Things that suck about Los Angeles: A List

car culture

No Williamsburg hipsters.

smog

actors

agents

the people

-- Catsupppppppppppppp dude 茄蕃, Saturday, May 3, 2008 11:16 AM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

RONG

Not enough people on banana bikes w/toy radios in LA, remy.

too much silicon

to be fair a lot of the people here really, really suck

- lack of decent public transportation from one side of the city to the other
- hollywood/the strip are completely insufferable after 9pm on the weekends
- all the best bars need to be driven to
- the suburbs like to dump their homeless people on skid row in downtown, courtesy of the cops

^ to all those points from Omar. Especially the first in that list.

driving to bars is my number 1 complaint

driving back from them is mine

- amoeba has killed or marginalized every other record store in a twenty mile radius imo
- d-bag councilman garcetti apparently wants to fill hollywood with skyscrapers
- most people involved in that writers strike was totally self-righteous in the worst possible way
- the dj scene here seems to revolve around has-been actors, steve aoki, or random kcrw bores

was = were

wow, i think you're eight for eight

rain is almost always a natural and civic disaster

do kcrw djs actually dj outside of kcrw and the hollywood bowl?

NIMBY-ass residents in the hills who care more about the value of their houses than clearing the adjacent brush that could prevent another 5-10 year major fire disaster for the other 90% who have to evacuate or loss all their shit -- also applicable to other ecological disasters.

freewheel - yes, sometimes they DJ corporate parties at posh venus too.

- villaraigosa is starting to worry me a little
- la weekly is bullshit
- eventually it will probably take herculean efforts to prevent all the cool neighborhoods from turning into miniature versions of the grove

xxpost those kcrw dudes always dj at clubs, especially on the west side it seems. hollywood is for aoki, masterson, samantha ronson, et al

- the airports
- downey and torrance
- mutually contradictory parking restrictions in hollywood (e.g. NO PARKING M-F 8AM-8PM, EXCEPT T-SU 12-4, NO PARKING 6PM – MIDNIGHT EXCEPT P OR J)

those new kcrw ads i see on buses and at bus stops are really, really awful. "look at all these boring attractive people who also like this shitty ben watt remix!"

- annual brushfires
- nearly getting smeared by dude in a ferrari every time i try to cross the street
- bad gyms

dutton's bookstore closing
mcmansions & teardowns of classic 50s and 60s style houses
conversations about movie business
traffic

i know the last two are cliches but...

driving back from them is mine

-- remy bean, Saturday, May 3, 2008 11:57 AM

yes, miracle i never got dui *jinxes self*

Don't hate on LAX, it's actually pretty convenient compared to a lot of other airports. Hate on Akbar instead.

i have had some bad experiences there, yes.

??

dui avoidance is what side streets were made for around here

Arthur manfully fended-off an especially aggressive assault on my virgin bung by a drunk partyboi.

valet parking

ah, i only go there when it's kinda empty
xposts

- the crowd at The Standard in West Hollywood
- L'Orangerie closed
- huell's favorite colombian jugeria in hollywood got eeked out by highrise developments
- trendy restaurants with one word names (dumb shit like 'shellac' and 'revere')

- no good italian restaurants/pizza/sandwiches

dui avoidance is what side streets were made for around here

i actually felt better doing my DUIing on the freeway

bay cities in santa monica is good for sandwiches but fuck a santa monica

- santa monica

carne otm, freeways are the best for that actually

- villaraigosa is starting to worry me a little

I really dislike that man. He's such a douche

http://somemorre.files.wordpress.com/2007/07/wow.jpg

hes speaking at my graduation

westwood village as of recent years. (is it still a wasteland?)

The Jon and Ken radio show.

Garcetti >>>> Villaraigosa

Sunset Standard >>>> Downtown Standard

carry on

i've only spent a weekend in LA and the one thing that sucked and made everything else suck was that the girl we were supposed to stay with us "flaked" and never answer her phone so we had to stay in a seedy motel and eat at denny's the whole time.

i hear flakiness is a thing out there.

Rollin Heights Ballas.

i hear flakiness is a thing martial art out there.

the girl we were supposed to stay with us "flaked" and never answer her phone

left her phone in the trunk, huh

Bradley International terminal at LAX.

Seriously, this hideous, outdated, featureless shithole is the first place many foreigners set foot in the USA. The good news is that everything you experience after leaving LAX is a vast improvement.

