Another song about Los Angeles

LAUSD-Jurrasic 5

Give it a listen.

Do you Jango?

I hate Myspace, I do. I think is is just a forum from pederasts and men who want to cheat on their wives/girlfriends/ etc.

In addition, don't you hate the fact that if you have a friend that has tons of video content on their page it take a year to email them.

A networking service that I have found and love as a music lover is Jango. A way to network through music. I have my own radio station if you you want to find it, it is under Fadeinmail. Share your station with me. We will be music pals.

I am getting new neighbors

Can't wait we will be BFFs forever.

Go west young woman

I have been exploring.

Great little Los Angeles Book blog

A friend sent me this link to a Los Angeles based book and movie book club blog.

Nobody Reads in LA

Check it out it seems like a great way to meet like minded folks in this hard to navigate town.

No, the world did not end October 1st

This past weekend was a crazy weekend in Los Angeles and the surrounding areas. I have never heard of so many fairs, festivals and food and wine events happening in one weekend. Did people in Los Angeles think that the world was going to end today?

If anyone hit any of the following I would like a report.
Abbot Kinney Festival
WeHo Book Fair- shocker I wasn't there
The Swerve Festival

How can so many things happen in the town and I not do anything? I don't know either.

The thing that makes me laugh the most was how bummed out people were at work today, my favorite was when a girl moped through the office saying.

"Summer is over."

My question is, how can summer be over when:
a) we are no longer in school
b) our schedule never changed at work, where there is no such thing as summer hours
c) It is still sunny everyday
d) it is still fucking gorgeous outside

Move to Minnesota, then you will know that summer has a definite end point.

I didn't think it would be this way either

Moving here, I never though Los Angeles would be so normal. With all of the media attention this little town gets I thought some things would be so different, so celebrity filled and you couldn't walk down the street in BH or the Hollywood area without an ocean of photographers.

The things about L.A. that are played up so much in the media and is so underwhelming are things like ...

Robertson, Where all of young Hollywood shops and the site of The Ivy-Is actually only 3 blocks long. Just this little blip on the radar of Los Angeles.

The Kodak Theater- The sight of The Oscars, is inside of a shopping mall. Yes, it is true. You have to pass Nine West in your Manolos and Versace to get to your seat. You could possibly stop for some Could Stone if you get there too early and want to avoid Isaac Mizrahy's uncomfortable questions and bad touches.



Walk of fame- The stars of the acting greats are flanked by stars for the not so acting greats and former Laker Cheerleaders, turned singers, turned... The site of the Chinese Theater is also the sight for panhandlers dressed in costumes.

Anyway, this is not to deter you from ever coming here. There are many things about Los Angeles that I love. I just know that it is a shock to find out that the mighty wizard is just a man pulling switches behind a curtain.

WTF is Mandy.com

Overlooking a friends shoulder while he was on the internet, I jabbed him in the ribs and asked him:

"What's mandy.com ?" Wink wink. Me thinking it was a porn site or a webcam that followed a girl named "Mandy" around doing very naughty things.

"You don't know what Mandy.com is?" He replied in that are you stupid? tone, I have grown to hate. "It is for actors."

I am not an actor so I am not sure if you can know what it is if you are not an actor. I write this post to the many of you who are coming out to Los Angeles to act or work in the film industry and do not know what Mandy.com is. Basically....

Looking to build your acting resume and don't have an agent and aren't a SAG member? Go to Mandy.com
Have a finished film and are looking for distributors? Go to Mandy.com
Have you given up on being a director and need to liquidate your camera, light kit, etc.? Go to Mandy.com
Want to read scripts for fun at an up and coming production company? go to Mandy.com

So that is Mandy.com, I hope it helps.

Bus Blog-2

I am outside waiting for the 10 after a dentist appointment. I haven't gone for a few years, although it is not the bus' fault, an intense scaling (scraping with that small, metal hook) with no topical anesthetic doesn't help waiting for the 10 any more pleasant. What I don't realize as well is that my dentist sent me out into the world with blood in the corners of my mouth and my teeth lined with blood. yay, thanks a lot. Not only do I look pissed, I look like a goth vampire girl too.

