Culture Shock

Let’s face it – Los Angeles isn’t exactly renowned for its culture. And while this is more than a little odd for a city with an economy based entirely around the arts – or one form of art, at any rate – L.A. has seemingly come to terms with its own limitations. Like an armchair quarterback who screams at the TV that he’d play better if given the chance, only to then slip into blissful unconsciousness thanks to the combined powers of ether-like light beer fumes and the Cheeto powder coating his lungs, the city of angels is content to simply comment from the sidelines of culture without entering the fray.

Or is it?

Realizing last week that evidence of my summer’s cultural endeavors was limited to a ticket stub from LITTLE MAN, I set out to fill the season’s dying days with all the worthwhile entertainment that Los Angeles has to offer. First up was Saturday’s Dodger’s game with the lady Kay, who shared my moment of silence for home team pride as the San Diego Padres scored a staggering 11-2 win. If this outing seems like a stretch as a brush with high society, just grab a Super Dodger Dog the next time you’re at a game – even though their culture’s mainly bacterial, I’m pretty confident that still qualifies.

Sunday’s bid for cultural enlightenment was embarking upon the same trek that cleared out Silverlake last weekend – the spirit quest of finding and attending a graffiti show located “in a warehouse somewhere near downtown L.A.” The artist in question was Banksy, who uses spray paint as a means of conveying messages slightly more relevant than the words “Paint”, “Monkey” and “AA” that now line my morning commute along the 10. Although these cryptic messages have allowed me to create a pretty awesome back story for the artist – an alcoholic monkey who uses painting as a desperate cry for help – high art they are not.

So cut to that afternoon, with Kay and I driving around in circles as we looked for the mystery location. It soon became apparent that ours was just one of countless black SUV’s slowly cruising the rundown neighborhoods of downtown L.A. – everywhere we looked, mop-headed, 20-something drivers were peering over their designer shades to keenly survey the scene like a security detail for the nation’s first hipster president. As I reflected on the fact that any one of these cars was probably worth more than the houses they were driving past, I was suddenly confident that there was no show and this – in fact – was Banksy’s means of commenting of contemporary society.

As awesome as that would have been, it simply wasn’t the case. The show, which we eventually found, was very much real…and so was its line. One glance at the snaking, block-and-a-half long monstrosity was enough to tell us that graffiti – aside from that of a monkey with a can of paint and a drinking problem – was not in our near future.

The Hollywood Bowl, however, most definitely was. Heading straight from the ruins of downtown L.A. to the Hollywood subway (we have a subway?), Kay and I got to our last-row seats in the nick of time for this season’s fireworks finale. While I have dim recollections of pagan ballet and showtunes being performed, the highlight of the show was definitely seeing Kermit and Ms. Piggy – the actual Muppets – doing their thing onstage. Well, that and the sight of John Mauceri’s face lighting up the night sky in the form of fireworks. I can’t tell you what a relief it was to finally see someone burned in celebration instead of effigy.

Then came last night’s performance of RABBIT HOLE at the Geffen Playhouse, courtesy of some tickets I’d won by calling in to Indie 103.1. Although I have a sneaking suspicion that I won simply because I was the only person who called, I have to say the play – which walked the razor’s edge between light comedy and heavy drama as it explored a couple’s means of coping with the accidental death of their four-year old son – was pretty great. As an added bonus, the station gave us as many thimble-fulls of wine as we could handle at the after-party. I can now honestly tell people about “the time I had seventeen glasses of wine without even getting tipsy.”

So there you have it – my efforts to mine Los Angeles county for culturally significant pastimes yielded a baseball game, unwitting participation in socially relevant performance art that was – in the end – just poor navigation, an evening with the Muppets and seventeen glasses of wine. I’ll leave it up to you to decide on my degree of success. But at the very least, I had a hell of a lot more fun than I did sitting through LITTLE MAN.