I was listening to a podcast recently where every person, host, guest, and off-screen sidekicks, vehemently dismissed summer clothing. They like winter for its layers. It’s a boring answer to me and it also reveals that these people have clearly never tried on the right tube top.
My favorite tube top at this stage in my life….is from Brandy Melville. That being said, not all Brandy Melville tube tops are created equal. I like the double layered ones, they have to have presence.
I haven’t listened to the big bad earthquake podcast and I probably won’t, I get what I need to know through my esthetician Gina. She is the best facialist I’ve ever had. I love getting into hypotheticals with her, but beyond that she cares about healing my skin.
I have extremely sensitive/irritated/acne prone skin, which I am very confident is a trickle-down symptom from Lyme disease. I won’t get into all of my theories. I say that because usually when people give me recommendations for my skin, they do nothing. Gina is great because she’ll pay attention and plan a course of action. She’s a normal person who won’t try to sell you a million things or burn your skin off. I love her so much. She’s been in L.A. a long time and also has excellent recs to pass on. I go to her acupuncturist as well.
Anyway, she showed me this 5 day emergency survival kit from Costco, I bought two:
I read this intense deep dive on Marilyn Monroe’s life, from every place she’s ever lived, to her book collection, the art class she took in Connecticut, her most popular conspiracies and so on. I hadn’t known that her mother spent the majority of her life in mental health hospitals. Or that Marilyn went on numerous sourcing trips to Mexico after she bought her Brentwood home. It’s organized so you can just flip through to the parts you want to learn, but I’m obsessive and read it cover to cover. If you love Marilyn for who she really was, or want to know her in that way, it’s a transcendent book. It definitely shades the way I see things.
A few of my favorite places to loiter on a summer afternoon:
LACMA: I love bringing a book to the Erewhon cafe and sitting outside next to the giant oscillating Alexander Calder sculpture. The David Geffen Galleries is now open, which houses their permanent collection. It has mixed reviews because that will always happen, but I like that it doesn’t spoon feed art to you. Love seeing a Robert Henri piece against a big cement wall! And despite it all, I’m into the windows. It’s art and real life and motion and distractions all in a sick Brutalist people watching spot.
Any public library but mostly the downtown one: The Central Library in downtown (630 W 5th St) was built in the 1920s. It’s a Historic-Cultural Monument that has elements of Egyptian, Roman, Byzantine, and Art Deco styles. It used to have a series of fountains cascading down the front courtyard but they’ve been turned off for years. If you want to flip through art and design books, find something niche and weird, like perhaps my favorite of all time, Shit, the Big Brother book, it’s at the library! I love really getting into the weeds here. I’m a public library defender til the end. I also love the Beverly Hills and Malibu locations. The Central Library is hosting an event for its 100th birthday this Saturday.
Bandini: A natural wine bar in Echo Park that is always at the perfect capacity (like 4-6 people inside, more on the back patio but I never go out there). If you want to be that guy you can definitely bring a book here. I feel like that always makes dudes talk to you so unfortunately I hate doing it. Why throw small talk at someone who’s trying to read??? It’s a chill place to hang and gab and not have your eardrums blown out by weird dance music. Excellent place to debrief. They also have food pop ups (check their instagram) that pair perfectly with two glasses of a chilled red. I know nothing about wine or alcohol in general but to me, natural wine= refreshing and delicious, regular wine= tastes like milk.
Paradise Cove: Heaven on Earth. Food kinda sucks. I love sitting at the tables in the sand. Or staring into the abyss in one of the Adirondack chairs. This is a special place for those who get it. I mean I would never hit their beach club, it looks like Times Square over there, but the restaurant and the chairs by the rocks feel like forever summer. It’s also a famous trailer park (properties are a million and up). Pamela Anderson and many others, but most importantly Pam, have lived here. It’s my dream neighborhood! Real life can’t touch you there! At the restaurant, I get the giant cocktail in the watermelon, I like the huge plastic martini glass of calamari, the Poke bowl is actually pretty good, french fries are great…I’m making my way through the menu. You’ll have the best time here. Approved reading spot, dudes mind their business.
Below are my latest estate sale picks for this weekend. One in a very haunted house (you might recognize it). And a clothing sale in one of my favorite modernist homes in all of Los Angeles?? If you don’t want to shop, these double as amazing house tours.
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