I don't feel well, it is hot and I am on my way back to work. I am not able to tell at this point when the next bus will come, but at this point in the day, according to the schedule it should be every ten minutes. After 20 minutes (not exaggerating, I have a trusty cell phone) at an unsheltered spot, I take the only bus that comes, even though it doesn't go as far as I need it to go, but at least where it is going, it has shade.

Did I mention that my ipod battery is dead? I try in vain to start David Bowie's, Space Oddity over and over again with no luck. It is 40 minutes later and I finally catch a bus that will take my all the way to La Brea. If any of you know the area, where I go to the denist on Larchmont is not all that far from La Brea, I could have walked and made it in less time than waiting for what I will try to remember to call the FUCKING 10 throughout the rest on my posts.

Thankfully, the 212 and the 333 came without incident, but if any of you MTA people find my blog, you need a 733, because there are way to many people who need to get from Downtown to Santa Monica. It is like a clown car.

Blog I heart-Pop Candy

Come on admit it you do like a bit of celeb. gossip every once in a while. Sometimes we just can't help it. I have my moments, I am afraid. If I were to have been asked to write about the Britney performance about the VMAs I would have wrote:

"Britney, after being inspired by the popularity of the YouTube short of the Fillipino prisoners performance of Thiller decides to borrow the choreography for her VMA opener Gimme More, unbeknownst to her fellow dancers."

But no one asked me.

Like some of you I am sick of the Brangelina, which young dumb socialite is in rehab, how lonely Jennifer Aniston is etc., etc.,

It is kind of hard to help though, I am living in Los Angeles and although I hear it is not the gossip capital of the world, (London is I guess, is there any one who can confirm?) you really get inundated with celeb. gossip. The nightly news is 12 minutes world news, local news, weather and sports and about 10 minutes dedicated to celebrity "news" after the news on at least two national channels is a double header of two gossip shows. (ET, Access Hollywood, the Insider)

It really is too much and to be honest that is not the Hollywood information I want. I want to know what shows are being cancelled, if Jon Favreau's Dinner for Five is ever going to release other seasons on DVD, who is going to be on the next season of heroes. You can find all of this information and more on Pop Candy

Pop Candy is a great, smart, insightful blog that is completely addictive. It is, in my opinion, the best entertainment blog out on the web, a complete walk down a child of the '80's memory lane and convinces me often of what I should tune into t.v., movie and music wise.

Go now and read!!

This town....

I just got back into town from Minneapolis. My second trip in a month.

Although a bit cliche, I am really surprised on how much has changed in the year and a half that I have been gone. The saddest to me is the downfall of Uptown.

Uptown has a very nostalgic place in my heart, probably a lot of people's hearts for the first shows of bands like the Replacements and Husker Du. For me, Uptown was where I spent my high school years. For a small town girl like me, who was weird and odd in a town of 7,000, saw that I infact was incredibly tame in comparison.

Calhoun Square is even more of a ghost town as when I was last there, No Borders, no chocolatier no Lavender Ghelatto ( Sounds weird, but really great.) Even though I was against it when it opened as being so anti-uptown, I am even upset that The GAP closed its doors. Davanni's gone (no late night hoagies)

Never did I think that Uptown would look like something out of a Mad Max movie. Can anyone tell me what happened?

fadeinmail@gmail.com

35 W bridge collapse in Minneapolis

Today at work in California I had to break the news to my sister that the 35W bridge by the U of M collapsed. She called me frantic today on her way home from work south of the airport and asked me to look on the internet to see what was going on. She thought she heard that a bridge collapsed but couldn't figure out where.

To see a time frame of what happened:
WCCO News

The national news paints a more optimistic view of what has happened, but there has been fatal injuries. It did happen during rush hour on a major interstate.

Reaching anyone via cell phone in the Twin Cities today has been extremely difficult. So far all I have had is good news.

Sometimes a clever name isn't so clever

I had no idea there was a film magazine called Fade In. We are not associated in any way. If you are looking to break into the industry, it looks like they have a few contests that you might be interested in.

Fade In

Not sure where to go to eat?

There are so many places to eat in this town. L.A. is very much a town where no one cooks at home. (including myself) I wonder how long it would take someone to eat at a different restaurant for breakfast lunch and dinner in L.A. 10 years? I am not rich enough to sponsor you, but if anyone is thinking about doing this let me know, I will be your biggest cheerleader.