It has Odyssey = it can do what it wants otherwise.

no good italian restaurants/pizza/sandwiches

Where have you been going to? There are always alternates...

Los Angeles County threatening to shut down taco trucks

^^^^ OTM

People who want to convert Pico and Olympic into one-way streets

We loved LA but here are our main gripes, which did nothing to spoil our good time:

* Those little cardboard cup holder things that go around your crap coffee 'for your safety'.

* Crap coffee

* Having to drive everywhere means you can't drink when you go out!

* Missing your destination by 20,000 buildings, even though you're on the right street, because you leave a digit or two out of the correct address.

* Problems of scale generally.

* I want to make a simple overseas phone call!! Why is that so hard???

You really need a local to help you around, we found. Once we had a chaperone everything went swimmingly.

*

110 Freeway from downtown to Pasadena is a shitty old road.

moley half those problems are problems with the US generally, not just LA

i disagree with a lot of these, but this made me LOL really hard for 3 in the morning:

left her phone in the trunk, huh

-century city (except for clementine)
-woodland hills/warner center

-people of all races and ethnicities and economic classes can be really pushy here, especially the ones who moved here for self-improvement reasons; as for natives it's probably just embedded in the culture
-people are very very very self-centered
-a lot of people are just fucking oblivious (also see "self-centered")

all the fucking mohawks. nowhere else have i ever seen so many mohawks.

-the car culture thing i'm starting to get used to, but it freaks me out a little every time someone asks if i need my parking validated ("no, dearie, my bus driver chauffeur dropped me off")

for the record i think valet parking is a good thing -- if it helps people shut up about how horrifying it is to find street parking, all the better. this is one idea where market intervention works.

-this place is hell on my sinuses

-jim ladd and his lonesome l.a. cowboy bullshit

-a dearth of decent chinese food outside the SGV (although the thai-chinese places in my neighborhood are wonderful... but i would kill for some good beef chow fun)

people of all races and ethnicities and economic classes can be really pushy here, especially the ones who moved here for self-improvement reasons; as for natives it's probably just embedded in the culture
-people are very very very self-centered
-a lot of people are just fucking oblivious

this hits the nabisco level of "OTM" in my experience (maybe it's the new yorker's perception of LA people?)

oh, new york is the same way. i think generally there's less obliviousness in nyc though. unless they're the coked-up mba type.

get bent OTM all over the damn place

in my experience, nyc strivers are way more overbearing than la ones, but i don't move in showbiz circles so i'm missing out on the douchiness here

its not cool to be a shit giver 24/7 (this is kinda a general complaint abt places that are not new york)

Helicopters
Ambient noise (not the good kind)

having to arrange to get -- and move -- your own goddamn refrigrator every time you move to a new place

actually that one kind of depends on yr landlord, but I sympathise.

wha u have to own yr own fridge lol what a retarded system

As noted, depends on the location. Bought one when I moved into my place five years back but the Best Buy guys did the delivery and installing, so one worry less.

there are a fair # of landlords who pull that shit, but i've never had a problem finding apts where the refrig is included. i think it was more common a decade ago

lol best buy

is this true for all of california - cause its def a law here that apts come w/a fridges

all my places here have come with fridges

terrible metal bands

rain is almost always a natural and civic disaster

-- Mackro Mackro, Saturday, May 3, 2008 2:03 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Link

as it should be

all of the alt-weeklies

there's nowhere to sit and read in the los feliz library because all the chairs are taken by people mooching the free wifi

city sounds terrible in every way

this is the wrong thread to go by, tbh

i bought my fridge almost-new for $50 after the previous owner had to move to hawaii on a week's notice and it's worked out pretty well

low-quality graffiti
Dodgers' overpaid free agent center fielder; manager
people eating dinner at 6 p.m.

That's it for me.

so LA has what going for it, no winter and the in and out burger?

dont underestimate the weather thing

also babes, medical marijuana, mexican food

i really like it here, despite everything i posted on this thread.

barking dogs interrupting sleep

L.A. is perfect for people who enjoy a large maze with which to play Urban Scavenger Hunting

The above requires that you own a car and you really enjoy driving in it once you're off the freeways. (most people learn to live with traffic, so it's not really people hating traffic in L.A. as much as how people come up with ways to cope with it.)

The above highly recommends... excuse me.

i commute to santa monica from los feliz 5x a week and usually it takes me no more than 35 minutes in the morning and 30 min at night so i think it's tolerable, though it still sucks on certain days.

