Your Guide to the Coolest Neighborhoods in North America Page 5

  Chapter 5 - LOS ANGELES: Los Pajaros

  Free as a bird in a hip L.A. hillside ‘hood

  “Are you in the business, dude?”

  The question came from a sun-glassed, scruffy-faced denizen of Los Angeles’ hippest hillside swath. In no rush to answer the question – for in Los Pajaros (reminiscent of an Italian hill-town, if a first-time visitor, or if stoned and from L.A.) the enjoyment of one’s life-station is more important than the alacrity with which one responds to others’ requests—I pondered this query for an instant, while a balmy breeze tinged with auto exhaust wafted through the arroyos of this climate-blessed, excessively ceramic-tiled quarter.

  As if in homage to its name, its residents are free as birds. Here, the slightly-alternative star, the out-gay up-and-comer, and the just plain strange performing artist and their production entourage could mingle and cohabit with the aging, sun-damaged, smoked-out, straggly-haired relics of the British Invasion, New Wave Cinema and various epochs of exploitation and independent film. They’ve gone toward lifestyles of unwashed food and clean-living, or, to a life of very clean food, and dirty living. Whether the business is growing pot or growing actors, Los Pajaros is the ticket.

  It turned out my inquisitor was selling marijuana, not movie roles, and so I left him where I found him—drinking a coffee at a street-side café, which seems to be what most people in entertainment-centric ‘hoods are doing, most of the time.

  More importantly, though, Los Pajaros is the neighborhood where so many reality TV stars have chosen to settle, once they hit the big time. Why? What brings them here? It would take searching and talking to many people, using the facile, upbeat lingua franca preferred in L.A. As a waitress—and reality star, natch—told me, “what’s not to like? It’s got Andalucían weather, Corsican-style politics and Parisian property values.”

  Los Pajaros offers an alternative reality to the iconic Los Angeles of studios and beaches that is refreshing and weird: it’s the home of a weekly motor-scooter rodeo, a once-lesbian hootenanny, the Academy of Independent Directors Revenge-Cut Screenings Festival and Scruff-Daddy, the appointment-only men’s fashion boutique that helps creates those looks that stand out on the red carpet, or in rehab. Within the ‘hood’s undulating precincts, I found a famous actor’s school, more used avocado-tone appliances and old wedding-factory faux-crystal chandeliers for sale than I thought existed, a store devoted solely to clothing made from found items—the wearable art store one expects, if not demands, from a hot neighborhood.

  Along Los Pajaros’ dusty green inclines, luscious Umbrian-style houses thrown up against the rich Tuscan-style topography, offered their owners privacy and at least one possible coronary event after the age of fifty from attempting to walk back up a 9% grade to the house, from a bar or a guest’s car. Siena, Girona, Taormina—it reminded me of none of these appealing Southern European locales, and made me want to escape to any of them, if only so I could find a restaurant that served more than one meal a day—preferably not artisanal or vegan—or that had a working restroom for non-customers. With a half-dozen Mediterranean references in just one paragraph, it quickly became clear that Los Pajaros had sucked me in to a Charybdis-like L.A. whirlpool of edgy cultural ferment amidst perfect weather and perfect-looking people.

  Getting Around: Short version is you can’t get around—it’s L.A., after all. Longer version: rent a car at the airport, or walk uphill the two miles from the Metro’s Red Line Hollywood Blvd./Vermont Ave. Station. Buses labor up the hill at 10 miles per hour. Don’t try to figure out the L.A. rapid rail system—line placements were created using Feng Shui; they balance the traditional energies of water, earth, and freeway fumes. El Sueño Blvd. is the main drag; it’s one mile long as the parrot flies, but five miles long in reality: it’s twisty, hilly, pot-holed, and speckled with giant fallen palm fronds, abandoned shopping carts, medical pot containers, and homeless camps. Grab a heavy flashlight, a panini and your water bottle, before exploring.

  I was too excited by the prospect of getting close to an exclusive club, whose many members I knew to live above the roadways, in vine-covered redoubts, dreaming up film plots, running script lines and readying themselves to attend swag-bedecked parties bubbling with hot fashions, the latest drinks and fascinating chatter about new releases. The only thing missing were peasant women walking along the roadside with giant amphorae balanced on their heads.

  And, then, like the predictable plot twist in a tent-pole movie, I saw that, too, as I watched a catering company set up a Greek Islands-themed lunch on someone’s patio.

  While snooping around for more famous people, I stopped by Kray Magma (567 Patagonia St.) to look into a martial arts practice that has gained popularity in Los Angeles among some model/actors who want to stay in shape, or need to fight off an attacker. (it’s deadlier off-shoot, Super Kray Magma Crazy On Your Head, is illegal to teach in California, per a recent state ballot initiative, but I was told lessons can be had for cash, and a gaming-site password). They also teach Tee Mun, which means “drop you on your ass” in some other language.

