The distance from one neighborhood to the next, by car and knowing the directions pretty well, should never be more than 20 minutes.
SILVERLAKE: This is LA’s hipster epicenter. Like any other city, that means that you will be irritated by the people running around in their crispy trucker hats and silkscreened and distressed button-downs, but you will also find good stores, eateries, and bars here. Silverlake used to be super gay (literally, like lots of cool homos lived there) and Mexican, and you can still catch the whiff of authentic LA weirdness here sometimes.
WEST HOLLYWOOD: A lot of Los Angelenos think of one word when they think of West Hollywood: Rage. That’s because there’s a huge gay club here called Rage. Besides that, West Hollywood is kind of whatever.
ECHO PARK: This area is Silverlake but grimier. It was super fucking dangerous up until the mid-90s, and you can still feel that simmering when you walk around. Lots of trannie bars here too (are you getting the picture yet that Los Angeles has a bigger gay community per capita then the West Village, Mardi Gras, and a Scissor Sisters concert all put together?). Anyway, if you want to think of it in Brooklyn terms, Silverlake is Williamsburg and Echo Park is Greenpoint.
CHINATOWN: A great area to just walk around in, with funny Chinese architectural flourishes blending with the classic LA modernist boxes. This is the art sector of town, with plenty of good galleries that you can just wander into. (There is an interesting Chinese or dim sum joint on almost every block too.) So yeah, stroll around here.
DOWNTOWN: Downtown was the fucking bee’s knees—in the 20s and 30s. Since then, not much to offer. It’s kind of what they would make if you went to the sets department at Paramount and said, “I need a really clichéd Skid Row.” One crazy thing: By day it’s normal people going about their business, but the second the sun sets, thousands of homeless people fill the streets. It’s like the way penguins march in from the sea every night.
LOS FELIZ: It was the shit in that 90s moment when X-Large was at its peak. They moved away, as did Fat Beats and this other great record store there that was called Oddities. Now Los Feliz is a little bit pointless.
LITTLE TOKYO: The best T-shirt store ever is here. It’s called Freaks and it’s on 3rd Street and Alameda. It’s hard to miss all the good massage and spa spots in Little Tokyo, which are too numerous to bother breaking down for you here (especially since they are all the same).
KOREATOWN: Awesome whorehouses here (called hostess bars). Oh, but wait—are you Korean? If not, forget I said anything.
VENICE BEACH: All the dudes who had their lives changed by Jane’s Addiction hang around here, juggling devil sticks and reading about Santeria. In other words, you will be holding down vomit the whole time you’re here. It’s worth a quick trip out here, if only to say to yourself, “There but for the grace of God and 20 sheets of LSD go I.”
That’s it for hoods. I left out Sherman Oaks because you aren’t involved in the porn industry, Beverly Hills because you aren’t insanely rich, and Watts because you aren’t insanely poor.
You might want to drive out to Beverly Hills and see how it isn’t that big a deal. It also could be a hoot to go to Malibu and sneak onto someone’s private beach.
A NOTE ON THE MAPS IN THIS GUIDE:
Do you have any idea how hard it is to make a map? It’s a fucking bitch, that’s how hard it is. That’s why the maps in here are kind of “impressionistic.” They will give you the general idea of the which-ways and over-wheres, but come on dude. Do you have a phone? How about the internet? Ever hear of Google, Mapquest, and 411? The maps and listings here are a start. Now do some fucking work for yourself. And don’t forget to rent a car with the GPS map thing in it for god’s sake.