Also when you meet someone cool, it's not assumed you'll ever see that person again, so it's the L.A. instinct to always grab these people by the arms, exchange info, and tadah instant friends.

L.A. is perfect for people who enjoy a large maze with which to play Urban Scavenger Hunting

He's right you know

Jeez omar, stop following me.

secret am route: los feliz to franklin to wilton to venice to the 10.

new favorite things about Los Feliz: Glendale & Burbank

omar, what time of the day do you commute

also babes, medical marijuana, mexican food

:[

between 8 and 10am, 6 and 8pm

depending on my hours

somehow this thread is really making me miss LA

http://www.brummieblogs.com/2006/BBMay2006_files/image021.jpg

love that movie

-people of all races and ethnicities and economic classes can be really pushy here, especially the ones who moved here for self-improvement reasons; as for natives it's probably just embedded in the culture
-people are very very very self-centered
-a lot of people are just fucking oblivious (also see "self-centered")

huge city where you're not compelled to play well with others in a civic sense, whether via neighborhood, street life, or public transit, but can be demanding when it comes to services - big surprise that people are individualistic or that tension rises when everyone's stuffed into a traffic artery (while remaining compartmentalized).

but are you saying that it makes for a better city if only the privileged few feel free to be 'pushy'?

- National Blvd. from Century City to Santa Monica. Seriously, this street is a non-Euclidian tapeworm attached to the 10 freeway.
- People who endlessly complain about LA but still live here
- C-level reality shows filming in your neighborhood

Pappafuckinrazzi in your neighborhood.

national blvd is the most mystifying street i have ever attempted to navigate

I hate it that they closed down most of the roads in Griffith Park to deter cruisers and firebugs. I remember when they first shut down the roads in the early 90s. It was after a minor earthquake and it was supposed to be temporary. Anyway, I miss that whole crazy John Rechy scene.

Whoever can't find good Italian places isn't looking at all. I can name four or five really good places within 3 miles of my house, and I come from the Philly/New Jersey/New York area, so I know good pizza and Italian food.

Although yeah, nobody does pizza quite right out here.

"New York" pizza place in Malibu, mid-80s: "What's a sicilian?"

im from new jersey, i live down the street from fuckin casabianca and i would rather eat pizza hut than 90% of the bullshit that passes for pizza in this city

obv "no good italian/pizza/sandwiches" is an overstatement, but the lack of these is enough of a problem that i will complain about it

Yeah, I can't go there with you. Pizza Hut is about the most vile stuff in existence.

max did you happen to see Kitchen Nightmares last season? Some guy used his wood fired ovens to diplay lit candles rather than make pizza.

that stupid area of the freeway near downtown/pasadena that i ALWAYS get lost in no matter what

xp: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimes_against_humanity

also babes, medical marijuana, mexican food

max have u met morpheus in eagle rock? a true professional

the longer i live away from LA, the less i can find fault about it besides the driving, but i still couldn't imagine living there again. maybe it's just because i've got an amazing social network, job, house, etc

i've never been to LA, but i'm sort of enthralled by it. everything about it seems so awful and wrong, and yet i can't help but think i'd probably like it just fine

i dont have a card :( but the place is right next to my liquor store.

berri's for pizza - don't say i never did you no favors

I swear to god, I will never even mention you.

the best pizza in SoCal is (arguably) Nick's Pizza in Costa Mesa - O.C. I think it's the only pizza place I miss from SoCal -- besides the looooong-gone Barrera's in Pacific Palisades. (I mean, that place closed in the 80s, but it was the first good pizza I had as a kid. DAMN, that was fine pizza.)

Good italian place in L.A.: Vittorio Ristorante and Pizzaria in the Palisades.

anything beats palermos

palamos
gaylermos
palerhomos
palernos

paedoermo's

Paedoemo's?

Paedoe Mo Collier

palermo's is ok for gloppy red sauce sicilian food -- sometimes that's exactly what i'm in the mood for.

I've been going to Michelangelo's in Silver Lake lately. Pizza is good, standard non-red sauce Italian fare is better.
http://www.michelangelopizzeriaristorante.com/

Of course, like with everything in that part of Silver Lake - their landlord is kicking them out and jacking up the lease: http://eatingla.blogspot.com/2008/01/silver-lakes-michelangelo-pizzeria-has.html

You've got until the end of the month to go.

i ordered a vegetarian pie from michelangelo's once -- i liked it. i'm sad that they're closing... i know they've lost a lot of business to LA MILL.