  Kray Magma’s owner was sanguine about L.A. and Hollywood, quoting a famous aphorism about Tinseltown: “someone knows something.”

  “Really?” I asked. “I thought it was something like, “no one knows anything.”

  The owner replied: “that, my friend, is what the people who know something want you to think. But, in fact, the actual phrase these folks really repeat around here? It’s ‘someone knows something.’ Think about it—what makes more sense?”

  Armed with this insider knowledge, I knew I needed a new look—this being L.A. And that job fell to Scruff Daddy (456 Emilia Pl. at Rancho Los Pajaros St.). Sign-less, and appointment-only, the building housing this insider styling shrine looks like a bar and hotel from, say, Chihuahua, circa 1885. Outside, pockmarked, mustard-colored adobe walls imply its existence pre-dates statehood. Inside, the hipster’s Disneyland of male styling specializes in the hip urban scruff so many wear, but so few wear well. They have many different looks, but the secret is to buy one of their all-in-one packages, re-printed here:

  Rocker Dad: Lawyer by day, you’re playing Catalonian ballads on 12-string guitar by night. Your twin toddlers look perfect with their first tattoos. You’ve got three 14-carat Namibian gold ear studs for each ear, lobe to top. Extra short t-shirts reveal the boxers you’re wearing with logos from Ukrainian tractor-drivers union, and the Anti-Imperialist Logging League of Yekaterinburg. Belt is made from Argentinean hemp with the phrase, “T.Q.M. Carmelina” in faded rust-red lipstick on its face. A special shaver offers the five-day growth look. Your jeans have burlap coffee-bean-sack patches used to transport coffee in the Obama family’s ancestral district. In each jean pocket is a different sonnet or song you’re working on. Corn-row braid, or Japanese top-knot optional. $23,789.

  Newbie Studio Exec: You’re dressing down to keep everyone “chill,” while you burn through studio cash on your borderline-personality buddy’s first picture. Your imperfectly shaven face recalls the High Desert; you’re wearing a Comme des Garcons shirt with a weird crease in the collar from sleeping on your office couch, possibly after a “nooner” debauch. We offer a range of discreet wrist and ankle tattoos with Celtic, Sanskrit or Tibetan themes and special gel that gives your hair that tousled look that says “crazy busy.” Jeans offer several carefully-placed slashes. Shoes are custom-measured and ordered from a Milan bespoke shoe house - barely visible under the authentic renaissance-recipe shoe polish are cross-hatches from a saber used by Italian Risorgimento-era troops. Rehab Recovery bracelet made from found tsunami scrap-metal, made while ‘away,’ is optional. $16,295.

  Cool Drone: Thuggy, buggy, druggy. No one would guess you sell staplers at a big-box store. Your ear-plugs are pewter-rimmed pegs from the planking of a scuttled Mombasa-based dhow. Patched splay-collared shirt was hung an Alaskan King-Crab fishing boat mast in the Bering Strait. Comes in faded “Rusted Hull Red” and black-flecke
d “Angry Ocean Blue.” Your shoes are mid-calf-high work-boots of Alberta cowhide, from the toughest, highest elevation spread in the Canadian West. Pink-stained twine wrist bracelet was braided by groupies at a Gotye concert in Latvia. Strange-looking shell carried on a necklace made of a cable-television connector; we harvested the shell at a protected marine sanctuary under special U.N. license. Choice of shaving styles used by Mexican drug cartels, South China Sea pirates, and Moldovan pimps. $12,895.

  Ambiguous Means of Support: White collar? Blue Collar? No collar? It’s hard to tell with this studied look that makes some neighbors run, and draws the lonely ones inward. Full coverage tattoo of one limb comes in various themes, including Viking, Cheesy Waikiki Lobby, Altamont/1967, and cartoon characters. We take expensive golf-shirts and send them to Ecuador, where they’re used as dish-rags by indigenous villagers for several months. When they come back, they’re almost unrecognizable – and you’ll wear it proudly. Tractor-tread sandals could mean you’re environmentally-sensitive, or go dumpster-diving for footwear--no one can tell. Hammered Mexican silver bracelet looks suspiciously like work-camp chains. Nipple ring is melted-down factory metal from the Caucasus. Your slacks are Egyptian cotton khakis, and were taped to the bumpers of monster-trucks at a two-month rally in South Dakota, and then used as wind-socks at a nearby general-aviation airport for one whole year. You’ll seem dicey, and fun, with this special look. $9,345.