One great L.A. blog to help you weed through where to go and where not to go is:

Eating L.A. is a blog by a senior editor of Los Angeles' Variety Magazine. Interested in something new and adventurous visit this blog.

I just want a normal breakfast Damn it!

In L.A. it is hard to find a place to have a nice normal eggs and hash brown breakfast.

1) the lines are just too long to eat. (See Doughboys (3rd Ave. might still be closed because of some"issues"), Toast, Griddles)

2) The food often starts out normal, but gets a weird L.A. twist. For example, american fries with a tomato consomme, wasbi infused hash browns, omlettes covered in vegan chili.

I thought I finally found that place that I was looking for in Eat Well, a local Los Angeles chain of diners. I really love diners for some reason, maybe because they are no nonsense, in and out places to eat.

Eat Well has a great menu. It has something for everyone from the breakfast traditionalists like myself to the vegan set. I was very impressed by the food, but there were other things that didn't sit well with me.

Visit 1: On her first day of training and little menu knowledge our waitress began to take tables only 45 minutes into her very first shift. It took a long time to get our food and our poor, nice server looked like she was going to burst into tears at any minute.

Visit 2: Fine, nothing happened out of the ordinary

Visit 3: Our waiter had over half of the restaurant because during out hour and a half visit, a cook left a waitress left and so did a cashier. Odd.


I think I am leaving this place alone for a while. It doesn't seem like it has its act together yet and the management seems to be on the fucker side.

As a side note, if anyone thought of franchising Hell's Kitchen in Minneapolis here in Los Angeles, I think it would do really really well.

Email me fadeinmmail@gmail.com

Good Breakfast-Beautiful people

If heaven were to exist, it would be filled with Banana Nutella crepes. The best place I have found is the Farmer's Market French Crepe Company on 3rd and Fairfax. The one in the Hollywood and Highland Center isn't as good, and the ambiance isn't as great.

If you are in the mood to people watch, this is a great place to find the beautiful people. I am the ugly girl who sits at the counter with the menu covering my face.

One Song I forgot in the California Mix

Debra by Beck

It is all about the LA area.

Glendale
Zankou Chicken- I still haven't gone

Decoding Minnesota Nice

I knew I was on a plane bound for Minnesota when I was struggling to put my carry on in the overhead compartment and a man asked me if he could help me. I didn't know what to say, other than "thank you that would be nice" I was shocked, I guess the city has made me a bit jaded.

It didn't stop there.

Phoenix Sky Harbor airport is my least favorite airport, ever. I always end up arriving there late and I always end up running from one side of the airport to the other never having time to anything but run and board. This time I did have the chance to grab a packet of those super salty cheese on cheese cracker packs.

When I was on the phone w/ my sister arranging her to fetch me and I happened to mention how hungry I was. The woman next to me offered me her extra granola bar.

You have to deny something three times when you are dealing with a Minnesotan. That is just how it is.

So now that you live here, your life is like entourage?

Ha ha Ha Ha He He he. Nope.

Before I moved out here I was instructed to watch Entourage because that is what LA is really like. I don't think that person ever set foot in L.A.

The thing that surprise me most about living in Los Angeles is how residential it is. The downtown area is a lot like Minneapolis, this little pod of buildings that is like a ghost town during non-work hours and picks up with the fratty crowd after 10 on the weekend nights. There are a lot more apartment buildings than clubs and not everyone has a pool where beautiful people just hang out.

The ways in which my life is not like Entourage
I am not out here to be an actress or a model.
I didn't bring my hometown with me when I moved. Just me, just a few suitcases and boxes.
When you are here it is not like you run into Jessica Alba on the street all the time (I have seen Pauly Shore at the Newsroom though)

How my life is like Entourage
The Pauly Shore thing
I like to go to Toast

After season 2 of the show I started having problems with it. Isn't the same show over and over again?

Plot:
Vicent has found a new hot fuck,
Vincent is up for a role, but only if his brother can be in the movie too,
Turtle, just plays video games, watches porn and drives places,
Eric has to fix everything,
Drama does something stupid,
New Fuck is in love with Vincent and Eric has to find a way to let her down easy.

It is just the same show over and over again.

Also, there is a story line that is extremely similar in season two, names and all, to a friend of mines play that played right before they shot that season. Coincidence........ (Not, sure, but when we ran into them at the Magic Castle one night, they kept looking at us, uncomfortably)

Have you read this article from the LA times Calendar section.

