Weekend in LA

A couple of times a year, I often find myself back in Los Angeles County in the town that I grew up (Torrance & Redondo Beach) as well as in downtown Los Angeles itself. This past weekend was one of those weeks. But this two-day experience inside Los Angeles was unlike anything I have experienced in the town before.

The news would have you believe that Antifa patrols the street enforcing their brand of radical leftism on the streets. The traffic should continue in the Los Angeles tradition of being apocalyptic. Petty thieves and rapists should be hiding behind every nook and cranny waiting for the perfect moment to strike. But this was not the case. In fact, downtown Los Angeles was the quietest I can ever remember it on a Saturday afternoon and evening in my entire life.

My night began, like so many great drunken nights have before, at the Tam O’Shanter, my favorite prime rib place in Los Angeles that has been in its current location since 1922. Part of the Lawry’s Prime Rib family of restaurants, a night out here is not a cheap outing. When I arrived in Atwater Village (North of Interstate 5 and a few miles northeast of the Los Angeles Zoo and Griffith Park), the streets were absolutely dead. Walking into Tam O’Shanter at 7:00 pm on a Saturday night should have been lined out the door. Instead, we were seated right away. Asking the Scottish bartender who was cursing out the English Football Club (His curse kicked in the next night with their epic collapse in the penalty kick shootout) as well as serving one of the best Maple flavored, Bourbon infused Old-Fashioned that a guy could drink, he said that service has been reduced due to the Delta Variant of COVID-19. God bless the scared, self-centered liberals in downtown Los Angeles!

After eating at the Tam O’Shanter, we went to the nearby Indian market which has the best spice selection I have ever seen in a store. Everything was super cheap. This market remains one of the few places left where you can eat a full meal for around three dollars. We went into nearby Silver Lake to peruse the scene. Again, it was a quiet evening with minimal activity at the bars and shops. After driving by Walt Disney’s first house, we went into Los Feliz Village and took a look into the Dresden. It was absolutely dead. We finally concluded our night at the House of Pies before walking around a frighteningly quiet Los Feliz while reminiscing about the amazing times I had at THE DERBY which has now been replaced by a Chase Bank.

When Los Angeles is as quiet as my current hometown of Murrieta, the city is a charming place. I fell back in love with a city that consumed the first twenty-one years of my life. Los Angeles is grimy, dirty, and undergoing lots of gentrification that is destroying its history. But despite all these problems, I still love the culture and food in the city. In terms of the scared Angelenos who will not go out because of a COVID mutation, I want to continue to encourage this behavior. Keep staying home while individuals who actually have a backbone can go out and enjoy the finer things that the city has to offer. Since Californians are more likely to have been vaccinated, the Delta variant is apparently deadlier for the vaccinated than unvaccinated. For the unvaccinated, the variant is more contagious but less deadly than the seasonal flu. So stay home with your less than .7% chance of dying while I party at a night club enjoying some magic “mushrooms.” I still love my hometown. Now, if there was only something we could do about the politicians!

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