Weekend Post

The best week of the year in Los Angeles is always this one, the final seven days of the year. More property taxes and obligations are on tap for me in January but here in the waning days of December I can bask in the glory of the city that Zorro once called home.

First of all, the town is practically empty. Most people from the industry are gone, terrorizing the help in Hawaii and Aspen. There’s very little traffic. You can actually make the fifteen minute drive between Brentwood and LAX on the 405 Freeway in only forty minutes. It’s like you’re flying! Hard to get into restaurants? Not this week. Spago will even make reservations for people they don’t know. And at 7:00 not 10:30. (Unfortunately, their chefs are probably in Aspen and Hawaii.)

Los Angeles is so deserted I heard of a friend who found a parking place at the Grove shopping mall. But that’s still just a rumor.

For industry guild folks there are free screenings of movies and better yet, free screeners.  In the hopes of snaring nominations from any organization that gives out awards (even the WGA), studios let eligible voters and guests see contending movies gratis. It’s also their way of giving back to the community.

Most of the city’s attention this week is on the upcoming Rose Parade and Bowl. If you have six friends over to your apartment to play poker, the Rose Queen and her court will come and speak to your group.

Highlight of the Rose Bowl festivities is the Lawry’s Beef Bowl. Lawry’s is the greatest prime rib restaurant in the world (a more popular attraction to Japanese tourists than Disneyland). Every year they invite each team (this year Oregon vs. Wisconsin) and feed them as much prime rib as they can eat. Usually the winning team tops out at around 630 pounds of beef. During the Rose Bowl, you’ll notice half the players sleeping the bench. That’s why.

The Rose Parade is Wednesday morning. Today some idiots will start staking out spots along the parade route. Every local channel will broadcast the parade. KTLA gets a 50 share, everyone else gets a 2. Why these other stations still bother is beyond me. KTLA coverage begins at like 3:00 a.m. Five hours of watching people paste flowers on floats and the idiots from today freezing. KTLA will begin replaying the parade immediately upon its conclusion. Then they replay it again. And again. Sometime around January 15th they return to regular programming. 

I still miss longtime hosts Stephanie Edwards and Bob Eubanks. Mark & Leeza do an excellent job, but the parade is all about tradition and Bob & Steph are both still alive and can read teleprompters, so for my money they should still be there (pretending to like marching bands and sniping at each other).

Then on New Year’s evening all the locals will go out to dinner, have to wait 45 minutes for a table since the Wisconsin rooters got there first, and things will return to normal.

So for my fellow Angelinos – enjoy it while you can!

from By Ken Levine