It’s another rainy, depressing day in Los Angeles. Despite a few fleeting moments of sunshine this afternoon, it has been quite unseasonable and wet for the past forty-eight hours. This obviously throws a huge crimp into my already embarrassing social life, because nobody ever wants to go out when it’s raining. Not only that, traffic is a mess (nobody in LA knows how to drive in the rain, you’d think we were blanketed under a foot of snow) and it actually gets (gasp!) cold!
Of course, there is the added annoyance of having all the weird, gross crud from the air in LA being kicked around, which makes you feel like you’re sick, or at least having an allergy attack.
So, what do I recommend when it’s cold and rainy in Los Angeles? Well gee, this seems like a pretty obvious time for a Top Ten list — don’t you think?
The Top Ten Things To Do When It Is Raining In Los Angeles
10. Listen To Records – That’s what I’m doing tonight. I picked up a handful of 7″ records at the store today (Mudhoney/Gas Huffers split, Superchunk “Ribbon/Who Needs Light?”, Cows “Cow Island”, JSBX “Jukebox Series 3”) and a couple LPs (two Magazine records, some novelty records from the Stash catalog). I also have some older records I still have to listen to before filing away into my collection. The best part of listening to records alone on a Friday night is that you don’t have to interact with anybody if you don’t want to, or you can fire up your laptop and talk to other losers who are online on a Friday night…like Ian, and Ilya, and Matt, Ken and Z, who are all online right now. My mom is online also. She’s an Internet loser too!
09. Pills, Pills, Pills – What else are you going to do? Watch television? Shit, I wish I had a television in my apartment. I don’t want to go over to Nicci’s because I’m hassled enough for being there and watching TV or playing Wii all the time, but now that it’s actually miserable outside it would be the perfect opportunity to zone out and watch Anthony Bourdain or play Mario Kart without having to think up a reason why I can’t go out tonight. I gave up trying the “I’m broke” excuse months ago. Now it’s more like…what’s out there for me, anyway? Anyway, tonight is the perfect night to pop a Flexeril and pass out on the couch while watching Ice Spiders or Anacondas: The Hunt For The Blood Orchid. Codeine and mystery drives make for a great way to waste a cold and dreary night. Do it while gas is still relatively cheap.
08. Get Drunk – Seems to be where my night is going. I poured myself a glass of Blanton’s and I’m typing this paragraph. I got the idea from Jana, who plopped down across from me at our dinner table (which I’ve sadly re-appropriated into my work desk in recent months, because I’m a bad roommate) with a glass of red wine. I would not recommend taking pills and drinking together, as it could be deadly if you don’t know what you’re doing. So do one or the other, but not both. I think bourbon is the best cold/rainy drink, but Alexander Pope always recommended tequila.
07. Fuck – I’m not going to pretend to know whether or not you’re capable of getting yourself laid tonight (although if you’re reading this website, odds are you’re a lonely dude who hasn’t fucked anything other than his hand in a while), but if you can, now would be a great time. I guess it’s always a good time to fuck; last summer I recommended a marathon fuck session as a means to survive an abysmal heat wave. It’s also a really good cure for snow days! And hurricanes! And pretty much every other day or night! Fuck your lives away, readers. There’s a depression/recession outside, what better cheap entertainment are you going to suggest?
06. Laundry – It’s cool if you can go to a laundromat where there are televisions that are not tuned to Telemundo stations, and where there might be a Starbucks or a Subway where you can get something to eat or drink. I used to get a ton of writing done at the laundromat, because I could get a bagel and a latte (oh man, that’s so gay) and put on some music and just get lost in pages of weird writing. That doesn’t happen anymore, but sometimes I miss it. Then again, that shit gets expensive, way more than if you can do your laundry somewhere for only the cost of detergent and anti-static whatever-you-call-those-things. The ones that go in the drying machine? Whatever. Laundry is a great anti-social way to enjoy an otherwise cold and rainy night.
05. Get Into A TV Show On DVD – That might have been how I first got into watching LOST. I don’t remember if it was raining that night or if everyone was just really not into the idea of going out and drinking. I’m sure I wasn’t, because I was unemployed at the time. Either way, if you’ve got a TV show that people have been telling you to watch, a rainy cold night would be the perfect time to make your way through its first season. During the lull between LOST seasons 4 and 5, we watched Twin Peaks on Wednesday nights. Or was it Thursdays? Or was it every night? The point is, it’s a great way to waste time, save money, and keep warm and dry. Nate recommends The Wire, and I would recommend Deadwood or Six Feet Under.
04. Screenplay – You live in Los Angeles, everyone else has a screenplay and you don’t. So what are you going to do tonight when everyone else is at home working on their screenplays, or worse, out drinking with their friends? You should be coming up with a unique idea (don’t worry, it’ll be better than Garden State or that Mall cop movie) and turning it into a movie. I’m doing that, sort of, but I have only written one scene and that was in September. If you’re having trouble starting, you should pick a scene from a movie you like and try to re-write it. Why? Because it probably sucked the first time and you can do better, because Los Angeles is filled with unimaginative dolts. You can do better, I swear. Get on it. Start writing the next great movie.
03. Plan Your Exit Strategy – God, can you believe this shitty weather we’re having? You should just pack your bags and leave town…forever. Why not spend tonight applying for jobs in another city — one with better weather — and looking on Craigslist for new places to live. Doesn’t that sound like a fun way to spend an evening? No? Well…speaking of Craigslist…
02. Craigslist Casual Encounters – You know you kind of want to try it out once — just to see what its like. Hell, I used to try and make it happen all the time. It takes a lot of guts to go through with it (guts I don’t have, apparently), but if you could meet a random stranger on the Internet and hang out with them on a worthless, cold, dismal night, why not try it out? You’ll get laid. That’s way better than sitting at home by yourself doing any of the other things on this list (even better than simple fucking — Craigslist sex is way better than regular sex, I imagine). The best part is, there is no commitment. It’s just casual sex with no strings attached. The closest I ever got was an invitation to this chick’s apartment in Manhattan, but she kept making it a point of telling me her boyfriend was out of town, so I started to get paranoid that maybe he was there with her and they were planning on him walking in and beating the shit out of me, because that was their thing, you know, that they both got off on. She was cute, but the prospect of being beaten and/or left for dead just for a bad lay prohibited me from going for it. You’ve got more guts than I do, so why don’t you try, then tell me about it?
01. Just Enjoy It – It never rains in LA. Last year it rained twice in November and that was it almost for an entire year. Why not sit by a window and watch puddles form? If you live on a hill, watch the torrents of water rushing down the street. Lay in your room with the lights off and listen to the rain against your window or ceiling. It can be meditative or trance-like. Enjoy the rain, people! It could be worse, we could be blanketed in snow with temperatures below zero degrees and a wind chill that will make you want to die. You have no idea how spoiled you are, person in LA who is reading this, you have no idea!
PS – Learn how to drive in the rain. Traffic here sucks enough as it is. You really don’t have to drive so slow just because the ground is wet.
