Bonanza Gift Shop - Originally Published 2010

Somewhere in China, there is an industrial town where all of the local residents are employed by the local factory.  Every morning at dawn, they rise and go through their routines.  They file down the streets and through the iron gates of the grey industrial complex.

I suppose there are signs on the wall that translate to phrases such as “Work is Our Pleasure” and “The People’s Party Makes Us Free”.  The complex is filled with miles of tables where the locals sit for sixteen hours a day and produce so that the Chinese government will grow stronger.  The workers’ reward for their labor is knowing that the people of China are free from the yoke of capitalism and greed.

So what is it that these nameless drones produce?  Las Vegas ashtrays and shot glasses for the Bonanza Gift Shop.  Enough is produced in this factory town to fill this robust store. 

The Bonanza Gift Shop is 40,000 square feet of any kind of Las Vegas trinket one could ever hope to lay hands on.   You name it and they have it.

The Watts Towers - Originally Published

Have you ever read the poem “Monte Blanc” by Percy Bysshe Shelley?  It seems that old P.B. went and took a look at a mountain in France.  Upon viewing, he has what a religious man may describe as nothing less than a spiritual experience. 

He has an intense sense of connection with the mountain.  On the one hand, he is completely dwarfed and made insignificant by it. However, at the same time he realizes that he and it are interconnected.

This is the magical moment that Animated Meat seeks out.  The moment when a human mind is blown.  And seeing the Watts Towers in person provides just that.

Why does it do so?  Because it goes to work on both sides of the brain.  On the one side, the brain goes into overdrive in order to take in all of the visual appeal of the place.  On the other side, the rational brain tries to sort through the facts.  Simon Rodia was a four-foot eleven immigrant from Italy that spent nearly every free moment of his time constructing the towers.  There was no math and no machinery here.  Not even a TIG welder.  Just a little old man climbing up the side of the towers, all to complete his vision.  

And by towers, I mean towers.  The tallest of them soars almost one hundred feet above the neighborhood.

God bless all of the people that struggle to keep and present this treasure to the world.

Halloween Club - Originally Published 2010

Being a peer-edited scientific journal, Animated Meat seeks to shed light on the mysteries of the universe.  Today, we ask the question, “What happened to all the adults?”

Adults.  Remember them?  They were those folks with mustaches and lower back pain that drove AMCs.  They used to tell us when it was time for bed and to turn down that god damned racket.  I’m not sure when it happened, but it seems that they very quietly disappeared somewhere back in the 1990’s.

Take the Halloween Club, for example.  This is a year-round store in Santa Fe Springs devoted to all things spooky.  It’s well stocked and the staff was great.  They were attentive and helpful.

But a year-round Halloween store?  I don’t think that this would have flown back in 1976.  Why?  Because 1970’s moms were worried about being good moms.  They didn’t concern themselves with dressing like a slutty stewardess. 

Do you have $1000 sitting around?  If you do, they have a storm trooper outfit for you.  The adults that used to be around wouldn’t be interested in something like that.  That same thousand dollars could be used to put a new roof on the house.

But as I said, this place is incredibly well stocked.  There’s even a cannibal butcher shop.  Stock up, because the peeled off face is on special this week.

And while I’m busy calling our generation’s ability to be adults into question, I want to point out these costumes.  Yep.  Leatherface, Jason, and a pimp all in child sizes.

Clifton's Cafeteria - Originally Published 2010

Clifford Clinton was a bold man.  How bold?  First, he opened a business that catered to the everyman in the middle of the Great Depression.  Second, he took on the mayor of Los Angeles, the LA Times, and the LAPD.  That little disagreement got so heated that the LAPD set a bomb off in his Los Feliz home.  Needless to say, he was undeterred and as a result, he changed the power and scope of LA politics.  If you want more on that, follow this link.

Clifton’s is like a moment frozen in time.  This is a place that serves the stick-to-your-ribs kind of food that the shuffling masses in the last century yearned for.  Clifton’s specializes in the dense fair that our grandmothers told us would make us grow big and strong. 

The Clinton family has hung in there at the same location with the same menu for over seventy years.

The food is just one thing that sets Clifton’s apart from the rest.  The décor is another reason to show up.  The three-floored cafeteria is set up to look like a cabin, complete with real wood paneling, fishing bears, and a running stream.  There is also a chapel for those that are weary in spirit.

Stop into Clifton’s and get a piece of pie and some coffee.   It should be on everyone’s to-do list the next time you’re in downtown LA.

La Bomba - Originally Published 2009

As near as I can tell, there are two big differences between a thrift store and a vintage clothing store.  The first difference are the prices, but that goes without saying.  The second difference is that vintage stores actually spend a little more time organizing.

Deep in the Pomona Arts Colony is La Bomba.  This is a vintage clothing store.  I’m not much of a fashionista, but it appears that they have stuff from all decades.  It’s swimming in inventory and they use every available space to stock their wares.  If you are looking for that perfect piece of vintage foppery, this is a great place to start off.  Chances are if they don’t have it, no one will.

Aside from the clothes, this place just had a good vibe going for it.  It seemed like a really relaxed atmosphere where a fellow can procure a pair of horn-rimmed glasses and a pork pie hat.  Good attention to detail and design.