If you want to see shows that are more indicative of the acting experience see, Extras, Unscripted and Ellie Parker.

Day Pass

Today the Metro Day Pass went up to $5.

Wouldn't you think a city this congested would want to make to make public transportation easier not more difficult?

Song stuck in my head

Todays song stuck in my head is "Do You Love Me Now?" by The Breeders.

holla if you can hear me

You can reach me via email at fadeinmail@gmail.com

Bus Blog -1

Times and schedules are taken from the metro website

The 10
The 7:36 a.m. did not show up until 7:52 a.m. and is filled to the brink with students going to Fairfax High. Anytime I ride this bus in the morning, and now not all that often, I usually end up standing. This has made me rethink footwear. Today I can make my way back a few feet of the door, but there was a time when I quite embarrassingly had my ass pressed against the front wind shield and held on for dear life to the ticket machine. In Los Angeles they really pack people onto the bus, I wonder how the clausterphobes make it. in Minneapolis the drivers has a yellow line rule, they didn't care how you did it, but the bus DID NOT move if there were passengers infront of the yellow line. In Los Angeles, they would have you ride piggy back if you could with a person or two sitting on the drivers lap.

More buses perhaps?

The 212
The lateness of the 10 has made me miss my usually 212, but it is so late that I don't have to wait for the 212 too long.

The hardest thing about standing and waiting for the southbound 212 on Melrose and La Brea is waiting outside of Pink's Famous Hot Dogs I still haven't gone but, the smell of Pink's breakfast at 8:00 a.m. is a hard temptation to deny yourself. I usually do not get up early enough for breakfast so this almost kills me in the morning. It is also the only time you will not have to brave the insane lines. The picture in this post is of January 20, 2007.

Someone on the 212 is wearing too much cologne and people have gotten up and moved to the back and opened windows.

The 333
I think I can count the number of times that I have sat on this bus on my right hand. My advice a 733 from downtown to Santa Monica during rush hour. Minneapolis has rush hour only buses, it is not unheard of.

All the songs I heard from my ipod:
Climbing up the Walls- Radiohead
Tango Cancion-Gotan Project
Shake Your Rump-Beastie Boys
I am Afraid of Americans- David Bowie
Pop Quiz- Stereolab
Time Out of the World- Goldfrapp
Carrion- Fiona Apple
Let's Go to Bed- The Cure
Ponta de Lanca- Jorge Ben
Die Gedanken Sind Frei- Brazilian Girls
I Might Be Wrong- Radiohead
Unision- Bjork
El Amour de Este Pueblo- Federico Aubele
White Shadows- Cold Play

Bus Blog- May Take Awhile

Once after jumping on a bus at Melrose and La Brea, the driver came over the microphone and announced:

"For those of you who are going to call into the Metro hotline today because the 7:48 bus never showed up, I will save you a phone call by letting you know that the bus broke down. After all you are riding the MTA and it is all about the way you look at it MTA... Metro Transit Authority..... MTA .... May Take Awhile. There you go and have a great day."

I wasn't late for my destination, but I have been because of L.A. public transit, most notably for my second day of work.


The best way to comment on the Public Transit system is to ride it and let you know what happens. Over the course of Fade In I will publish some bus blogs to let you know my trials and tribulations or lack thereof.

Peaches Handmaiden

I am really digging The Reminder by Feist right now. I know that the album came out in the beginning of May, but I just bought it and I really am impressed.

Getting Around

Is traffic as bad in Los Angeles as everyone complains and jokes about? Yes.

Is it as bad as that scene in Fellini's 8 1/2 where Marchello Mastroianni's character is stuck on his way out to his film shoot in the country. Sometimes.

Los Angeles is a town of full of people who have cars.

Los Angeles is a town that you measure in minutes. I'll give you a couple of examples.

• From the Cat and the Fiddle Bar in Hollywood to Santa Monica Pier is 14 miles or 30 to 40 minutes.
• From Hollywood and Highland Shopping Center to The Grove on 3rd and Fairfax is about 3.5 miles it takes at least 20 minutes.
• I live 7 miles from work, it takes me 25 to 40. It is not because I am taking the less than stellar public transportation system. (The next post, will be my inauguration of Bus Blog)

It is just takes that long because there are just so many cars on the road all day every day. Traffic never takes a day off.

