Okay, I am surprised that my friend John has not commented on the fact it has been two months since my last post. Although, I should not be surprised since, in those two months, I have spent a pretty good amount of time with him here on the Left Coast. John is getting ready to leave NYC for grad school and so he went on a driving tour of the U.S. He ended up in LA a few weeks back and crashed at my place for a few days. And while he was here, we did all those touristy things that I never do while living here. That is always the case though, isn’t it? In NY I never did any of the “popular” things to do in NY because they were always there. That being the case, there was no rush to see them. And to this day, I have not been to the Statue of Liberty. I have been up close to it on a boat, but I have never actually gone into it.

John at Roscoe's

So while John was here, I was willing to do all those little things he wanted to do. We went to Rodeo Drive and looked for famous people. Although John assumes I hang out with stars, truth be told, I don’t. Sorry, John. I drove into Hollywood so he could see the Sunset Strip, including my favorite – The Rainbow Bar & Grill. We ran in the morning out to Muscle Beach, but we did not workout there. Lucky for them! And we went to the famous LA institution, Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles. Now that is someplace I have wanted to go, but just never got around to it. And let me tell you, I was pleased. That was some of the best fried chicken I have ever eaten. The crisp salty goodness of the chicken paired with the sweet fluffy waffles is a match made in the heavens! I think John will back me up on this one.

Besides checking out the typical LA establishments, I even downloaded the songs “I Love LA” by Randy Newman. But I will admit, I made John pay me for that one (I mean pay me $1 in addition to the cost of the song!). He seemed to think that is the LA equivalent of Sinatra’s “New York, New York.” I beg to differ. John’s musical view of LA was summed up by that song and “I Lost My Wallet in El Segundo” by Tribe Called Quest. For those of you that don’t know John, that should give you a little insight into the workings of his mind. John, I offer up a list of other LA-related tunes that you might consider…

• Goin’ Back to Cali – LL Cool J
• Santa Monica – Everclear
• Hotel California – The Eagles
• California Girls – The Beach Boys (not David Lee Roth!)
• Los Angeles – X
• California (theme from the OC) – Phantom Planet
• California Love – Tupac
• LA Song – Beth Hart
• California – Joni Mitchell
• Beverly Hills – Weezer
• California – WAX

There are, obviously, many more songs about SoCal, but I think this is a good cross-section. No need to get into bands like the Chili Peppers or Sublime. Local boys made good, so radio just plays the hell out of them here.

John, good luck in grad school. Maybe I’ll send you and MP3 mix…