  Crazy-Town: Strangers will ask, “Didn’t I see you on the visitor’s bus to state prison?” You’ll say ‘convicted and awaiting sentencing’ with this frightening gutter-level look that will have actual street-thugs wetting their pants. That labret is really titanium from a recovered Russian satellite. A full-coverage neck tattoo will draw stares at the opera, but looks very much like a famous metal-band front-man’s ink. They’ll ask: ‘could that be him?’ The effect really comes together on your head: we create a modified Mohawk, with a very tight fade on either side, and carve your initials – and those of your ‘crime victims’ into the sides. If you’re bald, we’ve got a tattoo-artist who specializes in heads. A hammer-and-sickle superimposed on an Islamic crescent completes the tattoo series – this one on your forehead. They’ll be running for the hills or taking snapshots of you when they get a look at your four lip-rings, strictly made of metals from third-world conflict areas. Palm tattoos of dice and the Russian, Chinese and Farsi words for “die now,” make any handshake a special occasion. Our surgeons in China will use advanced laser techniques to create a slightly forked tongue. Your t-shirt was worn during the Arab Spring—rips are from a sandstorm. Keys hang from a belt loop with de-accessioned handcuffs from the East German Stasi secret police. An authentic Bowie knife hangs from a leather bandolier across your mid-section, which also has a special pocket for a net-book-style computer. Basketball sneakers three sizes too large, and without laces, complete the look. $37,450.

  I, being a poor travel writer, chose Wannabe, a $147.95 down-shifted look that cleaned me up with mid-priced mall-wear, a facial, some very strong hair product, a temporary tattoo, a single earring, a string-and-shell bracelet, and some past-season Vans footwear.

  I left Scruff Daddy, and headed up El Sueno Blvd. to the very “in” Shrub Café, where the building super-structure is made of topiary sculpture, and some rather ambitious designs (“that’s not Pinocchio,” a waitress told me, “that’s Tommy Lee, and that’s not his face.”). I planned here to dip into Los Pajaros’ creative tapenade. Within five minutes I realized I was siting amongst real actors, writers, directors and others connected to L.A.’s thrilling raison d’être. Leaning in, the words sounded expectant with filmed magic:

  “…and the big problem now is she’s booked for the entire year, so I’ll go with Reese, Emily or January,” I heard from the table next-door. And from the other direction, “…never forget that spaghetti dinner I cooked for the crew in Romania.” And this tantalizing bit of audible acrobatics from behind me: “…you’ve got to be in tip-top shape. I actually hurt my shoulder on that shoot.”

  After a few bites, I eagerly approached all of these speakers for autographs. While I was disappointed to learn they were, respectively, a pre-school recruiter, a charter pilot and an adult performer, I still felt confident that the urban hood with a quasi-Sardinian farming community vibe, set in an Aegean context, would yield up its secrets soon enough.

  My waitress agreed. She was none other than Oleander d’Alene, reality star of The Big-Box Church, about a exurban Riverside County mega-church 50 miles east. Oleander quoted her favorite Los Pajaros cigar vendor about the neighborhood. “What’s not to like. It’s got Sicilian weather, Hong Kong property values…” I got the gist, and left before she’d finished.

  I was itching for some night-time entertainment, and phoned my old friend (in L.A. terms, he was an old friend; if had I a eaten meal with him, I would now be considered related) at Kray Magma Studio. He suggested the Hexagon Hootenanny, an unlikely weekly-square-dance in the courtyard of one of the oldest churches in Los Pajaros, the Hexagon Church of the Savior (4316 Mirror Park Blvd), where a 1920’s evangelical preacher testified to the power of prayer. It seemed a little odd, but Los Pajarans had run out of trendy dances.

  “You know everyone went through the tango, the return of disco, the death of the return disco and the re-return of disco. The minuet died in, like, five minutes. So square-dance is basically all I have left for now,” the dance’s manager told me (by the way, Mirror Park contains Mirror Lake, once famous for its crisp reflection—legend has it that rising movie stars of the 1920s and 1930s used to check their reflection in the lake’s surface, before going to auditions. If you look in the lake today, you may see a face staring back, but it’s probably not yours: drug cartels like to dump bodies here).

  “It used to be an all-lesbian square-dance, “the manager told me, “but the lesbians moved to Culver City, and the caller was left in the lurch. He’s fantastic. Came here to ride studio horses in the 1960s as a teenager. You’ll have a lot of fun. Everyone goes. You’ll recognize some famous faces. The lesbians left some mighty big dancing shoes to fill, but you’ll do fine.”

  Your Los Pajaros Accessories Checklist:

  *House or apartment with difficult-to-find entrance

  *Car from years ’62-’78.

  *Tattoo in non-Roman alphabet meaning luck, opportunity, love, compassion or millionaire.

  *Porkpie hat, or Kashmiri or Bhutanese bracelet, or both.

  *Pet or child with unusual name, e.g. foreign city or abstract noun in developing country’s language. Try ‘Xian’ for a girl, ‘Rome’ for a boy or ‘Peligroso’ for a dog.

  *Own energy healer, yoga teacher, psychic reader, astrologist, psychotherapist and cosmetic dentist.

  *Own blog, but preferably, own show.

  *Access to "a place in the desert."

  *Unused paintball gun.