It can really be frustrating because really there is no way around the relentless traffic in this town. Not on the weekends, not at 8:00 p.m. not Tuesday at 10:35 a.m. Never.

Anyone have a traffic story to share? Email me: fadeinmail@yahoo.com

The waiter has his chance

The first Blog I Heart is Waiter Rant.

I have been reading this blog since it was on blogspot, and since then author, who is never named, has become internet famous, has his own website, store and now a book deal.

It sounds intimidating doesn't it?

Don't be frightened. It is probably one of the best written blogs in the blogosphere and no one needs to know that you read it but you and I.

Waiter Rant is a blog about a waiter who rants about his customers, his co-workers, the class systems housed inside "the bistro" (His restaurant that he also never names) about his time as a seminary student, (If you are worried about him being preachy, don't worry it is quite the opposite) his time working in a half-way house, breakups, misunderstandings, mortality, etc.

I give you permission to stop reading this blog for a week or so to catch up.

Another reason why I love this blog is that when I was a struggling college student at the University of Iowa I took one of the only jobs available in this over populated college town. I took a job opening a restaurant as a line cook. Yes a girl line cook. A "Grill Bitch." After all these years, I still don't flinch picking up hot plates and when a waiter tells me..

"Be careful, the plate is hot"

I usually reply...

"I used to be a line cook, I no longer have feeling in my fingertips"

I have been on all sides of the restaurant business, although I have never owned one of my own. (I would be really bad at it, I let people walk all over me.) Reading this blog reminds me of the crazy, stressful, incestuous fun working at a restaurant was, but also so very thankful that I am no longer doing that work anymore.

This is why I am also loving Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential right now.

Happy reading!

Blogs I heart R.I. P. Edition

Before I start with the Blogs That I Heart, I would like to pay respects to two blogs that I loved and shaped me as a blogger.

The first was Hookers on Stilts, a great, cathartic, crass, sometimes too informing, entertaining, love/hate affair with Minneapolis by a former classmate of mine. She has since moved to New York and her blog has been claimed by Spammers. The top post is a advertisement for Valtrex, which might be fitting.

The second was Treat Williams Blog, which was a man's hip hop journey through college in California. He had the tightest play lists and I looked to him to show me new music everyday. He did switch to a new blog called A Three Minute Record, since claimed as well by spammers.

They were both really great and if you know where they ended up please email me at Fadeinmailatgmaildotcom

What to do on Saturday Night

Every summer in LA a group called Cinespia organizes and holds screenings at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery on Santa Monica every Saturday. The cemetery is the final resting place for Charlie Chaplin and Hollywood royal, Douglas Fairbanks among others and makes a great back drop for movies.

You can see the calendar of the screenings on Cinespia's website. This weekend they will be showing Rebel Without a Cause , which I have not seen before so you may see me there. Also, there is a special screening on Sunday night of The Holy Mountain a movie by Alejandro Jodorowsky and financed by John Lennon. A.J. also did El Topo, so if you want an idea of the film, I think it will be just as surreal and strange. This will be the first public showing of the movie, as it has been banned in this country for the last 30 years. (Don't fret, if you are interested you can see it on Netflix.)

D.J.s spin records before and after.

Hints for attending the screening:

• If there is a movie you really want to see, be sure to line up early. Doors open at 7:00 p.m. and people get there much earlier. I was fortunate enough to attend Vertigo a couple weeks ago and I know that they had to turn people away.
• The $10 donation ticket isn't suggested, it is mandatory. But hey where can you see a movie in Los Angeles for $10 with 1,000 of your closest friends
• Pack a picnic lunch, bring a pizza, or grab some Astroburger food is allowed.
• Bring a bottle of wine. Alcohol is also allowed, but as always drink in moderation. The lines for the bathroom are ridiculously long.
• Bring a blanket, believe it or not, it does get really cold.
• Bring camping chairs, everyone else does and it is hard to crane your neck to see the move if everyone else has chairs and not you.

Old Feature- New blog

I have an affliction. I have a virtual D.J. inside my head that plays song on repetition for days. Unfortunately a lot of these songs are really catchy and really bad. Sometimes I am lucky and it is actually something I already have in my collection.

I blog about songs in my head because I feel like once they are out there and known, it dissipates them and gives them less of a stronghold in my head.

