. It was cute, from the 1920s with builtin bookshelves and buffets, a gourmet kitchen, and great details. There are more photos of it on my mom's camera, but I couldn't load them onto my ipad, so on her camera they will stay.

A couple interesting facts is that the coffee table book in the house was written by the owner of the house that I stayed in for my 35th birthday, also through vrbo. (ok, maybe I just find that interesting) and secondly the owner said that Phillip Seymour Hoffman would stay there when he would film in Los Angeles. He had just passed recently when we stayed in the house.

BTW California is currently experiencing a drought so if any of you want to come visit, maybe we can get Jerry Brown to cover the ticket.

I had to read it several times to get it

I don't win things. I just don't. I have never really had any luck good or bad. The last time I won anything was $50 off of a scratch lotto ticket my mom bought for my 18th birthday. Maybe that was in fact her luck, not mine that made me win 50 bucks.

When I was looking at the new Oscar museum website for possible job openings, I noticed a web banner advertisement about becoming a museum member with a possibility of winning tickets to the Oscars. I signed up and immediately emailed the immediate fam urging them to signup because maybe someone would win, not me of course.

I actually forgot that I signed up and when I did find out that I had indeed won, I couldn't be happy about it. I got the email while I waited to pick up my bag, after finding out my flight from Toronto to Ottawa was canceled.  We had just found out that we flew into a polar vortex. 

When I read the email later, the only light I had access to was my phone. The electricity went out in the place we were staying, the timed beeps of the "by the way, your smoke alarm is no longer connect to electrical!!!" made it hard to sleep. I re-read the email, but it sounded like it was just for me, 1 ticket. I thought, no way am I going by myself and I never thought about it again.

When I got back from the great farther north, I got a reminder to turn in all my forms, I didn't think to bother. I got a second reminder an hour later about getting in my forms for me and my guest.

Guest!!!!

The posts to come is my itinerary for perfect Hollywood weekend. Thankfully I had some very willing participants.

Birthday part ll

We we all a little bummed (bumbed) at that point, the day of laying by the pool and relaxing dashed, but as always we laughed through it, joking that the guys called it in because they couldn't handle all of the kids at once. We ended up again at a very cute place in Ocean Beach, sipped more cocktails and watched the surfers. Then did a little window shopping, joked about getting matching tatoos at one of the many parlors in the 3 sqaure block area and called it a day for girls day. We finished with pizza and cupcakes.

A birthday so fun they had to call in the bomb squad

As I mentioned in an earlier post, part of the reason this trip was planned in August was my mom's birthday. I you know my mom at all, her idea of the BEST terp, I mean trip, when she can spend time near water with a fruity drink in her hand with all of us in the same place. Keeping this in mind, we planned a surprise girls day at a local day spa/resort. Little did we know that we were in for a surprise ourselves. (dun, dun, duuuuun!)

We left the men with the under 10 set, and we set off for a neighboring island. We checked into the spa, sipped tea in robes and waited for our services which were going to tip off a whole day of steaming, snacking, and lounging at the resort's pools and jacuzzis without a chorus of mom, mom, moms and no, no, nos. once properly steamed, we headed to lunch and the bar. We were enjoying a bunch of sweet potato fries and strawberry mojitos when our waiter let us know that we had to evacuate because someone called a bomb threat.. At first we thought he was kidding, but unfortunately he wasn't. We grabbed our drinks and walked to the evacuation zone, which was a shadeless open field on a very hot day. After 30 minutes and no end in sight, we told a slight fib about where we were parked and ended up running to the car, a lot closer than I remembered to the building. Three hours later, when we passed by the resort, the beaches were still empty. We made the right decision, plus we salvaged a birthday.
 

(above photo was before we left)

(below photos is of lunch part one)

Where have I been??

This is another one of those apology posts where I talk about all of the reasons I haven't been posting. Since my last post, about San Diego, I have been to Miami, Montreal, Toronto, Ottowa, I had guests in town for the Oscars, and then visited North Carolina, Minnesota. I have been traveling less this year, but saving my days for something big.

I also moved in with K. It has been almost 4 months now. I like it pretty ok so far. He is making me fat, so another thing I have been doing is learning to box.

I organized an international conference with heads of museums in Amsterdam, New York, and France. It was successful and there will be a part II.

Altough I hope to try to post more often, life is a bit busy and unpredictable. I am also starting a new project which I hope to share soon. I also have become a bit addicted to instagram. Tomorrow will be my first adventure to a California county fair. I will be instagramming deep friend bacon wrapped oreos stuffed with doritos @ulainla

For now, I had a couple posts hanging out ready to be published about the San Diego trip about my mom's birthday and since it is almost her birthday again I should get on that, then I will skip ahead to what you have all been waitng for.....

THE OSCARS!

 

Tradition

We love traditions in my family. I think everyone's favorite of this trip was running to the beach every evening to catch the sunset. (Although some people may argue it was chasing each other in the sand pretending we were airplanes) here are some of the sunsets we witnessed at Mission Beach.

Planes, Trains, and Margaritas

While the fam was flying across the country, I was taking the two and a half hour train ride from LA to San Diego. I really recommend taking a train up or down the Pacific coast, it really is beautiful and for the most part peaceful.

Our first stop before checking into the house was of course celebratory margaritas at Casa Guadalajara, this adorable place my family found circling the Old Town San Diego Historic Park looking for me. Bright colors, fountains to keep Charley and her baby away from, and drinks the size of fishbowls. The food was pretty great too. Southern California has some pretty great Mexican food and you can't find it anywhere else. (I usually grab a burrito before heading on a long trip away from L.A.)

Then it was off to the house we would call home for the next week.

A little time has passed

2014 has been a pretty intense year so far. A whirlwind trip to Canada in the midst of a polar vortex, where I met everyone, ate everything, and traveled to 2 different Provences and 5 different cities or towns.

The decision K and I made to live together, weekends spent clothing swapping, deciding what goes, stays and is stored. I will miss my little place, its 1920s charm, my hardwood floors, my neighborhood that is growing into this bar and food paradise.

I won bleacher seats to the Oscars and am planning a Week of Hollywood for my visitors. Studio tours, lunch where "people" lunch, Oscar costume exhibits, etc.

I guess all this to say that these are the reasons I have not written on the blog. I left somewhere off in San Diego. I have posts written, sitting there waiting for me to insert pictures. Hopefully it won't take another 6 months to post them.

I seem to have more time for instagram. Photos of things I have seen, eaten, inspire me, interior design, etc. you can find me there, when I am not writing this blog. My username is ulainla. 

Ok, back to San Diego, sorry for the bad timing when it is so cold everywhere else.