Also been going to Prizzi's Piazza on Franklin in Los Feliz relatively often. Their pizza is more Chicago-style, but it's good. Regular dinner menu is better.
http://www.prizzispiazza.com/

It's very handy if you're going to something at UCB and need a quick bite to eat.

The best pizza in SoCal is still Zelo's: http://www.laweekly.com/eat+drink/counter-intelligence/into-the-deep/8740/

Zelo's is not NY, Chicago, or Naples so if you fundamentalists out there can get past that it's worth the trip out.

http://www.harveysarcasticdisco.com/events/images/HSD8-back-big.jpg

J. Gold is translating, right, not encountering Zucotto for the first time?

Not a big fan of Michelangelo's, which is sad because I live so close. The newly opened Andiamo's is bad too. Nicky D's, however, is great: http://www.nickydspizza.com/

oops meant to put that in th real los angeles thread xxp

i like village pizzeria

people eating dinner at 6 p.m.

Lord knows I love LA but the early restaurant closings here are BARBARIC.

We went to Costa Alegre in Echo Park last night at 8:45 p.m. and were told it was closed.

WHO CLOSES FOR DINNER AT 8:45?

i don't like the number of places that insist on being closed mondays

berri's for pizza - don't say i never did you no favors

Berri's pizza is awesome. And they're usually open 'til like 5am, literally. Probably because it's like an actual coke den (or was, at least, in the early-mid 00's, according to a friend who waited tables there for a year - the stories were insane).

somehow this thread is really making me miss LA
-- gr8080, Monday, 5 May 2008 22:57 (2 days ago) Bookmark Link

metoo

seriously!

all the sunshine mocks my foul mood

Catsupppppppppppppp dude 茄蕃, maybe its time to admit that you're too old for this if you have enough resentment and entitlement about a fucking douchey city to complain about it on the internet

Catsupppppppppppppp dude 茄蕃, maybe its time to admit that you're too old for this if you have enough resentment and entitlement about fucking a douchey city to complain about it on the internet

fixed

people eating dinner at 6 p.m.

Lord knows I love LA but the early restaurant closings here are BARBARIC.

We went to Costa Alegre in Echo Park last night at 8:45 p.m. and were told it was closed.

WHO CLOSES FOR DINNER AT 8:45?

-- felicity, Wednesday, May 7, 2008 11:48 AM (43 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Costa Alegre's breakfast is much better than their dinner, anyway.

Catsupppppppppppppp dude 茄蕃, maybe its time to admit that you're too old for this if you have enough resentment and entitlement about a fucking douchey city to complain about it on the internet

-- thirdalternative, Wednesday, May 7, 2008 12:17 PM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Catsupppppppppppppp dude 茄蕃's never even been to LA. That's why it's funny, noob. :)

http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1100050228/gallery_6134_91_1100059891.jpg

Jon, that's not showing up for me, can you post the url?

http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1100050228/gallery_6134_91_1100059891.jpg

You would really like all the kawaii~ stuff out here, Jon.

i have like 30 meltykisses that i never ate cluttering up my drawers

Oh, I forgot: Skinny people in LA don't know how to dress! What a waste.

Now I'm done.

Costa Alegre's breakfast is much better than their dinner, anyway.

^^^^^ OTM on this

I have never had dinner at 6pm.

Oh, I forgot: Skinny people in LA don't know how to dress! What a waste.

Now I'm done.

OTM

I just looked at Street Peeper and died a little.

I think I know more than half the people in the LA section.

On the question of politeness, people in LA were much more polite than in Sydney, or so we found. There was plenty of "Hey how ya doin?". You wouldn't get that level of politeness in Australia. We surmised it was because everyone was aware that everyone else might be carrying a gun.

The main photos for New York and LA right now say it all.xpost

haha, ex-gf in there too.

xpost, I think more people in LA dress like the NY guy.

I see why you dumped her. None of those people can dress.

xpWhere are these people, because my eyes are burning here.

Are you going to Cinespace on tuesdays or something?

No, that's Eugene. Wrong Korean. :P

The NY guy is wearing a pretty standard global metro 07-08 uniform.

My point exactly.

That's pretty much what most hipsters wear here too. If that picture said LA, I wouldn't think twice.

The main LA pic is from Coachella which was 101 degrees. Summer in NYC brings out some pretty off the wall resort wear if I recall.

I think the main problem with clothing here is the west side, extreme douchey bedazzled jeans and shirts with like ornate swirly cruicifixes, while wearing snakeskin boots (to work!).