You might think I am crazy. Oh well.

I am not currently lucky with the song choice.

Today I am suffering from a little "Joy Ride" by Roxette.

Why, do you ask? Sometimes there isn't a reason why. Something will just trigger it or it is that last song I have heard before I go to bed or I'll hear it somewhere or just no reason at all.

Last night I am waiting for a friend to get off of work at this nice steakhouse so we can hit a party in the Hollywood Hills. I mean this place is nice, white tablecloths, the waiters are wearing waitercoats, the lighting is dark, candles at all the tables. This place is old school and romantic, you wouldn't think that about the music though. It really is quite the opposite.

Imagine yourself out for a romantic dinner with your lady/man. You are celebrating an anniversary, a birthday, valentines day. Your waiter has just dropped off your glasses of wine and taken your order, you have a few minutes of uninterrupted time to chat. You clink glasses. You look into each others eyes, happy to just be together. You or your boyfriend/girlfriend/wife/husband opens your/their mouth to say ...

"Honey, I am so happy that we have the chance to spend a nice romantic dinner with you, I am excited that we have decided to do this and put my writing, dealing with lawyers, school... (fill in the LA blank here) and spend a nice night together"

Before you or your boyfriend/girlfriend/wife/husband can respond......

"WHAT THEY DO! THEY SMILE IN YOUR FACE! SMILING FACES,.... I DON'T NEED NO LOW DOWN DIRTY BASTARDS! (BACK STABBERS)"

This can definitely ruin that mood and this place is constantly playing mood ruining songs.

This song is a great song to play when you are stuck in traffic on your way home from the job you don't really like, but for a romantic dinner for two. Uh, uh.

Needless to say, Joy Ride was one of the songs I heard and made me wonder if this is the song I would want to hear if I was out with my man, spending a little alone time.

excerpts taken from the lyrics of The Backstabbers- by the O'Jays

What a difference the sun makes

One of the reasons I also moved, no, it was not because I followed Paul Magers , is the weather. Which is obvious to everyone who knows anything about Minnesota. (Although there is someone I talk to quite frequently in passing who thinks it is down south. He always asks me if there are good soul food places here and I want to tell him it would be more like if there are any good Lutefisk places I have tried correcting him, telling him how much it snows and that it is in fact up north, but he keeps coming back to it being in the south. Oh well)

What I do tell people that shocks them a bit it the great expanses of time Minnesotans do not see the sun. Right before I moved here there was period of time in December of 2005 that we did not see the sun for two weeks. I am not lying or exaggerating, look it up if you want. People here complain about
June Gloom , but really it is nothing compared to a Minnesota gray period. If you see in the wikipedia description of June Gloom, the clouds burn off in the afternoon, that doesn't happen where I am from. Gray all day everyday for weeks, with possible chance of severe thunderstorm/snowstorm with intense humidity or dryness, depending on the season.

When I first moved here people would laugh at me because I would wake up and want to run outside and go to the beach, because I thought that the sun would go away. Heavy conditioning.

I guess now I have gotten used to the constant sun. Hey I am sitting here writing this instead of being outside for the last hour and a half of sunshine.

Meeting people

(Or under its original title Fifty Nifty United States)

If you have recently moved to Los Angeles, like myself, I would like to give you some ice breaker advice. The one question that will ultimately start a conversation here is:

Where are you from?
The truth is that the vast majority of people in Los Angeles are not from Los Angeles. For example take a concentrated population like the people I work with. (The only time I will mention work in my blog) 6 people out of 21 are actually from Los Angeles and one of those lived in Colombia for the majority of her life. The others are:

Idaho, Nebraska, Orange County (people assure me that this is very different from Los Angeles), South Africa, Wisconsin, Minnesota(someone other than myself), Hawaii, Michigan, Viet Nam, Brooklyn and Ohio.

The fact is that I have met very few people who are native to this huge city.

So if you are at a party or a bar and you find your self alone, forced to mingle just ask:

"Where are you from?"

Because that will lead you to a whole host of other questions that will occupy you for at least 10 minutes. Like:

Why did you move to L.A.?
How long have you been here?
I am new here where are some decent places to hang out? or go have sushi?

Another thing that shocked me about asking this one questions is that here people actually elaborate. (Shocker)

If I asked this question in Minnesota:
Oh, where are you from? Eden Prairie
Originally? yes
What do you do? I work at General Mills.

This usually ends our conversation because a) what I am supposed to do with one word answers and b) No one from Minnesota will actually ask you those same questions back.

If I ask this question here, I goes a lot different.

Where are you from? I am from Kentucky.
How long have you been here? Well I came out here in 98 for college and never really left.
What are you doing out here? Right now I am trying to get into the acting game but I also nanny for this rich family in Bel Air. They let me go out on auditions whenever I want and it is really great.

Then you can ask them, if you have seen them in anything.....

Are you new you L.A.? Where are you from and what are you doing here? Do you know of any good sushi places?

Email me Fade In Mail

Featured LA Blog- LAist

www.laist.com

I happened upon LAist after reading the already mentioned LAobserved.com.

Ists are blogs nationwide and worldwide if you aren’t in the Los Angeles area and are reading Fade In check out the other Ists in Austin, Boston, Houston, London , New York, San Francisco, Chicago , Philly , Toronto, Sao Paulo, Shanghai, D.C. , etc. (I have linked a few, but if you want to see the others scroll across the top)

I love LAist because it is a little bit of everything blog.

Not sure what to do this weekend? Check LAist.
Didn't get all the local news, because they were covering the Paris Hilton jail saga? Check LAist
Not sure which bands are in town this weekend? Check LAist
I would like to go to Griddles, but is the line really worth it? Check LAist.

I think you get it, but when in doubt. Check LAist.

Oooops

She's back in, I guess. The media isn't really covering it here.

just act surpirsed

Lets all collectively feign surprise that Paris "Jail Bird" Hilton got off much much earlier than we all thought.

She makes me ashamed to be an American.

I wouldn't post about her usually, but when in L.A.......

Los Angeles I am Yours

When I left a couple of music saavy people made me a California mix that I would like to share with you.

1) California-Low (A band from Duluth, MN)
2) Los Angeles, I'm yours- The Decemberists (Will be at the Hollywood Bowl on July 7th with the LA Philharmonic. I strongly recommend being there)
3) California (Part I)- Mason Jennings (An artist from the Twin Cities- will be playing a bunch of California shows. I think I missed Los Angeles, but all of my money this summer is going toward wedding related ventures, no, not my own)
4)California Stars- Billy Bragg and Wilco
5) Goodbye California- Jolie Holland
6) La Cienega Just Smiled- Ryan Adams
7) In California -Neko Case (If you if you happen to be moving from California to Minneapolis check out her song Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis)
8) California- Rufus Wainright
9) My California Love- Ryan Adams
10) Why You'd Want to Live Here- Death Cab for Cutie

In addition I would add (Although you might find my additions typical)
California Dreamin- The Mamas and the Papas ( Because Wong Kar Wai is my favorite director)
Going to California- Led Zepplin
Los Angeles- Frank Black ( Eventhough it is not about Los Angeles California, but the one in south Patagonia)
Let's Go Crazy- Prince (Because of that "shrink in Beverly Hills, you know Dr. Everythingwillbealright")

Do you have anything to add? Email me: fadeinmail@gmail.com

Finding an apartment

If you read my post about finding a job, the same applies to apartments. Adopt a guerrilla like attitude to getting in touch with landlords.

Also, Westside Rentals is a complete waste of money. The Landlords post the same apartments on CraigsList .

Featured LA blog-LA Observed

LA Observed

I used to like this blog better when it was just the editor who is writing the stories, but I can understand why he has featured writers from other blogs, magazines, etc, helping out. There is always so much going on in this city; culturally, politically, education-wise, etc.

This blog, which is updated several times daily is probably one of if not the best blogs for Los Angeles news. Not the sensationalized who is sleeping with who, whether or not Paris really deserves to go to jail, but the shake ups and break ups of the LA Times, city hall and studios among other stories that pertain angeleno daily life. (Glad they caught that alligator)

Want to see who else is blogging about this great city? Check out LAobserves ample section on fellow L.A. Bloggers.

Finding a job

I think one of the hardest things about Los Angeles is finding a job. I think this for two reasons.

1) The constant sun. Where I am from sunny gorgeous cloudless days are in the minority. At first when I was here I would run to get outside, because I always thought that the sun would go away. It is so easy to just want to go to the beach and do nothing.
2) You have to be proactive. Not just proactive like you are used to, but basically you have to be a stalker out here if you want to get a job. It is frustrating and disheartening.