You work with Cher?

Jumpsuit: Pink Jumpsuit

Ned, people are wearing cheesy club clothes to work now, it's all over the place. People want to be "stylish" at work I guess.

Jumpsuit: pink shorts jumpsuit

Have you taken a look at more of the NYC pictures?

i don't like the number of places that insist on being closed mondays

maybe it's the whole anthony bourdain fish thing

max - have you you gone to one of those harvey sarcastic discos?

no--im going--i didnt actually mean to post that in this thread

sometimes i wonder where spencer goes that i don't. and despite a lot of these things actually sucking about la, it seems like it would be pretty easy to make this kind of list about any other city.

things that don't suck about la:

mako on vermont next to skylight and village 3 theaters
rhonda at guatelinda nightclub (on hollywood btwn edgemont and vermont) every other thursday

i am basically a homeless man with a house though, so i kind of walk through the city like a ghost and make do with what's around. i have no phone, no car, no job and no family here.

I missed saying hi to you at HTDJ's! Did "naus" from here introduce himself?

Spencer you were right! I went to a DJ sketch night in downtown LA and people were wearing the uniform and spinning Tiga and French synth.

Whew, what a relief.

I don't get it!

Also remember since that was coachella, the person wearing the pink jump suit thing could have actually been from NYC!

I read in the LA Weekly that Coachella attendance is like 65%+ east coast??

That, especially if you count Britain as the East Coast. It's such a great crowd.

Britain?

Oh and of course I walk around Coachella wearing hippie clothes that would never get in my suitcase for New York.

Although that man still needs to be hunted down, interrogated, and have his blood drawn.

xp I didn't check passports but there were a lot of English people where we were hanging out.

they're animals, you know

Apparently they have baseball now so they're not total savages.

the 4 fucking 05

I mean seriously!!!

Well yeah.

the traffic

christmas

visitors

silverlake

coffee

haha

La Mill

the police

or is it LA Mill? anyway whatev

the airport

body parts

movie shoots downtown on weekend
fake cops doing security on movie shoots downtown on weekend

art

music

the 105 on ramp near lax floods when it rains and has been for years what the fuck

too many people who don't seem to have/need a job

the 110, the 2, the 134, the 101, the 710, the 10, the 5, the 170

the 210 rools tho

food trucks

no

wrong thread

threads about la

the weather this summer

that i'm not there any more

blogs

dogs

Things that suck about Los Angeles: A List

:-D

I went to lacma in the afternoon last week when it was empty and security guards followed me everywhere

beyond baroque: gigantic waste of decent space

LAMI
LLCO
FFEE

hahaaaa

I'm never sure whether things are La (as in Spanish La) or L.A. at times

i live about one block away from there, lol

scott speedman is there every time i've gone in, it's kinda weird tbh.

lax is one of my least hated airports adam

for real, caek?

there are some amazingly bad coffee joints around town, esp on the east side.

lax is not as bad as any british airport, it's true

front page jamaican grille near lax is fuckin great

when I worked next to lax I used to eat there almost every day

lax is not a place i would go to dine or look forward to a significant delay, but all those little terminals with like 20 gates are totally painless and efficient in my experience (except the big intl. terminal, that's a bit heathrow)

Yeah, dude. LAX is FAR from high on the list of things to hate about LA.

too many people who don't seem to have/need a job

Good CHRIST, I hate these people. Thankfully, I don't know too many of them, and the ones I do know are actually pretty nice folk, if a little skewed on the concepts of "work night" and "strapped for cash."

I think I hate the passive aggressive "you should just BE out of my way"-ness that a whole ton of people here seem to have. Hard to explain. Related is the seemingly EXTREME offense folk take when you ask them to move. HEY!!! I'm WALKING here!!!!!

I hate the lack of an NFL team. There. I said it.

I hate how expensive it is. Fuck, I pay a LOT to live here.

People who endlessly complain about LA but still live here

The only OTM thing on this thread. Most of the other stuff is awesome.

i live about one block away from there, lol

haha me too O_o

see dude at 7-11 all the time

I hate that 7-11. The only good thing on that stretch of SL blvd is my dentist

People who endlessly complain about LA but still live here

l.a. is full of whiners!

LAX is the worst, the worst TSA in the fucking country. Awful, awful, awful. Esp Bradley Terminal... instant 60 mins.

the fucking country

"- la weekly is bullshit"