Remember this one thing if you want to work out here in any capacity. Calling and leaving a message does not work. You have to call at random times to actually get in touch with the person you want to talk to, because if you don’t get them physically you are left to the whim that they will call you back. Which they wont, because you are one of 50 people who have left messages about a job at the same place.

My Los Angeles job story, might not be typical, but here it is:
I already had an in at a temp agency, which I was really excited about. She assured me that I would have no problem finding a job through her agency because jobs were coming up like crazy.

In a month and a half I had only two jobs.

The first doing random office tasks for a Persian family. My jobs included writing a letter of eviction for one of the tenants living at one of their properties, writing a letter to their clients and trying desperately to help a 40 year old woman set up a mail merge who had never even used word before. For 4 hours I sat in this disorganized back room with a two women who chain smoked with a yippy dog.

The second I worked an evening at UCLA for a magazine that teamed up with a sports company for a collaborative event that they were having for students. When they wanted to know my sizes I was a bit leery. I thought at the most I would get a pair of shoes and a t-shirt.

Well, in addition to rep-ing this magazine, I was also rep-ing the new danceline for the sports company as well. So instead of a pair of shoes, I had to wear tight spandex bell bottom dance pants, a see through tank top with a gypsy-esque crop-top.

So, I had to prance around getting people to sign up for a magazine in these super tight clothes. The thing was that I was never told that I would be wearing these clothes and I began to wonder what I had ever done to my friend at the temp agency to deserve this evening of looking like a pussycat doll for a measly $50.

Go ahead and laugh, I give you permission.

All and all I got $200 worth of sports apparel out of the deal. The girl I worked with said that she was going to try to return it to a store to see if she could get some money out of it to pay her bills.

I on the other hand have kept the clothes as a reminder of how far I have come in the last year and a half that I have been here.

Email

I have email, feel free to write me and tell me I need to get over myself.

fadeinmail@gmail.com

Why?

California, I couldn’t understand why on earth people wanted to live here. If there weren’t earthquakes there were mudslides, if there weren’t fires there was an intense drought. In fact in grade school social studies class I learned that it was predicted that there would be an earthquake so fierce that California would eventually fall into the Pacific. (Maybe Porfirio Diaz knew that when he sold the land to the U.S. for a million dollars.)

Why am I here in this state destined to fall into the sea?

Minneapolis to me was like that person you know that you should really break up with but you don’t because it is was too comfortable and you do not think that you will ever have the strength to start over again.

Minneapolis is a great city, being farther away has really allowed me to see that. I will sing its praises in posts to come, but I was so tired of the Minnesota Can’t Do Attitude.

I was in this horrible rut. Get up, go to work, go home, eat, sleep, get up, go to work eat sleep. When the non-profit I had worked at for seven long and arduous years sank into the red and there was get up, go to work, go to job number 2, eat perhaps, sleep barely enough I new that it was time to go.

I honestly have not done anything outside of my comfort zone since going to an arts based high school. Not since sixteen, that is way too long to go without risking something big. I didn’t want to be on my deathbed in the Powderhorn, Cochran or Hale Page neighborhood and think to myself “Wow, I haven’t done anything risky since I was a teenager. Who is going to feed all of my cats?”

I moved here too because I fell in a Norah Ephron-like love with a former high school mate. Like how I saved the real sappy reason for last?

So that is how I found myself here.

(If you read Smog Life you might have read this post already, mostly)

Exposition

This is my second attempt at my Los Angeles blog.

Why?

• It is hard not to feel pressure writing a new blog when your old blog had a corp group of readers. You are always wondering if it will be as good. (Don't read Smog Life, I don't like it as much)
• I wanted to move seamlessly from Minnesota me and Los Angeles me. It didn't work out. This city is a lot to take in.
• Sometimes you walk that fine line of wanting and not wanting to be internet famous. Sad but true.

I write this blog knowing that no one will probably read it.

This blog will not be a love letter or a hate letter about Los Angeles.
This blog will not be a love letter or a hate letter about Minneapolis.

This will be a combination of all the things I liked about my old blog, sometimes emulating blogs that I like and a blog about all the ideas I hear that other people say that they are going to blog about but they never do.

I hope you like it.